Wednesday, January 23, 2002

A Community College Offers a Taste of Online Study By SCOTT CARLSON St. Petersburg College, a community college in Florida, has set up a sample online course on its Web page. The noncredit course, which covers the basics of taking an online course at the college, is brief and free to the public. St. Petersburg College is yet another institution seeking to ease students into the idea of attending class through the computer screen. "We put it together to take away that fear of online learning," says Lynda Womer, the program director of the college's eCampus. "There are a lot of students who are comfortable with their computers, but the thought of an online course scares them." Other institutions, such as the Riverside Community College District in California and the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium, have similar courses. And Fathom, Columbia University's online venture, is also using free, short courses to lure students into signing up for longer, more costly courses. The course at St. Petersburg is a simple introduction to WebCT, the college's courseware. With the click of a mouse, students can look at a syllabus, along with fact sheets, dealing with the online course. Students can also explore online calendars, chat rooms, and discussion boards, all of which would be used in regular courses. At the end of the course, students can take an online quiz that will both introduce the program's testing features and gauge the student's knowledge about online learning. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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