Class in Session ... in 14 Time Zones


Globe Graphic Graduate students in one of Professor Jim Gallogly's air transport system classes have met with him on all seven continents in 14 different time zones.

"That is what can happen when you are teaching in the Distance Learning program," said Gallogly who is manager of online education for Embry-Riddle's Extended Campus. "One of my students was in the Antarctic, so I may be the only teacher in this program to have had students on all seven continents at one time."

Many students are aboard aircraft carriers. Others are on overnights in Hong Kong, London, or Cairo. It makes no difference where they are; they still have assignments to file weekly, and very few fail to meet the deadlines for filing their work.

Gallogly began teaching online classes in January 1993, and it is not unusual for him to have students on six continents in his classes. The program began on a small scale and catered to graduate students in its early years. In September 2000, an undergraduate program began. "Since then, the Extended Campus online program has recorded more than 11,500 undergraduate and nearly 3,000 graduate enrollments," he said.

The students are employed full time, many as pilots for major air carriers, but the classes also include flight attendants, dispatchers, managers, and air traffic controllers. The average age of the graduate students studying online, Gallogly said, is 35 years. "They are a mature group, and motivated to learn," he said.

After World War II, job openings for pilots exceeded the number of available qualified personnel. Many of the pilots of that era had little more than a high school diploma, but they had credentials that demonstrated their ability to handle the four-engine passenger aircraft coming into service in the late 1940s.

The demands for more education grew as new technologies emerged, and by the 1960s most pilots joining an air carrier did have a bachelor's degree. Today, the undergraduate degree is the minimum requirement, but preference is going to those with graduate degrees.

"For a pilot to move into management today, a master's degree is necessary," Gallogly said. "So many professional pilots are in the online classes of the Extended Campus to get the master's."

The Online Package

Graduate students enrolling for online classes receive a package of videotaped lectures, a study guide and the texts required for the class. They also receive the passwords to use the online classroom, post messages for consideration, and to have private contacts with the professor.

The university has used three software programs to conduct its distance learning programs. The current program is WebCt, Canadian software that teachers say is more diverse, more flexible and better suited to learning by computer. Marvin Smith, professor of aeronautical sciences, says the WebCt software allows him to have a sense of being with the students.

"We use PowerPoint graphics, which I also use in my classrooms today. Frankly, online teaching has probably made me a better classroom teacher," he said.

Exams are not administered online but are mailed to a proctor who is in charge of the process.

The computer education system also prompts all students to become participants in their classes. "I require my online students to file abstracts every week, so if I have 15 students and each of them is filing a new abstract every week for 10 weeks, we have 150 viewpoints posted for the online class to discuss," Smith said. The abstracts, he added, become more important than the textbook.

He and other professors say a major advantage to online teaching is what it does for the less assertive students in classes. "We are all familiar with the shy kid in a campus classroom who is afraid to state his view. You don't run into that with online classes. These students online come at you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and different opinions are welcomed," Smith said.

The software package and the online system used by the Extended Campus, Smith said, encourages new ideas, new insights into old problems and "very active participation in discussions. The Internet has had a vast impact on teaching and learning. Our online system pulls down enormous quantities of thoughtful information for research. Every student in an online class is a contributor."

Personal Contact

Personal contact may not be eyeball-to-eyeball, but it is regular and personal. Smith and others who teach online say they use e-mail to make personal contacts with the students. Kathy Wilson, professor of business, said, "What goes on is not a lot different from what takes place in meeting with a student in my office."

Wilson teaches basic accounting, a course that cannot be crammed and requires a student to be current in the class. "Procrastination is the enemy of students in accounting and that's true in a classroom or online," she said. Students who find some accounting issues baffling hit Wilson with e-mail questions that often tell her the student is not staying up to date. That's when she puts on her professorial cap and fires off a personal message about the importance of keeping up with the class day to day.

"When they have trouble with problems, I get back to them in a personal e-mail and tell them what needs to be done to overcome the problem," she said.

The students are employed full time, many as pilots for major air carriers, but the classes also include flight attendants, dispatchers, managers, and air traffic controllers. The average age of the graduate students studying online is 35. Wilson said the online student must have a high degree of self-discipline and be a self-starter. "While I like the personal contact of the classroom, I see advantages to online education in self-discipline. Because they are older, online students tend to understand that and contact does become personal through e-mail," she said. "E-mail contact may not be as personal as it would in my office, but it requires the initiative of the student, so that works to make it more personal."

Wilson taught in the Extended Campus before teaching online courses. "I wind up with students in Spain, one guy in Russia, and others in various other countries," she said.

Distance Learning department chairman William Herlehy became involved with online teaching when his wife was stationed at the Pentagon. "I was hearing about people scattered all over the globe who needed classes in business education. I suggested we collect them in an online class. That was six or seven years ago."

Herlehy now teaches management/labor relations for graduate students and economics for both graduate and undergraduate classes at Embry-Riddle. "I find the students do feel a sense of community in online education," he said. "The online student is serious about the material and has a get-down-to-business attitude."

He said in classrooms, some students rarely participate because they fear being ridiculed if they give a wrong answer. "In the online classes, the students post their comments for all to see and you know who made the comments. If anybody gets out of line and hints at ridiculing another student, the class brings that to a halt quickly. They are good about policing themselves," he said. The result is more participation by all online students.

Herlehy said the online classes are monitored regularly for performance and participation. "We find the level of success equal to that of the classroom," he said, "and I attribute that to the interactive approach in online education. Interaction is satisfaction."

He said he may never meet every student he has in online classes, "but I've been invited to their weddings, to their homes for dinner, and learned about the births of their children."

He fondly recalls a recent Embry-Riddle graduation ceremony where one of his online students ran up to him and hugged him. "I've finally met you," the student said.

To learn more about Embry-Riddle's online education programs, contact Terry Whittum, director of the Distance Learning Enrollment Office, at whittumt@db.erau.edu or (386) 226-4953.

By Shane W. Hill