Colleges serious about Internet intellectuals

Online college courses are exploding in popularity -- far outpacing the growth of higher education as a whole -- but it's not just the number of online students that has expanded.

The online class experience, too, is more wide-reaching -- encompassing far more than just keyboard strokes and mouse clicks.

At local universities, students are getting medical training, practicing their public speaking and doing their own ``kitchen-based experiments,'' all online.

This richer online learning experience -- combined with the convenience of scheduling school when you want it -- has boosted the medium's popularity to the point that today more than one in four college students takes at least one course online.

``People are becoming more accepting, and used to technology,'' said John Bourne, executive director of the Massachusetts-based Sloan Consortium, which tracks online enrollments. The organization's 2009 report showed a 17 percent year-to-year surge in online students nationally, while the total number of U.S. college students rose a mere 1.2 percent.

Back in 1986, Nova Southeastern University was on the cutting edge of higher education when it introduced an online master's degree program, one specializing in computer-based learning. The program was entirely text-based -- instructors would type out a lesson, and students could respond by typing questions.

NSU is again touting its pioneering online presence, but the frontiers have clearly changed. These days the school boasts of being the first to virtually offer medical training to doctors in Iraq.

In March, NSU's Institute for Child Health Policy and Emergency Medical Services Division faculty used the Internet to teach a three-day course to Iraqi doctors in Baghdad. The course focused on administering advanced CPR and other live-saving skills to children -- training that is desperately needed in the war-torn country.

With the aid of ``interactive teleconferencing,'' medical instructors based in a NSU training hall taught 12 Iraqi doctors a variety of emergency pediatric procedures, including rhythm diagnosis and treatment, and airway maintenance. Students demonstrated the techniques on plastic dummies so that Nova instructors could -- from thousands of miles away -- look over their shoulder and approve.

WAR AND PEACE

Iraq's medical system had been left weakened and outdated by years of U.N. sanctions against the country, then further damaged by the ongoing war, according to Ross Donaldson, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at UCLA. Donaldson worked with the students in Baghdad to coordinate the instruction, though NSU professors handled the bulk of the teaching.

Why didn't Donaldson just teach the Iraqi doctors himself? Incorporating NSU into the process allowed the class to obtain certifications from the American Heart Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, as NSU is already an approved instructional site. Flying representatives from those professional organizations into Baghdad to certify the course in person wasn't possible due to security risks.

The Iraqi students ``really like the certification, to them it means a lot,'' Donaldson said. ``It locks them into the international medical world, so that we're not just training them for today's knowledge. . .they'll be keeping updated with the newest material as well.''

Only three days after the class concluded, a wave of bombs struck Baghdad -- killing dozens of people. Donaldson received an e-mail from one of his students telling him that many of the injured were children.

``You have no idea how the course was of great importance because I followed exactly what I have learned,'' Iraqi doctor Abdullah Alqazzaz wrote. ``We were able to save the lives of critically injured patients.''

Closer to home, students at Miami-Dade College's Virtual College have the option of taking a whole host of online offerings -- include public speaking.

Though the class is in an online format, students are still forced to find some kind of audience somewhere. After all, what's public speaking if there's no public?

The assembled gathering doesn't have to be fellow classmates, however, and it doesn't have to be particularly large. It's often a handful of friends or family.

``Sometimes that's the hardest critic, it's hard to stand up and do a formal speech in front of that group,'' Ruth Ann Balla, executive director of the Virtual College, said. ``They may have five or six people, it's not a crowd of 30. . .is it identical? No. Are they learning, are they gaining? Yes.''

Some skeptics might frown on the mere concept of a ``virtual'' speech class, and online education in general has long struggled against the perception that its courses are a cakewalk for students. Some college faculty, too, are resistant to online teaching.

WITH HONORS

Yet a U.S. Department of Education-funded study released last year found that students who took all or part of their class work online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction. One caveat: Online students tended to spend more time studying, so it's anyone's guess whether the Web or simply harder work deserves the credit for the results.

Marie Vertus, a senior at Florida International University, often chooses online classes because she both works and goes to school -- making online a better fit for her hectic schedule.

But she prefers online courses that allow students to work together, on their own time, in groups. FIU's human biology class is one example.

This spring semester, Vertus performed the lab's required ``kitchen-based experiments'' at her Miramar home, joined by five other classmates.

The group settled on Thursday evenings as their favored time, and together these ``online'' students performed lots of get-your-hands-dirty tasks: testing the pH levels of household substances; growing yeast; dissolving food coloring into gelatin.

The group members all chipped in to buy needed supplies. Vertus bought flower vases at Wal-Mart that doubled as professional-looking scientific test tubes.

``They're like so cool!'' she proudly exclaimed.

Vertus and her fellow group members e-mailed photos of the experiments to document their work. About two-thirds of the labs are kitchen-based, while the remaining third involve specialized computer simulations -- zooming in on virtual objects with the aid of flash-animated microscopes, for example, or dissecting a make-believe computer-animated pig.

For Vertus, the benefit of fancy simulations is overshadowed by the benefit of working in groups -- those personal relationships provide a constant reminder about looming deadlines and homework assignments.

Her cellphone goes off. It's a classmate from her online statistics class.

``We'll get together tomorrow and do it if you would like,'' she says. ``And the quiz, that's perfect, thank you hun.''

She hangs up. ``All my `onlines' are calling me,'' she says.