Ms. Shepard ran through drills on the software called Lotus LearningSpace. She needed the training to take an online course that would lead to the completion of her master's degree in instruction and performance technology at Boise State. The boot camp also provided activities that taught participants skills like how to post an e-mail message and how to insert graphics into documents and class assignments. Since last spring, Boise State has required that all online students complete a boot camp to familiarize them with new software for the university's online-education program. Donald J. Winiecki, an assistant professor of instruction and performance technology at Boise State, created the boot camp with the help of two graduate assistants.
Students usually complete the training in about a week.
Boise State University has done a wonderful job of making it user friendly. Students completing the boot camp also get to chat with each other informally online, so they can get to know each other before the course starts. Mr. Winiecki said that participants in the boot camp learn to rely on one another to solve problems that arise in the course and to form self-help groups. The arrangement also reduces the workload of the university's paid technical-support staff. Since the boot camp was started, Mr. Winiecki said, dropout rates in online courses have fallen from about 40 percent to under 20 percent.