E-learning course: week 1

As this is my first experience with e-learning then there was a lot of confusion with this environment, requirements and materials: lot of links where to orientate and too much information. So first few days I was only looking around and tried to make sense of it. Some links were very good and some did not open :).

What are the trends in e-learning and how do they influence online course design?

This is a good question and frankly I don't know yet the answer. Trends in e-learning we might say are the same as regular learning: it is movement from behaviouristic explanation of learning to constructivism. I really liked Ertmer and Newby's idea of taxonomy for learning (behaviourism = what, cognitivism = how and constructivism = why) - this is brilliant.

Although these learning trends reflect in e-learning as well, it is still hard for me to see behaviourism as ground of e-learning. If we want to train students then e-learning is perhaps not the best method.

But as understanding of learning process is changing the way how to plan (how to motivate, assess,…), create materials and learning environment (does it enable interaction; is it ease to understand and orientate), communicate with each is changing.

In behaviourism students do get the learning materials, in constructivism learners should be allowed to construct their knowledge. So the roles of student and teacher are changing: student activity changes from passive learner to active (therefore student motivation is changing as well) participant of learning process. (From personal learning to collaborative and cooperative, interactive learning). With taking active role in learning process student takes more control of his/her learning. Instead of cram facts deeper understanding of content is important.

For teachers understanding what is most significant rather than what most easily assessed is very important and at the same time this makes course design difficult.

About trends (what is going to happen next) - it is very hard to predict. Probably a lot of discussion/communication and therefore learning will move to web. This might cause the overload of information and people don't have time to deepen anymore.

It might happen that brilliant guys will get more brilliant and other will have problems with information overload and orientation and therefore they might give up and satisfy with secondary/ light information. So this is the worst what might happen…

We can not say now that e-learning makes learning more accessible when there are many people who don't have a computer and internet.
But for those who have access e-learning … It is still hard to predict. Two main things can cause learning: the will and the need. Will depends on motivation (inside motivation). But how many people you do know who have constant will to learn in formal or even informal way? So a part of learning comes from need (outside motivation). It might even depend on economy …Although form economy-side the future is bright: knowledge-based and flexible economy requires (constant) learning and if e-learning is more accessible then it might become more successful.

What was the most important thing you learned this week?

There were several interesting approaches in articles: content-content interaction; Ermter-Newby's taxonomy and many more. Idea that web's in-built capacity for hyperlinking has been compared to the way in which human knowledge is stored in mental shema.

What was particularly interesting/boring in this week?

Boring - there was no discussion this week, but this is normal.

Interesting - everything is new and therefore interesting.


Was there something you didn't quite understand and want to know more
about it?

Two things:

1. content-content interaction - I have always thought that interaction takes place between to subjects (student-student; teacher-teacher; student-teacher). It is hard to me to accept that interaction could take place between subject-object or even object-object. How can to contents interact with each other?
2. "agent"-idea in Online Learning and the Semantic Web I did not get. It would be great to know a little more about Semantic Web.


What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week's activities raised for you?

It is too early to say. Second chapter of the book was very interesting for me.


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)?

Scuttle, Moodle - to get started :)

MSN - to communicate with my friends, but it had nothing to do with this course.


With whom did you communicate during this week, how many times, with which tools, and for what purposes?

There was no communication with co-students during this week. I read introductions/blogs of co-students and facilitators.