StigmergicWeb

Working on two online course projects has given me the impetus to take a look back at some of the things I learned and some of the work that I did while working on my M.Ed. I think I have learned a few things about online learning and instructional design. One of the constant themes - almost a fundamental principle - that I found in my classes and readings was a simple and obvious one. Online learning is different from classroom based learning. If you have experience developing online course this may elicit a “Well - d’uh”, but if you are a novice at online course design you would do well to keep this in mind.

The most eloquent articulation of this concept came from David Wiley in an article he wrote in TechTrends entitled The Polo Parable. Go ahead and have a read. If you haven’t read it before, it’s well worth it. I’ll wait here until you get back.

Good story, that one. I think David gets right to the kernel of the concept in the epilogue:

The moral of the story is that the concatenation of English words “move my class online” is perhaps the most preposterous sequence of syllables ever to escape the mouth. And yet we all unconsciously fall prey to the subtle wiles of the siren’s song – “just do what you always did… those tried and true techniques you have battle tested in the classroom will serve you well online … trust what you know… do what you have always done… that’s the responsible thing to do.” Imagining that classroom teaching techniques can be successful transplanted into an online environment is even more ridiculous than assuming that the water polo play book will, unaltered, lead to a winning polo season on horseback.

I’ve been re-reading a paper I wrote in which I developed some of these ideas. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that the paper, written way back in 2004, still seems relevant. I guess that although three years in internet time equates with about a decade of real world time, basic concepts about teaching and learning persist. If you nodded your head while reading the Polo Parable, that proves the point.

At the time Rick suggested that I revise the paper a bit and get it published. I think he meant the dead tree kind of publishing where a few other people get to judge the quality of your work then decide if it’s worth the rest of the world seeing. Bah, I say. I have the interweb to disseminate my work to the rest of the world. It’s a longish read - about 23ish pages of dead tree, not including the references, but here it is: Before you snorkel that horse ….

Yes, this entire post was written just to pimp my paper. I feel cheap, but it’s out there now. I think it was the best work I did during my M.Ed. so I wanted to share it with you. I’m hoping to revise it and bring it up to date, so if you have any comments leave them here.

I’m getting started on a couple of interesting instructional design projects right now. One is the design of an online computer science class for Grade 11 students. I’ve taught CompSci many times before and used a blended instructional model where the students and I were all in the same room, and all the resources and assignments were online. It shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to adapt that to being completely online. I have a personal stake in how well the course is designed because I’ll be teaching it next semester.

I’m also working with Alec in the design of a grad level class (Ed Curriculum and Instruction 831 from the University of Regina if you’re interested in joining the fun). We’re going to be looking at open, connected and social technologies in the classroom and appropriate pedagogies in the connected age. It should be a lot of fun, but I guess that’s the whole point of these things.

My problem with both of these projects is where to organize all my notes and ideas. I have OmniOutliner Pro for organizing all my hierarchical lists like to do lists, learning objectives and that sort of thing. Or I could use Notebook from Circus Ponies, or Journler to keep track of general sorts of notes in addition to hierarchical things. Freemind is a great program for brainstorming or mind mapping, and it’s even open source to add to the goodness. In keeping with the spirit of the EC and I class, I could use some of the terrific online tools - Google Docs and Google Notebook for collaborative writing/note taking. How about Mindmeister or bubbl.us for some mind maps online. Of course, there’s always good old Wikispaces or PB Wiki (or many others that I don’t use or know about). My brain is addled with the surfeit of tools and choices that I’m not sure where to begin.

Maybe I’ll just go back to the basics!


(by Olivander, released under Creative Commons AT,NC,SA license)

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Along with some colleagues, I toured around two different implementations of online learning in the K-12 system. In both cases, they have experienced substantial increases in the number of students that they serve. The growth in online learning among K-12 students is burgeoning and ready to cause some real changes in the way that we think of schools.

The first visit was to the Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School - thanks for the info, Darren. They have a comprehensive approach to online education, providing not only courses to students, but also some supports and even some ways to provide a sense of school community (some of these were student driven). Some (most - I’m not actually sure of the ratio) of their courses are managed through WebCT, but a substantial number of their resources were public and blog based. The use of blogs, RSS and aggregators were key elements of their communication and information dissemination plan. I was delighted to see that my own meager blog was included in a screenshot of Darren’s aggregator!

The cyber school operates on a continuous registration system - students can register at any time during the school year, and they have 150 days to complete the course, which may result in students picking up their work in September where they had left off in June. All work is done asynchronously and all the interaction within the course is teacher-student, so while their might be a school community there seems to be little opportunity for any kind of classroom community to flourish. A goal of the cyber school is to offer course materials and resources so that teachers in face to face classrooms will be able to use some sort of blended or hybrid learning with a combination of classroom based learning and online learning.

The second stop was the Online Learning Center of the Saskatoon Public School Division. The model they have adopted is to deliver courses online and also to provide resources for classroom teachers. They are not a school so much as an alternate delivery system for courses. The courses are delivered asynchronously and offered over a school semester. Students register at the start of the semester and the final exam is at the end of the semester. Since all students are proceeding through the course at the same time, although not necessarily the same pace, the opportunity exists for some class community to develop. Since the model is to deliver courses, not create a school, there isn’t any opportunity for a school community to develop.

Of the two, I think the first model - the fully fledged cyber school - works best. Students are offered not just courses but a school community. I would expect that students would be much more likely to take further classes if they already felt part of a community. Course communities are great, perhaps even essential for some courses to succeed. The problem with course communities is that they expire on the last day of the course. An ongoing community in which the class is embedded would better support student learning. There are also public parts of the community - the various blogs - and a private part of the community supported within the WebCT framework. (I’m sure it would also work very nicely in Moodle!)

The school division where I work is looking at developing some online learning. We’re a geographically large division with all varieties of schools from small town K-12 schools all the way to comprehensive high schools. I’m not sure what kind of model will work best for us. I expect we’ll copy a bit from both of these models, steal borrow from others and make up a few things of our own along the way. These sorts of things tend to take on a life of their own after a while, so I’m not sure where we’ll end up but it should be a fun ride! Stay tuned for further details …