Well not at many institutions, including mine. I am presently taking an online course on preparing online courses and last week there has been robust discussion about learning environments. The main discussion was on the affordances of using discussions in VLEs and much was said about the additional tools that enable the management of discussions such as tracking, conditional release, summarising, archiving and the integration within learning and teaching. There were, also, some comments about VLE's being perceived as learning space where as other resources e.g. Facebook is seen as social space. I do think that these issues are worth of consideration but I do think that VLE vendors could do some work on interface design to make tools like discussions less clunky. The debate that was held on this course was done using a voicetool that was integrated into the discussion forum which was a new one for me and I really enjoyed using it, it was good to put a voice to a name. Although, I am aware that considerations with respect to accessibility have to be addressed and I did a whole masters course without to speaking to my fellow participants, it did help me to focus on my argument and the arguments of others.
Until we can fully integrate tools in the cloud with student management systems for large institutions I think the VLE will still remain a feature for some time. However, there are tools out there that can compliment the existing tools that are in institutional VLEs and will help to enhance the student experience, for example, we were referred to this site http://ltdufreeware.wordpress.com/ . Furthermore, institutions still have a challenge to skill-up staff using the most basic of tools in the average VLE and to get them thinking about new approaches to learning and teaching that can integrate technology, within the context of pressure to make full use of a system that has demanded a considerable amount of resources to maintain.
Monday, June 27, 2011
eLearning who are the learners?
I don't teach students I work in a support service, supporting staff with curriculum re-design with the respect to the integration of eLearning, so in this context who are the learners that I am influencing? Indirectly I am influencing the students at my institution as hopefully one of the main rationales for integrating technology is the enhancement of learning. However, this enhancement is dependent on the quality of the learning as a result of using technology. In order for this to be possible staff need to develop their technical and teaching skills to facilitate learning in an online context and that is my job, so really for me staff are the learners. These non-traditional learners, still have their anxieties relating to developing new skills and entering an unfamiliar territory together with a learning and teaching belief system that has developed as a result of being part of a learning and teaching and discipline community of practices. When taking on the development of this group the challenge is integrating learning and teaching beliefs whilst enabling them to move on to new territories.
However, research in New Zealand has found that
"Having ongoing relationships with staff developers, and the ability for situated and flexible learning assistance was seen as desirable. It was through an ongoing relationship where help could be accessed on a needs basis that staff felt their learning and the development of courses, most benefited. " (Professional development: assuring quality in e-learning policy and practice Mansvelt et. al 2009 Quality Assurance in Education v17 Issue 3)
and this is a challenge when resources are limited within institutions and it is slightly incongruent with the approach to staff development which is often via training programmes with a calendar of events that staff book on to.
I am a constructivist learner and I feel that training is wasted when it cannot be immediately integrated into practice and I think this is the issue with much of staff development that is delivered in institutions, the movement from a skills tick box exercise to its integration into day-to-day learning and teaching is not persistently addressed. To face this challenge programme teams need to have a clear rationale for integrating technology within the curriculum, there should be identified support within schools and faculties, that can work with the centrally based staff development teams and there should be a realistic plan of implementation e.g. x programme will be using technology in this way for this reason by next year.
However, research in New Zealand has found that
"Having ongoing relationships with staff developers, and the ability for situated and flexible learning assistance was seen as desirable. It was through an ongoing relationship where help could be accessed on a needs basis that staff felt their learning and the development of courses, most benefited. " (Professional development: assuring quality in e-learning policy and practice Mansvelt et. al 2009 Quality Assurance in Education v17 Issue 3)
and this is a challenge when resources are limited within institutions and it is slightly incongruent with the approach to staff development which is often via training programmes with a calendar of events that staff book on to.
I am a constructivist learner and I feel that training is wasted when it cannot be immediately integrated into practice and I think this is the issue with much of staff development that is delivered in institutions, the movement from a skills tick box exercise to its integration into day-to-day learning and teaching is not persistently addressed. To face this challenge programme teams need to have a clear rationale for integrating technology within the curriculum, there should be identified support within schools and faculties, that can work with the centrally based staff development teams and there should be a realistic plan of implementation e.g. x programme will be using technology in this way for this reason by next year.
Friday, June 17, 2011
A resource to support content creation
In my current institution we are trying to replace 1:1 support for integrating technology in learning and teaching with self supporting online resources. This is quite a job as technology enhanced learning is a large area, we have created stuff and there is lots to repurpose out there. Differentiating between content creation and delivery is quite a challenge too and given that this is a sizeable resource in itself it needs to be constrained. The approach that we take when creating a resource is to cover:
We have started off with a brainstorm to hone in on the areas we want to focus on and some of the issues we want to address - I used de Bono to help with this. As this is the project I will be overseeing I will use the blog to keep myself up-to-date with progress and you may find this interesting too!
- what
- why
- when
- how
We have started off with a brainstorm to hone in on the areas we want to focus on and some of the issues we want to address - I used de Bono to help with this. As this is the project I will be overseeing I will use the blog to keep myself up-to-date with progress and you may find this interesting too!
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Online activity then technology or technology then online activity?
At team of us at work are designing a face-to-face workshop on designing online activities. Although the process has been quite lengthy as inevitably collaborative processes are, it is useful to get thoughts and illustrations from a group of individuals who have approached it from different angles.
We are all eLearning developers and have worked in the field for quite a few years, I came straight into eLearning as a manager and have predominantly managed technology implementation projects and course re-designs that integrate technology in learning and teaching e.g. new VLE and a Learning Repository. I finished a Masters in Education in eLearning (online part time) at Hull Uni last year, which gave me a good grounding in learning and teaching strategies and organisational issues. The online design and authoring I have been involved in has been using wysiwyg editors in blogs, google sites, wikis etc., in the cloud; Dreamweaver, Wimba, screencapturing software e.g. captivate and the whole range of tools in VLEs. The colleagues I manage have a broad range of multimedia online creation skills, as well as learning and teaching knowledge which compliments the team. Anyway to cut a very long technical story short when we undertake activities like this we always have the chicken and egg conversation is it technology then create activity, create activity then technology, I alway opt for the latter possibly because of the way I have been immersed in eLearning it seems to make more natural sense to think about the teaching first then see how the technology can enhance - but not for everyone. I am aware for others the technology is more interwoven with respect to what they can do in the learning and teaching e.g. we have a VLE what can I do with it and even though institutions emphasis is on learning and teaching when large proprietary systems are purchased it is possible that the sometimes the shift sometimes moves to how can these e-tools be integrated in teaching, so the innovation influences the practice.
So the question is - is there room for both approaches. When I am running a workshop I start from the learning and teaching perspective as this engages with culture of the group, however, sometimes we need to get the innovators testing the tools so that we can have the illustrations for the practice.
We are all eLearning developers and have worked in the field for quite a few years, I came straight into eLearning as a manager and have predominantly managed technology implementation projects and course re-designs that integrate technology in learning and teaching e.g. new VLE and a Learning Repository. I finished a Masters in Education in eLearning (online part time) at Hull Uni last year, which gave me a good grounding in learning and teaching strategies and organisational issues. The online design and authoring I have been involved in has been using wysiwyg editors in blogs, google sites, wikis etc., in the cloud; Dreamweaver, Wimba, screencapturing software e.g. captivate and the whole range of tools in VLEs. The colleagues I manage have a broad range of multimedia online creation skills, as well as learning and teaching knowledge which compliments the team. Anyway to cut a very long technical story short when we undertake activities like this we always have the chicken and egg conversation is it technology then create activity, create activity then technology, I alway opt for the latter possibly because of the way I have been immersed in eLearning it seems to make more natural sense to think about the teaching first then see how the technology can enhance - but not for everyone. I am aware for others the technology is more interwoven with respect to what they can do in the learning and teaching e.g. we have a VLE what can I do with it and even though institutions emphasis is on learning and teaching when large proprietary systems are purchased it is possible that the sometimes the shift sometimes moves to how can these e-tools be integrated in teaching, so the innovation influences the practice.
So the question is - is there room for both approaches. When I am running a workshop I start from the learning and teaching perspective as this engages with culture of the group, however, sometimes we need to get the innovators testing the tools so that we can have the illustrations for the practice.
Why I am still at blogger
Saw this and I although we do use wordpress for NTUSHARE this is the reason why I suppose I chose blogger http://learning-rocks.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-im-still-at-blogger.html - blog from Learning Rocks: Why I'm still at blogger Dan Roddy.
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