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27 de fevereiro de 2010
17 de janeiro de 2010
Transparency in Online Education
Unit 3 Activity 2
I decided to do a book with a compilation of the most read articles.
I think it is a good way to help those seeking information on the subject.
Click to launch the full edition in a new window
Self Publishing with Yudu
I decided to do a book with a compilation of the most read articles.
I think it is a good way to help those seeking information on the subject.
Click to launch the full edition in a new window
Self Publishing with Yudu
10 de janeiro de 2010
Transparency in Online Education - Activity 1 Unit 3
Realized that the readings in this activity I would highlight two aspects that are important and fundamental:
1)The use of social networking and Web 2.0;
2)Student Profiles (NKI’s) Online Catalogue.
For Christian Dalsgaard and Morten Paulsen transparency is important to cooperative online education. People can cooperate only if they know about each other and have access to some common information and services.
Transparency means that you and your doings are visible to fellow students and teachers within a learning environment. For instance, transparency could mean that students and teachers are made aware of and have access to each other’s interests, thoughts, concerns, ideas, writings, references, and assignments. The purpose of transparency is to enable students and teachers to see and follow the work of fellow students and teachers within a learning environment and in that sense to make participants available to each other as resources for their learning activities.
Transparency is not a given, especially within online education. Students might work at a distance and individually, and, thus, they are not necessarily aware of the activities of other students. In their individual work, however, students write notes, search for literature, find relevant websites, write assignments, etc. This information and these products are relevant to other students. A central aspect of cooperative learning is to enable students to make use of each other while at the same time maintaining individual freedom.
Transparency implies that users to a certain extent can see and be seen, but it is important to find a suitable transparency level. Transparency is also an important driver for improved quality. It has the following three positive effects on quality:
Preventive quality improvement
We are prone to provide better quality when we know that others have access to the information and contributions we provide.
Constructive quality improvement
We may learn from others when we have access to their data and contributions.
Reactive quality improvement
We may receive feedback from others when they have access to our data and contributions.
For Morten and Dalsgaard student catalogues are important tools for showing students that they have access to a learning community. A comprehensive catalogue that provides relevant information about students is crucial to students acquiring an overview of the learning community. Student catalogues usually provide information about all students enrolled in a course; however, if students can access information about the students enrolled in other courses offered by the institution, they may benefit from taking part in a larger learning community. Moreover, a catalog that includes alumni could be of interest to students who seek advice on courses they are considering or on future employment.
To facilitate cooperation, a student catalogue should include information that makes it easy to initiate and maintain communication, such as e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, chatting identities, etc. It may also include information on geographical location (e.g., zip codes) to facilitate identification of potential partners for occasional face-to-face meetings. Similarly, it may include progress plan information so that students can identify peers who are working with the same study unit. Finally, one may argue that student catalogues should include CV-type information to make it possible to search for peers who have special competencies.
Student catalogues must address privacy issues appropriately. Some information in student catalogues may be regarded as sensitive and may require student consent. Some students may also be opposed to inclusion in a student catalogue. The challenge is to find the balance between providing as much relevant information as possible to stimulate cooperation without trespassing students’ privacy thresholds. A viable solution is to ask students for permission to make the information available to the staff, to the students enrolled in the actual course, or to all students in all courses.
For Morten the benefits of Student Profiles (NKI’s) Online Catalogue are:
Firstly, it seems like many students appreciate the opportunity to share information about their online course activities with family, friends and colleagues. Others seem to use the presentation as an online CV to support job applications. In any case, most presentations act as favorable personal homepages that focus on the students’ achievements.
Secondly, the catalogue appears to be a valuable resource for NKI. The users are excellent ambassadors for NKI when they share their presentation with others. They provide a lot of relevant information for prospective students and key words for the search engines. All the positive and trustworthy testimonials from current students and teachers will probably have a positive effect on NKI’s future course enrolments.
Thirdly, the fact that so many serious, hard-working and successful students are willing to share achievements and experiences in an open, online catalogue is valuable for the field of online education. Traditionally, distance students tend to be quite invisible compared to other groups of students. They are so dispersed and so busy with their courses, jobs and family obligations that they seldom form action groups or student unions. Online student catalogues may help these students become more visible as a group that deserves more attention.
And the riscks are: Risks: inappropriate content, copyright issues, criticisms from dissatisfied students, student who explore too much personal information. But on the whole have had few issues and problems.
Paulsen believed transparency improves quality, error correction, preventive quality, learning quality. Also it promotes cooperation.
I was curious and went to see some of the Student Profiles (NKI’s) Online Catalogue (http://www.nki.no/pp/EikelandAnette ; http://www.nki.no/pp/SiriKverneland ; http://www.nki.no/pp/kvalvikt ; http://www.nki.no/pp/skogbergetr). I found it interesting to confirm the profile of the majority of students online (employed, married with children, living outside the major cities, who for various reasons did not continue studies when young and now have an opportunity here to do it).
I believe that the disclosure of the profile can encourage other students.
References
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/671/1267
http://home.nki.no/morten/index.php/component/content/article/3-artikler-uten-kommentarer/86-transparency-in-cooperative-online-education.html
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/2340
http://eunis.dk/papers/p41.pdf
http://www.eden-online.org/blog/2008/10/01/profiling-online-students/
1)The use of social networking and Web 2.0;
2)Student Profiles (NKI’s) Online Catalogue.
For Christian Dalsgaard and Morten Paulsen transparency is important to cooperative online education. People can cooperate only if they know about each other and have access to some common information and services.
Transparency means that you and your doings are visible to fellow students and teachers within a learning environment. For instance, transparency could mean that students and teachers are made aware of and have access to each other’s interests, thoughts, concerns, ideas, writings, references, and assignments. The purpose of transparency is to enable students and teachers to see and follow the work of fellow students and teachers within a learning environment and in that sense to make participants available to each other as resources for their learning activities.
Transparency is not a given, especially within online education. Students might work at a distance and individually, and, thus, they are not necessarily aware of the activities of other students. In their individual work, however, students write notes, search for literature, find relevant websites, write assignments, etc. This information and these products are relevant to other students. A central aspect of cooperative learning is to enable students to make use of each other while at the same time maintaining individual freedom.
Transparency implies that users to a certain extent can see and be seen, but it is important to find a suitable transparency level. Transparency is also an important driver for improved quality. It has the following three positive effects on quality:
Preventive quality improvement
We are prone to provide better quality when we know that others have access to the information and contributions we provide.
Constructive quality improvement
We may learn from others when we have access to their data and contributions.
Reactive quality improvement
We may receive feedback from others when they have access to our data and contributions.
For Morten and Dalsgaard student catalogues are important tools for showing students that they have access to a learning community. A comprehensive catalogue that provides relevant information about students is crucial to students acquiring an overview of the learning community. Student catalogues usually provide information about all students enrolled in a course; however, if students can access information about the students enrolled in other courses offered by the institution, they may benefit from taking part in a larger learning community. Moreover, a catalog that includes alumni could be of interest to students who seek advice on courses they are considering or on future employment.
To facilitate cooperation, a student catalogue should include information that makes it easy to initiate and maintain communication, such as e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, chatting identities, etc. It may also include information on geographical location (e.g., zip codes) to facilitate identification of potential partners for occasional face-to-face meetings. Similarly, it may include progress plan information so that students can identify peers who are working with the same study unit. Finally, one may argue that student catalogues should include CV-type information to make it possible to search for peers who have special competencies.
Student catalogues must address privacy issues appropriately. Some information in student catalogues may be regarded as sensitive and may require student consent. Some students may also be opposed to inclusion in a student catalogue. The challenge is to find the balance between providing as much relevant information as possible to stimulate cooperation without trespassing students’ privacy thresholds. A viable solution is to ask students for permission to make the information available to the staff, to the students enrolled in the actual course, or to all students in all courses.
For Morten the benefits of Student Profiles (NKI’s) Online Catalogue are:
Firstly, it seems like many students appreciate the opportunity to share information about their online course activities with family, friends and colleagues. Others seem to use the presentation as an online CV to support job applications. In any case, most presentations act as favorable personal homepages that focus on the students’ achievements.
Secondly, the catalogue appears to be a valuable resource for NKI. The users are excellent ambassadors for NKI when they share their presentation with others. They provide a lot of relevant information for prospective students and key words for the search engines. All the positive and trustworthy testimonials from current students and teachers will probably have a positive effect on NKI’s future course enrolments.
Thirdly, the fact that so many serious, hard-working and successful students are willing to share achievements and experiences in an open, online catalogue is valuable for the field of online education. Traditionally, distance students tend to be quite invisible compared to other groups of students. They are so dispersed and so busy with their courses, jobs and family obligations that they seldom form action groups or student unions. Online student catalogues may help these students become more visible as a group that deserves more attention.
And the riscks are: Risks: inappropriate content, copyright issues, criticisms from dissatisfied students, student who explore too much personal information. But on the whole have had few issues and problems.
Paulsen believed transparency improves quality, error correction, preventive quality, learning quality. Also it promotes cooperation.
I was curious and went to see some of the Student Profiles (NKI’s) Online Catalogue (http://www.nki.no/pp/EikelandAnette ; http://www.nki.no/pp/SiriKverneland ; http://www.nki.no/pp/kvalvikt ; http://www.nki.no/pp/skogbergetr). I found it interesting to confirm the profile of the majority of students online (employed, married with children, living outside the major cities, who for various reasons did not continue studies when young and now have an opportunity here to do it).
I believe that the disclosure of the profile can encourage other students.
References
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/671/1267
http://home.nki.no/morten/index.php/component/content/article/3-artikler-uten-kommentarer/86-transparency-in-cooperative-online-education.html
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/2340
http://eunis.dk/papers/p41.pdf
http://www.eden-online.org/blog/2008/10/01/profiling-online-students/
12 de dezembro de 2009
Online Teaching: State of the Art (Greg Kearsley)
Online Teaching: State of the Art
Greg Kearsley, University of New England
As instructor-led online classes become increasingly prevalent at colleges, universities and school systems around the world, the issue of online teaching quality is becoming a major topic. There are a lot of sides to this issue including: (1) impact on student achievement, (2) faculty satisfaction, (3) assessing online teaching effectiveness, and (4) how to improve online teaching. Let me say a few words about each of these in turn.
Although I haven’t seen any studies that directly correlate instructor actions with student outcomes, I have reviewed hundreds of course evaluations of online courses over the years and one of the most frequent complaints from students is lack of instructor feedback or involvement in the class. Students expect to get timely and substantive feedback from their instructors on their assignments and they also expect instructors to participate actively in discussion forums, chat sessions or whatever form of interaction exists in the class. While the consequences of a “hands-off” instructor may not affect learning directly, it certainly influences student motivation to do well in an online class and affects their overall performance and attitudes. This is particularly true for students who need extra help with the subject matter or keeping up in an online class.
The question is why don’t some instructors participate fully in their online classes? The answer as far as I can tell is the workload involved. Reading and responding to the discussion postings or assignments generated by a class of 20 or more students requires a considerable amount of time and many faculty see it as an unreasonable workload. In some cases, there may be an issue of not understanding how to respond to students using the particularly technology involved, but I think this is unlikely with today’s easy to use learning tools. A more plausible explanation is that they do not find the kind of limited interaction possible with online learning systems to permit the kind of response they’d like to make to students. At any rate, some instructors asked to teach online classes do not find it satisfying.
On the other hand many instructors like online classes. Most find the opportunity to interact extensively and intensively with students to be very rewarding. To some extent their enjoyment of online classes may derive from use of technology, although this not a prime motivating factor for all faculty. Certainly the convenience factor of being able to teach wherever they like (and whenever in the case of asynchronous systems) is a big attraction. For some faculty, the ability to reach out to students anywhere in the world, and to draw on the global database of resources is exciting. So, online teaching can be very satisfying to a subset of faculty, who are not deterred by the workload issue.
These two opposite reactions to online teaching brings up the issue of evaluating online teaching effectiveness (Roberts, 2006; Williams, Hricko & Howell, 2006). Because faculty range considerably in their skills and motivation to teach online, the results can be quite variable. Administrators of online programs need to monitor the progress of classes to ensure that faculty are participating fully and being responsive to students. (Ironically, this kind of oversight almost never happens in traditional classes.) However, the dilemma is what to measure? The number of responses to students, or the amount of time faculty spend online are data easily available from Learning Management Systems and provide a general measure of course involvement. End of course evaluations can measure student satisfaction and self-ratings of learning accomplishment. But these measurements don’t indicate how well an instructor can get students to interact with each other and engage in the content of the course. It is possible to do this by going through discussion postings and examining feedback messages, but this is very laborious and considered intrusive by faculty. So the measurement of online instructor effectiveness is problematic.
Which brings us to perhaps the most important issue associated with online teaching: how to improve it (Gudea, 2008; Ko, 2010; Palloff & Pratt, 2007). This question assumes that we understand the nature of online teaching well enough to provide unequivocal guidance, which is not the case. But we do know some things: Hands-on practice with the learning system/tools being used is critical; instructors are unlikely to teach well unless they are quite comfortable with the technology involved. Peer support and interaction is important (i.e., faculty like to learn from each other). Learning how to facilitate student interaction is usually the most difficult skill for faculty to learn since its not an element of traditional classroom instruction. So faculty need to practice moderating discussion groups or web conference sessions in which they play a coaching role (“guide on the side versus sage on the stage”). What works best is to have faculty participate in a short online course; understanding what it’s like to be an online learner provides the basis for effective online teaching.
Teaching online is still a new activity for most teachers, although thousands have mastered the art in the past decade or two and it has been extended into many new areas (e.g., Downing & Holtz, 2008; Edmundson, 2007; Rees et al., 2008) As online learning becomes commonplace, the issues discussed in this overview will receive a lot more attention. Eventually, online teaching skills are likely to become the norm. But for now, they require extra attention in terms of training, support and assessment.
References:
Downing, K. & Holtz, J. (2008). Online science learning: Best practices and technologies. Information Science Publishing.
Edmundson, A. (2007). Globalized e-Learning cultural challenges. Information Science Publishing.
Gudea, S.W. (2008). Expectations and demands in online teaching: Practical experiences. Information Science Publishing.
Ko, S. (2010). Teaching online: A practical guide (3rd Ed). Routledge.
Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom (2nd Ed). Jossey-Bass.
Rees, P. et al. (2008). E-Learning for geographers: Online materials, resources, and repositories. Information Science Publishing.
Roberts. T. (2006). Self, peer and group assessment in e-learning. Information Science Publishing.
Williams, D., Hricko, M. & Howell, S. (2006). Online assessment, measurement and evaluation: Emerging practices. Information Science Publishing.
Greg Kearsley, University of New England
As instructor-led online classes become increasingly prevalent at colleges, universities and school systems around the world, the issue of online teaching quality is becoming a major topic. There are a lot of sides to this issue including: (1) impact on student achievement, (2) faculty satisfaction, (3) assessing online teaching effectiveness, and (4) how to improve online teaching. Let me say a few words about each of these in turn.
Although I haven’t seen any studies that directly correlate instructor actions with student outcomes, I have reviewed hundreds of course evaluations of online courses over the years and one of the most frequent complaints from students is lack of instructor feedback or involvement in the class. Students expect to get timely and substantive feedback from their instructors on their assignments and they also expect instructors to participate actively in discussion forums, chat sessions or whatever form of interaction exists in the class. While the consequences of a “hands-off” instructor may not affect learning directly, it certainly influences student motivation to do well in an online class and affects their overall performance and attitudes. This is particularly true for students who need extra help with the subject matter or keeping up in an online class.
The question is why don’t some instructors participate fully in their online classes? The answer as far as I can tell is the workload involved. Reading and responding to the discussion postings or assignments generated by a class of 20 or more students requires a considerable amount of time and many faculty see it as an unreasonable workload. In some cases, there may be an issue of not understanding how to respond to students using the particularly technology involved, but I think this is unlikely with today’s easy to use learning tools. A more plausible explanation is that they do not find the kind of limited interaction possible with online learning systems to permit the kind of response they’d like to make to students. At any rate, some instructors asked to teach online classes do not find it satisfying.
On the other hand many instructors like online classes. Most find the opportunity to interact extensively and intensively with students to be very rewarding. To some extent their enjoyment of online classes may derive from use of technology, although this not a prime motivating factor for all faculty. Certainly the convenience factor of being able to teach wherever they like (and whenever in the case of asynchronous systems) is a big attraction. For some faculty, the ability to reach out to students anywhere in the world, and to draw on the global database of resources is exciting. So, online teaching can be very satisfying to a subset of faculty, who are not deterred by the workload issue.
These two opposite reactions to online teaching brings up the issue of evaluating online teaching effectiveness (Roberts, 2006; Williams, Hricko & Howell, 2006). Because faculty range considerably in their skills and motivation to teach online, the results can be quite variable. Administrators of online programs need to monitor the progress of classes to ensure that faculty are participating fully and being responsive to students. (Ironically, this kind of oversight almost never happens in traditional classes.) However, the dilemma is what to measure? The number of responses to students, or the amount of time faculty spend online are data easily available from Learning Management Systems and provide a general measure of course involvement. End of course evaluations can measure student satisfaction and self-ratings of learning accomplishment. But these measurements don’t indicate how well an instructor can get students to interact with each other and engage in the content of the course. It is possible to do this by going through discussion postings and examining feedback messages, but this is very laborious and considered intrusive by faculty. So the measurement of online instructor effectiveness is problematic.
Which brings us to perhaps the most important issue associated with online teaching: how to improve it (Gudea, 2008; Ko, 2010; Palloff & Pratt, 2007). This question assumes that we understand the nature of online teaching well enough to provide unequivocal guidance, which is not the case. But we do know some things: Hands-on practice with the learning system/tools being used is critical; instructors are unlikely to teach well unless they are quite comfortable with the technology involved. Peer support and interaction is important (i.e., faculty like to learn from each other). Learning how to facilitate student interaction is usually the most difficult skill for faculty to learn since its not an element of traditional classroom instruction. So faculty need to practice moderating discussion groups or web conference sessions in which they play a coaching role (“guide on the side versus sage on the stage”). What works best is to have faculty participate in a short online course; understanding what it’s like to be an online learner provides the basis for effective online teaching.
Teaching online is still a new activity for most teachers, although thousands have mastered the art in the past decade or two and it has been extended into many new areas (e.g., Downing & Holtz, 2008; Edmundson, 2007; Rees et al., 2008) As online learning becomes commonplace, the issues discussed in this overview will receive a lot more attention. Eventually, online teaching skills are likely to become the norm. But for now, they require extra attention in terms of training, support and assessment.
References:
Downing, K. & Holtz, J. (2008). Online science learning: Best practices and technologies. Information Science Publishing.
Edmundson, A. (2007). Globalized e-Learning cultural challenges. Information Science Publishing.
Gudea, S.W. (2008). Expectations and demands in online teaching: Practical experiences. Information Science Publishing.
Ko, S. (2010). Teaching online: A practical guide (3rd Ed). Routledge.
Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom (2nd Ed). Jossey-Bass.
Rees, P. et al. (2008). E-Learning for geographers: Online materials, resources, and repositories. Information Science Publishing.
Roberts. T. (2006). Self, peer and group assessment in e-learning. Information Science Publishing.
Williams, D., Hricko, M. & Howell, S. (2006). Online assessment, measurement and evaluation: Emerging practices. Information Science Publishing.
29 de novembro de 2009
22 de novembro de 2009
Unit 2 - Activity 2
Annotated Bibliography
From the research I conducted about online teaching techniques two articles highlight from Flute Morten Paulsen, that give us an insight teaching methods and techniques for computer-mediated-communication (CMC) and an overview of possible pedagogical CMC techniques.
In the first article, Morten Paulsen give an overview os pedagogical and possible pedagogical techniques for CMC.
In the second article the author addresses such important issues as methods, techniques and devices for CMC.
In the article "Preparing K-12 Teachers to Teach Online", Greg Kearsley and Robert Blomeyer, describe some of the issues associated with preparing school teachers to teach online. While the focus of the discussion is K-12, most of these issues also apply to higher education faculty and instructors in the training domain.
I enjoyed this article because it employs a simple and clear language that becomes easily understandable.
Here's another article that I found interesting because it gives us information how to manage teacher workload, focusing on aspects such as: time management, information management and technologies.
All the articles I found and spoke of online teacher workload, reported that the time spent by a online teacher is greater. One can almost say that an online course, the teacher is available 24 hours, 7 days a week. Here the time management is very important.
Another key aspect is the tools that the teacher has at is disposal. It should always be updated and know how to use them to improve the quality of the online course.
In this blog we can find a list of tools of Web 2.0. The author organized this list after and then we can see that in http://hubpages.com/hub/Education20 .
25 de outubro de 2009
The Theory of Cooperative Freedom
The Cooperative Theory of Freedom combines the strenghs of individual learning with collaborative learning. On the one hand the flexibility and individual freedom is the most important in individual learning, on the other hand it lacks the enrichment that the exchange of experiences and discussion can provide and that can be given by cooperative learning. Furthermore it enhances the mutual help and the positive reinforcement.
In general, cooperative learning requires virtual learning environments that enable students to have freedom within individual communities (groups) of online learning.
Thus, cooperative learning is only possible through the existence of the network, and social networking tools available to stakeholders (students, teachers and intitutions),
The use of the network and its tools are important because they provide space and tools to collaborate, store and display the work done and allow to recommend, organize, add notes and approve resources that other members have created and shared.
The quality of the final work and the level of knowledge acquired by participants will tend to increase with cooperative learning. The sharing and discussion on constrution extend the knowledge of all the stakeholders.
However, in order to accept and foster cooperative learning there has to be a change of mindset. It is necessary to recognize its advantages, including the increasing of knowledge provide by sharing its construction.
24 de outubro de 2009
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