Reconsidering wikis

I’ve been doing quite a bit of work building up resources on the WikiEducator platform for our Study Skills course.

The lack of formatting control on the WikiEducator platform is really starting to bug me. Formatting adds quite a bit of readability to documents. Using colouring and alignment you can empasize or de-emphasize aspects of the text.  I’m pretty disappointed with my recent effort.   Yes I know Leigh, I do need to add some images to flash it up.

While I was originally pretty keen on the open-office export to media-wiki text, I’m finding that it only seems to handle very simple documents.   It makes a complete hash of URLs for example.  Most of the documents that I’ve been working with recently require so much editing once I’ve copied and pasted them into the wiki, that it would be almost definitely easier to write the material straight into the wiki.

I’m now committed to working in the wiki environment, but I wonder if something like box net might be a better option for the future???

Rocky road to online

The start of the year’s been pretty rocky for the massage therapy programme. Over the last couple of months there have been 3 major shocks to deal with.

1. Last December, I found out that the additional funding that we were expecting for developing online was not going to be available. This has put us in the position of needing to develop an online programme with the same level of teaching resource that we would have for delivering the programme as it stands.

   I think this is do-able. Our development model is to transfer our lesson plans to Activity Sheets (e.g.) on the WikiEducator platform. From these Activity Sheets, students will be directed to readings from their textbooks, individual or group activities, web-based resources, work on assessments, etc. This is much less intensive than the approach of developing textbooks and/or reading material online. However due to necessity, we will have to take the no-frills approach to development. 😦

2. Just before Christmas, I was informed that our Bioscience lecturer was downsizing her workload and would not be coming back. This is a big deal for the programme. Bioscience is a pretty major part of our programme, and the plan is for it to be all online in 2008 (starting in semester 1).
3. We’ve been talking with another department who has a communication module that exactly matches our requirements for communication in the first semester of the programme. They were also planning to deliver their module largely online with some block practical tutorials. It seemed a perfect fit until a week ago when I found out that they had decided not to deliver it online in 2008.

You can imagine how I felt at this point. Still no Bioscience lecturer, no Communication 1 lecturer, and 3 weeks to the start of the course!!!!!!

Luckily yesterday I managed to find a Bioscience lecturer who I’m very happy with, and is happy to take on the job of teaching for us. We also now have a communication teacher for our semester one course. What a relief. 🙂

To provide both teachers with some development time, we’re going to have to delay the start of both Bioscience 1 & Communication 1 for several weeks, but the flexibility of online teaching means that this is not too much of a drama.

Staff training is underway. I’ve had two training sessions with Ash & Irene, introducing them to the delivery model, and the technology platforms. Both have gone well. I’m now going to need to repeat this training with the newbies to get them up to speed. Luckily our new Bioscience lecturer (Ruth Lawson) has already authored an entire textbook on Wikiversity, and so is well ahead of me in the use of wiki-text.

It’s exciting to be almost into the term after 6 months of learning & planning, but there is still an insane amount of work to do….I guess that’s the case at the start of every year really.

Learning effectiveness in the SUNY Learning Network

I’ve just finished reading through a research article which investigates the effectiveness of online learning in the SUNY (State University of New York) learning network (Shea, Fredericksen, Pickett, Pelz, Swan, 2001). The interesting thing about this research is that in contrast to other reports that I’ve read (1,2) they find that student retention is not significantly different in their F2F classes & their online classes, and that their students are at least as satisified if not more in their online classes. In response to the statement “Overall I was very satisfied with this online course” 39% of the students agreed strongly, Another 40% agreed, 6% disagreed & 5% disagreed strongly.

So what about the SUNY learning network programmes might be different?

In the SUNY learning network, courses are designed based on principles of social constructivism where learning is seen as an outcome of socialisation. Accordingly there is a strong focus on the use of discussion forums and student-teacher interaction. The authors believe that the level of interaction contributes to the development of “knowledge building communities”.

In addition the responsibility for course development is laid at the feet of the teaching staff, and they are provided with support in the area of instructional design. It is thought that this results in quality and coherence due to the fact that the teacher of the course knows the material better than anyone else.

I’m not sure how different this is from the other reports that I’ve read. Social constructivism definately seems to be the dominant pedagogical model used in online learning, but I’m not sure how long this has been the case. However it seems likely that the student satisfaction & retention characteristic of these courses are at least partially due to a combination of the factors discussed above.

Key Findings of the Research

• Very strong correlation found between student satisfaction and perceived learning
• Both high satisfaction & reported learning are highly correlated with
  • Prompt, high quality feedback from the instructor
  • Clear expecations of how to proceed in the course successfully
  • A high level of interaction with classmates
  • Satisfaction with computer support
  • Simplified course structure (fewer modules/pages)

  Those who experienced problems due to technical difficulties were most likely to report the lowest levels of learning & satisfaction.

• Computer skill prior to taking part in an online course was not correlated with learning & satisfaction

These last two points are interesting. Another study (Pillay, Irving, Tones, 2007) found that computer self-efficacy was correlated with learning & satisfaction. At first glance the finding of Pillay et al. seems to be supported by the first point, and contradicted by the second point. Perhaps a high level of interaction mediates computer difficulties as students are able to gain support from their peers and/or teaching staff? Another possibility is that the course has computer literacy supports embedded within the courses or accessible by students who are enrolled in the courses (although there is no discussion of this in the article).

One other point of interest is that in their literature review, the authors found that many studies showed that collaborative learning was not effective in an online context. It’s worth noting that the study discussed here was completed in 2001. Articles in the literature review would mostly have been completed before this date, and there have been many developments in online learning since this time. It would be interesting to see some more contemporary research on this topic.

Reference

Pillay, H., Irving, K., & Tones, M. (2007). Validation of the diagnostic tool for assessing Tertiary students’ readiness for online learning. Higher Education Research & Development, 26:2, 217 – 234

Shea, P., Fredericksen, E., Pickett, A., Pelz, W., & Swan, K. (2001). Measures of Learning Effectiveness in the SUNY Learning Network. In J. Bourne, & J. Moore (Eds.), Online Education – Volume 2 – Learning Effectiveness, Faculty Satisfaction and Cost Effectiveness – Proceedings of the 2000 Summer Workshop on Asynchronous Learning Networks. Massachusetts, USA: Sloan Centre for Online Education.

My experience of being a student in the Facilitating Online course

Taking Otago Polytechnic’s Designing for Flexible Learning Practice course before Facilitating Online Communities has definitely been a huge advantage to me in that I was already aware and partially competent in the use of many of the web-based technologies that we have used in the course.  This has freed me up to concentrate on content rather than technicalities, and I am aware that the need to develop competency in the use of these technologies has been a barrier to some of my classmates which to their credit they have overcome.  The observation of this has really reinforced my belief in the need for computer pre-requisite skills for online courses or at least significant computer support built into online courses.

In the early stages I was quite actively involved in following the structure of the course as defined by Blackboard and the course blog.  My experience of this was somewhat frustrating.  I initially wasn’t able to login to Blackboard due to password/user-name problems.  Once I finally got involved, I found some of the exercises and readings to be quite interesting and others to be seemingly less relevant and overly theoretical.  I did like the idea of marking the focus of activities as being individual, group, or class. 

Bronwyn & Leigh – Do you know if we can use the images that are used for this within the Blackboard shell?

I really enjoyed Geert Hofstede’s article on Cultural Differences in Teaching and Learning.  I was keen to try out communicating through the Blackboard discussion forums, but actually found this to be fairly awkward.  Also there was a fairly low level of participation in the forums which meant that our learning projects made little process which was frustrating, and in the end I gave up on this aspect of the course.

By this stage the group had mostly decided to move the focus of the course outside of Blackboard anyway.  So we moved on to a series of guest lectures, which have been generally fairly thought provoking.

Some participants have expressed some concern and dissatisfaction with the seemingly unstructured nature of the course from this point forwards.  Personally I came into the course with few expectations, and have been happy to ride the wave of learning experiences.  I think that most of my learning has actually come from engaging with the technology, communicating with other participants, and observing other people doing the same rather than the course content.  It’s been somewhat useful to be introduced to different speakers, ideas and theories, but I think that most of my learning has come through the discussion & observation of the discussion that has wrapped these experiences.
                  

Has a community of learners developed in this course?

The course google group was the first place where group communication really happened on a regular basis, and I think that this communication channel has probably been an contributor to the development of community, however…

I first noticed that I was getting a sense of a community through blogging.  From the start of the course I been browsing everyone’s postings through my bloglines RSS reader, and after about 5-6 weeks of doing this I felt that I was really getting a sense of the other participants although there was still only a little cross-posting happening at this stage.  Interestingly enough I commented on this on my blog and in the group email forum and feedback from other participants was that most people did not have this same experience of a community.  I’m interested to know how many course participants now have the experience of being part of a learning community.

 

Have we developed a community of learnersPersonally I’ve really enjoyed the experience of blogging in this community of learners.  It’s been great putting my ideas out there and (lately) getting fairly instantaneous responses from other people in the course giving their perspective on my thoughts.  I think the reason that I’ve found blogging to be more effective than email communication in creating a sense of relationship with other learners is that blog postings are typically more considered than emails.  They take you deeper into the thought processes of other people, and you get more of a sense of who they are and where they’re coming from.

The elluminate sessions and skype channel have also been fantastic communication options.  It’s been good to have some synchronous options.  With the 10 minute elluminate lecture series we’ve all had the opportunity to meet around a shared conversational topic and to discuss in realtime the issues that were important to us.  Skype’s also been a great way of communicating with other participants and getting a response fairly instantaneously – generally I’ve found that we’ve used it to discuss issues that we’re thinking about, or having trouble with.

So I guess that each of the communication channels that we’ve used have had their benefits.  They’ve each allowed us to communicate in a slightly different form, and I believe that all of them have been useful in community development.

Lately I’ve been guilty of following my own interests to large degree, and have treated the course offerings as food for thought and stimulation of my own processes rather than basing my learning around them.  On reflection, perhaps this is a good thing.  I guess that in a real-world learning community people will follow their own interests, and their motivation for being involved in the community will presumably to be inspiration, motivation, reflection and food for thought.

I think I’ve noticed that as the group matures (& becomes more of a community?) other participants are also focusing on the issues that are important to them, and I believe that our communications have more depth as a result.

There has been controversy, and at times it’s seemed to be potentially divisive, but to the credit of the course facilitators any controversy and criticism has not been taken personally, and the conflict seems to have strengthened the community if anything.

So in response to my initial question.  I believe a community has developed, and is getting stronger by the week.  Although I probably won’t choose to facilitate any of my online teaching in such an unstructured manner, I actually believe that it’s been a valuable learning experience for us.  It’s been useful to experience & observe others struggling with technology and reflect on the implications of this to my teaching.  Being relatively unguided has presented us with the opportunity to follow our own interests, and to try to find our own meaning.  Perhaps this has actually helped to stimulate the creation of community & relationship?  It has certainly provided plenty of scope for discussion of many issues relevant to facilitating online.

Engineering Online Education

I’ve stated before that I think online educators should consider developing using a simplifed software engineering model. My rationale here is that online educational experiences may often be similar in many ways to software applications particularly if they involve multi-media elements and/or assynchronous learning where the educational experience may be accessed by the students independently of the learning facilitator.

The following image comes from the website of a software development company called Sciencesoft , and illustrates the software engineering process in a manner which is fairly easy to relate to the development of online educational resources.

The Sciencesoft model is intended for fairly large software projects. In the discussion that follows I am assuming that the developer is developing a fairly small scale educational resource that is one component of an online learning programme, however I believe that the same process can be applied to a larger-scale project with some modification.

Define Project Scope

I see this stage being an initial planning stage where the developer will consider factors such as

· Course learning outcomes and how the online educational resource (OER) will help students to meet them.

· How these outcomes may be assessed (e.g. can this process be automated, or does the nature of the assessment mean that it requires the judgement of a course facilitator)

· Communication technologies which may be used

· Nature of the user interface

· Learner profile

· Needs of the students for scaffolding or support (either technical or educational)

· Development budget

Development

This model separates development into three stages – design, implementation and integration.

Design
In this stage the developer will determine which components will be required in the OER, how they will work together. A search for pre-existing components that may be incorporated within the OER would take place at this point.

Implementation
In the implementation stage the developer will create the first working version of the OER.

Integration
Integration in software development is where all of the components of a software development are brought together to operate as a complete unit. This will probably not be necessary in most online educational development because learning resources will typically operate independently without needing to pass data to other learning resources (as components of computer programmes do).

Stabilization (or testing)
Testing is an essential part of the software development process, and it is something that seems to be lacking or perhaps not understood in online education. If an OER is to be used independently of the facilitator, it is essential that the resource is thoroughly tested before any students use it. Ideally a tester should consider all of the possible pathways that students can follow within the OER and ensure that all of them work (consider online tests, auto-feedback, hyperlinks, etc.). This can be a fairly time consuming process, but is important if preventing student dissatisfaction is considered important.

Deliver Product to Customer

Deployment
Once the OER has been thoroughly tested, it can be released to the students to use.

Maintenance & Support
Most OERs will require a certain amount of maintenance. Hyperlinks need to be updated, software updates may wreak havoc with something that worked perfectly well beforehand. A developer should bear this in mind & consider how much responsibility they are prepared to take for this. For example if you create a resource that other teachers with less technical competency than you are using it’s quite likely that they will be unable to fix it when it breaks down. Will you be prepared to commit to the ongoing maintenance of the resource? When a programme has a fairly large online component is it worthwhile employing a staff-member whose role is purely to check & maintain learning resources?

It’s also worth considering what support the students may need to access the resource, and to use it effectively. What supports are in place, and are any additional supports required?

Non-linear development

It’s worth nothing that development should not be expected to occur in a linear fashion starting with the definition of project scope and progressing stage by stage to finish with maintenance and support. It is quite likely that development can jump back to a previous stage. For example in the Stabilisation (testing) stage it’s common to find a problem with the OER. Depending on the nature of the problem the developer may need to jump back to the implementation stage, the design stage, or even the definition of project scope.

Time, familiarity and socialisation

Lately I’ve been reflecting on this ellusive creation of community and relating it to my own experience of using different online technologies.

In any type of online community, participants communicate through some type of technology interface. There are a variety of these, both synchronous and assynchronous. Will some of them be more effective than others in the creation of community?

In my experience communication through syncronous media (such as elluminate, instant messaging, etc) seem to lead to a feeling of relationship quicker, so I’m going to consider synchronous media first.

I think that a significant consideration has to be the complexity of the interface. My initial experience of using elluminate was that for perhaps the first 30 minutes of the meeting so much of my attention was taken up with trying to get to grips with how the interface worked, and how to control it that I did not engage significantly with the group. I was primarily engaging with the elluminate interface.  At roughly 30 minutes into the session I stopped being aware of the interface & plunged into communication with the group.

Now elluminate is a fairly simple interface really. Second life is commonly touted as a fantastic way to create community, and I can see that it could potentially have real benefits. Being able to communicate with an avatar instead of a faceless being has appeal. My experience of second life however has been quite frustrating. I’ve probably visited the virtual world three times, maybe about 3-4 hours total time, and I’m still not a competent navigator/controller. Most of my attention is still consumed by trying to figure out how to do things. I presume that this would disappear with experience, but how much experience I wonder? I consider myself to be fairly computer literate, and when I think about the computer literacy of a typical massage therapy student, it is fairly clear to me that this environment is not going to be the best way to build a sense of community in the class.

What about Gtalk/Skype? I haven’t used skype yet, and have heard that it’s better than Gtalk, but I’ve found Gtalk to be excellent. The interface is simplistic to the point of being invisible. In theory you could set up your class in your list of contacts, then everytime you turn on the computer you will be able to see who else is online. You can send instant messages to classmates, or phone them directly. I haven’t experienced this yet, it’s purely theoretical for me at the moment, but I think this would really help to create a sense of community.

So what about assyncronous communication?

Blogging is the main technological driver of community building that has been promoted in the course I’m participating in at present. It did take a while, but I am finding that as I follow other people’s thoughts & experiences, I’m developing a sense of relationship with the other bloggers in the group. For this to be effective in a group of students I believe that everyone would need to become familiar with both the process of making blog postings (fairly simple) and using RSS feeds (fairly simple, but this may take some time for students to really get it). Once this technology has been mastered, there’s probably some time before a real sense of community forms.  According to Debbie’ posting James Farmer said that it typically takes about 5 weeks for his classes to become comfortable with (blogging? / community?).  I wonder if that includes time taken to get familiar with the tech?

Email groups – I think they’re a useful communication medium, but I’m not sure they are particularly good at facilitating a sense of community/relationship.

Discussion boards – I don’t think I’ve ever had a good experience of using a discussion board.  At the start of this course I was open to the possibility that they could be used effectively for communication, but that hasn’t really been my experience yet again.  Functionally I think they’re not too much different to an email group, although perhaps a little more unwieldy.

We’re just embarking on a collaborative wiki-building exercise.  I think this again has potential, but I guess the proof will be in the pudding.

Practice Principles for E-Learning (Clark, Mayer)

Practical exercises should be spread regularly through a student’s learning experience to provide opportunities for knowledge integration.

Practice Principle 1

• Interactions should mirror real-life practice.
• This increases the relevance to the learner, and also increases the chance for information transfer (as the material is learned in a similar context to practice).

Practice Principle 2

Important tasks require more practice

Practice Principle 3

Apply the media elements principles to practice exercises.

• Directions to practice the exercise should be presented in text clearly and visibly near the question
• Feedback should appear in text close to the question
• If memory supports are used they should be visible near the practice question.

Practice Principle 4

Train learners to self-question during lessons that lack practice opportunities.

• Model self-questioning by showing examples of self-questioning  and directing learners to self-question
• The ability to self-question leads to significant improvements in learning
• Exercises which cultivate the ability to self-question should be included within our study skills programme

Principles of Design for e-Learning

Continuing on from my previous post E-Learning and the Science of Instruction, this post aims to describe Clark and Mayer’s principles of design for e-learning.

The following principles are all evidence-based. The authors have engaged in research, and have reviewed the research of others to support the principles. Application of each of these principles has been shown to have fairly significant effects on learning.

Principle of Multimedia Design

• Information is easier to understand when presented with graphics. However decorative graphics that do not have instructional value tend to detract from learning.

The Contiguity Principle

• Place printed words near corresponding graphics
• The effect of this is that connections between words and graphics are more clear, and the user has less need to search the page for meaning. As a result they are more able to attend to the content of the learning.
• This principle is commonly violated in e-learning
  • Scrolling screens where visuals and related text end up becoming separated
  • Feedback is displayed on a separate screen from the exercise or practice question
  • Links leading to an onscreen reference cause a pop-up window which covers the related information on the initial screen
  • Directions to complete exercises are placed in a separate screen from the screen in which the directions are to be followed.

The Modality Principle

• Where possible present words as speech rather than on-screen text
• According to cognitive learning theory we have a visual and audial channel for receiving information. If words are delivered as audio this clarifies the task of the visual channel to interpret the picture.
• I would add to this a kinesthetic channel. Much of the learning in a massage therapy class occurs kinesthetically.
• In some cases it may be optimal to present text as a reference

The Redundancy Principle

• Presenting words in both text and audio can impair learning
• Redundant words may be useful when there is
  • No graphical representation
  • The pace of the presentation is slow
  • It’s difficult for learners to comprehend spoken word (e.g. a high proportion of non-native english speakers / Learning difficulties / Verbal material is long and complex or contains unfamiliar key words)

The Coherence Principle

• Adding entertaining material (e.g. stories, music/background sounds, pictures) can reduce learning when the material is not strongly related to learning outcomes
• The learner will often focus on and recall the entertaining material at the expense of other material

The Personalisation Principle

• Use conversational rather than formal language wherever possible.
• This is closer to natural human communication and is therefore easier to absorb
• Virtual coaches (animated tutors) improve learning outcomes
  • No difference between realistic and cartoon images
  • Human voice seems to be more effective than artifical voice (limited evidence)