VIDEO project: "Strategies to Ignite Student Learning"

VIDEO project: "Strategies to Ignite Student Learning"

YouTube 8842 MKent Video Url:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVPSrs6Ha5w

Static vs Dynamic Technologies Concept Map

Reflection:
Both f2f and online courses have a tendency to be teacher-directed, teacher-driven, and teacher information dumping grounds. I have been on a campaign for the past two years to bring our science teachers into an awareness and practice of inquiry science where they allow students to ask the questions, design experimental labs, do more collaboration in the process, and present their findings to their peers. The assessments and teachers strategies must change in these environments. As of today, I would estimate we are 80% on the static side and 20% of our strategies are dynamic. I would like to see this reverse, but need to take baby steps in making it happen. Experimental design and science projects have already been integrated in a three week full-time block of our high school science curriculum; we are continuing to add more robotics problem-solving teams each year; and currently, I am piloting a MUVE (the River City Project) in a middle school classroom along with continuing science teacher professional development in inquiry .

REFLECTION on “Engaging students with new strategies and tools” - (describe how you can bring the technological tools learners are using outside the classroom into the educational process, and which tools and strategies are best for this purpose. Make sure to explain why each tool works well in a learning environment and the benefits and advantages it provides).

I attempted to create this graphic organizer with tools to support content, communication, and collaboration that applied to DE. They could be used in the classroom, but are more a necessity for Distance Learners.

CONTENT:
Edutopia: created by the George Lucas Foundation. A rich resource with multimedia , examples, and other resources with a k-12 focus. It includes case studies, problem-based learning, and tutorials.
Slideshare: free power point slide shows posted on many different content areas
iTunes University – iTunes U – a powerful distribution system for everything from lectures to language lessons, films to labs, audiobooks to tours. It is an innovative way to get educational content into the hands of students. Includes an extensive collection of Florida Virtual school curriculum.
YouTubeEDUC is YouTube with a focus on education/TeacherTube includes videos, docs, audio, photos, channels, community, blogs, classifieds, and teaching resources/SchoolTube is a website dedicated to student video and media sharing for entertainment and classroom use. Students and Teachers can share video lots of great short educational videos, science demos that are not easily done in the classroom, great teaching videos on complex content (Chemistry & Physics).
Thinkfinity (Verizon) and Filamentality (AT&T) – both sites are libraries of educational resources.
Annenberg media/Hippocampus/Kahn Academy: all free sites for educational tutorials and videos, especially for use in K-12.

COMMUNICATION
Twitter is a social networking in real time, it is convenient to keep up with the latest info, it is short (referred to as micro-blogging) and limited to 142 characters
Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends of their choosing and privacy is controlled by the user, although privacy issues have been known to be compromised. Twitter would be a better educational tool, especially for teams that are problem solving. I would not recommend Facebook for educational uses.
Skype & Video Conferencing: both are vehicles for synchronous communications and collaborating. Webcams are used so person can be seen as well as heard.
Forums and Blogs: these are threaded discussions. Blogs are open to the public and great for educational discussions globally. Good for building PLNS (Personal Learning Networks) (Siemens, 2008).
Ning is starting to charge (from $3 to $50 / month), it offers an easy-to-use service that enables people to create custom branded social networks (see a 10 min video in YouTube on “Ning in Education”)and Diigo is a powerful research tool and knowledge-sharing community for highlighting, collecting, and sharing research. A specific account can be created to follow a specific title and research can be added by anyone to build the base.
Mind Maps and Graphic Organizers are tools for teachers and students to get the big picture, to analyze and draw connections, for helping with remembering and learning concepts by analyzing their similarities and differences.

COLLABORATION
VoiceThread – this could be used as a communication or collaboration tool: VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slideshow that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways: using voice (with a mic), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam). Shared a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too.
Webquests – student-centered and inquiry-based team experiences using the internet, for K-12. Traditionally WebQuests have an introduction, a process, a task, a list of resources, a conclusion, and an evaluation. Bernie Dodge and Tom developed the WebQuest model in early 1995 at San Diego State University.
Online Team Case Analysis – the TDC Model (Anderson, 2010) for online computer individual simulation, online synchronous chat rooms for weekly team meetings, and case analysis scenarios where decisions and project management activities are involved.
Wikispaces: a great place to work as a team and post work, compile ideas, review team mates ideas and collaborate, make decisions, and post reflections.
Second Life for Teaching and Learning – a hotlist of sites for educators including Introductory videos and media, professional support, teaching and learning, examples, NASA resources, virtual tours, and also how to build your own second life environment – all free
Educational MUVEs (Multi-User Virtual Environments) like the River City Project, developed by the Harvard Graduate School of Education for 6-9th grade. A complex problem solving scenario in a 19th century town where students apply their 21st century skills to explore, research, interview citizens, collect data, formulate hypothesis, test and draw conclusions. It integrates many disciplines.

References:
Anderson, T. (2010). Teaching in an online learning context. In T. Anderson (Ed.), The theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed.), (pp. pp343-365). Edmonton, AB: AU Press, Athabasca University.

Durrington, V. A., Berryhill, A., & Swafford, J. (2006). Strategies for enhancing student interactivity in an online environment. College Teaching, 54(1), 190−193. Retrieved from: http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&hid=14&sid=92990109-4ba7-4ad4-a8a1-90081e57245b%40sessionmgr13, Accession Number 19754742.

Siemens, G. (2008, January). Learning and knowing in networks: Changing roles for educators and designers. IT Forum. Retrieved from Google Scholar: http://www.tskills.it/userfiles/Siemens.pdf

Siemens. (2008, Nov 18). Personal learning environments. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2008/11/18/personal-learning-environments-7/.

Siemens, G. (2007, September). 10 minute lecture – George Siemens - Curatorial teaching. Retrieved from: http://elluminate.tekotago.ac.nz/play_recording.html?recordingId=1188267162821_1190072043500.

Assessing Collaborative Efforts

Part1 - A summary of assessment strategies for online learning community participation:

Assessment in an online community collaborative project team should look very different from the traditional marking system that is prevalent in the educational environment. Here is a summary of some recommended assessment strategies for use in collaborative team activities. These are applicable to both online DE environments and f2f classrooms in assessing collaborative project teams:

• participation in discussions/blogs is a significant part of course grades (Swan, 2004) and Siemens (2008). Assessment scale ranges from the highest level of synthesis, integration, and application to analysis to the lowest level of summarizing (Palloff & Pratt, 2005);

• learning community members assess each other, based on clearly defined rubrics either written by the team or by the instructor, “a simple rule to remember when assessing collaborative work is that collaborative activities are best assessed collaboratively” (Palloff & Pratt, 2005, p. 44);

• team product achievement to the clearly defined instructor rubrics (Siemens, 2008);
• individual improvement assessed by the instructor (Siemens, 2008);

• feedback from networking and community responses (Siemens, 2008);

• team process in their product achievement as assessed by the instructor and each team member (this might include discussions, how decisions were reached (whole team vs individual and consensus vs voting), managing time deadline requirements, conflict resolution, team responsibility organization, team self-monitoring, and team leadership (Siemens, 2008);

• individual electronic portfolios including individual contributions as well as the team product are helpful in assessing the individual contributions to the team (Palloff & Pratt, 2005); According to Siemens (2004), learning is now a process of living. Formal education is only a stage of learning. Learning continues in virtually all aspects of life. Schools assign grades to demonstrate competency. Learning through life experiences creates artifacts instead that can be displayed in eportfolios. To move to more authentic assessment (as opposed to testing), is to create an assessment-trail that is centralized and under leaner control (Siemens, 2004);

• individual reflective self-assessment, (Palloff & Pratt, 2005);

• more traditional assessment of skills can be done with simulations, (Palloff & Pratt, 2005); and

• an online quiz is constructed from information shared on the forum during discussions contributing to the round robin (Stewart, 2007).

To summarize, factors other than grading contribute positively to the effectiveness of small collaborative learning groups in the online environment. Several authors are cited with specific instructional strategies that facilitate learner participation in small group projects. Benefits include an enhanced sense of community, increased skill acquisition, and better learning outcomes. Brindley, et al (2009) collected data on teams over a three year period from a class in an international master of distance education program and concluded that the “introduction of grading has made no discernible difference to participation in study groups based on a straightforward comparison of participation rates between the graded and non-graded sections”. The authors proposed alternative methods to encourage learners to experience the value of collaborative learning by creating study group experiences that are motivating and rewarding. They include many of the strategies that are listed above.

Part 2 - Problems with team member participation?

Occasionally, one member of a study group does not pull his or her weight but this is the exception rather than the rule, and in most cases the groups organize themselves relatively quickly and all learners contribute fairly equally to the task. (Brindley, et al, 2009)

However, uncooperative or unproductive team members can be detrimental to a team if left unchecked. “A house divided cannot stand” comes to mind (as I am listening to a PBS review of pre-Civil War times playing in the background). Preventative maintenance, in my opinion, is the best approach to ensuring a team’s effectiveness.

This is accomplished by a combination of factors including: clear rubrics by the instructor, incorporating team participation and peer assessment as part of the course grade, team development of mission and charter, team development of time lines to accomplish the end product, team monitoring, and instructor established assessments including input from peers, self-reflections, and self-evaluations. Davis (1993) recommends strong expectations at the very beginning of a team with informal monitoring by the instructor and team self-evaluations for team effectiveness. She also suggests informing students about the research studies on the effectiveness of collaborative learning and describing the role it will play in the course.

In addition, establishing team norms and a team charter upfront by the team that align with the instructor’s team expectations should prevent any one individual monopolizing team decisions, but require all voices to be heard in the decision-making process.

If a problem still exists, the team should work with the student to see what the issues are and if the student needs extra support from other team members. Eventually, if the student is stubbornly refusing to participate, the team should continue by taking over that student’s responsibilities, notify the instructor and let the instructor conference with the student. Since it has already been established upfront that the student’s grade is dependent on their team participation, the instructor and the student should work out a resolution.

References:
Brindley, J. E., Walti, C., Blaschke, L.M., (2009). Creating Effective Collaborative Learning Groups in an Online Environment. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(3). Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/675/1271

Davis, B.G., (1993). An online excerpt on Collaborative Learning: Group Work and Study Teams from Tools for Teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Retrieved from http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/collaborative.html

Palloff, R.M., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online: Learning together in community. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publisher. A Wiley Imprint.

Siemens, G. (2008). Assessment of Collaborative Learning. (Vodcast). Principles of Distance Education DVD produced by Laureate Education, Inc. Baltimore.

Siemens. (2004, December 16). ePortfolios. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/eportfolios.htm

Stewart. (2007, Fall semester). Learning by design. Retrieved from http://www.baker-evans.com/knowledgegarden/Learning+by+Design?page=Learning+by+Design&comments_parentId=2547&comments_per_page=1&thread_style=commentStyle_plain

Swan, K. (2004). Relationships between interactions and learning in online environments. The Sloan Consortium. Retrieved from http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/books/pdf/interactions.pdf.

Storyboard Power point

Slide 1)

http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv184/MKent48/Slide1A.jpg

Title: Science Inquiry in a Distance Education Environment:
STORYBOARD
8842 Distance Education course
Dr. Powley – Walden U
By Marlene Kent

Slide 2) http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv184/MKent48/Slide2A.jpg
Title: Traditional f2f recipe Biology labs
Video clip reenactment of students bored, off task, off topic, uninterested, unmotivated in a f2f teacher-directed lab situation on “The Effect of Temperature on Goldfish Respiration Homeostasis”.

Slide 3) http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv184/MKent48/Slide3A.jpg
Title: Inquiry Biology Homeostasis lab
Video clip of students engaged in asking questions, working in teams and designing their own inquiry lab on testing the effect of temperature on homeostasis in Goldfish respiration and behavior.

Slide 4) http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv184/MKent48/Slide4A.jpg
Title: Brain Neuroscience – Dopamine opens the doors

Recipe Labs: stress, boredom, confusion, low motivation, and anxiety can interfere with learning. Sensory input is blocked from entering the cortical areas of memory storage that lie beyond the amygdala

Inquiry Labs: Frontal lobe involvement
Neuronal circuits going from the limbic system (emotional center) into the frontal lobe and other parts of the brain are rich in dopamine receptors that are activated by this dopamine release (Nader et al. 2002).
Many of the strategies teachers use to engage students in learning have been demonstrated to activate this dopamine release (Wunderlich et al. 2005)

Slide 5) http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv184/MKent48/Slide5A.jpg
Title: Brain Neuroscience –
What turns on dopamine?
"With students' brains turned to the ideal state of activation, the speed and efficiency of information flowing through the filter to the learning centers of the brain is optimal.“ Willis, J (2007)
motivation ,
student-centered,
choices,
inquiry-based learning activities

Slide 6) http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv184/MKent48/Slide6A.jpg
Title: Mind Map of the Workshop
Main Topics
What is Inquiry Science & why?
Brain research?
How construct DE environment for science inquiry
Multimedia tools
Synchronous tools
Asynchronous tools
Team responsibilities
Assessments in a DE environment

Slide 7) http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv184/MKent48/Slide7A.jpg
Title: INQUIRY SCIENCE From f2f to DE
List of media tools for collaboration:
Asynchronous:
Wiki
Blogs
Forums
Videos – Hippocampus, Gizmos
Virtual Manipulatives - Gizmos

Synchronous:
Skype
Video conference call/Breeze

Video clip showing screen shots or video clips of:
blogs,
wikis,
skype,
virtual labs (Gizmos) on Human Homeostasis,
AP Bio video clips from Hippocampus,
Tutorials

Slide 8) http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv184/MKent48/Slide8A.jpg
Title: DE Assessment Strategies
Peer evaluation
Instructor Rubrics
Instructor evaluation on participation
Instructor evaluation on individual growth (improvement)
Student self-reflections
Student self-evaluation

Slide 9)http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv184/MKent48/Slide9A.jpg
Title: Team Developed Rubrics
Team Norms
Team Charter development and agreement
List of assignments and individual responsibilities
Time line for time management
Monitor of team process
Pre-teach activities: ExD tutorial, Homeostasis tutorial
Role-play activity with virtual lab manipulative
Individual labs with pre-agreed on procedures, collect data, share & analyze with team
Team reflection
Self-reflections

Slide 10) http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv184/MKent48/Slide10A.jpg

References:

Facione, P.A. (1990). The California critical thinking skills test: college level technical report #1 – experimental validation and content validity. Santa Clara Univ, CA: The CA Academic Press, pp.1-14. ERIC Document ED 327-549.

Hurst, D. & Thomas, J. (2010). Developing team skills and accomplishing team projects online. In T. Anderson (Ed.), The theory and practice of online learning (pp441-472). Edmonton, AB: AU Press, Athabasca University.

Siemens, G. (2008). Assessment of Collaborative Learning. (Vodcast). Principles of Distance Education DVD produced by Laureate Education, Inc. Baltimore.

Siemens, G. (2008). Learning Communities. (Vodcast). Principles of Distance Education DVD produced by Laureate Education, Inc. Baltimore.

Smith, L. M., (2006). Effective science tools supporting best practice methodologies in distance education. Greenwich: Distance Learning (3) 4, pp. 47-57. Retrieved from http:/proquest.umi.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/pqdweb?index=3&s…on September 19, 2010.

Willis, J. (2007). Preserve the child in every learner. Kappa Delta Pi Record (44)1, pp. 33-37. Retrieved from http://www.inspiringteachers.com/classroom_resources/articles/curriculum_and_instruction/preserve_the_child.html

DIFFUSION OF ONLINE COLLABORATION

WEB 2.0 & COLLABORATION
George Siemens is my hero when it comes to collaborative interactions and future trends for DE (Distance Education). I was first introduced to George Siemens’ alternative new learning theory “connectivism. ” (Siemens, 2010). George Siemens recognizes the changing personal learning environment and its advantages to the education process. Web 2.0 offers many interactive and collaborative opportunities for the business, education, and research communities on a global scale.

WHAT IS LEARNING?
I especially agree with Siemens’ vision of learning and the responsibility of the learner. From his conference presentation on "The Art of Blogging" (2004), George Siemens writes: … “learning is not simply a content consumption process.” Learning is also a content creation process. This can’t happen if the flow of knowledge is one way. Effective learning does not mean I absorb content, effective learning means I create content with my classmates and instructors, it’s not exclusively ‘me’ consuming.”

EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL NETWORKING
Social networking (PLNs Personal Learning Networks and PLEs Personal Learning Environments) are evolving quickly, starting in the early 2000’s (although some precursors actually started in the 90’s) with Wikipedia in 2001, MySpace, blogging, and Facebook in 2004 (which now has 500 million followers and brought in $800million in revenues last year). (Wikipedia, n.d.). More recently, Twitter has been the site of choice for following several conversations and interacting globally with colleagues. (Hopkins, 2010).

ADVANTAGES OF COLLABORATION
As technology improves and people experience interactions using web tools, the comfort gap is narrowed according to George Siemens (2008) and collaboration becomes a way of life. Some of the advantages include:
1) conversations are going outside to not-so-like-minded, global, diverse, international and corporate;
2) interactions can provide students with real life experiences in the Triple helix model with interactions between government, universities, and businesses;
3) and asynchronous collaboration in forums gives each student time to think, contemplate, research, and respond or pose higher level questioning – much better than being left behind in a f2f classroom; and
4) constraints for time and geography are not an issue with DE.


OPPOSITION TO COLLABORATION
There are some reports contrary to George Siemens’ that are opposed to collaborative learning strategies. Mr Sheey's blog (2007) on a case for collaborative learning in distance education did an analysis of negative comments from students and educators. Here is a summary of his findings:

1) mandatory interaction can be detrimental to learning and the need for interaction in DE is for voluntary conferring;
2) some distance learners are self-directed and resistant to team projects;
3) it takes more effort to maintain a community group and according to Brewer & Klien (2006) methods of small group collaboration have not proved to increase student achievement. I am not sure what measurement they used to come to this conclusion. Some measurement was from opinion surveys.
4) A pilot study was referenced that showed students agreed with the idea of collaboration, but 59% responded negatively in an opinion survey and the authors concluded that collaboration was a poor substitute for f2f communication.(McMurray et al, 1999). High trust and support is needed to be successful. I reviewed the course design and data collection in the McMurray report and concluded that this was an early study where the instructional design was mainly modeled after f2f classrooms, with the exception of discussion forums. There did not seem to be any attempt for learning collaboration. In addition, assessments were summative in the form of quizzes and tests, similar to an f2f classroom.

PERSONAL COLLABORATION EXPERIENCES
I have had limited experience through Walden in interactive projects and collaboration. I agree with the assigned community interactions being artificial. The concept of artificial vs natural conversation styles of blogging are discussed in a Distance Education course by an instructor (who does not post his name or the university), (2009, March 12). The author discusses the need to move away from an artificial style of discussions to a more natural style of conversation.
Also, I worked two wiki collaborations in Walden courses and they were little more than a place to post information, but not very interactive. According to Stephen Downes (2005), online learning is not merely for communicating information but to create a network and offer students the opportunity to push to higher order thinking. He would refer to my experience as cooperation but not collaboration. He also suggests the teacher participate and model collaboration activities and discussions.
I have not stretched myself yet to develop a PLN in my field and I am sure that will substantially increase my interactions and collaboration opportunities. The web tools to date are abundant. Some include: wikis, blogs, skype, breeze & eliminate, emails, Greplin (searches gmail, twiter, facebook, dropbox), and Google priority inbox.


AN ONLINE OPEN COURSE & COLLABORATION – INTRO TO PLNS & WEBTOOLS
George Siemens offers an online, open course called PLENK2010 (personal learning environments, networks, and knowledge). The following recommended PLN webtools are from Skipvia,(2010). In establishing your PLN, Skipvia recommends two reasons to create your own PLN: to build your own support system with 1) accessibility to colleagues and mentors and 2) responsibility to provide our own professional development, and offer help and answer questions of others.

What does a PLN look like?
1) for quick learning - Atomic learning, Wikipedia, youtube
2) for keeping up with your field - Diigo (social bookmarking tool and aggregate videos & text, research),blogs, news services, google reader, & instapaper
3) to publish & share tools – diigo, PBworks, flicker, youtube
4) for communication: email, skype & google wave (in depth communication with colleagues)
5) for collaboration: wikis, blogs, twitter (breadth and several conversations), LinkedIn & facebook (for depth), and
6) to find a way to follow several webtools by aggregating resources

An example of corporate collaboration can be found in a Cisco blog, where Cisco corporate is providing a new global interactive environment for its engineers and researchers with 30 embedded flash videos.(Schrotzberger, 2010).

SUMMARY
I agree with collaboration as a learning strategy and encourage it as much as possible in f2f classrooms. The inquiry-based processing should lead to higher level critical thinking skills practice if done correctly. The potential is already available for online global collaborative projects. The challenge is for each person to develop their own PLN in their field, for instructors to encourage their students to experience and practice using these tools in the learning process, and for organizations to take advantage of tapping into their global personnel for collaboration. Where there is opposition, there may be a deficit in trust, support, instructor modeling, or an artificial environment that needs to be more real.

Collaboration is a very different learning process and puts the center of learning on the learner, by requiring responsibility and accessibility on the shoulders of the learner, not the instructor.


References:

Distance Education course instructor blog (instructor unknown, 2009, March 12). Exploring theories, practice, and principles: Student collaboration in distance education. Retrieved from http://distanceed.byuipt.net/?get-id=354.

Downes. (2005, July 6). Are the basics of instructional design changing? Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2005/07/06/are-the-basics-of-instructional-design-changing/.

Hopkins. (2010, May 12). Dont waste your time: Twitter in education. Retrieved from http://www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk/presentations/presentation-twitter-in-education/..

McMurray, D. W. & Dunlop, M. E. (2009). The collaborative aspects of online learning: a pilot study. Retrieved from http://ultibase.rmit.edu.au/Articles/online/mcmurray1.pdf.

Schrotzberger. (2010, July 21). Experience what collaboration is doing for Cisco. Retrieved from http://blogs.cisco.com/collaboration/comments/experience_what_collaboration_is_doing_for_cisco/#more.

Sheehy. (2007, April 2). A teacher writes: Collaboration at a distance: A case for collaborative learning in distance education. Retrieved from http://ateacherswrites.wordpress.com/2007/04/02/collaboration-at-a-distance-a-case-for-collaborative-learning-in-distance-education/.

Siemens. (2004, June 7). The art of blogging. Retrieved from http://www.madlat.ca/presentations/Making%20IT%20Click/summaries/session10Siemens.pdf.

Siemens, G. (2008). The future of distance education. (Vodcast). Principles of Distance Education DVD produced by Laureate Education, Inc. Baltimore.

Siemens. (2010, Feb 16). Teaching in social and technological networks - connectivism. Retrieved from http://www.connectivism.ca/?p=220.

Skipvia. (2010, June 10). Personal learning networks for educators (video file). Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/user/skipvia#p/a/u/1/q6WVEFE-oZA.

Social networking websites. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites.

More Future Trends in Distance Education

What should be the future trends in Distance Education (DE)and Instructional Design (ID)?
ID should play a key role in building a research base to make decisions on ID for K-12.
The key is that the ID must serve the needs of students and the ID must ensure that the environment where the course is delivered is supportive for student-centered courses.
We may need to reorganization and hire professionals to develop DE curricula to meet these needs and to determine how we engage learners. Nationalize curricula like the AP courses are starting to emerge. We must honor that DE is not another quick fix educational program and we must focus on the needs of the learner.

George Siemens (2010) sees the role of teachers as radically different as students have varied access to information and collaborations, start asking their own questions. Siemens refers to it as “fragmentation of content” and sees the teacher role more as
1.Amplifying
2. Curating
3. Wayfinding and socially-driven sensemaking
4. Aggregating
5. Filtering
6. Modelling
7. Persistent presence

Refer to Siemens’ blog posting on connectivism, Siemens. (2010, Feb 16). Teaching in Social and Technological Networks and Connectivism. Retrieved from http://www.connectivism.ca/?p=220.

In addition, it is always interesting to examine the Horizon Report for future trends. In the next four to five years, the 2010 Horizon Report anticipates gesture-based computing, retrieved from http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2010/chapters/gesture-based-computing/. A collection of future trends in Distance Education can be followed on Future Trends in DE Facebook, retrieved from
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Future-Trends-in-Distance-Education/137930219558379.
Learning and the role of the student and the teacher are rapidly changing. Jay Cross Blog reports that “individuals are becoming their own instructional designers and knowledge navigators.” Cross. (2005). Retrieved from http://metatime.blogspot.com/2005/10/george-siemens-connectivism.html


In conclusion, since there is such a gap in the research and when comparing DE to f2f, what research we have is not showing significant differences, we need to build a research base for e-learning and ID.

What are the future trends for ID (instructional design) and DE (distance education) in the K-12 world?

What is the e-learning and instructional design (ID) research gap in K-12?
What are the future trends for ID and distance education (DE) in the K-12 world?

What does K-12 DE look like now?

In the educational world of K-12, DE is not growing as exponentially as higher ed, but we re seeing a steady growth, especially at our own southern California charter school where we are challenged with thousands of K-12 students that are home schooled.
We are also starting to see the emergence of free AP and Honors courses developed with short animations and videos for each concept (hippocampus http://www.hippocampus.org/) and other sites (http://www.khanacademy.org/), Alex, UC Regents. Some are not courses, but are great video resources for individual concepts.
Our charter school is currently using Moodle as a vehicle for out teachers to develop curriculum for academy (hybrid of f2f and home) and full time home school students. These are basically a series of assignments that correspond to textbook and other resources. It is not a flowing, learner-centered ID and has very little technological activities with the exception of links videos and online tutorials. It really is more of an attempt to copy classroom activities or replace them with boring worksheets if classroom activities are not possible for the home school student.
This semester, we have hired a consulting firm (e-Concordia) to help develop two courses with more multimedia infused (at a very high cost).

What are the biggest concerns or fears for what DE could be?

Some of the concerns expressed in the Huett, et al (2008) article are the mixed student populations which may consist of students that are least likely to succeed in the autonomous DE environment. The fear is that DE will become a dumping ground for credit recovery and
dropout students from traditional schools. As a result, the ID opportunities may be seriously underutilized.
This mixed population of students may face several outside distractions in their life styles – travel, social commitments, looking for enrichment, employed, rural, hospitalized, homebound, incarcerated, and be more of a challenge to reach through DE.
The choice between synchronous and asynchronous is a significant consideration with the K-12 population and asynchronous may not be a viable option for most because of little personal interaction with students and teacher. There are several issues of supervision and accountability especially with the younger and/or more immature students.

There is definitely a gap in the research-based effectiveness of online DE and ID at the K-12 grades. Another concern is the lack of trained professionals in DE and ID and that the courses may be developed to look like an f2f class, which would be counterproductive (Simonson, 2000).
According to Simonson’s equivalency theory, DE needs to provide “different but equivalent learning experiences for each learner.” (pg 29).

What should be the future trends in DE and ID?

ID should play a key role in building a research base to make decisions on ID for K-12.
The key is that the ID must serve the needs of students and the ID must ensure that the environment where the course is delivered is supportive for student-centered courses.
We may need to reorganization and hire professionals to develop DE curricula to meet these needs and to determine how we engage learners. Nationalize curricula like the AP courses are starting to emerge. We must honor that DE is not another quick fix educational program and we must focus on the needs of the learner.

In conclusion, since there is such a gap in the research and when comparing DE to f2f, what research we have is not showing significant differences, we need to build a research base for e-learning and ID.

References:

Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshey, W., Coleman, C. (2008). The Evolution of distance education:
Implications for instructional design and the potential of the web (Part 3: K-12). TechTrends
(52)5, pp 63-67.

Simonson, M. (2000). Making decisions: The use of electronic technology in online classrooms.
New Directions for Teaching and Learning, (Winter), 84, pp. 29-34.

Tags:
DE, ID, K-12 DE future trends, equivalency theory.

Old dogs can learn new tricks - sometimes reluctantly (fear of the unknown)

While it may be safe to assume that people have positive attitudes toward experimenting with new technologies in the workplace, it may be equally safe to assume that you will encounter people in the workplace who have low self-efficacy in experimenting with new technologies. Briefly describe a situation in which you have encouraged people to use a new technology and have been met with resistance or disappointing results. What attitudes did these people exhibit? What behaviors did they demonstrate? Using Keller’s ARCS model, describe how you could change the motivation of these people, or learners, to encourage success.

I have been working alongside all different levels of technology expertise with my seven science teachers. One was more advanced than myself and was a mentor to me. On the other side of the pendulum, we have two teachers who were just beginning to use emails when I met them three years ago. It’s been interesting to watch them go through the growing pains with the technologies that are required at our school. They each have very different attitudes. The older gent was retired and came back into teaching. All our teachers are required to maintain Moodle curriculum guides with students logged in and track student grades on Snap Grades. He was the first to admit his lack of skills but was always responsive to ask for help and training from his director, peers, me, and even his adult son when he was working at home.

The other teacher is younger but not far from his generation, struggles to the point where she doesn’t even seek help and last year made a comment that emails were a waste of time. I took her under my wing, with lots of encouragement and praise, and we camped out at her house with another teacher last summer for three days and two nights to build Moodle curriculum guides. Not only was she trained, but she had two full days of uploading practice. She was quick to catch on, but to this day still has issues because she doesn’t do it often enough. Fortunately, she has enough confidence to ask for help from me, knowing I will not condemn her and realizing the importance. Of all the teachers I work with, I still have to call her occasionally because I can never trust that she will check her emails in a timely manner. She has come a long way and is more comfortable with power points and LCD projectors in her classroom. She is also very personable and encouraging with her students, and respects their competence with technology.

To analyze her development using Keller’s ARCS model, she received ATTENTION from her director when Moodle became mandated and when SnapGrades were implemented and parents were calling the school to find out why her grades were not posted. She almost lost her job last year, but I rallied for her and that also got her ATTENTION and inspired her to learn it. RELEVANCE falls into the same scenario with ATTENTION since this technology was required on a daily basis for her to be successful and meet the expectations of her job. CONFIDENCE was significantly gained after the three days of training and constant practice. She was proud of her accomplishment and I was constantly praising her intelligence for learning it so quickly. She was clearly SATISFIED with her new found abilities, and even though she still struggles, I remind her that each one of us is at a different level with technology and we are all learning on a daily basis.

To summarize, I would like to quote Keller, who was very proactive with problem-based learning strategies:
“…a deeper level of curiosity may be activated by creating a problem situation, which can be resolved only by knowledge seeking behavior” Keller 1987. Keller 1983 called this inquiry arousal – enhanced motivation when they can experience the complexity of problems that is characteristics of real life.”

Connectivism

• How has your network changed the way you learn?

Information is abundant and fragmented. For curriculum development, I spend most of my time filtering and creating critical thinking and problem-based learning activities from the information for the students to practice.

• Which digital tools best facilitate learning for you?

1) For curriculum and teacher development, I access the internet for science sites and educator sharing sites, professional development videotaped workshops in Annenberg Media.

2) For students, I access the internet for science tutorials, videocasts, YouTube and TeacherTube for science demonstrations and hands-on lab ideas.

3) For home school students, we use Breeze for online “live” teaching sessions.

4) For teacher collaboration, I use Skype, Conference Calls, Breeze, as well as monthly live meetings.

5) For the highly intense Robotics team 6-week build, we communicate through emails, blogs, and the Robokong website when we are not together. We also post our team videos on YouTube for other teams to view. We access a blog site called Chief Delphi where several teams come together with discussions and ideas.

6) Google docs are used frequently by spontaneous teams at our school.

• How do you learn new knowledge when you have questions?

I use the internet, Walden library database, email colleagues, or post blogs for information gathering.

Constructivism - Collaboration - Technologies

Blog Walden course 8845 - Module 3

Do you believe that humans have a basic instinct to “interact and work as a group,” as Rheingold proposed in his discussion of the evolution of Wikipedia as a collectively developed encyclopedia? How can technology facilitate collaboration among learners based on constructivist principles?

Rheingold (“Howard Rheingold: Way-New Collaboration”
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html) could have gone back further in time, perhaps before the hunting parties, and discovered the basic foundation of human existence and survival was the grouping and working together of the family unit. Recently, I learned that the founders of F.I.R.S.T. (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) copyrighted their national theme of “gracious professionalism.” This is the organization that Dean Kamen (inventor of the Segway) and Woody Flowers founded to get high school students involved in engineering team collaboration for problem-solving, building, and testing robots for competitions each year. Even the competition is run in teams or alliances, which change each match. Success of each team is dependent on their ability to work with two other teams each match to accomplish the goals of the game. Twelve years later, there are over 3,000 teams across the US and internationally that compete.

Rheingold also stated that “the trans-disciplinary cooperation project is not going to just happen”, implying that we need to drive it. In my opinion, it is already happening with the “fourth wave” (an extension of futurist Toffler’s third wave) of social networking and collaboration as seen in the many examples he gave: Wikipedia, Google, Amazon, Think Cycles, eBay, open sourcing, Human Genome Project, Elli Lilly, Toyota and its suppliers, IBM and patents for commons. Whatever the motivations or driving forces, there is an innate need in humans to collaborate and work together in groups. As technology develops, so goes the collaboration.

Brainstorming in our robotic team this week has reminded me of the synergism of ideas. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. They are also collaborating with mentors from the local university engineering department as well as blogging with teams from all over the country that are working on the same problem (chiefdelphi community of forums and blogging). Constructivism principles are the framework, technologies provide the engine, and collaboration is the energy that powers the vehicle of tomorrow today.