1. What was the most important thing you learned this week?
From theory I found Garrison, Anderson, and Archer model about "community of learning" brilliant. The theory behind elearning is quite new then the level of maturity is still not good. We have some first thought and surveys about it, but we still can't say that we understand how elearning is different of 'normal' learning. Even if we can say the difference between two of them, it is still not clear how to manage effectively elearning. Reading materials did not answer. Instead of an answer I read how almost everything in elearning is a challenge. Well, life is a challenge :) But it made me think whether the theory has gone too far away from practical world and the use of theories in practice is getting harder and harder? Theory has gone into the level where there are no easy answers/solutions anymore.
2. What was particularly interesting/boring in this week?
This week readings I found particularly interesting and boring at the same time: I did get confused: readings were like about everything and nothing at the same time. Maybe it's just me: I'm kind of bored and don't find everything so interesting anymore.
There was no active communication between our group members. What worries me is that half of our group has not contributed and shared their vision about our course. This makes moving forward hard. Sometimes I am afraid that we don’t (in our group) fully understand the world behind course design and tend to take everything too primitive level. I'm not sure how (or whether) I can help here.
3. Was there something you didn’t quite understand and want to know more
about it?
Fischer compared human and technology-based learning and it shows that technology is great enabler, but the question is how to use these possibilities without falling in love with technology and still preserving students attention. The importance of attention can not be underestimated.
There were two things I did not get: HOTS (seemed not systematic enough) and learning objects. Perhaps I have to do in the future some more reading about them.
4. What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?
Should we reorganise our group since there are members who don’t contribute? It seems that we can not rely on them.
I'm still observing the work of other course-mates and it seems that if the group-work is going on well in the personal blog there is less activity. The question is why?
We should have some structure into our course design. Terje suggested to take the main aspects from our course weblog and I agree. This can help understand better the work behind course design (what needs to be done). Sometimes I do get the feeling that the readings are not done or are done very superficially and this blocks our work.
5. Which tools did you use this week, explain what was the purpose of using these tools (eg. social talk, to regulate my team activities, to work on documents)?
Skype, MSN, MS Word, blog, Moodle, wikispaces, google docs, e-mail, doodle.
6. With whom did you communicate during this week, how many times, with which tools, and for what purposes?
I actually contacted with my ex course-mates from andragogy to discuss theory of self-directedness and intrinsic motivation.
Monday, April 28, 2008
From the perspective of my tasks in our workgroup, what did I learn from theoretical materials, how to make/use the course materials/activities/assessment/tools? week8
As we have not shared our roles in group it is difficult to read something concrete from theoretical material. So I write here just few short comments/thought about reading materials.
• One main question in elearning is probably: what supports intrinsic motivation? And there is no concrete answer. At one point while reading theoretical material I felt that this material is about everything and nothing at the same time. Although materials write that this is important I did not find good answer how to support intrinsic motivation.
• The importance of attention can not be underestimated. Learners participation supports this attention needed. The content and the way the content is reflected or brought into experience and the environment where it is happening are very important to get the students attention.
• HOTS-model I did not like. Don’t even know why, seemed kind of not finished.
• Fischer compared human and technology-based learning and this shows that technology is great enabler, but the question is how to use these possibilities what technology offers. At one point Fischers model seemed not objective and a bit favour of technology based learning. But this was still good reading.
• Online learning is still in its early infancy (Fahy, P. J). - and so is the theory behind it. This is very important to keep in mind.
• Garrison, Anderson, and Archer model about "community of learning" I found brilliant.
• Getting the mix right between opportunities for synchronous and asynchronous interaction, and group and independent study activities remains a challenge (Daniel & Marquis, 1988; Anderson, 2002) - this is also good to keep in mind. But again: from theoretical point it is good to know, but how to bring this into good practice?
Very often small (practical) tricks (behind the theory) will do the game. Sometimes if everything seems so complicated and "challenging" some small tricks / activities (without any deeper theory behind it) can help. I was looking from materials something similar. But probably my expectations are too high and I need to remember that "Online learning is still in its early infancy".
• Most online students are practical adults with much competition for their time; thus they are unlikely to participate in activities that are marginalized or viewed as supplemental to the course goals and assessment schema (Anderson) - goes together with learner participation and attention.
• … how these instructions guide students on both the quantity (“two substantive postings” per discussion question) and the quality of contributions expected - Levines assessment framework) - this was one practical thing I read (so 10 points for that) and this goes together with Terjes reflection. I not sure whether I like the quantity part - learning must always be qualitative change. I'm not sure whether quantitative measures are the best way to reach/create qualitative change. Assessment is always very complicated.
• In learning process rapid feedback is important - so there must be somebody who will give you the feedback (and has some authority) and it means that teacher/facilitator can not be equal as students (they never can because of the power)! Power-issue has followed me for a long time. As like very much the idea that facilitator is part of learning group (equal member of the group), but I'm not sure whether this can happen in real life. Only if facilitators delegate their power, but I'm not sure that this is a good idea. With power there is always a question of responsibility and competence. So this is a tricky one!
• Formalising reflective learning outcomes takes time. It is good, but if you want to do it in qualitative way, you have to take into consideration that this takes a lot of time! If you just write something quickly then this formalisation does not justify itself.
How far away is theory from practice…
• One main question in elearning is probably: what supports intrinsic motivation? And there is no concrete answer. At one point while reading theoretical material I felt that this material is about everything and nothing at the same time. Although materials write that this is important I did not find good answer how to support intrinsic motivation.
• The importance of attention can not be underestimated. Learners participation supports this attention needed. The content and the way the content is reflected or brought into experience and the environment where it is happening are very important to get the students attention.
• HOTS-model I did not like. Don’t even know why, seemed kind of not finished.
• Fischer compared human and technology-based learning and this shows that technology is great enabler, but the question is how to use these possibilities what technology offers. At one point Fischers model seemed not objective and a bit favour of technology based learning. But this was still good reading.
• Online learning is still in its early infancy (Fahy, P. J). - and so is the theory behind it. This is very important to keep in mind.
• Garrison, Anderson, and Archer model about "community of learning" I found brilliant.
• Getting the mix right between opportunities for synchronous and asynchronous interaction, and group and independent study activities remains a challenge (Daniel & Marquis, 1988; Anderson, 2002) - this is also good to keep in mind. But again: from theoretical point it is good to know, but how to bring this into good practice?
Very often small (practical) tricks (behind the theory) will do the game. Sometimes if everything seems so complicated and "challenging" some small tricks / activities (without any deeper theory behind it) can help. I was looking from materials something similar. But probably my expectations are too high and I need to remember that "Online learning is still in its early infancy".
• Most online students are practical adults with much competition for their time; thus they are unlikely to participate in activities that are marginalized or viewed as supplemental to the course goals and assessment schema (Anderson) - goes together with learner participation and attention.
• … how these instructions guide students on both the quantity (“two substantive postings” per discussion question) and the quality of contributions expected - Levines assessment framework) - this was one practical thing I read (so 10 points for that) and this goes together with Terjes reflection. I not sure whether I like the quantity part - learning must always be qualitative change. I'm not sure whether quantitative measures are the best way to reach/create qualitative change. Assessment is always very complicated.
• In learning process rapid feedback is important - so there must be somebody who will give you the feedback (and has some authority) and it means that teacher/facilitator can not be equal as students (they never can because of the power)! Power-issue has followed me for a long time. As like very much the idea that facilitator is part of learning group (equal member of the group), but I'm not sure whether this can happen in real life. Only if facilitators delegate their power, but I'm not sure that this is a good idea. With power there is always a question of responsibility and competence. So this is a tricky one!
• Formalising reflective learning outcomes takes time. It is good, but if you want to do it in qualitative way, you have to take into consideration that this takes a lot of time! If you just write something quickly then this formalisation does not justify itself.
How far away is theory from practice…
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Reflection 6 & 7
I had several exams during the past few weeks. This is the reason why I have not contributed here for a while. I tried to participate in group activities, so I don’t think that the group suffered because of my lower activity. I'll try to catch up.
I have received several comments to my writings and I'll try to write some answers. Writing an answer to the comment is also reflection.
1. What was the most important thing you learned this week?
Planning isn't everything. You can plan your time, but life can make some unexpected changes.
I believed that theory can explain everything. I had very interesting course during the past three weeks. From theoretical view this course was a disaster: monotonous lectures and professor, but the material was so intriguing that this course still changed my understanding of art, history, learning and life. I am very demanding when it comes to teaching and I had a lesson that: even if everything doesn’t follow the "right way", it still may be very interesting and useful.
2. What was particularly interesting/boring in this week?
Struggles: with my English. I have never learned how to talk or write in English and sometimes this annoys me, because everything takes more time than I wanted.
It was interesting to see, that communication motivates people. We had with our group nice meetings via skype, but surprisingly: when it comes to private contribution some members somehow disappear.
3. Was there something you didn’t quite understand and want to know more
about it?
About theoretical part I probably will have some questions, but first I have to read course materials. :)
4. What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?
First question remain the same: whether students still suffer with the overload of information and assignments? Is it too much to read, reflect your learning, reflect theoretical material and participate activley in group activities?
And one idea: we should have (in our group) some structure in our skype-meetings. If we discuss everything then nothing gets done :). Last time everybody talked about something (everybody had some questions and ideas) and it was kind of difficult to follow the discussion.
5. Which tools did you use this week, explain what was the purpose of using these tools (eg. social talk, to regulate my team activities, to work on documents)?
Skype, MSN, MS Word, blog, Moodle, wiki deki, google docs, e-mail.
6. With whom did you communicate during this week, how many times, with which tools, and for what purposes?
I communicated with my group.
I have received several comments to my writings and I'll try to write some answers. Writing an answer to the comment is also reflection.
1. What was the most important thing you learned this week?
Planning isn't everything. You can plan your time, but life can make some unexpected changes.
I believed that theory can explain everything. I had very interesting course during the past three weeks. From theoretical view this course was a disaster: monotonous lectures and professor, but the material was so intriguing that this course still changed my understanding of art, history, learning and life. I am very demanding when it comes to teaching and I had a lesson that: even if everything doesn’t follow the "right way", it still may be very interesting and useful.
2. What was particularly interesting/boring in this week?
Struggles: with my English. I have never learned how to talk or write in English and sometimes this annoys me, because everything takes more time than I wanted.
It was interesting to see, that communication motivates people. We had with our group nice meetings via skype, but surprisingly: when it comes to private contribution some members somehow disappear.
3. Was there something you didn’t quite understand and want to know more
about it?
About theoretical part I probably will have some questions, but first I have to read course materials. :)
4. What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?
First question remain the same: whether students still suffer with the overload of information and assignments? Is it too much to read, reflect your learning, reflect theoretical material and participate activley in group activities?
And one idea: we should have (in our group) some structure in our skype-meetings. If we discuss everything then nothing gets done :). Last time everybody talked about something (everybody had some questions and ideas) and it was kind of difficult to follow the discussion.
5. Which tools did you use this week, explain what was the purpose of using these tools (eg. social talk, to regulate my team activities, to work on documents)?
Skype, MSN, MS Word, blog, Moodle, wiki deki, google docs, e-mail.
6. With whom did you communicate during this week, how many times, with which tools, and for what purposes?
I communicated with my group.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Reflection - week 5
1. What was the most important thing you learned this week?
Well … As I have one very interesting course called History and Visions of Interactive Media and all the material in this course is looked at through artistic approach then this shadows everything else what I learned this week. I'm beginning to understand where the roots of interactive media are and how interactive media developed. Sometimes it's not nice to look at (cutting eyes or things like this), but it has rocked my world. After this every other learning experience of this week does not seem too serious or important.
2. What was particularly interesting/boring in this week?
I'm still struggling with the design of this course. I'm afraid that quite a lot of students will have negative impression about elearning. And there are real lives behind this course: real credit points, real money, real disappointments.
It was interesting to see learning contracts done by some other students (reading material).
3. Was there something you didn’t quite understand and want to know more
about it?
Not really. I probably must do some reading about motivation to understand how to motivate (or what drives the motivation) people to learn. How in reality to support them.
4. What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?
Questions: whether students still suffer with the overload of information and assignments? I have understood that few students are communicating with Terje quite a lot. Even if this is just some social talk in the evening - why are they communicating only with the facilitator why not with the rest of the group? Is there a way how we could make our group blog to work? I'll try to write comments to our group blog if there is something to comment or something for me to say…
5. Which tools did you use this week, explain what was the purpose of using these tools (eg. social talk, to regulate my team activities, to work on documents)?
Skype, MSN, MS Word, blog, Moodle, wiki deki
6. With whom did you communicate during this week, how many times, with which tools, and for what purposes?
Had a nice conversation with Terje, Jasna, Robert and the outcome is that we will have an other session quite soon.
Well … As I have one very interesting course called History and Visions of Interactive Media and all the material in this course is looked at through artistic approach then this shadows everything else what I learned this week. I'm beginning to understand where the roots of interactive media are and how interactive media developed. Sometimes it's not nice to look at (cutting eyes or things like this), but it has rocked my world. After this every other learning experience of this week does not seem too serious or important.
2. What was particularly interesting/boring in this week?
I'm still struggling with the design of this course. I'm afraid that quite a lot of students will have negative impression about elearning. And there are real lives behind this course: real credit points, real money, real disappointments.
It was interesting to see learning contracts done by some other students (reading material).
3. Was there something you didn’t quite understand and want to know more
about it?
Not really. I probably must do some reading about motivation to understand how to motivate (or what drives the motivation) people to learn. How in reality to support them.
4. What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?
Questions: whether students still suffer with the overload of information and assignments? I have understood that few students are communicating with Terje quite a lot. Even if this is just some social talk in the evening - why are they communicating only with the facilitator why not with the rest of the group? Is there a way how we could make our group blog to work? I'll try to write comments to our group blog if there is something to comment or something for me to say…
5. Which tools did you use this week, explain what was the purpose of using these tools (eg. social talk, to regulate my team activities, to work on documents)?
Skype, MSN, MS Word, blog, Moodle, wiki deki
6. With whom did you communicate during this week, how many times, with which tools, and for what purposes?
Had a nice conversation with Terje, Jasna, Robert and the outcome is that we will have an other session quite soon.
Friday, April 4, 2008
The course is dead? Long live the course??
I am really worried about this course and where it is heading towards. I visited yesterday all my course-mates' websites to understand how far have they had reached in their studies. The picture was not nice. We have around 70 students and only very few of them (13-14) have had the strength to fully keep up with pace of the schedule. I didn't survey this in more detail. But if some trends are shown in the numbers the real situation would appear more visibly.
The picture I saw last night was not nice: the activity of participation is reducing every week. I read the reflections of some facilitators and it made me think. The argumentation that they use is mostly like: "all the students are grown-ups, they must base their learning activities on intrinsic motivation and it is their problem if they want to get a grade or not."
To me this kind of thinking from facilitators' side is unacceptable. Sorry. I know that I am reacting a bit too strongly now, but I can explain why.
In my bachelor studies we had a group of 21 students. After reaching in the middle of the 3rd year (it was a 4-year study) we had a course named 'proseminar', where we were supposed to write the theoretical part of our bachelor thesis (around 30 pages). We had had one course like this at the beginning of 3 year and the one that I am writing about was a follow-up course. So we reflected and wrote and discussed and it seemed to us that everything was quite ok. At the time of exam the facilitators came into class and said that only 3 of us could pass. Others were considered lazy, stupid and sloppy and we were lectured using similar key points:
• you all are grown-ups
• you must do more work - if you are busy or ill it does not count
• it is your problem how you get your grade.
I was among the 3 who passed in the first round. Despite we had a chat with our facilitators about the abnormality of the situation - nothing changed. Ultimately 9 of us graduated in time - we supported each other and had kind of psychological support-group were we talked and talked on what went wrong and what we could be doing.
Almost every course-mate remembers this whole experience like a nightmare… The only positive thing being that this experience made me into a education scientist. I think it put my priorities in place.
About our course now. If there were some 10 students who are not active anymore then I would not have to bother to write something like this. But there are the majority who have left - then something must be seriously wrong and we must do something!
We cannot allow the same unprofessional attitude that my previous facilitators had: that students are not acting as grown-ups; that the students don't have enough motivation and they do not contribute enough.
My first point is: we are surely all grown-ups. But at least students from previous soviet countries have the background were grown-ups did not supposed to be self-directed. Taking responsibility in learning is a pretty new concept and our historical background does not support this. (It would be interesting to do a survey about cultural differences of this course). So students still do need some active support from facilitators. Furthermore, I believe that learning is psychologically so complex that learners will always need active support because while people are learning they are vulnerable.
About intrinsic motivation … I believe that most of the students who signed up for this course have shown motivation and willingness to learn. So they had motivation at least at the beginning! For some reasons they lost it along the way. Intrinsic motivation is tricky and thin and extremely easy to kill. So the reason behind leaving the course is not so much about not having the motivation but losing it. Hence the key priority should be thinking on how to try to bring them back to learning process and our course. How? That requires thinking. But perhaps it would be a smart idea to ask them what have been the reasons that they are not so active anymore and how can we all make the course more acceptable for them.
I know that redesigning your course at the middle of it seems meaningless but it would seem worse that only 15 of us would eventually graduate.
By writing this emotional piece I do not intend to hurt anybody, but simply point out my concerns which could be a basis for some further discussion. It seems to me that we are forgetting the essence of learning.
The picture I saw last night was not nice: the activity of participation is reducing every week. I read the reflections of some facilitators and it made me think. The argumentation that they use is mostly like: "all the students are grown-ups, they must base their learning activities on intrinsic motivation and it is their problem if they want to get a grade or not."
To me this kind of thinking from facilitators' side is unacceptable. Sorry. I know that I am reacting a bit too strongly now, but I can explain why.
In my bachelor studies we had a group of 21 students. After reaching in the middle of the 3rd year (it was a 4-year study) we had a course named 'proseminar', where we were supposed to write the theoretical part of our bachelor thesis (around 30 pages). We had had one course like this at the beginning of 3 year and the one that I am writing about was a follow-up course. So we reflected and wrote and discussed and it seemed to us that everything was quite ok. At the time of exam the facilitators came into class and said that only 3 of us could pass. Others were considered lazy, stupid and sloppy and we were lectured using similar key points:
• you all are grown-ups
• you must do more work - if you are busy or ill it does not count
• it is your problem how you get your grade.
I was among the 3 who passed in the first round. Despite we had a chat with our facilitators about the abnormality of the situation - nothing changed. Ultimately 9 of us graduated in time - we supported each other and had kind of psychological support-group were we talked and talked on what went wrong and what we could be doing.
Almost every course-mate remembers this whole experience like a nightmare… The only positive thing being that this experience made me into a education scientist. I think it put my priorities in place.
About our course now. If there were some 10 students who are not active anymore then I would not have to bother to write something like this. But there are the majority who have left - then something must be seriously wrong and we must do something!
We cannot allow the same unprofessional attitude that my previous facilitators had: that students are not acting as grown-ups; that the students don't have enough motivation and they do not contribute enough.
My first point is: we are surely all grown-ups. But at least students from previous soviet countries have the background were grown-ups did not supposed to be self-directed. Taking responsibility in learning is a pretty new concept and our historical background does not support this. (It would be interesting to do a survey about cultural differences of this course). So students still do need some active support from facilitators. Furthermore, I believe that learning is psychologically so complex that learners will always need active support because while people are learning they are vulnerable.
About intrinsic motivation … I believe that most of the students who signed up for this course have shown motivation and willingness to learn. So they had motivation at least at the beginning! For some reasons they lost it along the way. Intrinsic motivation is tricky and thin and extremely easy to kill. So the reason behind leaving the course is not so much about not having the motivation but losing it. Hence the key priority should be thinking on how to try to bring them back to learning process and our course. How? That requires thinking. But perhaps it would be a smart idea to ask them what have been the reasons that they are not so active anymore and how can we all make the course more acceptable for them.
I know that redesigning your course at the middle of it seems meaningless but it would seem worse that only 15 of us would eventually graduate.
By writing this emotional piece I do not intend to hurt anybody, but simply point out my concerns which could be a basis for some further discussion. It seems to me that we are forgetting the essence of learning.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
question - future of learning
By over floating students with information so that they need to read articles diagonally - are we not supporting superficiality?
Considering that students of virtual generation have always too much information and too many tools and still 24 hours per day, perhaps we should encourage students to go more deep into the materials?
Considering that students of virtual generation have always too much information and too many tools and still 24 hours per day, perhaps we should encourage students to go more deep into the materials?
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
The goals and objectives, design principles and process (roster) of your course. week4
This weeks reading assignment was kind of fuzzy to me. I read post made by other students (course-mates, in our group there are only 2 bloggers left) and found out that:
• there are only few posts about this reading reflection and
• these posts have very different background and very different understanding about the subject.
Different viewpoints are absolutely normal for our elearning group (different cultures and understanding) but in some point I started to feel that perhaps everybody do still not get what this is all about. But then again - I did not understand the level of generalization either …
I read the material through and tied out the approach Terje suggested: first read diagonally and then decide what to read more deeply. So I tried and was not very successful, it is perhaps not my way of working. If I do get materials to read and if they are not absolute crap then I want to take more time and go more deeply through them.
Principles
1. goals must be carefully thought through: analyse need needs of students and curriculum, what skills and knowledge will be the outcome of the course and what is needed to for the task ahead.
2. Methods must involve students and enable use of active learning techniques.
3. Instructional materials are created
4. Implementation - registration, distribution of materials and teacher-student interaction
5. Introduction to course and statement of goals
6. Direction and advice regarding the preparation and submission of assignments
7. Grading scheme is provided
8. Style of course: academic or conversational
9. provide a study guide
10. program announcement - provides date and time, objectives
11. Ask good questions
12. Observation of students
13. determine the need for instruction
14. organize and develop content
15. select and develop materials and methods
16. Co-operation between students and teachers
From theory I think that our course might be grounded socially situated learning (I can't believe that I'm writing something like this!). From what I believe this might be perhaps the most motivating approach to online course.
to be continue ...
• there are only few posts about this reading reflection and
• these posts have very different background and very different understanding about the subject.
Different viewpoints are absolutely normal for our elearning group (different cultures and understanding) but in some point I started to feel that perhaps everybody do still not get what this is all about. But then again - I did not understand the level of generalization either …
I read the material through and tied out the approach Terje suggested: first read diagonally and then decide what to read more deeply. So I tried and was not very successful, it is perhaps not my way of working. If I do get materials to read and if they are not absolute crap then I want to take more time and go more deeply through them.
Principles
1. goals must be carefully thought through: analyse need needs of students and curriculum, what skills and knowledge will be the outcome of the course and what is needed to for the task ahead.
2. Methods must involve students and enable use of active learning techniques.
3. Instructional materials are created
4. Implementation - registration, distribution of materials and teacher-student interaction
5. Introduction to course and statement of goals
6. Direction and advice regarding the preparation and submission of assignments
7. Grading scheme is provided
8. Style of course: academic or conversational
9. provide a study guide
10. program announcement - provides date and time, objectives
11. Ask good questions
12. Observation of students
13. determine the need for instruction
14. organize and develop content
15. select and develop materials and methods
16. Co-operation between students and teachers
From theory I think that our course might be grounded socially situated learning (I can't believe that I'm writing something like this!). From what I believe this might be perhaps the most motivating approach to online course.
to be continue ...
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