Your First Online Course: Care Instructions

Setting up your first online course can be a huge challenge but equipped with the expertise of others more experienced in it and a self-assuring ‘mantra’ of your personal choice you can do it!

Technology

Boettcher & Conrad (2010) stress the importance of not overloading yourself as an instructor while designing the course for the first time and be open to accepting help from your students and just add more tools to your course when you teach it the second or the third time. Mostly what you need to get acquainted with or decide on is the Course Management System (CMS) and what components you are going to use within it. As I explained in my previous post I will be relating all the questions to the real course I am thinking of designing. My asynchronous Mnemonics course 2 weeks long will be delivered using the following technology: Blackboard CMS and an added synchronous collaboration tool like Skype or OOVOO messenger or Elluminate depending on how big the class is going to be. The tools within the CMS I am planning to use are quizzes, discussion boards and announcements. I will be delivering the content through short subtitled video lectures that will be immediately followed by taking a related quiz. For example, after learning about association method used for memorising vocabulary the students will be asked to choose the best association for a selection of vocabulary units. There also will be text material available for download but I am planning to make content interactive to suit all learners’ individual styles.

Expectations

To make sure learners feel comfortable I will present them with a set of expectations through the announcement tool. They will be informed about the netiquette, deadlines and contact information (however most of my first class for the first course are going to be the students that I have been teaching synchronously for quite some time, I will still make sure they have my mobile number as well as email and Skype contacts).  

The rubric for their discussion activities with explanation for grading is another important step that will ensure participation as Boettcher & Conrad (2010) said 'if something can be done anywhere and anytime, it usually never gets done'.

Discussion

Additionally discussion questions and structure of discussion and its facilitation are at the core of my consideration in creating this course. Boettcher & Conrad (2010) describe discussion boards as the 'campfire' around which course community and bonding occur at the same time that content processing and knowledge development are happening.  I am still in the process of designing the questions but I can share one already. The idea is that students will be given up to 10 words that are easy to create mnemonics for and asked to come up with mnemonics to at least 3 of them and post them by a certain day. They will also be invited to post up to 5 words that their groupmates will come up with mnemonics for. They are required to post their mnemonics suggestions to at least 3 other students’ vocabulary units. This is an open end problem solving question that is challenging and stimulating but at the same time is conducted in a game like form. This discussion activity gives students a way to describe how they are integrating incoming knowledge with their existing knowledge structure, which is coincidentally what mnemonics is all about.

Presence

This week also taught me how to establish presence for both an instructor and students in a fun informal way through ice breaking activities. You can see my Little Men and Little Miss activity that I am planning to use in my course here.  Boettcher & Conrad (2010) emphasise that establishing presence is crucial to building trust between the participants of the learning process as without it it's impossible for students to be open and vulnerable about their beliefs. Also Pratt and Palloff (2010) suggest that you can refer to your students' bios throughout the course to make informed comments and responses.

References:

Boettcher, J., & Conrad, R.-M. (2010). Ten best practices for teaching online. In The Online Teaching Survival Guide (pp. 36–47). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Video: Laureate Education (Producer). (2010). Launching the online learning experience [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Go on, Have an Icebreaker!

Mr Men Books by Roger Hargreaves

I am a big believer in fun in education as are Pratt and Palloff (2010). That’s why I came up with 2 activities that tick several boxes in an Effective Icebreaker Checklist designed by Conrad and Donaldson (2011). It’s fun and non-threatening, it is person-focused, not content-focused, it requires learners to read one-another’s entries, it requires using imagination and being creative, and learners are required to read each other’s entries and respond to one another (only in one of them they do not directly respond to one another but have a follow-up quiz instead).

Black Box Recorder - Child Psychology

Activity: Mr Men and Little Miss

Method: Asynchronous

Instructions: the learners are invited to open the images of the characters from popular children’s books ‘Mr Men’ and ‘Little Miss’ which Roger Hargreaves commenced in 1971 and which since then got televised as well (See the images attached). The students and the instructor are invited to find 2 positive and 2 negative characters of Mr Men or Little Miss  that best describe their personality. They are also invited to comment on at least one other student’s description that is similar to theirs or someone’s whose they find exceptionally funny or clever.

Notes: Additionally students are invited to use the picture of a chosen Mr Man or Little Miss as their avatar if they don’t feel like putting up one of their own.

The technique I described goes well with Pratt and Palloff (2010) speaking of the importance of the informal introduction that should be initiated by the instructor, they noted that many instructors’ introduction sounds like their Curriculum Vitae. They continue saying that talking more about the human aspect of their life an instructor becomes more of an equal player in the learning community. At the same time an instructor can provide their students with a visual, a graphic image that some students might want to use as their avatar instead of a photo if they prefer to stay anonymous for personal reasons (Pratt and Palloff, 2010).

Pratt and Palloff (2010) recommend to throw another icebreaking activity in the middle of the course and reenergise the course in a fun way. For the middle of the course ice-breaker I would recommend the students to use a choice of interactive software that is very easy to use and one of them (Voki) fits the description of the free software Pratt and Palloff (2010) were talking about saying you can have an animal, a person or even a plant talking with your recorded voice.

Activity: Create a Voki / Prezi / Glogster

Method: Asynchronous

Instructions: the learners are asked to create a one minute Voki / a short Prezi / a Glogster Poster introduction that is centered around a question “What are the 3 things most important to you in your life and why?” for which they will receive extra credit. The follow up activity that goes into the next week is a little fun quiz that includes questions from all the students’ Voki’s / Prezi’s / Glogster’s and those who get all the questions right will receive some more extra credit.

Notes: This activity will also get students to use a fun easy app that can be used in the future in a presentation setting. The instructor will determine how much credit the students get for doing the task but the credit system makes the activity more motivated than if it is just optional.

Examples of all the software used you can see on my school’s website (it is in Russian unfortunately)

Prezi and Voki Here

and Glogster Here

Little Miss Books  by Roger Hargreaves

Here is mine: I am a Little Miss Everything really like most of us but one of the strongest in me is Little Miss Giggles (7). I love giggling over things and making people smile, I even have a ‘Whimsy’ day where a chosen friend and I are supposed to come up with whimsical ideas over a glass of cider. Thus was born an apron that has  Vladimir Putin (the infamous Russian President) cross-stitched on it. Big success that was. Actually after reading what I have just written I might be assigned Little Miss Cuckoo (not invented yet).

And I think of myself as Little Miss Wise (21), too. I am a big fan of Eckhart Tolle Spiritual teachings, which is a mix of Zen and Mystical Christianity. Always and forever stopping myself from having the end of the world exaggerated reaction to things. Like when Ruble is plummeting (my business depends on that currency as it caters to Russians) I keep reminding myself that nothing in life has an absolute value and that the world of form is transient and ever changing.

My husband says I imagine myself to be Little Miss Wise but I am in reality Little Miss Scary and Little Miss Stubborn. Scary because I am Russian, all British people I know do not get tired of making KGB spy and other inappropriate jokes about me. Stubborn because I sometimes find it hard to see others’ point of view, though I am working on it.

All in all this is what my ginger half-Irish cheeky twit of a husband says,  I would never say such things about myself, what a nuisance and how simply dare he (in my best British voice)! But I love him really :)

References:

Conrad, R.-M., & Donaldson, J. A. (2011). Learning in an online environment. In Engaging the Online Learner (pp. 1–14). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Video: Laureate Education (Producer). (2010). Launching the online learning experience [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Sofware:

Voki http://www.voki.com

Prezi http://prezi.com

Glogster http://edu.glogster.com

Online Learning Community: A Learner who Learnt how to Learn

Alien schoolbus illustration

Safety Net

An online community is a dynamic and safe place where a student can be who they want to be, who they can be, say Dr. Pratt and Dr. Palloff. It is true for any kind of community - we crave that feeling of acceptance and nothing is more destructive than that of rejection. For instance I come from the background of Linguistics, always and forever storytelling and digressing. My mind is not a map, it doesn’t work like that. It is more suited to creating poetry than diagrams and it is my gift and a downfall. But so is everyone else’s way of thinking and learning. It is the ability to see our shortcomings and the desire to help others and accept help from them that matter at the end of the day. That feeling of affiliation with your peers is facilitated by the sense of online presence.

Online Presence

As Dr. Pratt and Dr. Palloff explained when adult learners used to traditional learning engage in online learning they might experience a feeling of isolation and the two first weeks of a course are a critical time for an instructor - they might lose a student. Online community, they continue, begins before the class even starts. A warm and friendly instructor who relates personally to students will set the tone for the students and will affect how they relate to the instructor and to each other. Add communication tools and strategies that will facilitate students to engage with each other to create meaning together and you are almost there.

Traditional vs Online

An online learning community is where the magic of learning happens but only if the instruction was not merely moved from a book to a screen. Effective online learning shifts from an instructor to a student, and the goal of learning community is to co-create knowledge and meaning and there is no place for a ‘talking head’ instruction, as Pratt & Paloff say. However if we do not consider the concept of digital natives and immigrants there will be a huge drop out rate and without facilitating those who initially feel challenged by technology we will create unnecessary barriers.

Rules that Support

Students need to be aware of their role in online learning. It is important to inform them of what their expected conduct is, whether it is the content of the course or their behaviour within the learning community. It is no difference really to any community whether it’s a Secondary school or a corporate environment. In the first you are not allowed to bang your mate on the head with a chair and in the second people are expected to not turn up to work drunk and disorderly. Similarly school kids will have a curriculum and a company will expect its employees to do their jobs. But also both environments will provide training and support to those who needs it. At school you go through grades and have a form teacher to look after you, at work you have got training sessions and HR. An online community according to Pratt & Paloff will be most effective if it keeps it simple and gradually builds the technology skills. They do not recommended to use technology just for the sake of using technology - drop it, if it doesn't serve any purpose apart from being shiny.

Transformation

Transformation is the simplest way to explain what the primary goal of online learning is. And not just in the way that a student will be transformed into a more knowledgeable, skilled self. But a learner who learnt how to learn in an effective autonomous way. Who at that learnt it in a dialogue with others, who is now more reflective and self-directed with a developed sense of online presence. Der Überstudent.  

References:

Laureate Education (Producer). (2010). Online learning communities [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

TVenglish Online School - Project Description

For millions of people today, distance learning provides a compelling, convenient, and enriching experience that, until recently, was not feasible. Fueled by technological advances that have made profound changes in teaching and learning possible, distance learning continues to expand as its applications and advantages to business, education, and everyday life become widely known and appreciated.

A project “TVenglish Online School – Watch TV and Learn English!” is motivated by the fact that learning a foreign language at a distance is rapidly becoming a preferred choice of many adult and adolescent learners all over the world. One of the reasons for that is a paradigm shift from the Teacher-Centered traditional model of education to Learner-Centered individualized instruction that “strongly promotes active learning, collaboration, mastery of course material and student control over the learning process” (Simonson et al, 2012, p. 123).

This document’s aim is to provide a high-level overview of the entire training solution for the online school TVenglish™ and serve as a major quality assurance checkpoint.

In this document we will consider the following questions in order to produce an instructional strategy:

• What course materials will allow achieving learning outcomes?

• How will course materials be grouped and sequenced?

• What instructional methods and tactics will be used to present material?

• How will assessments measure a learner's success?

Materials for instruction will be represented by a variety of contemporary text, audio and video content delivered via Web 2.0 technology.

1. The course will be built around an English course pack New English File™ (Basic, Elementary, Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper-Intermediate and Advanced) It is a four-skills English course with engaging lessons, digital resources and strong online support. Resources include iPacks and iTools, DVDs, MultiROMs, popular websites, plus Online Skills Practice material – completely new for 2011.

2. TVenglish online school also suggests using learning materials based on popular TV shows and cartoons as a means of engaging students and providing them with an opportunity to master skills of understanding conversational English in a situation close to real life.

3. Students will also be encouraged to use the power of Web 2.0 tools to achieve their learning goals through:

• joining online language learning communities;

• downloading ESL podcasts;

• reading and listening to e-books on their computer, iPod™ or a similar device;

Content is grouped and sequenced according to the European Language Portfolio that describes “the levels of proficiency required by existing standards, tests and examinations in order to facilitate comparisons between different systems of qualifications.” The six levels (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2) are an interpretation of the classic division into basic, intermediate and advanced. Each level is built around a corresponding course pack and video course, suplemented by additional online resourses. The students will be placed into levels after passing a placement test and completing an Online Orientation course delivered through a Course Management System.

The delivery mode of the course is blended with most of the content delivered in asynchronous mode: reading, writing and listening. However, speaking will be essentially face-to-face and synchronous to ensure that students are engaged and have an opportunity to master their skills in a live communication with a native speaker or a Russian speaking tutor.

Students will interact with the content, instructors and faculty using the following tools:

• Skype™;

• Course Management System CourseSites™;

• Interactive whiteboard TitanPad™.

Another issue we consider is assessing the progress of learners. Assessment will be conducted in a form of informal examinations – every 6 months students will be offered an opportunity to take a mock international language exam that corresponds to their proficiency level. They will also be asked for a permission to record one of their Skype™ lessons for an academic progress report to be written by a member of faculty other than a student’s personal tutor. Assessment here enables students “to gain a sense of control and they can take greater responsibilities for their learning, if they know how well they are doing, compared with an established set of criteria” (Simonson et al, 2012).

For young learners assessment will also include progress reports directed to their parents emails every months and an online gradebook.

Reference

Kilimci, S. (2010). Integration of the Internet into a Language Curriculum in a Multicultural Society. Turkish Online Journal Of Educational Technology - TOJET, 9(1), 107-113.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Reflection on Instructional Design Course

Legends and Misconceptions

Prior to starting the Instructional Design course my understanding of an Instructional Designer's job used to be a hybrid between a teacher and a computer nerd. It turned out the profession of an Instructional Designer is considered practically “invisible”, as it both reflects a shift of pedagogical paradigm and goes under so many names.

As for the paradigm shift the learner and the performance problem are in the focus of Instructional Design, whereas traditionally the content used to run the show. “Instructional Design focuses on the individual and how to improve the individual performances rather than on what content to cover.” (Morrison, Ross, Kalman, Kemp. (2011). Designing effective instruction, p. 12)

Moreover, the profession being relatively new still arises so many issues when the ID has to convince others of his/her value. Hopefully with time as technology is becoming so essential in many industries the ID profession will gain more recognition.

Instructional Design – Science, Art or Craft?

There is no doubt that Instructional Design is a science as the systematic approach lies at the core of its foundation. However, I agree with Tom Gram who acknowledges Instructional Design as science but also points out craft and art as a basis of a successful ID model. The main idea is of Art inspiring, Science justifying and Craft bringing all your experiences to a project. “Art and craft together without the systematic analysis of science can lead to disorganized learning designs. Craft and science without the creative vision of art can lead to dispirited design, careful and connected but lacking flare. Learning design based on art with science is creative and systematic, but without the experience of craft can produce, impersonal and disconnected learning.” (Gram, 2010)  Therefore Analysis stage can be viewed as purely scientific element; Design and Development have more art and craft to them; to successfully complete Implementation stage one needs good communication skills and understanding of psychology of human interaction; finally Evaluation methods and procedures are scientifically based.

ADDIE and Zen

“Any art, practice, or technique is quite dangerous if it has no firm, theoretical foundation. But any theory, be it scientific, religious, or philosophical, is quite useless if it is too difficult to understand or impractical for daily living." – G. Osawa, a Zen teacher, an author of a Macrobiotic diet.

This Zen idea can be a key to interpreting ADDIE and other training models: ADDIE defines all the components of Instructional Design process and gives it a logical structure and it is the responsibility of an ID team to adjust it to a given project. Other ID models are designed to incorporate the ADDIE components, so there is no need to come up with a new model each time there are new project variables.

Though many in the ID field argue that ADDIE is not a model, I see it as a general principle that gives an opportunity to combine and experiment.

For e-learning projects it would be very effective to include a Rapid Prototype Phase in the design phase. So a quickly assembled module can be tested early in the ID process. The feedback allows for flexibility and creates an iterative loop where you can shape a pilot of an end product and work with a model.

For business training of certain performance skills the Human Performance Technology models are ideal.

One more type of ID models worth of mentioning are Practical Variations: Hands-On-Training (HOT) and Telling Ain't Training. They work best when employed by subject experts hired by organization.

With so many models in mind an ID can adjust the design process to the budget and other variables of a given organization, every time providing an optimal solution.

Dreams Come True

After this initial introduction to the intricacies of Instructional Design I can say for sure that skills and knowledge I have gained as a member of an ID project team definitely changed my understanding of the profession. As an online ESL teacher I am aspiring to create my own online school and this experience makes me confident and optimistic about creating an efficient and technologically advanced online learning environment.