You’ve already decided that you’re ready to author online and you have your content organized. Now it’s time to face the ultimate challenge in online learning – making it interactive!
Interaction in online courses is a two-edged sword. On one hand you want students to participate. This enhances their learning by letting them question and discuss issues in the course. On the other hand, as the instructor, you need to decide the level of interaction you want to have with each student – and build your courses accordingly.
As an illustration, let me relate a poor choice I made in a course I wrote several years ago. Because I wanted everyone involved, I required that each student post at least one message per week to the discussion group. In addition, I required that they respond to two other messages. Simple? Yes. But because I had decided that my level of involvement was to respond to every posting, I was faced with 3 messages for every student every week – and this was only the minimum requirement! I soon found myself bogged down in responding to an overwhelming number of messages.
To decide on your level of involvement, let’s look at 5 levels of interactions you can provide.
1. Respond to every email. At this level of interaction, you are reading and responding to every email or discussion sent. Beware. While this may be effective at the beginning of a discussion when there is little interaction, you’ll soon be overwhelmed just responding to and encouraging students.
2. Respond to every nth email. This is a more rational view. Here you can decide to pick every 5th posting and respond to it. The danger is that you’ll miss a student’s best posting or that you’ll miss an important question.
3. Respond to 1 message per student per week. You can set the expectation that you’ll welcome questions from everyone, but that you’ll only guarantee a response to one per week. That will put the burden of composing an effective message on the student’s shoulders, rather than just jotting off a quick question every time they think of it.
4. Post provocative questions. This is a great way to get a discussion started. If you choose this route, you may choose not to participate in the discussion yourself – but instead, just summarize it at the end – or not.
5. Employ help. This may be a Teaching Assistant, a mentor, students who have taken the course in the past, etc. You may also choose to separate the types of correspondence – for example, one person may cover technical questions, while another handles course mechanics and you take the content questions.
Now that you’ve decided on your level of involvement, it’s time to design the exercises. Recognize that almost any type of exercise you use in face-to-face training has an online counterpart. So be creative – and try your ideas. You can even ask your fellow instructors for help by saying “In an instructor-led course we would do such-and-such for this lesson. What would you suggest we use to replicate that learning online?”
Keep in mind that the format of the course you are creating will help determine the appropriateness of an interactive exercise. For example, if you have a rolling enrollment, self-paced course where students sign up and work through the materials at their own pace, it may be difficult to assign them team activities.
To get you started here are some ideas for interactive exercises. These cover a variety of levels of interaction, so choose your favorites.
Polls and surveys – ask a series of questions, then summarize the results for the participants. This can be done with a survey tool or you can use a multiple choice exam. Poll early and often. Your first poll might be the type of computer participants use, how they connect to the Internet, and their level of expertise in computer skills. This provides good feedback to you and gives them a profile of the “average” student.
Go and do – give students an assignment to do offline. Then ask them to come back and use one of the other techniques (reflection, chat, summaries) to report on their activities.
Read and react – give students an article, a series of websites, or other assignment. Then ask them to write a short reaction paper based on their readings.
Reflection – ask each student to use their personal note space to reflect on reading/group discussions.
3-word summary – ask each student to summarize their thoughts in 3 words in the discussion group. Others can ask for clarification.
Teams – use teams to create small discussion groups. Then ask one person from each team to summarize the discussion in the larger discussion area.
Office hours – use a chat to hold weekly office hours. Just tell everyone when you’ll be “in”, then wait for the questions. As an alternative you may decide to offer a chat time to a smaller group or team of students – either to encourage more interaction or to handle what would have been an overwhelming amount of interaction.

Accredited online universities are quickly becoming the go-to education of choice for busy professionals, working moms, or those who don’t live within close proximity to a more traditional university. If you are interested in joining the growing number of students enrolled in an accredited online university, you may be asking yourself how to choose the program that best fits your needs.

The most obvious place to start when looking at colleges and universities is location; however, that doesn’t become a factor when choosing an online university since you will going to school remotely. So what other factors should you consider when choosing a university?

Things to Consider

Accreditation – Of utmost importance is to find an accredited online university – not a diploma mill. Motivated by making a profit, diploma mills are non-accredited organizations that award degrees with poor or no academic study. They are more interested in taking your money than they are in providing you with a legitimate education or a degree that will help to further your career. Avoid these at all costs! While the thought of getting an online degree without any of the work at just a fraction of the cost may sound appealing, it’s just not worth the risk. People found using fake degrees can be denied employment, terminated, or in some cases actually face criminal charges.

Degree – Determine the type of degree that you are looking to receive. Whether it’s a bachelor’s degree, associate’s degree, master’s degree or PhD, different accredited online universities will offer different degree programs. You should choose a type of degree based on your personal interests and on the types of classes you would be interested in taking, as well as your educational background.

Major – What do you want your major to be? Not all accredited online universities offer a full range of programs. If you are certain that you want to focus on a specific field like nursing, engineering, politics, or accounting, it is important to know which schools offer these courses. Once you find a school that offers your major, check to see what resources they have for students enrolled in those classes. Look for things like the background and experience of your professors, and if the university offers career placement help after graduation.

Time – Consider the time commitment that you are willing to make for school. Certain degrees and majors will require a heavier course load than others, while some accredited online universities will only allow you to take one or two classes per session. If you are looking to go to school full-time or to complete your degree in a short period, these programs may not be the best choice for you. Determine the amount of time you will have after all of your outside obligations are met, including a job, family and other activities to help clarify your best option.

Cost – While many accredited online universities cost less than a traditional school, receiving your education online is still a big financial commitment. Having a clear understanding of what you can afford will help you to determine the best school for you. Take a look at each online university’s information page for tuition to find out how they charge; it may be by credit hour, course or semester. Each school may break down their tuition costs differently, so you may need to do a little math to compare them correctly. Also take into consideration any scholarships and grants or financial aid that you may be able to receive as this will ultimately drive down the total out-of-pocket expenses for you.

Reputation – Find out about the school’s overall reputation. A great place to start your search is through online university reviews. Through these websites, students are able to post their own personal experiences with the universities that they have attended. You can read about how the students liked the programs, the professors, the grading system and more. Just as you’d read consumer reviews prior to buying a new television or car, you should do the same when you’re looking to further your education.