Foundations of Online Teaching and Learning

This new course will start in October 2015.  The course is designed for all those interested in online learning and/or teaching. Applications are open.

If you require more details please do not hesitate to contact me on joseph.vancell@um.edu.mt.

Cheating in online education: a chink in our armour?

Check out this site called ‘We Take Your Class’: http://www.wetakeyourclass.com. The description of this site reads:

When you are in a serious time crunch, or working full time the last thing you want to do when you get home is deal with your online class work for a class you have no interest in. We get that.  We are based in the United States and we can relate to what you are going through.   You will not find better customer service and guaranteed grades or your money back with any other company.   We know all of the online learning platforms in and out. Your class will be on cruise control the moment you sign up with us and if you have any questions or concerns we can be reached anytime.  We specialise in math, business or science classes, but we also offer assistance in a wide variety of other subjects.

Similar sites exist, including, 

• http://www.boostmygrade.com, 
• https://www.noneedtostudy.com/myclass/take-online/, 
• http://acemyassignment.com and
• http://onlineclasstutors.com/take-my-class-for-me/. 

This list is by no means exhaustive. The growth of the online education market have spun off another, more surreptitious market – one that goes beyond the paper-writing services long available to less than honest students in the offline world. These sites all offer to take a student’s entire online class for them, handling assignments, quizzes, and tests, for a fee. They are all legal (or appear so) and most promise at least a B in the course. Some are scams (see, for example, http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/wetakeyourclasscom-wetakeyourclass-paul-wakefield/internet/wetakeyourclasscom-wetakeyourclass-paul-wakefield-wetakeyourclasscomwetakeyourclass-S-916110), but many are not, and with prices ranging from a mere $95 (for an essay) to 1000$ (for a full introductory microeconomics class), the not-so-honest student might find someone who can take a course for him/her, or complete an assignment. Moreover, cheating is nearly impossible to prevent when teaching an online course if a student is committed to cheating. So despite our genuine efforts to control cheating, we do have a problem, and we must find ways to solve it, or at least curtail it.

How can we stop cheating? Here are my arguments, which find support in the extant literature about cheating and online learning: 

1. Plagiarism is not unique to the online world (as Watson and Sottile, 2010 and ION's Strategies to Minimize Cheating Online webpage also note; see also infograph below).It also exists in the face-to-face dimension, and indeed, this dimension has resorted to online tools to eliminate part of this problem (through plagiarism-detection software, such as Turnitin). A recent study reports that cheating is only slightly higher than live classes, with 32.7% of online students admitting to cheating and 32.1% of students in live classes admitting the same. 
2. We must move away from prevention of cheating, which no technology or strategy will ever be able to accomplish, face-to-face or online, and toward deterrence and vigilance. In the same vein, Jocoy and DiBiase, (2015), argue for constant ‘systematic detection and vigilant enforcement’ in online learning. 
3. I argue for a move away from the traditional assessment paradigm, in which, assessment is often synonymous with summative grading and the measurement of acquired knowledge. It is easier to cheat a quiz, or a final essay, than to take an active part in a synchronous online discussion through Blackboard Collaborate! Therefore, we should not just dump in information at students so someone can come in and take a couple of quizzes and they’re done. 
4. Do not distinguish between assessment and learning. Do not create separate assessment tasks. Create learning experiences through authentic assessment efforts (see Foothill College's Prevent Cheating webpage) involving collaborative work, camaraderie between participants, scaffolding, building and constantly developing one’s online persona and, democratic communication between all learning members. Stöckelová and Virtová's (2015) case study confirms that this type of pedagogy ‘can foster collaboration and a sense of mutuality among students, trigger institutional reflexivity and generate a platform for the collective production of knowledge lacking in curricula, it can also perpetuate institutional deficiencies by compensating for them, often in undesirable ways such as cheating and plagiarism’.

Tilsley (2012) makes a similar argument. She notes that a ‘verification plan’ must involve pedagogy, not technology, and this fear of cheating should not lead to the ‘over-regulation’ of the online learning dimension as it might scare away the adult population that needs it most – people with family and job responsibilities who cannot follow campus-based higher education. She also notes that when a course requires constant interaction, collaborative work and many assignments, it will increase the expenses to the cheating student, making the service financially prohibitive. Technically, it will also present a problem to the cheaters since the IP address can easily unmask the cheating service (which is often maintained by one individual who has only one IP address). So, designing a course that precludes cheating might require thinking creatively and breaking away from simply uploading lecture videos and administering quizzes.

Finally, I must stress that we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Online education is a good thing, despite the cheating fears. I did a Postgraduate Certificate Course in Research Training, a Master’s Degree in e-Learning with the University of Hull (UK), some MOOCs, and the Master Online Teaching program with the University of Illinois (USA), completely online. I also completed the greater part of my PhD through online communication with my supervisors in the University of Hull (with only occasional visits to the host University UK for supervisory meetings and the final viva). I did all this while maintaining my full-time job. I am also currently involved in work at National and European level to create a working accreditation system (which must address the cheating issue) for higher education experience gained through open learning sources (including MOOCs) which are increasingly gaining value at the international labour market and educational arena.

References

Jocoy, C. L., & DiBiase, D. (2006). Plagiarism by adult learners online: A case study in detection and remediation. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(1).

Stöckelová, T. and Virtová, T. (2015), A tool for learning or a tool for cheating? The many-sided effects of a participatory student website in mass higher education. British Journal of Educational Technology. 46: 597–607.

Tilsely, A. (2012), Paying for an A. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/21/sites-offering-take-courses-fee-pose-risk-online-ed [accessed on 16 July 2015].

Watson, G. and Sottile, J. (2010), Cheating in the Digital Age: Do Students Cheat More in Online Courses? Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration. Volume XIII, Number I, Spring 2010. University of West Georgia, Distance Education Center. Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring131/watson131.html [accessed 16 July 2015]

Student-generated content

Learners' roles

There is agreement in the literature that students, in the 21^st century, need a shift in mindset, and must change their roles from passive to active learners. They should no longer ‘act’ as empty receptacles ready to be filled with knowledge. They should be, through dialogic and collective learning efforts, the be ‘creators rather than consumers of knowledge’ (Papert, 1993: 13). In this new educational scenario, the learning content must therefore not be solely identified and, then, delivered by the teacher. The students must be engaged in the creation of content, through, or aided by technology.

Theoretical underpinning

This is the thrust of the argument of the contemporary advocates of the three most relevant learning theories – constructivism (in its various faces and forms, i.e. social, radical and critical), constructionism (Papert, 1993) and connectivism (Siemens, 2004; Downes, 2007). The constructivists, banking on the ideas of Jean Piaget, view learners as actively engaged in making meaning. The constructivist educator looks for what students can analyse, investigate, collaborate, share, build and generate based on what they already know, rather than what facts, skills, and processes they can parrot. To do this effectively, Freire (1971) argues, a teacher needs to be also a learner and a researcher, to strive for greater awareness of the environments and the participants in a given teaching situation in order to continually adjust their actions to engage students in learning, using constructivism as a referent.

Constructionism asserts that constructivism occurs especially well when the learner is engaged in the construction of a physical, intellectual or virtual artifact/s:

Constructionism shares constructivism’s connotation of learning as ‘building knowledge structures’ irrespective of the circumstances of the learning. It then adds that this happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity, whether it’s a sandcastle on the beach or a theory of the universe. (Papert, 1991)

Papert (1993) also strongly argues that

Children are the builders of their own cognitive tools, as well as of their external realities. In other words, knowledge and the world are both construed and interpreted through action, and mediated through symbol use. Each gains existence and form through the construction of the other.

Thus, in constructionism the focus is on learning through making. This process, if done within a group, can create a ‘community of inquiry’, which, through dialogue, can engage all learners reflexively and socially, thereby enhancing the educational process. 

Finally, in connectivism, learning is defined as

the process that occurs within the nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual. Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialised information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important that our current state of knowing. (Siemens, 2004)

In a nutshell, and pertinent to the discussion question, this theory suggests pivotal roles for dialogue and collaboration between students in ‘maintaining connections and developing knowledge through them’ (Ravenscroft, 2011: 140). Downes’ (2007: 1), another advocate for connectivism, argues that learning which must therefore be based ‘on conversation and interaction, on sharing, creation and participation, on learning not as a separate activity, but rather, as embedded in meaningful activity’.

Potential student roles

In this theoretical scenario, dialogue, collaboration, experiential learning and the creation of new knowledge through artifacts, are more important pedagogic strategies than the delivery of knowledge. The creation and incorporation of student-generated content is a pedagogical necessity. This creation and integration of content into a course is also important because many students are today (i) already immersed in a digital culture, and (ii) already have some experience, albeit very limited, of content production (Lippincott, 2007).

As Dougiamas (1998), the guy who started Moodle, notes, involving students in the creation of websites, computer software, robots, and ‘public entities’ (Papert, 1993) that other people can see and evaluate, is, therefore, an important pedagogic process. ‘Public entities’, in contemporary discourse include websites, blogs, wikis, pages on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest (and similar), presentations on PowerPoint, SlideBean and Prezi, podcasts and videos. The latter, Vest (2009) [from this module’s readings] argues, are so important in contemporary society, that ‘YouTube accounts to 25% of all Google searches’.

A Google search with the parameters ‘students creating content’ produced a very long list of interesting sites, blogs and wikis (curated by theorists, practitioners and students), podcasts, videos and scientifically rigorous papers.  There were 378million results!

In one of these sites, LaMartina (2012) describes a digital marketing class at Meredith University and notes that:

the MBA students don’t simply learn the best practices for online salesmanship – they actually use them on real-world brands and businesses. They lead blog discussions, critique each other’s responses, and create full-fledged marketing plans for themselves or the companies they work for. Though the course begins with six instructor-led meetings, the students co-create the vast majority of their own materials.

LaMartina (2012) also notes that cloud-based learning has made it far easier for students to not only create their own educational materials (including videos, podcasts, blogs and wikis), but to quickly and effectively share them with peers.  He argues also that one of the greatest advantages of student-created content is that it allows learners ‘to engage dry subjects in creative ways’.  

Warning: Possible challenges

Despite the pedagogical strengths of engaging students in creating content some important considerations need to be made.  These include

1. Creating digital, audio or video artifacts, students need a wide range of skills, including multimedia literacies.  If the students do not have these skills, producing content, such as podcasts or videos, may involve a steep learning curve.
2. Software and hardware should be chosen wisely.
3. Student content-production tasks should be directly linked to the learning objectives of the course.

Therefore, educators must provide effective guidance, motivation and support throughout the whole process.

Concluding comment

McLoughlin and Lee (2008) argue that ‘the key benefit of learner-generated content lies in the processes of creating, knowledge construction, and sharing as opposed to the end product itself’.

References

Dougiamas, M. (1998) ‘A Journey into Constructivism’, available at http://dougiamas.com/writing/constructivism.html, accessed on 24 February 2015.

Downes, S. (2007) 'An Introduction to Connective Knowledge', Media, Knowledge & Education - Exploring new Spaces, Relations and Dynamics in Digital Media Ecologies, Proceedings of the International Conference held on June 25 - 26, Innsbruck, available from  http://www.downes.ca/post/33034, accessed on 24 February 2015.

LaMartina, D. (2012) ‘5 Tips for Adding Student-Generated Content to Your Curriculum’, in edcetra, available at http://edcetera.rafter.com/5-tips-for-adding-student-generated-content-to-your-curriculum/, accessed on 24 February 2015.

Lippincott, J. K. (2007) ‘Student Content Creators: Convergence of Literacies’ in EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 42, no. 6 (November/December 2007), pp. 16–17, available at https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM07610.pdf, accessed on 24 February 2015.

McLoughlin, C. & Lee, M. (2008) Future learning landscapes: Transforming pedagogy through social software. Innovate 4(5). http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=539, accessed on 24 February 2015.

Papert, S. (1991) ‘Preface’, in Harel, I. & Papert, S. (Eds.) Constructionism, Norwood, N. J., Ablex, pp. 1.

Papert, S. (1993) The children's machine: rethinking school in the age of the computer, NY, BasicBooks.

Ravenscroft, A. (2011) 'Dialogue and Connectivism: A New Approach to Understanding and Promoting Dialogue-Rich Networked Learning', in International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 139-160.

Siemens, G. (2004) 'Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age', available from  http://www.elearnspace.org/Articiles/connectivism.htm, accessed on 24 February 2015.

Siemens, G. (2008) 'Learning and Knowing in Networks: Changing roles for Educators and Designers', in ITFORUM for Discussion, available from  http://itforum.coe.uga.edu/Paper105/Siemens.pdf, accessed on 24 February 2015.

Vest, J. (2009) ‘Six Steps to Creating High Quality Video Training’, Learning Solutions Magazine, available at http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/185/six-steps-to-creating-high-quality-video-training, accessed on 24 February 2015.

FaceBook and Wix: two tools that have potential for teaching and learning online

I'm presently exploring a social networking tool, that is, Facebook, and a free website tool called Wix.  The link to the Facebook page for the University of Malta course number MSL4205 called Technology-Enhanced Learning is available at 
https://www.facebook.com/msl4205, while the website for the course Foundations of Adult Education in the Online Medium can be found at http://josephvancell.wix.com/edu1234.

The literature agrees that Web2.0 tools, including social networking sites, such as Facebook, can be integrated within fully online, and also hybrid teaching efforts. They present interaction affordances that make possible rich and engaging forms of multimodal collaboration, allowing students and instructors to become more directly visible to and socially present with one another. 

I am exploring the use of a Facebook page as a constructivist learning tool where students can engage in discussions which I initiate. So far, all 24 students in my face-to-face class, have contributed to the discussions created on this page.

I am also investigating the use of a free website service, that is, WIX.com, to create an online course. I'm still at the initial phases. One of the hurdles I must overcome is the integration and/or embedding of discussion widgets into the course pages. I have yet not understood how this can be achieved (if it can be achieved). Working on it.

Another Presentation using PowToon and Camtasia

This is another presentation I made using PowToon and Camtasia. The presentation is available here.

It is an animated 5-minute presentation about MOOCs. I used PowToon to create the movie and Camtasia to edit it, and add a voice-over. I also inserted/integrated very short video clips of experts on MOOCs. I did my best to make the presentation as accessibile as possible.

The process started with the creation of the presentation on a word document and then copying and pasting the text to PowToon.  The finished product was downloaded as an MP4 file and imported to Camtasia (full version). A voice-over was recorded and integrated with the presentation. Video clips and music were added to the presentation. A final MP4 file was created through Camtasia's export feature. This was uploaded to Google Drive.

To prepare this presentation I used various sources, including:

• The video 'What is a MOOC' available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW3gMGqcZQc, accessed 6 March 2015.
• Farmer, J. (2012) 'MOOCS: The new higher education?, available at http://mfeldstein.com/moocs-the-new-higher-education/, accessed 6 March 2015.
• Laurrillard, D. (2014) 'Five myths about MOOCs', in The Times Higher Educational, available at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/comment/opinion/five-myths-about-moocs/2010480.article, accessed 6 March 2015.
• MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses), available at http://desarrolloweb.dlsi.ua.es/moocs/what-is-a-mooc, accessed on 8 March 2015.
• Hollands, F.M. and Tirthali, D. MOOCs: Expectations and Reality, Centre for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education Teachers College, Columbia University, available at http://www.academicpartnerships.com/sites/default/files/MOOCs_Expectations_and_Reality.pdf, accessed on 6 March 2015.
• McAuley, A., Stewart, B., Siemens, G. and Cormier, D. (2010), The MOOC model for digital practice, available at  https://oerknowledgecloud.org/sites/oerknowledgecloud.org/files/MOOC_Final.pdf, accessed on 6 March 2015.

These two YouTube videos were converted to MP3 files for the music used in the presentation.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dwXU2i-7r4
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42dVcSGdSgw

Online Surveys in Education

This is the link to a survey I devleoped through Google Forms.

I have created this survey as part of the evaluation process of a course I'm developing called Virtual Adult Learning Communities. The survey intends to evaluate two main elements of the course, its pedagogy - which will be mainly based on asynchronous text-based online discussions - and the instructor's performance during these discussions. It is very important for me to assess my efficiency and effectiveness in encouraging dialogue and developing and maintaining and community of learning within the group.

As the ADDIE framework suggests, the evaluation of an instructor's performance is an essential process for a successful educational program, whether it is face-to-face or online (Wright, 2011). It is particularly important in the online medium because there is lower sense of immediacy when compared to the brick-and-mortar classroom. Feedback is less immediate and spontaneous. It is more difficult to obtain in text-based courses. Therefore, it is very important for the online instructor to gather feedback and student suggestions throughout the whole course. This will also increase the students' sense of belonging to the learning group, because they will feel important since their contributions are valued by the instructor.

A Presentation using PowToon and Camtasia

My presentation is available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1Y1aceWLF1PRXIwT0RXRkRxMGc/view?usp=sharing.

I created this presentation using PowToon available at http://www.powtoon.com. I used the free version, which, however, has enough features to create good animated presentations. I learned to use PowerToon quickly, perhaps in a couple of hours.  I'm the trial-and-error type, who learns faster on a real and authentic task. However, if you’re a different kind of learner, who needs directions, there’s a lot of help available on YouTube. These are three examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRqO5MasiFk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFv8L0z-72c or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XokhlijAAI0.

PowToon, as most of the best technology (including Prezi and the interactive smart board), was created for the business community. However, if one follows simple guidelines, such as, using sans serif fonts, keeping words and pictures to an essential minimum, making the presentation accessible to all (even those who have hearing and visual impairments) and using animation to enhance the presentation (but not flashing or rotating images - which are uncomfortable for participants who suffer from travel sickness), one can create interesting educational presentations which are ADA/508 compliant.

I also used Camtasia from TechSmith to integrate the audio and video, to edit the presentation, and convert it to the mp4 format.

Learning objectives

I intend to use this video about the importance of dialogue in learning in my course on adult learners in the online medium. It has two main aims: (i) to introduce the students to the debate about dialogue in learning; and (ii) to trigger/stimulate a discussion based on the students’ own reflections and conclusions about their own learning process through dialogue.

Challenges

Using PowToon did not involve much of a learning curve. It’s animation features, even in the free version, can produce a very ‘professional’ looking presentations similar to the animated video presentations many students are used to on social media. Unfortunately, PowToon does not come with a voice-over feature. The voice over (or video, as in my presentation) must be added through a third-party software.

Recording myself and editing the presentation through Camtasia were the biggest challenges. I'm not good before the camera and had to make many takes for the end product to be 'acceptable' for viewing by others. I also was in difficulty when integrating the video with the PowToon presentation. I spent many anxious moments trying to synchronous both.

Podcasts in eLearning

Schools in the Cloud

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2014/06/bst_20140604_0839.mp3

Description of the podcast

This is a June 2014 radio interview with Sugata Mitra on Brisbane’s (Australia) RN Breakfast show. Mitra is Professor of Educational Technology at the University of Newcastle, and is known for his ‘Schools in the Cloud’ project.

In 1999, Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed an Internet-connected PC, and left it there (with a hidden camera filming the area). What they saw was kids from the slum playing around with the computer and in the process learning how to use it and how to go online, and then teaching each other. He set ‘holes in the wall’ elsewhere and the experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they’re motivated by curiosity and peer interest.

In 2013 he won the TED Prize of 1 million dollars for his wish to create the ‘Schools in the Cloud’ where children can explore and learn on their own, and teach one another, using resources from the Internet, with minimal support from a cadre of retired teachers (the grannys). In December 2013, the first School in the Cloud lab — located inside a high school in Killingworth, England — opened its doors to students. Six more labs have since been opened; five in India and one more in the UK. The labs aim to provide an environment in which researchers can observe the impact of self-organized learning on children from a wide range of educational backgrounds.

In this interview Mitra explains the hopes and possibilities of an education that does not assume that children are empty vessels who need to sit down in a room and be filled with curricular content, but active explorers of knowledge.

More details about Mitra’s work can be found at https://www.theschoolinthecloud.org.

The podcast's use in class

This short podcast will be used with a group of student teachers following the course called Technology-Enhanced Learning and Innovation. This is a hybrid program. The students will be asked to listen to the podcast and then produce an answer to the the following statement, and write a short contribution with their reactions. This will all happen on Moodle.

Traditional educators claim that true learning cannot happen without teachers, and that there will always be a place for face-to-face teaching. But concepts such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Sugata Mitra’s 'schools in the cloud' may prove this concept wrong.

Research

I carried out a Google search using the following words as parameters: ‘education technology podcasts’.  The following site by informED ’50 Educational Podcasts You Should Check Out’ emerged in the Google list. One of the sites was TED Talks, however, most of its links were of videos, rather than podcasts. One of these videos was of Sugata Mitra’s 2013 winning TED talk which I had previously watched and liked, and was eager to use in one of my courses.  So, I Googled ‘schools in the cloud podcast’ and a number of links to recordings of interviews and conferences in which Mitra participated emerged. I chose one of the shortest podcasts. This was a 9 minute podcast of an interview on an Australian radio show.  I listened to the podcast and liked it. The whole process took around 90 minutes.

Videos in eLearning

Pappas (2013) notes 'that the majority of eLearning professionals admit that video constitutes a vivid and entertaining way to stimulate the learner’s interest and convey the desired knowledge'. Learners, continues Pappas (2013), are thus more likely to retain the information they have been taught by recreating the images in their minds. After all, most learners need to feel as if the instructor is speaking directly to them in a one-on-one conversation. They need this relationship between instructor and student that helps them keep their interest in the subject to be taught. Videos are therefore very important tools in online teaching and learning.

An example

YouTube Video: An Introduction to Technology Integration

To find this video I looked for videos in (i) edutopia.com, (ii) Merlot, (iii) the TED talks Education YouTube channel, (iv) the Teaching Channel and (v) iTunes U where I knew I could find a large repository of videos related to education, and technology.  I saw snippets of some videos but selected three. Then, I and spent around an hour watching them. I finally chose the video above which best satisfied my teaching objective. The whole process took around two hours.

The other two videos were:

• Finland: Discover through Technology, from the Teaching Channel, available at https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/discovery-through-technology 
• Can Technology Change Education?Yes!, by Raj Dhingra, from the TED talks Education YouTube channel, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0s_M6xKxNc

Description of video

The teachers interviewed in this short, professionally produced and well-edited video make a very strong argument for the integration of technology into the school curriculum.  Why? Because, today, technology, is ubiquitous, and if used well in the classroom, it will fundamentally transform the way we teach, and students learn.  Teaching without technology can also lead to learning, but teaching with technology ‘makes learning joyful’, improves the students’ attention, their focus, motivation, engagement and the effective sharing of ideas.

One of the interviewed teachers also notes that, ‘when you create (a blog, a podcast or a video), you take ownership of your learning. You understand it in a very different way than if you just memorize something from a textbook, or if you just read it over and over again, or watched it in someone else's film. If you were able to translate that information into your own film, your own content, you own something to share. That's just amazing.’

Moreover, another teacher notes that the internet provides an authentic audience and when students post their work online, their work ‘doesn't go into a pile on the teacher's desk, and then get handed back to their folder’. On Internet, students sharing their ideas and creations with ‘people that actually, not only will read it, but also care about it.’

The traditional teaching approaches that ‘we’ve inherited from the Prussians 200 years ago’ are no longer valid in the modern classroom. Technology can help teachers adopt pedagogies in which they are facilitators who, while ‘working alongside with’ their students can guide them to ‘create great work’.

Its use in class

This 5-minute video will be used with a group of student teachers following a course called Technology-Enhanced Learning and Innovation. This is a hybrid program. The students will be asked to view the video. All the students will then be asked to reflect on their ‘teaching practices’ and participate in an asynchronous discussion hosted on Moodle about the implications of integrating technology into the local schooling system.

The video comes with a text transcript for the hearing impaired.

A Reusable Learning Object (RLO)

Learning Theories, Pedagogic Strategies and Instructional Design: an Overview. 

Available at http://sprout.lakeheadu.ca/~gpassmor/TPID/Index/Index.html

I found this learning object on the Merlot depository. It is an Articulate presentation that provides an overview of the three main learning theories, that is, behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism, and pedagogic strategies (ISD, Dick and Carey, Gagne's 9 events of instruction, Problem and Project based Learning). The presentation also lists components of the theories and strategies that teachers might use as guides when designing their lessons. Some of the Articulate files have some interactive activities and external links that provide a more engaging experience to students when they are exploring concepts like Gagne's 9 Events of Instruction.

This learning object can be used in any educational course, including courses about adult education and online teaching and learning. Students can use it as reference material. It can also be used to trigger asynchronous discussions about educational theories and/or pedagogy.

To find a relevant learning object for this task I went straight to Merlot because I knew that it was a huge depository and chances were I would find a reusable learning object in a relatively short time. In fact, it took me only an hour to find the presentation and review it before writing this posting.

One suggestion I would share with the students for a more efficient viewing of the presentation is for them to pause the timed slides, particularly those slides that contain a lot of content. 

A final note. This learning object (like many other freely available objects) is not ADA/508 complaint. Adding a recorded a voice-over would make the presentation accessible to students with sight impairments. However, at this stage, this is difficult to achieve since only its creator could have integrated voice with the slides. One way out of this impasse is to offer persons with sight impairments an audio recording of all the text-based slides in the same order as the timed presentation.

Moodle chat

The Chat facility in Moodle

Moodle offers the text-based ‘chat’ facility.  It has no audio or video communication capabilities and is very similar to instant messaging tools, or the chat room facility which one may find on social networking (including Facebook) or similar sites.

I use the Moodle chat room for several pedagogic objectives. Here are some examples:

1. Students are asked to view a television program (for example, a televised discussion about freedom of expression) relevant to the topic. Then, at the end of the program, they are given the option to discuss the program in the chat room and address questions/comments to other students and me. This is a useful and engaging process to get other opinions and feedback on the TV program while it is still fresh in everyone’s minds.

2. During projects, placements and/or anytime during the course I use the facility to hold open chats to answer/discuss students’ questions, and solve problems. These sessions are also very important evaluative activities.

3. Students are urged to use the chat facility while working on group projects or assignments.

4. I offer to meet students through this facility during my ‘virtual’ office hours. Admittedly, students prefer Skype or Google Hangouts.

Using an expert guest speaker

It is very difficult to give access to guest spearkers to the University of Malta Moodle platform because all participants must be registered with the university of Malta as either lecturers or students. Guest speakers must receive a special concession as ‘guests’ to Moodle. However, this, to my knowledge, is a lengthy bureaucratic process, which I prefer to bypass by using non-Moodle messaging systems.

Managing a synchronous chat

Synchronous chats may be very difficult to manage. A synchronous chat with a large group of students is hard to handle. It might be wise to break that group into smaller ones that allow for meaningful discourse (about 4 to 6). It is important to establish those groups ahead of time to eliminate confusion and disruption to the instructional flow. As in every large group situation the dominant personalities tend to monopolize the conversation. So that all members feel as though they are part of the group ask rapport building questions, poll learners and praise for participation.

 Synchronous chats have other drawbacks. These include:

1. Talk is faster than type - In a synchronous chat environment a user is expected to read, process, and respond in type, virtually simultaneously. Due to this a slow typist can be left behind in chats.
2. Tone does not carry over text - A participant in a text chat needs to be careful of what he/she is typing as intended tone does not carry across texts. Therefore sarcasm, and other jokes, may not come across as jokes and a user may inadvertently offend someone else in the chat room.
3. Responses can be limited - If a teacher is looking for in depth and detailed responses, synchronous chats may not be the way to go. In order to keep up wit the speed of the chat, user responses tend to be short and concise.
4. May appear fragmented or confusing - If the teacher did not participate in the synchronous chat and requests to read the log he/she might be confused about what occurred. Since synchronous chats tend to flit about from topic to topic with no real sequence an outside reader may lose the trend of the conversation, (from Tips for Synchronous Chat)

Other considerations that should be made, particularly if the chat is not a one-to-one supervisory meeting, include:

1. Use the real-time connection to establish social presence.
2. Establish beginning and ending times for discussion.
3. Consider the time zones of international participants in assigning groups.
4. Create a learner-controlled environment – empower learners to take responsibility for active discussion.
5. Plan for higher levels of thinking in open discussion question.
6. Assess student participation as a required part of their grade.
7. Present rules of netiquette to assure quality discussion.
8. Keep sentences short and on the topic.
9. Refer to the person by name when responding to his/her specific questions and comments.
10. Ask students to suspend discussion if it moves too fast to respond to questions or comments.
11. Provide clear instructions for sharing a facilitator role when participants conduct discussion without an instructor as facilitator.
12. Develop a participation assessment tool or grading rubric prior to the discussion. Share the tool with the participants before the discussion begins. (from Successful Synchronous and Asynchronous Discussions)

Conclusion

Despite all these considerations, the synchronous chat makes the learning experience closer to a face-to-face encounter. This can surely help in creating a stronger social dimension to the learning effort.

Interesting links

My Pearltrees collection of articles and blogs about synchronous discussion.

Synchronous discussion in online courses through free applications

Most pedagogical frameworks and models, including Garrison, Anderson and Archer’s (2000) Community of Inquiry framework and Gilly Salmon’s (2003, 2005) ‘5-stage model’ for online teaching and learning, agree that the instructor needs to create, develop and maintain ‘social presence’ in the learning effort. Indeed, even Hranstinki (2008) argues that,

social support is desirable as a way to foster collaborative work and learning; it provides an environment where communication is encouraged; e.g., anecdotes and personal experiences encourage trust, which foster a receptive and creative learning environment.

Online learning efforts often rely mainly on the text-based asynchronous forums through LMS systems, blogs and wikis.  Text-based communication has, however, an important handicap. As I argued in a previous assignment, online text-based communication provides no visual cues other than words or images and lacks the ‘sense of immediacy’ of ‘real-time, verbal, face-to-face mode of communication’ and therefore ‘presents a special challenge for establishing social presence’ (Garrison, 2011: 23).  The literature reviewed for this task concurs that this drawback can be reduced through frequent synchronous meetings.  Furthermore, Garrett (2011: 160) also notes that the synchronous meeting is, pedagogically, more versatile and closer to the face-to-face experience. He notes that 

While many of the activities such as lecture, discussion, group work, examinations, student presentations, multimedia presentations, guest speakers, web-based searches/demos/discussion, and demonstrations can be attempted in an asynchronous environment, most are more easily and effectively accomplished in a synchronous environment that more closely approximates the traditional classroom.

Caladine et al (2010) also note that, through audio and video synchronous conferencing, there 

is now scope for the empowerment of distance learners and an opportunity to offer a much wider choice of strategies intended to enhance and support learning … Indications from the research literature are exciting.

This research literature also reports that communicating in real-time at a distance has never been easier. This is confirmed by many practitioners, such as Villano (2008), who state that

mainstream technology has advanced and the cost of web conferencing has dropped … What's more, the innovations are infinite, and have uses even beyond eLearning or blended learning in real time.

There are many free and/or licensed platforms that can be used. Moreover, many applications are appearing on the Android and App Store market that make mobile conferencing through tablets, including iPads, and smartphones a convenient reality. These apps knock down the once insurmountable barriers for video conferencing use in education—barriers of student access, and technology that was cumbersome and expensive (see Garrett, 2011).

For example, with the free social app ‘ooVoo’ a teacher can hold a free group video chat with up to 12 students on 3G, 4G, LTE and/or Wifi.  More popular apps, which are available across all computer devices and operating systems include Skype, FaceTime, and Google Hangouts. Unfortunately, the very versatile and robust Adobe Connect is no longer free. However, the newly launched appear.in (available at https://appear.in) seems to be a promising alternative (although still non-functional in Safari and can accept only 8 people [for free] in any virtual room).  

The literature also indicates that the multiplayer virtual reality game Second Life can also used for real-time group conferencing, and learning. Though, students have to communicate through their avatars (see Kapp, 2007) rather than using their real faces. The game has been used and studied for many years now and has been adopted for many learning contexts, from K-12 to tertiary education. Its use in the training of nurses (see Blackburn, 2008) and the teaching of languages has been an outstanding success.

The reviewed literature however also indicates that despite the potential and successes of synchronous conferencing a significant barrier still exists, that of pedagogy. Caladine et al (2010), in fact, insist that

from a practitioners point-of-view, the challenge will come from the need to be flexible, adaptive and innovative. In other words, the need is to rapidly develop new understandings of pedagogies to best utilize the person-to-person interactivity of emerging technologies.  

Moreover, there is agreement in the literature, that, for synchronous discussions to be effective and efficient, the pedagogical mindsets of both the educator and learners need to move away from the traditional ‘schooling’ model (where the transmission and passive acquisition of knowledge is the predominant educational objective). The educators and students must a progressive 21^st educational paradigm where learning is mainly (but not exclusively) achieved through the collaborative construction of knowledge. Furthermore, as with any educational technology tool, the purpose for using synchronous discussion has to make sense. It has to fit in with the curriculum in a pedagogically sound way that supports learning and achievement of the course objectives. Yet, as Andrews and Klease (2002) note,

in many cases the use (of video conferencing) has not been informed by rigorous research leading to sound pedagogical practices. Video conferencing has frequently copied typical lecture style format of didactic lecture style delivery rather than exploring approaches.

These authors also report that, during synchronous sessions, students ‘find the talking head presentation to be undesirable’ (Andreas and Klease, 2002). They therefore argue that synchronous tools should not be used as a one-way medium, a format where the instructor can deliver information in real-time, but instead be viewed as a vehicle that allows for the exchange of information, for accommodating three or four-way (or more) conversations that build learning, ideas and learners’ motivation.

A final note: the synchronous communication medium should be reserved only for exchanges that support a course objective or other learning-related function (for example, for student encounters in a virtual office) that can’t be accomplished through asynchronous methods. 

REFERENCES

Go to the bibliography page for the full list of references.