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.