The Department of Computer Science at the University of West Georgia offers three online courses in intermediate computer literacy, designed as general education electives that may be taken by all undergraduate students. These courses assume basic computer literacy (i.e., ability to use the Internet, interact with the computer and operating system); the focus is on developing practical skills in Microsoft Office applications. These courses enroll, on average, 600 students per semester. In order to effectively serve such a large number of students, we have sought to streamline and package the course structure and material to the greatest extent possible so as to create a completely self-guided course. Although we rely on a tutorial-oriented textbook and resources provided by the publisher, we have found it necessary to supplement these materials with specific learner-centered guides and tutorials customized to fit our course. To build and maintain this content, we utilize ScreenSteps, a cross-platform application designed to make it easy to create and publish instructional documents with screen capture illustrations. ScreenSteps provides the capability to publish in a variety of formats, re-use content in multiple documents, and includes features for workgroup collaboration. Although our course is designed to be primarily self-guided and learner-centered, we also needed to provide sufficient support for students seeking help. Since the large number of students significantly limits opportunities for learner-instructor interaction, we have created a "tele-tutoring" service that enables students to seek one-on-one help online from a tutor. The tele-tutoring service is staffed by computer science students and utilizes Wimba Pronto, an academic-centric instant messaging platform integrated with our institutional WebCT Vista course management system. Through the tele-tutoring service, students and tutors can interact via text and video chat, and tutors may share their desktop to visually demonstrate specific steps needed to work through a particular problem. Our most recent revision is a pilot project intended to provide timely and contextual asynchronous learner-learner and learner-instructor/teaching assistant discussion while simultaneously building a re-usable knowledge base of questions and answers that can be carried across multiple offerings/semesters of the course. This project will integrate an embedded commenting system, similar to those provided on various blogging platforms, with our existing course content (produced with ScreenSteps) to support moderated and contextual discussion on selected course content. The goals of this presentation are to share our experiences in designing, delivering, and supporting an online skills-based course in intermediate computer literacy serving a large population of students; discuss the specific software tools we use to build and manage instructional content and support a synchronous online tutoring service, and the ways these tools help us to deliver a more effective course; and present results on a pilot project to integrate contextual learner-learner and learner-instructor discussion on selected course content using an embedded commenting system. We seek input and feedback from session participants on our ideas and practices, and will provide opportunities for participants to share their own experience and suggestions during the presentation and after through an online discussion on our website.
