21st century learning, 21st century teaching!

Expanding the MOOC?

One of the main ideas in CPD for BSS was to create, readily available online courses for Schools to use in the best tradition of “Available when needed”. The School should log into the home base and select a course from the catalog, request teachers to use available resources in-line with local environment.

For the past year I have been passionately interested in MOOCs, these are great opportunities to learn, especially when it comes to self-directed learning. With the launch of Power Searching with Google MOOC there was this opportunity to use a MOOC with a group and therefor I suggested to my team (24 people) we take this course together.

The format is to review the material individually during the day at our own convenience, later same day we meet in groups of four to discuss the material and what we have learned. Next day we all meet for 30 minutes to discuss the topic and collect group notes, which will be compiled into topic notes to be distributed to everyone.

MOOCs can be treated as a compilation of OERs but organized in an Online course like format, which is very suitable to be used as described above. There seems to be a noticeable growth in number of available MOOCs and it is matter of connecting the nodes (Thank you Lane & Downes).

The objective for this MOOC is to enhance web-search skills using Google and for myself to determine how a MOOC can be used in group learning environment. We are into Day one and the energy seems very positive, more than 75% had seen the first lecture and some had even participated in the forum.

At the end every participant will be requested to write about their experience and some of them will be posted here.

Peace …

Dear POT community,

It has been one of the best learning experiences, thank you. It was not only the reading, videos and playing with various tools. I as a person have grown and feel more confident with Pedagogy and EdTech.

POT is not a MOOC, it is much more, it is  personal. I hope this quality will remain as this community will get larger and larger.

Special thank you to Lis, Jim and rest of the team …

Cheers

It has been an awesome experience, my first real online course. I read every suggested reading and chapter, watched all videos and played with all recommended tools. My posts reflect my sustained dialog with the material, they were thoughtful reflections with links and some images. Almost all of them are more than 700 words divided over several paragraphs.

I could have created more videos/screen casts and also commented on more blogs. During this course I have realized the enormous potential in peer learning. Reading others contributions would have provided not-thought of perspectives and extended my learning, Vygotsky would have been proud.

I am planning to participate again from 1^st September, but with focus on blogs and will try to comment. I hope that this time there will be a formal place for a sustained discussion (Forum), which could have been helpful.

I just don’t want to say goodbye yet, want to linger on a bit …

T. S. Eliot (Thank you Ross) “And the end of all our exploring. Will be to arrive where we started. And know the place for the first time”   I have arrived and ready to set out again!

Below a brief description of each week with link to the post:

Week 24: Summarize, assess and contribute
POT has been a huge and inspiring part of my digital life for the last many months. I tried to learn, reflect upon and describe every suggested resource. This should mean quality of my posts have been consistent throughout.

Week 23: Presentations. A case for establishing an Online environment for CPD
It all came together, final POT week and a milestone presentation at work in the same week, more steps in the right direction. In the past it was frustrating to see educators’ acceptance/approach to technology, with “Pedagogy First” I have realized the complex ecology and that certain concepts cannot be rushed.

We needs to provide massive training to our teachers on continuous basis and is coming around to use online spaces. This week I commented on all final presentations, as it was made part of the assignment.

Week 22: Personal Learning Networks. Sharing is caring, and caring is loving!
“Good learning is collaborative and social, not competitive and isolated” this one sentence is changing my approach. We need to be connected vertically and horizontal using diverse tools and environments, sharing are important and we need Cyber-infrastructure to do it. Pedagogy, curriculum and Professional development are integral parts and should be interwoven for holistic learner experience.  

Week 21: Introduction to online education theory. Hat on …
After 30 years of technology we still tend to debate merits of it, we should rather debate how we can improve the usage. Of all the education theories, I have started to pay more attention to Connectivism, this embraces collaborative and sharing whereas constructivism is more about the individual, not that this is not important.

Week 20: Intro to educational technology & instructional design
Blended learning comprises of some F2F and most of it online, the assessment part should be online. When designing a course we can follow several models, among many we read about ADDIE. We also debated what impact digital classroom has on the mind.

Week 19: Web-enhanced, hybrid and open classes
Open classes are becoming very popular, developing into MOOC with participation from around the world. In K-12 we have more Web-enhanced type situations, I hope this will change and morph into flipped classrooms.

Week 18: The Course Management System (Moodle)
Are LMSs walled gardens? They are turning into learning portals and are integrating the “Open web”. Due to my experience with “Open Web” through this course I still believe it is important to have a base. The base I am comfortable with is Moodle, which provides opportunities to ingrate web elements e.g. data repositories.

Week 17: Classroom management
In many cases the EdTech is driven by non-educators to the horror of educators. This may be true, but only due to the rapid pace of innovation. The Academia beat is different, but in the end it is all about the students and good learning.

Week 16: Welcoming students in Net-land
Very important chapter and described which elements should be present in an online course from a student perspective. We also debated how young people today are using digital environments, the stark difference between school and what they would like to do. We discussed how important it is to develop FAQs and create a knowledge base.

Week 15: Screencasting and multimedia
We got to work with Mind-maps and other online tools to use with students e.g. Survey Monkey. One of the best learning opportunities during POT has been working with screen-casting software e.g. Jing or Camatsia, have now a better understanding of the creative process, it take time to create this kind of learning artifacts.

Week 14: Images, streaming sites, Audioboo and Eyejot
This was about streaming, we go to learn about several video streaming services e.g. Eyejot, Vimeo, bliptv and YouTube. YouTube came out to be the preferred choice due to it has the best environment and tools.

Week 13: Creating Class Elements Part 1: Images and screenshots
Strong start on the second half, here we discussed images and how to annotate these, we used Flickers Note feature which is not used much, but a great tool. Flicker is for images what YouTube is for videos.

Week 12:  Resources Online / Mid-year Self-Assessment Check
The Internet archive, feels like history being recorded and we are part of it. Libraries have to reform, more and more libraries are integrating digital content and tools, these will over time become Learning centers.

Project Gutenburg and open textbook are treasures, so many great resources and an inspiration for others to provide content. Sharing has always been part of humans, but with the Internet it has reached level beyond imagination.

Week 11:  Class Resources and Intellectual Property
When using others content we have to be careful, the fair use policy is in place to guide us but the copyright laws are outdated, especially when related to how the young generation is remixing and reusing content.

The video from Lawrence Lessig was not only fun but filled with useful information. Creative common seems to be the way forward. In the past individual could not compete with businesses, but now it is free for all. For example #News provides news from individual and businesses alike, as users we get to choose.

Week 10: Open Platforms for Teaching and Learning
Before this I had never blogged and had a narrow definition of Blogs, now it has changed. The chart from Lisa was insightful and can be used when planning how to use blogs. The comments about reflective journal are inspiring.

The Engrade is a nice tool for a class or small school. Google sites can be used for group work or just to share information, fast and simple.

Week 09: Student Activities, Second Life and Merlot
When creating an online environment it is important to have multiple activities to draw upon. Moodle is packed with activities, often overlooked when comparing to open resources. These activities have single sign-on and homogenous UI.
I am now a regular user of Diigo.com and daily I read and follow some of the links in MCCPOT email.
Second Life (SL) was a nice experience especially the recording from Chris’s session which showed how well it can be used. Merlot is great as resource and there is a need for a site where teachers can locate resources.

Week 8: Creating Community
Is blog or forums better for community building? There are pros and cons for both tools, but for discussion oriented sessions my recommendation is forums. The Voicethread is a great tool and the UI is intuitive and welcoming, great for language development, lot of reinforcement options.

OLN (Open Learning Networks) seems to be the future, but is the semantic web ready to support this. From perspective of the individual teacher, the driving force for his own online course than yes, but if we are dealing with an organizational approach and multiple challenges then a LMS platform is perhaps more effective.

Week 7: The Online Classroom
It was an enriching video from Pilar on what to expect from a community and how to build one. I joined the group on Facebook and also on Twitter. It seems bit extra is needed to create and maintain an online community compared to a F2F environment. No doubt community vibrancy is very important for an online course. Is the POT community vibrant or is it individuals that are shining?

Week 06: Creating Presentations
Presenting the course material in different ways is essential and this week it was Jing time. Creating screencast was new, but seems to be very effective. Videos should be presented in context and not be too long, perhaps approx. 5 minutes.

 Week 5: The online Syllabus
The living document, a great description of the online Syllabus and it was highlighted how important it is to make it clear and concise. We also discussed F2F syllabus cannot be directly pasted online. Lisa’s Moodle page was insightful and provided ideas.

Week 04:  Materials for Online
Introduction to HTML and Prezi was really good, Prezi is a remarkable tool. I described which course elements we will be using and we ventured into Moodle possibilities. Weekly division of a course seems to be the consensus.

Week 03:  Pedagogy and Course Design (revised)
This was bit challenging, objectives for a course needed to be put on paper. Reading the chapter plus doing the chart and reading about the 7 principals facilitated. I ended up writing the objectives and have now a better understanding of how the course should be.

Week 02: Teaching and Learning Online
Week 1 was the entry and week 2 was taking it all in, getting to know the environment. This post was bit longish but when venturing into areas like Internet, learning, students and Pakistan it is difficult to keep it short. It was a nice post with lot of reflection and after reading it for this assignment I agree with my past self. Alec Couros’s video was very inspirational.

Week 01: Introduction
Before joining this course, I was all over the place with learning about Online teaching, this is an opportunity for a focused approach and which I have taken to mind and heart. This was also coming out to the blog-sphere, my first blog. You never forget the first time

Peace …

As mentioned this was a presentation for to the MEC (Beaconhouse executive committee). The MEC is a decision making body, just below the board and meets every second month. Due to feedback the presentation was cut short with few slides, and unfortunately networked teacher diagram did not make it.

I have over the years tried to put this on the agenda several times, but never achieved substantial results, this time was somehow different as multiple factors where in the positive:

1. We need to train hundreds and lack human trainers, limited alternatives
2. Users in general are coming to terms with online spaces
3. A very important member, the Director of Studies (DoS) is now fully onboard. The turning point for her came when she got an IPAD, this has transformed her online experience
4. Due to the POT course I felt more enabled to make the case.

It went well, few skeptics but I see more nods every time. The organizational roots are also responding positively and are keen to see initiatives like this.

The litmus test will be in the approval of the team I have requested. We will need to take current material and prepare it for the online space, and as we have learned content alone is not an online course!

Peace …

Do we really need Personal Learning Networks (PLN)? The answer must be, yes we do! Using Internet technologies it is easy to locate people with same interest and quests. The challenge is how to use all available information or internalize just some of it. PLNs are not binders on the shelf, every node is evolving and creating other/new connections. I would like to traverse the network and examine each node when I need it. PLNs will become complex webs over time and document journeys taken. The magic is when nodes are shared with others, this concept of sharing lead us to Dean Shareski

View Video: Dean Shareski, Sharing: The Moral Imperative

“It is an ethical responsibility to share” is how Dean ends his video, a very powerful message. The whole video is rallying to the concept of sharing and how important it is for “without sharing there is no education” teachers should not horde good learning, they should share, because teachers love to share.

The editing is great and underlines the whole message. I love the way he starts the video, the effort gone into it and a great example of a PLN,embracing a culture of sharing, and paying tribute to so many he has learned from.

Dean is quoting “Sharing, and sharing online especially, is not in addition to the work of being an educator. It is the work.”  Ewan Mcintosh. Very powerful, vision statement like, but can it be done on a larger scale, I believe so. The MOOC movement is not only teaching on large scales, but it is also the method, one will expect learners to share with others what they have gained for free. Take POT for example it is a great example and I am really inspired. Why would people across the globe use time and spend resources on “freeloaders”, if it was not for their passion and believe in sharing.

In our organization we have discussed the culture of sharing, or the lack of it. Experienced teachers here generally don’t like sharing, when it happens the context seems to be mentoring style, “let me tell you how it is done”.  Pakistan is a huge Facebook country and here sharing is implicit, it appears that people (below 30) are more inclined to share, so there is light end of the tunnel.

Read Gardner Campbell, A Personal Cyberstructure (2009) – can also see video if you wish.
Faculty should lead by example, “students must be effective architects, narrators, curators, and inhabitants of their own digital lives” .

From a technologist perspective the word/concept Cyber-infrastructure is pure music; everyone should be a system administrator and have access to Cpanel to administer their own personal webserver or server environment. The common language of today seems to be manipulation of new media so do we need to request students to develop these skills, it is like asking them to build the house they would like to live in. With the “Cloud” and wizards assisting in creating spaces, we can spend our time differently. We can spend it on being open, Gardner describes openness on three levels:
Open to the world
Open to each other
Open to ourselves

The Internet is being used to open up to so many different kinds of people, (smiling and thinking of it being diverse nodes connecting to each other), is it real or just a “Digital facelift”? Sitting in front of the computer and trying to narrate this feels isolated, but I know with few clicks I can get connected to other human’s PLE’s, look at what they have curated, and glimpse their journey, bliss.

There is an interesting discussion 39.30 minutes related to IT department, I head one and from personal experience, it can be a challenge to resolve all kind of strange user requests, and it is understandable users feel their work is suffering while the problem persist, but do cut the IT staff some slack. Sometime it feels like being in an emergency room while some of the problems would not have occurred if the user had just taken time to listen.

Gardner ends the session with some insightful statements about the curriculum, how the cyber-infrastructure needs to part of the curriculum, it should be “baked” into it as he states. In case we really want change to happen our curriculum documents need to change, perhaps completely being re-written.

See Alec Couros, The Networked Teacher diagram (2008)

At end of this journey, I have come to realize how much we expect from our teachers, this diagram is a great illustration of this, but are these expectations honorable? For sake of the argument let us divide the teaching process into A – B – C – D – E and the teacher is the C. Curriculum documents are not reflecting all new technologies, Assessment models are still from last century, archaic University admission procedures and parent perceptions. We place our teachers in not one but many quandaries during the day, a good example is IGCSE exam taken worldwide. Multiple changes need to happen simultaneously, before we get the changes we need.

Read: Ko & Rossen, Chapter 14: Taking Advantage of New Opportunities

My dialogs with Ko & Rossen have been inspiring and insightful, dialogs I will be returning to, for in a such intense interaction one only tends to remember headlines, and the “devil” is in the details.

This sentence was striking “Moreover, instructors who are ready to retire may consider extending their teaching lives with online courses.” Some of our senior Principals retire and are we lose contact to them, so recently I suggested they become moderators in our “future, hopefully” discussion forums and take on sort of mentoring role, but only as much as they will be joyed with.

Peace …

Read Article: Larry Sanger, Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age (2010)

This article is addressing three strands, each addressing pertinent issues.

First is the idea that the instant availability of information online makes the memorization of facts unnecessary or less necessary.

Core knowledge is very important, but to link it so strongly to memorization is making me itch a bit. Larry postulates “To return to my “glib” argument, surely the only way to begin to know something is to have memorized it. The word “know” is defined “To perceive directly; grasp in the mind with clarity or certainty.” Memorizing something does not lead to knowledge automatically, for centuries religious people have memorized their holy books, without having grasped one word.

The Internet does make it easy to recall facts, and when armed with this knowledge, I for one do not want to memorize. This is a quote that I have frequently found to be very true:

“The illiterates of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn”- Alvin Toffler

When working with a site or software I done used so much, I often have to relearn what it is about, when the job is done I consciously try not to remember it, for I know I can relearn, though it takes bit of time.

Second is the celebration of the virtues of collaborative learning as superior to outmoded individual learning.

This sentence from the article is difficult not to notice “Brown and Adler do not view the Internet as merely a fancy new set of tools, as I am inclined to.¹⁰ They regard it as potentially revolutionary for educational methods:”

Collaborative learning is important; this type of learning can only occur if to use a “glib” argument, the only way to begin to know how to collaborate is to know how to work as an individual.

Third is the insistence that lengthy, complex books, which constitute a single, static, one-way conversation with an individual, are inferior to knowledge co-constructed by members of a group.

It is difficult to have dialog with Lengthy complex books compared to “collaborative constructivism” settings. My own experience is I tend to learn more through interacting with other people.

Perhaps Larry is exaggerating for us to better understand his arguments, but what to think when he writes “We will be bound by the prejudices of our “digital tribe,” ripe for manipulation by whoever has the firmest grip on our dialogue” perhaps he has never seen “TV tribe” in action.

Read Article: George Siemens, Networks, Ecologies, and Curatorial Teaching (2007)

Humans have since dawn created and learned in groups, technology is facilitating this pattern, today we can create far more connections using a variety of tools e.g. Twitter, Facebook. Connectivism seems to be able to describe current trends and patterns more comprehensively.

Our knowledge is increasing in multiple dimensions, which is leading to the need for increased connections when solving problems. Our Technology department is nodes with multiple connections internally and externally, which are needed to support the organization; our node cannot exist in isolation, but needs to be connected to other nodes.

Insightful article, but why do we need to label and name the “Teacher”, is the description “Teacher” not sufficient? Before reading this article I used the same method, but we should rethink this.  A teacher fulfills many roles when working with students, sometime you are the sage, other times you are the facilitator and other times you need to be the Sheriff and lay down the boundaries.

View Video: Adventures in Online Pedagogy, (Jim Sullivan and Lisa M Lane, Spring 2010 POT workshop)

Those hats were awesome, made dry theories into something adventurous. The presentation by Lisa precise almost surgical in explaining these models, as described above I too take issues with dogmas. These are tools and should be deployed to advance learning, in certain situation one will work better than the other, for these are after all based on empirical research, though I could rank them in order of preference and attempt to use:

1. Connectivism
2. Constructivism
3. Instructivism

Behaviorism should rarely be used and only in cases when there is need to train reflexes. Only one week left, the end near.

Peace …

Due to my passion for learning and technology I was nominated for our committee “Rethinking Professional Development in Beaconhouse”. I am supposed to deliver a presentation tomorrow to the PD committee and finally to our Executive committee on Tuesday and thought why not use the same for POT week 23, even though work on Week 21 & 22 is still pending.

The objective of this presentation is to convince the organization, it is time to develop and deploy online learning environments. For this I have used all the learning/experiences from this course, I hope this is evident.

Due to time constraints it was not possible to add voice. In the free option Slideshare do not allow share via link, therefor I chose to use Google Apps, here is the link.

I hope you will take time to review and comment, can use some feedback before the final presentation. When this goes through I will be relieved, satisfied, filled with joy and will take huge pride in the achievement, I don’t think it would have happened without POT

Below few words explained for better understanding:

BSS = Beaconhouse School System
BSS Applications = We have developed a range of in-house applications e.g. Grade-book
BCT = Beaconhouse Certified Teacher
DWICT = Diploma with ICT
HO = Head office
RO = Regional office, three with each supporting more than 50 schools
SGO = School Group office, 3-4 in each regain supporting 15 or more schools
SH = School Head, in charge of the school
SM = Senior mistress, supporting 25 teachers
BLE = Beaconhouse Learning Environment

Peace …

This sentence from the introduction had me smiling “see if you can find some material to have a dialogue with” Material to have dialog with, individual creating their own learning

Read: Ko & Rossen, Chapter 13: Teaching Web Enhanced and Blended Classes, pp. 371-end (blended courses).

Discussion about Blended learning seems thorough, but is in contrast with the Meta analysis done by the US Education department, from the key findings “Instruction combining online and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face-to-face instruction than did purely online instruction.” In case possible, it could be great to start with a face 2 face session and if required end with one too, rest in-between should be online.

Very useful design tips in the teaching section with a significant paragraph at the end describing the evaluation part and the advice is useful “do not be shy of enlisting another pair of eyes”.

Read Wikipedia definitions: Instructional Design and Educational Technology Instructional design

Following a model is helpful when creating an online courses. This is an insightful Wikipedia entry introducing us to multiple theories. Addie is not that “terrifying” sometime back I came across these 6 videos about ADDIE each is of approx. 5 minutes.

It is good to follow a model, but my experience with Moodle is I can use the prototyping approach and activate object/resources and modify as per need. When you get hang of Moodle it seems the design modalities are built in, sort of a document where you can add and remove bullet points (activities, resources).

Who needs lengthy theories/models when they have this resource “The Ultimate eLearning Design and Development Checklist” which was added to Diigo by Lisa Lane, this is really great.

 Educational Technology

This sentence was fun “Moreover, a computer is patient and non-judgmental, which can give the student motivation to continue learning.” Comparing face to face with computer based learning, just wait until we have robots with an attitude

In this article Connectivism is not mentioned, which is bit strange, though some do not regard Connectivism as a theory but it should have been mentioned especially when we are discussing learning in the digital era.

Another useful resource is this site “Project Management for Instructional Designers” a long document, still in process of reading it, probably will get to it after week 24 is over.

View Rick Schwier, History of Educational Technology (presentation 2010)

Technology is “Practical solution to a problem” and history of Educational Technology started way back from the Greeks, but could actually have been with cave carvings or even earlier. Another good example of how great it is to be able to watch recordings of earlier lectures.

I tried to answer these questions, put forward in the recording:

Question 1: What is your earliest memory of an educational technology?

For me it was in School year 1983, it was profound and one of the defining moments in my life. We compiled a list from a survey using Commodore 64, I was so mesmerized that I decided to study and make technology part of my life.

Question 2: Who is the most influential non-Canadian scholar in educational technology you can name?

For me it must be Seymour Papert, his ideas and writings, very inspiring in my very early pursuit in this domain.

Question 3: Who is the most influential Canadian scholar in educational technology you can name?

Stephen Downes, his daily email is one of the highlights, I try to read and follow the links, this is how I came to know about POT, owe much gratitude …

The clip with Negroponte and the description of how kids in Africa are using the “$100” dollar computer is touching. The first word they learn with regard to Internet is Google and for telephony it is Skype. From there Dr. Rick moves on to “Collective constructivism” about how groups learn, once again Connectivism is left out, how groups learn could probably best be described with nodes forming connections.

Read contrasting view: Jaron Lanier, Does the Digital Classroom Enfeeble the Mind (2010)

Indeed a contrasting view with many assumptions. The question “Does the Digital Classroom Enfeeble the Mind?” No mostly it frees it, for example please see YouTube, kids in all ages are posting great videos, connections being formed, and collaborative possibilities across space and time, the Internet providing access to much information to so many humans across the globe.

He does have point “If students don’t learn to think, then no amount of access to information will do them any good.”
Let us end this with a quote from Tony Bates:

“Good teaching may overcome a poor choice of technology but technology will never save bad teaching“

Peace …

Read: Ko & Rossen, Chapter 13: Teaching Web Enhanced and Blended Classes, to p. 371 (to heading “Tips for Teaching Blended Courses).

We are looking to describe web-enhanced courses, which mean some of the elements are online, but primarily it is F2F or onsite which is the primary tool. In Blended course there are more activities taking place online and the online contributions are used toward assessment.

Few months back I met one lecturer from a well-established Computer Science college and asked him do you use online tools, with an amazed look he answered, No! Why should I put that extra in? With my own experiences and insight into the local education scene (Pakistan), I am afraid that the digital divide will grow and similar countries/dense population centers will be left far behind.

Teachers here work in silos and seldom share with each other, resulting in I don’t see them posting there lectures online, afraid of being copied or caught having copied. But for students Net is a great tool and should be encouraged, students can study the material beforehand and really have some quality time with the instructor.

I happened to observe a GCSE (highs cool) science class and the teacher had the students take an online quiz as homework. The teacher used the results and discussed option with the students. Subsequently during supper (Boarding school) I happened to sit with the students and we discussed the Quiz. Students where positive toward using the tool, but complained they could not go back and check their answers themselves which they felt limited their learning. In Moodle there is the adaptive mode which students can use. On the whole students wanted the ability to able to go back in time and work on their own with the material to gain better understanding / grades. So far we have decided to implement Moodle and work toward “Open Web” and I hope to go back and do the training in May / June, will be using all the goodies from this course J

Discussion Boards (DB) are great in soliciting answers from students, and as mentioned in the book can also work as references when there is need to go back and find information about past course material. Discussion Boards are moving toward more complexity and incredible features are being added e.g. ForumNG from ou.uk.

We are increasingly witnessing students carrying more and more complex devices, but can’t use them in the classroom. I often hear the argument students will not focus on the lecturer, but they have pen and paper and could draw doodles all the time! While providing workable guidelines/framework we should allow students to bring their own device (BOYD), I believe if they can take their notes online e.g. using Evernote they will get more out of F2F time.

Students can get-together and do number of activities on and off campus. These technologies/tools provide students with a powerful language to create, present and preserve their work and mostly on their own terms.

This important tip from page 371, very pertinent “Important! Making the use of the Internet optional rather than incorporating it into the curriculum dooms it to failure.”

Read Article: R. Graham, J. Hilton, P. Rich, D. Wiley, Using Online Technologies to Extend a Classroom to Learners at a Distance. Distance Education, 31(1), p. 77-92, (2010).

Open courses, a blessing for people at a distant and also very economically viable. POT is such a course and it has been enriching and transforming experience, Learner-content has been the greatest contributor. Finding appropriate content on the Net can be a challenge, but here week after week we were presented with some of the best and with of lot of support. For me need for Learner-instructor has been limited since descriptions have been spot on.

Due to time constraints Lerner-learner part is something, I have not been so good at. This is something I intend to correct; I hope to participate next time as an observer and will focus much more on this. Perhaps my full POT experience will take bit longer, but I am sure every bit will be worth it.

Learners are flocking to open courses, especially MOOC such as from Stanford, MITx. This will keep evolving and I hope is a beginning of a worldwide social change. The challenge could be economic when too many resources are spent on free distant learners.

When reflecting upon whether I prefer onsite or online, my POT experience is a huge contributor toward online only, especially for continuous professional development. I have been able to do it at my own pace and time, this instrinsic drive has been the core of my engagement. I have not felt the need for onsite training, this is much better, and I am having such fun with learning, best ever! I hope I will be able to pass this on in my workplace.

Peruse Michael Wesch’s Digital Ethnography course page

This is pretty awesome, it took few minutes to figure out and then it was joy to learn how we as humans are organizing ourselves using digital environments. Came across this video, it really gets interesting 22 minutes in:

This video addresses some of the questions I have been pondering, especially the new-media language of humans below 25; I feel I am more an observer then participant, this needs to change!

David Reeves video is a great example of how educators can produce engaging video lectures. These can be used in the flipped classroom. This concept needs a Blog entry of its own, and I am a great proponent of the idea, students and teachers will benefit greatly, energetic and buzzing classrooms are in the air.

Peace …

Ko & Rossen, Chapter 11: Classroom Management and Facilitation

Student participation in any learning setting is or should be one of the aims, and monitoring it can be difficult.  In onsite classroom there are visuals which assist, but these are limited or non-existing in online space (yet), here the submitted work has to speak for itself.
LMS logs can provide rudimentary insight, but with “Open web” it is even more difficult, as users don’t have Database access or the provider is not willing to share data. The only real evidence is in the submissions by the student, these can take various forms, just to mention few e.g. Journals, Blogs, tweets, multimedia and Forums. Student participation is incited by being part of the grade, this I can vouch for when I know it will be graded then I feel I have to get there.

Asynchronous and synchronous communication is discussed in great detail, below as reference:

Tips for Fostering Asynchronous Discussion

1. Start the major topic threads yourself
2. Narrow down topics
3. Organize forums and threads to reflect the class chronology or topical sequence and suggest a pattern for posting
4. Address students by name and encourage students to signal topics and clarify responses.
5. Key the thread topics to appropriate and relevant activities
6. Establish a pattern of frequent response
7. Facilitate and build on participation
8. Provide feedback that stimulates higher-level thinking
9. Be aware of cultural patterns as well as differences in personal styles in discussion
10. Prepare a strategy for potentially controversial discussions

Facebook’s wall and Moodle Forums are great examples of asynchronous format, ForumNG for Moodle is an efficient format introduced by The Open University for participation, even though it is not fully integrated out of the box with Moodle, but do check it out.

Due to time differences and a 9 to X job, I have not been able to participate in the synchronous POT Real-time sessions, but do see the recordings. From a pedagogy and tech perspective I think it is amazing, like going back in time as observer. Some of the technical hiccups are evident as described in the chapter, but as with all these tools they will hopefully disappear over time.

Valuable discussion on page 332, “Chat and other Synchronous Communications: Benefits versus Drawbacks” the following sentence is so evident in the recordings I have seen so far, “An instructor-led chat with more than five people can quickly become difficult to follow. In fact, real-time chat is probably the most exhausting intensive activity an online instructor will ever encounter.”  Often I see the presenter try to read the chat window and talk at the same time, leading to breaks in the conversation, it helps when there are multiple moderators.

Team teaching online, discussed in detail and with many tips. Hopefully we will be moving toward online courses for our PD, we have 7000 employees related to Academics who are in dire need of training opportunities. Due to resource / workload issues (also discussed in the chapter) we will have courses which are revolving, one batch after the other. I hope the most active “graduated” participants will volunteer to assist in the course they have just completed, so they can share and facilitate. For a course with fifty participants following comes to mind:

• One responsible, the main instructor
• One instructor assistant
• Two volunteers (expert/elders)

The volunteers will be keeping the Forums vibrant and nurture, they can move among the students formally and in-formally, the objective is to assist participants to gain maximum out of the course. In my mind this is a winning formula, what do you think?

Chapter 12 Classroom Management: Special Issues

Just an amazing book, they go to great length to describe, suggest, guide and provide many tips as possible. The section on page 342 “Managing Student Behavior Online” though a serious topic, brought a smile and as practice copied here for reference:

1. Noisy Students
2. Quiet Students
3. Disruptive Students

• The know-it-all
• The Mutineer
• The Belligerent Student who hasn’t kept up
• The Belligerent Student on the Attack

1. Other Behavior Problems

• The Controller
• The Staller
• The “Must-Have-an-A” Student

It all comes with a caution that each student has own profile and above is indicative only.

Insidious Pedagogy Article from Lisa Lane

Any human construction is designed with its perceived use in mind, and thus will have boundaries; these can be strangling or out of sight, but still be there. The discussion about Opt-in and Opt-out solutions is spot on, in Moodle the designer can select which objects to use, and this is in line with how novices according to the article should use a CMS and current CMS solutions are all being equipped with similar features.

Technology as we know it has been around for last 30 years and in our organization we are still not sure how we would like to use it. Novices should not be given all time in the world, they should be encouraged to adopt these tools. It could be argued, Student learning is suffering when we are not adapting faster. Here in Pakistan as described in earlier entries the classroom is the only non-technology space and the students’ are passive receivers (not interactive lecture) with lot of worksheet work thrown in the mix.

Answers to some of the points raised in the article are also provided by Lisa herself J in the blog entry “The Horror:  Advantages of the LMS”.

“Open Web” is consisting of shining floating islands and a base is needed more often than not. During this course I have learned the value of the “Open Web” and also how complex online learning is. My preference is to have a base and connect to islands in a transparent framework.

Moodle Tool Guide

A great resource for generating ideas when designing a course or when adding activities / resources and the mapping to Blooms is a bonus. This Tool guide is for Moodle 1.9, below is the link for a Moodle 2 download and a presentation on SlideShare, as mentioned on the blog it is work in progress.

Learn a bit about one CMS with which you are not familiar.

Since I have selected to use Moodle, I seldom look at other CMS / LMS applications (time is an issue), for this I chose Sakai. Logged into the Sakai Testdrive2.7 using the demo account and the user interface seem very nice and clean, very student friendly. All information is just there .. While playing around and trying different tabs, I started to wonder why I prefer Moodle and made this list from top of my head:

Some Moodle features

1. Special pages, Tag page, RSS Feed, message page
2. Somehow more in favor of students than administrators
3. The quiz module is comprehensive, outcomes, rubrics grade-book
4. Being a portal integration into other sites, Moodle hubs
5. Need a anchor, just like our homepage POT
6. Enrollments options
7. Community / Martin’s commitment
8. Structured releases, product being mature
9. Once mastered takes short time to setup a structure for a site
10. Role management

The list could go on, but one thing when comparing to Sakai is Moodle can be used in various settings, even just to create a corporate website, whereas Sakai seemed locked in. Sakai did not come across as mature as Moodle, but I am sure it is great for its perceived use.

There are many reviews and blogs about these applications e.g. Moodle vs Sakai vs Blackboard and some of them even depict Moodle being more popular than Blackboard, perhaps the reason why BB procured some main Moodle partners, I hope this will enrich and strengthen Moodle.

One of the best Moodle songs, dancing allowed

Peace …

I love this course! This week is initiated with a fiery introduction and yes many valid points are raised especially these lines from Jim:

“the emergence of online teaching and learning as such a key growth area in college teaching has given eager instructional administrators a new opportunity to intervene in and attempt to manage / direct / control teaching.”

I absolutely agree Online Teaching is a new field and should be treated as such, this will address many issues. I have to admit before this course I had a narrow vision about this. I thought implementing a LMS will do the trick, but it is much more complex, as per Gardner Campbell, I have moved from a Cartesian plan to a more complex plan which is in flux.

Do you have to have a teaching degree to be a teacher? I think not. We should get out of this Academic bubble, in the end it is about the Student. For example some educators are critiquing Khanacademy, and it seems completely ignoring testimonies from students themselves. In the right perspective, one person facilitating so many across the globe, the site has more than 3.5Mill unique visitors per month.

In our country I see teachers being reluctant to adapt technology, the main argument where is the incentive!! As mentioned many times, professional development is the key, but not for teachers only, it should also be for administrators. They should teach a course, the immersion will help them to gain a better understanding and respect for teachers. The real magic is in the interaction between the teacher and the students!!

The video from Andrea Petri is a great combination of YouTube, Screen-cast and Prezi, how to top that as an alternative method, nice first time job J

Sessions with Louisa Moon (200 minutes) was such an eye-opener and below few highlights:

• Focus on pedagogy, not all technology is good, interaction matters. Use technology students are comfortable with
• Introduction to the course should be well described. How to get support etc.
• Don’t be the technical support
• Avoid one to one, encourage peer learning
• Not available 24/7, should be like classroom
• Well defined protocol describing the contact / communication with students
• Everything is magnified online!
• Prepare a good question bank
• Create rubrics this can save time and be reused
• Use templates sort of copy paste (most of the time)
• Posting a lecture is not contact from students perspective, it is content, They need real-time, email and forum discussion
• Online all students are same, opportunity to form a community, minimize time to form groups.
• Pilar’s presentation of Voicethread, awesome! great reminder, this should be used more often.

The whole process of online teaching is very complex and many elements needs to be kept in focus. Few years back I came across Badrul khan and his eLearning framework, see image below. I recall there are many checklists which can be referred to in his book Managing E-Learning Strategies. Will need to be tailored to own context.

Lisa’s blog post “Seven things I’d want to know as a new online teacher” , copied here as reference:

1. Save everything on your own hard drive.
2. Serve yourself.
3. Trying to reduce workload can lead to better creativity.
4. Online teaching is its own discipline, and we need to study it.
5. Knowing HTML will be a boon more times than you can count.
6. Sharing is important.
7. Content isn’t a course.

These are great points, normally I don’t recommend memorization, but this list should be the mantra one wakes up with every morning. This will save much headache, stress and time.

The text this work address record keeping and it sounds un-mountable especially if relying heavily on the “open web”. Using LMS portal like Moodle can reduce some of the record keeping. The participant activity report in Moodle provides an effective method to locate transactions.

I am just so happy, that I have gotten to week 17 at nick of time. Alternative presentation method will have to wait to next week.

Fellow travelers, take care …

Hi everyone

Some rambling

As a student in this course I have come to realize, and it is frustrating not being able to read and comment fellow student blogs. Somehow I have this notion I do not want to read other posts before I have submitted my own, reason being I would not like to write something others have already written, it should be my own journey. All blogs are open and submitted at different times, in case this is same for majority of online classes, we may have the situation where students either read submitted posts and then create their own or in my case seldom get to read because of playing catch-up, resulting in loss of the collective wisdom.

I hope you will take time out to assist with:

1. Should blogs only be readable to all after the submission date?
2. How does it impact “Assessment” when students can see over each other’s shoulder?
3. Is above an issue at all?

Please do share your experiences how does reading others blog before writing your own influence your writing / blog?

Chapter 10

Reading Chapter 10 was like going through a recipe, a checklist of do’s and don’ts of students initial online presence. There are many ideas and lot of tips.  The readiness quizzes are facilitating for students, they provide students with an idea about what is expected and how they can improve if needed.

I got so inspired by the text and thought about our own situation, we have been using technology in the organization for the last twenty years and still majority of colleagues are not technology proficient, especially about the “open web”. The idea is to create fortnightly one hour open “Road-Sign workshops”. The time could be used as following:

15 minutes for gadget / latest tech news (Late comers can be accommodated)

30 minutes on the tool e.g. Dropbox, Evernote

15 minutes for Q&A of tech issues participants would like to discuss.

End it with some homework from the 43 things list. There is one line at the very end of POT Class Syllabus page, “the article 43 Things I Might Want to Do This Year by Stephen Abram. The workshop can be recorded and with POT magic be made available online.

The description of the student orientation elements is helpful and for reference copied here:

1. General introduction, including our expectations for online students
2. Requirements for computer equipment and software(other than the platform being used)
3. Computer skills needed
4. Introduction to the course management software or other programs you will use to teach the class
5. A first assignment that requires students to demonstrate some familiarity with the software being used

Articles

The three reading pieces provide insight into the habits of young learners. One sentence caught my attention “What’s good for a 7-year old will seem too childish to an 8-year old.” from Jakob Nielsen’s article. Does one year really make that much difference, it seems so.

It was encouraging to read that there are no international differences, sort of confirming students are same everywhere. This has special relevance to this country where students (lucky if they attend a proper school at all) are using technology in all places, but just not in the classroom due to various reasons.

Vishal the boy described in the article “Growing Up, Wired for Distraction” is trapped in the wants of his surroundings, he does not want to disappoint his parents / school and yet still tries to do what he really want. This article in many ways confirms how bad our education system is.  Students cannot pursue their passions, but have to focus on outcomes, which they in real life will seldom refer to.

With words like “wired for distraction” I get the feeling the authors of these articles are skeptic toward how and when students use technology, we forget when students are ready to enter the “real world” it will be different from our current. My daughter of fourteen seldom sees TV, but is on YouTube every day and this is not much different from my parents’ use of radio or my usage of TV.

FAQ (the homework)

When browsing and landing on a new site, one of the first pages I visit is the FAQ page, it provides structured information about the site/product. It seems to be a must have page. There is mention of how to make a FAQs on Lisa’s blog.

This seemed straightforward, but when started to develop the FAQ ran into issues. First thought was open Moodle 2.2 and in the HTML editor, write the text copy the code and voila on to next week, but there was no Anchor button, while searching on the issue found this tracker. Also tried to insert the tags but would have taken to long time to fiddle with html code.

Downloaded Kompozer a tool I have not used in years, J they have the Anchor button. After inserting the Anchor, nothing happened, no jump. Copied the code over to Edublog and it worked. Technology behaves strange sometimes (sounds funny coming from a technologist hmmm). I thought this will be faster than downloading and installing Openoffice.

Discussed the issue with a developer and he said if there are only 6 questions, why use anchors or links at all, so no links, just a plain FAQ page, sometime the wood and trees. The design and flow must depend on the objectives of the FAQ page, there are multiple ways to create FAQ e.g. Links, expand. A great FAQ could be to combine text with video, maybe next time.

We have recently developed a module called Process Manager, which is our attempt to bring in the “paperless environment”. The philosophy is a user raises request which is then routed through various stakeholders and finally data is committed into the Database. (BEAMS is the name for our container of applications.) The FAQ is about this module:

BEAMS, Process Manager FAQ

1. What to do when receiving a link in an email?
   Please click on the link, this should open the link in a Browser. Follow instructions and login into BEAMS.
2. How to login into BEAMS?
   For the user name use your Employee ID, and in the password field enter the password. In case you cannot remember your password or having issues, please call 042 – 111 232 266 Ext. 394. A member from the support team will assist you.
3. The chain, what does it mean?
   This is the route the request has taken so far, at the bottom you can see who initiated the request. Each box represents one stop on the journey. 
4. Can everyone see what I am writing?
   Remarks are public and viewable to all with access to the request. Click conversation button to keep it confidential, this will only be visible between you and whomever you addressed it to.
5. I am ready to approve / forward, what now?
   When you are ready to approve you have two options:Option 1: Click  on the approve button and the request originator will be informed about the approval.

   Option 2: Approve and forward, select the person you would like to forward it to, type in the name and the search function will assist in locating the person, theoretically you can forward to anyone in the organization. You also have to select what action you are expecting them to perform e.g. review, recommend or process, depending on the process.

6. I would like to initiate a process / request of my own?
   You must have rights to raise that particular request. After successful BEAMS login, click on the Process Manager from your Home screen. Select the desired request and fill in the relevant information.
7. How to apply filters?
   With the Process manager activated, click on the filter button and apply the desired filter. You have several options e.g. Completed, in process, My requests.

Now to current week, almost there …