Utah State's Higher Education Technologies Initiative funded a 3-university project to test the possibilities of teaching freshman and sophomore English over the Internet. Christine Hult acted as PI, and we provided the technical support.

Strengths

Students who can take these courses may take them when, where, and how they want. Reduces demand on "bricks and mortar." Turned out to be much less expensive than traditional courses.

Problems

A statistically higher number of students are unable to survive a course, and grades tend to be somewhat lower.

Conclusions

This is an effective teaching environment for many students. Students with disabilities often do even better than other students. Often hearing and visual disabilities become reduced or disappear altogether in an online course.

This is also an effective teaching environment for students who have limited ability to actually attend a physical school.

Publications

The article (co-written with Christine Hult), "Virtual English at USU: a Five Year Journey." was published in Computers and Composition Online, Spring 2000

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