Week 8: Denis

Thanks to Denis for his impressive presentation on gardening. Denis gave a really professional presentation and was noticeably comfortable in the room. His strategies for engagement, voice, text and whiteboard all worked really well and the slides were effective as well. Denis had obviously given a lot of thought to his presentation and structured it well beginning with an ice breaker, making good use of his slides as visual aids and regularly asking for feedback or creating little activities to engage the group. Denis was explaining about how the conditions in the garden change depending on the time of year. To demonstrate his point he had some images of the same house and garden at differnt times of year. During his explanation he asked two of us to keep on a particular part of the images so that we could identify what changes were occurring. This was a really fantastic way to engage participants as we sat up and concentrated awaiting the questions which were to come. he also re-capped regularly to check for understanding.

Also, thanks to Joanna for facilitating our forum this week. Joanna asked some great questions and introduced us to TED as well as linking us into yet another great podcast.

This week I have been busy analysing the program as part of my studies and am writing my end of semester essay and the image at the top of this post shows us what we have learned and how we might be better supported in our learning. I was assisted by comments from Helen and Ken on last weeks blog post where I expressed my concerns about the level of forum activity and about the possibility of developing some skills training. This is an excerpt from my essay about those topics.

"One of the learning objectives was to “use a discussion forum as a collaborative learning tool” and it is not clear whether or not this objective was met. It was pointed out to me that lurking in a forum is a legitimate activity which may lead to learning. Lave and Wenger (1991) agree and state that “Legitimate peripheral participation refers to how newcomers become integrated into a community of practice [and] think of it as learners "learning in a situation". (In Fincher, 2003). Feedback from lurkers has suggested that they saw no purpose to this engagement – it would be just for the sake of participating. This statement really struck a chord with me and I realised that perhaps my expectation of intrinsic motivation, at least in relation to the learning objective described above, was unrealistic. Although the Moodle reports indicate that participants visit the forums on a regular basis they cannot tell me whether people are learning. This is one reason I would like to improve forum participation. Another is simply to expose the group to the possibilities of collaborative learning in this way. Interestingly, when each participant took a turn at facilitating the forum, a strong leadership role was adopted in every case which seems to indicate that there is understanding within the group of how a forum might work in their context.

Another barrier to participation may be the small size of the group and the appearance of a small but knowledgeable sub-group which prevents contributions from the less experienced. It may be that having the choice of waiting for our weekly meetings to ask questions is limiting participation in the forums. So perhaps fewer, or even no virtual conference sessions are the answer. It may then, be worth providing two programs: an asynchronous program which takes an exploratory approach and a synchronous virtual conference facilitation program. As yet the best approach is unknown and will be something I discuss with participants in the final face to face meeting."

"Basic skills’ training has been identified as lacking in this program. Therefore it may be prudent to offer scaffolding in the form of monthly skills-based sessions conducted either in the virtual conference room or in an asynchronous format such as a forum or a wiki. This strategy will provide participants with opportunities to experience both synchronous and asynchronous e-learning. These sessions will stand alone so that participants can elect to attend sessions in areas of personal interest. It is not my intention to make skills training a pre-requisite for participation in future programs but individual consultation with potential participants prior to enrolment is likely to result in a less bewildering and more positive experience for everyone.

Seagrave Holt and Farmer (2005) describe the use of “exemplars through storytelling of cases of innovative online teaching practices”. Including relevant exemplars is likely to enhance the skills training program so that the practical How to… techniques can be positioned within a recognisable context."

Ken's suggestion to include a session on "What to write" is also a great idea which could be embedded within one of the skills workshops.

Thanks guys!
Ann

Fincher, D. (2003). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, A Review. http://derrel.net/readings/SituatedLearning.htm [accessed 14 Nov 2008]
Lave, J. and E. Wenger, 1991 Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. New York: Cambridge University Press

Week 7 - Jennifer and Helen

This week we were lucky enough to take a trip around the fashion houses of the world! We watched video and saw fantastic photos on a very slick looking site called style.com. Jennifer is a fashion designer by trade and took us on this exciting web tour. Next Helen showed us her Ning site which is using with a group of teachers who are learning about Photoshop Elements through digital scrap booking. Both presentations used web tours as their tool of choice but unfortunately our technology let us down and synchronised browsing didn't work! So we each entered the URL into our own browsers and then moved around as directed by our presenters. This was definitely a challenge for both presenters as it's difficult to make sure that everyone is with you. This is an example of how different it is to facilitate online versus face to face. What we learned is that there are many ways to engage the senses online. style.com is very exciting, fast and generated (for me at least) a sense of entering a world which I never would in reality. The web can do this for us and we can do this for our learners - we can give them access to experiences through technology that they otherwise might miss.

This idea flowed into the second presentation. The Ning site created it's own atmosphere - it's pink and girly. The theme was selected specifically for it's audience. Participants in the scrap booking program are posting their photos. There are videos and a couple of blogs and places for students to access resources. Helen described how she set up the site and said it took her about half an hour. Even if we multiply that by 10 for a person who is less technologically confident, it's still not a lot of time to set up a brand new learning space.

Through the week Jennifer and Helen facilitated our forum. This has been a challenge for everyone so far and I am beginning to question its value in this context. On the one hand, if I don't introduce the concept to the group they will never understand how it can be used. On the other hand, to introduce the concept and fail to engage the group in this way is may discourage people from joining a forum in the future.

My intention was to create a collaborative learning environment. To some extent this has been achieved by sharing our discoveries each week in the virtual conference room. In those sessions there is a feeling of an established group. However there is little activity in the forums and even less collaboration.

As the weeks pass it is becoming clear to me that a series of "How to..." classes would benefit many in the group and this is something I will endeavour to provide in 2009.

Week 6 - Joanna

Joanna gave a fantastic presentation in the virtual conference room last night about her new Google Group. Joanna is teaching a Freelance Journalism course and is using Google Groups to provide her students with access to resources as well as an opportunity for discussion between classes. She has customised the site with a great graphic and provided easy to follow instructions. The whole group have joined and some are actively participating. She mentioned that she had posted eight times while her students had posted only four times. What followed was a comment that this is a pretty good ratio for a brand new forum.

Joanna's presentation was supported by a web tour and a Powerpoint slide show. She spoke confidently and seemed quite at ease in the conference room which was great to see. Participants were interested in what she had to say and there were lots of questions. There was a lot of discussion about text chat:

- it's distracting (yes it is!)
- it's fun
- it's a way of asking lots of questions without interrupting the faciltator.

We discovered that you can actually mute text chat from participants. I suppose this is a way to focus the group. However I noticed that most of the questions and lots of the responses came via the text chat so I wonder what the effect of removing this feature would be on participation. Maybe we can try it.

This week began our participant faclitation of the Moodle forum began. Each pair will facilitate for one of the next five weeks. Engagement in the forum to date has been minimal but this week was active and interesting. There were four discussions:

Motivating students to complete on line learning
Time for us all to be on LinkedIn
Learning Styles and E-learning
Uptake of E-learning.

One participant was trialling a toolbox learning object with two students, one of whom decided early on that e-learning was really not for her. She was expecting to learn about teaching in the same way that you might learn computer skills online. The volume of reading was overwhelming and she withdrew favouring a face to face approach. The other student however stuck with it and has almost completed her tasks. The conclusion of our forum discussion was that the structure and language were to complex. It will be interesting to hear what the other student felt about the environment.

There was a bit of discussion about the value of joining social networks where opposing views were voiced. Some are already in, and love it, while others are dabbling and are not yet convinced!

Next was a discussion about e-learning styles followed by the final topic - Uptake of E-learning. I thought that both these topics had the potential to become great discussions. It was the first time I had seen passionate posts, posts with substance, posts with great questions. I am going to try to keep these discussions going beyond their week and am hopeful that people will continue to engage.

My final comment about yesterday is triumphant! During our virtual conference session we talked about the pros and cons of forum discussions and one of our number said

"this is all new - we, the teachers, need to lead..."

Thanks Ken, you can come back! :)