Benefitting from Web 2.0 technologies

I've been really grateful for the reaction I've had to my blog post of last week. I wrote the post first and foremost as a means of getting a few things off my chest and trying to articulate in my own mind why I felt the way I did. I posted a link to the blog in the tutor group forum and I also 'tweeted' a link, which is something I very rarely do. I've had responses through comments directly on the blog, through the tutor group forum, and even as a result of Twitter.

I'm beginning to appreciate the value of building up networks through the use of Web 2.0 technologies. Most people on the H800 course are, I think, quite experienced and self-motivated learners. Generally, we will all be capable of learning independently and thus we are able to operate successfully as distance learners. However, most people it would seem do go through low patches and it is at these times that we miss the mutual support that would traditionally be provided through face-to-face contact with other learners.

I've been following a hashtag (#H800) on Twitter for the past couple of weeks, which means I see all the Twitter postings that include the #H800 hashtag. It has been interesting to see the range of 'tweets' from students from all tutor groups. Some provide links to interesting resources, some are moans, some are lighthearted comments, but all help to reveal a picture of a diverse group of people coping in different ways with a demanding course of study.

All this has helped me to realise that I'm not on my own, and that lots of others are struggling along with me. Indeed other students are probably having to cope with the demands of the course in more difficult circumstances than myself. I wouldn't say that my enthusiasm has yet been reinvigorated, but at least I now feel a little bit more confident that I can get through the remainder of the course.

Thank you very much to everyone who responded with comments.

Week 24 and really struggling

I think I've reached a bit of a low point with H800. Throughout most of the course since February I have managed to maintain a high level of enthusiasm, even when I've found the workload very high and had particularly busy periods at work. Over the past week or two however, I've noticed a significant drop in my enthusiasm and I'm finding it difficult to motivate myself to devote time to H800.

It's possibly something to do with being really busy at work, despite the fact that that it's the end of the academic year. Normally around the end of July things ease off considerably and one's mind inevitably starts to turn to holidays, reflecting on the year past and thinking about how things could be better next year. Whilst most of my colleagues at work definitely seem to be in wind-down mode, I've been involved in trying to recruit some new academic staff to replace colleagues retiring or moving on. It's been incredibly time-consuming and extremely frustrating, and despite making several offers we still have not filled all vacancies. Consequently, all the things I normally do at this time of year haven't been done, and I seem to have even less time than normal to devote to H800.

Added to this though, I have to admit to finding the content of course at the moment rather tedious. I have always endeavoured to approach the activities in H800 with an open mind, even when I haven't found the subject matter particularly interesting. Currently, try as I might, I just can't get interested in the material. I'm starting to think that the core content of H800 could really have been covered in a shorter period than 32 weeks, and that we are now just stretching the material out unneccessarily.

I'm also very conscious of the fact that I haven't yet done any work at all on TMA04, which is due to be submitted in a little over two weeks' time. Reluctantly therefore, I think I'm going to have to become a 'strategic learner' (Remember Richardson (2005) – Week 12) and focus on the assessed work. I will look at the course material, but I don't think I will be contributing much to the forum unless something really interesting comes up.

H800: Week 23 - A5: Reading Jones

Article: Jones (2004) Networks and learning: communities, practices and the metaphor of networks.

Just posted a rather tetchy forum post in response to this activity:

"I'm afraid that when I read papers like this I get rather cross. I'm sure such papers have their place amongst philosophers and intellectuals, but personally I am just trying to make sense of the issues surrounding technology-enhanced learning. To me, the paper does not identify very clear objectives, nor does it seem to reach any meaningful conclusions. It seems to be another example of "musings in the bath" in which the author gathers together the thoughts of various different authors but doesn't manage to present a coherent argument.

Apologies if that sounds rather cynical, but I'm struggling to get the motivation to complete the H800 activities. The course seems to have reached a point where we are thrashing around looking for another angle to examine the same issues from.

Perhaps things may become clearer with subsequent activities.

Jones' article really bugged me for some reason. As I was reading it I couldn't help thinking of Basil Fawlty's famous line about "stating the bleeding obvious"!

 

H800: Week 23 – A3: Thinking about my own learning

Prior to starting the H800 course it was over 10 years since I was involved in a formal course of education leading to an award. Obviously there have been countless learning experiences associated with my work through preparation for lectures, scholarly activity and research, plus numerous training courses, staff development and so on. Nevertheless, H800 has been the first structured course of education I have taken for some considerable time. Earlier courses I have taken at undergraduate and postgraduate levels were largely before the widespread use of learning technologies, and were quite traditional in their delivery and assessment.

I have made quite extensive use of technologies in my role as a lecturer, and I have generally been enthusiastic about them. However, the experience of being a learner on H800 has helped me to understand the role of technologies in the learning process. Whilst my views about the effectiveness and suitability of various technologies have changed, my overall perception of them remains largely positive.

As a learner I make extensive use of a VLE (the H800 course site), the tutor group forum, and my own personal blog. I also use the virtual classroom (Elluminate) but less regularly. I have gained a great deal from using these technologies and feel that my experience on the course (from a 'learning' perspective) has been as good, and probably better, than earlier face-to-face courses. In some respects I feel that the use of asynchronous learning technologies such as the tutor group forum has positively helped me to learn more from a discussion than the equivalent face-to-face discussion. I am by nature quite a shy person. In face-to-face discussion I am quite conscious of what I say and how it will be perceived by other people. Consequently, if I am not confident that what I have to say will be appropriate then I will probably not say it. The benefit with the tutor group forum is that you don't need to respond immediately. You can reflect on other contributions, check up on some basic facts, and then make your contribution when you are ready. I have found this process to be quite liberating, insofar as it has allowed me to make contributions with some confidence.

The example of a poor experience with a technology which springs to mind is the use of wikis. By coincidence, I have just left a comment on a fellow student's blog expressing my disappointment with the use of wikis on this course. I really don't think I have gained anything from the use of wikis. Here's the comment I made:

Personally I don't think the use of wikis on this course has been particularly conducive to collaborative learning. In most cases the wikis have consisted of little more than a table to which we have added various bits of information. There never seems to be any tangible outcomes from the wikis. Perhaps this is due to my own lack of enthusiasm, but I really struggle to see the point of them.

I think wikis might be more appropriate when small groups (of say 4 or 5) are required to produce something with a very clear set of objectives. Ideally the individuals within the group would each be tasked with dealing with a specific element of the exercise. They each upload their contributions to the wiki and allow fellow group members to edit them and supplement them. In this way the output of the group could be more than the sum of the individual contributions.

Unfortunately, the way we have used wikis doesn't seem (to me at least) to facilitate these synergies.

 

 

How the internet is changing the way we think

Wonderful piece picked up from John Naughton's blog (Memex 1.1). He cites George Dyson, a science historian, who uses the analogy of different approaches to boatbuilding by tribes in the North Pacific to consider how the internet has changed the way we gather information:

In the North Pacific ocean, there were two approaches to boatbuilding. The Aleuts (and their kayak-building relatives) lived on barren, treeless islands and built their vessels by piecing together skeletal frameworks from fragments of beach-combed wood. The Tlingit (and their dugout canoe-building relatives) built their vessels by selecting entire trees out of the rainforest and removing wood until there was nothing left but a canoe.

The Aleut and the Tlingit achieved similar results — maximum boat / minimum material — by opposite means. The flood of information unleashed by the Internet has produced a similar cultural split. We used to be kayak builders, collecting all available fragments of information to assemble the framework that kept us afloat. Now, we have to learn to become dugout-canoe builders, discarding unneccessary information to reveal the shape of knowledge hidden within.

I was a hardened kayak builder, trained to collect every available stick. I resent having to learn the new skills. But those who don't will be left paddling logs, not canoes.

H800: Weeks 21/22 – Activity 2 – VLEs & PLEs

Readings:


• Sclater (2008a) ‘Large-scale Open Source E-Learning Systems at The Open University UK’.

• Martin Weller’s blog posting about his own ‘PLE’.

• Sclater (2008b) ‘Web 2.0, Personal Learning Environments, and the Future of Learning Management Systems’.

These readings covered the issues which need to be considered by educational institutions and by academic staff in deciding on the most appropriate online learning support environment. The readings basically distinguish between virtual learning environments (VLEs) and personal learning environments (PLEs). It was apparent that there are clear advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. A VLE is usually an off-the-shelf product such as Blackboard which provides a fairly standard structure for online support to courses. Other models include Moodle which is an open source system that can be customised to an institution’s own requirements.

As I have indicated in earlier postings, I am a regular user of Blackboard at my University to support the delivery of my modules. I believe that students do value a well organised online facility which can be accessed at any time. I don’t believe that VLEs and PLEs should be seen as alternatives. There is no reason why they cannot complement each other. The VLE can provide the centralised framework for delivery, but there is nothing to stop individual students developing their own PLEs to suit their particular needs.

I am enthusiastic about the idea of PLEs, and the diagram below indicates how I have mapped out my own PLE. I decided to distinguish between the various resources which I use for work, for H800 and for my personal life, though obviously there are some overlaps between these. I have also added in a separate aspect for mobile learning on my smartphone, since I find myself increasingly using this when I am away from a PC.

H800: Weeks 21/22 – Activity 1d – The impact of technologies on organisations

Undoubtedly, Web 2.0 technologies have had a significant impact on me personally since I have been working in higher education. The most obvious example is the use of the Blackboard VLE. There is an expectation that every module at the University of Westminster is supported by a Blackboard site but, as I think I have mentioned on several previous occasions, the extent to which Blackboard is used by academic staff varies considerably.
I have a Blackboard site for each of the modules which I teach. For example, here's a screenshot from the Blackboard site for one of my final year undergraduate modules: Building Adaptation & Conservation.

The Blackboard site is first and foremost a repository for all the learning materials associated with the module. This includes the module handbook, copies of lecture presentations, handouts, links to relevant websites and so on. I also use it for the digital submission of coursework, and for maintaining assessment records. I think students value a well organised Blackboard site and appreciate having access to course materials online. However, I would be the first to acknowledge that, up to now, I have not exploited the full potential of Blackboard in supporting my modules, since I have not made sufficient use of collaborative tools such wikis or discussion boards, nor have I made full use of some of the other tools available.
The use of Blackboard has in some ways caused my workload to increase, because in addition to preparing for lectures each week I now have to ensure that weekly module materials are uploaded on to Blackboard. This can be a tedious process, since Blackboard is a bit 'clunky' to use and does not allow bulk uploading. Nevertheless, I think it is worth it for the benefits which students gain, and it does save me having to deal with queries from students who have missed lectures, because I can simply refer them to the Blackboard site.
From an institutional perspective, my perception is that the University did not have a very clear rationale or strategy when it introduced Blackboard. I strongly suspect that it was introduced mainly just to keep up with other universities. I don't believe that the University fully thought through the implications in terms of student expectations, server space requirements and a long term approach to dealing with Web 2.0. Now the University finds itself rather stuck with Blackboard, and is looking around at the options available.
There is certainly resistance amongst some staff to more widespread use of technologies. This is driven in part by the factors that Conole (2009) identifies, including lack of time, a focus on research and concerns over the diminution in the role of the teacher. Despite this, there are plenty of academic staff within the institution who are experimenting with new technologies and trying out innovative approaches in their teaching. This was evidenced at the end of last month when the University held its annual Learning & Teaching Symposium at which many of the presentations were concerned with the use of new technologies. In addition, the University has a good (if small) team of learning technologists who are very willing to help staff develop new initiatives. However I think it would be fair to say that, for the most part, the use of new technologies is being driven by the enthusiasm of individual members of staff rather than any coordinated strategy on the part of the University.
Reference: Conole, G. (2009) 'Stepping over the edge: the implications of new technologies for education' in Lee, M.J.W. and McLoughlin, C. (eds) Web 2.0-based E-learning: Applying Social Informatics for Tertiary Teaching, Hershey, PA, IGI Global.