[Leonie]

Hi Sancha

Formative assessment of blogs is a really interesting idea – particularly the issue you raised about where to provide feedback: the difficulty of providing criticisms in public, yet would students learn to interpret no public feedback indicating that a blog is bad.

And I wondered how you judge a good blog? Do you have set criteria or guidelines for students?

I’m also thinking, as a student, whether being assessed would affect how I write on a blog. E.g. would my writing style be more formal? Would I be less open about mistakes and confusion? Or would I be more likely to let my blogging slip if it wasn’t assessed?

Just wonderings out loud having not given much thought to this before – would be really interested in how you (or others) have tackled these sorts of questions.

 

[Leonie]

Hi Sue. That sounds like a really interesting thesis topic. Do you have any of it ready in a shareable form?

[Leonie]

Hi Anna

Using twitter at a conference is one of the most useful things about it so far (if lots of people are using it) – checking the stream of tweets as the presenter’s speaking was like listening into  lunchtime conversations that I might never have heard otherwise as I didn’t know those people.  But trying to do 4 things at once (listen to speaker, read tweets, take personal notes & formulate tweets) was just impossible for me! I think I could just about handle 2 at a time! Good luck!

Also, having just watched Helen Beetham’s week 2 webinar, I think her developing literacies model actually describes my learning outcomes well. I can’t figure out how to paste in the model, but it’s on slide 26 http://www.slideshare.net/hbeetham/oc-tel-mooc-week-2

 

[Leonie]

Hi Anna. Thank you for the motivating feedback 😉

It’s not a bad model – there’s so many aspects to learning that either models ignore something or are too complicated to be useful. I’ve not yet found one that encompasses everything I would find it useful to hold in mind about learning. I did find Knud Illeris’ framework useful and will try to summarise it properly on a new thread if I’ve got time this weekend.

What I do find really helpful at the most basic level is to consider:

1. Outcomes – what is learnt? Ie what changed? And the suggested model covered that pretty well, weighted towards the cognitive outcomes tho.

2. Processes – how was it learnt? Both in terms of cognitive processes and interactions with people/tools/media etc. The activity asked us to think about that too, but the model didn’t really cover it.

3. Driving factors – basically motivation to put the effort in: aims, value of outcomes, confidence/self-efficacy

4. Constricting factors – I’ve not really spent much time understanding this, but I’m thinking of any type of barriers, & traits or states that affect learning  – not sure where there’s evidence here, or just pop science, e.g. learning styles etc.

I imagine 3 & 4 were covered in wk2, but I skipped straight to wk3 so that I might be thinking about things at the same time as others!

I’m not sure exactly what influenced the above. Certainly Illeris (2007) How we learn. Probably Alan Rogers (2002) Teaching Adults 3e too

Have a good weekend,

L

 

[Leonie]

I’ve returned here to comment on Mitra, because I couldn’t find an obvious thread to contribute to.

Firstly thanks to Imogen Bertin & others who linked to these powerful criticisms http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.ie/2013/03/sugata-mitra-slum-chic-7-reasons-for.html

I think in this case, the technology simply provides access (a) to vast amounts of information and learning resources, and also (b) to ‘Granny’ coaches.

It relies on children being motivated by their own curiosity or competition with each other, which perhaps doesn’t last very long without encouragement from the ‘Grannies’ – but perhaps the social elements of collaboration are motivating and the confidence the children build by developing their search skills through experimentation.

The children seemed to remember the material, so increased their knowledge – but did they integrate new info meaningfully so that they could apply it not just recall it? And they developed information-finding skills, but did they develop judgment in how to select critically?

I thought the best example was how Mitra directed some children towards an application that converted their speech to text. It gave them an opportunity for repetitive practice with instant intrinsic feedback, much like the Haptel example http://octel.alt.ac.uk/forums/topic/hapten-and-dentistry-yesparanoia-no/

[Leonie]

So many great points on this thread, thank you.

I am possibly repeating things that have already been said better, but I think the technology here is essentially facilitating many-2-many communication across time & place, so good at supporting diverse communities of learning/practice.

Based on the questions I was thinking about… (http://octel.alt.ac.uk/forums/topic/my-thoughts-about-the-5-cases/)

The positives are:

– MOOCs provide lots of opportunities to for learners to articulate their ideas, with the potential for feedback from others, or even engaging in debates, with the benefits already mentioned on this thread: http://octel.alt.ac.uk/forums/topic/eric-mazur/ I do wonder how much sustained critical discussion actually happens though, or if people tend to just add their own perspective or look for ways to agree with each other.

– Even for lurkers, repeated exposure to ideas via reading different people’s articulations may be helpful

– Blogging & other written asynchronous communication encourages reflection

The negatives are:

– Motivation: (1) AliSteph & Diane Hockridge & others above have described all the qualities learners need to have to ‘succeed’ in a mooc. So there’s a barrier to anyone without strong motivation based on confidence in own ideas plus study skills & tech skills & self-discipline – easy to feel overwhelmed by amount of material & different tools to access. (2) Some people find online interactions less motivating than face-to-face interaction as Phil Tubman explains above.

-It can be hard to find relevant material to focus on with so many contributions, but social tech tools can help in the selection of relevant info, e.g. popularity of blogs, retweets.

I agree with Stuart Allen that education is about providing a structured learning experience – ideally an educator uses their greater knowledge to select important learning material/activities for students. Even self-directed learners may find it hard to make ideal choices when they know nothing about a field.

Unlike Stuart, this made me think maybe MOOCs are better suited to intermediate learning rather than introductory learning. I think I’d get more out of a MOOC if I have enough knowledge of the field to have some ideas about what I’d like to learn, and some basic familiarity with the jargon used & principles/approaches in that community.

[Leonie]

I think I’ve got a bit muddled on this approach, because I initially focused on the ‘flipping’ aspect of it, then just realised it’s the clickers that are the key tech, but the peer learning is also crucial to the success of the approach.

So trying to untangle them a bit:

(1) Flipping: pushes students to absorb information & do ‘homework’ before class. Learning benefits are probably due to increased time spent on the material, plus learning activities which require students to apply their knowledge to a question or reflect on what they’ve understood. Would have probably achieved similar benefits if possible to make students do the reading before class. There is a role for tech in giving video/audio lectures rather than setting readings – perhaps students pay better attention to video than textbook. There is also a role for tech in easier monitoring of who’s done the activities and analysis of their responses.

In a recent webinar, Carl Gombrich talks about a slightly different model of flipping at UCL: http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=611006&s=1&k=5FB33727540FE8DB73046C4852921F75

(2) Clickers enables the teacher to quickly probe students’ understanding and give students immediate extrinsic feedback on their responses – a way of scaling up traditional classroom Q&A style teaching to large lecture halls.

(3) It’s the peer learning that’s introduced much more opportunity for students to articulate their understanding and debate with others, especially because he encourages them to discuss with people who chose a different answer.

I’ve seen a couple of studies (Howe & Tolmie 1999; Asterhan and Schwarz 2009) show that conceptual change/growth was more likely in pairs where learners had different conceptions. It’s not just about putting your own opinion into words – discussion needs to explicitly focus on the differences between people’s ideas (Suther 2005).

If you haven’t already seen it, I found Katherine Jensen’s blog post on this approach particularly helpful – including the discussion in the comments below.

One thing for Week 1 – Eric Mazur

Asterhan, C.S. & Schwarz, B.B. (2009) ‘Argumentation and explanation in conceptual change: indications from protocol analyses of peer-to-peer dialog’, Cognitive Science 33, 374–400.

Howe, C. & Tolmie, A. (1999) ‘Productive interaction in the context of computer-supported collaborative learning in science’ In: K. Littleton & P.Light (Eds) Learing with Computers: Analysing productive interaction. London: Routledge.

Suthers, Daniel D. “Technology affordances for intersubjective learning: A thematic agenda for CSCL.” Proceedings of th 2005 conference on Computer support for collaborative learning: learning 2005: the next 10 years!. International Society of the Learning Sciences, 2005. http://www.gerrystahl.net/teaching/spring05/Suthers.pdf

[Leonie]

Hi Zayneb

The Haptel story was one of my favourites, maybe because it was just straightforward.

In this case the technology is being used to create a safe practice environment – it seemed a good example of Diana Laurillard’s “teacher-modelling cycle” where students learn via experimentation & repeated practice in a simulated environment which provides intrinsic feedback.

I also think this example is successful because of the high motivation of students. It works because the students are willing to practice over and over, and if it’s successful in improving the students’ manual skills it gives them confidence/self-efficacy which would encourage further effort in the course.

[Leonie]

Hi. I also had a look at all of them, but didn’t really engage with the ARG story.

I used the following questions when trying to think about the (very different!) TEL approaches and have posted them here because I thought they maybe overlap a bit with some of Anne’s points above.

— How did the technology enhance learning?

— Would it work longterm? (does that matter?)

— How does the tech affect motivation (self-efficacy or effort)

— What changed? Did they increase/reorganise knowledge? Did they improve skills in perception, judgement, performance, social interaction, tool use/literacy?

— Did the tech help learners focus – find & select the right info, pay attention?

— Did it support interactivity: emotional engagement, imitation, application/experimentation, articulation, debate, collaboration?

— Did it support repetition & practice?

— Did it support intrinsic/extrinsic feedback?

— Did it support reflection?

I’ll go post a few thoughts on the threads where people have discussed the individual approaches rather than making one long one here. But I also really liked how Joseph Gliddon tied together aspects of several of the approaches here: http://morethanjustcontent.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/mooc-mazur-and-mitra-my-planned-pedagogy-octel/

[Leonie]

Adding a late intro: I’m currently conducting part-time research into the impact of lecture capture on medical/biomedical science students & staff at Kings College London. I used to work in Higher Education publishing – research & development of textbooks & digital resources. Now I’m looking to shift that research & development role into universities to focus on teaching & learning practices instead of a physical product.  I’ve also recently completed an  MA at the Institute of Education (London) on the psychology of learning & use of technology in education.

My big question is from the point of view of working as a Learning Technologist or similar: How can lecturers’ interest in TEL be used to prompt their thinking about course design & teaching approaches in a non-threatening way? Which leads onto: Can I firm up my ideas about learning enough to settle on a framework that would appeal to academics to use to improve their teaching? Will the course help me make suggestions about how to specific hardware/software/activities? Do I have any credibility if just bringing my interpretation of theory not practical teaching experience?

Previous experiences of TEL are as a student. What had changed in 10 years from BA to MA? Our VLE was largely used to disseminate handouts & upload assignments – not much impact.  Google scholar made it much easier to follow a research trail – resulted in folders of unread pdfs instead of unread photocopies – at least cheaper! 🙂  Tech changed the way I access info, but not how I absorb it – still learn best by highlighting & paraphrasing a source, accumulating highlights from a few sources then reorganising into one framework if possible. Still takes ages. Still find there’s a point where ideas flow faster onto paper than onto screen.

The MA also included one online module largely via Moodle discussion groups. Here, tech was used so that students could see each other’s work & tutor feedback – this made a huge difference to learning: a) forced to express ideas better, not just own notes b) insight into how other students made sense of same material c) early & continued tutor feedback & benefit of seeing feedback to others d) feedback from other students – I especially liked the freedom to chose who we interacted with each week, instead of being forced into fixed groups.  This could have been achieved without a VLE – maybe people who are more experimental with teaching tools are more experimental with methods too, or that those with social view of learning dominate [or escaped to!] online teaching in HE.

[Leonie]

Thanks!

[Leonie]

Hi. If I add my email & an image to Gravitar, will the image appear everywhere I use that email? I want to be able to control when it appears or not.

Thanks

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