viernes, 5 de noviembre de 2010
domingo, 17 de octubre de 2010
The Great Debate Reflections
In the Great Debate reflections I learned a lot of things about how to build and foster an online community and what are the negative sides of it. For example, some of my classmates’ posts were referred to the “group think” situation. This situation leads students to feel pressure to have similar thought patterns as the majority, is a kind of cyber bullying regarding ideas. Another type of cyber bullying regarding emotions was caused by the anonymity of the medium in which people may feel freer to express hostility, anger, or judgment. In both cases, a proper instructor’s intervention can solve these situations that can be harmful to the development of the community.
Another important thing that I learned about the negative side of the learning community was regards to the information presented. As Nancy White noted, the website must not be too complicated. “If your members have to wade through too much clutter to find something of interest, they won’t stick around”. This is a very important aspect of the design of the site. Nancy also suggested that we have to let the space grow organically. This approach gives your members the chance to contribute and will create a win-win situation. This situation reminds me of the Dana Dunlap voice thread in which she stated about the feeling of being “bombarded” with so many ideas and thoughts that nobody could effectively absorb any of it. Again, this situation can be overcome with a good instructor planning of activities: As Elbaum, McIntyre and Smith (2002) also noted, instructors have to “make documents and activities into ‘bited-sized’, rather than ‘meal sized’ chunks” (p. 55). As the authors noted, a good and simple rule is to limit information in web pages to not more than two or, at most, three printed pages. Separate documents also helps. Separate documentation for each assignment allow students to see clearly what they need to complete.
Again, the above-mentioned items have been the things that have most captured my attention, although there still are many important factors to consider when building online communities.
References:
Elbaum, B., McIntyre, C., & Smith, A. (2002). Essential Elements: Prepare, Design, and Teach Your Online Course. Madison, WI: Atwood Publishing.
Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
White, N. (1999). 5 Online Community Poison Pills. Message posted to http://www.fullcirc.com/index.htm
Another important thing that I learned about the negative side of the learning community was regards to the information presented. As Nancy White noted, the website must not be too complicated. “If your members have to wade through too much clutter to find something of interest, they won’t stick around”. This is a very important aspect of the design of the site. Nancy also suggested that we have to let the space grow organically. This approach gives your members the chance to contribute and will create a win-win situation. This situation reminds me of the Dana Dunlap voice thread in which she stated about the feeling of being “bombarded” with so many ideas and thoughts that nobody could effectively absorb any of it. Again, this situation can be overcome with a good instructor planning of activities: As Elbaum, McIntyre and Smith (2002) also noted, instructors have to “make documents and activities into ‘bited-sized’, rather than ‘meal sized’ chunks” (p. 55). As the authors noted, a good and simple rule is to limit information in web pages to not more than two or, at most, three printed pages. Separate documents also helps. Separate documentation for each assignment allow students to see clearly what they need to complete.
Again, the above-mentioned items have been the things that have most captured my attention, although there still are many important factors to consider when building online communities.
References:
Elbaum, B., McIntyre, C., & Smith, A. (2002). Essential Elements: Prepare, Design, and Teach Your Online Course. Madison, WI: Atwood Publishing.
Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
White, N. (1999). 5 Online Community Poison Pills. Message posted to http://www.fullcirc.com/index.htm
sábado, 2 de octubre de 2010
GREAT DEBATE: The Dark Side of Learning Communities
PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE ARE Two VIDEOs BELOW FOR THIS POST:
Learning Communities' Dark Side: Lack of Instructors presence and surveillance
Negative Side: Lack of Instructors' surveillance:
Online learning communities are dynamic wholes (Shaffer and Anundsen cited in Palloff & Pratt, 2007) in which the way the online medium is used depends largely on humans needs. However, in online learning communities, there are rules and guidelines in order to provide participants with the safety and comfort they needed to continue in the community. It’s an Instructor’s responsibility to take into account the different situations that emerge in a community and get ready to face them.
This does not always happen. For example, many online forums are created and then in few months, they disappear. The reason is that the host is absent. Participants need to “feel” the host’s presence; as Nancy White noted: “People take their cue from you. If you participate daily, they are far more likely to follow suit. If you are invisible, they will disappear as well.”
To be an online host or facilitator (in online learning communities) demands a lot of responsibility. Facilitator or Instructor’s presence is vital to helps create an environment in which people will feel comfortable and be able to participate.
Also, students need to feel present themselves. But, in order to get to this stage, it is the job of the instructor to manage and supervise the building of the learning community from its beginning.
As we know, online learning communities are virtual, no face-to-face encounters happens (at least in a normal basis). Face to face contact is crucial to the development of social interactions that include: commitment, openness, freedom, equality etc. In online courses, members depend on each other to achieve the learning outcomes for the course. If a participant logs on to a course site and there has been no activity on it for several days, he or she may become discouraged or feel a sense of abandonment. Without support and participation there is no online learning community.
As Palloff and Pratt (2007) noted, we continue to see many distance education programs in which the instructor posts lectures and attempts to control the learning outcomes by directing and dominating the process. This is one of the reasons for the lack of student’s participation. If the instructor, for example, was posing closed questions that did not stimulate discussion or the instructor were dominating the discussion, there is no possibility for the student’s to feel motivated to participate.
It is also possible, in this kind of environment, that students look for a social connection or (lurking) instead of learning connection. It is for this reason that instructors needs to remain actively engaged in the process in order to gently guide participants who stray, coaxing them back to the learning goals of the course (Palloff & Pratt, 2007).
Instructors need to be aware of those issues, as well as the emotional and psychological issues. If a participant perceives communication to be ephemeral, the stakes of communication seem smaller. As Pallof and Pratt noted “People feel less committed to what they say, less concerned about it, and less worried about the social reception they will get…” (p.47). To avoid this, instructors must pay direct attention to community building. It helps create a foundation that supports the purpose for being there and reinforcing the creation of a safe and secure environment in which to work.
References:
Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Online learning communities are dynamic wholes (Shaffer and Anundsen cited in Palloff & Pratt, 2007) in which the way the online medium is used depends largely on humans needs. However, in online learning communities, there are rules and guidelines in order to provide participants with the safety and comfort they needed to continue in the community. It’s an Instructor’s responsibility to take into account the different situations that emerge in a community and get ready to face them.
This does not always happen. For example, many online forums are created and then in few months, they disappear. The reason is that the host is absent. Participants need to “feel” the host’s presence; as Nancy White noted: “People take their cue from you. If you participate daily, they are far more likely to follow suit. If you are invisible, they will disappear as well.”
To be an online host or facilitator (in online learning communities) demands a lot of responsibility. Facilitator or Instructor’s presence is vital to helps create an environment in which people will feel comfortable and be able to participate.
Also, students need to feel present themselves. But, in order to get to this stage, it is the job of the instructor to manage and supervise the building of the learning community from its beginning.
As we know, online learning communities are virtual, no face-to-face encounters happens (at least in a normal basis). Face to face contact is crucial to the development of social interactions that include: commitment, openness, freedom, equality etc. In online courses, members depend on each other to achieve the learning outcomes for the course. If a participant logs on to a course site and there has been no activity on it for several days, he or she may become discouraged or feel a sense of abandonment. Without support and participation there is no online learning community.
As Palloff and Pratt (2007) noted, we continue to see many distance education programs in which the instructor posts lectures and attempts to control the learning outcomes by directing and dominating the process. This is one of the reasons for the lack of student’s participation. If the instructor, for example, was posing closed questions that did not stimulate discussion or the instructor were dominating the discussion, there is no possibility for the student’s to feel motivated to participate.
It is also possible, in this kind of environment, that students look for a social connection or (lurking) instead of learning connection. It is for this reason that instructors needs to remain actively engaged in the process in order to gently guide participants who stray, coaxing them back to the learning goals of the course (Palloff & Pratt, 2007).
Instructors need to be aware of those issues, as well as the emotional and psychological issues. If a participant perceives communication to be ephemeral, the stakes of communication seem smaller. As Pallof and Pratt noted “People feel less committed to what they say, less concerned about it, and less worried about the social reception they will get…” (p.47). To avoid this, instructors must pay direct attention to community building. It helps create a foundation that supports the purpose for being there and reinforcing the creation of a safe and secure environment in which to work.
References:
Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
viernes, 24 de septiembre de 2010
N.Corchado Reflections:
Are you convinced that it is actually important to foster online learning community in your online classes?
Yes, I’m convinced that is important to foster online learning community in our online classes because is in a “learning” community where learning happens. To have a successful online class, you need one thing: the willingness of online learners to build an online learning community. But, this is not an easy task.
First of all, online learners have their own characteristics that are as the same token, different from f2f learners. For example, online learners have to take responsibility for their own learning and have to be active participants in the process in order to reach the higher level skills needed to accomplish a truly learning community. In order to reach this “active participation”, learners have to feel connected (engaged) with content as well as with other participants.
In Engaged Learning in an Online Environment, the author tell us about the importance of collaboration in a meaningful and actively way. This means, as David Lee’s 4L Model (Linking, Lurking, Learning, Leading) suggest, participants have to be “Learners”: regular visitors who contribute to the community regularly. In active learners’ contributions, they discuss and/or explain about others posts.
But again, this active participation happens if learners feels connected (engaged) in a learning environment which provide a supportive system from which sustainable learning processes are gained through dialogue and collaborative construction of knowledge by acquiring, generating, analyzing and structuring information (Jobring as cited in Carlen, 2002). Also, the learning environment have to give to participants a feeling of belonging, a feeling that, according to McMillan (1986), “members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together”. When a learning environment successfully achieves this level of emotional connection then, it becomes a “community”, a learning community where learning happens and this is what we are looking for.
As an instructor, as well as a learner, I consider that accomplishing all of the above is a difficult task. In these times when even standard education is a challenge, an instructor can sometimes not achieve these goals. Communication and learning patterns are far more dynamic and transcend neat categories (Solomon as cited in Muirhead, 2004).
One thing is for sure; motivation is required for successful learning. Fostering an online learning community aids in motivating a deeper interaction between members of the class and the instructor. An online learning may also provide a less structured forum to discuss class related topics that can be provided by some online classes. This may foster a better environment for students for express them.
References:
*Carlén U. (2002, November). "Typology of Online Learning Communities". Paper presented at the 2002 First International Conference on NetLearning . Retrieved September 10, 2010), from http://learnloop.org/olc/publications.htm
*McMillan, D. W., & Chavis, D.M. (1986). Sense of community: A definition and theory. American Journal of Community Psychology, 14(1), 6-23.
*Muirhead, B. (2004, June). Encouraging Interaction in Online Classes. International journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning, Article 07. Retrieved in September 24, 2010, from http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jun_04/article07.htm
*Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Yes, I’m convinced that is important to foster online learning community in our online classes because is in a “learning” community where learning happens. To have a successful online class, you need one thing: the willingness of online learners to build an online learning community. But, this is not an easy task.
First of all, online learners have their own characteristics that are as the same token, different from f2f learners. For example, online learners have to take responsibility for their own learning and have to be active participants in the process in order to reach the higher level skills needed to accomplish a truly learning community. In order to reach this “active participation”, learners have to feel connected (engaged) with content as well as with other participants.
In Engaged Learning in an Online Environment, the author tell us about the importance of collaboration in a meaningful and actively way. This means, as David Lee’s 4L Model (Linking, Lurking, Learning, Leading) suggest, participants have to be “Learners”: regular visitors who contribute to the community regularly. In active learners’ contributions, they discuss and/or explain about others posts.
But again, this active participation happens if learners feels connected (engaged) in a learning environment which provide a supportive system from which sustainable learning processes are gained through dialogue and collaborative construction of knowledge by acquiring, generating, analyzing and structuring information (Jobring as cited in Carlen, 2002). Also, the learning environment have to give to participants a feeling of belonging, a feeling that, according to McMillan (1986), “members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together”. When a learning environment successfully achieves this level of emotional connection then, it becomes a “community”, a learning community where learning happens and this is what we are looking for.
As an instructor, as well as a learner, I consider that accomplishing all of the above is a difficult task. In these times when even standard education is a challenge, an instructor can sometimes not achieve these goals. Communication and learning patterns are far more dynamic and transcend neat categories (Solomon as cited in Muirhead, 2004).
One thing is for sure; motivation is required for successful learning. Fostering an online learning community aids in motivating a deeper interaction between members of the class and the instructor. An online learning may also provide a less structured forum to discuss class related topics that can be provided by some online classes. This may foster a better environment for students for express them.
References:
*Carlén U. (2002, November). "Typology of Online Learning Communities". Paper presented at the 2002 First International Conference on NetLearning . Retrieved September 10, 2010), from http://learnloop.org/olc/publications.htm
*McMillan, D. W., & Chavis, D.M. (1986). Sense of community: A definition and theory. American Journal of Community Psychology, 14(1), 6-23.
*Muirhead, B. (2004, June). Encouraging Interaction in Online Classes. International journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning, Article 07. Retrieved in September 24, 2010, from http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jun_04/article07.htm
*Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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