step-by-step route

• introductory guide
• glossary
• unit specification
• assessment guide
• study section 1
• study section 2

assessment route

activity route

links

faq

Once your learners are connected together through the online learning support system and have begun to build a rapport with you and each other, you must foster the development of an effective online learning environment.

You can lay the foundation for successful online communication by creating a conducive environment. In part, this means making the online environment easy to access, visually appealing, and well structured. However, the most important requirement for an environment is appropriate behaviour by the people using it. The need to promote appropriate behaviour among your learners will be a familiar one, but the online environment raises new issues.

Most learners will not be familiar will CMC as part of the their learning experience. While they will know how to act appropriately in a classroom or training centre, it is not as clear how they should act in an online environment. Your task will be to identify and encourage proper use of the medium as well as to discourage inappropriate activity.

As online communication has developed, the need for new social rules for communication has been recognised. The result is a concept called "netiquette", an etiquette for the Internet. As with any etiquette not everyone agrees on the exact terms of netiquette. Using the search techniques you have used in Study Section 1 you will be able to find many netiquette guides on the web. You may wish to use these a basis for your own guidelines to your learners. This may involve a discussion with your learners on what rules they wish to use.

Most, if not all, the provisions in the guidelines you already use for classroom or learning-centre behaviour will also be relevant to an online environment. You may want to adapt the existing documents for your online learners. Some sections will translate easily, such as those that deal with the use of appropriate language and respect for fellow learners. Other problem areas may be subtly different in an online environment, for example just as the overly talkative learner may drown out others in a classroom, the online learner who is overly active in a discussion space may dissuade others from participating.

In addition to general guidance on appropriate behaviour, you may also need to set ground rules specific to your use of CMC. If you will be moderating the online discussions you should make clear what that means, i.e. that if a line needs to be drawn under a topic, you will draw it. Similarly, if there is a videoconferencing session, you make it clear that you are chairing the session, and that the group must respect this. You should also make clear what contact you permit, including the learners' contact with each other and with you.

This can include:

• when it is appropriate or not to use the telephone for contact
• frequency and timings of scheduled contact by email
• response times or parameters for unscheduled contact
• encouragement to participate and make contact regularly.

So far, most of the issues raised by online communication are similar to the issues you face in a traditional setting, however one area is rather different. Unlike face-to-face communication, online communication creates a record. You and your learners will be authors of all the contributions you make to the online environment, and as authors, you have an ownership of that communication. This ownership must be respected. You should make it clear to the learners that the communications they receive from you and the other learners are for the programme only and should not be used for other purposes or communicated to others. Of course, in preparing your portfolio you run the risk of violating this confidentiality. To avoid any possible breach you should obtain your learners' written permission to use their work in support of this unit; you will probably have signed a similar release when you registered for this Unit.

Although there are several issues for you to consider, preparing these guidelines will not prevent rapport being established. In fact, by making the parameters clear at the outset you will be promoting rather than stifling communication. A positive, encouraging atmosphere should be created, rather than one that is officious or implies that contact is a nuisance. Online support requires flexibility, and learners should feel wanted.

Remember that you need not act dictatorially, and you could usefully negotiate many of the issues with your learners as part of a wider learning contract.

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(step-by-step route: ss2: Activity 2.10)