If you are one of the growing numbers of instructors who are curious about facilitating online learning or are actually being mandated by your institution to do so, this blog post can give you a few pointers to get you on your way.

The first thing to know about online learning is how very important building a learning community is for the success of the course itself and for what every learner will take into the future.  Because of the isolation factor for both student and facilitator, it is essential in Week Zero to make these connections happen and build on them throughout the entire learning course.

How to do this?

The first step is for you, as the facilitator to write a bio about yourself.  Your students will be much interested in you as the person rather than you as the academic, so concentrate on a photo, image or avatar that represents you, your hobbies, places you’ve traveled, your favorite professional organizations and journals, and other photos that can tell a story of you to your students.   Here are some personal photos I use:

Next, create an Icebreaker for your students.  There are a variety of options here, but the most common are to ask your students to create a bio of him or her with a photo, image or avatar to represent themselves and information about their hobbies, family life and the ‘view from their window’.    You might pose an interesting question like:  “Besides your real birthday, what is one other date on the calendar that you think would have been a great day to be born and why?” (ChatPack). This request will create social presence for your students.  You must also ask them to comment on their learning goals for the course, what they know about the current topic now and what they intend to do with the knowledge they hope to acquire.  This creates cognitive presence and will give you an idea of their zone of proximal development.

Become a Social Negotiator and a Structural Engineer

Within the first two weeks, your role as the facilitator is to be the ‘social negotiator’, connecting with each student via email, online postings on the discussion board or the Q & A chat room and mentoring these connections happening between the students themselves.

With online learning, you have a wealth of technological tools to assist you in this process…everything from discussion boards, to blogs, wikis, instant messaging and live chat rooms.  In the beginning, keep it simple, working with the technology you know and can learn easily. By the second or third iteration of your course, you’ll find yourself adding more interesting ways of using technology.  The use of these technological tools fosters good textual communication between you and your students.   This is essential for online success.

Along with the initial introductions in your virtual classroom, you will need to be sure to establish clear expectations for the learners.  Again, because of the isolation factor and the fact than many students have never done this type of learning before, having your expectations clear and unambiguous, reduces the stress of participating for the student.

In addition to these points, here are some additional considerations when establishing your course:

• Make sure you have clear contact information not only for yourself, but also for technical support, the library, and other student services.

• Be sure to include policies, procedures and the mechanics for communicating in a virtual classroom.  This would also include the topics of netiquette and plagiarism.

• The student needs to be advised before the course starts on all the technical requirements for the course including computer, browser and bandwidth considerations.

• Provide a brief orientation for students who have never been online learners before.  An orientation like this would cover such topics as:  time management, becoming an independent learner, navigating the Internet, accessing the online library resources, getting online to the university portal to the online course, and posting to a discussion site.

• Provide a textbook that a set of enriched materials online and one that offers several formats.  Currently, many textbooks have online links provided by the publisher that can add a rich array of media to enhance your course.

• Focus on creating engaging, challenging and thought-provoking discussion formats.  The threaded discussion is the centerpiece of your weekly lessons allowing the students to build knowledge together, connect with each other and further establish cognitive presence.  Your role is to facilitate this discussion and encourage the students to reach further themselves by bringing in additional resources, related viewpoints and personal experiences.

These abovementioned items represent some of the basics to help you begin your online teaching journey.  As you go along, of course you can experiment with adding in more media materials, links to compatible websites, video interviews you create yourself and so on.  It is really limitless.  Above all, though, make if fun for you and your students!

As I continue to read and learn about techniques of online course design, I get more and more enthusiastic about what the future of education holds for all learners.  Once you learn the basic steps, online course design is a very satisfying experience that can make learning accessible for students that otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn!  This field will continue to evolve as technology evolves and perspectives and attitudes change to accommodate the 21st Century student.

References

Boettcher, J. & Conrad, R. (2010) The Online Teaching Survival Guide.  Jossey-Bass.

Chat Pack.  (n.d.) Fun Questions to Spark Conversations.  Questmarc Publishing.  www.questmarc.com.



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Welcome to all my cohorts in this exciting course in our M.S. program in Instructional Design through Walden University!  The field of online learning is exploding and I am sure through the next eight weeks that we are exploring this topic, we will learn a great deal about not only what is current in the field, but also what may be possible in the future. It is an exciting time to learn about this fascinating discipline!

Currently, on our web research project I have two responsibilities.  One is beginning to edit our BETA website with some new .jpgs to prepare it for viewing at the University of Connecticut, by January 4, 2010.  We will also be making some small revisions to some of the video tutorials that I will also need to re-embed before that date.  I have the .jpg stored and ready to go.  Once I got to the back-end of the website today and proceeded to upload the .jpg, a dialogue box popped up stating that my username and password didn’t match.  This is puzzling as I am  a Super Administrator for this site and can already reach the back-end of the site when I log on.  I now have to contact our IT person who is already very busy with a multitude of projects for the University about why this is happening.  Valuable time is lost this morning.

Secondly, I am also responsible for archiving all of our materials and data that we have collected on the SOAR/SAIL grant since its inception.  In trying to transfer the folder (which is 91.86 GB) to our large University server, I received an error message stating the file is too big to save on the server….so another email goes out to our IT fellow asking if it would be best to compress the file before it can be saved on the large server.  Again, more time lost.

My only recourse is to contact our resident IT person as much of what needs to be done to correct these issues lies in his domain.  I do not have the skill level.  Generally, this person has been very pleasant to deal with and responsive, so I do not expect any unduly time delays.  I will tell my boss (who is one of the Primary Stakeholders) about the issues and time delays.

If I were the PM on this project it goes back  to the beginning.  I would have had a launch meeting in which all parties expected to take part on the project are present (including IT), the full scope of the project is laid out, expectations for the final product, time frames, team member responsibilities, resources available and communication expectations are also clearly communicated.  I would have also set up a project monitoring system to get weekly status reports from all team members and check the project process flow daily.

I am a resource on this team and I dislike it when I am in the situation I am in today.  My time is not being fully utilized for the project and I do not have enough to do to justify my hours.  What I can do, is perhaps ask another team member if they need help with one of their projects.  That way the resource that I am can be repurposed.

Reference

Portny, S, Mantel, S.,Meredith, J, Shafer, S, Sutton, M. (2008)  Project Management.  Wiley Pathways.

These days, we all have so many options for how to relay a message to one another.  We can employ email, text messages, Instant Messages; voice mail and good old f2f visits.  Each person has a preference of how they prefer to receive information, especially at the work place.   In working on a project that involves team collaboration, it is especially important to learn the preferences of your teammates and key stakeholders of your project.

This blog assignment was interesting as we heard the same essential message delivered in three different styles:  email, voice mail and an f2f visit (filmed as a video).  As I went through the exercise, it was interesting to note the various reactions I had based on the venue of the communication.  Overall, I interpreted the message to mean that a colleague needs some important information from me that appears to be late, missing and if obtained, could help her meet a work deadline of her own.

I preferred the email text format the best and I felt it relayed the essential meaning of the message the best of the three choices.  I experienced a level of respect for what my time demands might be in light of the request of the message sender.  The email option made it easy for me to get the missing data to her in a separate email.  I felt the email was friendly, respectful and to the point.  I like email as I can access it when I have the time in a focused way and I can keep a digital paper trail of the conversation.  I can also re-read the email if I have questions or need to review directions or a special request.

The voice mail simulation gave the impression that the communication was more direct and less friendly than the email.  The sender struck me as a very direct person, with little to no humor and a lack of ‘human touch’.  Her tone of voice made it seem that her needs were more important than what I have been facing in my own work life.

The f2f meeting as simulated by a video seemed most negative to me.  I noticed the gal pointing her finger at times.  There was little attempt to engage me in a friendly manner and her Cheshire style grin at the very end felt insincere and ill timed.  Why didn’t she start with a smile and a friendly, ‘Hello? Is this a good time to talk with you?”

Clearly, content and tone are very important in communication.  The flat tone of the voice on the voice mail was a turn off.  I felt degrees of judgment and blame in the voice mail and f2f communication.

The implications of my personal learning in this exercise has led me to understand the value of understanding what kind of communication my teammates and stakeholders prefer, and to communicate my preferences as well.  Everyone will have his or her own preferences.  With voice mail and f2f visits, you get the added benefit of seeing body language and hearing tone of voice, which may or may not be pleasant!

References

Stolovitch, H. (2010), “Communicating with Stakeholders”.  Laureate Education, Inc. Video production.

Stolotvitch, H. (2010). “Project Management Concerns:  Communication Strategies and Organizational Culture”.  Laureate Education, Inc. Video Production.