Response to Linda's Post on Course Tutorials

Linda,

I agree with your statement that the course tutorials are helping to expand our toolkit of technology resources.  I find that I am still most comfortable with the ones with which I was already familiar -- Facebook, Twitter, and Google Bookmarks, but I have used them primarily for personal and professional purposes (I have a Facebook page for my library, used Twitter to post updates to parents when I was a high school librarian, etc.) The tutorials are giving us good insight into using these as teaching tools.  I laughed when you said you have 7 followers for your AP Calculus Twitter feed.  I've had similar experiences!  And I think it's great that your online students have set up their own Facebook group to collaborate for class.  I have seen some great examples of teachers in high school using Facebook and Twitter as a collaboration and communication tool.  Unfortunately, many schools and school systems in the K-12 world discourage or prohibit the use of social media.  I realize this is because some teachers, through lack of professional judgement and common sense, have crossed boundaries, sometimes with very harmful results.  It seems simple and logical to me to establish a policy that teachers cannot be "friends" with students on their personal pages.  Facebook and Twitter accounts that are used for educational purposes should be created specifically for those purposes.  This is less of an issue in higher ed, of course.  Revere & Kovach (2011) explain why they feel Twitter can be useful as a communication tool in college courses.  They see Twitter as a way to engage students in meaningful ways by using it to gather data, communicate with experts, and share course information.  They find that students (those who have smartphones and are almost constantly connected to the Internet, at least) receive and respond to information faster when it is disseminated by tweet rather than through traditional announcement tools in course management systems because many already use Twitter regularly and they do not need to go to a specific course site, login, etc.   Fei, Tian & Ke (2012) compiled their research on best practices for using Twitter in education:

Dunlap and Lowenthal (2009) offered the following five guidelines based on their experience: establishing relevance for students, defining clear expectations for participation, modeling effective Twitter use, building Twitter-derived results into assessment and continuing to actively participate in the Twitter community. Lowe and Laffey (2011) suggested using hashtags and shortened links in tweets, and made several pedagogical recommendations for Twitter integration, including communicating with students the rationale of using Twitter, avoiding over tweeting and information overload, weaving important tweets into lecture and class discussion and using tweets to supplement and back up course material. Finally, Holotescu and Grosseck (2009) suggested developing a specification for evaluating students’ participation in microblogging-based courses and using micro-
blogs in combination with other collaborative technologies.

I think it's just good practice to use the technology that students already have and use regularly when possible, so I have appreciated the tutorials that give us ideas and rationale for doing that.

View Linda Henderson's Blog here.

Fei, G., Tian, L. & Ke, Z. (2012). Tweeting for learning: A critical analysis of research on microblogging in education. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(5), 783-801.

Revere, L. & Kovach, J. (2011).  Online technologies for engaged learning: A meaningful synthesis for educators. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 2(12), 113-124.

Second Life

I don't have any personal experience with Second Life, though I am fairly familiar with it.  I think the implications for educational use are very interesting and I can see some good possibilities for that, if the challenges can be overcome.  Palloff and Pratt discuss the need for creating social presence in order for effective collaborative learning to occur in online settings.  This is the very definition of Second Life, according to Warburton's article.  He cites Schroeder (1996) and states that Second Life, "allows or compels the user (or users) to have a sense of being present in an environment other than the one they are actually in." If, in fact , that sense of online presence can be established in Second Life, some of the physical barriers to successful distance education can be overcome.  Some of the advantages described in the article include the ability for simultaneous participation, real time interactions, similarities to the real world because of the physical space, the ability to interact with objects in a 3-D environment, and the persistence of the in-world environment.  The first two of these advantages -- simultaneous participation and real time interactions could, in my opinion (and with no actual experience with SL) be realized through the use of other synchronous activities such as video and chat.  Certainly though, there could be more of a sense of physical interaction within a virtual world -- the closest to an actual classroom environment without actually being in the same physical space.

Technical issues and problems would obviously be a negative factor if relying on Second Life for an online class.  Down time, updates, those unforeseen and unexplainable random network issues...all could result in mass frustration on the part of students and instructors alike.  The time and costs involved would also be deterrents to widespread integrations.  Warburton also discussed more personal issues that can be challenging for Second Life users such as building a social identity, issues with isolation -- the very thing instructors would use SL to overcome, challenges with collaboration which result in the need for additional activities, and the lack of standards across platforms.

As new developments occur and more people become involved in the process, many of the challenges to Second Life will surely be addressed.  It will be interesting to see if widespread use becomes the norm, or if some other tools of technology will surpass it.

Tutorials

I have found the tutorials to be helpful -- I appreciate getting different perspectives on the various tools for online teaching and learning.  Regarding Facebook and Twitter, I am particularly interested in Facebook as a teaching tool, as it is so readily accessible and frequently used by students.  Twitter is also, but Facebook seems to offer more functions and potential for use.  I thought the video from Dr. Bonk offered an overview of what we have been learning about best practices for building communty in online classes, though he never actually answered his own question about the need for doing so.  The tutorial I feel has been most useful to me thus far is Wikis in Plain English, for two reasons.  First, because it is a great introduction to using wikis, one that I think would be useful for showing to students (and faculty) when introducing the idea.  It is short, clear, and concise -- just as the name implies.  Secondly, this video made me think about creating tutorials -- video or print -- for other technology tools and skills.  Rather that explain the same thing over and over, why not take the time to create a short tutorial that can be used numerous times?  This is one of those things I always intend to do, but never actually do. The tutorial on Engaging Students with Multimedia was challenging and thought-provoking.  I completely agree that multimedia gets students' attention and can be a very engaging way to teach, but from a librarian's perspective, I see such differences in the technology available in different settings, and in the instructors' comfort level with using the various tools and equipment.  We are certainly moving forward in integrating technology, but in many places there is still a long road ahead.