Top three characteristics of an online learner

Top three characteristics of an online learner are:

Self-Motivation:  This is one of the most important traits of an online learner. The learners have to be independent and self-derived in order attain the goals. Students must understand what is expected out of them and they should meet instructor’s expectations as well as the objectives set for the program.

In case the students lack self-discipline and time-management skills, the instructors and people around, have a great role to play. Instructor can engage them in conversation and ask them about the difficulties they face while studying. They can write journals and the reflections would help them learn and motivate to move on. As an instructor I would try to show my students that I’m a human being behind their computer screen. I also recognize their emotions, needs and humanity. I would like to share my ideas with them and then, invite them to share their views with me.

Good reader and communicator: An online learner has to show good skills in reading and communication because this is required to convey thoughts, ideas and share concerns. Also, in order to understand and apply learned material to write assignment and writing to other classmates and instructor, students have to be good in reading and communication.

In order to enhance these skills, students need support from instructor, family members, peers  and online resources(dictionary, spell check). They may take a small course in editing and reading also. Local libraries sometimes also have small programs in reading and communication skills. They may get a support group in library or nearby community center.

Organization of time and daily routine: Usually online learners have so much going on in their lives other than taking the online course. The organization of time and space is absolutely necessary in order to meet deadlines for the assignments, discussions and reading. They need to organize study space, and then they need to find time to actually study.

Students those don’t have good organizational skills might learn it over the time. I learnt it by the time my first week in this course was over.  They need support of family members, friends and other loved ones. Students also need to communicate to themselves and people around,  that this ’particular hour’  is my study hour and they don’t want any disturbance. Finding help from classmates, getting an idea how they organize their time, can be helpful.

One aspect of online delivery, which can surpass that of a face-to-face classroom, is of flexibility of time, convenience of studying from home while at the same time having cultural diverse group interactions.

An aspect of learning in a social context is the development of “ learning communities”( Vygotsky, 1978) centered around student-to-student interactions and the exchange of ideas(discussion boards, email, chat). Another one can be for learners those are seeking help in libraries or other support group in their locality(community center)

Polls in online courses

While I submitted my poll yesterday night,  a thought came into  my mind that polls can be a great tool for students to make choices. Polls are also  called as virtual show of hands and let all students see aggregate totals of how the class thinks on  a particular issue. Poll results help in shaping the opinion and sometimes realizing the limitation of their own choices. At a point of discussion which has become very crucial, poll activates interactivity among the classmates. Polls should provoke research and deeper thinking.
Asynchronous polls are available for learners to vote over a period of time before submitting the votes. Asynchronous polls let learners visit and vote on their own schedule. Synchronous polls have learners pick from a list of alternatives and then see results of the voting. It helps  learners to make real time choices.
For using the poll, instructor has to take into account a few things. The first thing is to make sure that learners know how to vote. The language should be clear and straight. Make sure  test questions can be interpreted as intended. Test the questions with someone and refine if necessary. The polls should display the totals only. The students may hesitate to vote if they feel others can know how they individually voted.
I liked voting for the  Thread Rules Survey because it will help us in finding the best practices related to the thread management. The poll will throw a light on the best practices among the all those were suggested by all class members. Further debating on the each issue would polish the poll result .

Use of videos for teaching online courses

I started this week’s reading material with Merrill on Instructional Design video available in course material area of week 4. I got a feeling that  vodcast or using videos encourage the learners to view the learning material and grasp the application of concepts, rules and procedure in action. The video can be found or uploaded on Youtube, teacherTube, google videos, MIT world, Yahoo, MSNBC video and BBC video nation. There are certain other tools and websites having online free videos on reports, news and procedures.

How are videos helpful-There are several thousand videos available on web that have some relevancy to the teaching and learning of the subject matter that one might want to take up. One may find many videos on a particular topic. Course developers need to consider indexing or rating of the  ones that look relevant. Instructor might want to develop her/his own video or customize and reuse existing ones after obtaining the required permissions.  Learners may be given some questions to answer for reflection and discussion at the end.  Short 5-8 minutes videos are best for most of the topics. For the educational use of the videos,  fair use of  copyright guidelines should be followed carefully.

How can videos be used in online learning-The instructor can also ask learners to give feedback on the videos included in the course material. This would help to determine which ones were more effective and why. In such case, the instructor will have a ranking of the available videos from the learners from previous quarters/semesters. This kind of ranking will increase satisfaction among the students and also address the issue on video quality, length, and appropriateness.

Mini project grades

 I  got grades for my Mini project 2. When I saw the Anne's rubric at the end, a  table showing  the basis on which the grading was done, I was surprised. The  grading method is so intense. There are grades for each and every aspect. If you miss any, you lose your grades.

Thank you Anne for giving us clear, detailed and specific instructions right in the beginning of mini project. I'll take care of your instructions for the final paper. It clearly shows that how clearly communicated expectations are help instructor and learner. Also, I liked that the reading material is available to students in several formats, allowing students to select the best.

I came across, Shneiderman's "Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design", while I was doing some research for my group project. I thought, I shall copy and paste them. I'll keep these ones in mind while I would design my  own course.

These rules were obtained from the text Designing the User Interface by Ben Shneiderman. Shneiderman proposed this collection of principles that are derived heuristically from experience and applicable in most interactive systems after being properly refined, extended, and interpreted.

To improve the usability of an application it is important to have a well designed interface. Shneiderman's "Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design" are a guide to good interaction design.

1 Strive for consistency.
Consistent sequences of actions should be required in similar situations; identical terminology should be used in prompts, menus, and help screens; and consistent commands should be employed throughout.

2 Enable frequent users to use shortcuts.
As the frequency of use increases, so do the user's desires to reduce the number of interactions and to increase the pace of interaction. Abbreviations, function keys, hidden commands, and macro facilities are very helpful to an expert user.

3 Offer informative feedback.
For every operator action, there should be some system feedback. For frequent and minor actions, the response can be modest, while for infrequent and major actions, the response should be more substantial.

4 Design dialog to yield closure.
Sequences of actions should be organized into groups with a beginning, middle, and end. The informative feedback at the completion of a group of actions gives the operators the satisfaction of accomplishment, a sense of relief, the signal to drop contingency plans and options from their minds, and an indication that the way is clear to prepare for the next group of actions.

5 Offer simple error handling.
As much as possible, design the system so the user cannot make a serious error. If an error is made, the system should be able to detect the error and offer simple, comprehensible mechanisms for handling the error.

6 Permit easy reversal of actions.
This feature relieves anxiety, since the user knows that errors can be undone; it thus encourages exploration of unfamiliar options. The units of reversibility may be a single action, a data entry, or a complete group of actions.

7 Support internal locus of control.
Experienced operators strongly desire the sense that they are in charge of the system and that the system responds to their actions. Design the system to make users the initiators of actions rather than the responders.

8 Reduce short-term memory load.
The limitation of human information processing in short-term memory requires that displays be kept simple, multiple page displays be consolidated, window-motion frequency be reduced, and sufficient training time be allotted for codes, mnemonics, and sequences of actions. 

Reference: http://faculty.washington.edu/jtenenbg/courses/360/f04/sessions/schneidermanGoldenRules.html

Training Employees Online

One of the  American Management Association (AMA) survey reported that over 30% of job applicants tested by major US corporations lacks the skills  required for  job profiles.  This clearly shows that the business environment needs employees with strong skill set. I think the way to deal with this problem is to facilitate ongoing training and lifelong learning. If a business/company wants to challenge its employees and increase their productivity, then training and development is absolutely important. If the company/business has skilled work force, it will provide greater productivity. The training can be onsite training with trainers/professionals or it can be online, flexible and convenient, available anywhere, self-paced, with no need to plan around a class time.

The initial steps for training -

The first step is to identify what are the areas where training is needs and in what way the training/course will be fruitful for the company/business.

The next step is to choose the appropriate course and its duration to meet those needs.

Thirdly, establish specifications and requirements for corporate certification. You can choose a fast paced online course or it can be formal with trainer participation.

Online medium has as much potential to encourage content exploration, reflection, and participation than a face-to-face class.

Online certification programs, such as the WDC, may provide a path to quickly increase the current low supply of workforce educators by offering effective, flexible, and inclusive professional development opportunities to workforce educators.( Sharon P. Pitt, Edmund Vitale Jr., and Diane L. Foucar-Szocki "Training Professional Workforce Educators Online." The Technology Source, March/April 2002.http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=947.)

How will I manage my Web-based classroom:Week 3

Today I read the lecture and first reading material for week 3. I came to know that Text based systems can have certain limitations. An online course can offer much more than just the text. One can have illustrations, graphics, video and even online labs. One such amazing online chemistry lab is http://www.onlinechemlabs.com/. I was totally amazed by the advancement of technology. So we don’t need expensive labs in schools perhaps. No need to buy a white lab-coat anymore. I remember my chemistry teacher Ms Sunita Deewan never allowed us to enter the chemistry lab without a lab coat. On the day of final lab exam in grade 11, I forgot to bring my lab-coat. I took it home the day before to get it washed. First Ms Sunita didn’t let me in the lab but when I requested she let me take the exam but she deducted my 10 marks!! I can never forget that silly mistake of mine. But now you needn’t remember to take lab coats. You can sit in your couch and do chemistry lab practical. WOW!

Lecture 3 explains the basic tools used in the Web-based classroom. Here are my views on how would I implement a Web-based classroom:

·         How would you (the instructor) ensure that you would have enough personal contact with your students to discover their individual needs?

Research shows that Email and Texting are students’ two most common electronic communication tools with 75% of students classifying themselves as frequent email users and 74% of students classifying themselves as frequent texters. Thus, I would use email to remain in contact with my students.

·         How would you respond to those needs? I would provide feedback and scaffold student’s learning.

·         How would you objectively assess students' attainment of learning objectives? I’ll use tools like self-assessment, journals, collaborative skills and  peer-assessment methods.

·         By what means will you assess student participation? The kind of reflections, peer assessment, online materials learnt and applied to asynchronous discussions will help me in assessing the participation

·         How will you encourage students to communicate directly with the you (both privately and publicly)? How will you encourage students to communicate with each other? How can you implement "team learning" strategies and accomplishment of small group discussions or projects?

·         Will synchronous interactions be an important part of your course? How do you view the split between asynchronous and synchronous interactions? No, I think I will not include synchronous discussion. Asynchronous interaction enables groups that are separated in time and space to engage in the active production of shared knowledge" (Gunawardena, Lowe, & Anderson, 1997, p. 410). Asynchronous discussion enables students to work independent of time constraints. It also encourages reflection, metacognitive processes, and articulation of students' own learning.

These views are, I would say, are in infancy. I’m pretty sure as I move forward in the MS OTL course, my thought process and views will mature.

Reference:

Vonderwell, Selma., Liang, Xin., Alderman, Kay.. "Asynchronous Discussions and Assessment in Online Learning." Journal of Research on Technology in Education. 01 Apr. 2007: 309. eLibrary

. Web. 16 Apr. 2012.

Week 2 Excerpt

One  issue I came across this week was deciding on what to make my online course on. It’s been a while that I did any classroom or online teaching. I haven’t taught in any US school. I don’t know the syllabus and the way it works. I called my friends and found answers to my questions. I wanted to develop something in chemistry or environment. During my graduation years, Chemistry was my major whereas my post-graduation was in Environment. So I thought that I should go with something I really know. I ended up with the course ABCs of chemistry which has comparatively wider audience.

I know, I shall be able to do it pretty well because my classroom experience in schools will help me understanding the learners perspective and learning process.

I have really found good team members. I am looking forward to work with each one of them. I hope my experience in Mini project 2 is going to be exciting.

Week two has been exciting. There were two interesting readings-Institutional Challenges in the Creation and Delivery of an Online Degree Program by Karen Kaminski and William D. Milheim and Wearing Four Pairs of Shoes: The Roles of E-Learning Facilitators by Ed Hootstein.

Other than the institutional issues discussed in the discussion forum, I think that there are few other issues those have same weightage as the ones I discussed. These issues include identifying the viability, positioning, and operational best practices of the online course. Also, in increasing environment of competition and marketing, it is  important to stay competitive. In order  stay in competitive market the product needs revision. It needs to get updated and revised after a period of time when any new technology hits the market. If institutes need to maintain a good position they have to adapt to the new technology. This needs qualified staff, equipment and professional help. Again, this will be related to the budgetary issues.

Also, the matter of intellectual property rights is very crucial and needs to be addressed in a legal way. We have  evolved from a society where education and words of wisdom were passed from one generation to other via oral communication in form of discourse and stories. With the advancement of civilization the method got changed and print media and other forms came into existence. The creators of intellectual products like music, art, written material and inventions, deserve to be rewarded by society for their special creations. Furthermore, in order to ensure that this reward reaches in right hands, that is the original creator, it seems to be justifiable to rely on the machinery of copyright and patent protection mechanisms. But, sometimes these mechanisms become intolerably broad and burdensome that they resulted in widespread dissatisfaction and unrest in the population. It also hinders   further development of creative work and stagnates the pool of intellectual products.

I believe that if something is not shared then it is not information. The issue of intellectual property can be solved through mutual understanding, taking care the legal aspect and respecting  creator’s emotions and needs.
 I also realized that role of an instructor  in an online environment is very tough. There are so many things to do. The role of an instructor is to keep the learning community functional in virtual classes by designing the course to allow participation of all the students as community members and help to increase the participation. The sense of community will help remove the sense of isolation among online students and subsequently help them remain in the class and continue the learning process (Farahani, 2003).

I really feel how much work would be there to for Anne to do…So many Journals, reading every part of discussion, reading responses, responding to queries and so on. As an instructor  you need to make changes in your instructional skills, your skills in engaging with your learners and your management skills! Wearing Four Pairs of Shoes: The Roles of E-Learning Facilitators  by Ed Hootstein claims that facilitators guide learners to play a part in determining course direction by discovering content on their own, carrying out assignments and projects, and creating learning opportunities to meet their own needs. Thus, it is going to be  somewhat difficult to be an instructor but I am ready for it!

Welcome letter for an online course

ABC’s of Chemistry: Chemistry on Fingertips

Welcome to the online course ‘ABC’s of Chemistry’. This online course will familiarize you with the basic principles of chemistry. This course is geared towards students majoring in most sciences, pharmacy, and chemical, biological and environmental engineering. This eight-week online course would help you to learn a new skill or enhance your existing ones. You'll spend roughly six to seven hours each week completing two course lessons in an enjoyable and interactive learning environment. If you are new to online learning environment don’t worry. My aim is to provide an optimal and user-friendly format for students with differing computer skills. In this course you can be certain of quality instruction, personalized assessment, and tracked progress. I’m excited to have you on board!
Before you begin, test and configure your system for use with this course. The first step is to view ‘How to take online course’ video which is designed to familiarize you with the virtual classroom set up. Before starting course lessons, I advise that you spend some time to learn how to navigate the course website. Navigation tools located at the top of every page are extremely user-friendly and consistent throughout the website. They provide access to every corner of your classroom environment, such as communicating with the instructor, getting assistance from the ‘help desk’, submitting assignments, discussion board, accessing net links, and viewing your grades.
The second step is to download syllabus under the heading syllabus and course material. This link will take you to a page that has a description of the course, course requirements, course goals, recommended books, and grading policy. Read the syllabus thoroughly and direct any course questions or concern to me. My contact information is located on navigation bar under "your instructor".
For coming eight weeks, one lesson will be released every Tuesday and Friday. Your lessons will include text-based reading material, illustrations, audio  or video files if required. Each lesson has an assignment and a brief multiple-choice quiz. You will receive an instant analysis of your multiple-choice quiz. This classroom has 17 interactive discussion forums where you can interact with your classmates; ask questions, share ideas and concerns. You are required to respond to two classmates each week. I strongly recommend that you complete each lesson within ten days of its release because the assignments and discussion forums, accompanying each lesson, will not be accessible after that. Your first assignment is to introduce yourself through first Discussion forum.

The course concludes with a final exam, which can be completed within two weeks of the release of Lesson 16. If you do not understand any aspect of your coursework, contact me for clarification or post your question in discussion board so that others can get the answer if they have the same query.

What can you expect from this course: You can expect support in all aspects of the learning environment including but not limited to communication with me, timely grading on assignments, updates on your progress and e-mails help from technical support and administrative personnel on any issue or concerns you might have.

-Savneet Singh

 
Letter Construction Analysis

The course EDUI 6701 has helped understand what  online learning is all about and enabled me to write this welcome letter using whatever knowledge I have gained till date. In the first paragraph of my welcome letter, I mentioned that my aim is to provide an optimal and user-friendly format for students with differing computer skills. In Mini lecture 1 , Dr. Chico indicates, ”Actually, there’s no such thing as “best” practices – ones which fit all learners in all situations. But there are a lot of good practices in teaching and learning, online or elsewhere.”(Chico, N. (2012). Mini-Lecture EDUI 6701-1). Thus, I wanted to create, perhaps, the ‘best’ online format so that the students having both basic and  advanced computer skills can take the course with same ease.  The target audiences of the course are students majoring in most sciences, pharmacy, and chemical, biological and environmental engineering. I clearly mentioned this in first few lines. Know your audience is the key-Anne Guptill (Guptill, A. Discussion board, EDUI 6701).

The welcome letter introduces learners to the kind of online environment, they will be exposed to, during the course. It is very important that students feel comfortable in the virtual classroom and know every corner of it. So, I provided the details of look and feel of their virtual classroom. According to Ed Hootstein’s model, I tried to fit in Program manager’s role here, whose work is to  “”Develop study guides for courses to help ease learners' anxiety and address both content and technical concerns. (Ed Hootstein, E-Learning 1.0.). The letter clearly mentions that learners are required to participate in the Discussion Board. Ed Hootstein placed great emphasis on the importance of encouraging and ensuring a high degree of interactivity and participation as one of the most important facilitation skills in online learning environment and, this is, Social director’s role to  create such a collaborative environment.
According to Nancy Levenburg, ‘The curriculum for online courses must be based in clear learning objectives. Achievement of objectives may be facilitated through the use of cohort lectures and provocative and informative readings/articles geared to conveying the basic concepts and facts’. Keeping this fact in mind, I plan to include text- based reading material, illustrations, audio  or video in course lessons. Using a single mode of instruction, such as lecture, PowerPoint, discussion can be boring. Blending audio, video, images, charts, graphs and other visual can increase student interest and motivation.
This course will include assignments and a brief multiple-choice quiz those have to be submitted by deadlines.  Jones & Martinez found that if the instructor of the course aggressively engage students in course activities and require students to submit segments of the project by deadlines, the students completed the course with a very satisfactory project that needed minimal revisions. (Jones & Martinez, 2001; Martinez, M., 2001)
In last paragraph I mentioned what learners can expect from me as an instructor or the support staff. Judith Hughes claims that, ‘Learners need to know both what is expected of them, and what services they can expect to receive from the institution’. (Huges Judith A., Supporting the Online Learner). When students understand what is expected of them, they have a clear focus of what they must do in order to achieve success.

Blended e-learning

Recently the tech gurus have given a Mantra of blending learning technologies which is not only the mixture of celluloid, textbooks and an instructor's lectures but also include desktops, CD-ROM software and the media-rich material as the ingredients. The Internet has made learning an around-the-clock, self-paced proposition which can be used by anyone. I came across an interesting write up which talks about the blend of various ingredients in an online program as referred in The article Wearing Four Pairs of Shoes: The Roles of E-Learning Facilitators (Hootstein, 2002) . Marc Rosenberg, principal at DiamondCluster International in Chicago, and author of E-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Digital Age (McGraw-Hill, 2001), says that while blended learning is most often thought of as a marriage between classroom and computer-based instruction, the union dissolves when a company or academic institution fails to get the mixture right. "The question is not if we should blend," he says. "Rather, the question is what are the ingredients?"

The ingredients can be any. One can choose according the need of learners but keep in mind blend more than two.

Learner interventions in online environment

While working on my mini project1, I was thinking that what kind of learning interventions will I consider in my course. I kept in my mind –“ In developing any educational program, it is important to first define  learning goals.

These can be used to help guide the selection of teaching methods and learning activities that are most appropriate to achieve these goals (Bloom, 1984; Gagne et al, 1992)In developing any educational program, it is important to first define  learning goals. These can be used to help guide the selection of teaching methods and learning activities that are most appropriate to achieve these goals (Bloom, 1984; Gagne et al, 1992)

Thus, Learning interventions need to be engaging, because without learner engagement there’s very little chance that any meaningful learning will take place. A primary teacher gets her/his little ones involved in the class through variety of ideas-asking questions, games, peer tutoring and reading comprehension.

Engaging interventions attract and maintain interest, they arouse the emotions, and they are full of energy. This goes for online learners as well. Peer review, forum participation, chat room, email exchange etc help in learning and getting to know each other. This avoids the ubiquitous loneliness of the long-distance learner. Some corporate giants have even included games so as to ensure the learning outcomes. Collaborative working is another tool of learning which builds team work and long lasting relationships.

Institutional Challenges in the Creation and Delivery of an Online Degree Program-India

While I was reading Institutional Challenges in the Creation and Delivery of an Online Degree Program by Karen Kaminski and William D. Milheim, the scene from India came to my mind. Some 8 years back when I passed my M.ED, there wasn’t any website of the university I took the program from. But, I can see a website of the same university now. The state universities usually have fewer budgets, so developing an online course would be the last thing any state will do. But with the passage  of time and the increasing demand for online courses, state universities are offering a few online programs. The private universities always have good budgets so they came into the online course development comparatively early. The university from which I completed my M.ed has a website but doesn’t look like that updated. Only the pages those are updated are- the deadlines page or the result page. The student support services are not that adequate on website. This clearly shows poor maintenance. The websites once build is not updated frequently. There can be numerous reasons such as insufficient staff, absence of new software and support from the government. Although, the history of distance learning goes back in 1970s, the online course management is still budding. The IGNOU i.e. Indra Gandhi open university is one of the biggest university providing distance learning opportunities to millions, in India as well as outside it.  The online courses seem to  emphasize the passing along of information rather than promoting learning. Thus, Indian online education system still  to develop more so as to have an effective online environment.