Category: Virtual Communities

eduMOOC, Learning Community, Open Education, PLN, Virtual Communities

Online Learning Today with #eduMOOC

Laura Pasquini
Last week, the #eduMOOC course with over 2, 500 participants located in over 60 countries participated in the first session topic Online Learning Today for the Online Learning Today… and Tomorrow course.
I will be honest – the massive, open and online courses format will not be taking first year undergraduate courses by storm. Many of my incoming students are concerned with transition from high school to higher education, and often stay clear of online courses in their first semester. In contrast, as a graduate student and self-proclaimed life-long learner, I like the autonomy and independence a MOOC has to offer. I like to connect, share and learn informally with others, so this is probably why I signed up for the course.  The first week’s session (Thursday 1-2 pm CT) was recorded and the PDF slides were archived for those who could not attend the live session. Here are a few key questions and ideas discussed from the panel:

Who do we serve in online learning today?

Online learning has typically met the needs of our non-traditional learners; however with the impacts and growth in emerging technology for education online learning is becoming a staple at most higher education institutions. As we are encouraged to “do more with less,” online learning is now required to meet the continuum of learners and learning pedagogues are not quite developed for many campus learning environments. Although online learning is just another dimension of learning, more higher education technology leaders need to identify methods for effective design and high-quality curriculum delivery.

Is the nature of how we learn changing? How? Why?

Both the learners and learner environments have evolved over the past 30 years. The delivery, medium, and evaluation of learning has impacted today’s higher education classroom. Emerging methods of curriculum execution and faculty instruction are beginning to increase learner engagement beyond our campuses. Online learning allows for fluid participation and continuous experiences. Learning has always been social; however new mediums now increase our learning networks across the globe and enhanced how learning objectives are reached.  

In order to meet the needs of global learners in higher education, more institutions will have to move forward with technology or be left behind. Other questions that were discussed by the panel include: 

  • How do for-profit vs. not for profit higher education institutions impact online learning? 
  • We may have one the access war, but have we won the accessibility war with online learning?
  • Are we considering universal design for learning? 
  • Is there still cannibalization of online learning? Disrupting College http://t.co/Jg8egj0 via @amprog
  • How are faculty, instruction & evaluations designed to review impacts for online learning?
  • What are the challenges for online learning today in 2011?
Captain Obvious point: Online learning is growing and many institutions are behind in their development and support for this type of learning. This fact is apparent. Take a look at most higher education course offerings online and how these courses are designed. Online learning IS growing, in terms of, demand, quality, global reach, resources, and access. What I am more interested is HOW higher education institutions will meet the demand of online learning? Institutions are currently struggling with decreased budgets, low enrollment numbers and maintaining staffing needs to support our student populations – just to name a few challenges.
 
In reflecting about the session, I can not say that I came away from it learning a whole lot of new ideas – more these questions will shape what lies ahead in this course for the weeks to come. I was sort of disappointed that the panel did not represent any global educational leaders in the #edtech field as planned – but hopefully this will change in future sessions. And I did take note of the debates around the actual value of this #eduMOOC and other MOOCs for education and learning in a few blogs, Twitter and other online entities of the social web – which also has contributed to my learning. 

It’s this sort of discourse that most challenges me to think and really, a MOOC is similar to a personal learning network and what you decide to make of it. As a seasoned-learner, I find great value in on-going discourse that occurs on the #eduMOOC backchannel on Twitter, on the eduMOOC Fb group or just reading blog posts that share ideas and resources about the course topics. I encourage others to engage by following a few key hashtags [#onlinelearning #eduMOOC #elearning] and start a dialogue with your classmates. I still think the best types of learning from MOOCs comes from the community of learners and those participating in the learning network. As it was said best:

CCK09, EC&I831, eduMOOC, Learning Community, Professional Development, Virtual Communities

What’s A MOOC?

Laura Pasquini

What is a MOOC? What it is not = 

        

Flickr photos c/o maraker & cobalt123

Many of my educational technology peers might have heard the term MOOC tossed around before. For those of you who are just hearing this acronym, let me further explain. MOOC = Massive Open Online Course. It is exactly as the title describes. Here is a further description from Jan Schwartz‘s article – Learnings from a MOOC:

In the MOOC, the facilitators aggregated the conversations on a daily basis via a mass email, took a few really good posts (in their opinion), and advanced the conversation by asking more questions and pointing the discussions in relevant directions. Their choice of good posts included both the pro and the con of topics of connectivism and connected learning. 

The term MOOC was recently shared in yesterday’s Wired Chronicle article . When I heard about this upcoming MOOC last week I was looking forward to this course. My past experiences in other MOOCs – EC&I 831 & CCK09 – have contributed to my professional development, academic research and personal learning networks.  As an on-going learner, MOOCs often cultivate my learning interests and challenge me to go beyond what I  learning realms.

The Center for Online Learning, Research and Service at the University of Illinois Springfield is currently welcoming participants to their upcoming eight-week MOOC starting on June 27, 2011. [You can follow @edumooc or the hashtag #edumooc on Twitter and check out the eduMOOC wiki if you just care to “lurk & learn”]:

Online Learning Today…and Tomorrow

This collaborative course is completely open and free. Check out the great schedule for weekly panel discussions with experts in field. This will be a fun learning opportunity for some and perhaps great professional development for others.  I also encourage you to check out Dave Cormier‘s videos that shares  “What is a MOOC?” and how to be successful in a MOOC:

Collaboration, Learning Community, PLE, SAchat, Virtual Communities

Let’s Get Visual with Data

Laura Pasquini

Fizz is one of the many ways to review and analyze online data. I am a visual learner. Naturally, I am intrigued with visual research and data analysis. The 2010 Horizon Report indicated that Visual Data Analysis will be  impacting technology and learning in higher education in the next four to five years:

Visualization tools like Many Eyes, Flowing Data, and Wordle are making statistics and data fun. These representations present actual facts and ideas in visual format to strengthen research and debates. Visualization tools help support learning and engagement for both educators and learners. Besides making meaning and giving access to facts, visualization allows learners to personalize and engage with data. A fellow doc student, Kevin Guidry, shared a great example of how to represent an online community in Twitter with his Visualization of #SAchat Data. Seeing this data allows more people to understand the dynamics of a community and how they connect online.

Another great proponent of visual statistics is Hans Rosling. Hans  is bring sexy back with statistics as he details his love of stats on the one-hour BBC documentary The Joys of Stats and his non-profit project Gapminder. For those of you who think statistics is a dirty word, I encourage you to take a gander at this one. If you are not afraid, I encourage you to get more visual with your research, learning and data. Here are a few resources to get you started – please comment and share more tools that you use & love to visualize data:

Collaboration, Learning Community, PLE, Professional Development, Social Media, Virtual Communities

#Hashtag + Community = Learning?

Laura Pasquini

Photo c/o Flickr User drips

Hashtag – The Definition [and then some]

I value my learning networks and those communities I engage, listen, follow and participate in online on a regular basis. In thinking about my PLN, I often rely on a few of #hashtags for information, resources, support and more! Here’s a quick visual c/o Wordle:

In thinking about my initial involvement with #hashtags and learning communities I often ponder people, categories, and the learning groups I am an active member in. Earlier in my involvement with a few #hashtag groups, I am reminded of preliminary tweets from various groups and consider newbie reactions to the community who might share initial uncertainty of involvement and question what is happening and how the conversation evolves:

It isn’t until later that I have engaged with these communities and realized the potential for my own learning and development – personally and professionally. This evening, I was fondly reminded of the impact and appreciation during the #AcAdv Chat and how a simple #hashtag can unite and connect an online learning community :

A question I threw out to my Twitter friends this evening was – “Pondering my hashtags this evening… what ones do you follow to learn, engage, connect, etc? Please share.” Here was the quick response:

A combination of ideas initiated after these immediate query & response on Twitter – is it the #hashtag, person or community you are engaged with? Will your #hashtag live on? How do you form effective learning networks on Twitter? What combination of people & #hashtags will meet the need in ones PLN? These are further investigation areas I will consider to ponder in my research and studies. Your thoughts and ideas are always welcome.

Collaboration, Learning Community, PhD, PLE, Professional Development, Reflections, Virtual Communities

Thoughts On My PLN

Laura Pasquini

I have been pondering the value of my Personal Learning Network (PLN) for quite sometime. I value educators, professionals and researchers in higher education who share, connect and collaborators with me online and IRL (in real life).

Not too long ago @clintlalonde interviewed me for his masters thesis research paper on learning networks. I agreed to this Skype interview, as PLN is a strong interested on my own research thread. A BIG thanks goes out to Clint for having me reflect on my PLN. After reviewing the transcripts from our interview, I thought I would highlight a few thoughts I shared about my PLN:

  • a shared space where I connect and engage with a community of peers
  • this group is a sort of a scaffold & sounding board
  • a place go to for resources and ideas
  • usually related to my interests or areas I want to expand upon
  • technology did not create my PLN, but is is now a great and easy medium to cultivate it
  • resources for personal and professional development is in the network
  • 140 characters really does have value in my own educational development
  • my network is varied and there is never a dull moment – this is why I stay engaged
  • it has different themes within different nodes & groups
  • crowd-sourcing – starts the conversation, inspires project development and collaborative initiatives
  • it can evolve and it can change  – the medium may change but the messages & info is always there
  • I never stop learning…that’s why I heart my PLN!

Here are a few great articles and resources from educators in my PLN:

Have you grown YOUR PLN lately?