Introducing New Classroom Technologies: Balancing Comfort & Innovation

This post is motivated by a comment in "The Theory and Practice of Online Learning (2nd ed.)" Edited by Terry Anderson. The particular Chapter is "Developing an Infrastructure for Online Learning" by Davis, Little & Stewart. (See full citation and link for access below.)

"...how much do we employ technologies, which we know the students are already familiar with and have access to, versus those which are new and unfamiliar and/or which are expected to become widely available?" (2008, p. 123)

This question is something I realized I am considering on a daily basis, but am never explicitly asking. With a diverse student cohort, it can be difficult to find technologies that the entire class is comfortable with. Additionally, working with many individuals employed by the federal government, I often run into pushback when trying to integrate social media tools into the course due to security concerns.

Given the current workforce and emphasis on job-readiness of graduates, it makes sense to me that students should graduate with an increased knowledge base, but also familiarity with new technologies. One particular technology we use that is new for our students is our platform for hosting online simulations. We previously used facebook groups to host simulations, however with enough pushback we moved to a different interface that I don't believe is as user-friendly, but quieted the many concerns about having a Facebook account. This platform is entirely new for our students and we use it throughout the course for four different simulations. The simulations get progressively better as the students become more experienced with the technology. I need to find a way to effectively train students in this technology before they use it for the first time, so that their experiences with the simulations are all high quality, not just those at the end. It is hard to do this with simply a live-walk through of the platform which I have done previously. The simulations go quickly and it is the fast-paced nature combined with the new technology that often leads to confusion in the first week.  This, and my previous post about training instructors in the course technologies has left a lot to think about and look for solutions within the remaining course readings and the rest of this program.

Davis, A., Little, P., & Stewart, B. (2008). Developing an infrastructure for online learning. In T. Anderson (Ed.), The theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed.) (pp. 121-142). Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/05_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf  

The Necessity of Technology Training for Teachers

This post stems from a discussion in Module 4 where the topic of institutional barriers for change came up. I think this is particularly relevent in course design for distance education. The common design method for traditioanl face-to-face courses is the single author mode. Instructors who have solely taught face-to-face courses might push back on a team-design method of development and not understand the need.

It was suggested that I look at Bate's and Sangra's text (Managing Technology in Higher Education Strategies for Transforming Teaching and Learning) for ways to remove these barriers to change.

One idea they suggest is the importance of technology training for instructors. This particularly struck a chord with me as it seems like an extremely relevant idea for my current position. Effective training would show our instructors the capabilities of our learning management system and would hopefully point out much they don't know. This realization that there are many new things to learn would potentially help ignite the idea that they need to adapt their instructional style for online courses.

Focusing the training on how face-to-face activities translate to online classrooms would be particularly useful I think. Walking through a syllabus and saying "Ok - this break out group discussion you do once a week in your face-to-face class, what are your ideas on how to achieve the same level of interactivity online?" We would then follow up by providing training on different collaboration tools within our LMS. Training that is authentic in context will likely yield the best result and hopefully also encourage innovation when instructors are exposed to new technologies and tools.

The Distance Educator & Student Anxiety

This idea for this post came from a specific section of the Moore & Kearsley textbook "Distance Education: A Systems View of Online Learning" in Chapter 6.

The authors state:

"Students are generally more defensive when taking a course from an unseen instructor than they would be in a conventiona class, but most are unlikely to express this anxiety."

They go on to explain that students are all looking for different levels of a relatoionship and support form the instructor - from both extremes. This led me to wonder what are some applied pieces of advice instructors can be given to better facilitate an anxiety-free classroom that engages students.

1. Include a picture that is friendly rather than a professional headshot. (Moore & Kearsley explain that an instructor humanizes a DE classroom and experience. (p.107)
2. Include a bio that explains professional experience and expertise, however be sure to include interests or facts that are relatable for students. Encourage students to do the same when introducing themselves. 
3. Provide students with a simple survey or discussion forum where they are asked to explain what level of suppor they look for from an instructor - follow up and make your teaching philosophy, what level of support you think is appropriate, etc. known to the class. Be willing to adjust if necessary. 
4. Ask students in the first week of class what items on the syllabus provide the most anxiety and they feel need additional clarification so you can spend the following weeks preparing extra assistance or clarifying directions if necessary. 
5. Ask students how they keep themselves accountable for their coursework, have them share best practices, ask how you can motivate them, make this forum or conversation publicly available to the class so they can learn from eachother. 
6. Make sure all communications to the class are conversational in nature, when you think something might be taken in an unintended way, be crystal clear in saying (this is sarcastic) or (this is a friendly reminder). 
7. Respond to all inquiries within 24 hours.
8. When providing feedback, make it detailed and be sure to include remarks that explain parts of the assignment you found particularly interesting. Use feedback as a way to help students improve but also motivate them. The students should know there is a real human on the other side of the computer. 
9. Encourage exceptional students by sending personal notes that suggest further learning or reading. For example, "I saw you were particularly engaged in the Module 3 forum, you should read this article that was just published, it has a few questions for further research at the end you may be interested in pursuing." 

What do you think? Anything that should be added? What other tips would you give to first time distance education instructors regarding limiting student anxiety and building an engaging classroom space? 

Web 2.0 Technologies - Twitter in the Classroom

In Module 3 of OMDE603, we discussed Web 2.0 technologies and what role they have in virtual classrooms. In particular, we thought about these technologies through either an objectivist or constructivist viewpoint.

In reading about these technologies I considered those that are better for teaching facts in an objective way versus those that lend themselves more towards applied constructed learning. Because individuals all learn and process information in varying ways, it makes sense to build classroom environments that use both objective and constructivist technologies. I don't think a classroom that relies soley on one type will lead to the highest level of success for all students.

In the program I currently work with we use the following web 2.0 technologes:

1. Virtual classrooms (Adobe Connect)
2. Collaborative wiki-pages
3. Online group-based simulations
4. Twitter

One technology that I am particularly intersted in, is the use of Twitter in online classes. In the first assignment for this course I wrote about how Twitter may potentially increase social presence in online courses. We use Twitter in backchannel conversations while students are presenting. Students are asked to listen to the presentation and then simultaneously tweet immediate reactions and questions. We hope that this encourages active learning and a more personal learning experience where students can direct conversations about what they found interesting in a particular conversation.  So,  the students are giving a presentation that is typically an objectivist way of learning, however by then asking them to engage in a twitter conversation where they apply this learning and discuss based on their own interests and experiences brings in a constructivist style of learning as well. 

Do you think classrooms should encourage both styles of teaching and learning? Or can successful classes exist when only one style of learning is present? 

Reflections on Distance Education Pedagogy

For my first reflective blog post for OMDE603 I am choosing to reflect on the optional reading from Module 1: "Three Generations of Distance Education Pedagogy" by Terry Anderson and Jon Drone. This was a 2011 article in a special Issue of The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning called "Connectivism: Design and Delivery of Social Networked Learning."

I am at the very beginning stages of coursework for the Master's in Distance Education program at UMUC, and I haven't been exposed to many pieces of research on distance education pedagogy. This article introduces three generations of pedagogy: 1 - cognitive behaviorist, 2 - social constructivist and 3 - connectivist. The authors conclude, and I agree, that all three generations of pedagogy should be considered and included in a well rounded distance education program.

The first point I wanted to highlight is regarding social presence in the Cognitive -Behaviorist Model. This model was defined by a complete lack of social presence in the learning environment. This is often a criticism that is voiced about distance education in general, that students are completely isolated without any element of social learning. Because of this article, I chose to write my first assignment for the class on the perceived issue of a lack of social presence and how Twitter can be used as a technology to build social presence in an online course for adults. (I will post more about that separately in the future.)  The authors explain that while this is often an element that is criticized in online learning, that research as yet to show there are differences in learning outcomes between online learning environments with high levels of social presence and those without. This is something I'm interested in exploring further and expanding on the paper I wrote for my first assignment. But, again, I want to receive feedback on it first.  Exploring this further would be directly relevant to my current work position as we offer a course that uses Twitter to increase engagement during student presentations online.

When reading about the social-constructivist pedagogy, I immediately was able to relate this to the extreme diversity of students in the online program I coordinate. In this style of pedagogy, instructors do not present facts to be memorized, they rely on a more social form a learning. Knowledge, through the lens of this pedagogy, builds upon previous knowledge and experiences and is unique to each learner because of this. The program I work with is geared towards professionals in the intelligence community (IC) and/or recent graduates hoping to break into the field. Because our students range from recent unemployed graduates, veterans, and mid- to senior-level professionals in the IC, I certainly see the same readings and/or discussions resonating differently with each student. What introduces a new thought for one student may reinforce an experience another student had. Or, a previous experience may lead a student to not trust the findings of a particular article because it is directly contradictory to what they saw in the field.  My main takeaway from reading about this pedagogy is that learning should be authentic and assignments should have authentic context. This will allow each learner to apply the concepts to something real and relevant to them and their learning experience.

The last pedagogy is connectivist and the one I had the hardest time grasping and applying to the program I work with. In this pedagogy, students build and utilize networks and apply them to real life problems to learn. This seems to build off of the idea that learning should have authentic context as discussed in the previous section. The introduction of building a network of resource and information seems valuable, yet I had a hard time visualizing how this would look in a classroom experience.  Essentially, I believe that this pedagogy asks students to use networks of each other, their academic resources, data, etc. to build an overall network where they will be able to refer back to find the information that is needed. So their knowledge can essentially be described as the creation and maintenance of their unique network. Because of this, I decided to create a new virtual information hub for students in our program as a step in creating a network for them - or at least introducing them to the concept so they will perhaps inadvertently begin to think about the network they may (or may not have) constructed on their own. In this information hub I have an alumni contact list, places to discuss career networking, outside academic resources, internal data resources, etc. I'll post about the outcome and student response to this in a later post.

Again, as stated in the beginning, learning should be a combination of all three of these approaches. Reading about each of these individually was extremely helpful in understanding and re-emphasizing the fact that we all learn differently and that a diversity of approaches should be used.



Anderson, T., & Dron, J. (2011). Three generations of distance education pedagogy. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 12(3), 80-97. Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/890/1663