Who among you has thrown caution to the wind and fired up the webcam, all in the name of distance education? That many, hmmm.

The the article titled “Nudity, Pets, Babies, and Other Adventures in Synchronous Online Learning” in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Wired Campus” section should be no surprise to you.

This semester, while laid up with a nagging (lower back) herniated disc issue, I was able to conduct my Advertising class with GoToMeeting from the (relatively uncomfortable) comfort of my den. Many of the “Netiquette” issues detailed in the article presented themselves to me – and the other students – during these sessions and caused some chuckles but more importantly some serious disruptions in the flow of the class.

Dogs barking, children peering curiously into the webcam, walking around the kitchen preparing dinner, poor quality audio or other technical limitations were all to blame for what I would consider a less than optimal synchronous online learning experience. The students did not seem to mind so much but the distractions were real and the challenges we all faced were really unnecessary.

The blame for much of this really lies squarely with my (lack of) efforts to prepare the students for the sessions. In reality, the class was a face-to-face class so there was not a requirement for the students to be wired for video and audio capabilities many did not understand. Their enthusiasm for an opportunity to participate in an online version of the course had them all scrambling to see if they could find the right mix of location, technology and bravery to delve into what is for many of them a brave new world.

My students were adult students expecting the standard one-night-a-week, 3-hour session and I was able to deliver on that for the first half of the term. When my back went out and getting back and forth to campus was an issue, it was great to have a “plan B” to go to, not all of us do.

But in the future, should the need arise for me to take the course online for whatever reason, preparing the students for the technology they will need to have available and providing them guidelines for the proper synchronous Netiquette will pay off when the distractions are only a humorous blog entry of how I did things wrong the first time through.

How about you? How are your students adjusting to any online efforts of yours? Any similar breaches of Netiquette you can share in a PG-13 or less comment?