It's a Mash Up: Online Learning meets Classroom Teaching

Lesson: PgCert Teacher Training: Online Assessment and Evaluation – Wednesday 30th Jan – Group 1

Background

This was the first group of three, to be taught on this lesson. I was drafted in to help deliver this classroom based 90 minute session on online assessment and evaluation with colleague Heather Conboy. It was an interesting and rewarding experience. Rewarding in that I did feel that the session went well, which was by and large confirmed in feedback from the 10 strong group of PgCert group of tutors.

Leading up to the class there was a little apprehension. Reasons for this: I) I was dual presenting, so delivering and writing a lesson plan for two was a new experience 2) The subject matter I had not delivered a lesson on before and the style of lesson was different in that it was a one-off session for me although for the students it did feed into an ongoing series of lessons. Heather and I agreed a lesson plan, which I am acutely aware of is a great anchor to support you through a lesson. The lesson plan gave us confidence that we had a clear strategy (to deviate from :-), I’ll explain more later).

Preparation

Delivering this lesson emphasised the fact that preparation and a flexible approach are vital to try and make any lesson achieve the intended learning outcomes, ensure the lesson goes smoothly and that the students benefit from the lesson. So in addition to the lesson plan, a series of examples to demonstrate were identified by myself and Heather, as well as additional resources that we could direct the students towards. The approach in actual fact is very similar to the recent online synchronous lessons that I have run which is characterised by a very detailed lesson plan, (which has some flexibility built in for the teacher to deliver in their own style), emphasis on participant activity, discussions and demonstrations. All of which are an important part of teaching in both arenas.

Social and Active Learning

From my reading and practical experience I am ware of the benefits of social and active learning and therefore hoped to take advantage of this by using a wiki in class to promote discussion in small groups, thus enhancing the enjoyment of the session(by adding a social element to the learning), laying the foundations to learn from each other and then using the attributes of the wiki to capture and store the thoughts of the small groups as a record for themselves to return to and reflect on and for myself and heather to also be able to reflect on the participants activities and offer constructive written feedback at an appropriate time outside of the class.

Feedback from the participants seemed to vindicate this approach as when asked about the best part of the session many replied with comments relating to this active and social approach saying for example “using the wiki”, “playing with the computer”, “Community as a group”, “practical hands-on”. Other participants commented that the best parts were general discussion and demonstrations. So the feedback was good to me in that the variety of strategies helped to cater for the needs and enjoyment of a broad spectrum of the audience.

Adapting and being flexible

The initial part of the class was planned around the fact that the participants were to have completed a number of pre session tasks, one of which was identifying any online assessments that they currently used in their practice. It was quickly apparent that the participants had no or minimal experience in using online assessment and the initial task planned for; a small group wiki based task was not going to happen. Recognising this fact, it was obvious that the session needed moving along to give the students an appreciation of what opportunities there were to use online assessment and evaluation in their work, so we preceded to demonstrating examples of various technologies to show what could be achieved. Heather led this part of the lesson and I contributed to the discussion as and when appropriate. In retrospect the time initially allocated to demonstration and discussion was probably too short and that for future lessons and bearing in mind the time constraints, a brief discussion to garner the use of online assessments amongst the participants maybe sufficient, rather than a hands on task. However I am aware that there may be a new batch of tutors with different levels of experience and it may be that a wiki based task early on might be the way to go. So being flexible and prepared to adapt I would say is quite a necessary attitude/ skill to possess.

Participant Perceptions

I believe we actually achieved a lot in the lesson. This group of students came with little knowledge and I sensed a little reluctance to be bothered with online assessment and evaluation. There was an obvious lack of knowledge about what is possible and a questioning of whether there was any value in online assessment in comparison with the traditional ways of doing things. After discussions and demonstrations, myself and heather were able to highlight advantages and possibilities of how online assessment could be useful and emphasised the point that there is not a set prescribed method for using the tools mentioned, but once they have an appreciation of what the tools can do they may recognize opportunities for using them. Also it was pointed out that online assessments don’t necessarily need to replace current practices but are there to aid and assist current learning and assessment strategies.

Off the back of the demonstrations and the discussions, students engaged in a small group wiki based task. With one of the group acting as a scribe they devised an online assessment and recorded this on a wiki page. This further shifted perceptions as to the potential uses of online tools for formative, summative or diagnostic assessment. You could sense that by the end of the lesson with increased knowledge, that participants were overall feeling more favourable towards the use of online assessment and this was reflected in participant feedback where seven of the students indicated that would probably or very probably change some aspect of their practice as a result of the workshop, one would change a little, one was unlikely due to work constraints and the other did not respond.

Conclusions

I think a predominantly social and active learning approach is correct in both online and face to face teaching and learning. The use of the wiki as a tool in the classroom is a good medium to pull together small group discussions, where participants can be benefit from face to face interaction and thereafter ongoing discussion, debate, collaboration and decision making online and out of class if necessary and desirable.

The example demonstrations were most definitely useful in laying the foundations of knowledge to comprehend the possibilities and engage in subsequent discussions, where participants benefited not only from teacher input, but also from fellow participants.

This session was very much an introductory and awareness raising session and with links provided participants have some initial signposts from where to gather deeper knowledge. With a more knowledgeable group, discussions may focus on the success or failure of online assessment approaches and this will emphasise the need to be flexible and adaptable in this type of session.

Wiki's For Professional Development

It's been a long time. that would appear to be the way it goes when other important elements of study are at the forefront of one's mind:

A link to a blog article i wrote as part of the DMU pathfinder research project i am involvede with:
http://dmupathfinder.blogspot.com/2007/09/betty-collis-seminar-wikis-flavour-of.html

Wiki’s – The Good, The Bad and the Lovely

Well let’s get the lovely bit out of the way. The lovely bit is really the simplicity. With the predefined setup and limited set of commands/ tags it takes a lot of the time wasted over cognitive decisions of design and fretting over technical competence out of the equation, leaving the wiki page author to concentrate on the business in hand, which is the writing.

I’ll address the Good of wiki’s by focusing on the strengths of a wiki. When asked wiki users could come back with many different responses to the question “what are the strengths of a wiki?” I believe the strengths listed below will encapsulate the many responses to this question.

The first three strengths are arguably subjective and could be open to an alternative view. However it is generally accepted through my reading and experience that the following three characteristics of a wiki are indeed it’s strengths in promoting and encouraging group collaboration:

1. Simple technology – only need internet access and a web browser.
2. Simple and easy to use (creating and editing pages, linking to pages and websites, inserting images and documents)
3. Easy to learn how to use

In addition, the following identified strengths are less open to argument, as they are a matter of fact.
4. Easy to rollback and compare with earlier versions (mistakes can be rectified, malicious vandalism can be deleted)
5. All changes are logged and therefore traceable.
6. All members can act as moderators and guardians of the wiki.

So we come to the bad. Bad is really to strong a word for what I want to convey which is that the success or failure of a wiki for all it’s inherent strengths will be determined by how the wiki is used, regulated and valued by it’s users. It is encumbert on the wiki organizers primarily and the wiki participants subsequently to create and maintain a flourishing wiki that achieves it’s purpose.

In order to achieve this wiki organizers need to draw on best research and practice of co-operative/group/ collaborative learning and apply this to wiki teaching and learning activities to gain best results.

How can they do this? Well hopefully I’ll come up with a few ideas in subsequent blog.

I’d rather have a wiki than a Blackboard VLE.

If I had a hammer, er no wrong tape responsibility for delivering a distance learning MA or BA Programme I’d rather have a wiki than a blackboard VLE to administer the programme and to co-ordinate learning activities. For argument’s sake I am going to assume the use of the company wikispaces as my wiki space provider as I am familiar with their service. They will host for many different organisations and all are (can be) connected via wikispaces. (alternatives could include hosting your own in house wiki using ‘Mediawiki’)

• Starting point for this reasoning is that a very low technical competence is by users is required to use a wiki. This is massively important for staff uptake and enthusiasm in engaging in the promotion of e-learning and to cater for the wide diversity of students that will participate on the programme.
• Technically simple to setup and simple to access. As it is primarily text based web pages all users need is internet access and a dial up connection will be adequate in many cases.
• Speed and Fluidity. If a student was enrolled on perhaps 8 Modules BANG, they could flick from one module to another just like THAT.
• Quick Connections/ Communications. A Message box is available BANG just like THAT to pick up messages related to any other 8 Modules from all students and all tutors involved in the programme and to any external members of the whole wikispaces community. (This could include students and staff on partner programmes in other universities).
• If any pages on a wiki are changed for example student announcements, then each students can be notified of a change immediately to their email BANG just like THAT. (probably be able to send a message to a mobile phone as well soon).
• Due to the global nature of the wikispaces community many useful contacts with external friends and colleagues in the same field can be made and then easily continued after university life.
• The way a wiki is setup and they way the page is structured it makes it very easy to back up all pages in HTML or in original wiki text, which also means a fair amount of future proofing can take place as the text will be saved in a format that is XML compliant and will therefore be easily re purposed in the future for perhaps delivering to mobile phones or PDA’s.
• Being fluent in wiki skills will be a good life skill to have both for Staff and Students.

This is a pro wiki article. To Blackboard VLE and other VLE's I say TAKE THAT can you compete, ‘Respondez vous sil vous’ plait with counter arguments.

HE Institutional Strategies for E-learning

Well just as higher education embraces the notion of e-learning and start investing heavily financially, strategically and emotionally in commercially driven e-learning VLE’s such as Blackboard along comes those damn pesky web 2.0 technologies. After all the staff and student training that has gone into learning how to make that cumbersome beast (my view) Blackboard be a useful catalyst to promote and develop a sustainable and consistent e-learning strategy it is hard to contemplate that their may be a better way forward other than via Blackboard or similar VLE’s.

Now I am not saying exactly for sure what they way forward is, as I am not privy to the costs involved or the administrative, security and control issues, that said a strategy involving web 2.0 technologies should be piloted and I feel eventually adopted if not totally, but in a dual approach over the next few years because of the simple benefits that web 2.0 technologies can offer both students, but just as importantly to staff.

When one thinks of e-learning, the first thought quite naturally is of learning and probably most people conjure up an image of a wed page or maybe an interactive multimedia application. The crucial thing is from an institutional point of view is that apart from the learning, other very important issues are
• Communication between academic staff-students, administrative staff-students and students to student communication.
• Staff training and development
• Staff enthusiasm for the e-learning technology.

In light of the three points highlighted above it is worth considering what web 2.0 technologies can offer. I shall constrain myself to the use of just one web 2.0 technology which is worth exploring as a significant complimentary or maybe alternative approach to the Blackboard VLE approach and that is a wiki.

For staff they are relatively easy to use and learn how to use, they are for group collaboration either via editable web pages or discussion boards. All group members can send messages to each other within the wiki. All group members can choose to be notified of any changes to pages or replies to discussion board posts straight to their email accounts. Pages can be tagged for easy reference, wiki sites can be very easily backed up in html or wiki text format.

Wiki’s can be used for learning activities, project management, project collaboration or as a course management tool. Wiki’s can allow staff to collaborate on projects and developing module material together. The technology is and it has the potential to be useful, it will be up to individuals and groups how they make best use of it.

To give a comparison example, it would be far easier and save so much time in posting an announcement and associated document in a wiki, rather than in the equivalent announcement function in blackboard, especially if the author has to re-edit the announcement or change the associated document.

Another important consideration is that web 2.0 technologies such as wiki’s and blog’s are now becoming commonplace out there in every day life. They are important life skills that students and staff should develop as these transferable skills will be of great benefit to them personally and to future organizations that they work for.

Although there are many web 2.o services freely available on the internet, possible concerns from an institutional point of view may be security and privacy and delivery of service. As an example if we take wiki services on the web these can be made private and secure, as well as having minimal downtime. If institutions are not satisfied with the offerings of companies that do offer wiki servers they can always use ‘MediaWiki’ software which is wiki server software and can be controlled by the institution on their own servers.

To conclude I believe that over the next year or two HE institutions should most definitely design a web 2.0 delivery strategy and adopt and promote it in parallel with any existing Blackboard VLE setup so that they are in position to take the correct fork in the road if required. Personally with a well thought out implementation and staff training plan I believe that the uptake of web 2.0 technologies will spread quicker than an Aussie bush fire and it might have to be if higher education institutions do not want to lose competitive advantage.

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Hey Wiki! Your so fine you blow my mind. Hey Wiki

After setting up a very basic wiki, I have just started to take a look at the use of wiki's in education. My findings are summarized below and are based on reading the following 4 web documents and listening to a skypecast (link below).

1. Naomi Augar, Ruth Raitman and Wanlei (Nov 2004) Zhou “Teaching and learning online with wikis” http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/augar.html

2 Joe Grohens and Norma Scagnoli (Spring 2006) . “Uses of Wikis in Teaching”

http://www.cites.uiuc.edu/edtech/teaching_showcase/brown_bag/archive/spring06/grohens_scagnoli.html

3. Chien-min Wang Turner, D. (April 2004) “Extending the wiki paradigm for use in the classroom” http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1286462

4. Steve Hargadon blogspot (Aug 2006)
“Exploring Wikis in Education with Vicki Davis and Adam Frey”
http://stevehargadon.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_stevehargadon_archive.html including recording of “The uses of wiki’s in education” skypecast
http://educationbridges.net/k12opensource/wp-content/uploads/wikis.mp3

After reading educators feedback on these various websites, seeing how wiki's are currently being employed on the web and listening to an interesting skypecast led by Steve Haregedon it does seem that a wiki in education does indeed have the capability to metaphorically blow your mind. It would appear to be a very powerful tool to engage the students and produce good quality, useful content much more quickly than a student working alone.

Through my reading and skypecast listening I know have a basic understanding of the point of a wiki. With a little more knowledge about the features, functionality and role of wiki’s in education I intend to setup new wikis and collaborate on existing wiki’s to further improve my understanding of the educational uses of a wiki.

Differences between Wikis and Blogs
Before I summarize my findings I’d like to pick up on a couple of interesting points made by Vicki Davis (2006) on the difference between wiki’s and blogs. According to Vicki she explains that the way she looks at it:

1. A wiki is more concerned with facts and a blog is more about opinions and
2. It's easier to contribute to a wiki rather than a blog.

Although I don’t think this will or can be strictly applied, these are two interesting points which may be a nice neat starting point in distinguishing between the uses of the two types of technology.

The Wiki
A wiki is basically a very simple and easy to edit web page. It is designed for group collaboration. Users can either read the content of or add content to a wiki document page.

Vicki Davies (2006) a teacher at Westwood Schools in America and a strong advocator of wikis predicts that wiki’s will become the hub of education in the future. Vicky sees wiki’s as the toolbelt that holds all her technology learning tools together, the central focus of what she teaches. Joe Grohens (2006) supports this view in that he uses wikis as a complete course management system.

Augar, Raitman and Zhou (2004) describe wikis has having 2 different writing modes, or styles of usage:

1. Document mode, where writers create collaborative documents written in the third person and
2. Thread mode, where contributors carry out discussions in the wiki environment by posting signed messages. Others respond leaving the original message in tact and eventually a group of threaded messages evolve.

Pages of wiki can also be described as having two states a ‘read’ state and an ‘edit’ state. To edit a page users click an edit button. Editing a page on most wiki websites is made easy by providers who provide editing toolbars. If no editing toolbar is available then users need to understand wiki language syntax to edit a page (although not too difficult, the edit toolbar makes it a lot simpler for users)


Wiki Features and Functions
The main features and functions that you will find in a wiki include:

1. Authentication – By participants logging into a wiki any addition’s to content can be authenticated providing accountability in terms of who said what and when. [with authentication participants may also have use of a signature tool to move into edit mode automatically inserts the participants wiki username. The signature tool is often hyperlinked to a personal user page which helps students to build an online identity in the wiki environment.
2. Backup and Retrieval of earlier wiki entries.
3. Tracking – Usually in the form of a recent changes page where student participation can be assessed.
4. Notifications by email of any recent updates so that users can check on any new material that is of interest to them and change information if incorrect.
5. Uploading of images and other media

Strengths of Wikis
The basic strengths of a wiki are:

1. Simple and easy to use
2. Easy to learn how to use.
3. Excellent for collaboration and collaboration over time
4. Easy to share.
5. Simple technology – only need internet access and a web browser.
6. Ability to compare two different versions of a wiki

Student Benefits
For students the benefits of a wiki include:

1. It is a student centered environment, students can be involved in the structure and the content.
2. Everyone in a class can access the same version of the work.
3. Previous versions of the work can be recovered
4. Easy to correct mistakes
5. Because it is simple and easy to use, barriers to contributing are removed.
6. Accessible from any computer allowing students to work on assignments at any time.
7. Group work skills can be improved.
8. Steady incremental improvement in both the organization and the content of a document.
9. Social interaction is enhanced. A sense of community can be built up.
10. Information easily disseminated.
11. Information easily stored.
12. Collaborative production of documents. This can build a body of knowledge wider and quicker than an individual. The social and technological interaction can enhance learning. Steve Haragedon (2006) believes that “collaborative efforts are generally better than individual”.

Teacher Benefits
For teachers benefits include:

1. Easy place to post assignment instructions.
2. Easy place organize course material.
3. Wiki’s can be password protected
4. Better than discussion boards, easier to administer according to Joe Grohens
5. Easy for students to submit there work
6. Keeps a log of revisions of student work

Educational Uses
The educational uses of a wiki will be wide and varied some uses that have come to light during my reading include:

1. Summary of Lessons
2. Collaboration of notes i.e. sets of documents that reflect shared knowledge.
3. Dissemination of important information
4. Build up core content and Topic base e.g. creating a book
5. Pre Class planning e.g. Ask students ahead of time what they want to study and shape the content around that.
6. Students can supply feedback to each other
7. frequent revisions and drafts due to the inherent simplicity of wiki technology.
8. Exchange of ideas.
9. Facilitates group interaction. E.g see Auger, Raitman and Zhou’s example idea of an introductory icebreaker.
10. Individual Assessment projects?

Usage Guidelines
An important aspect not to be overlooked is a clear set of usage guidelines, Augar, Raitman and Zhou (2004) advise from their study that these should be short, simple and written in a positive tone. There guidelines “encouraged users to be considerate of others and be active and friendly in their wiki posts”.

Issues
Despite all the positive sounding noises, Scagnoli points out a number of challenges and issues that need addressing. These include plagiarism/ copyright issues, monitoring can be difficult and problems of outside editors should a public wiki site be used.

Conclusion
Hopefully this blog although not capturing everything relevant, touches upon the main aspects of a wiki from an educational point of view. My focus now will be to work and participate in wikis and to identify specific, practical exercises that enhance student learning.