March 29, Post

I found chapter 8 very interesting because I personally have not thought about teaching an online team environment. I think when approaching a task such as this that an instructor should first and foremost find away to develop trust among the team members. Chapter 8 mentioned that a group meet face-to-face and that allowed each member an opportunity to “get to know” or “trust” each other, but if meeting face-to-face is not an option than perhaps group synchronous chat meetings with webcams would suffice. I would have like the author to explore or even mention using webcams. Once member trust each a group hierarchy should be established between the learners, so that delegation of the task can be assigned.

Learners should be encouraged to take advantage of community discussion forums by scheduling extra meeting times, if necessary. The types of meeting can include group achievements, failures, leaderships, and so on. Group achievements should be celebrated. If it is possible for the group members to celebrate at a physical location for beer and pizza “DO IT!” If not find other creative ways for celebrations to take place. Failures need to be addressed immediately. The instructor should be included in these meeting to provide prompting for “just in time learning.” A failure could possible wither trust between group members.

LOVE the virtual class chatquette; I cannot express the frustrations that I have had in many chat rooms. The protocols that the chatquette offers seems easy to learn and implement into chat room discussions. The protocol of virtual class chatquette works by using “?”, “!”, “///”, and others to express oneself. Each sign has a different meaning such as, “?” is interpreted as “you want to ask a question” and “!” means “you want to make a comment.”

Anderson & Elloumi’s chat protocol is very similar to Smiths’, but Smith’s protocol is more defined because of the symbols used. However, most of Anderson & Elloumi’s chat protocol can be and should be implemented in any chat discussions. One should always consider the feelings of other group members and many of Anderson & Elloumi’s protocols express that. I think that if we were to mix Smith’s symbols and Anderson & Elloumi’s chat etiquette into our D2L virtual environment; our chat discussions can be more focused on content.

Lori mentioned that the moderator and students should have different colors for there names. That way every member in the chat room can be identified. This would not suite somebody such as who cannot tell the difference between certain shades of color. Maybe, someone would be assigned a light shade of yellow, which would be very hard to read. Plus, we do not know if any of our classmates are colorblind. A colorblind person may not be able to see red, so therefore he/she would not be able to read the text at all. However, I do agree that a system should be put in place for easy identification of group members and moderator. Perhaps, every learner and moderator can be assigned a 50X50 jpegs for identification purposes (a head shot). I wonder if it would also make the chat more personal because you see a picture of the person that you are chatting with.

Week 10

My project’s enabling context will be delivered in a variety of formats. I will require learners to edit or create elementary websites using problems, case scenarios, and real-world projects. The problems that will be implemented into my project will be well- defined. For example: Write the html code that will display a webpage that states “Hello, World.” Problems such as this one will develop understanding of basic HTML for learners. Learners need this kind of basic knowledge because WYSIWYG applications do not always perform, as they should. Learners will also be prompted to edit a webpage through case scenarios. Scenarios will include the learners taking the role of a web designer. They will be required to add graphics, sounds, and text into a web page that I have developed. An example of a scenario is: “Your client--a computer manufacture named ABC has decided that they would like a new header for their website. They want it to reflect their new Mac products. Please add a graphic of a new Mac model to ABC’s header.” Their last project will be a real-world project that will require learners to create their own websites, which should at least consist of a home page, a friend/family page, and a favorite links page.

I will use video/audio-streaming tutorials created with Camtasia Studio or Adobe Captivate to provide scaffolding. I will also use Dreamweaver and Flash to create webpage tutorials for learners to access. These tutorials will show learners how to download required softwares and basic functionalities of those softwares. Learners will be required to spend personal time to learn how to use the softwares and they will be prompted to ask each other questions weekly to test their knowledge of the softwares. Learners will communicate using an open forum and weekly chat discussions. Each week, a new prompt will be given and the learners will have to answer it. I will moderate the discussions to make sure that students do not go off target. I have not yet decided if I will incorporate instant messaging. I am afraid that individuals using instant messaging will not pass on information to the group. Conversations, vide/audio-streaming, and webpage tutorials will all be used to provide scaffolding.

Learning Theories, blog number..... something : )

Learning theories and instructional design principles are the foundations for creating meaningful learning materials. Learning theories give designers an idea on how to create learning content for students. There are three learning theories discussed in this book and they are Behaviorism, Cognitive psychology, and the Constructivist theory. Each theory has its own purpose. Behaviorism focuses on changing peoples physical actions, which would be a great theory to use if an instructional designer wanted to teach people how to type. Cognitive theory “claims that learning involves the use of memory, motivation, and thinking, and that reflection plays an important part in learning” (Anderson & Elloumi, 7). The last theory mentioned is Constructivism which, claims that learners interpret information and the observation, processing, and interpretations, and then personalize the information into personal knowledge (Anderson & Elloumi, 7).” There is no theory that is better than the other, each theory can be used separately or mixed within a lesson. Instructional design principles provide a way for develops to know what works for delivering content and what does not. An example of an instructional design principle is the modality principle, which states that audio narrations explaining a video presentation will increase understanding of the video content. The view of technology in delivering online instructions is compared to a car. Without technology to drive instruction we would still be watching instructional videos with a VCR and the only type of learner interaction would be using the telephone to call the instructor. Technology plays a huge part in delivering online instructions. Technology provides the virtual environments, forums, branching lessons, and everything else that deals with the delivery of instruction to computers, cell phones, and any other device used for online learning. The technology that I am going to use for my learning environment is Moodle. Moodle offers chat rooms, forums, and many other features that will be instrumental in the delivery of my online learning lesson. Because of the flexible technology available to me I will integrate three learning theories behaviorism, cognitive psychology, and constructivism into my online lesson. “Learning theories help us create learning environments using new technologies that are based on proven methods of delivering sound learning. When new technologies are based on proven methods of delivering learning it decrease the time spent creating instruction, which improves the efficiency of the instructional designer” (Wilson, 1997).

The “Constructivist theorists claims that learners interpret information and the world according to their personal reality, and that they learn by observation processing and interpretation and then personalize the information into personal knowledge (Anderson & Elloumi, 7).” The role of interaction in online learning is very complex and complicated to explain. The Bransford et al.’s framework of online learning is based on three groups that interact: students, teachers, and content. Each group will interact with itself and the other two groups, so for example students will interact with other students, teachers and content. Students will interact with each other and teachers using synchronous and asynchronous communications, also students will interact with content by reading, applying, and reflecting. “Teachers interact with other colleagues with will cause continual growth in their field of study. Teachers will also interact with content. This is done be the creation of the content and learning activities by the teacher (Anderson & Elloumi, 48).”