As an online instructor, Professor Kathryn Alesandrini has been teaching online courses for years at California State University, Los Angeles and began adding online components to distance telecourses in the mid '90s. "Dr. A." (as students refer to her) has taught thousands credential and masters students in Education and, more recently, teaches an online course introducing the "human side of computers" to students in disciplines across the university. She has had a significant impact on education in three key ways: stimulating students to explore the role and impact of technology in society, creating and leveraging multimedia content, and creating stimulating Webquests.
Students explore the many issues surrounding the impact of technology on modern life in the broader society in online courses that "Dr. A." has designed and taught. Students learn about topics such as virtual identity and online communities, privacy in today's electronic world, online security and safety, the new economy and e-commerce, legal rules and regulations of information use, information literacy and the "digital divide" and more.
"Dr. A." creates and leverages multimedia content, especially video and graphics, to bring online content to life. For example, she used related clips from a previous telecourse she developed (local area broadcast TV with viewer call in) to add human interest to an online course. Audio narration was added to online illustrated lectures. Then students could supplement the online content with a companion CD-ROM containing the video. As more students have broadband access, she plans to bring more multimedia content directly online. Her academic inquiry into visual constructivism and suggestions for practicing online educators can be found among the featured articles at the United States Distance Learning Association site at http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/JAN02_Issue/article03.html.
Finally, Kathryn engages students with online activities and Webquests that stimulate learning and motivation. She is a major proponent of the constructivist approach to learning (see her article entitled "Teachers Bridge to Constructivism" available directly here or by clicking the article title listed at http://www.aea11.k12.ia.us/curriculum/science/constructivist.html. Some of the Webquests for her online course on the human side of computers can be found at http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/kalesan/edit420/webquests/webquests.html.
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D. Jessica Stumpp
