Designing a Course Worth Learning Part 2

I learned about assistive technology when I was on a graduate teaching assistantship and tasked with shadowing a senior graduate assistant before she graduated. I was to then take over her Assistive Technology course for pre-service teachers.

Over the years, I've gained a greater awareness and understanding of disability and accessibility. But I still have a lot to learn. I believe every instructional designer (and instructor) must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to design accessible courses.

As I plan to teach a summer online course, I want to make my course worth learning to students. In order to do so, all students enrolled in the course must be able to access course information. If any of them has a disability and would be using some form of assistive technology to access course information, I want to plan with that in mind. Mostly, I strongly desire to make my online course materials universally accessible to all learners, with or without disabilities. Last Friday, I was fortunate to have a JAWS user check out some pages on my course site. I've seen JAWS on YouTube and read of what it can do. To actually see a blind/low-vision user use JAWS is an eye-opener. (JAWS is a screen reader. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_reader ). This post outlines three important things to bear in mind when designing online courses.

I tried to video-record the session at the important parts, but the videos didn't turn out so well. My colleague who arranged the session for me, Debbie Roberts, from the Division of Academic Success (MCV campus), videotaped a few clips with her iPhone. Below is one of her clips I edited.

1. JAWS provides a summary of the layout of the page. [30 sec video]

My Welcome page contained 1 frame, 13 regions, 13 headings and 162 links (really?). The summary by JAWS points to the importance of course content organization and the use of appropriate headings.

2. Use Style Options on the HTML Editor 

If you are using WordPress, make sure you use Headings offered by the Editor.

WordPress HTML Page Editor

3. Add ALT TEXT Descriptions to ALL Images

When we asked our blind friend what were the top 10 issues faced by blind web users, he listed this as the top challenge. I heard this illustrated myself as JAWS scanned the course site and attempted to read the images on the Twitter stream and on my course pages. JAWS kept saying:

Link to image... Link to image... Link to image...

There were links but there were no descriptions to images on my Twitter stream. No one thinks about it when they tweet. Fortunately, there is Easy Chirp, an alternative web option to Twitter. You can sign in on Twitter through EasyChirp [http://www.easychirp.com/]

@NeilMilliken @EasyChirp @dboudreau Thanks for the feedback. It's an important area that is all too often overlooked. #AXSChat
— Ability First (@AbilityFirstLdn) April 14, 2015

When JAWS read the alt text to the image on my Welcome screen, Mr. MF, the JAWS user, turned to me and said, "Thank you for including the alt text."

Such a simple thing to do and he was so grateful. Could we all just make that little effort?

Online Teaching is like Learning a New Language

Online Teaching is Like Learning a New Language

Is online teaching like learning a new language?

Do bilingual (or multilingual) teachers find it easier to switch from face-to-face to online teaching? 

For several weeks, I pondered these questions as I tarried at the intersection of two/three facets of my life -- online teaching, online course design and learning French (Français or Française?). The second question is a hypothesis I intend to investigate!

Le magazine de l'Alliance
 de Singapour 1993

[Back Story: When I was twelve or thirteen, I wanted to learn French, but was dissuaded by my then Form Teacher, who felt all of us should focus on our core subjects. I dutifully listened to her and live to regret this decision. When I started working, I went to the Alliance Français de Singapour and began learning French with a colleague. We stopped because work got in the way. I'm starting all over again -- to learn the language I'd long wanted to learn.]

Learning a new language involves embracing a new lexicon, new pronunciation, new way of writing, a new culture ... New is the word. Everything is strange and très difficile. But I won't give up because I'm motivated to attain some proficiency in it. It's a childhood dream; my heart is involved, not just my mind.The French language is beautiful. I may not understand French songs but I love listening to its sounds. I will persist despite the challenges. It just goes to show how in learning, we must appeal to students' hearts too -- emotions must be engaged, not just the mind.

Listening to my French teacher takes a lot of concentration from me. Although I'm less overwhelmed than I was in Day 1, I feel like an outsider and am the slowest student in the class. I speak French with diffidence; I don't know quite often how to conjugate verbs or articulate the 's' or 'e' sounds. When I grasp some of the words she is speaking, I feel relieved that I can nod my head and say "Oui!" If not, it's an "Encore, s'il vous plait?" most of the time. One day, it dawned on me that this must feel a bit like how first-time instructors of online teaching feel. Anxiety. Trepidation?

Akin to foreign language (FL) learning, there is much to deal with and more is at stake in online teaching than in FL learning. My musings -- Question 1:

How do we make it less challenging for new online instructors to negotiate a new culture with a new vocabulary? 

For me, I know I must immerse myself in a French speaking and writing environment more often.
Question 2:

How do we support new online instructors so that they have opportunities to be immersed more frequently in online learning environments? [What does this look like? E-mentoring?]

The Making of a Course Trailer

The course trailer is up on YouTube. Although it runs for less than 2 minutes, it entails a tremendous amount of work. Many people chipped in to help out given the tight time-frame we had to churn it out. To them I owe a debt of gratitude. Their names were not mentioned in the credits and I would like to use this space to express my appreciation to them.

Thank you, in no particular order, Alice Westerberg, Suzie Fairman, Molly Ransone, Emma Gauthier, Aditi Jain and Arianna DeCastro (both the actresses), Marcus Messner (and his students), Alana Robinson, Mr. Hunt, the cyclist who rode around the block near Lamplighter Roastery, Lamplighter Roastery for the loan of a Sharpie, Dan Silverman who earlier consented to do a voiceover, and last but not least, Max Schlickenmeyer, the videographer, concept designer, and all the roles he had to juggle to rush this trailer out. I hope this didn't ruin his Valentine's Day.

This is a quick recap of what we did to create this video. In time to come, this documentation might provide insight for future revisions.


1. Concept Design

After showing Max, my new media specialist colleague, a copy of my draft syllabus, we strove to craft a script. Since this course is not a content-based course and centers on the abstract topic of thinking, it was a challenge to consider how best to make thinking come alive.

Max came up with the concept to put thought bubbles above the actresses' heads. It was ingenious! Note, if thinking were that simple in real life, we would have less misunderstanding and better communication! But that was the best way in a video to represent thinking visually -- something which cannot be seen.

Hence, and back to the importance of making thinking visible. Visible thinking helps US to clarify and manage our own thinking; it helps OTHERS to become more aware of what we are thinking. It thus improves thinking and leads to deeper learning.

I'm an advocate for getting ideas out of our head and into some form of external representation to facilitate positive action. I'm also an avid learner of all kinds of strategies that can help individuals and groups communicate their thoughts -- using visuals (text and images), movement, sound, and learning as many languages as you can manage. However, unless you are ready to embrace certain dispositions towards thinking, the practice of visible thinking will come slower to you. I'll elaborate on this in my course. It will be an 8-week elective course for undergraduates offered this June. The course site is being developed, but I hope to get it up soon.


*February 18, 2015: There was also location scouting, which I'd earlier neglected to include. We checked out Anderson Gallery but settled on the VMFA.


2. Scripting and Storyboarding

Since we can't see each other's thoughts, Molly encouraged us to use a two-column table to script our thoughts. As I started writing, Max started to draft the storyboard. Even so, these have to be translated into moving images and edited. The first video clip that came out wasn't the final cut version. Why? Two persons can look at the same script and interpret it differently. And there is only so much that moving images can adequately describe a chunk of written text on thinking. Ever wonder how marvelous movies are in condensing a book into a two-hour film? I am more in awe of such feats now. Think of Austen's Pride and Prejudice directed by Joe Wright.


3. Animation of Still Images (and Photography)

Script, storyboard, character development, animation ...

I don't know how Max did it but all I did was help sketch out some characters and he animated them all -- characters and thought bubbles. He could sketch them all himself, much more elegantly; I'm guessing he entertained my efforts because he was too busy. Incorporating my sketches did provide me with some ownership of the video production process and product.


4. Videography (The Shoots) and Acting

VMFA shoot

Lest I forget, the actresses are amateurs who did us a huge favor. In the live shoot at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, I was glad when Molly came along, to hold the equipment (reflector and camera) and at times, to help direct the actresses on how to act.


5. Audio Recording 

Although there is minimal audio in the trailer, there was a part where I did a voiceover to briefly introduce the course. That was completed in our Jazzmosphere recording studio with Emma and Max's help.


6. Evaluation and Feedback for Editing

Several pairs of eyes reviewed it so we could fine-tune it further, including Aditi (who looked at it from the perspective of a student).

Towards the end, we wanted to give greater prominence to the student "who had taken my course" by zooming in on her notes. We weren't able to do that, unfortunately, due to time and weather constraints. We weren't able to reshoot because of poor weather today; inserting it into a scene with a notebook didn't help much either. So, here are the notes by that 'thought-full' student in all its clarity:

Thought-FULL student's notes

PDF version

I once worked in a multimedia company in Singapore in a creative team. This episode reminded me of those days, one of the best jobs I've had in my life, except that I worked in a highly specialized team as an instructional designer/content writer with a programmer, animator, illustrator, project manager, graphic designer and more. Despite this previous experience, there was still something to learn from working with Max and associates. Looking at him shoot POV (Point of View) shots reminded me about empathy in crafting instruction. Max had also invited a cyclist to ride around the block to make the scene less static. All these, and more I cannot detail fully, offered me a glimpse of the workings of an artistic and creative mind. All these learning opportunities filled my mind to overflowing last week, and in a good way!

I'm tired but thankful we made the deadline and probably set a record for producing a course trailer in 5 days, from concept to development. Of course, there is always room for improvement. For me, I was glad when our student actresses enjoyed the shooting process and one of them thanked me for bringing her on this learning adventure. Quite often, it's not about the final product, but the process. I feel privileged to be in a position to add some value to someone's life.

Olé, Olé, Olé

According to Wikipedia (Oops! The mention of this word might start a friendly argument!), the word "olé" might refer to several things, including a football chant, with the star footballer's name added to the end. In my case, I refer to both a rah-rah cheer (Go! VCU OLE!) and a program the ALT Lab is running.

Today was Day 1 of the Institute and has been a pretty intense time with lots of ideas presented to participants. We are all going to spend some time tonight doing HW, yup, Home Work! So this is going to be a short post. I will share 3 things that stood out for me today:

1. Example of an engaging learning experience that makes students think deeply. 

Leaf from a shrub? Spicebush?

I took some pictures of leaves in the setting sun and uploaded one of them to a course site, Field Botany. (FYI, I'm a little confused as I'm unsure if the leaves were those of a tree or shrub since I will admit I rushed through this exercise to get to other OLE prep for tomorrow. I invite you to click on the course site and explore it yourself.) This is a well-crafted, interactive and engaging learning experience. It allows the learner to use various thinking skills to learn about trees/leaves -- observation, comparison, making connections, forming conclusions, reasoning ... Yes, I am a fan of learning via thinking and intellectual development.

2. Video-conferencing presents challenges and has yet to live up to its promise. 
My colleague, Enoch Hale, gave a presentation that was shared with another group of OLE participants meeting on the Monroe Park campus via videoconferencing. Despite advanced testing and preparation to use the software, some challenges still arose. Audaciously, I'll say that no current videoconferencing hardware and software are able to capture the in-person experience and transmit that to another location in a manner many of us desire.

The audio capability of the software was not optimum today. In both rooms where human conversation had taken place at a normal decibel level, the presenter was tethered to the console/microphone because moving any distance away led to participant feedback about inaudibility. Also, for a presentation where there were a number of starts and stops for participant discussions, it was difficult for my colleague to try to catch the attention of participants on the other campus via video when he wanted to start or stop the activity. Initially, I had to text another colleague to get him to relay the presenter's messages to the facilitator on the other campus. I attribute the challenges to both human and nonhuman factors. However, I believe the poor audio capability of the hardware/software made things more difficult for the presenter to control the discussion starts and stops. My verdict: we need more sophisticated video conferencing hardware and software.

3. What if...
I wonder if we could have participants get up and move around a bit more to actively participate in the experience. Although they were encouraged to take notes on the shared Google Doc, I wish the room had more writing/doodling surfaces -- whiteboards, touch screen monitors, and space to encourage learners to be more active in documenting their learning. (Yes, there are understandably facility constraints.) I was glad to see a few learners taking pictures and sharing the camaraderie on Twitter. Well, tomorrow is another day of possibilities. 

Online Icebreaker: Songs My Mother Taught Me

[Note: This post began as a draft in June 2014 after I heard this tune on a plane. Video description: Antonin Dvorak's musical composition, Songs My Mother Taught Me, performed by Itzhak Perlman]

Different metaphors have been used to describe the learning process; learning is like a game, a conversation, combustion system, an ecosystem ... What if learning is like music-making or an inspiration of song? This idea came about when I heard Joshua Bell and Yo-Yo Ma play Dvorak's "Songs My Mother Taught Me." How about using this as an online icebreaker (warm-up activity)?

We could get a feel of students' expectations by asking them to create a playlist of:

Songs I Wish My Teacher Taught Me.

OR, get to know the students a bit better by asking them to come up with a playlist of ...

Songs My Mom / Dad / Teacher / Mentor / Community / XXX (Fill in the blank!) Taught Me.

[This activity can also be used at the end of a Unit to get a big idea of what students have learned.]

To illustrate, here's my current list of Songs My Mother Taught Me:

#1. A Hard Day's Night. (Beatles). Work hard.

#2. Change. (Carrie Underwood). You can make a difference.

#3. How You Live (Turn Up the Music). (Point of Grace). Don't spend your life looking back.

#4. Try. (Colbie Caillat). Accept yourself for who you are.


What about you? What are some songs you learned from your mom, dad, teacher, BFF, etc?

Assessing Student Learning in Online Education Part 1

Assessment types.

Besides learning engagement, assessing student learning is one of the top concerns (top 3?) of teachers. This burden is no less lighter for online teachers. Much as teachers might like to banish this bane of teaching from their jobs, assessment (evaluation, retention, accreditation, and all related concerns) won't go away because "measuring" learning and giving a score/grade to course completion is a deeply embedded element of the institutional culture of formal education. How to give a grade meaningfully is a priority of mine.

Recently, the role of rubrics in online learning assessment was (tangentially?) touched on at a meeting. This comment led me to a series of conversations with folks around me. They each offered unique perspectives but I was left unsatisfied due to no fault of theirs. I wondered if I had caught up with the current wave of discourse about assessment in online learning. This blogpost is part of my ongoing efforts to learn more about the latest in online assessment [As a mini literature review, it's somewhat long, sorry!].

1. There are few empirical studies about assessment in online learning. Most studies in online education have focused on course design, technology implementation and learning outcomes between different modes of instruction, i.e. degree of hybridity/blend, F2F, fully online (Cheng, Jordan, Schallert & D-Team, 2013).


2. The nature of online learning has influenced the adoption of grading rubrics:

• Rubrics have been used to provide explicit instructions and clear communication essential for efficient and effective learning across space and time. Proponents of rubric-use argue that rubrics provided by the online teacher serve as a means of explicit guidance to learners as descriptors of the level of performance expected of them. 
• Rubric grading is a legacy of traditional face-to-face instruction. Some teachers who are new to online teaching may not be aware that a new approach to teaching is required in the new and different learning environment. OR, they may find assessing online  learning formidable with the distance and lack of immediacy in interaction. How they assess traditionally is thus transferred over to their online teaching experience.

3. Online teachers frequently use asynchronous forum discussions as a way to "provide a sense of connection among participants" (Dennen, 2008). 

In the online learning environment, no one knows if a student is present unless s/he communicates in some way, through text, image, sound or video. Historically, many teachers have relied on rubrics to assess learning participation and if forum discussions have enhanced learning. Research on asynchronous online discussions has not matched the popularity of this online assessment practice (Cheng et al, 2013).

4. Writing a good set of rubrics is a challenge. What are they anyway? To quote Susan Brookhart, (2013, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development website & book):

The genius of rubrics is that they are descriptive and not evaluative. Of course, rubrics can be used to evaluate, but the operating principle is you match the performance to the description rather than "judge" it. Thus rubrics are as good or bad as the criteria selected and the descriptions of the levels of performance under each. Effective rubrics have appropriate criteria and well-written descriptions of performance. 

Brookhart's book provides an introduction to different types of rubrics a teacher may consider using.

Types of rubrics (Brookhart, 2013).

She writes:

When the intended learning outcomes are best indicated by performances—things students would do, make, say, or write—then rubrics are the best way to assess them... Except in unusual cases, any one performance is just a sample of all the possible performances that would indicate an intended learning outcome. 

Whether or not to use rubrics in an online course depends on a few factors:

• The purpose of the assessment. What do we want to assess? What is it about the learning experience we value? The process of learning? Learning products? Both? The sum of the learning experience or parts of it?
• Formative and/or summative assessment 
• Individual and/or group assessment

Although teachers may use rubrics to assess both the learning process (development / emergence of some mental schema [cognition]) and the final product (written reflections) of asynchronous discussions, it is difficult to develop a robust rubric that fully measures (or captures) how students read, write and engage in online discussions.


5. The use of grading rubrics in assessing online discussions is problematic. 

Rubrics, more often than not, are used to grade individual-based expressions or reproductions of knowledge rather than learning (Cheng et al, 2013). Rubrics that grade collaborative work remain a challenge to develop. Even without rubrics, collaborative learning by itself is a complicated endeavor to design and assess (Swan et al, 2006).

Dennen (2008) who has done research on "productive lurking" (An eye-opening concept for me!) argues that learning is an invisible practice, and non-visible learning activities such as lurking can actually be engaging and a learning developmental stage for some students. As they watch how other students learn, they move towards visible learning themselves (Hint of Lave & Wenger's (1991) Legitimate Peripheral Participation in Communities of Practice? LPP in COP). Teachers are often more likely to assess learners on the written aspect (Dennen, 2008) and not so much on their reading and engagement (while lurking). What evidence might online teachers be looking for?

Moreover, frequency counts (indicative of participation, but not always of learning), content and quality analysis of postings are time-consuming work for teachers, especially those teaching large courses. When students are rewarded a grade for creating a certain number of postings, what sort of message are we sending students? Is low-visibility work such as reading and reflecting less important?

With the increasing use of social media such as blogs and Twitter chats for communication and discussion, blog rubrics have been created by some teachers to motivate students to create blog postings. Some examples: one two three.

My concern about some blog grading rubrics are that they are too task-specific and sometimes, guide students to look for details that are often not what matters most in learning. Not to mention that grading blog postings by the teacher alone is tedious work. When I was a TA in graduate school, I created a spreadsheet to help the instructor keep track of postings so that she could grade them. It was for a class of not more than 20 students who were divided into small groups to ensure they would comment on each other's posts. What challenges would a course with 800 students present if the teacher plans to grade them for continuous feedback? How many teachers have the privilege of TA help?


6. How can we assess online discussions more holistically?

Dennen (2008, p. 215) suggests using three more analytic methods -- besides participation measures and content analysis -- to examine online discussions. Note: Dennen examines methods for the assessment and research of online discussions for indication of learning. I am extending her ideas on methods of discussion analysis to include an examination of networked, connected online conversations in these post web 2.0 days:

• structural analysis (refers to "structure" of discussion/conversation; who talks to whom, who has power, includes use of social network analytic method; helpful in noting dynamics of collaborative work; used by itself, this method will not provide teachers with a complete picture of learning)
• microethnography (as the name suggests, it's likened to ethnographic studies; conversations are explored in their contexts; surveys/polls, interviews, and analysis of digital footprints)
• dialogue analysis (examine interrelatedness of messages and ideas in a dialogue; can be interpretive)

I could see all three analytic methods of online conversations as being beneficial to online teachers, Including an analysis and hence awareness of the social network(s) of learners in their online courses would give teachers a more complete picture of the complexity of learning in their online course communities. Lin and Lai (2013) conducted an intriguing study that combined a traditional online formative quiz with social network awareness. Knowledge of their peers' social network position, social distance, and willingness to help others relative to the student's social network position promoted learning achievement.

Nonetheless, I understand that teachers are busy people. They do not have to use all three methods, nor try them on a large scale (e.g. with 800 students) for a start, unless they are planning to do research on their online courses. Using a team-based approach to online teaching and/or research might mitigate some of the issues that come with having insufficient time to do "so much."

7. If not rubrics, or besides rubrics, how else do we know if learning has taken place in an online environment? 

How do we communicate explicit expectations of learning that matters? Expectations of interaction, quality and performance to learners so that student projects do not suffer from a lack of effort or quality? Particularly if we incorporate peer assessment into online learning? What if students  are new to online learning or new to college?

I've been mulling over these questions. My current probably not-very-original thinking is this:

It's time to move beyond using only rubrics to assess (or grade) online discussion boards in the hopes that students would make postings to indicate engagement. Also, by themselves, online discussion boards with rubrics thrown in are inadequate at assessing student learning.

Recent ideas for alternative assessment practices include the following:

• Courageous Conversation: Formative Assessment and Grading (Andrew Miller)
• Learning Contracts (Dave Cormier)
• Contract Grading (Cathy Davidson)
• How to crowdsource grading (Cathy Davidson, read the comments too)

[If you are aware of more alternative assessment practices, please share them with me?]

As a grad student, I've written one learning contract, but the teacher did not follow up on it at the end of the course. So, teachers/instructors/professors, whatever you have contracted (a two-way learning effort) with your student to complete, it is only meaningful learning if there is some feedback provided on what you've asked your students to do -- whether the feedback be from a machine, teacher, student, or member of the public (this is not a guaranteed response though).

With the move towards personalized learning and learner-centered instruction, students are given more opportunities to self-assess and monitor their own learning. However, in the institutional culture of programmatic education and degree completion of studies, student learning assessment is still a HUGE priority in faculty professional development when teachers talk about preparing to teach online.

This blogpost is an expression of my preliminary thoughts on the topic. More reading/conversation is needed and ideas will evolve as I read and synthesize more information.

Articles/Books I read to synthesize ideas:

Labels of Authentic Assessment Types in the first image:
What are some types of assessment? (Jul 15, 2008). Edutopia Blogpost. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/assessment-guide-description 

Brookhart, S. M. (2013). How to create and use rubrics for formative assessment and grading. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Cheng, A. C., Jordan, M. E., & Schallert, D. L. (2013). Reconsidering assessment in online/hybrid courses: Knowing versus learning. Computers & Education, 68, 51-59.

Dennen, V. P. (2008). Looking for evidence of learning: Assessment and analysis methods for online discourse. Computers in Human Behavior, 24(2), 205-219.

Lin, J. W., & Lai, Y. C. (2013). Online formative assessments with social network awareness. Computers & Education, 66, 40-53.

Swan, K., Shen, J., & Hiltz, S. R. (2006). Assessment and collaboration in online learning. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 10(1), 45-62.

Online Teaching and "Body Language"

Image description: A quotation by Jenifer Ringer,
"Terry taught ballet as if it were very important and precious."

Vignette 1:

"Terry taught ballet as if it were very important and precious." - Jenifer Ringer, Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet. 

Image Description: Feet clad in ballet
shoes standing on pointe position

A line in a book given to me during the early days of losing my parents; supposedly the heroine's victory over her struggles would inspire me. A short sentence fraught with meaning and implications. I especially love the second half of the sentence. The words swirled with the other info bytes in my mind from last week's learning.

[Context: Jenifer Ringer was a professional ballerina. In her memoir, she wrote that she found ballet boring until she met Terry Shields who instilled in her the important virtue of discipline combined with high standards in dancing (2014, p. 12). ]


Vignette 2:

Online Teaching 101. A graduate seminar discussion. On the projector screen were these words, "effective face-to-face teaching." I asked students to explore this phrase and make their thoughts and observations visible through words, questions and metaphors.

Working in pairs, one graduate student raised a question about the potential influence of a teacher's body language on student learning outcomes.

"Are you impressed?" (by their question).

"Yes!"


The mashup:

A weekend and four days later.

Ringer's quote and the students' question led me to think about the planning of my potential summer 2015 online course more delicately. In an online course, many students may not literally "see" an online teacher-facilitator and/or a fellow student's body language.

To be honest, what does body language look like online? Or better, how is it represented online?

First, let's be clear about what "body language" means:

Body Language "refers to various forms of nonverbal communication, wherein a person may reveal clues as to some unspoken intention or feeling through their physical behavior. These behaviors include, but are not limited to: facial expressions, body posture, gestures, eye movement, touch and the use of space." (Wikipedia) 

1. Does body language matter online? 
2. If so, how does the teacher/student display body language? 
3. What is/are the difference(s)?...

I have many questions. On top of my abundance of questions on participatory networked learning: contract grading (Cathy Davidson), avoiding resistance to contract grading, crowdsourcing grading, peer evaluation, constantly negotiated syllabus... My head is hurting.

Since online learning is mediated by communication technology - text, image (still and moving),  sound, synchronous and asynchronous communication, conveying to my online students how important and precious the subject matter is --to me-- requires meticulous design.

To answer Q2 first, the usual suspects in the technology realm for representing "voice" and "presence" are:

• Real-time webconferencing
• Biographies with visuals
• Podcasts 
• Conversational tone of text communications 

I've read blogposts by some online participants condemning real-time conferencing, in particular when a panel of facilitators are not prepared. Awkward silence pervades when panelists don't know when it is their turn to speak and students are left wondering how to respond to silence. We live in a world where quick wit is prized and silence/time to think is punished. To answer Q1, yes, it matters, especially if you are going to create videoclips and simulations of real-time teaching where your nonverbal communication cues are going to be captured.

[Note, Nov. 15, 2014: It's not the technology alone that is going to do the job; it is how you use the technology to help you express your intents and motives.]

Yet, Ringer's quote demanded more. I'd not just have to choose an appropriate technology but also, be mindful of all the elements of a course that would gel together to convey my teaching attitude: from frequency of contact with my students, to type of learning activities (Ringer got the chance to participate in real stage productions where her learning mattered), to even how my course site looks. Students care about the values teachers are imparting, like Ringer. Every detail of the course would convey if I'm fearlessly passionate about the topic. It's simultaneously exhausting and rewarding to design and teach a course.

As to Q3, is there a difference between how a teacher and a student conveys her intentions in real-time and virtual spaces? This is a difficult one.

Ideally, we are all human beings and regardless of our status, there should be no difference; we ought to treat each other with respect and dignity. But teachers are held to a higher standard as the role model and facilitator. Granted, Freire wrote that we are all teachers, at some point, and we learn from each other. This answers Q3 theoretically. But what happens often in practice?  Sometimes, we forget to prepare in advance for the learner who is legally blind or deaf or has a physical disability which holds back his/her participation in the course. We forget that that blinking multiple-images gif might not be read by the screen reader too well. And that automatic captioning by Google is hardly any captioning at all unless we are all wonderful voice talents and videographers. We don't know that sometimes a blind student might need more than one type of screen reader to access information on the web. Because we have yet to encounter a person with such challenges. Yes, teachers are held to a higher standard. We have to be vigilant of different learners with different needs and seek to make them feel welcome.

A somewhat cliched quote I'll include to end this post, but nonetheless one I often think about in teaching and relating to people:

Image Description: A quotation by Theodore Roosevelt,
"No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care."

My ex-students had indicated this to me over and over again in my life. Thanks, folks, for what you taught me. 

Help! I am teaching online

I thought about adding these 5 words (my blogpost title) to the trending hashtag in Twitter, #ScaryStoriesIn5Words. Those tweets made Halloween Day somewhat more Halloween for me, lots of drama and jokes. Scary? Not so much at the ALT Lab where I was stationed for livestreamed sessions from the Online Learning Consortium's International Conference (OLC). Which is a good thing.

The turnout wasn't ideal but a real and urgent need of some faculty or future faculty members emerged from conversations with some attendees. Some major questions were:

"I think I'm going to be teaching online. Where can I find training resources to prepare me for this role?"

"I have faculty who have been teaching face-to-face (F2F) classes but are now going to start teaching online courses. I can't train them all by myself. Help?"

"We have adjunct instructors who work fulltime and are unable to attend any of the ALT Lab's programs." 

At the ALT Lab, we have programs and events to help faculty get started with online teaching: OLE, Agora, Online Learning Summit, live-streaming of OLC sessions ... Together with the other programs and resources we offer, we hope the variety of formal and informal learning opportunities will help enhance faculty online and F2F teaching experience. 

But I will be honest and confess that I don't have an answer to all three questions above. I understand that most people lead busy and full lives. But rather than wait to learn from a formal course, I would advise new online instructors to regard informal self-directed learning as a significant learning path to professional development for online teaching. I am not going to write about the institutional support instructors must have to get started with online teaching. This blogpost focuses on individual first-time instructors of online teaching and 3 broad suggestions I have for getting started with informal learning. (Disclaimer: These are purely my suggestions and views, not my employer's):

1. Learner Empathy: Take an Online Course

Experience it for yourself, no matter how busy you are. It's about developing learner empathy (Parrish, 2006). It would help the instructor to understand what it might be like when teacher-student roles are reversed. There is an incredible number of open access online courses available. Try the MOOCs (e.g. Connected Courses). 

Face the Fear.
Image Description: A woman jumps off the cliff and dives into the ocean of online teaching. There are
people standing in the online ocean waiting to receive her.

2. Face the Fear: Start Learning and Connecting

There is much to be said about building an arsenal of digital tools and sharpening the tools you are going to be using in your online course. Online communities and communication are mediated by technology. The 3 Ws (World Wide Web) might sound scary, and overwhelming, with its infinite possibilities for learning and also, abuse. But I don't see any short-cuts to becoming an effective online teacher and facilitator. I am not one to prescribe specific steps, but joining a community of folks who share your interest might be the best place to start learning about online pedagogy and tools. For examples,

• Read, watch, listen. Articles, e-books, blogs. Hybrid Pedagogy; what better place to start than in the in-between space? Consider this article by Jesse Stommel on Online Learning: A Manifesto. If you find a chance, talk about it with some other instructors from your program. 
• Post blog comments, AND, then start blogging to share information and news with your students and colleagues from near and far.  
• Create a Twitter account (My colleague Tom Woodward shared this interesting article about Twitter, Why I Use Twitter)
• Join Google+ communities of your interests (You need a GMail account)

I believe teachers have to carve out a safe online space for themselves to experiment and learn with others continuously, thus modeling for their students what it is like to learn from a global audience. We can no longer think of learning as something that is solely confined to a classroom. Or wait to enter a formal space to learn with others. Learn what you can with what time you have. Deliberately, on the go, just-in-time. Learn to steal away for microlearning moments. Develop learning habits that suit your schedule and learning disposition.

3. Keep Learning and Tweaking Your Course: Perfection is Not a Requirement

Someone told me she wouldn't teach online until she has learned enough about online teaching.  "Enough" is a subjective term. It is wise of her to give herself time to prepare adequately for online teaching and not try to replicate a face-to-face class online. In fact, a radical change in mindset is a must for new online instructors. Armed with this readiness to embrace change and some knowledge of how to make the change, one can begin to take the plunge to decide to teach online. However, we need to recognize that no course is going to be perfect from the get-go. Although we may have a plan and a course ready by the time we are in a position to push off from the starting-blocks, the course will be subject to some minor (?) revisions as it progresses through the semester. I don't know any teacher with a heart for teaching who doesn't improvise as s/he teaches throughout the semester.

This post is necessarily a simple reductionistic post about getting started. It does not pretend to be a solution that responds to all the complexities involved in preparing faculty to teach online.

I welcome comments anyone may have to help new online faculty get started through informal learning.


Reference

Parrish, P. (2006). Design as storytelling. TechTrends, 50(4), 72-82)

Online Icebreaker: A Life Story Album Cover

Yin's Album Cover A

Yin's Album Cover B

Yin's Playlist

As an online introduction, Tina Seelig invited us -- participants in her MOOC -- to design an album cover of our lives to construct a narrative of who we are. Add to that the creation of a 10-song playlist, fictional or actual songs, and we'll get some bonus points. I created two album covers.  Which one do you think I submitted? A or B? 

I think these ideas are excellent as icebreakers in online teaching. They afford students multiple means to participate in course conversations. It helped me to reflect, synthesize my life experiences and use a succinct title to capture a bit of the essence of who I am. As Tina says, "Never miss an opportunity to be fabulous!" 

April 14, 2014: Although my playlist is in JPEG format, participants were given a space with a text editor to type in text if they do not wish to represent their knowledge in the way I did. 

April 19, 2014: I realized that my visuals are not accessible to screen-readers. So here's a description of each: 

Album Cover A: It has a picture of me seated in a cafe and in a pensive mood. The title of the album is Meditations in Z Minor. 

Album Cover B: It has a main picture of me surrounded by an L-shaped collage of 11 other smaller pictures. Each picture shows a different side of me. The title of the album is Facets. 

My 10-song playlist describes my listening choices at the time of submission. The 10 songs are:

1. No Frontiers (Mary Black)

2. The Rainbow Connection (Sarah McLachlan)

3. Change (Carrie Underwood)

4. Reflection (Soundtrack, Lea Salonga)

5. 天冷就回家 (Come home in the winter)

6. The Fool on the Hill (Beatles)

7. 你的倒影 (Your Reflection)

8. Beneath Your Beautiful (Labrinth ft. Emelie Sande)

9. La Solitudine (Laura Pausini)

10. Rambling Man (Laura Marling)

 

2013 Sloan-C International Conference Notes: Good Work in Online Learning

I returned a call to a friend after returning from the Sloan Consortium's International Conference at Orlando, Florida.

"How was it? The same old people, right?" she asked.

It has often intrigued me as a doctoral student that not everyone is interested in going to conferences, after all, it is part of a researcher's practice, or so we were told -- to disseminate ideas/findings and engage with one's community of practice. Now that I've graduated, I still find it exciting to continue with the practice. But my friend's comment made me wonder what I was really learning from my conference trips. Why bother?

For this conference, I had in mind some questions centered around a few themes. I'll focus first on the "good work" that is being recognized by Sloan-C.

1. Who is doing good work? 

I went to the Awards Luncheon to find out.

Best in Track award winners: http://sloanconsortium.org/conference/2013/aln/best

Those that I'll explore in greater depth:

Three Institutions, Three Approaches, One Goal: Addressing Quality Assurance in Online Learning
Lead Presenter: Marwin Britto (University of Saskatchewan, Canada)
Jean-Marc Wise (The Florida State University, USA)
Cristi Ford (University of the District of Columbia, USA)
Track: Leadership, Values and Society

We Can Work Together: Managing Group Work Online for Collaboration, Assessment, and Life-Long Learning Skills
Lead Presenter: Lujean Baab (Virginia Tech, USA)
Track: K-12 Online Education
   
Mechanical Vs. Philosophical Considerations When Upgrading the LMS
Lead Presenter: J. Garvey Pyke (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA)
Kurt Richter (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA)
Track: Faculty and Professional Development & Support

Global Learning Qualifications Framework - Assessing University-Level Learning Anytime, Anywhere
Lead Presenter: Amy McQuigge (SUNY Empire State College, USA)
Track: Open, Global, Mobile

Leveraging Mobile Devices to Engage Students and Improve Student Outcomes: Evidence From Hospitality Education
Lead Presenter: Amy Gregory (University of Central Florida, USA)
Track: Technology and Emerging Learning Environments

Don't Drop the Baton! Building a Foundation for Success Through Student Services for Online Learners
Lead Presenter: Ruth Newberry (Duquesne University, USA)
Kate DeLuca (Duquesne University, USA)
Track: Student Services and Learner Support

Other award winners:

Excellence in Online Teaching, Betty Rambur, University of Vermont

Excellence in Faculty Development for Online Teaching,
University of Louisiana, Lafayette

Outstanding Online Program, M.S., Biotechnology, University of Maryland,
University College

Pedagogical Innovation, Ryerson University, G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education,
Certificate in Food Security

Excellence in Institution-Wide Online Education, Lone Star College System

The complete list of 2013 Effective Practice Award Winners can be found on the Sloan-Consortium Website: http://sloanconsortium.org/ep_award_winners

One of them documents the validation of a research tool that assesses the effectiveness of online educator preparation. Definitely worth taking a further look: http://sloanconsortium.org/effective_practices/assessing-effectiveness-online-educator-preparation

Assessing the Effectiveness of Online Educator Preparation,
Yang, Hung & Blomeyer's Research Tool

Check it out:
Yang, Hung & Blomeyer's paper presented at AERA 2013, San Francisco, CA:


To be continued in Part 2

3 days at Sloan-C ET4Online 2013

As an instructional systems designer/education researcher, I attended sessions at the Sloan-C Emerging Technologies for Online Learning with the goal to inform my professional development. In some organic fashion, my interests somehow coagulated into three main areas:

1. How do people learn: what's the latest in educational psychology and how is it applied to online education?
2. How is instructional design and development enhanced by new technologies?
3. Scholarship of online learning and teaching: What interesting research is being done? Using what methods or instruments?

Instinctively, I feel that these topics form the foundation for learning and instruction to all audiences. So here are a few highlights of what I've learned in each area from the conference.

1. How people learn.

Dr. Michelle Miller's session, Leveraging Cognitive Psychology to Create Compelling Online Learning Experiences, helped me recall some things I've learned about cognition. She shared some useful tips on applying concepts of memory and attention to online learning.

• Forget about traditional concepts of short-term memory. Stay within working memory and attention limits. Promote practice and automaticity (Bargh).
• Passive exposure is not much use. Effortful, attentive practice is what counts.
• Forget about perceptual learning styles. Instead pay attention to multimedia/multimedia research (e.g. Richard Meyer's).
• Harness the testing effect and encourage spaced study. See tests as learning activities.
• She recommends the gamification of learning.

I later attended Jason Drysdale's session, Why Gamification Can't Replace Games-Based Learning, which became a rebuttal of Michelle Miller's suggestion. :) He thinks gamification is like cheese we put over unappealing broccoli to trick kids into eating vegetables. However, I feel that what Drysdale recommends is not cost-effective in an education system where time is of the essence. To him adding a leaderboard and listing achievements is "old gamification" that encourages competition. What is required is new gamification, which is not just about aesthetics, but entails the mechanics and dynamics of game playing. I didn't catch all the theoretical principles he listed -- I'll have to contact him for the references.

My conclusion about research in this intriguing area of learning is that we are still trying to figure out how to best motivate students to learn and to get students' undivided attention in a digital multimodal age.With student and faculty variability, motivation of learning is an absorbing area of research.

2. How is instructional design and development enhanced by new technologies?

Instructional systems design has changed a great deal with the availability of a whole slew of tech tools. Assessments still require a lot of careful crafting but the process of implementing assessments is changing. Remote and online testing is challenging instructors on how to best ensure authenticity and academic integrity. We have vendors like ProctorU, Kryterion, and Software Secure vying for the business of providing online proctoring of assessments. Knowing about all these tools and knowing which to use will become increasingly useful for online professional education based on meeting competencies.

I attended 2 sessions about instructional development that were time and labor-intensive:

- Dr. Wasim Barham, Southern Polytechnic State University, presented his use of a games-based virtual lab simulation for the Strength of Materials lab for civil engineering students.
- Dr. Cammy Huang, Google, created an interactive and simulation-based teaching approach for human physiology that was developed at Stanford University where she was formerly working. It also won the 2013 MERLOT Biology Classics Award. Check out the Virtual Labs: http://virtuallabs.stanford.edu/demo/

I attended one session about an app for data mining: Data Depository for EdLab's applications (by Teacher's College, Columbia University). I'm fascinated by learning analytics. I think it appeals to the research part of me. EdLab's concept is similar to Google Analytics but Manav Malhotra, the presenter, says it is more flexible and capable of tracking learner behavior in a "holistic and granular fashion." I'm waiting for it to be made available for public use. Meanwhile, I wonder how I can encourage educational data mining for faculty research on teaching.

 Three words came to mind when I thought about what these presenters produced: Belief. Effort. Passion. These instructors/designers/developers believed in what they were doing: they wanted to connect with learners, to motivate them, and to bridge the learning distance. They invested a great deal of effort to produce these materials with a team. Their drive and passion sustained them. They talked about still wanting to do more despite or in spite of what they have done. I left wanting to work on a project of this magnitude. I want to do so much.

3.  Scholarship of online learning and teaching.

There was one session on researching team cognitive constructs that entailed the use of meta-analysis. It wasn't so much about online learning, I think, but it is about shared cognition in learning spaces and communities. I could see it was a difficult study. The meta-analysis explored "the predictability of different shared cognition constructs on team performance." As Dr. Miller said, passive exposure is not much use. :) I learned about meta-analysis and will need to do meta-analysis before deep learning occurs.

John Turner, the presenter, used an instrument by Gall, M. D., Gall, J. P., and Borg, W. R. (2010) [Applying Educational Research: How to Read, Do, and Use Research to Solve Problems of Practice (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.] to rate the quality of the articles. It looks like an instrument for future use.

Accessibility, Uniqueness and Accommodations 1

"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are." - Anais Nin

First, I don't have a disability and do not speak on behalf of disabled people because I do not know what it is like to not be able to see, hear or not have mobility of all my limbs. Second, I do claim to be unique; I acknowledge that everyone is uniquely different, although some people may be more alike in several ways. Therefore, we each learn and process things differently through our filters. We often think that some things don't happen to us, but to "others." We can't imagine how another person does or thinks about an issue because we are locked into our own experiences or backgrounds. Until the day arrives, when we find ourselves encountering the "other" individual's experience.

I'm working on a dissertation that crosses disciplines of instructional design, disability and culture. As such, I would say I have cultivated an extent of awareness of some differences, as a multicultural and hybrid person myself, about how differences may isolate us. I'm also aware that often people are not malicious; they have primarily not been exposed to issues of difference, lack the knowledge and/or experience of how to respond to people who are different from them or haven't thought about them in depth. Interacting with different individuals or cultural groups involves more than just cultural sensitivity. It's about making choices and having an open and flexible mindset. Sometimes, we make mistakes or commit a faux pas, but we must be willing to diverge and emerge from our parochial spaces and fields of specializations. Today's post is about two main ideas which I will break into 2 posts:

1. Accessibility is not just for the "other" person. 

Many people associate accessibility with disability, the term being understood mainly as a condition of some people who have "deficiencies," by people who think not being able to hear or see is something to be fixed. Writing my dissertation and working on a project with my advisor helped me develop the awareness that blind or deaf people regard their non-seeing or non-hearing status as an identity they are proud of. However, our differences means we perceive reality differently. It takes time and patience to develop the awareness that facilitates appropriate interaction with people from these different groups.

Accessibility benefits not just the disabled, but non-disabled individuals as well. For example, having CART (Computer Assisted Real-Time Translation) services for my Deaf law professor at meetings helps me and other students to access content more readily and to have notes that we can refer to for revision at a later time. Also, I regularly see non-wheelchair bound people take elevators from the ground floor to the first floor.

Recently, I read an old (2010) article from The Chronicle about ADA compliance being a major area of vulnerability in online learning. (Yes, I am slow-er, sometimes!) The comments captured my attention, and inspired this blogpost. Bbaylis, a comment-er wrote poignantly about his own experience. Compliance does not occur because we have laws. We have laws to try to educate people who don't understand that different people require different provisions for access to information and resources.  (But some people break laws, right!) Bbaylis has been both an instructor and a provost, until a series of strokes rendered him "disabled." He writes, not about losing his intelligence, but becoming unable to communicate quickly. (I'm sure being slower makes some people think he has "lost" it!) It takes him much longer now to write what he wants to express as he can no longer communicate verbally. He has come some ways from questioning the need for extra time for students with challenges. He is now a convert and understands what it is like to have to use a different communication mode. He writes,

 "I now have empathy for the students with challenges. Most of them are not trying to get out of something. They are trying to maximize their potential. To do that they must have instructors who believe in them and are willing to help them." To read more, check out bbaylis (November 12, 2010 at 11:03 am)

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/ada-compliance-a-major-vulnerability-for-online-programs/28136

Image source: http://moniquespassions.com/just-a-bit-of-everything-and-everyone/anais-nin-on-love/

Online Education Explodes Out of the Blue

"Tom Friedman, in his recent New York Times article, captured, in the way that no one else could, the spirit behind our effort. He said the big breakthroughs are what happen when what is suddenly possible meets what is desperately necessary. I've talked about what's desperately necessary. Let's talk about what's suddenly possible." - cited by Daphne Koller

The marvels of online education are suddenly exploding in our face, thanks to Ivy League universities' participation in the MOOC field. However, the presence of these "prestigious" players may do harm to online education, commented some scholars on the Sloan-C listserv. I am somewhat amazed that suddenly what I've been working on and learning about for some 10 years has become the latest buzz word because of the presence of these institutions. Brand name alone doesn't make a course good. Course design + instructor facilitation + student participation, all these together can make an online course good or mediocre.

"What is suddenly possible" says Koller. Distance learning has been available for quite a while. Online learning has become huge NOW because of more accessible technologies? The bigger question is, how does she measure what effective learning is for 100,000 students or more?