Monthly Archives: May 2010

Handing Over the Keys

A couple years ago, a colleague and I posited an instructional-design approach to improving learning and performance when utilizing Web 2.0 technologies. This approach was built upon the socio-constructivist philosophies of learning and emphasizes three dimensions in designing learning for the Web 2.0 environment—social/collaborative elements, user-generated design, and knowledge management. The motivation for this approach stemmed from the recent emergence of approaches to learning that are based on self-determination and networked contexts such as heutagogy (Phelps, Hase, & Ellis, 2005) and connectivism (Siemens, 2005), which help us understand learning as making connections with ideas, facts, people, and communities.

Learning has grown beyond mere consumption of knowledge and become a knowledge-creation process.  We sought to develop a model (so to speak) that builds upon the inherent capacity of networked communication to support improvement in learning and performance and a means to approach learning in which students engage in a process of learner-driven design. Learning in this new paradigm is derived from innovation rather than instruction. Our investigations while assembling this model reinforced the notion that learner-designed contexts have the capacity to connect the formal learning agenda of educational institutions with the personal learning goals of students.

Our contention is that the learner must be placed at the intersection of social construction of knowledge (Glasersfeld, 1995) and distributed cognition (Salomon, 1993). Thus design, particularly for networked contexts, should slide to the learner-directed side of the pedagogy-heutagogy continuum. Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2003) identified social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence as the conditions for developing an online learning community.  Their finding, in conjunction with our assertions, dictates that design should now provide for co-configuration, co-creation, or co-design of learning.

That’s what we think, anyway. What about you?

If you’re interested, you can find the complete model in Wired for Learning: An Educator’s Guide to Web 2.0, Terry T. Kidd, Irene Chen (Eds.), Information Age Publishing. Charlotte, NC.

 

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T. & Archer, W. (2003). A theory of critical inquiry in online distance education. In M. G. Moore, & W. G. Anderson (Eds.), Handbook of distance education (pp. 113–127). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Glaserfeld, E. V. (1995). A constructivist approach to teaching. In L. Steffe & J. Gale (Eds.), Constructivism in education (pp. 3–16). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Phelps, R., Hase, S., & Ellis, A. (2005) Competency, capability, complexity and computers: exploring a new model for conceptualizing end-user computer education. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(1), 67–84.

Salomon, G. (1993) No distribution without individual’s cognition: A dynamic interactional view. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 111–138). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Siemens, G (2005). Connectivism: Learning as network-creation. ELearnspace. Retrieved November 15, 2007, from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/networks.htm.

Good Vibes from Video

I just had an interesting experience related to a pure distance-learning class I am teaching. I’m relating this to broach a subject near and dear to my instructor heart. As I was getting the same old take-out sandwich at the same old Subway today, a student came up to me and said with a big smile that he was taking his first online course and that he liked it. It took a minute for things to register for me since I was right in the middle of figuring out if I wanted mustard or mayo or both . The student was talking about the course I am teaching! And it hit me that he recognized me from the short videos I make and post to establish a rapport with my students. What warmed the cockles of my heart was the fact that I was succeeding in my attempt to establish a connection with my distance-learning students with video.

I bring this up because it’s evident that far too many faculty have the idea that making a video is a Big Deal. Maybe it brings to mind that room with the green wall, big lights, microphones, and two or three technicians with huge cameras. Since it seems like such a special experience, it’s easy to put off trying video, figuring that you need to get set for your Big Experience on Camera. This is an incorrect notion, and it’s silly. It’s not silly because it might be a new experience for you. It’s silly because it’s a horribly out-of-date way to think about video, what it takes, and what its purpose is.

Making a video these days is not like it was just five years ago. Today it takes only a small digital camera like the one you probably already own switched to its “movie” mode. It doesn’t take special lighting, and it doesn’t even take a tripod if you just want to set the camera on a few books or duct tape it to the top of a wine bottle like I do. You start the camera, look into it, and talk. It’s even easier if you have a webcam with a built-in microphone on your desktop or built into your laptop (most laptops have them now). With this you can just log in to a hosting Web site like YouTube (accounts are free) and record right into the hoster’s Web site!

I use both of these techniques to make a forty-five-second or so “hi theres” to a class, a brief explanation of an important assignment, or even just an introduction at the start of a term. To make sure that everyone knows that it’s me talking to this specific class and that it’s not just the video equivalent of a form letter, I make sure I say something that clearly puts it into the timeframe of the course—such as the term, a recent class or news or sports event, or the weather.

When you stop the camera after making a “minute movie” like this, you have a choice. You can upload it as it is to a hosting service (I use and recommend YouTube), or you can do some editing on it using Windows Movie Maker (PCs) or iMovie (Macs) and then upload it. This lets you eliminate passages where you stumbled or wish you had said something differently. But don’t get hung up on the idea of editing your short video productions. Editing is not really all that necessary for these kinds of “here and now” short videos. That’s why I typically record directly into YouTube, and I don’t even plan on editing. Timing is of the essence here, not carefully planned, lengthy, and orchestrated content. Short is better. Less is more. It’s the you that video and voice convey that establishes and helps maintain a connection, not a talking-head lecture so long that it becomes tiresome.

Did you catch the notion here? This kind of connection-building video is not a major production. Its importance is in the moment, and its charm is its spontaneity. That’s what contributes to your distance-learning students seeing you as a human being rather than a name attached to e-mails. Try it. It’s easy, it’s free, and your learning-management system readily accepts its placement in a course for viewing by your students. Video delivers you in a way that people know you when they bump into you and feel connected enough to walk up and talk. Isn’t that what you were aiming for in class all along?