What do I know about e-learning?
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Very little but here you go.
Today I was talking to my boss about websites, google and discussion forums, and my weblog came into the conversation somewhere. I realised I hadn't posted anything since February! not because I had nothing to say but because I forgot.
I am gonna update you on my latest activities. Last week I attended a conference in Hawaii!!!
But hey! Don't get too excited I didn't go to Hawaii, it was an online conference and I only needed my laptop to attend the seminars. The name of the conference is Technology, Colleges and Community and it is designed for university and college practitioners. 99.99% of the presentations were focused on teaching and learning, topics which are not in my field of expertise (if I have one). I decided to attend the conference for three reasons:
1. I'd never been to an online conference before. I was interested in seeing how they worked, specially the software tools, chatrooms, webinars, etc.
2. Some of the seminars where about the use of social software (which is a topic that fascinates me) in teaching.
3. The project I am working on is focused on e-mentoring and e-learning. The online community I am administrating supports students learning by providing a place for discussion and with relevant reading material. I was interested in knowing what other people are doing in similar situations and maybe get new ideas for our project.
So, what did I learn in this conference?
I found it interesting to see how academics reinvent software tools and make them work for their needs. Most of the presentations I attended focused on the use of social software, such as weblogs and wikis in online courses. I enjoyed one about using Google Notes, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets for collaborative work. So simple but still very few people use tools like these.
In one seminar the presenter explained how she used blogs and wikis within the blackboard environment. So in some instances, students were asked to write personal journals (weblogs) and in some others students were asked to produce a group report in a wiki. Some of the weblogs were public so the other students could read them and comment on them. To make their weblog public students had to be very confident on what they were writing and not be afraid of criticism. Of course the teacher had access to all of them.
In another seminar the presenter showed some data from a study he was doing about assessing online discussions. From the 50 (I think) online courses he studied most of them were using discussion boards as a way of assessing students learning. Students were asked to contribute at different moments in the course and with a minimum number of posts. The designers of the online courses stated that they encouraged discussions in class, because they are a way of motivating students to think, reflect on their ideas, articulate and share their ideas. Someone said this: "Discussion is where class happens!". I like it. If you don't make your students interact online then the online course would look like a correspondence course!
The most entertaining seminar for me was this one about using anime (Japanese cartoons) to teach Japanese. The guy, who said he liked paperless media, made his students write subtitles or captions for the anime series with a special software. He also used wikis and bulletin boards to make his students work in groups.
In our project's virtual community tool students participate and discuss about the topics they are assigned. Some of these topics are assessed activities so it is compulsory for them to post at least one contribution in those threads. However, I've noticed that they participate with the same enthusiasm in the non-assessed activities. Since the beginning of the course I've seen an improvement in quality in content of their online interactions. They know they can take their time to think and design their contribution. Also, students are more confident at using the software tool, they respond to each other posts, they are able to attach extra documentation or refer to external websites. Basically, what I am seeing there is the formation of a virtual learning community, and I feel very excited about that.
By the way, the software we used to attend the webinars is called Elluminate. Here you have a screenshot (click on the picture for a larger version). I attended the seminars from home, using a slo-o-o-o-o-o-o-w dial up connection, and had very little problems. (I experienced some delay problems in the anime presentation, the audio was faster than the actual presentation, so it felt unsynchronized). The PowerPoint presentation is shown in the main screen in the right-hand side. If the presenter opened a website in a browser, the browser will appear on top of (inside) the Elluminate screen. The list of participants is shown in the top left-hand side and below it there is a chat room. Whenever we wanted to ask a question we could raise our hands by clicking on the "raise your hand" button. The presenter would see that and "give us" the microphone. If we didn't have a microphone we could use the chat room. In all the seminars I attended I noticed that discussions in the chat room ran in parallel with the actual presentation. Sometimes the presenter would interrupt his/her presentation to make a comment on something that had been said in the chat room. Seminars only lasted 45min each and at the end we could express our gratitude by "applauding", cool!
Today I was talking to my boss about websites, google and discussion forums, and my weblog came into the conversation somewhere. I realised I hadn't posted anything since February! not because I had nothing to say but because I forgot.
I am gonna update you on my latest activities. Last week I attended a conference in Hawaii!!!
But hey! Don't get too excited I didn't go to Hawaii, it was an online conference and I only needed my laptop to attend the seminars. The name of the conference is Technology, Colleges and Community and it is designed for university and college practitioners. 99.99% of the presentations were focused on teaching and learning, topics which are not in my field of expertise (if I have one). I decided to attend the conference for three reasons:
1. I'd never been to an online conference before. I was interested in seeing how they worked, specially the software tools, chatrooms, webinars, etc.
2. Some of the seminars where about the use of social software (which is a topic that fascinates me) in teaching.
3. The project I am working on is focused on e-mentoring and e-learning. The online community I am administrating supports students learning by providing a place for discussion and with relevant reading material. I was interested in knowing what other people are doing in similar situations and maybe get new ideas for our project.
So, what did I learn in this conference?
I found it interesting to see how academics reinvent software tools and make them work for their needs. Most of the presentations I attended focused on the use of social software, such as weblogs and wikis in online courses. I enjoyed one about using Google Notes, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets for collaborative work. So simple but still very few people use tools like these.
In one seminar the presenter explained how she used blogs and wikis within the blackboard environment. So in some instances, students were asked to write personal journals (weblogs) and in some others students were asked to produce a group report in a wiki. Some of the weblogs were public so the other students could read them and comment on them. To make their weblog public students had to be very confident on what they were writing and not be afraid of criticism. Of course the teacher had access to all of them.
In another seminar the presenter showed some data from a study he was doing about assessing online discussions. From the 50 (I think) online courses he studied most of them were using discussion boards as a way of assessing students learning. Students were asked to contribute at different moments in the course and with a minimum number of posts. The designers of the online courses stated that they encouraged discussions in class, because they are a way of motivating students to think, reflect on their ideas, articulate and share their ideas. Someone said this: "Discussion is where class happens!". I like it. If you don't make your students interact online then the online course would look like a correspondence course!
The most entertaining seminar for me was this one about using anime (Japanese cartoons) to teach Japanese. The guy, who said he liked paperless media, made his students write subtitles or captions for the anime series with a special software. He also used wikis and bulletin boards to make his students work in groups.
In our project's virtual community tool students participate and discuss about the topics they are assigned. Some of these topics are assessed activities so it is compulsory for them to post at least one contribution in those threads. However, I've noticed that they participate with the same enthusiasm in the non-assessed activities. Since the beginning of the course I've seen an improvement in quality in content of their online interactions. They know they can take their time to think and design their contribution. Also, students are more confident at using the software tool, they respond to each other posts, they are able to attach extra documentation or refer to external websites. Basically, what I am seeing there is the formation of a virtual learning community, and I feel very excited about that.
By the way, the software we used to attend the webinars is called Elluminate. Here you have a screenshot (click on the picture for a larger version). I attended the seminars from home, using a slo-o-o-o-o-o-o-w dial up connection, and had very little problems. (I experienced some delay problems in the anime presentation, the audio was faster than the actual presentation, so it felt unsynchronized). The PowerPoint presentation is shown in the main screen in the right-hand side. If the presenter opened a website in a browser, the browser will appear on top of (inside) the Elluminate screen. The list of participants is shown in the top left-hand side and below it there is a chat room. Whenever we wanted to ask a question we could raise our hands by clicking on the "raise your hand" button. The presenter would see that and "give us" the microphone. If we didn't have a microphone we could use the chat room. In all the seminars I attended I noticed that discussions in the chat room ran in parallel with the actual presentation. Sometimes the presenter would interrupt his/her presentation to make a comment on something that had been said in the chat room. Seminars only lasted 45min each and at the end we could express our gratitude by "applauding", cool!
Labels:
eLearning,
Elluminate,
eMentoring,
online conference,
social software
Posts
I like the stuff about using web tools for your teaching, they might help people to share their thoughts more easily, and the fact that they are public might invite people to write whilst it might scare other ones.
So are u a wikiwebloglearning expert now?
Let us know more about the stuff that you use (e-tools), you know much more than the lay person and you can explain well what they are about.
I am not sure if you got the last comment.
You seem to explain in very simple terms the use of e-learning facilities.
Perhaps you can be an e-tutor for the lay person.
eweblogger... tutor!!
I liked the stuff about public tools (i.e. google), do you think people can use them more than blackboard or the others?
My sister is in her final year at Art high schooL. As she got very little time to get extra help with SAT subjects, my parents bought her a PMP(Portable Multimedia Player). She could watch internet lectures and open-seminars anywhere(instead of sitting in front of the monitor), and download movies. I was jealous! Back in my school era, all I could do in the bus back home was falling asleep or memorising stuff for the exams.
....cool!
Dear Mutant,
It is amazing how the learning experience have improved in the last 20 years with the introduction of computers to the education system.
But it is really up to the student to start an e-learning experience or an e-learning cycle, because e-learning lacks of teacher and classroom life.
e-Learning can be a support aid but not replace the actual education/learning system we have been into.
Collaborative tools as a way of interaction between teacher and students and between students is great. It is faster and convenient, nobody will have the excuse to miss notes, papers, topics, because they will be always online, and it always will be available to send assignements to the teacher.
More to come, stoned tuned.
Minju, I'd really enjoy playing with a PMP but I'd also get bored soon. Browsing the Web and playing with social software are fun but not all the time. I guess your parents wanted to make sure your sister didn't have excuses for not studying. Some day there will be PMPs you can plug in the back of your head and then we will always be online.
I'm still enjoying my iPod. I don't think I will ever get tired if it!