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.


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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 

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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 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! 

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