Virtual Classrooms, Real Education
(A version of the following article appeared in the May, 1998 issue of
"Nations Business," the national magazine for small business owners by the
United States Chamber of Commerce. Copyright 1998. All Rights Reserved. Vicky Phillips vicky@geteducated.com)
In 1840, Sir Isaac Pitman, the English inventor of shorthand, came up with an ingenious
idea for delivering instruction to a potentially limitless audience: correspondence
courses by mail. Pitman's concept was so hot that within a few years he was corresponding
with a legion of far-flung learners.
Distance learning--in which instructor and student remain geographically apart--has
boomed since Pitman pioneered it. Now it is delivered via mail, cable television,
satellite broadcasts, videotapes, and, most recently, via the Internet.
The recent development of online learning is appealing to small-business owners and
employees. Why? Typically, the cost is low and flexibility is high. And cyberspace is
well-suited for all kinds of specialized training, especially computer skills.
A Way To Cut Training Costs
Classroom-based seminars on using computer software can cost hundreds of dollars a day.
In addition to the costs of the courses and training materials, there are the expenses of
employee travel, meals, lodging, and transit time. Desktop training removes those expenses
from the equation, leaving only the costs of the courses and instructional materials.
The ability to price-shop is a chief advantage for employers looking to online learning
institutes. When it comes to Internet-based learning, it makes little difference whether
the education provider is located down the road or around the world. Employers can
purchase low-cost training from a California company and literally have it delivered
overnight to any employee worldwide who has a PC equipped with a Internet connection.
Barbara Epstein, site manager of the Physick House, a historic home in Philadelphia
that has tours for the public, says the low cost relative to other options she considered
was the main reason she decided to take online tutorials in computer applications from
Ziff-Davis' ZDNet University. ZDNet University is a new online training service of
Ziff-Davis Publications. Ziff-Davis publishes a number of computer magazines, including
"PC Magazine."
Epstein--who wound up using the training she received to build an inventory-tracking
system for the antiques at Physick House and to organize her appointments and tours--lives
close to several top-notch colleges. But in shopping around for courses on computer
applications such as Microsoft Corp.'s Access, Word, and Excel, she found that no local
college could beat ZDNet University's price of $4.95 per month for unlimited access to the
self-paced tutorials which are located on the World Wide Web at http://www.zdu.com. "It's definitely cheaper than video
or [classroom-based] computer-software courses," says Epstein.
ZDNet University courses are offered in popular applications and operating systems such
as Microsoft's Windows 95, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as programming languages and
Web-site design. Each online course consists of about 30 interactive tutorials, each
focusing on a specific function of the chosen software and requiring about 10 to 30
minutes to complete. Students can work through all the tutorials in any one course or
choose only those that address the skills they seek to master. There is no need to buy
expensive supplemental textbooks. Instructional materials are archived on the Web.
eZone - The Little Red Schoolhouse in Cyberspace
The rising need for inexpensive, just-in-time training in business and computer
technologies has not been lost on Waite Group Press, based in Corte Madera, Calif. Waite
Group has tied its best-selling tutorial books to an interactive online educational center
called the eZone, at http://www.waite.com/ezone.
The result: "For the price of the book--$50 more or less--you get a whole
school," says Charles Drucker, associate publisher of Waite Group Press.
Each Waite Group tutorial book covers a specific Internet, computer, or programming
technology, such as programming languages Java or hypertext markup language (HTML). The
books contain more than 90 lessons coupled with application exercises and end-of-chapter
tests. Each book also comes with a CD-ROM that links the student to the eZone site for
quizzes and online conversations with other students.
The Waite Group's approach to online learning proved to be just what Charles Reed
needed. Reed is the chief information officer of The Graphics Department, Inc., a
six-person Web and design firm in Troy, Michigan. He needed to learn a programming
language called Perl, for Practical Extraction and Report Language.
Rather than sign up for a classroom version of the instruction, Reed chose Waite
Group's tutorial book. He used the books CD-ROM to log on to the eZone to work through
online quizzes and swap ideas about Perl with fellow students in online discussion groups.
Reed was so pleased with the low cost and ease of learning through eZone that he
persuaded a co-worker to take the Perl course. "He was a graphic artist and afraid to
take a programming course," says Reed. ``But when he was done with the course, he
told me it was the easiest thing he'd ever learned."
After his first course, Reed went on to take Waite Group online classes in the C++
programming language, Adobe Systems Inc.'s Photoshop design and production tool, and
Visual Basic, a programming system from Microsoft. He now serves as an online tutor,
helping new students in Photoshop and Visual Basic with their questions as they enter the
eZone to work through their own courses.
Drucker says the eZone creates a "little red schoolhouse in cyberspace,"
making an analogy to the old, one-room schoolhouse, in which all the grades were thrown
together and students ended up teaching one another.
"Peer teaching," says Drucker, "allows people of varying levels of
expertise access to each other. People may be afraid to admit their deficiencies to a
teacher, but they will admit them to each other." Students can communicate with one
another via electronic mail or live chat rooms.
Reed sees the eZone's online discussion groups as invaluable tools for allowing peers
to address the real-life glitches that computer technology sometimes presents. "They
allow people to discuss the real things they need to do with this technology at
work."
For a small-business owner or employee who needs to get up to speed on a computer
language or software application and has no co-worker to be a teacher, the eZone model can
be an ideal learning environment.
Accessing Specialized Knowledge
Computer-skills courses are among the most popular online, but there are many other
possibilities. When Nancy Gordon, owner of Customized Travel Research in Boise, Idaho,
registered for an online course in travel and tourism from the UCLA Extension, she wasn't
sure what to expect. She says now that she got the best educational experience of her life
for a cost of about $500.
Gordon's online instructor, Joanie McClellan, turned out to be more than just a
teacher. McClellan, director of the San Fernando Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau,
helped Gordon develop her business concepts. "She even custom-tailored the final
project for me to fit my unique business-research needs," says Gordon. "I've
never had a professor do that for me." McClellan even met Gordon at a travel-industry
conference after the class was over. There, McClellan introduced Gordon to people who
later became key networking resources and clients.
"Studying online is as close to a one-to-one tutorial as you can get," says
Kathy McGuire, director of online learning at the University of California at Los Angeles
Extension.
Online classes can also give small business owners access to colleagues from outside
the United States. William Nix, Chief Executive Officer of W.E. Nix & Associates, an
Internet consulting firm located in Los Angeles, taught a course last year for UCLA
Extension online called "Doing Business in Eastern Europe." To Nix's surprise
and delight, all 45 students enrolled in his course logged on from different countries.
Because the class was online, Nix was able to bring together students from different
countries who could discuss the real-life issues of doing business in differing cultures.
Students read classic business texts but they also received focused input from their
fellow classmates on commercial practices worldwide.
Time Management For The Next Millenium
Once you have found the right online course at the right price, you typically can do
the work at a time that best fits your schedule. "Time was my critical factor in
turning to online learning," says Gordon. "In my travel consulting business, I
have to work sometimes until 2 a.m. With an online course, I could read the e-mail from my
instructor and do my homework after 2 a.m. You can't replicate that kind of freedom in a
classroom setting."
For self-paced, online tutorial programs like those operated by Ziff-Davis University,
students can manage their time by beginning or ending a course at the exact point where
they feel they need assistance. Unlike in a classroom, where everyone begins with Lesson 1
and works at the same pace from there, many online tutorials allow students to begin at
their skill level. You can begin in the middle of a tutorial if that's the best place to
start--and not disrupt the entire class by doing so.
Earning A Degree Online
Since the Internet was pioneered at universities to facilitate information sharing,
it's no surprise that an increasing number of them are creating Web-based universities. An
estimated 180 accredited graduate schools and more than 150 undergraduate colleges and
universities now support distance-learning degree programs, an increasing number of which
are Web-based.
Many online universities are catering to the rising demand from industry to deliver
skill-development courses to the desktop. For example, Champlain College, a regular 4-year
college, in Burlington, Vt., advertises itself as a "career-building" college.
It offers Web-based professional certificates as well as associate and bachelor's degrees
that are built around a solid core of business and computer classes.
As with many online programs, the curriculum at Champlain is not simply textbook-based.
Each online class is carefully designed to emphasize what John Lavallee, director of
online programs, calls "experiential understanding." Says Lavallee: "We use
case studies, group exercises, and real-life work problems. We test the students not by
giving them multiple-choice exams but by saying, "Here is a problem this company is
having; how is your group going to solve this?"
Champlain's online program began in the summer of 1993 and has expanded rapidly; more
than 550 students from around the world are enrolled. The most popular courses, Lavallee
says, are in computer programming, network administration, business, and accounting.
"We have a lot of people earning their first degree online with us," says
Lavallee, "but we also enroll a lot of people who have bachelor's, master's, even
Ph.D.s who are studying online with us for career-skills enhancement."
Full-credit college courses typically cost $300 to $1,000. Most online classes don't
require that students have the latest high-powered computer, but they must have Internet
access.
Before enrolling in any online college, make sure that your chosen program is
recognized by either a regional accrediting agency or the Distance Education and Training
Council, a nonprofit nationally recognized accrediting agency located in Washington, D.C.
At the rate that online course offerings are expanding, it's clear that the Internet
has added a popular new twist to the correspondence courses of old. Sir Isaac Pitman, no
doubt, would be pleased.
Vicky Phillips (vicky@geteducated.com).
is co-author of "The Best Distance Learning Graduate Schools:
Earning Your Degree Without Leaving Home" (Princeton Review).
Consumer Alert!
Here are some of the many accredited colleges and universities offering online courses
and degree programs in business and technology areas.
Champlain College
http://www.champlain.edu/OLDE/index.html
888-545-3459
Certificates and Associates in Accounting, Business, Computer Programming, Hotel &
Restaurant Management, Travel & Tourism. Bachelors in Computer Programming or Business
City University Online
http://www.wcc-eun.com/city/Index.html
800-225-3276
Bachelors in Accounting, Business Administration, Computer Systems, Energy and
Environmental Quality, Management, Marketing
Empire State College of the State University of New York
http://www.esc.edu
518-587-2100
Individually-designed and mentored Bachelors in Business & Management or Labor
Studies
New Jersey Institute of Technology
http://www.njit.edu/DL/
800-624-9850
Bachelors in Computer Science or Computer Information Systems
New York Institute of Technology
http://www.nyit.edu/olc
1-800-222-NYIT
Bachelors in Business Administration, Telecommunications Management, Hospitality
Management
Pennsylvania State University
http://www.cde.psu/de/
800-252-3592
Certificates in Business Management, Small Business Management, Advanced Business
Management, Business Logistics, Purchasing Management, Human Resources. Associates in
Business Administration
Rogers University Online
http://ruonline.edu/
918-343-7548
Associates in Computer Science or Business Management
Thomas Edison State College
http://www.tesc.edu
609-292-6565
Bachelors in Applied Science & Technology, including Specializations in
Engineering, Computer Science, or Electronics. Bachelors in Business Administration,
including a Specialization in Small Business Management/Entrepreneurship. Masters in
Management
University of California Los Angeles Extension - The Home Education Network
http://www.then.com
800-784-8436
Courses in Business, Computers, Entrepreneurship, International Business
University of Maryland - Bachelor's Degree At A Distance
http://www.umuc.edu/bdaad
800-283-6832
Bachelors in Accounting, Business Management, Computer and Information Sciences,
Technology & Management
Virtual MBA Programs
Baker College
http://www.baker.edu
800-469-4062
Colorado State University
http://cobweb.cobus.colostate.edu
800-491-4622
Duke University
http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/
919-660-8011
ISIM University
http://www.isimu.edu
800-441-ISIM
New York Institute of Technology
http://www.nyit.edu/olc
800-345-NYIT
Regis University
http://www.mbaregis.com
800-MBA-REGIS
University of Phoenix Online
http://www.uophx.edu/online
800-742-4742
Worchester Polytechnical Institute
http://mgnt.wpi.edu/graduate.htm
508-831-5957