På U.T. Dallas, USA, har föreläsare Dr Monica Rankin, provat att använda Twitter som en aktiv del av föreläsningen. Oerhört intressant med ett riktigt case i blended learning som inkluderar m-learning. Om resultatet kan du läsa här

Sugato Chakravarty, professor of consumer sciences and retailing at Purdue University, har även han använt Twitter under föreläsningen. Läs, se och hör hans och hans studenters kommentarer här i en artikel och videointervju

En av erfarenheterna som återkommer ofta i intervjuerna är att studenter som vanligtvis inte diskuterar eller kommenterar kommer till tals. Det här är något vi även märkt under bolagsstämmor och seminarier där traditionella sms-lösningar med hjälp av en moderator avsevärt ökat interaktiviteten.

B-Learning: MBA presencial y online

“La unión hace la fuerza”. A esta famosa frase se han abocado los académicos en su camino para mejorar las técnicas utilizadas en la enseñanza de los posgrados.

Notas Relacionadas

MBA Virtuales: ventajas de Internet en su preparación profesional

10 tips para redactar una carta de presentación para MBA’s

Tips para una carta de un MBA

Σε απλά ελληνικά, θα έλεγα ότι podcast είναι ένα αρχείο ήχου ή βίντεο, το οποίο δημιουργείτε στον υπολογιστή σας και ανεβάζετε στο ίντερνετ σε εξειδικευμένους server, στο blog σας ή στην ιστοσελίδα σας. Κάθε φορά που συμβαίνει αυτό, με τη βοήθεια των RSS feeds, όλοι οι συνδρομητές του καναλιού σας ενημερώνονται για το νέο podcast αυτομάτως. Με τη βοήθεια εξειδικευμένου λογισμικού (όπως για παράδειγμα itunes, winamp, mediamonkey κλπ. – τα επονομαζόμενα podcatchers) λαμβάνουν το podcast, το οποίο αργότερα μπορούν να περάσουν στο mp3, mp4 player ή κινητό τηλέφωνο που διαθέτουν. Έτσι, οι συνδρομητές σας μπορούν να ανατρέξουν στο αρχείο που δημιουργήσατε και μεταδώσατε οποτεδήποτε και οπουδήποτε! Πληροφορίες σχετικά με το podcasting μπορείτε να βρείτε στην ελληνική wikipedia εδώ ή στα αγγλικά όπου θα βρείτε και έναν ορισμό για το podcasting εδώ.

Ωραία όλα αυτά· τι σχέση έχουν με τη μαθηματική εκπαίδευση; Η πρακτική του podcasting εξασκείται ήδη σε πολλά πανεπιστήμια τόσο στο εξωτερικό όσο και στο εσωτερικό, στα πλαίσια της συνδυασμένης μορφής εκπαίδευσης (blended learning). Mπορείτε μάλιστα να βρείτε στις ιστοσελίδες πολλών πανεπιστημίων οδηγίες για την παραγωγή και διανομή podcast. Στη δευτεροβάθμια εκπαίδευση η χρήση των podcast δεν είναι ευρέως διαδεδομένη, παρουσιάζει όμως κάποια σημαντικά πλεονεκτήματα, όπως το γεγονός ότι:

• μπορεί να εξυπηρετήσει μαθητές με προβλήματα όρασης ή ακοής
• τα podcast είναι διαθέσιμα οποτεδήποτε και οπουδήποτε
• είναι πολύ εύχρηστα για συχνή επανάληψη
• υποστηρίζουν το οπτικό ή ακουστικό μαθησιακό στυλ

Συγκεκριμένα για τα μαθηματικά, θα έλεγα ότι τα podcast που μπορεί ένας εκπαιδευτικός της δευτεροβάθμιας εκπαίδευσης να παράξει, να αφορούν κατά κύριο λόγο κομμάτια μεθοδολογίας ή ορισμούς. Για παράδειγμα, ενδεικτικοί τίτλοι υποθετικών podcast για τα μαθηματικά της Β’ Λυκείου και της Β’ Γυμνασίου θα μπορούσαν να είναι:

Για τη Β’ Λυκείου

• Η έλλειψη (κατασκευή, ορισμός, γεωμετρικός τόπος, εκκεντρότητα)
• Το πολυώνυμο (ορισμός του μονωνύμου / πολυωνύμου, τι είναι βαθμός πολυωνύμου, συντελεστές, σταθερός όρος)

Για τη Β’ Γυμνασίου

• Η εξίσωση (ποια βήματα ακολουθούμε για να λύσουμε μια εξίσωση α’ βαθμού)
• Το Πυθαγόρειο θεώρημα και το αντίστροφό του (πότε χρησιμοποιείται το ένα και πότε το άλλο)

Αν “ψήνεστε” να κατασκευάσετε τα δικά σας podcast, θα χρειαστείτε:

1. μικρόφωνο
2. ηλεκτρονικό υπολογιστή εφοδιασμένο με κατάλληλο λογισμικό
3. μια σύνδεση στο ίντερνετ

Για να βοηθήσω με το 2ο βήμα (αφού με το 1ο και το 3ο δεν μπορώ να κάνω πολλά πράγματα) έχω φτιάξει έναν οδηγό εγκατάστασης του Audacity για συστήματα Windows, μεταφράζοντας ουσιαστικά το υλικό που υπάρχει ήδη online σχετικά με το θέμα και προσθέτοντας επεξηγηματικές εικόνες. Το Audacity είναι ο πιο ευρέως χρησιμοποιούμενος επεξεργαστής ήχου, το οποίο μάλιστα είναι ελεύθερο και δωρεάν λογισμικό. Αν το χρησιμοποιήσετε, θα δείτε ότι είναι πολύ εύκολο στη χρήση, με πληθώρα λειτουργιών. Κατεβάστε τον οδηγό εγκατάστασης σε φορμά pdf εδώ: how_to_install_audacity

 

small_space_chart, originally uploaded by bill.knapp.

Meegan Lillis and I presented on this topic at the Campus Technology 09 conference this past summer in Boston. The idea was to visually represent the concept of using instructional technology (in this case web 2.0) to bridge time and space. The space continuum along the left side of the poster illustrates the use of increasingly complex solutions which allow students and instructors to meet synchronously from simple chat to web-conferencing and virtual worlds. The time continuum looks at connecting asynchronously using technologies which support increasing the distance, beginning with campus infrastructure and moving to G3/G4 wireless and hand-held solutions.

De LOOWI-bijeenkomst vond plaats op 6 november 2009 bij het International Institute of Social Studies in Den Haag. Het officiële verslag zal verschijnen op de LOOWI website bij de rubriek verslagen. Hier zijn enkele impressies van deze middag.

Workshop Performance Assessment van Informatievaardigheden door Jos van Helvoort.
Jos van helvoort is hogeschooldocent aan de opleiding Informatiedienstverlening en Informatiemanagement van de Haagse Hogeschool. In het workshop heeft Jos het gebruik van de ‘Scoringsrubriek voor informatievaardigheden’ zoals beschreven in InformatieProfessional (nummer 10, 2009) uitgelegd. Kopieën van een werkstuk gemaakt door een student waren verspreid onder de deelnemers samen met een scoringsrubriek. Wij hadden de opdracht om het werkstuk te beoordelen met behulp van de scoringsrubriek. Studenten hadden de opdracht gekregen om landeninformatie te verzamelen over een ontwikkelingsland. Zij moesten een rapport schrijven met basisinformatie en bijzonderheden over het land en vermelden hoe zij aan hun informatie waren gekomen – zoekwoorden, zoekprofiel, bronvermelding. Het werkstuk was mooi vormgegeven maar de inhoud was beperkt tot informatiebronnen dat makkelijk via Google met enkel zoekwoorden gevonden kon worden (Wikipedia). Studenten hadden vooraf tips ( bijv. om de landeninformatie van de EVD te bekijken) gekregen van hun docent maar hebben die niet gebruikt.

Informatiegebruik bij studententaken gemeten / Jos van Helvoort

De Scoringsrubriek is te vinden in het HBO Kennisbank.

Inzet van ECDL (European Computer Driver License) bij het ISS door John Steenwinkel (International Institute of Social Studies)
Veel studenten van het ISS komen uit landen waar het gebruik van ICT minder in het onderwijs is doorgedrongen dan in Nederland. Het trainingsprogramma, European Computer Driver License, helpt deze studenten snel bij te leren op dit gebied. Het ECDL is een product met intake toetsen en training op maat zodat studenten de gaten in hun kennis kunnen dichten in wenig tijd.

Informatievaardigheden leren met ‘Saving Asia’ game door Ana van Meegen (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Het spel is ontwikkeld voor het Cyberdam platform – open source software voor het ontwikkelen van ’serious games’. Een Flash ontwerper was ingehuurd voor de vormgeving en het beeldmateriaal. Werkvorm – groepsonderwijs in een computerzaal onder begeleiding van een informatie specialist. De informatie specialist is ook moderator van het spel. De informatiebronnen opgenomen in het spel zijn kwaliteits open source materialen. Ana heeft een powerpoint presentatie gegeven over het spel en een aantal filmpjes laten zien die deel uitmaken van het spel. Het spel ziet er aantrekkelijk uit. Om het spel te spelen zijn in totaal 6 uur nodig.

Huishoudelijke vergadering LOOWI en onderlinge uitwisseling van informatie
Recente ontwikkelingen in het informatievaardigheden onderwijs zijn door de deelnemende bibliotheken geplaatst op de LOOWI wiki. De gedrukte versie van de brochure Informatievaardigheid: normen voor het hoger onderwijs was gepresenteerd en verspreid onder de leden van het LOOWI.

In relation to the COMBLE project where my colleague Heilyn Camacho and I designed and implemented a course on Problem Based Blended Learning using Moodle and SL, other project partners have been working on developing a wiki that focuses on teaching and learning methods and approaches: Methopedia.

As part of the wiki community concept anyone can add and share content concerning teaching and learning activities, methods, approaches and designs.  Complementary to the wiki our partners from University of Applied Science Wildau have developed a flash tool for designing different kinds of teaching and learning events – the Learning Designer.

The main idea is that the Designer tool can import whatever is put into Methopedia and then the user can create visual overviews of events spanning from short activities to seminars and courses.

Learn more about the tool from this video:

The partners have also written a paper on the work with Methopedia which was recently presented at the 8^th European Conference on e-Learning (ECEL).

/Mariis

Together with colleagues Ulla Konnerup, Søren Skøtt Andreasen & Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld I’ve co-edited an anthology entitled “ICT and Learning – reflected practice”.  What makes this anthology unique is that all the authors are alumni from the Masterprogramme in ICT and Learning (MIL).  Through 7 articles the authors discuss and reflect upon the use and purpose of ICT in different learning contexts covering the educational sector and one public hospital. The anthology is in Danish – and so will the rest of this post be …

Front cover by Helle Fibiger

Ikt og læring – reflekteret praksis er en antologi, der er blevet til på baggrund af masterprojekter udarbejdet i forbindelse med afslutning af Masteruddannelsen i Ikt og læring (MIL). Ideen til antologien kom fra alumner, som fandt det relevant at sætte fokus på den iderigdom, kreativitet og nye viden, der skabes i udarbejdelsen af disse afgangsprojekter.

Gennem antologiens syv artikler fremlægger, diskuterer og reflekterer de 13 forfattere en række vidt forskellige cases, som dog alle har koblingen af ikt og læring til fælles. Forfatternes meget forskellige teoretiske inspirationskilder, metodiske fremgangsmåder og brug af diverse typer af ikt viser bredden inden for dette spændende felt som er i konstant udvikling.

Antologien henvender sig derfor også bredt til alle, som interesserer sig for ikt og læring, hvad enten der er tale om teoretikere, praktikere, undervisere, studerende, arbejdsgivere og ansatte, for hvem reflekteret brug af ikt er en del af den daglige praksis i et samfund, hvor livslang læring om noget er på dagsordenen.

Emneord: Ikt, livslang læring, pædagogik, design, praksis, refleksion

Antologien’ s pris er kr. 198,- og den kan bestilles via Aalborg Universitetsforlag.

/Mariis

Verein zur Unterstützung von eLearningaktivitäten aller Schulformen in Thüringen.

Our institution of higher ed began using web-conferencing about a year ago. By the end of the year we had 100 host licenses. A host is a user who can initiate a meeting/training/support session. Attendees need not have a license – just hosts.

I began using it to permit faculty to connect to our weekly walk-in training opportunities. While most participating still attended the face-to-face option, some connected from across the state (I had one connect from Washington DC while attending a conference) and others from their desks across campus or from home.

Several staff members used web-conferencing for administrative purposes such as virtual meetings. No doubt, it saved on institutional travel expenses (travel for a dozen or so people is going to be much more expensive than calling into a teleconference). Unfortunately, we don’t have a good way of measuring this. We would need to track what we did not spend from one budget line item, and compare it to what we actually spent in a different budget line item.

Another group included instructors who were looking for ways to connect with students at a distance. A couple of faculty used it to provide an orientation to their fully-0nline programs and courses. Others used it to connect with students while away at a conference. This semester one of our faculty decided he would offer a student the opportunity to enroll in his on-campus face-to-face class, who would otherwise not be able to take the course.

When I was working on my masters program in order to complete my requirements, I occasionally had to enroll in sections which were offered in other locations. Although I lived and worked on the main campus, there were not always enough students enrolling in a give course to fill a section. I traveled to locations fifty and a hundred miles away, taught by instructors who also traveled a fair distance just to teach them.

With this technology we can offer students the option of enrolling in a on-ground face-to-face course from their desktop. It might not be for everyone. Students should be advised there may be challenges face-to-face students would not encounter such as not be able to hear questions or comments of students in the classroom, observing nonverbal cues of the instructor, needing to post questions using the chat tool, etc. In order to succeed students need to be reatively comfortable with the technology and willing to take a back seat at times, but for those who are willing and able it may be a viable option.

At the breakfast Blackboard have put on to celebrate the release of their Blended Learning Paper (http://www.k12perspectives.com/blended_learning.asp)…listening to a panel of online experts. Major trends/issues raised in Blended Learning:
- Internet access for students afterhours , not necessarily do students have latops anymore but do they have high speed Internet access
- Funding is always an issue
- When deciding on an LMS or web tools don’t be distracted by the bells and whistles think about the learning enviornment for students
- Content for students can be teacher created and or brought from vendors
- Importance of technology planning as a whole school
- Very important staff professional learning and getting the right people on the bus!

The title of this post comes from a very nice and inspiring presentation by Gareth Davies, on IWBs and the potential benefits of its use in the classroom. As a “tech” fan myself, I’d answer the question with a FRIEND in capital letters. I truly understand the IWBs are certainly not the solution to all our teaching needs, and you souldn’t overuse it, but I can’t agree at all that there’s nothing useful to say about them.

As with any other tool in our classrooms, there are good and bad things about them. All we have to do is find the best way (and softwares) to use it for the benefit of our students. I’d just like to point out some very good things you can do with one in an EFL classroom.

1) Exploiting pictures from the book encouraging a heads up learning mode.

2) Doing feedback by using the “shade” revealing the answers bit by bit.

3) Saving your work and being able to use it again next class.

4) Playing guessing games with pictures and the “flashlight” mode.

5) Presenting grammar and vocabulary items.

6) Playing interactive or kinaesthetic games.

7) Having all the components (CDs, CDROMs, DVDs, SBs, WBs, Websites, etc) in one single place.

Finally I’d say that, mostly for kids, IWBs and digital teaching materials are a great motivation tool since, as digital natives, they’re are quite interested in anything that relates to computers. In fact, I’m experiencing this right now with my eight-year-old son. He was not very interested in learning English with the traditional books, then since I had the Happy Series I-Tools installed in my computer, I decided to give it a try.

Guess what? Now whenever I’m home, instead of asking me to play video games or soccer with him, he wants me to teach him English!!! No wonder why all OUP books are now coming up now with one type of CPT (Classroom Presentation Tool).

This is the 21st century, my friends and, even if we are a bit affraid of technology, we will have to catch up if we want to be steady in the ELT market for the next 10, 20, or 30 years.

10:30 Lost in Space: Finding Your Way Around Effective Learning Space Creation, door Jorstad, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

This session will illustrate how to conceive, design, and construct effective and innovative learning spaces. Learn through the viewpoints of faculty members, IT staff, architects/consultants, and administrators. Participants will learn about good and poor planning strategies and superlative learning space designs that are scalable and sustainable.

Over deze sessie kan ik kort zijn: verkeerd gekozen. Ik had dit opgevat als gaande over virtuele leeromgevingen, maar het ging over het ontwerp van fysieke leerruimten… Het was evenwel een troost toen ik later van 2 anderen hoorde dat zij dezelfde ‘fout’ hadden gemaakt…

Niet dat dit niet interessant zou zijn, maar het hoort niet tot mijn professioneel domein.

De quote (van ene Holmgren) waarmee hij eindigde wil ik hier wel nog meegeven: “You don’t stop innovating when dollars are tight”.

11:40 Disrespectful and Time-Wasting, or Engaged and Transformative? The Mile-High Twitter Debate, Gardner Campbell van Baylor University en Maas van University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Dit was een zogenaamde Point/Counterpoint sessie waarop een thema belicht wordt vanuit 2 tegengestelde standpunten. Twitter is daar bij uitstek voor geschikt denk ik.

Deze sessie kan hier bekeken worden.

Het moet gezegd, Amerikanen houden van show… Acteertalent is dus mooi meegenomen. De tegengestelde standpunten worden dus eigenlijk in een soort van rollenspel gebracht. De anti-twitterman bleek na verloop van tijd dus helemaal niet zo anti-twitter te zijn, maar goed, dat is op zich niet zo belangrijk. Twitter blijft voorlopig controversieel en de pro en cons werden door de heren in deze ’show’ dus wel goed gebracht. Ik heb alleen niet zoveel nieuws gehoord. Dat ligt uiteraard niet aan deze performers.

Volgende Youtube-filmpje toont hoe een docent geschiedenis Twitter inzet om iedereen te betrekken bij een klasdiscussie:

Wat er zoal getwitterd werd tijdens deze sessie (door de hashtag #edtwitter toe te voegen aan de tweets), kan je hier bekijken.

14:15 The Top-10 Questions You Should Consider When Implementing Second Life, Joosten van University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee en Ritter van The Pennsylvania State University

Learning environments are being transformed by the advance of emerging technologies such as the virtual world Second Life. Second Life provides a virtual learning environment that facilitates community building and enhances engagement for both students and instructors. We have identified the top-10 questions to consider when implementing Second Life on campus, encompassing critical topics such as challenges, best practices, assessment, evaluation, student reactions, faculty feedback, and more. Through an analysis of the experiences of two campuses, Penn State and the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, this session will provide answers to the 10 questions by focusing on specific implementations and development in Second Life.

Tot nog toe is de precieze meerwaarde van Second Life voor het onderwijs me steeds ontgaan. Heb me er ook nog niet echt op toegelegd, maar anderzijds heb ik ook nog nooit een overtuigend voorbeeld ervan gezien. Ik weet vooralsnog ook niet van experimenten ermee in onze hogescholen.

De titel van deze sessie was in die zin veelbelovend, want nu zou het me eindelijk gaan dagen. Aan de hand van 10 vragen zou ik klaarheid krijgen.

Vraag 1: Why use second life

Antwoord:

• 3D
• immersive
• media rich
• social network

Deze kenmerken van SL zouden volgende zaken bewerkstelligen:

• betrokkenheid van studenten verhogen
• een communitygevoel opbouwen
• sociale aanwezigheid opbouwen (vooral belangrijk voor 100% online cursussen)
• community building

Vraag 2: How much does it cost?

Antwoord: ongeveer 1000$ voor een eigen eiland in SL en 150$ per maand onderhoudskost

Op de vraag die achteraf uit het publiek kwam hoeveel het kost en hoelang het duurt om zelf iets te bouwen in SL werd ontwijkend geantwoord: met hetgene ze nu al aan objecten hebben, kan iets nieuw binnen de 5 minuten gebouwd worden. Zo ongeveer klonk het antwoord, maar op de initiële kost werd niet ingegaan.

Vraag 3: How do students access SL?

Antwoord: via 1 link
Hiermee bedoelden ze een link die meteen naar hun eigen eiland gaat en niet via Orientation Island waar je normaal als gewone gebruiker binnenkomt.

Vraag 4: What do students do in SL?

Dit is natuurlijk een heel interessante vraag. Het antwoord kwam neer op:  meaningfull activities.
Ik heb nog genoteerd dat rollenspellen in SL beter werken dan in real life, omdat studenten minder geremd zouden zijn. Hier kan ik me wel iets bij voorstellen.

Vraag 5: How do we orient students and faculty to SL?

Antwoord: Studenten moeten een ‘bewijs van leven’ geven zodat de docent kan zien dat ze daadwerkelijk binnen zijn en hun weg vinden. Dit kunnen ze doen door een snapshot te nemen en dit in hun blog te posten.
Voor docenten is er een user group voorzien en helpt men elkaar.

Vraag 6: Do students and faculty like SL?

Antwoord: yes

Vraag 7: Does SL introduce students to pornography? In other words, is SL secure?

Antwoord: Hier werd gezegd dat studenten wel gesensibiliseerd worden voor eventuele gevaren, maar dat het uiteindelijk hun eigen verantwoordelijkheid is. Net zoals op de rest van internet kan je in SL allerlei dingen vinden. De verantwoordelijkheid van de instelling eindigt bij het eigen eiland op SL.

Vraag 8: How do I evaluate the impact of SL?

Antwoord: Hier werd een cirkel getoond: betrokkenheid van de studenten zorgt ervoor dat ze actief aanwezig zijn, daardoor wordt een learning community gevormd, dit leidt tot leren, en leren leidt tot voldoening wat vervolgens de betrokkenheid weer verhoogt.
Het evalueren gebeurt via maandelijkse rapporten, surveys op het einde van het semester, meetings met studenten en het verzoek aan studenten om feedback en opmerkingen te geven.
Verder maakt men ook gebruik van een tool die de activiteit binnen SL meet (vergelijkbaar met webstatistieken)

Vraag 9: What are some best practices in using SL?

Hier kwam een heel algemeen antwoord op met richtlijnen als

• focus op je doelstelling
• zorg voor een branding
• be a resource for students and staff
• hou regelmatige activiteiten om studenten aan te moedigen: student meetings, live webcasts, tutorial session
• doe alleen in SL wat je met andere middelen niet of moeilijk zou kunnen doen
• doe dingen consistent

Bij deze sessie ben ik op mijn honger blijven zitten. Ik heb geen concrete voorbeelden gezien. Het was me op het einde nog steeds niet duidelijk wat zij nu precies doen in SL. De zaal zat evenwel wel vol met mensen die voor het overgrote deel al SL inzetten in hun onderwijs, dus moet er toch wel toegevoegde waarde zijn…

15:50 Update Status: Friending gr8 Leaders, door Martyr-Wagner van University of Minnesota en Milford van Indiana University

Deze sessie kwam uit de reeks over leiderschap en management. Waar het hier dan om ging was de inzet van social media voor leiderschapsontwikkeling. Hoe kunnen sociale netwerken aangewend worden om samenwerking te bevorderen en om veranderingen door te voeren.

Social networking presents opportunities to enhance leadership and staff development. How do IT leaders harness social networking to meet institutional goals and complement traditional offerings? What future social networking trends will impact development? This session will explore how leaders can use social networking to enhance collaborations, manage change, and lead organizations.

Ze begonnen hun presentatie met de vaststelling dat 3 op de 4 US online volwassenen gebruik maken van social tools. Er werd kort een overzicht gegeven van de evolutie van het ontstaan van social media.

Ze willen de discussie voeren hoe social media gebruikt kunnen worden om leiderschap en personeelsontwikkeling te verbeteren, en hoe social media de bedrijfsdoelstelingen mee kunnen helpen bereiken.

Daarom willen ze kijken naar de trends, de uitdagingen en de opportuniteiten.

Voor trends verwezen ze naar een artikel op harvardbusiness.org

Er zijn wel nieuwe technologieën, maar nog steeds de oude uitdagingen, zoals het bewaren van de productiviteit, het probleem van stalking en het probleem van teveel delen.

Interessant waren de voorbeelden die gegeven werden van instellingen en bedrijven die social media inzetten om de betrokkenheid bij de organisatie te verhogen en voor ontwikkeling:

• US Army Company Command
• Starbucks Partner Café
• My Starbucks Idea
• McDonald’s Station M
• IBM Beehive
• Dell IdeaStorm

16:55 Blended and Online Learning, door Lynip van University of Montana en Shah-Nelson van SUNY College of Technology at Delhi.

Higher education is seeing exponential growth in the field of online and blended teaching and learning. Geared toward directors, coordinators, and/or administrators of online and blended learning programs, this discussion will provide a space for the exchange of ideas, tips, and information related to best practices and policies, quality control, staffing, and structure, as well as management of support services, faculty development, and learning management systems.

Deze sessie stond niet in de programmabrochure maar is achteraf nog toegevoegd. Gezien de omschrijving en gezien het feit dat wij betrokken zijn bij een project over blended learning waarbij het de bedoeling is te komen tot een aantal modellen voor implementatie ervan,  gericht naar het management, dacht ik dat dit wel een interessante sessie kon zijn. Het ging hier om een discussion session, dus heel wat interactie met het publiek. Dat publiek bestond uiteraard hoofdzakelijk uit Amerikanen, maar er waren ook mensen uit Canada, Zweden, Jamaica, en ja, ook nog een Belg, uit Luik.

Ik weet nog dat ik dit de meest interessante sessie van de dag vond. De volgende vraag werd gesteld: “What are the top three issues you are currently facing in administering online or blended programs?”  Antwoorden die hierop gegeven werden, zijn hier te vinden. Hieruit bleek dat vragen over personeelsbelasting, support en training, kwaliteit van de cursussen en meetinstrumenten hot items zijn.

Elementen die aangehaald werden in de discussie:

• scheiding van inhoud en technologie (dit is een kwestie van bestaffing)
• holistische aanpak
• self assessment is belangrijk
• student involvement in het design

Even kwam het op de definitie van blended learning. Een hele goeie vond ik: “A definition is not needed. All good learning is blended”.

Wat vooral interessant kan zijn, is het volgen van de constituent group over blended en online learning op de Educause website. Op deze site staan een aantal resources i.v.m. blended and online learning. Ook vind je er de link naar de wiki waarvan het de bedoeling is deze samen in te vullen.

Wat zeker op te volgen is, is een publicatie die nu ongeveer beschikbaar zou moeten komen, ‘From course redesign to assessment’.

I’ve been researching about blogs since 2007 when I started one of my blogs still in the journalism graduation course at Unisinos. Due to my passion for new communication technologies I decided my final work at the University should be about blogs, and so it was.

Also, as you can see in one of the first posts in this blog, I’ve tried to implement blogging strategies into English Language Teaching and, with the help of those institutions who have been in my blogging workshops all around, it has been a very successfull idea.

Of course, there are some common fears about using this type of technology in ELT. One of those fears is that students might know more about blogs than we do. In most cases, this is absolutely true, but not a problem at all. Students will feell motivated about using something they’re used to in their personal lives and that will help boost their interest towards learning English.

Most of the things we can do with a blog could have been done before in paper, power points, CDs, DVDs, etc. The difference now, with the web 2.0 applications like blogging platforms, is that you don’t need any storage device in order to keep your students’ portfolio or, as some are calling, web-portfolio, with all your students’ works. They’re right there into the clouds and you can access them from anywhere in the world.

In case you wish to read more about the use of technlogies in the classroom of English, I suggest the book called Bringing technology into the classroom, by Gordon Lewis, who is an author for the Resource Books for Teachers series at OUP. He has already written, a couple of years ago, The Internet and Young Learners for those who want to start from the early stages with the web. Now, in his latest book (picture on the left) you’ll find a lot of practical suggestions of activities using a lot of different types of technology, including the internet. The author has devoted one exclusive chapter to web 2.0 applications, such as blogs and wikis, and their possible uses in English Language Teaching.

Jetzt sind ca. 7 Wochen seit dem Start des offiziellen Lernraums http://elearning.fh-luebeck.de der Fachhochschule Lübeck vergangen und es wird Zeit für einen kleinen Rückblick. Wir haben 4053 Accounts in dem Moodle System angelegt, dies bedeutet alle Studierende sollten automatisch angelegt sein, aber die Dozenten müssen wir leider manuell anlegen. Es haben sich bisher ca. 1.600 User aktiv im System angemeldet (davon allein 830 in den letzten 7 Tagen) und die erzeugen jeden Tag durchschnittlich 850 MB Traffic. Wir können also von einem geglückten Start sprechen und das der neue Service gebraucht als auch benutzt wird.

Seit Anfang Otober haben wir auch ein gültiges Zertifikat für das System erhalten und seitdem läuft die Anmeldung verschlüsselt, was einen bedeutenden Sicherheitsgewinn darstellt. Das System hat bisher eine Verfügbarkeit von 99,86%. Das sind knapp 21 Minuten und ist ein normaler Wert. Wir hatten ein kleineres Problem mit der VMware, was aber schnell behoben war.

Inzwischen gibt einen wenig genutzten Gesamtkurs, wo wir Neuigkeiten posten können, aber auch Studierende selbst diskutieren könnne. Wir legen gerade Fachbereichskurse und Studiengangskurse an, um so die Transparenz und die Organisation der Hochschule zu unterstützen und seit gestern ist der RSS-Feed dieses Blogs auf der Übersichtsseite im Moodle System. Desweiteren werden noch zwei Moodle Schulungen für die Dozenten vorbereitet und es muss noch ein Prozess für das automatische Austragen definiert werden. Bisher wurden alle inaktiven User automatisch nach 180 Tagen aus den Kursen ausgetragen, was aber für uns keinen Sinn macht. Noch ne Menge zu tun, aber der Bedarf und die Nutzung gibt uns recht und vielleicht kriegen wir auch irgendwann einmal ein Lob

Ook dit academiejaar organiseert het Impulscentrum weer samen met AVnet, ICTS en de werkgroep onderwijskundige aspecten van digitaal leren van de associatie KULeuven een videoseminariereeks rond ICT en multimedia in het hoger onderwijs (IMHO).

Maandagavond om 19:30 werd de nieuwe reeks op gang geschoten met een videoconferencing met een gerenommeerde spreker van de Athabasca University in Canada: Terry Anderson. Het seminarie was te volgen in Brugge, Heverlee en Kortrijk, en natuurlijk ook via live streaming. Van dat laatste heb ik zelf gebruik gemaakt. In de gauwte het avondeten afgeruimd en toen net op tijd klaar voor de start.

Terry Anderson is een autoriteit op het vlak van afstandsonderwijs en onderwijstechnologieën. Meer over hem en zijn werk is hier te vinden. Hij is de samensteller van het boek The Theory and Practice of Online Learning dat vrij te downloaden is. Dat laatste is geheel in overeenstemming met het pleidooi dat hij hield maandagavond tijdens zijn uiteenzetting over “The Open Scholar”. 

Zoals aangekondigd op de site van IMHO ging het over:

“This seminar focuses on the advantages and challenges of living the life of an open scholar. Open scholars use and contribute open education resources, publish in open access journals, support open access schools and assign open access textbooks. Open scholarship builds upon produser models, where users produce and distribute their own works for the benefit of each other, to increase their social capital and to develop supportive networks. The session looks at examples of resources to help the open scholar, while discussing the challenges and limitations of current support systems.”

Hoewel fervent aanhanger van het online-gebeuren startte hij toch zijn sessie met het weemoedig uitdrukken van zijn spijt dat deze videoconferentie nu wel het gevolg had dat hij het Belgisch bier na afloop zou moeten missen. Daar kan ik helemaal inkomen… Elk voordeel heb z’n nadeel, zoals een bekend oud-voetballer placht te zeggen (of was dat omgekeerd?).

Heel zijn uiteenzetting was een pleidooi voor openheid, voor het online delen van kennis en ervaringen. In het bijzonder dus voor wat betreft wetenschappers.

Een ‘Open Scholar’ moet volgens Anderson maximaal sociaal leren ondersteunen, maximaal diverse media inzetten, maximaal gebruik maken van pedagogieën die aansluiten bij het gedachtegoed van samenwerkend leren en de ideeën van het connectivisme. De manier waarop hij gegevens verzamelt en hoe zijn onderzoeksproces verloopt, moet op een maximaal open manier gecommuniceerd worden.

Om het bovenstaande te bereiken, zijn er heel wat online faciliteiten beschikbaar. Zo moet volgens hem een ‘open scholar’ gebruik maken van en bijdragen aan Open Educational Resources (OER). Voorbeelden hiervan zijn OER Commons, WikiEducator, Connexions…

Open wetenschappers archiveren hun werk/output in digital repositories zoals AUSpace, EPrints, Sherpa Romeo, DSpace…

Om open onderzoek te doen, kan men gebruik maken van open notebook of OpenWetware.

Open scholars kunnen de informatie die zij filteren via blogging weer delen met anderen. Als voorbeeld gaf hij de OLDaily van Stephen Downes, eentje die ikzelf al geruime tijd volg. Andere voorbeelden: edublogs, EPN (Education Podcast Network).

Hij brak ook een lans om te publiceren in open access journals (DOAJ). Volgens de resultaten van een onderzoek dat hij deed, wordt er evenveel geciteerd uit dergelijke open access journals als uit commercieel gepubliceerde wetenschappelijke tijdschriften. Die open access journals krijgen echter vooralsnog geen impactfactor mee als ik het goed begrepen heb. Hij pleit ervoor om artikels eerst naar open access journals te sturen.

Open scholars moeten open access books maken, dit betekent dus boeken vrij beschikbaar op het internet. Het boven vermelde boek van Anderson is daar dus een voorbeeld van en beschikbaar via AUPress.

Toen volgde een kort intermezzo waarbij Anderson aan het videoconferencing publiek vroeg in hoeverre bij ons wetenschappers geneigd zijn om hun zaken te delen met anderen.

In het vervolg van zijn sessie ging hij meer in op – laat ik het noemen – open onderwijzen. In die zin dat hij stelde dat open wetenschappers ook moeten zorgen voor open studenten. Dit betekent, studenten die mee kennis creëren en op dezelfde manier open stellen voor anderen. Een tweede element hierin is dat open wetenschappers open cursussen moeten doceren. Open cursussen zijn cursussen waar gelijk wie toegang toe heeft, waarin iedereen die dat wenst kan participeren. Als voorbeeld gaf hij de cursus die momenteel voor de 2e keer loopt over Connectivism and Connective Knowledge van Downes en Siemens. Vorig jaar hebben meer dan 2000 mensen wereldwijd daaraan in meer of mindere mate deelgenomen (waarvan ik zelf er eentje was) waarvan slechts 19 een officiële inschrijving namen die kon leiden naar credits.

Van open lerenden wordt dan weer verwacht dat ze op effectieve wijze allerhande tools kunnen gebruiken. Digitale competentie is een must, evenals op adequate wijze kunnen omgaan met netwerken. Digitale geletterdheid en netwerk geletterdheid, zeg maar. Heeft men deze vaardigheden, dan kan men zelf zijn persoonlijke leeromgeving (PLE, personal learning environment) creëren.

In het vragenrondje dat nog volgde, kwam ter sprake dat binnen de associatie KULeuven momenteel gekeken wordt naar het online beschikbaar stellen van lesopnames. Ik meende bij Anderson enige scepsis te bespeuren wat dit onderwerp betreft. Wellicht volkomen begrijpelijk vanuit het standpunt van iemand die verbonden is aan een universiteit die voor 100% online cursussen geeft, dus waar gewone klassieke colleges zoals wij die kennen, gewoonweg niet voorkomen. Het druist m.i. inderdaad ook in tegen de didactiek die wij als ICTO’ers toch propageren, nl. het zoveel mogelijk activeren van studenten via bv. samenwerkend leren. En toch ben ik de mening toegedaan dat het niet of/of moet zijin maar en/en, m.a.w. het online beschikbaar hebben van video-opnamen van goeie colleges is zeker óók iets wat bijdraagt aan het leerproces van studenten. Is het bv. niet een zegen dat we de TED-talks gelijk wanneer kunnen bekijken? Hoeveel interessante en inspirerende presentaties zijn daar niet op te vinden?

Het was zeker een boeiende avond die me weer een aantal interessante links opgeleverd heeft.
Terry Anderson werd nog van harte bedankt en als attentie werd hem een Belgian Beer via Facebook aangereikt.
Daar zouden we nog wat op moeten vinden… iets als: dematerialisatie hier, digitale verzending en re-materialisatie in Canada…

Thursday evening my colleague Heilyn and I had the final session in the PBBL course and we had asked the Learning Teams to prepare evaluations of the course. We have actually designed several evaluation activities, mainly because reflection-on-action is an important component is our pedagogical philosophy, but also because the course is part of the EU funded research project COMmunity of integrated Blended Learning in Europe (COMBLE) and as such we need to document our findings. Friday Heilyn and I did our weekly meta-reflection on the course as a whole, and I think Heilyn was a bit surprised, since I was not willing to say that the course has been a complete success. Judging from the various types of feedback we have received from the participants, there is no doubt that the course has been a success. Both the participants and Heilyn and I as designers/facilitators/researchers have learned so much and all in all it has been a very engaging, rewarding and fun experience. As part of the evaluation process we asked the participants to look at their individual expectations they all stated in the application form before entering the course and comment on whether the course had meet their initial expectations or not. Here are some quotes from their responses:

It confirms what I maybe knew before: No one can be learning by a system alone. The systems are just supporters for all the good intentions and the heavy work done by the facilitators. And it is probably not the time alone, it is the timing too, and the whole spirit from the facilitators which inspires the learners to show up and participate every time.

Now I know: I was wrong in the assessment of my previous knowledge about BL - thank you very much for the new insights.

My expectations, on the other hand, were more than fulfilled. Also, I like fulfilling other people’s expectations. I did learn some theory which will be useful, and the collaboration in our virtual team was wholly enjoyable. I did get re-started nicely on teaching in second life and I am taking a bag full of ideas home with me. Especially on PBL and how to deepen my application of this theory, but also with respect to how much time this takes when you take it seriously as an educator.

The work in our team has pleased me very much. It was surprising to see that we as a small group already had so many different approaches and we had longer discussions than I thought before, but we have reached a very cooperative process of discussion of how we ultimately manage and present our mini project. Working in our team was really fun!

In short – all these expectations are met and are even exceeded. In a little longer – at work we used a bit “americanized” AL in some high potential training courses. That is basically all I knew about this kind of adult learning method and now I feel I have a good first insight what PBL means and what you can achieve with it. This will very much help me to influence what we do in the future with such programs at work. Also seeing what online learning opportunities beside just simple WBTs are out there was eye opening for me, however I am not so sure what I am going to do with that new knowledge in regards to me current work environment.

Also thank you very much for an interesting course – you have done a great job, and also shown us, how much time we have to be willing to invest, if we want to implement BL courses in our practice. A very important information for the institution before the boot. I wanted to get better assumptions to transform f2f courses into BL and get knowledge about PBL and technology to have a better foundation to choose the right method and technology for the target groups. I do think I got it all. It has been very interesting to learn about the methodology and explore the virtual environment. The team process has been excellent with lots of good discussions.

For me this course was more than I expected. I liked BL, when something was difficult in audio version, ppt gave the missing parts. I learned lot from Comble members in SL. Very useful was reading forums. The most boring for me was my computer, movements in SL were slow, arrows buttons were slow, there was kind of break or time between me to press the button and me to move in SL. Then I pressed the button again and again and once, when I started to move in SL I went and went … and got lost. This course gave me a new dimension of teaching. From flat Internet to 3 D in SL, from one tool lecturing to BL. Thank you all, it was fun.

I learned very much – but unfortunately also something I didn´t care to know about myself: I am not any longer resilient enough for such a giant course. I didn´t visit each optional meeting and I’ve only been able to read about a third of the requested literature efficiently. After some days full of daily life I couldn’t manage to stay fully concentrated trough the evening sessions. On the other hand it has been great to see the advantages of SL, to gain a lot of experiences and to develop my aims to handle PBL and AL. Thank you for this very intensive but great experience.

I really enjoyed learning in SL which was a complete novelty to me. I regret that I wasn’t able to turn up during all SL optional meetings as I really liked them. For someone like me, to whom getting around in SL (broadly speaking) was really completely new, the tours gave many hints how to let yourself being educated in the virtual world and maybe, in the future, how to organize the learning process there. Before the course I had just theoretical basis of PBL/AL (quite superficial, I believe). Now, I know much more, have a lot of materials and some experience to use.

When entering the course I was hoping to experience SL as e-learning platform on my own skin and it happened on the skin of my avatar But seriously I really had a chance to see how education process may look like in SL. I think it is too early to state that now I will also use it in my courses but I do really have something to think about. If in the future I had opportunity to provide similar course I think I would be ready from instructional point of view but there is still a lot of things I should learn about PBL… In fact during that course I realized how complex and difficult it is and how hard it is to implement it into the teaching/learning process.

Like everybody else, I want to thank you for the fabulous work, you have been doing during this course. I will forever be inspired and have your doing in my mind working with BL. It is hard to find words to express my experience during this course. I am amazed, and I really feel sad, that it’s now over, even though it has been hard work  I feel connected of course mostly to the danish team but also to the rest of the participants in a way, that I never thought possible after 6 weeks working together only online and never meeting in RL. I have really learned a lot too.

Now looking at these comments and the rest of the feedback we have received, it may come as a surprise why I’m somewhat reluctant to label the course a complete success, so I’ll try to elaborate a bit on that as a) course designer/facilitator and as b) researcher.

As course designer and facilitator my responsibility together with Heilyn has been to design for optimal conditions for learning to happen in order to meet the promised outcome. Even though taking responsibility for one’s own learning is very much part of the PBL pedagogy, the facilitator still has a huge responsibility to try to ensure that learning actually can happen (through the design), and when evaluating a course it thus makes sense to look at the expected outcome and review the final learning result. In this PBBL course the general course objective and the outcome was the following:

The main objective of the course is to provide the participants with a combination of conceptual, theoretical and practical strategies with regards to designing, implementing and teaching/training courses of different duration in blended modality using an overall PBL approach.

The participants will learn how to design blended learning courses/learning units based on a PBL approach.

There is absolutely no doubt that the participants learned a great deal about Blended Learning (BL) and PBL and that they got a lot of inspiration and new knowledge with regards to designing, implementing and teaching/training. But I would not feel comfortable in saying that they actually learned how to design, implement and teach/train – and how to are the operative words here. Heilyn and I discussed this and agreed that the course outcome actually should have been differently stated with an emphasis on learn about instead of learn how to, since we both agree that learning how to is way too ambitious for a short 6 week part time course, where the majority of the participants had little or no prior experience with BL, PBL and the 2 chosen course technologies, Moodle and Second Life (SL). We cannot propose to prolong the course, since our 3 European COMBLE partners find longer courses unrealistic to implement in their local settings. Consequently we will suggest changing the course outcome, when we do our final report, but even so I find it necessary to review the design and see if anything could or should have been done differently.

The most important course component aimed at learning how to design, implement and teach courses based on a PBL approach was the Mini-projects we asked each Learning Team to produce. As mentioned in a previous post only half of the 6 Learning Teams managed to hand-in their projects in due time, 2 teams handed in later and 1 team resigned. And in my book that is not satisfactory. Insufficient time to do the projects has been stated as the main explanation, and so we need to look at the general workload and consider carefully if the project description, incl. assessment criteria can be done differently. Another issue pointing at a revision is the quality of the projects. When looking at the quality of the 5 project reports, 3 of them were quite good content wise, whereas the 2 final reports did not in a convincing way show that the teams were able to identify characteristic and attributes of PBBL, discuss the advantages and challenges, align goals with local standards and design a course.  The course has been offered by Aalborg University at master level, and as such we have been assessing the projects according to our local standards for academic reports at this level.  The course has shown that there are cultural differences in what is to be considered a good academic report, and if we had more time in the COMBLE project, this would be something I would want to investigate further. For the final report we will recommend assessment criteria based on local standards and this would also influence the content of the projects.

Other ways of ensuring a higher quality would be to;

• Form the Learning Teams in the first week and get them started earlier
• Ask the Learning Teams to submit their problem formulations earlier
• Ask the Learning Teams to submit an example of their writing before handing in the final reports
• Have a synchronous supervision session with each Learning Team

Given that project work is a core element in the way we do PBL at Aalborg University I would hesitate to reduce the Mini-projects further, but would prefer to reduce some of the other course activities. We have had 2 lectures and 1 optional meeting pr. week, and in our final report we will suggest only 1 lecture and 1 optional meeting pr. week. In this course we also included Action Learning (AL), and even though there are similarities between PBL and AL, Heilyn and I agree that in a future course we would not include AL, since it seemed to create some confusion among the participants and bringing in AL in the projects did not improve them quality wise.

Heilyn and I have also discussed the use of especially SL. It is evident that the steep learning curve in SL has been very time consuming for the majority of the participants. Depending on course objectives one could chose a different environment for synchronous communication and probably gain some time, but it would be at the expense of some other important factors, which leads us to the research perspective.

As mentioned above this course has been part of a research project and Heilyn and I had the task of designing, implementing and evaluating a Blended Learning course based on innovative technology and Problem Based pedagogy. Besides this we decided to formulate an investigation question more targeted at our respective PhD interests and we came up with this question:

How can deliberate pedagogical design promote community creation and motivation among participants?

In order to investigate this question we decided to apply an action research approach meaning that we worked in (small) cycles of planning, acting, observing and reflecting throughout the course. We also decided to share our findings with the participants inviting them to comment on our meta-reflections, and this really turned out to be a great learning experience for all of us. Based on the feedback we got from the participants, we were also able to act proactively and in this way I think our research perspective supported our functions as designers/facilitators a lot. We planned many different activities targeted at promoting the community creation and motivation, and we both agree that the course has been a huge success in this sense.  Many of the activities we planned were carried out in SL, and I’m convinced that the immersive and engaging character of SL contributed greatly to the community creation and the motivation.  I was happily surprised to see so many participants show up for especially the lectures in-world, and I’m not convinced they all would have been as motivated if the synchronous lectures had been in a different platform.  This part of the project is something Heilyn and I will investigate further in 2 papers for the PAN PBL2010 Conference and the 7th Networked Learning Conference 2010. For now I’ll finish with a quote from one of the participants, who had no prior experience with SL:

In the beginning I though SL is only some funny tool/place and more gaming than really learning something seriously. However after getting over the voice issue I had in the beginning I really feel that his is somehow better than just telecons with sharing PowerPoint presentations. Somehow it’s more fun and more engaging to join in for sessions and being able to write within different groups in parallel to speaking is very interactive and useful. …. Someone that normally favors f2f against any sort of technology meeting.

Summing up the course has been a success, but there still is room for improvement, and this is actually what I appreciate most about being a course designer, facilitator and researcher – it is a lifelong learning experience

/Mariis

Great slideshare from Jane Hart. Just thinking about my top 10 tools for 2009

So we’re approaching the final week of the PBBL course and it is time to reflect a bit. My colleague Heilyn and I have managed to reflect on the course activities for every week and we have posted these reflections in Moodle, so that the participants could get an idea of why we have designed course elements in certain ways and what we have thought of the outcome. These meta-reflections  (on which the participants have commented) have proved to be very valuable in both our and the participants’ learning experience and it is definitely a course component I want to further develop in my next course. In this post I’ll highlight some of our reflections.

In the first SLecture the text and voice check took almost 45 min. and Heilyn and I agreed that this was unacceptable, so in the second SLecture we reduced the scheduled time to 15 min. and we put out further information on voice settings etc.  It worked for the majority of the participants, but there still seems to be 1-2 participants in every session struggling with technical problems. We actually asked everybody to check out if they could access especially SL before enrolling in this course, but in future courses this should be stressed, since we cannot help/ do anything about local problems e.g. firewall problems, inadequate graphics cards, poor internet connections and lack of headset etc. In designing this course we had planned a preparation week where participants were expected to solve a newbie assignment aimed at learning the basic skills in SL. These activities were optional and unfortunately very few participants decided to make use of this offer. For future courses we would recommend making newbie assignments/activities mandatory.

SLecture 2 in session …

In this course the participants are expected to work in Teams and Heilyn and I decided to form the teams based on nationality. The argument for this type of division was quite pragmatic. We knew that all participants would have difficulties in finding time to participate, so we figured it would ease their process if they were able to work in their own languages  for some of the activities (mainly the Mini-project work), and in the second SLecture these Learning Teams met for the first time.  Whether this has been a good decision we’ll know more about in the final course evaluation …

Learning Team Germany decided to meet on one of the Pink Elephants …

The third SLecture was Heilyn’s first real teaching experience in SL, and I think she did a great job. Her presentation was about Action Learning and by the end of the SLecture the Learning Teams were asked to go shopping for Team mascots.  I asked Heilyn about her experience and she pointed out two things. First of all she did not consider doing a presentation a creative way of teaching. I agree, but I do believe presentations are necessary when the participants have little or no prior experience with the subject matter, come from very different pedagogical cultures, speak different languages and in general have very different prerequisites. Lecturing then serves the purpose of trying to establish common ground, common language, common terminology and as a means to clarify questions. I also believe that the participants’ general SL skills should be taken into consideration before planning more difficult activities. Besides this, I do believe that lectures in SL are quite different from conventional f2f lectures due to the possibility of using simultaneous voice and text.

SLecture 3 in session …

Another point Heilyn made was that she felt somewhat alone during the SLecture, in the beginning she felt worried because she couldn’t see the participants’ reactions. It felt like talking to an empty space, but then the comments started to appear in the chats. By the end she was more tired than usual after a 2 hr lesson. Before the SLecture, we discussed if she should ask the participants to wait with their questions till after the presentation, but I recommended her to allow for questions during exactly because I thought she might otherwise feel quite alone – and it is also more interesting for the participants if they are allowed to contribute to the discussion. But lecturing this way and in a foreign language certainly is something you need to learn and especially when there are many questions/comments it can be difficult to stay focused. I’ve logged both local and group chat from all the lectures and as an example there were a total of 33 pages in the second SLecture – that is a lot of information you need to attend to while lecturing …

Discussion on the MI theory …

Recognizing that participation in lectures is not the most interesting way to get to know SL, we have also included Optional visits, and in the first visit I showed the participants Zotarah Shepherd’s MI design and Thursday Xu’s designs of Bloom’s taxonomy and Wenger’s CoP.  Touring, exploring and trying out things together in an informal way combined with discussion on topics that are somewhat peripheral to the subject matter is in my opinion a very nice activity, and judging from the feedback the participants also appreciate this kind of activity.

Discussion on the CoP theory …

The fifth SLecture was on PBL, networked learning and web 2.0 technologies conducted by my other colleague, Thomas. I was not able to attend, but judging by the comments in Moodle the participants enjoyed the lecture. At this point in the course Heilyn and I decided to make part of the lectures more interactive, since the participants now seemed more at ease in SL. For the 6^th SLecture we prepared 5 statements on PBL/AL and used them together with the Opinionater tool. This turned out to be a very interesting exercise. We had not anticipated that the participants would disagree to the extent that they actually did.

No consensus on problem types in PBL/AL …

The Opinionater is a quite simple tool, but highly effective. We managed to have some interesting discussions on different aspects of PBL/AL and in that sense the tool also served as a formative evaluation tool giving us educators some hints on the participants’ perceptions. After this exercise I took some of the participants to U21 Global Island where we tried out the Metaphor Tour.

The Metaphor Tour … a trip focusing on constructivist learning  …

In the second optional visit we met my friend, Inge Qunhua who is a Danish educator and SL designer. Inge has a lot of creative ideas and has made several small displays of her designs on her island.

Investigating one of Inge’s designs …

The Bank setting in Inge’s holodeck …

The Kindergarden …

In the seventh SLecture this week we experimented with video display, but it did not turn out quite as we had hoped it would. However, we have not yet reflected on this experience, so I’ll return to that in a future post. This week the participants were expected to hand in their Mini-projects on Friday. Only 3 out of 6 teams did so, and this in my opinion is not satisfactory.  For the last 10 years I’ve been using project work in my teaching and I’ve never before had the experience of only half of the students/participants handing in projects. One team has asked for an extension of the deadline, whereas the two other teams haven’t given us any indication of what’s going on.

Learning teams displaying their mascots in the sandbox …

This course has been designed as a test course with the aim of finding out whether this certain design is sustainable and even though we all have learned a lot, I’m not convinced that this particular design is suitable for the general learning objectives.  Learning about PBL – especially the way we see this at Aalborg University, where we combine PBL with project organization – is a process that needs a lot of time. I’ve been skeptical of the very short course period (6 weeks, incl. preparation) from the beginning. We actually wanted to design a 10 week course, but preliminary investigations among our project partners indicated that a 10 week period would be too long. I can think of several reasons as to why only half of the teams managed to hand in their projects on time, but I’ll wait with further conclusions till we have done both project and course evaluation next week….

/Mariis