Integrating Technology for active lifelong learning - Seminars

Image: by lepiaf.geo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajawin/2551566739/

This weekend I have been attending some of the presentations at the Integrating Technology for Active Life-long Learning Connecting Online 2010
Feb 5-7.

It is an annual live online conference of interest to educators, administrators, students, and community members who value the importance of integrating technology into the curriculum to improve instruction and learning. The Conference was conducted on the IT4ALL Moodle site and using WiZiQ.

First of all I attended the excellent presentation Sarah Stewart gave about: Working out the difference between online teaching and facilitation. This provoked a lot of thoughtful discussion.

For example an excerpt from a post I made on the Discussion Forum: "You cannot come in and assess at the end of the course as a so-called objective independent marker unless there are strict and standardised criteria. This then means that professional judgement cannot be used. This is not ideal in any situation. Why should a student's understanding and assessment be weighted on one final piece of work? Exams work like this and they do not encourage holistic learning.

The idea of developing a partnership is great but if the teacher steps back and takes time to learn from the students and listens and gets to know them and interacts without always having to be the expert - the same thing can be achieved without separating facilitation/teaching/assessment. What do people think?"

Helen Barrett spoke about: Social networks and interactive portfolios: Blurring the boundaries. (recording to come soon.) The idea of integrating social networking into the eportfolio was presented and is based on Helen's most recent article: Online Personal Learning Environments: Structuring Electronic Portfolios for Lifelong and Life Wide Learning

Also the idea of what motivates us. Dan Pink's book - Drive - covers motivation - autonomy, mastery and purpose. I will be interested to see if values are mentioned as an important part of intrinsic motivation. It is fun to master something you are curious about and have passion about it and this will be more of a driver than anything. More on this topic later...off to track down the book. There was a question about how the big picture purpose of portfolios could motivate. What are the mastery elements in social networking - mastering skills, showcasing achievements, flow of learning, increasing self-awareness and self-understanding. Apparently the key is that all of us want to be part of something bigger than ourselves? So if the portfolio can be seen to have a lifelong purpose it could motivate.

What got me all excited is the concept that "reflection is the heart and soul of a portfolio" - my sentiments exactly. And the comment that most documents start their life in electronic format so my question is why print them off and bind them in a hard copy portfolio?

online interviewing

Image: Interview with Susan Strickler by bdjsb7

I recently joined an online discussion forum (Scope seminars) with Janet Salmon about online interviewing. It is based on her new book - Online Interviews in Real Time.

An interesting concept Janet talked about is visual research where websites, graphics, video can be looked at with the interviewee and interviewer and questions and discussion stimulated during the interview - visual elicitation - images shown by researcher. Another example might be where the participant illustrates their answers with images - document what is going on in community, business etc., depending on area of research. Participant can talk about it and express significance of images, video etc. Visual stimuli and the type of questions used in the interview can range from structured questions with limited answers to conversations with unstructured questions and open-ended answers.

I wonder if the use of visuals helps participants "open up" or does it depend on their learning style? I know if market researchers used it, they would get more useful information. I find the present market research surveys are very limiting because my recall of products is poor. If they approached it to discuss actual quality of the advertisements would be more useful.

Also I could have used a diagram in my doctorate interviews to help participants remember the framework I was asking them about. Another question I had was how to deal with confidentiality if participants sharing images, video etc as part of the interview or research - need to include the strategy in the research design and seek permission from the participants if they are to be used in documentation of the research.

Using video for flexibility

Image: New camera :) woo by chegs on Flickr

Videos and flexible learning
In the face-to-face session today we had a bit of a discussion about creating teaching videos and how this can be included in a Flexible learning Plan. There are some great examples to look at:

• Horticulture videos at: http://wikieducator.org/Horticulture
• Chainsaw maintenance: http://wikieducator.org/Maintain_a_chainsaw
• Cookery blog: http://otagocookeryl4.blogspot.com/

If you wish to create videos for your teaching and learning and include this approach in your flexible learning plan, the emphasis is on what sort of videos you would create and why they will increase flexibility for your students' learning and for your teaching. You also need to build in time to search for material which is already avaialble on the web - Youtube, blip.tv etc - a general Google search for video on your topic of choice will bring up a lot of material I am sure.

Considerations to include in your plan - remember you do not have to create them for this course just make a plan for how to create them and why you have chosen the approach and what you need to do to make it happen.

Also think about how the use of videos in your teaching and learning environment will address:
* access & equity - format of the videos and where they will be stored, who will access them and how etc,
* cultural sensitivity/diversity - learning preferences of your students, universal design etc;
* sustainability - cost of producing - resourcing, time, equipment (departmental capex can be used for development to pay a design student for example who can help with production and editing), your time - also think about the place they will be stored and how easy this is to do, ease of linking to them.

Storage
Should the videos be stored on an open website such as Youtube, Blip.tv or on a passworded site such as Unitube or Moodle where they are not as accessible but more secure. However they may get "locked away causing problems later on when people try and find them to reuse them. They may even end up re-creating them again. Is this sustainable in the long term?

This is just the tip of the iceberg cos there are other options as well such as vodcasting/podcasting - broadcasting video clips to which students can subscribe. They can do this if you put them on a blog or on blip.tv or Youtube by subscribing to your vids. You could also create video clips on your mobile and send them directly to a web site.

The bonus is that if using video and uploading them to blip.tv or Youtube, students could subscribe to your videos and download them directly from there to an ipod or other portable player for viewing in the field. How cool is that!?

Examples
a couple of vids by Leigh Blackall to look at explaining how to do this.

1. Mobile videos-Youtube, web-based editing Kaltura
2. adding videos to WikiEducator using RSS (this is how Horticulture ones are done): http://blip.tv/file/978335/


Have fun and I would love to hear your ideas about using video in teaching. Or if you don't want to go that far, how about audio podcasts? ....that is another story for another day.

Sustainability activity - Where do we stand

anna hughes part of the Sustainability activity - where do we stand

Online session flexible learning examples

The evening online session about examples of flexible learning provided some lively discussion. You might like to watch and listen to the Elluminate recording of the class discussion about some examples of flexible learning. Jennifer and I decided to structure the session around a four-pronged design approach - content, communication, activities and assessment. This concept is illustrated in the diagram. The Australian Flexible framework eLearning planning section in particular Designing e-learning was used to illustrate these concepts as well as our own examples. Under the Gallery of strategies there are four key tasks involved in designing and delivering courses:

• organising the content - presenting or exploring information to engage learners
• preparing learning activities - providing a variety of challenges and interactions for learners
• providing support - building communication to motivate and enrich learning
• arranging assessment - assessing progress and providing evidence of competence.

These are very similar to my four-pronged design approach. Often teachers tend to be content-centric whereas, in my opinion it is more important to focus on the interaction. I provided an example of using a project-based assessment I use in my teaching. There are several parts to the assessment including a project plan for evaluating an eLearning resource or course, conducting the evaluation and analysing the results, and writing the report. The assessment is all directly applicable to the context in which students are working and works well. They learn the principles of evaluation through doing the evaluation project.

The use of web-conferencing using Elluminate was an example in action of how effective synchronous online communication can be when participants are separated by geographical distances. I really liked Jennifer's description about the use of work-based assessments in vet nursing where techniques and skills are videoed when students are doing them in "real vet clinics". Then they are sent to the lecturers for marking.

I also mentioned the use of concept-mapping activities to help students reflect and link their ideas. These can be quite engaging for students who prefer visual means of expressing themselves as opposed to writing blocks of text.

If you want material purely about Flexible Learning rather than eLearning a good place to check out is: Australian Flexible Learning Framework's Flexways site

Learning preferences - Part one

Image: Dance of the hen Diego Cupolo

Thanks so much for coming to the workshop yesterday. I really enjoyed discussing your ideas for getting students “buzzing”.

I have compiled your tips on WikiEducator - 50 ways; feel free to add to the list. You will need to create an account first.

Go to the wikieducator website: http://wikieducator.org
Register an account or proceed to the tutorial on how to do this.

I will add the recording of the session to the web page as soon as I have sorted it. And guess what, the digital camera decided not to take the pic of the whiteboard properly, however, all the items are listed on the web page so apologies to those of you who prefer more visual methods. I think it was really interesting how the majority of you clustered together in the Celebrity Treasure Island Hunt for the prize as people preferring a diagrammatic map, step-by-step instructions and working in a group. The Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire will help you see the relevance of this merging of learning preferences.

Second half of the Learning preference workshop

The second part of the workshop is on Wednesday 17 September, 1205 to 1250 in H311 when we will have more discussion about learning preferences and look more in-depth at the different models for learning styles. I hope you get a chance before then to try out one of the learning styles questionnaires, with which you are not familiar. Some of the questionnaires are listed on the 50 ways website. Remember the VARK is a homegrown version of VAK. Don Clark’s webite - Learning Styles & Preferences – has a good overview of most of the learning styles.

I will continue the discussion around learning preferences on here so it will be good to get your feedback.

Flexible teaching for flexible learning

Image: Addo Elephant Park, South Africa by exfordy
This is my perspective about the type of teacher I am and the things which are important to me as a teacher, and where my experience of flexible teaching and learning is situated. The elephant is me through the looking glass - I will explain this later on.

You might like to watch this short video clip about the type of teacher I believe I am. Slightly traditional and willing to try new things, and preferring regular interaction in class and with students.



I have also prepared a video about two examples - an inflexible teacher and a very flexible teacher. The inflexible teacher - a traditional, lecturer with lots of knowledge who never changed his style of teaching over 30 years - and a very flexible teacher - one who used constructivist learning principles, negotiated learning contracts and assessments.



Here is a link to a conversation I had about 3.5 years ago about flexible learning (FL). I am now going to tackle the other parts of the orientation exercise.

I believe that FL helps me to be a better teacher in many ways. I am constantly challenged to explore new approaches to teaching and learning, use new methods to get information and concepts across to students, and this often means trying out new technologies, and teaching approaches. For example, I have been using a wiki (http://wikieducator.org/Flexible_learning) for the course schedule and resources for three years now. It is a great way for students to interact online and give each other feedback, and for me to keep information up to date in a sustainable way. Most of my students study part-time and have heavy workloads so the structure helps them with their time management. I will post later on about the rest of the questions in the orientation exercise.