Reading 11
First reading on Theme 5 : Online Communication
Salmon, G. (2000) . A model for CMC in education and training. In E-moderating: The Key to Teaching and Learning Online (pp22-37). London: Kogan Page
Background:
In searching for sources for an assignment I found Salmon’s work online and then her name cropped up in our class discussion, so I was prompted to a closer reading of this book borrowed a few weeks back. As a novice to all things online, the term “e-moderating’ held an elusive meaning for me. Salmon defines it and deals with it very practically in this book. I have the third reprint of the first edition and she has since updated it. (See http://www.atimod.com/e-moderating/intro.shtml). The chapter I am going to discuss is relevant to our theme of online communication and reflects back to our previous theme of design.
Chapter 2: A model for CMC in Education and Training
Salmon grounded her model for Computer Mediated Conferencing (CMC) in research carried out in the Open University of the United Kingdom. The consolidated five-stage model built from this research may also be viewed at http://www.atimod.com/e-moderating/5stage.shtml. The benefit for using the model to design a course with CMC is that knowing how participants are likely to exploit the system at each stage avoids pitfalls. All students progress through these stages with varying responses to how much time is spent at each stage. Each stage suggests student characteristics and/or needs and e-moderator responsibilities.
STAGE 1: Access and motivation
• setting things up, technical issues, e-moderator initiates contact to motivate and clarify course
STAGE 2 Online socialisation
• Students recognise the need to identify with each other, to develop a sense of direction online and they need some guide to judgement and behaviour; Evidence shows that individuals struggle to find their sense of time and place in the online environment. They recognise the need to identify with each other, to develop a sense of direction online and they need some guide to judgement and behaviour; Lurking may occur (she suggests the nicer term of “browsing”) but it is natural at this stage and a normal part of socialisation.
• E-moderators must facilitate interaction across cultural, social and learning divides; they need to tolerate chat conferences and online socialising that increases “belongingness”. Moderators must create an atmosphere where the participants feel respected and able to gain respect for their views. CMC offers affordance of online socialising but does not create social interaction.
STAGE 3: information exchange,
• Participants learning requires interaction with course content and interaction with people, namely the moderator and other participants.
• Moderators facilitate tasks and conferencing that focuses on discovering or exploring known (to them) answers, or on aspects of problems or issues.
• Potential student strategies for dealing with overload start appearing e.g. not read all; removal from conferencing; read all but rarely respond (they may disappear)
• Learning how to exchange information in conferences is essential before students move on to full-scale interaction in stage four. At this stage, motivation and enjoyment come from personal and experiential communication.
STAGE 4: knowledge construction,
• More exposed, participative interactions; more active learning; widening of viewpoints and appreciating differing perspectives. Grasp on theories and concepts is enhanced through debate and examples.
• The focus is on the process – creative cognitive process of offering up ideas, having them criticised or expanded on, reshaped or abandoned in light of peer discussion.
• Issues best dealt with at this stage are those that have no right answers, or ones students need to make sense of, or a series of ideas or challenges. Issues are likely to be strategic, problem-or practice-based.
• E-moderator must build & sustain groups, weave discussion, summarize occasionally, stimulate fresh direction.
• Flattening of hierachical communication structure between e-moderators and participants
STAGE 5: development .
• Participants become responsible for own learning through computer-mediated opportunities and need little support beyond that already available.
Discussions & Questions
Besides the readability of this book, I found the model strangely comforting. I tended to personalise it as I read and found that my own personal experience with online learning closely follows the procedure /sequence described. Would it be useful for e-moderators to share with students new to online courses what can be expected in the various stages? For example, after the term “lurking” was used in our course, I felt guilty about my participation level and pressured into saying something just for the sake of not being a lurker. Similarly, when browsing, how does one acknowledge that browsing? While active participants would want input from peers, could it not be equally annoying to have posts that did not really add anything?
In one of her findings, Salmon notes that a very able face-to-face facilitator online continued to assert authority to the detriment of knowledge construction online. She concludes that face-to-face skills are insufficient in themselves to ensure successful interactive conferences. (I find this interesting as I feel that this could in fact apply to me!) Although Salmon does include chapters on the competencies and training of e-moderators there seem no clear teaching on how to develop these skills.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Reading 10 (Theme 4)
Reading 10
third reading on Theme 4 : Development and design of courses
Karagiorgi, Y. & Symeou, L. (2005). Translating Constructivism into Instructional Design: Potential and Limitations. Educational Technology & Society, 8 (1), 17-27
Accessed via Massey Library
Browsing the journals, this article caught my eye as there has been some renewed discussion on the constuctivist issues in our online discussions. Published three years ago, this is no revolutionary article, but it does offer an organised response to radical constructivists.This paper offers an overview of constructivist theory, discusses its underlying principles (active, collaborative and authentic learning) and distinguishes between radical and non-radical constructivism. It advocates the latter within a pragmatic approach to design.
The challenges for instructional design:
• If each learner is responsible for knowledge construction, then designers cannot determine and ensure a common set of outcomes for learning; the learners’ autonomy makes it hard to predict how learners will learn or how to plan instructional activities.
• Evaluation – when learning outcomes are individually constructed, it is difficult to set standards to assess the meaningfulness of the learning.
• Learner control – possible construction of “wrong” knowledge; not all learners benefit from control over their own learning
Reasons for these problems stem from the fact that constructivism is a learning theory and not a learning strategy nor a theory of teaching. Thus a dialogue between learning theorists and instructional developers is required.
The authors give the example of Merill’s second generation instructional design theory as an example of application of moderate constructivism. This assumes that
• mental models are constructed by the learner as a result of experience,
• content of each individual’s mental model may be different, but the structure is the same,
• knowledge can be pre-specified and represented in a knowledge base that applies to different domains;
• teaching authentic tasks in context is desirable, but teaching decontextualised abstractions is also necessary
• instructional strategy and subject matter are somewhat independent
• there are fundamental instructional transactions that can be adapted to a wide variety of situations and used with different subject matter contents
• there are classes of strategies appropriate for all learners
• learning should be active but not always collaborative
• testing could be integrated and consistent with learning objectives, but separate assessment of achievement is also possible
Technology tools supporting moderate constructivism include hypermedia environments that offer non-linear learning and increased learner control;virtual realities offer experiential learning and phenomenaria (artificially limited arenas where phenomena to investigate occur), webQuests and other WorldWideWeb offerings.
DISCUSSION
The article endorses my personal view that design needs to be eclectic. Having come across Merill's more recent work in course readings, I found references to him in this article more significant.
The authors note that within constructivism, the design task is one of providing rich context within which meaning can be negotiated, and ways of understanding emerge. If each leaner has a unique perspective, the concept of “average” learner is rejected. This becomes a problem for design when, as in an earlier reading (8 by Barbour) the practice at secondary school level aims at the average and below average student.
I’m also reminded of problems I posed at the end of reading 5. If learners arrive with different levels of prior knowledge, how does the designer know where to begin?
third reading on Theme 4 : Development and design of courses
Karagiorgi, Y. & Symeou, L. (2005). Translating Constructivism into Instructional Design: Potential and Limitations. Educational Technology & Society, 8 (1), 17-27
Accessed via Massey Library
Browsing the journals, this article caught my eye as there has been some renewed discussion on the constuctivist issues in our online discussions. Published three years ago, this is no revolutionary article, but it does offer an organised response to radical constructivists.This paper offers an overview of constructivist theory, discusses its underlying principles (active, collaborative and authentic learning) and distinguishes between radical and non-radical constructivism. It advocates the latter within a pragmatic approach to design.
The challenges for instructional design:
• If each learner is responsible for knowledge construction, then designers cannot determine and ensure a common set of outcomes for learning; the learners’ autonomy makes it hard to predict how learners will learn or how to plan instructional activities.
• Evaluation – when learning outcomes are individually constructed, it is difficult to set standards to assess the meaningfulness of the learning.
• Learner control – possible construction of “wrong” knowledge; not all learners benefit from control over their own learning
Reasons for these problems stem from the fact that constructivism is a learning theory and not a learning strategy nor a theory of teaching. Thus a dialogue between learning theorists and instructional developers is required.
The authors give the example of Merill’s second generation instructional design theory as an example of application of moderate constructivism. This assumes that
• mental models are constructed by the learner as a result of experience,
• content of each individual’s mental model may be different, but the structure is the same,
• knowledge can be pre-specified and represented in a knowledge base that applies to different domains;
• teaching authentic tasks in context is desirable, but teaching decontextualised abstractions is also necessary
• instructional strategy and subject matter are somewhat independent
• there are fundamental instructional transactions that can be adapted to a wide variety of situations and used with different subject matter contents
• there are classes of strategies appropriate for all learners
• learning should be active but not always collaborative
• testing could be integrated and consistent with learning objectives, but separate assessment of achievement is also possible
Technology tools supporting moderate constructivism include hypermedia environments that offer non-linear learning and increased learner control;virtual realities offer experiential learning and phenomenaria (artificially limited arenas where phenomena to investigate occur), webQuests and other WorldWideWeb offerings.
DISCUSSION
The article endorses my personal view that design needs to be eclectic. Having come across Merill's more recent work in course readings, I found references to him in this article more significant.
The authors note that within constructivism, the design task is one of providing rich context within which meaning can be negotiated, and ways of understanding emerge. If each leaner has a unique perspective, the concept of “average” learner is rejected. This becomes a problem for design when, as in an earlier reading (8 by Barbour) the practice at secondary school level aims at the average and below average student.
I’m also reminded of problems I posed at the end of reading 5. If learners arrive with different levels of prior knowledge, how does the designer know where to begin?
Monday, July 7, 2008
Reading 9 (Theme 4)
Reading Log 9 (theme 4)
Second reading on Theme 4: Development and Design of courses
Metros, S. (2005). Learning Objects: A Rose by Any Other Name. Educause Review (40) (4) pp.12 – 13. Downloaded on 1 July 2008 from http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/LearningObjectsARosebyAny/40559
The term “Learning Objects” has not been a common one in my personal readings and studies up to now. Prompted by course readings, I searched for something more and this short article was the first one I found. It addresses reasons for the diminishing use of the term and offers a more specific definition.
Reasons for failure of learning objects to transform education:
• Broad, ambiguous definition
• Unfamiliarity of sharing and reusing material
• Time and cost of developing high quality material
• Lack of indexing standards for easy retrieval
• Low knowledge management investment
• Little documented proof of advantages
Author’s amended definition:
Any digital resource that can be reused to mediate learning and which includes/links to (1) a learning objective (2) a practice activity and (3) an assessment.
In addressing the other bulleted points above, noteworthy comments include:
• Problems with ownership and copywrite
• Poorly designed learning objects may harm learning
• Little formal, published research on the successful use of learning objects
Most recent trends
• Despite decreased use of the term “learning objects” a move towards sharable educational content continues
• They are part of learner-centred, nonlinear, customisable, media-rich educational content
• Contribution-oriented pedagogy (student-instructor codevelopments) enhances quality
• Constantly becoming easier to upload, share, store
DISCUSSION and QUESTIONS:
For me, the value of the article lay in the clarification of the definition. While one of the benefits of learning objects is reusability, I find 2 problems relsted to this:
1. To what extent might designing a learning object in such a way that it can be re-used be a limiting factor in terms of its relevance within specific contexts and thus render it less effective ?
2. One of the benefits of re-usability is the cost factor. Would the need to ensure contextual relevance and the need to deal with specific learner needs (bearing in mind the need to be learner-centred) not mean time and costs in adapting material? By the same token, is there not a danger that the availability of learning objects could drive design rather than the other way round and thus reduce quality?
3 Postscript: According to the above definition, mashups would not be included as learning objects as , from my current understanding, they would/could involve larger amounts of data being incorporated. Nevertheless of interest here is that according to the Horizon Report 2008, a research project at the University of Oregon has created a tool that allows users to collect data about objects in the virtual world of Second Life and export it to a website. The tool is designed to be used to catalogue educational objects that can be found in the virtual world.
(The report may be found at http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2008-Horizon-Report.pdf )
Second reading on Theme 4: Development and Design of courses
Metros, S. (2005). Learning Objects: A Rose by Any Other Name. Educause Review (40) (4) pp.12 – 13. Downloaded on 1 July 2008 from http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/LearningObjectsARosebyAny/40559
The term “Learning Objects” has not been a common one in my personal readings and studies up to now. Prompted by course readings, I searched for something more and this short article was the first one I found. It addresses reasons for the diminishing use of the term and offers a more specific definition.
Reasons for failure of learning objects to transform education:
• Broad, ambiguous definition
• Unfamiliarity of sharing and reusing material
• Time and cost of developing high quality material
• Lack of indexing standards for easy retrieval
• Low knowledge management investment
• Little documented proof of advantages
Author’s amended definition:
Any digital resource that can be reused to mediate learning and which includes/links to (1) a learning objective (2) a practice activity and (3) an assessment.
In addressing the other bulleted points above, noteworthy comments include:
• Problems with ownership and copywrite
• Poorly designed learning objects may harm learning
• Little formal, published research on the successful use of learning objects
Most recent trends
• Despite decreased use of the term “learning objects” a move towards sharable educational content continues
• They are part of learner-centred, nonlinear, customisable, media-rich educational content
• Contribution-oriented pedagogy (student-instructor codevelopments) enhances quality
• Constantly becoming easier to upload, share, store
DISCUSSION and QUESTIONS:
For me, the value of the article lay in the clarification of the definition. While one of the benefits of learning objects is reusability, I find 2 problems relsted to this:
1. To what extent might designing a learning object in such a way that it can be re-used be a limiting factor in terms of its relevance within specific contexts and thus render it less effective ?
2. One of the benefits of re-usability is the cost factor. Would the need to ensure contextual relevance and the need to deal with specific learner needs (bearing in mind the need to be learner-centred) not mean time and costs in adapting material? By the same token, is there not a danger that the availability of learning objects could drive design rather than the other way round and thus reduce quality?
3 Postscript: According to the above definition, mashups would not be included as learning objects as , from my current understanding, they would/could involve larger amounts of data being incorporated. Nevertheless of interest here is that according to the Horizon Report 2008, a research project at the University of Oregon has created a tool that allows users to collect data about objects in the virtual world of Second Life and export it to a website. The tool is designed to be used to catalogue educational objects that can be found in the virtual world.
(The report may be found at http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2008-Horizon-Report.pdf )
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Reading 8 (Theme 4)
Reading 8 : first reading on theme 4: Development and Design of Courses
Barbour, M.(2005).Design of Web-based courses for secondary students. Journal of Distance Learning. 9(1), 27-36. Downloaded on 29 June 2008 from http://deanz.org.nz/journal
About the author: Michael Barbour is currently Assistant Professor in Instructional Technology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Further details are available on his website at http://www.michaelbarbour.com/index.htm
The paper reports the initial findings of a study that investigated design characteristics of a web-based distance education programme for rural secondary school students in Newfoundland and Labrador. Participants were course developers and teachers in a virtual high school context. Research involved interviews and document analysis. Secondary data came from the CDLI homepage, server and developer’s template.
Literature review justifies the need for this research. Post secondary experimenting with technologies is outpacing collection of data to test mediational effects of tools. Adult learners value structure, clear guidelines, increased student-instructor communication and increased opportunities to suggest alternative approaches. (Callini and Barron ,2001-2002; Stein ,2004). Difference between pedagogy and androgogy (Knowles, 1970) – adults are more self-directing; are more experienced; have greater readiness to learn; have more immediacy of application; are more problem-centred.
Earlier research (Collis, 1999) on Web-based course design yielded 10 guidelines for instructional designers.
1. Plan for flexibility and adaptation
2. Design for a variety of interchangeable roles for instructors and students
3. Do not assume use of the course-support site as a primary source of course content
4. Use course-support site to supplement study materials, integrate and manage study activities
5. Design for student and instructor input and use of a variety of combinations of supplemental media and resources
6. Design for minimum levels of technical support, computer-related skills, competencies and online time.
7. Use minimum fixed-text, graphic and iconic elements; provide context-sensitive help
8. Offer a flexible assortment of tools for different communication configurations
9. Design to organisational flexibility
10. Be realistic about what instructors can/will do
This Research found:
a) contradiction between the developer’s constructivist design perspective and the behaviourist-based CDLI template used for lesson development . A comparative table comparing the template with Gagne’s 9 events of instruction is given.
b) 10 initial guidelines developers seem to use when designing secondary courses :
1. Develop a good sets of notes and worked examples
2. Students rarely use “You will learn” / “You should know” sections in the developer’s template but go straight to the activities- include lesson objectives in their lesson rather than separately
3. Lesson should provide student with clear instructions and expectations
4. Limit text
5. Include image or visual cue
6. Include interactive items with selections based on solid content or pedagogy – minimise distractions
7. Use real-life examples
8. Avoid the same format for every lesson; each lesson should offer a sense of choice
9. Design for average or below average student; keep it simple as possible
10. Plan entire course before beginning
DISCUSSION & QUESTIONS:
Of particular interest to me is the appropriacy of using research on post-secondary to inform secondary teaching. Justification based on Knowles’ 4 assumptions of pedagogy as opposed to androgogy was thus interesting but Barbour ambiguously notes that “Many of these assumptions were counter to the picture presented by the interviewees of their experiences with adolescent learners” but disappointingly, does not elaborate other than to note the relative immaturity. To what extent is immaturity sufficient justification for design practice 9 (cater to average/below average)? To what extent would practice 9 also justify exclusion of possible collaborative activities in the design?
With implied criticism Burbour notes that the behaviourist template did not match the constructivist approach of the developers. Does this matter? I am reminded of the observations of Cronje (2006) who suggested that any learning event may draw from both objectivism and constructivism if not simultaneously, then sometimes in such rapid succession that it simultaneous. Can strategies born in objectivist and behaviourist activities not be integrated with constructivism? Could learning objects based on behaviourist strategies embedded in a constructivist design be extraneous cognitive overload for some secondary students and scaffolding for others?
References:
Cronje, J. (2006). Paradigms regained: Toward Integrating Objectivism and
Constructivism in Instructional design and the Learning Sciences.
Educational Technology Research and Development . 54 (4): 387-416.
Dalgarno, B. (2001). Interpretations of constructivism and consequences for Computer assisted Learning. British Journal of Educational Technology 32 (2): 183 - 194.
Barbour, M.(2005).Design of Web-based courses for secondary students. Journal of Distance Learning. 9(1), 27-36. Downloaded on 29 June 2008 from http://deanz.org.nz/journal
About the author: Michael Barbour is currently Assistant Professor in Instructional Technology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Further details are available on his website at http://www.michaelbarbour.com/index.htm
The paper reports the initial findings of a study that investigated design characteristics of a web-based distance education programme for rural secondary school students in Newfoundland and Labrador. Participants were course developers and teachers in a virtual high school context. Research involved interviews and document analysis. Secondary data came from the CDLI homepage, server and developer’s template.
Literature review justifies the need for this research. Post secondary experimenting with technologies is outpacing collection of data to test mediational effects of tools. Adult learners value structure, clear guidelines, increased student-instructor communication and increased opportunities to suggest alternative approaches. (Callini and Barron ,2001-2002; Stein ,2004). Difference between pedagogy and androgogy (Knowles, 1970) – adults are more self-directing; are more experienced; have greater readiness to learn; have more immediacy of application; are more problem-centred.
Earlier research (Collis, 1999) on Web-based course design yielded 10 guidelines for instructional designers.
1. Plan for flexibility and adaptation
2. Design for a variety of interchangeable roles for instructors and students
3. Do not assume use of the course-support site as a primary source of course content
4. Use course-support site to supplement study materials, integrate and manage study activities
5. Design for student and instructor input and use of a variety of combinations of supplemental media and resources
6. Design for minimum levels of technical support, computer-related skills, competencies and online time.
7. Use minimum fixed-text, graphic and iconic elements; provide context-sensitive help
8. Offer a flexible assortment of tools for different communication configurations
9. Design to organisational flexibility
10. Be realistic about what instructors can/will do
This Research found:
a) contradiction between the developer’s constructivist design perspective and the behaviourist-based CDLI template used for lesson development . A comparative table comparing the template with Gagne’s 9 events of instruction is given.
b) 10 initial guidelines developers seem to use when designing secondary courses :
1. Develop a good sets of notes and worked examples
2. Students rarely use “You will learn” / “You should know” sections in the developer’s template but go straight to the activities- include lesson objectives in their lesson rather than separately
3. Lesson should provide student with clear instructions and expectations
4. Limit text
5. Include image or visual cue
6. Include interactive items with selections based on solid content or pedagogy – minimise distractions
7. Use real-life examples
8. Avoid the same format for every lesson; each lesson should offer a sense of choice
9. Design for average or below average student; keep it simple as possible
10. Plan entire course before beginning
DISCUSSION & QUESTIONS:
Of particular interest to me is the appropriacy of using research on post-secondary to inform secondary teaching. Justification based on Knowles’ 4 assumptions of pedagogy as opposed to androgogy was thus interesting but Barbour ambiguously notes that “Many of these assumptions were counter to the picture presented by the interviewees of their experiences with adolescent learners” but disappointingly, does not elaborate other than to note the relative immaturity. To what extent is immaturity sufficient justification for design practice 9 (cater to average/below average)? To what extent would practice 9 also justify exclusion of possible collaborative activities in the design?
With implied criticism Burbour notes that the behaviourist template did not match the constructivist approach of the developers. Does this matter? I am reminded of the observations of Cronje (2006) who suggested that any learning event may draw from both objectivism and constructivism if not simultaneously, then sometimes in such rapid succession that it simultaneous. Can strategies born in objectivist and behaviourist activities not be integrated with constructivism? Could learning objects based on behaviourist strategies embedded in a constructivist design be extraneous cognitive overload for some secondary students and scaffolding for others?
References:
Cronje, J. (2006). Paradigms regained: Toward Integrating Objectivism and
Constructivism in Instructional design and the Learning Sciences.
Educational Technology Research and Development . 54 (4): 387-416.
Dalgarno, B. (2001). Interpretations of constructivism and consequences for Computer assisted Learning. British Journal of Educational Technology 32 (2): 183 - 194.
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