The sharpest tool in the box? Considering online tools in supporting BOE students

Hello and welcome to this week’s blog post by yours truly – Joe Bloggs. Last week I looked at cultural diversity considerations in the support of students in BOE, in which I considered the ever-expanded list of online tools and the extent to which cultural/political factors influence student opportunities to benefit from them. However, in more general terms, I still wonder which tools are actually more suitable and relevant to supporting the students and how important are tools in driving student support in the online learning environment? Well, my fellow BOE-ers, this is the focus of this week’s blog post.

My personal feelings towards online tools are initially met with a healthy dose of trepidation on account of my minimalistic use of them for purely academic purposes. In fact, many online tools such as WebEx conference calling, Moodle forum discussions and online blogs represented entirely new experiences for me when I made use of them for this BOE course. However, my primary feelings of unease and uncertainty over the “unknown” have actually transgressed into feelings of comfort and support, as I’ve acknowledged the WebEx and Moodle tools especially as channels for which I can derive interaction-based support from both the course tutors and fellow students. Even the blog posts have incorporated a support element because it provides the facility for feedback and comments from teachers and students alike – and I have received and appreciated this type of engaged support via this tool. My experiences of these and other tools revisit my first question of what are the most suitable and relevant tools for supporting students? Are there actually universally recognised preferential tools or is it invariably arbitrary? Often, the pedagogic literature naturally gravitates towards the merits of one tool or another. For instance, Fu et al. (2013) expounded the virtues of wiki-based tools by describing them as beneficial for younger learners in the context of collaborative tasks and enhancing their learning interests. Alternatively, McLoughlin and Lee (2007) focus their veneration on blogs – which they describe as enabling “the affordances of idea sharing and interaction” (p. 666) (echoing my own sentiments regarding the engagement aspect of this support tool).

Millar and Schrier (2015) initially advocate the use of the e-textbook tool by suggesting that educators can use it to engage with students on multiple levels. However, they also concede that “if students are not willing to be engaged, the only way to change that behavior is to try to learn why the students are not engaged” (pp. 167-168). This point highlights my second (and arguably more pertinent) question of how important in practice are these tools when considered in isolation? The truth, as insinuated by Millar and Schrier, is that these tools are often context-specific and should perhaps be considered from the perspective of their overall application in practice. For example, Stewart (2010) envisions the contextual implications of online tools for students as supporting them in terms of overcoming geographical barriers, facilitating real time interactions and sharing information such as media and opinions. To me this final particular affordance signifies a key attribute as I also strongly feel that my new experiences of certain tools have opened the gates to learning-by-sharing as a new and innovative approach to student support functions. But is learning-by-sharing in BOE the best approach and what are the implications for students and teachers? Well that, folks, will be the subject of next week’s blog post. Stay tuned.

 

References

Fu, H. J., Chu, S., & Kang, W. X. (2013) Affordances and Constraints of a Wiki for Primary-school Students’ Group Projects. Educational Technology & Society, 16 (4), 85–96.

McLoughlin, C., & Lee, M. J. (2007) Social software and participatory learning: Pedagogical choices with technology affordances in the Web 2.0 era. In ICT: Providing choices for learners and learning. Proceedings ascilite Singapore 2007, 664-675.

Millar, M. & Schrier, T. (2015) Digital or Printed Textbooks: Which do Students Prefer and Why?, Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism, 15 (2) 166-185.

Stewart, V. (2010). A classroom as wide as the world. Curriculum 21: Essential education for a changing world, 97-114.

Lending a helping hand? The global reach of student support in culturally diverse online learning environments

Hello and welcome to this week’s Joe Bloggs blog post in which I am attempting to tentatively explore the somewhat sensitive and potential controversial issue of (gulp) cultural diversity when supporting students in BOE! Certainly the worldwide reach of technology in the digital age has fundamentally globalised many industries and proverbially thrown off the geographical shackles of their potential markets. But how has this affected educational support for students who can now access blended and online learning courses from any part of the world (or at least those that provide Internet access and the freedom to study)?

Penny provided a student perspective in her online blog post “Long and Winding Road” from 25^th February (https://blendedpennyblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/25/long-and-winding-road/) in which she talked of the benefits of using social media tools to “learn from a socially and culturally diverse set of online peers” regarding her own professional development. The question arises as to what extent culturally diverse student peers are able to learn, find support and generally benefit from the same educational opportunities as those from the host country of the TEL course. Fry and Bryant (2006) strongly believe that culturally diverse students do indeed derive benefits from today’s ever-growing list of online tools when utilised for addressing their educational needs of customisation, networking and collaboration. Below are just some of the tools which represent this non-exhaustive list, and the authors who have cited them:

• Blogs
• Wikis
• Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds
• Podcasting
• Social Network websites
• Tag-based folksonomies
• Peer-to-peer (P2P) media sharing tools

(Alexander, 2006; Allen, 2004; McLoughlin and Lee, 2007)

However, despite the insistence above of how international students can invariably benefit from these educational tools, the reality of the situation may actually prove to be significantly different. For instance, with social media channels such as Facebook being proscribed in Communist countries such as China, this would suggest that the social media aspects of online learning, which Penny refers to, may actually represent a hindrance – as opposed to an advantage – to certain overseas students.  However, these political/technological limitations can, to a certain degree, be anticipated and factored into the course design in order to mitigate the risks of disadvantages and unfairness to international students. Indeed, Lamas et al. (2013) suggest that innovative teaching strategies now mean that “new pedagogical models and methods increasingly aim to address students’ different styles and needs” (p. 510).

So how specifically can teachers develop these new models in order to support the increasingly diverse cultures and needs represented by the modern BOE student cohort? Well I believe that the key is to promote cultural sensitivity and understanding and to be able to adapt learning course structures and materials to suit their needs. In my own teaching experience I encountered linguistic student barriers when I gave a guest lecture to a class of undergraduate international students at Edinburgh Napier University. I anticipated this situation and modified the learning content to reflect the limited English language skills of the students, and integrated international examples into the delivery of the material in order to reflect the multi-cultural aspect of the class. In the online learning environment I feel that these qualities can certainly be transferred in order to maintain the personal and inclusionary facets which appeal to a more culturally diverse student population.

This post has raised some questions about not only how we, as educational providers, can support the different needs of culturally diverse students, but also about the legitimacy of online tools in supporting students from different backgrounds. Next week’s blog post will address this issue in more detail by examining what are most effective online tools for supporting students in TEL. Stay tuned.

 

References

Alexander, B. (2006). Web 2.0: A new wave of innovation for teaching and learning? EDUCAUSE Review, 41(2), 32–44. http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0621.pdf [viewed 18^th March 2016].

Allen, C. (2004). Tracing the evolution of social software. http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/10/tracing_the_evo.html [viewed 18^th March 2016].

Fry, S. W., & Bryant, C. (2006). Using distance technology to sustain teacher education for student teachers in isolated areas: The technology supported induction network. Journal of Computing in Teacher Education,23(2), 63-69.

McLoughlin, C., & Lee, M. J. (2007) Social software and participatory learning: Pedagogical choices with technology affordances in the Web 2.0 era. In ICT: Providing choices for learners and learning. Proceedings Ascilite Singapore 2007 (pp. 664-675).

Lamas, D., Välyataga, T., Laanpere, M., Rogalevich, V., Arakelyan, A., Sousa, S., & Shmorgun, I. (2013) Foundations for the Reconceptualization of the e-Textbook. In International Conference on e-Learning (p. 510). Academic Conferences International Limited.

Too much of a good thing? Coping with information overload in online learning environments

Hello and welcome to this week’s blog by Joe Bloggs. Last week’s post (https://jgamblesite.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/elois-or-morlocks-the-journey-towards-a-balanced-view-of-future-online-learning-practices/) provided a nightmarish depiction of the future in terms of polarising perspectives on the future of BOE practices. The murderous Morlocks did indeed criticise many aspects of this dystopian future, although they failed to consider one critical issue of future TEL that is actually manifested to a certain degree in today’s digital educational landscape. This issue was kindly raised in a feedback comment on the blog post by Anne and relates to information overload or the effects of “mass produced knowledge”; this is the subject of this week’s blog post.

 

So is too much of a good thing a bad thing? It seems to me that the main concern of information overload from the context of TEL or BOE is that there will be a saturation of lower-quality information and that the better quality data may effectively become ‘lost in the ether’. But are these fears justified? Huang et al. (2011) certainly appear to believe so as they both acknowledge cognitive overload as an “issue that has attracted much attention in web-based learning settings” and suggest that it is accounted for by the requirement to expose one’s self to “a surfeit of online resources over a short time” (p. 96). I think that these authors make a salient point that it is the pressures of time constraints in online learning tasks that may play a significant role is the quality lessening argument, when combined with the information overload. Therefore, the key underlying issue correlates to the increased inability to navigate through the volume of information to the high quality data. But is quality the only concern with regard to information overload in TEL? Actually, cultural relevance may also constitute an important factor – especially with the overabundance of data from different cultures/countries/religions around the globe.

 

The other point that Huang et al. (2011) make relates to the alleged attention which this phenomenon is attracting. This leads me to wonder what steps are being taken to mitigate and circumvent the risks inherent in this scenario? Certainly we possess, along with this plethora of new information resource pools, the technological potential to filter and sort the data to meet the stipulations of our research needs. But are these filter/sorting tools improving at a rate consistent with the increase of information overload? On 2^nd March 2016 I attended the “Leap into Research” conference at Edinburgh Napier University (details available at http://blogs.napier.ac.uk/leap-into-research/session-details/) and this specific issue reared its ugly head. The talk by the Leader of External Funding, Dr Aileen Wood, had turned to the use of the Research Professional tool to filter and search through the thousands of global research funding opportunities across a range of disciplines. One of the delegates heavily criticised the tool’s alleged inability to produce relevant results, based on her extensive use of the tool in various searches. My personal experiences of Google Scholar as a tool for filtering and searching for relevant academic journal articles has been much more positive, with new features facilitating advanced searches of specific time ranges, information types, related articles, etc. Indeed, the importance of organisation as a catalyst in informational management is not a new concept in the digital age. For instance, Tan et al. (2003) suggested over 12 years ago that the level of material organisation has a direct impact on the quantity of information that students can absorb and recall. The negative feedback in my recent conference illustrates that this is likely to remain an ongoing bone of contention for the foreseeable future.

 

Paradoxically, I  feel that the solution to this issue of information overload (which has been triggered by technological advancements) is for individuals to develop more technological advancements in their abilities to use and navigate the range of tools search as Research Professional and Google Scholar (to name but a very few…). Indeed, Sibbel (2009) clearly highlights the repercussions of not engaging with the information sorting tools in his caveat that “[t]he limitations of the human processing system for dealing with an overwhelming amount of information add to the problem of providing useful and balanced information” (p. 79).  However, the issue of cultural relevance, as raised above, would perhaps necessitate some additional consideration. Consequently, next week’s blog post will explore cultural diversity and its effects on – and how it is affected by – the global/local aspects of BOE. Stay tuned.

 

References

Huang, T.-C., Huang, Y.-M., & Yu, F.-Y. (2011). Cooperative Weblog Learning in Higher Education: Its Facilitating Effects on Social Interaction, Time Lag, and Cognitive Load. Educational Technology & Society, 14 (1), 95–106.

Sibbel, A. (2009) “Pathways towards sustainability through higher education.”International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education 10 (1) 68-82.

Tan, O. S., Richard, D. P., Stephanie, L. H., & Deborah, S. B. (2003). Educational psychology: A practitioner-research approach, Taiwan: Cengage Learning Asia.

Elois or Morlocks? A journey through time towards a balanced view of future online learning practices

Welcome to this week’s blog post on the future of online student support – given not by Joe Bloggs but by someone known only to us as the Time Traveller. He has watched the reality altering video ‘Shift Happens’ which filled him full of inspiration, wonder and, above all, terror about the speed of technological change and what it means for the future of online student learning.

So many questions arise from this video – how will future online courses be designed? What role will teachers and students play? What new tools will assist in student learning? How will their perceptions of the learning experience differ from today’s students? How can we as teachers and facilitators keep up with technological innovations? Well there is only one way to find out – and so the Time Traveller downloads the “Time Hop” app from the iTunes App Store to his iPhone, keys in the destination year and is instantly transported 25 years into the future!

The Time Traveller is now sitting in the same room 25 years in the future and his computer, iPhone and all other electronic devices are now gone. Has he mistakenly been sent back into the past instead? Apparently not as sitting in front of him is a peculiar pair of futuristic looking glasses with the print “Google Glass v.100” across the top. He places them onto his head and his surroundings are instantly transformed into a virtual reality world with floating apps that he can touch and activate, live social media and news updates fed directly into his brain, Google instant web searches on voice command and Skype 3D video conferencing with anyone that he has ever met in his life.  He decides to enrol in a new BOE course and so asks Google for assistance in paying the enrolment fee of 570 Googles (the new global currency which superseded every currency in the world when Google bought out all the world’s banks). After digitally enrolling he is virtually transferred to an online 3-dimensional forum room where hologramatic simulations of his new classmates are projected in front of his eyes. His classmates call themselves the “Eloi” and they are a new genetically enhanced race of online students that have a purely positive outlook on future digital learning practices. They introduce themselves and extol the wonders of their learning environment in a way that astounds and fascinates the Time Traveller.

The Queen of the Eloi, Fiona, is the first to speak and advises the Time Traveller that the learning system is now completely personalised with a unique blend of activities and technologies for each learner, as predicted by Littlejohn and Pegler (2007). Another Eloi called Lyn then reveals that teachers must now pay close attention to student interactions with each other through emphasising clear roles, guidelines and objectives, as predicted by Keskitalo et al. (2011). In terms of online tools, the Eloi Anne informs the Time Traveller that eTextbooks are now the preferred choice of teaching tool and Google Apps are now utilised through them to offer a universal platform for collaborative learning, as predicted by Lee and Yau (2015). Lastly, the Eloi Angelique advises that all learning now involves game-based and immersive, social and interactive elements, as predicted by De Freitas and Liarokapis (2011).

The Time Traveller is astonished by these educational support revelations but wonders how these developments have affected the teacher role and the relationship between them and the students. Before he has a chance to ask, he is unexpectedly transferred to another virtual forum room and hologramatic men dressed all in black are projected ominously in front of him. All of the Google glass features have now been disabled and he realises that he is their prisoner. The leader introduces himself as Laurence – King of the Morlocks – and explains that it is his life-long quest to eliminate the admiration towards this new online learning environment as propagated by the Elois. His prejudice against this learning environment, he explains, is driven by the fact that this new generation of students expect exceptionally high-quality and flexible online learning experiences, as predicted by the HEFCE OLTF report (2011). Another Morlock called Mark steps forward and adds that one of the key challenges now is the changing role of staff in their support mechanisms and especially the blurring of physical and virtual classrooms, as predicted by the UCISA report (2014). A third Morlock, Bryden, also reveals that there are now personal learning environments owned by the students and not controlled by educational institutions, as predicted by Downes (2006) in his webcast seminar. Yet another Morlock, Richard, then advises that open education resources now require teaching faculties to leverage every potentiality that now exists with the Internet, as predicted by Kamenetz (2010). One final Morlock, Duncan, insists that as the budget climate for education is now even more desperate than 25 years ago, there are significant concerns over the allocation of targeted external funding and the sustainability of BOE educational initiatives, as predicted by Wiley (2007).

The Time Traveller is overwhelmed by the negativity – in addition to the well-structured and logical arguments – of the Morlocks. He realises that he must stop them before they succeed in their diabolical plan to exterminate the Eloi and their positive perceptions. At this point he discovers that the iPhone he used to travel here is still in his pocket and he wastes no time in using it to escape the evil clutches of the Morlocks. However, he decides not to return to 2016 but to travel further back in time, so that he can meet Laurence before he turns to the dark side. In doing so, he hopes to teach him everything he has learned about the pros and cons of future online learning practices, so that Laurence can in turn inspire a class of BOE students to consider a more balanced view and not end up as either Elois or Morlocks.

The end.

 

References

de Freitas, S., & Liarokapis, F. (2011). Serious games: a new paradigm for education?. In Serious games and edutainment applications (pp. 9-23). Springer London.

Downes, S. (2006) ‘The student’s own education’, webcast seminar at Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 5 June 2006.

HEFCE OLTF (Online Learning Task Force) (2011). Collaborate to compete: seizing the opportunity of online learning for UK higher education. HEFCE. [Web link]

Keskitalo, T., Pyykkö, E., & Ruokamo, H. (2011). Exploring the Meaningful Learning of Students in Second Life. Educational Technology & Society, 14 (1), 16–26.

Lee, H. J., & Yau, K. L. A. (2015). Addressing the major Information Technology challenges of electronic textbooks. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 55(2), 40-47.

Littlejohn, A. and Pegler, C. (2007) “Preparing for blended e-learning” London: Routledge. Chapter 2. Different approaches to blended e-learning pp 29-48. [Digitised chapter]

UCISA (2014) UCISA 2014 Survey of Technology Enhanced Learning for higher education in the UK: Case Studies. Oxford: UCISA. [PDF file]

Wiley, D. (2007). On the sustainability of open educational resource initiatives in higher education pp 1-21.