A "New" Kind of Virtualization for Distance Learning

IT communities have been buzzing for a few years with the belief that desktop virtualization is clearly the path of the future. The June 13, 2011 issue of InformationWeek has two separate articles regarding desktop virtualization, a system whereby all functions of the individual user including the applications required to run them are pulled from a remote server. With on-campus virtualization, you do not necessarily need a powerful computer at your desk. Instead you need only a device, such as a Citrix Xen client, capable of pulling everything it needs from the server, displaying it on the screen, and taking inputs from mouse and keyboard. In theory, a college should be able to outfit its lab or classrooms in a more cost effective way.

However, virtualization is also the path of the past. Before personal computers (either Apple or IBM versions) came into being, the business world used large mainframe computers with mindless, aka CPUless and hard driveless, terminals to access them. At some point it just became much cheaper for an organization to own several or many PCs rather than a very expensive and difficult to maintain mainframe. Mainframes in general required their own atmosphere controlled spaces. They had significant trouble with power losses or fluctuations. They required very specially trained and skilled technicians. If a mainframe goes down, every terminal in your organization is down. Designed long ago, the architecture for mainframes could not operate the resource intensive applications of today or even 5 years ago.

Although in virtualization we are not talking about mainframes, a good deal has changed. In fact, virtualization now does not necessarily mean you need a special client device. Instead, it may be possible for a virtual server to work with existing desktop computers, laptops and tablets.

I believe this has a fascinating potential to resolve the issues we see in our technology classes. Typically, students sign up for a technology class who do not have the required software, who have incorrect versions of the software, who have hardware that cannot run a demanding application, who have software installed that conflicts with the application required for the class, and who at least at the start of classes do not even understand the impact these problems have on their performance in online classes. With so much being said about the importance of all students getting the best possible start in class, it is even more important in a distance learning class, where technical deficiencies at the beginning will place even a good student in peril throughout the course.

At this point, I am not convinced that desktop virtualization will mete out its potential on campus but it does have the potential to solve a number of problems online. Hopefully, the new CEO of IBM, Virginia Rometty can see the new path of virtualization.

Central Falls Implications for Community Colleges

In February 74 teachers and 19 staff members were fired by the superintendent at an underperforming Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. The decision has received a good deal of media attention and a significant amount of praise around the country. (Even President Obama has publically agreed with the measure as a move toward greater accountability in education.) While it is too true that the school has been a consistent underperformer, in the national media the story is mischaracterized. In reality it is, of course, not a story of callous teachers who do not bother to do their jobs or care about their students. The school was filled with professional teachers who worked very hard to help their students achieve. It was also not about a school that was making zero progress. The school’s test scores had improved over the last two years although to be fair the increases were slight. It was not that the teachers were unwilling to change the structure of the high school program. Structural changes such as moving from a comprehensive high school to one with upper and lower divisions had already been approved. In the end the unresolved issues that caused the superintendent to make the radical move seemed to be more about the requirement for teachers to work harder and longer for what their union regarded as inadequate extra pay.

This apparent national confusion about the reason the teachers were fired has implications for those of us in higher education. The problem is about the teachers accepting changes to their employment without what they believe to be fair pay. The perception is that they do not accept performance measures and are failing in their jobs

We, the community colleges, share a stronger bond with our high school educator colleagues than most traditional 4 year colleges. We must educate an increasingly greater percentage of the high school graduates and returning nontraditional students in order to keep the country globally competitive. Furthermore, we have been more willing to build programs that do more than provide a good liberal arts foundation but rather increasingly provide direct job skills which may even more lead to industry-style standards of measurement of performance. After all, a sizeable proportion of our students are looking not to transfer and certainly not just enlightenment, but rather for transferable and marketable skills. It seems manifest that at some point there will be a greater demand for us to be held accountable for our students’ performance.

I know that all my colleagues, faculty and administrators, in college are dedicated professionals who care about their students and their student’s futures. However, once the kinds of standards that have stabbed dagger-like into the status quo of compulsory public school have been imposed on community colleges, how will we fair? The answer is likely split. Some parts of our colleges, such as our nursing and technology components, are accustomed to performance measures. Both born out of public necessity and applauded by local government and industry for their ability to improve each region, the programs were initially structured in a way that performance measure is part of their infrastructure. While it has strong ties to our colleges’ liberal arts tradition, distance learning, due to its continued scrutiny and foundation in technology, seems more readily accepting of performance measures. Other more traditional parts of our colleges, those that are more focused on a traditional view of the liberal arts college (not necessarily traditional in the community college sense) will undoubtedly have more difficulty adjusting.

Performance measures and our acceptance of them cannot solve a Central Falls kind of problem. The performance measures are only a way to provide the institution with data. The way that the institution interprets the data and the proposed solutions form the locus of problems. Without knowing many more of the details of the Central Falls superintendent’s proposal than I have outlined here, it is difficult for me to say how fair the proposed changes were to the teachers or if the union should have accepted them. Knowing our mandate to provide college opportunities to all, if our colleges’ data showed we had a similar problem, I am not sure that dedicating more faculty time to the problem would help us. I also cannot imagine college deans and presidents taking such extreme measures to achieve what will likely be only marginal increases in overall college achievement. Until we arrive at that place in time it is not clear how we should respond. Unfortunately, the right time to contemplate the issue for community colleges is when the problem does not yet exist. The right time is now.

What Goes into a Hybrid Course

Hybrid courses, which are also called blended courses, present many advantages to both the institution and to the students. In a hybrid course some time on the physical campus is replaced by time in the learning management system. At my institution it usually works out to be a 50-50 arrangement. The institution gains valuable classroom space to deal with a burgeoning student population. Students love the apparent reduced time in a classroom seat.

However, a conversation that I have had many times with my colleagues is that reduced time on the physical campus should not equate to reduced overall learning time. The online portion of the class is not equal to homework. The online portion of the class should include real learning. There should be—and this is not an all-inclusive list—activities, discussions, interactive exercises, group work, etc. Online students should expect multimedia, announcements, and feedback.

For students, real learning is not just reading from the text or from the web, nor is it simply posting an answer to an assignment, nor is it taking an online quiz, exam or other assessment. The online portion of the class should be as dynamic and lively as the on-ground portion. In other words, the online portion of a class should be a class.

If all you need is static, one-way content, if all you need is to post homework, then I would assert that a hybrid course is not what you need. Keep the students in class for the full number of credit hours and supplement those hours with the online support materials you would like.