Thoughts About Jona

Respondents to the teacher survey expressed concern that student access has became linked to demands for courses to be “serviced” seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

Consider the following. How flexible is flexible? How is it possible to capitalise on the potential offered by learning communities in practice in a context where flexibility (time, place, pacing) takes on a whole new meaning? This question is now one that is critical for the future direction of online education.

Flexible access technologies – without these I wouldn’t be able to study this Masters.

Perhaps the most critical challenge to traditional universities is develop capacity to change.

Jona “Learner choice is the touchstone of the paradigm shift that needs to take place in education and in how it is delivered.”

Natural Human Learning
• Natural learning is goal-directed -
• Natural learning is driven by expectation failure – enable risk taking
• Finally, natural learning is case-based – enable personal experience

What does this mean for the future. I think that the future holds a blended approach for schools in the the contact time will be shorter and firmly focussed on action, drama and sport activities.

The pillars of “The Vicarious Learner” project then are action and conversation

“Instructional methods that use a constructivist approach to teaching and learning focus on dialogue, learning partnerships, and the joint construction of knowledge. This approach is used for the design of many of the online courses at USQ”

is the level of teacher participation sustainable? Does “more” necessarily mean “better”?

“Palloff and Pratt (1999, p. 15) note that “in the online classroom, it is the relationships and interactions among people through which knowledge is primarily generated”.

Disinhibition (Suler, 2002) is one of the more frequently mentioned effects of online learning. It is sometimes described as the increased likelihood that a shy student will speak up, for example, or that students will be more forthright. – I have witnessed this myself when my students engaged in blogging. The shy students were more able to participate given that they could spend more time cultivating their responses and not have to engage F2F.

A major difference between F2F and online is - Operating in the online environment means that bodily differences and social values attached to visible differences are invisible and irrelevant - teachers and learners online construct themselves through text in the discussion forums, for example (distinctions of gender, ethnicity, body shape or impairment, accent or speech styles ‘don’t matter’ – visual cues of difference are missing) and the challenge is to know more about online sociality and the ‘special circumstances’ of learners.

USQ Approach

Intelligent tutoring systems – look this up!

The fifth generation of distance education is essentially a derivation of the fourth generation, which aims to capitalize on the features of the Internet and the Web.

How does it work? In the USQ approach, many teaching staff makes use of discussion groups, which entail students posting “reflections” via the asynchronous CMC system. The teaching staff also post comments, which are aimed at engendering student engagement and ensuring that the focus and depth of the online threaded discussions are appropriate to achieve the learning outcomes.

Results

I got back my results. This is the worst mark that I have ever had. I feel like such a failure! To think that I had hoped to get all HD in this Masters! That's not going to happen now!

Assignment 2

Well this assignment was really confusing to say the least. I found it quite difficult to get into as I felt that the readings were quite out of date. I tried to look for more recent stuff but was unsuccessful. It is very lonely in this course as the discussion forums really aren't very active. I am so glad that this is not my first experience online as I would be very confused. I finally got a go on when I decided to compare online learning with that of current my classroom. I couldn't see why I should compare it to the 20th Century classroom as that is no longer an issue. I couldn't see the point of doing that as I have never taught in such as rigid way especially now as I am an IB teacher. In fact the last time that I was in a 20th Century set up was when I was at school! Too long ago to remember it!

Changes in Roles of Instructors and Students -> The educator as a tutor -> Re: The educator as a tutor

Hi Janet,

I liked reading your post. I agree that a learner centered environment requires more from the learner. I teach in an IB school and the inquiry approach promotes just that. I also struggle with collaboration as it can be stressful to be relying on others yet essential to learn how to do that as our world requires us to develop collaborative skills. My students complain when having to work together and it can be hard to place difficult students as they can be ostracized by their own group.
I have a quote that I got from a recent film that I watched at the K12 Online Conference site. http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=150 check it out! It is worth watching Clarence Fisher's video about Classroom Web 2.0. This quote from Tom Carroll was mentioned in the video to illustrate how Fisher sees his classroom "Every classroom is a collective effort, not an individual accomplishment."
I am working on assignment 2. I struggled through the concept part as I found it quite a challenge to put those principles into my own words without repeating what others have said. I kept going around in circles - but it made me think so I am learning to make sense of it. I haven't come across much that only happens online. Most is the same as in offline learning.

I just wish that I had more time to work on this as it is little crazy at the moment at school with preparations for Student-Parent-Teacher Conferences with digital portfolios that are the 18 and 19th September. It makes me so tired which really only leaves the weekends to study.

Jane

PS I'll leave you with another quote from Alan November, "Every classroom should be a global communication centre." I believe that online learning is not just for older students who have developed independence in their learning but for all classrooms and for younger students such as mine - a blended approach is needed to bridge the gap. I am currently modeling online learning in class using Ning which I intend to later shift to at home for homework tasks.

Apple Teachers Camp

Hi All,

I attended Apple Teachers Camp today and watched this film as a part of the activities. I though that I'd share it with you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

Jane

PS The camp was great! It was all hands on stuff about creating units of work infused with technology. I have one other share - I learned to use Sequence which is a great software that allows you to draw and record an assessment on top of a video. This way you can talk about a students video and then point out the area with drawing. It then saves as a movie file with a small inset screen of the teacher talking through the assessment points and the drawing animated over the video itself. Very nice!