Jeez

Jeez ( excuse me for taking the lords name in vain in this season of .....?) but just when I thought I had a tool i.e. Wikipedia, that would suit some of my teaching needs along comes this. Although I am totally sure of the Christian Science Monitor or Andrew Keen who comments on this in his latest blog it does seem to sound the death knell to amateur generated content. I will await to see what the Beta version of Knol does before I throw away the toys.

Proper language

I was intrigued over the weekend to hear the debate about NCEA and texting in exams being reopened. As the end of the year rolls around I, along with fellow ewxaminers, have come across the old bogey of the standard of writing in student assignments. Here we are in a tertiary institution and some students can't even string a sentence together or, as above, do so in txt rather than plain English. I must admirt that I was in two minds as to how to approach this. Ber an old fogey, and use the big red felt tip pen or get with the 21C and groove along to 'plse B tlrnt @ my lngwg" (translation ;please be tolerant of my language'. I decided on the former, as did most of my colleagues and it is refreshing to see that the governing body of NCEA have also come out with a watered down edict that texting is not recommneded and pupils could be marked down as a result. Makes you want to scream for Tom Waits.

A little more info about the Kindle

I came across this
which sheds a little more light on the Kindle issue. As always, look at the source, and this tape will self destruct in 30 secs.

This link also looks at an initiative in Birmingham which maybe overcomes some of the criticisms I have raised in the Flexible Learning course about accessibility and appropriateness of tools for e-learning.

And here another reference to the introduction of the Kindle and some of its' competitors.

An Amendment to my Post "A last word"

The course objectives for Facilitating eLearning Communities are the following - they are on Blackboard in the Introduction.

I feel as though my previous posts have successfully addressed all but the second of these objectives so I will spend some time further articulating my thoughts on objective two although careful readers of my Blog and Wiki will have seen some of this material before. (My new writing in bold, italics).
You could also look at my two Wiki's (accessible from this Blog) and my Blackboard courses for evidence of online course.

By the end of this course you will be able to:
• Discuss the characteristics of an online community and the implications of learning and teaching online.


• Articulate the skills required for maintaining a successful online community.

a) Good facilitation. – The most critical skills is the ability to be able to facilitate. This should include the following elements.

1. Make sure that course objectives and expectation are explicit at the front end of the course
Let students/ participants
• When you are available and what time frame you will respond to enquiries or posts - my personal guidelines are response within 24hrs to posts or enquiries within the working week Mon – Friday 9.00 – 5.00
• Etiquette rules – use guidelines that are agreed upon at the beginning of the course. Rules for lurkers and non-participants within the first four weeks of the course then more flexible working arrangements.
• Information on technology challenges – a help desk contact 24hrs
• Clear guidelines about exits and entrances to the course
2. Those first four weeks
The four weeks at the beginning of the course and times around assignments and formal work are important. The facilitator has a role of being directive and assumes the role more of the teacher at these times. At other times a more relaxed facilitation style that is appropriate to the group can be relied on.

• Establish a group forum be it a discussion board, a Blog, or an email list but something that is used by everyone.
• Avoid using too much technology, too fast. Stick to two forms of course communication that are reliable and that everyone can utilise.
3. Warm up exercises and establishing a community

I am not all that convinced that this is something that can be done successfully. It is my personal belief that a sense of community develops over time and with our community, I have found that this has only really developed at the end of the course. I don’t feel any real sense of knowing anyone else on the course other than those I have met accidentally face-to-face
Suggestions: The use of Blogs has been helpful and is a good way of sharing something other than course work.
The ability to ‘think outside the square’ has led to me saying more about myself and my thoughts than describing what music or books I like or what my hobbies are. In fact, I feel that those last exercises have branded me in a way that is not me at all. They only partly explain who Graeme Dixon is.
4. Be consistent yourself as the facilitator
Develop a course Schedule: I spend about 5 hours each week on this course and I consider that to be about right. I try and schedule my time around the Monday exercise and I check my Google Reader every morning

I try to write at least one Blog post a week.

I would encourage participants to do the same.
As a facilitator, I would expect that I would do about three times that amount of monitoring and writing and further time arranging sessions
Keep Discussion in the Forum: If much communication with participants takes place with individuals through email, others won't be aware of those conversations. Whenever possible/appropriate, encourage individuals to share thoughts, comments, and questions that are directed toward you with the whole group -- that way you will be more visible and everyone will benefit from your response. Model the level of engagement that you want course participants to demonstrate.
5. Optimize Your Messages
Keep Messages Concise: Long messages (and messages that have long paragraphs) are overwhelming for many online readers -- so are messages with more than one topic. Try to keep messages short. If you want to say/ask several things, consider breaking the message up into more than one post.
6. Keeping discussion going

The following list outlines and illustrates the range of actions that I would take as a facilitator:
• Summarize
• Moderate – Keep threads going but if the group needs to re-focus be pro-active in initiating
• Guide
• Prompt
• Troubleshoot – Technical aspects such as overlong Video or Slides that are not appearing need to be sorted early in the course so that they don’t constitute a frustration that drives members away.
• Mediate
• Problem Solve
Assessment

I would also build into the course some specific assessments to pick up when participants are falling behind or getting out of their depth. I personally use Start/Stop/Continue at about the 33% stage of a course and a 50% Terms assessment.


• Evaluate online communication and collaboration tools in given learning situations.
• Plan and implement online discussions for specific online communities.
• Critically evaluate an online discussion in the context of sound educational principles.



References


Collison, George, with Bonnie Elbaum, Sarah Haavind, and Robert Tinker
(2000) Facilitating Online Learning: Effective Strategies for Moderators, Madison, WI: Atwood Publishing.

Palloff, Rena and Keith Pratt
(1999) Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom, San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
White, Ken, with Bob Weight et al
(2000) The Online Teaching Guide: A Handbook of Attitudes, Strategies, and Techniques for the Virtual Classroom, Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Social, Cognitive and Situative F Frameworks: http://teachvu.vu.msu.edu/public/designers/social_interactions/index.php retrieved Novemebr 12, 2007

Gaming as an educational tool

Mark Greenfield gave an interesting presentation last night to the Learning Community about the use of games ( particularly Travian) as educational tools. I was most impressed with the potential for games like this to be used but I wondered afterwards about why students complain about the ways that information is presented currently. Something that Mark said ( I think it was that students come and are bored and want to 'switch the channel' but find that they are stuck with the same channel) triggered for me a) how gaming might be used and b) why students come to education with this mind set.

a) I sort of alluded to this in the session but with things happening in the game in some sort of real time then breaks could be filled with relevant educational material (either on or off line) that reinforces the concept being covered in the course. So for instance if crops are being planted then there could be resource about botany, food groups, cooking, seasons, history of food.
Likewise, I would like to see a repository of other online games like Sim City etc that might have application to various educational settings.
b) what are we doing as parents that prepares our children to expect that "they" are the centre of the universe. The first thought that came to me was that it is all very well to have flexible learning techniques but what about the real workforce where people are often stuck doing boring, repetitive tasks for most of their work-time whether or not they are a check out operator or a doctor? Shouldn't we be more realistic and prepare them for a world where they will be subject to harrassment, non recognition for skills, a mismatch of what they are trained to do and what they are actually permitted to do?