Northern Regional eLearning Symposium

You are invited to the Northern Regional e-Learning Symposium to find out how e-learning can provide a cost effective way to meet your organisation’s training and education priorities.

This free symposium will present best practice real-world solutions that your organisation can implement. Through a series of presentations, workshops, and case studies facilitated by internationally recognised e-learning experts, you will come away with an action plan for developing e-learning solutions.

Northern Regional e-Learning Symposium Maximising Outcomes and Minimising Cost Cost: FREE Date: Monday 19th October 2009 Time: 9:00am – 4:30pm Place: NorthTec Interactive Learning Centre, 55 Raumanga Valley Road, Whangarei. Location map. Morning, lunch and afternoon tea provided. Spaces are limited! Reserve a spot now or send to the right person in your organisaton. RSVP: Please RSVP by 10th October 2009 by responding to this email or emailing mchristian@northtec.ac.nz

Latest technologies for developing e-learning including 3D models and interactive courseware Tips and Tricks for designing effective e-learning activities Practical tools for developing your organisation’s e-learning capabilities The How-To get the most of your e-learning Development Keynote Speaker: Dr Sue Bennett will explore effective e-learning practices and present a series of emerging trends, measures and resources in e-learning. Showcase: e-Learning Partnership between NorthTec and the Northland District Health Board (NDHB). Finding the right regional partner for developing e-learning. The NDHB is entering into the realm of e-learning for its staff training.  Partnering with NorthTec as the e-learning developer, NDHB is developing their first online training course. Workshop: Practical e-Learning Design. Learn the latest techniques for designing effective e-learning.  Take away practical tips and tricks and hands-on knowledge about building e-learning solutions for your organisation. Featured Speaker: Dr John Clayton. Do you know if your organisation has the capability to develop e-learning?  What are some best practice frameworks and models for developing e-learning?  Bring back some real knowledge for your organisation to move forward with e-learning. Showcase: Enhancing Learning with 3D Models. Who knew that Northland was a centre for innovate e-learning technologies?  This showcase will demonstrate how 3D can bring a subject to life while increasing learning transfer and decreasing training/classroom time. Workshop: Build your organisation’s e-Learning capability. Thinking about developing e-learning at your organisation?  Let Dr John Clayton give you some practical tips and tricks on systematically improving organistional e-learning capability. Workshop: E-Learning How-Tos Part 1: Planning, prioritisation and management. Learn how to make the most of your learning and development budget. Workshop: E-Learning How-Tos Part 2: Instructional Design and Development. Understand what instructional design is, the roles and responsibilities of your development team, and draft a simple process for developing e-learning.

Online learning more effective than face to face

A recent report from GetEducated.com written for the U.S. Department of Education,  has concluded that Online & blended education is more effective than residential method alone.

This conclusion was reached after analyzing research studies undertaken from 1996 to 2008 that address this topic, concluding the following:

1. Online education is more effective than face-to-face learning;
   
2. Online learning combined with some face-to-face learning (blended learning) is the most effective;
   
3. Face-to-face learning alone is the least effective method among the three types studied.

Note that these findings are specific to college-level learning as the researchers found that not enough studies exist to merit a valid comparison at the K-12 level.

The full version of this report is available here:

Dept of Education: “Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning” (PDF)

Latest e-primer on “Online Discourse”

The fourth in the E-Primer series, “Online discourse”, is now available from the Ako Aotearoa Website . The fourth E-Primer is available under a Creative Commons license and is both a good practice guide for and a theoretical orientation to online discourse based on peer-reviewed literature. The first three in the series are also available from Ako Aotearoa:

#1 – E-learning in context – An introduction to e-learning and the international experience; definitions of terms; a theory for e-learning; technologies; benefits
#2 – E-education and faculty – Education theory and e-learning; the changing role of faculty; workload issues; quality
#3 – Designing for e-learning – Instructional design; learning objects; constructing a hybrid course

A future E-Primer, to be released toward the middle of the year, considers the potential contributions of social networking, ePortfolios and mobile technologies to formal education.

From the introduction:In this e-primer, you will discover both the promise of formal online discourse (that is, conversation mediated through internet tools) for education, and good practice. Throughout, I encourage you to apply online discourse in ways that are conducive to teaching and learning. The focus in this e-primer is more on the discourse than the
technology although, inevitably, we will consider technology. In E-Primer 5, E-xtending Possibilities, we will look at interactive journals (blogs), collaboration through wiki tools,
working with ePortfolios, and the potential of social networking tools such as MySpace and Facebook for education. Here, in E-Primer 4, we will limit our attention to synchronous chat, desktop audio- and videoconferencing, and the online bulletin or discussion boards that are common in learning management systems (LMSs). Because LMSs are commonly used in distance education and blended learning courses (MacDonald 2006; Hopkins et al 2008), we’ll look closely at them and their features.

Learning Design for Online

What’s in a title? Educational designer, Instructional designer, Learning designer . . .

The romantic view (actually helping others become better at this core skill) :

When we are supporting teachers to completely redesign a course to be fully online or substantially blended we use a very basic design template which doesn’t actually mention moodle at all. We don’t want their design to be driven by a specific set of tools. Yes they need to have some understanding about Moodle and also other potential online tools not within the Moodle toolbox. But especially when the teacher is new to this we see it as our job to help them think through how their ideas will translate into an actual course . . . . .

From David Sturrock’s post at Moodle.org.  (Log in as a guest if you don’t have an account)

He has some really cool concepts here, drawing on the OTARA model.

Plus check out LDNet, the Learning design community (in embyonic form) at Ako Aoteraroa.

Yet another Journal: IJMBL

International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning (IJMBL) – An Official Publication of the Information Resources Management Association — New in 2009

From the website: “Technology supported learning has been increasingly used across a broad spectrum of educational contexts, in many cases being integrated with more traditional forms of teaching. As new opportunities have emerged for mobile, immersive and augmented learning, freeing electronic teaching tools from the desktop, researchers have begun to explore the wide potentials of learning experiences that are integrated with both the classroom and the world outside, leveraging the boundless new possibilities that a pervasively wired and wireless society can support. The International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning aims to provide a forum for researchers in this field to share their knowledge and experience of mobile and blended learning environments”

Dave Parsons is the Editor.

New Designs for eLearning

Designing and implementing e-learning, the popular web-based guide to planning and delivering e-learning courses, from the national training system’s e-learning strategy, Australian Flexible Learning Framework (Framework), has undergone a $30,000 makeover.

The upgrade includes new and emerging e-learning strategies and tools, such as wikis and virtual classrooms, added to the website’s extensive online gallery.

Open course: Facilitating Online Communities

I’ve lifted this from the post by Leigh on the WikiEducator list.  This is quite a remarkable style of course. A NZ based course with an international flavour. – Derek

Open course: Facilitating Online Communities – Starts 28 July

That course we ran last year is coming up again. I’ve tweaked it quite a bit – free at last from the learning management system it was locked up inside, running in a wiki schedule, backed up by blogs and an email forum.

This course has been developed by staff in the Educational Development Centre of Otago Polytechnic and is designed to help both formal and informal learners access and interpret models, research and professional dialog in the facilitation of online communities. After completing this course people should be confident in facilitating online and/or be able to critique and offer advice to other people in the facilitation of online communities.
The next facilitated course starts 28 July 2008.
Participation in this course is open. You will need to have regular access the Internet and be comfortable with independently completing tasks. To join simply introduce yourself to the discussion page and include an email address that can be use to add you to an email forum for the course.

In formal learning terms this is a level 7 course registered on the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. Formal learning participants engage in this course for a period of 10 weeks with an indicative time commitment of at least 6 hours per week.

Formal learners will receive concentrated learning support throughout this period, and assessment services and formal recognition at the completion of the course. Some people may prefer to engage in this course informally and to set their own pace through the work using the schedule as a guide. Informal engagement is welcome and arrangements can be made for formal assessment and recognition at any time with the course facilitator.

Contents

• 1 Facilitating Online Communities blog
• 2 Participation
• 3 Learning objectives
• 4 Schedule
  • 4.1 Wk 1: Orientation 28 July – 3 August
  • 4.2 Wk 2: What is an online community? 4 – 10 August
  • 4.3 Wk 3: Facilitating, moderating, or teaching 11 – 17 August
  • 4.4 Wk 4: Looking for online community: Discussion forums 18 – 24 August
  • 4.5 Wk 5: Looking for online community: Blog networks 25 – 31 August
  • 4.6 Wk 6: Looking for online community: Wiki collaborators 1 – 7 September
  • 4.7 Wk 7: Looking for online community: Virtual Worlds 8 – 14 September
  • 4.8 Wk 8: Looking for online community: Social networking platforms 15 – 21 September
  • 4.9 Wk 9: Facilitate an event for an online community 22 – 28 September
  • 4.10 Wk 10: Evaluate the facilitation of an event held for an online community 29 September – 5 October
• 5 Assignments
  • 5.1 Assignment 1: Weekly reading and blogging
  • 5.2 Assignment 2: Facilitate an online event
  • 5.3 Assignment 3: Evaluate a facilitated online event
• 6 Related courses

Education in a Digital World

Recently published by the Commonwealth of Learning is this edited e-book titled Education for a Digital World – advice, guidelines and effective practice from around the globe. This 500-page volume contains a comprehensive collection of proven strategies and tools for effective online teaching, based on the principles of learning as a social process. It offers practical, contemporary guidance to support e-learning decision-making, instructional choices, as well as program and course planning, and development.

There are five sections in the book, with contributed chapters under the headings of:

• The impact of Instructional technologies
• Preparing Online Courses
• Implementing Technology
• eLearning in Action
• Engagement and Communication

The book itself has been designed in such a way that it could be used as a handbook for a course on the topic – with each of the 31 very informative chapters introduced with a list of learning outcomes that should be achieved as the reader works his/her way through the chapter.

There’s simply too much in this book for me to do it justice with a brief mention here – suffice to say that there is something of value in here for everyone, from the newcomers to the topic to those who are well down the track. Another excellent piece of work from the Commonwealth of Learning!

Siemens and Downes teach a course

From the TALO list: “Stephen Downes and George Siemens will be collaborating in an online course this fall”

http://ltc.umanitoba.ca:83/wiki/Connectivism

While this is an Aussie based list (originally) we are still a victim of a northern hemisphere-centric view of the world.  In New Zealand, this is spring. Actually it starts in September.  And while this is a course, I’d hope it does not turn out to be like one.

Topics: (Obviously subject to change)

• Week 1: What is Connectivism?
• Week 2: Rethinking epistemology: Connective knowledge
• Week 3: Properties of Networks
• Week 4: History of networked learning
• Week 5: Connectives and Collectives: Distinctions between networks and groups
• Week 6: Complexity, Chaos and Research
• Week 7: Instructional design and connectivism
• Week 8: Power, control, validity, and authority in distributed environments
• Week 9: What becomes of the teacher? New roles for educators
• Week 10: Openness: social change and future directions
• Week 11: Systemic change: How do institutions respond?
• Week 12: The Future of Connectivism

I’ve decided to have a little fun with this.  I’d like to see if anyone is interested in forming a learning cell as part of this course: either a NZ based (second preference) or Christchurch based (First preference, F2F included, at MCB http://www.madrascafebooks.co.nz or Cafe 101 etc)  Feel free to let me know.  derekdotchirnsideatgmaildotcom

Theory and Practice of Online Education

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Terry Anderson has released the second edition of his popular Theory and Practice of Online Learning. The book is available for purchase or as a free download (click here to download the entire book in .pdf format). Topics include social media, philosophies of technology, mobile learning, cost decisions about technology, libraries, learner support and more. The broad range of subjects, both theoretical and practical, should be of immense interest to readers of the DEANZ blog.