Transparency in NKI - Learning Object

With this final Learning Object for the course Pedagogical Processes of eLearning, I finish my research about Norwegian Knowledge Institute (NKI) Online Education model.

For Unit 1 I developed an LO about Cooperative Freedom in NKI explaining how the theory of Cooperative freedom influences the learning experience of an online student.
For Unit 2, I decided to explore what are the Online Teaching Techniques used by the teachers at NKI and how they interact with their students throw the NKI's LMS - SESAM.

For Unit 3 I explore the concept of transparency and describe how NKI developed a system of Learning Partners for students to cooperate, based on the principles of social networking sites.


(Click at Full Screen for better reading)

Transparency in NKI

View more presentations from Hugo Domingos.

With this LO I conclude my investigation about the online education model from NKI.

If you're interested in the previous LOs, you can check them throw the following links:

Online Teaching at NKI - Learning Object Unit 2 

Cooperative Freedom in NKI - Learning Object Unit 1 

If you enjoyed my work, feel free to tweet or leave a comment.

Transparency in Online Education - An annotated Bibliography

In this Annotated bibliography I want to share the research a made about transparency in online education. But how's transparency related with online education? To answer this question I organized several online resources that will guide you throw the exploration of the concept transparency and what does it mean in the context of online education.

I want to start with a funny but enlighten resource.

1. Figueiredo, José Carlos e Simões, Paulo. Transparency in Cooperative Online Education. Flv. Go! Animate, 2010. http://goanimate.com/movie/0t_WqQCZr6m8.

GoAnimate.com: Transparency in Cooperative Online Education by jcarlos

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

With this animated video we can start to understand what transparency is: The ability to share, as students, our learning paths and outcomes to a wider public beyond the closed sphere of teachers and colleges at school. The video underlies an important aspect essential in learning: feedback!
Feedback from colleges or random web user that are able to see and develop critical view of online students work. Comparing a close sharing environment, like schools, to a more transparent online educational environments, where openness provide a wider public view , this video gives us the base for discussing the importance of transparency in online education.  Openness in sharing self made resources provides more feedback. More feedback drives more quality and cooperative learning between students.

This is a good base for developing the concept of transparency and it's importance to learning.
To develop a more precise idea for the concept of transparency in online education I recommend the reading of the following resource:

2. Valente, Sónia, e Telma Jesus.Transparency in Online Education. Janeiro 2010. Issuu. http://issuu.com/telmaesonia/docs/transparency_work_soniatelma1

Open publication - Free publishing - More transparency

This document in the result of the research developed by the two authors about transparency. And it is really well done because it focus on several key aspects .
One of those aspects is the definition and importance of transparency in online education, explained by Dalsgaard & Paulsen:  "Transparency means that you and your doings are visible to fellow students and teachers within a learning environment (…) and to make participants available to each other as resources for their learning activities". I think this is definitely the best way to describe the importance of transparency. Individuals (students and teachers) sharing  knowledge and feedback in an open learning environment.
Then the work develops the importance between tranparency between students and between tutors, again based on Paulsen and Dalsgaard paper.
One thing I may disagree is the very optimist conclusion presented in the end:
"Transparency brings the opportunity to improve knowledge quality with less effort, because exist many people to work and sharing for the same goal: learn more, learn better, in less time!" I do agree that a more transparente approach in online education brings improved quality and a more engaging learning experience, but I do not agree with the "less time" argument. If you work on a networked environment with multiple sources of knowledge, how can you learn faster if you have more information to digest. I don't want to affirm that you  learn less. What I believe is that when you spend more time connecting with others, you can have more efficiency in producing new knowledge! That's my opinion. Networking gives you more information, more critical analysis, more quality, more efficiency and more motivation in the overall learning experience.

But how can universities develop this transparency and openness in their elearning framework?
To help answering this question I recommend the following article:

3. Dalsgaard, Christian. Social software: E-learning beyond learning management systems. Institute of Information and Media Studies - University of Aarhus. http://www.eurodl.org/materials/contrib/2006/Christian_Dalsgaard.htm.
 

In this papper, Dalsgaard argues the importance to "move e-learning beyond learning management systems and engage students in an active use of the web as a resource for their self-governed, problem-based and collaborative activities". Concentrating his arguments in a social constructivist view for online education, the author recommends an new approach for students learning activities and interactions based on social software and networks. The author don't want to "destroy" the LMS, a system that  integrates the necessary tools to manage an elearning course. What the author challenges is how can be possible to integrate social software within an LMS.
The author presents some tools classified as social software: "The examples of social software technologies (…) include weblogs, wikis, RSS feeds and social bookmarking". One very important and lucid argument the author makes is recognizing that "Although social software tools are not created for educational purposes, I will argue that they can be used to support learning.". This is very important to understand the importance of integrating social software in a LMS. In fact, it's possible to combine the best of both online environments and  I definitely agree with that!
Even more interesting is this conclusion:
"Using a management system, personal tools and social networks differs from the sole use of an integrated LMS. The approach differs in terms of focusing on empowerment of students as opposed to management of learning." This is major shift in actual educational models. To empower students instead of closing them in structured online course designed by a teacher. This is  especially relevant for the development of students skills that "not only learn a specific topic, but they are equipped with tools to navigate and make active use of the web to solve future problems." and "After the end of a course or an education, the networks continue to exist. Continued participation in social networks and creation of new networks give people access to a vast number of people and other resources.". Now that transparency working for empowering students autonomy, cooperation and lifelong learning. Isn't this the objective of modern education? Yes, definitely! 

A good example of how this integration (LMS + social software) is been developed is the NKI model for online education. The following resource, offer a view of NKI strategy:

4. Paulsen, Morten Flate. Visualizing Student Profiles through NKI's Online Catalogue and Student Networks. Cambridge International Conference on Open Distance Learning, Setembro 23, 2009. http://www.slideshare.net/MortenFP/visualizing-student-profiles-through-nkis-online-catalogue-and-student-network.

Visualizing Student Profiles through NKI's Online Catalogue and Student Network

View more presentations from Morten Flate Paulsen.

With this slideshow is possible to see how NKI developed their approach for integrating social networks features in an online educational environment. By allowing students to developed a public profile (slide 15) and decide their privacy levels, students can involve with each other  by connecting as learning partners.  This strategy was well received by the students and the numbers of public profiles are increasing. More important is that this strategy allows individual flexibility and cooperative learning at different levels. Every students can decide how to progress and with who. This is only possible with transparency. And that transparency goes beyond the online education, as students use their profile as portfolio when seeking jobs. How many universities allow this?

 

Final note:

I can clearly defend that transparency and social networks are important features that any online education institution must think and develop. Empowering students with personal learning environment, besides the common LMS, can drive them to more engaging, productive and quality based learning experience. My experience as an online student in Universidade Aberta is a proof of that!

These readings were important to me because now I have a more wider perspective for the development of the elearning framework that I want to develop to portuguese universities.  Thinking beyond the LMS was already clear to me, but  now I have the arguments to develop a new pedagogical and technical framework for elearning.


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Other related bibliographies:

U1 - Theory of Cooperative Freedom for Online Education

U2 - Online Teaching Techniques

Tips for online teaching and workload management.

Developing and manage an online course it's no ride in the park. It's really hard work! 

As an e-tutor, I'm amazed with the amount of offline work a online teacher has when starts an online course. And I'm not talking about designing the course. I'm talking about the massive load of email reading and students assessment and support.

I recently had the opportunity to discuss this issues with colleges and professors in one of the courses I'm having in the Master "Pedagogy of elearning". Every student was invited to present thoughts or recommendations for online teaching and workload management.

I decided to share some tips  I developed has an online tutor and elearning trainer and I'm going to share them also here:

1. Prepare your course in advance:
It's vital that you have all the course planned in advance. Never produce learning material during the course, because it increase your time limitation for discussion with students. The activities must be well planned, although you might consider change some specific aspects according with the students skills. If you feel that they are more digital friendly you might promote more use of multimedia elements, but try not to chance a lot your initial plan.

2. Develop a quick assessment guide:
Beside the content and activities, it's important that you develop the assessment criteria that you want to use for the students works and participation. Don't get to much evolved in large and never-ending criteria. For each activity decide what competences and skills you want to evaluate the students. Don't forget that for each activity you may select a range of criteria. Do not use them all in just one activity or you will me suffocated with the assessment and don't have the time for feedback and support for the students.

3. Master the tools:
Before using a new tool for the course, master it. Do not attempt to learn a new tool during the course. Do it between courses!
Imagine you want to try a new authoring tool to develop a e-content or use a LMS tool for activities with students (example: wiki or quiz). You don't know if the end result it's what you wanted or if it is compatible with your LMS, for example. Result: you probably develop a bad e-content or delay your initial plan (read rule 1).
Use the time between courses to learn how to use the new tools. And master them! Know the full potential of that software or LMS feature!

4. Develop a personal FAQ
Students tend to express common  doubts and requests for help. If you collect those doubts and the responses you give in a personal document, it will be easier to answer each time a new student request your help. It'll save you a lot of time! Usually, students don't read a FAQ in the course page, but it's useful to have one, especially with answers regarding software and more technical doubts.
Also prepare some screencasts videos and pictures to visually give more impact to your answers. Sometimes, an image can be more powerful than 20 words!

5. Use webware to manage your email and quick content production:
I highly recommend Gmail to manage the massive load of emails that you receive during a course. You can access it anywhere with any computer. If you are on a trip or your computer dies on you, you still have access to the new emails and the older ones. Also use webware to produce quick content like video, audio or image.
If I need to create a quick screencast tutorial I use Screenr to create and share it online. Also it's always available and I can embed it on the course.  For audio and image I use Aviary suite. Again, all webware (online use) and embeddable features. This is a more geeky tip!

6. Promote cooperation between students.
Avoid getting in all the discussions. Promote the participation between students. Give extra credits for those students that help others and develop more complex ideas.
Also promote students peer-reviewing. This has two advantages: one, students can give a more personal view on each others works. Secondly, by reviewing others works, they develop a more critique analysis of their own work. This will increase the quality of their works and give the teacher more  ime for assessment.

These are some of the most important tips I can share with you. Hope they can be useful.

Personally, I've learned a lot hearing other teachers strategies and doubts, so my last advice is learn from others teachers and share your expertise!

Talking about sharing, I've a surprise!

It's an online debate I'm having with my colleges, using a great tool - Voice Thread.  
Using Kate Butler "How to Manage your Online Teacher Workload" paper has a background for discussion, several colleges have shared their toughs and ideias. Check it out and feel free to participate with your own recommendations!

Online Teaching at NKI - Learning Object Unit 2

For the Unit 2 of the course Pedagogical Processes of eLearning, I continued my research about Norwegian Knowledge Institute (NKI) Online Education model.

For Unit 1 I developed an LO about Cooperative Freedom in NKI explaining how the theory of Cooperative freedom influences the learning experience of an online student.

For the Learning Object of Unit 2, I decided to explore what are the Online Teaching Techniques used by the teachers at NKI and how they interact with their students throw the NKI's LMS - SESAM.
(Click at Full Screen for better reading)Online Teaching on NKI

View more presentations from Hugo Domingos. 

I had some limitations on accessing the real SESAM LMS, but I think this LO offers an good initial overview of how the teachers at NKI develop their teaching techniques, communication, assessment and feedback for students progress.
 
For Unit 3 I will try to show how transparency between online students can promote a more engaging learning community, with a lite help of social networking features.

Hope you enjoy the LO.

Online Teaching Techniques - an Annotated Bibliography

The following Bibliography is related to Online Teaching Techniques that can be applied on Online Education. 
Imagine you're a teacher that as been invited to tutor, for the first time, an online course. How can you make the transition from a classroom to an online educational environment?
The following articles and resources were selected to help teachers that want to learn how to develop online teaching techniques.

The first reading I recommend is:

1. Terry Anderson. “Teaching in an Online Learning Context.” In Theory and Practice of Online Learning. http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/ch11.html#one.  

This resource is the 11th Chapter of the book "Theory and Practice of Online Learning" provided by the Athabasca University and the author is Dr.Terry Anderson Professor & Canada Research Chair in Distance Education. 
In this chapter “Teaching in an Online Learning Context” the author "outlines the three major components of teacher presence, and provided suggestions and guidelines for maximizing the effectiveness of the teaching function in online learning". 
Those three components are: design and organization, facilitating discourse, and direct instruction. Reading this chapter should be the first step to all teachers when creating an online course.

After this introductory reading, I would recommend the following presentation:

2. Geoffrey Cain, M.S. “Seven Principles of Effective Teaching Online.” http://www.slideshare.net/geoffcain/seven-principles-of-effective-teaching-online-presentation.

View more presentations from Geoff Cain.

This presentation is very important for two reasons: 

1. It shows 7 teaching principles for face-to-face teaching and compares them to online tutoring. The information is very well designed and explained, making this presentation a valuable learning resource for teachers.
2. By comparing the face-to face teaching to online teaching, this presentation can help teachers that have to face, for the first time, the transition between these learning environments.

After reading the above resources, a teacher may be considering "What activities and techniques may I use in a online course?". For that question I recommend the reading of the following resources, that are all about online teaching techniques:

3. “Course Redesign Guide.” Centre for Teaching and Learning - Queen's University. http://www.queensu.ca/ctl/goodpractice/technology/resources.html#designing.

In this web page you will find the Course Redesign Guide that "can be used to guide the development of learning objectives and the linking of a each instructional component to a course objective".
The guide is structured by types of learning objectives (Know, Do and Think), teaching and learning techniques and types of technology that a teachers can use for their online courses. It's a great resource because it rounds up critical points about online teaching for teachers that are starters in elearning.

4. Best Practices in Online Teaching Strategies. The Hanover Research Council, 2009. Http://www.hanoverresearch.com/library/assets/libPdfs/Best%20Practices%20in%20Online%20Teaching%20Strategies%20-%20Membership.pdf. http://www.hanoverresearch.com.

Is this report, the Hanover Research Council reviews the best practice teaching strategies in the field of online education. I this divided in three sections: 

1. Overview of the Principles, Guidelines, and Benchmarks for Online Education: best practices for online teaching with a review of the variety of guidelines and principles of online education.

2. Best Practices in Online Teaching Strategies: strategies for  planning and management of online instruction, the actual teaching process and student assessment and evaluation.

3. An Exemplary Program and Examples of Effective Practices: examples of an award-winning online education program and the teaching practices of three award-winning instructors. 

This report is highly recommended for teachers that want to learn the best studied strategies for online education. After reading some teaching techniques in the above resources, this report will show you which ones are the best for the development of effective online learning and teaching.

Finally and because we are in the age of Web 2.0, I must include the following presentation, that illustrates that online learning it's not only what happens inside a LMS.

5. Sanjaya Mishra. “Designing Online Learning, Web 2.0 and Online Learning Resources” apresentado em National Workshop on Development of Self Learning Materials for Distance and Online Learning., 2009. http://www.slideshare.net/missan/designing-online-learning-web-20-and-online-learning-resources.

View more presentations from Sanjaya Mishra.

In this presentation, the author illustrates what is Online Education and the educational theories that support it. This presentation is very useful for new e-teachers because it shows some tools and teaching techniques used in online education and how the Web 2.0 can evolve those processes to new learning and teaching strategies. If you are a teacher that wants to develop online course, use these tips given by Prof. Sanjaya Mishra! 

Are you read for Online Teaching? 

Cooperative Freedom in NKI - Learning Object Unit 1 PPeL

In this following Learning Object, I show how Cooperative Freedom in NKI influence the learning experience of an online student.

This is Unit 1 of 3 of my research about Online Education in NKI.
Cooperative Freedom in NKI

This work is a result of my research about Cooperative Freedom for the course Pedagogical Processes in eLearning.

For Unit 2 and 3 I will try to demonstrate how online teaching techiques and transparency in online education may influence the learning experience of online students.

I'm really interested in studying the NKI model because, for my dissertation, I wish to develop a elearning framework of Portuguese universities and I truly think that I can learn a lot from the NKI experience.

Theory of Cooperative Freedom for Online Education – An annotated Bibliography

Ep.4 - Theory of Cooperative Freedom for Online Education

Hugo Domingos' Podcast

The next four articles are the result of the research and study of the Theory of Cooperative Freedom for the course “Processos Pedagógicos em eLearning”. The analysis associated with witch article reflects my learning outcomes for this course activity.

1. Paulsen, Morten Flate. “The Hexagon Of Cooperative Freedom: A Distance Education Theory Attunedto Computer Conferencing.” The DistanceEducation Online Symposium DEOSNEWS, 1993, Vol. 3 No. 2 edition. http://www.nettskolen.com/forskning/21/hexagon.html. 

The Theory of Cooperative Freedom was published as an article, in 1992, by Morten Flate Paulse who presented as a “theory of autonomy and independence” to support distance education. In this first approach, the author defends that students should decide the level of autonomy they want for their educational progress, because “distance students need cooperation as well as freedom.” The main goal of this theory is to develop “distance education system that combines freedom for the individual with group cooperation”. He defends that the term freedom must be contextualized in the “Hexagon of Cooperative Freedom”, giving flexibility for students personal learning progress. The Hexagon off cooperative freedom is based in six vectors: time, space, pace, medium, access, and content. This vectors combined allow us to understand how much conditions a student faces for developing a feeling of belonging in, or out, a group activity. Paulsen vision for the developing of new approach and framework for distance education is well expressed in the conclusion of the article: “Future adult students will seek individual flexibility and freedom. At the same time, they need group collaboration and social unity. Computer-conferencing, when integrated with other media, can be the means of joining freedom and unity into truly flexible, cooperative distance education programs.” 

2. Paulsen, Morten Flate. “Cooperative Online Education.” Seminar.net. http://www.seminar.net/index.php/volume-4-issue-2-2008-previousissuesmeny-124/100-cooperative-online-education. 

This second article shows a development of ideas in Theory of Cooperative Freedom presented in the first article. One of the first things to stand out in the article is the conceptualization of learning styles: individual learning, collaborative learning and cooperative learning. Although there is some mismatch with other authors, Morten Flate Paulse defends that “Collaborative learning requires participation in a learning community, but limits individual flexibility. One may say that collaborative learning requires that students sink or swim together” and “Cooperative learning focuses on opportunities to encourage both individual flexibility and affinity to a learning community. Cooperative learning seeks to foster some benefits from individual freedom and other benefits from cooperation in online learning communities.” With these well defined concepts, the importance of cooperation within a learning community is enhanced as one vital factor for students engagement in online courses. For Paulsen “cooperation should be voluntary, but attractive and appealing” allowing students “to be visible as potential partners and resources for others”. These ideas have been applied in the NKI’s Cooperative Philosophy for Online Learning that “facilitates individual freedom within a learning community in which online students serve as mutual resources without being dependent on each other”. But the evaluation of this educational approach was been a challenge for NKI, that was been developing tools such “forms of questionnaires and evaluation forms” and “ermed quality barometer, which continuously records evaluation data and presents dynamic reports on important indicators of quality”. In the article are also showed strategies for assessment, social networking and asynchronous communication. This efforts form NKI are been well received by the students, that expressed themselves throw surveys responses, allowing NKI administrators to conclude that “cooperative learning philosophy and incremental development of cooperative tools and services has been received positively by the respondents.” 

3. Slaatto, Torhild, e Paulsen, Morten Flate. “Learning partner - opportunities for cooperation in distance learning.” elearningeuropa.info, Outubro 5, 2006. http://www.elearningeuropa.info/directory/index.php?page=doc&doc_id=8294&doclng=6. 

In this short article, it is showed the learning philosophy at NKI (Norwegian Knowledge Institute) Distance Education, a “non-governmental educational institution based in Norway, operating in both traditional distance education and large-scale integration of technology into distance education”. With a long experience in distance education, the NKI was been developing a framework for online education based on the Theory of Cooperative Freedom, that supports “individual freedom within a learning community in which online students serve as mutual resources without being dependent on each other”. This approach was been developed in NKI online courses, with the support of self develop LMS that allows students to chose their learning plans and decide how much they want to participate in the learning community. With this new service, NKI expects “that student satisfaction will improve and, eventually, it will also contribute to increased enrolment”. The article also shows examples of two students experiences that illustrates different contexts of user interaction within the community. 

4. Dalsgaard, Christian, e Morten Flate Paulsen. “Transparency in Cooperative Online Education.” Text.Serial.Journal, Junho 26, 2009. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewArticle/671/1267. 

This article has a very interesting starting point: What is the potential of social networking within cooperative online education? In an educational system that “seeks to develop virtual learning environments that allow students to have optimal individual freedom within online learning communities” how can it be possible to integrate the characteristics of social networking? The used approach is to promote transparency between students. The term transparency is described as the ability for “students’ and teachers’ insight into each other’s activities and resources. Transparency means that you and your doings are visible to fellow students and teachers within a learning environment”. That approach has been developed by the implementation of personal pages that “provides opportunities for personalization; the individual can choose the look and content of the page” much as what social networking services, like Facebook, provides. This is not only useful for the students itself but also for other students that may want to “connected to other personal pages of other individuals” “through subscriptions and notifications” allowing Socialization. This socialization between students promotes cooperative learning, as it’s showed in the conclusions of the article: “In the perspective of the theory of cooperative freedom, the special kind of communication and interaction afforded by social networking sites is interesting and has pedagogical potential. The potential of social networking lies within transparency and the ability to create awareness among students.”