Aitken Portfolio Project (ETEC565A)

This is a difficult post to write as it exposes a major weakness in instructional design for online environments. In an effort to engage learners we often turn to multimedia to support learning. However there are complications for learners without hearing or sight. When reviewing the Quick Tips of the WAI I can see that I did not always have universal design in mind for my Moodle course. Although I did use an alt tag for each image in the course, I probably should have provided much more descriptive tags. In the course there is also a short video showing a twitter feed. This video is silent so there was no need to provide a transcript but I should have provided a detailed description of the video. I put my modules into the Markup Validation Service in the Toolkit and they passed. This is a great tool and I plan to use it in the future. Universal design however, goes much further. Online course should be built keeping in mind all students from the poor reader to the hearing impaired. These students are alnost always forgotten by designers until that student is actually enrolled and it is to late to make the appropriate adjustments.

As a good general rule I try to provide text support to media objects, alt-tags from images, and text that is not too small with a lot of white space.

The use of wikis in the MET program really opened my eyes to their potential in education. The fantastic affordance of working with wikis, is not that they are necessarily always correct (although Wikipedia usually is! ), but the discussion over the content. People engaging in debate about a particular subject matter has been the cornerstone of learning for years. Wiki assignments preserve this learning format for students in the online environment. They are about collaboratively constructing a body of knowledge – isn’t this what education is all about?

There is one particular learning activity I learned from my MET program that I have incorporated into the design of other courses. At the beginning of the term, the instructor lists the main curricular categories in a wiki. Students then sign up for a particular category to research and write an entry for. As part of the assignment, students can also edit or extend other student’s work. This kind of activity puts the student in charge of their own learning. There is choice, collaboration, and of course pride that goes into creating a public work.

I recently started a wiki with two other co-workers on Web 2.0 tools for the classroom. We created it in PBWorks because it was free and has features to control who is allowed to edit the wiki. There are also some features that allow you to customize the appearence and layout. In my previous role I would often be asked about tool selection. We wanted to work on a public resource together with other designers and instructors. Please have a look and please keep in mind that it is just a start!

My Wiki Experience

Blogs are now an integral part of my learning network. I follow regularly about fifteen blogs on education and technology. Through reading blogs I have been able to keep up-to-date and interested in issues surrounding educational technology. Recently though I started my own personal blog. This is hosted off of the UBC servers or any other institutional servers I am currently associated with.

My Personal Blog

WordPress and even more so, Blogger, make it incredibly easy to publish content on the web. The format lends itself to reflection and community engagement. You can also create your own templates if you have the HTML knowledge. The Multi-User WordPress system that UBC uses is a robust blogging infrastructure for an entire university. There is a learning curve to WordPress,but as an instructor there is a lot of learning potential for students. A blog can host portfolio work such as videos, pdf’s, audio, and almost any web based media.

I find it interesting to compare the costs involved in maintaining an LMS for an institution versus a Blogging and Wiki infrastructure. It makes me wonder if schools would ever be comfortable in dropping an LMS in favour of the blogging, wiki, instant messaging, and microblogging services now available.

Blogging can also be motivating for students. I have incorporated a WordPress journal assignment for a class of language learners, and the public nature of the blog seems to inspire students to write. A post is not something that is only read by one instructor. Knowing that other students and perhaps community members will read your post seems to spark something for students. Have a look at this video by Mindshift on how blogging affected this disadvantaged student.

Synchronous communication has been largely deemphasized in today’s online learning design – and for legitimate reasons. Obviously this form means that at least two people need to be available at the same time which is complicated across time zones. I revisited some of the services highlighted in the Toolkit.

Skype
In the past I used Skype on a daily basis for teaching language learners. It has just enough functions to be very useful without being overly complicated. You can share files, instant message, make VOIP conference calls, and screen share. In this course, our group had two, one hour meetings on Skype where we easily worked out a plan for our assignment. Once you learn the rhythm of this kind of communication and use the mute when you are not speaking, it becomes as effective as a face-to-face conversation. What’s more, is that it is free and familiar to so many people that there are no real barriers to using the technology.

Wimba
I am familiar with Wimba as we tested their web-conferencing software last year. Wimba Voice and Pronto however were new to me. I hesitate at the need to use Wimba Pronto over other free tools. Wimba Voice was a quality program with loads of potential for online language learning courses, although I would encourage you to have a look at the simplicity of the free tool Vocaroo.

Google Chat/Voice
Although the Google services are not listed on the Toolkit I feel I should include them here because of their wide application to education. Because Google has so many applications they integrate effectively without any real headaches. With a Gmail account students have instant access to each other through the free chat function and can make free call to each other if they wish. When you combine instant messaging with the Google Docs features you have something that may completely change the way we collaborate on projects.

For a quick look at how these Google features work together please see this quick video starting at 2:05.

Students have to be well versed in these application in order to do group work in an online program. To date I have used at least of of these applications in each MET course I have taken.

My experience in web development has been in working with template pages within WordPress, Joomla!, and Weebly. Without any real knowledge of code I tend to rely on WYSIWYG editors. These programs are fantastic for enabling amateurs like myself to get started in web development. My first major project in web development was the creation of this now defunct exam preparation site for English language learners.

For this course I tried to go a step further in web development by trying out Dreamweaver. However, after reviewing the Design Issues outlined in the eLearning Toolkit, my pages do fail one important issue – browser compatibility. The important lesson for me in working in HTML in Dreamweaver is that the pages may render slightly differently in each browser. The specific problem I encountered with my HTML pages is that the sidebar content would drop in Internet Explorer. After some research I found this was a known issues for IE (Techtalks, 2009). To troubleshoot this problem I tried swimming in some dangerous territory for me by trying to edit the HTML of the main CSS. Unfortunately, could not solve the issue which probably means the work will remain on the Websites That Suck list

Here is a view of the sidebar problem in IE:

On the positive side, I believe I met the standards outlined in the Toolkit with respect to simplicity, navigation (at least within the modules themselves), use of an appropriate amount of media, and accessibility. Dreamweaver proved to be a challenging but rewarding program to work in. I look forward to the next opportunity where I can use it.

Techtalks. (2009). Fixing internet explorer sidebar drop problem in blogger (IE) . [Web log]. Retrieved from http://www.prasannatech.net/2009/02/blogger-ie-sidebar-float-drop-problem.html

The article by Brian Lamb, Dr.Mashup; or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix grounded my thinking for the digital storytelling assignment. Lamb (2007) notes that, “It is common to assume that remakes or reworkings are inherently lesser forms of creation than something that is “original” and that free reuse somehow degrades the value of the source.”  I believe this where education and popular culture in the online environment clash.

The development of leading industries on the web such as in journalism are proving that crowd sourcing information from social media can be the most effective way to source the most accurate and up-to-date content. With the idea of crowd sourcing in mind I was drawn to a tool, created for journalism, called Storify.  If you try it for a few minutes you will see that it is a fun, easy, and quick way to gather information and content from Flickr, YouTube,  Twitter, Google Search, Facebook, RSS, or any url. It then publishes that content along with your text in a tidy presentation.

The greatest affordance of Storify for students though is not in its ease of use. I think it is the interface that encourages people to explore multimedia and embed contributions from others within one’s own writing.  This exemplifies Lamb’s Mash-up, where different content is put together to create a new piece of work.

I believe writing on Storify could also be motivational for students to begin to write a modern academic papers paper that do not rely only on peer reviewed publications.  The interface is based on identifying relevant content and social trends that you then mix into your own writing.  Students could have fun in mixing video, audio, and tweets together on a particular subject that they weave together with their own writing.

From a broader perspective, I would like to see the ideas in Lambs article more widely accepted in mainstream education.  I would like to see teachers unleashing a tool like Storify on their students to see what kind of creative project they could produce by patching content together from multiple sources.

You can see my digital storytelling project on Storify here.

Reference

Lamb, B. (2007). Dr. Mashup; or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix. EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 42, no. 4 (July/August 2007): 12–25. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ER/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume42/DrMashuporWhyEducatorsShouldLe/161747

A wiki space is an unique learning environment limited only by the imagination of its users.  It is like one huge blank whiteboard where it us up to the learners to give the content some sort of direction and organization.  I believe that this assignment closely resembles the wiki writing experience as described by Brain Lamb where it is the  users who  “define for themselves how their processes and groups will develop, usually by making things up as they go along” (2004).  This particular assignment was an interesting constructivist learning opportunity in this way.  The course designer built a context and set out some parameters, but then the the students took over from their by posting to the shared space. I believe this learning experience is quite different than our typical discussion assignments on the LMS.

The LMS does a few things very well. One of them is that is provides an organized format – especially for discussions.  A discussion thread is clearly defined and organized by author making it easier for instructors to assess.  A wiki space is much more egalitarian.  The flow of ideas stems from the content alone, rather than the author.  It is this natural, unstructured view of knowledge that can make it both hard to follow and highly engaging for the participants and readers. The wiki is as Bryan Alexander puts it, based on “streams of conversations , revision, amendment, and truncation” (2008).  I think there was a reluctance on our behalves to surrender to this stream of conversation as signatures were used for all content contributions.  Perhaps this is simply a reality of participating in a wiki discussion that is assessed for a course grade.

This practice of group editing can be problematic for users.  In this activity, I did not have any content revised by peers, nor did I actually edit anyone’s work.  The hesitation in editing others’ content may be grounded in my prior background of learning in an LMS where this is simply not done. Classmates Dave Evans and Chris McKenzie  cleverly identified this wiki editing process as “polite meaness”.  It is important to note that this wiki environment was protected by a university  user authentication login. Imagine how much more complicated this becomes when a wiki is opened to the wider community. But also imagine the the learning opportunities that could come from input from community experts!

Wikipedia for example is a project that has harnessed the power of the community intellect unlike any other academic initiative (in my opinion).  Despite criticism that this model of collaborative writing produces unreliable content, wikipedia essentially has no more errors on a typical article than Encyclopedia Britannica (Terdiman, 2005).  Further, no publishing model can match Wikipedia for currency.  Here is a screenshot I took May 1, 2011 of a Wikipedia entry about two hours after Osama Bin Laden was killed.

I really enjoy wiki learning spaces.  They are challenging for instructors and learners alike.   It effectively removes the authoritative model of learning. In the end it is the contributors who, for better or worse,  decide how the project will develop.

References

Alexander, B. (2006).  Web 2.0: A new Wave of Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0621.pdf

Lamb, B. (2004). Wide open spaces: Wikis, ready or not. EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 39, no. 5 (September/October 2004): 36–48. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume39/WideOpenSpacesWikisReadyorNot/157925

Terdiman, D. (2005). Study: Wikipedia as accurate as britannica.  Retrieved from http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

I believe that the distinguishing features of online learning, as described by Anderson, are that it is knowledge and community centered. Some of the best courses I have taken have been in the MET program.  They have been courses that motivate me to, as Anderson puts it, “plunge ever deeper into knowledge resources” available on the web.  The Instructor’s role in this pursuit is to support this learning as a subject matter expert directing the learner to credible resources. The smartest teacher in the world has only peas-sized knowledge in comparison the knowledge existing with the global community on the web. Online learning when well designed will leverage the knowledge of the community.

The most powerful tools available to explore knowledge and the community are largely social applications. Microblogging, blogging, wikis, and social bookmarking, I believe are escalating learning for the average Joe and Jane at an incredible pace.  True communities or practice (the ones that are not funded or formally organized) are tied together with these tools giving rise to valuable informal learning.  With the simplicity of how these tools work, the only thing needed for a learner to begin is a sincere subject interest. The online environment largely takes care of the community and knowledge relationships.

With ubiquitous learner access to the web, the role of the school will increasingly be to provide teaching presence and assessment.  The movement in open educational resources suggests that the most important service provided by higher education institutions is credentialing through assessment.  Perhaps one day, this will become their primary responsibility, where learners seize control of their own learning with OERs supported by community networks, and colleges step in to authenticate this learning through standardized assessment.

Image by Flickr user tobiaseigen

About a year ago, I purchased a record – The Suburbs by Arcade Fire. I recently declared this at a speaking event on the future of education and a participant blurted out, “You still by records!?”  Yes, I do buy records when I feel there is a really good one.

Obviously I am part of a niche demographic of record buyers.  The music industry has transformed dramatically over the last ten years.  I can distinctly recall people saying that the internet would kill the music industry.  Record sales are down, but some groups are thriving in a new model in the music industry.  MTV, for example, transformed itself so that very few music videos are played on their TV channel.  They are however, the most visited music video website on the web today.

To truly understand how the music industry is different, you should read Richard MacManus’s post, Social Media Use Cases: Arcade Fire. In it, he describes on the day before the release of The Suburbs, how Arcade Fire, an independent label, was able to build a fan base.  Music listeners flocked to the album well before the official release.  The band had its album available on their own website in several different formats.  They had a strong presence on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter sharing samples, promotions, and event details. They also had their own YouTube channel, Vimeo site, and made the full album available on NPR for free prior to the album release.  They also produced an interactive video in HTML 5 that made everyone stop to think about the changing online environment.

The success of The Suburbs in now well known.  They won a Grammy last year much to the surprise to many people.  This is the interesting part.  How can a band, reaching number one in sales on iTunes, and selling out Madison Square Gardens twice surprise people by winning a Grammy?  The reason, is that many mainstream music listeners are not yet connected into the social media of the music industry.  If you listen only to the music that Radio stations decide to play, you will miss wide swaths of popular contemporary music with independent labels.

So what? As an educator why do I care? Firstly, the music industry is a pioneer in internet based business models.  Many industries look to music and entertainment for predictors on how their industry might evolve.

Like music, knowledge exists in social places throughout the web. Yet, teaching practices still reflect a pre-web era where teachers pass their knowledge on to students through lectures and reading in the classroom.  The learner of the future will need to access social media for their knowledge.  Rather than listening exclusively to a teacher, like some music fans listening to the radio, learners will create environments where information of interest to fed to them.  Those learner who do not create these environments will miss out on valuable learning experiences and be exposed only  to a limited amount of content selected by a teacher.

Social media is giving voice to people and organizations who could not be heard in the past.  In the end, the reason why Arcade Fire won a Grammy was not because of social media. They won because they produced a great album.

Quality learning content will always be in high demand. The personal learning environment (PLE) that mashes together information from the chaos of the web is a legitimate and sustainable model of learning. Connectivity will amplify learning to new levels. However, the PLE is not a replacement model. Learners will still be interested in face-to-face learning from a single instructor in much the same as people today still buy records.  The shower did not replace the bath tub.  There is a time and place for both.

Image by starbright31

I would assess my competency in digital aged learning as above average. When developing several online course simultaneously it is easy to fall into the practice of producing bland, template style courses.  By following a consistent process I can develop quickly, thereby meeting deadlines, but at the cost of failing to inspire student learning and creativity.  When time allows, I think very carefully about learning spaces that will allow students to take control of their own learning. This often starts by giving students choice in their topics and creating alternative assessments.  Some of the most interesting digital-age learning experiences I have developed have used emerging technologies outside of the institution learning management system.  Most recently, I worked with an instructor to design a performance-based assessment project in communication studies by teaching students how to create their videos and post them to a class Vimeo page.  Like YouTube, Vimeo allow comments from selected users allowing students to provide constructive peer evaluation.  The instructor is taken out of the centre of the learning experience and the students take ownership for the project.

Digital citizenship and responsibility  are at the forefront of online learning experiences such as these.  College students need to learn to communicate in public forums in a respectful and professional matter.  I highlight this to students and instructors by pointing out that today’s employees are involved in continuos networked learning.  Knowledge is rarely owned by an individual so we need to learn to develop a reliable network that we can access.  Unless students are able to maintain a respected online reputation/profile they will have difficulties in participating in the networked learning that defines the 21st century workplace.

This semester I hope to develop my skills further in creating learning objects and experiences that promote constructivist learning.  It is good to see a variety of “technical” type learning activities as I would like to learn to become more independent in this area. In this course I will set out to become at least mildly competent in multimedia development and more familiar with interactivity and assessment tools.

Image by Lee Gonzalez Photography courtesy Flickr