Wondering if online learning is for you?

 Baffled by all the hype?

 How do you tell the difference between a good online course and a bad one?

Look no further, this post offers advice for when you decide to look for an exceptional online experience. It was derived from information I gleaned from the excellent PLS online course “Facilitating Online Classes Online.” This might sound a bit redundant, but the course focused on teaching participants how to become excellent online facilitators. And in the world of online learning it’s all about the facilitation. A well designed, welcoming online environment taught by a competent instructor can make the difference between a so-so online experience or a dynamic and enriching experience.       So let’s get started.

FIRST AND FOREMOST:

1)      Shop around – see what available, and check to make sure your computer and you are both ready to give online learning a try. Good online schools will tell you up front what try of computer skills you will need and give you the specs. for what type of computer is required

2)      Make sure you can drop-out and get your money back. A good online school will let you try the environment for at least a week or two (just like drop/add in face-to-face Universities) before you sign on for the entire class. Take a look at all the information available to you, in order to make the best decision.

THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO LOOK FOR DURING THE DROP/ADD PERIOD:

Who’s who….

Check the facilitators profile

• Qualifications?
• Easy to contact? (email & phone)

Check for help

• Adequate tutorials? (written, visual, audio)
• Help desk? (24/7)

 Tone and Voice….

Check for various ways to communicate

•  messages – announcements -  personal emails?
• blogs – wikis – chat rooms – bulletin boards?

Check announcements and opening statement

• engaging and energetic?
• sets clear expectations? 

Response and Intervention…..

Check facilitators response to your work

• timely responses?
• positive and supportive?
• clearly explains any points lost?
• uses a variety of rubrics to evaluate?

Check facilitators response to the class

• fairly mediates the discussion?
• offers adequate wrap-up to lessons?
• maintains an equitable and non-threatening dialog among students?
• reacts quickly and decisively if discussion gets out of hand?

Building and Maintaining Community….

Check for various ways to accomplish tasks

• allows for the use of a variety of mediums to present information – visual, audio, interactive?
• allows students to participate in both self-evaluation and graded assignments?
• includes individual and group activities?

Check presentation of course information

• information presented in various formats? (audios, videos, interactive)
• information presented is unbiased?
• design of course allows for cultural differences?

It might be difficult to decide if all of these competencies are being met after only a week or two of interaction. But if the course is lacking in the any of the first three areas – Who’s Who – Tone and Voice – Response and Intervention (or lack there of) – you may want to reconsider. Or at the very least share your doubts with your facilitator; this may be all it takes to make the connection that you need. If not then it’s time to disconnect from the course.

Hope this helps!

GLOBALIZATION:

“The inexorable integration of markets, nation-states, and technologies to a degree never witnessed before in a way that is enabling individuals , corporations and nation-states to reach around the world farther, faster, deeper and cheaper than ever before…the spread of free-market capitalism to virtually every country in the world.” [3]

 Globalization will continue to drive the changes occurring in society and ultimately education. We will no longer be teaching to a classroom of students but rather a community of learners, that will be very diverse and at times very distant. Hybrid classes, consisting of a combination of face-to-face and online learning will be the norm. And students will pursue subjects and courses of study that will be limited only by their imagination and the ability of their institution to provide Skype or other Distance learning opportunities. Melville Dewey could not, in his wildest dreams envision  the changes that are at our threshold. Nonetheless, I have to think that he would welcome these changes with open arms, just as I do.

From the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the dissolution of the former USSR, the Unification of the European market, to an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire, and a successful Olympics held in Communist China -  all heralded the new Global Community. Wall Street can no longer afford to ignore the growing economies of India, China, and even South America. And education can no longer afford to ignore the competition for jobs that will accompany this new global prosperity. To retain our position as a world leader we must continue to produce a highly educated, highly motivated and highly adaptable work force; that is the task that we, as educators, now face. And how quickly and efficiently we respond to the task will set the stage for our future. That’s where technology comes into play. This is nothing new, our homegrown giants of industry have always known that technology was the key to innovation and growth. And the 21^st Century will be no different in that respect. What will be different is the fact that we will not only use technology to produce goods, but also to help us to learn and to help us generate more knowledge. Learning and technology will take on a much more symbiotic relationship in the very near future.

The School Library of the future will look drastically different than it does now. For one thing the traditional “reference room” will no longer hold books, but rather comfortable seating and wireless laptops that can access databases, the web and multiple ebooks. Server space will be provided for students so that they can seamlessly access their content portfolios from any computer, at any time. The computers themselves will have evolved, becoming lighter, smaller, faster, cheaper and quite possibly flexible and waterproof. (Trade shows are already showing running shoes with integrated wireless computer chips that will help runners set their pace with remote partners. [4] ) The reference room would also host Skype stations, video and audio editing booths and ideally could be easily reconfigured into an LGI area for group media presentations. (Movable, dais sections of reclining theatre seats perhaps?) The general reading area would still offer a quiet, comfortable area complete with books for recreational reading. Small seminar rooms would be available to schedule for book discussions and poetry readings. The library would offer downloadable books, both audio and print as well as readers and iPods that could be checked out for use. Touchscreen kiosks would offer an array of newspaper and magazine titles for patron use and downloading would be available free or at a nominal fee. Of course all materials would check out through the student’s individual laptop and any fees or fines would be automatically deducted from their debit account.

The teaching of information literacy skills would also be offered in new and exciting ways. Hybrid courses with online and face-to-face components would replace the standard en masse multi-day research quests. Tutorials in downloadable podcasts and webcasts would be available on the library web site for everything from search strategies to downloading directions. RRS feeds and aggregators would send constantly updated information to the flat screen panels throughout the facility and would interface with student’s laptops and cell phones. All students would be required to take at least two semesters of Information Literacy skills in conjunction with either language arts, social studies, science or technology education. These classes would be facilitated by teams of educators from content areas and Teacher/Librarians. The lessons would be built around the four competency of:

INFORMATION LITERACY

• Inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge
• Draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations, and create new knowledge
• Share knowledge and participate ethically and productively as members of our democratic society
• Pursue personal aesthetic growth

Combining information literacy with core classes would result in a total integration of these skills, something Librarians have been striving for since the 1980’s. The use of social networking and collaborative technologies would allow the team members and students to interact and share knowledge at a much higher level. Partnerships could be forged with business and industry for expertise, with college and universities for research and with peers from other countries to expand global thinking. By 2020 this type of teaching would be the norm and not just the domain of a few individuals. Of course team teaching is not a new concept, but it is a markedly difference approach to the traditional classroom. Teachers and Librarians in 2020 will no longer hold onto the idea of “my” class, “my” classroom or “my” library. Everything will become “ours.”

Students will look at education differently as well. School will not longer have the same 7:30 to 2:30 hold over their lives. But along with this new found freedom will come new found responsibilities. Gone are days of quietly sitting (or sleeping) in the back of room and only participating for tests and quizzes. In an online environment everyone must share. And gone are the days of writing as little and as poorly as possible, online publishing, be it posts, comments or thesis will require mastery. And gone are the days of uncompromising and at times unfair demonstrations of “content knowledge.” Finally education will be able to level the playing field and allow all learning styles to prove their competency. Personal portfolios will house student work in a vast array of mediums: visual, auditory, demonstrative, graphic, verbal, cinematic. All students will finally have their chance to shine.

I believe the year 2020 will also demonstrate a new connectedness. Be it theory or pedagogy George Siemen’s predictions of the emergence of global connectivity will come to pass. Thanks to this class and all of you, I think I’ll be ready.

[5]

“Knowledge and learning are forefront in the progress and advancement of humanity. At no other time in history have we stood before as rich a panorama of opportunity as we do today. Our access to information, knowledge, global conversation, research, and the experiences of generations past provide a firm foundation on which to build the society of tomorrow.” [6]

–George Siemans

Unlinked Resources:

[3] T.L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, 1999, p. 7-8

So as web 2.0 continues explode across cyberspace I’ll continue to try and stir up interest in using these wonderful tools.  Who knows maybe I’ll wind up with a virtual library….a virtual “cybrarian.”

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools

        for  Classrooms (2nd ed., p. 134). Thousand Oaks, CA: Crown Press.

But going paperless in a public high school could present some new challenges for teachers. First, some classes would be more easily adapted to paperless than others. Special software needs for math and science classes and the potential for copyright infringement for much of the literature that is available online could present issues. (Meyer and Grey of course didn’t have to worry about this since there are free versions of ancient literature available at Project Gutenberg and other sites.) And if these problems were overcome then there is the potential for hardware and software issues. I’m afraid a teacher in a paperless class would have to be very comfortable in a virtual world and have the ability to troubleshoot some tech problems. So being “cyber-comfortable” would be a new role for paperless class teachers. Also there is the problem of equitable access, not all students would have high speed internet access at home, or even a working computer. Even now, when teachers require students to do online work they have to take into account hardware and software malfunctions.

But for sake of argument I’ll pretend all of the above issues have been overcome. If this is the case then I believe learning could be greatly enhanced in a paperless environment. By including audio and video in projects, along with a generous amount of creativity, the class would be relevant to all learning styles. It would certainly be easy to share student work with their parents. And of course the connectivity student to student, student to instructor(s) and student to expert would be ideal.

I don’t think much would change in terms of measuring outcomes. Perhaps some new rubrics would need to be designed, but most of the rubrics currently in use for presentations could be modified to fit the paperless environment. And most teachers already do use some sort of online testing feature. I know in our District Quia is used by many for quizzes and pre-tests. And for editing purposes all of our students are already required to submit research papers electronically through turnitin.com, and they do this for revisions as well as the final paper.

Whether or not a paperless environment would enhance or hinder the building of a learning network would depend greatly on the teacher and the subject being taught. Again, if the teacher was comfortable with a cyber environment, and the students were prepared with functioning hardware and software at school and home the learning network has the potential to be phenomenal. But if the teacher is not on board, or the students experience problems and frustrations with hardware/software a paperless environment simply would not work.

Yesterday I set it up, played around with the software and connections and connected to my colleague at the Senior High. (okay, I had to have my tech facilitator there because you needed “Admin” rights to download some software) and sure I could have phoned or walked over to see Nancy, but this one small feat has opened a brand new opportunity for me and more importantly my students. (It was new to Nancy too!)

Skype is an ideal medium for author visits. The Skype and Author Network has an entire list of Young Adult and Children’s authors that offer Skype visits. Basically they offer two types of visits:

• No Charge – Meet the Author Visits – 10 to 15 minutes
• In-Depth Visits – Time and fee determined by each author 

For our over-stretched budgets the short option couldn’t be better. And if the library club does a little fund raising they can choose an author they would like to invite for an in-depth visit. I’m really looking forward to sharing this site with my club at our March meeting.

I’m already thinking of possible ways to use Skype in my library. When I think back to all the wonderful authors I’ve had the privilege of meeting and hearing speak at librarian events I know the power of connecting a face and a personality to an author. This is what I want to share this with my students. And who knows, this could be the one event, the one book that turns a child into a life long reader. It’s a wonderful tool for reading advocacy and literary discussion and I intend to incorporate it as much as possible into the library curriculum.

Here is a list of some other sites that offer Skype events.

Virtual Book Tours: (in second life and other virtual worlds)

http://www.writersinthevirtualsky.com/the-new-way-for-authors-to-meet-readers-promote-books-virtual-book-tours/

Google Lit Trips: (combines literature and geography lessons)

http://www.googlelittrips.com/GoogleLit/Home.html

Virtual White Boards (to set up illustrator demos)

http://www.scriblink.com/

If you need more information or ideas for using Skype try these blogs.

Skype Blog

http://share.skype.com/sites/en/

The fischbowl – Karl Fisch – 9^th grade English teacher

http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2009/01/whole-new-learning-experience-take-two.html

With these limiters in mind, I would like take exception to groups B’s final statement that “FACT – Connectivism IS a learning theory!” While their page is beautifully laid out and well-organized they have failed to refute the evidence offered by academic scholars from around the world that have taken exception to Siemens claim that he has established a new “learning theory.”

First, Verhagen, from the University of Twente concludes that “the questions that Siemens presents are not to be placed at the instructional level, but at the level of the curriculum”, and therefore represent pedagogy not theory.
Source:
Connectivism: a new learning theory?

Second, Bill Kerr, Australian information technology teacher, author of a variety of articles about learning philosophy and creator/contributor of the Learning Evolves wiki, [http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/ ] concludes:

“Connectivism does contribute to a general world outlook but we already have theories and manifestos for that view (systems theory, chaos theory, network theory, cluetrain manifesto), so we don’t need a new -ism in this respect.”
source
A Challenge to connectivism

Third, Rita Kop of the University of Wales Swansea and Adrian Hill of Open School BC, Canada state that:

“A paradigm shift, indeed, may be occurring in educational theory, and a new epistemology may be emerging, but it does not seem that connectivism’s contributions to the new paradigm warrant it being treated as a separate theory in and of its own right. Connectivism, however, continues to play an important role in the development and emergence of new pedagogies, where control is shifting from the tutor to an increasingly more autonomous learner.”
source
Connectivism: Learning Theory or vestige of the past?

After reading the papers of these learned scholars I would have to agree that while Siemens presents an excellent pedagogy for connective and collaborative learning, he fails to solidify his claim that it is a new learning theory.

I debated about which one pod cast I would suggest for my students and I finally decided on a podcast designed by graduate students in the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University. They actually have an entire series of helpful podcasts, but the podcast I chose introduces the listener to shelfari a web 2.0 tool that creates a virtual book shelf. I do have a core of serious readers that frequent the library and I thought I would introduce them to this amazing software. They will able to review, rate and even discuss and share their comments or link their bookshelf to facebook. (Of course they will have to link to facebook at home the site is blocked at school.) We have two “activity” periods per week, 20 minute in length, during which I can host sessions that highlight this site.

I found this podcast to be very informative, a good length (under 5 minutes), and it introduces a product that many of my students will enjoy. Several of my avid readers keep reading journals and others that are big series readers have trouble remember which books they have read and which they still need to read. Shelfari can help them to stay organized and promote reading in general.

The link to this podcast is:
http://amazon.sjsu.edu/html-df246b7/spring2009/Cooltools/Cooltools_episode_60.mp3

Exquisitur. (2008, December 31). Old Faithful, Wyoming. Exquisitur’s Photostream. Retrieved February 16, 2010, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/exquisitur/3168739008/in/set-72157612119939515/

So in answer to the question…. What did I learn from the wiki project? I learned what a wiki was and how it worked, I learned that I am not too old, or digitally challenged to participate as a wiki contributor, and I learned how nice it is to have friends that jump right in and see the project through. It was a challenge but for the most part an enjoyable one.