LearnScope Start-up Workshop 4

Poison pills for your future online delivery

What have you disliked about courses you have attended????

LAOG (backward spells goal) ... therefore you are aiming for the opposite.

• lack of interaction
• being 'done to'
• poor preparation
• poor communication
• lack of context, higher order extension
• poor preparation and organisation
• timing and planning
• aimed at incorrect level - not valuing previous learning
• lack of knowledge or faciliation skills
• hindering educational progress
• using jargon
• does not fulfil aims

Theory and thoughts about online facilitation

Gilly Salmon's Model of e-Moderation

Stage 1 - make the classroom feel welcoming
Stage 2 - introduction and students meet each other (can use online forums)
Stage 3 - actively interacting with material
Stage 4 - higher order, do something with knowledge, groups generating new knowledge
Stage 5 - external, very high order skills

Online Facilitation: Stories from the field (Michael Coghlan)

• the teacher - centric model of teaching is out the window
• teacher is just ONE of the resources
• stage one and two of the Salmon's 5 step model are the hardest in an online environment
• 80% of students like to know information about the teacher and other students
• most classes get stuck at level 3 (ie, content, assignments etc)
• deep learning and analytical learning takes place in stages 4 and 5
• need to identify what level students are at and respond accordingly, ie, don't bombard them with information from a higher level and/or don't respond at a lower level to more advanced learners
• facilitator changes role during the learning, eg, goal setter, discriminator, host, pace setter, facilitator, mentor, provacateur, participant etc
• most important role - HOST - inviting people into your space and making them feel comfortable
• don't forget to use your telephone - more personal
• troubleshooting/conflict negotiation: private email? phone? public discussion? peer resolution?
• rate of response/level of involvement: respond with 24 hours unless otherwise specified, but establish ground rules upfront, eg, won't respond on weekend etc
• don't respond to everything - let the group take some responsibility (discuss upfront)
• appropriate ratio: about 1 message from lecturer for every 5 to 8 messages
• Modelling (behaviour) (1) summarising discussions (good brain work); teacher do initially then hand over to other students (2) communication skills - don't be patronising, teacher off centre stage, don't forget students bring knowledge (3) manner, attitude, humour - the affective domain: includes 'learner's values, beliefs, biases, emotions, and role expectations that may influence their disposition towards the learning environment - show you care
• let people know who you are
• engagement: motivate them, inspire them, annoy them, make them laugh, make them angry, but for goodness sake don't bore them! (Thiagi) http://thiagi.com/
• Positive comments Michael received: enthusiastic, sense of humour, thank you for your input into my life
• Email: michaelc@chariot.net.au
• Website: http://users.chariot.net.au/~michaelc/
• Thank you very much Michael.

Online facilitation - giving it a go

We have the role of facilitating an online course for the next three weeks as well as participating in two other courses. I am part of a group with Sonya, Kristen and Sylvia and we are going to create an online course on "Bargains and Free Stuff on the internet" aiming to incorporate the theory from today. We elected Sonya as our leader and have decided to share facilitation of the course by each of us being responsible on different days, ie, Sylvia on Monday and Tuesday, Kristen on Wednesday and Thursday, Sonya on Friday and me on the weekend. We aim to provide responses to students within 24 hours, 7 days a week!

Moving into e-learning - implementing your idea

Everyone spent two minutes discussing their projects. Marlene used a powerpoint that represented us going up in a lift - it was very effective - once the lift opened everyone shut up straight away! :-) I was really impressed with the work everyone is doing. I hope we get the opportunity to see the projects along the way.

Reflection, questions & homework

1) Post up your REFLECTION of the 4th Workshop – how did you feel about it?
2) Post to the YOUR PROJECT thread – how’s it going? Where are you up to?
3) Post to the TEACHING ONLINE thread - let's talk about facilitating online!
4) Facilitate your online ‘course’…and participate in another 2.

All in all, another excellent afternoon!!!!!

Deciding on my LearnScope project

For my project I have been trying to decide between an online classroom or an online staffroom using EdNA groups. Marlene posed the following questions to me in the Workshop 2 homework forum on Projects to try and help me make a decision (my responses are in bold):

• Which one is more likely to bring immediate value? Either
• Which one is going to take the least time for the initial setup? EdNA staffroom
• Which one will be the easiest to promote within your work team, to get them on board with what you are trying to do? Online classroom I think???
• If they were both ready now, which one would you use the most? Online classroom
• Which one will be the most FUN to set up and get going! EdNA staffroom
• Which one are you attracted to the most (as opposed to the one you feel you should be focusing on.) EdNA staffroom

For the purposes of this project the EdNA staffroom may be the best in regards to scope and time required, however … we are in an unfortunate situation where our numbers have dropped and the online classroom will most likely benefit the students more so that is what I will undertake for the project. The main benefit for producing an online classroom is to allow us to still offer the Applications Stream of the Certificate III in IT at Port Adelaide. Currently there are not enough students to warrant running this course in the classroom on a continual basis but I think it would be a real shame to pull it from our offerings when it will be a pathway into the Certificate IV in Website Design which I am hoping we will start running next year.

At this stage I haven’t got very far at all as I have found it very hard to decide exactly what I would do for the project and also to define the scope of the project. This has been further compounded by the fact we are also implementing a new training package next semester and the competencies and how they will be bundled has only been finalised last week. As it stands, I still do not have the textbooks I need to start planning or teaching the new subjects after the holidays (and therefore have no resources for any of the subjects to put online)!!!!

Another problem I have faced is that I will not be teaching the competencies for the Applications Stream until Term 4 when LearnScope will be finished. To put this online in Term 3 I would have to rely on other staff teaching the subject to give me the resources they develop each week. This puts a lot of pressure on other staff members and does not allow me the opportunity to see firsthand how effective the online classroom is and what modifications need to be made. (We will be using it in the classroom in the first instance next semester).

As a result of all these issues I have decided I will put some other competencies online for my LearnScope project. There are also some common competencies in both the Applications and Network Administration Stream of the Cert III that if put online would make it much easier for our part time students as well as having the resources online for our full time students. I will be teaching and developing the resources for these competencies so I can modify them as needed as a result of feedback from my students. The hope is that I will continue on developing the online resources for the Application Stream after LearnScope has finished.

One of the other considerations for this project and any further online development is the platform on which the online classroom(s) should reside. As TAFE use Janison it seems likely that is where the resources will end up once they have been bedded down. For the purposes of this project and the resulting time constraints I feel it would be wiser to use a VETSA Moodle classroom in the first instance. I am however concerned about duplication of effort so I will have to try and create reusable content wherever I can.