Blog #5

1. What have you learned about analyzing learning task and objectives? How can you plan to apply this new information to your design project?
I have learned that there is a lot to learn. There is more to analyzing tasks than I thought.In Morris, Kemp and Ross they discuss the three objective domains. The one that made the most sense to me was the psychomotor domain. It talks about imitation, manipulation, precision and articulation (p. 106) These are things we look for when we are doing patient education. We want to make sure patients are able to do the actions or activities we show them. I never thought of them as instructional objectives. They were things that patients had to do to be successful at home. This totally put this into a new perspective for me. My hope is that in the videos that I have chosen for my web site, the participants will be able to see as well as perform without difficulty the same things. (They are able to administer tube feeding without difficulty) This shows imitation, manipulation (they can be able to move the tube around without difficulty) precision (they will administer tube feeding without wasting too much food), and articulation. It is also important for the participants to see things in several different ways, through reading and watching.
2. Given the learning objectives/tasks you have identified, what instructional strategies or activities you have identified from Bonk and Zhangs book are useful for your target community members?
Anchored instruction with online videos is the main basis for my website design. (p.134) In addition, online discussion forums, personal blogs and social networking linkages will be presented on the site. These will all help with the following objectives:
a. The learner will be able to explore other aspects of nutrition and tube feeding care. (I will have links to other sites)
b. The learner will reflect on the videos and post their thoughts and feelings on a discussion board as they feel necessary.
c. The learner will utilize the discussion board to ask questions of experts in the field of gastroenterology and nutrition.
d. The learner will read, reflect and respond (when appropriate) to other participants discussion board posts.
e. The learner will be able to mimick the actions of the video that pertains to administering tube feeding.

Case study 2

Part 1 – Blogs

Benefits of blogging

According to Bonk, when students are taking an online class, they have a greater opportunity to “think more deeply about an in idea and for a longer time”. (Bonk, p. 67) This is one advantage students have who takes online classes. They can study and work on their assignments on their own time. By being able to work on blogs on their schedule, they have the opportunity to think about their responses before they post. They don’t feel rushed into writing down an answer. The same would apply for responding to others blogs. Sometimes students would like a little more information before they respond. There are often times where students will find additional resources and post those resources for other students. Many times I have seen where one student has investigated a little further and found helpful websites for those wanting a little more information. They will post these for all of the students.

Blogging in building a virtual learning community

By collaborating in this fashion, this allows students to have a dialogue with each other even though it may be at different times. Students have time to reflect on their own experiences and understanding of the material. Once they understand the material, they may use stories from their own experiences to help others understand their way of thinking or why they answered a question a certain way. This can be beneficial to everyone.

Class observations

In this class we can see where “videostreamed talks, and Webinars allow those learning at remote locations opportunities to learn that previously did not exist.” (Bonk, p. 74). We see this by being able to have online discussions with Saudi Arabia. We are able to read his blogs and respond. He is able to do his work at a time that is more conducive to his time zone. It is also refreshing to see other student’s opinions. All of the graduate classes I have taken have been in the department of nursing. It is interesting to see others way of thinking. Not to say that nurses all think the same. But it seems that computer people see issues differently, more analytical.

Blogging used in learning

Blogging can be used to help enhance critical thinking. If an instructor poses a question, you can see if the students understand by the way they respond. Occasionally you can see true learning taking place. For example, when one student does not entirely understand a concept, other students will make suggestions for the student to think about the issue in a little different light. By doing this, the student is becoming a teacher is essence.

Students also have the opportunity to bounce ideas off of each other. If they are stuck on an issue, others will post different perspectives or even further references. A student may post a simple answer. Those responding to that post may delve deeper into that issue. Some students have very strong opinions on certain topics and it is interesting to see how a simple statement can cause controversy. By that I mean that students, respectfully, will discuss the pros and cons of an issue. This can give you a good idea of how the students are thinking and how they are processing information. By looking at both sides, this can lead to collaborative learning and maybe even helping students see that not all issues are black and white. Learning can certainly take place in these instances as long as the students stick to the facts. “These controversies will foster critical reflections as well as collaborative knowledge sharing and construction.” (Bonk & Zhang, p. 257)

Part 2 – Emerging technologies

First Impression/experience

I was interested in the Yugma site. The opening page had enough information on it to let people know what its purpose is and who could benefit from their services. You could also sign into the forums or FAQ section. It also had sections that would show you how to host a meeting or join a meeting. All of this information was presented before you signed in. This is a benefit. It allows you to access information prior to spending/wasting your time creating a sign in and downloading the program if you found out it wasn’t what you wanted.

Your search or creation activities

Yugma was easy to download. It offered versions for macs as well as pcs. My attempt was to have a conference with my father. It had the some of the same characteristics as the adobe we have been using in class. You needed to have the meeting ID number in order to join with the meeting. As the host, one thing I did not like was that in order to share your desktop, you needed to invite contacts. When I clicked on this, it kept going to my .mac account. I don’t use that account as my email. I have no idea how to change the default on my computer. I was able to use the IM feature with my father anyway.

Educational Use

This would be beneficial for small classes. This would be a class with less than 20 students. It would allow for a more intimate meeting/conversation. As with our class, it would allow students in different parts of the country, or different countries to meet and talk at the same time for free. The main difference between this and adobe is that you do have to download this to your computer or computers you will be using for the meetings. The host/presenter can show desktops and even change presenters so someone else can show their desktops. This would allow for each student to have the opportunity to show their desktops if they needed to share.

Bonk, C.J. & Zhang, K. (2006). Introducing the R2D2 model: Online learning for the

diverse learners of the world. Distance Education, 27(2)., 249-264.

Bonk, C.J. & Zhang, K. (2008) Empowering online learning: 100+ activities for

reading, reflecting, displaying, & doing. San Fransisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Blog 4

I thought this weeks readings were interesting. Especially since I was in a group last semester that did a paper on simulation labs. I will say that it is very important for the instructor to be able to see the student and vice versa. They need to be able to see all of each other. How do you know where the instructor is pointing exactly when it is on a screen??? Are your students really paying attention or are they texting during class??? You can get a lot of information out of body language. Are you boring your students?? Do you need to bring up your level of teaching (are you talking down too much or are you talking above their heads?) You can find out this information just by looking at them and assessing their body language. They talk about this in chapter 10 and refer to this as the body metaphor concept. That students and teachers need to be able to see each other, not just their faces. You need to see gestures as well. You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their hands. You can miss out on a lot of non verbal communication by only seeing the instructors face.

Bonk, ch 6 also talks about the importance of students being able to see more than the instructors face. They also need to see where the instructor is looking or point to on a presentation. He also talks about the use of mapping. Concept mapping is a way for students to put their thoughts into pictures or words. Sometimes things are better understood when we can actually see them laid out. It is also a way to see where we are missing something or if our way of thinking is flowing smoothly.

In chapter 9, I found Dewey's principles of experience very interesting. If you are around a child while they play video games, you see Dewey's theory in action. Children (or anyone for that matter) will engage in things they are interested in. When their interest gets difficult (when a level in a game gets difficult) what do we do? We will do whatever it takes to master that level. We find ways to get past the difficulties blocking us from continuing on. Whether that is going online and finding the cheats or spending 5 hours trying to figure it out and not sleeping. By being able to conquer the difficulty, that instills confidence in us all. We did it. This in itself is a way of positive reinforcement. This may also encourages thinking. Children will reason out how best to get around that stone. Option 1 didn't work so I will try option 2, etc. It teaches them how to think and reason things out. That is one of the hardest things to teach someone is how to use reasoning. Fortunately some video game developers use reasoning as part of the game.

Reflective summary 1

Reflective Summary 1
A community is a “multigenerational group of people at work or play, whose identities are defined in large part by the role they play and relationships they share in that group or activity”. (Riel & Polin, 2004, p. 18) A community is a group of people who share the same hobbies or common interests. Within that community, each person has their own role. They must conform to the rules and regulations of the community in order to remain an active member. Individuals can choose to join or remove themselves from a community at any time. The success of a community depends greatly on the level of participation of the various members over time.
A virtual community is “a social group in which learning is an intentional, explicit goal”. (Riel & Polin, 2004, p. 17) A virtual community is one that is formed in an online environment. The environment can be a social network or be an educational network. Members of this group can join for a variety of reasons from trying to find a future mate to wanting to learn about a certain subject. Virtual communities provide a safe environment for like minded individuals to communicate, share ideas, and interact with others with common goals or intentions.
The key characteristics of a virtual community are that they share a common goal. This goal is dependent on which type of environment you are a member of. If it is online dating, the goal is to find a mate. For educational environments, the goal is to learn the material. There are also rules that must be followed. Many virtual communities have terms of service which outline rules for the community. The terms of service often indicate membership requirements, rules of interaction, and how to report issues and problems. In general, rude language is not allowed in any community. Members must be courteous to each other. If members ever have issues with other members, they have the ability to report them.
To build a learning community, you must first have enough people interested in a subject to make it worthwhile. There must also be an “expert” or someone who knows enough about the subject in order to be a facilitator or instructor for that subject. Together, there should be enough people to make the interactions more than a conversation between two or three people. A learning community could provide a common place for individuals to go as a resource for information, communication with “experts” on a topic, or even to share ideas and get potential insight from other community members. This type of forum often leads to sharing of information and groups learning best practices or practical ways of accomplishing shared goals. A virtual learning community could be related to the learning process in many ways including sharing ideas, providing information to those who are less knowledgeable, developing common practices in the best interest of all involved.
There are many factors that influence the success or failure of an online learning community. Knowledge of the community would be a primary factor of whether or not a learning community is successful. Individuals who would be interested in an online learning community would need to know that it existed and how to access the learning community initially. Advertising is always a possible way to insure people know about a specific community or service. However, depending on the goals of the community and funding options, this may or may not be possible. Second, level of interest is important as well. Community members need to be interested and involved in the topic at hand. Without involvement of the members, the community is likely to have decreased traffic and eventually lack of activity in relation to the subject matter. This will ultimately lead to non-usage or failure of the community. We see this in the example of MediaMOO. (Bruckman & Jenson, 2002)
Some of the practical considerations for the context when designing and building a virtual learning community include financial issues, potential community members, how to reach the intended audiences, security issues, and maintenance of the community. Financial issues could range from cost of building/start up of the community, or whether or not a membership fee will be required, to website maintenance and administration fees. Security issues of a virtual community would depend on content and whether or not the community requires password access to requiring firewalls and other secure internet features to provide a safe environment for the learning community. Maintenance and oversight of the community will be required to some extent. At the very least, a webmaster to build and accommodate changes of the virtual community as determined by the members of the community would be necessary. Depending on the group, moderators to monitor discussion boards or facilitate interactions may be needed to get started.

References
Bruckman, A., & Jenson, C. (2002). The mystery of the death of mediamoo seven years of evolution of an online community. In K. A. Renninger & W. Shumar (Eds.), Building Virtual Communities (pp. 21-33). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Riel, M., & Polin, L. (2004). Online Learning communities Common ground and critical differences in designing technical environments. In S. A. Barab, R. Kling, & J. H. Gray (Eds.), Designing for virtual communities in the service of learning (pp. 16-50). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

CSCL ch 2,3 and 7,8

This weeks readings were interesting. One issue they talked about was taking a computer supported intentional learning environment and first presenting it to western learners. Then they took the same program to Japan. The study showed that there were some parts of the program that had to be modified. My first thought was that this is only logical. Western culture and Japanese culture are alot different. There would have to be modification in several different areas. One in how the questions were asked or sentence structure. Plus expectations are different. Are they more literal learners or are they more abstract learners. All these issues have to be considered not only between east and west cultures. Sometimes you see this difference from northern and southern states or the east and west of the US.

Ch 3 Knowledge forum. The study was to take university students and vocational students and their learning. Both groups were enthusiastic with the program. Each group had a little different needs from the online community though. The vocational students needed a little more coaching than the university students. Yes the instructors need to monitor and occasionally steer the group. The students did like the collaboration they received in the forum. They felt like this can not be done as effectively in a classroom setting. In a classroom setting, collaboration is not encouraged like it is in an online setting. Collaboration has been a major learning tool for online learning. This is seen with ALL of my online classes that I have taken in my graduate learning. Not only collaboration but in sharing personal experiences when appropriate.

Ch 7 Lave and Wenger discuss legitimate peripheral participation. They believe learning online is first done peripherally. The learner's first experience is very limited. They are more likely to sit back and observe in the beginning. Gradually they will start doing more in the community and eventually gain full membership. I feel that this can be seen in any community online or not. Most people are a little timid and will sit back and observe the rules (spoken and unspoken) of the community before they jump in. (they put their toe in the water to test it out first) Once they feel more familiar with the community, then they will do more and more in the community until they are full members.

Ch 8. Views on learning. The first view is that learning is an individual process that can be encouraged or discouraged depending on the interaction of others. Another way to put this is positive or negative reinforcement. The second view is that individual learning and social interactions are different aspects of learning. Vygotsky believes there are two steps in acquiring new knowledge or a new ability. 1 is that learning emerges as it is distributed among others. (see one, do one, teach one) 2. learning is mastered by individuals. I feel that learning is a combination of all the above. Learning is an individual process. If someone really doesn't want to learn something, they won't. The see one, do one, teach one. When you have to teach something, you learn it inside and out. That also implies mastering the subject.

de Jong, F.P.C.M., Veldhuis-Diermanse, E., & Lutgens, G. (2001). Computer-supported collaborataive learning in uniersity and vocational education. In T. Koschmann, R. Hall, & N. Miyake (Eds.), CSCL2: Carrying Forward the Conversation (pp. 111-127). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc

Kaptelinin, V. & Cole, M. (2001). Individual and collective activities in educational computer game playing. In T. Koschmann, R. Hall & N. Miyake (Eds.) CSCL2: Carrying Forward the Conversation (pp. 297-346). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc

Oshima, J., & Oshima, R. (2001). Cooridination of asynchronous and synchronous communication: differences in qualities of knowledge advancement discourse between experts and novices. In T. Koschmann, R. Hall, & N. Miyake (Eds.), CSCL2: Carrying Forward the Conversation (pp. 55-109). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc

Suzuki, H., & Kato, H. (2001). Identity formation/transformation as a process of collaborataive learning of programming using algoarena. In T. Koschmann, R. Hall, and N. Miyake (Eds.) CSCL2: Carrying Forward the Conversation (pp. 275-296). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc

TappedIN

The website I observed was Tappedin. There is a definition on the opening page of who are in the community. There is a link for those who are not familiar with this online community. There are also links to past newsletters, events calendar and a help page as well as a member or guest login. As I logged in, I found it interesting that it logs your IP address and you have to verify you are over the age of 18. You also have the option to enable live chat.
Once you are granted access, it takes you to the reception desk. It tells you the hours the help desk staff is there and if you have any questions, this is the place to ask them. This is very helpful when you are going into an area you are unfamiliar with. You can search “In this building”, “on this floor”, disussions, etc. I looked “in the building”. This area has different areas of learning broken down. For example, there are discussions for different subjects like art, language, math, science as well as subjects taught in technology and vocational schools. You can go into one of these areas and see personal members offices. There is also a section listed as featured passageways. These are areas of interest that members can go into to see references or look at discussion links.
This is an example of a knowledge-based learning community. The members are teachers/instructors or those studying to be a teacher/instructor. The teachers have the opportunity to communicate with other teachers. It is not limited to one subject. They can communicate with all teachers. The area I went into was titled “Teacher in training”. This area has a link section that are recommended for those interested in reading/learning more. There is also an introduction area where you can post a little bit about yourself. There is an administrator over this discussion board. She posts a brief welcome to those that post here. Some of the posts go back to 2007. There is not a lot of action in this particular discussion board. However, the goal is to introduce yourself and tell a little bit about where you want to study.
The structure of the community is that there is an “owner”. You are able to click on the owners name and you are able to see their profile. It states where they are from, what their experience is from and how long they have been a member of Tappedin. It also lists the other groups they are owners or members of. People can send messages directly to the owner or post to the discussion board. At the bottom of the screen you can see if there are any other members on line. You then have the opportunity to chat with who ever is in the “room”.
The identity of the group depends on which group you are entered in. When you look at the members in the room with you, you can see behind their name what role they play in the group. For instance, in the room I am in, there is one person that is working in the reception desk that is present as well as one member that has an office in TappedIn. Since I have been signed on as a quest, I have noticed no activity at all in a room.
From what I have been able to ascertain, the members of TappedIn have been members for several years. They are also active in more than one group. They are also from several different countries. The learning is done by several different ways, by online chatting, posting on discussion boards and also responding to others posts on the discussion boards. The owner of the discussion board responds to all those that post a comment. She answers questions as well as asks questions. This allows for dialog between the two and allows others to ask their own questions. The most helpful thing I have noticed is the links that are listed. These can be helpful resources in the forms of websites or documents.
I don’t know if I just got on at the wrong time. For me, I didn’t get a lot out of this group. However, I didn’t have anyone else on where I was looking. I looked in several different areas but only wrote about one. I would have thought that since this was an international community that there would be more activity around the clock. One suggestion I could make is when you sign on as a guest, they should have the next information on what to expect as far as how to get information instead of leaving it for someone to go into the FAQ’s. When I did go into the FAQ’s, is talks about those that are already members and their problems of forgetting their log in name and password. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information on how to use the site effectively.

Week 3 Readings ch 5,7, 8 and 11, 12

I am going to wrap all of these chapters up in one big discussion instead of breaking each down and having several long discussions. I feel that these chapters all go together as far as the ideas that came to my mind.
I feel that to be a professional, it would be nice to have the time and resources at work to be able to connect with other professionals and ask questions and have informational sharing. In the real world(nursing), we do not have that luxury. We also don't have the equipment. We hardly have enough equipment(computers) to do our required work. We do most of the learning on our own time on our own equipment. Like I have said in other posts, I would hope that, as professionals, we are honest with one another. We are telling the truth and stating facts. It is nice when we are presented with information that makes us think. In nursing, at least for me, every patient is a puzzle. No two symptoms are exactly the same so no two treatments are exactly the same. It keeps the mind stimulated. This is what a professional site should be able to do as well as answer any questions you have.
In reqard to online learning, I like how the WISE program allows students the opportunity to work on a problem and when they get stuck, they can ask for hints. This allows students to use critical thinking skills to try to work out the issue on their own. If they get stuck, instead of getting frustrated, they can use the hints.
In online learning, since there is such a diverse group, or can be, we can all learn from each other. Collaboration is essential. Why should we reinvent the wheel when someone out there has already tried everything we have. We need to gain knowledge from those out there who have been doing this longer than we have. In health care, sometimes you never see certain diseases or conditions. Then, one day you have a patient come in with something you have read about in nursing school 15 years ago. I would turn to someone who deals with the disease on more frequently and knows the ins and outs. You don't learn everything from books. Experience is a great teacher and if you can learn from another, why not?
I know that online community involvement comes and goes as far as members are concerned. However, it is there when you need it. There are also others on there that if they know something about your question, or someone who can answer your question, they can get in touch with them. Then they can get your answer. Sometimes it's not what you know but who you know. Sometimes that will get you far. Sometimes you just need to be directed to the right people to gain the best information.
Again, I tried to condense all the information because I felt like I rattled on too much last week.