The Mohawk College BlendR

Blended Learning: Online Gradebooks

Blended Learning: Online Gradebooks

Online gradebooks are a godsend in two ways, and a challenge in one other. They are great because:

1. students are in control of viewing and making sure their grades are there and match up with assignments that have been returned. They can also see what they haven’t handed in yet!
2. posting feedback to assignments is easy and students can track their progress over the term.

The challenge with posting grades is the temptation to post those grades for written or typed assignments that haven’t yet been returned. I’ve found that some students are writing me unhappy with their grades before they have viewed my comments on the actual documents (this has only been an issue so far in the midterm scenario, all other assignments are returned online with their comments attached). So, in the future, in the case of midterms, I won’ t be posting the grades until the actual papers have been returned.

Other than this, the idea of using grading in hybrid learning has been fantastic. I like that students feel in control and can track their process. No nasty surprises for them in December, unless they choose not to go online. I’d love to hear about your experiences, positive or negative, when it comes to posting and dealing with grades and leaving feedback on grades, online. 

Here are a few online resources for more information – they discuss using gradebooks for a variety of learning and teaching levels:

http://blog.learnboost.com/blog/pros-and-cons-of-sharing-your-grade-book/

 

Blended Learning: End of term concerns

Blended Learning: End of term concerns

Now that we are far over half way through the semester and starting to reach the end, I’ve had the odd concern to deal with. They have included:

• students who choose or fail to understand that the online learning environment is literally a part of their class experience
• students who feel overwhelmed by the addition of having to use technology to get the content and skills they need for the course
• students with language difficulties finding the text focus of the online learning environment confusing
• students who are not technologically savvy feeling frustrated by the course

As with the number of students who don’t have computers at home, this is less than one or two percent of the class total and my view has been to meet with these students individually to help lessen their frustration. In the odd extreme case I have printed out material from the online learning environment to help a student feel more in control of the sum total of their assignments. 

I think these issues will never go away, their tone may change as time goes on but there will always be the odd student who simply needs the visual and physical presence of the teacher to help get them working. How that can be changed with the use of videos is interesting to me and a topic that often comes up on conversations with both those who are for and against the process. I have no answers where that is concerned but am reading the dialogues that I’ve seen online and on Twitter avidly.

 

Blended Learning: The Learning Environment and Online Discussions

Blended Learning: The Learning Environment and Online Discussions

 

Videos, online quizzes, textbook readings, powerpoints, and inclass activities are making for a varied learning environment. As well, the format of my course is set up so that all assignments are generic and ask students to use the learning from their own program area to ‘fill in’ the content of the communications work that they are asked to do.

One area I’d like to discuss is the use of ‘online discussions.’ I have found these to be very useful in a hybrid learning environment. With each student expected to comment on questions I have found a wider variety of information and personal experience is shared.  This article discusses the fact that questions need to be focused depending on the environment you are asking students to use to have a conversation: http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/AsynchronousandSynchronousELea/163445

Getting students to read and comment on other people’s work, however, is hard to grade and hard to enforce over the course, though. Still, by setting up questions before hand that ask students their own opinions and experiences on their readings and viewings, I have found that I’ve been able to eliminate the overlapping and similar answers that some professors get when they ask questions that are too generic or content related.

This useful website from the Australian Flexible Learning Framework (2008) http://designing.flexiblelearning.net.au/gallery/activities/discussions.htm lists a variety of steps you might use when creating your discussion area:

"Design steps

1. Consider the range of communication activities within the course.
2. Decide if discussion participation will be assessable (see below for more information on assessment).
3. Provide instruction or a simple activity (for example, introductions and personal course goal statements) to ensure that your knows the know how to post messages
4. Set up 'seed' messages to get learners started and to outline the purpose of each thread/topic. Develop activities to make sure everyone knows and feels comfortable with each other
5. Establish with the learners some ground rules about etiquette, manner, and respect for others and their opinions
6. Give learners some guidelines about the length and frequency of posts (i.e. discourage lengthy, verbose posts, post no more than 2 messages in a row without others response etc)
7. Consider establishing smaller groups so that people's opinions have a smaller audience and the threads are easier to follow and respond to by learners
8. Set up the discussion space to facilitate these activities (structure threads, allocate teams and private spaces etc).
9. Constantly monitor the discussion and respond to or initiate discussions where necessary.
10. Contact learners who are not participating, reading but not post (“lurkers”) or who are responding inappropriately to the task.
11. Summarise or “weave” discussion threads and post a summary that makes linkages to other aspects of the learning program. It can become difficult for learners to follow the communication that is taking place on the forum. Weaving is where you post messages that help students understand how a discussion is flowing and its relationship to previous discussion. Use weaving to review print outs, refer to earlier discussions, clarify confused content understanding or arguments, identify themes and make connections between posts.
12. Archive and save the post for later review/assessment recording"

I hope that reproducing this bit is useful. Please check out their website for more information.

Blended Learning: Information Retrieval

Blended Learning: Information Retrieval

 

In terms of information retrieval, students have a variety of issues which seems to come from various system set up and online access issues. Powerpoints that open easily from my computers at home (Mac and PC), my office at the college (PC) and the computers in the classroom (PC) all work fine but once students get home documents don’t open or aren’t compatible with older computers, powerpoints don’t want to download, and even pdfs have corrupted depending on the computer system.

This article on disability and eLearning issues has been helpful in making good decisions to help students who are struggling: http://www.adaptech.org/pubs/abDisabilitiesAndE-LearningProblems.pdf

This has led me to hope, that with more development of my own hybrid/blended course area, I can move all of my assignments and documents into a simple html format. Working and developing the nitty gritty of the course only a couple of weeks before I am delivering makes it hard to do this up front. This article discusses many of the same issues that can arise when piloting a new online environment: http://www.aare.edu.au/04pap/ten04490.pdf

For the most part, a combination of online ‘news’ systems and doubling that with emails sent to students through the online system has ensured students get the information they need on time. For the most part, this has also allowed me to extend students work from the classroom into the online environment. 

 

Blended Learning Update: Half way through!

Well, it has been a sad long time since I posted. Can I claim I haven’t been online?

Definitely not!

So, here is an update of what has been going on in my four blended learning courses so far. I’ll include both positives and negatives and share some student feedback that I’ve received.

In September, I was very optimistic about the fact that I could ‘teach’ students how to use the online eLearn environment in class and then send them on their way to use the computer once they got home.

But this assumes that all students have computers at home…which they don’t.

Have a look at this article: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/07/16/techliteracy which discusses the phenomenon and its possible effects on students when they enter the workplace.

It’s a small percentage, about 5% of my students, who still don’t have computers and must rely on the Library’s increasingly unavailable computer workstations.

This document, from the University of Central Oklahoma, speaks about similar issues they are experiencing with students who are taking online courses: http://students.ou.edu/M/L.A.Monroe-1/artifact_ComputerLiteracyReport.pdf

However, the eLearn environment as it stands has been working well. Students are able to navigate the front page fairly easily. Handy administrative controls helps me make sure students can’t make essential information disappear off the screen.

Next week I’ll continue my discussion of some of the issues and possible solutions to blended learning challenges.

Back in the Blend!

Well, Summer is officially over for me and I've jumped back in the BlendR. I have officially finished my Masters of Education from OISE/U of T and my last course, in Cooperative Learning, has inspired me in running my courses in a big way. I also had a relaxing trip to Chicago which was inspiring in other ways.

Down to business. This semester I have four blended courses (all versions of the same Innovation/Communications course) so I'm going to be tracking my progress as well as doing some of my own research. Yesterday I held my first class and had prepared a short powerpoint to help students understand that blended learning doesn't mean:

• class is cancelled sometimes
• students don't ever have to come to class
• all assignments and information will be posted right away so students can work through the entire course at their own pace
• that students are totally on their own

Really, the idea of blended has me excited. Last Winter I taught two courses totally online and I spent many hours writing emails just trying to explain (in video, sound, and text) how the eLearn system at Mohawk works. Having a blended class means I can actually demonstrate how things work up front and avoid all the worries and anxieties that came later in my Winter class because people didn't know how to access assignments, etc.

The other thing I really focused on in my Intro. to blended learning was the changed role that I have, that I am trying to guide and facilitate the student's learning rather than stand in front of the class and lecture 'at' them. We'll see how that goes - I think each student individually will fall on a scale of confidence at working interdependently with me and their peers to learn.

I'll keep you blended, I mean, posted.

 

Check this out: Tom Vander Ark - 10 Reasons Teachers Love Blended Learning

Teachers have tough jobs -- lots of kids and lots of responsibility -- and budget cuts are making things worse. They have administrators telling them to boost achievement and personalize learning, but most of them are on their own without tools. But that is beginning to change as schools are beginning to blend traditional teaching with online learning.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

I just read this article this morning - I think there are a lot of valid points here. Teachers, what do you think?

Welcome to The Mohawk College BlendR!

The BlendR is where we discuss learning mixology - need another metaphor?

Students are our drivers, just like in a computer operating system. The system is the college - we run programs, execute commands, and de-bug where appropriate. Mixology is about applying learning skills, theories, and strategies, all in a real run-time environment. Mixology is the energy, the life, and the unique blend of chips, data, and hardware that keep the drivers going!

So, welcome to Mohawk College's newest blog. My name is Rhonda-Lee Dynes and I'm a faculty member in our college's Interdisciplinary Department. I'm here to talk about some really important things the college is working on:

1. the transition to blended learning
2. the role of innovation in learning and learning strategy
3. the unique part that blended learning can play in being inclusive and diverse in our community

I'm also interested in discussing how our three directives toward quality, innovation, and sustainability can be enhanced, mixed, and blended in the way we deliver education to our students.

And who is responsible for delivering education, you might ask, dear readers? I'm not just talking about faculty here, but

• learning strategists, and other non-teaching faculty
• students success advisors
• ALL support staff, security, front line and along the line workers
• administration and administrative assistants
• other educational institutions
• employers
• community members
• families
• friends,
• yes, faculty, too

and of course, STUDENTS! If I missed anyone, you're in too! Follow me through the blog, Twitter, or RSS feed. Find me in the hall, in the classroom, and on the road as I look for

quality resources

sustainable initiatives going on elsewhere

innovative ideas floating around our own campus.

The Mohawk College BlendR: creating our own unique educational mixology!