I'm doing consulting work for an organization looking to expand their e-learning options. From my experience and readings about e-Learning, I believe it can take the following modalities, either in isolation or in combination.
The list is organized from the least to most interactive for students.
1) Access readings
Course instructors can post readings or links to readings on a public or secure (ie. log-in required) website. Readings can be in the form of webpages, PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, etc.
2) Listen/watch asynchronous audio or video
Instructors can post to a website (or iTunes) audio or video files for students . These files can be either of formal lectures or additional informational resources (like readings) or lectures. Audio or video files can be in the form of YouTube, podcasts, Real audio, Quicktime, Flash, etc.
3) Email or upload
Students can be given the functionality to participate online by being able to:
a) send instructor questions via email or a web form
b) upload assignments (e.g, Word Docs, PowerPoints, spreadsheets, videos, photographs, etc.)
4) Chat
Chat can be in the form of text-only (e.g. instant messaging) or audio (eg. Skype). Video chats are also possible (for example, via webcams) but not yet technically seamless. Chats can include or be lead by the instructor or be students-only (for example, team discussions). They may be structured or a free-flowing Q&A.
5) Listen/watch synchronous audio or video
This could be a webcast of a lecture, but can also be a collective viewing of a presentation (e.g. over SlideShare) with a simultaneous teleconference or chat. Students can be given the option to interact with both the teacher or the student via email questions, Twitter, chat rooms, etc.
6) Surveys and polls
In e-learning, these seem to be mostly used to gauge the pulse of students on course topics or administrative issues, but can also be used for decision-making.
7) Interactive quizzes or tests
Students can view questions on the screen and provide their answers online. Options include assessing or grading their answers automatically in real-time or by instructors. This can be in the form of webpages, Flash, etc.
8) Educational online games/experiences
There are a huge variety of educational games, but they normally are animated with sound and allow the student to interact and receive feedback from the game.
9) Online discussions
Also called message boards, threaded posts, and forums, discussions appear to be the mainstay of e-learning. The technology gives the functionality for someone to start a specific topic (i.e. conversation thread) and then others can reply in a specific online space for that discussion. There are various options for how to structure these, for example conversation topics can either be assigned or open, the entire class participates or they can be team-based, optional participation or required, instructor participates or students only.
10) Online collaboration
Students work collectively on course assignments. Assignments can be in the form of an essay, presentation, paper, etc. There are many tools to enable group collaboration online, including wikis, Google Docs, or simply email. Usually the instructor facilitates and answers questions but doesn't actively participate in the collaboration.
11) Virtual classrooms
A private virtual reality space (for example Second Life) can be built to resemble a traditional classroom or any desired venue. Students and instructors create avatars (online representations of themselves) and gather online simultaneously in the virtual space. The instructor can then lead a traditional-style lecture or Q&A session or enact an entirely new, multimedia event.
Showing posts with label forums. Show all posts
Showing posts with label forums. Show all posts
Monday, July 05, 2010
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Identity Crisis
The issue of identity rarely seems to come up in discussions of e-Learning. Identity, in this sense, is the ability for students or instructors to project a sense of themselves and their unique, individual characters. Without a sense of identity, online interaction with others can seem distant, flat, and does not engage or foster deep learning.
Granted, identity may be less of an issue in e-Learning with very small class sizes or where students already know one another. There are also benefits to online anonymity in that it shifts focus from judgments based on personality or physical features to the quality of one’s ideas – and writing. Researchers have found this allows some people to escape bias associated with disability, appearance, race, and gender. I'm not convinced, however, that for e-Learning the benefits an anonymity outweigh the obstacles it raises. Identity was a barrier in my experience - both in courses that were entirely online with students I never met before and with in-person courses that used online components.
e-Learning often relies heavily on student interaction, often in the form of forum and/or blog postings. When I first started my online program with 45 classmates, none of whom I had met or been introduced to, I found the experience bewildering and overwhelming. Adding to this, I found that most classmate posters did not sufficiently differentiate themselves. The medium, and to a lesser extent, the communicators’ (lack of) action resulted in postings that seemed like overhearing the din of multiple simultaneous speakers and unable to hear any one sufficiently to join in.
There are ways to remediate these issues, however. These include technological mechanisms (e.g. including students photos on all postings automatically, auto linking to profile and to past posts, allowing individual design customization), norms (e.g. limiting the amount of or size of interaction, use of signature lines), or individual mastery of existing devices (e.g. writing style). In my online class interactions, I try to include my (bad) sense of humour, include references to my personal details, and to use a conversational style. The instructor can also address this, for example by establishing expectations or beginning a course with mutual introductions.
In a discussion on this topic with a classmate, she felt that such identity issues were not unique to Internet media. She shared an example of a class with a rather hostile teacher who attacked students for expressing opinions diverging from the instructor's. Rather than expressing herself in class, she “felt that my personal identity, open for all to see, needed to be hidden. Based on how quiet many students were, they likely felt the same.” She adds, "this experience showed me that strong classroom management, teacher scaffolding, and respect, either online or off, is vital." Clearly, a respectful, welcoming climate is essential for any type of learning.
I agree that the challenges of projecting, revealing, or protecting identity apply to learning offline and online. Personally, I have found participating in e-Learning discussions allows me a more safe way to project my thoughts and myself than offline. The more deliberate and controlled online mechanisms allow me to take the time to compose and edit my thoughts and expressions, compared to in-class.
I do think that there could be more that e-Learning technology could do to enable identity to be projected (as desired). The the e-Learning platform Moodle, for example, allows students to include their picture and biography. Educators should also consider this issue in relation to educational goals when planning courses. This will not only help guide decisions of e-Learning technology to use but can also allow instructors to structure courses appropriately.
Granted, identity may be less of an issue in e-Learning with very small class sizes or where students already know one another. There are also benefits to online anonymity in that it shifts focus from judgments based on personality or physical features to the quality of one’s ideas – and writing. Researchers have found this allows some people to escape bias associated with disability, appearance, race, and gender. I'm not convinced, however, that for e-Learning the benefits an anonymity outweigh the obstacles it raises. Identity was a barrier in my experience - both in courses that were entirely online with students I never met before and with in-person courses that used online components.
e-Learning often relies heavily on student interaction, often in the form of forum and/or blog postings. When I first started my online program with 45 classmates, none of whom I had met or been introduced to, I found the experience bewildering and overwhelming. Adding to this, I found that most classmate posters did not sufficiently differentiate themselves. The medium, and to a lesser extent, the communicators’ (lack of) action resulted in postings that seemed like overhearing the din of multiple simultaneous speakers and unable to hear any one sufficiently to join in.
There are ways to remediate these issues, however. These include technological mechanisms (e.g. including students photos on all postings automatically, auto linking to profile and to past posts, allowing individual design customization), norms (e.g. limiting the amount of or size of interaction, use of signature lines), or individual mastery of existing devices (e.g. writing style). In my online class interactions, I try to include my (bad) sense of humour, include references to my personal details, and to use a conversational style. The instructor can also address this, for example by establishing expectations or beginning a course with mutual introductions.
In a discussion on this topic with a classmate, she felt that such identity issues were not unique to Internet media. She shared an example of a class with a rather hostile teacher who attacked students for expressing opinions diverging from the instructor's. Rather than expressing herself in class, she “felt that my personal identity, open for all to see, needed to be hidden. Based on how quiet many students were, they likely felt the same.” She adds, "this experience showed me that strong classroom management, teacher scaffolding, and respect, either online or off, is vital." Clearly, a respectful, welcoming climate is essential for any type of learning.
I agree that the challenges of projecting, revealing, or protecting identity apply to learning offline and online. Personally, I have found participating in e-Learning discussions allows me a more safe way to project my thoughts and myself than offline. The more deliberate and controlled online mechanisms allow me to take the time to compose and edit my thoughts and expressions, compared to in-class.
I do think that there could be more that e-Learning technology could do to enable identity to be projected (as desired). The the e-Learning platform Moodle, for example, allows students to include their picture and biography. Educators should also consider this issue in relation to educational goals when planning courses. This will not only help guide decisions of e-Learning technology to use but can also allow instructors to structure courses appropriately.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Is Online Learning Better than Traditional?
The US Department of Education recently published a report on online and face to face (F2F) learning which was covered nicely by the NY Times.
The study found "On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction." This is a surprise finding for those that believe online learning is inferior. This report sparked discussion on the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) listerv. It also got me thinking about my Royal Roads e-Learning experience.
Points raised in the AoIR listserv questioned whether the study’s population was representative enough to make such a claim. Some suggested that online learners are more motivated and have a tendency to be over-achievers. With my Royal Roads classmates there were a large percentage of over-achievers, but this could also be due to the program being a graduate degree and marketed to working professionals.
Others AoIRers thought that online learning had the advantage over F2F as it tends to encourage greater teacher-to-student and student-to-student interaction. I agree with posters who believed that such interaction is more apt to instill knowledge than just listen-to-learn lecture classes.
In my experience of online learning at Royal Roads, there was a great deal of such interaction (via Moodle forums). While it had challenges, it definitely was a compelling and enjoyable way to learn.
There are challenges affecting interaction in online learning:
1) Time zones challenges – As students are from across Canada and some from abroad, real-time communication (e.g. chats, Skype calls) can be very difficult. Often I or other classmates couldn’t attend at the chosen time or had to do so at an ungodly hour.
2)Managing volume – Our courses had about 40 students. At this number both real-time online communication and forum postings was difficult. One professor attempted to do Q&As via chat and Skype call. At first, there were no rules in place to manage the volume besieging the professor and chaos naturally ensued. Even with a few ground rules in place, there were still people who joined late or weren’t following the conversation and asked questions already answered. It was also difficult to follow forum postings with that many classmates and with some people posting lengthy epistles. We also introduced the voluntary rule of limiting posts to 100-300 words or less to help, but still speed and selective reading was the only way to manage.
3) Presence of the professor - The volume of postings also affects a professor’s ability to participate. Either the professors spend an insane amount of time reading and replying to everything or selectively respond. All my professors responded to specific questions posed to them in designated forums. For these types of Q&A forums to work, it is important that timely responses be made or someone will resorst to calls, emails, or give up on that venue. Royal Roads professors were incredible in replying to such posts day, night, and weekends. When it came to the general forum, professor behaviour varied. Some commented on most postings, while others only a handful. Some offered insight or a helpful link, while others simply offered a quick response or simple encouragement.
4) Teams – Royal Roads randomly assigns students into teams of 5-6 for the duration of a course. This made managing the quantity of interaction more manageable and allowed one to get to know one’s classmates better. However, this is not without challenges. When the teams meshed well, it was great. But if they didn’t, the discussions languished. Considering that inevitably it seems out of a group of 6 at least 2 will not participate at all or at the bare minimum, it did seem one was communicating with the same couple people a bit too much.
5) Quality of writing – Some postings were hard to read whether due to their untenable length, mistakes, or an inability to adequately organize and articulate thoughts. Forums by their nature tend to be more conversational than other forms of writing, but nonetheless it would help if some people spent a bit more time writing and editing to ensure clarity. Some people are just not good writers and never will be.
6) Time commitment – Courses that required posting could result in a significant time commitment (worsened by the workload of obligatory readings and assignments). Some courses had tight deadlines for postings. This added up to more of a time commitment than occured in my offline studies.
The benefits of more discussion-based learning were:
1) Get to know my classmates much better - Participation is usually a component of offline learning classes, but online it tends to be essential. Most of the F2F classes I have been in have had a large percentage of classmates that never or only rarely participate even when encouraged to do so or graded on it. With online learning I got to hear from all my classmates and regularly, so I got to know all of them and some of them (particularly those assigned in my teams) very well. Living in residence or participating in campus organizations is the only way I found that comes close to this degree of interaction.
2) Depth of subject-matter interaction is better than offline - I have found that students tend to talk rarely about academic topics with peers outside of the classroom. I enjoyed hearing my classmates’ perspective and experience on course material. I also enjoyed getting feedback from classmates on my thoughts. One Royal Roads class had a professor provide uniformly negative comments, so the positive feedback from classmates was really beneficial.
3) More engaged and more often - I have attended good lectures; I’ve fallen asleep at others. Offline classes (even with tutorials) tend to be about 3 hours a week, so even the best of them has a fleeting engagement. Regular posting can foster deeper and more constant pondering. I really did feel that I learned more as a result. And when the material was personally interesting, it was exciting to learn.
Quality and quantity of interactions I found were predominantly affected by the following factors:
The study found "On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction." This is a surprise finding for those that believe online learning is inferior. This report sparked discussion on the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) listerv. It also got me thinking about my Royal Roads e-Learning experience.
Points raised in the AoIR listserv questioned whether the study’s population was representative enough to make such a claim. Some suggested that online learners are more motivated and have a tendency to be over-achievers. With my Royal Roads classmates there were a large percentage of over-achievers, but this could also be due to the program being a graduate degree and marketed to working professionals.
Others AoIRers thought that online learning had the advantage over F2F as it tends to encourage greater teacher-to-student and student-to-student interaction. I agree with posters who believed that such interaction is more apt to instill knowledge than just listen-to-learn lecture classes.
In my experience of online learning at Royal Roads, there was a great deal of such interaction (via Moodle forums). While it had challenges, it definitely was a compelling and enjoyable way to learn.
There are challenges affecting interaction in online learning:
1) Time zones challenges – As students are from across Canada and some from abroad, real-time communication (e.g. chats, Skype calls) can be very difficult. Often I or other classmates couldn’t attend at the chosen time or had to do so at an ungodly hour.
2)Managing volume – Our courses had about 40 students. At this number both real-time online communication and forum postings was difficult. One professor attempted to do Q&As via chat and Skype call. At first, there were no rules in place to manage the volume besieging the professor and chaos naturally ensued. Even with a few ground rules in place, there were still people who joined late or weren’t following the conversation and asked questions already answered. It was also difficult to follow forum postings with that many classmates and with some people posting lengthy epistles. We also introduced the voluntary rule of limiting posts to 100-300 words or less to help, but still speed and selective reading was the only way to manage.
3) Presence of the professor - The volume of postings also affects a professor’s ability to participate. Either the professors spend an insane amount of time reading and replying to everything or selectively respond. All my professors responded to specific questions posed to them in designated forums. For these types of Q&A forums to work, it is important that timely responses be made or someone will resorst to calls, emails, or give up on that venue. Royal Roads professors were incredible in replying to such posts day, night, and weekends. When it came to the general forum, professor behaviour varied. Some commented on most postings, while others only a handful. Some offered insight or a helpful link, while others simply offered a quick response or simple encouragement.
4) Teams – Royal Roads randomly assigns students into teams of 5-6 for the duration of a course. This made managing the quantity of interaction more manageable and allowed one to get to know one’s classmates better. However, this is not without challenges. When the teams meshed well, it was great. But if they didn’t, the discussions languished. Considering that inevitably it seems out of a group of 6 at least 2 will not participate at all or at the bare minimum, it did seem one was communicating with the same couple people a bit too much.
5) Quality of writing – Some postings were hard to read whether due to their untenable length, mistakes, or an inability to adequately organize and articulate thoughts. Forums by their nature tend to be more conversational than other forms of writing, but nonetheless it would help if some people spent a bit more time writing and editing to ensure clarity. Some people are just not good writers and never will be.
6) Time commitment – Courses that required posting could result in a significant time commitment (worsened by the workload of obligatory readings and assignments). Some courses had tight deadlines for postings. This added up to more of a time commitment than occured in my offline studies.
The benefits of more discussion-based learning were:
1) Get to know my classmates much better - Participation is usually a component of offline learning classes, but online it tends to be essential. Most of the F2F classes I have been in have had a large percentage of classmates that never or only rarely participate even when encouraged to do so or graded on it. With online learning I got to hear from all my classmates and regularly, so I got to know all of them and some of them (particularly those assigned in my teams) very well. Living in residence or participating in campus organizations is the only way I found that comes close to this degree of interaction.
2) Depth of subject-matter interaction is better than offline - I have found that students tend to talk rarely about academic topics with peers outside of the classroom. I enjoyed hearing my classmates’ perspective and experience on course material. I also enjoyed getting feedback from classmates on my thoughts. One Royal Roads class had a professor provide uniformly negative comments, so the positive feedback from classmates was really beneficial.
3) More engaged and more often - I have attended good lectures; I’ve fallen asleep at others. Offline classes (even with tutorials) tend to be about 3 hours a week, so even the best of them has a fleeting engagement. Regular posting can foster deeper and more constant pondering. I really did feel that I learned more as a result. And when the material was personally interesting, it was exciting to learn.
Quality and quantity of interactions I found were predominantly affected by the following factors:
- Optional versus required posting
- Seeded versus free topic posting
- Team versus all-class posting
Requiring posting tended to result in huge quantity, serial monologues, and monosyllabic replies. Students focus on meeting the requirments, impressing the professor, and appearing as if adequately participating rather than prioritizing actual interaction and conversation. It also meant that those not inclined or confident to participate are heard from. When participation was optional, only the same keeners tended to chime in, but these students tend to be more interesting and engaged. Even requiring participation did not result in some people actually participating, so optional participation does not work for these students at all.
Seeded forum threads helps students delve into the discussions, but can fail to spark discussions of interst to students. This can result in students just going through the motions making for unispiring reading. Allowing students to post on their own topics resulted in some of the most interesting and educational discussions.
Having the entire class post results in an overwhelming volume, but increases the odds that one will find someone discussing the topics you find interesting and offering insight. Confining postings to small teams makes managing the volume easier, but limits the breadth of discussion.
My experience of studying online showed the complexity involved in setting up systems and norms to adequately foster interaction. When done properly or through happenstance, the experience can be more engaing and effective than F2F education.
Friday, November 16, 2007
On the Royal Roads
I'm off in a few hours for three weeks on-campus at Royal Roads University in Victoria, BC for the Master's of Communication program.
The last few weeks have been the pre-residency phase, which was a period of reading and some online learning to prepare us for the intensive in-class work during the residency period.
So far, my experience with working fulltime and studying fulltime has been dreadful!
During the day, I've been working my ass off to prepare for my three weeks away. At night and weekends, I've juggled spending time with my family with keeping up with my studies. It probably would have went fairly well - had I not got sick about a month ago. I never got better.
Finally, I went to a doctor and found out that I have an ear & sinus infection. The doctor told me it probably started with a cold and as I didn't rest enough (one sick day and one weekend day was all I "rested")that caused the infection. Should've went to the doctor sooner as the last few weeks of being sick and juggling work and study have been hell.
Early critique of e-Learning
Despite it all, I have managed to learn quite a bit from my Communication Theory class. I'm taking two others classes at the same time, but I'm not sure if these professors were charged with doing any e-Learning.
My Communication Theory professor did a few things to really make the most of e-Learning.
Podcasts worked great
First the professor had the standard readings, but these were supplemented by podcasts with PowerPoint presentations. I found the readings combined with podcasts really helped me get the key concepts. The podcasts were also fun and much better than just reading a transcribed lecture, as was the format of my distance ed. courses at University of Guelph years ago.
Mixed experience with forums
All the classes have forums for students and faculty to discuss lessons and other topics. (There's also a chat feature that I think is never used.)
Another professor made posting one intelligent comment a week a requirement and weekly seeded topics. Discussions flourished. I shouldn't really say discussions though. Due to the requirement of an insightful posting everyone, myself included, worked to achieve this. I've never seen a forum with so little genuine back-and-forth discussion or where each post is an epistle. This was a shame, not to mention sometimes a chore to read, as in trying to meet the requirements some posts went to 400-500+ words.
However, overall this class has had the best discussion of any class I have ever taken. In all my university and job training courses, I have never seen such generally insightful commentary. And even more rare, every student participated. Maybe my class doesn't have the standard shy and unmotivated students (dullards) but every class I have taken generally gets less than a quarter of the students participating, no matter how hard the instructor tries to get all to chime in. It really was great to hear from every classmate!
This professor also started an informal discussion area which has helped connecting online to fellow students a real success so far. Much gratitude for that! I posted a request for classmates to join a class group that I started on Facebook and to "friend" one another and this has further helped me get to know my classmates.
So between the podcasts and the forums, and despite my sickness, my e-Learning experience has started off really well.
The last few weeks have been the pre-residency phase, which was a period of reading and some online learning to prepare us for the intensive in-class work during the residency period.
So far, my experience with working fulltime and studying fulltime has been dreadful!
During the day, I've been working my ass off to prepare for my three weeks away. At night and weekends, I've juggled spending time with my family with keeping up with my studies. It probably would have went fairly well - had I not got sick about a month ago. I never got better.
Finally, I went to a doctor and found out that I have an ear & sinus infection. The doctor told me it probably started with a cold and as I didn't rest enough (one sick day and one weekend day was all I "rested")that caused the infection. Should've went to the doctor sooner as the last few weeks of being sick and juggling work and study have been hell.
Early critique of e-Learning
Despite it all, I have managed to learn quite a bit from my Communication Theory class. I'm taking two others classes at the same time, but I'm not sure if these professors were charged with doing any e-Learning.
My Communication Theory professor did a few things to really make the most of e-Learning.
Podcasts worked great
First the professor had the standard readings, but these were supplemented by podcasts with PowerPoint presentations. I found the readings combined with podcasts really helped me get the key concepts. The podcasts were also fun and much better than just reading a transcribed lecture, as was the format of my distance ed. courses at University of Guelph years ago.
Mixed experience with forums
All the classes have forums for students and faculty to discuss lessons and other topics. (There's also a chat feature that I think is never used.)
Another professor made posting one intelligent comment a week a requirement and weekly seeded topics. Discussions flourished. I shouldn't really say discussions though. Due to the requirement of an insightful posting everyone, myself included, worked to achieve this. I've never seen a forum with so little genuine back-and-forth discussion or where each post is an epistle. This was a shame, not to mention sometimes a chore to read, as in trying to meet the requirements some posts went to 400-500+ words.
However, overall this class has had the best discussion of any class I have ever taken. In all my university and job training courses, I have never seen such generally insightful commentary. And even more rare, every student participated. Maybe my class doesn't have the standard shy and unmotivated students (dullards) but every class I have taken generally gets less than a quarter of the students participating, no matter how hard the instructor tries to get all to chime in. It really was great to hear from every classmate!
This professor also started an informal discussion area which has helped connecting online to fellow students a real success so far. Much gratitude for that! I posted a request for classmates to join a class group that I started on Facebook and to "friend" one another and this has further helped me get to know my classmates.
So between the podcasts and the forums, and despite my sickness, my e-Learning experience has started off really well.
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