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.
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