Module 6 The Video

I reviewed the following student's videos and commented:

Bradley Grogan
Lynn Butkiewitz
Bill Goldstein
Amy Cantymagli
Christine Rand

Module 6 The Video

I apologize for the delayed post. The video equipment was not cooperative, and I am a complete amatuer at this. I'm not even a good photographer. However, with the help of my also non-photographer husband, was able to produce this video. I did learn a lot about producing videos...like how many times it takes to get a good result. Thanks for your patience fellow classmates and Professor Moller.

Chris W.

I trust that this is the url for UTube...where I finally could publish from the device I used.

Concept Map

Here for all to see - my attempt at a concept map. The intention was to illustrate the upward motion of the dynamic technology, while showing stabilization of the static technology. I do appreciate comments. :) Chris W.

Graphic Organizer w/Reflection

Reflection on Bringing Technological Tools to Learners Outside the Classroom

In today’s world of burgeoning technology, learners most commonly have the internet availability, and connection is possible in almost every public place. For the most part, the internet is asynchronous in nature and is based solely on socialization (translate into entertainment). In order to bring learning experiences to students, the internet needs to be more than socialization; it needs to be more broadly based into communication and collaboration; more focused on community involvement. The newness of wiki and blog sites are coming into their own identity as community builders. With the addition of SKYPE, and like models of F2F communication (commonly Yahoo, MSN Messenger, etc.) make the necessity of building cameras into computer hardware, a necessity. The graphic below seeks to divide the socialization element and the educational element within the internet, using both synchronous (left side) with asynchronous (right side) environments.

Module 3 - Reflections

For the Blog

• How should participation in a collaborative learning community be assessed? How do the varying levels of skill and knowledge students bring to a course affect the instructor's "fair and equitable assessment" of learning?

• If a student does not want to network or collaborate in a learning community for an online course, what should the other members of the learning community do? What role should the instructor play? What impact would this have on his or her assessment plan?

A participation in a collaborative learning community should not be assessed by quantity, but quality. The varying levels of skill and knowledge that students bring to a course should be regarded by the instructor’s “fair and equitable assessment” of learning by the quality of the student’s communication with his/her fellow classmates and the in-depth online conversations taking place in and among the various classmates.

However, if the student does not wish to participate or network in a learning community, then the student may be directed to a f2f classroom by the instructor. As for the other members of the learning community, there might be a way to persuade and encourage a reluctant classmate through help in navigation (if the problem is in technological experience) and perhaps a partnership with one or others that could encourage the classmate in the use of technology. Sometimes blogging and/or wiki’s can be very daunting, despite the “ease” of use purported by the website. Communication with this classmate is a very necessary part of winning over the technological challenge of the course.

Story Board Assignment

Despite some rather harrowing difficulties with my internet provider - their equipment had a failure at MY apartment - I have my Story Board initally done. It will go through many revisions, I'm sure.


Story Board
For
Adult Motivation Video

Introduction:

I am pleased to introduce the keynote speaker for our Distance Education Conference, Dr. Leslie Moller. He is an advocate of DE and has published many articles concerning this topic.

Surrounding this particular concern are many issues as to just why and how adult learners are motivated:

Opening

Many researchers have attempted to narrow the cause of potential drop-out students, and how they may have been motivated to continue within their chosen degree. In today’s social venue, there are many Adult students who, for various reasons want to return to education. The focus on Adult DE envelopes the studies made within the past 5 years (2005-2010).
Motivation involves:

Volition: Defined most recently, as “the ability to stay task-focused and ward off distractions” (Deimann et al, 2010).
Instructor immediacy and presence
Collaborative construction of knowledge (Learning Communities) (Huett, et al, 2007)
Family (and peer) support.
Volition: The “Will as a Steersman”

Selective attention, “protective function of volition” (Kuhl, 1984, p. 126)
Encoding control: facilitates the protective function of volition.
Emotion control: managing emotional states
(i.e. sadness as a competing intention at suppressing volition)
Motivation control: maintaining and establishing saliency of current intention
Environmental control: free from uncontrollable distractions
Parsimonious information processing: knowing when to stop
There is empirical evidence indicating that the use of volitional strategies is related to decreased delay of gratification increased effort and better time and study.



Instructor Immediacy and Presence:

Affective Learning
Cognition
Motivation

Instructor Immediacy: Interaction is at the heart of the learning experience and is widely cited as a defining characteristic of successful learning in both traditional and online learning environments (Picciano, 2002; Swan, 2002; Wanstreet, 2006).

“it is credited as a catalyst for influencing student motivation, active learning and participation among students, and the achievement of learning outcomes” (Du, Havard, & Li, 2005; Lam, Cheng, & McNaught, 2005; Sargeant, Curran, allen, Jarvis-Selinger, & Ho, 2006; Tu, 2005)

Moore’s transactional distance theory states: “the quality of teaching and interactions among students and instructor relates less to geographical separation and more to the structure of a course and the interactions that take place within it.” (Moore, 1973; Moore & Kearsley, 1996).

Communication Immediacy: a concept proposed by Mehrabian (1971) refers to physical and verbal behaviors that reduce the psychological and physical distance between individuals.

Nonverbal immediacy behaviors include physical behaviors (e.g. leaning forward, touching another, looking at another’s eyes etc.)


Instructor Presence

An emerging research area for the field of online learning is instructor presence, or virtual “visibility” of the instructor as perceived by the learner.

Social Presence is described as the feeling that the group members communicate with people instead of impersonal objects.
As communication channels are restricted, social presence decreases within a group. (Short, Williams & Christie, 1976).

Although initial investigations of instructor immediacy and presence have shown promise, further research is needed to substantiate its importance in online learning environments.
Learning Communities

Motivation is a critical component to learning (Keller, 1979a, 1987a, 1987b; Means, Jonassen, & Dwyer, 1997; Moller, 1993; Song & Keller, 2001).

The research is strong in regarding motivation as critical in learning contexts. Bandura (1969) and Gagne (1985) argued that learning and motivation were a result not just of the environment (external) or the individual’s free will (internal) but a combination of the two. And, Keller (1983) stated motivation provides the impetus to learn and to achieve one’s ambitions and can be seen as “the choices people make as to what experiences or goals they will approach or avoid and the degree of effort they will exert in that respect.”

Collaborative construction of knowledge through social negotians ofen results in greater understanding. (Jonassen, Mayers & McAleese, 1993)

Traditional DE models emphasize the independence of the learner and the privatization of learning (Keegan, 1986); however, newer models emphasize collaboration (Huett, Moller, Harvey and Engstrom, 2007).

And, in 1995 a Texas A&M study found a distance course which required students to work together improved learning outcomes and strengthened ties between students (Huett et al, 2007).

I’ve chosen two of the elements mentioned by Dr. Siemens to be crucial elements of distance education:

The first element that I feel is important is communication. Communication is essential to all humans because humanity requires a meeting of the minds to solve humanity’s mysteries. If we consider communication for a while we realize that the very first humans sought out each other for protection and procreation and development of their race(s). History is about communication. History is about forming of communication and development of the world. Whenever we find a new civilization we seek their means of communication…basically writing. Social mores insists on communication.
Online tools that help (and sometimes deter) communication can definitely be found in such websites as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, UTube and the like.


Collaboration. Collaboration is grouping of like minded individuals to solve a problem or present a solution to a question by blending knowledge into sustainable theories and/or hypotheses that will improve the human condition. Collaboration developed with the very first “teachers” on record (Aristotle, Socrates and Plato). A gathering of minds and a seeking of solutions has always been a part of any society or community growth.
Collaborative online tools could include Skype, Wiki’s, Blogs and emails (these have evolved from real time to asynchronous methods).

I think that Dr. Siemens' statements were very suscinct and did cause me to reflect more deeply on these two elements. That and the fact that the Conference which I just returned from (CEA Association) was all about just those two elements...collaboration and communication. It was a great conference.

Reference: Siemens, M. 2008. The future of distance education, Laureate Education, Walden Univerity Podcast. http://sylvan.live.college.com.

By the way: I have viewed and commented to Amy Cantymagli and Christine Rand http://acantymagli.blogspot.com;