What happens if you allow complete access for anyone to your course, as well as teaching f2f?

Institution; brigham young university

Course; introduction to open learning

Numbers of students; 6 f2f registered students - 38 online non-registered students

Idea; what happens if I allow online students to freely join sessions and take nominal assessments one a f2f course. All the lectures where recorded, online materials were made available, some encouragement for the 2 sides to communicate in online mode was made. Lecture made very minimal direc contact with online students, but did give feedback on work. what is the minimal input [30 mins a week] needed to engage non-registered students. Impact; there was very little interaction between the two modes, very few online students continued through the course. But this is a very interesting idea and more careful design of the connection between the modes may help support online students. However, I feel this is very subject specific and would not fit in all areas.

Reference Hilton et al (2010) using online technologies to extend a classroom to learners at a distance, distance education, vol 3, no 1, 77-92

Notes;
Downes free course [siemens 2008]. 2800 students took a free onloine course.

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