Adobe Connect : Interaction and Collaboration

My initiation to interactive and collaborative live online learning was using the webex environment. My opinions of other synchronous collaboration software is somewhat clouded by what i perceive to have been an excellent schooling in an excellent webex environment. Three significant influences were the use of an individualized pointer tool for each participant that could be moved easily around the screen to indicate contributions to the white board, the use of whiteboard tools without giving presenter control to the participant and the use of phone dial in as opposed to using VOIP for audio connection to the host and other participants.

This blog discusses some of the issues of implementing a synchronous class in Adobe Connect. First of all please note as a great source of reference and help the excellent Adobe Connect Blog.



In anaylysing Adobe connect i make the following observations

1. For participants to access the class a host has to open the class. This is fine as the class can be opened early, up to 12 hours in advance to allow participants to logon early to check initial audio connections. Adobe Connect seems easier in this respect to logon which is a good thing as we need to keep the technology barriers to a minimum.

2. Using Flash and the vector based system 'pods' that contain whiteboard, chat and other tools automatically adjust to the size of the participants computers, which again is good. However if you woork on high resolution screens like i do, it is still better to reduce the size down to 1028x768.

3. The Interface is easy to organize and has a good feel to it.

4. It is easy to add content and Url's, which are stored on the adobe server for easy retrieval next time around.

5. I am working on the basis of a VOIP connection as this is the least troublesome for students, both technically and from possible additional costs that may be incuurred. My experience is that a phone dial up is preferable for quality and allowing a large number of users to participate at once. I hope i can overcome this issue and be proved wrong during my 10-12 strong synchronous classes.

Useful Links: Adobe Connect Tips




POINTS to Note
1. After logging on participants need to be given enhanced rights to use the camera and Voice pod and the 'Share' pods which will allow them whiteboard tools to annotate powerpoint slides which are the backbone of the class. The host needs to ensure that the camera is off and that multiple speakers are allowed to speak. Note that webcams are not used as part of the course. They are not really necessary and will take up bandwidth which could effect the quality of audio that is broadcast.

2. When working with participants off campus best to use a connection speed at DSL level and advise students to set their own connection to their own level (modem or broadband dsl). The connection status of each participant can be checked in the attendance list options. in the top right hand corner the strength of connection is indicated with either green(best), orange (ok) or red (not good). Similarly the same colour indication is used when a participant speaks in the camera and voice pod. greyed out when not speaking, green when good connection and speaking.

3. Once given the rights to speak participants have the choice of pressing the 'talk' button down and holding or use hands free to keep it permanently available to speak. Keeping it hands free is my preferred option, but after a practice session this morning there may still be a possible problem with bandwidth availability as my connection was distinctly patchy. I will try again and change a few settings, but it may be that in order to best proceed we'll have to take the approach of holding the'talk' button down.

4.Another irritating issue is that due to all participants acting as a presenter, if one was to use the erase (clear) whiteboard objects tool, then all screen objects are lost and not just the individuals contribution. The way around this for individuals to delete their own whiteboard contributions is to select for example a text object by using the selector tool and drag it slightly to reveal the border resize handles and then press the delete key on the keyboard. This seems ok, but is not totally natural and sometimes it does not seem to work on some text objects that are drawn. If it does not work then using the pointer tool to surround the object with a large invisible rectangle will select the object, (providing the complete area of the text object is covered) and then again use the delete key on the keyboard.

5. One advantage is that once the selection tool is mastered text objects can be easily moved around the screen. Drawn objects that use a pencil for example work slightly differently and the only way to select a whole drawing that is the result of a few pencil lines is to use the pointer tool to draw an invisible rectangle around it as in the second method described previously.

6. Recordings can be made, but unless things have changed recently they can only be saved and accessed on the adobe server. No downloads to your own computer to save or distribute for offline viewing is available.


To achieve the fluid interaction and collaboration i want, so that the only thing to worry about is the learning and not awkward technology requires a lot of research and experience in using the various synchronous classroom options. Consideration of the points above is essential for institutions interested in solutions that are aimed at improving learning. straightforward connections with low interactions will be easy to achieve, but institutions need to look deeper than that.

Connect is offering some ease of access plus points. I will work with it in the coming month to see if i can get it to act in a matter befitting a group of people that just want to concentrate on the learning.

Twitter yeah not!

As i posted my last blog on Twitter, having still not used it and not knowing that much about it. I decided to take jennifer Jones RSS blog feed and add it to my pageflakes page. The feed dropped straight on top of my translitercay RSS feed and guess what the first article of the transliteracy feed was on the use of twitter for intimacy and empathy.

Apps for intimacy and empathy (PART)

This connection has obviously given me a heads up and further pushed 'Twitter' to the forefront of my mind. So connections with people and resources are nourishing my mind, feeding the connections in my brain and as Stephen Downes has highlighted in his own blog articles - The more a connection is used and strengthened there is a corresponding strengthening of the neural pathways in the brain to ensure that the connections stay strong.

In this connective world of web 2.0, where i now inhabit, i know not yet, my location, i don't know where i am going and unlike the real world, there are is no finite physical map. How best do i build my web2 Home to make best use of the possible connections that are available? Questions Questions Questions.

injenuity » Blog Archive » Twitter is Important

I have been looking more deeply into a number of web 2.0 technologies recently. What i conclude is this, if you are a teacher you should make a vow to yourself to try out a new web technology on a regular basis. It should be built into your weekly schedule - just make time to explore the many new technologies that can help to improve your teaching and the learning experience of your students.

I have only scrapped the surface of how web 2.0 can benefit myself as a teacher and subsequently my learners. It is blindly obvious to me that web 2.0 technologies are an essential part of a teachers toolkit if they wish to offer their students a varied and interesting educational experience. AND THE MAIN REASON IS CONNECTION. I'll say no more for now.

This particular blog was inspired by a technology called 'Twitter' which i have never used and have always previously dismissed as an irrelevant chitty chatty frivolous application. After reading the following blog post i realised i need to try things out before passing judgment. injenuity » Blog Archive » Twitter is Important

The Blog is written by Jenifer Jones, who is a member of the College2 online network (community)


I might in the end not value twitter as a major player in my web 2.0 toolkit, but i'll have more of an appreciation of it's potential and may then be able to find a use for it future solutions to learning or connecting with others.

An Exploration of Social Networking

This blog is primarily for the benefit of students who are preparing to participate in the forthcoming short Course - Web 2.0 for teaching and Learning: The basics - blogs, wikis and tagging



I guess that we can say the learning has begun.

First of all i believe it is true to say that web 2.0 technology is generally easy and relatively accessible for non-technical teachers to setup and administer. That said tenaciousness in sorting out problems is a good attribute, as is patience and preparing ahead of time.

Our short course will look at a few web 2.0 technologies. These are Blogs, wikis and tagging with the emphasis on social bookmarking. By enrolling you on the web 2.0 learning network i am attempting to use the web 2.0 technology that fosters and encourages 'social networking'.


Social Networking

The most obvious examples of Social Networking sites are 'facebook' and 'myspace' and both are quite obviously about socializing. In an educational situation and in our situation i want to use a social networking' site to support an online community of learners in what can be more accurately described as a 'learning network'. I can see a good argument for the ease with which a participant can float from social to learning interactions on facebook, and subgroups can be setup on facebook with the intention of acting as a group of learners.

The use of the Ning network on the face of it, (once technical difficulties are resolved) is a much better option. A clear distinct learning network (group) can be formed and then managed by the network creator. It is very easy to organize and administer for non-technical users. In my opinion one of the most important factors to foster and stimulate online community participation is the use of email notifications whenever activity (e.g. discussion board postings, announcements) occurs in the network. Ning networks include the web 2.0 learning network that i have created offer this facility.

Whilst Blackboard automatically offers an online community setup, the clunkiness of development (i.e 4 clicks when only 1 is sufficient), the lack of email notifications and not having a full set of features to cater for a smooth running community leads me to look for an external web 2.0 solution.

Another approach that could be taken is the use of google groups, which i have participated in. For aesthetic reasons i did not enjoy working in this environment. but simple and easy to setup and does notify by email of new postings.

Due to the difficulties encountered with ning, i have looked at a number of other social networking solutions - I looked at 'LinkedIn', which is a social network site for professionals which does not appear to add additional functionality for the purposes of our learning group. I have looked at Basecamp, which does have some potential, but is more of a project based setup, but could be customized for our purposes. I found also a competitor to ning networks called ' goingon', which from a presentation and functionality point of view, does not seem quite as good as a ning network. The final item i looked at was not so much a social networking site, but an individual course organizer. This was nuvvo and it seemed simple and easy to setup and could offer a solution to an online home for a group of learners to work together.

If you have any questions or comments about social networking you can comment here for now. I shall keep you up to date with course start dates and details of your first introductory online synchronous session. If we can persevere with ning for now - i think it will be the best option, keep me informed of how you are getting on.

cheers, Steve

Social Networking Tools, Education and Groupwork

What is one to do to harness the power of social networking tools for the benefit of your students and there education. Why bother harnessing social networking tools? Connecting to others in your network will offer unexpected nuggets of knowledge, understanding, avenues to explore and camaraderie. The emotional impact on learning can be enhanced for groups of students participating in a programme of study.

The only requirement of the individual is to contribute to the network. As someone pretty famous once said “Give and you shall receive.” There is a massive reward to be gained even if you did not receive, but personally my brief experience is that you will receive ‘nuggets’ galore. By giving to the learning network your thoughts, feelings and understandings you will crystallize and refine your own thoughts and gain deeper understandings and insights to your chosen field of study. This act of externalization has direct benefits for the individual.

Whilst blogs and wikis can be the focus of particular learning activities, it’s a social networking environment that fosters the emotional well being and incidental learning that can be so useful to the morale and learning of individual students.

Facebook and Ning

How can one go about setting up an appropriate social network? Facebook it seems to me has exploded in the last three months and is in pole position to quickly and easily setup a group and as more and more students are using it, an easy transition from a social to a learning situation can be achieved. And although it feels good to use, my feelings are that it does not offer as good a level of organization of personal resources (photo’s, videos) as a ning based social network. In addition a ning based social network will offer email notification to all members of posts on forums, walls etc. This in my opinion is the glue that keeps the online social network abreast of community developments.

For educators ning networks are very easy to setup and student blogging can be self contained within the group. Access to external wikis is made easy from within the network.

‘Ruby on rails’ and Basecamp

For programmer types and organizations that want to take a good look at the customized services they could offer ‘ruby on rails’ an open framework for web development seems to offer a lot for creative organizations prepared to use it. An example application is basecamp. I need to look into this further.

Google Groups

A quick word on google groups – I have not enjoyed participating in them at the moment – but they do also notify by email notification of all new posts to discussions – so they are good for keeping a community abreast of developments. Easy to setup also.

Conclusion

Bottom line is that Ning offers a very easy way to set up a self contained learning network. Facebook will be central to a lot of students already. The choice is yours.

21st Century Collaborative Blog

I include the following flake from pageflakes. The 21st Century collaborative is an excellent blog for teachers interested in using web 2.0 technology. Pageflakes which is a personalised RSS feed aggregator allowed me to easily copy the HTML code for the flake and drop it into this blog



On the technicalities: The principle is the same as copying code from a youtube video and pasting this code into a blog, wiki or web page. Note that within the HTML code I can also easily adjust the width and height of the tag.

On the subject matter: The flake includes the 5 most recent articles of the 21st Century blog. The most recent article is about a new research tool. I have not read this article yet, but it sounds as though it could be very useful.

Many thanks to Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach the author of the 21st Century Collaborative for bringing to our attention many interesting developments in this web 2.0 era.

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

Connectivism - Legitimate Learning theory?

Bill Kerr in critiquing connectivism initially offered that a good learning theory should:

1. contribute to a theory/practice spiral of curriculum / learning reform,provide
2. a significant new perspective about how we see learning happening
3. represent historical alternatives accurately

his ongoing views can be read at http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/kerr

Bijdrage van Pløn Verhagen concluded that the ideas that George Siemens had about connectivism were more to do with a pedagogical approach rather than a theory of learning and as such suggests that his theories should be considered at the curriculum level, rather than at the instructional level, where learning theory should be considered.

In reading through George Siemens response to Bijdrage van Pløn Verhagen's critique i am trying to establish in my own mind the legitimacy of connectivism as a new learning theory. I don't expect to do that at this one sitting, but i shall make a start here.

Firstly to say with regard to Kerr's three points about good learning theory, i am not sure exactly what the first point alludes to, the third point i need to review to see what George Siemens has claimed for alternative learning theories and whether this concurs with others general view in the field. It is the second point that i think i can start an argument in favour of connectivism as a learning theory. NB: I do intend to research what others say that a good learning theory should contain to test the validity of this criteria.

Externalization
With regard point two above, connectivism it would seem does provide a significant new perspective about how we see learning happening.

George Siemens states "We are social beings. Through language, symbols, video, images, and other means, we seek to express our thoughts. Essentially, our need to derive and express meaning, gain and share knowledge, requires externalization."

George Siemens points out that connectivism sees the aim/function of learning to be social. In order to learn, to make meaning we need to socialize, interact and collaborate - to do this we need to externalize our thoughts, feelings and ideas. The process of externalizing will confirm understanding, provide feedback and thus consolidate and confirm the acquisition of knowledge that an individual has constructed.

He goes on to say that " Most existing theories of learning assume the opposite, stating that internalization is the key function of learning (cognitivism assumes we process information internally, constructivism asserts that we assign meaning internally�though the process of deriving meaning may be a function of a social network, i.e. the social dimension assists in learning, rather than the social dimension being the aim of learning)."

The following paragraph from George Siemens offers a view on how externlization fits into the connectivism learning theory

"While the external environment is critical, both Vygotsky and Wittgenstein mistook the environment for the space in which thought gains life, when in reality, the external environment is an additional space for knowledge, thought, expression, and reflection. As an extension of humanity, the external is in itself a space in which we exist�rather than an environment in which our words find existence. When objects and other external entities are viewed as extension of humanity, the notion of learning as a network formation process becomes more palatable. If knowledge exists in external structures of similar nature, as it exists physically within our minds (distributed, neurologically), then it is possible to ascribe knowledge and learning attributes to the distributed nature of networks formed between people."

George Siemens on understanding learning:

"We are growing in our understanding of learning. Research in neuroscience, theories of social-based learning, and developments in learning psychology create new understanding of the act, and process, of learning. As Downes (2006) stated,

Learning�occurs in communities, where the practice of learning is the participation in the community. A learning activity is, in essence, a conversation undertaken between the learner and other members of the community. This conversation, in the web 2.0 era, consists not only of words but of images, video, multimedia and more. This conversation forms a rich tapestry of resources, dynamic and interconnected, created not only by experts but by all members of the community, including learners. (Network Pedagogy section, � 6)"

Important other elements to review from George Siemens article are:

• Emerging Philosophy of Knowledge, Learning, and KnowingWhat
• What Makes Connectivismvism a Theory?

Connectivism - A learning theory for a digital age

Since coming across George Siemens I was immediately taken by his theory of connectivism. Being heavily focused on cognitive and constructive theories of learning as part of my study, I had a gut instinct that there is something in George's theory. I have since enjoyed many of George's articles and the clarity of argument that is contained within them. I find the principles of connectivism outlined on the connectivism wiki very useful in comprehending connectivism and situating learning strategies within this theory of learning. Some principles of connectivism are outlined here: About — Connectivism.

Critiques of the theory include:
Bill Kerr: http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2006/12/challenge-to-connectivism.html
http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/kerr

Bijdrage van Pløn Verhagen:
http://elearning.surf.nl/e-learning/english/3793


George Siemens response to Pløn Verhagen critique
http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism_self-amused.htm

Web 2.0 is Connectivity

"Web 2.0 is connectivity - through self expression and technological simplicity."

That was my response to a recent challenge to come up with a snappy one liner to explain what web 2.0 is. In terms of an explanation of web 2.0 it probably does not explain what it is and maybe it is not possible in a snappy one-liner. What it does do i believe is go to the heart and the ethos of web 2.0 technology.

Connectivity is a theme that is figuring strongly in relation to learning, lately for me. In a recent essay i drew attention to the socio-constructivist principles of Vygotsky (1962; 1978) and the view that the higher mental functioning in an individual would not be possible without social interaction (connections) and this social interaction is compatible with brain science theories such as Gee (1992) who suggests that “our capacity for learning can be explained in terms of the brain engaging in this sort of ongoing interaction with the world”.

This was reinforced by the very interesting Stephen Downes half hour blog where he talked about many things including associative learning and how "The result in the brain is strengthening or weakening of a set of neural connections, a relatively slow process." His point is that it's not about content transfer, it's about repeated exposure (preferably where it is highly salient, as this impacts the strength of the neural connection).

He goes on to say that transfer of information via a presentation would not result in knowledge transfer to audiences but it is the "repetition of instances required in order to create a weight of experience on a certain subject." , that will result of an individual acquiring their own knowledge.

The thrust of his blog is that people have to create their own knowledge from their own experiences and that the knowledge becomes stronger through the more connections an individual has exposure to related subject matter. It is the connecting of new experiences/ information which consolidates knowledge acquisition.

George Siemens draws together the ideas of Vygotsky, Gee, web 2.0 technology and the ideas of Downes in his theory of connectivism

What are the implications for teaching?
Teaching staff not conversant with the new technology may well ask, why should i bother with it. Well these web 2.0 technology tools can be used to promote interaction and collaboration amongst students in their own group as a starting point. Connections can be made if desired outside the group to other students and subject experts. Both staff and students can use the new technology to connect easily to resources and contacts to help organize and administer teaching and learning more efficiently. This will improve the opportunity to acquire knowledge.