Now in his final semester of the program, Saunders is fulfilling his final two requirements: student teaching and foreign language study. Since January, he has spent his days teaching in the classroom and his evenings and weekends studying Spanish.

When choosing a Spanish course, Saunders was not looking forward to having to travel to a community college to take a night class nor was he interested in taking time away from his student teaching. Thus, he was delighted to learn that the UC Davis Extension program was offering a completely online language course called Spanish without Walls.

"I really like not having to travel to a campus, especially after working all day," says Saunders. "Also, it's kind of nice to do my work on the computer and not have to interact with anybody; however, that's also the drawback -- not having someone there who can instruct you right away if you said something wrong. I'm lucky because my wife speaks Spanish so she can help me out."

The course is based on tasks that are completed via a variety of computer technologies, including interactive CD-ROMs, a database-driven website, and an audio discussion board called Wimba. Quizzes and tests are "handed in" by email.

Steve Saunders, a student in "Spanish without Walls" (Source: S. Saunders)

Although Saunders communicates regularly with his instructor, Robert Blake, and collaborates with his classmates on projects, he has never met any of them in person. All communication in the course is conducted through email and online discussion boards.

"I have a lot of interaction with Dr. Blake because I have a lot of questions," says Saunders. "He gives you feedback on your quizzes and exams and he'll respond to questions left on the online bulletin boards. There's a lot of back and forth so you have to check the message boards every day or else you'll quickly fall behind."

Mostly the course has been a positive experience, says Saunders, although he did encounter compatibility issues between the course CD-ROMs and his computer when he first enrolled. He was initially concerned that the course might add too much work to his already busy schedule, but found it was manageable because of the built-in flexibility of the course.

"It's nice that you can set your own schedule," says Saunders. "We're supposed to do a minimum of an hour of work a day but some days I'm too tired. So I usually do a lot of work on the weekends, even doing some work ahead so that I won't have to work more than one or two nights during the week."

Saunders says that he will probably take more online courses in the future, especially since many California teacher certification courses are now being offered online. (For a list of courses, visit OnlineLearning.net ).