I am finding that in my country Barbados, the online learning is not becoming accepted as more and more people are feeling 'safe' about learning in such an environment.
I am also finding that instructional designers are not coming strictly from such a background with the qualifications and experiences that are identified in the blogs you mentioned above. More so than ever, we are finding that they - like me- are just regular teachers and in some cases (again like me) they are highly computer literate.
What implications does this have then for our designing of our online courses? I have not come to realise that the courses I have designed have really too much text and not enough links, videos or presentations that would encourage self learning. Units are structured similar to those in face to face teaching and we are providing the student with too much information on the screen and little opportunities for them to pursue their own research.
I hope that I can take away my knowledge from this course and share it with my colleagues.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Adapting to Organizational Change
Think of the saying that goes ‘our greatest strength may be our greatest weakness’. If the organization culture is to be defined or shaped by a person’s life experiences, their strengths and weaknesses, their education – both school and societal – then both employers and employees must play a critical role in establishing the culture and must see each other as contributing to this culture. Unlike the organisation’s structure, its culture cannot be represented by a chart that depicts the inter-personal relationships, both formal and informal, which exist between the people working there.
My institution has just seen a change of leadership at the level of the Board, the Principal and Deputy Principals and in some cases Head of Divisions. By modifying the organization's basic structure there was a obvious change in the existing norms, and thus in the culture as well. With the changes in leadership, also came a change in the culture of the institution in terms of its paradigm shifting to being more ‘student friendly’. This is indeed a positive approach to effectively managing the institution albeit seemingly at the expense of the instructors. The dominant culture that seems to be emerging is the customer is always right and in our case the customer is the student.
The processes that has been put in place to monitor what is going are being interpreted by the instructors as micro-management – more focus is now being placed on the instructor’s role in the students’ successes or losses and such this as their class management and planning skills. Again, something that should be taken as a positive is being seen in a negative light and this may be due mostly to the resistance to change by the instructors.
One belief of our previous organizational culture was reflected in the statement: "Don't raise questions or suggest improvements, because nothing will come of it.” The consequences of what behaviour are rewarded and what is punished as well as whose behaviour is being rewarded and whose is punished would significantly influence this institution’s new perceived culture.
There have been drastic improvements however, in the organisational structure in terms of it establishing and using its reporting lines, hierarchies and flow of information throughout the institution. The use of the appropriate chain of command is now being engraved as part of the institution’s culture and is now being fully utilized and accepted.
A new culture which is also emerging in that of meetings. At all levels of the institution, employees are being urged to meet – there are now monthly scheduled management meetings, weekly Heads of Division meetings, department meetings are also more frequent. However, one must wonder is these meetings are going to become more habitual than necessary. Routines and procedures which were so entrenched in the institution became part of the culture, and new management is seeing that in order to change this culture it will necessitate changing those routines. We must however, be able to see that where the weekly or monthly meetings become more formalized it must be seen as the only way information moves within the institution. Changing the culture to improve communication may only be possible by changing the meeting procedures or eliminating the meetings altogether.
A strong organizational culture is the foundation for making a good company a great one. The secret to and organisation’s success can been attributed to its strong culture.
My institution has just seen a change of leadership at the level of the Board, the Principal and Deputy Principals and in some cases Head of Divisions. By modifying the organization's basic structure there was a obvious change in the existing norms, and thus in the culture as well. With the changes in leadership, also came a change in the culture of the institution in terms of its paradigm shifting to being more ‘student friendly’. This is indeed a positive approach to effectively managing the institution albeit seemingly at the expense of the instructors. The dominant culture that seems to be emerging is the customer is always right and in our case the customer is the student.
The processes that has been put in place to monitor what is going are being interpreted by the instructors as micro-management – more focus is now being placed on the instructor’s role in the students’ successes or losses and such this as their class management and planning skills. Again, something that should be taken as a positive is being seen in a negative light and this may be due mostly to the resistance to change by the instructors.
One belief of our previous organizational culture was reflected in the statement: "Don't raise questions or suggest improvements, because nothing will come of it.” The consequences of what behaviour are rewarded and what is punished as well as whose behaviour is being rewarded and whose is punished would significantly influence this institution’s new perceived culture.
There have been drastic improvements however, in the organisational structure in terms of it establishing and using its reporting lines, hierarchies and flow of information throughout the institution. The use of the appropriate chain of command is now being engraved as part of the institution’s culture and is now being fully utilized and accepted.
A new culture which is also emerging in that of meetings. At all levels of the institution, employees are being urged to meet – there are now monthly scheduled management meetings, weekly Heads of Division meetings, department meetings are also more frequent. However, one must wonder is these meetings are going to become more habitual than necessary. Routines and procedures which were so entrenched in the institution became part of the culture, and new management is seeing that in order to change this culture it will necessitate changing those routines. We must however, be able to see that where the weekly or monthly meetings become more formalized it must be seen as the only way information moves within the institution. Changing the culture to improve communication may only be possible by changing the meeting procedures or eliminating the meetings altogether.
A strong organizational culture is the foundation for making a good company a great one. The secret to and organisation’s success can been attributed to its strong culture.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Learning Design Principles by Mike Tailor - from Stella's Blog
Learning Design Principles by Mike Tailor
The video on this site provided the reader with a greater understanding of the role of the brain in integration multi-media into your instructional designing and attempts to explain why the use of text and graphics are important in designing a course.
As indicated in the above blog on this site, the video presentation on the site does provide us with principles to explain and demonstrate the effectiveness of integrating the use of pictures with words and provide us with a "to do" and a "not to do" lists. For instance, it tells us the we should not split information or split text and the graphics that goes with it as in these instances, we are also splitting the readers' attention and therefore making it more difficult for the reader to integrate the materials. According to the Taylor, the use of pairing text with a picture makes the text more memorable.
For those us in an Instructional Design class, the blog/video will prove very useful in helping us to better understand the role the brain plays in integrating, memorizing and recalling information, not only on a whiteboard or a text book, but more importantly on a computer screen.
I believe that in designing online courses, the designer can use illustrations animation and graphics as well to draw the audience's attention or alert the student to key information.
My research into these as they relate to computer based instruction identified that graphics as being
#attentional - pictures or graphics attract attention to the material or direct attention within the material - hopefully using graphics in this way will heighten the likelihood that a user will remember the material.
# affective - pictures enhance enjoyment or affect emotions and attitudes
# cognitive - the cognitive use of graphics involves using pictures to increase comprehension (for example, providing elaboration for a text explanation), to improve recollection and retention, or to provide information that is not otherwise available
(Here's a section from the cellsalive.com website - Enhancing the Microscope Image which really uses graphics effectively to elaborate on text points)
# compensatory - the compensatory use of pictures involves helping poor readers by adding pictorial clues to decode text
From my experiences, I believe that the use of use multi-media should be done with due consideration to the end user. Designers should ensure that the graphics they use serve a purpose, if they don't they might distract the user. Consideration must also be paid to type of system used to prepare the course versus the system being used to view the course. A lot of graphics may cause a system to react very slowly.
If you are uploading video and audio transmissions they should be accompanied by a written transcription. Like me, some students prefer to read that watch or listen to information and others may prefer to have a written transcript to refer to at some time.
Use bold text, underlined text, italicized text, colored text, or all capital letters only when it is drawing the reader’s eye to something meaningful. Over-using these elements detracts from their meaningful use. When the all of the text is large, bold or colored, it fails to draw the reader’s eye to any particular items that you want to stick out.
Design pages to be esthetically appealing and professional-looking.
References
Levie, W.H. & Lentz, R. (1982). Effects of text illustrations: A review of research. Educational Communications and Technology Journal, 30 (4), 195-232.
The video on this site provided the reader with a greater understanding of the role of the brain in integration multi-media into your instructional designing and attempts to explain why the use of text and graphics are important in designing a course.
As indicated in the above blog on this site, the video presentation on the site does provide us with principles to explain and demonstrate the effectiveness of integrating the use of pictures with words and provide us with a "to do" and a "not to do" lists. For instance, it tells us the we should not split information or split text and the graphics that goes with it as in these instances, we are also splitting the readers' attention and therefore making it more difficult for the reader to integrate the materials. According to the Taylor, the use of pairing text with a picture makes the text more memorable.
For those us in an Instructional Design class, the blog/video will prove very useful in helping us to better understand the role the brain plays in integrating, memorizing and recalling information, not only on a whiteboard or a text book, but more importantly on a computer screen.
I believe that in designing online courses, the designer can use illustrations animation and graphics as well to draw the audience's attention or alert the student to key information.
My research into these as they relate to computer based instruction identified that graphics as being
#attentional - pictures or graphics attract attention to the material or direct attention within the material - hopefully using graphics in this way will heighten the likelihood that a user will remember the material.
# affective - pictures enhance enjoyment or affect emotions and attitudes
# cognitive - the cognitive use of graphics involves using pictures to increase comprehension (for example, providing elaboration for a text explanation), to improve recollection and retention, or to provide information that is not otherwise available
(Here's a section from the cellsalive.com website - Enhancing the Microscope Image which really uses graphics effectively to elaborate on text points)
# compensatory - the compensatory use of pictures involves helping poor readers by adding pictorial clues to decode text
From my experiences, I believe that the use of use multi-media should be done with due consideration to the end user. Designers should ensure that the graphics they use serve a purpose, if they don't they might distract the user. Consideration must also be paid to type of system used to prepare the course versus the system being used to view the course. A lot of graphics may cause a system to react very slowly.
If you are uploading video and audio transmissions they should be accompanied by a written transcription. Like me, some students prefer to read that watch or listen to information and others may prefer to have a written transcript to refer to at some time.
Use bold text, underlined text, italicized text, colored text, or all capital letters only when it is drawing the reader’s eye to something meaningful. Over-using these elements detracts from their meaningful use. When the all of the text is large, bold or colored, it fails to draw the reader’s eye to any particular items that you want to stick out.
Design pages to be esthetically appealing and professional-looking.
References
Levie, W.H. & Lentz, R. (1982). Effects of text illustrations: A review of research. Educational Communications and Technology Journal, 30 (4), 195-232.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Education Blogging
Edublogs allows you to create and maintain blogs, whether you are a student or a teacher. It allows you to customize templates and designs. It also provides the facility for you to add videos, photos and podcasts. A plus for the user is that the site provides you with free help guides and support.
Edublogs is operated by teachers, for teachers and this means that they are in tuned to what we as teachers need. In terms of managing student blogs EduBlog has a number management tools which are available for use.
Edublogs appears to have designed for the promoting of educational blogging in schools. I can see myself encouraging my school to use this type of new technologies positively to encourage communication among the students. Visiting the site (www.edublogs.com, I can see how it can be used by my students and other teachers of information technology courses, to share experiences from student to student, teacher to student and student to teacher.
Another positive for the site is that since Edublogs are blogs that are strictly designed for educational use, these blogs can act as a forum as of in depth discussion. The site can also create a communication network of person for all over the world, to share their that common interests in teaching and learning. It also provides teachers with the opportunity to share their lesson plans, to provide varying and exciting learning techniques, and teaching ideas for the classroom. Edublogs is focus is on providing educational information based individual classrooms – a feature which is not available on many other blog site.
However, some of these features come with different payment plans. Some Blogging packages are offered free but with limited resources and features. However, a purchased solution may provide advantages that a free solution may not, such as more webspace.
Since Edublogs are a public tool and a forum that can be used to express personal viewpoints, it is
very important that teachers and students are aware of copyright issues and netiquette
when expressing their view point on these blog. Another issue that can arise in these forums is inappropriate comments and posts from students. Also, one must consider at times, the validity of some of the information being posted – do not assume that because the site is by teachers that each post will be by teachers as well and will always contain factual and accurate information. It is therefore important to keep checking for sources and references listed to ensure that true content is being posted.
This site can provide great insights for me in terms of conduction my research for my Instructional Design related courses. The site has a fast response rate and information is readily available. Edublog is one of the methods I can use to create a portfolio of my writing assignments as well as to see others that are posted there.
The site however, does not seem to be the ideal place to allow me to have ongoing discussions with my online members. It does appear, however to provide me with the opportunity to have an open forum for the exchange of ideas. Excellent opportunities for me to read and write on instructional design are available as well. I can also benefit from the site by having peer reviews on my writings. As edublogs are open to the world in the same way as websites, it is possible for to allow comments from the readers and to get feedback from them as well . I can use this feedback to improve on my work. In exploring the site, I discovered that the bloggers there continually search, filter and post ideas and information on a daily basis – and this is such information which engage higher order thinking skills.
Overall , I would say that this site provides the arguments for encouraging the use of blogging in a educational setting. The pros out-weight the cons tremendously.
IDEAS: Instructional Design for Elearning ApproacheS
The educational blog site for instructional designers provides links and posting to a number of website, articles and insights on elearning strategies and instructional technology as designed by Ferdinand Krauss. This site examines research publication and trends in instructional design, as found in selected professional journals. Critical analysis was used to investigate documents , books and articles relating to key words such as, online learning, online teaching and instructional design, The site also talks of ‘teaching and learning’ in the following categories:
Categories
• Educational Technology
• Elearning Delivery Strategies
• Faculty Development
• Instructional Design
• Instructional Technology
• Learning Objects
• Teaching Online
From a review of instructional design theories, research, and practice, the author has created this blog. The site discusses instructional design tools and provides assessments on design, production, implementation, and evaluation. The site also identifies and catalogues existing documentation that can be used to facilitate students such as myself, in Instructional Design. The author was able create for me, a snapshot of the books that form the theoretical and practical foundation of the field of instructional design and elearning, through the references his cited.
The author offers reviews of articles, books and related subject matter in the categories identified above. He also provides additional references and sources where more information can be gathers. The reviews given are very insightful and thought provoking. Sources are appropriately cited to provide grounding for his comments which are freely given. As well, each writing gives a brief introduction which provides a summary of the article or book being discussed and his thought on the subject matter. The writings then goes on to develop those ideas and offers the reader further guidance. By the end of each blog section, I will have an idea of how to select the best information, which will help me focus on the most essential elements of a problem I am trying to solve.
The blogs being discussed teaches us how to grow and engage ourselves as teachers and learners existing in an online community. This site was an excellent introduction to me as a first time blog user in terms of providing the background, thought processes and ideas for just about every type of related to Instructional Design element you can imagine. When I apply this knowledge to my eLearning courses I am sure that I would be able to provide richer experiences to share.
I found that in reading the reviewed studies of instructional design theory, I was able to explore major trends in the fields as well as reflect on the suggested future directions posted by the author.
I read a number of the articles posted and found that the author was able to answer a number of questions I had regarding elearning. These questions included: (1) How do students learn in an online environment?; (2) What learning theories should I be guided by for online learning and teaching?; (3) What do my students need to learn and how do I present this information online?; (4) How do I plan their instruction?; (5) How do I deliver this instruction?; (6) How do I assess their learning?; and (7) How do I evaluate their learning process?
However, the site offers me the option of commenting but I wish that I could have also added postings so that I could have had more interaction with the author and the readers in a visible setting (not having to click on ‘comments’). The author does not seem to engage its readers as a community. Along with offering an improvement to current practices in Instructional Design and Elearning approaches, the goal of the author should also be to stimulate discussion among readers about the nature of the process of instructional design and elearning. As well, I believe that he could have shared more of his personal teaching and learning experiences in classroom practice with us. Finally, I felt that the authors' could have done more to stir discussion, controversy, and reflection among readers like myself, with him.
Categories
• Educational Technology
• Elearning Delivery Strategies
• Faculty Development
• Instructional Design
• Instructional Technology
• Learning Objects
• Teaching Online
From a review of instructional design theories, research, and practice, the author has created this blog. The site discusses instructional design tools and provides assessments on design, production, implementation, and evaluation. The site also identifies and catalogues existing documentation that can be used to facilitate students such as myself, in Instructional Design. The author was able create for me, a snapshot of the books that form the theoretical and practical foundation of the field of instructional design and elearning, through the references his cited.
The author offers reviews of articles, books and related subject matter in the categories identified above. He also provides additional references and sources where more information can be gathers. The reviews given are very insightful and thought provoking. Sources are appropriately cited to provide grounding for his comments which are freely given. As well, each writing gives a brief introduction which provides a summary of the article or book being discussed and his thought on the subject matter. The writings then goes on to develop those ideas and offers the reader further guidance. By the end of each blog section, I will have an idea of how to select the best information, which will help me focus on the most essential elements of a problem I am trying to solve.
The blogs being discussed teaches us how to grow and engage ourselves as teachers and learners existing in an online community. This site was an excellent introduction to me as a first time blog user in terms of providing the background, thought processes and ideas for just about every type of related to Instructional Design element you can imagine. When I apply this knowledge to my eLearning courses I am sure that I would be able to provide richer experiences to share.
I found that in reading the reviewed studies of instructional design theory, I was able to explore major trends in the fields as well as reflect on the suggested future directions posted by the author.
I read a number of the articles posted and found that the author was able to answer a number of questions I had regarding elearning. These questions included: (1) How do students learn in an online environment?; (2) What learning theories should I be guided by for online learning and teaching?; (3) What do my students need to learn and how do I present this information online?; (4) How do I plan their instruction?; (5) How do I deliver this instruction?; (6) How do I assess their learning?; and (7) How do I evaluate their learning process?
However, the site offers me the option of commenting but I wish that I could have also added postings so that I could have had more interaction with the author and the readers in a visible setting (not having to click on ‘comments’). The author does not seem to engage its readers as a community. Along with offering an improvement to current practices in Instructional Design and Elearning approaches, the goal of the author should also be to stimulate discussion among readers about the nature of the process of instructional design and elearning. As well, I believe that he could have shared more of his personal teaching and learning experiences in classroom practice with us. Finally, I felt that the authors' could have done more to stir discussion, controversy, and reflection among readers like myself, with him.
Learning Theory
The article, 'Learning theory', the encyclopedia of informal education’, as reviewed by Smith, M. K. (1999)and stated by him, discusses the following subject areas:
• learning as a product
• task-conscious or acquisition learning, and learning-conscious or formalized learning
• learning as a process
• the behaviourist orientation to learning
• the cognitive orientation to learning
• the humanistic orientation to learning
• the social/situational orientation to learning
The article presents an approach that may be used to provide a more comprehensive picture of what is learning in terms of examining if it is a process or product. Through research by Säljö (1979) where he asked adult students what they understood by learning, the article discusses the responses in five different categories but Smith was able to simply sum it up as 'knowing that' and 'knowing how'. The article identifies several issues emerging connected to Conditioning and Cognitivism with an evaluation that takes these topics from theory to practice. A brief discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the different learning theories and how they might best be utilized is included.
Smith, begin his commentary by examining learning as a product and as a process. He later takes the reader “into the arena of competing learning theories - ideas about how learning may happen”. He also discusses acquisition learning and formalized learning as posit by Alan Roger's (2003).
This article is very useful for the Instructional Designer in the making who is trying to get a grasp of what exactly learning theory is for them. The author discusses learning theory in relation to models, product and process and provides a number of comparisons, e.g. active learning and flexible learning, in an effort to show relationships.
Mark Smith presented a table of 'four orientations to learning' which compares Behaviourist, Cognitivist, Humanist and Social / Situational orientations of learning theories and related them to a number of roles that as an online educator, I may one day find myself in again. For the information presented in the table, I was able to come to the conclusion that as an Instructional Designer, I have the responsibility to not only understand my own learning needs and habits, but also the learning methods that are best suited for my students.
The conclusions that I drew from this article was that individuals learn in many different ways. Studying the processes that Smith described in this article has helped me to realize I use a combination of varying aspects of the learning theories. This understanding has now lead me to think about the best methods for me to utilize these learning theories in my Instructional Designing. In reality, there is no single method. I find that the best approach is a multifaceted one. Like Smith, I do agree that not every learner will be happy with reading text, nor will they be satisfied with videos all the time.
The author presents an approach that may be used to provide a more comprehensive picture of what is learning in terms of examining if it is a process or product. Through research by Säljö (1979) where he asked adult students what they understood by learning, the article discusses the responses in five different categories but simply sums it up as 'knowing that' and 'knowing how'.
The article identifies several issues emerging connected to Conditioning and Cognitivism with an evaluation that takes these topics from theory to practice. A brief discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the different learning theories and how they might best be utilized is included. However, the section of the article that caught my attention, and would encourage me to further research this resource, relates to Smith’s focus on humanist approach to learning. Humanistic theory and current discussions on learning put the learner in the centre and try to interpret learning from his/her perspective. I tend to favour this approach and I believe that it can be better served to promote e-learning more so that any of the other theories as it does not support a learning process that is totally controlled by the teacher. But the more relevant part of this discussion was the introductory paragraphs Smith cited that Rogers identified as being present in learning.
• learning as a product
• task-conscious or acquisition learning, and learning-conscious or formalized learning
• learning as a process
• the behaviourist orientation to learning
• the cognitive orientation to learning
• the humanistic orientation to learning
• the social/situational orientation to learning
The article presents an approach that may be used to provide a more comprehensive picture of what is learning in terms of examining if it is a process or product. Through research by Säljö (1979) where he asked adult students what they understood by learning, the article discusses the responses in five different categories but Smith was able to simply sum it up as 'knowing that' and 'knowing how'. The article identifies several issues emerging connected to Conditioning and Cognitivism with an evaluation that takes these topics from theory to practice. A brief discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the different learning theories and how they might best be utilized is included.
Smith, begin his commentary by examining learning as a product and as a process. He later takes the reader “into the arena of competing learning theories - ideas about how learning may happen”. He also discusses acquisition learning and formalized learning as posit by Alan Roger's (2003).
This article is very useful for the Instructional Designer in the making who is trying to get a grasp of what exactly learning theory is for them. The author discusses learning theory in relation to models, product and process and provides a number of comparisons, e.g. active learning and flexible learning, in an effort to show relationships.
Mark Smith presented a table of 'four orientations to learning' which compares Behaviourist, Cognitivist, Humanist and Social / Situational orientations of learning theories and related them to a number of roles that as an online educator, I may one day find myself in again. For the information presented in the table, I was able to come to the conclusion that as an Instructional Designer, I have the responsibility to not only understand my own learning needs and habits, but also the learning methods that are best suited for my students.
The conclusions that I drew from this article was that individuals learn in many different ways. Studying the processes that Smith described in this article has helped me to realize I use a combination of varying aspects of the learning theories. This understanding has now lead me to think about the best methods for me to utilize these learning theories in my Instructional Designing. In reality, there is no single method. I find that the best approach is a multifaceted one. Like Smith, I do agree that not every learner will be happy with reading text, nor will they be satisfied with videos all the time.
The author presents an approach that may be used to provide a more comprehensive picture of what is learning in terms of examining if it is a process or product. Through research by Säljö (1979) where he asked adult students what they understood by learning, the article discusses the responses in five different categories but simply sums it up as 'knowing that' and 'knowing how'.
The article identifies several issues emerging connected to Conditioning and Cognitivism with an evaluation that takes these topics from theory to practice. A brief discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the different learning theories and how they might best be utilized is included. However, the section of the article that caught my attention, and would encourage me to further research this resource, relates to Smith’s focus on humanist approach to learning. Humanistic theory and current discussions on learning put the learner in the centre and try to interpret learning from his/her perspective. I tend to favour this approach and I believe that it can be better served to promote e-learning more so that any of the other theories as it does not support a learning process that is totally controlled by the teacher. But the more relevant part of this discussion was the introductory paragraphs Smith cited that Rogers identified as being present in learning.
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