Teaching Effectively Online
Lesson
Four: Online Interaction Considerations
http://lone-eagles.com/teaching-lesson4.html
Return
to the class
homepage
http://lone-eagles.com/teaching.html
|
Required Submissions
for Lesson Four: 1.
Read
the lesson and View
a few videos and Explore
resources within the recommended time for
each lesson. (One hour) 2.
Visit Classroom20
Ð a ning social media
site, and review ning
tutorial videos, and explore other well established ning sites.
3. You have been invited to join the
Social Media for Educators ning!
4.
Review the
collaborative tools
and tutorials at Search for "free web curriculum tools" "free tools for teachers" and experiment just to see how many toolkits and directories of tools are already out there. Contribute three new links under your name on our class wiki Front page at http://teachingonlinewiki.pbworks.com.(Just click "edit" at the top, and when done click "save" at the bottom.) And consider creating a topical hotlist on your personal class wiki page and sharing the link with the class.(Click on New Page on the right to create your own new page as you did in lesson 3.) (One
hour)
5. View
IPAD
Transformed Classroom Video (20
minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYLirypK_Yo 6. Post to
the class listserv;
teaching-L@netpals.lsoft.com
Advise on your best collaborative tool experiences, your knowledge of the best sites listing educational collaborative tools, and your experience with apps, including listing a half dozen of your favorite apps. (40 minutes) |
Painting
a Moving Train
When the Internet
became popularized
around 1995, email and free listservs
(also called
mailing lists or groups) were the most widely used collaborative tools.
Ex.
Google Groups: http://groups.google.com Spam has
proliferated and
diminished the practical utility of both email and listservs.
Web conferencing sites require everyone remembers to check messages,
which is a
major limitation unless you have a thoroughly committed group. However,
many
web conferencing systems do offer an option similar to listservs
to email all postings automatically.
While blogs are
popular, only 2% of
Internet users actually use RSS to automatically receive postings, but
the
numbers will grow as the
efficiencies become better
understood. In short, there is a trade-off between simplicity and
efficiency.
To use the more advanced tools well, everyone in our intended group
needs to
have the same skills and understandings for how best to use them. As we
all
grow our knowledge of available collaborative tools, ideally we will
all
develop and share the skills necessary to use our time as wisely as
possible.
The proliferation of new web 2.0 tools complicates the issue Ð it can
be
like painting a moving train.
For example, now microblogging
using Twitter is booming in popularity, with 200 million Tweets posted
daily,
limited to 128 characters, brevity on bits of wisdom is obviously
meeting a
need. That major political impacts in dozens of countries are already
attributed to tweets and Facebook
Ð strongly
suggests there is much more to this than silly names, or idle
amusements.
Building
Your Online Discussion Moderation Skills
To successfully
lead a purposeful discussion a
moderator is
usually needed to keep the discussion focused and to assure all
participants receive feedback regarding their contributions to
the discussion. This is best learned through actual practice
participating in and leading online discussions.
Social motivations
to participate in a
discussion are best
provided by the moderator individually recognizing each
participant via both private and public messages. One-on-one
interaction is much more effective for initially motivating a
given individual to participate compared to a public posting
encouraging "everyone" to participate. Its important for the
moderator to have a genuine relationship with each participant, as
this creates a social commitment that facilitates participation.
This relationship
becomes key to drawing
individuals into a given
discussion. As the discussion begins to take form, the moderator
should periodically introduce "weaving" messages that steer the
discussion and keep it on track as well as summarizing what has
been covered, decided and what should next be discussed.
One persistent problem with even the most prestigious of online
discussions is the tendency to lose the original focus of the
discussion.
Without a
thoughtful moderator, purposeful
forward progress of a
discussion may be lacking. Online "group work" is a rapidly
evolving art. Being a good online group worker will prove to be a
very important skill. "Listening" skills are more important than
writing skills.
As a moderator,
modeling collaborative processes
is a social and
linguistic skill that requires sensitivity to the personalities
and unique differences of the participants. A moderator might
play devil's advocate to solicit responses by role
playing
different points of view. Additionally, a moderator might model how
the group can gather and share information, and support each other,
as part of the group's discussion.
As with any
classroom discussion, students may
opt to not
participate, perhaps preferring private messaging with other
participants. Required participation should be part of the course
assessment. The level of genuine thoughtful involvement depends
on the intellectual investment your students are prepared to
make. While online discussions hold the potential for high levels
of intellectual rigor, the risk is aways
present that discussion
contributions will reflect minimal effort and thought.
What
to Watch for When Moderating a Discussion
- Anticipate
realistically how many interactions
are possible
between
the number of participants,
within the allowed time
period.
- Be sure you clarify upfront what participants can expect will
be required of
them: number of times/week to be
online and the
number of expected posted messages.
- Be clear what the purpose and expected outcomes are for the
discussion.
Keep it simple.
- Is your group uniformly "up-to-speed" technically? Do they
all use the
same software tools?
- Assess how personalities, learning levels and confidence may
vary among
your group members.
- Watch for topic drift. Steer the discussion with regular
weaving
messages.
- Will you evaluate participants on number of responses, length
of
responses, quality of responses, or
only by their having
read all posted messages? Do your participants
know how their
participation
will be evaluated?
- How will you use private email to supplement the public
conference?
Use your one-on-one relationship
for encouragement.
- Use private email to advise them on what they are doing
right
or could do better.
- Ask "leading" questions and resist being too chatty yourself.
Give students enough time to respond.
- "Flaming" is the term for negative, hostile interaction. Be
ready
for it when it happens. You may
have to decide when you
will
censor messages or ban participants.
You must be ready to
serve
as the arbitrator when conflicts
arise.
- Always bring a discussion to closure and provide assessment
measures
for the group and/or each
participant. One option
is
to post the entire transcript for
review.
Interactive
reading and writing is a
fundamentally
new communications medium that focuses on the written word in a dynamic
form
with characteristics of oral speech, yet with the editing ability and
permanence of the written word.
Face-to-face,
we focus on
verbal interaction, online we focus on written interaction. Each mode
has its
advantages and disadvantages, but both are important mediums for
building
social and communications skills.
The
TED video you were
asked to view, ÒHow Web Video Empowers Global InnovationÓ makes the
point that
humankind was an oral culture, requiring memory skills, until the
printed page
become the dominant medium, requiring reading and writing skills, but
that the
sudden boom of video is returning us to the dynamics of an oral culture
Ð
with this new form of visual and oral communications now available to
anyone,
anywhere, anytime.
Online motivation
of students is important.
Students must share in the learning goals of the class, feel a sense of
control
over their learning, and ideally share a sense of "fun" throughout
the online learning experience. It is important to "model" how to
have fun learning with others online!
Social
informality is important to
demonstrate and encourage. The instructor must maintain a sense of
"being
onstage" when facilitating an online class. The instructor
"models" the style of interaction expected from the students. In
reading the class conference messages, note the different impressions
you get
regarding the various students. Be aware how a sense of the class's
group
personality, as well as individual personalities, are revealed, and
continue to
develop, through online interaction.
Initial dutiful
responses from students will
hopefully be replaced with genuine inquiries and exchanges based on
their
interest in learning. The initial weeks determine whether the class
develops a
sense of community and purpose or is reduced to hodge-podge messaging
between
disconnected, disinterested
individuals.
Moderating an
online discussion can be a
challenging role for an instructor. Keeping the discussion on track,
regularly
summarizing points made, and asking the right questions to lead the
discussion
are skills that are developed through practice.
Thorough course organization and friendly back and forth dialogue
compensate
for the "out-of-sight, out-of-mind" challenges of the online medium.
Building
on a
Foundation of Trust:
Trust, is an
essential component of any online discussion-- trust that you won't be
laughed
at in a demeaning way and trust that others will respond honestly to
you, as
they trust you to honestly respond to them. Patronizing messages
intended to
"say what the teacher wants," to get a good grade, etc., won't
produce a good online discussion.
As a truly
"mind-to-mind" medium, it
doesn't work well if participants are not really thinking! For this
reason,
online discussions can be wonderful experiences or a
waste of effort. Your
students will need to demonstrate whether they are ready to think for
themselves and to articulate their thoughts for others.
Explore: NING
in education
http://ning.com The
founder of Netscape has
created Ning.com where it takes only a few minutes to create your own
public or
private social networking site. Search by topic to see what sites have
already
been created. Review
the capabilities
and features offered and explore a few of the existing educational
social
networks to see how others are using these features. Use the search
engine at
the ning site to find
social networks on topics of
greatest interest to you.
Ex. librarians
Welcome to
Classroom20.com
http://classroom20.ning.com/ The
social network for those interested in Web 2.0
and Social Media in education. He
has
created a rich compilation of resources for international project-based
learning listed on the right column at this site.
As noted above, we have our own NING social network shared with two
other Lone Eagle Classes; Social Media for Educators, and 21st Century
Workforce Readiness.
You have been invited to join the
Social Media for Educators ning!
Pop in, ( http://loneeagleacademy.ning.com ) look
around, and leave
a friendly message in the Teaching Effectively Online forum (Click on
Forums in the menu bar,) and, optional but recommended, post a photo, and/or a video. Message your instructor via private email as to what you contributed and your thoughts on the Ning. Send any questions to your instructor.
Explore:
Ning Tutorials on How to
Create a
Successful Social Network
Ning
has sophisticated video tutorials on best practices for creating a
social media
site:
http://creators.ning.com
Video
instruction is the next
wave of Elearning, see
how Ning
is using short instructional videos: http://creators.ning.com/video
Teacher-specific
best practices
are introduced at the following link:
http://creators.ning.com/inspiration/index.php
Click on
best practices at the page above.
VIEW:
IPAD Classroom Application Videos and
APPS
VIEW:
Skip Via's one
transformed classroom video on Ipads
for K-5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYLirypK_Yo
- (19
minutes)
OPTIONAL:
and his youtube
channel has many related videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/skipvia
See
other related IPad
videos on the right sidebar.
Also
available as an eBook for iOS
devices:
http://www.archive.org/download/OneTransformedClassroom
EXPLORE:
K-5
ipad apps, 5 part blog
series: OPTIONAL
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/ipad-apps-elementary-blooms-taxomony-diane-darrow
Students
can now create
their own Apps without programming. It can be as simple as dragging and
dropping a module. (Optional)
App
Inventor
Moves to MIT Center for Mobile Learning
Beginning
in early 2012 App Inventor will be available as an open
source project and the MIT Center for Mobile Learning http://mitmobilelearning.org/ will
provide the application for
educational users. To keep up with these and other changes
please
subscribe to the App Inventor educators forum:
http://www.appinventorbeta.com/forum
OPTIONAL
Ð More on Apps (Is there an app for..? *Probably!!)
250,000+ apps to
choose from
Facebook
apps
for education
http://www.interactyx.com/blog/facebook-apps-for-education
James
Rosenberg, the social media director for the World Bank
shared
the following video via twitter:
Video announcing new Facebook
App
for Ipad
http://t.co/jk0lf4cN
Email: Jerotus@gmail.com Follow @jerotus
on twitter
His Blog is http://blogs.worldbank.org/edutech/
The
Facebook Blog http://blog.facebook.com
ARTICLE: At Long Last Facebook
Releases an Ipad App
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/at-long-last-facebook-releases-an-ipad-app/
At
the Apple app store:
Pages for Mac can now handle Word docs,
and
create Epub docs for Ipad, Iphone,
etc.
Ipad Bookcreator
App for Ipad, $9
Ð
students
easily create Epub
multimedia docs for each other.
Showme
app, and screenchomp apps are free; students share narrated
whiteboard video capture easily.
EXPLORE:
Optional. An exceptional creative work.
Virtual
Architecture, by Dr. Judi Harris
http://virtual-architecture.wm.edu/index.html
Dr. Judi Harris has put her book online detailing online Teleactivities,
and more.
"In the Kitchen - Designs
for Telecollaboration
and
Telepresence" The 16
teleactivity
categories are listed
At http://virtual-architecture.wm.edu/Telecollaboration/index.html
Click on the "See Examples" links and scroll down to see
the examples and descriptions.
Required Submissions Checklist:
____ Posted 3 resource links under your name on our wiki.
____ Posted your experience with collaborative tools and apps to the class listserv
____ Send instructor a private email with details on what you contributed to the Ning.
____ Leave a message in the Ning discussion forum "Teaching Effectively Online."
Lesson Feedback:
You're invited to privately email your instructor:
1. What
areas, if any, did you have trouble with during this
lesson?
2. What
questions remain now that you've finished this lesson?
3.
Approximately how much time did you devote to this lesson?
4. What
improvements would you like to suggest?