Annotated Bibliography - Online Teaching Techniques

Paulsen, M. F. The Online Report on Pedagogical Techniques for Computar-Mediated Communication in

Online Education and Learning Management Systems Global E-Learning in a Scandinavian Perspective 

In this report, Prof. Morten Paulsen addresses issues of Pedagogical Techniques for Computer-Mediated Communication. He begins by defining Computer-Mediated Communication (Cmc) like the “transmission and reception of messages using computers as input, storage, output, and routing devices. CMC includes information retrieval, electronic mail, bulletin boards, and computer conferencing”. Next he presents the definition from Boyle (1981) to Pedagogical Technique. Boyle defined “technique as the form used to present material to be learned, for example lecture, panel, and group discussion”. Paulsen states “in this study, a pedagogical technique is defined as a manner of accomplishing teaching objectives. According to how the techniques prescribe student interaction with learning resources, the techniques are classified as one-alone techniques, one-to-one techniques, one-to-many techniques, and many-to-many techniques”. Professor Morten Paulsen brings together the various pedagogical techniques according to the criteria of "who to whom. Thus, we can read about One-alone Techniques which include online databases, online journals, online applications; software libraries, online interest groups, interviews; One-to-one Techniques which are composed of learning contracts, apprenticeships, internships, correspondence studies; One-to-many Techniques including lectures, symposiums, skits; and Many-to-many Techniques like debates, simulations or games, role plays, case studies, discussion groups, transcript based assignments, brainstormings/brainwritings, Delphi techniques, nominal group techniques, forums, project groups.

At last Professor presents a Discussion of Techniques not Found to be utilized in CMC which are in-basket exercises, panels, committee hearing, cognitive netwoks and jigsaws.

http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring81/yang81.htm

Preparing Instructors for Quality Online Instruction

Yi Yang Ph.D. Candidate & Linda F. Cornelious, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Instructional Systems, Leadership and Workforce Development. Mississippi State University

In this article, the authors try to answer questions like “What will be the new role for instructors in online education? How will students' learning outcomes be assured and improved in online learning environment? How will effective communication and interaction be established with students in the absence of face-to-face instruction? How will instructors motivate students to learn in the online learning environment?”. For that, they start to presents the Background of the Problem and discuss Ensuring Effective Online Instruction. We can read about the Challenges and Barriers for Online Instructors , New Roles of Instructor, New Roles of Online Learners, New Technologies, New Interaction and Communication with Online Learners, New Way of Learning and Testing, Facing the Challenge. As Strategies for Designing and Delivering Effective Online Instruction, they present: Designing an Effective Online Learning Environment, Developing an Interactive Online Teaching-Learning Community, Establishing Performance Assessments and Assisting Students to Achieve Learning Outcomes. The authors conclude that the qualification of the instructor is the major factor to guarantee the quality of online instruction.

http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/brisbane99/papers/salterhansen.pdf

Modelling New Skills for Online Teaching

Salter, G., Hansen, S.

Department of Computing and Information Systems

University of Western Sydney

In this article, the authors discuss about the use of technology by both learners and teachers. For them the integration of technology like a teaching technique depends of the experience the teachers have - if it is good, the probably grows – however, ‘traditional’ methods of training are still clearly favoured over online methods (Ellis, O'Reilly and Debreceny, 1998).

The authors claim that the methods for teaching online include: Asynchronous Computer Mediated Communication (e.g. email, discussion groups), Synchronous Computer Mediated Communication (e.g. chats, desktop videoconferencing and groupware), Online Assessment, Learning Resources, Documents (eg. lecture notes, readings), Multimedia (interactive or otherwise), Links to external resources and Student Prepared Material.

The methods of structuring online activities include:Requiring a deliverable (eg. plans, designs, papers, portfolios etc), Limiting the scope of activities in terms of size and/or time, Providing closure to activities, Actively moderating discussions, Conducting collaborative projects, Interacting with guest speakers, Debates and role plays, Surveys and polls, Formation of learning teams and Brainstorming.

The article also refers to PlatformWeb, which is a web-based teaching environment developed at UWS, Macarthur.

http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/index.html

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009

Presentation of the top 100 tools for learning created with the contributions 278 Learning Professionals worldwide. Many of this tools can be use to apply teaching online techniques mentioned in previous articles.

One-Question Interview

Dear Prof. Morten Paulsen

My name is Isabel Manteigas and I am a master student in “Pedagogy of E-Learning” at Universidade Aberta. I would like to ask you one question about transparency in cooperative education. I will wait for your answer and hope that you allow me publish it on my blog.

Your article "Cooperative Online Education", on Seminar.net, states that “Transparency is important for cooperative online education. People can cooperate more easily if they know something about each other and have access to some common information and services.” Although I agree, I believe that people are different and react differently to various situations. What for some may be considered a casual sharing of information, for others it may be an exhibition of their private lives, for instance, the publication of a group photo on a blog. What is the role of the teacher in this situation? How can the teacher manage these two perspectives? In an environment of cooperative learning, who decides what can be public?

Thank you.

Best regards,

Isabel Manteigas

Dear Isabel,

Your question is important, interesting and challenging - and I have struggled much with it lately. Here are some reflections which you have my permission to publish in the class forum and in your blog:

I do argue that transparency promotes quality and cooperation, but that individual students (and tutors) should have control over and be comfortable with the transparency level. In my opinion there are many factors that influence the transparency level. In addition to the tutors, which you focus on in your question, I believe the LMS system, the institutional policy and the other students have influence on the transparency level.

In my opinion, the tutors should inform and guide the students about the benefits and risks related to transparency. I will argue that the tutors should allow students to choose a level of transparency that they feel comfortable with. It is for example possible to accept course work via private e-mail, in limited course fora or public blog entries. The students' maturity and competence are probably also important factor - adult master students in e-learning are likely much more conscious about transparency than other students.

LMS systems should allow students to choose their personal transparency level. The LMS we have developed at NKI Nettstudier allows each student to choose whether their personal presentation should be Closed (not available for any students), Limited (only available for student in the same course), Open (available for all NKI students) or Global (available for everyone on the internet). The Elgg system, which I'm testing at the moment, make the users choose whether each information element (for example a blog entry or a personal presentation) should be private or shared with friends, logged in users or the public.

Institutional policy defines the framework we work in. I was for example told that all students in PPEL should have their own blogs in this course. In a new Scandinavian project I'm heading, we have started to develop three courses (web-, audi-, and video journalism) were students must publish their work in the program's multimedia portal www.webjournalisten.com which is under development.

Students may influence transparency through examples and peer pressure. We should all be aware that in PPEL, there is a danger that some feel obliged to publish more in their blogs than they are comfortable with. I will also remind you that it is polite and necessary to ask for permission if you want to quote or review non-published material in your blogs.

I hope this was helpful - but I must admit that there are many challenging issues related to transparency - and that I appreciate further input from you.

All the best from Morten

Review of AB and LO

Review of António Pedro's AB: http://eeducandu.blogspot.com/2010/03/cooperative-freedom-annotated.html

The first bibliographic reference that António present it’s about Prof. Morten Paulsen’s Theory of Cooperative Freedom. António managed to transmit the key ideas of the theory in a summarized and clear way. The description made about Cooperative Freedom as a “mix balance from group cooperation and individual autonomy” it’s well achieved. Next, he adds that “can be achieved if we can balance time, space, pace, medium, access and content”.


On his second reference, António uses Terry Anderson’s chapter “Social Software to support distance education learners”, on “The Theory and Practice of Online Learning”. On it we can find a reference to the Theory of Cooperative Freedom, on which the author adds a dimension to Paulsen’s hexagon, Freedom of Relationship. Anderson states that the students should choose the partners that are more adequate to their capacities and social necessities.

António presents some essential ideas made by the author using citations and words of his own.

The third bibliographic reference concerns a workshop about cooperative and collaborative learning. He makes a small description of it, presenting some questions made during the workshop and about which it tries to answer.

António concludes with a small text, not about the bibliography itself, but presenting instead some of his own thoughts about cooperative and collaborative learning.

At the end of the essay there is an annotated and illustrated bibliography. On my perspective, it’s easy reading allows contextualize it, for what it could even come up on the beginning of the essay, as an introduction, and not at the end, after the conclusion.

Learning Object "Distance Education: yes or no?"

toonlet: Distance Education: yes or no?

Cooperative Freedom - Annotated Bibliography

When I started researching and reading about cooperative learning, I thought I understood the concept and the distinction between it and collaborative learning. However, as I kept reading, more doubts arose about their true concepts: "After all, when do we actually face collaborative learning or cooperative learning? Can we distinguish both concepts?". In an attempt to surpass this challenge, I looked into the dictionary for the meanings of ‘cooperate’ and ‘collaborate’. What I found was:
Cooperate
1.Cooperating.
2.Operate simultaneously and collectively; Collaborate.
Collaborate
1.Working jointly with others. = COOPERATE, assists
2.Figurative - act with others to achieve a particular result. = HELP
3.Participate in collective work, often literary, cultural or scientific. = JOIN

As you can see, each term has an active role in the definition of the other. I came to the understanding that the two are intertwined and one implies the other. If so, then what is actual distinction of collaborative learning and cooperative learning?

Here are some sources that helped me to understand these two concepts:

Panitz, Ted - Collaborative versus Cooperative Learning - A comparison of the two concepts which will help us understand the underlying nature of interactive learning
http://home.capecod.net/~tpanitz/tedsarticles/coopdefinition.htm
In this article Ted Panitz argues that “Collaboration is a philosophy of interaction and personal lifestyle where individuals are responsible for their actions, including learning and respecting the abilities and contributions of their peers; Cooperation is a structure of interaction designed to facilitate the accomplishment of a specific end product or goal through people working together in groups". Thus, we can say that what distinguishes the two concepts is the environment in which they are applied. According to Stephen Downes (2007), collaborative learning depends on group and cooperative learning takes place in networks.

Paulsen, Morten – Cooperative Freedom: an online Education Theory in Online Education
http://www.moodle.univ-ab.pt/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?inpopup=true&id=220806
Paulsen. Morten – Cooperative Online Education, article in Seminar.Net http://www.seminar.net/index.php/volume-4-issue-2-2008-previousissuesmeny-124/100-cooperative-online-education

Prof. Morten Paulsen in his article about online education on cooperative presents us a theory of cooperative freedom, which is based on three pillars:
1. Voluntary, but attractive participation;
2. Means promoting individual flexibility;
3. Means promoting affinity to learning community.
A point made by Professor Paulsen is transparency; it supports cooperation to improve the quality of the learning process. Students can have access to the contributions of others, learn from them and receive and give feedback. In this article, Professor Paulsen presents the results of some studies on cooperative learning in the NKI and concluded that this model is well accepted by students. In "Cooperative freedom: an online education theory”, he explores the theory of cooperative freedom and concludes that "future adult students will seek individual flexibility and freedom. At the same time, many need or prefer group collaboration and social unit. These aims are difficult to combine, but online education, when integrated with other media, can be the means of joining individual freedom and collective unity into truly flexible, cooperative distance education programs”.

Johnson, David W.; Johnson, Roger - Cooperative Learning And Social Interdependence Theory
http://www.co-operation.org/pages/SIT.html

In this article the authors state that "Cooperative learning exists when students work together to achieve joint learning groups (Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 1992, 1993)". For them, the Social Interdependence Theory is associated with cooperative learning - the action of someone may have a negative, positive or neutral influence in the work of others. The difference lies in the structure of the situation; if it is cooperative, the result is positive; if it is competitive, can be negative and if it is individual, it is neutral to others. The results depend on the interaction between the partners. However, not all groups are considered cooperative. It is not enough to just sit them in the same space and tell "now, cooperate". Basic elements as “positive interdependence, individual accountability, promotive interaction, appropriate use of social skills, and group processing” are needed.
Some conclusions of the authors:
1.The research on social interdependence has an external validity and a generalizability rarely found in the social sciences
2.Clear and specific operationalizations of cooperative learning have been made based on understanding social interdependence theory and the variables that mediate and enhance cooperationist effectiveness
3.Cooperative learning can be used with some confidence at every grade level, in every subject area, and with any task
4.Cooperative learning should ideally be used the majority of the school day
5.Cooperative learning is here to stay.

Está quase.

Hoje tive a tarde livre! E quando digo livre, refiro-me a estar sem urgência para realizar alguma tarefa porque coisas para fazer existem sempre. Há muito tempo que isto não acontecia!

Faltam poucos dias para começar o curso e já começo a ficar impaciente. Isto de ser estudante online tem que se lhe diga. O módulo de ambientação não me correu "às mil maravilhas". Com o casamento e a lua de mel a coincidir não consegui acompanhar devidamente os desenvolvimentos. Tentei realizar todas as actividades, dedicando mais tempo a umas que a outras. Second Life, Delicious, Flickr, Blogue... Uffff! Pensando bem, já aprendemos/melhorámos uma série de ferramentas das quais, confesso, pouco sabia.

Um dos aspectos mais importantes é a organização. Não temos horário de aulas presenciais, pelo qual nos poderíamos guiar e organizar o nosso dia. O grande desafio prende-se com isto mesmo: organizar o nosso dia de forma a poder dedicar o tempo necessário às unidades curriculares. A gestão do tempo, a motivação e a auto-disciplina são aspectos que dependem de nós e podemos controlá-los. No entanto, devemos ter em consideração aqueles que nos são alheios, como por exemplo, a ligação de Internet de que dispomos. Eu tenho duas em casa (fixa e móvel) e só eu sei como uma delas falha; o tempo que passo ao telefone para resolver problemas com a net poderia muito bem ser o tempo dedicado ao curso... A outra é "lentinha". Bem, é só esperar para ver e fazer figas para não ter imprevistos.

Um outro aspecto é a comunicação; como nos dirigimos a colegas e professores? Assinar uma mensagem, cumprimentar, despedirmo-nos... Há quem o faça, outros nem tanto. Como se processa a comunicação professor/aluno/professor? Nunca fui fã das conversas online prolongadas. Se intervenho demais, sou chatinha; se participo pouco, não me estou a aplicar. Como se atinge o equilíbrio? Penso que aqui entra o bom senso de cada um. E por falar nisso, diz-me o meu que já me estou a esticar um bocadinho, portanto, vou ficar por aqui.

Até breve.

AO TRABALHO!

Primeira etapa cumprida.

Agora, começa o trabalho. Espero que este se transforme num espaço de partilha de conhecimentos, pensamentos (positivos ou negativos) e experiências.

A todos os que me visitarem (e aos outros, também), desejo um excelente trabalho.

Até breve.