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e-learning tool kit Reflections

Synchronous Communication Tools Reflection

We use Elluminate at Fanshawe College.
It is embedded in our Learning Management System, FanshaweOnline (FOL), a Desire2Learn product. We have several professors in our business school that use it as a synchronous and an asynchronous communication tool. They all seem to use the tool very differently but they have had tremendous success.
Most professors start by recording a lecture (asynchronous communication) and then give the student access to the recording. Many professors get frustrated that they can’t edit the recording. I am always telling them that Elumniate is a synchronous communication tool that just happens to record. There are much better tools out there for recording and editing video.
Elluminate is best used as a synchronous product that is running while you lecture to a live class. Sometimes one student in the classroom is assigned to be a moderator to keep their eye on any questions that pop up from remote students but not always. The lecture can be recorded and then is automatically archived in the FOL course.

Issues

The biggest issue with Elluminate is to learn the product. Elluminate has several free training videos on their site that help teachers get up to speed with the product. We run practice sessions and best practices meetings where profs show how they use the tool and talk about their successes and failures. It is a powerful product that can be used on many levels. The best way to get started is to use it, keep it simple and then build from there.
Professors need the courage to use the tool. A lot of professors fear failure in front of their class so a live session is very scary. I have moderated a couple of classes in the beginning to support the professor as they venture into this new delivery method. The business school has really taken to this product and is using it in a lot of classes. Unfortunately, them seem to be the only school that has. I am trying to push my schools to use it but am coming up against a lot of resistance.
Technical issues do arise and you need the patience and support to get through them. When lecturing to a live class, you really need a wireless mic. The mic gives you the freedom to move away from the computer to address your live audience.

Other uses

The school of Business uses the product to broadcast their school meetings. Most of the professors are part-time and physically make the meetings. They can attend when Elluminate is used.

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Reflections

Multimedia Reflection

Think about an example of how multimedia have been used effectively to enhance your learning.
I’m a big fan of videos as an educator and student. As an educator, videos like can say things much better than I can. With resources on web 2.0 technologies like youtube, I can find videos that can support the learning objectives in an entertaining manner. Some can be boring but videos like Wikis in Plain English, are instructional while remaining entertaining.
As a life-long learner, videos help me visually understand concepts and ‘how to’s’. I am a subscriber to Lynda.com, a software training & tutorial video library with access to hundreds of tutorials on the latest and greatest software like Moodle, the full range of Adobe products, twitter, facebook… just to name a few. I can learn a new tool or pick up a few quick tips. In my role as support for faculty, I am often asked how to do things. If I am stumped, I use Lynda videos to find answers. They are often more helpful than software help.
I help nursing faculty with online learning materials via the textbook they use. Evolve has an amazing array of multimedia support materials for nursing students. In one Flash animation, the student can increase the blood pressure of a patient and hear the resulting sounds one would hear through a stethoscope. In another animation, one can hear the sounds of a healthy lung verses a smokers lungs. Videos on patient interviews are used for discussions.
It is quiet a rich resource of teaching and learning materials.

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Reflections

Digital Storytelling Reflection

This is my digital story telling experience.

I decided to just pick one of the online storytelling tools and go with whatever it had to offer. I picked Bubblr  because it offered free images to work with.  All I had to do was to enter some keywords in the search box and click go to get a pile of photos to pick from. The comic strip theme intrigued me. Here is the result

Obviously this did not turn out that well. The text is too small to read  and the photos hard to see.

Here is a link that might show it better:
Seekin Adventure by Katie the dog

I remember creating comic strips as a young student and enjoying it so I thought I would try it here. I was very disappointed with the result and view this task as a failure. I was hoping for a visual presentation with images telling the story but I didn’t get the effect I wanted. The free images offered didn’t quite suit what I wanted to say. The images only didn’t relay the feeling of exploration or calmness the woods brings. Music would have helped. I think I will try using comic strips with ‘how to ‘ documents for professors. It might be fun but I don’t know how effective.

I also tried Animomo and found more success.

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e-learning tool kit Reflections

Still Image Reflection

Manipulating an image was extremely easy using Picasa. I am a Photoshop user and teach an introduction college level business course on Photoshop. I love the power of Photoshop but with power comes a step learning curve.

I cannot believe how easy it was to rework an image using Picasa. Cropping was easy and not labour intensive at all. I loved the collage and can see how a new user to image manipulation could really get into this. I tend to work with masks and layers when I make an image collage in Photoshop. I could not find that feature in Picasa.

I had no real challenges accept that I couldn’t download the software at work. Our computers are locked down so I couldn’t play with it during lunch. I would recommend it to my students as a quick alternative to Photoshop. This is a great free piece of free software for a beginner. You can do a lot of image manipulation without the cost of a software product like Photoshop.

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Reflections

Class Wiki Reflection

Our Class Wiki for the Activity

The wiki activity involved coming up with some key Strategies and Challenges in using social networking tools in our educational settings. I like how we started by bringing our own experience (“sightings”) to the wiki. We have a lot of great human resources in our class with various experiences. This was the easy part. The hard part came when we had to, as a group, develop 5 key strategies and challenges. I felt lost and disconnected with the rest of the group. The discussion area didn’t really work for me. I added my 2 cents worth. I usually step up to the plate and help lead group work but this time I decided to sit back and see what happens. Key members of the class did take the lead. Social networking sites need “someone” in charge, facilitating groups towards a common goal or things will be lost or dropped but that is similar in all social gatherings whether it be a sporting event or backyard party.

Wiki is a great collaboration tool as long as it is asynchronous. Using a wiki inside a class when everyone is trying to access the same wiki page at the same time is problematic. I use pbworks.com in my class. Students have to steal the page from each other to edit it. Unlike Googledocs, where students can work on the same document at the same time. To get around this ‘page stealing issue’, I get the students to pick a topic. Since each topic is on a separate page, there usually isn’t any problems with stealing pages. It becomes a jigsaw activity. Individuals explore different topics but as a group a solid knowledge base is created.

In my experience, people have a hard time editing each others work. People tend to write notes besides others work instead of deleting. I guess folks are trying to be polite. I really was not impressed with the discussion feature and rarely use it myself. I prefer to use a wiki as a knowledge/content building activity not for discussions. I much prefer threads for discussions.

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e-learning tool kit

Addicted to Moodle

Yikes, I am addicted to Moodle. I love creating courses on Learning Management Systems (LMS) Am I crazy?

My Moodle course site is expanding beyond the “requirements” but I can’t help myself.

Adding Forums

I am currently adding ‘help forums’ all in all modules. I really like how ETEC 565 has discussions for each tool  so I thought it would be a good idea to put forums in each module so students can help each other (just in case the prof is not available). It really sets up a nice community of practices where peers can share their learning/knowledge with classmates.

Working with HTML and CSS

Linking to an outside web server

I am also going crazy (a good crazy) with HTML and CSS. Originally I just linked to my webworkshop on my web server.  The workshop has over 60 html pages so adding them individually to a Moodle course would take forever and  I was also worried that the links to my css and images would not work. The only problem with this approach is that the students cannot be tracked.  The students will be tracked if they click on the link to the workshop but moodle can’t track which pages were visited inside the workshop.

Working with HTML & CSS inside of Moodle

In the File Management module, I built the web pages outside of Moodle, zipped them up and uploaded them. I then added each page individually. This means the students will be tracked for each page. So if a student comes to the prof and says “I didn’t get this part”, the prof can go to the reports and see if the student even visited the page on that subject.

Once loaded, I had to make some teaks… I always have to make teaks. I like how moodle lets you edit the file inside of moodle. I know HTML so it wasn’t a big chore for me to change things but I can see that it might be for those who use WYSIWYGs like Dreamweaver. I guess they would be constantly be uploading  files everytime a change needs to be made. I designed my html pages so that the design (look and feel) is controlled by the CSS. I only had to change one file to change the design on all the web pages. This came in handy when I noticed that the colours I choose for the pages were wrong. Since I had a hard time figuring out the colours the moodle’s wood theme was using, even after downloading the CSS for the theme, I used a FireFox add-on, Colorzilla, to pick out the colours in the theme. I changed my CSS and bam! The design for all my web pages in the File Management module changed. I love CSS! Like everything else, it takes time to learn but once you got it, it is such a time saver.

Possible Problem

While tweaking the web pages, I constantly had to “Reload the Frame”. This makes me nervous. I have run courses before where what the students see isn’t the last updated version of a html page. It causes a lot of confusion. It is unrealistic to ask the students to reload pages especially if the web page is inside a frame. I guess the course should be totally built and tested before going live, but realistically that does not happen where I work. Online courses are built and tweaked on the fly. So how can we stop the caching of web pages? Internet Explorer is nortourious at caching pages and not letting go. In my web design courses, I always instruct the students to test their web pages in Firefox. Reloading and/or refreshing a page is usually not a problem in FireFox.

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Reflections

Blogs in Moodle

I have added several tools to my course: chat, forum, wiki and even a blog. I wasn’t that impressed by the blogging tool in moodle. I am a big believer in blogs.

Blogs

A blog is instant personal publishing without sophisticated technical knowledge where people can provide comments or feedback to each blog post. Whereas maintaining a web page can be technically challenging, blogging removes those technical issues and allows the writer to focus on content. All of these features of blogs highlight the many attributes that make them beneficial for use in educational contexts. (Huffaker, 2005)

Creating a Cognitive Environment with Blogs

A common educational use of blogs is for the learner to reflect in writing their experiences, like a personalized learning journal. (Downes, 2004) Garrison et al (2000) points out that by nature text-based communication, like blogs, provide time for reflection. “It is the reflective and explicit nature of the written word that encourages discipline and rigor in our thinking and communicating.” (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000, p. 90). With blogs, students have the opportunity to bring to the table any prior knowledge on a subject or topic. At the start of any topic, the learner can blog any knowledge they have on a given topic before they more thoroughly explore it. Thoughts can be recorded at the beginning of, during and at the end of the lesson. Since blogs are chronological by nature, conceptual change can be seen or inferred by the teacher.

A comparison of a student’s existing conceptions with intended learning outcomes provides an overview of the desired conceptual change and gives some indication of the extent and nature of the intellectual journey which the learner must make. (Scott, Asoko, & Driver, 1998, p. 77)

The learner is in full control and ownership over their online content. Control of one’s own thinking and learning process is one of the major tenants of cognition. (Janes, 2008) The learner decides who can read and/or write to their blog and has the choice of letting just a few peers or the entire world see what they have to say. Learners also have the option to respond or ignore comments: if they do not want a dialogue, the blogger simply turns-off comments. They can turn comments on for topics that they want feedback on. A blog essentially becomes a student’s personal online soapbox where they can try out new concepts (Ferdig & Trammell, 2004) thus controlling their own learning as well as influencing others.

Creating a Social Environment with Blogs

The ability to comment on a blog offers the opportunity for others to provide feedback and therefore “scaffolding of new ideas” (Ferdig & Trammell, 2004, p. 1). Comments and feedback enables students and teachers to socially construct knowledge. (Henri, 2005) Vygotsky determined that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition. (Vygotsky, 1986) The research of Ferdig & Trammel (2004), drawing on educational theories of Vygotski (1978), assesses the educational value of blogs. They argue that the discursive nature of knowledge construction is best addressed by the immediacy and commentary based system of blogging. Blogs are successful in utilizing interactivity that is conversational; a mode of interaction more conducive to improved student and teacher relationships, active learning, higher order thinking, and greater flexibility in teaching and learning. Blogs can provide an immediate and social environment (Halavais, 2005, p. 1189).

Learners can also link to fellow bloggers, creating dynamic online communities known as a Blogosphere. Through these links, learners become readers as well as writers. As readers, learners get to hear the day-to-day thoughts of content experts, community leaders, elders and magazine/newspaper writers, who in turn, hear opinions of people they would never otherwise hear. (Siemens, 2002) Ideas are shared, questions are asked and answered, and social cohesion is developed. (Huffaker, 2005) These links encourage revisiting and revising of learned concepts, enriching the learning experience. (Ferdig & Trammell, 2004) The collaborative aspect of Blogs is obvious. The commenting capabilities in many of the blogging software packages allow for easy peer review for students and teachers, and make bringing in experts or mentors from outside the classroom easy. (Richards, 2004) Jonassen (1998) notes that educators need to create real world environments that utilize the context in which learning is relevant.

The collaboration aspect of blogs brings the real world environment into the classroom. The content of the blogs emerges from the lived experiences and concrete reality of the students, experts, mentors and teachers.

Blogs in Moodle

I had an extremely difficult time in Moddle trying to understand and make a blog work for students. I found that several of my peers tried Blogs but only added one entry. This indicates to me that Blogs are better served outside of Moddle.

I gave up and built a wiki instead. The wiki is built like a jigsaw activity. Intended as a group assignment, students can work together asynchronously to build a resource for the whole class. Students can become subject experts and present their material with others.

References

Downes, S. (2004). Educational Blogging. Educause Review , 14-26.

Ferdig, R. E., & Trammell, K. D. (2004). Content delivery in the ‘blogosphere’. T.H.E.
Journal, , 31(7), 12, 16-17,.

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based
environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education ,
2(2-3), 87-105.

Halavais, A. I. (2005). Weblogs and collaborative web publishing as learning spaces.
The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers/Springer Ferlag.

Henri, J. (2005). Understanding the information literate school community. Leadership
issues in the information literate school community. Libraries Unlimited , pp.11-26.

Hilton, J. (2006, March/April). The future of higher education: Sunrise or perfect storm.
Retrieved June 24, 2008, from Educause Review:
http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/TheFutureforHigherEducati/40619

Huffaker, D. (2005). The educated blogger: Using weblogs to promote literacy in the
classroom. AACE Journal , 13(2), 91-98.

Jenkins, H. ( 2008, April 8). Why Academics Should Blog… Retrieved June 25, 2008,
from Confessions of an Aca-Fan; The Offical Weblog of Henry Jenkins:
http://henryjenkins.org/2008/04/why_academics_should_blog.html

Jonassen, D. H. (1998). Computers as mindtools for engaging learners in critical
thinking. TechTrends , v43 n2 p24-32.

Ladyshewsky, R., & Gardner, P. (2008). Peer assisted learning and blogging: A strategy
to promote reflective practice during clinical fieldwork. Australasian Journal of Educational
Technology , 24(3), 241-257.

Nichani, M., & Rajamanickam, V. (2001, may 14). Grassroots KM through blogging.
Retrieved June 27, 2008, from elearningpost:
http://www.elearningpost.com/articles/archives/grassroots_km_through_blogging/

P. H. Scott, H. M. (1998). Teaching for Conceptual Change: A Review of Strategies. In

A. Tiberghien, E. L. Jossem, & J. Baroja, Connecting Research in Physics Education with
Teacher Education (p. 71). International Commission on Physics Education.

Richardson, W. (2004, January/February). Blogging and RSS — The “What’s It?” and
“How To” of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators . Retrieved June 19, 2008, from
Information Today: http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/jan04/richardson.shtml

Richardson, W. (2004, April 13). The Blogging in Schools Question. Retrieved June 27,
2008, from Weblogg-Ed: http://weblogg-ed.com/2004/04/13/#a1699

Siemens, G. (2002, December 1). The Art of Blogging—Part 1. Retrieved June 27, 2008,
from elearnspace: http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/blogging_part_1.htm

Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.

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e-learning tool kit

Building a Quiz in Moddle

Short Answer Questions

I was really worried that I wouldn’t cover all the possible answers the students would give me. You can predict everything students will do. Luckily,  Moddle will store answers for questions so that later I can go back into a question and assign a grade to short answer. Moddle will then update the question for later use by other classes. How do I know this? I subscribe to Lynda.com which is a software training & tutorial video library. Lynda has several online courses including Moodle Essential Training for Teachers.

Essay Questions

I feared that since some of my questions had HTML and CSS questions in them that the code would not display properly. With other Learning Management Systems (LMS) and/or Content Management Systems (CMS), I have battled to keep my code visible and not acting on the page. Moddle does a good job showing the code as code.

In my essay question ‘CSS box model’ I did want the students use the HTML editor to affect the layout of their answer.

Explain the CSS box model and why it is often used by web page designers. Use the HTML editor to put your explanation inside a box using CSS. You can use what ever CSS properties you like as long as your box is noticeable. For example, you could place you explanation inside a red box.

Lynda.com says it can be done but I couldn’t find it. Maybe it works in a different version of Moodle. When teaching HTML and CSS, it would be extremely useful for students to have that ability and show it inside an exam.

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e-learning tool kit Reflections

Wiki Reflection

I have set up a several wikis for things like:

In total I have 11 wikis set up on pbworks.com
I am a big fan of wikis for education. They are a great asynchronous tool that lets students share knowledge. My web design classes love using wikis to share their work and learn for their peers. At first, the students are reluctant to use the new technology but once they get into it, they love how easy it is to use.

The hardest part of setting up wikis on pbworks is inviting people to your wiki. When you have a class of 50 students, entering their email address is time consuming and boring. It is easy to make mistakes. Students can request access to edit pages but I am not automatically notified. I have to go in and see if anyone has requested access.

I usually set up a shell for the students to use as they enter their information. Knowledge of good navigation and information Architecture really helps with this task. The files can become disorganized with many people using the site so I often have to go in and make some file management clean up.

Often students accidentally change my Front Page… which can cause panic. The Front page holds navigational elements for the students to get around to the rest of the pages. Luckily there is a function where I can look at the page history, revert to an older version of the page and see who made the change. I love this feature. It is handy when looking at group work to see who has participated and who has not.
Like all Web2.0 technologies it takes some time to learn how the technology works but one you do, it can become good learning technology. It can be easy to drop something and revert to old teaching habits, but tools like wikis, help students participate, contribute, collaborate and create content. There is more interaction with the content and therefore I believe more learning.

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e-learning tool kit Reflections

Web design and HTML authoring

I have been professionally designing web sites for over 15 years. You can see examples of my work at jdwwebdesign.com. I have also taught web design in the school of business at Fanshawe College.  Building a web sites is extremely labour intensive but I love it.

I use information architecture when I work with a client to build a site. Webmonkey has a set of tutorials if you are interested. Clients are always changing things in the navigation that takes time to change which costs $$. To get a client on board, I always create an information architecture document. I give the client questions and from those questions we build an architecture. The client then agrees to go with the plan and then if there are any variations, the client has to pay. It may seem like a small change to the client but in a static website, a change to the navigation could me a change to 100 pages. When working on Linda Lundstroms web site, a change to the navigation meant a change to 1000 pages.

What I liked about this activity was the WAVE accessiblity site. I already use a few accessiblitiies site with my students so I’ll add this is one to my delicious bookmarks as well.

Web Design and Moodle

As an experiment, I thought I would bring my  webworkshop into my Moodle course site. John gave us a demonstration on ‘how to upload html pages into moodle’ (via the Wimba discussion)… which is great if you only have a few files to bring in but I have about 100 files. It would have taken quite a bit of time to upload everything. Adding html files to each module can only be done one file at a time. I have 60 html files which would take way too much time. I decided to keep everything on my web server. I linked to my webserver by choosing “Add a resource” and then choosing “Link to a file or web site”. I put the link inside the frame so the student remains inside of moodle.

I do understand that it is harder to track the student ‘s engagement with the content. The only thing that would be reported is if the student went to that frame. It will not report on all the pages the student visited. For reporting purposes, this would not be the best solution.

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