Sue M’s UBC MET E-Portfolio

ETEC565A – Section 66C – Summer 2009

Reflection on Selecting Communication Tools for Moodle Course

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Reflection on Selecting These Communication Tools:

According to Adria and Campbell (2oo7),  in “E-Learning as Nation Building”,  the glue that holds communities together involves active connections among people that involve trust, mutual understanding, respect, and shared values and behaviours.  

Murphy and Laferriere (2007),  in “Adopting Tools for Online Synchronous Communication”, report that the immediacy and spontaneity of synchronous communication was much more effective at building a sense of community and social presence – especially audio/video web-based conferencing that allowed participants to see each other in real time and communicate with several people simultaneously – this helped “make people come alive”, created a greater sense of intimacy and greater sense of knowing each other, which helped learners overcome any feelings of  isolation, etc.

“The Continuing Struggle for Community and Content in Blended Technology Courses in Higher Education” ( Schwier & Dykes, 2007) states that “If a course goal is to create an online community, then an instructor must be a participant in online discussions in order to nurture community development and growth“.   The authors state that content and community are both critical to creating effective learning environments and that evidence of community is found in interactions that occur between the learner and the instructor, content, learning activities, and other learners.  Instructors are challenged to create an atmosphere that nourishes real and deep engagement among the learners, the instructor, and the content through dialogue and interaction via platforms for online chat  (or other synchronous communications tools) and discussion boards (or other asynchronous communication tools).

Learner content interaction, if allowed to dominate a course, naturally emphasizes objectivist principles of learning and correspondence models of instruction. Learner-learner interaction, by contrast, emphasizes social constructivist models of learning.  Moreover, the two, when in balance, offer learners the opportunity to co-create knowledge and the substance to guide their efforts ” (p 160).

Given one of the major goals of this course is to build an online learning community – I’ve tried to incorporate a mix of asynchronous and synchronous communication activities throughout the course that will create opportunities for learners to connect and work together, share their experiences and build on their prior knowledge.  But first we have to help them build trust in a safe environment.  During the first couple of modules we will reach out to learners in multiple ways to try to provide learning activities that appeal to multiple learning preferences/styles and also that will help build rapport and relationships. 

We need to be cautious not to reduce the flexibility students desire from online courses, and must be sensitive to having a balance between asynchronous and synchronous communication activities, and finds ways to accommodate a variety of schedules.  Some of the synchronous activities planned may need to be optional, with recorded webcasts available to those who truly cannot attend. 

Citings from Making the Transition to E-Learning: Strategies and Issues. Bullen M. & Janes, D. P. Eds. (2007).  Information Science Publishing,, Hershey, PA.
  • Adria, M. & Campbell, K.  (2007). E-Learning as Nation Building. In M. Bullen & D. P. Janes (Eds.), Making the Transition to E-Learning: Strategies and Issues (1-16). Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing.
  • Murphy, E. & Laferriere, T. (2007). Adopting Tools for Online Synchronous Communication: Issues and Strategies. In M. Bullen & D. P. Janes (Eds.), Making the Transition to E-Learning: Strategies and Issues (318-334). Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing.
  • Schwier, R. & Dykes, M. (2007). The Continuing Struggle for Community and Content in Blended Technology Courses in Higher Education. In M. Bullen & D. P. Janes (Eds.), Making the Transition to E-Learning: Strategies and Issues (157-172). Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing.

Written by Sue M.

June 25th, 2009 at 1:06 am

Posted in Reflections

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