Blog 5

What have you learned about analyzing learning task and objectives? How can you plan to apply this new information (new to some of you who have not taken an instructional design course) to your design project?

Identifying a need should be carefully considered before jumping into the design process. You have to consider your learner and the learner’s needs. When delivering instructional content you have to make a task analysis for every aspect that you provide instruction for. When considering instructional objectives I found I approached this task by creating objectives for my site rather than objectives for the learner or VLC member. I am struggling with this a bit as my site is designed primarily as a place for members to collaborate and provide the learning experiences for each other. I have expanded on my objectives to have both 1) site or project objectives and then 2 ) individual learner objectives.

Given the learning objectives/tasks you have identified, what instructional strategies or activities you have identified from Bonk and Zhang’s book are useful for your target community members (or learners) to achieve their goals/objectives? The VLC that I have proposed is designed as to facilitate collaboration between community college instructors on how to use technology in the classroom. I have objectives for the VLC as a whole and objectives for the learners. The objectives for the site are:

1. Stimulate discussion about the uses, needs, and experiences of web 2.0 tools and applications in the classroom.
2. Provide a platform for members to share successful experiences with web 2.0 tools with CoP members.
3. Experience web 2.0 tools in a manner that will facilitate the construction of sound learning activities.
4. Develop a network of instructors and IT staff that can serve as resource for each other.

The members for the learners are:

1. Discuss strategies for using Web 2.0 technology to enhance learning in the classroom.
2. Identify strengths, and weaknesses of technology tools available for teaching.
3. Identify instructional needs that might be met through web 2.0 technologies.
4. Share with others, examples of instructional uses of web 2.0 technologies.

Examples of strategies that could work with in this site that come from the Bonk and Zhang

FAQ and Course Announcement Feedback Navigational structure is going to be very important in this community. p. 36 and 37. (Read)

Online Discussion Forums and Group Discussion Discourse between members will be a key component of this community. p. 86 and 87. (Reflect)

Virtual Tours Created by members to showcase successful learning activities developed with Web 2.0 tools. (Display)

Course Resource Wiki Site Members work together to develop are a member repository of web 2.0 tools. p. 218-19. (Do)

Case Study II

For this project I learned to use Google docs.  I helped a group that had a need to collaborate on a spreadsheet. 

 
 

You can approach collaboration in Google docs three ways

1)  You can set read/write privileges and the users could login to Google docs

2) You can set read/write privileges and email the link.

3) You can set read/write privileges and then paste the link in the website.

 
 

In this case it was determined that the web site approach would work best.  I set up a Google site that anyone who wants to see how collaboration through a link on a website works. Go to http://sites.google.com/site/eipt6143/ to view.  Feel free to open the document, spreadsheet, or presentation and practice editing.

The World is Open

We began reading The Word is Open by Curtis Bonk. These articles were refreshingly engaging, written from a practitioner's point of view rather than a theorist's point of view. I read chapter 6 and 7 which provided multiple examples of innovation collaboration and practical applications of web 2.0 tools. I look forward to listening to Dr. Bonk speak tomorrow at OU.

Digital Identities and Zombies in Education

I recently attended the Instructional Technology Council Conference in Fort Worth. Much of the conference was centered around respecting that students have digital identities before they enter school and ways schools can promote true collaboration. There was suggestion that the LMS should do more to allow students to publish from the Web 2.0 tools that they use before they become a student and that may have more value than the tools ion the LMS.

The opening keynote speech was well done. It was presented in the format of the Late Show and had several clips. The presentation as streamed and can be accessed at http://salesdemo.mediasite.com/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=1c13bc753bfe4040aec4a67aba5f01f1 If you do decide to watch this make sure you get to the segment at the end that has a description of the three types of zombies that exist in higher ed. It is one that people trying to deliver truly collaborative learning situation should know about.

Connections

I think I am starting to make some connections about the purpose of some of our assignments and the objectives of the class. Maybe all of my peer's have understood the need to look at the articles from a theorist's perspective, but until recently I have been looking at them in a more pragmatic manner and attempted to find immediate clinical value.

This week we picked two articles from the Carrying Forward the Conversation textbook.

The first article I read was titled Participatory Simulations: Building Collaborative Understanding Through Immersive Dynamic Modeling. It was written by Vanessa Colella. In this study the student the student's participated in what is called Participatory Simulation. The Simulation was carried out and then studied to see if it met John Dewey's principles of experience. Dewey's principle stated that learning occurs through continuity and interaction.

The simulation consisted of 10^th grade students wearing small computerized badges to participate in a simulation that involved scientific inquiry. The badges were used to simulate the spread of disease. The badge kept track of how many people the student came in contact with and indicated if the student had the disease or not. The simulation was carried out 6 times. The students worked together to determine how the virus was being spread.

Data was collected through video tape and was then analyzed to identify the presence of immersion in the simulation, identification and analysis of evidence, experimental design and predication, and negation about scientific vocabulary. The immersion of simulation this compared to Dewey's terms of continuity and interaction. This was met as participants felt as if they actually had or did not have the virus. The date indicated a high level of emersion and interaction.

 

The Second Article I read was titled Using Mobile Computing to Enhance Field Study by Gay, Rieger, and Bennington. In this study students use hand held computers to supplement field activities. This study examined the initiation of technology through Activity Theory which we studied this week during our live session and in an article titled Activity Theory as a Framework for Designing Constructivist Learning Environments by Jonassen and Ronrer-Murphy. Within activity theory you, understand the motivation of the participants, understand the context of the activity, define the subject, define the relevant community, define the object, define the activity, and then analysis and application. Activity theory has been used to explain human/computer interactions. This study looked specifically at the activity changed with the insertion of PDAs. The lines of authority changes as students did not need to rely on the expertise of the instructor which changed the activity. Participants valued the information provided from the hand held computers but in some cases felt it diminished the hands on experience.

 

Learning in Collaborative Settings

This week's readings centered on learning in collaborative settings. In the 4 studies that I read there are important lessons that can be learned and generated to all virtual learning communities

Theoretical constructs

Collaborative settings are a way to move from a transfer of knowledge model to a constructionist model of learning.

To learn a person must be able to 1), Direct their own work, and two have the ability to work with others.

Collaborative learning communities allow people to develop skills needed to empower them to be successful.

Objectives

Ideally the following things should occur in a collaborative setting

• The learning is understanding focused rather than task focused
  
• Discussion should be generated by the learners rather than a response to teacher generated questions
  
• Participants find meaningful resources to get learning materials rather than reciting from classroom textbooks
  
• The outcome is to develop a deep understanding rather than memorizing facts
  

Challenges

Problems that can occur in online classroom collaborative activities

• Collaboration – discussion content is repeated from the text, students do enough to meet the requirements, but no more
  
• Rather than making reflective comments students make superficial comments such as, good work, I liked that, or pointing out spelling errors
  
• Students are not experts and may not provide helpful feedback
  
• Students sometimes start out with underdeveloped ideas that are more like a list of topics than a true question that can be researched and collaborated on.
  

Strategies

How teachers can help facilitate discussion that meets the objectives of what should occur in a collaborative online setting

• Provide guidance with the construction of the initial portion of the project to make sure the discussion begins in the right direction
  
• Encourage students to ask questions and then gather the resources to discuss and make conclusion before looking at the research materials.
  
• Provide guidelines for the expectations of the finished product
  
• Provide guidelines for the expectations of collaborative comments
  
• Stress to students the importance of understanding
  
• Recognize that novices to the subject matter are going to need more scaffolding than more advanced groups
  

Online learning communities offer a medium for learning that has benefits that cannot be achieved in other mediums. Developing a meaningful online learning community takes a special skill set.

Responses to Week 2 Blogs

Power of Virtual Communities
The Times articles talk about Web 2.0 tools. Educators who teach in the online environment need to be aware of all of the tools as well as the positives and negatives of each one of them. Awareness of technology allows an instructor to design engaging content. Educators have to use technology wisely. Using tools for the sake of using technology without sound pedagogy is probably not a good way to master content and frustrating to students. Keeping up with tools is a part of being an effective online instructor.

Everyone is an Expert?
I don't know that reading things on the Internet can ever be a substitute for actual experience. The Internet can be a great way to stay informed and to engage and support education.

What will Education Look Like in the Future?
I think education will continue to evolve with more flexibility in how and when courses are offered. Blended courses are becoming more popular. Colleges are working on rolling start and end dates, Students will be expected to be more active in the pursuit of knowledge. Assessment is going more towards portfolio and competency based assessment rather than traditional exams at regular intervals.