Category: Pedagogy

Tangled in Pedagogy and Technology

Lisa M Lane 7 Comments

Still planning for spring. Online classes are set up as usual, because I need more than a winter break to plan for changes. Except for the England class — gotta get back to that.

But the class that’s throwing me, the one causing me the most post-CCK08 angst, is my on-site class at San Elijo. Last semester I did new things with lots of energy: history skill sets, portfolios, recording my lectures then adding the audio to the slides I used and posting it all on Slideshare.

Fall Results

But the students didn’t do that well. They weren’t bored, they enjoyed the class and my teaching, and even got into some very good discussions about history. But they obviously did very little work outside of class and did poorly on tests. It was clear they didn’t study, view the slideshows or review their notes. Only a few participated in the online discussions. They seemed highly resistant to using the computer for anything, even after a free-flowing, fun session together in the lab. Many, as I wrote before, turned work in quite late. I did count it, but they still did poorly overall, much more poorly than my online students.

In other words, lots of learning seemed to be happening, but real knowledge didn’t occur. This despite the fact that I developed test questions around what we discussed in class, not on some pre-set conception of what they should learn. I literally based questions on the issues they brought forward. I tried hard to evaluate learning, not just content. In short, it failed. And the extra credit blog I introduced failed too, because the students posted but refused to revise. Kind of a similar problem.

The Problem No One Wants to Discuss

Maybe I’m hitting a big issue: they don’t want to use the technology to learn. Maybe this is the Problem No One Wants to Discuss. Especially to the highly privileged students who grew up with the internet, the opportunity to create a slideshow is just another assignment. They’ve seen lousy PowerPoints for so long they are not only unimpressed, they are tempted to snooze like we used to do when a teacher got out the filmstrip machine. They actively resisted the online forum because it meant thinking about history on the “weekend” (which here is anything after noon on Wednesday). Perhaps I should leave the interactive web stuff for my online classes instead.

In our classrooms it seems to be the vivid lecturer, the riveting showman, who captures the audience. This is what students say they want (and I’ve asked them). I’ve been that person. Won a teaching award for it more years ago than I care to mention. Right after, I stopped lecturing all together for a few years, to see if I could do everything with groups and inquiry. Retention (how many students stay in the class) and scores stayed exactly the same. I’ve tried many different techniques over the years, but the numbers rarely budge (except for one totally open inquiry experiment, which had a 70% drop rate so I never did it again, even though several students who were successful still remember the class as important in their lives — it’s amazing what you can do with a handful of students instead of 200). But really, my lectures last semester were good, and we had plenty of discussion and groupwork and inquiry besides lecture. I just don’t think they learned beyond the moments in class.

The Open or Closed Decision

So I’m loathe to spend a lot of time revamping the other half of the class for spring. I didn’t like the closed nature of the website, and am considering revising it. But they didn’t use it much anyway, except (some) to check their grades, so I’m considering going backward. Not quite to quill and parchment, as I said in Twitter, but close: handouts with blanks to fill in, actual objects, pieces of paper that need to be put together in a portfolio. This desire fights with the obvious: put it online! have them blog! track their progress through journalling! open things up!

Dave Cormier and George Siemens are currently teaching an online class in emerging technologies. I was hoping I could sit in (like I did on Alec Couros’ now legendary EC&I 381 class), but it’s a closed class. I wondered why, but Dave’s blog post explained that some students might need a closed environment within which to share ideas that were not ready for fully public view. I understand that completely. So that puts the course back inside a CMS if I want them doing things online, perhaps. Or in closed blogs. Or something.

When Technology Works

Technologically, the best thing that ever happened was serendipitous: last year when they ignored me and used Moodle Messages to secretly talk (and work) among themselves. A student set that up; they never used my system. You can give a party, a good party, but it’s nothing if people don’t show up (and, hopefully, take over, serve drinks, do dishes).

The use of technology is not, as I’ve been reminded by Twitter pals Blanche Maynard and Ed Webb, the point. It’s about rendering technology transparent, putting the focus on the people and the learning. I teach that in our POT workshops all the time. Pedagogy first! The constructivists would say that the problem is that I gave them things, I lectured (even if only half the class time), I didn’t let them decide what they want to study, I didn’t cater to the Net Generation. Well, I think it’s obvious that it’s not technology that plays the catering role, and their learning is most important.

So after a decade, I’m back to debating with myself the intersection of pedagogy and technology, the development of different techniques, and the definition of a successful class. Trying to find causes and effects that may not be linked in actuality. And telling myself it’s really not the time to do that when class starts in less than two weeks.

Synchronicity vs Tracking

Lisa M Lane 3 Comments

During this break, I was looking at some of the various web spaces of a new online colleague of mine, Ed Webb, a Poli Sci prof in Pennsylvania. He’s got classes working in various spaces such as Wetpaint, and he’s doing cool things like having them use Meebo to chat while they watch a movie. And it made me think about synchronicity.

Most of what I do with my online students is asynchronous. This is because I acknowledge that many of them take an online class because they cannot attend a class on campus at a particular time (most of our online students live inside our district). Several years ago I tried to set up online office hours, but it was a problem because I have four online classes. Each has its own course inside the CMS (before it was Blackboard, now it is Moodle). There is no convenient way to open a chat with all classes at once, other than IM. And I’ve noticed that fewer and fewer students use IM these day (although I have spent some time in the last few weeks adding GoogleTalk chatback badges to my web pages instead of just Yahoo and AIM status indicators). Moodle does let you open a meta-course and enroll everyone, then link their course to that meta-course but man, what a pain.

To get a place where a group could meet synchronously, I could go to the web and open a room somewhere, like Yahoo or ooVoo, and link to it from the class, but this would require students to get an account an log in, and I’d need them to log in so I could see who was there. Or I could use Elluminate inside Moodle, and trust them to be OK with the extra step and Javascript download, but even there they must enter a name. They could just type in any old name to join the discussion. I picture myself leading a synchronous discussion with a couple of dozen students, recording it and having to jot down names, the quality of what they contribute and how long they stay. Sounds like a pre-web nightmare.

How could I track participation? Don’t I need something automated with up to 200 students?

In thinking on this, it occurred to me: tracking is, by itself, the biggest problem with Web 2.0 for activities that count for the grade. The biggest reason we all use a CMS in the first place (especially now that there are other wonderful options) is just that: tracking, of grades, participation, performance, portfolios. The asynchronous environment, inside a closed system, is simply the easiest way to track student activity.

As I plan for Spring, I consider things like this….

It’s All Amplified Online

Lisa M Lane

Ever heard the saying “the camera adds 10 pounds”? Or that alcohol intensifies your personality? It’s true of the online environment too: whatever you do, however you seem, it’s magnified online.

When you’re curt or impatient in an email, it comes off twice as curt and impatient as it would in a written memo. When you object to someone’s point of view in a post, it comes off twice as harsh. Irritated can be seen as angry. A casual remark can seem inappropriately off-hand. And when you’re being friendly, it can come across as very friendly, sometimes even loving, especially if the message is a lengthy one.

Email, they say, is for old people. That’s because the younger set often communicate in small bites, bits of info through txt messages or Facebook chat. They might not say who they are, start with “hello”, sign the email, etc. They aren’t trying to be rude, they just have trouble sometimes changing the communication style based on the format. But instructors can model by being quick and casual in IM or txt, and more formal through email. Discussion boards, depending on the assignment and parameters, may fall somewhere in between. The shorter the message, however, the more likely that unseemly magnification could occur.

This is important to remember in teaching online, and it’s one of the reasons that carefully crafting an online personality is so important. If I want my students to see me as professional, and I write pages or posts like I would write professionally, it will come across as stiff and stuffy. If I want to be approachable, I must be careful I don’t seem so nice that students think I’ll be there for them at 2 a.m.

The Importance of Parentheses

Lisa M Lane

In the interest of advancing my trek into the Post-Distance Education world, I have put the word “online” in parentheses for the title of my blog. From now on, I will not hesitate to discuss any teaching issue (on-site, online or in between) here, and whenever possible will try to blur the boundaries between the different “modes” of teaching and learning.

Yes, I’ve received a number of objections to my point of view in Abandoning the Idea of Distance Ed. I’ve been reminded that the LMS is not a refrigerator, that many people haven’t grasped either the tools or the larger picture yet, and that many careers are tied up in keeping Distance Ed a distinct area. Even our Program for Online Teaching is evidently not ready to move into combination mode. Nevertheless, at the last technology meeting I presented on issues of parity (as well as those of differentiation and technical support) between online and on-site teaching, and our further discussion did become one of overall pedagogy instead of online distinctiveness.

It is pretty clear to me this is the way the pedagogy and technology are headed, away from tech as a separate field, and more toward an “internet as library”, “web as communication/creation space”, “teaching is teaching no matter where it happens” mindset. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any issues concerning learning technologies, just that conversations about teaching don’t have to be divided into categories. And I wonder what will happen to our conversations about teaching and learning when we talk that way.

Now We’ve Done It

Lisa M Lane 4 Comments

After years of being accommodating to students, and providing flexibility to deal with their hectic schedules, and alternative assignments to cater to learning styles, we’ve done it. We’ve helped create an entire generation of students who assume alternatives for everything, and expect us to accommodate everything. They also comfortably assume that every instruction, limitation, restriction applied to their coursework will be repeated to them many times in a variety of formats, and are, at any rate, negotiable if they didn’t get it the first four times.

Yes, I’m to blame! Desiring a harmonious classroom, whether on-site or online, and genuinely feeling that stressed students are unhappy and do poorly, I’ve been relaxed and pretty darn accommodating for at least a decade. In my on-site classes, student homework gradually accumulates into a portfolio, so they can use their own work to reference for tests and the final exam (of which there is a take-home essay they draft in class). All due dates are posted, and reminded, and reminded again. When anything changes, which is rarely, I use email and in-class announcements, written on the board or posted prominently online or both. I don’t bother with doctor’s notes, and I don’t want to hear the excuses from their personal lives — they only upset me and make me feel I’m demanding personal revelations I myself wouldn’t be comfortable with. Instead, assignments a week late get partial credit.

So it’s kind of amazing to me that things still happen. A couple of weeks ago, I did not get a class’ weekly homework graded in time for the quiz. They are allowed to use their homework while they take the quiz, so I put the homework down for collection. I said, “I didn’t get the homework graded yet, so please use it now and then turn it in again with your quiz.” The students began to pick up their homework. “Hey,” the first one said, “how come there’s no grade on this?” I explained, so all could here, that I had not graded the homework in time, so please use it for the quiz and just turn it in again so I could grade it. Lots of nods. About 20 seconds later: “Excuse me? why is there no mark on this?” I explain again, to a chorus of nodding. About 15 seconds later, “Whoa! there’s no grade on my homework!” I say, very loudly, “For the fourth time…”

Today, the plan was to submit the take-home final essay, then sit down and take a short assessment for half the final exam grade. They had drafted the essay in class last week, then taken it home. Instructions were to submit the typed final version with the draft attached, and had been announced in class repeatedly and posted to the website in two places. I usually have a student or two that doesn’t get it, and comes in without the draft. This semester, half a dozen students did that. Two chose to drive home during the two-hour period to get their draft; the others said “oh well” and they’d take the grade they got. One only had the draft, not the final copy. Instead, they turned in the portfolio that was due two weeks ago.

And I don’t think the answer is more policy I can point to and say: “the syllabus says if you get it to me more than a week late it doesn’t get points” or “this won’t be accepted after x”. It’s about people, not policies and rules. That just justifies my power, which I hold anyway, by virtue not only of my position, but by the respect of my students. Unlike some professors, I do hold this respect, regardless of policies and grades, to be the underlying operating system of my classes. And yet, that personal respect does not extend to my artificially created deadlines, primarily intended to distribute my workload from 200 students each semester. So an increasing number of students turn stuff in, you know, later, whenever, by the end of the semester.

Enabling, that’s what they call it. I really don’t like to be harsh, but I can’t imagine them negotiating every deadline (most don’t even both to negotiate it — they just skip it and hand it to me later) and requiring instructions be repeated four times in the working world. I hope they grow up to be highly successful professional surfers, fashion designers or movie producers with a secretarial staff and personal assistants to take care of them, but some won’t. It sure keeps things friendly but, even setting aside my own mild annoyance at all this, I don’t think we’re doing them a service.

Abandoning the Idea of Distance Ed

Lisa M Lane 4 Comments

I arrive back at my blog after a stint as a student in the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge class. I created a separate blog, and found myself in an environment led by marvelous techno-utopians who believed that learning would be vastly improved if teachers got the hell out of the way and let learners find their own way among the sea of information and perspectives available via “today’s technology”, by which they meant the internet. In such an environment, I became (uncomfortably, to be sure) a traditionalist, pointing out the value of historical perspectives, 17th and 18th century learning theories, and previous media revolutions. I also became very critical of the current net hype.

The abilities of individuals to engage in this “connective” activity was assumed, rather than discussed. Even before the class I was aware that there was a perception that the “Net Generation” is different, that those born after, say, 1990 think and behave differently, that their brains are wired for speed, multitasking, simultaneous multiple inputs. I have even taught other faculty, in workshops on individual learning styles, that those who are younger (or, I was quick to add, sophisticated in their use of technology regardless of generation) didn’t see technology the same way as the other people. The net gen’ers, of whatever age, don’t see the technology itself, and only care about what it does.

While taking the class, I read Mark Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation (2008), with its extensive research demonstrating that the younger crowd is self-centered (or friend-centered) and permanently adolescent, thanks in part to their overuse of the internet for social networking. I can easily see his research in my own students, many of which are entitled, dependent, and print illiterate. [Only just now, while writing this post, I had a student frantically contacting me because she did not submit an assignment when it was due, by 5 pm. I closed the assignment at 6 pm (an hour’s grace, I thought), so it afterward required a password. In the last few hours she has emailed me 5 times, asking why I’m not immediately answering her message to give her the password. This pecular combination of entitlement, dependency and lack of personal responsibility is endemic — this is an “A” student I’m talking about.]

Now I am reading Don Tapscott’s Grown up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World (2008), which shows research the opposite of Bauerlein’s and promises a better world led by this generation. And it was here I finally understood the word “transparency”, the idea that a technology with which one grows up is transparent: you don’t see it. Most people of my generation still see the technology, talk about “using the computer” to do something. To Net Gen’ers, that would be like “using the television” instead of “watching Dancing with the Stars”, or “using the refrigerator” instead of “getting something to eat”.

This view connected immediately into my (recently evolving) position on the role of online education. In the Program for Online Teaching, we have begun seeing the same faces at the workshops, and they aren’t the faces on our technology decision-making bodies. When I invite other faculty to a workshop, many tell me they’re not interested in teaching online, so they don’t go. A couple of months ago I began sending out the POT newsletter to all faculty instead of those on the interest list, but there was no increase in participation. Then just in the last few weeks, we’ve had people who are new to campus searching around for some online teacher “training”, as if the Program for Online Teaching, with its extensive pedagogy-based workshops, didn’t exist.

I have begun to realize that the problem is separating online from teaching. Online teaching is, in all substantial ways, the same as any other teaching. When we say it’s different, we are seeing the technology — it isn’t transparent. And the result is that we focus on the technology, the course management systems and who runs them, and how to do this thing in Blackboard, and how to “train” college instructors. We create separate Distance Education departments, with separate deans, and talk about our “Distance Education program” because we see it as separate from our other education program. And I’m starting to think that such a perspective might be hopelessly old-fashioned and backward-looking, like asking how we can improve the reception with the rabbit ears instead of wondering if there’s something better to watch on the television.

I think it’s time for some good old-fashioned desegregation. Good teaching is good teaching, regardless of venue/mode. Not every lecturer can do well with small group work, not every constructivist can give a great lecture, not every in-class teacher can teach well online. No big surprise there. The technology itself has advanced enough that we can afford for it to be as transparent as the chalkboard, the overhead, the VCR. (Did anyone ever offer training on how to effectively use a video in class?) Perhaps we can stop separating our “distance”, “classroom”, and “hybrid” thinking, and instead work on teaching and learning.

Third Thursday wrap-up: Bb groups, Flickr, wikis

Lisa M Lane 1 Comment

Our November Third Thursday Meetup (recorded) in Elluminate last night had great ideas, and it occurred to me I should be blogging these!

1. Signups in Blackboard

Pilar Hernandez showed us how to use a feature in Blackboard that allows students to sign up for groups. In her class, many students are local, and would like to meet in person to practice their Spanish. But they were unwilling to set up those meetings themselves, being shy about contacting each other. So Pilar set up half a dozen meeting times and places, using the

To do this, use the option under course content’s “select” drop-down:

Students can see how many are coming, and add or remove their names.

2. Annotate images in Flickr

I demonstrated how to annotate an image in Flickr. I uploaded a copy of the painting Masaccio’s Trinity, then used the “add note” button to put annotations anywhere I wanted in the picture.

You save each one. Then when a student mouses over the picture in Flickr (you need to link them to the main picture page) they can see your annotations.

3. Wikis for classes

Donna Marques took us into the wonderful world of wikis, where her students create and practice Spanish. To start, she showed us Common Craft’s video explaining how wikis work:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKSxJFKoDb4&w=425&h=350]

Her preferred platform is PB Wiki, which uses Google Gadgets. Students can practice writing, make to -do lists, see a countdown to presentation day, and work collaboratively in groups. Donna will be expanding this topic in her “Wiki Wonders” workshop on January 12 during MiraCosta’s flex week.

All Third Thursday meetups are recorded and posted at the Program for Online Teaching site. Join us there on December 18.

Top Five Myths of Teaching Online

Lisa M Lane 4 Comments

1. I gotta use Blackboard.

No, you don’t, even if your institution sets you up a Bb or WebCT class and has a policy saying you must use it. Blackboard, or any course management system, is just a shell. There are a zillion features you’ll never use. Or maybe you’re an innovator who’d rather teach with blogs and wikis. Solutions:

  • Learn to use the Control Panel’s Course Menu to change all the buttons. Make invisible those features you won’t use. Remove them from Tools. This makes it easier for students anyway.
  • If you want to use the web inside your class, add Course Menu buttons and link out to the URLs of blogs, wikis, etc., being sure to tell students they’ll need to set up accounts. But the pages themselves will look like they’re in Blackboard unless you tell it to open them on a new screen.

2. It takes too much time.

That depends on how you organize, and what you want to do. It is a mistake to assume you must create the entire class before it starts, and have everything visible to students as they enter. Think in terms of it being a regular class, just online instead of in a physical classroom. The same time-savers and time-wasters come into play. Yes, there is a learning curve, so it may feel more like your first year of teaching than your tenth. If you are already web-savvy, this time is negligible. If not, make time first to play on the web.

3. It’s not like real teaching.

It is real teaching in every sense, from preparing class materials, to planning for interaction, grading, and expressing your professorial personality. If you don’t believe that, ask to sit in on an online class someone else is teaching. The trick is to set up a class that demands your online presence, and use every opportunity to create a classroom personality through the way you write and what you create. Some instructors need set times to go in and add to discussion or message students on their progress, so they’re always aware of what’s going on “in class”. Others are on the web anyway and “stop by” daily.

4. The students know more than I do.

If you mean cellphones and Facebook, yes, they just might. Although you could use these technologies to teach, it’s unlikely you’d choose to do so. Students’ superior kills in social interaction technologies do not translate directly into learning online, anymore than being socially popular translates to in-class performance. You know your discipline and you know how to teach more than they know how to learn, in any environment. And anything they know that you want to know, they’ll be delighted to teach you.

5. I don’t know how.

You can learn from others, or just get started. Create a class, planning it just like you would an on-site class. For every element you do in class, look in your course management system or search on the web to figure out how to do it online. Experimentation is key — you can’t break anything. Get technical help when and if you need it. Start small, and build more into your class after you teach it the first time.

Overview of Participation

Lisa M Lane

Moodle does not let you see everyone’s forum participation all at once, unless you select only one forum. I have a forum for each week in each class, and ask the students to assess their own participation. Not that I don’t trust them, and of course I know who’s there a lot by reading their posts, but I like some stats to peruse while I assess their assessments.

Today I let Moodle’s download feature help me. Although I cannot get Moodle to sort by name when I ask for a report of all participations on all days, even limiting it to Add (to show only what they’ve contributed), it will do it when I download, in this case to Excel.

Then I can sort the entire chart by their name (Column D) and see easily whether they’ve posted the required number of times at the frequency I’ve requested.

Trying Something Less Controlling

Lisa M Lane 2 Comments

Just tonight, frantic that I hadn’t gone in yet to do all the discussion summaries I began doing over a year ago, it occurred to me that the students should do them.

I have been modeling and demonstrating (which is my job, I learned from Stephen Downes’ paper of 2006 in the crazy class I’m taking) for six weeks. Every week I’ve summarized the discussion, citing the students’ posts, noting their contributions, and suggesting leading analytical questions based on what they discussed (and didn’t discuss).

So tonight in the two classes which have the most active, intellectual, creative forum posts, I wrote instead:

We have several excellent threads, or topics, going here.

For the last several weeks, I have come in and summarized at this point, then presented some further leading questions.

This week, I’d like to have you do that.

Choose one topic/thread, and summarize that thread only (if the thread you want has been taken already, reply to that person’s post to add your input — please don’t repeat information). Use quotations and cite each other’s posts, as well as your sources from the class as needed. See whether we can develop a thesis (a statement with a point of view) for each topic area.

This is a really good class and I think you can do it! 🙂

Something feels really right about this, though of course I can’t predict whether it will work. I have been seeking places in these classes where I can turn more control over to the students. I have not had the opportunity to provide as many different options for earning points as I would like, and this technique would make it necessary for students to read the work of their colleagues and comment, rather like a blog, instead of just responding to my prompt. We’ll see how it goes…

The “Student Ease of Use” Argument

Lisa M Lane 4 Comments

I heard today from a gentleman disagreeing with my article Toolbox or Trap? Course Management Systems and Pedagogy in EDUCAUSE Quarterly. His main point was that the choice of CMS should be about the student, not the professor. As a student in postgrad studies, he was frustrated by the multitude of different systems:

As a student, I didn’t care how the organization was done (pedagogically) , but I wanted uniformity among the professors… I didn’t want to learn how each professor want to organize their course uniquely. I want to be able to quickly (and intuitively) navigate each course and have appropriate documentation found in the same location for all courses.

I have heard this argument before at my college. It tends to come up any time it is suggested that we should only have one CMS. After pointing out that many students are enrolled at multiple colleges with multiples systems (nowadays called “swirling”), my response is the same as I made to my correspondent.

I think students are important, too, and I appreciate the argument about student ease of use. But then I look at the web and see a multitude of sites, with many different methods for participating in them.

Then I see the business world and, despite the “computer competency” focus on Microsoft Office, I know that the ability to transfer knowledge from one system to another is what makes for a valuable employee.

It’s not that I don’t sympathize with the confusion. I recall college classroom experiences of my own, where I found it most annoying that this prof wanted this sort of thinking and assignments, and another had completely different expectations. But improving my ability to respond in a nimble way to a variety of conditions has served me well.

And from what I’ve been reading in David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous, our ability to organize for ourselves the mass information and communication at our disposal through the web is what will make us better at acheiving understanding.

So I’m beyond thinking that students should have to deal with different systems because instructors should choose the CMS that fits their pedagogy. I think we’re doing students a disservice not to stretch their ability to learn new systems and transfer that knowledge.

Workflow for Preview of Cached Pages

Lisa M Lane

Problem: I have many links to web pages throughout my history lectures, and many change addresses or disappear over time. Logically, I have begun caching pages using Furl. Furl will save a cached (saved) version of a page, and then I can link to that. As I was looking at the lecture pages to find the downed links, it occurred to me that would be easier with a preview pop-up window, like Snap. That would also make it easier for students to see where the link goes.

So I got a Snap account, and they kindly agreed upon request to get rid of the ad links. At first, I had trouble. The Snap window clicked through to the right page, but the Snap preview window showed only the Furl log-in page, which is useless. Then after a few tries, the right page would come up. At first I thought it was Snap screwing up. So I tried Snap alternatives Thumbshots and iwebtool’s Thumbnails, but no joy. So I wrote to the Furl folks, but getting no response and taking this recommendation, I tried Diigo instead.

I have not previously been impressed with Diigo. In fact, I originally planned for it to appear on my list of disappointments in my next post. But it created archived pages faster and more conveniently than Furl, with its own pop-up window for tagging.

In the meantime, Katie at Snap.com responded to my plea. Turns out I was rushing the system (as usual). She told me that it wasn’t that I had to click so many times for the right page to show, but that the first user seeing it the first time (me) causes the page image to capture properly. It should display any cached page correctly from then on, so all I need to do is check my links when I’m done. A bit clumsy, but doable.

So here’s the workflow. First, I add the tiny javascript from Snap to the body of each lecture webpage. That enables all the Snap windows to pop up on any external link. I find the page it links to (easier if it’s there, otherwise I have to search or find a new one). Then I bookmark that page in my Diigo toolbar, tagging it with the course and lecture number. Then I use the Diigo toolbar menu -> This URL -> Cached version. That brings up the cached version of the page, which starts with a Diigo address. I copy the URL into my weblecture page.

Now I can see all the downed links using Snap, students can see a preview and then go to a cached page that never disappears. I like it!

Referencing Rhizomes

Lisa M Lane 2 Comments

In a sense, this is the first post I’ve been “asked” to write, since Dave Cormier invited all those attending his online session today to blog about the ideas.

In his recent article in Innovate Journal (also at his blog), Cormier described his rhizome metaphor. According to the abstract:

In place of the expert-centered pedagogical planning and publishing cycle, Cormier suggests a rhizomatic model of learning. In the rhizomatic model, knowledge is negotiated, and the learning experience is a social as well as a personal knowledge creation process with mutable goals and constantly negotiated premises. The rhizome metaphor, which represents a critical leap in coping with the loss of a canon against which to compare, judge, and value knowledge, may be particularly apt as a model for disciplines on the bleeding edge where the canon is fluid and knowledge is a moving target.

During the backchannel conversation, I realized I am becoming somewhat critical of collaboration as a source of knowledge, of constructivism, of the foundations of this rhizomatic concept. I do believe in the democratization and construction of knowledge. I do not believe that “experts” know all the answers. I know that the role of instructor can shift from an expert who relays her/his knowledge to a guide or (as we discussed in the session) a mapmaker. We draw the maps that can lead students through our subject. I have no problem with educators as facilitators rather than lecturers, though I strongly believe that pedagogical planning is what faculty should be doing.

Cormier is clearly not fond of the current system of knowledge dissemination; his words imply it is static and petrified. The rhizomatic alternative is more dynamic. But surely the new model already exists at the advanced level of our disciplines? “Fluid” canons aren’t canons at all, unless it’s in their application, and “knowledge” moves whenever a paradigm shifts. We all know that knowledge is not the core facts, but the absorption of concepts for analysis. History is hardly a discipline on the “bleeding edge”, yet doing history is conceptual and fluid — only the sources may be considered canonical. I do not see in my own field the petrification implied by the traditional model, although sometimes the changes move more slowly than I would like.

I get a little worried about weeds, those invasive rhizomes that can threaten native growth. The issue seems to be social constructivism. The question I raised, and which I still don’t really have an answer to, is whether knowledge must be social. To an extent, as was pointed out by a colleague, all knowledge obtained by the individual is, in a sense, social. Even if I’m reading a book written 250 years ago, I am “communicating” with the author, or s/he is communicating to me. As I read, I apply ideas from others that I have adapted to my own purposes over the years. Thus my knowledge could be seen as socially constructed.

At the same time, my own learning style is not social. I score high in “interpersonal/self” on Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. I prefer to read and be left alone to analyze scholarly material, not discuss it with others. I despised group work as a student and don’t much enjoy committees.

But none of this is true when it comes to the web. I am thrilled at all I learn from Twitter and finding out what others are thinking and learning online, and I enjoy contributing (obviously — this is my blog!). But the enjoyment and usefulness of my social network is limited to online issues, instructional technology, geeky teaching stuff. Could it be that the field of instructional technology is in itself the “bleeding edge”, and thus the most suited to the social construction of knowledge? Given my own predilections when I am learning about, say, history, I much prefer to be on my own with the hard-earned context inside my head.

If mostly geeky teachers like me, ed tech professionals, and webheads are lauding social constructivism, then is the rhizomatic idea self-referential? Does it grow best in the environment which gave it life (web-based IT) and struggle for a toehold beyond that area? I have witnessed many a chat session where teachers and ed tech folks bemoan the fact that this collaborative internet learning stuff just isn’t catching on as much as we would hope. Most Twitterers and Ningers are educators and techy trendsetters. Our students respond when activities are engaging, but we aren’t even sure that engagement means learning.

It is tempting to visualize an anti-social networking movement. (And no, I do not mean the sites snubbing people.) Here we would admit we’re not very social, there would be no emoticons, and we’d read what others have written without feeling an obligation to respond. We would not reject Wikipedia like the Middlebury folks, but we wouldn’t wax rhapsodic about socially constructed knowledge either. We could tell who the experts are in our fields by how well they communicate and how well vetted their contributions are. Current traditions of peer-reviewed and scientific-objective oriented work would continue, albeit available in a handy web-based format. We could contact each other personally or join social networks as clubs to hang out, echo chambers for our egos, and places to find like-minded individuals with whom to communicate. But we don’t have to construct knowledge together. Perhaps we’d use a bulb analogy instead, where we come back every year after resting in the winter, having stored our own individual energy inside. Our smaller prodigy bulbs will spring up beside us. A more domesticated form of nature, rather than rhizomatic wildness. Surely our ability to weed out junk would be appreciated in the long run?

Fear, Micromanagement and Standardization

Lisa M Lane 4 Comments

We recently concluded the Online Teaching Conference at my home campus. I presented on “Enhancing Your Class with Web 2.0” (video here) and went to a number of presentations. I was struck by the updated atmosphere — so many more people have taught online now, and the approach to doing so is maturing in many ways. No more workshops on coding html or using desktop apps to create things, and no specific sessions on course management systems. And no more fear of online, or defensiveness about online teaching. No need anymore to defend what we do. I didn’t even see much fear about shifting education toward a more student-centered approach (I’d say the ratio on that was about 50% traditional/50% new wave.) The fear, instead, has shifted.

Now we seem worried about management. This online education thing is so big, and so good, who’s gonna manage it all? I saw middle management, micro-management, covert management, and mismanagement. Management based on open administrative access to everyone’s online class, and management based on the “many instructors, one course” canned course factory model. In fact, the keynote set the tone with this last one.

The speaker was Linda Thor from Rio Salado College, “All Aboard the Digital Express”. While the train analogy ended early, by the end I definitely felt like I’d been run over by a Burlington Northern. Rio Salado has 31 full-time faculty (who each only teach one class) and 1,050 part-timers. The courses, it took me awhile to understand, are canned. Instructors are hired to facilitate, but they do not control any content or design their classes. The courses are designed by a team including an instructional designer and “content expert”. (Anytime someone calls me, a professor of history, a “content expert”, I know something is wrong.) How we design our courses IS teaching — structuring material according to ones own pedagogy is crucial. To limit teaching to interaction with students about someone else’s “content” is to create a tutorial relationship, not a professorial relationship. The response on the part of the audience, though, was astonishment at the scale of the operation, the 50 different start dates. And I noticed that Dr. Thor kept emphasizing customization (of their CMS, of their textbooks), which sounded vaguely like a bow to academic freedom, but obviously meant that the administration customizes, but for the faculty all is standardized.

The best part of the sessions, and the other keynotes, was the opportunity to learn from each other. Participants brought up problems, issues, practical suggestions. Almost all of us, I’m sure, came home with new ideas. But the thread of fear was present in every session. “Horror stories” — students complained that one instructor didn’t answer their emails for ten weeks! (I’ve been reading “Made to Stick” by the Heath Brothers, and can tell you that any message with a specific detail like “ten weeks!” will stick better than a vague complaint that he didn’t answer emails often enough). Every anecdote was footnoted with a “we all know we’re not that derelict in our duties, but we know some who are”. There were continual veiled accusations against instructors who shirk, who think online is on vacation. At one point, I even bristled when an instructor implied that the good instructors answer every post in a discussion forum. Amidst the holier-than-they attitude was a sense that someone oughtta do something, make a law, enforce some standards.

Online education has expanded quickly, like an enterprise. In any enterprise, there are those who might take advantage. And this is no different for college professors who are in a classroom. Some shirk. They use the lectures they wrote in 1972, and mumble them to their classes, or read from the textbook, or give only Scantrons and scores. It can mean incompetence, or teaching the way they were taught, or the perception they hold an easy job, doesn’t matter. The only real difference is that technology makes it easier to observe, interfere with, and standardize an online rather than an on-site class. Only a year or two ago, faculty responded to such interference as they would to a classroom invasion: you are welcome to observe my work when I’m being evaluated, but I would expect you to inform me if you were sitting in on my class. Evaluation practices, even those that are annual or semi-draconian, are usually transparent. “Watching” someone’s online class needn’t be.

Setting standards for online classes, then checking on everyone to make sure the standards are being adhered to, makes good business sense. But education isn’t a business, and when you mess with academic freedom it’s not long before institutional forces control content (as they do at Rio Salado) and instruction itself. And what’s encouraging acceptance of this incursion is a reversal of the argument about the role of online classes.

It used to be that everyone emphasized that online and on-site classes were the SAME — same curriculum, instructional ideas, transferrability. This was necessary to create acceptance. But now the emphasis (and I noticed this at every session) is on how online is DIFFERENT from on-site face-to-face classes. Of course, as I heard from a session which briefly discussed the book “The No Significant Difference Phenomenon“, this simply isn’t true. Teaching, really, is teaching.

Regardless of the method of “delivery”, college-level teaching is supposed to encourage depth of thought in response to controversial ideas. It’s trendy to call this “critical thinking”. In many ways, deep thinking results from intellectual discomfort, something faculty may be disinclined to encourage from their position under an administrative microscope. College-level teaching is also to some extent an exploration of the subject from the instructor’s viewpoint as an expert (again, not just their “content”, but their viewpoint).

The concept of academic freedom emerges during times when the pedagogical approaches to content are threatened by a desire of controlling forces to clamp down on controversial ideas, as during the Red Scares. I think it’s time for it to return, before online courses become canned web module sequences, designed according to company-sponsored “research”, managed by administrators, tutored by faculty, and consumed by students in standardized formats.

Cats and Dogs

Lisa M Lane 8 Comments

I’ve spent much time discussing Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles, and I usually offer Gardner’s model as demonstrated through the website at LiteracyWorks.org. It’s an easy-to-use site, and has a multiple intelligences survey that produces immediate results. I ask students to take it first thing in the semester, and post their results and reactions.

The other day I was driving past one of those places where they train dogs in classes. I noticed one instructor and about a dozen dogs in this fenced area, and I thought, “to need training, that must be a pretty unruly bunch of dogs”. But they weren’t really. They seemed to be looking around to see what the other dogs were doing, and adjusting their behavior because dogs are, after all, pack animals. And I thought of my students.

I’m thinking I can reduce learning styles to two: Cat Learners and Dog Learners.

Leave Cat Learners alone with a book in a sunny window, keep it quiet, and they learn just fine. Cat Learners are independent, and are thus either self-motivated or not interested in having anyone motivate them. They shun social learning and avoid group work. Their judgement of the value of their work is internal. They tend to fit into Gardner’s logic, language and self learning models.
Dog learners are social, learn best in a group, and need active learning exercises. They require external verification and enforcement (“good doggy! have a biscuit”), and tend to fit into Gardner’s social and body movement styles. Dogs run with the pack, and aren’t comfortable doing anything by themselves.

Yeah, it’s a massive oversimplification. And certainly there are variations in individuals, just as some cats like company and some dogs are very smart and independent. But it’s helped me distill all my problems with teaching into one image: me the Cat trying to teach classes full of Dogs. Think I’ll break out the biscuits.

Rate Me!

Lisa M Lane 3 Comments

Though some of my “Twitter buds” said I was crazy, I have invited my online students to evaluate my teaching, twice. As usual each semester, I have a survey based on MiraCosta’s online instructor evaluation, but with some of my own questions added.

Two of the most important questions I add are

  • I understand why I’m getting the grades I’m getting
    (responses are Likert-style, i.e. Strongly Agree – Agree – Disagree – Strongly Disagree) and
  • How much effort, in time and thought, would you say you put into this one class this semester?
    (responses are: A huge amount of effort – a large amount of effort – a moderate amount of effort – little effort)

These give me an idea of their own level of dedication to the class, and enable me to interpret the ratings. Thus a class that has a lot of slackers but gives me low ratings may not be my fault, or a class that has very low grades but gives me high ratings may have been happy with the experience anyway. The formal MCC evaluations, which are not administered every year but only during my tenure evaluation cycle, do not get to this level of assessment, so I do my own survey for each class each semester. (For those following technologies, I had a lot of trouble with Moodle’s Questionnaire module, and although I was advised to use Feedback instead, by that time I had already reconstructed the survey using phpESP on my hosted server.)

What’s new this semester is that I have also invited students to rate me at RateMyProfessors.com by putting the following notice in a Moodle block:

I’m asking everyone to please fill out the course survey at the bottom of this main page. In addition, if you’d like to do something more “public”, I invite you to respond at RateMyProfessors.com if you’d like.

As everyone knows, such sites tend to pull in the complainers (often those who dropped in frustration) or the enthusiasts. But in this case, by asking at the end of the semester, I thought I could attract the ones who’d hung in there, who actually know the whole class. And so far, it’s going pretty well.

SDCCD Online Teaching Excellence Symposium

Lisa M Lane

It had neither the drinking nor gay focus a historian would expect from a “symposium”, but it was cool. I missed the 2:00 sessions because I was presenting Interactivity and Learning Styles at the same time. I had beeen asked to reprise this from last year, but I didn’t want to, so I proposed a Web 2.0 presentation instead, but was asked to please do this one because the response from last year was so positive. The problem was that I have changed my mind somewhat since I gave the presentation (next post coming up!). I no longer think that students are technologically savvy, capable of picking up new academic uses of technology easily or willingly. On the other hand, I was asked to do what I did last year. So I added a slide of “caveats”.

And, just like last year, I wasn’t able to finish the presentation in 45 minutes. My wonderful colleague Shafin Ali was at the conference, and agreed to be my cameraman during my presentation. (34 MB, so it will take awhile to load — didn’t get around to YouTubing.)


Camera work by my colleague Shafin Ali (Professor of Economics, the “dismal science”, though he’s actually a very cheerfull guy!)

Here are some of my notes from the other sessions:

Keynote by Patricia James: “Putting YOU in Your Online Class”

  • students come into online classes thinking they’re ready but they’re not
  • instructors must make themselves accountable to actually teach, tell students about their response time and do it!
  • she creates an anonymous forum at the end of the class for “parting shots”
  • Mt San Jacinto apparently has Online Faculty Mentors who get release time
  • said you can’t use publisher materials only, or YOU aren’t there
  • be yourself, use friendly announcements (I thought she said be yourself – just kidding!), emoticons if you’re sarcastic (yup), encouragement, mention students by name

Effective Pedagogy Online: Seven Principles of Effective Teaching Practice by Hank Beaver

  • The seven principles can be a basis for quality evaluations
  • he shares retention statistics with students; many have trouble managing distractions or think the course will be easy, so he lets them know up front these may be issues
  • use multiple strands to achieve the same objective (although that is time consuming)
  • one of the attendees says she lists the amount of time students will need to succeed in each element of the class
  • several attendees were very harsh on deadlines; one used the phrase “flexibility means responsiblity” (he admitted to low retention); there seemed to be hostility toward students on this issue — I think that “responsibility means flexibility” and I’m responsible to be a little more flexible — I allow a week to do a quiz late for reduced credit
  • what I’ll change as a result of this session: I’ll ask them to look at the grading rubric early and ask how thy think they’ll do, I’ll change my FAQ title to something like “Helping Each Other” to encourage that, I’ll use CCCConfer’s Elluminate instead of worrying about getting it through Moodle, consider telling them how much time each element of the class will take

Joan Van Duzer and Carole Robinson: My Online Course is Ready — Now What?

A very useful presentation because it focused on how to actually facilitate an online course, and how to assess whether you’re doing it well. A group from the Community of Academic Technology Staff created an Instrument to Assess Online Facilitation. They’ve created a checklist, designed to be simple and straigtforward, that can be used by faculty just starting out, more experienced faculty or course evaluators. There is also an Activity Record, similar to the notes I keep on each class each semester. In their case it was designed to help transfer the course to different instructors each semester. We don’t do that at MiraCosta, land of academic freedom, so the main use for us would be keeping our own records.

What they came up with is, I think, an improvement on my own assessment tool that I developed in 2006. Joan Van Duzer was cited in mine, and a lead on the CATS project discussed in the session. She also teaches Moodle classes for @ONE, and the conversation went into Moodle. I made a note that CSU is choosing Moodle because Blackboard didn’t pass accessibility tests, as noted in Blackboard vs. Moodle.

I plan to introduce such a tool to workshops in fall.

Seeking Workflows

Lisa M Lane

At a workshop given early this semester, I found myself teaching an instructor a workflow. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to do something in Blackboard, but that she needed a quick click-click-click task pattern to do something efficiently.

The other day I was listening to the podcast of Stephen Downes’ presentation on Personal Learning for Alec Couros’ EC&I 831 class at the University of Regina. As Downes took us through his Personal Learning Environment, he showed how he uses tools like Plex, MyGlu, RSS Writr, and Edu_RSS to sort through information (I think these tools are his own inventions). Although it was certainly not the point of the presentation, I found myself focusing on his workflow.

Then I stumbled on CogDogBlog’s post and replies about Web 2.0 gems, which led me through one of Alan’s own responses to FlickrCC (where I can find creative commons license images more quickly), which offered editing for the images in Piknik, an online image editor. I imagined a workflow when I need an image:

Find image in FlickrCC -> edit in Picknik -> download to desktop -> upload to website

Of course, when I tried it, I found I couldn’t put the attribution link in easily at all. It kept making it too big for the image. I usually do this kind of thing in html, or by editing the image in GraphicConverter. So the workflow became:

Find image in FlickrCC -> Save Image As to image folder -> open Graphic Converter -> create margin -> copy and paste attribution text and save -> open Dreamweaver -> upload image

Not fun. I know some of my current workflows are more cumbersome than they need to be. I open Dreamweaver every time I want to upload a file. But I keep stumbling on the same issues with web apps. It looks like the workflow will be great, but then it doesn’t work in a key area.

I bookmark to Del.icio.us. This should be easy, because Firefox has a toolbar button. Ideally, I go to a page, I want to bookmark it, and a window pops up to tag it:

Find page -> click toolbar button -> tag

Works fine from my office computer. From my home computer, I have to log in to Del.icio.us every time I start a new session. This is a separate pop-up window, and I lose track of what I wanted to bookmark in the first place.

Today I am seeking an online presentation tool, a PowerPoint beater. I tried Zoho Show (see previous post). OpenOffice’s presenter was too slow on my iBook. I downloaded a demo version of PulpMotion and tried Empressr, but they only seemed to accept local files, audio and video I either record on the spot or already possess, nothing from the web like embedded YouTube. I tried Preezo, but it only inserts an image (though it does let you use a URL for that) or text, no multimedia. So now I’ll keep going through other people’s tool lists. It’s not that I couldn’t go further and possibly make these other programs do what I want, but why should I have to?

So I’m thinking I’m not looking for good web apps any more. I’m looking for good workflows.

Zoho Show

Lisa M Lane 1 Comment

I created my first Zoho Show for illustrating lecture last night, and ran it in class today.

http://show.zoho.com/embed?USER=llane&DOC=Politics%20and%20Culture%20After%20the%20Great%20War&IFRAME=yes

There were a few problems with creation.

  • The text boxes were unwieldy. They did not appear at the spot I clicked, and got confused with other image boxes on the page, so that when I tried to select a text box, it chose the nearby image box.
  • Text entry was very clunky.
  • The embedded YouTube videos, even when I made them smaller, did not play in sync on either my desktop or the class computer, and the links didn’t work in class. The start-up arrow went way to the side in class too.
  • I couldn’t export; ended up with a screen of code. (That’s OK, since the publish and embed feature obviously works well!)
  • As the slideshow grew, response time got slower and slower, to the point where I’d forgetten what I was doing waiting for something to load, or got to far ahead of the software and it lost my keystrokes.

Of course, it is also missing audio narration, so it’s not ready for an online class yet unless I use another program to record.

Good aspects were that it was easy to manipulate images, slides could be rearranged, and its default image size was manageable. It also has good publish and embed features for the finished product. I’d like to see Zoho develop audio narration recording for each slide, and fix the text issues.

Retention Experiment

Lisa M Lane 1 Comment

As we all know, “retaining” students is a big issue with online classes. where the drop rate is traditionally higher than onsite classes. Right now I’m trying a couple of new things.

Moodle has several weaknesses, of course, and one is the way it displays the comments on a quiz essay question. It is difficult to tell the quiz question from the student’s answer, from the correct answer, from my comments. They are all in the same typeface and color. One way I get around this is by using the html font tag on the correct answer when I write a test, which is a pain when upgrading, but there you are. But it’s still hard to see my comments, and I don’t really want to write all comments in font tags as I grade.


So tonight it occurred to me that one little thing might help. Instead of just writing a comment, I start with their name and a comma. So instead of “This is a good answer” I wrote “James, this is a good answer”. I figure their name will jump off the screen at them even if it’s in the same font.

The other thing I’m trying is emailing students who miss the quiz. I offer partial credit for up to a week, but after it’s due I password it so they have to ask me for it. Moodle makes it easy to see which students didn’t take a quiz (at the bottom of the screen it gives you to the option to view “Show students with no attempts only”). I have begun using Quickmail, which lets me select several students from the list to send an email to, letting them know that they missed the quiz but can still take it for partial credit. I ask them to Message me from inside the site for the password, which gets them into Moodle and gives me a record of our communication.

I’m hoping these two techniques will help students see even more that I am truly there. I think instructor “presence” is crucial in an online class, and the individual touch (if it’s not horribly inconvenient to the instructor) can be helpful.

Are We There Yet?

Lisa M Lane

In the interest of keeping pedagogy first, I start with the problem.

My online classes consist of:

  • reading and viewing assignments from textbook and web
  • text and illustrated online lecture (with audio and some video clips)
  • historical documents (linked to lecture and available to print)
  • weekly discussion topics with mid-week guidance
  • multiple-choice and essay assessments every other week
  • two self-assessments, one midway and the other at the end

With the exception of the discussion, where I use a technique I am happy with, this is all very presentation-heavy.

I read a lot about constructivism. It’s not that I think students don’t benefit from alternative structures — I do. I’m not even particularly obsessive about content, though I probably should be considering the current work on the Dumbest Generation (either the Michael Graham or Mark Bauerlein version). I have only semi-determined lectures in my on-site sections, and believe that different sets of facts can set us on the same type of path anyway. The idea in history is to be able to use facts, not memorize them. Recognize patterns, create our own patterns, see trends over time.

But I find it hard to break the traditional pattern. They don’t know any facts at all about, say, the 17th century in Europe, so don’t I need to given them those facts? And model tying them together into themes?

Let’s say the answer is no, I’m not needed to do that. The facts are everywhere. Go to Wikipedia. You don’t even need a textbook. Let’s put the stuff together ourselves. Themselves. I envision a web page, or better a set of web pages, where students put in the content: images, sound files of music, bits of text, links to sources, comments of their own. I thought of this awhile back and gave up because everything was too hard to use. A wiki, which seemed the logical choice, required syntax instruction. PLEs based on feeds, like Pageflakes, Netvibes etc. seemed cumbersome and didn’t have all the features. They were awkward to use anyway.

But now we seem to have better alternatives. Tumblr lets you just throw things on the web, but its paradigm seems single user. Zoho Notebook is better. Seems like it could be used like a wiki. Some wikis are easier. A lot of this stuff has ads. What’s left out? The automatic indication of who made the addition to the page, shown on the page so I can grade easily. I’d like the student’s name under whatever they post. That’s more like a blog.

I need a drag-and-drop multi-user blog with tabbed pages that accepts embedded multimedia and doesn’t need an idiot’s guide to use. Right?

Trying Furl

Lisa M Lane

A lot of my online lectures, written as ordinary web pages, have links out to websites. Often these websites go down, or are unavailable, or have disappeared when students click. I have three online classes with about 15 lectures each, and most of them have links out, so I can’t keep up with all of them. Sometimes students are good about reporting downed links, and I can replace them with something else. Usually the something else isn’t as good as the page I originally wanted them to see!

So I’m going to try Furl. Furl is a social bookmarking site that archives the actual pages, caches them so that the old version is available. I just started today. It looks like when I Furl a website (which I can do with a browser button), I can tag it. Then when I see the list of my archived sites, I can click on the “F” symbol, and a window comes up asking which version I want to see. Right-clicking the “cached” gives me a URL, and I can use this to link to the archived version. (Since it’s social, I can also share the list of links, though I’m not quite sure who would care.)

I’m hoping this will prevent having to update links a lot, and will preserve those pages I wanted my students to use for reference, even if the sites themselves vanish. I understand it doesn’t cache whole sites, only pages, but usually it’s only the page I want, often because it has good images or a brief explanation of the concept in lecture.

It will, of course, take a long time, and the job strikes me as vaguely secretarial rather than instructional. I wonder….

Multiple intelligences and online participation

Lisa M Lane

For their first discussion forum of the semester, I ask students to participate in a Multiple Intelligences Survey, and post their results as they introduce themselves. Last year I thought about tracking things a bit. Instead I filed it away in my brain, and now I’m seeing things more clearly.

I went into discussion for my four online classes today. In classes where there is a high percentage of math/logic learners, the entries are short and stilted. Many do not really introduce themselves or respond to other students. In classes where the language and social learners dominate, a real conversation and connections have already begun. There are responses to individuals and friendships forming.

I do not think that it is necessary to BE a language or social learner to be successful in an online class, and I’ve told them that. But I think it’s helpful to everyone to have so many of them in the class. It gives a completely different feel to the class, and I’ve noticed this the past few semesters. I suspect retention will be higher. I really need to keep some numbers on this, but . . . I’m not a math learner.

Willing to Play

Lisa M Lane

I spent some time Friday assisting a faculty member with Moodle. She’s a refugee from ETUDES (the legacy version of which is being retired), and wasn’t inclined to use Blackboard. We worked together for awhile, and she caught on to everything so quickly and asked great questions. She is not, for the record, what we would call a “digital native”.

Over the years, I have worked with a number of faculty. At this point in my career, I have what Chip and Dan Heath call “The Curse of Knowledge” in their book Made to Stick. I sometimes cannot remember what it was like not to know something. For this reason, most of the Program for Online Teaching‘s basic workshops are taught by faculty other than myself, and I particularly encourage those who have only taught online for a year or two to facilitate workshops with newbies.

What occurred to me today was that there is a direct correlation between a faculty member’s willingness to play with the system, and the ease of helping them. Folks who are not afraid to experiment in the CMS, make a mistake, try out some things, and figure out how to undo them, are much, much easier to work with. That was certainly true today. This faculty member had already tried to do the things she was asking me about, so she knew exactly what wasn’t happening like she wanted it to, and what questions to ask.

Conversely, in my experience, individuals who are not experimental are hard to teach. They tend to ask questions that call for only one answer, and cannot mentally follow suggested options that might work better with their pedagogy. This is analogous to the issues we have with our students. Those who are open-minded and willing to play with ideas are easier and more energizing to teach. I want to encourage people to give things a try, and I’ve found myself saying “when you go play with this, you’ll see…” a lot.

In my Moodle workshop this week, for which I only had one hour, I made time to experiment. I did prepare a short presentation about the reasons I like the system, with examples projected on the screen. But at each of 10 computer stations I had created a blank Moodle course, each logged in with a separate Teacher account (teachera, teacherb, etc.). Participants could play as I presented. A number of participants did multi-task this way, trying things as we went along. Those folks seemed to get a lot more out of the workshop.

In the classroom and professional development, play has been underrated. Despite new ways of doing things (constructivism, discovery learning, inquiry-based learning), most instructors continue to use presentation as their primary mode both in traditional classes and online. But presentation makes the student or trainee, if not passive, accustomed to not being able to play. Even a little interactivity (a Moodle lesson, javascript quiz, click on the x) can encourage some interactivity, which might encourage some playing. In my first online exercise for students, I want them to post their profile image to Moodle, but I don’t tell them how. I ask “who can figure out how to do this? post and tell us how!” And they do.

Perhaps that’s why, although I don’t peddle constructivism to those who aren’t ready (for example, I’m not!), I do encourage greater interactivity. Let’s play!

Modeling instead of “teaching”

Lisa M Lane 2 Comments

I read on Stephen Downes’ blog today, on a completely different subject, the phrase:

I have argued in many places that ‘to teach’ is ‘to model and to demonstrate’.

It fits right in with the new approach I’m considering for next semester, based partly on the exegesis of text. In this case, it would be holy text, but rather historical documents.

My classes thus far have been organized around:

  • lectures — in class or online with audio/text/images
  • textbook — a secondary source for getting the historical narrative and the interpretation of historians
  • primary sources — to use as support or evidence for historical theses
  • discussion — based on “ticklers” designed to elicit response, then analysis, and
  • assessments — both self-assessments for participation and quizzes for content and analysis

Although my lectures may “model” what historians do in the sense of producing an interpretation, it is not apparent how I develop such a lecture. Nor am I modeling any kind of analysis of text myself, expecially in the classroom.

So I’m thinking of a new approach next semester, first in the classroom and then possibly online. I am considering spending substantial class time with the primary sources. Instead of giving each one to a group for analysis (and approach I’ve used before with limited success) my “lecture” will be me taking them through the document, commenting as I create my own analysis. It will be primarily extemporaneous (I may use some margin notes). It should “show” students how historians work.

Still thinking on this one….

Creating their own community

Lisa M Lane

I’ve read a lot about how to create online community. I’m not so good at it. In my own work, I join a lot of groups and can’t keep up with them all. Too many feeds, too many people. I confess, I get a little lost!

But I’m supposed to do it with my students, help them form a community in my class. I’ve read all the articles, all the research. If they feel they are part of a community, they’ll stick around. They won’t drop the class. I’ve been successful in developing good discussion forums, but sometimes even those don’t work. Only rarely do my students meaningfully connect to each other in online discussion. Well, so far as I know!

I teach a class each semester on-site, at the San Elijo campus of MiraCosta. Used to be I’d post the syllabus and information in Blackboard. Once I tried to link the class directly into the online version of the same course, but they didn’t come to class then and got behind. As a new thing this semester, I opened a Moodle site where I posted all the homework, and my lecture notes, and their grades, etc. Like Blackboard, Moodle has a Message feature. Unlike Blackboard, the feature is very easy to use.

So one day earlier this semester, a student Messaged me to say she couldn’t find something in her Grades. In order to submit the assignment she was doing, I had to log in as her (a handy Moodle feature). When I did so, a bunch of Message windows opened up. Of course I didn’t read them, but it became immediately apparent that a group in the class was using Messages to communicate. A fairly large group, of 7-10 students. They were using it a lot. Once I knew, I noticed it in the classroom. Not all were great students. But they were obviously studying together.

The thing is, I didn’t ask them to do this. I didn’t create their “network”. I didn’t even tell them Messages was available for their use. I just gave them access to the system. They created the use that worked for them, and they used it the way they wanted to. Two of them had crises during the semester, and one of the others helped out the person in trouble with notes and messages. None of them dropped the class. All of them are taking the final exam this week.

The moral? I’m not sure. Maybe they’re linking up online more than I know. They are creating support systems unrelated to the college or to my class, or to anything I do. That’s good, surely. I don’t need to control it. But I sure would like to encourage it!