So, I popped into the ‘Big Meet’ on Adobe Connect, but my internet connection not great (plus Friday evening after a long week wasn’t quite in the right ‘zone’!)
Meantime, today’s material looks at openess in education – including the OER movement, MOOCs, etc. especially as it affects informal learning, but also how such material can be repurposed for specific contexts.
Looking at the scenario today, concern is expressed by the tutor that they were ‘never given anything for free’, and are concerned that their own work may be reused by others – as a lazy way of teaching. If I think back to when I first taught, and each time I teach new material – especially when it’s something that’s pre-existed, I’ll always look to pre-existing material, but I know that the stuff that I adapt is the stuff that is strong … I have to OWN it – and surely each time we use material – share it back out and see if we can each add a new layer = deepen learning, rather than circular learning!
“Proponents of collaborative learning have long heralded the power of well managed group-based interaction as a means of promoting positive interdependence, individual accountability, social skills, and group processing. In this third topic we will encourage learners to explore aspects of collaborative, cooperative and community learning especially in relation to networked online spaces for learning, personal learning networks and environments and discuss the relevance of peer learning and the development of learning communities in the context of self-directed and self-organised learning within and beyond institutional boundaries (formal, informal and non-formal learning).”
Scenario – developing a new online masters programme – what is required, and how much time will it take?
Pick one of the following activities:
Responding: Create a response to the scenario in collaboration with others based on the discoveries you made together through investigating this. Remember, you could use FISh. (ilo-1)
Reflecting: Reflect on the concept of learning communities within your own practice. (ilo-2)
Making: Create a comic that captures your thinking around collaborative learning and community as it is developing. (ilo-3)
Today, just going to refer people to this article I co-published with David Rush.
Students arrive at university having grown up in an individualistic/competitive context, so group-work can be hard, particularly once you put that online. Online need to choose appropriate materials/tasks as in face-to-face, and need to set up a sense of group-bonding – responding to queries suggesting others to connect with to prompt groupwork.
Try Wiggio or Huddle for groupwork – such software leaves traces which enables those who contribute more can have their marks adjusted, whilst the whole group also benefits.
Today we’re looking at ‘Curating’ – how do we ensure that we don’t just collect content for ourselves, but share it (combining with advice as to what is useful).
“Students expect academic, technical, administrative and pastoral support as part of their educational provision.” – especially distance learning students, and this makes a difference to success and retention.
Undertake one of the following activities:
Responding: Create a response to the scenario on your own or with others based on the discoveries you made through investigating this. Remember, you might find the FISh model useful. (ilo-1)
Reflecting: Think about supporting learning and reflect on your current practice. Where are the challenges and opportunities? What could you do to help your students? (ilo-2)
Making: Create a poster that provides useful tips and reminder to self and others about how to support learning effectively. Find a way to curate this resource (ilo-3)
Going for 1) – respond to scenario here, as we used student blogging for a module pretty successfully. We emphasised the fact that material going public meant that students needed to pay more attention before they pressed ‘post’, and noted that someone public giving them feedback that the tutor might have given has extra weight because it’s “real world” comments! It’s good to encourage the students that for their own learning, this is good, and to refer back to Seth Godin in 2009 – it doesn’t matter who reads it – it’s all part of learning, and as you improve – people will want to read it. The other layer that we added to it was to encourage students to comment on each other’s work (including within their small groups – who we met with regularly within teaching time to ensure progress was occurring!).
Video: the importance of teacher presence, and being aware of teacher presence was key … and not just doing things the way we thought they want, but listening to what is needed. If establish benchmark of expectation in the first 2 weeks – that is key. Online environments are much more democratic, and international students feel a space to speak up, people no longer feel like isolated learners. Use the offline/private messaging to contact a student to see if there’s a problem, or public boards that highlight the positive work that’s been done – students respond to that. Set expectations for engagement – differentiated by grade – highest grades, post, respond, synthesise.
“FOS is for teachers, educational developers, learning technologists, course designers who would like to experience, explore and learn more about the pedagogy of flexible, open and social learning. We model the use of freely available social media tools and platform which we utilise for learning that don’t require extensive technical expertise to be mastered and implemented. Our focus is the design and how the available digital technologies can support this to extend opportunities for connecting, communicating, curating, collaborating and creating (the 5C Framework) to foster engagement and distributed learning that can be personalised and is supported by facilitators and mentors.”
Just checking which posts on this blog have been tagged with “Digital Literacy“.
Pick one of these activities:
Responding: Create a response to the scenario on your own or with others based on the discoveries you made through investigating this.Remember, you could use the FISh model. (ilo-1)
Reflecting: Think about digital literacies and reflect on your current practice. Where are the challenges and opportunities? What could you do to help your students? Connect with colleagues and/or related research to develop your understanding further. (ilo-2)
Making: Which places do you visit regularly when online? Where do you stay a bit longer and why? Create a map of your digital me. (ilo-3)
I used Mindnode Pro to create a visual representation of Qu 3 (leaving out a range of regularly used apps, and probably forgetting something that I use frequently!):
Useful video re choosing tools for education:
There’s a range of reading available, that I’ve downloaded (“for later”), as time is short at the moment, had a quick look at #FOSChat from last night. There was also a webinar last night! Joined Credly.com.
Reference to the increasing diversity of learners within higher education, including more mature, part-time students, who find technology helpful, because otherwise unable to plan their time.
Pick one of the following activities:
Responding: Create a response to the scenario on your own or with others based on the discoveries you made through investigating this and communicate this to the course community. Remember, you could use the FISh model. Engage in a conversation around the scenario. (ilo-1)
Reflecting: Think about flexible pedagogies and reflect on your current practice. Where are the challenges and opportunities? What could you do to help your students? (ilo-2)
Making: Come up with a plan to introduce more flexibility to your courses? Create a visualisation. Consider using a mindmapping tool (ilo-3)
I guess 2 is the most appealing question here today. Classroom focused is still the key at an institution such as Durham, but there are a number of people using other forms of pedagogy – there are central e-learning people (and v. good they are too), but in some ways such a large institution is difficult to connect with others without a lot of work to manage those connections. There’s the thinking about formal/informal learning – does everything need to be labelled ‘formal learning’ (especially) – guess there’s elements of funding, etc. and formalisation of outcomes that have pushed us in that direction. I like to experiment with new ways of teaching, typically inspired by seeing what others have shared – is a challenge as to whether I have the skills/time to learn/something needs revalidation, etc. and do the students have the literacy to participate – how do we encourage people to join gently?
Again, downloaded more reading, joined ThingLink (not quite sure what that’s for at the moment!)
A little over-run with deadlines, so participating at a rather surface level for the moment, but interesting to see how it evolves, and how others engage with this.
