In response to a request for material on virtual classrooms, I stumbled across some interesting theory around cognitive processing and Virtual classrooms by Dr Ruth Clark.

Dr Ruth Clark runs a training and consultancy website. There are lots of courses you can enrol in but they are pretty expensive. The graduate certificate in Applied eLearning does much the same and is a lot cheaper so we are really lucky to have this qual in NZ.

here is a link to an article by ruth clark on harnessing virtual communities.
It has some good pointers about keeping learners engaged during a standard virtual lecture/session averaging 60 minutes:
1. maintain a lively pace
2. visualize your content
3. incorporate frequent participant responses – you will notice in the audio lecture on cognitive processing she asks lots of questions and uses polling a lot and she also gets participants to do activities during the session.
4. use small group breakout rooms.
it is a short article and worth a look.

My comments on the audio: Personally i think such long lecture sessions are a bit much but I was only listening to the audio and she did have slides – she seems to do a good job of getting input from the class using text only. The participants don\’t seem to feature on the audio so cant have used mics. some interesting stuff about cognitive load and learning styles. e.g. differences between learning styles of different learners are minor in comparison to the ways our brains are set up to process information overall. She talks about the modality principle – best learning is when you have audio to explain visuals.

See also an article I stumbled across about A Learner-Centered Approach to Multimedia Explanations: Deriving Instructional Design Principles from Cognitive Theory. By Moreno, R. & Mayer, R. (2000). This is published online in the Interactive Multimedia Electronic journal of computer-enhanced learning…phew.

The diagram of working memory was informative.illustrates how words and images move from sensory memory to working memory and into long-term memory. Remember working memory can only hold so much information and is easily overloaded.
Dr Ruth Clark also said that cognitive overload can occur if several modalities. For example, the use of visual, text and audio together causes a redundancy effect because we are overloading the visual processing area. using audio and text together is better but use of one modality at a time is best.
Dr ruth does not like people multitasking e.g. checking emails when in VC and likes texting in VC to be on task not texting to each other off task or privately. she says this causes split attention effects.
see what you think when you listen to the audio.
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also a link to a presentation (pdf) called: Leveraging the virtual classroom
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AND her new book at the bookstore.

The New Virtual Classroom:
Evidence-based Guidelines for Synchronous e-Learning

I was very interested in a report of a Tertiary eLearning research fund project 2005 which looked at learner profiles – learning styles and preferences of students for elearning. Samuel Mann was on the research team and you may have seen the questionnaire. i have requested a copy of the questionnaire on CD from the lead researcher.

Jeffrey, L. Atkins, C. Laurs, A. & Mann, S. (2005). eLearner profiles: Diversity in Learning. Ministry of Education, TeLRF project report. Available at: http://cms.steo.govt.nz/eLearning/Projects/Tertiary+eLearning+Research+Fund.htm you need to scroll down the page.

What I liked about this research report is the comparison between student preferences for traditional lectures, tutorials and blended forms of online and f2f learning. You may find that these findings mirror some of the feedback you may be getting from your students about online learning. For example, they do not particularly want to be self-directed and do group work. They want lectures and are not particularly keen on online learning which can cause them a lot of anxiety. This is a NZ-based project

\”The sample size was 1811 and came from six universities, five polytechnics or institutes and six private training organisations.\”

Also the researchers categorised the learner profiles as: cognitive voyagers, strategic competitors and multimedia collaborators. If you read the executive summary of the report you will get the gist of the different profiles.

The researchers measured things such as extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, learning styles, dependent versus independent learning preferences, achievement motivation, relativistic reasoning rather than factual,working collaboratively rather than alone, time poorness, global versus sequential learning and reflective versus analytical and much more. It is a fascinating study. I hope you will take a look. Do you believe that this is the same situation for your students.

I was asked recently to present about evaluation for one of the constructing courses sessions. I decided to do an Elluminate session so I could fit it around study leave. However this morning when I was all geared up to present, the server decided to play hookey and go west.

This spurred me on to prepare a slide show with audio (Plan B). The presentation is called: Why is evaluation so important?

It can be viewed on the Internet and doesn\’t appear to take too long to load. The presentation is approximately 20 minutes long and covers the what, why and how of evaluation and its relationship to educational design.

I would have preferred the synchronous computer conference option so people could ask questions and we could have some discussion. However, while preparing the audio to accompany the presentation, I found I was able to tie things together better. This meant that my presentation was longer than originally intended, but I feel that it integrates the concepts underlying evaluation much more clearly. I just hope my audience thinks so as well. I have also given them the option of both asynchronous and synchronous discussion around the topic of evaluation.

I used MyPlick to upload the presentation (PowerPoint) and audio (mp3) which I created in Audacity. I prefer this site to SlideShare because the presentation and audio can be lodged on the same site. Mmmn maybe \”all my eggs in one basket\” is not such a good idea.

All this stuff is really helping me develop stronger digital information literacy skills. The importance of this became very apparent today during a research meeting where we were discussing some of the processes we would use to communicate and share ideas. Considering the research project is action research and the focus is digital information literacy, we as researchers will also be learning, not just the participants, through using web 2.0 tools to conduct the research processes. This is the start of my reflections around this project; it will be very important for all of us to keep a log of the process. Preferably an open log on the web where we can read each others entries and really share progress and ideas. This will be very important with the national spread of researchers in the project.

Is the Facilitating eLearning Communities course an example of constructionist and constructivist and reflective learning?

Are we like this lego maze (Lego Maze Eric4 by Anvilon)
– structured yet in a quandary and having to find our way around and out? Is there really an end point for a course like this? I hope not….I believe participation in Facilitating eLearning communities needs to be an evolving experience which has to ebb & flow with the technologies, change according to the needs of the participants and catch the trends and waves of eLearning.

I know it is not about mastery learning because the learning is intended to come out of the participants own perceptions, explorations and knowledge development. Plus there is no exam or test. But…

If structured = mastery learning and sequential step by step learning – then this course is not structured. If structured = guided and free to follow your own interests & explore – this course is structured.

I find it quite intriguing that people feel the course is unstructured. Yes there were more instructions for the first few topics and activities and directed discussion than the latter part of the course – yet some people chose not to engage.

The 10 min lecture series has been structured, and also allows discussion and reflection. some people have not been able to engage synchronously and have done so after the events and have made very good postings on their blogs about some, not all the presentations. Others have not engaged at all. Several people have engaged with the assessments – learning log (blog) and wiki – others have not.

I wonder why people feel it is unstructured – or does this mean unguided? Even though there is a learning guide, posted lists of what people should be doing on the course blog, email directions, directed activities for the first few topics, directed assessments, a lecture series, a list of resources, content on WikiEducator etc. Does guided mean something different for all of us? Guided does not equal structured or does it?

In a true constructivist learning community the course is far too structured. There are too many things participants are told to do already. There was very little for them to negotiate. Do participants feel they need to be sat down and directed through a series of topics, and some workshops on how to use some of the technologies? Does structured for some mean teacher-directed rather than learner-directed?

What I would like to know is do people feel they are being guided to be part of an online community? If the answer is yes, then we are on the right track.

Perhaps it is the topic. I believe people learn best how to be an online facilitator by being exposed to a range of strategies and practical opportunities rather than a whole lot of content and theory about how to do something though there is some of that too. Part of being an online facilitator in a community is to experience discomfort as well as comfort. David alludes to that and also mentions the value of finding out things for ourselves.

I am surprised that he feels that participants are \”relatively unguided\” – people have been given a lot of material to look at and plenty of discussion topics have arisen. The facilitators could have continued to impose very directed discussion topics all through, but instead chose to use the 10 minute lectures as the basis for discussion…which has occurred.

Perhaps what we need now is a short presentation to bring all the threads together for the community – this could serve as a reflection on what we have covered and a stimulus for the next leg of discussion. Watch this space!

In response to Leigh\’s posting as you prepare to facilitate try not to teach. To teach or not to teach. to facilitate or not to facilitate. To moderate or not to moderate! Is there really a debate to be had I wonder?

I believe that all this angst has come about because \”a teacher\” decided some way back that he or she would replace the word \”teach online\” with \”facilitate online\”. It means the same!

Because we have all been encouraged to step back a bit and stop pushing information at students and encourage them to do more thinking for themselves and more self-directed learning, teaching is now facilitating. But is it?

Learner-centred is the new buzz word along with facilitated learning – it is still about teaching. The teachers, you and I, leigh, are still seen as the experts in the discipline we are teaching otherwise we would not be asked to \”teach\” the course.

So why have we been asked to teach the course and not the local butcher who is equally able to facilitate a jolly good discussion?

Because we have some expertise – like it or not, we have to teach our class something so they can teach themselves. Teach or model, facilitate or model – otherwise they will not just be feeling frustrated or confused – too much to learn – they will be really, really angry and p…ed off. Why didn\’t we just send out the handbook with the instructions for the course and the assessments with a few readings and tell them to get on with it?

Because we have to teach them something. that involves not just facilitating a good ole discussion, it involves giving information, brokering information, helping/facilitating them to find information, setting up systems and facilitating ways for them to develop as a community, directing them towards the things they need to complete to pass the course or not. Is that not teaching in one sense?

Making it interesting and challenging and scary enough to make them come back for more – fear as in the kind you get on a rollercoaster. Fear can be a great stimulant!

In my mind, good teaching is about good facilitating and treating the learners as individuals and as competent intelligent people who can think for themselves and who are encouraged to think critically.

In response to some of leigh\’s questions –

• Why is this course called facilitate online learning communities and not teach online learning communities? To be absolutely pedantic here it is Facilitating eLearning communities. So just as Leigh has replaced eLearning with online – have we not replaced teaching with facilitating?
• Is teaching and facilitation really interchangeable?
• Yes mostly it is because good teaching should strike a balance and the teacher should step back when necessary and step forward and teach when needed – sometimes we need to be more proactive to facilitate scaffolded learning and not just assume people will enjoy struggling to find out everything themselves. The level of support needed, I believe, depends on each person\’s zone of proximal development(Wikipedia, 2007), for each situation and each topic. As you will see a person can be assisted to develop not only by the teacher but also by their peers – so does the peer then become a teacher too?
• Is facilitation simply one of many techniques that a teacher employs in their work? Or is teaching just one of many 3rd party services that a facilitator might call on in their work?
• Is it possible to be both a teacher and a facilitator within the same group of people?
• In response to these questions, I believe the answer is yes in both cases. Why? Because firstly, I see the terms as interchangeable where someone really knows how to support learners albeit called teacher or facilitator. Secondly, a balance is crucial in contemporary society .
• What are the differences in the roles and what are the social dynamics in play when they function?
• It depends on our definitions for teacher and facilitator and these depend on our philosophies as this discussion is demonstrating.

Examples: If facilitating a meeting – we might approach it in different ways. We can talk and dominate the session for the bulk of the time and answer questions, or present a slide show and demonstrate what we have been doing and/or would like to see being done and answer Qs. we can set an agenda and call for contributions, and chair the meeting to keep discussion on track and comments relevant. we can dominate the meeting by always bringing up points of discussion. a meeting can be facilitated by all members and all members contribute equally thus teaching others by telling them new things or bringing up points they may not have thought of.

I guess it depends on whether you believe that learning occurs all the time and whether when we learn we have taught ourselves or learned from others. Does that then make them teachers?

Oh boy – is it not all about letting others speak, and about people having an equal chance to contribute, and valuing each person\’s contribution and unique style?

To me that is much more important than debating the difference between teaching and facilitating. even someone standing up in front of a class and delivering a lecture for an hour, has facilitated learning in some way. what they may not have done is facilitated group discussion or critical thinking but they could have and I always tried to operate this way in large lectures.

So lecture is not synonymous with monologue or transfer of information – it depends on the style of the lecturer – just as tutorial or discussion is not synonymous with interaction. as we know people can just sit there and wait to be told and not contribute no matter how excellent the facilitator might be. Intrinsic motivation can play a huge part in how actively people engage and contribute.
You facilitate an exam perhaps not teach in it. That is the only example I can think of where there might be a difference BUT you actually supervise an exam or invigilate not really facilitate it. You facilitate a discussion or a meeting but you may not do it well just as you may not teach well. And for me good teaching is about being a good facilitator of knowledge, of interaction, of information, of learning and of people. Are there other examples you can think of where you facilitate not teach?

This is my good bye to everyone in the Facilitating eLearning Communities course.

When writing to the email group to thank them for participating in the course, I realised that the community was really only beginning. Although the course is now officially finished, we will be keeping the email group open so the community can share ideas, tips and stories about their experiences facilitating online. I also invited everyone to help develop the online communities pages on WikiEducator. I hope some will continue to engage in the group.

As a first time facilitator and co-facilitator in the course I found the experience a very challenging and rewarding experience. It has not been easy and it was never boring. Overall, it was extremely interesting to interact online with such a diverse and highly skilled group of educators; everyone in the group had very different needs and expectations. Sometimes I found it frustrating and sometimes I found it confusing – the reactions of the group were not always logical and rarely predictable.

For example, I believed the instructions for the first part of the course were clear and straightforward but that relied on people working systematically through the Blackboard activities and resources. People did not seem to get it. Then we confused people by throwing other technologies into the mix – email group, blog, wiki – as problems came up we offered a range of solutions. There was choice introduced, not just step-by-step and work through the activities and resources on Blackboard….post a discussion in Blackboard. The options threw a lot of people into the pirana pool. People\’s preference for options other than Blackboard meant the platform became redundant as we thought it would in a networked community.

Was it too much too soon?

For the next class, I feel that the Blackboard option will not be an option. Sure we could have shown people a couple of nice to know web 2.0 technologies and left them safely sitting in the learning Management System AND that could have been a community of sorts. Perhaps a subsistence community and a community with very limited means but a gated community – safe but how I hate the idea.

Instead we took the class out into the scary cyber world of uncertainty and unpredictability. Choice was the flavour of the day – ask a question and there were several options to choose from. Good or bad! We took people on a constructionist, constructivist and scaffolded/facilitated pathway with many forks and turns. People were not comfortable and they complained or disappeared from view. The true blue online facilitators did reappear though and they were stronger than when they started and more innovative – yes there were a few bruises and damaged egos – but they made the effort to ride the bull.

I learned a great deal from the experience and am impressed by the tenacity of the community to try out new challenges and experiences. Facilitating the class with Leigh opened new communities I had hitherto tried but avoided eg Second Life, gaming, FaceBook. I really liked the 10 minute lecture series – how fortunate we were to have so many people willing to contribute their know how to the community. My only regret is not having enough time to reflect on my blog about all the events. I can still do this of course because they are all recorded.

I asked the class to forgive us for discombobulating them. I was impressed with the high level of critical thinking and there was significant diversification of the communities\’ online facilitation abilities as we moved through the course. It is clear there is no one magic bullet for success. Each group will be different. Hopefully the group has established some guidelines for themselves and the groups they will go on to facilitate. I hope they can now recognise the need to allow their students room to evolve as a community. I firmly believe that only by providing loosely-structured problems will students be assisted to think critically and really learn how to learn.

I have never forgotten the words of a visiting lecturer years ago who ran a workshop on critical thinking. \”If you want to get your students to think critically, you have to put them in a place where they do not feel comfortable and where they feel challenged, they will not go there on their own.\”

I particularly like the explanation on the uses of critical thinking on Wikipedia. To get this class to think critically about good and bad methods for facilitating online communities it was necessary to present them with experiential real world problems in an online community and not just one or two but a wide range. Just transmitting information to them abut how to facilitate online would not have cut it; they had to experience it warts and all. What was bad to some was good to others and vice versa. Each experience would have beenunique although the community was exposed to the same things.

\”Critical thinking is also critical inquiry, so such critical thinkers investigate problems, ask questions, pose new answers that challenge the status quo, discover new information that can be used for good or ill, question authorities and traditional beliefs, challenge received dogmas and doctrines, and often end up possessing power in society greater than their numbers.\” \”The intellectual skills of critical thinking–analysis, synthesis, reflection, etc.–must be learned by actually performing them.\” (AN INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL THINKING by Steven D. Schafersman, 1991).
Facilitating this course has helped me to become better at critical thinking. It is not an easy thing to get the balance right in a course like this and my big question is – should we cater to the lowest common denominator in terms of skill and comfort or should we make the challenge higher and hope for the best. I believe for this class we did the right thing going with the latter – uncomfortable as it was at times for all of us.