In October of 1998, the New Brunswick Community College - Saint John launched the first of its Internet delivered GED Preparation courses. As the course developer and instructor, I had high hopes. With over 700,000 people writing the GED tests every year, I waited for the deluge of applicants to come.

GED Preparation 1, based on the Province of New Brunswick curriculum standard, is a short course that does not give any direct instruction in reading skills, writing skills, or math. Rather, it gives students an orientation to the GED tests and the chance to evaluate their skills. I believe that for many adults wishing to attain high school equivalency certification, the tests are surrounded by an aura of mystery that inspires nervousness and no small degree of fear. How close am I to being ready to write? What do I need to know and what should I study? The first step, then, is to determine where students are starting from and then to help them customize further training to meet their individual needs.

Although the course is delivered entirely over the world wide web, it still offers students a variety of learning opportunities based on our college’s Compressed Delivery model. In addition to two web based lessons, the course contains a downloadable study guide and handouts; online mini-tests to help students become reacquainted with multiple choice test items; electronic communication using synchronous and asynchronous conferencing and email; a streaming video or chat based tutorial session; and a 1-800 support line.

At first, registrations were sporadic. Some suggested to me that perhaps most potential GED clients were not online. If that was true in 1998, it is certainly not true now. GED learners are becoming increasingly connected and computer literate. In addition to GED courses, our college offers a free GED resources site (http://cite.telecampus.com/GED) which now averages over 60,000 hits from approximately 3,000 visitors a month. In the main, these visitors are looking for information, and I get a dozen or so email messages a day with questions about the GED. Course registrations, while still low, are becoming more regular and are growing slowly. I believe that numbers will continue to increase as more and more learners go online.

We continue to develop additional GED courses. Our second course, GED Preparation 2: Writing Skills is now up and running, and we expect to have a third course, GED Preparation 2: Basic Math, available this year. Our idea is to divide the training into a number of smaller courses so that, on completion of GED Preparation 1, students can customize their training by taking only the courses they need. In addition, the courses allow students to further customize their learning experience. Each lesson begins with a self-test to enable students to evaluate their skills in that particular topic. Students can return to the test at any time during the lesson and try it again. On scoring 70%, students can skip the rest of the lesson and go on to the next one. This process enables students to spend less time on areas that may just need a “brush up” and more on topics that need work.

Online GED learners do face a number of obstacles. Even in face to face classes, retention in GED classes is low. This is also true in online training, which requires students to be largely self-directed and self-motivated. One key factor in success is interaction. Some students are reluctant to ask questions or to interact with the instructor either by email or by telephone. Without ongoing contact with the instructor, these students often become discouraged or allow other concerns to interfere and do not finish the training. We try to overcome this reluctance by regularly emailing or telephoning students to ask about their progress.

Like any GED instructor, I sometimes get frustrated, but the successes make it all worthwhile. Recently, I received a note from a proud father in the US, announcing his son’s successful writing of the GED. From another student on the Canadian prairies, I received an email that said, “Well I got the results of my GED back. I got an A in four out of the five subjects and missed getting an A in the fifth subject by only one point. I had been thinking of taking the GED for several years but I always kept putting it off. I guess the little push from you was what I needed to actually go and do it.”

Why do we do it, and why online? Online training is designed to increase access to GED Preparation instruction for those who might otherwise be unable to obtain it. This is particularly true for those in rural communities, but also for shift workers, parents of young children, or others who for one reason or another cannot attend a traditional classroom. As to why – although we must operate these online courses on a cost recovery basis, we are involved in GED training for the same reason as anyone else. For more information on our online GED Preparation courses, visit http://cite.telecampus.com/GED

* Chris Smith has been an adult education instructor in English Second Language, Literacy, and Academic Upgrading with the New Brunswick Community College - Saint John for more than ten years. Since 1995, he has been a project manager, developer, and instructor in distance education, including video and web-based training. He was a co-recipient of a provincial Excellence in Education Award for his participation in the development of the delivery model and programme evaluation in the college’s Distance Education Nursing Assistant programme. He is a founding member of the college’s Consortium for Information Technology in Education. He recently participated in a research study on the impact of learning technologies on women in rural NB.