Bronwynh on Education

Starting 2012 with a thought freedom of expression on the Internet

2012-02-01T10:28:00.000+13:00

Is this a new year's resolution or just a considered way forward for 2012. I lost my way with blogging last year what with the Doctorate and one thing and another. So I have decided to post a blog about something at least once per week or whenever a item of interest - even if vaguely connected to education - comes up. So here is my response to the discussion facilitated by Hazel Owen about Wikipedia blacked out protest. She has lit my blogging fire so to speak after I discovered her blog at Ascilite 2011.

I have also signed the petition for a free and open Internet , and reject the ratification of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which would destroy it. This is open to anyone to sign via Avaaz.org

My response re an open Internet and freedom of expression
The idea of removing information because it is offensive for whatever reason is a tricky one. Well we already do it in society all the time - offensive human beings are removed to prison. This happens when the authorities get involved. When people act without involving the authorities people who offend also get removed, in one way or another. Vigilante behaviour is not favoured when it is against the law. Freedom of expression is important but offensive material and bullying behaviour via the Internet is not. I also don't agree with one group controlling the masses.

To be effective people can learn to be assertive, ethical and responsible - and also may need to 'harden up' if others don't agree with them or challenge them. I believe that we learn appropriate behaviour best from our peers and by observing others. I believe that the Wikipedia model has shown us the power of networks in keeping things open and 'safe', and has done a great job in showing us how to 'share our toys' without throwing them out of the cot when things get sticky. Copyright does nothing in reality, but line the pockets of those who are probably already rich (in majority world terms) or have the money to sue - in contrast copyleft opens up a whole world of possibilities for anyone....if everyone plays fair and gives attribution where it is due. The question is how can we make enough money to live if we share our creativity freely with the world - or does this actually more likely our creative works will be seen, and we will make money anyway?

This is certainly a concern for educational institutions. Surprisingly enough sharing content and ideas can actually attract money. If an organisation is open and willing tio share, more people are given the opportunity to hear about what they offer. This can lead to more enrolments and opportunities for research and collaborative projects. My teaching materials are open on WikiEducator because it is important for me to model this to other teaching staff. Occasionally, someone comes along and contributes and adds to my work, and for me this adds richness to my work. I would love people to contribute to the Flexible Learning Guidebook, and this year I am going to use a student-generated model with the staff who take my course - this will be an interesting year.

Ascilite 2011 - what a buzz!

2011-12-07T22:26:00.000+13:00

Hobart harbour from Wrest Point

Hobart is the venue for this year's Ascilite conference and I love it - probably because it is so like Dunedin. It even has a hill with a pregnant woman shape just like at home, and the plants are very similar. The conference has had some really interesting topics. People really are doing some amazing innovations and research. I was particularly impressed with Gilly Salmon's keynote and the plenary sessions on the first day. It was hard to move from there as everything was so interesting. More about that later. Gilly told us about the Media Zoo, (she developed this while at the University of Leicester) to promote PD for learning design using a metaphor - different animals represent different types of professional development projects. She also invited people to contribute examples of good practice in onine facilitation for her new e-tivities book coming out soon.

Following my presentation I got talking to Belinda Allen and Kathryn Coleman about ePortfolios and their ideas of creativity that they mentioned in their talk. Kathryn told me about the Assessment toolkit they had developed at the University of New South Wales. It looks good. I was fairly pleased with my presentation - Is reflective writing an enigma? (Also in the title - Can preparing evidence for an electronic portfolio develop skills for reflective practice?) As soon as I get home I will record some audio to accompany it - otherwise it doesn't mean much. I was asked lots of questions after the session and during fodder breaks. The Reflective Framework provoked lots of discussion which was excellent. I will post more later once I get to some decent broadband - balancing the laptop on my knee at my motel door to get connectivity means the post is going to be short.Check out the wonderful art created by Gilly's partner (I presume) who also does this kind of artwork for her presentations. He drew this as she talked about the different areas of scaffolding. Building the scaffold in action.

Building a scaffold for future learning by Gilly Salmon

using mobile learning to stimulate critical thinking

2011-04-17T12:01:00.000+12:00

The mobile Phone 1974 by catmachine

I am a little behind the eight ball with my responses to the discussions, so you are forgiven if this topic is well forgotten. I was intrigued to read about the M4Lit project where phones are being used to engage teens in creative storytelling and interactive writing. Sabine has responded on the group email with a great post discussing the merits of reading and writing for stimulating critical thinking. " ... reading and writing is the most important, and most efficient way to develop critical thinking". Here I am using material from my Doctorate thesis (in progress) to support this claim. For example, Menary (2007) claims “writing is thinking” (p. 361) because writing helps to re-structure and manipulate a person's thoughts.

However, there is also the belief that guided thinking needs to occur before writing reflectively and critically, using dialogue for stimulating critical thinking. In any case, I believe it is important to develop critical thinking skills, but these may or may not be associated with the capacity to write reflectively and critically. If a tool such as a mobile phone can capture the interest of students to engage in activities which stimulate critical thinking this is a good thing. I don't believe we should despair if reading and writing is not a component, because critical thinking can also occur when viewing multimedia, and engaging in conversations - if the right prompts are in place. There is plenty of evidence that guided reflection can stimulate critical reflection (Fook & Gardner, 2007; Reiman, 1999). In my opinion, we need to move away from reading and writing as the only way to see evidence of critical thinking, and embrace other exciting methods of stimulating evidence of critical thinking.

It may well include writing, but for example, if students uploaded images to Flickr, or Youtube or their blog or ePortfolio etc, and using quiding questions were encouraged to reflect critically on the meaning of the images or video sequence, they could write or speak (through using an audio recording) or video to describe the meaning of the image or video, or other material, wouldn't this be more fun than preparing the traditional essay? All this could be done directly from their mobile phone.

Fook, J., & Gardner, F. (2007). Practising critical reflection. A resource handbook. New York: Open University Press.

Menary, R. (2007). Writing as thinking. Language Sciences, 29, 621–632.

Reiman, A. (1999). The evolution of the social role taking and guided reflection framework in teacher education: Recent theory and quantitative synthesis of research. Teaching and Teacher Education 15 (1999) 15, 597-612.

Sharing how I use my mobile device for learning

2011-04-07T10:26:00.026+12:00

My response to week 1 questions in MobileMOOC

1. Share how you use your mobile device now, is there any learning you do at this point?

I take pics of whiteboard work in class - like the one above - and video on my mobile phone - a Nokia, and this week started sending directly to Flickr and Youtube, and also to my blog. It is so easy, and saves all that downloading and uploading. I have added my blog, youtube and Flickr emails addresses to my contacts so it is now quick to do. I am not sure what the cost will be yet but work pays for it.

I wonder how students feel about the extra costs if asked to use their mobile phones for this sort of thing?

2. Pick one of the following mLearning tools: qr-codes, pictures taken via mobile device, movies via mobile device, ... and show us how you would use it for learning via either a descriptive picture, movie taken with a mobile device.

I have uploaded pics taken of the whiteboard in the classroom to Flickr - as shown above, and also to my blog - as you can see here. I have also taken a short video on my nokia cellphone and sent it to You tube. I don't fully understand QR codes and will give it a go. Starting with QR planet and Kaywa.

learning to send images to blogger from my mobile

2011-04-03T09:31:00.005+12:00

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I just joined the mobimooc google group to undertake an open course about mobile learning. These are the two photos I sent via email on my phone - my provider does not support SMS posting. I am going to try connecting my posts on my blog with the Google group - that should be interesting - to save me having to post in two places.

Now I have finally set up my cell phone contacts with email addresses for blogger, flickr and youtube so I can send photos directly to these accounts. Next I will connect with twitter and facebook so I am truly mobile. Although it took me a bit of time getting set up, it is going to save me so much time in the long phone. I now have my eye on an iphone4, but realistically I should use the Nokia which has basic features which most students have, and will allow me to work to the commonest denominator.

Really what is the point in having fancy features on my cell phone, while I am learning what is possible, if my students don't have the same capacity on theirs?

Online tools

2011-03-13T16:32:00.001+13:00

Online learning

I have been preparing a presentation about some of the tools used at Otago Polytechnic for online learning. While searching the Moodle and WikiEducator courses it became apparent that a number of different approaches and tools are being used. Simply using standardised platforms does not provide any sort of consistency. Many teachers are using their creativity and selecting a wide range of tools to add variety to the interactions. In some cases, the portability of materials is not always considered, and many teachers are forgetting to use formats (such as pdf or slideshare for presentations instead of powerpoint) which students can easily access. It would also be beneficial if more courses on Moodle were open as this would show potential students what they are going to learn. Open Education Practices: A User Guide for Organisations addresses most of the issues.

For example on most Moodle courses there are a number of documents in Microsoft Word or Powerpoint formats, and this could be problematic for students who do not have this software. It is quick and easy to use something like Rich text or pdf format instead of Word, and iSpring to convert powerpoints to shock wave files or even to upload them to slideshare or bliptv. Conversion of video is also important and mp4 is the ideal format for Moodle.

My online presence

2010-08-25T16:09:00.002+12:00

Bron's online presence

Currently I am engaged in two ePortfolio initiatives. One is the Professional Electronic Portfolio course - where as part of this I have to examine what makes up my online presence, and the other is an ePortfolio community of practice ( EpCoP) where participants are currently sharing stories about their online presence. The EpCoP has been set up to explore ePortfolios and their uses and to develop an ePortfolio community of practice. For both these communities, I have thrown together all the web-based sites I access regularly to illustrate how I spend my time online, and the mix of tools I use to create an online presence. Hence the Wordle image.

All the teaching I am engaged in these days also requires me to have an online presence. I develop and use open educational resources, and I use a range of strategies for interacting with the class and facilitating their learning experience. By having an ePortfolio - this blog and a wiki user page - it is very easy to keep my profile and my achievements handy, and to update and contextualize them. Unfortunately, I don't spend enough time on the updating side of things, nor have I been that effective at keeping all the projects I have been involved in linked into my portfolio. I see the wiki as a more static porfolio resource, containing documentation of my achievements and also supporting evidence, whereas the blog is used as a way to convey my professional philosophy - attitudes, beliefs, and values - and evidence of critical reflection on my work.

So far I have not been very good at gathering all the evidence together in a common storage locker, e.g., Mahara or Pebble Pad. This is because I prefer to use a variety of web-based tools, so I tend to have stuff all over the place. What I do need to do is feed all my material from the social networking sites I use into one spot, and I can easily do this on my WikiEducator user page.

My online presence is all over the place - on a recent search on Google I found wads of material I had forgotten about. The impervious finger in many pies syndrome. So the octopus which is my PLE needs restraining somehow. Therefore, my goal for an ePortfolio is to create a more organised online presence, one in which I can find myself easily.

Field trip - stone walls and landscape construction

2010-06-03T17:58:00.002+12:00

Flickr Image: the chicken is eyeing the cement trowl by bronwynannh

Today I got out from under the fluorescent lights, and went on a field trip to see what Alan Ferguson and his landscape construction students were building. I followed Alan’s instructions to their secret location in Leith Valley, and knew I was in the right spot when I saw the team of 13 students busily working outside. The first sign that landscaping was in progress were the two stone pillars at the entrance to the property. They look magnificent and have a very stylish wrought iron gate attached. As part of the current project, students were building stone walls in the front yard of a very attractive villa. These are part of a small terraced garden.

It was interesting to watch Alan moving between the different students to help them in their different tasks. His teaching was like watching a conductor leading an orchestra – instead this time the stones were the music. Everyone had a different role in the team. Some students were carefully fitting parts of the stone jigsaw together, and others were cementing stones in place. Some students were wheeling barrows full of concrete for sealing the wall, or gravel for the walled garden, while others were conferring about the look of the wall and noting the irregularities. Everyone was a cog in the wheel. They were either working with someone else to decide on the best way to place a rock, or smooth the cement, or they were bringing materials for others to use. Some were practicing their skills in communication.

This was group work in action in an authentic situation. The practical construction work is underpinned by theory about the materials, and the principles of constructing a stone wall. The walls I saw were built from irregularly-shaped rocks, which were not easy to place, and some of those rocks looked pretty heavy. There was also chipping and shaping required as very few rocks fit neatly into the right spot in a wall. I am not sure of the correct terms for this process. And to add to the real live experience, while they worked on the walls, a few chickens wandered around to check things out. At one stage, a “wild” rabbit hopped past, pursued by one of the student’s children. That’s what I call flexible – working in a real location, amongst the livestock, and with a child in tow. Luckily the sun was shining though it got brisk when it disappeared behind the hill. If Alan hadn’t supported this flexibility, the student would have missed a day in class, and some pretty valuable hands on learning.

The construction of the stone walls and structures at the location in Leith Valley has been a three year project. Different groups of students have had the opportunity to work for a real client. Each group has constructed an aspect of the wall for the landscaped garden. Ideally, Alan would like to be able to teach the students to build stone structures like this on-site at the polytechnic, to take some of the pressure off having to have the walls “perfect” for a client.

As he said “That way they can make mistakes and it doesn’t matter, … they learn best by making mistakes”. Perhaps there is a compromise – some building on-site (which they already do when its wet) and some “real location” work – though the timeframes are tight as there are lots of things to learn for the Landscape Construction certificate.

The programme is one year long, and since it was changed to a unique programme and is not embedded in Horticulture, it is attracting students who are mainly interested in landscape construction. Apparently, this has helped with motivation levels as they are learning topics relevant to their path of study. I got a chance to talk to some of the students when they were having a breather and watching Alan sprinkling part of the wall and path to help the sand settle. A couple of students said they were looking forward to getting jobs so they could use their landscape construction skills. One student was intending to return to the landscaping firm for whom he had previously worked. The key to the skills they students were learning, according to Alan, was being able to practice the skills. What they were learning was just the start and required lots of practise.

I wonder if Alan would consider getting the students to build virtual stone walls to practice what they were learning in theory, before they went out on site to work? Not quite the same though is it? It really is about getting your hands dirty and wet, and braving the real outdoors, and learning from mistakes. Great work Alan, I really enjoyed “going on location”.

You can view the full set of photos in the set: Landscape construction Otago Polytechnic.

Five tips for sustainable learning and teaching

2010-04-26T10:46:00.005+12:00

Image: Walshy and the local evening paper by Supernan

I am motivated to post my five tips for sustainable practice so the participants in the Flexible Learning course can understand my perspective in this area. For me, sustainable learning and teaching is not so much about saving paper or turning off the photocopier (though these things are important), it runs deeper. So I will attempt to list my five tips about learning resources.

Share ideas and resources with colleagues - this means I can learn from others and also pass on my knowledge and materials to the learning community to save others time and money;
Use open educational resources (OER) wherever possible - provides access to shareable materials, reduces production/development time and enriches the variety of learning resources;
License my work using Creative Commons by attribution on all the materials I produce - contributes to global resource bank and promotes sharing and collaboration;
Store learning materials on open web-based platforms - improves access as learners can use the materials both during the course of study and also when they are in practice after their study is completed. It adds also to the bank of OER resources and invites critique on my work;
Create learning materials using open and collaborative platforms and software such as WikiEducator - makes it easier to update material, reduces my workload as I do not have to re-develop materials when platforms change (e.g. Blackboard to Moodle LMS), invites collaborative learning and teaching and provides materials in an open environment.

There are lots more, e.g., associated with teaching practice and course design but for now I am sticking with the learning resource side of things. What are others' tips?

Integrating Technology for active lifelong learning - Seminars

2010-02-07T12:07:00.005+13:00

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

2010-01-26T10:15:00.009+13:00

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

2009-10-28T17:25:00.005+13:00

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

2009-09-21T11:27:00.003+12:00

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

Online session flexible learning examples

2009-09-16T15:28:00.005+12:00

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

2009-08-06T10:52:00.002+12:00

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

2009-07-24T11:17:00.004+12:00

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.

Flexible learning and the expression - You can bring a horse to a float but you can't make it go in or stay inside

2009-05-15T09:05:00.005+12:00

Image: Enzo
The online class session which Sarah and Helen requested was really good. There were six of us including one of the alumni from the very first course, Tony. A couple of people did not have mics and they also managed to contribute a lot. It was great to hear about the video -ipod approach of Tony's team and how their work with video is expanding into automotive engineering and sports with their help. Their programme website with lots of neat recipes and videos is at: http://otagocookeryl4.blogspot.com/ And there is a degree in cookery on the way.

I found the session stimulated me to speak about my past learning experiences. For example, the Diploma of Teaching in which the learning was all done through self-directed and mentored assignments. Half the 120 credits were allowed to be attributed to RPL. The oral presentation at the end was where I had to present reflections about my learning journey and my teaching framework to a panel. That was scary.

The most memorable thing for me regarding flexible learning in my past life, was in the Certificate in Clinical Teaching because a facilitator from Christchurch used to travel to Dunedin to run two and three day workshops as part of the programme. Not only was the timing of her teaching innovative, her style was flexible because it was very experiential and she facilitated our learning rather than just lecturing us. She did a mixture of presentation, activities and discussion, self-directed activities, teleconference, block courses and peer work. Her assessments were also innovative, for example, a poster was the main assessment.

Since I started working at Otago Polytechnic in 1992 as a bioscience lecturer, I have seen a huge number of changes in the type of assessments offered to students right across the polytechnic. Now it is not just essays, quizzes and exams, there are a multitude of things offered to students. There are also a huge number of ways in which teachers communicate with their students. Once upon a time, lecturers used to be aghast at the idea of emailing students and now it is a given. Some are also using texting to communicate and chat and skype as well as web and video conferencing.

I am interested to hear how participants in the Flexible learning course assess and communicate flexibly. These are very important aspects of flexible learning, and even more important than content in my opinion. What do you think?

The horse analogy and flexible learning
The title of this post has come about due to the number of hours I have spent recently helping my daughter to teach a horse to get in a float. There was a lot of work involved to get it to even enter and then a lot more to get it to stay in the float. The experience reminds me of my work at Otago Polytechnic. Perhaps this sounds a bit silly, and you are thinking what has a horse got to do with teaching at a tertiary institution? Well I can see several similarities. Let me set the scene first.

Over the years as a staff developer and educational developer, I have spent many, many hours assisting staff - academic and general - with the use of technology in the workplace. I have also taught Health Informatics to health students with the aim of up-skilling them in computing for their practice. I have also spent a lot of energy leading people to the big eLearning pond, trying to get them to dabble their toes on the edge, walk out a bit even though it was chilly and scary and then swimming with them when they decided to take the plunge. Sometimes I pushed the occasional person in, but hey I did rescue them, mostly. Some I could not catch as they swam away to distant horizons once they found their flippers. :) It's been like swimming with the dolphins - fun, scary, challenging and playful and also like swimming with the sharks - terrifying, serious, exhilarating. It is also very similar to the work required to get a scared horse to enter a float.
Image: Pond at Autumn - Teich im Herbst by Tobi_2008
Thinking back on my experiences over the last nine years, and about my experiences recently with the horse float, I realise that there is also a lot of merit in the expression, "you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink". Just as we led the horse to the float and could not get him to go in..for ages...but with some repetition, gentle and firm persuasion, guiding ropes (structure) and patience, we got him in and we got him to stay longer each time. This is much like my experiences in getting teachers to accept flexible ways of offering learning.

And to continue with the analogy of the float. Some back off before they get even close, others walk up to it and watch, others walk up, sniff and turn round, others walk right on in and stay and never leave, others walk in halfway, and some go in, back out, go back in and so on, and some only ever keep one foot on the door, always looking side to side and behind... My motto is to keep trying, so if you see me coming towards you with a horse whip I promise to be gentle.

Image: Horse floats - Tooradin by Charlie Brewer

The last few weeks

2009-03-23T20:16:00.008+13:00

Image: Puffball puffball summer 2007 bronwynannh

Over the last few weeks I have been running close to the wind with my teaching and educational development work. The following things have been happening.
Evaluation of eLearning for Best Practice online course
The Evaluation of eLearning for Best Practice online course in its 5th week now has 18 participants, the majority of whom are pretty active bloggers so I am being kept pretty busy.
Flexible learning course
On 18 March, Leigh and I ran the first workshop for the Flexible learning course and had really good attendance face-to-face. We also connected two participants on a web conference which did not work as well as it would have with a proper mic - next time. Jacinda spoke to the group about the library facilities and is going to run a session on the 9 April 1.30-2.30 in BG1 (back room ground floor) at the Bill Robertson library - to show people how to search effectively using the online databases and Google Scholar. The library now has a snappy piece of software (can't remember th name) which connects people directly from Google Scholar to the databases available at the Bill Robertson library.

I am organising a presentation for a week's time on preparing effective blog posts for this course. I will run an experiential session on how to write effectively for a blog in this course - 2 April 1-3pm in H311. This will also be offered in an online session - 8 April 7 - 8 pm. Some sites to look at before the session:

10 tips on writing a blog post
My PLE is like my cooky baking (PLE = personal learning environment) - a good example of a post by Sarah Stewart.

Reflective practice lectures
I have given two lectures on reflective practice to two groups of undergraduate nurses - first year and third year. They have similarities, however, the presentation to first year nurses has more detail about reflection and reflective practice. The third years gave me applause so I must have done something right. Both groups in the main were pretty responsive to the Three-Step Reflective Framework and I have modified the template for use when writing about critical incidents in the health area.

Staff Development conference
The April Staff Development conference is shaping up with several submissions for presentations. The conference website has been incorporated with the EDC events blog. We now have four streams: sustainability, self-care, teaching and learning and effective use of technology. There are still some invited speakers to be confirmed. There will be one invited speaker per theme and each will be followed by a panel of speakers under the same stream. The next phase is to check the overviews and the Presenter Working Group is on to that job, and Catherine has set up a marvellous spreadsheet to collate all the information. This will be used to create a schedule.

Apart from this I am still advising staff regarding e-portfolios and online learning as well as the other projects I have on the go. Digital Information Literacy (DIL) research project and HIV/AIDS course development with Colette Blockley.

April Staff Development Days

2009-02-23T10:36:00.003+13:00

I am coordinating the organisation of the April Staff Development days. A lot of people have put their hands up to help and we have five working groups.

A couple of decisions to be made:
1. the name for the event - fill out poll.
2. panel following the keynote - fill out poll.

Working Groups
1. Presenters - organise sessions - topics and presenters, keynote, timetabling, information from presenters - abstract of session, reviewing & editing abstracts, objectives, technical and practical equipment requirements.
2. Publicity - brochures, email notices, information for staff, ODT .
3. Technical - data projectors, computers, smart boards, etc, - recording of sessions - audio / video, photos, room booking - location for keynote, breakout rooms, numbers.
4. Website - look and feel, content upkeep (OP website)
5. Administration - ordering equipment, photocopying, printing, expressions of interest, catering - practical equipment for sessions - WB markers, butcher paper, vivid pens etc.

It is a tight timeline, hence the orgnisation on the wiki.

Pros and cons of assessing online discussions

2009-02-09T16:48:00.005+13:00

It was a privilege to be able to run a 40 minute session as part of the Staff Development day at Otago Polytechnic on Thursday 5 February. The title of my presentation - Pros and cons of assessing online discussions - attracted 19 hardy souls, most of whom are already using online strategies for their teaching as well as some who are venturing into the area. It was excellent to hear what sort of online discussions people were using and how they were assessing; not all were and some were in the early stages of planning their approach.
I have uploaded audio with the presentation on Myplick - Pros and cons of assessing online discussions - so people can have another listen and review the session, and also so people who could not make the session, can get catch some of the debate around the area of assessing online discussions. Extra resources and references for the session can be found on the Flexible learning wiki page. Feel free to add other material you find on the topic which you would like to share.

In my next post, I will write about my beliefs and experiences, but firstly, people might like to take 20 minutes out to view the presentation to listen to some information about the different viewpoints and examples. There are lots of things to consider before going down the 'rocky road'. It is important to make the right choice for your teaching context and to provide the best option for your students. Otherwise instead of ending up in a rolling green valley where you can lie around feeling happy, you may end up trying to scrabble out of a deep, dark cavern. Scared...no its not that bad, but in the best interests of your time and the implications on your workload and that of your students, it is best to get it pretty much right first time.

CCK08 - complexity theory we are everything and nothing

2008-10-17T10:51:00.004+13:00

This week's topic in the connectivism course gave me permission to engage as it relates really closely to my Doctorate interests. Although I cannot test the theory I hope to include something about it in the discussion. here is the post I sent to the email forum.

people might be interested in Phelp's 2003 report of action research done on "the development of one tertiary course in computer education for pre-service teachers". It is a great practical example of the importance of working with complexity rather than trying to put our students into boxes - and striving to meet pre-determined objectives.

It helps to illustrate an answer to George Siemen's (2008) questions - "Consider learning outcomes created at the start of a course. Can we really ensure they are achieved? Can the complexity of learning be reduced to six or eight broad statements? Many educators feel that outcomes can be achieved. What is overlooked, however, is that much more than planned outcomes are experienced by learners."

Complexity of learning in my view cannot be reduced to "six or eight broad statements" and if students are given freedom, they will indeed learn more than they or the teacher ever imagined.....if they engage of course.

In Phelp's research, "students were prompted to set themselves appropriate goals and were then challenged to engage with content most relevant to them". they engaged in self-directed and scaffolded learning which was authentic and relevant to each student. plus they took their learning to a metacognitive level. well worth a read. however it did happen over three years BUT like a good cheese, learning takes time...so pre-packaged, quick-fix, unit-standard-type courses probably don't cut it for real learning....well not in the long run. they serve a purpose perhaps to get black and white standards across eg. food safety, how to fly a plane etc. but if you do not really understand why it is important not to clean the cheese (yes the cheese theme is rife today) in dirty dish water, the complexity of life starts to confuse the unit-standard educated worker. We have to help teach people to think don't we?

However according to this Buddhist saying by Hsin Hsin Ming - thinking might not be so hot! I was interested in looking at something from the Buddhist tradition due to my husband's talk of Zen and the belief that we are both everything and nothing. also the post by Tech Ticker about Buddhism and complexity theory " Everything, they say, is related and dependant. Nothing is independent." It is hard to be everything and nothing is it not?

To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality;
to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality.
The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will not be able to know.
Hsin Hsin Ming

Developing Online From Simplicity toward Complexity: Going with the Flow of Non-Linear Learning

Renata Phelps, Southern Cross University (Australia)

rphelps@scu.edu.au

Abstract

The Web is a non-linear environment which opens up potential for new approaches to learning and teaching, approaches which in many ways more closely approximate naturalistic and authentic approaches to learning. Yet a large proportion of online courses which have been developed in higher education represent conversions of print-based resources into Web-based delivery formats, the majority of which have replicated traditional linear and directive pedagogy. Such development represents something of a ‘miss-match’, not only to the online teaching environment but to the emergent learning approaches of a younger generation who are ‘at home’ with the online environment. This paper discusses the benefits of maintaining complexity and non-linearity in online learning with reference to the development of one tertiary course in computer education for pre-service teachers. The theory of complexity is briefly explored and its relevance to online teaching and learning is highlighted. An action research undertaking conducted over a four year period is drawn upon to illustrate the importance of future teachers understanding and experiencing non-linear and complexity-based online learning, and the metacognitive processes that can support adult learners to adapt to such an environment.

Silence in the online community

2008-09-23T20:48:00.000+12:00

Well I did not get very far with keeping up in the Facilitating Online Communities course. I also took a brief peek at the Connectivism course and decided to focus on the reason for my extended study leave - my Doctorate thesis. So you can follow my progress on my blog Doctorate meanderings - set up especially for the purpose and it has been meandering for some time. you can click on the link to the blog on the right.

Online communities - what are they? Who makes them - A mouse or a (wo)man?

2008-08-12T13:56:00.002+12:00

The topic of the next two weeks is one I am intrigued to follow as I want to see what everyone's take on an online community actually is. Two questions up front and you can read about how I reached them further on:

What do others think?

Can an online community thrive through commensurate (equal) facilitation and and symbiotic (feed off each other) relationships, or do you need one person or several people to take on leadership roles to make it work well?
How important is the platform chosen for the online community?

So how did I get to these questions? To start with on the email forum, I found that I agreed with Bronwyn Stuckey's example about learning.

"For me a worrying area is when people call a class of learners a CoP and say that learning is the practice. That is really too large and amorphous to be one practice. A class of students learning accounting by engaging in scenarios as practitioners, possibly with real practitioners in the class as mentors is beginning to take on a CoP approach. According to what you state this course is not a community of practice of online facilitators. We're going there. "

Already the email forum discussion has helped us to see the differences between online communities and CoPs and some belive there is not actually a difference.

I believe there is a difference. However surely an online community is "what you make it". Certainly it can turn into a CoP if it is not already one. Sylvia Currie mentions, "often communities evolve from interest -- to learning -- to practice. is it developmental". Perhaps it is but is it as simple as it seems?

The model of Virtual Community brought to us by Greg Barcelon via Violeta mentions that a Virtual Community exhibits - Responsibility, sharing, celebration - in other words members take the initiative, and they have enjoyment while sharing their ideas and knowledge. As Russ says, "we need to understand the way the community functions". Plus a virtual community can be comprised of groups and is usually interwoven by networks (Bee). This is quite nice but is it too simplistic?

Isn't an online community not just about the participants in it, but also about the ways in which participants interact, and the platforms they use to interact?

For example, as many of you already know, and others will find out as you progress through the course there is a multitude of online community platforms - Second Life, FaceBook, MySpace, Google Groups, wikis, blogs, online games etc, etc, etc. Additionally, some platforms can kill a community as mentioned in Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach's blog post - The Art of Building Virtual Communities - if they are not right for the community.

Therefore if a platform is chosen which does not work for the community, then does this mean that the participants and/or facilitators do not have an adequate understanding of the community or that the platform is at fault? Sheryl also appears to make no distinction between online communities and CoPs.

There is some interesting stuff on Sheryl's post about Member Roles, What makes a healthy community and Derek Wenmouth's The 4 Cs of Participation in Online Communities for blogs. It is an extension and new take on Gilly Salmon's Five-step Model for e-moderation.

According to Greg Barcelon's take on virtual communities everyone is in it together and leadership is not important but is it? Is he just referring to active participation and not leadership? According to the writing by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, both her and Etienne Wenger believe that leadership is essential.

Bronwyn Stuckey in her post refers to opportunities for leadership as important:
"the opportunity to step up and step into roles - that this event provided. And ..the shared sense of the value of being together - that evolved through the activity"

So maybe we need to do what the fellow in the pic is doing, and take charge of the situation and go for it if we are to create an online community around the subject of this course - online facilitation. I am looking forward to reading more people's opinions about online communities.

Facilitating online communities

2008-08-03T17:03:00.002+12:00

I have decided that although I am supposed to be on leave working on my thesis it would be intriguing to see how the current iteration of the Facilitating Online Communities course goes now that it is truly open. I am having a hard time keeping my fingers off the keyboard and not participating - yeah cos distractions such as FOC will kill my study leave goals...to get a draft of the thesis finished.

I am absolutely intrigued by the numbers who have registered in the FOC08 course now it is openly advertised. Last year we ran the course for the first time using wikiEd, however students were given access via Blackboard and a formal enrollment process. This year we got the go ahead to have informal enrollments...wow it is proof of the open concept and evidence of the need for people to keep increasing their skills in facilitating online communities...so many experienced people.

So my way to manage having meager participation will be to check in on key blogs so I can get a sense of how it is all going...for the next time I get to facilitate the course. Also so I can keep the debate about teaching versus facilitation going with Leigh Blackall who is superhumanly facilitating 80+ participants. Will the 10% rule rule I wonder? :)

2008-07-10T10:33:00.006+12:00

This is a monarch butterfly I spotted in New Plymouth in march - when the sun was hot! I put it here to remind us there is life after the ice and mud. The last few weeks are pretty full on as I tie up loose ends before going on thesis leave. Yes the pressure to finish the 8 year Doctorate is building. So what have I been up to lately...

Power of Design project

Sunshine did a great poster for the final project workshop which we held just before the HERDSA conference in Rotorua. It was a relief to get the project poster done and cutting back the text was like cutting off an arm...so much to report. Now I am writing up a case study for the Power of Design project. This was a research evaluation of Designing for Flexible Learning Practice (DFLP) against eLearning Guidelines. The full analysis of data is still to be completed and will be written up near the end of the year - when I come back.

More on the project website.

Designing for Flexible Learning Practice course

The semester one session has finished so there is plenty of marking to do. Five people have submitted their assignments; five are very close and six are going to extend into semester two. We lost a couple or three on the way. It has been really enjoyable teaching using the new format - course wiki and blog. The presentations day was really interesting and I was given a great compliment about the high standard of participant work in the course being due to our very good facilitation of the course.

Evaluation of eLearning for Best Practice

I teach this course for MIT, TANZ. It is all online and I am using the same format as DFLP. This course includes a real workplace evaluation and I have participants from the private sector as well as tertiary organisations. I am about to mark assignments for this group as well and again have some people extending into semester two working self-paced with local support from the programme manager, oriel Kelly.

Digital Information Literacy project

This is progressing well and the 10 week series of workshops is coming to a close for Otago Polytechnic participants. Workshops in Albany, Massey University, MIT and University of Otago have a few more weeks to go. I will be ticking over the management of the project while I am on leave. You can read more on the project website.

Wikieducator projects

The HIVAIDS project has stalled but I have been in talks with the Commonwealth of Learning about collaboration options.
Anatomy and Physiology for vet nursing - we are awaiting the project plan from the COL learning designer and this should progress with funding in Semester Two. We are meeting on 21 August to progress the project.
There is going to be an open educational resources (OER) Thinktank (Heywire8) on 22 August at Otago Polytechnic. Wayne Macintosh from COL is going to visit us here and lead this. There will be several people from around the country converging on us. It is pretty important so I will be making a special trip to take part.

Spotlight Teaching and Learning Colloquium
Terry and I have been helping organise this with University of Otago HEDC staff. It is coming together nicely and you may want to get your abstracts in. All information is on the website and invites are going out to staff and teaching award recipients and tertiary providers in the Southern region.

It is on 19 and 20 November, 2008, hosted by the University of Otago and Otago Polytechnic. The event is entitled “Spotlight on Tertiary Teaching and Learning: Colloquium for the Southern Region”. This event is sponsored by AKO Aotearoa - National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence.

The event will highlight best teaching practice and research into teaching in Otago.

And as if there wasn't enough to do.... I sometimes sleep.

HERDSA conference - Rotorua 2 – 4 July 2008

2008-07-06T15:01:00.010+12:00

Traveling to Rotorua for the Herdsa 2008 conference was a smooth hop to Christchurch and Rotorua. The first day we spent in the eLearning Guidelines workshop sharing our project experiences with the other project leaders. I was pretty proud of the poster created by Sunshine - spot the one with the arrow below. The vertical brochures looked great as well. NorthTec's poster was pretty good as well - very little text, eye-catching and with a separate handout, an A4 brochure with all the info about the project. More on this later...

The highlights at HERDSA 2008 were the key note speakers - Dr Pita Sharples, Dr Barbara Holland, Judith Ramaley, Dr Stuart Middleton and Dr Etienne Wenger – and the Inquiry-based research workshop. I will concentrate on the key note presenters in this post and do another post around the IBL presentation.

Dr Pita Sharples spoke at the Powhiri and shared his perspectives on Maori learners and participation – it is okay to take a long time to get your education – he did. His talk was enjoyable and set the scene for the conference about disadvantaged learners such as Maori, however, only the keynotes addressed this area with regard to engagement, and I only attended one presentation which dealt with this – Selena Chan (given by Nick) and the use of mobile technologies so that bakery students had access to resources. A lot of speakers spoke about engagement and communities of practice, but not about access and equity and diversity. Dr Sharples spoke about the importance of “language nests” for Maori children and also schools where they could carry on the learning. Taking children from Te Kohanga Reo and putting them in mainstream schools did not work. Te Wananga were another advance for improving the participation of Maori students.
Dr Barbara Holland – spoke about communities of engagement. She mentioned how contemporary students crave active and experiential learning eg mobile learning and social networking – I was curious and want to investigate the research on this. She suggested a conference - International Service-Learning conference - Hong Kong 2009. There are different perspectives on what engagement with the community means. For example, an exchange of ideas and information is heading towards engagement, whereas Incubators, continuing education, internships and clinical work which are work-integrated and which promote networking are examples of community engagement. In other words engagement is connected learning and discovery. Dr Holland framed this as community-based learning which enables participants to explore their interests leading to greater self-esteem, motivation, engagement, empowerment. I liked the ideas Dr Holland put forward, as the theoretical basis of a practical framework which Judith Ramaley explained later on. However in vocational education community-based learning is not new. Certainly in nursing and other health professions there is a strong connection with professional communities which is linked to learning objectives and reflection. The development of academic/clinical positions in the School of Nursing at Otago Polytechnic has been dually beneficial. I wonder if they still exist?
Judith Ramaley – was charming and funny as she spoke about how a framework of engagement in an organisation can lead to transformative change where “adaptive expertise” is foremost. That is proponents have the capacity to “learn on the job” and solve problems creatively as they arise. Anyone and everyone can lead change as people work together collaboratively using inquiry and emotional learning to form communities of practice. I particularly liked her analogy to social networking where “institutions become equivalent to a social network or open source model in which anyone may offer suggestions, contribute to advancing the institution and feel an integral part of the enterprise as a whole” - a “transformational change dynamic”. It is not a top down model and I believe OP has the beginnings of this capacity although our managers are immersed in a model of strategic change. The work we are doing with the Commonwealth of Learning through WikiEducator is an example of community-based learning and this is being led from the “coal-face”. It is disruptive, complex and collaborative and transformative for anyone who becomes involved and capacity is building around the nexus of open educational resources (Holland & Ramaley, 2008, p45). References: Holland B. & Ramaley, J. (2008). Creating a Supportive Environment for Community- University Engagement: Conceptual Frameworks. HERDSA Annual Conference 2008 Proceedings, p33-47.
Dr Stuart Middleton – was also funny and it was obvious he was not very impressed by politicians and the impact of government policies on access to education. We now have a situation where education has become more academic and has lost flexibility – the one size fits all approach means there is no longer a differentiated curriculum. The result is that disengagement is now occurring, and even though there is growth in education a large number of people turning are turning their backs on education and there are serious skills shortages. He likened the educational system to a nut which was resistant to change (the nut cracker), with disengagement showing up as one of the cracks as the arms of the nut cracker (changing demographics and economies) squeezed the nut. As Dr Middleton said, “Given the filters of failure that currently operate within education up to the point of entry into further and higher education, the group that presents itself for postsecondary education has become such a distorted reflection of the community that even the most carefully attentive and sensitive selection procedures would simply not achieve equity nor provide access for a majority of students.” We have a “leaky education system” with large numbers dropping out of secondary school, truant and leaving with no qualifications. Maori participation has increased thanks to the Te Wanangas, however, participation and completion rates in mainstream universities continue to be low. The diagram below depicts equity and access, and shows where some of the cracks lie in the transition from secondary to higher education. I will link to the paper once the proceedings are online. In the not too distant future, white Europeans will be in the minority so those groups of learners who have traditionally been under-represented are increasing, meaning HE needs to work differently. For example, the Pacific Island population is predicted to increase to make up 51% of the population in Auckland in the next five years. He also referred to examples in the literature around student retention and success stating, “Supporting students is critical to their success”.

Dr Middleton’s presentation was very powerful and I particularly liked the following quotes: “Simply by sailing in a new direction, you could change the world” (Curnow). “We have to be careful not to cross a crevasse in two steps” (Middleton), this was regarding the new funding regime – which he believes is a good move as we have moved away from the previous system but it is happening too quickly. For example, the Adult Community Education funding should never have been dismantled as 40% of people participating in Community Learning Centres in Auckland go on to HE. And the best quote, “Resources have to be distributed unevenly when the need is uneven” (Middleton).

5. Dr Etienne Wenger – rearranged the main venue and put us in circles facing each other. This was tricky for some who were unable to nod off, though believe it or not, they tried. Etienne tried to engage the audience in reflection on some of the presentations about Communities of Practice which worked a little but people had come to hear his wisdom and they were tired from the conference dinner and dancing so not particularly responsive and there was no real discussion. Personally I would have liked to hear more about his new theories and frameworks for COPs, but apparently this would have repeated his workshop. There were a couple of good diagrams about the social discipline of learning, an approach also
covered in his latest book, so I hope the diagrams will appear on the conference web site
soon.
The conference was closed by Rotorua's Deputy Mayor and his closing speech and prayer sent us on our way after he led a rendition of pokare kare ana.

The poster (spot the one with the arrow) will be travelling to Wellington with John Milne and then to the DEANZ conference in Wellington.

Open educational resources

2008-06-17T19:56:00.004+12:00

The importance of our relationship with WikiEducator and the significance of open educational resources (OER) is really beginning to sink in. We are part of a vision and it rocks!

I attended a DEANZ web-conference (Elluminate) presentation by Wayne MacKintosh from the Commonwealth of Learning today - WikiEducator: DE reincarnated or new innovation? I realised after Wayne mentioned how Otago Polytechnic was a leader in OER in NZ, how far behind other organisations actually are in this area. The whole thing has taken on a life of its own since we started developing courses on WikiEd.

I agree with Wayne the structure of WikiEd does enhance asynchronous interaction. For one thing in the Designing for Flexible Learning course, participants can study self-paced using the course schedule as a guide, and they can leave each other messages in the Discussion (Talk) area. So far I haven't experienced many students using the wiki collaboratively though some participants in the Facilitating Online Communities did create pages for an assignment though I am not sure what will happen in the next iteration.

Wayne mentioned that social phenomenon of our time - Wikipedia - and how well it does in providing free access to the sum of our human knowledge - well it is the largest encyclopedia in the history of human kind. Well it is looking like WikiEd might be getting even bigger. Their strategy of access to free education for all countries by 2015 is phenomenal and worthy of our attention. He explained how community is pivotal - and involves content, capacity, connections;
sustainability is important for the OER project or they will fail.

Some stats
More than half of the registered users on WikiEd are over 50 yrs, and the majority are educators. Wayne's slide show has all the detail. A very interesting statistic - 12% of Wikied users are actively editing whereas in Wikipedia only 3% of the users are active editors - probably because more people access it than develop the articles. WikiEd is the first wiki platform to enable generation of pdf from wiki pages. There is also a facility to generate content cartridges of wiki pages for importation into LMS. And last but not least - Learning4content - is the largest wiki training initiative in the world.

WikiEd team
graphic designer
learning designer
critical reader
editor
subject matter expert

A return to tradition
There are several levels of certification available following training:
wikiapprentice
wikibuddy
wikiartisan
wikitrainer
wikimaster

It is possible to get certification loaded on your user page after having done the training; maybe I will work harder on getting this. One thing I do need to do is create a decent profile page. Leigh has been nagging me for ages to do this.

In the future, WikiEd is looking at developing the extra capability of exporting an IMS package. It enables direct import of content to LMS without creation of a cartridge. Not sure why this is necessary but I guess it will satisfy people who are unwilling to share and feel cheated if others use their content.

A school initiative is racking up the action: http://wikieducator.org/Handouts4Teachers. Another school example - http://wikieducator.org/Biology_in_elementary_schools. There is a big opportunity for us to work with schools in helping them develop content on wikiEd. I wonder if the push is still there to do this? Not being on Academic Board any more I don't hear about these things and the info is not filtering to us.

Utah state is going to create an open school - an OER handbook is being developed to help educators create OERs. Perhaps they could use some of the stuff we have developed on digital information literacy on the WikiEd platform and which we are using in the Digital Information Literacy project also located on WikiEd. ....so much to do and so little time.

It was a good presentation and although discussion was slow and had that halted factor due to the "push to talk" feature of Elluminate, I was glad I made the time to attend. It has motivated, mortified and made me petrified....will I ever get my thesis written?

So what sort of help is there to help learners access flexible learning equitably?

2008-05-19T10:13:00.005+12:00

Thank you Pam for a very interesting presentation last week about the Disabilities Service. There was a small but very interested group at the Elluminate session and the discussion which followed covered a range of things about flexible learning. The disabilities Service supports people with a range of health issues as well as people who are visually impaired, deaf, or have physical immobility.

It turns out there is lots of support students can obtain to help them access learning opportunities. As well as note-takers, peer tutoring and arrangements for taking exams, students may also need support to access online materials and use computers.

For example, Dragon Voice Recognition software is useful for people to use to create electronic documents, if they are unable type on a computer for long periods, or even if they want to work more efficiently. It does take a while to train yourself to use this software but there are some very skilled trainers offering this service e.g. Brian Treanor at otago Polytechnic.

JAWS (Job Access With Speech) is a screen reader software which people who are visually impaired can use to have an online page read to them (Wikipedia, 2008.) I know my father-in-law uses something like this for his emails and searching on the Net. He does a lot of work on his computer and is for official purposes rated as blind. Being a Veteran in the USA means he gets lots and lots of government support, and special training to use the products he is supplied with.....off the track here, but I do wonder if there is a similar service in NZ which is just as comprehensive - special Veteran hospitals etc. Anyway the support he has had for computing means he has been able to record the family history and write books.

There is a raft of products available to help people who are visually impaired with their computing needs. You might like to take a look at some of them on the Freedom Scientific website.

Training can be organised in different types of software by the Disabilities Service. One thing Pam has asked is that lecturers provide easier access to documents for people who are visually impaired. For example, make sure documents are in Word-like formats (we prefer Rich Text Format) as well as pdf because the font can more easily be increased for printing.

Staff at the Disabilities Service are available to give advice to teachers as well so they can find out how to better support their students. One thing I think that lecturers at the polytechnic do quite well is providing extensions for assignments for students with or without health problems - sometimes life just gets too busy. However, the Disabilities Service is available to negotiate extensions on behalf of students.

This leads me to the idea of flexibility for assessments - how important is it that students have to submit assignments under strict deadlines? My belief is that due dates should be a guide only, and throughout my years of study I have been very lucky to have flexibility with my studies. I would never have been able to complete anything otherwise. Due to flexibility and being treated as an autonomous learner, I have completed a Diploma of Teaching (Tertiary), a Certificate in Clinical Teaching, and nine Doctoral courses and a pilot research study. No flexibility, no completion. :(

Is inflexibility in assessment conducive to learning?

I think we need to design assessments that enable learners to document what they are learning rather than encourage rote learning. Exams have long been a thorn in my side and yet there are people who believe that some subjects can only be tested through exams. For example, bioscience which is very fact-based. However, I have used "open book" formative quizzes and learning portfolios very successfully for this subject. The students preferred these types of assessment to exams because it took the stress off them, and they were really able to think about how the bioscience facts they were learning could be applied in real, clinical situations. Their learning was more holistic, and the formative self-tests enabled them to work through facts step-by-step as well.

However some NZQA assessments for unit standards encourage the use of Mastery learning - I am not a fan of this method as you may have guessed. Repetitive practice for certain skills is necessary for safety, e.g driving and flying, but critical thinking skills are much more important in the long term. When the crunch comes and you have to decide for example, how to land the plane which has gone out of control or has been hijacked.

Do you agree with me? And I ask the following questions as well and hope some of you can continue this discussion on here.

Is the structure of deadlines inhibiting or is it necessary to provide structure in a course?
Is it unfair to others if some get extensions?

Teams are they more innovative and fun

2008-04-29T10:08:00.004+12:00

Thank goodness for Leigh and his ability to keep us updated with the latest developments. The BBC interview where Peter Day talks to Professor Lynda Gratton of the London Business School was very interesting. Prof Gratton believes that good teamwork is what will make companies successful in the 21st century.

I like the ideas they were discussing e.g ignite teams with "big questions" to explore and solve - innovative teams are where there is a small core of people and "volunteers" come in because they are passionate about the project. Hence a team leader's role becomes not so much to direct and choose and but to inspire. The ability to cooperate is the most important characteristic for people to have in modern times so they can work collaboratively in teams. The focus is on the good of the team not on the individual's needs. Also the ability to be able to make connections with others, locally and globally. Graduates with these attributes are highly sought after in big companies.

People in a business if left to their own devices will sign up to project teams which excite and inspire them. eg. Google. Innovation is created when people who are very different share their ideas and they often do not agree with each other but they can cooperate.

So perhaps the idea of the teams and committees we have in the poly may not be the best for cohesion and for spreading the passion eg. the quality in teaching team was chosen - perhaps if people were invited to join and did so because of their passion about quality in teaching and learning, a very different mix would have been created, perhaps a more innovative (no offence meant here) combination may have been achieved. Having "experts" or higher levels of staff on a team is not necessarily more productive and effective - you need people to challenge because they have a different perspective.

Big teams can be very productive and everyone has the chance to shine. Gender and ethnicity mixed teams are much more productive. Some of the examples discussed were interesting such as Google, Nokia, BP and a Scottish bank. If they can do it surely we can as well.

One of the things which made my job in eLearning more exciting in the early days was the collaborative projects and networks I was involved in. Being able to have the freedom and autonomy to choose projects means I can be part of several teams, and I have learned so much from working collaboratively. The networked learning team is an excellent example of a collaborative association where ideas are discussed and shared, and people join because they are passionate about the area and want to develop resources to share with students and staff alike.

Now we have the Digital Information Literacy project and collaboration across Otago Polytechnic, Manukau Institute of Technology, University of Otago and Massey University. Watch this space for the project wiki page - it will be appearing soon.

Observation Questions and Usability Checklist Eval08

2008-04-17T20:57:00.002+12:00

In response to a request by participants in the Evaluation of eLearning Best practice course, I have made some observation questions available. The actual document can be accessed and modified for your own use and is on Google docs - Observation Questions eval08

There is also a Usability Checklist eval08 available. Feel free to modify and use in yur own context.

The observation questions and usability checklist were used in the Online Information Literacy - OIL - evaluation project in 2006 and 2007. I also discovered how to send documents to my blog. Google is so clever.

Observation Date: Time Taken: Observer:

Observation Questions

Observations

1. Are there any difficulties in getting the user started?

2. How does the user engage with the module and follow the icons and instructions?

3. If the user gets lost how and why does this happen?

4. What suggestions or comments does the user make about the module?

5. Other observations.

Bronwyn Hegarty, Otago Polytechnic, 2007

My reflections on a presentation of an evaluation project - DVD resources in Nursing

2008-04-06T15:15:00.009+12:00

It was great to catch up with Bonnie Schroyen and Suzy Poppe from the Nursing Department at NorthTec again and I was very appreciative that they agreed to give a presentation to the 2008 class in the class I am teaching/facilitating, Evaluation of eLearning for best practice. It was especially valuabel because they were alumni from the course. The presentation only can be accessed by clicking: Evaluating the effectiveness of a DVD in the flexible mode of delivery in nursing and I have loaded the presentation with synced audio on to a web-based facility called MyPlick. The full web-conference session can be found by clicking here.

So what happened?
I introduced Bonnie and Suzy to the class, eight of whom attended the session on Elluminate, and then encouraged the class to introduce themselves to the presenters. Half the class had microphones so the rest were asked to introduce themselves on the chat facility. However this was probably unnecessary as I had also initiated introductions on the Whiteboard, and most people had written their name and area of work there for everyone to see. I felt this worked quite well and next time, I will do the same with the Whiteboard introductions and only introduce the presenters using voice.

The class will get their chance to ask questions after the presentation, or during it if the presenters prefer this, and I will need to ensure that everyone gets a chance to speak. Anyone who asked a question on chat, was either responded to by the presenters or I asked the question on their behalf.

Bonnie and Suzy had a short PowerPoint presentation describing the evaluation project which was easy to follow. They explained how they used a mixed methods approach (survey and online discussion) in a formative evaluation to investigate a new DVD resource which had been designed to enhance an "online nursing module in the Bachelor of Nursing (BN)".

They investigated the "student’s feelings and opinions about the design and ease of use of this resource", so they could make recommendations about improvements which could be made to the design. My understanding is that the DVD provided students with guest speaker presentations. This was trialled as a way to reduce costs and travel for guest speakers.

The sample size for their evaluation was quite good with 20 respondents. They used likert scales in the survey and collected quantitative data which was analysed using a tool in the Moodle Learning Management system. It would have been good to see some of the graphs they produced - I may be able to obtain them from the presenters. Qualitative data was collected from the discussion forum, and the comments were very positive. Overall, the presenters found that the students believed the DVD was effective.

Bonnie and Suzy had not found the task of conducting the evaluation project an onerous one, and enjoyed doing it. That was great to hear, and they thought it only took them around 20 hours. Participants in the course have an allocation of 50 hours for the project, and providing they do not make their project too big, they should be able to remain within the time frame.

I did not ask them what their "big picture" questions were, but this might have made the main thrust of the project more understandable. Some graphics on the slides would have been good but the design was clear and simple and their explanations good so pics might have deflected our focus. Some graphs of the results would have been good.

Discussion time
Following the presentation we had some very good discussion about the usefulness of DVD resources in a flexible course, ongoing use and currency of the resource and modifications. For example, the nursing course is now primarily online and short video clips are being used rather than the longer versions previously presented on DVD. People were interested in the idea of version control being added to the DVD, which would save having to collect them all in at the end of the course. This was necessary to prevent people using outdated material which might contain techniques which were no longer safe. I am having trouble uploading the discussion to the web and will add this later.

I missed Suzy's statement about the examples of video clips so did not get them to show an example of what they are doing now. That was a pity - perhaps a link to one or two would still be useful, so people can see they type of resource they are using and the quality.

My feeling was that the session's focus was on the resource rather than the aspects of the evaluation project itself, but I believe it was still useful in getting across the message about how important it is to evaluate eLearning resources. I will be interested now to read about others' thoughts about the session, and will run a poll to find out how useful, the class have found the presentation in helping them get going on their own evaluation projects.

There has been one positive comment about the presentation so far and someone is actually excited about the next one. At least it is pleasing one person, and it was great to see eight people there on the night. Right on!
Bronwyn

Research evaluation has good news for blogging

2008-02-25T22:49:00.006+13:00

It was great to discover some research with good things to say about using blogging for learning. This is also a great example of how evaluation can provide evidence for teaching and learning innovation.

"This article received an Outstanding Paper Award at ascilite Singapore 2007 Conference, gaining the additional recognition of publication of an expanded version in AJET. " (Farmer, Yue & Brooks, (2008)

Reference: Farmer, B., Yue, A. & Brooks, C. (2008). Using blogging for higher order learning in large cohort university teaching: A case study. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 24(2), 123-136.

The evaluation is still being carried out and preliminary results indicate there is potential in using blogging to enhance learning.

Overview: The blogging trial was conducted and evaluated with 200+ first year students being team taught in a "Cultural Studies Program at the University of Melbourne"(p125). To ensure security and because the blogs were being assessed, a purpose-built platform called "CultureBlogging" was created, and the authors also mention it aided compatibility with a proprietary learning system.

It appears the exercise was overall well supported by students though grades were a little lower than those obtained through traditional assessment methods. Student feedback indicated that more scaffolding in the way of guidelines on how to write on a blog and how to write reflectively about themselves was needed.

"Although most students were generally media savvy in their uptake of new technologies and some were already familiar with the tools of blogging, most however were not necessarily familiar with the nature and possibilities of blogging as a self reflexive practice. More guidance on the pedagogical aims of blogging would possibly have helped make the exercise more user friendly and critically transformative"(Farmer et al., p8).

Only 56/200 responded to the questionnaire about the use of blogging in the course, but the researchers also have the blogs to examine and content analysis of these is continuing. There was positive and negative feedback about the blogging exercise but overall the researchers report on the use of blogging in a large group of students as worthwhile. They did pick up a conflict between students' perceptions of blogging and educational use and this is an area where they recommend some strategies will need to be applied.

"We would hope that by supporting, guiding and modelling use of modest Web 2.0 tools such as blogs we will be enablingstudents to take on ‘prosumer’ identities that are more significant and self aware than the simple phatic discourse of online sociability and the prosaic ‘daily diary’ experience that many students seem to associate with blogging" (Farmer et al., p12).

There are more articles waiting for me to read in AJET (Australian Journal of Educational Technology) .

Evaluation of eLearning for Best Practice course is starting

2008-02-24T17:05:00.002+13:00

Well it has been a mission getting the course material ready. The picture of Kaihaihai beach from the zigzag track near the Heaphy track is a reminder I was on holiday this year.

I decided to transfer everything to WikiEducator for ease of updating and currency. Also it is a great opportunity to put some of the facilitation ideas and tools we used in Facilitating eLearning Communities course into practice.

How did I get interested in evaluation?
My interest in evaluation comes from spending a number of years teaching and learning online and designing and developing online courses. I have also used a number of multimedia resources, and the quality of them has been rather variable. I studied evaluation for interactive learning systems with Professor John Hedberg when he was lecturing at the University of Wollongong. Yes I was a distance student, and that is the best place to sit if you want to critique best practice.

Thomas Reeves and John Hedberg felt so strongly about the need for better evaluation practices that they wrote a textbook about the subject. The reference is - Reeves, T. & Hedberg, J. (2003). Interactive learning systems evaluation . Educational Technology Publications: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

I was able to put evaluation into practice when I was part of a two year collaborative project (eLearning Collaobrative Development Fund - eCDF) to develop online information literacy modules. My experience as Chair of the Analysis and Evaluation committee was invaluable - I led several evaluation projects as part of the development and learned a heap about evaluation in action. There are several reports in the Research and Evaluation section on the project website at: http://oil.otago.ac.nz

I also build in evaluation in all the flexible development projects I manage and I am always intrigued by the lack of awareness for the process of evaluation. I am really looking forward to working with a new group in the class and to help them complete an evaluation project relevant to their work.

Ideas for Dunedin International Computer Mediated Social Networking Conference

2008-01-29T11:31:00.000+13:00

I am really interested in contributing to a paper for the Dunedin International Computer Mediated Social Networking Conference in June with Leigh Blackall and Sarah Stewart. It is a great idea to base it on the Facilitating eLearning Communities course.

I have read Leigh and Sarah's posts and ideas and have come up with some thoughts for a paper for this conference. Looking at the list of people in the conference programme committee, and the place where papers will be published - this looks like a very computer science-focussed conference. For example, papers will be published in the "Springer-Verlag in the LNCS/LNAI series" - I found this for the Springer LNCS series.

So what will this audience be interested in? In the introductory blurb they mention Social Network Systems (SNS) and have provided a list of questions they want answered. I have added them to the wiki for consideration and discussion as well.

I believe we could answer the following Q from an educational point of view: The other Qs don not seem relevant to the online communities course experience - correct me if I am wrong.

How can various Web 2.0 tools be integrated to satisfy the needs of electronic communities in a holistic manner?

Are we preparing a case study as an example of what happened? This could be done from the perspective of whoever in the Facilitating elearning community collaborates to write the paper - that way permission will not be a problem - their were insufficient evaluations and we were not asking the right Qs to get any useful info for the paper.

Perhaps if we describe how we tried to integrate the various web 2.0 tools with the aim of developing an online community and modelling different communities - we can also include the issues which cropped up. Our perspective of how the community developed and what facilitation was needed to assist this. we do not have enough data or time to do a proper evaluation of participants to get it from their perspective unless they contribute to the paper.

This would enable a discussion of how we used blogs and wikis and email, SL etc to communicate and present the course content - The set up and maintenance of the Facilitating Online Learning Communities course. we can also bring in the class experiences (Experiences of the participants and examples of how their new learning is being used in their work - if they are contributors) and include the different types of web 2.0 communities to which we exposed them and discuss how the sense of community developed in the course. (Outstanding issues and considerations arising from the course.)

I do not think we will have time to include teacher/facilitator issues or the rest of the items suggested by Leigh (italicised above) - these might have to be addressed in another paper.

Further work we will do in developing education generally at Otago Polytechnic using socially networked media and communications.
Frank and honest discussion on the probable and existing issues with this vision and Otago Polytechnic

Re the presentation on the day, I think it would be of more value to beam in or play some course participant comments about how they thought the web 2.0 integration thing went, rather than comments from the 10 min lecture series presenters as this should really be about the experiences of the course facilitators and participants if this is a case study that is.
Bron

Auf wiedersehen

2007-12-10T13:20:00.000+13:00

This is my good bye to everyone in the Facilitating eLearning Communities course.

When writing to the email group to thank them for participating in the course, I realised that the community was really only beginning. Although the course is now officially finished, we will be keeping the email group open so the community can share ideas, tips and stories about their experiences facilitating online. I also invited everyone to help develop the online communities pages on WikiEducator. I hope some will continue to engage in the group.

As a first time facilitator and co-facilitator in the course I found the experience a very challenging and rewarding experience. It has not been easy and it was never boring. Overall, it was extremely interesting to interact online with such a diverse and highly skilled group of educators; everyone in the group had very different needs and expectations. Sometimes I found it frustrating and sometimes I found it confusing - the reactions of the group were not always logical and rarely predictable.

For example, I believed the instructions for the first part of the course were clear and straightforward but that relied on people working systematically through the Blackboard activities and resources. People did not seem to get it. Then we confused people by throwing other technologies into the mix - email group, blog, wiki - as problems came up we offered a range of solutions. There was choice introduced, not just step-by-step and work through the activities and resources on Blackboard....post a discussion in Blackboard. The options threw a lot of people into the pirana pool. People's preference for options other than Blackboard meant the platform became redundant as we thought it would in a networked community.

Was it too much too soon?

For the next class, I feel that the Blackboard option will not be an option. Sure we could have shown people a couple of nice to know web 2.0 technologies and left them safely sitting in the learning Management System AND that could have been a community of sorts. Perhaps a subsistence community and a community with very limited means but a gated community - safe but how I hate the idea.

Instead we took the class out into the scary cyber world of uncertainty and unpredictability. Choice was the flavour of the day - ask a question and there were several options to choose from. Good or bad! We took people on a constructionist, constructivist and scaffolded/facilitated pathway with many forks and turns. People were not comfortable and they complained or disappeared from view. The true blue online facilitators did reappear though and they were stronger than when they started and more innovative - yes there were a few bruises and damaged egos - but they made the effort to ride the bull.

I learned a great deal from the experience and am impressed by the tenacity of the community to try out new challenges and experiences. Facilitating the class with Leigh opened new communities I had hitherto tried but avoided eg Second Life, gaming, FaceBook. I really liked the 10 minute lecture series - how fortunate we were to have so many people willing to contribute their know how to the community. My only regret is not having enough time to reflect on my blog about all the events. I can still do this of course because they are all recorded.

I asked the class to forgive us for discombobulating them. I was impressed with the high level of critical thinking and there was significant diversification of the communities' online facilitation abilities as we moved through the course. It is clear there is no one magic bullet for success. Each group will be different. Hopefully the group has established some guidelines for themselves and the groups they will go on to facilitate. I hope they can now recognise the need to allow their students room to evolve as a community. I firmly believe that only by providing loosely-structured problems will students be assisted to think critically and really learn how to learn.

I have never forgotten the words of a visiting lecturer years ago who ran a workshop on critical thinking. "If you want to get your students to think critically, you have to put them in a place where they do not feel comfortable and where they feel challenged, they will not go there on their own."

I particularly like the explanation on the uses of critical thinking on Wikipedia. To get this class to think critically about good and bad methods for facilitating online communities it was necessary to present them with experiential real world problems in an online community and not just one or two but a wide range. Just transmitting information to them abut how to facilitate online would not have cut it; they had to experience it warts and all. What was bad to some was good to others and vice versa. Each experience would have beenunique although the community was exposed to the same things.

"Critical thinking is also critical inquiry, so such critical thinkers investigate problems, ask questions, pose new answers that challenge the status quo, discover new information that can be used for good or ill, question authorities and traditional beliefs, challenge received dogmas and doctrines, and often end up possessing power in society greater than their numbers." "The intellectual skills of critical thinking--analysis, synthesis, reflection, etc.--must be learned by actually performing them." (AN INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL THINKING by Steven D. Schafersman, 1991).

Facilitating this course has helped me to become better at critical thinking. It is not an easy thing to get the balance right in a course like this and my big question is - should we cater to the lowest common denominator in terms of skill and comfort or should we make the challenge higher and hope for the best. I believe for this class we did the right thing going with the latter - uncomfortable as it was at times for all of us.

facilitate or teach or learn

2007-11-02T16:10:00.000+13:00

In response to Leigh's posting as you prepare to facilitate try not to teach. To teach or not to teach. to facilitate or not to facilitate. To moderate or not to moderate! Is there really a debate to be had I wonder?

I believe that all this angst has come about because "a teacher" decided some way back that he or she would replace the word "teach online" with "facilitate online". It means the same!

Because we have all been encouraged to step back a bit and stop pushing information at students and encourage them to do more thinking for themselves and more self-directed learning, teaching is now facilitating. But is it?

Learner-centred is the new buzz word along with facilitated learning - it is still about teaching. The teachers, you and I, leigh, are still seen as the experts in the discipline we are teaching otherwise we would not be asked to "teach" the course.

So why have we been asked to teach the course and not the local butcher who is equally able to facilitate a jolly good discussion?

Because we have some expertise - like it or not, we have to teach our class something so they can teach themselves. Teach or model, facilitate or model - otherwise they will not just be feeling frustrated or confused - too much to learn - they will be really, really angry and p...ed off. Why didn't we just send out the handbook with the instructions for the course and the assessments with a few readings and tell them to get on with it?

Because we have to teach them something. that involves not just facilitating a good ole discussion, it involves giving information, brokering information, helping/facilitating them to find information, setting up systems and facilitating ways for them to develop as a community, directing them towards the things they need to complete to pass the course or not. Is that not teaching in one sense?

Making it interesting and challenging and scary enough to make them come back for more - fear as in the kind you get on a rollercoaster. Fear can be a great stimulant!

In my mind, good teaching is about good facilitating and treating the learners as individuals and as competent intelligent people who can think for themselves and who are encouraged to think critically.

In response to some of leigh's questions -

Why is this course called facilitate online learning communities and not teach online learning communities? To be absolutely pedantic here it is Facilitating eLearning communities. So just as Leigh has replaced eLearning with online - have we not replaced teaching with facilitating?
Is teaching and facilitation really interchangeable?
Yes mostly it is because good teaching should strike a balance and the teacher should step back when necessary and step forward and teach when needed - sometimes we need to be more proactive to facilitate scaffolded learning and not just assume people will enjoy struggling to find out everything themselves. The level of support needed, I believe, depends on each person's zone of proximal development(Wikipedia, 2007), for each situation and each topic. As you will see a person can be assisted to develop not only by the teacher but also by their peers - so does the peer then become a teacher too?
Is facilitation simply one of many techniques that a teacher employs in their work? Or is teaching just one of many 3rd party services that a facilitator might call on in their work?
Is it possible to be both a teacher and a facilitator within the same group of people?
In response to these questions, I believe the answer is yes in both cases. Why? Because firstly, I see the terms as interchangeable where someone really knows how to support learners albeit called teacher or facilitator. Secondly, a balance is crucial in contemporary society .
What are the differences in the roles and what are the social dynamics in play when they function?
It depends on our definitions for teacher and facilitator and these depend on our philosophies as this discussion is demonstrating.

Examples: If facilitating a meeting - we might approach it in different ways. We can talk and dominate the session for the bulk of the time and answer questions, or present a slide show and demonstrate what we have been doing and/or would like to see being done and answer Qs. we can set an agenda and call for contributions, and chair the meeting to keep discussion on track and comments relevant. we can dominate the meeting by always bringing up points of discussion. a meeting can be facilitated by all members and all members contribute equally thus teaching others by telling them new things or bringing up points they may not have thought of.

I guess it depends on whether you believe that learning occurs all the time and whether when we learn we have taught ourselves or learned from others. Does that then make them teachers?

Oh boy - is it not all about letting others speak, and about people having an equal chance to contribute, and valuing each person's contribution and unique style?

To me that is much more important than debating the difference between teaching and facilitating. even someone standing up in front of a class and delivering a lecture for an hour, has facilitated learning in some way. what they may not have done is facilitated group discussion or critical thinking but they could have and I always tried to operate this way in large lectures.

So lecture is not synonymous with monologue or transfer of information - it depends on the style of the lecturer - just as tutorial or discussion is not synonymous with interaction. as we know people can just sit there and wait to be told and not contribute no matter how excellent the facilitator might be. Intrinsic motivation can play a huge part in how actively people engage and contribute.

You facilitate an exam perhaps not teach in it. That is the only example I can think of where there might be a difference BUT you actually supervise an exam or invigilate not really facilitate it. You facilitate a discussion or a meeting but you may not do it well just as you may not teach well. And for me good teaching is about being a good facilitator of knowledge, of interaction, of information, of learning and of people. Are there other examples you can think of where you facilitate not teach?
Bron

Structured versus not structured versus guided

2007-10-20T17:43:00.000+13:00

Is the Facilitating eLearning Communities course an example of constructionist and constructivist and reflective learning?

Are we like this lego maze (Lego Maze Eric4 by Anvilon)
- structured yet in a quandary and having to find our way around and out? Is there really an end point for a course like this? I hope not....I believe participation in Facilitating eLearning communities needs to be an evolving experience which has to ebb & flow with the technologies, change according to the needs of the participants and catch the trends and waves of eLearning.

I know it is not about mastery learning because the learning is intended to come out of the participants own perceptions, explorations and knowledge development. Plus there is no exam or test. But...

If structured = mastery learning and sequential step by step learning - then this course is not structured. If structured = guided and free to follow your own interests & explore - this course is structured.

I find it quite intriguing that people feel the course is unstructured. Yes there were more instructions for the first few topics and activities and directed discussion than the latter part of the course - yet some people chose not to engage.

The 10 min lecture series has been structured, and also allows discussion and reflection. some people have not been able to engage synchronously and have done so after the events and have made very good postings on their blogs about some, not all the presentations. Others have not engaged at all. Several people have engaged with the assessments - learning log (blog) and wiki - others have not.

I wonder why people feel it is unstructured - or does this mean unguided? Even though there is a learning guide, posted lists of what people should be doing on the course blog, email directions, directed activities for the first few topics, directed assessments, a lecture series, a list of resources, content on WikiEducator etc. Does guided mean something different for all of us? Guided does not equal structured or does it?

In a true constructivist learning community the course is far too structured. There are too many things participants are told to do already. There was very little for them to negotiate. Do participants feel they need to be sat down and directed through a series of topics, and some workshops on how to use some of the technologies? Does structured for some mean teacher-directed rather than learner-directed?

What I would like to know is do people feel they are being guided to be part of an online community? If the answer is yes, then we are on the right track.

Perhaps it is the topic. I believe people learn best how to be an online facilitator by being exposed to a range of strategies and practical opportunities rather than a whole lot of content and theory about how to do something though there is some of that too. Part of being an online facilitator in a community is to experience discomfort as well as comfort. David alludes to that and also mentions the value of finding out things for ourselves.

I am surprised that he feels that participants are "relatively unguided" - people have been given a lot of material to look at and plenty of discussion topics have arisen. The facilitators could have continued to impose very directed discussion topics all through, but instead chose to use the 10 minute lectures as the basis for discussion...which has occurred.

Perhaps what we need now is a short presentation to bring all the threads together for the community - this could serve as a reflection on what we have covered and a stimulus for the next leg of discussion. Watch this space!

Why is evaluation so important?

2007-10-18T19:49:00.000+13:00

I was asked recently to present about evaluation for one of the constructing courses sessions. I decided to do an Elluminate session so I could fit it around study leave. However this morning when I was all geared up to present, the server decided to play hookey and go west.

This spurred me on to prepare a slide show with audio (Plan B). The presentation is called: Why is evaluation so important?

It can be viewed on the Internet and doesn't appear to take too long to load. The presentation is approximately 20 minutes long and covers the what, why and how of evaluation and its relationship to educational design.

I would have preferred the synchronous computer conference option so people could ask questions and we could have some discussion. However, while preparing the audio to accompany the presentation, I found I was able to tie things together better. This meant that my presentation was longer than originally intended, but I feel that it integrates the concepts underlying evaluation much more clearly. I just hope my audience thinks so as well. I have also given them the option of both asynchronous and synchronous discussion around the topic of evaluation.

I used MyPlick to upload the presentation (PowerPoint) and audio (mp3) which I created in Audacity. I prefer this site to SlideShare because the presentation and audio can be lodged on the same site. Mmmn maybe "all my eggs in one basket" is not such a good idea.

All this stuff is really helping me develop stronger digital information literacy skills. The importance of this became very apparent today during a research meeting where we were discussing some of the processes we would use to communicate and share ideas. Considering the research project is action research and the focus is digital information literacy, we as researchers will also be learning, not just the participants, through using web 2.0 tools to conduct the research processes. This is the start of my reflections around this project; it will be very important for all of us to keep a log of the process. Preferably an open log on the web where we can read each others entries and really share progress and ideas. This will be very important with the national spread of researchers in the project.

when is a community not a community?

2007-09-18T15:45:00.000+12:00

In response to mark's suggestion that we contribute to a discussion about why we are in this community has stimulated a question for the group - when is a community not a community?

If you all think about any communities/groups you may belong to - they all have one thing in common.

Faces by Fazen

There is always a core group who seem to do everything, are always involved no matter what, and others who remain quietly on the periphery...sometimes popping up when the need arises and disappearing again. People come and go, and in some instances people are a captive audience at some time or other. I am captivated with this community, and thoroughly enjoying our progress through the course activities. For me a community is about having a common purpose or reason to meet.

The common reason for this community being formed is that we are part of a course with common goals, in terms of assessment, but also in the need to find out more about online communities. Although we all have differing reasons for participating and different expectations and because of this we will each take away different things from this experience.

Because we are an online community, we are using a range of online tools and methods to interact, and a range of activities to give us a reason to use them. We could have set up just a Blackboard discussion Board with 93 forums as they did in one iteration of this course, but we have chosen to give the class the opportunity to see how a variety of tools and strategies work - that way you can experience them and choose what will work for you in your teaching.

So I don't expect we will all feel comfortable, or warm and cozy in this community because it is challenging. But I hope that the strength of the community will be in helping each other overcome the challenges. For myself, it is a challenge because I have never used such a wide variety of tools and methods to teach an online course, and this is my first time teaching this course. I am loving it, and I don't particularly feel like I am teaching, rather I am feeling like a participant. There are so many interesting viewpoints and discussions going on. I was here because I was one of the facilitators, now I am here because I am finding it fascinating - Although I am spending far too much time participating.

I have also found out a lot about different online communities and some of the theoretical underpinnings by listening to the guest speakers. I am learning so much. I now know that online communities are not just about Gilly Salmon's five-step emoderating model or about asynchronous or synchronous discussions. They are so much more. You will see what I mean if you look at the list we compiled last night in the wiki - onlinecommunities. The new page we invite you all to contribute to along with your own discipline-specific page.

The overall aim of this course is to get everyone to the facilitator phase (development - stage five - relates to Gilly Salmon's five-stage model) of being in an online community and to get there there are other phases to pass through e.g. access to the tools and strategies (access - stage one) getting to know the community (socialisation - stage two), sharing knowledge and information (information sharing - stage three), creating knowledge and resources (knowledge building - stage four) .

Do people agree with this?
bronwyn

Putting too much trust in technology

2007-09-14T17:31:00.000+12:00

The title of this post is stimulated by the technology hassles we have been having this week in the Facilitating eLearning Communities course. Who would believe it - two nights in a week and the computer conferencing system failed to function. Twice we were embarrassed in front of an international speaker. Twice we were unable to login and proceed smoothly as we have in previous sessions. Twice the course facilitators were getting blamed for the breakdown. And why? Because we had "put all our eggs in one basket" and we had begun to trust the technology.

The cynics would say - well it is to be expected.
The skeptics would say - I was surprised it has worked so smoothly so far.
The optimists would say - it will work well next time.
The extrinsically motivated would say - well I will just give up and go do something I really enjoy doing - this is too frustrating.
The intrinsically motivated would say - lets find a solution and do something else to help the community.

What do online facilitators say? What do classroom teachers say?

Imagine you walk into a room to teach your class. The lights wont turn on and the room is dark so they wont be able to see the whiteboard and you were going to use it for the session. What do you do?

OR
You are talking away flicking through your slide presentation and feeling like you have hooked your students. The actually seem interested and they are asking questions. Then the lamp blows on the data projector - no screen presentation. What would you do?

Do you keep talking and wing it and engage the group with some activities to help them piece together what has already been said. Or do you pack up and go home grumbling that they can read the text book.

How do you placate the disappointed students who are getting ready to up and leave?
How do you provide alternatives when the technology fails?

Yes these are all very real situations aren't they and ones we dread when we have so much content to get through and exams that have to be passed.

But let me ask this question - if you were the students who would you blame? The technology - hey that can happen, the teachers - they tried their best and its not their fault they didn't invent the thing. They don't manage the electrical grid. Yourself - I hope not.

And so it is with technology in online learning. We can do our very best to set systems up and design learning for our students, and set up interesting lectures and activities. But sometimes students cant access the materials or the sessions, sometimes the software wont run, sometimes the system fails. So what do we do?

Last night when Elluminate failed, again! And I was grappling with downloading Java to get Elluminate to work on my home computer, trying to find our guest speaker, trying to contact the IT technician to get help, trying to let every one of the four groups who were invited to the session know what was happening , trying to answer the phone calls and texts, trying to download Skype so I could message people, reading and answering the group email, messaging the facilitator who was trying to keep it all together :O

- I saw some really interesting stuff happening and a community forming. It is almost as if we have to have ripples and bumps to get traction in a community.

The email group changed from being asynchronous to synchronous.
People were downloading skype and setting themselves up on it.
jokes were being passed around.
discussions were starting.

When we did finally get on Elluminate there was some really good questions and discussion around issues such as confidentiality online, obstructions to getting online from colleagues, what should go on the wiki. We also heard about Merrolees' web 2 project and passed around ideas for online facilitating. I saw some very sturdy beams being raised in the barn. I saw some excellent facilitation going on within the group. I saw people pulling together to find solutions. I saw lots of creativity and critical thinking going on. I was amazed.

Now I am really pleased Elluminate failed. Now we actually have a community thing happening and people supporting each other. So that people is what you do when the technology fails you find alternatives, or make sure there is a sense of community happening in your class so that people will pull together when the walls fall down or the technology fails.

Now I can pack my bags and put them at the door...well almost...but I am getting ready because several of you have already climbed the cliff face and reached level 5 in Gilly Salmon's pyramid for online facilitation. If you don't know what that is you better go look.......:P

Bron

virtual friends are they disconnecting us?

2007-09-04T17:30:00.000+12:00

all this talk about tools for networking and being connected in communities leads me to ask the question are people feeling disconnected as they strive to become more connected?

You may be interested in an article I read recently. here are a couple of excerpts:

"Jason Calacanis wishes he could be your Facebook friend, but he just can't. ....Calacanis now has several thousand friends, with more requests streaming in daily. He's tired. So on his blog this summer, Calacanis, 37, declared a Facebook moratorium. In the future he'll outsource his friend management to an intern."

"Ogheneruemu "O.G." Oyiborhoro ....is the George Washington University junior who holds the school's title of most Facebook friends -- 3,456 and counting." BUT who is the friend who helps him find an apartment....not his facebook buddies.
See:
An Unmanageable Circle of Friends Social-Network Web Sites Inundate Us With Connections, and That Can Be Alienating
By Monica Hesse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 26, 2007; M10

I have recently decided to spend more time with real flesh and blood, physically accessible friends and to ring fence my virtual networks as the number i belong to is taking up more and more time and impacting on my domestic harmony and peace of mind. I wonder if anyone else is feeling the same?

Bron

virtual classrooms and cognitive load theory

2007-09-03T11:34:00.000+12:00

In response to a request for material on virtual classrooms, I stumbled across some interesting theory around cognitive processing and Virtual classrooms by Dr Ruth Clark.

Dr Ruth Clark runs a training and consultancy website. There are lots of courses you can enrol in but they are pretty expensive. The graduate certificate in Applied eLearning does much the same and is a lot cheaper so we are really lucky to have this qual in NZ.

here is a link to an article by ruth clark on harnessing virtual communities.
It has some good pointers about keeping learners engaged during a standard virtual lecture/session averaging 60 minutes:
1. maintain a lively pace
2. visualize your content
3. incorporate frequent participant responses - you will notice in the audio lecture on cognitive processing she asks lots of questions and uses polling a lot and she also gets participants to do activities during the session.
4. use small group breakout rooms.
it is a short article and worth a look.

My comments on the audio: Personally i think such long lecture sessions are a bit much but I was only listening to the audio and she did have slides - she seems to do a good job of getting input from the class using text only. The participants don't seem to feature on the audio so cant have used mics. some interesting stuff about cognitive load and learning styles. e.g. differences between learning styles of different learners are minor in comparison to the ways our brains are set up to process information overall. She talks about the modality principle - best learning is when you have audio to explain visuals.

See also an article I stumbled across about A Learner-Centered Approach to Multimedia Explanations: Deriving Instructional Design Principles from Cognitive Theory. By Moreno, R. & Mayer, R. (2000). This is published online in the Interactive Multimedia Electronic journal of computer-enhanced learning...phew.

The diagram of working memory was informative.illustrates how words and images move from sensory memory to working memory and into long-term memory. Remember working memory can only hold so much information and is easily overloaded.

Dr Ruth Clark also said that cognitive overload can occur if several modalities. For example, the use of visual, text and audio together causes a redundancy effect because we are overloading the visual processing area. using audio and text together is better but use of one modality at a time is best.
Dr ruth does not like people multitasking e.g. checking emails when in VC and likes texting in VC to be on task not texting to each other off task or privately. she says this causes split attention effects.
see what you think when you listen to the audio.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
also a link to a presentation (pdf) called: Leveraging the virtual classroom
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AND her new book at the bookstore.

The New Virtual Classroom:
Evidence-based Guidelines for Synchronous e-Learning

Contents:
Introduction: Meet the New Virtual Classroom
Part I: Learning and the New Virtual Classroom
Part II: Engaging Participants in the New Virtual Classroom
Part III: Optimizing Your Virtual Events
Part IV: Creating Effective Learning Events in the New Virtual Classroom

Price: $50.00 plus S/H*

Bron

eLearner profiles: Diversity in Learning

2007-08-29T22:35:00.000+12:00

I was very interested in a report of a Tertiary eLearning research fund project 2005 which looked at learner profiles - learning styles and preferences of students for elearning. Samuel Mann was on the research team and you may have seen the questionnaire. i have requested a copy of the questionnaire on CD from the lead researcher.

Jeffrey, L. Atkins, C. Laurs, A. & Mann, S. (2005). eLearner profiles: Diversity in Learning. Ministry of Education, TeLRF project report. Available at: http://cms.steo.govt.nz/eLearning/Projects/Tertiary+eLearning+Research+Fund.htm you need to scroll down the page.

What I liked about this research report is the comparison between student preferences for traditional lectures, tutorials and blended forms of online and f2f learning. You may find that these findings mirror some of the feedback you may be getting from your students about online learning. For example, they do not particularly want to be self-directed and do group work. They want lectures and are not particularly keen on online learning which can cause them a lot of anxiety. This is a NZ-based project

"The sample size was 1811 and came from six universities, five polytechnics or institutes and six private training organisations."

Also the researchers categorised the learner profiles as: cognitive voyagers, strategic competitors and multimedia collaborators. If you read the executive summary of the report you will get the gist of the different profiles.

The researchers measured things such as extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, learning styles, dependent versus independent learning preferences, achievement motivation, relativistic reasoning rather than factual,working collaboratively rather than alone, time poorness, global versus sequential learning and reflective versus analytical and much more. It is a fascinating study. I hope you will take a look. Do you believe that this is the same situation for your students.
Bronwyn

Persona activity for Facilitating eLearning Communities

2007-08-20T11:44:00.000+12:00

I have just finished reading through the discussion on Blackboard around creating personas. The individual persona exercise, quite rightly, became a group persona which reverted back to being a suggestion to create two general personas which are representative of the group. David started off the exercise with a persona based on an analysis of the learning styles and some of the information posted in the introductions.

A suggestion was also made by Cheryl is to name the two personas according to the learning styles for each group.
1) Reflective, Global, Intuitive, Visual; 2) Active, Sequential, Sensing, Visual
Person 1 – Virg; Person 2 - Vass

If you collect up all the posts it is very clear to see the personalities of the group emerging. The characteristics of the group who participated have demonstrated they have a range of skills and can do the following:

analyse and organise information,
facilitate others towards action,
mediate,
reflect,
become impatient with no progress,
get confused,
suggest solutions.

I am impressed with how far you have come towards developing a persona or two. It is not an easy task. As stated by Yvonne, “As facilitators we could use a single persona to help focus learning activities and experiences based on shared characteristics and I can see how this would work in some circumstances but are we finding this tricky because we're the learners and not the facilitators?

I thought there may have been some discussion about what should/shouldn't be included so that everyone would feel 'represented' and we'd end up with a final persona. So I'm wondering why we've found it so difficult to do?”

Does anyone have a response to Yvonne's post? I wonder why was this exercise so challenging? Is it worthwhile to do this in your own classes so you get an understanding of who you are facilitating?

Every suggestion has been from a different perspective, but it appears that although confusion has been expressed, some progress has been made. There was also a name suggested for the group persona and some characteristics, such as below:

Name: The Colossal Squid – not sure if this really fits with the new pic I have added.

Age: Average 45

Gender: female

Learning Goals: 1. To gain more familiarity, skills & ideas for teaching online. 2 To discover new ways/methods to deliver effective learning experiences - not necessarily for full online delivery but as an additional teaching/learning tool.

Background Story: Teaching background (10-15 years), (mostly) married (some partnered), 3 kids (ages 8,10,13), Interests include music, the outdoors, family & friends. Fairly computer literate.
A telling quote:??? I get the sense this will come as the background story develops
email address: Gmail? Generic polytech email?
Job Title: 1/2 time lecturing/teaching (with some online component), 1/2 time consulting on e-learning projects
Photo: Attached – provided by David
Learning Style: Visual preference, global slant, huge active preference

There was also a suggestion by Linda to create two personas based on the fact that “some learners are experienced with technology while others are very new to it,” rather than using learning styles.

Individual personas

Three people have asked others to form a group with them and we are still waiting to hear the outcome of those sessions. For example, an Elluminate meeting was organised last Fiday 17 August. If it went ahead, and am interested to see what came out of that exercise.

Learning styles: There was certainly a lot of emphasis on learning styles, and a virtual chocolate fish to David for getting the ball rolling. This was as good a way as any to get a “feel” for the learners and sometimes learning styles may be the first bit of information you get. Of course if you take the time to look at your students’ enrolment forms you will also find out some demographic information.

Think about how you actually get to know who your learners are in the f2f classroom and online?

Because of the difficulties in getting to know students online, lots of lecturers now take the time to do a learning styles exercise at the start of a course.

Luckily nine people also posted some information about themselves in the introductions forum. As you have found out it is an exercise which may be a lot easier to complete over more than one week when you get to know your fellow class mates through interacting with them in discussions and with them on their blogs.

Once everyone has their blogs up and running, and if they add information about themselves on there, it will be easier to confirm the personae. And maybe as leigh suggests it is a dynamic process which will evolve over the length of the course. In any case, the activity though not immediately satisfying or conclusive has certainly stimulated a lot of thought around who you all are as learners…don’t you agree?

So where to now?

I really like Yvonne’s observations about why the exercise has appeared to pose difficulties. Meaning that it took longer than a week and also seemed challenging for people to get an immediate outcome. It certainly started on time, and it is evident that the exercise needs more than a week and this should be stated from the outset. Maybe it is an exercise which should be started later in the course when we have a better grip on who we all are – personality-wise and professionally.

What do people think?

eLearning guidelines project day

2007-08-15T18:35:00.000+12:00

All the project leaders involved in the eLearning guidelines project gathered today at the Wellington airport conference centre. The steering committee meeting held yesterday was used to plan today's event.

The main aim for today was to introduce project leaders to each other and to discuss items around managing the projects. There were some group activities around finding common ground, sharing ideas and resources, and risk factors. The risk analysis brainstorm session highlighted a lot of concerns. or example, staff turnover, keeping to milestones, budgets, project management skills. It was a very useful exercise. The show and tell after lunch was an excellent way to keep everyone awake and informed about who was doing what. The short snappy explanations about the projects were just the right length (two minutes) to inform. Also the session where we had to migrate into groups of similarity was also very useful.

I joined the design group and it became apparent that everyone was keen to keep the discussion going around best practice in design, and also to share resources developed for the projects. For example, several people are gathering material for a literature review. The Otago Polytechnic project is called: The power of design on flexible learning and digital network literacy

The eLearning guidelines that the project will use are listed below:

TD11 Should staff use a team approach to develop and teach the course?
TD12 Is the design of learning informed by research on effective eLearning?
TO9 Are staff encouraged to participate in networks and learning communities involved in reviewing, developing or sharing good practice in the use of e-learning?

For the demo session today , I added some information about the project to the Otago Polytechnic project space on WikiEducator. This was essentially the project application. The plan is to have a meeting as soon as possible with Leigh and Terry to discuss the way forward for the project and who will be involved.

It was very good to meet most people involved in the projects, and people seemed keen to keep the contact going on group email and to support each other. Motivation and pastoral care from John, the project manager will be very important in keeping us all on track. And I hope people will take the time to log what they are doing regularly and share their progress in an open manner and support each other.

Day Three - Panel

2007-06-27T14:38:00.000+12:00

The last part of the panel session was about the Future of learning 2027:
Generic off-the-shelf products are no longer in vogue and businesses have moved out of the tertiary organisations. "The only sure thing is that things will change". There may be holographs accessed via smart cards as learner needs them.
Also the 4 Rs - "Right information to the right person at the right time and in the right way". Situated learning in the workplace.

"Not everything is possible" and "we're just all going to be lazy" or "work too hard" - we already do. what can we do that computers can't - creative stuff. Skill sets instead of knowledge because information is doubling constantly - need to know how to handle all the information. We will be moving between careers more rapidly. 'Don't afraid to jump on the technology train. We're not and it is going to be exciting!" (Miria Royal, 2007.)

The workplace will be the new university. "The illiterate of 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write but those who cannot learn, unlearn or relearn" (Rachel Skudder, 2007).

The law of more! More bandwidth, web 2.0, 3.0, 4.0. More creating content. speed - faster, faster. Just-in-time products. Pull vs push, m-Learning. Open education resources. Content rich courses will not longer be norm. Push rather than pull...RSS. Power shift to the learner.

eFest Workshop Communities of practice

2007-06-27T09:40:00.000+12:00

Derek Chirnside - Communities of Practice, creative facilitation in a Web 2.0 world
Some wonderful insights into this phenomenon. A wonderful mix of multimedia to illustrate concepts and principles of what a community is and how to create it. A little bit of theory (situated cognition) and seeding some ideas e.g. identity...Material from Etienne Wenger and ideas for designing a structure for a community. The following question caught my attention:

Does a community of practice need a place?
Share tools and stories e.g. housewives who meet over coffee. Elements in design - connectivity, leadership, membership, events, artefacts, projects (p17 in handout).

Bounded learning communities in formal taught courses - goals, identity, collaboration, respectful inclusion, progressive discourse and knowledge building.

Facilitation ideas: liked the one about having a task which passes from one to another "you are it" idea.

Used an idea called organic metaphors.

Derek told the group a little about Web 2.0 tools. We discussed things such as: what makes a good blog? Think of an expert in our field who keeps a blog. For example, Derek Wenmouth - models putting yourself into it, weaving stories, keeping it up to date. Blogs can be Vblogs (video) audio blogs.

Podcasting: mentioned ipods and recording, Audacity. Could do 6 minute audio summary of lectures and post to blog. These resources can be a nuturing tool.

Tools serve the community. Think identity not technology.

http://www.netvibes.com can be used for organising tools - use it as a course homepage.

What We 2.0 tools should we use for the community of practice.

CPSquare.com uses a content area (Moodle or Blackboard), blog, wiki, RSS feed, Flickr, Skype.

This was a good chance to pull together some different ideas around communities of practice and it was fun. Learned about Twitter....now off to find out more about it.

FLLinNZ facilitation sessions - day two

2007-06-26T08:57:00.000+12:00

Sean McDougall - speaking via videoconferencing classrooms of the future
not a lot has changed - still sitting in classrooms altogether slumped over desks which are unsuitable for learning and sitting at all day. All studying at same time in groups. Sean has been working in designing learning spaces for the future.

No point in designing new buildings and doing the same sort of teaching there will be no additional benefits for the teachers and students. "It is about how you do it not where you do it." Example of a design where the teacher could get around the students (children) better which improved the activitiy. Design of saddle seats which could swivel in any direction - take up less of a footprint - tables fit around the room - four-way data projector. Cheaper option than billions spent on school rebuilding. Room designed to encourage conversation and collaboration and teacher tried to teach by standing up the front. Learned from mistakes - need to educate teachers in new approaches.

Design my school - tool where students could be involved in designing school. http://designmyschool.net used wikipedia design - Co-Design

Provided some statistics about education in UK - 80% black children leave school at 16yrs and over half jobs advertised in UK in 2012 will require a degree. need to get back to the idea of a creative school rather than an "exam factory". The system is not working - community minority groups illustrate this.

Singapore example
eight years old problem-solving re bomb in an oil facility - building robots to clean up oil, building website to keep parents informed, writing business plan - a year long project. need to invent and create and solve future for themselves.

Xchurch School called Unlimited
Barriers removed - students direct their own learning Involved in projects in which they are interested e.g. designing logos, music distribution, own record label. Studying alongside 18 yr olds to get qualifications like Business.

Design done by people and with people. How can we work with excluded communities?
Example from Ireland - Sean is working with nuns in Cork. How can they work with people who are falling through groups. Responsive servicing. Immigrants, travellers, prisoners working together to find solutions to help stop people dropping out. They told their stories -
1. need place to come to meet with friends

children had different perspectives about how the building looked like - teachers forget what the rooms of the school look like.
Introduce opposites e.g. if you want technology look at what the organisation would look like without technology.

Another example-what could we do to make a fountain better? Designing a programmable, interactive fountain e.g. speed camera - measure how fast children are running around. could measure height and jets could respond to different heights. Give fountain three wishes - to see, hear, feel. Children helped design a mural with pictures and ideas of what they liked or did not like about the school. invites configuration and brings people together to work on a common problem to prepare them for the rapidly changing 21 century. create your own models and not wait for someone to "design a catalogue and you order from it".

Allow people to skill up - learn and make mistakes. Video showing chidren with robots they constructed - watching them work and showing the great excitement. learning what they need for the knowledge economy. Need to redesign the service to meet the needs of the children e.g. reading construction manuals as that is where the interest lies for one of the children who likes building things.
Have moved from where things are done to them to one where people create their world. can you hand over what is seen to be important information to be displayed e.g. Cardiff streets.

1.What will it mean if we get it right?

increased success. Teachers who get it. learners who get what they want.

2.What happens if we carry on as we are?

no change as technology etc. changes around us.

3.Why haven't we done anything about it?

too hard, no money.

4. What could we do about it?

let people know what skills people will need in the future

Mark Nichols - institutional change for eLearning
Statement: now know how eLearning works - do we? We know how to facilitate online discussion - do we?
Beeby 1992 wrote about lessons learned in 1930s. Mark is an educational evolutionist. Focus is on formal education. He has failed spectacularly. Failures are far more interesting and you can learn from it. In his FLLinNZ year he read a lot about institutional change and talked to lots of people about it. Reckons it is commonsense. Has been ignored and now feels like he is prophetic.
What do we know about change
Peter Senge - see institution as a whole "see the wood for the trees". Large scale change is complex. Example: had a CDROm of video, looked after website, used discussion - looked after it himself and it worked well. what would happen if it was systemised? Need to train people and learners. need to copy multiple CDs. What about looking after discussions - technical support, archiving.

Who maintains resources? How do we support subject matter experts with elearning. can they use pre-prepared materials. how are new technologies incorporated? How do we enrol students? Innovation in one course is very different to what is needed in a whole programme. Good systems solve problems before they happen.

Best to work with late majority - sustainability through transformation
work on changing core ideas - workshops Core and custom - complement standardisation with innovation. How do you get buy in. Use systems that organisation has in place - systems for internal review. Meet with programme leaders and work with them. Division of labour - how to best support those who are not tech literate. Engage at level of the core with tech support at that level.
FL strategy or teacing and learning strategy - use them.

How do you go about internalising elearning?
strategic ownership - VLE a thermometer - some staff flocked to it - others ignored it. If few staff got excited good prognosis - otherwise more difficult to change ideas about eLearning.

John P. Kotter - leading organisational change, very good book.
useful orientation to major changes that are involved.

Examples from Bible College
1. establishing a sense of urgency - better resourcing of students, costing
Developing a strategy and PD. College eLearning audit and prepare national exemplar.
Sense of urgency varies - depends on hierarchy and priorities e.g. pbrf. When there is a crisis - lack of students for programmes. Responding to market.

2. Creating the guiding coalition
put ideas in front of managers with evidence

3.Developing a vision and strategy
what evidence is there that it improves learning? works well where there is no choice or it supports lifestyle. Don't change what is working and change what and when you need to.

4. Communicating the change vision

5. Empowering broad-based action

6. Generating short term wins

7. Consolidating gains and producing more change

8. Anchoring new approaches in the culture

Some discussion on the above questions but not enough time and no summarising of them at the end.

Maret Staron - TAFE
Overview of some research projects. "Designing Professional development for the Knowledge era".
Big emphasis in Australia with workforce development. Mentioned learning environmnet managers - work done in the workplace with learners there. Moving more to learner directed ideas. Open standards
Now in the Knowledge era - environment, learning ecology, business,
focus for all four areas on learners, context, technologies

Suggestion that the knowledge era will only last a decade - has progressed from information era. Next era proposed to be the concept era. Is this true?

Need to be knowledge workers - need to find, use information. Now need to generate our own information. One of our greatest challenges - how to work in groups to generate new knowledge?

Work is becoming more unbounded in time and space now with practitioners increasingly needing to work and engage in their own learning at work and at home" (ANTA 2004).

Used an ecology metaphor - broader than networks - what is your learning ecology? relationship between entitities and their environment. Dynamic, adaptive and diverse - there is no one way. Maron promised a model to help but no one way.

Stuck in the mechanistic metaphor - want to think, feel, use intuition, be creative - a contradiction.

Strength-based Philosophy - moves us from deficit-based model
What is wrong and we will fix it. Hard to shift to strength-based model. Constrained by bureaucracies who follow the deficit-based model. A lot of organisations try and solve problems by looking at what they need to fix. Martin Seligman - how to look at what helps people thrive. How to help organisations be the best they can. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - psychology of optimal experience - "in the flow" when things work well and you are in the optimal skill level. When in the flow anxiety, boredom and apathy reduces.

Business wisdom
How to bring leadership on board. What is the glue that connects the elements of a learning organisation? (Wise thinking and actions.)

Key findings of research
Strength-based orientation more effective.
capability - moves beyond professional development - confident, capable, competence - ability to work in unknown areas.
Values is the bedrock
Disruptive model

action learning, mentoring is strength-based, communities of practice

Some places run events on a cafe conversation model for PD. Look at what is working and why.
Who is practising deviance in a positive way for the benefit of the organisation.
What gifts does each person bring to the organisation?
How to reshape the description of your work so it is more flexible - job sculpting.
Appreciative inquiry.
Disruptive technology - policy, research, processes
Life-based learning, expert-centred model, work-based learning
In reality learning crosses work, leisure, family etc.
What is the source of learning not the continuum? "Learning for work is not restricted to learning at work."
Life-based learning is integrated and holistic. What are the enablers to create this type of learning?
"A business approach to capability development "- companion document to research report.

http://www.icvet.edu.au

Discussion of four questions: Modifying what could we build? - Listening, sharing stories and conversations. previous knowledge and recording.
Exploring - what assumptions should we challenge?
Visioning - what would be your ideal, your dream?
Experimenting - what can we combine and test?

What is your personal stance in relation to work-based and life-based learning? What does it it mean to design this ideal for approaches to learning?

Stanley Frielick - Real change institutional challenges and opportunities
Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge - a new way of understanding, interpreting or viewing something may emerge a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape or world view.
What is a threshold moment? - when someone starts contributing and/or facilitating to an online discussion. When people take charge of something - self-directed learning.

The real university is a state of mind. Zen and the art of motorocycle maintenance : an inquiry. Are there two universities? The first real university is the concrete one - state of mind sits within there. What are the mental models which underly our university structures?

Teachers and learners are inextricably linked and there is not just a one-way flow of information. Reactive (teacher-centred) versus constructive (learner-centred). Both demonstrate a dualist model - autonomous model where learner is separated from the world. Ecological model - capillaries of power - an energy which circulates through an institution. (Foucalt). Need to focus on capillaries when look at change. what are the technologies of power?

threshold concept 3 - Can teaching and learning function like an ecosystem? Is it similar to indigenous models of learning? Example, dialogical model where relationships occur between teachers and learners.

Mention of DNA and genetics as shaping learning - evolution, mutants, survival of the fittest - social dynamism - who supports the weak and do we just leave them in the wilderness?

Threshold concept 4 - ecological sensibility - disruptive technologies. who decides what is knowledge? Who decided what is needed for promotion?

Real change
Form (media) and content - most disruption happening here - disruptive technologies and disruptive pedagogies.
Assessment examination and accreditation
Appraisal (teacher) and evaluation (courses)

Immune system - assessment and appraisal areas. what is needed to make this disruptive - quality, prescriptive and normative, secretive - policies and processes, rewards. Suggests real change needs to be focussed on immune system (resistance). Make them more open, networked and ecological.

The disruptive technologies and pedagogies will act as an external stimulus which will upset the balance of the ecosystem and stimulate internal systems in assessment and appraisal i.e. disrupt them - they will have to change so they can revert to a balanced model. Change cannot occur in an ecosystem without an external stimulus. An internal stimulus can change an individual's system but not when an individual is part of a bigger system. Negative and positive feedback. Negative feedback in a closed system will return it to the status quo. Positive feedback will stimulate either rebirth or bleeding to death or system wide shock and collapse.

In complexity or chaos theory where there is a complex system - competency alone is not enough - it is very linear and serves only part of the purpose. Capability occurs when there is a branching out and multiple layers of action and direction.

What are we going to do about this? Why are teachers and students not revolting?

eFest Day One

2007-06-25T10:47:00.000+12:00

Here we all are at the first day of eFest. The feeling is relaxed and friendly and it looks like the emphasis is going to be on round table conversations - well the set up of the room has set the scene. Lots of familiar faces and it is good to have time to catch up with old friends and eLearning colleagues.

Presentation from NorthTec introduced by the CEO and several staff - They have six campuses and lots of Learning Centres scattered around Northland. They use Moodle and have set up wireless and computing and video conferencing in all the LC. Also have a staff portal to provide information management, ICT access which is the same for all staff - RSS, document sharing, web space. They have Mobile programmes - f2f courses delivered in communities including on marae - horticulture, forestry, environmental studies, construction, sport and recreation.

Case studies
1. Bachelor of Nursing - five semester development, e-capability eCDF funding, team approach. Supported by senior management and evaluated by action research - Dr Nancy George. Video interview with a nursing student illustrated how important it is for a woman with children and a part-time job to be able to study flexibly.

2. Certificate in eLearning Design and Development (eCDF) - video clips of students talking about what they got out of the programme.

3. Mobile programmes teach skills as part of a community project. For example, gardening in schools.

4. Learning support - eTech support, online counselling, online learning objects. also reconfiguring technologies and buildings around the flexible approach.

Nursing communication scenarios using actors - example in palliative care - appropriate and non-appropriate.

Also have a student portal - blogs, portfolios. also have virtual classrooms.
Staff development in staff and student portals.

Polytechnics and universites are going to be connecting to KAREN (advanced research network) - ultra fast Internet connection.

Presentation by Murray Brown from Ministry of Education
joined the dots about what has been happening - funding, eLearning advisory etc.

Barry Ogilvie from Tertiary Education Commission speaking about eLearning project update
They have four projects under discussion. Looking for a vision for network capability. Also flexible and distance learning options. Looking for a range of methodologies for assessing capabilities across ITP sector - e.g. maturity model.

District Health Boards - Wintec and Northgate - nursing education - use mentoring, reflection, innovation. Staff want to have fun when learning. Mandatory training - national online campus, generic material with local contexts. Liked Moodle.

NorthTec nursing programme
Development and action research of Bachelor of Nursing programme. using a blended model as they do not want to lose face-to-face component. Have students who can study even though they live in isolated areas in Northland. Gave away online discussion as not popular with students.

Contextualisation of multimedia resources
Developed communication modules. Read information and choose correct answers. simple to change text. Originally created by WELTEC - not available in a repository and not sure abut IP issues. Have Grammar online. have a lesson and go through and choose options. Read information and do a test - so they changed it. Flash object with xml file at the back - replace text here and leave the codes. Could be easy to delete code if staff are unaware. Design perspective given and then pedagogical perspective given. How does it affect the learner?

cognitive, social and teacher presence and PLEs

2007-06-11T16:53:00.000+12:00

This posting is in response to Derek Wenmouth's diagram - OLE a school perspective - illustrating a school-based PLE. This is currently being discussed in a very interesting online discussion seminar run by Derek Wenmouth and Derek Chirnside on SCOPE.

It strikes me in all this talk about personal learning ecologies and personal learning environments (PLEs) that we are paying a lot of attention to the structure of the system. I am currently exploring how Derek's proposed system can help with learning. At the moment the diagram represents a mish mash of ways to collect together content - very important but not enough to stimulate engagement and reflection and deep learning.

Inherent in the use of some of the tools e.g. blogs, is a belief that communication will happen but I think we need to look carefully at this. Just because we keep a blog does not mean that someone will give us feedback on the content. We could also have a collection of tools in a system such as that proposed by D and have no interaction at all with another human being. At least in a classroom, there is a teacher to guide or control the learning.

My question is how can a PLE incorporate teacher presence and scaffolded learning and still enable the learners to have autonomy in their choices?

Is a PLE only really any good for the development of a cognitive presence online? i.e. information processing and can this truly happen without discourse and input from another human? Does a PLE automatically stimulate social interaction? I have found that there is no guarantee of a social presence i.e. interaction with other students, and even if this occurs and is unguided and unstructured, how much learning actually occurs? I believe that if any system such as a PLE is to succeed, teacher presence is very important. There is more about the ideas of cognitive, social and teacher presence in an article called:

Farmer, J. (2004). Communication dynamics: Discussion boards, weblogs and the development of communities of inquiry in online learning environments. In R. Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference (pp. 274-283). Perth, 5-8 December. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/farmer.html

Actual example of the use of social networking tools and strategies in a course.
In a course where I co-teach design for flexible learning, we have encouraged participants to set up their own PLEs using a blog, del.icio.us account, mailing list and wiki as the backbone. They also have access to a LMS discussion and content on a course wiki,and are encouraged to use a range of open source software e.g. audacity for audio, gimpshop and gimp for image manipulation, CMap and Gliffy for mindmapping, and web-based tools e.g. Flickr (images), Bubbleshare, slideshare, Youtube, bliptv. There is variable take-up. Some really explore and try out lots of things to design and create resources and a learning space for themselves, others sit on the fringes.

The blogs which each student is required to keep and the course wiki and mailing list, and del.ici.ous accounts depend very much on an active teacher presence to keep the participants linked and motivated. It also depends on these items being connected to the course assessment. The tools are there, but without facilitation by the "teachers" the participants tend to learn in isolation apart from when they come together for f2f workshops.

We have found that unless guidance is provided by the "teachers" very few of them provide feedback to each others' blogs, contribute to the wiki or del.ici.ous account or contribute meaningful discussion to the mailing list.

I wonder is teacher presence vital for a successful PLE?
Bronwyn

Sustainability workshop

2007-06-01T13:44:00.000+12:00

Model based on The Natural Step idea. Curriculum DNA model - disciplines, needs, actions.
what is the concept of sustainable education - sustainable education - thesis by ?
looks at core values, transformative education. There is a specific language.

Discussion about how material will be presented e.g. via Internet or Intranet, and what should be open or private.
Four issues around education - knowledge, student-centred learning and action capability, ?

OP wants sustainability embedded in curriculum rather than starting with specialist options at most basic level of operation as sustainable graduates.

Staff development ideas
workshops: 1. what's best? Decision-making for a sustainable future. From June 28 EDC and Steve.
2. Curriculum development for a sustainable future.
Should these be done in order or in parallell. Do we use inquiry, authentic-based, experiential?

Do we work within discipline or across discipline? There is a place for both.

Why am I interested in sustainable living?

2007-05-20T13:01:00.000+12:00

Firsty I will introduce myself. I have qualifications as a scientist (MSc Zoology) and an educator Dip Teaching (tertiary) and am finishing a Doctorate in Education in Information and Communications Technology.I have studied the ecology both of both land-based ecosystems and fresh water systems. I also have a 30 year love affair with environmental and human rights issues. I would love to do away with money and exist in a place where the community exchanges and shares skills and support.

I presently work as an Educational Developer in the Educational Development Centre. I have been interested in environmental issues since the 70s when I lived in London for five years and Switzerland for six months - they were recycling everywhere, in the community and in the hospital I nursed in. You could pick up free furniture every month off the street when it was put out for collection. The reason for the activity - their country is too small to fill it up with junk. There is more about how I got to this space on my blog and I would feel privileged if you took the time to read about my background in sustainability.

While in London i rode a bicycle constantly, and used public transport because it wasn't practical to use a car even on long journeys. There was too much traffic; it was exhilarating to weave in and out of the cars and buses, and the fastest way to get around. I ate organic food which was very easy to get. Every time I washed my hair the water was black with soot. It was a very polluted city, and the water we were expected to drink had been recycled eight times by the municipal council.

Living there made me very aware of the issues facing the planet. I recall asking a chemistry lecturer about global warming, and the idea was poohooed as pollycock. I also recall asking questions about the safety of nuclear energy in a meeting with nuclear energy official representatives. They were adamant that alternative energy sources would never see the light of day and that nuclear power plants were 100% safe. The most fascinating trip I ever made was to Macynlleth in mid Wales where alternative energy centre was being set up - Centre for Alternative Technology - they had created a fully sustainable house and community from a bare quarry. Today it is a thriving magnet for all sorts of people wanting to learn about alternative energies and sustainable ways of living.

I joined a group of protesters one time and our efforts to get to to Greenham Common via train and bicycle were blocked by the authorities. we were protesting the nuclear weapons held there by the US. I was also closely involved with an urban regeneration group and we replanted wastelands and areas near abandoned railway tracks. My interest in the environment and sustainable ways of living has always been from a scientific angle as well as from a sociological stance. I just want to see people and the earth treated justly.

I would like to see Otago Polytechnic modelling sustainabiity in everything we do. Not just the everyday practical things which relate to energy use and recycling but also that we ensure we purchase good only from reputable sustainable companies, and that we provide sustainable educational choices for the community.

You may be interested in the following local organisations:
1. Sustainable Dunedin Network at: http://www.dect.org.nz/
2. Sustainable Dunedin City Society at: http://www.sustainabledunedincity.org.nz/

Here is a video clip on the Channel 9 website of an interview about the Dunedin City Council Annual Plan with members of Sustainable Dunedin City Society

"The newly-formed Sustainable Dunedin City Society are arguing that the DCC's annual plan shows no sign of dealing with issues concerning climate change.They're concerned if the council doesn't rethink their current plan, Dunedin can kiss goodbye to a sustainable city and environment."

First of all we need to communicate openly and discuss the ideas around the Key Performance Indicators for the Sustainability plan. We would also benefit from having information added to a Wiki so it can be dynamic and readily updated by all interested staff at OP. That way people will feel involved and will be more likely to contribute and collaborate as well as cooperate. otherwise we may get into the same ole ways of working where we are being told what we have to do, rather than taking responsibility for doing what is right because we feel passionate about being a sustainable organisation.
Bronwyn

sustainable futures in the organisation

2007-05-15T14:54:00.000+12:00

One of the most exciting developments at OP is strategic sustainable development. This extends to environmental, energy and education.

There are several strands of sustainable development at the institution:

staff development - workshops, awareness
operations = wellness, energy saving, transport - hybrid, biofuel, electric, bicycles for staff and students - what to get for staff transport.
curriculum - graduate profile working party - EDC support (18 May & 1 June) - email chrise@tekotago.ac.nz (chris ebert) for link to wiki for grad profile.
outreach - (sustainable Otago), design EXPOs - criteria to keep a high standard, sustainable business workshops - want to use own staff - advocacy.
students - forums, working party, OPSA, wellness, Gyro article - after checking what students want
communications - wait until get funding to promote more of this.
funding - contestable funds - business cases, need to see savings and how they are going back to the plan, incentives to bike to work.

Key performance indicators being drafted e.g. staff development, carbon footprint, energy etc

Need to revisit how we communicate what we are doing - blogs, wikis, mailing list. have received funding for environmental challenge project - sustainable home. tertiary organisations working together with community.

social networking for leadership team

2007-05-08T13:27:00.000+12:00

Planning for leadership team

Explain what a blog is and show the an example – terry to talk about his travel blog. Talk about the idea of a diary or journal. Gareth Morgan's blog.

Leigh will set up a blog for someone in leadership team. Leigh will have organised Phil & Robin re sending pics to Flickr etc. put them into blog.

Show Tony Heptinstall's blog - students can see what the lecturer is interested in (professional), filtering the Internet. Show lots of examples - Leigh. OP examples - William Lucas, Dave McQuillan, Wendy ritson-jones.

Show example of DFLP blog - migrating from primary focus of Blackboard to primary focus as the blog. Why is this better? Made an executive decision to make blog as the pivotal part of the course.

Blog helped them organise everything they were doing - thoughts, progress, reflection, questions, self-assessment, and make the assessments easier to mark.

Time may be an issue - how can wikis, blogs be more efficient for staff. Information overload. Show them an RSS feed ?

Set up leadership team wiki.

Social networking - definition and philosophy may come later. Culture change – move away from broadcast culture to participatory culture.

Demonstration of how to participate. Google search and Technorati search for blogs.

Harvard Law - taking next step.

Advantages of the Internet e.g. email - increase speed of communication, written record.

photos of the Future of Learning in a Networked World experience

2006-10-02T21:17:00.000+13:00

Some of the FLNW photos.

The Designing for Flexible Learning Practice workshop 4 brainstorm and reflection on the whiteboard sets the scene. watch this space for my reflections on the amazing experience of interacting with a web 2 whirlwind.

Progress with research project and evaluation of business report module

2006-09-01T15:20:00.000+12:00

On Thursday this week - Dawn, Tiffany and I met to discuss how to progress the evaluation and research side of things. This is all set up in a wiki for the project team.

We worked through the research questions and methodology and revamped the questionnaire so it is more generic. The information sheet needs to be modified now to suit the different research approaches we all agreed on in a previous meeting - see overview. we need to get the changes to the college ethics committee by mid-September.

Next meeting Thursday 7 Aug.

This morning M, D and I observed a Business communication class (n=19) using the Business report module. The class was taken by I who has also been developing the module. We used the feedback sheet from the OIL website (with some slight changes) and got them to fill it out in class which worked really well. It took an average of 30-40 min to work through. Most of them worked through from start to finish.

We also got them to work in pairs and tell each other what they liked and didn't like, and how they thought the module would be useful for their business report assignment. We got them to write some key things on the whiteboard around these items. They all engaged with the module and we now have several questionnaires to analyse and some potential participants for the research project. In October, after the business report assignments are handed in, we will return to talk to the class and find out whether or how they used the module to write their reports.

Analysis and Evaluation next phase for OIL

2006-08-24T19:00:00.000+12:00

The next phase for the Analysis and Evaluation Group for OIL (online information literacy) eCDF project was brainstormed today.

We did this after we finished the second presentation to research forums at both the polytechnic and the university (21 August and 24 August) to inform people about the evaluation processes which have taken place over the first year of the project. In particular, the presentations were to inform audiences about the findings of the research evaluation project - Real use research evaluation of an online essay writing module: In formation literacy eLearning modules project. The audiences at both venues were relatively small with approximately 15 at each event.

Brainstorm of ideas for the next phase of evaluation
1. Which modules from phase one do we need to test for usability?

Business report - scheduled for 1 September 0800 - 1000 in computer lab H517. M and I and myself plus D has volunteered to help as well. This could be usability testing and not part of the research project.

Science report - will not be used in class this year, but could be randomly used by second year students if they are referred to it by their lecturer. R wants to customise the module for first year students using the online editor. Then integrate it in the first year biology course in 2007. This would be ideal for the research project. Also D to get Rosemary to review the module for the Science Investigation - expert review.

NZ Information Sources

- review Leitesha and Joseph modules, also review modules with Learning Centre students and staff at university and polytechnic - usability testing.

2. Which modules to be investigated as part of the research project?
Depending on the research design, expert review and use of the online editor for customisation could be incorporated in the research. Also real use with students in class and critique of the modules by users early October). Observation, focus group interviews (record and transcribe) and questionnaire testing of usability will still be used as methods for collecting data when in real use. Also a feedback blog could be set up for participants to add their feedback. Staff who participate in customisation of the modules would be asked to keep a log of the process, and be interviewed in a focus group. This would comprise case study research.

Science report - as above.

Essay writing

- M wishes to customise this module for a foundation course.

Digital Information Literacy

- expert review & consultation - FLNW** conference visitors - this module and others.

Maori & Pasifika

- expert review & consultation - ongoing consultation

Ethics - expert review & consultation - copyright expert

Searching - expert review

Evaluation - expert review

Springboard (introduction to IL) module - expert review

Need to make modifications to the questionnaire (remove irrelevant features), information sheet and consent form. Also the feedback sheet on the OIL website needs to be modified to collect feedback. If we add an information sheet and include the consent on the questionnaire, then people critiquing the modules of the OIL site could be included in the research project.

Expert review will also be obtained re ANZIIL standards.
Notify college research office about changes in methodology - information sheet, consent form, questionnaire, research design.

Methods for disseminating modules

Add OIL link to institutional websites
Training in online editor - introduce mid-September with Terry Stewart eCDF project - inhouse group training first from 4 September when usernames and passwords issued.
Google not picking up site.
ITPNZ, DEANZ, FLLinNZ, eLearning Directors notified

Digital information literacy

2006-08-13T20:20:00.000+12:00

I have to prepare an outline for an online module on digital information literacy for the eCDF OIL project.

Digital information literacy is also called fluency, and I like the definition I found on the 21st Century information fluency project website.
This site also has micromodules - small tutorials about information literacy.

Digital Information Fluency (DIF) is the ability to find, evaluate and use digital information effectively, efficiently and ethically. DIF involves knowing how digital information is different from print information; having the skills to use specialized tools for finding digital information; and developing the dispositions needed in the digital information environment.

As well as the definition there is a useful diagram.

Therefore in a module geared up to help users gain skills in digital information literacy, the following needs to be covered:

Language and the meaning of terms used for digital searching e.g. subscription-based and free networked datasets, networked information - abstracting and indexing services, full-text material and digitised collections, access points, interfaces, search syntaxes
Terms used for digital material e.g. learning objects, resource-based, multimedia etc
Range of interfaces for accessing digital information - databases, datasets, electronic libraries, Internet, other multimedia - problem-solving so users can navigate sources and understand their scope
Formats of digital information - text, audio, video, images, blogs, wikis etc.
Portals, search engines, RSS feeds, subject gateway - catalogue, or directory, of internet resources e.g. OMNI Examples of several subject gateways via the OMNI website plus Internet tutorials on how to find information effectively and Internet detective.
Resource Discovery Network (RDN) and web collections and sub-collections e.g. JISC collections
Digital repositories e.g. OSLOR, Aeshare, Australian Flexible framework toolboxes
FOSS (free and open source software) - examples relevant to information literacy e.g. Diigo ( a web-based annotating tool), blogger, google etc.
Digital tools for searching - search engines, subject directories, gateways etc.
Data sets e.g. Citation Index, databases, data centres
Examples of online resources e.g. NZ National library, British library online gallery - world's oldest printed book "Diamond Sutra", wikipedia
Publishing on the web, digital publications
Intellectual property and options for copyright - creative commons, JISC models, copyright licensing Ltd.

This module will need to be linked to search strategies, evaluating and ethics modules.

References
Blackall, L. (2005). Digital literacy: how it affects teaching practices and networked learning futures _ a proposal for action research. The Knowedge Tree, Edition 07.

Breaks, M. & MacLeod, R. (2001). Joining up the academicinformation landscape: the role of the RDN hubs within the Distributed National Electronic Resource.

21st Century information fluency project

initial planning FLLinNZ third round

2006-08-08T15:33:00.000+12:00

Our planning session for the Flexible Learning leaders in New Zealand planning meeting all the 1st and 2nd round FLLinNZers gathered at Wiapuna Hotel at Mt Wellington, Auckland. We started with a warmup and a discussion of what we are expecting from the third round of funding and any issues. The facilitator presented on the situation in Australia.

Main points were:

competency-based apprenticeships
qualifications recognised across Aus
maximum flexibility in system - impacts on quality
grow private training orgs with effective competition
school-based apprenticeships
RPL - want to improve uptake
industry wants to control knowledge base - web 2 does not fit
training providers not keeping pace with rapid technological change - important
costs, flexibility and access
need training to meet needs of lifelong learners - skills shortages, shiftworkers, contractors, mature learners, just-in-time and to suit learners
need to build capability - respond to physical and online environment
changing role of education and training

key activity: who can we connect with to make the most influence?
often fail to equip people with skills to be able to problem solve and think forthemselves.

Pedagogical shifts

more of the following:
distributed networks
social networking
blended and flexible models
facilitation driving pedagogy not instruction
innovation
market changes e.g. full employment
Less occurrence of the teacher teaching many.

Examples: Motor Traders Association - mp3 audio files used in training to capture their interest

Caryl Oliver - mlearning - there is a recording of an interview with Caryl.
Manager of 2020: multigenerations, longer later, more teams, flexible working, performance emphasised, innovation

Overview of pressures on the NZ tertiary education sector can be seen on the concept map (to be loaded).

Facilitator talked about Australian Flexible Framework and how we could have links with Australian projects. Learnscope and Knowledge tree online journal. eLearning networks project is running a September Online Event: Tapping into Resources for E-learning 6 - 8 September 2006

Brainstorm ideas
Pictures of brainstorming outcomes can be seen in large size by clicking on photos.

FLLinNZ meeting

2006-08-07T11:24:00.000+12:00

Our planning session for the Flexible Learning leaders in New Zealand planning meeting all the 1st and 2nd round FLLinNZers gathered at Wiapuna Hotel at Mt Wellington, Auckland. We started with a warmup and a discussion of what we are expecting from the third round of funding and any issues.

The facilitator presented on the situation in Australia. Main points were:

competency-based apprenticeships
qualifications recognised across Aus
maximum flexibility in system - impacts on quality
grow private training orgs with effective competition
school-based apprenticeships
RPL - want to improve uptake
industry wants to control knowledge base - web 2 does not fit
training providers not keeping pace with rapid technological change - important
costs, flexibility and access
need training to meet needs of lifelong learners - skills shortages, shiftworkers, contractors, mature learners, just-in-time and to suit learners
need to build capability - respond to physical and online environment
changing role of education and training

key activity: who can we connect with to make the most influence?

often fail to equip people with skills to be able to problem solve and think forthemselves.

Pedagogical shifts

more of the following:
distributed networks
social networking
blended and flexible models
facilitation driving pedagogy not instruction
innovation
market changes e.g. full employment

Less occurrence of the teacher teaching many.

Examples: Motor Traders Association - mp3 audio files used in training to capture their interest

Caryl Oliver - mlearning - there is a recording of an interview with Caryl.

Manager of 2020: multigenerations, longer later, more teams, flexible working, performance emphasised, innovation

Overview of pressures on the NZ tertiary education sector can be seen on the concept map (to be loaded).

Facilitator talked about Australian Flexible Framework and how we could have links with Australian projects. Learnscope and Knowledge tree online journal. eLearning networks project is running a September Online Event: Tapping into Resources for E-learning 6 - 8 September 2006

Brainstorm ideas

Pictures of brainstorming outcomes can be seen in large size by clicking on photos.

IUT conference

2006-07-06T22:41:00.000+12:00

The last few days have been spent attending the IUT conference (Improving University Teaching). Yes university teachers do care about good teaching! I went as a Doctorate in Education student and because it was nearby at the University of Otago. There were some interesting sessions on offer, and it was a different conference to the ones I normally go to - not eLearning but education.

The highlights were hearing Tom Angelo (University of Victoria) speak again and seeing him in action using interactive methods in a big lecture theatre. The man is magic...and he gets the audience to think and do!

Kathleen Weigert, Georgetown University USA was intriguing when speaking about justice. She asked us to define justice and then talked about three kinds of justice - commutative (fairness in exchange), distributive (allocation and how things are shared), social (contributive - contribute to common good and remove barriers e.g. education).

My definition was: "Doing the right thing to serve the needs of people". She mentioned the importance of policies in institutions matching their practices, and whether the mission statements in our organisations had included statements about justice. I was interested in the Community-Based Learning programme she teaches in where students undertake community-based work to complement their academic learning. For example, students taking courses about homelessness actually work in the community with people experiencing homelessness.

Another speaker, Bland Tomkinson, spoke about the integration of interdisciplinary topics, sustainable development and global citizenship. Although he wasn't a particularly receptive speaker when I approached him afterwards, and and there wasn't any discussion about his topic, he had some good ideas. I will have to read his conference paper.

The first workshop on Teaching Philosophy (Elaine Laflamme) was partially useful in that it made me think about to which category of teacher I belong - my result from the inventory is that I am a humanist, progressive teacher.

I also found Robert Aitken's presentation about using audio journaling techniques with students very relevant - he believes that people think while they talk so the audio recordings demonstrate more thinking about the process whereas written journals tend to be censored and the actual process is rarely documented. The session I was particularly interested on metacognition was presented by someone who didn't know the subject very well, a co-author, so I will have to read the paper.

It was also good to meet up with friends and colleagues from my past biology life, and find out about Rob Wass and his research topic of looking at the Zone of current development (ZCD) and how it moves to the zone of proximal development (ZPD) during study in Zoology.

The podcasting and vodcasting workshop was okay, particularly because I was able to promote Leigh's courses. A little bit was covered on good practice so this was good. A bit gobsmacked to talk to someone who was planning to record biology lectures and put them up on Blackboard. Good for review I suppose. but the idea of taking them down if people stop coming to lectures is ludicrous. surely the measure would be if students liked them and actually learned better.

And the worst presentation by far had to be Gerrie Jacobs and his Powerpoint Karaoke. some good messages about integrity and credibility but too many flashy bits and not enough substance. good lessons for what not to do to an audience.

There were some very good posters - eportfolio at Massey university in an engineering programme, Rob's research study about Learning in the Zone and another one about pharmacy and experiential learning in the curriculum. I also got a couple of free books - one on Curriculum transformation and disability: Implementing universal design in HE and effective tutorial teaching. The former book also had a poster about their work. Oh yes the workshop where L Meyer used a questioning instrument to stimulate self-questioning was very useful. Qs such as how, why etc matched with other words which could be attached to a statement about a topic to get a class to generate their own questions to go away and research and think about. we had to throw a dice and choose the words which matched each number. The game aspect instilled a bit of fun, and the class shared the questions they came up with.

The next step is to look at some of the conference papers, especially the sessions I missed because of the flexible delivery operations committee inaugural meeting - papers on transformative learning - a subject close to my heart.

More stuff about quality

2006-06-15T22:01:00.000+12:00

This picture shows the damage done to the road when the Water of the Leith got out of control in the May 2006 floods. I took this on a sunday walk with the dogs. This illustrates for me that "Quality is about preventing damage in education,not about fencing it off afterwards."

This week and last we had two visiting speakers which focussed me in on quality again. John Milne from Massey university ran a workshop on eLearning Guidelines (an eLearning Collaborative development funded project). All NZ tertiary educators are invited to contribute to the guidelines and develop their own for practical use in their institutions through a wiki accessible from the eLearn website.

In response to a scenario we developed with a student who joined the workshop, we developed a couple of new and very important guidelines, and found several existing ones which were relevant.

The scenario was:
An off-campus multimedia student is using blended methods (mainly eLearning)in a course. The student has a dial-up connection at home and has difficulty getting on-campus access to the computers and software. Not all computers have the necessary tools/software. The student also doesn't have them at home and no access from home. The students are given training in using some software in the first week, then no further training and little support from the lecturer. There is no after hours support.

Some people in the workshop found the session a bit wishy washy, but it was a collaborative and consultative exercise which doesn't suit everyone. Some people just want to be told. Guidelines are guidelines not standards and as such need ongoing discussion be dynamic and continually evolving.

The other speaker was Professor Fred Lockwood, a very experienced academic in the field of open and distacne learning. I went to hear his talk at the university about quality and distance education. I recorded part of the talk and had his permission to use it, though he did seem bemused that anyone would want to listen to it.

In his talk he made several interesting points in the way of questions about what we do in distance/flexible learning. Reading between the lines and through his humour it was clear to me that he thought the university was deficient in many areas - he had just conducted a review of their distance programmes and was helping them with a distance learning strategy.

The points which I identified with were:
1. Learner needs and how important it was to pay attention to them.
2. The need to conduct developmental testing with realstudents and reward them with free fees for such courses, with new flexibly offered courses. Even something as a textbook recommended by a lecturer can be unsuitable in the opinion of the students. This is rarely done at OP.
3. Too much information was a common problem so that students who were expecting to study for 5 hrs a week ended up getting increasingly more stuff to read and hand in until they could end up studying well over the 5 hrs per week. In Fred's words, "good value for money getting 35 hrs a week of study..."

I brought Fred back to OP to speak with a small group (in the Council room with tea) including some managers and people from EDC and other parts of OP which was good. We had an informal discussion and some good points came out e.g. open courseware. Looking out for the learners - part-time, lifelong learners etc. It was a useful session but I wish I'd asked him to chat about developmental testing so the managers could have got the message.

Fred has also asked me to contact him about putting together a book proposal for something from NZ and across countries too for the Open and Flexible Learning series. Not sure whn I'll have time to do anything, but it would be good to coordinate something and collaborate to write a chapter.

Quality is very important in not only attracting students but also in helping with retention. Quality starts before students enrol (18% lost before they "register") and should continue all the way through with the resources offered, access, teacher support/facilitation and should meet learners' needs.

Unfortunately in the model we appear to be adopting, online and product is being pushed which is shoving us along the inflexible rather than the flexible path. If we were truly to meet learner needs, we would adopt a truly flexible model where learners negotiate their content and their assessments and the way they learn. We are trying this to some extent with the Design course.

Quality education and learning

2006-05-24T21:23:00.000+12:00

In a discussion today at work about quality processes I remembered the model of education which has been successful for Athabasca university in Canada. Their enrolments have increased many fold because people can enrol for gap courses to complete qualifications they are taking at other universities etc.

Also students can enrol any time and at any stage of a course. To enable this flexible learning, Athabasca has a well resourced production team which goes through a strict quality control process to create high quality learning resources for distance students. The team comprises designers - educational and graphic, technical staff, editors, content experts, a project manager and others.

Once courses are developed for flexible/online modes, student support is well sychronised and tutors are employed to teach the courses which academics had a hand in developing as content experts. The academic staff merely oversee their courses and spend their time conducting research which increases the reputation of the university. Plus they are spreading the word and helping others to produce quality online learning.

For example, several staff have written a book on the Theory and Practice of Online Learning and it is freely available under a Creative Commons licence at: http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/ The book is edited by Terry Anderson and Fathi Elloumi (2003).

It provides an overview of educational theory, strategic approaches and infrastructure, technologies, development of courses, team projects, copyright, teaching, support for discussions and learners, library support, quality.

I guess this model gauges quality by the enrolment rates and the reputation of the university. Academic staff become well known because their ideas and research is of a high standard and they get time to undertake research and present and write scholarly articles. This means they are up to date with current trends and in turn this raises the reputation of the university which then attracts students.

The research reputation of an institution does influence the status of institutions in the international arena and I guess this is what has happened with places such as Harvard, Cambridge, Stanford and Oxford. All you need is a few high status researchers and the place goes up in lights...and of course the ability to attract the rich and famous.

bahtings

2006-05-21T13:55:00.000+12:00

PLEs

I found a really interesting podcast by Graham Attwell describing and discussing the idea of personal learning environments (PLEs) where students can build up their own online learning tools using the Internet e.g. Wikipedia, blogs, discussions, online journals to create their own learning landscape. They have come about to get away from controlling learning for students, something a f2f classroom and Learning Management System tend to do. PLEs rely on providing a learner-controlled environment rather than a teacher-controlled environment.

This aligns with what is known as web 2.0 where learners search for and use Internet technologies and pick and mix so they set up their own networked system e.g. My spaces, Google, Flickr, ourmedia, MSN etc. depending on their needs. See the diagram of the future online learning environment on Derek Wenmouth's blog Blackboard and other Learning Management Systems belong in web 1.0 systems where software is provided for the learner and learning is very controlled rather than learner-centred. There are some projects underway (ELGG and JISC) to create PLE systems - a contradiction in terms really - see below.

More places to look to find out more:

ELGG Learning Landscapes - www.elgg.net
JISC Personal Learning Environment Project (Plex) -www.cetis.ac.uk/members/ple/

I wonder is the idea of personal learning environments realistic? Even if we take on more of a facilitation role aren't we still controlling the environment to some extent by guiding students to the content we want them to learn and by assessing them on it?

web 2.0

2006-05-20T15:41:00.000+12:00

bahtings
I found this very informative article by O'Reilly about web 2.0 technology. It covers the differences between web 1.0 and web 2.0 and made the concept much clearer for me.
Web 2.0 is fascinating and is about making the Internet work for us as when and how we need it. For example, the home page is static compared to a blog Oh yes you can argue that a home page can have all the features such as a blog and wiki, but why not just start with a wiki.

The worry for those of us new to all this open sharing of information is whether others will come along and change what we have written.....now I understand that if someone does this, it may well give another perspective or many. It is hard to change people's view of information as we are so used to having words fed to us rather than being able to interact with the words.

Imagine if newspapers provided news in the form of a wiki to which the citizens for whom it is written actually got a chance to contribute. Then we might get much more factual and interesting stories instead o the stories going through several people - the journalist, the interviewee, the editor, etc. remember the concept of the chinese whisper ....how a story changes when passed from one person to another. The root of rumours!

"But what if just any old person got into the wiki and wrote absolute garbage?" What's new I ask?

And how amazing would it be to be able to write a book with others...yes truly write it with real people taking on the roles of each character. someone must be doing this already. Then we could write the type of stories we would truly like to read. This would probably do publishers out of a job, but then how great if the authors made most of the profit and we could take charge of our own stories.... people would still want to buy print books. Case in point, computers have not done away with the paperless office, they have created even more paper.

I have a lot to learn and the next goal is to start podcasting and to set up a wiki for the family geneology so we can all write it together.

How to enrol in Blackboard

2006-05-18T16:09:00.000+12:00

Below is a movie to show you how to enrol yourself or others in a Blackboard course. Give the video time to stream in - press pause and let it load before playing.

If you can't see the movie, please right click this link and download it to your computer.

Flexible design course

2006-05-03T22:51:00.001+12:00

The session today got us a bit further with planning. I like the idea of a personal learning plan, and this will be a dynamic work in action and help people to focus on the areas they are interested in. The trick will be to ensure people are well supported as they are taken out of their comfort zones...even modelling new ways of teaching and learning can frighten people. we will need to introduce the idea of the personal plans at the first workshop and follow them up pretty quickly after that to get draft plans operating.

we have plenty of actions and have made a start on the Blackboard shell. I am not that keen on putting dates on the buttons and using the what, how, why, when labels might throw a lot of people...more thought needed on this.

An idea has come to me as I write this. I believe we need to pin them down to the type of plan they envisage right at the start of the course...it may only be the name of a course they teach in but it will ground them in something real. and I think we need to extend the initial discussion about flexible learning to include the plan...what they hope to end up with. smetimes for the holistic learners they need to see the big picture first - where they are heading.

the personal learning plans will help them with the what, how and why they will get there. I would like to use a self-questioning matrix to help them plan, monitor and evaluate their activities - we can start them off with some sample questions which can be used in the f2f consultation about the plan, and then get them to start doing this sort of reflective process themselves as they go. some may prefer to use concept mapping to plan how they go about their activities.

flexible learning committee

2006-05-03T22:51:00.000+12:00

T and I have just been brought on to the flexible learning committee and although there was good discussion about flexible learning issues most did not seem to have a clear idea of where the committee was heading re the information gathering for developing the strategy. Probably cos most people were relatively inexperienced with flex learning per se and were coming to terms with the whole concept. Now of course T and I have the job of coming up with the ideas/survey etc. to gather info on which to base the strategy...such is life and the challenge...and swallowing the "I told you so" feeling. It would have been a lot easier if we had been there from the start.

M of course is being roped in to our working group. Plus I will be involving L who is bringing us in to the 21st century although he isn't on the committee - yet. Good to have K as an ally on the same wave length and speaking the lingo.

bronwynhegarty doctorate meanderings

2006-04-25T13:03:00.000+12:00

bronwynhegarty doctorate meanderings

I have been reading this work by Hope Hartman:

Hartman, H.J. (2001). Developing students’ metacognitive knowledge and skills. In H.J. Hartman (ed.), Metacognition in learning and instruction. Kluwer, 33-68. Academic Publishers: the Netherlands.

I like the models she proposes:
Executive management metacognition - plan, monitor and evaluate progress.
Strategic metacognitive knowledge – what (facts), when and why (context) and how (procedures).

These models would enable participants to use metacognitive strategies for the three tasks in their course. This would help them develop metacognitive control and knowledge and also reflect.

For each task participants will be asked to plan, monitor and evaluate their progress using self-questioning techniques and reflect using a blog.

Why do I like the models she proposes:
1. Discipline diverse - these models can be used in a number of disciplines as they relate to any type of learning. The examples in the chapter relate to reading, maths, science social studies, writing.

2. Self-questioning is used and this can be modelled to encourage learners to create their own questions. The answers of course are generated by the learner.

3. Critical thinking - the models encourage this and by scaffolding the learning, critical thinking questions can be developed by the students themselves.

I also like the components of the BACEIS model and the internal and external supersystems.
B = behaviour
A = affect
C = cognition
E = environment
I = interacting
S = systems

The cognitive system includes metacognition plus critical thinking, creativity and learning strategies. It would make it too big a project I guess to also look at motivation, affective self-regulation and attitudes (affective system) which are also part of the internal supersystem.

The external supersystem includes culture and instructional techniques as well as teacher characteristics etc as influences on thinking but they are not really relevant for this project.

Facilitating flexible learning

2006-04-06T21:28:00.000+12:00

Today three of us ran a workshop about facilitating flexible learning: how to give great feedback and still have a LIFE.

Overall, I think it went well. Lots of discussion and questions and people were keen to make contact at the end of the class....always a good sign.

It appears that the title and the content offered were timely. There was a big contingent from one school who have a push on to put courses online. This was excellent. They did have concerns, however, about how to get their content online. They were advised to work with the programme developers, and offered assistance to have people work alongside them, but not do it for them. The mentality is still there to get stuff on Blackboard, rather than thinking how they would like to present content and activities, and what technologies could assist.

There was some discussion about models where content is handed over to a team to create resources. Leigh made a good point about models he had seen which didn't work and had cost lots of money. He believes it is best to start with finding resources which already exist and can be re-used...if possible. This makes a lot lof sense.

Some institutions which are heavily in to distance education - open polytechnic, UK, Athabasca university have production units but this makes sense. Open university in NZ used to do this as well, but has found it is more cost effective to enable staff to take charge of their courses and they have moved to Moodle. It would be interesting to talk to someone and find out how it is actually going.

The total number who enrolled was 13 but 3 people didn't turn up. The group were very interested and gave positive evaluations.

I started the workshop off with an overview of facilitating online learning...well I sort of took charge of it really...we did brainstorm how we would approach it earlier in the week, but the actual content we presented was up to us individually. At the 11th hour, I felt the need to slap together some slides...too many bullet points..but for next time I will develop some concept maps.Hey I can try out CMAP.

I will try and get them done before this group finishes their online discussion. This will continue on until the end of the second week in May. Easter in the middle sort of interrupts the flow. The timing for the next workshop will be better. And hey next time we will try out Elluminate for the initial session.

People liked the different cases we presented. Merrolee had lots of practical advice and talked about how she managed the online discussion. It is good for people to hear the nitty gritty stuff from someone so experienced...well I am too. I talked about how assessment was linked in strongly to the discussions. We gave tips for managing prolific postings and motivating people to go online. I really have to do something about the amount of content in the evaluating eLearning for best practice course though...I will definitely be going with the learner-generated model for next year. hopefully i will still be teaching it then.

Leigh gave a very insightful overview of alternatives such as egroups, and how they are very useful platforms for handing over ownership of material to students....giving them something they can take away with them when they leave their 3 yr programmes...when they are locked out of the institutional platforms. Some of the OTs were very intrigued with the idea of having a community of practitioners able to remain in contact about professional issues.

It will take time but the ideas are filtering through. All we need are enthusiastic staff who act as "hotpoints" in their schools and talk about what they are doing to others. I do love running workshops with staff, and seeing the lightbulbs come on.

The next offerings will need to be a practical show and tell with staff demonstrating what they are doing. Oh when to schedule all these? We have two visiting speakers coming in May and June, Peter Mellow (AUT) on the Study Txt mobile learning project - article. Also John Milne (Massey) who is coming to work with us on the TEC eLearning guidelines an ECDF project. Exciting stuff.

innovation JISC online conference

2006-04-02T20:30:00.000+12:00

Innovating eLearning 2006 JISC online conference
A couple of entries really caught my eye and very much match with some of the isssues our institution is currently facing. Peter Miller - University of Liverpool
pointed us to the idea of Shared Learning Contexts (SLCs) which are described in Scott Wilson's blog at http://www.cetis.ac.uk/members/scott/blogview?entry=20050210014657 The diagram of the SLC illustrates a learner-centred model using open source technologies.

Geoff Stead's statement summed it up really - "VLE fervor has put shackles on a lot of creativity from people like ourselves who earn a living using technology to service learning. Five years ago we were creating learning tools that assisted low-literacy learners to find their voice and publish themselves online. We created project-based environments to share problems and strategies for dealing with low maths skills. But these things are impossible within SCORM (the standard VLE materials need to comply with) Almost 100% of the demand we get for resources to support learning need to fit into the lowest common denominator of VLEs ... namely: a single thread of learning objects, each one insular, curriculum mapped, with no connection to the learning process, no inbuilt dialog / saving / thought origination for the student. So yes, they have provided an excuse for less adventurous staff to hide behind. But they have also imposed a set of standards on all purchasing that have ended out stamping out a lot of creativity that was previously embedded in the resources as well. And all with the best intent! "

Some of the replies to this statement, referred to the usefulness of VLEs for staff new to eLearning. My thought on this is that we have basically trained people up to expect the VLE or Learning Management System approach whereas if the use of a variety of tools could have been "sold" to staff early on - through really good resourcing and support - we wouldn't all be caught up in using the corporate, expensive, proprietary tools. Tools which suit the company not the teachers and learners.

There was a very good article on one of the discussions - an evaluation of the use of blogging in a course related to technology.

Reflecting on professional practice by Annette Odell, University of East London. "Applications of Learning Technologies" is an accredited professional development course. Assessment is by means of a portfolio of work built up during the course and a key component within this is a reflective log, kept online using a blog.

This presentation describes the use of blogs on this context; briefly discusses different uses of blogs; reflects on personal experience with using blogs for different purposes and why the 'reflective blog' appears to be a consistently successful use; discusses factors that promote success and problems to be oversome; and summarises the participants' perspective on the value of keeping a reflective blog within this course and as part of their professional development record.

information literacy modules

2006-03-30T23:05:00.000+12:00

bahtings
I would like to point people to an eLearning Collaborative Development funded (ECDF) project where we are developing reusable Information literacy modules - a New Zealand Ministry of Education funded project. The University of Otago is leading the project and the Dunedin College of Education and Otago Polytechnic are also involved in the project - Dunedin, New Zealand.

See http://oil.otago.ac.nz/ and click on the link to essay writing to see the first module which is currently being piloted.

We have set the modules up as authentic tasks and have funding until 2007 to construct 10 modules. The project has been a very interesting collaborative venture and the team is learning a lot from the experience.
We are conducting usability testing on the raw prototypes and conducting a research evaluation project with piloted modules. All the completed modules will be made freely available across the tertiary sector in New Zealand.

Some of the issues which are arising include aspects such as SCORM compliance and packaging and reusability. All modules will be transferable between different LMS and will also be able to be viewed using a scorm player. We have successfully managed to upload the module in to Moodle. However I was unable to upload it into Blackboard.

We are hoping lots of people will visit the site, and give us feedback on the module.

thoughts

2006-03-30T22:01:00.000+12:00

bahtings
In the JISC Innovating e-learning online conference Stephen Heppell had a Powerpoint with a list of creative assessments i.e. equivalent to a 1500 word essay - things like creating a video clip, moderating an online discussion etc. I believe this sort of assessment would shake the foundations of our educators. We are about to launch a new course in planning and designing for eLearning and intend to model options like this to our staff.
The other issue is not just about getting students to work creatively, but how to get staff to collaborate using tools such as blogs and wikis.

The arrival of Leigh Blackall, a very innovative programme developer is very timely for our institution. he is an advocate of open source solutions, and open networked learning. I am learning so much from him by just being open to a new way of doing things. He is also taking this approach with other staff, some embrace it and others back off.

Some are fearful of information being put "out there" even i have have to admit to this. Leigh has been here only a few weeks and already has staff podcasting, blogging and using wikis. with this confidence we can now take this to our students....sometimes we just need a push and a shove..oh and i really like his idea of learner-generated content and I'm going to try it out in the flexible design course.

For me it is a breath of fresh air and really enjoyable having someone on the same wavelength. I just hope as an institution we can keep him. I wouldn't like to see the shine lost from a gem like him.

FLLinNZer visit 24 March 2006

2006-03-29T21:49:00.000+12:00

bahtings
It was great to have a 3005/2006 Flexible Learning Leader in New Zealand visit on 24 March. Cathy Gunn from Auckland university spent an afternoon with several of us from Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin College of Education and the University of Otago. We gathered at HEDC at University of Otago.

We were a small group of seven, gathered to share our enthusiasm about flexible learning. Cathy facilitated the session really well, making sure she found out what we wanted to share with the group right from the start.

My interest was in how people found working on collaborative projects, and I made the point that there were two groups of people when the ECDF funding was announced by TEC. Those who were already working together collaboratively e.g. Jenny, Dawn and I at UoE, DCE and OP, and those who scurried together into consortia so they could get the funding.

My question was why everyone was reinventing the wheel instead of working together, for example on flexible learning and eLearning strategies.

The afternoon included a mix of show and tell - essay writing information literacy module, Cathy's online assessment module, Leigh's open networking sites. There was lots of discussion and the time flew by very quickly. we had a good talk about the pros and cons of SCORM, and Jenny explained about the pitfalls they had discovered on the information literacy project. SCORM actually inhibits reusability features by imposing stringent standards. I should have recorded what she said because its feeling vague right now.

Next post will be about the OSLOR project and John Clayton's visit.

work meanderings

2006-03-25T17:43:00.000+12:00

Its taken a while to get going on my blog. I wonder do I deserve a virtual choc fish for starting and hopefully writing something meaningful.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk

A lot has been happening at work. For a start we are lucky enough to have visits from a couple of people involved in flexible learning - Cathy Gunn (University of Auckland) and John Clayton (WINTEC - Hamilton, NZ)....more about this later.

FLUG meets Blackboard head on
I have been busy with the formation of the new and improved FLUG - a group of enthusiasts involved in flexible learning and support. With our organisational strategy of flexible teaching and learning, it was timely to change the name of the Blackboard User Group to FLUG (Flexible Learning Users Group).

We also needed to extend the group - so a bigger cross section of people involved in flexible options here could muck in and get their hands dirty.

Source: www.geoimagery.com

This way the small core of enthusiasts and people involved with the Learning Management System will have more of "a voice" in some of the changes which are happening here in our organisation. So the Bb User Group has re-birthed as FLUG.

So...what does this mean? FLUG will hopefully provide information to the newly formed Flexible ...committee about operational matters and stuff from the coal face. We also hope to assist in developing some sort of flexible learning and teaching strategy which is meaningful for our learners and staff in the organisation.

So who do we think we are...why should we have a say?
Because FLUG hopefully will represent the "real users" because it is made up mainly of people who get it. But do we?

We all know that flexible learning is a very important strategy for quality education.What gets me though is that every organisation seems to be busying themselves with the development of strategies for eLearning or flexible learning and teaching.....but what are these strategies based on?? What everyone else has been doing..or on the unique culture within an organisation? The former I believe because it is easier.

It is also easier to follow like sheep and stay with an LMS like Bb - the same as the others. It is also easier to stay with an imposition model - a model where the learners are told what they're getting rather than being asked how they want to approach teaching and learning.

The best model for a flexible learning and teaching strategy which I have seen is the one QUT (Queensland University of Technology) developed called the QUT Teaching Capabilities Framework. See overview at: http://www.library.qut.edu.au/framework/

QUT surveyed staff and students who were using the LMS (Blackboard), to find out what was important to them as both teachers and learners. The project team took their findings and using a process of wide consultation, they developed a framework. This framework now underpins how teaching and learning is offered at the university, and has informed the professional development of staff.

Unfortunately, we have not gone down this track, but have taken the route followed by many. Additionally, we have also developed a teaching qualification without developing a teaching and learning strategy first. Now staff will be indoctrinated into "a way" of teaching which may not be right for our learners...or for our environment.

We have broken the first golden rule! We didn't find out what our learners actually wanted first!

As a result, our flexible learning and teaching strategy may also not be based on actualities but on assumptions. I believe we do have time to find out what our teachers and learners actually want, what their experience is to date and what they would like to see happening.

Wont this save time in the end! We are in a good position to really do something different and lead flexible learning in a new direction.

I would really like to see us get out from behind the herd, stop the baaing and mooing and get to the green grass first...for a change.

Watch this space to find out how the flexible strategy and the teaching qual evolve.