Blog da Telma

Concepção e Avaliação em E-learning

2011-03-18T04:12:00.000-07:00

Link para o bolg construído no âmbito da U.C. Cael.
http://caeltelma.blogspot.com/

Recursos de interesse

2011-02-18T13:13:00.001-08:00

ticEDUCA2010 Seminário Doutoral

View more presentations from Elisabete Cruz.

Concepção e avaliação em Elearning- blog

2011-02-18T04:10:00.000-08:00

Link para o bolg construído no âmbito da U.C. Cael.
http://caeltelma.blogspot.com/

2011-02-18T04:05:00.001-08:00

Apresentação da Professora Doutora Lina Morgado na 1ª Conferência do Mestrado Pedagogia do Elearnng-14 de Maio 2010

Coordenação do Mestrado em Pedagogia do Elearning - A ecologia do curso MPEL: balanço e desafios

A ecologia do curso MPeL

View more presentations from MPeL-Master Degree Elearning Pedagogy.

Painel da Coordenação do MPEL

Guide to interviewing

2010-11-24T05:07:00.000-08:00

Interviewing Skills 2

View more presentations from guest61a8d3.

Fluxograma- Etapas de uma investigação

2010-11-01T16:56:00.000-07:00

Cyberbullying

2010-06-30T14:19:00.000-07:00

Numa actividade da unidade de crédito de MREL, do mestrado de Pedagogia em Elearning da Universidade Aberta, eu e o Marco Freitas criámos um recurso educativo aberto (REA) através da ferramenta do GoAnimate.

A temática está relacionada com a Segurança na Internet e os jovens, e concentrámos a nossa atenção no "cyberbullying".

Espero que este recurso desperte a atenção dos jovens alunos, professores e pais, a quem convido, desde já, a comentar e a propôr sugestões que possam melhorar ou completar a animação seguinte:

GoAnimate.com: Cyberbullying by Telma e Marco

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

Debate-autenticidade e transparência na rede

2010-05-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

Conclusão-síntese sobre o debate acerca da autenticidade e transparência na rede.

Inicialmente foi proposto analisar os dois tópicos propostos pelo professor. O primeiro que medida a nossa identidade digital é um prolongamento da nossa identidade pública ou um campo alternativo de expressão de uma dimensão escondida da nossa personalidade íntima.
A identidade digital, que segundo algumas definições encontradas aquando de pesquisas efectuadas na Internet, é considerada a representação digital dos dados de um determinado utilizador. Os dados incluídos poderão ir desde o nome, contribuinte, Bilhete de identidade ou cartão do cidadão, morada, currículo, entre outros.
A partir do momento em que nós utilizadores colocamos/publicamos os nossos dados em suporte digital na Internet, eles tornam-se públicos e ficam disponíveis e acessíveis a todos os utilizadores que navegam na internet e de certo modo, podemos ver a nossa intimidade e a nossa privacidade exposta de alguma forma e os nossos dados desprotegidos.
Este tema exige ser tratado com muita seriedade, no entanto, é e costuma ser tratado pelos utilizadores da rede com alguma leviandade. Devemos então, ser realistas e conscienciosos relativamente à nossa identidade digital e tentar manter a privacidade dos nossos dados, sem entrar em histeria e paranóia injustificada.

Quer a identidade digital, quer a identidade pública devem ser abordadas de forma a garantir a privacidade dos indivíduos. Existe uma preocupação acrescida relativamente à exposição e/ou tornar pública a identidade digital de indivíduos menores de idade, pois estes necessitam de autorização parental para a publicação dos seus dados.
Quando expomos os nossos dados através de uma identificação digital, devemos exigir que sejamos informados sobre o quê, quando e onde, de que forma, o conteúdo será publicado e como será classificado e quais as políticas a atribuir.
Uma vez que o utilizador torna pública uma imagem sua, ela percorre a rede e apesar de o utilizador a apagar ela poderá ser encontrada num computador muito distante e disponibilizada na rede. "Uma vez na Net, sempre na Net".
Por vezes, para contornar esta problemática, o utilizador cria dados fictícios, uma identidade falsa, para proteger os seus dados.

Foi ainda proposto analisar “O perigo da fraude intelectual (ex.: plágio) aumentou com o advento da internet?” e nesse sentido existe a necessidade de abordar a questão dos direitos de autor.

Da mesma forma que nos preocupamos com os direitos de autor e licenças de utilização, também devemos ter muito cuidado quando publicados os nossos dados pessoais. O bom senso deve prevalecer e devemos confiar nas políticas locais e jurídica aplicável.

Abordando agora o tema da fraude intelectual, é uma realidade que este problema atingiu uma dimensão considerável e continua a crescer. Torna-se necessário tomar consciência da dimensão do problema e detectá-lo atempadamente. A sobrecarga de trabalho dos professores não possibilita por vezes a detecção do plágio. As razões que levam um aluno a cometer plágio são as mais variadas, desde, a ignorância, a pressão pela obtenção de bons resultados escolares, falta de tempo para a realização das várias actividades propostas pelos professores, cursos irrelevantes, cujos temas abordados devem estar de acordo com os interesses dos alunos e que sejam perceptíveis, professores que não procedem a uma constante actualização dos seus conhecimentos e dos recursos utilizados, por uma constante necessidade de questionar e contestar o sistema.
No sentido de alterar comportamentos e de desmotivar e evitar o cometer de plágio, existem muitos softwares e programas específicos que permitem detectar a fraude do plágio, inclusive, existem sites que possibilita analisar um determinado trabalho e disponibilizar informação relativamente aos sites que foram consultados para a elaboração desse trabalho e qual o texto que está idêntico ao original, bem como, qual a percentagem de texto que está igual ao trabalho original.
Convém os alunos estarem consciencializados de que existe plágio e de que é necessário estar atento para as questões dos direitos de autor.
A internet, como grande repositório de documentos digitais, contribuiu grandemente para o aumento do plagiarismo, na medida em que, a sua utilização como recurso e a sua disponibilização a um leque de indivíduos (pertencentes à classe média-baixa) a custo reduzido, torna-a acessível a todos.
É possível através da Internet aceder a uma panóplia de recursos, no entanto, a maioria destes recursos estão protegidos relativamente aos direitos de autor pelas licenças e só podem ser utilizados e/ou modificados perante uma autorização do seu autor/criador. É importante tomar consciência do tipo de licença que está associado ao recurso para não cometer fraude ao copiar ou modificar esse mesmo recurso disponibilizando-o posteriormente na Internet.
É necessário tomar consciência da dimensão do problema - plagiarismo, e dizer não às atitudes não éticas e exercer repressão sobre aqueles que cometem plágio e orientar e prevenir este tipo de atitudes.

Relativamente à segunda parte do debate, questionava-se a possibilidade de alguma entidade particular ou alguém controlar a rede, à qual eu respondi que sim, é possível de alguma forma controlar a rede. Pode ser controlada, quer através de hardware, quer através de software. A forma como a informação circula na rede é através de pacotes que circulam entre várias máquinas. Existe um Software que acompanhado de hardware pode controlar todos os pacotes que circulam na rede, quais as máquinas de destino desses mesmos pacotes e também o que estes pacotes contêm. A ferramenta que realiza este tipo de actividades denomina-se Sniffer. Este software é livre. Podem ser analisadas redes por cabo ou wireless. Podem ainda ser analisados os protocolos de rede.

O analisador de protocolos gratuito mais conhecido é o Ethereal, que passou a chamar-se wireshark e analisa os pacotes no momento da recepção e da transmissão das informações. Também é software de código aberto e corre em máquinas com diferentes sistemas operativos.
Existe ainda uma entidade privada que controla os nomes dos domínios (.com, .pt, etc) que se denomina ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) e o controlo da Rede está hoje em dia nas suas mãos.
Existem muitas entidades que se dedicam à supervisão da informação que circula na “net” e cada vez mais os países e regiões do mundo pretendem criar o seu próprio organismo para controlar a Internet, para evitar, o estar sob o domínio dos Estados Unidos.

Por último, foi perguntado em que medida a rede é segura e em que medida a informação nela partilhada é confiável e quem o pode garantir.
A rede é constituída por um número quase ilimitada de nós que estando interligados entre si fazem com que a informação circule entre eles.
Desde sempre, existiu uma crescente preocupação com o fornecimento de acessos seguros e com a preservação das identidades. O crescimento exponencial do desenvolvimento de novas tecnologias permitiu ao utilizador incrementar de forma exponencial os níveis de confiança na rede. Existem várias tipologias de rede e cada uma com as suas especificidades.
"o objetivo básico de uma rede de computadores é garantir que todos os recursos de informação sejam compartilhados rapidamente, com segurança e de forma confiável" ."a rede deve possuir meios de transmissão eficientes, regras básicas (protocolos) e mecanismos capazes de garantir o transporte das informações entre os seus elementos constituintes."
"Segurança da Informação está relacionada com proteção de um conjunto de dados, no sentido de preservar o valor que possuem para um indivíduo ou uma organização. São características básicas da segurança da informação os atributos de confidencialidade, integridade e disponibilidade , não estando esta segurança restrita somente a sistemas computacionais , informações eletrônicas ou sistemas de armazenamento ."

É muito importante assegurar não só a segurança da informação, como também, a dos sistemas por onde ela circula. Os protocolos existentes contribuem para que uma rede seja considerada fiável ou segura. Também a tipologia e topologia de rede podem fazer com que a mesma seja mais ou menos segura. Existem vários requisitos de segurança e a partir destes requisitos foram construídos vários protocolos para assegurar a fiabilidade da informação que circula em rede.
Normalmente, as redes estão protegidas com uma chave e a forma como essa chave é encriptada faz com que a rede seja segura.
Assegurar que o protocolo de encaminhamento não é corrompido, também faz com que uma rede seja segura.

A segurança não pode ser calculada, pois dada a quantidade de informação e dados que circula na rede, não existe um único mecanismo que permita calcular a confiança na rede. A solução reside nos protocolos de encaminhamento e nos certificados digitais. O formato dos pacotes que circulam na rede também influencia a segurança da rede.
As características para processar uma comunicação em rede segura são: confidencialidade, Integridade, responsabilidade, autenticidade, encriptação, chaves simétricas e assimétricas, certificados e assinaturas digitais.
Cada vez mais os indivíduos baseiam o seu dia-a-dia na utilização da Internet. Informações pessoais, dados bancários, e outras informações pessoais circulam na rede, razão pela qual é importante preocuparmo-nos com a segurança na rede.

“Mais crítica, creio eu, é a capacidade dos estudantes de criar e formar redes de aprendizagens pessoais válidas para avaliar e filtrar a excessiva informação, para conectar com outros para indicar falhas no conhecimento, e para oferecer novas e criativas recombinações de informação com vista a avançar e a expandir os seus conhecimentos.”, diz George Siemens.
È muito importante não só reconhecer as boas fontes de informação, mas também, questionar, diferenciar, avaliar e filtrar a informação que circula na rede.
Sendo assim, ” toda e qualquer informação deve ser correta, precisa e estar disponível, a fim de ser armazenada, recuperada, manipulada ou processada, além de poder ser trocada de forma segura e confiável.”

Existem Entidades especializadas em assegurar a confiabilidade da informação disponibilizada na rede. Cada utilizador ao pesquisar pode ele mesmo seleccionar e verificar a fiabilidade da fonte de informação que está a utilizar. Ao recorrer aos repositórios de informação, o utilizador tem a garantia de que não irá encontrar informação duplicada e de que essa informação é segura em termos de veracidade, autenticidade e disponibilidade.
Deve dar-se preferência a informações oriundas de Instituições ou Entidades em detrimento da informação disponibilizada a título pessoal pelos utilizadores da rede.

http://www.educare.pt/educare/Actualidade.Noticia.aspx?contentid=7803CC2C0128DB46E0400A0AB8002557&opsel=1&channelid=0
http://www.projetoderedes.com.br/tutoriais/tutorial_sistemas_estruturados_em_redes_de_computadores_01.php
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seguran%C3%A7a_da_informa%C3%A7%C3%A3o

Noção de Cibercultura por Pierre Lévy

2010-04-13T13:01:00.000-07:00

No âmbito da Unidade Curricular - Educação e Sociedade em Rede foi proposto analisar o texto de Pierre Lévy, "Cibercultura" e apresentar no blog individual um comentário sobre a noção de cibercultura, defendida por Pierre Lévy, incluindo a indicação de três exemplos significativos.
Não podemos falar em cibercultura sem incluir também a definição de ciberespaço.
A noção de Cibercultura "aborda as implicações culturais do desenvolvimento das tecnologias digitais da informação e de comunicação."(Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg. 17)

A Cibercultura, pode ser denominada como a cultura do futuro. É considerada como "universal sem totalidade", universal dado incluir todos os utilizadores da rede, proporcionando mais cedo ou mais tarde um encontro que pode ser intemporal e sem local específico para decorrer, e sem totalidade, uma vez que não inclui a totalidade/diversidade de informações, a cultura vai sendo construída ao longo do tempo e de forma contínua.
O termo cibercultura, inclui as técnicas, as práticas, as atitudes, os modos de pensamento e os valores que se desenvolvem juntamente com o crescimento do ciberespaço.

A Cibercultura, "expressa o surgimento de um novo universal, diferente das formas culturais que vieram antes dele no sentido de que ele se constrói sobre a indeterminação de um sentido global qualquer."(Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg. 15)

Quanto ao ciberespaço, "geografia móvel de informação", para Piérre Lévy, também denominado de rede, é considerado como o novo meio de comunicação que surge da interligação mundial entre vários computadores, incluindo todas as infra-estruturas materiais da comunicação digital, desde um simples computador ou um cabo a outras estruturas mais complexas e que permite albergar todo o universo de informações e todos os utilizadores que navegam na rede e todos os que contribuem para a construção de conhecimento injectando informações nesse mesmo universo.

Nos nossos dias deparamo-nos com um Boom de novos utilizadores, que acedem à internet, não só em busca de informação, mas também contribuindo para a construção do conhecimento através da introdução de informações variadas. Esta panóplia de informações é gerida pelos administradores dos vários espaços onde ela é colocada, no sentido de autorizar ou não a sua disponibilização na rede, evitando situações de duplicação de informação e outras situações menos convenientes. Todas as informações que vão surgindo, vão contribuindo para a expansão da rede. Esta rede consiste num conjunto de interligações entre os vários computadores dos muitos utilizadores.
O ciberespaço foi ampliado de uma forma tão brutal que se tornou universal. Apesar disso, a sua função continua a ser "acesso à distância aos diversos recursos de um computador".(Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg.93)

Cibercultura pode ser considerada toda a cultura que se desenvolve no ciberespaço. Pode ser considerada toda a cultura existente em ambiente virtual.
O universo de dados digitais são cada vez mais comuns e digitalizar a informação, implica que esta passe a ser escrita ou codificada na forma de 0´s e 1's para poder ser entendida pelas máquinas, propagada pelas redes e distribuída posteriormente pelos vários computadores/utilizadores.
A cibercultura, faz uso não só da tecnologia, mas também das muitas técnicas para tratamento da informação digital. Os computadores associados às várias infra-estruturas de rede, permitem não só produzir e distribuir informação, de forma intemporal e sem limites, mas também, uma construção colectiva do conhecimento.

Os métodos de trabalho foram alterados de forma súbita e arrastados por uma brusca evolução/revolução tecnológica, tornando obsoletos os conhecimentos e o savoir-fare tradicionais a que estavam habituados.
" O Ciberespaço, dispositivo de comunicação interactivo e comunitário, apresenta-se justamente como um dos instrumentos privilegiados da inteligência colectiva".(Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg. 29)
Os organismos de formação profissional ou de ensino à distância desenvolvem sistemas de aprendizagem cooperativa em rede.(Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg. 29)

Para Pierre lévy, existem 3 tipos de cultura: a cultura oral (totalidade sem universal), a cultura escrita (universal totalizante)e a cibercultura (universal sem totalidade).
Todas estas formas de cultura não se anulam, complementam-se, "adicionando-lhe dimensões suplementares"(lévy,Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg. 248).A primeira, pode ser considerada uma forma de cultura fechada onde nada é universal, onde a memória humana limitava a cultura. A segunda forma de cultura, por incluir formas de comunicação, nomeadamente através da escrita, permitindo assim, uma memorização que leva à universalidade. A terceira forma, a cibercultura, "mantém a universalidade ao mesmo tempo em que dissolve a totalidade."(Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg. 249, onde através das redes de comunicação se formam as comunidades virtuais. Estas comunidades permitem uma actualização da memória e uma construção colectiva e colaborativa do conhecimento.
Dada a diversidade de situações económicas e sociais da comunidade, por vezes pertencer ou não a uma comunidade virtual pode ser factor de diferenciação entre as classes sociais. Vai acentuar as desigualdades e vai constituir factor de exclusão e acentuar o fosso entre ricos e pobres, uma vez que para pertencer a uma comunidade virtual, é necessário dispor de infra-estruturas específicas para comunicar e equipamento específico (computadores, etc)envolvendo custos e investimento. Embora a tendência seja uma evolução exponencial da tecnologia, vimos assistindo a uma redução dos preços de aquisição dos equipamentos necessários para comunicar, são no entanto, ainda necessárias intervenções ao nível da administração central dos países, no sentido de, proporcionar o acesso à rede ao maior número de cidadãos, evitando assim, a infoexclusão.
A desqualificação dos indivíduos, a luta contra as desigualdades, o incentivo à autonomia dos indivíduos, favorece o "acesso para todos", contribuindo deste modo para a valorização das competências, dos recursos e das culturas, teoria defendida pela cibercultura e por Pierre lévy.
Os indivíduos contactam à distância, estabelecendo relações de afinidade ao pertencerem a comunidades virtuais e tudo isto proporcionado pela existência de um ciberespaço.
"ciberespaço...abre novos planos de existência:-nos modos de relação: comunicação interactiva e comunitária de todos com todos no centro de espaços informacionais colectivamente e continuamente construídos, - nos modos de conhecimento, de aprendizagem e de pensamento: simulações, navegações transversais em espaços de informação abertos, inteligência colectiva, - nos gêneros literários e artísticos : hiperdocumentos, obras interactivas, ambientes virtuais, criação colectiva distribuída.(Lévy, p, Cibercultura, pg 218)Isto é, a cultura não será substituída pela cibercultura, mas sim, complementada.
No ciberespaço, a proximidade física ou geográfica é inexistente.
O"impacto automático ou predeterminado das novas tecnologias sobre a sociedade e a cultura" no que se refere à cibercultura, gera muitas vezes conflitos de interesse e diversidade de pontos de vista. Por vezes, o ciberespaço torna-se um campo de batalha onde os industriais de comunicação e dos programas tentam promover e afirmar os seus produtos.

A inteligência colectiva é incentivada e a sua finalidade concretizada, colocando os percursos ao dispor da comunidade virtual."é a aspiração mais profunda do movimento da cibercultura."(Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg. 208)

Relativamente aos três exemplos e dada a variedade dos mesmos, optei por seleccionar em primeiro lugar a Aprendizagem aberta e à distância, pgs 169 e 170, em segundo lugar as conferências electrónicas, pgs 99-104 e 171 e as comunidades virtuais, pgs 127-130.
Os sistemas educativos e o surgimento de oportunidade de progressão dos estudos para indivíduos que física e geograficamente distam dos grandes centros, onde se encontram as melhores e maiores universidades, faz com que esses mesmos indivíduos consigam através do ciberespaço aceder a novas formas de cultura. Esta cultura é uma cultura digital, onde tudo está dependente de máquina, os computadores e onde se proporciona a construção do conhecimento de uma forma cooperativa e colaborativa e onde se podde contribuir para a construção e disponibilização na rede de informação, contribuindo para a construção da cibercultura.
As universidades cada vez mais estão a apostar na captação de alunos, através da promoção de cursos e do ensino à distância. As exigências a nível de formação da nossa sociedade, estão em crescimento.Os Custos associados a esta formação estão cada vez menores, uma vez que, no ensino à distância não se coloca a questão de despender de verba monetária para alojamento e deslocações.
Os custos inerentes a cursos (profissionais, de ensino superior, e outros) são cada vez menores se se tratar de ensino à distância, razão pela qual se aposta em universidades virtuais.
Não é só a quantidade de cursos que está disponível, mas também a qualidade dos mesmos que com a utilização do computador no ensino e com a virtualização da maioria dos documentos e utilização de ferramentas para a web. Cada vez mais se recorre a " práticas de levantamento de informações e de aprendizagem cooperativa no centro ciberespaço mostra a via para um acesso ao conhecimento ao mesmo tempo massificado e personalizado."(Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg 170)
Todo o conhecimento que está acessível através da Internet, via informação digital, está a ser utilizado como recurso, não só nas universidades, mas também em escolas de ensino básico e secundário.
Hoje em dia já não se faz "distinção entre ensino presencial e ensino a distância"..."já que o uso das redes de telecomunicações e dos suportes multímidia interativos vem sendo progressivamente integrado às formas mais clássicas de ensino".Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg 170)

Relativamente ao segundo exemplo, e porque este também faz uso do ciberespaço e recorre à tecnologia para participar no fenómeno cibercultura, convém referenciar que, é prática corrente em muitas universidades e escolas, proporcionar experiências de conferências electrónicas aos alunos e prepará-los para o mundo do trabalho em empresas de grande prestígio.
Os professores das universidades estão a alterar os seus comportamentos e as suas práticas perante a tecnologia e a digitalização da informação, apostando na qualidade dos cursos e das disciplinas que leccionam.
Toda a aquisição de conhecimentos e de construção de saberes passa pela "aprendizagem cooperativa assistida por computador" e passa a traduzir " a perspectiva da inteligência colectiva no domínio educativo"."Alguns dispositivos informatizados de aprendizagem em grupo são especialmente concebidos para o compartilhamento de diversos bancos de dados e o uso de conferências e correio electrônicos".... "Os estudantes podem participar de conferências electrônicas desterritorializadas nas quais intervêm os melhores pesquisadores de sua disciplina." (Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg 171)
As conferências electrónicas são um "dispositivo sofisticado que permite que grupos de pessoas discutam em conjunto sobre temas específicos. As mensagens são normalmente classificadas por assuntos ou por sub-tópicos. Alguns assuntos são fechados quando são abandonados e outros são abertos quando os membros do grupo acham necessário."Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg 99)
Todas as mensagens trocadas através de conferência electrónica estão subordinadas a um tema, no entanto os indivíduos podem trocar mensagens entre si. Cada mensagem está sempre identificada por que a escreveu.
Todos os indivíduos que estejam ligadas a uma conferência, podem trocar mensagens compartilhando um "espaço virtual de comunicação".(Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg 99)
A Internet permite o acesso a uma quantidade enorme de conferência electrónicas, as quais são denominadas de newsgroups, onde, de acordo com os seus interesses e independentemente da sua identificação ou localização geográfica, são contactados para participar nas discussões dos temas.

Como último exemplo, temos as comunidades virtuais, cujo suporte consiste nas interligações existentes entre os indivíduos.
"Uma comunidade virtual é construída sobre as afinidades de interesses, de conhecimentos, sobre projectos mútuos, em um processo de cooperação ou de troca, tudo isto independentemente das proximidades geográficas e das filiações institucionais."( Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg 127)
Também nas comunidades virtuais surge a necessidade de recorrer às técnicas de netetiqueta, com vista a possibilitar uma comunicação efectiva.
Muitas vezes associa-se às comunidades on-line o não estabelecer de relações de afinidade com outros elementos da comunidade.
Os encontros online são considerados como um complemento aos encontros físicos, uma vez que não os substitui.
No seio das comunidades virtuais defende-se que todos os elementos devem trocar mensagens, sendo a reciprocidade uma regra básica. Todos recebem mensagens com informações, mas também, todos contribuem para o fórum com os seus conhecimentos.
As regras para comunicação on-line devem ser respeitadas, sob pena de serem "excluídos pelos administradores de sistema a pedido dos organizadores das conferências."Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg 128)
Por vezes podem surgir conflitos entre os participantes, mas, "por outro lado, afinidades, alianças intelectuais, até mesmo amizades podem desenvolver-se nos grupos de discussão, exatamente como entre pessoas que se encontram regularmente para conversar."Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg 128 e 129)
" uma comunidade virtual não é irreal, imaginária ou ilusória, trata-se simplesmente de um coletivo mais ou menos permanente que se organiza por meio de novo correio electrônico munidal". Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg 130)
" A Cibercultura é a expressão da aspiração de construção de um laço social, que não seria fundado nem sobre links territoriais, nem sobre relações institucionais, nem sobre as relações do poder, mas sobre a reunião em torno de centros de interesses comuns, sobre o jogo, sobre o compartilhamento do saber, sobre a aprendizagem cooperativa, sobre processos abertos de colaboração. O apetite para as comunidades virtuais encontra um ideal de relação humana desterritorializada, transversal e livre."(Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg 130)
As comunidades virtuais recorrem ao ciberespaço para comunicar e para complementar informações no sentido de construir a cibercultura.

"a cibercultura não é controlável".(Lévy, Pierre, "Cibercultura", pg30)

Referência:

LÉVY, Pierre (1999). "Cibercultura", Editora 34, S. Paulo.

Self-paced vs. group-paced courses

2010-02-22T05:56:00.001-08:00

Hi!

I was searching about these theme and i found something that i consider interesting in one article written by T. Grandon Gill and Carolyn F. Holton from University of Florida, USA.

" To address these challenges, the course utilizes a self-paced format. Making the self-paced format work required three systems: 1) Content delivery: extensive multimedia aids and web content to support textual materials and to substitute for classroom lectures, 2) Peer support: peer-tutoring and assignment validation, drawing from approaches used in nuclear submarine training that provide flexibility and enhance rigor, 3) Progress monitoring: an administrative information system, used to track student progress and provide students with weekly reports."

"Confronted with such diversity of background and motivation, there seem to be three generic strategies that an instructor or department might pursue."

"The first involves teaching the course at a fast pace, and accepting the fact that DWF (D-grades, withdrawals and failures) rates will be high—often as high as 50%. The second strategy involves slowing the course to the point where even ill-prepared or unmotivated students can keep up—typically by reducing the amount of material covered. The third approach is to partition the course into cohorts that proceed at different paces, sometimes accomplished by establishing different tracks within a program."

..."the third strategy involves designing a course in such a manner that each student is allowed to proceed at his or her own pace."

"Doing so allows well-prepared students to forge ahead quickly, while students with little or no background can take the time necessary to master the fundamentals. This strategy is the selfpaced approach."

"There does not seem to be any evidence of self-paced approaches built around more traditional approaches to teaching programming, such as the use of lectures and group projects."

Link:http://informingscience.org/jite/documents/Vol5/v5p095-105Gill114.pdf

Sorry about my english,

Telma Jesus

Unit4- Annotated Bibliography

2010-02-21T08:21:00.000-08:00

In the Annotated Bibliography for the final Unit (Unit 4), i decided to organize all the AB that i have wrote for the other Units and i will start once again with the questions that i am trying to answer. This way i will have done the tasks: compiling, refining and expanding the three annotated bibliographies that i have written so far for this course. I will also put at the end of each AB the reference to the articles that i used.

For the first Unit, the 3 questions were:
1.How much freedom should online students have?
2.Is online collaboration really worth or just a waste of time?
3.How can we facilitate cooperation in paced and unpaced learning environments?

For the Second Unit, the 3 questions were:
1.Which online teaching techniques do you prefer?
2.What are the implications of using individual and group assignments in online education?
3.How can we secure a reasonable workload for online teachers?

And finally for the third Unit, the 3 questions were:
1.How much transparency should we allow in online education?
2.What are the implications of transparency in online education?
3.What are the pros and cons of global student catalogues?

The answer to all these questions resumes all the content that was taught in this class. So I will take some of the already written AB, change some that i consider that need to be refined and introduce new articles if some subject wasn´t approached and i will take also in consider the comments and feedback that were made by Professor Morten.
The first i consider important to stablish the difference between Cooperative Learning and Cooperative Learning. In the article written by Ted Panitz, "A Definition of Collaborative VS Cooperative Learning", in 1996, I considered this article so important that i copied it all and put it in the my first post. It helps us to distinguish between collaborative learning and cooperative learning. It points out the main aspects of each type of learning. Collaborative learning people must join a group and as a group member must contribute to the development of a specific work. people must work together. Everyone is responsible for the work that is developed. This is a student centred learning. Has a qualitative approach. In Cooperative Learning, people work and interact for a specific goal. It is applied a quantitative method. It is a teacher centred learning and each teacher must design the cooperative activities.

Panitz, Ted, 1996, " A Definition of Collaborative vs Cooperative Learning"
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/deliberations/collaborative-learning/panitz-paper.cfm,
accessed in 20 October 2009 (3 pages)
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Cooperative Freedom
First, i noted that Professor Morten Flate Paulsen is the driving force behind the theory of Cooperative Freedom. He is professor of online education and he is in Portugal for his sabbatical and working with us in Universidade Aberta.
Whenever we talk about distance learning or cooperative learning, arises the teacher's name Morten Flate Paulsen.
Issues such as Cooperative Freedom, Flexibility, Cooperative Learning, Online Learning, Online Education, Learning Freedom and Distance Learning can be found in this work.
There are also some of his works translated to Portuguese: Relatório do Estado da Arte: Qualidade do E-learning para PMEs Europeias - uma Análise de Experiências de E-Learning em Pequenas e Médias Empresas and CLIPs e outros instrumentos de apoio à aprendizagem cooperativa realizada em ambientes virtuais.

Paulsen, Morten Flate, 11 September 2008, "Personal Presentation"
http://home.nki.no/morten/index.php/english-menu/personal-presentation.html
accessed in 20 October 2009 (1 page)
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Cooperative Learning
I found several information about Cooperative learning in this site: Informations like What is it?; Why use it?, How does it work?,What are some examples of specific programs?, What else does it do?, What else does the research say?

Balkcom,Stephen, June 1992, " Office of Research Education CONSUMER GUIDE"
http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/cooplear.html
accessed in 22 October 2009 (1 page)

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Self-paced vs. group-paced courses

I was searching about these theme and i found something that i consider interesting in one article written by T. Grandon Gill and Carolyn F. Holton from University of Florida, USA.

" To address these challenges, the course utilizes a self-paced format. Making the self-paced format work required three systems: 1) Content delivery: extensive multimedia aids and web content to support textual materials and to substitute for classroom lectures, 2) Peer support: peer-tutoring and assignment validation, drawing from approaches used in nuclear submarine training that provide flexibility and enhance rigor, 3) Progress monitoring: an administrative information system, used to track student progress and provide students with weekly reports."

"Confronted with such diversity of background and motivation, there seem to be three generic strategies that an instructor or department might pursue."

"The first involves teaching the course at a fast pace, and accepting the fact that DWF (D-grades, withdrawals and failures) rates will be high—often as high as 50%. The second strategy involves slowing the course to the point where even ill-prepared or unmotivated students can keep up—typically by reducing the amount of material covered. The third approach is to partition the course into cohorts that proceed at different paces, sometimes accomplished by establishing different tracks within a program."

..."the third strategy involves designing a course in such a manner that each student is allowed to proceed at his or her own pace."

"Doing so allows well-prepared students to forge ahead quickly, while students with little or no background can take the time necessary to master the fundamentals. This strategy is the selfpaced approach."

"There does not seem to be any evidence of self-paced approaches built around more traditional approaches to teaching programming, such as the use of lectures and group projects."

Gill, T. Grandon and Holton, Carolyn F.,2006 ,"A Self-Paced Introductory Programming Course"
http://informingscience.org/jite/documents/Vol5/v5p095-105Gill114.pdf
accessed in 26 October 2009 (11 pages)
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Teaching with Technology-Distance Learning
I found this article that focuses some aspects about distance Learning that i consider very important.
It refers to aspects like: is the distance learning only a target for working adult students;Is a course that uses media richer and more understandable; Is it better to work self-paced in one assyncronous way; Can technology help to promote interaction with all the intervenients(teacher and students); Sould the student work his way.( James G. Lengel, Hunter College, CUNY, 11/20/08)

Lengel, Jim, 20/11/2008, " Teaching with technlogy- Learning Online" Hunter College and Boston University,
http://www.powertolearn.com/articles/teaching_with_technology/article.shtml?ID=97
accessed in 23 October 2009 (2 pages)
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Teaching with Technology-Downloadable eTexts!
...
"Does talking about etexts limit our ideas of what online learning might be? It's not just traditional book content that we want our students to access, it’s course content with all those supplementary and enrichment materials—videos, educational games, audio segments, panoramic scenes, teaming projects, 3D animations, and immersion into online environments with students throughout the world—content and ideas that could whisk our students off into their own learning place. Master teachers are doing this on their own today with the resources they find online, but gathering dynamic course-related resources and making connections for interactive learning is a daunting task 180 days a year for five different class sections and in many cases, several different courses.
My ideal online book company or whatever we might call it, would not only have what teachers and students need in easy-to-access format, it would allow teachers, together with their students, to select what will work for their learning in their courses, therefore eliminating what they would not use. Teachers and students would be creating their own "learning centers,"centers students would want to and need to enter. I can see it now, and I know it will come. We just need to figure out how to get there.
My ideal online book company or whatever we might call it, would not only have what teachers and students need in easy-to-access format, it would allow teachers, together with their students, to select what will work for their learning in their courses, therefore eliminating what they would not use. Teachers and students would be creating their own "learning centers,"centers students would want to and need to enter. I can see it now, and I know it will come. We just need to figure out how to get there."(Marsh,Merle;May, 2009)

Marsh,Dr. Merle, 05/13/09, "Downloadable eTexts!"
http://www.powertolearn.com/articles/teaching_with_technology/article.shtml?ID=111
accessed in 23 October 2009 (1 page)
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Teaching with Technology- Learning Online

I found this article very interesting and similar to what happens in Portugal.
First the teachers have to use as a resource LMS like Moodle, then plan one course where we can find all the materials needed for the course, like, ebooks, etexts, and all the library the teacher thinks it's needed for the discipline.
We don't need any paper or pencils. In High School in Portugal most of the teachers also use Moodle as a resource in their classroom, but not only in the Classroom, also as a distance learning component.
Our student's can work at home, classes or anywhere at anytime they want.
The plan for each online course must be well prepared and the teacher will spend much in the begining, before using it.
The quality of the content and material used in each online course must be diversified, carefully and richly.
Here are some rich aspects that i found in these article.
..."Students expect readings, assignments, and quizzes they see on the computer to be better thought out than what they see in the classroom."
" when students confront your teaching material online, you are not there in person to explain it, or provide further details: the document they see must cover all bases. Each piece of content posted online must be self-contained and self-explanatory, so that students know exactly what they are supposed to do and have all the support they need to do it."(Lengel,2008)
"It's not what you do, it's what they do. In the classroom the teacher is at the center; students focus on the professor; it's what the faculty member does that makes the difference. Not so with online work. The only thing you get to do is prepare the content and pose the assignments; from then on, learning is dependent on what the students do. So the key to successful online courses is to craft a set of activities for the students to do: read this, look at that, ask yourself this, write that, discuss all of it together with your classmates. The clearer and more active the assignments, the more likely your students are to follow the course of study."
"The teachers in the new start-up high school are learning to structure their courses for an online environment. They are now thinking of each course as a sequence of activities that students go through as they learn the material. "
"Collaborative work. Contacting and conversing with classmates online to create a short presentation of ideas. "
The learning sequence:
Pre-assessment. A short, two- or three-question self-correcting quiz to see what he already knows (and doesn't know) about the subject.
Close reading. A serious and detailed look at the key concept, often guided by an essential question.
Written response. An opportunity for the student to summarize the key idea in her own words, and get online feedback from the teacher.
Wide browsing. Moving beyond the text to explore numerous (and perhaps conflicting) online sources about the concept.
Discussion contribution. Responding publicly in writing to the questions posed by the teacher and commenting on the contributions of classmates.
Collaborative work. Contacting and conversing with classmates online to create a short presentation of ideas.
Capstone project. Putting all that you have learned about this concept into a paper of presentation, and submitting it online.

As online learning grows, we will all learn more about what works best. But by following the guidelines above, you have a better chance to develop an effective course of study."(Jim Lengel, Hunter College and Boston University, 09/22/2008)

Lengel,Jim, 09/22/2008, " Learning Online", Hunter College and Boston University,
http://www.powertolearn.com/articles/teaching_with_technology/article.shtml?ID=88
accessed in 23 October 2009 (1 page)
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This annotated bibliography will respond to the questions raised by the professor. I’ll use different articles to answer to the following questions:
1. Which online teaching techniques do you prefer?
2. What are the implications of using individual and group assignments in online education?
3. How can we secure a reasonable workload for online teachers?

From the several Online learning techniques refereed by Paulsen, I prefer starting with a Learning contract, a technique that is considered to be used to individualize the learning process, by making an agreement that details what’s going to be learned, the objectives, competencies, the course contents, the work methodology, the resources and all the required readings, the learning environment that’s going to be used, assessment and the timeline that shows the temporal distribution of all activities.
Another teaching technique that I found important in teaching online is the Debate, consisting of as “Seaman and Fellenz (1989, 65) wrote: “A debate is a structured discussion during which two sides of an issue are presented and argued by two or more individuals within a given time period.”
Knox (1987, 88) offered another explanation: “Similar to a lecture or panel, but two or four debaters argue two sides of an important issue to clarify differences and related reasoning… Clark (1992a, 58) offered these guidelines for an electronic debate with regard to participation, preparation, coordination, and evaluation:
▪ Participation. A debate could engage two classes that agree to participate actively, two teachers who know how to telecompute, one impartial coordinator who knows how to telecompute, an experienced debater to help students learn the process, and two or more evaluators familiar with the proposition.
▪ Preparation. Give the coordinator a list of curriculum-related issues, become familiar with the evaluation criteria, and decide whether a winner will be declared. Set up speech deadlines within a four-week framework, and agree on a maximum word length for each speech. Organize classes into teams by role or by speech, and have groups research both sides of a proposition
▪ Coordination. The coordinator should formulate and announce the proposition, randomly assign groups to affirmative or negative, and channel speeches between the two sides. Further, the coordinator should mediate the debate, keep team identities secret until after the last speech is sent, and enlist evaluators and manage the evaluation process.
▪ Evaluation. After the debate, feedback from the evaluators could be discussed and students could exchange comments on the issue and process. “

Another teaching technique that I prefer is Role-plays that is “according to Rothwell and Kazanas, role-play is “a range of methods in which trainees put themselves in dramatic situations and act out scenes like actors in a play.... There are essentially two kinds of role-play: structured and spontaneous.... Structured role-play is based on a case study.... Spontaneous role-plays are based on momentary experiences.”
Another one is Discussion, where discussion groups may be implemented as buzz groups, subgroup discussions, expanding groups, and colloquies.
Buzz groups are “small clusters of learners who are temporarily grouped together for a short period to address a topic presented by a facilitator.” (Seaman and Fellenz 1989, 131)
Forums is another teaching technique that “can be defined as “an open discussion carried on by one or more resource persons and an entire group. It is used when large groups of twenty-five persons or more meet for the purpose of diffusion of knowledge, information, or opinion. The forum tends to be semiformal in nature and is directed by a moderator. The moderator is responsible for guiding discussion during which the audience is encouraged to raise and discuss issues, make comments, offer information, or ask questions of the resource person(s) and each other.”
Harisim, phrased some teaching techniques and I selected the ones that I consider importants :”
▪ Small group discussions. In small group discussions, three to ten users discuss a particular topic, usually guided by an instructor or a group leader. The discussion often follows a seminar discussion or a plenary discussion. It may also complement a parallel face-to- face or online activity.
▪ Learning partnerships and dyads. In learning partnerships and dyads, learners are paired for mutual support and group work. These techniques can serve as icebreakers in early phases of online classes and they are also useful for joint writing projects.
▪ Small working groups. Small working groups can facilitate collaborative work. Student groups can, for example, solve problems, undertake research projects, and write reports. Effective groups, though, require clearly defined tasks, roles, and timeliness.
▪ 6. Simulations or role-plays. Simulations and role-plays allow students to apply and test theoretical knowledge in a simulated environment. Examples of successful role-plays in online environments.In the evaluation manor, learners assume the perspectives of various evaluators to debate evaluation procedures and approaches.
▪ Debating teams. In debating teams, learners have the opportunity to improve their analytical and communication skills by formulating ideas, defending positions, and critiquing counter positions.
▪ Peer learning groups. In peer learning groups, learners assist one another with writing assignments, problem solving, etc. Students may, for example, collaborate online to improve their writing skills.
▪ Informal socializing: the online cafe. Since social communication is an essential compo- nent of educational activity, online educational environments should provide opportuni- ties for informal discourse. An online cafe can contribute to a sense of community among the users, forging a social bond that may offer motivational and cognitive benefits.
▪ Mutual assistance for help. Valuable online support, based on mutual assistance, can be organized in an online conference where students can ask one another for help. Such a conference may be especially useful with regard to technical problems and system support.
▪ Access to additional educational resources. Additional online resources for educational use include international networks, databases, library catalogues, and information pools. To benefit the curriculum, these resources could be an integral part of the online activities.”

The Teaching Techniques Discussed by Rekkedal and Paulsen were:"
1. Distribution of information. Distance teaching systems need to increase the efficiency of distributing and updating information to students, faculty, and staff. Computer con- ferencing can, for example, be used for distribution of updated learning materials and information about courses, seminars, examinations, and student activities.

2. Two-way communication between student, tutor and staff. In most distance teaching sys- tems, submission of assignments for correction, evaluation, and feedback is important. Research shows that extended turnaround times may have destructive effects on course completion. It often takes too long for students to get help when they encounter prob- lems in their studies. To some extent, telephone support has been used in these situa- tions, but computer conferencing systems function more conveniently. Students may, for example, ask questions at any time, without the time delay of land mail. Draft solutions may be discussed, introducing a more flexible organization of tutoring and assessment. Student answers may be made available to other students, before or after submission deadline. Computer-scored tests can also be included in online systems, as a substitute for traditional off-line computer scoring. In higher-level education, two-way communi- cation by e-mail may be used in the guidance of individual student projects.

3. An alternative to face-to-face teaching, introduction of group discussion and project work.
4. Many distance education programs include occasional face-to-face meetings between tutors and students, but practical or geographical considerations restrict many students from taking part in these meetings. Sometimes, face-to-face meetings develop into one- way presentation of subject matter. Computer conferencing, on the other hand, mainly involves information exchange and interpersonal discussion. Electronic classroom discussions can develop into exciting experiences of group learning. In the same vein, the medium seems to foster equality of status between the participants. Finally, special group-learning techniques – such as group submission of assignments, group learning and presentations, seminars, and project work – may be applied.
5. The public tutorial. Most distance education systems are designed for individual learning, but communication between one tutor and a number of individual learners is time- consuming. Questions, answers, and comments from one student will, however, often be of relevance to others. In a conferencing system, such interaction could be made accessible to all students along with pre-produced information of general interest.
6. Peer counseling. Informal peer counseling and cooperation are regular activities in on- campus programs. In computer conferencing, the possibilities for such collaboration are obvious and actively supported in the majority of learning programs. Peer help in solving problems may often come from an unknown friend. Peer counseling may be of particular value in large-scale systems where hundreds of learners are studying the same subject.
7. Free flow discussion. A number of educational conferencing systems have established social conferences, such as the cafe, the pub, or the coffee shop. These conferences have shown that informal discussions and non-academic activities can thrive in edu- cational conferencing systems.
8. The library. In an online text database, articles, lectures, research reports, etc. can be made available to the students.
2
Teaching Techniques Discussed by Kaye
In a literature review paper on collaborative learning, Kaye (1992) described the following seven applications of CMC in education and training programs:
..."2. The online classroom. Applications of the online classroom model have often been inspired by the “virtual classroom”. First, the group size is comparable to that in a face-to-face class. Second, there is at least one person responsible for guiding the group’s activities and, third, computer conferencing represents the principal mode of communication. Varieties of online class- rooms depend on the age of student groups, the educational levels, and the roles taken by the people responsible for the groups."
...
"4. Computer-supported writing and language learning. Since the combination of CMC and word processors essentially has a textual nature, it has attracted interest within the field of the teaching of writing and language skills. Examples include Connected Education’s creative writing courses and Rio Salado Community College’s courses in creative writing, technical writing, and English composition."

6. Lecture-room adjunct. In large on-campus lecture classes, there is little time for individual students to ask questions and the format does not invite discussion. In such a context, universi- ties may establish conferences where students can get help from teachers and other students.
7. The education utility. The education utility is a set of online resources that students and faculty can access.

Paulsen, Morten, (1995)"Framework for Online Teaching Techniques"
http://www.emoderators.com/moderators/cmcped.html
accessed 21 November 2009 (43 pages)
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I leave here some tips and tricks for teaching online:how to teach like a pro!

Teaching online is an alternative to teaching in a classroom. Sometimes instructors use teaching in classroom methods while teaching Online.

Sometimes online instructors may feel inadequacy and illprepared.

For teaching online, the instructor needs to use multiple tools and the internet.
Then, the course must be prepared early, the learning invironment must be structured and all the materials that are needed introduced.
Planning and preparating a course is necessary even before the course is open to students.Course objectives must be defined, early posting and late work policy defined.Sometimes it is necessary to define deadlines for the students work.
the instructor must attend to the student´s expectations, that should be clearly defined.
Students must always be awared to save their work in two or more storage device.
In the first day of the course, the instructor must break the ice and welcome the students to his course.Sometimes using emoticons helps.
Communication is always needed.
The teacher can define whether students can work in groups or not. If so, he can define the number of elements for each group. The ideal is 4 students per group.
Finaly, it is necessary to assess the students and instructor's work. See what went well and what went wrong and if necessary make some improvements for the next season.
Students can improve the teacher's teaching by sending feedback, and this can be done at any time, not only at the end of the course.
When the course is finished, at the end of the semestre,course or year the instructor should revise and refine both course design and teaching.

Shelton,Kaye andSaltsman,George, 2004, Tips and Tricks for Teaching Online:How to Teach Like a Pro!
http://itdl.org/journal/oct_04/article04.htm
accessed in 19 November 2009 (13 pages)
************************************************************************************
In the previous post i didnt answer these 2 questions:
What are the implications of using individual and group assignments in online education?
How can we secure a reasonable workload for online teachers?
First in the article Online Study Orientation to Online Study, i found this important information about online courses.

"Elements of Online Courses

Online courses at UMUC often include the following elements:
■Asynchronous, frequent student and faculty participation
■Lectures and assigned readings (from textbooks and online resources)
■Individual and group assignments (for example, case studies and discussion questions)
■Individual and group papers
■Literature analyses
■Use of online library resources
■Online quizzes and exams. "

Using individual and group assignments in online education is another question.
Evaluating an online group activity is an important issue.
Another question emerged from this issue: How Fair are Group Assignments?written by Marilyn Ford and Jenny Morice, 2003 from the Journal of information technology education.

second to answer the question How can we secure a reasonable workload for online teachers?, i found this article that contains all the important information: The Online Teacher's Workload--What to Expect and How to Handle It, that was written By Elizabeth Armentor, focusing aspects like "Teachers want to help their students succeed in class, and technology has improved their accessibility. Instead of waiting to talk after class or going to your office hours, a student can shoot off an email at midnight and you can answer it the next morning. An online class increases the prevalence of this phenomenon, but being too available can quickly lead to the impression that you're always "on call." This can contribute to burnout. Consequently, organization and time management are the keys to handling the workload of an online class. "
you as a teacher must Organize Your Workspace, Organize Yourself, Organize your Class,Automate When Possible, Set Boundaries and specialy Be Patient.
In the article How to manage your Online Teacher workload ,written by Kate Buttler (2003) i found another perspective of how to organize the teacher's work as the author's say "Quite often when considering online workload issues, it can be tempting to focus on how to minimise it, though care should be taken as reducing workload can have a negative impact on student workload and learning quality. It may be more productive to think about how to manage online teacher workload effectively and this can be done in context with maintaining overall learning experience. Online teaching workload can be managed through successful time and information management, aspects of course design and effective teacher and technical support."
Aspects like Time management, Information management, Course design, Technologies, Timing and structure, Teacher Support and Technical Support must be considered.

"You will find, with experience, that you develop your own strategies for managing your workload, depending on the type of programme you are teaching, your students and your work arrangements. It may be that some workload management strategies need to be provided by your employer whilst others depend upon your own awareness and needs. With attention to time and information management, sympathetic course design and suitable support, you should be able to find an approach that works for you and allows you to manage your workload effectively."

Blagojevic,Nina,Online Study Orientation to Online Study-An Online Education with UMUC-University of Maryland University College
http://umuc.learnhub.com/lesson/14721-an-online-education-with-umuc
accessed in 18 November 2009 (1 page)

Lewis, Kadriye O., 2006,"Evaluation of online group activities: Intra-group member Peer evaluation"- 22nd Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning,
http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/Resource_library/proceedings/06_4136.pdf
accessed in 18 November 2009 (4 pages)

Ford, Marilyn and Morice,Jenny,2003, "How Fair are Group Assignments? A Survey of Students and Faculty and a Modest Proposal"-Journal of Information Technology Education
http://informingscience.org/jite/documents/Vol2/v2p367-378-42.pdf
accessed in 18 November 2009 (12 Pages)

Armentor, Elizabeth, , "The Online Teacher's Workload--What to Expect and How to Handle It"
http://www.worldwidelearn.com/teachers-aid/article/the-online-teachers-workload.htm
accessed in 18 November 2009 (1 Page)

Butler, Kate,13 August, 2003, "How to manage your Online Teacher workload"
http://community.flexiblelearning.net.au/ManagingFlexibleDelivery/content/article_4180.htm
accessed in 18 November 2009 (2 Pages)

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This annotated bibliography will respond to the questions raised by the professor. I’ll use different articles to answer to the following questions:
1. Which online teaching techniques do you prefer?
2. What are the implications of using individual and group assignments in online education?
3. How can we secure a reasonable workload for online teachers?
From the several Online learning techniques refereed by Professor Paulsen

This annotated bibliography will respond to the questions raised by the professor. I’ll use different articles to answer to the following questions:
1. Which online teaching techniques do you prefer?
2. What are the implications of using individual and group assignments in online education?
3. How can we secure a reasonable workload for online teachers?
From the several Online learning techniques refereed by Paulsen in his free web version, entitled Online Education and Learning Management Systems. I prefer starting with a Learning contract, a technique that is considered to be used to individualize the learning process, by making an agreement that details what’s going to be learned, the objectives, competencies, the course contents, the work methodology, the resources and all the required readings, the learning environment that’s going to be used, assessment and the timeline that shows the temporal distribution of all activities.
Another teaching technique that I found important in teaching online is the Debate, consisting of as “Seaman and Fellenz (1989, 65) wrote: “A debate is a structured discussion during which two sides of an issue are presented and argued by two or more individuals within a given time period.”
Knox (1987, 88) offered another explanation: “Similar to a lecture or panel, but two or four debaters argue two sides of an important issue to clarify differences and related reasoning… Clark (1992a, 58) offered these guidelines for an electronic debate with regard to participation, preparation, coordination, and evaluation:
▪ Participation. A debate could engage two classes that agree to participate actively, two teachers who know how to telecompute, one impartial coordinator who knows how to telecompute, an experienced debater to help students learn the process, and two or more evaluators familiar with the proposition.
▪ Preparation. Give the coordinator a list of curriculum-related issues, become familiar with the evaluation criteria, and decide whether a winner will be declared. Set up speech deadlines within a four-week framework, and agree on a maximum word length for each speech. Organize classes into teams by role or by speech, and have groups research both sides of a proposition
▪ Coordination. The coordinator should formulate and announce the proposition, randomly assign groups to affirmative or negative, and channel speeches between the two sides. Further, the coordinator should mediate the debate, keep team identities secret until after the last speech is sent, and enlist evaluators and manage the evaluation process.
▪ Evaluation. After the debate, feedback from the evaluators could be discussed and students could exchange comments on the issue and process. “

Another teaching technique that I prefer is Role-plays that is “according to Rothwell and Kazanas, role-play is “a range of methods in which trainees put themselves in dramatic situations and act out scenes like actors in a play.... There are essentially two kinds of role-play: structured and spontaneous.... Structured role-play is based on a case study.... Spontaneous role-plays are based on momentary experiences.”
Another one is Discussion, where discussion groups may be implemented as buzz groups, subgroup discussions, expanding groups, and colloquies.
Buzz groups are “small clusters of learners who are temporarily grouped together for a short period to address a topic presented by a facilitator.” (Seaman and Fellenz 1989, 131)
Forums is another teaching technique that “can be defined as “an open discussion carried on by one or more resource persons and an entire group. It is used when large groups of twenty-five persons or more meet for the purpose of diffusion of knowledge, information, or opinion. The forum tends to be semiformal in nature and is directed by a moderator. The moderator is responsible for guiding discussion during which the audience is encouraged to raise and discuss issues, make comments, offer information, or ask questions of the resource person(s) and each other.”
Harisim, phrased some teaching techniques and I selected the ones that I consider importants :”
▪ Small group discussions. In small group discussions, three to ten users discuss a particular topic, usually guided by an instructor or a group leader. The discussion often follows a seminar discussion or a plenary discussion. It may also complement a parallel face-to- face or online activity.
▪ Learning partnerships and dyads. In learning partnerships and dyads, learners are paired for mutual support and group work. These techniques can serve as icebreakers in early phases of online classes and they are also useful for joint writing projects.
▪ Small working groups. Small working groups can facilitate collaborative work. Student groups can, for example, solve problems, undertake research projects, and write reports. Effective groups, though, require clearly defined tasks, roles, and timeliness.
▪ 6. Simulations or role-plays. Simulations and role-plays allow students to apply and test theoretical knowledge in a simulated environment. Examples of successful role-plays in online environments.In the evaluation manor, learners assume the perspectives of various evaluators to debate evaluation procedures and approaches.
▪ Debating teams. In debating teams, learners have the opportunity to improve their analytical and communication skills by formulating ideas, defending positions, and critiquing counter positions.
▪ Peer learning groups. In peer learning groups, learners assist one another with writing assignments, problem solving, etc. Students may, for example, collaborate online to improve their writing skills.
▪ Informal socializing: the online cafe. Since social communication is an essential compo- nent of educational activity, online educational environments should provide opportuni- ties for informal discourse. An online cafe can contribute to a sense of community among the users, forging a social bond that may offer motivational and cognitive benefits.
▪ Mutual assistance for help. Valuable online support, based on mutual assistance, can be organized in an online conference where students can ask one another for help. Such a conference may be especially useful with regard to technical problems and system support.
▪ Access to additional educational resources. Additional online resources for educational use include international networks, databases, library catalogues, and information pools. To benefit the curriculum, these resources could be an integral part of the online activities.”

the Teaching Techniques Discussed by Rekkedal and Paulsen were:"
1. Distribution of information. Distance teaching systems need to increase the efficiency of distributing and updating information to students, faculty, and staff. Computer con- ferencing can, for example, be used for distribution of updated learning materials and information about courses, seminars, examinations, and student activities.

2. Two-way communication between student, tutor and staff. In most distance teaching sys- tems, submission of assignments for correction, evaluation, and feedback is important. Research shows that extended turnaround times may have destructive effects on course completion. It often takes too long for students to get help when they encounter prob- lems in their studies. To some extent, telephone support has been used in these situa- tions, but computer conferencing systems function more conveniently. Students may, for example, ask questions at any time, without the time delay of land mail. Draft solutions may be discussed, introducing a more flexible organization of tutoring and assessment. Student answers may be made available to other students, before or after submission deadline. Computer-scored tests can also be included in online systems, as a substitute for traditional off-line computer scoring. In higher-level education, two-way communi- cation by e-mail may be used in the guidance of individual student projects.

3. An alternative to face-to-face teaching, introduction of group discussion and project work.
3. Many distance education programs include occasional face-to-face meetings between tutors and students, but practical or geographical considerations restrict many students from taking part in these meetings. Sometimes, face-to-face meetings develop into one- way presentation of subject matter. Computer conferencing, on the other hand, mainly involves information exchange and interpersonal discussion. Electronic classroom discussions can develop into exciting experiences of group learning. In the same vein, the medium seems to foster equality of status between the participants. Finally, special group-learning techniques – such as group submission of assignments, group learning and presentations, seminars, and project work – may be applied.
4. The public tutorial. Most distance education systems are designed for individual learning, but communication between one tutor and a number of individual learners is time- consuming. Questions, answers, and comments from one student will, however, often be of relevance to others. In a conferencing system, such interaction could be made accessible to all students along with pre-produced information of general interest.
5. Peer counseling. Informal peer counseling and cooperation are regular activities in on- campus programs. In computer conferencing, the possibilities for such collaboration are obvious and actively supported in the majority of learning programs. Peer help in solving problems may often come from an unknown friend. Peer counseling may be of particular value in large-scale systems where hundreds of learners are studying the same subject.
6. Free flow discussion. A number of educational conferencing systems have established social conferences, such as the cafe, the pub, or the coffee shop. These conferences have shown that informal discussions and non-academic activities can thrive in edu- cational conferencing systems.
7. The library. In an online text database, articles, lectures, research reports, etc. can be made available to the students.2
Teaching Techniques Discussed by Kaye
In a literature review paper on collaborative learning, Kaye (1992) described the following seven applications of CMC in education and training programs:
..."2. The online classroom. Applications of the online classroom model have often been inspired by the “virtual classroom”. First, the group size is comparable to that in a face-to-face class. Second, there is at least one person responsible for guiding the group’s activities and, third, computer conferencing represents the principal mode of communication. Varieties of online class- rooms depend on the age of student groups, the educational levels, and the roles taken by the people responsible for the groups."
...
"4. Computer-supported writing and language learning. Since the combination of CMC and word processors essentially has a textual nature, it has attracted interest within the field of the teaching of writing and language skills. Examples include Connected Education’s creative writing courses and Rio Salado Community College’s courses in creative writing, technical writing, and English composition."

6. Lecture-room adjunct. In large on-campus lecture classes, there is little time for individual students to ask questions and the format does not invite discussion. In such a context, universi- ties may establish conferences where students can get help from teachers and other students.
7. The education utility. The education utility is a set of online resources that students and faculty can access.

Paulsen, Morten Flate, 2003, "ONLINE EDUCATION LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS"
REVIEW COPY
http://home.nki.no/morten/index.php/norsk-meny/artikler/mine-powerpoint/doc_download/8-online-education-and-learning-management-systems.html
accessed in November 2009 (37 pages)
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I found the article “Preparing Instructors for Quality Online Instruction”, written by Yi Yang and Linda F. Cornelious from Mississippi State University, very interesting and with some interesting information.
As the author’s of the article say …”there is a considerable interest in online education, particularly as it relates to the quality of online instruction.” Exists many issues that must be discussed, such as the answers to the following questions placed by the author’s: …” What will be the new role for instructors in online education? How will students' learning outcomes be assured and improved in online learning environment? How will effective communication and interaction be established with students in the absence of face-to-face instruction? How will instructors motivate students to learn in the online learning environment?”
It depends on the instructors, the success of one online course, first of all, it is an innovative technique of teaching and online instruction must be effective, attending to the challenges and barriers of the online teaching and for the Instructors.
The instructors will have new roles to play and new responsibilities and they have to adapt themselves to this new era in teaching. They must be prepared to leave the learning centred in the teacher in one classroom and accept the challenge of the centred student education.
There’s a role shifting that the teacher/instructor must assist, accept and join.
It’s not only the instructor that is changing but also the learner. They both have to play multiple roles and adjust to new roles. They must adapt to new environments, and they also must be open mind for the usage of technology. Teachers must deal with feelings such as frustration and must help students to overcome with their problems on the usage of technology.
Both teacher/instructor and learner must be motivated and be prepared for the asynchronous communication.
The learner must play a more active role.
The students must ensure their integrity and their honesty while attending to an online course.
The quality of online education must be assured by facing the new challenges and adjusting the attitudes facing the new opportunities, new teaching styles, adapting new strategies in the course design, new teaching methods, new learning environments, and all this must start before the online course and must be carefully planned.
“… online education has the following features: (a) it provides a learning experience different than in the traditional classroom because learners are different, (b) the communication is via computer and World Wide Web, (c) participation in classroom by learners are different, (d) the social dynamic of the learning environment is changed, and (e) discrimination and prejudice is minimized”

“…face-to-face interaction can be substituted by online discussions in bulletin board systems, online video conferences… Online education can also promote students' critical thinking skills, deep learning, collaborative learning, and problem-solving skills.”
“Alley and Jansak (2001) have also identified 10 keys to quality online learning. The authors suggested that online courses will be high quality when they are student-centered and when:
• Knowledge is constructed, not transmitted.
• Students can take full responsibility for their own learning.
• Students are motivated to want to learn.
• The course provides “mental white space” for reflection.
• Learning activities appropriately match student learning styles.
• Experiential, active learning augments the Web site learning environment,
• Solitary and interpersonal learning activities are interspersed.
• Inaccurate prior learning is identified and corrected.
• “Spiral learning” provides for revisiting and expanding prior lessons,
• The master teacher is able to guide the overall learning process.”
“To ensure the quality of online instruction, the qualification of the instructors should be a first consideration. Since the preparation of instructors is also paramount, those who teach online courses should understand what their roles are and adjust their attitudes for this role change. Second, it is important for instructors to master, design, and delivery strategies, techniques, and methods for teaching online courses. Third, the institution should provide technical and financial support for faculty. Fourth, school administrators should also realize what their role and responsibilities are in ensuring quality online instruction. Critical to this process, administrators should recruit qualified faculty or instructors for their online education programs. Moore (2001) also noted that to effectively deliver online courses, faculty must promote student-to-student interaction with minimal faculty intervention, engage students in regular assignments, cultivate students' self-directed abilities, and then provide specialized attention to students who lack self-directedness.
The increasing diversity of the nation's student population and advancements in the development of educational technology has encouraged the popularity of online instruction
(Bi, 2000). However, academic institutions that offer courses online still face many challenges. Therefore, administrative support is crucial if programs are to be successful. Administrators must consider issues related to intellectual property, pedagogical rigor and methods, course management, and instructional compensation of faculty (McAlister, Rivera, & Hallman, 2003). In essence, successful online instruction does not happen by magic. It is a collaboration of instructors, administrators, students, and the community at large. The courseware development industries should keep the instructors tuned in about their product updates and provide training and technical service support to instructors. The government, community, and parents should also help the school to ensure the quality of online instruction.
Moving from traditional methods of teaching to online methods of instruction often create dramatic shifts in the perspectives of instructors and their students (Dringus, 2000). Moreover, many issues have been raised about the quality of online instruction:
• Administrators should not force faculty to teach online courses who do not wish to do so.
• Training in WebCT should be made more user friendly.
• Mentors should be available in each department or college who can answer questions that come up from faculty who have limited experience in teaching online courses.
• Departments should limit the enrollment in online courses so that instructors will be more focused on communicating and interacting with online students.
• Instructors need to take courses to better understand technology; specific classes need to be taken in order to design websites for online courses.
• Instructors must have the support of other instructors who have taught online courses before, as well as administrative and technical support.
• Instructors should consider how to increase the interaction between students-instructor and peer-interactions by using various types of instructional design methods.
• Instructors should encourage students to evaluate the courses continuously and periodically so as to improve online teaching.”

Yang,Yi and Cornelious, Linda F., Spring 2005,"Preparing Instructors for Quality Online Instruction"-Online Journal of Distance Learning
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6682339656181159349&postID=102141284252878044
accessed in November 2009 (18 pages)

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Online Learning Techniques

I found this teaching tips very interesting.
101 THINGS YOU CAN DO THE FIRST THREE WEEKS OF CLASSthat was writen by Joyce T. Povlacs Teaching and Learning Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

...and since we must be carefull with the verbal comments, personal behavior, physical environments, and printed signs, you also must see these list of items, made by William Watson Purkey and John M. Novak.

Because we all need some tips about THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY: STARTING WELL by Delivee L. Wright
Teaching and Learning Center, University of Nebraska.

Where do we start? the first day of class: WHAT CAN/SHOULD WE DO?By L. Dee Fink.

Well, i found that everything in this page is so interesting that you should visit in here. It talkes about what procedures to take from the first day, how to prepare a course, how to prepare a lesson plan, teaching techniques, course design, tools for students, assessment, teaching organization, motivating students, dealing with stress,etc.and was reprinted by Delivee L. Wright,
Teaching and Learning Center, University of Nebraska.

Povlacs, Joyce T., , "101 THINGS YOU CAN DO THE FIRST THREE WEEKS OF CLASS"-
Teaching and Learning Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/101thing.htm
accessed in November 2009 (5 pages)

Purkey, William Watson and Novak,John M., 1994,"FORTY SUCCESSES"-Inviting School Success, Wadworth
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/40succes.htm
accessed in November 2009 (4 pages)

Wright, Delivee L., July 30, 1999,"THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY: STARTING WELL"
Teaching and Learning Center, University of Nebraska.
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/dayone.htm
accessed in November 2009 (5 pages)

Fink,L. Dee, July 19, 1999, "FIRST DAY OF CLASS: WHAT CAN/SHOULD WE DO?"-University of Oklahoma
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/firstday.htm
accessed in November 2009 (2 pages)
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In this annotated bibliography, i will try to respond to this important questions raised by professor Paulsen. I'll try to comment different articles in order to answer the following questions:

1.How much transparency should we allow in online education?
2.What are the implications of transparency in online education?
3.What are the pros and cons of global student catalogues?

The first article is Transparency in Cooperative Online Education by Christian Dalsgaard,
Aarhus University, Denmark and Morten Flate Paulsen, The Norwegian School of Information Technology, Norway

Transparency can be considered as a strategy that reach, catch, hold, motivate, and inspire students. Transparency gives students insight into each other’s actions.The pedagogical potential of social networking lies within transparency and the ability to create awareness among students...A central characteristic of social networking is the potential to facilitate transparency between students. The basic assumption is that transparency is important to cooperative online education. People can cooperate only if they know about each other and have access to some common information and services."(Paulsen and Dalsgaard, June 2009)

Here is a definition of Transparency by Paulsen and Dalsgaard: "Transparency means that you and your doings are visible to fellow students and teachers within a learning environment. For instance, transparency could mean that students and teachers are made aware of and have access to each other’s interests, thoughts, concerns, ideas, writings, references, and assignments. The purpose of transparency is to enable students and teachers to see and follow the work of fellow students and teachers within a learning environment and in that sense to make participants available to each other as resources for their learning activities."

Each individual creates his/her own page wich he/she develops and modifies as it develops its activities. Other people can follow these pages. It is called passive form of communication and sharing.

The discussion forums, are the opposite of this type of personal page and is a place where students send comments, posts, messages or documents in order to communicate or share.
Having a personal page (weblog or other...) is a form of socialization since it is connected to other personal pages and the indivudual is notified whenever a page is modified. In general it is buildt a network of personal relations. This is what is happening with us in this master. We are enable to follow the work of our colleagues and be aware of the activities they are developing and even make use of that information that we consider important. Everyone should be voluntary engaged to a network and contribute to the learning community. A commitment should be established so that the individual can serve as a resource for all the learning community.

"This transparent information may include personal information about the users and statistics related to the users’ deployment of the online tools. It may further include work students and teachers provide in online notebooks, blogs, and discussion forums as well as results from quizzes, surveys, and assignments."

" Transparency is also an important driver for improved quality. It has the following three positive effects on quality:

Preventive quality improvement
We are prone to provide better quality when we know that others have access to the information and contributions we provide.
Constructive quality improvement
We may learn from others when we have access to their data and contributions.
Reactive quality improvement
We may receive feedback from others when they have access to our data and contributions."

"Transparency may reduce the number of low quality contributions and may make high quality work more accessible as paragons for others. In transparent online learning environments, poor contributions from teachers and course designers cannot be hidden easily behind closed doors. It is important to realize that transparency must be handled carefully with regard to privacy issues. The users must be confident that their privacy is assured. They should be able to choose their preferred privacy level and understand how this choice controls how much of their personal data and contributions will be available to others."

In the article written by Christopher Hill, Principles for Improving Online Transparency, Quality it is focused aspects like: What are the benefits of every online student be well-informed,..."." A key focus of the plan is providing program-specific outcomes data that allows students to make informed decisions about their education investment",he says.

“To meet the education needs of adult students, we must provide them with trustworthy and transparent ways to choose among many available options and to gauge the potential of each one to further their careers.” The goal of the program is “to lead universities and colleges toward greater accountability and transparency.”, said Michael Offerman, president of Capella University.

"All types of transparency in Online education are very important, aspects like student demographics, completion rates, costs, student engagement, and knowledge and skills learned are essencial information for students.This kind of data can be viewed in annual reports." Most important, Transparency by Design reports include outcomes at the program specialization level, allowing prospective students to assess how well a program will prepare them for their professional pursuits."

"One of the requirements for implementing Transparency by Design is the development of a new set of best practices for participating institutions. “You want to make sure things are in place at the institutional level,”" says Merle Harris, president of Charter Oaks State College, who has been instrumental in developing just such standards. “Collectively we went back and we looked at best practices that have been put out by other organizations for online learning and then we developed our set based on those,” she says.

"Merle Harris, president of Charter Oaks State College and her associates concluded that there were a few basic principles for institutions that really want to be transparent." You can take a look on them by reading this two articles: Principles for Improving Online Transparency, Quality and More Principles for Improving Online Transparency, Quality.

The principels for improving online transparency are:
#1 Make distance education a central element of your mission:
#2 Accountability to stakeholders:
#3 Responsiveness:
#4 Faculty competence:
#5 Institutional integrity:
#6 Excellence in student services:
#7 Integrity in marketing:
#8 Curricular quality:

“The keys are disclosure, transparency, the ability to interact with students easily and the quality of the curriculum. So that we know what we’re trying to achieve and we regularly measure it.”

In this blog entitled Higher Education Management Group
A LinkedIn Group (Founded by Keith Hampson, PhD) if found one post that consists in an interview with Dr. Mike Offerman, Capella University entitled: Quality, Access and Transparency in Higher Education focusing aspects like: Quality in higher education, the capacity (and willingness) to meet the needs of “non-traditional” learners, What role does increased access to data on institutional performance and student learning play in higher ed reform.
"It was access to data that drove the creation of Transparency by Design. We realized that the online delivery format generates huge amounts of data. Unprecedented data—data on every interaction in the learning exchange, including data about demonstrations of learning outcomes. But, most of us were not looking at the data in any coherent manner.", says Dr. Mike Offerman.

I also foud this list of 21 questions that will help you (student) choose the degree program that is right for you.

"Learner characteristics are influenced by several factors, including:

•Locus of control: Is the individual student in control of the learning or are there external forces in charge of what the student learns?
•Task orientation: Is the learner able to stay on task without going too far astray?
•Level of motivation: Is the learner intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated?", as refered by Christopher Hill in his article:Online Course Design Should Consider Learner Characteristics.

In my opinion, distance Education Resistance is origined by the lack of transparency in all aspects. See tha article:Distance Education Resistance: Understanding Its Origins, written by Christopher Hill.

Paulsen and Dalsgaard considered that "Student catalogues are important tools for showing students that they have access to a learning community. A comprehensive catalogue that provides relevant information about students is crucial to students acquiring an overview of the learning community. Student catalogues usually provide information about all students enrolled in a course; however, if students can access information about the students enrolled in other courses offered by the institution, they may benefit from taking part in a larger learning community. Moreover, a catalog that includes alumni could be of interest to students who seek advice on courses they are considering or on future employment.To facilitate cooperation, a student catalogue should include information that makes it easy to initiate and maintain communication, such as e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, chatting identities, etc. It may also include information on geographical location (e.g., zip codes) to facilitate identification of potential partners for occasional face-to-face meetings. Similarly, it may include progress plan information so that students can identify peers who are working with the same study unit. Finally, one may argue that student catalogues should include CV-type information to make it possible to search for peers who have special competencies.

Student catalogues must address privacy issues appropriately. Some information in student catalogues may be regarded as sensitive and may require student consent. Some students may also be opposed to inclusion in a student catalogue."

The students who seek learning partners are asked to do the following:
1.Register their personal presentations.
2.Decide who may access their presentations.
3.Search for potential learning partners.
4.Invite somebody to become their learning partner. "

"The new challenge is to motivate students to engage in joint work...transparency is a prerequisite for distance students to work cooperatively.
Transparency enables students to be visible to each other as potential partners and resources
an important objective is to support an individual’s consciousness and awareness of the activities of others. This can be achieved by making a variety of information transparent, for instance by developing student catalogues and learner profiles, by encouraging learners to become partners, and by sharing personal learning tools.
Whereas discussion forums and other tools for direct communication and collaboration focus on direct sharing, social networking can support students’ indirect sharing of resources, thoughts, ideas, productions, writings, notes, etc. This kind of sharing can provide students with insights into the workings of other students, and, thus, give them an increased consciousness and awareness of the activities of other students.(Paulsen and Dalsgaard, 2009)

"The pedagogical potential lies within developing social networks in which students’ activities are visible to other students. The potential is to support transparency through a combination of personalization and socialization and through sharing personal information and tools within social networks". (Social networking sites: Transparency in online education, Dalsgaard 2006)

Paulsen, Morten Flate and Dalsgaard,Christian, June 2009, "Transparency in Cooperative Online Education"
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/671/1267
accessed in 5 January 2010 (22 pages)

Hill,Christopher, October 20, 2009, "Principles for Improving Online Transparency, Quality"
http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/distance-learning/principles-for-improving-online-transparency-quality/
accessed in 5 January 2010

Hill,Christopherin, October 20, 2009, "More Principles for Improving Online Transparency"
http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/distance-learning/more-principles-for-improving-online-transparency-quality/
accessed in 5 January 2010

Offerman, Mike , November 18, 2009, "Quality, Access and Transparency in Higher Education"
http://highereducationmanagement.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/dr-mike-offerman-capella-university-quality-access-and-transparency-in-higher-education/
accessed in 5 January 2010

http://www.collegechoicesforadults.org/welcome/questions
accessed in 5 January 2010

Hill,Christopher, August 6, 2009, "Online Course Design Should Consider Learner Characteristics"
http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/distance-learning/online-course-design-should-consider-learner-characteristics/
accessed 6 January

Hill,Christopher, July 14, 2009 "Distance Education Resistance: Understanding Its Origins"
http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/distance-learning/distance-education-resistance-understanding-its-origins/
accessed in 5 January 2010

Dalsgaard, Christian,, "Social networking sites: Transparency in online
education"
http://eunis.dk/papers/p41.pdf
accessed in 6 January 2010 (6 pages)

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Transparency in Cooperative Online Education

I found this interesting article "Transparency in Cooperative Online Education" that was written by Professor Morten Flate Paulsen
and professor Christian Dalsgaard that discuss: What is the potential of social networking within cooperative online education? the authors argue about transparency as a unique feature of social networking services.
The article talks about cooperative learning, virtual learning environments and transparency based on experiences experienced by the authors.

Paulsen, Morten Flate and Dalsgaard,Christian, June 2009, "Transparency in Cooperative Online Education"
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/671/1267

accessed in accessed in 5 January 2010 (22 pages)

Ppel-Learning Object

2010-02-10T15:39:00.000-08:00

In order to compile and publish all the Learning Objects that i produced for these course, i registered here the learning objects links.

The first LO for Activity 2 it was purposed to produce a learning object related to cooperative freedom. I worked in group with Sónia Valente and we build a Carton in toonlet.com entitled “A morning walk - Online Education”. In this LO we’ve made an approach somewhat informal but always looking for theoretical rigor. We tried to cover the important issues in the theory. As this is an application available in the Internet after made it we published it and introduced it in the discussion forum. Each of us putted one post in each of our blog. This work was improved as suggested by the professor and colleagues.
It was very important working in group with Sónia. We used the messenger for talking and the e-mail for changing documents and interesting ideas to structure and implement the work. We worked in the same application (toonlet), once at a time.

The second LO for Activity 2 it was purposed to produce a learning object related to Online Teaching Techniques. I worked alone in this activity. So I decided t publish a blog entry and I entered a talking avatar that was built in readthewords.com entitled “Learning Object- Teacher´s workload”
Before doing this final work, i did my first attempt also entitled "Learning Object- Teacher´s workload" I made this films using readthewords.com and i have built this article based on the original article of Elisabeth Armentor and hope it will help understand the teacher´s workload.
"Teachers want to help their students succeed in class, and technology has improved their accessibility. Instead of waiting to talk after class or going to your office hours, a student can shoot off an email at midnight and you can answer it the next morning. An online class increases the prevalence of this phenomenon, but being too available can quickly lead to the impression that you're always "on call." This can contribute to burnout. Consequently, organization and time management are the keys to handling the workload of an online class."

The third LO for activity 2 was a eBook made by me and Sónia valente. It´s a two individual work about Transparency in Online Education!

My idea of making this post was to compile them and join the entire work done previously. To make the tree LO were used three different applications, all of them available from the Internet. Each one made with a different proposal. The first one was to captive and motivate, the second was destined to people with a disability and the third was to meet a large amount of information. Each tool was carefully chosen according to the amount of information that we have and the sum that I/we could build.
The forth LO was made for Unit4 and once more the reason was to try another new tool.

Unit2/Activity3-Review of LO

2010-02-10T15:22:00.001-08:00

Hello!

I'm going to start my reviewing with the video made by Pedro Teixeira.

Pedro has made a video about teaching and presented some tips and techniques for a successful online learning course It’s a short term video with a 1 minute and 20 seconds long. It talks about important aspects like: how to develop and structure an online course, some important aspects to consider while defining the course, contact information, the importance of defining the objectives of the course, attendance requirements, course schedule, orientation aids, grading scales/rubrics, communication practices, technology policy, aspects to consider in the opening of the course, nurturing the learning community, and assessment. He focuses the essential aspects to consider in this mater ans synthesizes them also. I think Pedro must be careful with the background and text colors, because I think that he should avoid light backgrounds and light text and on the other hand dark backgrounds and dark text. The images were very well chosen and associated with the content. He has sound (music) accompanying the video.

Pedro I have some suggestion that I would like to make: if you should accomplish your video with the sound of your voice reading the information that is in the video would be an added value. Another suggestion is that you should delay the transition between slides or in the other hand make each sentence appear at a time. Always use the same type of letter.

Telma Jesus

The second Learning object that I choose for my review is the work done by Marco Freitas, Maria Lurdes Martins and Teresa Fernandes. The reason why I choose this learning object is because I never used this tool.

They’ve made a small journal about teaching online. It’s very colored journal attractive to the reader. The images chosen are adequate to the content.

I didn’t try this tool but I shore am willing to do so. I considered their work interesting, motivating and captive. This journal is understandable to any one and makes an excellent approach on the contents.

They approached contents/themes like tutor’s perception and focus their attention on two many-to-many techniques: the forum and the role-play.

The benefits of the online forum and the reason why we should choosing it are also focused.

What is the role-play, his objectives, the types of role-playing exercises, and the types of online role-playing: the synchronous and the asynchronous are explained.

Some colored schemes are presented to explain the role-playing strengths and weaknesses. As a weakness on their work i consider the font size on the schemes that are small and not noticeable enough. Finally they ended their journal with a humor section about honesty on the internet and the references they consulted.

Telma Jesus

(Posted in Moodle on Wednesday, 2 December 2009, 06:26 PM and 8:34 PM)

Unit3/Activity4-Brainstorming on transparency

2010-02-10T08:55:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

Due to other commitments only today i was able to write few words about the discussions and leave here my contribute.

This week I had a meeting about computers in school and one of the subjects that were discussed was LMS Moodle.

One of the intervenients was saying to us that the platform Moodle is a closed system and that the information is only available to whom we want.

What was initially proposed and was said about these LMS was that it was a system that you can use to share information with your students, colleagues and other people. But as we all know, not all the information is available; the teacher can choose whether someone can have access to some discipline or not.

Well about online forums, I am shore that I would like to have access to some forum’s, specially if i´m interested in the subjects that are debated inside. For the teacher it will be more difficult to manage the forum due to the growing number of students. The excess of information can distract students that loose too much time reading the posts, so this is a disadvantage.

As a result we can consider that the Moodle system is a closed system and that the learning that involves this kind of resources is not that transparent.

First of all we may want to think about transparency involving the institution, the teachers and the students. The institutions should consider being the most transparent as possible to increase the number of students rolling for a degree. The teachers should choose the amount and type of information that each one should provide and it depends on the level of transparency that he considers to be enough and appropriate.

The availability of information from each online course depends on the criteria of each institution and teacher.

What about the students? Should they provide all types of information? What about personal information: should they keep it in a secret? Well, exists a check list that helps students on this issues and it exists a form that can be written in order to publish and make transparent students information. Students can be categorized according to the amount of information available about them. UA should think about this.

In my opinion we don’t need to share much personal information in order to get a work partner. But the confidence level depends on how much information each student share. Data like Name and birthday, sex, number of forum contributions can be shared, but , social security number, addresses, telephone numbers, grades, course enrolments, previous education, exams, payments, log in frequencies can be shared only if the student allows the Institution to do so. Some data must be considered anonymous in order to keep some personal privacy. Does this consists in an advantage to students?

For transparency to happen people should be as much transparent as possible regarding their privacy.

Best regards,

Telma Jesus

Unit3/Activity3- Review

2010-02-10T08:53:00.000-08:00

Hi,

The Learning object that I choose for my review is the Quiz made by Luís. The reason why I choose this learning object is because I found this tool very interesting, since it give us some feedback about what we’ve just answered.

It is a small and simple Quiz that can be improved and increased whenever the author wants. It consists of a relevant 7 questions and focuses on the principal aspects of transparency .

I don’t know if the result of each test arrives at the author’s mailbox. Do you have configured this aspect?

This Quiz would be more attractive to the user if you put some images adequate to the content and if you put some colour in the background. I really don’t know if this is possible.

Did you use Quiz Faber to make this Quiz or another tool?

I considered the work interesting, motivating and captive. This Quiz is understandable to any one and represents a great way to know what people understand about transparency. The objective is to apply this test to Whom ?

At the end when it shows us a page with the results, and to synthesize the subjects/answers discussed in the Quiz you could give a list of links with bibliography. Or in the other hand, when it gives us feedback sending a message with the right option when we gave a wrong answer to question, in that same window, you could provide a link to a page that has the information needed to give the correct answer.

I hope you accept my suggestions and clarify my doubts.

Good Work!

Telma Jesus

Unit 1 /Activity 4 - Role Play

2010-02-10T08:34:00.001-08:00

Being a e-student!

Well, I will leave here my personal testimony and experience.

As a teacher I felt the thirst of enlarge my knowledge (and if possible to improve in my career). In my school I play coordination tasks, such as ICT Coordinator (now responsible for the Technical Component of the PTE) and administrator of the Moodle platform and other tasks that I have been assigned for, not to mention the many meetings that we have to watch.

I don’t have much time to spend with studies or trips to the university and attend classes.

Conciliating the family and professional life it’s a difficult task, well, and if we add one more task the academic life, more complicated it will be.

To have a husband, a four year old boy and a four month old boy asking for our attention during all day and all night, little time remains to dedicate to studies.

Another aspect that weighed in the decision to attend or not the course was the fact of having to spend extra money from the family budget to pay for the course and once the number of family elements would grow also the family expenses would increase too.

Once, it passed through my mind giving up this master, but, as this was something I always wanted, something related to technology, I decided to go ahead.

Since, this master can be done in part-time and this was a plus because I knew that I could never finish my studies in such a short time.

In this master we (e-students) have the opportunity to try and experience new programs, new technology and many virtual learning environments, and I consider this as something that I was looking for . It’s really a different learning style, which prevents exclusion of students with limited access to or little knowledge of high technology media.

We can work as a group, we can work in pairs, and we can work as a team. We can learn with our colleagues and with our teachers.

I’ve had so far very good experiences of working in group, working in pairs, and working individually at a distance.

Things can really work at a distance….i can access to each course everywhere and anywhere I want, I can work in building documents, search on the internet, talk with my colleagues just by having with me a computer (laptop) and a mobile net. I can choose during a 24 hour which time will be spent with each course and the best day of the week to work. I can access instantly to information and completely regardless of time. That’s what freedom of Time and pace means along with freedom of space.

Every new course that we start, there’s always so many new things to learn, so much new information, and many activities and tasks to develop. This can be done not only as an asynchronous way but also as synchronous. We have flexibility and option choice too. We can manage the time needed to spend with each activity or task. We can decide whether we want to deepen knowledge or to search information about related contents.
(This was posted on UAberta Moodle on Sunday, 15 November 2009 by 4:39 p.m.)

Review of 2 Learning Objects

2010-02-10T08:23:00.000-08:00

The first Learning Object that i reviewed was Sandra Brás work published in toonlet.com and the second is Pedro Teixeira´s video published on Youtube.
These Learning Objects were chosen for different reasons, such as, their content, simplicity and attraction.
First I will talk about Sandra´s work and then Pedro.
Sandra has made a simple and comic cartoon using a new tool: Toonlet that I really consider interesting, motivating and captive. This cartoon is understandable to any one.
She has made this cartoon that talks about the importance of The Learning Partner, a very interesting issue. She focused the importance of not feeling lonely while/during a study process, whether it might be a course or other learning situation. Sandra refers that e-students can combine meetings by Chat, e-mail, phone, personally, or other recurring to other technological means.
The results can be much more positive and higher and the learning process simpler and motivating.
Good and expressive cartoons were applied and very expressive too. The background color was carefully used and the dolls well chosen.
Pedro has made a video that explains very well the Theory of Cooperative Freedom. He gives us a brief explanation (like he said)…”in a few steps” about this theory. He focused in the principal aspects of the contents. He took on individual learning and collaborative and led us to Cooperative Learning.
In the video, Pedro uses key words and brief sentences, making the video very understandable and objective.
The video made by Pedro is simple and attractive, and due to the fact that he didn’t use too much colors and animations in the video it didn’t scattered the watcher’s attention, on the contrary, captive. He combined very well backgrounds and text together with images.
It´s a short term video that is not boring due to his short lengths and the combination of text and images.
The sound (music) accompanying the video is not too strong, so I considered it adequate.
Globally, I liked both works and my colleagues are to be congratulated for their Learning Objects.
(This was posted on UAberta Moodle on saturday, 7 november by 7:54 p.m.)

Unit 3- Activity 2 - Learning Object

2010-01-17T10:15:00.000-08:00

Unit 3 - Activity 2 - Learning Object

A two individual work about Transparency in Online Education!

Transparency in Online Education

“I’ve gained much from being a transparent learner. Over the last nine years – on blogs, wikis, and recently Twitter – I’ve expressed half-formed ideas and received the benefit of constructive (and critical feedback). I generally focus on what I’ve gained, but I suspect readers of my sites and articles have gained something from the experience as well.” (http://www.connectivism.ca/?p=122)

By Telma Jesus e Sónia Valente

Distance Education

2010-01-09T04:56:00.001-08:00

"I learn so much from my fellow students. Everyone brings in a different perspective and experience. Being in the Masters of Non-Profit Management program, it's great to network with other nonprofit leaders across the country." – Brian Laskey

Unit 3 - Transparency in Online Education

2010-01-09T04:13:00.000-08:00

In this annotated bibliography, i will try to respond to this important questions raised by professor Paulsen. I'll try to comment different articles in order to answer the following questions:

1.How much transparency should we allow in online education?
2.What are the implications of transparency in online education?
3.What are the pros and cons of global student catalogues?

The first article is Transparency in Cooperative Online Education by Christian Dalsgaard,
Aarhus University, Denmark and Morten Flate Paulsen, The Norwegian School of Information Technology, Norway

Transparency can be considered as a strategy that reach, catch, hold, motivate, and inspire students. Transparency gives students insight into each other’s actions.The pedagogical potential of social networking lies within transparency and the ability to create awareness among students...A central characteristic of social networking is the potential to facilitate transparency between students. The basic assumption is that transparency is important to cooperative online education. People can cooperate only if they know about each other and have access to some common information and services."(Paulsen and Dalsgaard, June 2009)

Here is a definition of Transparency by Paulsen and Dalsgaard: "Transparency means that you and your doings are visible to fellow students and teachers within a learning environment. For instance, transparency could mean that students and teachers are made aware of and have access to each other’s interests, thoughts, concerns, ideas, writings, references, and assignments. The purpose of transparency is to enable students and teachers to see and follow the work of fellow students and teachers within a learning environment and in that sense to make participants available to each other as resources for their learning activities."

Each individual creates his/her own page wich he/she develops and modifies as it develops its activities. Other people can follow these pages. It is called passive form of communication and sharing.

The discussion forums, are the opposite of this type of personal page and is a place where students send comments, posts, messages or documents in order to communicate or share.
Having a personal page (weblog or other...) is a form of socialization since it is connected to other personal pages and the indivudual is notified whenever a page is modified. In general it is buildt a network of personal relations. This is what is happening with us in this master. We are enable to follow the work of our colleagues and be aware of the activities they are developing and even make use of that information that we consider important. Everyone should be voluntary engaged to a network and contribute to the learning community. A commitment should be established so that the individual can serve as a resource for all the learning community.

"This transparent information may include personal information about the users and statistics related to the users’ deployment of the online tools. It may further include work students and teachers provide in online notebooks, blogs, and discussion forums as well as results from quizzes, surveys, and assignments."

" Transparency is also an important driver for improved quality. It has the following three positive effects on quality:

Preventive quality improvement
We are prone to provide better quality when we know that others have access to the information and contributions we provide.
Constructive quality improvement
We may learn from others when we have access to their data and contributions.
Reactive quality improvement
We may receive feedback from others when they have access to our data and contributions."

"Transparency may reduce the number of low quality contributions and may make high quality work more accessible as paragons for others. In transparent online learning environments, poor contributions from teachers and course designers cannot be hidden easily behind closed doors. It is important to realize that transparency must be handled carefully with regard to privacy issues. The users must be confident that their privacy is assured. They should be able to choose their preferred privacy level and understand how this choice controls how much of their personal data and contributions will be available to others."

In the article written by Christopher Hill, Principles for Improving Online Transparency, Quality it is focused aspects like: What are the benefits of every online student be well-informed,..."." A key focus of the plan is providing program-specific outcomes data that allows students to make informed decisions about their education investment",he says.

“To meet the education needs of adult students, we must provide them with trustworthy and transparent ways to choose among many available options and to gauge the potential of each one to further their careers.” The goal of the program is “to lead universities and colleges toward greater accountability and transparency.”, said Michael Offerman, president of Capella University.

"All types of transparency in Online education are very important, aspects like student demographics, completion rates, costs, student engagement, and knowledge and skills learned are essencial information for students.This kind of data can be viewed in annual reports." Most important, Transparency by Design reports include outcomes at the program specialization level, allowing prospective students to assess how well a program will prepare them for their professional pursuits."

"One of the requirements for implementing Transparency by Design is the development of a new set of best practices for participating institutions. “You want to make sure things are in place at the institutional level,”" says Merle Harris, president of Charter Oaks State College, who has been instrumental in developing just such standards. “Collectively we went back and we looked at best practices that have been put out by other organizations for online learning and then we developed our set based on those,” she says.

"Merle Harris, president of Charter Oaks State College and her associates concluded that there were a few basic principles for institutions that really want to be transparent." You can take a look on them by reading this two articles: Principles for Improving Online Transparency, Quality and More Principles for Improving Online Transparency, Quality.

The principels for improving online transparency are:
#1 Make distance education a central element of your mission:
#2 Accountability to stakeholders:
#3 Responsiveness:
#4 Faculty competence:
#5 Institutional integrity:
#6 Excellence in student services:
#7 Integrity in marketing:
#8 Curricular quality:

“The keys are disclosure, transparency, the ability to interact with students easily and the quality of the curriculum. So that we know what we’re trying to achieve and we regularly measure it.”

In this blog entitled Higher Education Management Group
A LinkedIn Group (Founded by Keith Hampson, PhD) if found one post that consists in an interview with Dr. Mike Offerman, Capella University entitled: Quality, Access and Transparency in Higher Education focusing aspects like: Quality in higher education, the capacity (and willingness) to meet the needs of “non-traditional” learners, What role does increased access to data on institutional performance and student learning play in higher ed reform.
"It was access to data that drove the creation of Transparency by Design. We realized that the online delivery format generates huge amounts of data. Unprecedented data—data on every interaction in the learning exchange, including data about demonstrations of learning outcomes. But, most of us were not looking at the data in any coherent manner.", says Dr. Mike Offerman.

I also foud this list of 21 questions that will help you (student) choose the degree program that is right for you.

"Learner characteristics are influenced by several factors, including:

•Locus of control: Is the individual student in control of the learning or are there external forces in charge of what the student learns?
•Task orientation: Is the learner able to stay on task without going too far astray?
•Level of motivation: Is the learner intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated?", as refered by Christopher Hill in his article:Online Course Design Should Consider Learner Characteristics.

In my opinion, distance Education Resistance is origined by the lack of transparency in all aspects. See tha article:Distance Education Resistance: Understanding Its Origins, written by Christopher Hill.

Paulsen and Dalsgaard considered that "Student catalogues are important tools for showing students that they have access to a learning community. A comprehensive catalogue that provides relevant information about students is crucial to students acquiring an overview of the learning community. Student catalogues usually provide information about all students enrolled in a course; however, if students can access information about the students enrolled in other courses offered by the institution, they may benefit from taking part in a larger learning community. Moreover, a catalog that includes alumni could be of interest to students who seek advice on courses they are considering or on future employment.To facilitate cooperation, a student catalogue should include information that makes it easy to initiate and maintain communication, such as e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, chatting identities, etc. It may also include information on geographical location (e.g., zip codes) to facilitate identification of potential partners for occasional face-to-face meetings. Similarly, it may include progress plan information so that students can identify peers who are working with the same study unit. Finally, one may argue that student catalogues should include CV-type information to make it possible to search for peers who have special competencies.

Student catalogues must address privacy issues appropriately. Some information in student catalogues may be regarded as sensitive and may require student consent. Some students may also be opposed to inclusion in a student catalogue."

The students who seek learning partners are asked to do the following:
1.Register their personal presentations.
2.Decide who may access their presentations.
3.Search for potential learning partners.
4.Invite somebody to become their learning partner. "

"The new challenge is to motivate students to engage in joint work...transparency is a prerequisite for distance students to work cooperatively.
Transparency enables students to be visible to each other as potential partners and resources
an important objective is to support an individual’s consciousness and awareness of the activities of others. This can be achieved by making a variety of information transparent, for instance by developing student catalogues and learner profiles, by encouraging learners to become partners, and by sharing personal learning tools.
Whereas discussion forums and other tools for direct communication and collaboration focus on direct sharing, social networking can support students’ indirect sharing of resources, thoughts, ideas, productions, writings, notes, etc. This kind of sharing can provide students with insights into the workings of other students, and, thus, give them an increased consciousness and awareness of the activities of other students.
The pedagogical potential lies within developing social networks in which students’ activities are visible to other students. The potential is to support transparency through a combination of personalization and socialization and through sharing personal information and tools within social networks (Dalsgaard 2006)".

Online Teaching

2010-01-09T03:23:00.000-08:00

The challenge to colleges in the 21st century is not to decide why they should have an online distance learning program, but to decide how to design and implement such a program.

--Dr. Suzanne Levy, OJDLA, 2003.
You must read this article, i found it very interesting:
Six Factors to Consider when Planning Online Distance Learning Programs in Higher Education

Activity 4 - One Question Interview

2010-01-09T02:49:00.001-08:00

Activity 4- One question Interview

The original work from Activity 4 is posted in the forum Discussion on online teaching techniques. Sorry i forgot to posted it here in my blog.
It was a stress because in the beggining noone answered my question or the teacher was retired.
At least some one answered and here are the registration of both question and teacher's answer, but first a little of her biography.
Kaye Shelton is the Dean of Online Education for Dallas Baptist University, a certified online instructor, teaching online since 1999, and also an online education consultant. Her education includes a B.A.S. in Management of Information Systems, an M.S. in Education emphasizing Online Teaching and Learning and is currently pursuing her PhD in Educational Studies at University of Nebraska. She holds a certification in Online Teaching and Learning and has published and presented on the subject of online education, including a recent book entitled An Administrator's Guide to Online Education. She has presented at numerous conferences and workshops, regarding the creation of an online education program and the best methods for teaching online. She has served as an advisor regarding online education programs for several peer institutions.

"I am convinced that teaching online can be as effective as the traditional classroom. One of my greatest passions is to encourage faculty to begin teaching online thus instilling the confidence they can be successful.", Kaye Shelton.

First the Question:

Dear Professor Kaye Shelton,
My name is Telma and I am a student of Masters in E-Learning Pedagogy at the Open University in Portugal.
I´ve read some of your articles that I found very interesting. During this semester I have this activity proposed by professor Morten Paulsen that is teaching C.U. E-Learning Pedagogical Process- Unit 2 “ finding, studying and sharing materials related to online teaching techniques”, and I have to make a one-question interview. This question should be related to online teaching techniques, teacher workload or online assignments.
Since you are considered to be an expert in these issues, I would like to know your opinion about Distance Learning, and ask you earnestly to answer this question: As an Online Teacher and a researcher in distance education, I would like to know your opinion about planning, creating and managing an online course? How do you avoid teacher´s workload?
Thank you very much,

Telma Jesus

then the answer:
Telma,

I have a list of tips that I share with my faculty to save time when teaching online:

Carefully Develop Online Course Materials – This takes time but is worth it because it saves you from answering many questions during the teaching of the course. Before the class begins, you should move through the course as a student, checking to see if you have all resources necessary for success…such as clear directions for assignment submission, discussion board posting requirements, and articulate quiz/exam directions.

Course Schedule - Create a course schedule with all pertinent information such as when a module opens, the topics covered, reading assignments, other related assignments and when all submissions are due. Encourage your students to print this out and keep it with them at all times so that they are responsible for knowing when their assignments are due.

Write a Welcome Note – Writing a note to the students the first week should cover anything special about your course that you want them to specifically understand. It may be something in the syllabus but this would be a good place for clarification and additional information. At the end of the note, direct students to email you to let you know they read the note.

Syllabus Quiz/Activity – Create an activity that encourages students to carefully read the syllabus such as a quiz for bonus points or a scavenger hunt.

FAQ Discussion - Create a threaded discussion forum for frequently asked questions and post a synopsis of other FAQs from previous semesters – keep course information as surface level as possible. Remind students to post their general course questions in this forum so that others can see your response. Copy and paste replies to these questions from the course syllabus when applicable.

Print Out Student Introductions – The first week, students usually introduce themselves in a threaded discussion. Expand all of their introductions and print this out and keep it by your computer. When you are responding to a student the first few weeks, glance through their introduction and ask a question specific to their posting, such as…how is your son that is playing college baseball? This is a quick way to create community and demonstrate to the student that you care about your students.

Check Email Newest to Oldest – When checking your inbox for student email, go to the newest email instead of the one that came in earliest. Often times, students have sent you a question but a few hours later, they have found their answer and are telling you nevermind!

Use Grading Rubrics – While it takes time to develop your grading rubric, but when used, it becomes instant and customized feedback for the student.

Keep a Response Template – Often times, we give some of the same feedback on assignments. Keep these standard responses in a document handy on your computer so that you can quickly copy and paste in a response and then you can add additional feedback. This is a huge timesaver!

Allow Students to Facilitate Discussions – Allowing students to sometimes facilitate discussions can free up time for grading—especially when it is a week that you have a lot to grade. However, you still want to show some type of presence in the discussion at least once or twice.

Back Up Your Gradebook - Back up your gradebook at least once a month or more if you can. This only takes a few moments and can save you hours and hours if for some reason you lose the original—this can even happen in a courseware management system sometimes…for example, if you accidentally delete the exam topic, it may delete the grades in the gradebook.

Kaye Shelton

Unit2 - Activity2 (Learning Object-Teacher´s Workload)

2009-11-29T13:56:00.000-08:00

How to Manage Your Online Teacher Workload

My Learning Object created for Unit 2 was this 5 minute film that accompanying and complements this summary of the article that i found and that was written by Kate Butler in 2003.

The intention of doing this LO was to accompanying the text reading and for those people that have visual incapacity be able to access the information.

The following text is a summary for the original article.

An Online teacher can work at home or in his/her workplace. He/She must distinguish between online work and other kind of work and also a home life.

An online teacher must effectively manage his available time. Here are some tips for an efficient time management:

Have a separate physical space that is set aside for work,
Allocate set amounts of time for online work,
Organise your work schedule to be as efficient as possible,
Be realistic about the amount of time needed to accomplish tasks,
Work off-line as much as possible, to avoid excessive Internet traffic.

Information management it’s very important since the teacher is dealing with large amounts of information. The digital information has its benefits as it is easier to set up, store and reuse the information. Here are some tips for electronic information management:

Use templates.”Templates can be a key benefit to working efficiently online as they allow information to be reused and modified for different situations,”

Some examples of useful templates are:
o Administrative emails that are used regularly.
o Feedback on specific student activity work.
o Documents for tracking student progress.
o Documents for administrative record keeping.
o Know your email programme and use filters and mailboxes to sort and store messages.

Prioritise messages that you receive,
Keep a structured system of records of student progress in electronic or paper format up-to-date, making copies of student work and keeping accessible records of student details,
Keep copies of everything and keep information safe, always keep back-up copies of important information and to protect your computer from viruses and unauthorised access. Keep also paper copies of that information in case your computer becomes completely inaccessible,
Don’t be afraid to use ‘old’ technology.

“There are several different aspects of course design that can affect teacher workload including the types of activities chosen, the technologies used and the timing and overall schedule of work.”
Certain activity types may require less teacher input, just as:

Group based activities,
Quizzes and multiple choice questionnaires,
Self-assessed and computer assessed tasks.

Some technologies allow teachers (and students) to work more efficiently, for example:

Asynchronous communication,
Being able to work off-line,
‘Low-tech’ web based technologies.

Here are some tips for an efficient timing and structure:

Having a variation of activity types, ensuring that heavy tasks are not all scheduled consecutively,
Allowing enough time for completion of activities and for feedback, by having knowledge of the complexity of the different activities,
Providing structure and reminders to help students stay on track, by having deadlines for individual activity work,
Encouraging student self-direction.

Teacher Support is very important especially at the start of a course.
Some examples of useful resources for a course starts are:

A teacher guide,
Guidance on effective time and information management,
Up-to-date copies of documents that students will need,
Guidelines on how to manage students online,
An active mentoring scheme,
An online teacher support forum by having an online discussion forum.

“For online teachers to be efficient and to be able to teach effectively, it is important that difficulties they encounter with any hardware, software, course materials or communication facilities are resolved as quickly and easily as possible. Although this can depend a great deal on having technical support staff willing and able to respond quickly to specific problems, there are also strategies that teachers can employ to help themselves. Some examples are to:”

Keep up-to-date anti-virus software,
Keep regular back-ups of important documents,
Ensure your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is reliable,
Have an alternative method to access the Internet,
Insure your personal computer.
Have access to an alternative email address.

It can also help to have:

An online discussion forum for general technical problems,
Frequently Asked Questions,
A system for warning of foreseeable technical problems.

“You will find, with experience that you develop your own strategies for managing your workload, depending on the type of programme you are teaching, your students and your work arrangements. It may be that some workload management strategies need to be provided by your employer whilst others depend upon your own awareness and needs. With attention to time and information management, sympathetic course design and suitable support, you should be able to find an approach that works for you and allows you to manage your workload effectively.”

Unit2 - Activity2 (Learning Object-Teacher´s Workload)

2009-11-28T15:18:00.000-08:00

I made this films using readthewords.com and i have buildt this article based on the original article of Elisabeth Armentor and hope it will help understand the teacher´s workload.
"Teachers want to help their students succeed in class, and technology has improved their accessibility. Instead of waiting to talk after class or going to your office hours, a student can shoot off an email at midnight and you can answer it the next morning. An online class increases the prevalence of this phenomenon, but being too available can quickly lead to the impression that you're always "on call." This can contribute to burnout. Consequently, organization and time management are the keys to handling the workload of an online class."

Organize Your Workspace

Organize Yourself

Organize Your Class

Automate When Possible

Set Boundaries

Be Patient

Unit 2 - Online Teaching Techniques

2009-11-22T19:05:00.001-08:00

I leave here some tips and tricks for teaching online:how to teach like a pro!

Teaching online is an alternative to teaching in a classroom. Sometimes instructors use teaching in classroom methods while teaching Online.

Sometimes online instructors may feel inadequacy and illprepared.

For teaching online, the instructor needs to use multiple tools and the internet.
Then, the course must be prepared early, the learning invironment must be structured and all the materials that are needed introduced.
Planning and preparating a course is necessary even before the course is open to students.Course objectives must be defined, early posting and late work policy defined.Sometimes it is necessary to define deadlines for the students work.
the instructor must attend to the student´s expectations, that should be clearly defined.
Students must always be awared to save their work in two or more storage device.
In the first day of the course, the instructor must break the ice and welcome the students to his course.Sometimes using emoticons helps.
Communication is always needed.
The teacher can define whether students can work in groups or not. If so, he can define the number of elements for each group. The ideal is 4 students per group.
Finaly, it is necessary to assess the students and instructor's work. See what went well and what went wrong and if necessary make some improvements for the next season.
Students can improve the teacher's teaching by sending feedback, and this can be done at any time, not only at the end of the course.
When the course is finished, at the end of the semestre,course or year the instructor should revise and refine both course design and teaching.
************************************************************************************
In the previous post i didnt answer these 2 questions:
What are the implications of using individual and group assignments in online education?
How can we secure a reasonable workload for online teachers?
First in the article Online Study Orientation to Online Study, i found this important information about online courses.

"Elements of Online Courses

Online courses at UMUC often include the following elements:
■Asynchronous, frequent student and faculty participation
■Lectures and assigned readings (from textbooks and online resources)
■Individual and group assignments (for example, case studies and discussion questions)
■Individual and group papers
■Literature analyses
■Use of online library resources
■Online quizzes and exams. "

Using individual and group assignments in online education is another question.
Evaluating an online group activity
Another question emerged from this issue: How Fair are Group Assignments?

second to answer the question How can we secure a reasonable workload for online teachers?, i found this article that contains all the important information: The Online Teacher's Workload--What to Expect and How to Handle It, that was written By Elizabeth Armentor, focusing aspects like "Teachers want to help their students succeed in class, and technology has improved their accessibility. Instead of waiting to talk after class or going to your office hours, a student can shoot off an email at midnight and you can answer it the next morning. An online class increases the prevalence of this phenomenon, but being too available can quickly lead to the impression that you're always "on call." This can contribute to burnout. Consequently, organization and time management are the keys to handling the workload of an online class. "
you as a teacher must Organize Your Workspace, Organize Yourself, Organize your Class,Automate When Possible, Set Boundaries and specialy Be Patient.
In the article How to manage your Online Teacher workload , i found another perspective of how to organize the teacher's work as the author's say "Quite often when considering online workload issues, it can be tempting to focus on how to minimise it, though care should be taken as reducing workload can have a negative impact on student workload and learning quality. It may be more productive to think about how to manage online teacher workload effectively and this can be done in context with maintaining overall learning experience. Online teaching workload can be managed through successful time and information management, aspects of course design and effective teacher and technical support."
Aspects like Time management, Information management, Course design, Technologies, Timing and structure, Teacher Support and Technical Support must be considered.

"You will find, with experience, that you develop your own strategies for managing your workload, depending on the type of programme you are teaching, your students and your work arrangements. It may be that some workload management strategies need to be provided by your employer whilst others depend upon your own awareness and needs. With attention to time and information management, sympathetic course design and suitable support, you should be able to find an approach that works for you and allows you to manage your workload effectively."

Unit 2 - Annotated Bibliography (Online Teaching Techniques)

2009-11-22T14:26:00.001-08:00

This annotated bibliography will respond to the questions raised by the professor. I’ll use different articles to answer to the following questions:
1. Which online teaching techniques do you prefer?
2. What are the implications of using individual and group assignments in online education?
3. How can we secure a reasonable workload for online teachers?
From the several Online learning techniques refereed by Professor Paulsen

This annotated bibliography will respond to the questions raised by the professor. I’ll use different articles to answer to the following questions:
1. Which online teaching techniques do you prefer?
2. What are the implications of using individual and group assignments in online education?
3. How can we secure a reasonable workload for online teachers?
From the several Online learning techniques refereed by Paulsen, I prefer starting with a Learning contract, a technique that is considered to be used to individualize the learning process, by making an agreement that details what’s going to be learned, the objectives, competencies, the course contents, the work methodology, the resources and all the required readings, the learning environment that’s going to be used, assessment and the timeline that shows the temporal distribution of all activities.
Another teaching technique that I found important in teaching online is the Debate, consisting of as “Seaman and Fellenz (1989, 65) wrote: “A debate is a structured discussion during which two sides of an issue are presented and argued by two or more individuals within a given time period.”
Knox (1987, 88) offered another explanation: “Similar to a lecture or panel, but two or four debaters argue two sides of an important issue to clarify differences and related reasoning… Clark (1992a, 58) offered these guidelines for an electronic debate with regard to participation, preparation, coordination, and evaluation:
▪ Participation. A debate could engage two classes that agree to participate actively, two teachers who know how to telecompute, one impartial coordinator who knows how to telecompute, an experienced debater to help students learn the process, and two or more evaluators familiar with the proposition.
▪ Preparation. Give the coordinator a list of curriculum-related issues, become familiar with the evaluation criteria, and decide whether a winner will be declared. Set up speech deadlines within a four-week framework, and agree on a maximum word length for each speech. Organize classes into teams by role or by speech, and have groups research both sides of a proposition
▪ Coordination. The coordinator should formulate and announce the proposition, randomly assign groups to affirmative or negative, and channel speeches between the two sides. Further, the coordinator should mediate the debate, keep team identities secret until after the last speech is sent, and enlist evaluators and manage the evaluation process.
▪ Evaluation. After the debate, feedback from the evaluators could be discussed and students could exchange comments on the issue and process. “

Another teaching technique that I prefer is Role-plays that is “according to Rothwell and Kazanas, role-play is “a range of methods in which trainees put themselves in dramatic situations and act out scenes like actors in a play.... There are essentially two kinds of role-play: structured and spontaneous.... Structured role-play is based on a case study.... Spontaneous role-plays are based on momentary experiences.”
Another one is Discussion, where discussion groups may be implemented as buzz groups, subgroup discussions, expanding groups, and colloquies.
Buzz groups are “small clusters of learners who are temporarily grouped together for a short period to address a topic presented by a facilitator.” (Seaman and Fellenz 1989, 131)
Forums is another teaching technique that “can be defined as “an open discussion carried on by one or more resource persons and an entire group. It is used when large groups of twenty-five persons or more meet for the purpose of diffusion of knowledge, information, or opinion. The forum tends to be semiformal in nature and is directed by a moderator. The moderator is responsible for guiding discussion during which the audience is encouraged to raise and discuss issues, make comments, offer information, or ask questions of the resource person(s) and each other.”
Harisim, phrased some teaching techniques and I selected the ones that I consider importants :”
▪ Small group discussions. In small group discussions, three to ten users discuss a particular topic, usually guided by an instructor or a group leader. The discussion often follows a seminar discussion or a plenary discussion. It may also complement a parallel face-to- face or online activity.
▪ Learning partnerships and dyads. In learning partnerships and dyads, learners are paired for mutual support and group work. These techniques can serve as icebreakers in early phases of online classes and they are also useful for joint writing projects.
▪ Small working groups. Small working groups can facilitate collaborative work. Student groups can, for example, solve problems, undertake research projects, and write reports. Effective groups, though, require clearly defined tasks, roles, and timeliness.
▪ 6. Simulations or role-plays. Simulations and role-plays allow students to apply and test theoretical knowledge in a simulated environment. Examples of successful role-plays in online environments.In the evaluation manor, learners assume the perspectives of various evaluators to debate evaluation procedures and approaches.
▪ Debating teams. In debating teams, learners have the opportunity to improve their analytical and communication skills by formulating ideas, defending positions, and critiquing counter positions.
▪ Peer learning groups. In peer learning groups, learners assist one another with writing assignments, problem solving, etc. Students may, for example, collaborate online to improve their writing skills.
▪ Informal socializing: the online cafe. Since social communication is an essential compo- nent of educational activity, online educational environments should provide opportuni- ties for informal discourse. An online cafe can contribute to a sense of community among the users, forging a social bond that may offer motivational and cognitive benefits.
▪ Mutual assistance for help. Valuable online support, based on mutual assistance, can be organized in an online conference where students can ask one another for help. Such a conference may be especially useful with regard to technical problems and system support.
▪ Access to additional educational resources. Additional online resources for educational use include international networks, databases, library catalogues, and information pools. To benefit the curriculum, these resources could be an integral part of the online activities.”

the Teaching Techniques Discussed by Rekkedal and Paulsen were:"
1. Distribution of information. Distance teaching systems need to increase the efficiency of distributing and updating information to students, faculty, and staff. Computer con- ferencing can, for example, be used for distribution of updated learning materials and information about courses, seminars, examinations, and student activities.

2. Two-way communication between student, tutor and staff. In most distance teaching sys- tems, submission of assignments for correction, evaluation, and feedback is important. Research shows that extended turnaround times may have destructive effects on course completion. It often takes too long for students to get help when they encounter prob- lems in their studies. To some extent, telephone support has been used in these situa- tions, but computer conferencing systems function more conveniently. Students may, for example, ask questions at any time, without the time delay of land mail. Draft solutions may be discussed, introducing a more flexible organization of tutoring and assessment. Student answers may be made available to other students, before or after submission deadline. Computer-scored tests can also be included in online systems, as a substitute for traditional off-line computer scoring. In higher-level education, two-way communi- cation by e-mail may be used in the guidance of individual student projects.

3. An alternative to face-to-face teaching, introduction of group discussion and project work.
3. Many distance education programs include occasional face-to-face meetings between tutors and students, but practical or geographical considerations restrict many students from taking part in these meetings. Sometimes, face-to-face meetings develop into one- way presentation of subject matter. Computer conferencing, on the other hand, mainly involves information exchange and interpersonal discussion. Electronic classroom discussions can develop into exciting experiences of group learning. In the same vein, the medium seems to foster equality of status between the participants. Finally, special group-learning techniques – such as group submission of assignments, group learning and presentations, seminars, and project work – may be applied.
4. The public tutorial. Most distance education systems are designed for individual learning, but communication between one tutor and a number of individual learners is time- consuming. Questions, answers, and comments from one student will, however, often be of relevance to others. In a conferencing system, such interaction could be made accessible to all students along with pre-produced information of general interest.
5. Peer counseling. Informal peer counseling and cooperation are regular activities in on- campus programs. In computer conferencing, the possibilities for such collaboration are obvious and actively supported in the majority of learning programs. Peer help in solving problems may often come from an unknown friend. Peer counseling may be of particular value in large-scale systems where hundreds of learners are studying the same subject.
6. Free flow discussion. A number of educational conferencing systems have established social conferences, such as the cafe, the pub, or the coffee shop. These conferences have shown that informal discussions and non-academic activities can thrive in edu- cational conferencing systems.
7. The library. In an online text database, articles, lectures, research reports, etc. can be made available to the students.2
Teaching Techniques Discussed by Kaye
In a literature review paper on collaborative learning, Kaye (1992) described the following seven applications of CMC in education and training programs:
..."2. The online classroom. Applications of the online classroom model have often been inspired by the “virtual classroom”. First, the group size is comparable to that in a face-to-face class. Second, there is at least one person responsible for guiding the group’s activities and, third, computer conferencing represents the principal mode of communication. Varieties of online class- rooms depend on the age of student groups, the educational levels, and the roles taken by the people responsible for the groups."
...
"4. Computer-supported writing and language learning. Since the combination of CMC and word processors essentially has a textual nature, it has attracted interest within the field of the teaching of writing and language skills. Examples include Connected Education’s creative writing courses and Rio Salado Community College’s courses in creative writing, technical writing, and English composition."

6. Lecture-room adjunct. In large on-campus lecture classes, there is little time for individual students to ask questions and the format does not invite discussion. In such a context, universi- ties may establish conferences where students can get help from teachers and other students.
7. The education utility. The education utility is a set of online resources that students and faculty can access.

resource:Paulsen, Morten in Framework for Online Teaching Techniques.

Unit 2 - Online Teaching Techniques

2009-11-22T11:46:00.001-08:00

I found the article “Preparing Instructors for Quality Online Instruction” very interesting and with some interesting information.
As the author’s of the article say …”there is a considerable interest in online education, particularly as it relates to the quality of online instruction.” Exists many issues that must be discussed, such as the answers to the following questions placed by the author’s: …” What will be the new role for instructors in online education? How will students' learning outcomes be assured and improved in online learning environment? How will effective communication and interaction be established with students in the absence of face-to-face instruction? How will instructors motivate students to learn in the online learning environment?”
It depends on the instructors, the success of one online course, first of all, it is an innovative technique of teaching and online instruction must be effective, attending to the challenges and barriers of the online teaching and for the Instructors.
The instructors will have new roles to play and new responsibilities and they have to adapt themselves to this new era in teaching. They must be prepared to leave the learning centred in the teacher in one classroom and accept the challenge of the centred student education.
There’s a role shifting that the teacher/instructor must assist, accept and join.
It’s not only the instructor that is changing but also the learner. They both have to play multiple roles and adjust to new roles. They must adapt to new environments, and they also must be open mind for the usage of technology. Teachers must deal with feelings such as frustration and must help students to overcome with their problems on the usage of technology.
Both teacher/instructor and learner must be motivated and be prepared for the asynchronous communication.
The learner must play a more active role.
The students must ensure their integrity and their honesty while attending to an online course.
The quality of online education must be assured by facing the new challenges and adjusting the attitudes facing the new opportunities, new teaching styles, adapting new strategies in the course design, new teaching methods, new learning environments, and all this must start before the online course and must be carefully planned.
“… online education has the following features: (a) it provides a learning experience different than in the traditional classroom because learners are different, (b) the communication is via computer and World Wide Web, (c) participation in classroom by learners are different, (d) the social dynamic of the learning environment is changed, and (e) discrimination and prejudice is minimized”

“…face-to-face interaction can be substituted by online discussions in bulletin board systems, online video conferences… Online education can also promote students' critical thinking skills, deep learning, collaborative learning, and problem-solving skills.”
“Alley and Jansak (2001) have also identified 10 keys to quality online learning. The authors suggested that online courses will be high quality when they are student-centered and when:
• Knowledge is constructed, not transmitted.
• Students can take full responsibility for their own learning.
• Students are motivated to want to learn.
• The course provides “mental white space” for reflection.
• Learning activities appropriately match student learning styles.
• Experiential, active learning augments the Web site learning environment,
• Solitary and interpersonal learning activities are interspersed.
• Inaccurate prior learning is identified and corrected.
• “Spiral learning” provides for revisiting and expanding prior lessons,
• The master teacher is able to guide the overall learning process.”
“To ensure the quality of online instruction, the qualification of the instructors should be a first consideration. Since the preparation of instructors is also paramount, those who teach online courses should understand what their roles are and adjust their attitudes for this role change. Second, it is important for instructors to master, design, and delivery strategies, techniques, and methods for teaching online courses. Third, the institution should provide technical and financial support for faculty. Fourth, school administrators should also realize what their role and responsibilities are in ensuring quality online instruction. Critical to this process, administrators should recruit qualified faculty or instructors for their online education programs. Moore (2001) also noted that to effectively deliver online courses, faculty must promote student-to-student interaction with minimal faculty intervention, engage students in regular assignments, cultivate students' self-directed abilities, and then provide specialized attention to students who lack self-directedness.
The increasing diversity of the nation's student population and advancements in the development of educational technology has encouraged the popularity of online instruction
(Bi, 2000). However, academic institutions that offer courses online still face many challenges. Therefore, administrative support is crucial if programs are to be successful. Administrators must consider issues related to intellectual property, pedagogical rigor and methods, course management, and instructional compensation of faculty (McAlister, Rivera, & Hallman, 2003). In essence, successful online instruction does not happen by magic. It is a collaboration of instructors, administrators, students, and the community at large. The courseware development industries should keep the instructors tuned in about their product updates and provide training and technical service support to instructors. The government, community, and parents should also help the school to ensure the quality of online instruction.
Moving from traditional methods of teaching to online methods of instruction often create dramatic shifts in the perspectives of instructors and their students (Dringus, 2000). Moreover, many issues have been raised about the quality of online instruction:
• Administrators should not force faculty to teach online courses who do not wish to do so.
• Training in WebCT should be made more user friendly.
• Mentors should be available in each department or college who can answer questions that come up from faculty who have limited experience in teaching online courses.
• Departments should limit the enrollment in online courses so that instructors will be more focused on communicating and interacting with online students.
• Instructors need to take courses to better understand technology; specific classes need to be taken in order to design websites for online courses.
• Instructors must have the support of other instructors who have taught online courses before, as well as administrative and technical support.
• Instructors should consider how to increase the interaction between students-instructor and peer-interactions by using various types of instructional design methods.
• Instructors should encourage students to evaluate the courses continuously and periodically so as to improve online teaching.”

Unit 2 - Online Learning Techniques

2009-11-18T12:47:00.000-08:00

Online Learning Techniques

I found this teaching tips very interesting.
101 THINGS YOU CAN DO THE FIRST THREE WEEKS OF CLASS

...and since we must be carefull with the verbal comments, personal behavior, physical environments, and printed signs, you also must see these list of items.

Because we all need some tips about THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY: STARTING WELL.

Where do we start? the first day of class: WHAT CAN/SHOULD WE DO?

Well, i found that everything in this page is so interesting that you should visit in here. It talkes about what procedures to take from the first day, how to prepare a course, how to prepare a lesson plan, teaching techniques, course design, tools for students, assessment, teaching organization, motivating students, dealing with stress,etc.

Activity 2 - Learning Object

2009-11-01T09:16:00.000-08:00

Activity 2 - Learning Object

Uma visão, a duas, sobre a teoria da Liberdade Cooperativa!

A Morning Walk - Online Education

By Telma Jesus e Sónia valente

Teaching with Technology-Distance Learning

2009-10-25T09:32:00.000-07:00

I found this article that focuses some aspects about distance Learning that i consider very important.
It refers to aspects like: is the distance learning only a target for working adult students;Is a course that uses media richer and more understandable; Is it better to work self-paced in one assyncronous way; Can technology help to promote interaction with all the intervenients(teacher and students); Sould the student work his way.
The Link is http://www.powertolearn.com/articles/teaching_with_technology/article.shtml?ID=97.

Teaching with Technology- Learning Online

2009-10-25T03:31:00.001-07:00

I found this article very interesting and similar to what happens in Portugal.
First the teachers have to use as a resource LMS like Moodle, then plan one course where we can find all the materials needed for the course, like, ebooks, etexts, and all the library the teacher thinks it's needed for the discipline.
We don't need any paper or pencils. In High School in Portugal most of the teachers also use Moodle as a resource in their classroom, but not only in the Classroom, also as a distance learning component.
Our student's can work at home, classes or anywhere at anytime they want.
The plan for each online course must be well prepared and the teacher will spend much in the begining, before using it.
The quality of the content and material used in each online course must be diversified, carefully and richly.
Here are some rich aspects that i found in these article.
..."Students expect readings, assignments, and quizzes they see on the computer to be better thought out than what they see in the classroom."
" when students confront your teaching material online, you are not there in person to explain it, or provide further details: the document they see must cover all bases. Each piece of content posted online must be self-contained and self-explanatory, so that students know exactly what they are supposed to do and have all the support they need to do it."(Lengel,2008)
"It's not what you do, it's what they do. In the classroom the teacher is at the center; students focus on the professor; it's what the faculty member does that makes the difference. Not so with online work. The only thing you get to do is prepare the content and pose the assignments; from then on, learning is dependent on what the students do. So the key to successful online courses is to craft a set of activities for the students to do: read this, look at that, ask yourself this, write that, discuss all of it together with your classmates. The clearer and more active the assignments, the more likely your students are to follow the course of study."
"The teachers in the new start-up high school are learning to structure their courses for an online environment. They are now thinking of each course as a sequence of activities that students go through as they learn the material. "
"Collaborative work. Contacting and conversing with classmates online to create a short presentation of ideas. "
The learning sequence:
Pre-assessment. A short, two- or three-question self-correcting quiz to see what he already knows (and doesn't know) about the subject.
Close reading. A serious and detailed look at the key concept, often guided by an essential question.
Written response. An opportunity for the student to summarize the key idea in her own words, and get online feedback from the teacher.
Wide browsing. Moving beyond the text to explore numerous (and perhaps conflicting) online sources about the concept.
Discussion contribution. Responding publicly in writing to the questions posed by the teacher and commenting on the contributions of classmates.
Collaborative work. Contacting and conversing with classmates online to create a short presentation of ideas.
Capstone project. Putting all that you have learned about this concept into a paper of presentation, and submitting it online.

As online learning grows, we will all learn more about what works best. But by following the guidelines above, you have a better chance to develop an effective course of study.
"
LINK: http://www.powertolearn.com/articles/teaching_with_technology/article.shtml?ID=88

Teaching with Technology

2009-10-25T03:11:00.000-07:00

...
"Does talking about etexts limit our ideas of what online learning might be? It's not just traditional book content that we want our students to access, it’s course content with all those supplementary and enrichment materials—videos, educational games, audio segments, panoramic scenes, teaming projects, 3D animations, and immersion into online environments with students throughout the world—content and ideas that could whisk our students off into their own learning place. Master teachers are doing this on their own today with the resources they find online, but gathering dynamic course-related resources and making connections for interactive learning is a daunting task 180 days a year for five different class sections and in many cases, several different courses.
My ideal online book company or whatever we might call it, would not only have what teachers and students need in easy-to-access format, it would allow teachers, together with their students, to select what will work for their learning in their courses, therefore eliminating what they would not use. Teachers and students would be creating their own "learning centers,"centers students would want to and need to enter. I can see it now, and I know it will come. We just need to figure out how to get there."

by DR. Merle March

http://www.powertolearn.com/articles/teaching_with_technology/article.shtml?ID=111

Cooperative Learning

2009-10-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

I found several information about Cooperative learning in the following site:http://www.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/cooplear.html
Informations like What is it?; Why use it?, How does it work?,What are some examples of specific programs?, What else does it do?, What else does the research say?

Cooperative Freedom

2009-10-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

First, i noted that Professor Morten Flate Paulsen is the driving force behind the theory of Cooperative Freedom. He is professor of online education and he is in Portugal for his sabbatical and working with us in Universidade Aberta.
Whenever we talk about distance learning or cooperative learning, arises the teacher's name Morten Flate Paulsen.
Issues such as Cooperative Freedom, Flexibility, Cooperative Learning, Online Learning, Online Education, Learning Freedom and Distance Learning can be found in this work.
There are also some of his works translated to Portuguese: Relatório do Estado da Arte: Qualidade do E-learning para PMEs Europeias - uma Análise de Experiências de E-Learning em Pequenas e Médias Empresas and CLIPs e outros instrumentos de apoio à aprendizagem cooperativa realizada em ambientes virtuais.

Transparency in Cooperative Online Education

2009-10-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

I found this interesting article that was written by Professor Morten Flate Paulsen
and professor Christian Dalsgaard that discuss: What is the potential of social networking within cooperative online education? the authors argue about transparency as a unique feature of social networking services.
The article talks about cooperative learning, virtual learning environments and transparency based on experiences experienced by the authors.

A Definition of Collaborative VS Cooperative Learning

2009-10-24T07:27:00.001-07:00

A Definition of Collaborative vs Cooperative Learning
Ted Panitz (1996)

"I have been searching for many years for the Holy Grail of interactive learning, a distinction between collaborative and cooperative learning definitions. I am getting closer to my elusive goal all the time but I am still not completely satisfied with my perception of the two concepts. I believe my confusion arises when I look at processes associated with each concept and see some overlap or inter-concept usage. I will make a humble attempt to clarify this question by presenting my definitions and reviewing those of other authors who have helped clarify my thinking.

Collaboration is a philosophy of interaction and personal lifestyle whereas cooperation is a structure of interaction designed to facilitate the accomplishment of an end product or goal.

Collaborative learning (CL) is a personal philosophy, not just a classroom technique. In all situations where people come together in groups, it suggests a way of dealing with people which respects and highlights individual group members' abilities and contributions. There is a sharing of authority and acceptance of responsibility among group members for the groups actions. The underlying premise of collaborative learning is based upon consensus building through cooperation by group members, in contrast to competition in which individuals best other group members. CL practitioners apply this philosophy in the classroom, at committee meetings, with community groups, within their families and generally as a way of living with and dealing with other people.

Cooperative learning is defined by a set of processes which help people interact together in order to accomplish a specific goal or develop an end product which is usually content specific. It is more directive than a collaboratve system of governance and closely controlled by the teacher. While there are many mechanisms for group analysis and introspection the fundamental approach is teacher centered whereas collaborative learning is more student centered.

Spencer Kagan in an article in Educational Leadership (Dec/Jan 1989/1990) provides an excellent definition of cooperative learning by looking at general structures which can be applied to any situation. His definition provides an unbrella for the work cooperative learning specialists including the Johnsons, Slavin, Cooper, Graves and Graves, Millis, etc. It follows below:

"The structural approach to cooperative learning is based on the creation, analysis and systematic application of structures, or content-free ways of organizing social interaction in the classroom. Structures usually involve a series of steps, with proscribed behavior at each step. An important cornerstone of the approach is the distinction between "structures" and "activities".

"To illustrate, teachers can design many excellent cooperative activities, such as making a team mural or a quilt. Such activities almost always have a specific content-bound objective and thus cannot be used to deliver a range of academic content. Structures may be used repeatedly with almost any subject matter, at a wide range of grade levels and at various points in a lesson plan."

John Myers (Cooperative Learning vol 11 #4 July 1991) points out that the dictionary definitions of "collaboration", derived from its Latin root, focus on the process of working together; the root word for "cooperation" stresses the product of such work. Co-operative learning has largely American roots from the philosophical writings of John Dewey stressing the social nature of learning and the work on group dynamics by Kurt Lewin. Collaborative learning has British roots, based on the work of English teachers exploring ways to help students respond to literature by taking a more active role in their own learning. The cooperative learning tradition tends to use quantitative methods which look at achievement: i.e., the product of learning. The collaborative tradition takes a more qualitative approach, analyzing student talk in response to a piece of literature or a primary source in history. Myers points out some differences between the two concepts:

"Supporters of co-operative learning tend to be more teacher-centered, for example when forming heterogeneous groups, structuring positive inter- dependence, and teaching co-operative skills. Collaborative learning advocates distrust structure and allow students more say if forming friendhip and interest groups. Student talk is stressed as a means for working things out. Discovery and contextural approaches are used to teach interpersonal skills."

"Such differences can lead to disagreements.... I contend the dispute is not about research, but more about the morality of what should happen in the schools. Beliefs as to whast should happen in the schools can be viewed as a continuum of orientations toward curriculum from "transmission" to "transaction" to "transmission". At one end is the transmission position. As the name suggests, the aim of this orientation is to transmit knowledge to students in the form of facts, skills and values. The transformation position at the other end of the continuum stresses personal and social change in which the person is said to be interrelated with the environment rather than having control over it. The aim of this orientation is self-actualization, personal or organizational change."

Rocky Rockwood (National Teaching and Learning Forum vol 4 #6, 1995 part 1) describes the differences by acknowledging the parallels they both have in that they both use groups, both assign specific tasks, and both have the groups share and compare their procedures and conclusions in plenary class sessions. The major difference lies in the fact that cooperative deals exclusively with traditional (canonical) knowledge while collaborative ties into the social constructivist movement, asserting that both knowledge and authority of knowledge have changed dramatically in the last century. "The result has been a transition from "foundational (cognitive) understanding of knowledge", to a nonfoundational ground where "we understand knowledge to be a social construct and learning a social process" (Brufee, Collaborative learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge, 1993). Rockwood states:

"In the ideal collaborative environment, the authority for testing and determining the appropriateness of the group product rests with, first, the small group, second, the plenary group (the whole class) and finally (but always understood to be subject to challenge and revision) the requisite knowledge community (i.e. the discipline: geography, history, biology etc.) The concept of non- foundational knowledge challenges not only the product acquired, but also the process employed in the acquisition of foundational knowledge."

"Most importantly, in cooperative, the authority remains with the instructor, who retains ownership of the task, which involves either a closed or a closable (that is to say foundational) problem ( the instructor knows or can predict the answer). In collaborative, the instructor--once the task is set-- transfers all authority to the group.In the ideal, the group's task is always open ended."

"Seen from this perspective, cooperative does not empower students. It employs them to serve the instructor's ends and produces a "right" or acceptable answer. Collaborative does truly empower and braves all the risks of empowerment (for example, having the group or class agree to an embarrassingly simplistic or unconvincing position or produce a solution in conflict with the instructor's)."

"Every person, Brufee holds, belongs to several "interpretative or knowledge communities" that share vocabularies, points of view, histories, values, conventions and interests. The job of the instructor id to help students learn to negotiate the boundaries between the communities they already belong to and the community represented by the teacher's academic discipline, which the students want to join. Every knowledge community has a core of foundational knowledge that its members consider as given (but not necessarily absolute). To function independently within a knowledge community, the fledgling scholar must master enough material to become conversant with the community."

Rockwood concludes:

"In my teaching experience, cooperative represents the best means to approach mastery of foundational knowledge. Once students become reasonably conversant, they are ready for collaborative, ready to discuss and assess,...."

Myers suggests use of the "transaction" orientation as a compromise between taking hard positions advocating either methodology.

"This orientation views education as a dialogue between the student and the curriculum. Students are viewed as problem solvers. Problem solving and inquiry approaches stressing cognitive skills and the ideas of Vygotsky, Piaget, Kohlberg and Bruner are linked to transaction. This perspective views teaching as a "conversation" in which teachers and students learn together through a process of negotiation with the curriculum to develop a shared view of the world."

It is clear to me that in undertaking the exercize of defining differences between the two ideas we run the risk of polarizing the educational community into a we versus them mentality. There are so many benefits which acrue from both ideas that it would be a shame to lose any advantage gained from the student-student-teacher interactions created by both methods. We must be careful to avoid a one-size-fits-all mentality when it comes to education paradigms.

As a final thought, I think it behooves teachers to educate themselves about the myriad of techniques and philosophies which create interactive environments where students take more responsibility for their own learning and that of their peers. Then it will become possible to pick and chose those methods which best fit a particular educational goal or community of learners."

I considered this article so important that i copied it all and put it in this post. It helps us to distinguish between collaborative learning and cooperative learning. It points out the main aspects of each type of learning. Collaborative learning people must join a group and as a group member must contribute to the development of a specific work. people must work together. Everyone is responsible for the work that is developed. This is a student centred learning. Has a qualitative approach. In Cooperative Learning, people work and interact for a specific goal. It is applied a quantitative method. It is a teacher centred learning and each teacher must design the cooperative activities.

Reflexão crítica

2009-05-10T14:53:00.000-07:00

No primeiro post (http://icommonssummit.org/summit_blog/2008/07/open-education-legal-issues-be.html) é feita uma reflexão sobre a problemática das questões legais associadas ao licenciamento de conteúdos.
Na minha opinião as questões legais associadas ao licenciamento de conteúdos é de extrema importância e como tal podem causar grande impacto na produção de OER.
Neste post, além das questões legais, foram analisados os seguintes aspectos.
▪ Transição de direitos de propriedade para modelos abertos;
▪ Politicas institucionais;
▪ Acesso;
▪ Localização e contextualização;
▪ Transição de conceitos legais de uma jurisdição para outra,
▪ Difamação de padrões técnicos;
▪ Etc.
De uma forma geral, é defendida a teoria de que existe algum desconhecimento e até mesmo uma certa ignorância acerca das questões legais e de responsabilidade relativas aos OER.
Foram formados vários grupos de discussão, de forma a analisar várias questões e várias abordagens ao assunto.
Um grupo manifesta a sua preocupação relativamente ao “Fair Use” e a políticas a ele associadas.
Outra questão salientada foi a compatibilidade entre licenças. Ainda foi focada a questão dos direitos de autor aquando da utilização de pequenos excertos de um documento.
As questões comerciais também foram abordadas, e foi concluído que são depreciativas relativamente à partilha e ao trabalho colaborativo.
Foram ainda apresentadas algumas soluções para as questões apresentadas.

Para o 2º Post escolhi:
Open Educational Resources - Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education

Neste post, Michael Paskevicius, defende que os OER´s podem conter material variado, desde apresentações em PowerPoint, artigos, links, etc. Segundo Michael, os recursos OER não são limitados ao seu conteúdo, mas incluem e abrangem três áreas específicas: os conteúdos de aprendizagem, as ferramentas e os recursos de implementação.
Foram propostas pela OECD algumas estratégias para aumentar a eficácia e procura de um OER. Para que tal aconteça, torna-se necessária a contribuição quer dos professores, quer dos alunos na criação e utilização de recursos abertos. Os OER devem ser partilhados livremente através das licenças abertas, permitindo deste modo o uso, a tradução, a revisão, melhoramento e partilha de um recurso.
As universidades, escolas, governos, devem considerar como de alta prioridade acesso ao Ensino aberto.
Foi ainda focado que quer a longo prazo, quer a médio prazo, quais os factores propulsionadores e os inibidores da utilização de recursos educacionais abertos, bem como as motivações para a utilização de um OER. Todos os aspectos que estão referenciados nos pontos acima descritos, tem como objectivo aceder aos melhores recursos e a materiais mais flexíveis.

Para 3ºpost,escolhi:

OER as an Enabler in Tough Economic Times

Este Post fala-nos relativamente ao modo como a situação económica de um país pode influenciar o movimento dos recursos educacionais abertos.
A adopção em larga escala dos recursos OER, pode influenciar as aspirações de melhoramento das habilitações académicas dos indivíduos, uma vez que de acordo com o estado da economia mundial e com as taxas crescentes no número de desempregados, consequentemente, tal contribui para o aumento do número de alunos nas instituições universitárias.
O movimento dos recursos educacionais abertos (OER’s) surgiu como uma forma de complemento e substituto do ensino tradicional, uma vez que se os alunos possuírem acesso à Internet, podem aceder aos recursos de uma forma mais facilitada e recorrer a eles para construir o seu próprio conhecimento.
Podemos então considerar que a tecnologia surge aqui como grande impulsionadora da educação e do conhecimento livre.

Achei igualmente interessante o processo para inserir um recurso num repositório na Universidade da cidade do Cabo, sendo que o mesmo é considerado como extremamente simples, logo, aconselha-se a consulta do seguinte post.

Open Educational Resources. Building a Culture of Sharing

2009-05-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

Open Educational Resources. Building a Culture of Sharing

View more presentations from KOED.

Open source, open culture, open educational resources

2009-05-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

Open Educational Resources: Unlocking Knowledge to the Glob

2009-05-08T15:31:00.000-07:00

Reflexão Crítica : OER - Recursos Educacionais Abertos

2009-05-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

Para dar início à minha reflexão crítica sobre os OER´s, achei pertinente encontrar uma definição para OER. Seguidamente senti necessidade e curiosidade perante a história, origens e evolução dos OER's.

Open Educational Resources are defined as “technology-enabled, openprovision of educational resources for consultation, use and adaptation by acommunity of users for non-commercial purposes.” They are typically madefreely available over the Web or the Internet. Their principal use is byteachers and educational institutions support course development, but theycan also be used directly by students. Open Educational Resources includelearning objects such as lecture material, references and readings,simulations, experiments and demonstrations, as well as syllabi ,curriculaand teachers' guides. (UNESCO, 2005).

Um OER não é nada mais, nada menos do que um recurso educacional que pode ser disponibilizado livremente para toda a comunidade digital e cujo destino se centra nos fins académicos.
Estes recursos abrangem materiais de várias áreas do ensino e recorrem a várias ferramentas para apoiar o seu desenvolvimento, tais como, Linux, Unix, Mozilla, Wikispaces, etc.

Não podemos falar em OER - Recursos Educacionais Abertos, sem falar em conteúdos Abertos, Objectos de Aprendizagem, Software Livre, e nos Open Course Ware(OCW) do MIT ao disponibilizarem os seus conteúdos On-line de forma livre e aberta.

Os Recursos Educacionais Abertos (OER´s), surgiram por volta do ano 2002 na conferência da UNESCO subordinado ao tema : Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries, financiado pela fundação de William e Flora Hewlett.
Em 1994, Wayne Hodgins inventou o termo "learning object" e a ideia a ele associada de que todos os materiais digitais podem ser produzidos para que possam ser reutilizados de forma variada.

Wiley, por volta do ano 1998, definiu o conceito de Conteúdo aberto (Open Content), cujo contributo para o desenvolvimento dos OER´s se centrou nos princípios do código aberto e no software livre quando aplicados aos conteúdos digitais e à criação da primeira licença livre.

Em 2001, Larry Lessig criou a licença Creative Commons, contribuindo para o aumento da credibilidade e confiança jurídica, tornando o uso de licenças muito mais fácil de usar.
Ainda em 2001, o MIT criou os OCW e o acesso livre a projectos, cursos, teses com fins não comerciais, tornando-se um exemplo a nível mundial.

Em 2002, falou-se pela primeira vez em OER´s.

2005 marcou a história com um aumento significativo da criação dos OER´s e das licenças livres(Creative Commons).
Quando falamos em conteúdos abertos, não podemos deixar de falar em movimento FLOSS, Linux, GNU, Creative Commons.
Por todo o mundo, pretende-se disponibilizar conteúdos abertos, materiais de aprendizagem, desenvolvidos de forma colaborativa, à semelhança do que se faz com o desenvolvimento de software livre.
Na produção de objectos livres, todos podem participar, alterando o conteúdo sem cometer ilegalidades, sem prazos de conclusão definidos, podendo participar na produção dos mesmos ao longo do tempo. Todos os utilizadores podem adicionar, editar e actualizar o conteúdo dos materiais, sendo que geralmente, os mesmos são o produto de vários autores, podendo no entanto, os utilizadores (não autores) contribuírem para a produção dos mesmos. Frequentemente são efectuadas actualizações, dentro de um ciclo de contínuo desenvolvimento. Os resultados de todas as contribuições colaborativas são numa fase de pré-lançamento disponibilizados aos elementos da comunidade produtora, através de mailing lists, fóruns, etc, no sentido de serem corrigidas possíveis falhas.
Nesta perspectiva quanto maior for o contributo dos elementos da comunidade, melhor será a qualidade dos OER´s produzidos.
Para que todos possam utilizar e recorrer aos OER´s, torna-se necessário total liberdade para o utilizador usar, modificar, copiar e redistribuir qualquer recurso, contribuindo desta forma para a universalização do conhecimento.