Week 8 Online Community

Ko and Rossen mentioned the virtual learning environment in chapter 6. Since I raised a question about Second Life in last week’s post, I am quite interested in their ideas about this issue. They stated that “Despite great strides in the development of such software, virtual-world software still presents a fairly steep learning curve for the majority of instructors to perform even simple tasks and for many students as well”. This is truly the reality of Second Life in education. We have to admit that more and more educators have started their experiments of integrating Second Life into instruction. Researchers have also conducted many research projects about Second Life. However, as “the most widely known program for virtual-world educational use”, Second Life still has a long way to go. There are many instructional issues and problems that need to explore.

On the contrary, using social networking tools in education is no longer a new topic for most of the educators. It is still a hot and controversial topic as well. In my opinion, if instructors can use these social networking tools appropriately and effectively, they will see the benefits these tools bring to their classrooms (no matter face-to-face, hybrid or online). But if instructors misuse them or even lose control of them, the consequences could be serious sometimes. Thus instructors should be very cautious and make detailed plans if they decide to use social networking tools. It’s a pity that Ko and Rossen didn’t talk much about this issue. Although I am not a big fan of Facebook, I did a web search about its usage in classroom. I found some practical tips for instructors who plan to use Facebook and I would like share them with you. Here are the URLs:

Social Media & Education: Using Facebook for Teaching:

http://saschafunk.de/teaching/sociale-media-education-using-facebook-for-teaching/

30 Important Rules for Professors on Facebook:

http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2011/06/21/30-important-rules-for-professors-on-facebook/

Facebook and Your Online Course – 10 Resources for Faculty:

http://www.onlinecollege.org/2011/04/25/facebook-and-your-online-course-%E2%80%93-10-resources-for-faculty/

Week 7 Online Community

This week’s topic is building an online classroom. We discussed this issue in the class this week. How to build an online community? This question is really hard to answer. Building an online community is not an easy task. From my perspective, the online community initiated in a course management system is mostly forced. Learner’s participation in the online community is not spontaneous if the learner is not interested in it or forced to involve in this community by course policies or other external factors. I guess this is the nature and one shortcoming of learning management system which might be hard to conquer. This makes me to think about the use of virtual learning environment, such as Second Life. Did anyone use Second Life before? What about the online community in Second Life? Could it be really different from the one in course management system? Is the communication in virtual learning environment more effective than learning management system?

Additionally, I would like to introduce Richard Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning. This theory is based on three main assumptions: there are two separate channels (auditory and visual) for processing information; there is limited channel capacity; and that learning is an active process of filtering, selecting, organizing, and integrating information. The figure below presents the model of how people learn from multimedia lessons.

The principle known as the “multimedia principle” states that “people learn more deeply from words and pictures than from words alone”.  However, simply adding words to pictures is not an effective way to achieve multimedia learning. The goal is to instructional media in the light of how human mind works. This is the basis for Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning. 

Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning presents the idea that the brain does not interpret a multimedia presentation of words, pictures, and auditory information in a mutually exclusive fashion; rather, these elements are selected and organized dynamically to produce logical mental constructs. Design principles including providing coherent verbal, pictorial information, guiding the learners to select relevant words and images, and reducing the load for a single processing channel etc. can be entailed from this theory.

Week 6 Video

As for the Internet skills quiz, I scored 92%, not bad I think. The questions in this quiz are pretty common and basic knowledge of Internet. The only question I answered incorrectly is the last one about the definition of an“open source”program. I found the correct answer after I googled it. I guess besides scores, it would be better if we can see correct answers as well after submitting the quiz. 

I have never tried to write HTML myself before. In my mind, writing HTML seemed like a complicated and professional task for IT folks, and I had no idea about these complex codes. After reading Dave’s introduction about the HTML, I feel better. His introduction is practical and simple. I like the templates and examples provided in this introduction. I get to know some basic codes.

I embedded a video I found on YouTube. A professor in the college of education at Indiana University talks about how to plan an online course. He provides some good advice and guidelines for online instructors. He also recommends several free online educational resources. I think it would be helpful and I should share it with you. 

Week 5 Online Syllabus

Syllabus always plays an important role during learning process. It becomes even more important for students who take an online course, since students don't have many direct interactions with their instructors, compared with face-to-face class. Students may feel confused and even get lost if an instructor fails to provide a good and clear online syllabus. In my opinion, syllabus is like a detailed and practical “survival guide". If you want to “survive” in a course, the first thing you must do is to read the syllabus carefully!

I like the way Ko and Rossen interpreted the roles of syllabus in a course. They used three words to conclude its functions. The first one is contract. Syllabus is the contract between students and instructors, laying out the terms of the class interactions. This is also the reason why an instructor needs to write a syllabus and usually discuss it with his/her students in the first class. Informing students their expected responsibilities and duties, the grading criteria, the musts and don’ts of behavior is the first task for instructors. The second one is map. Students will know the “geography” of the course through syllabus. That means students will understand the whole process of a course and know where everything is located. Therefore, besides syllabus, I think it might be helpful for an instructor to make a site map if that course is web-based. The structure of a course web site can be visualized by a site map. The third one is schedule. I do agree that the course should be laid out by weeks for students. All the details of writing an online syllabus are explained  in this chapter explicitly. I learned a lot. The checklist for online syllabus on page 123 is very useful. I will definitely use this checklist to examine my online syllabus.

The method Lisa presented in the workshop is similar to the textbook. However, besides the things stated in the book, Lisa also demonstrated how to make an online syllabus interactive and live in Blackboard and Moodle systems. By adding hyperlinks on the syllabus, students can access related course materials and class activities directly by clicking those links. These hyperlinks look quite convenient and neat. I may consider using them in my syllabus as well.