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Module 3: Resources for Success

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  Resources for Success

  

  The equivalency approach is generally supported by Shale (1988), who argued that distance education is not a distinct field of education. Keegan (1995) supports this idea, stating that, This new approach to distance education based on virtual classrooms requires a substantially different theory upon which to base practice than the traditional view of distance education as it has been practiced in the past. The study of virtual and electronic classrooms is an important and complex field, still in its beginnings, with a unique contribution to make to educational knowledge. (p. 19). Students please read through the following resources to prepare for success in the workplace safety course. These resources will be the key to help you become familiar with the expectation of the course. Please read the PDF or watch the video or tutorials that are linked through each of the resources descriptions.

  Accessing YouTube

  Google. YouTube Help. Retrieved July 31, 2011. From        http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=17173 

  Videos during this course will be provided by YouTube and linked within the desinated area of the cousre material pertaining to discussion. Students are given the opportunity to veiw the video within a timely manner. The resouce will provide the students with the requirement of technical compabilities of accessing youtube. Students should look through the site to help answer any questions pertianing to youtube prior to course start date.Video can be a powerful educational and motivational tool. However, a great deal of the medium's power lies not in itself but in how it is used. Video is not an end in itself but a means toward achieving learning goals and objectives. Effective instructional video is not television-to-student instruction but rather teacher-tostudent instruction, with video as a vehicle for discovery. YouTube is increasingly being used by educators as a pedagogic resource for everything from newsworthy events from around the world to “slice-of-life” videos used to teach students within an ESL (English as aSecond Language) course. From instructional videos to an online space to share student authored content. Show comments, ratings, and tags.
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  Some general guidelines recommended by Clark and Mayer (2002) in relation to considering the appropriate use of any media to improve learning suggest that media must;

  •  be aligned with expected learning or performance outcome;
  • reduce cognitive load;
  •  exclude superficial text or graphics;
  • be appropriate for target learner’s learning literacy's

  You will find that video is an effective catalyst and facilitator for classroom discourse and analysis.

  Etiquettes for Discussion Forums

  People’s Open Access Education Initiative. Ettiquette of using Discussion forums. Retrieved , July 31, 2011, from http://www.peoples-uni.org/book/ettiquette-using-discussion-forums

  The website provides a list of guidelines to consider when a learner is participating in an online discussion forum. The asynchronous forum will allow you to provide questions, clarify assignments and build a debate on the assigned topic. This site will provide students with little or no experience with discussion forums with the resource that is needed to be able to communicate effectively within an online discussion forum. Students should analyze the site prior to engaging in any forum within the course so they will be familiar with the concepts of a forum. As Thomas (2002) noted, the online discussion forum provides significant opportunities for students to actively engage in their learning process through active participation.

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    Studies investigating the technology-rich classrooms found that the students demonstrated superior attitudes, involvement and engagement with the course content (Dorman and Fraser, 2009). Using technology tools as supportive to lectures can reinforce course information through multiple modes of knowledge representation and comprehension. This improves their learning outcomes by contributing to their intellectual growth and critical thinking (Pena-Shaff and Nicholls, 2004). Other important payoffs of using technology tools include flexibility, convenience and accessibility for you to complete your learning anytime and anyplace. 

  Guidelines for Webinar

  Hart, J. (n.d.). Webinar. Retrieved July 30, 2011, from Hart Creative Marketing Inc.: http://www.hartcreativemarketing.com/marketing-articles/webinars.pdf

  Students will participate in a webinar in which you will be expected to create a live asynchronous debate required for the completion of the course. This resource will provide the guidelines of participating in a webinar. A webinar is a required tool to use within this course. Students should use these guidelines to prepare for the requirements that will produce skills that is needed to create a learning environment from this course. Students should access this information prior to starting the course. There are five advantages of using the webinar tool to facilitate communication between two sites: (1) Webinar tool is affordable (de Gara & Boora, 2006). Users can participate in a webinar session with a computer, video/audio capture devices, and broadband network connections. (2) Webinar tool enables synchronous communication. Instructors can communicate with the learners in a synchronous format to provide immediate feedback to learners (Hotcomm, 2003). (3) Webinar tool facilitates real-time multimedia demonstrations. Instructors can share the application on the presenter’s site with all participants. (4) Webinar tool facilitates multi-level interaction. Instructors can lecture, interact with the audience, facilitate participant group collaboration in a real-time format (Marjanovic, 1999), and designate certain participants to be in charge of the sessions. (5) Webinar tool provides an environment in which participants can archive seminar content for personal review or for people who missed the real-time session.

   

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  . Blog Fundementals

  Teachers first home, 2007. Blogs basic for the classroom. The source for learning Inc. Retrieved   July 31, 2011. From http://legacy.teachersfirst.com/content/blog/blogbasics.cfm

  Potential benefits as identified by learning specialists Fernette and Brock Eide and cited by Will Richardson (2006) in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Webtools for Classroooms include the following:

  •  can promote critical and analytical thinking;
  •  can promote creative, intuitive and associational thinking;
  •  (creative and associational thinking in relation to blogs being used as a brainstorming tool andalso as a resource for interlinking, commenting on interlinked ideas);
  •  can promote analogical thinking;
  •  potential for increased access and exposure to quality information;
  •  combination of solitary and social interaction

  Within the structure of a blog, you can demonstrate critical thinking, take creative risks, and make sophisticated use of language and design elements. In doing so, you acquire creative, critical, communicative, and collaborative skills that may be useful to them in both scholarly and professional contexts. The growing popularity of blogs suggests the possibility that some of the work that you need to do in order to read well, respond critically, and write vigorously, might be accomplished under circumstances dramatically different from those currently utilized in education.Students will require a blog platform on which to create a blog. A blog platform is the software on which the blog is stored. Ecoto-Learn will be the software that will be used throughout the course but students will be required to create an external platform also like blogger, wordpress, and gaggle. This site will provide free resource on how to incorporate a blog as a learning resource in a course. Go through the site prior to class to you understand the fundementals of a blog.

   

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  In conclusion,the idea of appropriate application implies that learning experiences suitable to the needs of the individual learner and the learning situation should be available and that the availability of learning experiences should be proper and timely. In other words, learning experiences that are made available to either distant or face-to-face learners should allow delivery of instructional ideas that fit the expectations and facilities available to them. Which tools are used by learners and teachers, and whether such tools will be used at all, will always depend on the specific pedagogical needs of a teaching situation. Common to all of these technologies is that they are strongly social and community based.

  The Blogosphere offers ongoing distributed expression of and interaction with personal news, views, and ideas. Youtube’s popularity and authentic slice-of-life offers creative opportunities to share; respond to and author content. Wikis emphasise a more task-oriented collaborative editing of content and development of “collective” interlinked knowledge. The specific focus here on blogs, YouTube and wikis have presented for the reader some initial ideas in order to illustrate and prompt some thought in relation to the use of Web 2.0 technologies. Such socially-based technologies sit well with the understanding of learning as socially constructed, which has been a cornerstone of recent pedagogical theory. Blogs, YouTube and wikis provide a means to encourage and make visible the social construction of knowledge which such theory postulates, and it is incumbent on instructor  to embrace such tools where their use is beneficial to learners and teachers alike.

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  References:

  Clark, R.C. and Mayer, R.E. (2002) E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven     Guidelines for             Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-  Bass Pfeiffer.

  De Gara, C., & Boora, R. (2006). Using Elluminate as a simple solution for telehealth initiatives            for continuing medical education. In T. Reeves & S. Yamashita (Eds.), Proceedings of world conference on e-learning in corporate, government, healthcare, and higher education 2006 (pp. 476-480). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

  Dorman, J. P., & Fraser, B. J. (2009). Psychosocial environment and affective outcomes in            technology-rich classrooms: Testing a causal model. Social Psychology of Education, 12(1),77-99.

  Efronters, April 10,2010.The three types of interaction in an open source learning management system. Retrieved July 31, 2011. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S11n-E34BRw&feature=youtu.be

   Google. YouTube Help. Retrieved July 31, 2011. From        http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=17173 

  Hart, J. (n.d.). Webinar. Retrieved July 30, 2011, from Hart Creative Marketing Inc.:     

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  Hotcomm. (2003). Synchronous tools and the emerging online learning model. Retrieved August 12, 2011, from http://hotcomm.com/tec/dlwp.pdf

  Keegan,D. 1995. Distance education technology for the new millennium: Compressed video teaching. ZIFF Papiere IO 1. ERIC, ED 3 89-93 1.Marjanovic, O. (1999). Learning and teaching in a synchronous collaborative environment. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 15, 129-138.

  Pena-Shaff, J. B., & Nicholls, C. (2004). Analyzing student interactions and meaning construction in computer bulletin board discussions. Computers & Education, 42(3), 243 265.

  People’s Open Access Education Initiative. Ettiquette of using Discussion forums. Retrieved , July 31, 2011, from http://www.peoples-uni.org/book/ettiquette-using-discussion-forums

  Richardson, W. (2006) Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin PressShale, D. 1988. Toward a reconceptualization of distance education. The American Journal of Distance Education 2 (3): 25-35.

   

  Teachers first home, 2007. Blogs basic for the classroom. The source for learning Inc. Retrieved   July 31, 2011. From http://legacy.teachersfirst.com/content/blog/blogbasics.cfm

  Thomas, M. J. W. (2002). Learning within incoherent structures: The space of online discussion forums. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 18, 351–366. 

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