Nudity, Pets, Babies, and Other Adventures in Synchronous Online Learning

October 20, 2011, 9:01 am

Philadelphia—The University of Southern California places a premium on synchronous online education. Students fire up their Webcams and participate in live virtual classes.

But those live video feeds are opening a debate about classroom decorum, pushing the university to create new guidelines for “Netiquette.”

Barking dogs, wailing babies, a naked spouse—all have made cameo appearances in USC online classes, said Jade Winn, head of library services for USC’s education and social work schools, during a talk about online education at the Educause conference here.

Ms. Winn recalled one pajama-clad student who rolled over in bed, turned on a Webcam, and tried to attend class lying on a pillow. Another distraction: students crunching bowls of cereal.

“It’s just a whole level of being in someone’s home, that you don’t take into consideration,” Ms. Winn said in an interview after her talk.

The university plans to start taking it into consideration with a new Netiquette guide. The goal is to spell out up front what USC won’t tolerate. A spouse parading naked behind a student clearly isn’t kosher—but where else do you draw the line?

“The smaller things, like the dogs in the background and the babies crying, we have two sides on that,” Ms. Winn said. “And we really are still hashing it out. I feel that you can’t muzzle the dog during class time.”

Have other Wired Campus readers dealt with this issue? What kind of Netiquette distractions have come up in your classes, synchronous or asynchronous? Share your stories in the comments below.

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http://twitter.com/AlOoHz Angel Hernandez

“The smaller things, like the dogs in the background and the babies crying, we have two sides on that,” Ms. Winn said. “And we really are still hashing it out. I feel that you can’t muzzle the dog during class time.”
but you can sure muzzle a baby i guess… : P
oldcommprof

It’s bad enough in the classroom when students are texting and so forth. How are they ever going to learn anything in an online “class” when there are even more distractions and background noise and activity?
wpferdehirt

We ask all students to mute audio except when they are talking.
We use web conferencing, but do not typically use webcam. Screen is used to share slides, documents, spreadsheets, etc [prepared by instructors or students. Focusing on content rather than webcam video is more productive and avoids visual distractions.
Diane Kovacs

Why do students have to be on a Webcam routinely? My students only turn on their audio/microphone when they have something to say that can’t be said well in text or they are presenting. I don’t use a Webcam – why should I waste the bandwidth showing my talking head – when I can use audio and share slides/video/application/desktop sharing. My face adds NOTHING to the learning process. Still photos are nice so we can see what we look like but a Webcam just seems a pointless waste of bandwidth and class time. As for animals and background noise – those would happen in an in-person class – I’ve had to lecture in person with road construction going on outside our window – or sirens – or shreaking sports fans… dogs and babies are part of the reason we teach and learn online – so we can work from our homes. So lose the Webcams and you don’t have anyone naked.
dickiea

One might want to wonder about the quality and relative worth of the underlying teaching/learning methodology of those synchronous sessions! Having been an online student I would have to say give them up – pretty worthless for the most part and they defeat one on the major advantages of online learning for students of anytime learning. Scheduled synchronous sessions do not allow anytime learning. Higher education is in desperate need of a radical transformation. Tools like lecture capture, webinar software, and synchronous conversation sessions are generally perpetuating teacher centered methods. When they are used for meaningful, problem based, collaborative learning experiences the same concerns may not be evident.
vceross

I occasionally co-teach an online course and generally do not use the webcam. However, in our most recent course we had occasion to, and were stunned at what we discovered. In one session, a student whom we’d called on suddenly seemed to sprout a third arm that presented a note to him. “What’s happening here?” my colleague/co-teacher asked the student, who haltingly explained that the third arm actually belonged to his father, who was “collaborating” with him in the class. I then asked if we had any other “collaborators,” and lo and behold, our class included a host of invisible helpers: parents, siblings, and even a senior majoring in the discipline kindly assisting her friend. Upon being mentioned by our officially enrolled student, this major (from another university) complimented us on the excellent course we were teaching!
wolfste4

Ok, ha ha, no you can’t muzzle a baby. But you CAN get a babysitter. And you CAN go somewhere that the baby won’t be distracting you and others in the virtual class. You are CHOOSING to attend a class, and if you are going to provide a distraction to the group, then you should leave. As a student while raising my 2 year old, I’ve somehow managed to not bring my screaming son to class.
vceross

That was my feeling prior to teaching online courses. Students generally give the online course more favorable reviews than the bricks-and-mortar course because they are able to concentrate on the materials on the screen while listening to the lecture, and are able to ask (type) questions as these unfold. Sometimes we stop to respond to the questions, and sometimes we continue until the end to address the questions as these emerge as a set of particular concerns. Students can also review our online classes (we save the recording and provide students access), which one can’t do with real-time courses. While an individual student may experience a distraction, he or she doesn’t distract the others. And being able to see questions streaming in as one is lecturing really helps to hone the lecture and what one teaches in general. Students getting to see each other’s questions in real time is also, I think, a great help. Those students who miss class can review the recordings, and they say that the asynchronous experience simply isn’t as good as that of participating, but it beats the alternative. And for the prof, it altogether eliminates the work of catching up students who miss or are late. It’s also a record of what one has taught that can be improved upon for the next time one teaches. Finally, online teaching really keeps one on his toes, for the material has to be concise, clear, focused, snappy with good visuals. I know it makes me a better teacher. That said, I also enjoy the give and take and visual distractions of a bricks and mortar class. Each has its virtues.
oldcommprof

Absolutely agree, dickiea!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Diane-Seaman-Kasselhut/1024947525 Diane Seaman Kasselhut

Having synchronous sessions simply for the purpose of having everyone together in “class” is not likely to add much to the educational experience; however, when needed to further educational objectives, they can be beneficial. As an example, for a language class with an objective that the learner be able to participate in a discussion in the given language, synchronous sessions can be useful.
stephen_said

I agree almost completely with Diane. There really isn’t any need for the webcam. None of us really need to see how the rest of the class looks. You can email pictures, or Face Book them. The background noises are always a big IF in any class. I can lecture, however what IF there are several students with coughs, or IF they are mowing the lawn outside, or IF there are distractions in the hall, all of that has impact on the learning process.

HOWEVER, I also agree with something wolfste4 mentioned. Students CHOOSE to take these courses. How about they show some common courtesy with the way they interact in the online class? The crying babies, barking dogs, and other distractions are just that, DISTRACTIONS. Not really any different than ringing cell phones, or talking students in class. The difference is in a classroom, it is generally accepted that these behaviors are WRONG! Somehow, just because we have changed the way a course is provided, we are expected to accept that these things ‘come with the turf’.

I don’t accept it. In fact, I make it abundantly clear what the expectations are for this particular class. Be it online, or traditional brick and mortar. In my opinion, there is something that continually gets overlooked in online courses, and that is there are classmates, just like in a regular classroom. Distractions, or diversions impact THEM too!

It is quite interesting how this new social media generation is surprisingly anti-social! I am reminded of that car commercial where the daughter is concerned because her parents don’t have any Facebook friends because they are out interacting with friends. She is at home by herself though she has many Facebook friends.

Very interesting
renellin

I completely agree with you. I am a professional student (will keep taking classes until I retire–hoping all these degrees will help me get a good parttime job) who takes classes online whenever possible. Frankly, I hate it when the teacher asks us to introduce ourselves. I like the anonymity of an online class. I do enjoy synchrous over asynchrous, but the college I currently attend doesn’t offer them. Part of the reason I take online classes is so I can attend at 2 in the morning, naked if I choose, changing a baby, mopping the floor or any number of other activities that wouldn’t qualify as netiquette. Whose hairbrained idea was that to use the web cams anyway?
jamesebryan

I don’t know that I agree with you at all about our faces adding nothing to the learning process. People communicate with each other in non-verbal ways that can be quite telling, but they have to be seen to be comprehended. I have to say that one of the reasons I quit participating in online instruction is I got very tired of managing digitized correspondence courses and having no real human interaction with my students.
renellin

You say people choose to take the class. If it is an elective that is only taken by students seeking true enlightenment, your point is made. In the real world, however, some students are restrained by little things like crying babies, and they can’t come to the brick and mortar because of those restrictions. So in order to get the class required for their degree, they have to try the online option. I seriously doubt that colleges offering classes with webcams offer the same coursework online without webcams. I find pictures of my classmates endlessly popping up on my screen while I am trying to scan the reading material quite distracting as well.
renellin

The synchronous classes I used to take were just one hour per week, and were all in chat format. It allowed for the teacher to call on you, it allowed for instant discussion between students. I did enjoy it, though I hated having to be home at the designated time. Of course I hate going to class too, but I keep signing up for them. The rest of the class, the bulk of it, was done in the usual online fashion of submitting assignments and responding to posts on a bulletin board. I did get much more of a sense of class with those classes–there is a difference. The web cam? Forget it.
texasmusic

Here’s the thing: ringing cell phones in the classroom may be generally accepted as poor behavior and we all expect people to turn them off during class. You might think such expectations should extend to the online environment, but you cannot control other people – you can only make requests.

Take, for example, the naked spouse. From where do people normally participate in their online classes? Home, right? So there are two ways to fix this: Leave the house or ask the spouse to stay away. If you leave the house, where do you go? The library? Starbucks? Do these places offer better insulation from distractions? Perhaps you avoid the nudity, but not necessarily crying babies or other inappropriate behaviors. Okay, so you stay home and ask for some privacy. In a good marriage (or even a roommate relationship), a spouse would respect that. In a bad one, you would hope the person would remove themselves from the bad situation. In the large percentage of relationships that fall somewhere in the middle, you get the other person who thinks it’s funny (or sexy) to interrupt “class.” (and in his opinion, it’s not really class if you’re not sitting in a classroom, right?) You could ask him to leave the house for an hour. Or can you? I mean, he lives there. He should be able to use his own home on his own time. He’s not the one taking the class, you are. Why does he have to make the adjustment. Starbucks, anyone?

Okay, what about barking dogs? Hmmm…I’m a single person living in an apartment. Do I hire a babysitter? (for a dog?) A dogwalker? (when it’s dark outside?) Why would I do this when the dog generally can fend for himself for an hour and is generally well-behaved, except when that pesky neighbor walks by and antagonizes him from the door? Oh…maybe I could just ask my neighbor to leave.

My point here is that it isn’t as simple as expecting the online environment to be as controlled as a classroom just because you think it should be. People take online classes largely because they want or need that flexibility. It is of necessity a different environment than a classroom and it isn’t appropriate to expect the same constraints. The best you can do is ask for respect and hope it’s possible. The reality is that reality will undoubtedly intrude. Repeatedly. We must adjust our expectations accordingly because it won’t do any good to expect things to adjust to us.
11122741

ah, all profs are cheap textbook writers; how inefficient and what a glorious waste of time (except for frustrated novelists); no wonder research and scholarship is going down the s-shute with this generation. There are other ways to fulfill aspirations of being a high school teacher. But then no really bad ideas can be stopped until they really crash and burn big time a la 2008.
Good luck dudes …oh, where did i put my bathroom; sorry.
minnesotan

While I sympathize with this argument for making arrangements to not disturb the class (why not use the mute button, people?!), these sorts of virtual spaces were in many cases designed for the types of folks who can’t afford childcare, or who have responsibilities keep them at home. While you could probably send poochy to the back yard for a while, there are fewer feasible solutions for baby.
musicfordeckchairs

I teach online, although mostly in asynchronous discussion environments. So like many of my students, I’ve been teaching against the background noise (that I can hear) of barking dogs, lawnmowers, construction work, my family, the dishwasher. But increasingly I use webcam for meetings with colleagues and students. As a result students will often see elements of my home life that they wouldn’t ordinarily encounter, including my kids who are small enough to be intrigued by what’s happening on the screen and will come up to say hello. So I’m careful about how to handle this as my students certainly don’t want to find themselves in a too-much-information situation re a naked spouse etc., but on the other hand several have said that they’ve liked this practical demonstration of the fact that faculty are multitasking work-life balance, just as they are.

My question is to LMS and edtech designers: why are we seeing so much emphasis on synchronous webcam-based tools all of a sudden? Was there an evidence-based demand for it, or did we just jump to a conclusion that the criticism of online learning as informal and content driven would go away once we could all see each other, and each other’s naked spouses?
ryanjbest

I work at USC and am responsible for the School of Education’s instructional technology and online course development:
1) Studies show that video feeds of student faces enhances participation in content — and also gives instructors a chance to see facial cues (just like in brick and mortar classrooms) so that he/she can elaborate on particularly complex topics that students find perplexing…or move on. If your LMS/video conferencing system only provides choppy/blurry video feeds that are postage stamp sized, then I completely agree it adds little to the value of instruction, then again — it’s also probably time to get a new LMS/video conferencing system. New technologies offer huge advancements over text box chatting and “ye olde” video feeds. Some systems even provide remote camera control with panning/zoom in and out (yes, of student web cams), with 30-fps video feeds.

2) Regarding muting and noise in the background: again, if you are not using an LMS/video conferencing system that empowers the *instructor* to mute student(s) microphones or turn individual web cam/microphones on then, again: time to upgrade your system to one that does…or provide training to instructors on how to do that.

3) We will see more and more universities and colleges establish netiquette policies for distance learning as an increasing number of traditional students become online students. Every organization that has anything to do with education or social collaboration over the Internet should have appropriate behavior guidelines. It is a wise thing to do. Wherever you are and whomever you are (student, instructor, administrator, staff) ask yourself this: what is the policy of my school/organization if an online student is being harassed by another online student? If you can’t answer that…then you need a policy.
Terry_at_RefinedData

Enabling online courses allows remote participation but without human interaction, the online course becomes a shadow of its bricks-and-mortar cousin.

Social media tools are often anything but social and good use of webcams can create a real sense of community in the online classroom. As Ryan points out, so much of what makes us human is communicated using non-verbal cues that cannot be picked up in “chat”.

Part of the issue is that current technology doesn’t always work the way we need it and so we end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The webcam, like every other tool, has to be used appropriately and effectively to deliver real value.

In a traditional classroom, the teacher has the attention of the students while he/she can watch all of the class members for their non-verbal reactions; confusion, disagreement, anger, boredom, distraction etc.. The teacher can then engage one or more students in discussion. and the people contributing should be the ones that the rest of the class is watching.

Your web conferencing tool should reproduce this context. The teacher/lucturer should be able to see all of the students while they see only the teacher. If the teacher chooses to call on one or multiple students then all of their webcam images should be up on the screen for others to view as the discussions take place. But taking up screen space with the images of 20 non-participating students who are simply listening and not contributing is a waste of realestate and is a distraction.

USC makes heavy use of Adobe Connect for virtual classrooms and while its built-in capabilities are impressive, it also provides the ability to develop custom apps that extend the platform. My company (Full disclosure, I’m the President at Refined Data Solutions) provides tools to enable just this sort of capability. Teachers can mute/unmute remote participants, turn on or off their webcam feeds remotely while monitoring all of the student’s images for non-verbal clues about how they are responding to the content.

We are social animals and if our teaching tools don’t acknowledge and honour that, we should not be surprised if students find that our online classes are poor imitations of the “real thing” and they are left feeling cheated. Online classes don’t have to be “almost as good” as physical classroom experiences, they can be better, but only if we recognize that the people consuming our content need more than just to be lectured!