My Presentation on Second Life

http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/239550/Second-Life

My computer was slow in allowing me to move from slide to slide in PowerPoint. Therefore, there is a slight delay between slides at times. Also, I recorded Second Life and for some reason when the file converted from PowerPoint to SlideBoom, the video was lost. I have uploaded it as a separate file below.

Concept Map

I am with out a doubt dynamic. I absolutely love working on the Internet, using RSS feeds, email, IM, Facebook and Tweet. I like staying in touch with family and friends and reconnecting with those I have not seen in years.

Engaging Learners with New Strategies and Tools

Collaborative Learning in the Online Environment

Every learner brings something different to the class. In this program, we have teachers who teach primary, secondary and college level courses. Additionally, we have teachers who teach in the classroom, hybrid, or completely online. So interaction between these groups will vary depending on the topic discussed. For instance, if we are discussing how to integrate technology in the classroom, information provided by a primary teacher would not be of interest to me because I teach only online college level courses. I would not be able to apply those methods to my students, nor do I understand what it is like to teach that age group, so my response to this posting may lack the higher level thinking defined by the rubric. Instead of requiring students to respond to two other classmates initial postings, possibly use Swan’s advice to “Require discussion participants to respond to their classmates postings &/or to respond to all responses to their own postings” (Swan, 2004, p. 2). In some discussions, I would learn more by elaborating on my topic and responding to my classmates questions about that topic. Through a discussion, they may be able to help me expand my thinking on the topic.

In Edutechtalks blog dated January 1, 2010, they indicate that course design and teaching methods are tied to  the assessment of the students. “Assessment is central to defining and measuring the degree to which a learner achieves stated learning objectives” (Edutechtalks, 2010). The learning objectives are defined and carried out through the curriculum and linked to the teaching style presented by the instructor. So how do we know these learning objectives are met? We assess the students. This is a vicious circle, so as instructors it is our responsibility to ensure we are providing enough information to the students to ensure they understand what is expected of them in the course.  California State University provides a rubric for creating an online course. Michigan State University has a great Website with tips for designing online courses.

Students who do not want to participate in online collaboration will not only lose the points of the required assignment, they will also lose an important learning opportunity. Learning online does not have to be done alone if you make the effort to communicate with others in your class. These students should be encouraged to participate. Recently, in an online course I am teaching, a student posted that she is shy and does not like to make postings or use social networking tools. Several of the students posted encouraging remarks. I also posted a comment encouraging her to get to know the others in the class and begin participating. It is now the last week of the class and she is doing great. She indicated she is “coming out of her shell” and becoming more comfortable with the process. This change in behavior will make her a more successful student in the online environment.

Edutechtalks. (2010). Assessing Collaborative Efforts. Retrieved from http://edutechtalks.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/assessing-collaborative-efforts/

Swan, K. (2004). Relationships between interactions and learning in online environments. The Sloan Consortium.

Storyboard of Second Life

Second Life Storyboard

Elements of Distance Education Diffusion

George Siemens has certainly made us think about distance learning and how we can take advantage of technologies to enhance our online courses. I agree that distance education is much different from face-to-face courses and can expand a person’s perception of the world due to the participation of those not just in the U.S. but globally in the courses. I obtained my MBA online and continued with the online format because of the diversity that I experience. Had I attended classes at a college in Cleveland, Ohio, I would have been exposed to the same nationalities and type of people I interact with on a daily basis. Having students from around the world share their experiences and knowledge of what is happening in their country is enlightening and broadens my education.

The element that I would like to expand on from George Siemen’s talk is collaborative interaction. Blogs and Wikis are two popular tools available online for students to interact outside of the Course Management System. Siemens (2009) taught us that blogs are not just a tool for social networking, they are a way for students to create their own knowledge. This is an important concept in online learning because of the lack of personal interaction between the student and teacher and the student with other students. “Interactivity is valuable. Finding the best way to interact means understanding the conditions and circumstances of your students and their environment” (Nash, 2010). 

Susan Nash has a blog that identifies the most recent technologies and how they are used in the classroom. I agree with utilizing the tools that students use for the class, however, I would not like to see education content turned into an iPhone application. Recently, I had a student who was enrolled in my online course and tried to use her iPhone for the course. Mobile technologies are great tools to use with a course, however, these small devices just don’t meet the needs for the entire course.

Collaborative interaction in the online environment has evolved tremendously. This is evident by the number of socially interactive tools available. “Expression and creativity presuppose a community or audience, and so social creativity probably produces the greatest benefits, whether they be open source software contribution sites, artistic sites like Deviant Art or Flickr, blogging and discussion sites, or repositories like YouTube or SlideShare” (Downes, 2010). Stephen Downes has taught and designed in the distance education environment at various colleges in Canada. He is a colleague of George Siemens and supports his theories of connectivism and collaborative learning in the online classroom. Siemens (2005) indicated that knowledge is not just presented and known by the learner, it is constructed. Students can utilize blogs, wikis, and social networking sites to create their own knowledge and share it with others. 

There is also the idea presented in connectivism that too much information exists for one person to absorb in a lifetime, so it is up to that person to choose what information they want to use now, what information they want to retrieve later and what information they do not want.

“Decision-making is learning. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision” (Siemens, 2006, p. 31).

It is the student’s responsibility to acquire what is relevant and discard what is not. George Siemens and Stephen Downes have presented a good argument in defense of connectivisim and I agree with their presentation of facts. 

Downes, S. (2010). Responses to Questions on Technology and Schools. Retrieved from http://www.downes.ca/post/53264.

Nash, S. (Sept. 22, 2010). Mobile Learning: Is It Doing What It’s Supposed To? Retrieved from http://elearnqueen.blogspot.com/

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for a digital age. International Journal of Instruction Technology and Distance Learning, 2(1). Retrieved September 15, 2010 from http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm.

Siemens, G. (2006). Knowing knowledge. Lexington, KY: Lulu.com.

Distance Learning and the Next Generation

We have only begun to understand e-learning and how it impacts learners, teachers, and society. With many existing courses, developers were not familiar with the differences between classroom and online learning. Many instructors were told to create the courses, so they took their made for the classroom curriculum and posted it on the Internet. As we have come to learn, this does not work. In fact, this is exactly what happened where I work. I am full-time at Tiffin University. In this capacity, I am required to continually develop my online courses. When I first looked at the course (I just began this position last month) I found that they were quickly thrown together with not thought about how students learn, how e-learning is different, and what type of resources are out there to make the course more learner-centered.


As I begin to understand the make-up of the online Associates Degree program that I teach in, I find that the faculty were not completely on board with this whole idea. "If distance education is to become "main-stream" with continued productivity, we need to begin to clearly address e-learning issues such as course development, salary, workload, intellectual property rights, and promotion and tenure)" Moller, Foshay, and Huett, 2008, p. 69). In our case, this still has not occurred. In fact, there are arguments about intellectual property rights that linger on, so faculty have chosen not to post their information on the TU portal but instead email the information so that TU cannot say that it is theirs. Faculty believe that if they leave the university, they should be able to take their developed course information with them, however, TU does not.

The development of courses needs to continue. Even John Dewey told us

 “Since the curriculum is always getting loaded down with purely inherited traditional matter and with subjects which represent mainly the energy of some influential person or group of persons in behalf of something dear to them, it requires constant inspection, criticism, and revision to make sure it is accomplishing its purpose” (Dewey, 2009, 86). 

So it is important that we stay on top of e-learning and continually update the information and add new technological features to the course.

Dewey, J. (2009). Democracy and education: Complete and unabridged. USA: Feather Trail Press.

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008, May/June). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the Web (Part 1: Training and Development). TechTrends, 52(3), 70–75. Use the Academic Search Premier database, and search using the article's title.

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008, July/August). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the Web (Part 2: Higher Education). TechTrends, 52(4), 66–70. Use the Academic Search Premier database, and search using the article's title.

Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshay, W. & Coleman, C. (2008, September/October). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the Web (Part 3: K12). TechTrends, 52(5), 63–67.Use the Academic Search Premier database, and search using the article's title.

New Technologies

About 10 years ago, I worked in the administration for the Mayor of our city. I was responsible for getting the computers set-up and instruct users on how to use Microsoft products. The Mayor wanted to utilize the Outlook calendar meeting function to help fun the office more smoothly. This was an easy task, except for when it came to teaching the Safety Service Director. He had no desire to learn about computers. His reluctance put our office behind in integrating the technology plan we had put into place.

Possibly the only motivational strategy from Kellers' ARCS Model that might have applied relates to enhancing relevance. If I could have encourage the Safety Service Director to learn about the new technology and how it could make his life easier, maybe he would have been more apt to want to learn.  "Provide opportunities for matching learners' motives and values with occasions for self-study, leadership, and cooperation" (Driscoll, 2005, p. 339).  Also by having him projected as a leader in the use of the technology could have encouraged him as well.

Reference:
Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

Connectivism

Connectivism

How it has changed the way I learn and teach

Connectivism has changed the way that we research information and learn about new things.  This is due to the vast amount of information available to us on the Internet and the large amount of venues that make this information available.  We are also experiencing the ability to create our own knowledge through the Internet.  This blog is the perfect example.  I am able to take the knowledge I have gained about Connectivism and share this knowledge with my classmates.  This also provides the opportunity for my classmates to respond to my understanding of the Connectivism learning theory and provide their input on the theory and what they like or dislike about my interpretation. 

The way that information is accessed has changed the way that I learn about information.  It does not change my internal ability to learn or how I learn, it changed the way I am able to access information through a networked structure.  This has been exciting for me because I enjoy research and learning about new information.  I have been known to spend hours on the computer researching a topic and finding extensive information about that topic.  The problem I have encountered is having the time to read all the information that I have found.  Therefore, I have turned to locating podcasts or videocasts on the topics.  It is unbelievable the amount of information available in these formats.  This allows me to listen to the information while driving in the car.  The Internet has changed the way we access the information and share information.

Working in Groups

Working together is how we accomplish things in life.  When we work in groups, we bring together our own ideas and experiences.  Sharing this information allows us to use other people's knowledge and experiences to build on what we already know.  Collaboration is important in learning, work, and every day life.

Rheingold (2005) talks about how the collaborative efforts of Wikipedia shows that people can work together to produce something good.  This is true.  Every day people work together to build buildings, pave roadways, and run businesses.  This is not to say that all people are able to work in groups to produce something.  Not everyone is good at working in groups and providing an equal contribution. 

The advances in technology have allowed us to collaborate with others more efficiently.  It has allowed for the construction of sites like Wikipedia and participation by those who wish to contribute.  "I simply want you to keep in mind, that if in the past, new forms of cooperation, enabled by new technology, create new forms of wealth, we maybe moving into yet another economic form that is significantly different from previous ones" (Rheingold, 2005)  Collaboration in business is nothing new, it has been going on for centuries.  The way that we communicate has simply changed over the years due to the advances in technology.  We saw changes when the telephone was invented, the fax machine was introduced and now the Internet.  This does not change the fact that people have worked together to accomplish tasks, it only provides a more efficient way of completing the tasks.


“Howard Rheingold: Way-New Collaboration” http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html

As learning theories evolve, new theories are introduced as the needs of society changes and old theories are dismissed. The main theories of cognitivism, constructivism, behavioralism, and now connectivism are continually being scrutinized by professionals, especially when a new theory is introduced. Ben Kerr (2007) makes this point about behavioralism in his blog posting http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/01/isms-as-filter-not-blinker.html. “So, although it is possible to make perfectly valid criticisms of Skinner's behaviourism or the theoretical foundation of cognitivism that is not the end of the story” (Kerr, 2007).

As the debate continued with behavioralism, cognitivism became the preferred learning theory. The idea that learning is and internal process seemed to make it more individual and personal. The roles of the learner and instructor changed, as did the process of learning based on the cognitive approach being utilized. In Michael Hanley's blog on behavioralism, he identifies Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction.This helps both the learner and instructor understand their roles in learning and what transpires during the learning process.

Through the interpretations and understanding of the different learning theories, many tend to conclude that the theories are not complete by themselves. "We need to take pieces from each school of thought and apply it effectively because…Cognitivism doesn’t explain 100% how humans process information and neither does Constructivism or Behaviorism" (Knapp, 2007).  The points that Karl Kapp makes in his blog help us to understand that by utilizing all the required components of each theory that fits a particular learning model, we will better serve the learning community.

How do we learn?

My belief is that everyone learns differently. So the way a person learns best is through their personal learning style. Learning styles have been categorized based on the methods students use to learn. By understanding personal learning styles, students can identify study methods to help achieve learning course content. For example, a student who is good at reading and comprehension will read the course material and retain the information for a test. Another student, however, who is not good at comprehension may need to summarize the material and make flash cards to study the course material for a test. Then there is the student who can attend the lectures and retain the information for a test without reading the book. These students learn differently; by seeing, hearing or reading.

There are various measurement instruments for determining learning styles. Unfortunately, there has not been enough research on all of them to make any one reliable. Creative Learning has a blog, http://yvonnewalus.blogspot.com/, that gives some insight to learning styles. The author is an educator as well, which is why I enjoy reading this blog.


Learning theories in educational technology are important especially due to the newness of the discipline and the need to understand it. Technology is incorporated in the classroom from K-12 to college level. Educators need to learn the proper techniques and methods for each level of learning to meet the learning needs of that age group. The use of technology in the classroom should be a smooth process and not overwhelm the student. The activities should be age appropriate and enhance the learning experience of the student.

Jonathan Woodward's blog, http://techpulsehe.wordpress.com/, talks about educational technology, future trends and theories in practice. He highlights information from several books referencing e-learning and Web 2.0 technologies. Woodward is also pursuing a Ph.D. and I find his blog to be helpful in obtaining resources for staying on top of changes in educational technology.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog for the Learning Theory and Educational Technology course at Walden University.