'915'
Alexander, B. (2006). Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation for Teaching and Learning? EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 41, no. 2 (March/April 2006): 32–44. Available athttp://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm06/erm0621.asp?bhcp=1
Major points:
The web has been highly social since it began (listservs, Usenet groups, discussion software, groupware etc)
Web 2.0 breaks “away from the notion of the Web as book, they are predicated on microcontent. Blogs are about posts, not pages. Wikis are streams of conversation, revision, amendment and truncation.”
“Like social software, microcontent has been around for a while. Banner ads, for example, are often imported by one site from another directory. Collaboratively designed web pages sometimes aggregate content created by different teams over a staggered timeline”
“Openness remains a hallmark of this emergent movement, both ideologically and technologically”
“Openness and microcontent combine into a larger conceptual strand of Web 2.0, one that sees users as playing more of a foundational role in information architecture” (tagging)
“How can social bookmarking play a role in higher education?… First, they act as an “outboard memory”, a location to store links that might be lost to time, scattered across different browser bookmark settings or distributed in e-mails, printouts and Web links.
Second, finding people with related interests can magnify one’s work by learning from others or by leading to new collaborations. Third, the practice of user-created tagging can offer new perspectives on one’s research, as clusters of tags reveal patterns (or absences) not immediately visible by examining one of several URLs.
Fourth, the ability to create multi-authored bookmark pages can be useful for team projects, as each member can upload resources discovered, no matter their location or timing. Tagging can then surface individual perspectives within the collective. Fifth, following a bookmark site gives insights into the owner’s (or owners’) research, which could play well in a classroom setting as an instructor tracks students’ progress. Students, in turn, can learn from their professor’s discoveries. ”
Wikis, blogging and RSS are good. (He says more but you surely know this stuff by now 
The reverse chronological nature of Web 2.0 is particularly good for queries on current events.
Potential issues – copyright, network security when hosted on local networks, stability/longevity of service providers, preservation of useful pieces of microcontent, corporate buy-ups
Some interesting ideas in this one, much more based in what is happening rather than the hype of what might come.
October 17th, 2007
Downes, S. (2005). E-learning 2.0. eLearn Magazine, 17 October. [Online]. Retrieved Friday 15 September 2006 from: http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=29-1
In which the usually slightly curmudgeonly Stephen Downes jumps on the 2.0 bandwagon and rides it for all it’s worth.
“Where we are now
In general, where we are now in the online world is where we were before the beginning of e-learning [1]. Traditional theories of distance learning, of (for example) transactional distance, as described by Michael G. Moore, have been adapted for the online world. Content is organized according to this traditional model and delivered either completely online or in conjunction with more traditional seminars, to cohorts of students, led by an instructor, following a specified curriculum to be completed at a predetermined pace.”
If it’s online, can’t the learners access any and all of the material when and where they want?
“One trend that has captured the attention of numerous pundits is the changing nature of Internet users themselves. Sometimes called “digital natives” and sometimes called “n-gen,” these new users approach work, learning and play in new ways [2].
They absorb information quickly, in images and video as well as text, from multiple sources simultaneously. They operate at “twitch speed,” expecting instant responses and feedback. They prefer random “on-demand” access to media, expect to be in constant communication with their friends (who may be next door or around the world), and they are as likely to create their own media (or download someone else’s) as to purchase a book or a CD [3].”
I.T and media literacy has seen a boom in the creation of media content but statistically, only about 1% of people visiting web 2.0 sites are actually contributing to them.
“The changing demographics of the student population and the more consumer/client-centered culture in today’s society have provided a climate where the use of student-centered learning is thriving” [6]. Learning is characterized not only by greater autonomy for the learner, but also a greater emphasis on active learning, with creation, communication and participation playing key roles, and on changing roles for the teacher, indeed, even a collapse of the distinction between teacher and student altogether [7].
The breaking down of barriers has led to many of the movements and issues we see on today’s Internet. File-sharing, for example, evolves not of a sudden criminality among today’s youth but rather in their pervasive belief that information is something meant to be shared. This belief is manifest in such things as free and open-source software, Creative Commons licenses for content, and open access to scholarly and other works. Sharing content is not considered unethical; indeed, the hoarding of content is viewed as antisocial [9]. And open content is viewed not merely as nice to have but essential for the creation of the sort of learning network described by Siemens [10].”
The technology might have made it easier but I don’t think it’s given birth to the attitude, I remember friends making tapes of albums for me as a youth.
“In short, the structures and organization that characterized life prior to the Internet are breaking down. Where intermediaries, such as public relations staff, journalists or professors, are not needed, they are disregarded. Consumers are talking directly to producers, and more often than not, demanding and getting new standards of accountability and transparency. Often, they inform the productive process itself, and in many cases, replace it altogether. Passive has become active. Disinterested has become engaged. The new Internet user may not vote, but that is only because the vote is irrelevant when you govern yourself. ”
If producers spend all their time among other producers, are they able to see that most people are still consumers?
“What was happening was that major parts of the World Wide Web were acquiring the properties of communications networks, the sorts of networks found to exist (albeit on a much smaller scale) in the physical world. And that the Web itself was being transformed from what was called “the Read Web” to the “Read-Write Web,” in accordance with Tim Berners-Lee’s original vision. Proponents of this new, evolving Web began calling it Web 2.0 and in short order the trend became a movement.”
In broad terms, yes.
“In a nutshell, what was happening was that the Web was shifting from being a medium, in which information was transmitted and consumed, into being a platform, in which content was created, shared, remixed, repurposed, and passed along. And what people were doing with the Web was not merely reading books, listening to the radio or watching TV, but having a conversation, with a vocabulary consisting not just of words but of images, video, multimedia and whatever they could get their hands on. And this became, and looked like, and behaved like, a network.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the world of blogging. In a few short years the blog went from a few idiosyncratic Web sites to something used by millions of people empowered by content creation tools such as Blogger and Wordpress. Even more importantly, these blogs were connected to each other through the mechanism of RSS, a simple XML format that allows bloggers to send their content to a network of readers (called ’subscribers’).
But it wasn’t just blogging. Creating an online community became a snap with tools such as Plone and Drupal. Moreover, using a collaborative writing tool called the wiki Jimmy Wales and a few thousand of his friends created a site called Wikipedia, rendering Encyclopedia Britannica obsolete in the process. Others, using the free audio-recording tool Audacity, began recording their own talk and music; this, when combined with RSS, became podcasting, a rapidly rising phenomena that is transforming what we think about radio.
E-Learning 2.0
In the world of e-learning, the closest thing to a social network is a community of practice, articulated and promoted by people such as Etienne Wenger in the 1990s. According to Wenger, a community of practice is characterized by “a shared domain of interest” where “members interact and learn together” and “develop a shared repertoire of resources.”
For the most part, though, what constituted “community” in online learning were artificial and often contrived “discussions” supported by learning management systems [15]. These communities were typically limited to a given group of learners, such as a university class, had a fixed start and end-point, and while substantially better than nothing, rarely approached Wenger’s theory.”
Other points of interest
- blogs and wikis give a larger audience
- blogging gives more personal insights
- podcasting enhances convenience
- structure comes to resemble more of a conversation
- personal learning environments offer a space to showcase work
- learning comes not from the design of the content but how it is used
- games allow students to take charge of their learning
Overall, some interesting ideas – my feeling is that the technology might allow many things to happen but it is the organisational philosophies and culture that will have to evolve for these things to actually happen.
October 17th, 2007
Gunawardena, C., Lowe, C. & Carabajal, K. (2000). Evaluating online learning: Models and methods. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2000 (pp. 1677-1684). Chesapeake, VA: AACE
This one is about methods for evaluating the success (or otherwise) of online learning activities and forms the basis of our final assignment in Network Based Learning (EDGI915) – where we are meant to examine two of the NBL activities we have undertaken over the last 12 weeks and see if it’s up to scratch.
I suspect that this is going to be trickier than it looks as none of the activities on first glance seem to have been overly successful if you look at them based on how much interaction there was between the students – hopefully this paper will offer some useful suggestions for breaking the activity down (as well as the interactions) and seeing why this might have been.
“Online learning designs are often based on constructivist learner-centred principles which provide more learner control, facilitate the sharing of multiple perspectives and places emphasis on individual learners creating their own meaning.”
“Behavioral objectives with a stated outcome for all learners, is not the goal of many online learning projects.
Evaluation questions:
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How can we describe online participation, interaction patterns and group dynamics?
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Were students satisfied with the experience of participating in the conference? Did they feel that it had been a worthwhile use of their time and one they would be willing to repeat?
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Did participants learn?
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Was knowledge constructed?
An additional issue to consider is that of: How is knowledge constructed in online learning networks through the process of social negotiation?
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How can we describe online participation, interaction patterns and group dynamics?
“Participation analysis techniques examine the capacity of a conference to engage members and reveal comparative patterns of participation among learners from varying backgrounds. An evalutation tool we have employed to address these questions is the model developed by Levin, Kim and Riel (1990) for analysing instructional interactions on electronic message networks. This model has four dimensions of analysis: 1) Participant structures analysis, 2)Intermessage reference analysis, 3)message act analysis and 4) message flow analysis”
These methods didn’t suit their particular context, that being more of a community of practice type scenario. Message act analysis doesn’t consider the content of the messages, which didn’t help either. What did help was “we found ther data such as unsolicited participant reactions online, solicited participant reactions, both instructor and student perspectives on interaction and the analysis of computer transcripts to be more useful in forming a picture of events that occurred in the online community (Gunawardena, 1993)”
2 Were learners satisfied with their online learning experience?
“Hiltz (1990) discussed an approach to determining learner satisfaction by examining the social psychological (characteristics of the users); human relations (characteristics of the groups and organisations within which systems are implemented); and technological determinist (characteristics of the system); factors that impact student satisfaction with and subsequent use of computer conferencing. “
Generally speaking, Gunawardena (et al) found that “social presence alone is a strong predictor of satisfaction in a text-based computer conference”
3. Did participants learn?
Gunawardena et al assessed this by looking at the transcripts of text chat/discussion boards and by directly asking the participants their opinions.
“In order to understand the myriad forms of learning that occurs in a computer conference, we have often asked students to keep weekly journals documenting all aspects of learning. These journals have given us a unique perspective of each individuals learning process. Other techniques we have used are to ask students to critique their online learning experiences and to apply and transfer what they have learned from the computer conference to developing a computer conferencing design”
4. Was knowledge constructed?
“Perhaps the most challenging and the most exciting question one can ask in evaluating online learning is: Was knowledge constructed within the group by means of the exchanges among participants?”
“We developed an outline of the process of negotiation which appears to occur in the co-construction of knowledge. The outline led to the development of the interaction analysis model which has five phases, reflecting the complete process of negotiation which must occur when there are substantial areas of inconsistency or disagreement to be resolved. The phases of learning outlined in this model occur at both the individual and social level and can be described as:
Phase 1: Sharing/Comparing
Phase 2: Dissonance
Phase 3: Negotiation/Co-construction
Phase 4: Testing tentative constructions
Phase 5: Statement/application of newly-constructed knowledge”
Conclusion
“The complex nature of online learning calls for the use of multiple methods and multiple sources of data to understand group as well as individual learning”
“When used in conjunction with quantitative data, qualitative data can overcome some of the shortcomings of using quantitative data alone”
So ultimately, this paper doesn’t say a lot – great.
(At least some of the questions it raises are a little interesting – if not overly helpful)
October 17th, 2007
Bannan-Ritland, B. (2002). Computer-mediated communication, elearning, and interactivity. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 3(2), 161-179.
Perhaps this is a display of my ignorance about academic writing but the fact that it takes Bannan-Ritland 7 pages to explain the method that she used to create this overview of academic writings that relate to interaction (particularly finding a definition for the term) seems pretty counter-productive and makes for some rather turgid reading. (Given that it only took her a couple of paragraphs to explain that there is a fair degree of difference of opinion in the writings about the definition)
Once she gets going though it gets much better and some interesting ideas about the nature of interaction are covered.
“Interaction can be viewed as a function of:
- learners participation or active involvement
- specific patterns and amounts of communication
- instructor activities and feedback
- social exchange or collaboration
- instructional activities and affordances of the technology
She goes on to look at the papers that address each of these possible definitions and look at examples
Interactivity as defined by Active involvement by the learner
“the researchers concluded that students have specific goals for each interaction in an eLearning environment, including getting help or sharing information related to the content of the course, getting help on the technology, submitting homework and participating in discussion to exchange ideas of socializing”
The Gunawardena, Lowe and Anderson (1997) model of knowledge construction “relies on an active view of knowledge construction by the learner that moves through five phases, including:
- sharing/comparing of information
- discovery and exploration of dissonance or inconsistency among ideas, concepts or statements
- negotiation of meaning and/or co-construction of knowledge
- testing and modication of proposed synthesis or co-construction
- phrasing of agreement, statements and applications of newly constructed meaning
Interactivity as defined by Patterns of Communication among learners/instructors
“Identifying the purpose of online messages as organizing, lecturing, humanizing or expressing opinions provided a detailed view of interaction patterns in an eLearning environment”
“Vrasidas and McIsaac (1999) explicitly and broadly defined interactivity as “reciprocal actions of two or more actors within a given context” (p. 25)… In addition, data on teacher and student views of interaction were collected, ultimately determining that multiple factors such as structure of course, class size, feedback and prior experience with CMC influence interaction”
“Synchronous communication was determined to be more interactive, demonstrating a type of discourse mimicking face-to-face interaction. Asynchronous communication was more constrained than synchronous but also more complex”
“Also in a small group context, Ahern and Durrington (1995-6) investigated the effects of anonymity and interaction in a computer-mediated discussion and found that anonymity promotes increased participation by students”
Interactivity defined as Instructor/Learner communication
“Mahesh and McIsaac (1999) operationalized interactivity as the dynamic of instructor-student communication and the actions of the instructor to encourage communication among students. Instructor time spent on these activities also provided an operational definition of interactivity in this study”
“These researchers concluded that eLearning is dependent on the personal and unique style of instructors and their activities in an online course as well as instructional and logistical factors”
Interactivity as Social, Cooperative or Collaborative Exchange
“…messages that asked questions, answered questions, provided support, clarified ideas, built consensus and contained social messages were interactive in nature. Asynchronous bulletin board conferencing provided more task-related messages and were more appropriate for self-reflection, while synchronous chat demonstrated more interactivity… and much less task-oriented communication”
Interactivity as a Range of Instructional Activities and Technologies
“Luetkehans (1999) determined that interactivity is most prominent in contexts where multiple strategies and activities, including instructor feedback, collaborative learning strategies and multiple technology mechanisms encourage student participation”
Bannan-Ritland moves on to examine the specific types of eLearning interactions identified in the literature
- learner-self
- learner-human (learner-learner, learner-instructor)
- learner-non-human
- learner-instruction
“structure, class size, feedback to students and participants prior experience with CMC are prominent variables related to interaction”
“teachers are more concerned about the level of participation and interaction with students in an eLearning course than a traditional one and… students stated that a lack of feedback from both instructors and their peers contributed to feelings of isolation and dissatisfaction with the course”
Bannan-Ritland identifies some gaps in the current research (or at least in the research she investigated)
“This review did not reveal any studies focusing on learner-non-human interactions, nor did the review reveal research that demonstrated the higher-level learner instruction interactions that incorporate a meta-level strategy or deliberate arrangement of events”
Some of the key findings that Bannan-Ritland drew from her review are that:
- high levels of interaction need to be modeled by the instructor for students
- a cooperative goal structure requiring students to interact with other students can promote interaction
- Asynchronous and synchronous forms of communication afford different instructional strategies
- instructor’s teaching style and background impacts course design, structure and level of interactivity implemented
- small groups using asynchronous communication demonstrate task-directed behaviour in problem solving
- instructors should expect to spend more time on an eLearning course than a traditional one
- sychronous discussions are highly interactive and demonstrate more student control
- asynchronous mode offers more complex language than synch and primarily demonstrated student responses to teacher requests
- instructor or subject matter expert needed to draw out new concepts
- pair advanced students as mentors to novices
- promote issue-based introductory questions allowing students to develop own ideas and thoughts.
The summary of all the research papers at the end – broken down by focus, types of interactions and conclusions is the most useful part of this as it is packed with good practical tips.
September 26th, 2007
Brook, C. and Oliver, R. (2003). Online learning communities: Investigating a design framework. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 19(2), 139-160. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet19/brook.html
Begins with a quick overview of some of the benefits of collaboration and community interaction in learning:
- increased motivation
- promoting learning achievement
- enhanced perception of (and satisfaction with) skill development
- nurturing, socialisation & support
“modern societies tending to develop more relational communities… or communities of the mind”
“a learning community is characterised by a willingness of members to share resources, accept and encourage new membership, regular communication, systematic problem solving and a preparedness to share success (Moore & Brooks, 2000)”
“Potentially negative influences include the need for members to conform and the subsequent loss of individuality… and the potential to hoard knowledge and thus restrict innovation… Also noteworthy is the potential for community structures to exert pressure on some individuals to engage in nonconforming rather than conforming behaviours, resulting in dissidents and the formation of sub-communities..”
“Sense of community is based on an attachment relationship and this relationship is not based on the interactions with any one member of the community but instead with any member (Hill, 1996)”
“Sense of community has been defined as ‘a sense that members have a belonging, members matter to one another and to the group and a shared faith that member’s needs will be met through their commitment to be together’(McMillan & Chavis, 1986p.9)
Strategies to support a good online community might include:
- a common symbol system
- establishing a common purpose
- facilitating frequent and easy meetings
- developing a sense of place
- being non-judgemental
“Constructionism is seen as offering an important bridge between cognitive and sociocultural perspectives on cognitive development, by arguing that individual development cycles are enhanced by shared constructive activity in the social environment. Furthermore, social settings are enhanced by the cognitive development of the individual”
“It has been suggested that the social construction of knowledge in the online environment progresses through five sequential phases (Gunawardena, Lowe & Anderson, 1997):
Sharing and comparing of information: statements of opinion and observation and corroborating examples provided by one or more participants characterise phase one
The discovery of exploration of dissonance or inconsistency among ideas, concepts or statements: Phase two identifies and states areas of disagreement, and perhaps escalates conflict through reference to research or experience
The negotiation of meaning: exploration of meaning and the identifying of areas of agreement characterise phase three
Testing and modification of proposed synthesis or co-construction: phase four is characterised by testing the proposed synthesis against ‘received fact’; as shared by the participants and/or their culture
Agreement statements and the application of newly constructed meaning: metacognitive statements by the participants, illustrating their understanding that their new knowledge or ways of thinking have changed, characterise phase five.
People may participate in communities because of the perceived benefits even if their nature is to avoid such interactions – teachers may need to emphasise the benefits in ’selling’ the community
“Factors that may influence community development include policies…, the discipline and education level of the course…, the instructor… and the students. At a process level, influencing factors include the purpose the community serves in the lives of its members.., support for communication…, the nature of meetings… and the gathering place…”
Some ideas, tips and strategies:
“It has been suggested that the role of the instructor is pivotal in the development of online learning communities… The manner in which this role is approached depends on the characteristics and beliefs of the instructor…, including educational philosophies…, perceptions of self as either connected of separate… and perceptions of their role. Other considerations include the instructor’s online experience, the nature of the social environment they develop and the manner in which they manage the learning environment”
“The nature of the cohort, including the number of participants, may also influence community development strategies. In asynchronous environments, groups size is recommended to be no larger than 25, while 10 is suggested for the synchronous environment”
“Groups that are dominated by individuals who perceive themselves as separate are likely to be characterised by competition, while those dominated by connected individuals are likely to be characterised by cooperation”
“Essential in the formation of all communities is the purpose that the community serves in the lives of its members”
“Purpose may reflect the manner in which student participation is encouraged. Suggestions include mandated participation through the allocation of grades…, providing an increase in intellectual resources through guest experts…, presenting a problem or disorienting dilemma… and linking activities to the lived in world… The purpose and context may also be established through encouraging collaborative construction of knowledge…, facilitated through group work or projects… or by the instructor acting as an agent provocateur”
“An essential requirement for community development is regular and meaningful meetings… Communication may be encouraged through grading participation, based on the quantity or quality of communications…, requesting responses…, establishing a sense of positive outcome as a result of belonging… and encouraging members to pay their dues.”
“Setting an appropriate pace and schedule for participation that maintains active engagement, without dominating the learning experience, may provide further support”
“Strategies that promote connectedness include engendering the human elements of community… and establishing user profiles… Additional strategies include welcoming new members, sharing wisdom, resolving problems and sharing success…”
I think that the user profiles part in particular is important – the more you know about someone the more interested you are in what they have to say. Questions might also be framed in such a way that learners are encouraged to relate them directly to their experiences, bringing personal anecdotes to the discussion. An initial face-to-face orientation session is also a useful idea as a way of creating connections – maybe voice or even video chat (even avatar based) could add something. – Maybe a chat session in second life?
“Supporting communication includes assisting students in becoming proficient with the technology…, developing text based communication skills… and instituting a sequencing of activities…”
“Due to the more independent nature of the online learning environment, there is a need to support students in managing their own learning experience including setting goals and prioritising tasks… It is also useful to provide weekly reminders… and clearly state roles and responsibilities…”
“Given the importance of non-verbal factors in communication…, which are to a large extent absent in text based environments…, helping students develop text based communication skills may also support community development…”
The rather glaring alternative to this – or perhaps supplement – is to be less reliant on text for communication – again, audio, video, images and virtual world based communication might help level the playing field a little here. I’d say that half of the fellow students in my class have English as a second language and while you get the gist of what they are saying in text, it may well come across more effectively in other ways.
There’s a bit of other stuff about encouraging respect and trust with codes of conduct – I’d suggest that these be generated by the group and possibly even subject to regular review. It also talks about creating a greater sense of place by using welcoming messages (hmm maybe) and acknowledging individual contributions, making sure that trade in ideas and information is fair (some people will just lurk, it’s the nature of the boards) and avoiding anonymity and “electronic self”s
Quite a few interesting ideas which draw on a lot of research that has come before – I would have liked to have seen a few more specific strategies for encouraging contributions beyond the initial entry point but all in all, this is a useful piece of writing.
September 17th, 2007
Wenger, E. C. and W. M.Snyder (2000). Communities of practice: The organizational frontier. Harvard Business Review 78(1): 139.
An interesting overview of some useful guidelines for setting up and running a successful community of practice. This is heavily business oriented and the communities seem to all be based within one organisation but some of the ideas are still useful – particularly as these are things that can be hard to sell to the finance types who need to pin measurable achievements to money spent.
“What are communities of practice? In brief, they’re groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise and passion for a joint enterprise”
“People in communities of practice share their experiences and knowledge in free-flowing, creative ways that foster new approaches to problems”
“Communities of practice… are informal – they organise themselves, meaning they set their own agendas and establish their own leadership. And membership in a community of practice is self-selected”
There’s a lot of stuff in here about the need for strong organisational support in nurturing a community of practice in a business – ideally there will be a senior executive who is able to step in and provide support when the community identifies problems (such as I.T infrastructure that holds things up) . They also make the point that managers need to use non-traditional means to assess the value of the community of practice – anecdotal evidence from participants about how problems were solved etc. (Good forum for sharing “best practice”). (Apparently they can also help with staff retention)
In essence, this might be a useful paper with a lot of case-study type examples if you were wanting to create a c.o.p in your large enterprise – but there’s virtually nothing about communities that stretch across fields.
September 16th, 2007
In the constructivist philosophy, meaning is derived from the experiences gained while undertaking activities/tasks which are scaffolded by course content. The process of reflecting on these experiences and contextualising them with existing experiences helps to develop knowledge.
Feedback is a vital part of the reflection process as it introduces external ideas and extends the range of experiences and information that the learner is exposed to. It stands to reason then that the broader the range of feedback that a learner receives, the richer their reflection will be. Social web tools offer the possibility of feedback from a global audience.
Oliver (2004) points out that “Students involved in self evaluation are more interested in the criteria and substantive feedback than the grades achieved. The interest is piqued by the need for honesty in the application of the criteria for others (peer assessment) and to their own work as well as being able to defend opinions through evidence over subjective judgements.”
Brown & Voltz (2005) go on to say that “Experience becomes knowledge through reflection, which is enhanced by timely and appropriate criticism”.
On a practical level, “the range of available feedback strategies is vast, including reflective responses to prescribed questions, semi-automated responses by the system to student actions and work, shared comments in online forums and blogs and personal responses via email, telephone and post.”(Brown & Voltz, 2005).
It can be used in such a way that learners complete an initial draft of assessment work, post it publicly as an RFC (request for comment) and then incorporate feedback from the community into an updated final version.
Networked based learning offers opportunities for feedback from beyond the usual teacher and fellow students spectrum. The growth of the social web adds the notion of audience to the pool of sources of feedback – learners can now publish the work that they produce in class to the world and receive unvarnished feedback instantly which expands the range of knowledge being drawn on exponentially.
This notion of audience has been used in the Schools News Project. “The feedback from the community will inform the student teams of the quality of the product, its story telling qualities and its social responsibility in terms of ethical treatment of those whose stories have been included in the news items.” (Lockyer, Brown & Blackall, 2003).
The addition of information from the real world is one of the most exciting things about using the social web in education as it brings greater authenticity to the learning experience which heightens motivation.
It also has a useful side effect of developing greater levels of information, technological, critical and media literacy.
Practitioners (particularly those in the K-12 schools sector) considering making use of the social web will need to be mindful of the fact that it is a relatively uncontrolled environment and conscientious moderation of communication may be required. School and government policies may also determine the level of access learners are given to social web sites.
Lockyer, L., Brown, I. & Blackall, D. (2003). A learning design to support multi-literacy development in K-12 contexts. In A. Rossett (Ed.). Proceedings of E-Learn 2003 World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare and Higher Education. (pp.1703-06) Norfolk, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education.
Brown A.R., & Voltz B.D. (2005) Elements of Effective e-Learning Design, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/217/300
Oliver, R. (2004). Moving beyond instructional comfort zones with online courses.. In R.Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference (pp. 713-723). Perth, 5-8 December. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/oliver-r.html
August 19th, 2007
Information and communication technology (ICT) has made possible a radical reshaping of education design in the last few decades. Teaching and learning delivered online has become more flexible, more accessible, more interactive, more collaborative and more engaging. “A feature of online instruction over paper-based distance learning approaches is the ability to employ multiple media types to present ideas and concepts.” (Brown and Voltz, 2005)
While teachers and instructional/educational designers should avoid focusing on specific forms of technology while designing network based learning (Grubbs, 2006), it’s important to have (or have access to) knowledge about alternate options in case hardware or software fails or is inadequate. Grubbs (2006) suggests that to “ensure the greatest success, instructors may benefit by partnering with other faculty or staff with expertise in incorporating technology in the most effective ways possibly.”
Problems with ICT can prevent learners from accessing course content and resources, submitting assessment items or communicating and collaborating with fellow students and teachers. They could come in the form of hardware or software failures (e.g. the learning management system, streaming media server, learning objects), low bandwidth which makes accessing large data files (such as videos) impractical or even the design of the ICT systems being used themselves.
Oliver (2004) makes the point that “the courseware management systems that are currently being implemented (eg. WebCT and Blackboard) have been designed very much to support content oriented approaches” (p. 4) Admittedly this isn’t quite the same as the class email system going down however it still presents its own set of challenges to a teacher trying to develop a course which focuses on “performance and capabilities as intended learning outcomes” (p. 1)
In my work with the Flexible Learning Solutions team at CIT, part of my role is to support teachers and learners using our learning management system (WebCT) as well as the streaming media server and we also try to provide support with external social web tools such as blogs and wikis. The negative impact on learner motivation when ICT learning tools don’t work for them, particularly when they aren’t very technologically confident, can reach the point where the learner is prepared to give up entirely.
Many of these situations are unavoidable however there are more often than not easy work-arounds to problems when they occur as well as alternate strategies that can be put into place in advance to minimise disruption to learning activities.
- “A CD-ROM was prepared especially for students with a limited bandwidth Internet connection” (Grubbs 2006)
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Provide alternate contact details (e.g. Email or IM) for teachers and learners
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Use a Web 2.0 service such as YouTube or TeacherTube for video – being Flash-based it is more likely to be supported by learners individual computer set ups at home
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Many institutions have some kind of unit supporting educational technology.
Grubbs, J. Integrating Methods to Achieve an Effective Online Learning Environment. Illinois ONline Network Research Case Studies. Retrieved 10 July 2006 from http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/resources/casestudies/vol2num1/grubbs/index.asp
Brown A.R., & Voltz B.D. (2005) Elements of Effective e-Learning Design, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/217/300
Oliver, R. (2004). Moving beyond instructional comfort zones with online courses.. In R.Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference (pp. 713-723). Perth, 5-8 December. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/oliver-r.html
August 19th, 2007
Using authentic activities that reflect the situations and cultures in which learners will use new knowledge and skills makes course content more enjoyable, more relevant to them and easier to recall. In scenario based learning, learners are placed into a fictional setting where they take on roles that relate to the material being covered.
According to Brown and Voltz, “an interesting scenario will make extensive use of humour, imagination, reward, anticipation, or drama to enhance the activity. It will have topics and themes likely to be relevant and interesting to the target audience. It will make the learning activity seem like an obvious or necessary thing to undertake, given the situation presented by the scenario. “ (2005)
Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989) strongly emphasise the idea that concepts exist in a particular context which helps to shape the concept into useful knowledge. Presenting this information in a form related to its use in the real world, ideally in a form which requires the learner to act as though they are also in that context (i.e. As a historian or an educational designer), adds important layers of additional cultural meaning to the information being shared.
This is a useful strategy for me as an instructional designer as I recently worked on a project with a teacher which focused on a competency called Practice within legal and ethical parameters. This teaches nurses about legal and ethical issues within nursing practice, the law and their responsibilities. In the past, it had been taught essentially as a list of laws and policies that nurses needed to be aware of.
We created a detailed case study simulation in which nurses make decisions based on developments in a particular patient’s case, consultation with colleagues and other available information.
As the nurse progresses through the story, ethical and legal complications arise with the patient which highlight key areas of content.
This added hospital and nursing culture issues to the learning and allowed nurses to connect more personally with the course content, which to that point was considered fairly dry and boring. My approach was to use online multimedia resources to better visually represent the scenario context – something that Agostinho, Meek and Herrington (2005) didn’t emphasise, believing that “cognitive realism to the real-life task was of more significance”. (p. 231)
I have an interest in the use of games in learning, which is why this area interests me specifically and I’m currently in the process of creating an immersive 3D environment which is based around our umbrella dept at work, the Education Development Centre. A scenario based approach to this “game” seems like an effective way of structuring user interaction with it.
One factor to consider from the Agostinho et al (2005) research is that “use of scenario should be more flexible, to allow students with appropriate real-life contexts to substitute their own evaluation needs while still fulfilling the requirements of the course. (p. 241)
Brown, J., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, Jan/Feb, 32-42.
Agostinho, S., Meek, J., & Herrington, J. (2005). Design methodology for the implementation and evaluation of a scenario-based online learning environment, Journal of Interactive Learning Research. 16(3), 229-242.
Brown A.R., & Voltz B.D. (2005) Elements of Effective e-Learning Design, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/217/300
August 19th, 2007
The discussion board is a highly useful tool in network based learning, offering learners (and teachers) a space to collaborate and share information and opinions about course content and class work. As an asynchronous form of computer mediated communication, it provides flexibility, accessibility and a level playing field for learners who might not normally feel comfortable speaking up in a face-to-face class.
It’s important to recognise however, that an effective discussion board – one with regular, meaningful posts from a majority of the class – doesn’t run itself and it is the responsibility of a moderator (generally the teacher) to “initiate and sustain the interaction in a networked learning community”(Levin, 1999).
This is done initially through orientation and socialisation (Salmon, 2004) and by providing clear objectives and guidelines (Graham, Cagiltay, Lim, Craner & Duffy, 2001) for the use of the board.
Graham et al (2001) offer a number of practical suggestions for this:
- “Discussions should be focused on a task”
- “Learners should receive feedback on their discussions”
- “Instructors should post expectations for discussions”
- “Instructors can still give prompt feedback on discussion assignments by responding to the class as a whole instead of to each student”
This might involve contacting the learners individually at the start of the course to ensure they are able to access the discussion board, running a face-to-face orientation session to the technology, encouraging them to make a brief post about themselves (and comment on others) and offering clear information about the role discussion plays in subject assessment.
It could also involve driving discussion by posting relevant topics or “sparks” (Salmon, 2004) and responding to queries in a timely manner.
In my role as an educational multimedia designer, I regularly work with teachers at CIT (Canberra Institute of Technology) who don’t understand why their students aren’t making use of the discussion boards in their WebCT courses. Frequently it’s because the learners have been told that the board is there and have then been left to their own devices with it. Other times teachers regularly post discussion questions but don’t always follow up with feedback.
I must admit that the first time I had my multimedia students use individual blogs for their work/process journal with the aim of stimulating critical reflection, half of them thought they had to set up a new blog account each week and I’d offered no real guidelines on post length, specific content or frequency – so I am aware that it’s an area that requires a certain amount of thought as a designer.
Gilly Salmon’s 2004 book “e moderating – the guide to teaching and learning online” is a great resource for teachers looking for practical guidelines. She offers a 5 stage scaffolded model which moves from Access and Motivation to Online Socialisation to Information Exchange to Knowledge Construction and finally to Development, where learners largely drive discussion on their own.
Levin, J. (1999). Understanding the Lifecycles of Network-based Learning Communities. Paper presented at Symposium 6.29 “Indicators of Change in Computer-Based Community Building” Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association,Montreal, April 1999 . Retrieved 10 July 2006 from http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/j-levin/Levin-Cervantes.final.html
Salmon, G (2004) emoderating – the key to teaching and learning online (2nd ed.) London, UK. Taylor and Francis books ltd.
Graham, C., Cagiltay, K., Lim, B-R., Craner, J., & Duffy, T. M. (2001). Seven principles of effective teaching: A practical lens for evaluating online courses. The Technology Source Archives at the University of North Carolina
August 19th, 2007
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