Week 16 Blog

What did you learn? What will you do with it? Why does online matter or should we just end it all right now? Be specific or less so.

This class was of value to me not only for the various vantage points of online learning theory but it afforded me the opportunity to see first hand how certain online learning environments work. Admittedly, I have limited experience in many online learning environments. My primary weakness is in the gaming realm of Internet based social interaction. Until this class, I had never seen first hand or used Second Life or World of Warcraft. Therefore, I could not give an honest reason as to the value it adds to education.

Although, I did not enjoy the online gaming/social interaction environment personally, I can see their benefit to an online learning ecosystem. I will take my experience with these games to see weakness and strengths they add to learning.

Online learning, although flawed in some areas, is essentially a blank canvas in the world of research. There are many areas that need improvement and some areas of success. These strengths and weaknesses are what is important to analyze as researchers. Technology is dynamic area that is consistently subject to paradigm shifts “Throwing in the towel” on online learning is not an option. It will be here no matter what. It is our job as academicians and researchers to improve on the product that delivers a message to learners.

Week 14 Blog

What do you think the future of educational games are? Can we actual study them sufficiently to determine if they can actually impact learning? Why or why not? Are these things you feel are going to be beneficial or will there be a backlash?

In this era of technology game developers, academic professionals and researchers have seated on the same table and are collaborating data generation with respect to game play and its responsive work through. The data that these researchers are now collecting are based on feedback reciprocated by players rooted in the insight of player psychology (Robinson, 2001).

Within the precincts of a decade, gaming in education has undergone extensive and growing research commotion to model players perceptibly, analyzing real time and ongoing research data from game and activates happening throughout. In its report of the academic competitiveness, the U.S. Department of Education was quoted saying that small scale studies such as this create a:

“critical pathway for the development of successful educational interventions and activities, starting generally with small-scale studies to test new ideas and generate hypotheses, leading to increasingly larger and more rigorous studies to test the effect of a given intervention or activity on a variety of studies and in a variety of settings”                                          (USDoE, p. 13, 2007).

In consideration of this type of learning that uses GBL, the research is dissevered to determine any relationships amidst diverse qualities that may depicted through player actions, inclinations, impact on singularity, and other gained scholarship through game play.

In several new findings from the research on sculpturing the involvement of an in game performance and an out of game approach are noticed. Schell (2011) suggests learning exists with reference to the persona category some of the game players pursue, in way that a player selects some sort of character demeanor in the boundaries of a virtual world associate considerably to the real life choices and the code of conduct that person/student manages. The motivation is one of the traits that is most linked to the real life persona the player have.

My experience with the game World of Warcraft (WOW) was quite disheartening. During the download to my computer it took four hours to set up an account and download. That is over and above the time it took to explore and get acclimated to the tool of which I still didn’t understand well enough by class time for it to be fully effective. Using tools like WOW is a quick way to isolate your users to those who can afford a high powered computer or to schools that have funds that can afford the infrastructure it takes to run such a system effectively.

During class I could not get past level three although level ten was the goal. At some point after three and a half hours of playing I inadvertently clicked something (I know not what it was) and it reset me to level one. I was filled with disappointment and frustration with the game when this happened. After class I took the opportunity to enlist help from someone who was very familiar with the game. This person was twenty years my junior. Two decades younger made the difference of the vantage point of gaming. To me it was overwhelming and I felt that I was experiencing cognitive overload. The environment, rich in color, detail, and sound captivated my attention and led me off the objective I was trying to complete. For someone like myself, whatever age they may be, there would be a need for an intensive training prior to the lesson in order for this tool to be a effective.

The idea of discerning knowledge through GBL is a great notion if it is well planned and thought out prior to the use in class. If students are as confused as I was on the use of the tool the message will be lost while the students are trying to master the maneuvering within the game. This would hold true of any game that is implemented within a certain pedagogy. In order to avoid backlash and failure the instructor must insure that students are properly trained regarding the game and how to use it prior to using it as an educational tool.

Week 13 Blog

What did you learn from your experience using social media and other open source tools? Should they be used for teaching and learning? Tell the story of what you learned.

(Borrowed from week 12 blog as it is applicable to week 13 blog)

One fallacy of using social media as a tool for learning is that it may provide a controlled environment with a particular confine of a particular software, I retort, control is a myth. For example, controlling what conversations people have or what they say on the phone or in emails is impossible. Similarly, one can’t control what happens in social media. Having said that, online networking really furnishes associations with more perceivability about what is, no doubt said, and likewise gives the chance to address any mistaken informing.  Compare Wikipedia where different clients balance erroneous data rapidly.  The need to be in control, be that as it may, is a profound authoritative issue.

As opposed to utilizing stand-alone instruments to give social networking practicality, an equivalent alternative is to introduce a coordinated effort suite or stage, which coordinates various key social advances like wikis, websites, RSS channels, social bookmarking and record imparting and additionally client profiling, in one spot inside the association. In spite of the fact that the practicality of each of the distinct segments of a collaboration platform may not frequently be as advanced as committed, stand-alone items, it does give different preferences.

My personal preference is a combination, or blended, platform of open source social medial learning. The primary factoid in teaching is conveying a message. A learner must correctly receive said message in order for positive learning outcomes to be achieved. In our class, I feel we have successfully illustrated this method by combining a mixture of face-to-face meetings with the utilization of an open source CMS and blogging tools. The weeks that were strictly asynchronous were much more mottled when it was time for receiving the message. It was discombobulated and lacked continuity. The lack of emotion in typed text is often hard to understand.

With that being said, using these tools for message dissemination is a great opportunity for the learning community. Our class experiment during week 12 utilizing Facebook and Twitter, as our primary means of communication for learning was extremely difficult. The dissemination of knowledge was wonderful however trying to carry out a continuous, fruitful, and meaningful conversation proved to be quite difficult for me. If not for the hashtag earmarking our comments in Twitter the message would have been completely lost among my personal connections and followers. Since these apps are loaded on my smartphone, it was a constant annoyance when I received a multitude of notification rings throughout the day.

Integrating Twitter or another microblogging platform into the CMS may increase initial use adoption but if it were a requirement of the class I would hypothesize that the usage rate would rapidly decline during the course of the class. This may imply a serious concern for intertwining social networking with classroom participation. This may be merely indicative of the age range of our class and it may prove that younger generations may be more receiving of the idea of utilizing Twitter as a means of communication within a class.

Utilizing Twitter in a K12 environment that is controlled and supervised may afford some benefits. To start because of the popularity it may be an initial attention grabber for students therefore increasing participation. By conducting communication within a controlled classroom environment, teachers can teach by example how to use social media in a responsible manner. It will not control what is being said outside the classroom walls and on personal sites but it is a start of leading by example.

Many users are more comfortable behind the shield of a keyboard than voicing their opinions in person. Hence the popularity of chat rooms and dating sites evolving from the 80s. Some students may be more apt to share their opinion or information within the confines of a social media platform rather than the face-to-face environment of the traditional classroom. This may also afford a 24/7 learning environment for students allowing for learning on the move.

In searching how Twitter was being used in education I ran across this chart about the use of Twitter for learning based on Bloom’s Taxonomy. Providing this graphic, TeachByte attempts to illustrate meaningful and effective ways to use Twitter in an educational learning environment.

(http://teachbytes.com/2013/03/25/22-ways-to-use-twitter-with-blooms-taxonomy/)

The idea of streamlined content such as using Twitter lists and concise conversation or bullet-point facts catered toward assisting student learning would be beneficial, especially in a K12 environment. Although educators should be mindful that Twitter isn’t exclusively an educational tool, so keeping students focused on it as a facilitator of educational knowledge or feedback could be a challenge.

Maybe a platform other than Twitter than affords more control such as Edmodo, may be better suited for a K12 environment. Instructors can control it by setting up groups for specific classes, projects, clubs, etc. There is an APP for Edmodo and students can stay connected to their classroom 24/7.

Whatever the preference of the education institution, online learning is here and gaining popularity because of many reasons including ability to reach more people at anytime. Finding effective tools to utilize with the CMS is vital to the survival of a successful program. Possibly over the next few years, as CMSs develop and incorporate the ability to contribute to social networking sites from within, use will increase. However, for now, it would seem discussion boards are the place keep in-class participation. In the mean time, possible future areas for research on this topic include: demographics of students using Twitter in class, the program of study in relationship to the participation of Twitter, the effect of Twitter on hybrid education and an analysis of how instructors are using Twitter in courses.

 

Week 12 Blog

How useful do you find the open source tools and social media for learning? Is it your personal preference that drives this or the affordances? Would they be useful for others if you find it lacking? What would make them more useful?

Social networking is constantly used to enhance engagement in classrooms or online courses. Its use changes from integrating social exercises within existing online lessons to a completely synergistic methodology for teaching and learning by affording the participant the opportunity for full and active inclusion. This type of learning may be evidenced in Formal Structured Learning (FSL), Personal Directed Learning (PDL), or Group Directed Learning (GDL).

Benefits of such learning pedagogies are found in the option of open source tools to acquire various social media software for implementation. Not at all like paid programming, open source programming, permits the client access to the source code and are accordingly equipped to change it as stated by your needs.

In spite of the fact that open source programming is allowed for free download, clients are liable to licenses, which give licensees the right to duplicate, alter and redistribute source code, yet might additionally force a few commitments on them, for instance alterations to the code that are appropriated must be made accessible in source code structure.

Users of social media are often criticized for the lack of structure and at times accused of wasting time. Many studies show, individuals are accessing it on their own mobile devices. Why not harness this and use it in our classrooms, physical and virtual? Clark Quinn (2010) refers to this as taking a “social media cigarette break”, where employees often have to leave the building in order to connect with their personal and professional networks.

Building collaborative library of course links or other resources, such as done in SearchTeam allows classmates to easily work in collaborative groups without physically meeting on a consistent basis. Other uses of social media for learning may include:

• Blogging (WordPress)
• Podcasting (Audacity)
• RSS readers (Google Reader)
• Micro-sharing services (Twitter)
• Photo sharing (Instagram)
• Presentation sharing (Slideshare)
• Screencast sharing (Skype)
• Video Sharing (YouTube)
• Social Bookmarking (Reddit)
• Collaborative calendaring (Google Calendar)
• Collaborative documents (Google Docs)
• Collaborative workspaces (Google Docs)

One fallacy of using social media as a tool for learning is that it may provide a controlled environment with a particular confine of a particular software, I retort, control is a myth. For example, controlling what conversations people have or what they say on the phone or in emails is impossible. Similarly, one can’t control what happens in social media. Having said that, online networking really furnishes associations with more perceivability about what is, no doubt said, and likewise gives the chance to address any mistaken informing.  Compare Wikipedia where different clients balance erroneous data rapidly.  The need to be in control, be that as it may, is a profound authoritative issue.

As opposed to utilizing stand-alone instruments to give social networking practicality, an equivalent alternative is to introduce a coordinated effort suite or stage, which coordinates various key social advances like wikis, websites, RSS channels, social bookmarking and record imparting and additionally client profiling, in one spot inside the association. In spite of the fact that the practicality of each of the distinct segments of a collaboration platform may not frequently be as advanced as committed, stand-alone items, it does give different preferences.

My personal preference is a combination, or blended, platform of open source social medial learning. The primary factoid in teaching is conveying a message. A learner must correctly receive said message in order for positive learning outcomes to be achieved. In our class, I feel we have successfully illustrated this method by combining a mixture of face-to-face meetings with the utilization of an open source CMS and blogging tools. The weeks that were strictly asynchronous were much more mottled when it was time for receiving the message. It was discombobulated and lacked continuity. The lack of emotion in typed text is often hard to understand.

With that being said, using these tools for message dissemination is a great opportunity for the learning community.

Week 11 Blog

Are you as far along with your article as you would like? What is next? What has been difficult? Easy? What kinds of feedback did you receive and how will you act upon it?

Since we are behind on the semester schedule no article has been done as of yet. If there was an article I would expect that it would be difficult to write it avoiding bias and uncertainty in content. In the future, for any publications that I may be involved in I may see that I have peers review before submitting any drafts. Seeking advice as an amateur and absorbing any advice that may be given by peers or mentors would be the path I follow in successfully writing for publication.

Week 8 Blog

What is your personal perspective on the best manner of designing instruction for online teaching and learning? What is your process? Does it match any existing methods? If so, which? How did you learn to design instruction? Does your process for designing instruction match your larger theoretical perspective? Where is it the same? Where does it diverge? What are  instructional design methods that are specifically for online learning and teaching?

My personal perspective on the best manner of designing instruction for online teaching and learning is to be mindful of your audience, understand various ways to communicate your message via Internet technology, and understand that the content you are teaching should not be delivered in one package (i.e. varied instructional methods). Personally I liked the R2D2 Model introduced by Bonk and Zhang (2006). However, I was confused about their reference to addressing “learning styles” and “learning preferences.” Although as an educator spanning over the past two decades I was formally trained that learning styles were a valid idea and teachers should be mindful of varied learning styles when designing curriculum, recently it’s been brought to my attention that there is no empirical evidence that proves such a thing.

I have been a classroom practitioner and have very little experience with designing curriculum for online learning. However, the Bonk and Zhang R2D2 method mirrors my approach to designing instruction for a face-to-face method of course delivery and my theory of online teaching and learning. Both must be mindful of the four quadrants; read, reflect, display, and do. The divergent point of my theoretical perspective of instructional design for online learning versus face-to-face learning is the lack of ability to read emotion or body language when assessing for understanding during the content delivery.

In online learning assessment is often done in a manner that is based on deliverables, quizzes, or discussion. This often does not afford the instructor the ability to physically see the faces of their students during the course of lecture or discussion. Emotion and body language can be a very valuable thing when communicating and understanding others; especially understanding a student’s comprehension before they are completely lost and cannot catch up in the content.

Instructional Design Methods Specifically for Online Teaching and Learning:

1) Action Research (http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/past/nlc2002/proceedings/papers/02.htm)

“The purpose of applying action research to the development process was to direct the development in a structured way, as a way to learn about learning and teaching on-line in an institution whose dominant activity is face-to-face teaching, to build up a body of local knowledge about using action research for the development of on-line courses, and to provide an example of action research to help in professional development for practitioners of on-line learning. The model of action research adopted was that described by McConnell (2000, p.122) as “action learning” or “action learning or research”. He describes the process as posing and diagnosing a problem, which leads to conceiving a series of action steps required to investigate the problem that are then implemented. The outcomes of the implementation are evaluated, and this leads to the re-examination of the issues involved and a new cycle is initiated.”

2) R2D2 Method (http://edtech-insights.blogspot.com.es/2012/05/r2d2-good-bonk-re-think-before.html)

Read, Reflect, Display, and Do. Breaking content into four quadrants. They “can be utilized separately or as part of a problem-solving process.”

3) RLO (Reusable Learning Object)

Related to instructional design theories associated with breaking down content to constituent parts, then reassembling content to meet learning goals. Designers should balance two perspectives: a) conceptualizing content as a part of a larger whole (such as a course and/or curriculum), and b) as a stand-alone information at the desired level of granularity. RLO is object based (designed to accomplish a single learning objective), context free (content, media and interactivity are combined), interactive (engages learners), self-descriptive, format free. (Reece, 2009) – A Reusable Learning Object Model for Elementary Mathematics

(more instructional design methods to come. author has been traveling for almost 48 hours with no sleep. sorry.)

Week 7 Blog

Based on your experience putting your lesson into the Canvas LMS, what do you feel are the benefits of using such a structured space for teaching and learning? How well does the structure of an LMS fit with your theory of online learning? 

My lesson was an introductory lesson on creating an animated bouncing ball. The structured space in Canvas allowed a sequential learning experience for the learner. However, this may not be an optimal learning experience for some students.

Animation is the act of making an inanimate object appear to move using the persistence of vision theory. This is easily demonstrated in a face-to-face classroom environment because the instructor can physically demonstrate by using post-it notes to demonstrate a flipbook. By reading his students to gauge understanding he can further demonstrate if necessary or move on to the next objective in teaching principles of animation. Trying to teach this in a structured online LMS setting may hinder any knowledge and understanding the learner may have.

Although I found Canvas to be quite intuitive, there was still a large learning curve for me to overcome before I felt comfortable posting a viable lesson that would make any sense to a student. This time consuming step made it difficult to create a lesson that was very hands-on for learners and instead I found myself typing step-by-step instructions and posting tutorial videos and graphics to convey the objectives of the lesson.

As a social constructivist that feels learning is best practiced in a problem-based/project-based atmosphere, the LMS online format seems to restrict this idea to some extent. There was the project-based element but collaborative learning and instructor facilitation was inadequate in my opinion. I felt curriculum design and implementation to be an easier task than navigating my way around the LMS and creating a lesson that had continuity and wasn’t confusing to the learner. Thankfully, my partner in the project, had experience with LMSs and was able to assist in adding content to the lesson page. I did find it difficult to create a formal assessment (quiz) because I didn’t understand how to create it on Canvas. I think that a formal training on the use of the LMS would have boosted my confidence level and saved time in the long run while building a strong lesson that created positive learning outcomes.

Week 6 Blog

How hard is it to develop a research method that both matches your theory and created curriculum? What was simple and what was difficult? 

The absence of educational theory in developing a curriculum model could be compared to backwards development design. Designing curriculum with no underpinning theories could create lessons that lack strength and foundation to afford positive learning outcomes. Yet many instructors, especially in K-12 environments, continue to create lesson plans based on premade lessons from textbooks or simply creative ideas that they think of themselves. Although these lessons may be strong and yield positive outcomes there is often no substantiality to provide a reason as to why they may be a strong lesson. It remains to be explored if this is derived from educators being so embedded in their educational practice that these theories are second nature to them or whether there is a lack of awareness of underpinning theories to begin with.

Learning is a continuous debate as to how people learn. What is known, however, are how certain systems are derived to train one to transfer information into permanent knowledge. Memorization theories, for example, have evolved over time to suggest that elaborative rehearsal is needed to connect objectives to what is already known, therefore affording assimilation into the mind of new knowledge (Lin & Vitter, 1994). Ebbinghaus’ original theory of memory (1885) was that memory was fixed by rehearsal — by simply repeating the item to be remembered.  But we now know that maintenance rehearsal, just repeating something to ourselves, like we would a name or telephone number, is not sufficient to encode that item in long-term memory — which is why, if we’re interrupted, the thing we’re rehearsing goes right down the mental drain.

As a long-time educator, I found myself relying on experience rather than theory to create lesson plans. As I researched theory, I found elements of the curriculum that I developed that could fit into each section. Later, as our instructor pointed out, as a novice in academia (i.e. student or early PhD) one should find a theory that best fits the paradigm in which our own personal learning theory fits rather than pull from multiple theories. When designing my lesson plan, I didn’t consider any underlying mechanisms or testability that could prove WHY I expected learning to occur. Instead I simply stated that learning would occur. By providing an inherently logical and coherent theory I could prove the why instead of creating plans based on assumptions. This would insure the testability factor or make it “falsifiable” according to Karl Popper.

 

Week 5 Blog

Write a reflection on the feedback you received from peers and instructor. What do you agree with? Why? What do you disagree with? Why? How has this experience changed or not changed your perspective on your theory?

Feedback was limited to instructor only for my presentation. With the exception of compliments from peers there was not real feedback given. I expect that with time constraints given from last week this upcoming week’s meeting will afford more time for reflection and suggestions from peers.

At the onset of my presentation, although I had checked my equipment prior to connecting to the group, my microphone wasn’t working. Troubleshooting at the last minute and under the pressure of beginning my presentation made it more difficult to assess the problem. By suggestion of my instructor I typed my dialogue portion of my presentation. My typing skills yield high words per minute average so I could type fairly smoothly without much pause in between slides.

Another problem with my presentation was the way the slides were displayed once I uploaded them. Text was juxtaposed and the slides didn’t appear as they were when I originally created the presentation.  This was a distraction when trying to present in a smooth manner. Last minute adjustments to my pre-rehearsed presentation were made to overcome the upset of the display.

In online learning and teaching technology is a key portion of the process. The tools used do not have a fail-proof method of consistent checks against technical failures. What works one minute may not work for some reason or another in the next. This must be taken into consideration when preparing to teach or learn in an online setting. There must always be a “Plan B” and even a “Plan C” when preparing material for online learning in the event of a technical failure.

This week has been quite challenging for me to gather my thoughts into a linear video that made since. I’ve come up with a title for my personal learning theory; Integrated Online Learning Theory (IOLT).  As you will hear in the video it is compilation of three different learning theories.