Creating successful Elearning materials

So McLoughlin gives us the guidelines that materials created should:

·         increase your learners’ chance of succeeding in a task

·         help them to do something they couldn’t accomplish on their own

·         move them to a ‘new and improved zone of understanding’

·         help them to operate independently.

Q1 Read the ten dimensions, and pick any two you think are important. Why are those two relevant to learning materials that you’d like to design?

What was interesting about the ten dimensions, is once again that many of the learning activities we currently have in f2f materials show similar characteristics. Which makes my initial goal at the start of this module, in creating learning activities online that mirror the strength on f2f learning activities, seem more attainable day by day.

I think that Accessibility will be hugely important, depending on how we pick the learners. As we are looking at a volunteer force, they come from a variety of backgrounds. I think that a decision would need to be made in the first instance, and initial trials of online activity, as to whether there should be a minimum requiremnt for technical competency. As this develops, tutorials and support that show people how to use the technology would be important. In fact, I still think that using a tool like Elluminate, where you can take people through the technology ‘live’ by sharing desktops is suitable.

The main design and objectives are already in place and really the learning design needs to be based around the methods, and how we get people there, so I guess that Alignment becomes the other important dimension. (If I am to choose 2!). Just as a trainer would design activities in a f2f environment, the activities online must align with the objects and key knowledge and outcomes.This is always where the creativiy of the trainer comes in to make the experience fun and interesting and

Q2 What are your first thoughts on how you’ll design your materials? If you choose the ‘alignment’ dimension, for instance, how will you make sure that your teaching approach is consistent with – aligns with – the outcomes you want your learners to attain?

In the first instance I think that the materials need to be simply designed, using technology I feel confident working with. I have wanted to actively take content and create an online experience for a while, and in particular I have been focussing on workbooks, and how we could make this a collaborative experience. (Mainly because feedback from courses is always that the best bit was sharing with other people). I need to decide on the group of learners and the area to cover, which will determine the approach to take. As I intend to also do this for real, I hope to then approach/recruit the learner group and get some relevant feedback.

So really in the next few week, I am hoping that our practice with ‘etivities’ helps us to assess the strengths and weaknesses of particular areas.

McLoughlin ‘Learner support in distance and networked learning environments: ten dimensions for successful design’

Following on from the role the e-tutor last week, and how the skills need to be redefined, McCloughlin suggests that the same kind of redefinition is needed in supporting learners (in fact she include the role of the tutor in this)

Design guidelines for constructivist learning include:

· Providing experience of the knowledge construction process

· Providing experience in and appreciation of multiple perspectives

· Creating learning tasks that are relevant and authentic

· Encouraging ownership and voice in the learning process

· Embedding learning in social experience

· Encouraging the development of multiple modes of representation

· Encouraging self-awareness of the knowledge construction process

Models of support include:

(Beed, Hawkins and Roller 1991)

· Assisted modelling: Teachers provide some coaching and models that enable the completion of the task.

· Element identification: The teacher identifies the elements of the desired approach or

strategies to help students complete the task.

· Strategy naming: The teacher articulates a relevant strategy and students employ it on their

own.

(Roehler and Cantlon 1997)

· Offering explanations: Explicit statements are given by an expert to elaborate on learners’

emerging understandings.

· Inviting students’ participation: Learners are given opportunities to assume control of the

knowledge-building process.

· Verification and clarification of students’ understandings: If emerging understandings are

reasonable, the teacher verifies the students’ responses. If the understandings are erroneous,

the teacher offers clarification.

· Modelling of desired behaviours: This includes making thinking visible, as in think-aloud,

showing what someone thinks about the learning process at a given moment.

· Generating questions and comments as in think-aloud: This occurs, for example, when a

teacher shows how to articulate a problem-solving process by talking through the steps.

Teachers generate questions and comments initially and students then take over the

questioning role.

· Inviting students to contribute actively: Learners are encouraged to contribute clues in order to complete a task and to articulate their understandings of task demands.

Scaffolding in f2f is very different from online. In f2f the teacher and learner occupy the same space, and the support is teacher driven. Distance learning is resources based and self-paced and therefore direct teacher interventions is not always possible.

Effective support includes:

• Encouraging reflective thinking
• Provision of social support
• Interaction and extension of ideas with feedback from peers and mentors

 Categories of scaffolding

·       Orientation/ communication of expectation (clear comms of what they should achieve)

·       Coaching (support via software)

·       Eliciting articulation (expressing current understanding)

·       Task support (aiding /person as expertise)

·       Conceptual scaffolding (analytic skills through multiple answers)

·       Metacognitive scaffolding (tools to record thinking)

·       Procedural scaffolding (how to use resources , like databases etc)

·       Strategic scaffolding (offer alternative pathways – engage in decision making)

Examples of technology only scaffolding:

Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environment(CSILE). Based on a shared database where text and graphics can be stored. Students can then create their own ‘nodes’ of information that others can comment on, and the authors are notified when comments are made. It aims to promote knowledge building in a community. (more information on the Edutech wiki, or AECT)

Intelligent Tutoring Systems(ITS) .Learners are guided through sequences of tasks. The learners progress is charted against an expert model, and thus customised instruction o feedback is given.

Goal Based Scenarios(GBS). Here students engage in a task that has a goal to achieve, resources are provided to help this. This is most useful where mastery is involved, like in a science subject.

Design Support Environments(DSE) Students engage in the design of the software or instruction. It seems that this is mostly used in upskilling teachers to use online tools for education/learning design.

In summary McLoughlin characterises effective scaffolding as:

· reducing the scope for failure in the task that the learner is attempting;

· enabling learners to accomplish a task that they would not be able to achieve on their own;

· moving learners to a new and improved zone of understanding;

· bringing learners closer to a state of independent competence.

  

The ten dimensions

1.Goal Orientation

Highly Focused < > unfocused

But designed to support independent learning and task performance

2.Adaptability

Fixed< > Flexible

Meeting the needs of a diverse range of learners, and adapting as development occurs

3. Accessibility

High < >Low

When needed (just in time), eg tutorials or FAQs to assist

4.Alignment

High < > Low

Support should align with task goals and learning outcomes – the right tools and resources available at the right time.

5. Experiential value

High < > Low

Include ways that enable learners to plan, act and reflect. Afforded an experience

6.Collaboration

Supported < > Unsupported

Learning through social dialogue, opportunities to communication and collaborate.

7. Constructivism

Strong < > Weak

Knowledge construction rather than memorisation – offer tools and tasks to support this.

               

8.Learning Orientation

Teacher regulation < > Learner regulation

Should be moving from teacher to self to learner self direction

9. Multiplicity

one-dimensional < > multi-dimensional

limited to one aspect of learning to applicable to many aspects (eg metacognition,reflection, articulation)

10 Granularity

low< > High

The number of component parts within the activity – how can they be broken down by the learner?

Conclusion

Scaffolding needs to support learners by giving them more control over their learning environment and the activities they undertake, but it should not assume that learners know how to do this.

Scaffolding needs to foster task engagement, social interaction and peer feedback. The dimensions can help assess the effectiveness of the support with a constructivist learning context – serving as a benchmark.

McLoughlin, C. (2002) ‘Learner support in distance and networked learning environments: ten dimensions for successful design’, Distance Education, vol.23, no.2, pp.149–62.

Salmons etivities - a response

Muirhead reiterates the fact that learner centred design is difficult, especially when CMC is based on the needs of an institution. He uses bases his paper on an example from New York University, and highlights how they failed to address the learners needs. He highlights some key points from Spitzers(1998) learning design, and most importantly the key role role that instructors and tutors play in bringing in the human element.

• Focus on the learner
• Make it easy to access and easy to use
• Have a personal element, which is where tutors come in
• Use technology the students can use, provide technical support and allow an adjustment period
• High levels of communication
• Involve all stakeholders
• Create a positive, motivating environment

Pavey and Garland’s report looks at a VLE used in Sports and Physiology degree. They used Salmon’s etivities and framework to create formative quizzes, interactive webpages, topic discussions and online lectures. Interestingly they completed stage 1 in a face to face environment, and used the online activities to enhance the f2f experiences. The three features that come through this are the successful introduction and integration of the students, the careful planning and presence of the tutor and that although there was a good response, most said they liked it as part of a blended experience, not as a replacemnet for f2f.

Jones and Peachey focus on Salmon’s stage 2 and whether it is necessary. The example they used is based around upskilling online tutors, many of whom were lecturers focussed on content with little online experience. Again a f2f induction was conducted, with icebreakers used to introduce the technology. They comment that there was less anxiety in using technology because of the f2f introductions. (It should be noted that there is no comparison, or test group so this assertions is based on this one activity). However the comments from students were that the integration tasks could have been quicker, which leads Jones and Peachy to assert that there may be a possibility that stage 2 is not needed, as informal posting dropped after stage 1 activities.

How does Salmon fit with our learning design?

Certainly our current elearning design is in no way reflective of this approach, as it is based on instructional design. However our learning material is normally carefully constructed to allow for a learning ‘journey’ to take place, and as I often write this with volunteers, I can look at the similarities from a face to face point of view.

Stage 1 – Access and motivation. An introduction and icebreaker is normally included to allow learners to get to know each other and start the socialisation process.

Stage 2 – Socialisation. Often the early tasks will include some form of group work or activity that asks people for their point of view, promoting discussion and allowing people to understand the context from which they come.

Stage 3- Information exchange. Most of the learning activities are action driven, requiring participants to gain knowledge from the trainer or each other and use to understand their roles better. There is a strong element of feedback and clear directions for trainers as to the content that needs to be covered.

Stage 4 – Knowledge Construction. Although not always present, there are strong collaborative elements to some of the learning designs, whereby learning design development plans or activities for themselves, using the knowledge they have attained.

Stage 5 –Development. This stage is less evident in the learning experiences themselves and probably more relevant to the validation stage, where we ask learners to put their acquired knowledge and skills into action in the roles that they do, and review this.

Although this is based upon our face to face learning design, I am sure that this can be adapted for the online environment. It has the basic framework to be developed.

Going back full circle to the start of this journey, I said that I wished we could transfer f2f content into the online environment. The reason we don’t do this well is because we remove the human element. Just as good trainers use activities to allow learners to explore knowledge for themselves (which is my prefered method), a good elearning environment needs a good trainer (tutor)to guide learners through it. The bad trainers use powerpoint presentations with no active involvement from learners, and we are guilty of this instructional approach with our past elearning design.

Ah – the realisation of my goal! Maybe the etivities will help in seeing how easy/hard it is to become said trainer.

Muirhead, B. (2002) ‘Salmon’s e-tivities: the key to active online learning’, USDLA Journal, vol.16, no.8

Pavey, J. and Garland, S.W. (2004) ‘The integration and implementation of a range of “e-tivities” to enhance students’ interaction and learning’, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, vol.41, no.3, pp.305–15.

Jones, N. and Peachey, P. (2004) ‘The development of socialisation in an on-line learning environment’, paper given at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting in 2004

Week 15 task - social networking

We were asked to explore, again, so of the tools available to us. By this point in the course, I think I have forgotten exactly what I have signed up for!

Anyway a quick look at the following:

Delicious (storing and sharing favourite urls)

Diigo (caching or archiving web content – can file urls, categorise them, comment)

Flickr (managing content – can share photos, send to blogs, comment or tag)

What skills or eliteracies might be required to use these services effectively?

With each of these tools there is an assumed amount of knowledge and internet access and also a need to create a account to use. These are not simple tools to use in my opinion, they take a certain degree of competence in using web tools.This could be done through orientation,or by using something like Elluminate and sharing a browser to take people through step by step. Once again, I found that they looked really interesting but that I didn’t have time to fully utilise them. The other thing I struggle with is that often I will use my work PC in my break to have a browse – but I am not allowed to download any software without the IT department’s authorisation, so often I cannot add links to Delicious as quickly as I would like. So if I have difficulty, no doubt my learners would too.This could have a huge impact on whether they would engage with an activity.

There is also the subject of ‘tagging’. Having started using a content management system for our website at work, this really is an evolutionary process. How do I tag content so that it is useful to me as well as others(in order to make it colloborative). Also, I suffer from putting things in a ‘safe’ place in real life, and I think there is a possibility that this could happen with my tagging – and me forgetting which words I used. It takes time to truly use these tools in a useful way, and this would need to be taken into consideration.

To what extent are the services able, or not able, to support and sustain meaningful exchanges or learning conversations?

As with many online tools, they could be useful as a ‘learning object’ or within a well designed activity. There has to be clear guidelines on aims, objectives and involvement of learners. Using the tools as an individual, I am not sure they have any merit in encouraging learning conversations. I have yet to engage with anyone else while looking for files on delicious. Within the framework of a planned activity, with external support then it may be useful. Certainly when researching for projects or sharing investigations then the tools could prove very useful.

What educational issues are raised by these social tools; e.g. issues of trust, authenticity, self-disclosure or informal learning?

There are more issues to consider when using these tools with young people than adults. The fact that they need an account means that there are issues with who can and can’t sign in. However I work with adults, so will focus from that arena. Again, the assumption that the adults will be happy to create an account is important.

The book marking sites by their nature record what you have bookmarked, and employ cookies where toolbars are downloaded. Diigo say they do not record browsing history, but most of these services link through yahoo or google, and so there will be a certain amount of tracking as this is how they monitor and improved the service they provide. As with all online resources. As learners I do not think there is much self-disclosure between each other, it is the third party service providers who have personal data. This would be different with the sharing of photos. As the OU does, there is a need to inform people of what and how these tools can be used, and awareness that there may be some students who won’t use them.

How could I use these tools?

I can think of instances where each of these tools could be used for an activity within a learning framework. Where training involves topics that are generally widespread, eg, leadership skills, there could be scope for learners to conduct their own investigation and share the content they have discovered. In particular I think these would be useful for trainers to link to each other and build up their resources – provided that the systems they already have are ineffective.

Distance Learning - Anderson

Anderson, T. (2005) ‘Distance learning: social software’s killer ap?’, paper presented at Breaking Down Boundaries conference, Adelaide, 9–11 November 2005.

Anderson notes that there is an inherent challenge in matching individual learning with building learning community support. True learner freedom would mean that the learner controls the whole of their learning experience. Mostly when we talk about freedom focus on freedom of:

·         Time

·         Space

·         Pace

·         Media

·         Access

·         Content

Definitions of social software defy definitions as social tools are still evolving. However social software can enhance distance learning through:

·         Presence tools – like Facebook’s who’s online

·         Notification- RSS

·         Filtering – not letting spam through

·         Co-operative Learning support

·         Referring-monitoring students actions

·         Student modeling- capturing learner profile helps adapt

I stumbled across some examples of use by Anderson on this webpage with examples of collaborative activities using social software tools.

In the Theory and Practice of online Learning, edited by Anderson (2008) there are many articles and examples of practical ways of supporting and planning online learning.

Chapter 6 looks at how different technologies can be used in online learning. We covered many of these in block2, but it’s worth revisiting to remember their uses as we start thinking about designing our own activities.

Streaming audio – supplement f2f lectures, with prerecorded or guest speakers. Can also be used in music or language classes.

Streaming video – prepared lectures, practical demonstrations etc

Audio chat and voice over internet protocol – communication, language based learning

Web- Conferencing – emulate classroom sessions. Very good for brainstorming sessions.

Instant messaging – mostly good for immediate communication, rather than content delivery.

Peer to peer file sharing – making connections with learning objects, sharing knowledge

Blogs – networking opportunities, knowledge sharing, reflective.

RSS – sharing information in timely fashion, knowing when content updated (eg RSS to web forums)

Wikis – brainstorming activities, collaborative work, e-portfolios, FAQ

Virtual worlds – practice skills and try out ideas in safe environment.

Digital games – reinforce learning, keeping interest in a task

Back in February I attended a webinar by Jane Hart about using Social Media for training within business. Like Anderson, she believes that Social Media (SoMe) can be used to enhance training, as most learning takes place outside of formal settings, and the website is a community development to share discussions and tools on how to do this. Through SoMe one can find things, keep up to date, build networks, communicate, share resources, collaborate, and improve productivity. Certainly in my experience, we are always looking for free tools that allow us to collaborate in our projects, as volunteers can often be spread over huge geographical areas. There are a number of resources and case studies available on the website that highlight the role that social media could play in learning.

Mark Berthelemy, in his Learning Conversations blog, has ten tips for choosing and using social media. As I have mentioned before, most of what Mark talks about is getting to know the users- the learners. He also picks up on Salmon’s 5 staged model approach.

Salmon's E-tivities

Salmon’s book introduces frameworks for online active and interactive learning, prior to our own exploration of e-tivities.

Salmon describes E-tivities as

• Motivating, engaging and purposeful
• Based on interaction between learners/students/participants mainly through written message contributions
• Designed and led by an e-moderator
• Asynchronous (i.e. take place over time)
• Cheap and easy to run- usually through text based bulletin boards

Key features of e-tivities

• A small piece of information, stimulus or challenge (the ‘spark’)
• Online activity which includes individual participants posting a contribution
• An interactive or participative element- such as responding to the postings of others
• Summary, feedback or critique from an e-moderator (the ‘plenary’)
  All the instructions to take part are available in one online message 

Salmon’s 5 Stage framework

Stage 1 – Access and motivation. Setting pace and rhythm. Orientation. Making people feel comfortable

Stage 2 – Socialisation. Getting to know people better and learn how to work together. Understanding the different context people come from.

Stage 3- Information exchange. Strong task and action focus. Imparting information to each other, giving feedback. Co-operation and communication between learners.

Stage 4 – Knowledge Construction. Broadening understanding, perspectives, viewpoints and examples. Move towards peer directed activities

Stage 5 –Development. Gaining self-insight. Reflecting. Making judgements. Activities should enable evaluation and critique.

Things to remember when planning e-tivities…..

• Know in advance what learners and moderators will be expected to do
• Be clear on outcomes/objectives
• Does assessment meet the purpose?
• Use activities to promote motivation
• Short term goals help to create complete and worthwhile learning activity
• Use bite size chunks to appeal to pace and time of all
• Make sure there is something that allows learners to share, shape, elaborate or deepen understanding
• Build in collaboration/working together

Salmon, G. (2002) E-tivities: The Key to Active Online Learning, London, Routledge Falmer.

Exploring elearning pedagogy

Summary of week 15 reading

‘Review of e-learning theories, frameworks and models’  Mayes and de Freitas.

Mayes and Freitas deconstruct the possible elearning approaches. It should start with the learning outcome intended, and then move to design or choose activities and assessment methods.

	Learning Outcomes	Design Principles	Pedagogy	Assessment
Associationist (Learning as activity)	Task analysis - Learning competencies	Organised activity, clear goals and feedback	Instructional. Simpler units build up knowledge. Learning hierarchies.	Knowledge or skill components
Cognitive (Learning as achieving understanding)	Meta cognitive – learning how to learn	Interactive environments for construction of understanding. Encourage experimentation/ support for reflection	Learning by Doing – relating to own context. Learner-centred. Interact with materials. Coaching/modelling; scaffolding; guided discovery; opportunity for reflection.	Performance, conceptual understanding
Situative (Learning as social practice)	Disciplinary practices	Participation in social practices of enquiry and learning. Development of identities as capable confident learners. Development of learning relationships	Wider Community. Building up set of knowledge (eg CPD)/ expertise Or Learning group-social context Or Individual relationships	Participation, practice and peer assessment

How does this compare to my experience? We certainly have elements of the associationist and the cognitive in our training. 'Learning by Doing' is an underpinning value of Scouting, and I have really considered how much we ask our volunteers to reflect on their knowledge. Each learning experience tries to put knowledge into a practical scenario, that relates to the roles that volunteers need to do. The assessment part is validation of that knowledge, by putting it into practice, which sometimes needs the help of a training adviser. When I think about how we construct the learning experiences, they are meant to be a guided tour, taking the learning objectives and creating a stimulating experience. Sometimes this involves demonstration - which is where the skills base comes in, but often it is about understanding or explaining things. Certainly where activity training comes in, this is about displaying competencies, but interesting, we also look at competencies in our trainer training. One would expect this to be more focused in the situative, professional skills, which is does have hints of, as through the trainer training people can build up skills that can be transfered across to professional body affiliation. Interestingly, one could say that all of our training is peer assessed,and that we are the community of learners, as we have volunteers training volunteers.

Learner Centred pedagogy Terry Mayes

In ‘Learner Centred pedagogy’ Terry Mayes looks at the need to recognise individual variances within the bigger picture. Is it possible to match pedagogy to individual ability? There are difficulties in determining if individual’s preferred style or what they really need. Also mismatching might be useful so that the learner experiences different learning styles and become stronger. Is it possible to use learning styles to encourage learners to think about their learning thereby increasing self-awareness and metacognition?Learner tracking can help with this, so that both learner and tutor get a better idea of ways of studying, but the learner decides it's worth. This could be an approach that makes learners question their styles and challenge the way they approach learning for their own self development.

As Mayes points out, matching pedagogy to individuals is a labour intensive action. Again, a principle we adopt is that learning is based of the needs of learners. This materialises as having a number of methods from which learners can chose from, so as Mayes suggests, isn't truely learner centred. However one of the things I have been exploring is how we address the different methods and how learners choose, trying to give some guidance for learners to make a more informed choice.

Student experiences of Technologies Conole et al
Here an interesting array of research has been conducted to highlight the changing nature of students engagement with technology in all aspects of the learning arena, from research to communication, processing data to preparing assignments. This is the kind of research which is particularly useful both before and after learning experiences and it offers some great insights into students' personal experiences. The choice of what technologies are used generally fall into those are easy to use, fast, effective, and useful for the task in hand. It also highlights some chararcteristics of learning activities.

Assimilative - reading information. This happens in many different ways and many different locations. My own experience is that I tend to print of reading where possible so that I can read on the train. . Forums I often read using my mobile, so that I can stay up to date with what people are saying. I also like to look around for other material, not suggested by the course notes, to contextualise and get a greater clarity around a subject.

Information handling tasks - Most students used word to help them write notes and summarise information. For me, I then add this to my blog - so that I have somewhere that helps to form narrative of my developing ideas. Within our learning activities, we are asked to process this to check out understanding.

Adaptive - using technology that models or simulates data. Although we haven't really experienced this, the environment simulation we used in the illuminate sessions, could be a good example (if it actually worked!)

Communicative - Often the students adopted their own communication methods, rather than using discussion.This is interesting, and I think this does depend on the study. So whereas these students might use MSN alot, as they also see each other in the face to face world, for us on H807, it is unlikely that we would email each other and communicate as informally through other routes.

Productive - using technology for the learning artefacts - assignments etc. Mostly these students used Word or PowerPoint, which in my experience are the toold that many people find easy to use, and I myself have used for preparing blogs and assignements.

Experiental - exploring and applying concepts which included practicing, applying undertanding etc (which will will be doing in Block 3). As highlighted early on in our forums, there is often a need to try out the things that have been learnt, which is especially true when the study relates to work based or situational practices.

Thinking and reflection - range of opportunites for students to manage their learning, with many using a blog as a main reflection tool.

Experience and activity - engaging in authentic learning experiences as well as being connected. The staying connected to what is going on is important, and harder when there are less interactions with others online. I wondered whetehr we have truely explored this within our forums. In the early weeks there was lots of activity and exploration, now it has slowed down alot.

Conversation and interaction - many of these were integral to the students' learning process, as by interacting with each other they could reach a better understanding. Certainly for us, it is an integral part of the colloborative elements of learning. Interaction gives you different opinions and choices and allows you to explore more.

The recommendations highlight a number of things that one might also want to consider when designing elearning experiences:

• take into account free content available, that will be used alongside the course material
• consider encouraging central repositories for resources to help the above
• flexibility in activities - so that students can decide how they interact
• clear idea of the social aspects, maybe using social software
• assessments need to clearly meet the intended learning outputs
• the ever increasingly use of mobile devices need to be considered, it is appropriate and have we designed to support this medium
• centralised systems need to be easy to use

Conole, G., de Laat, M., Dillon, T. and Darby, J. (2006) Learner XP project – Student experiences of technologies, Final Report [online], Bristol, The Joint Information Systems Committee.

Mayes, T. (2004) ‘Learner-centred pedagogy: individual differences between learners’ [online], Bristol, The Joint Information Systems Committee,

Mayes, T. and de Freitas, S. (2004) ‘Review of e-learning theories, frameworks and models’ [online], Bristol, The Joint Information Systems Committee