Sensemaking artifact (week 1)

This week my sensemaking artifact is a video presentation about MOOCs and what I would change about them. I hope you enjoy it, please leave any feedback on my blog.

Discussion Questions (week 1)

1. How do you want to teach online?
   I believe a combination of both models is what I want to apply to my online course. I want to convey information and also design activities and materials that will help them use this knowledge to learn to do something. For example, I will add content in the lectures on how to create effective lecture videos for online setting, the theory and research behind the recommended practices, but I also want them to go ahead and develop a demo applying what they just learned. During the whole lesson, I will schedule live interactions where they can ask questions, I will elaborate more on some of the topics covered on the lessons, I will give also feedback on the demos they will be posting on the course site. In my case, I will be creating the content for a new online course, I will not be converting material from face-to-face setting to online, which means I am very open to new things and new technologies to achieve the learning goals.
2. What ‘mix’ of face-to-face and online learning will be best for your course, and why your “mix” is best.
   My course is completely online, there will be no face-to-face contact, unless live webinar sessions count as that. I believe this course has to be online because it is directed towards professionals that are probably already working and have families. The convenience of an asynchronous course that can be taken online has many benefits to this particular audience. I will have many technology tools and human resources to create the content and applications for this course. I consider myself a good instructor in the classroom setting and now I want to prove myself that I can do the same thing in e-learning.
3. Why do you need to focus just as much on student activities, what they need to do, as on creating original content for your courses? Describe the activities do you plan to focus on.
   Because we want the students not only to memorize material, so that they can face a final assessment but we also want them to learn how to do something. I believe that any subject can be adequately converted into an online course, the bottom line being what resources I am willing to put up in order to develop that course. When I am developing the content I have to see how I can create an activity that will make good use of the information being presented. The student activities are going to reinforce the knowledge they just reviewed in the lesson, and it has to be done immediately after the material in the lesson has been covered. I am planning on creating short multiple choice questions when there is material that requires to be learned by the student, such as concepts, rules, laws, processes, etc. Then, during the lecture material, I will add more multiple choice questions that will test what the student learned during the lecture. This will help the student assess how well they acquire the new information.
4. Describe how you create a strong structure for you online course, so students are clear about what they are expected to do, when it has to be done. How do you ensure that students have adequate online activities? Describe the trade-offs you have to make between content and activities if the student workload is to be kept to manageable proportions?
   The first thing I would like to develop is some kind of syllabus that contains the rules of the game: policies, how to get help, and most important, the course structure. In my case, I like to develop courses that follow a rigid structure because I believe that in the online learning environment, since there is hardly any instant human contact, it is necessary to guide the students at any point in the course. I am planning on creating a course with ten lessons that will follow the next template: definition of lesson objectives, reading assignments, some kind of short lecture (audio or video), and activities. Until they are able to complete these activities then they should be able to move on to the next lesson. Since my course is oriented on how to develop online content, I am planning on creating activities that are more hands-on (around learning how to do something as opposed to did you memorize it?). I will set up the LMS system so that they cannot move to the next lesson until they submit their assignments and complete their activities. Before we launch the program we will use testing students that will provide feedback on the effectiveness of the activities laid out in the lessons, and I will adjust accordingly. Again, the activities will be centered around learning how to do something, there will be also questions that will invite critical thinking and analysis. This is supposed to be a short course (40 h max), which means we cannot introduce content that is not going to support learning. We will introduce meaningful resources that the students can use later on, but they will not be required to cover that material. Our lectures will be short (max 15 min), and most of the time the students will be working on their activities and assignments, there is reading but we will keep it at a minimum to cover important definitions, rules, suggestions, but we will no assign reading of whole book chapters.

Suggested Reflections (week 1)

In week 1 I learned the steps on how to build an online course, some of them I have been doing for quite some time (although I did not know I was doing it that way). The first step is very important and one I did nor consider before. Do we really need to develop an online course? The teaching philosophies is a good point I have not thought about before. In some subjects the objectivistic approach is required (chemistry, for example) but other courses can be conducted using the individual development approach (I can think of a writing course, for example). But I think I am sold on the idea of combining both, the benefits are obvious. In my work setting we actually start at step 2 where we are deciding what kind of online course we want. This is the part where we decide the kind of content we need in the course. It is very important to determine this because then we have to look back and figure out if the resources to develop that kind of content are available. The final step is one of the parts I am trying to get involved with because evaluation and improvement are nowadays being driven by decisions based on data. Analysis of data from student activity and data collected from their own input has become a valuable tool to make decisions on the course offering, improvements, things that require change or plain eliminate other that did not work. I believe education will be driven by big data in the future as well.

This is a very different MOOC. It has allowed me to express my thoughts and what I have learned through the use of my own blog. This is a tools that I have helped set up before, but have not actually used extensively as an educational tool. Now I can see the potential in future course developments I happen to be involved in later on. I think this is one of the things I like best about this course.

Activity Reflection (Week 1)

This week I came back from a conference with the determination of completing this MOOC. I have been trolling around Coursera and Udacity, signing on for very interesting MOOCs that I never complete. But this MOOC is different. This one is actually giving me the freedom of developing content for what I hope to be my own online course on how to create content for online learning. Working on my posts has given me the opportunity to reflect on many topics related to online teaching, which I haven't done in quite a while. So, as soon as I came back to the office on Monday, I started working on my assignments for the past two weeks, and covering the material for both weeks as well. I have not been just skimming or going through the material with no analysis whatsoever. In fact, I have done quite the opposite. The content offered in this course actually has offered new ideas that I have not considered before.

This week I created my first artifact about blogs. In the materials for week 0 this topic was amply covered by both the instructor and the invited speakers in the webinars for that week. Even though most of the content related to blogging was directed towards developing a full blog system, I actually just skirted my artifact around the use of blogs for educational purposes. I have no intention in becoming a professional blogger, but the application of technology in developing this tool fascinates me. I also like to develop content for blogs which will serve as assignments or activities for an online course. The part of creating blogging activities that can be linked to a learning outcomes has a great appeal to me because it demands the use of my analytical and critical thinking skills in order to create an activity that both fulfills the learning outcome and conduces to learning.

Before I only consider blogging as another way to create a discussion forum, in fact, I was against the use of blogs a few months ago when we were developing a new project because the amount of work the instructor would face since it was required to produce a grade from the posts. But now I understand that blogging is a more personal issue that actually helps in developing critical and analytical thinking skills. A discussion forums is for very short responses on topics the instructor would like the students to weigh in.

One aspect of the whole blogging tool that I need to discover is how to use media to enhance the activity. I would like to encourage my students to not only develop a blog post, but support the post with media that they produce or that the could curate from other sources (for educational purposes). Does media actually help the blog post in conveying the information to the student, and what is required from them? Is media distracting in a blog post? Do I need to place restrictions on the type and quantity of media that students can use? These and other questions, that I think would like to ponder for a while, make blogging an attractive tool for education.

Sensemaking artifact Week 0

Blogging as an educational tool is a new concept that has circulated the internet for some time. It is being used by colleges, universities, and educational organizations as another tool that aids and supports learning. It is true that blogging started as a communication medium for the masses. Now everybody can put forth their thoughts at any time and place, and millions of people will have access to that content. Unlike live interaction over the internet (webinars, chat, etc.) this can be used as an asynchronous interactive tools, since communication does not happen immediately, the receiver of the message will not read it until later on. There is also a period of time while the message is being elaborated. This is a very important and crucial step in the whole process. This is the part where the blogger lays out the ideas that will be sent, reworks the structure of the message and finally makes sure that the message is clear and free of typos and errors. One can tell when a blog message was made on the fly, with no final review whatsoever. While the blogger thinks about on how to structure the message, critical thinking and analysis is happening, and learning is happening. The blogger will consult other resources and do research before or while elaborating the blog content. All these activities are done by students in a classroom setting when they are asked to work on a project. Blogging can also be conducted individually or in groups, just like classroom projects.

So, nowadays the question is not if you can blog, it is why are you not? The technology is here to do it for free (although it was not the case some time ago), the second question is how can I make my blog visible to others? Social media is an answer but word of mouth still works, networking is the most effective way of growing your audience these days. It is no secret that a successful blog is not the one with more content, but the one with meaningful and valuable content. Building a reputable blog still takes time and effort, blogging is a work of its own. The most important part of building a blog still involves some cosmetics; I also believe that making the navigation in a blog easier is as valuable as the content it contains. I cannot tell you how many times I have left a blog because the internal navigation is so confusing, I get frustrated and quit.

Image source: www.gabrielweinberg.com

But blogs started as a way to communicate your own ideas. How about we use it to prod ideas out of people who would not use blogs regularly? I am guessing somebody actually had that idea at some college or university when pondering what tools to use to make student interaction easier. A blog requires analysis and critical thinking, if done properly. If you ask the right questions to students, or suggest the best way to express an idea, then blogging becomes a powerful learning experience. Many students on their own will not be able to come up with the ideas themselves, they are not used to employing the tool. That is why the involvement of the instructor is very important in this setting. In a MOOC that can be a nightmare because the enrollments in these types of online courses are in the thousands. But in many cases the use of supporting staff ameliorates the problem, but even in this setting instructor involvement is very important.

Image Source: blogs.worldbank.org

Most interesting of all is when blogging is utilized as an educational device in hard sciences and mathematics. I am currently actively involved in utilizing blogging for learning activities in engineering, physics, mathematics, and chemistry online classes. I believe that learning can be facilitated if the student is allowed to express concepts in these subjects through the use of blogging tools. By expressing their ideas on a particular subject, critical thinking is allowed to happen, and the instructor can assess what the students actually understand from the subject. The hardest part though, is creating the right questions and subjects to discuss in a blog. Yes and no questions do not help the process; you need to create prompts that can be expanded in a blog after some analysis from the student.

I believe the future of blogging lies ahead in educational settings, but there is still room to amplify its use for communication of ideas over the internet. Blogging is not a tool that everybody can use with no previous knowledge or practice. Students enrolled in online classes will learn how to use this tool and will gain a skill that can use in their future workplace. More instructors will start using this tool to communicate with students and gage their understanding of the subject being taught. They need to be more involved in the process to fully take advantage of this device that supports learning in the online environment.

Essential Question to answer (Week 0)

Question: Creativity comes through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things. How can you help your online students to be more creative?

I think one of the first things I would do is to ask them to describe a situation in which they believed they were being creative. Asking questions as to what kind of environment they were in, what resources they had at hand, what mood they were in, if they were alone or in a group. Then I would ask them for another example in which they were faced with a problem that required a creative solution, but they failed to come up with something novel. Again, I would ask what state of mind they were in when that happened, if they were alone, in a group, outdoors, indoors, etc. I think by comparing both situations they will understand the ideal situation they have to be in that will foster creativity.

What I have learned this week (week 0)

I think the most important thing I have learned this week is that a blog can be a powerful educational tool. Collaboration among peers through blogs is a medium to share ideas, thoughts, insights, and pass on information that can help our personal growth. I have also learned that building a community in an online class is dependent on the instructor's ability and will to participate at all times in the process. The instructor needs to be engaged, which in turn will make students engage.

I will participate by attending as many webinars as I can, share my thoughts through the blog, and participate in discussions with other learners. I will try to complete the assigned materials on time every week.