Presenter: Assoc Prof David Green

Introduction

This workshop gave me a further insight of online teaching and the important aspects that should be considered when designing a fully online topic. David Green talked about technology and its use in an educational environment he suggests looking at technology as an amplifier; it can make good things better and bad things worse. I thought this was a good analogy. In my role as an educational technologist I often come across poorly designed online learning environments that merely serve as a dumping ground for lecture notes and content. 

Choosing a technology to support learning

David highlighted a couple of important factors to consider before selecting a technology to support learning. Look at its attributes:

 
• What it is good for? 
• Does it help me solve my problem? 
• What are its strengths? 
• What are its limitations?

The selection of a tool/ technology should be driven by the pedagogy and the intended learning outcomes. Other important aspects to consider are the students themselves. Students must see some value in an activity or the use of a technology and there must be active intervention by the teacher.

Modeling the use of technology

David gave an example on the use of the discussion forum, he suggested that unless students see a purpose in using the discussion forum or there is some sort of reward associated with the activity (i.e. a grade, activity will help the student complete an assessment) it will be very difficult to engage students. This really highlighted the importance that the instructor needs to play an active part in the discussions and refer to the discussion forum often, particularly at the beginning of the semester with the new cohort of students who may be new to this form of communication. Once a discussion forum has been set up, the instructor should regularly monitor the discussion forum. Woo et al (2007) suggest making a schedule for checking discussion forum postings. It is important to let students know when you will be regularly checking the discussion postings, so that students are not left waiting for a reply. Instructors also need to model communication within the discussion forum, and not assume that students know how to use this type of tool in a learning environment. Another aspect is to provide students with timelines for their contributions to the discussion forum.

Peer learning and sense of community

Anderson et al (2001) have acknowledged that although individual learning is important, for deep learning to occur, there needs to be peer interaction. They also suggest that the active intervention of the teacher plays a critical role for collaborative computer based learning activities to be successful. David spoke about the notion of a sense of community and its importance in an online learning environment. Garrison (2007) suggests that a sense of community is essential for peer learning to occur. Rovia and Shea (cited in Garrison, 2007, p.61) also found “that sense of community is significantly associated with perceived learning”. In his study on community and learning, Rovai, (cited in Dawson 2006) suggests “a positive correlation exists between sense of community and cognitive learning”. I think that a sense of community is something that has significant implications for a student’s learning as some the research I have cited have shown.

References

Anderson, T., Rourke, L., & Garrison, D. R. (2001). Assessing teaching presence in a computer conferencing context. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(2), 1-17.

Dawson, S. (2006). Online forum discussion interactions as an indicator of student community. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 22(4), pp. 495-510. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet22/dawson.html 

Garrison, D. R. (2007). Online community of inquiry review: Social, cognitive, and teaching presence issues. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(1), 61-72.

Woo, Y., Herrington, J., Agostinho, S., & Reeves, T.C. (2007). Implementing Authentic Tasks in Web-Based Learning Environments. EDUCAUSE Quarterly Magazine, 30(3), pp. 36-43.