Topic 5: Lesson learnt – future practice

I have learnt many new things during this course. For instance, how collaborative the work within the digital tools could be. Moreover, I have got knowledge about the extension of Bloom´s taxonomy which now includes blended learning activities (Andersson and Kratwohl, 2001). I have also started to realise the complexity regarding legal aspects related to publication of material on the Internet. Perhaps the best thing about the course is that it changed how I think about myself as a teacher in a digital world. Let me explain, when I started the course I had never had a blog, Twitter® or participated in any online social community network e.g. Facebook®, and I had never used any of the collaborative digital tools I got the chance to try out during this course. I though of my self as hopelessly behind when it came to Internet technology compared to younger people. However, this course has really showed me that motivation is a key to success, or as the NMH Horizon Report (2017) puts it students continues to be motivated when they can observe the link between “new skills” and the “real world”. Surely, several of the course participants finish with more skills in digital tools but my journey has taken me far, as I literally started in the basement.   With that being said I will no longer dwell in the past. Instead I will start implementing some of the digital tools we have explored together in the PBL group in some of the courses that I teach. I am particularly fond of prezi® since I think that it would go well with some of the intended learning outcomes. Even thought I experienced some technical problems during the collaboration in the prezi®. Therefore I will apply for administration rights for my work computer so I can do updates for e.g. Adobe flash player®. When choosing blended learning activities for the courses I will try out consulting the extended Bloom´s taxonomy. I am a bit exiting about this actually; I hope my colleagues bear with me.

 

Finally, I wonder what to do with the blog? I guess it is time to shut it down. It was a nice experience thought, to share reflections. Thanks for your thoughtful comments!

 

References

Anderson, L.W. (Ed.), Krathwohl, D.R. (Ed.), Airasian, P.W., Cruikshank, K.A., Mayer, R.E., Pintrich, P.R., Raths, J., & Wittrock, M.C. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Complete edition). New York: Longman.

NMH Horizon Report 2017 Higher Education Edition. https://opennetworkedlearning.wordpress.com/onl171-course-activities/overview-and-schedule-onl-171/ Retrieved from ONL 171 website 26 April 17.

 

Topic 4: Design for online and blended learning

During this course the benefits of online learning for students have become evident to me, such as that learning is no longer restricted to the physical classroom environment. Moreover it is possible to learn and collaborate with other learners outside office time and furthermore interactive discussions can go on for days asynchronous. Moreover, students and society expects universities to use technological progress (Garrison and Vaughan, 2007) and perhaps institutions could lower their costs for renting classrooms. However, to design meaningful online and blended courses are not a trivial work and blended learning can be regarded as a “transmission” of how we view teaching and learning and should accordingly not be seen as merely an “add-in” to in person learning (Garrison and Vaughan, 2007). There are several reports on online and blended course design and in my opinion the excitement of the technology itself, with all fantastic digital tools, sometimes seems to overshadows both course objectives and drive the pedagogy. Should it not be the other way around? In my experience university courses are often designed for constructive alignment described by Biggs (2003) (Biggs, 2003; Biggs and Tang, 2007). The logical association between intended learning outcomes (ILO), learning activities, and the assessments of those learning outcomes are considered crucial (Biggs, 2003; Biggs and Tang, 2007). When designing learning outcomes it is common to use taxonomies. Bloom´s taxonomy is sometimes used at university level and has been upgraded with blended learning activities to go with the different levels of learning (Andersson and Kratwohl, 2001). Applying this upgraded taxonomy could be a proper way to enhance quality in online and blended course design. There are also many reports describing design of new whole courses with online and blended learning and for me, at the moment, I am interested in how to adapt face-to-face courses to blended learning and how to improve quite premature blended courses. Therefore it was interesting to read a paper addressing adaptation of a traditional face-to-face course to blended learning (Protsiv et al, 2016). The outcome seems favourable and showed good motivation for learners, but there were also some challenges such as only having few team members and the need for support, both technical and pedagogical (Protsiv et al, 2016). Perhaps these are not unusual challenges for teachers who want to do a blended course. If the institutions have difficulties to enhance numbers of teaching team members for each blended or online course one way to meet these challenges could perhaps be through workshops.

 

References

Anderson, L.W. (Ed.), Krathwohl, D.R. (Ed.), Airasian, P.W., Cruikshank, K.A., Mayer, R.E., Pintrich, P.R., Raths, J., & Wittrock, M.C. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Complete edition). New York: Longman.

 

Biggs, J. (2003). Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Buckingham: Open University Press/Society for Research into Higher Education. (Second edition).

Biggs, J., Tang, C. (2007). Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Berkshire: Open University Press/Society for Research into Higher Education. (3rd edition).

Garrison, R., Vaughan, N.D. (2007). Blended learning in higher education: Framework, principles and guidelines. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, USA.

Protsiv, M., Rosales-Klintz, S., Bwanga, F., Warenstem, M., Atkins, S. (2016). Blended learning across universities in South-North-South collaboration: a case study. Health Res Policy Syst. Sept 2;14(1):67.

Topic 3: Learning in communities – networked collaborative learning

In my opinion, this week, collaborative learning took place in the PBL group. In order to not get ahead of this story I intend to start with a definition of collaborative learning. Knowledge could be regarded as a social construct and collaborative learning could be considered as people learning jointly (Dillenbourg, 1999). In order for the learning to be collaborative the smallest numbers of participants (students as a suggestion) working together to e.g. solving a problem has to be a pair and there seems to be no upper limit since a whole society could be involved, with all intermediate levels on the continuum (Dillenbourg, 1999). To my understanding collaborative learning has earlier been suggested to take place primary synchronous during 1-2 hours group work (Dillenbourg, 1999), however later on also asynchronous (Hafner and Ellis, 2004). Some difficulties in transferring collaborative learning activities from synchronous time frame to asynchronous have also been noted (Hafner and Ellis, 2004). Collaborative learning has been described more like instructions for group collaboration that triggers learning than a model (Hafner and Ellis, 2004). However, the FISh-model for PBL online (Nerantzi and Uhlin, 2012) has proven very useful for collaborative learning in our PBL group. Now I am back at the beginning of this blog post. This week we read the scenario; we had a synchronous discussion whereas we applied the first steps in the FISh-model (Nerantzi and Uhlin, 2012) focusing and creating questions. Then we investigated and put our findings in a shared document, and made follow up questions and comments, reviewing each section. Finally we worked together producing a wiki that we posted on the ONL 171 community for peer review and open for comments and ideas. This collaborative approach, especially the reviewing part, did to my opinion rather resemble the procedure of writing a paper together with a group of co-authors. This was a positive experience to me that moved my thinking forward. Brindley et al (2009) suggests strategies that enable collaborative learning in smaller groups whereof one is sufficient time for the task. I really which we had more time for the different assignments, especially since I work a lot and need much time to make a deeper reflection. Time always seems to be in short supply and I wonder if the ONL 171 community network will be alive also after the course end? Then the ONL 171 community could be a part of our own personal learning network. A quick search on the Internet indicates that there seems to be several active international online learning communities for teachers.

 

References

Brindley, J., Blaschke, L. M. & Walti, C. (2009). Creating effective collaborative learning groups in an online environment. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(3). https://opennetworkedlearning.wordpress.com/onl171-course-activities/topic-3-learning-in-communities-networked-collaborative-learning/ Retrieved via ONL 171 website 2 April 2017.

Dillenbourg, P. (ed) Collaborative learning; Cognitive and Computational Approaches (pp. 1-19). Oxford Elsevier, 1999.

Hafner, W, Ellis, T. (2004) Project based asynchronous collaborative learning. Proceedings of the 37^th Hawaii International Conference on System Science, 1-9. https://ai2-s2-pdfs.s3.amazonaws.com/8dc7/0066f40d458f0b7b37624ad9d86f77d505fa.pdf Retrieved 2 April 2017.

Nerantzi, C., Uhlin, L. (2012) FISh model – a model for individual, pair and PBL group Inquiry. https://opennetworkedlearning.wordpress.com/about-onl/learning-activities/ Retrieved via ONL 171 website 2 April 2017.

Topic 2 Open learning – sharing and openness

Open up courses and offering them as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) seems quite challenging. Apparently there are different types of MOOCs designed from different philosophical and educational angles; xMOOCs are in their strict forms considered based on a behaviouristic perspective and transmission model, or “standard view of communication” while cMOOCs are supposed to emphasis networking and that the participants are evolving the content in a collaborative way (Bates, 2015). There are also suggested to be MOOCs combining features of both xMOOCs and cMOOCs. There seems to be several appealing features with MOOCs in general, e.g. they are open to all with a computer and Internet connection, many are free of cost, no limits in numbers of participants, stimulates participants innovation and their desire to explore new topics, and counteracts merely “reciting right answers” to questions (Bates, 2015). However, there are also some considerations, for instance, due to the massive number of participants communication between them will eventually brake down in many sub-conversations impossible to follow by any single person (Bates, 2015). Therefore it could be worth thinking of numbers of participants in relation to teaching  resources before starting a MOOC course. Furthermore, massive numbers of participants has according to Bates (2015) been associated with worry, feelings of “over load” and solitude. Moreover, although MOOCs provides the opportunity to study on some eminent universities they do not always give admission to or credit even by the university that offers them (Bates, 2015). There are several cloud-based platforms for MOOCs e.g. edX, used by KI, and Coursera. Bates (2015) mentioned that the materials used in the MOOCs were the property of the cloud-based platform. That makes me unsure of the teachers rights to the material. I made a google search on some of the cloud-based platforms and they seem to work best with xMOOCs, this should perhaps be taken into consideration when designing a MOOC course. Supportively, both Coursera and edX seems to give courses in how to build MOOCs on their platforms.

In my opinion, as a teacher of MOOCs you ought to be skilled at digital literacy, and if you considered participants from all over the world master language which many people speak, such as English. Preferably you should be a group of teachers collaborating in designing the MOOCs course in the cloud-based platform. It should also be several teachers in the course to support students. Finally, the institution has to have an overall procedure for opening up courses (Dos Santos et al, 2016). Taking all above mentioned in to consideration I would start with something not quite so extensive, perhaps blending online and offline learning e.g. ”flipping the classroom”. Letting students overview lecturers at home and then work together in group sessions and with teachers on campus. However, with my mentioned concerns managed, I would perhaps consider teaching at a MOOC course in the future.

 

Bates, T. (2015). Teaching in a Digital Age: Guidelines for Teaching and Learning  (retrieved from ONL171 website  https://opennetworkedlearning.wordpress.com/onl171-course-activities/topic-2-open-learning-sharing-and-openness/  March 19, 2017)

Dos Santos, A., Punie, Y., Munoz, J. (2016). Opening up education. A support framework for higher education institutions. European Commission JRC Science for Policy Report (retrieved from ONL171 website,  https://opennetworkedlearning.wordpress.com/onl171-course-activities/topic-2-open-learning-sharing-and-openness/  March 19, 2017)

Topic 1 Online participation and digital literacies

This week we are suggested to reflect on our own digital literacy and identity. When it comes to my personal life I have very little experiences, indeed I decided to search for “digital dinosaur” at one of the most frequently used search engines and came across the terms Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants created by M Prensky (2001). Apparently a digital native is a person born into the Internet age, presumably after 1980, who is not only used to networking in online social media, skilled in multitasking, accustom to Internet technology but also therefore suggested to use the Internet differently from me (who is older). Fore instance digital immigrants use to print out documents rather than edit them directly on the screen (Prensky, 2001), which I used to do. Not good for the environment, however, I have fortunately improved. DS White and A Le Cornu (2011) use the terms Digital visitors and Digital residents. Instead of dividing digital competence after age, visitors and residents seems to exist on a continuum. You can be a visitor in some media, but a resident in others. Me for instance, in my personal life I am a visitor e.g. using an app in my smartphone to read newspapers or play a popular game chasing small, cute monsters or just searching the internet without collaborating creatively with others. In my professional life I am sometimes closer to a resident. The students can find me at a learning platform were I am supposed to facilitate their collaboration and administer forums for online meeting including share screen possibilities. Moreover, I am residing in this blog. In other medias I am closer to how I use the Internet in my private life, such as searching for information in databases.

 

My experiences from the ONL so far are hard to summon in a few words, however I will give it a try. The topic is extremely interesting but very extensive and I begin to understand how little I know. Collaboration is crucial to increase knowledge. Thanks PBL group 8! The FISh-model (Focus Investigate SHare) (Nerantzi & Uhlin, 2012) is useful for online PBL, especially since we got a review of the model and had a moderator to help us get started. I have had the possibility to participate at group meetings in Adobe connect and we as a group have used a collaborative mind map to display our findings regarding topic 1. Moreover, the webinar, Digital Literacies with Sara Mörtsell was interesting. ONL 171 website (https://opennetworkedlearning.wordpress.com/onl171-course-activities/overview-and-schedule-onl-171/). For instance algorithmic sorting is one aspect related to online digital identity that I was not aware off. I really look forward to continue the ONL and hopefully increase my knowledge.

 

References

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf accessed 5 March 17

 

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/266389008_fig1_Figure-1-The-FISh-model-Nerantzi-Uhlin-2012 accessed 6 March 17

 

http://firstmonday.org/article/view/3171/3049 accessed 5 March 17

February 14

According to online Cambridge dictionary (http://dictionary.cambridge.org), distance learning is an example of open learning. That was my overall understanding when I applied for the ONL course. I was thinking of nursing students admitted to a distance course and how I could facilitate their learning using digital tools. After the first webinar the concept seems a lot broader than my preconception, which is a bit scary. However, according to McConnell (2006), referenced at the ONL 171 homepage, creating a helpful setting for student learning is one of the important domains for successfully designing NL courses. Therefore I have to challenge my self and learn more about digital tools, which is part of the online distance course environment.

Perhaps this is the course where I will meet similar difficulties that distance students experiences when attending ”my” courses? That seems to be the experiences of some former course members. Thanks for sharing! Hopefully, this will make me more aware of problems students may face so I can take preventive actions. Moreover, compered to never teaching online, findings indicate, a “deeper cognitive complexity for virtual professors” (Coppola, Hiltz & Ritter, 2002, p 186) in their pedagogical role than if they had chosen to stay only in the IRL class room (Coppola, Hiltz & Ritter, 2002). That seems encouraging and further motivates me as a teacher of distance students to participate in the ONL course.

 

Literature

Walter Coppola, N., Hiltz, SR. and Ritter, NG. (2002). Becoming a virtual professor: pedagogical roles and asynchronous learning network. Jornal of Management Information Systems/Spring. Vol 18, No 4; pp 169-189.

McConnell (2006)  referenced at https://opennetworkedlearning.wordpress.com/onl171-course-activities/getting-started-and-connecting/ (accessed 14 February 2017)

My ONL blog

Welcome to my blog!

In this blog I will reflect on open network learning (ONL) and share my experiences from an interesting course held by lecturers from the Unit for Medical Education, LIME, KI. You are very welcome to make comments on the topics to come.