Dear ETC645 Students,
ETC645 students
(Same message posted to the course twitter announcement area & BBLearn discussion area)
You should receive your Lesson 2 discussion grade and feedback in E-mail. I hope you find them useful. Here are more of my reflections to share with you to help you to enhance your learning experiences.
What we did right:
· Diagram: I am very pleased to see some of us took one-step further to change ourselves by drawing a diagram. It is not an easy task to draw this diagram because to draw it, it requires us to have comprehensive understanding on the relationships and relations between both entities. I hope it has been a positive learning experience for you.
· KEY Discussion Questions: Most of us responded to the key discussions very thorough and comprehensive.
· Cite Relevant Literature: Great to see many of you cite research-based literature to support your arguments to the key discussion questions. Continue your outstanding logical reasoning participations.
· Two Posting Periods: Some of us followed two posting periods to share our thoughts and responded to both KEY questions within the 1 posting period. Please continue following this posting method for all our lesson discussions, unless specified.
o 1st posting period: Focus on responding to key discussion questions thoroughly.
o 2nd posting period: Engage in learner-learner interaction by reading/responding to others' postings.
Here are few strategies to help you to participate in our lesson discussions:
· Reply: When we reply to a specific person's posting, we can greet with "Chih & Gayle, Your questions are very interesting….." In this way, we know who is talking to whom. We do not need a greeting if we respond to the discussion questions and/or to the entire class.
· Post early: Post your thoughts early so your good ideas won't be taken, particularly responding to the original discussion question in 1st posting period.
To improve:
· Respond to others: It is very common our classmates, the moderators, and I respond to your postings and raise the questions based on your postings. As courtesy, don't forget to respond these postings.
· Questions for me: If you have any questions for the instructor, avoid posting them in the discussion board because I may not get back to you in a timely fashion. We have a fairly large class and active and interactive discussion activities.
· Additional responses: is it appropriate to respond to the questions not raised to my posting? Yes, The questions may not direct to your postings. If you have any reflection, please do share it with us. It is a community-based learning. Any additional reflections are always welcome.
· How do I know who respond to my postings?
o Two ways:
§ Use "Search" Function to search your name if others respond to your postings with name greeting. View the image.
§ 
§ "Collapse All" the discussion thread to view it as a tree/nested interface. View the image.
§ 
In our lesson discussion feedback, we provide both individual qualitative and quantitative feedback to help you to support your learning. The quantitative feedback is based on your individualized personal learning analytic data. The purpose is to help you to understand your lesson discussion performance throughout the class by comparing yourself, to classmates, the whole class, and previous classes. Learning Analytics (LA) is an emerging instructional technology to support us to build our PLEs. I hope you will find them useful to your learning. Extracting these individualized data isn't easy in BBLearn system. I will do my best to provide you with individualized data to help you to organize your PLE. Quantity doesn't represent our learning performance. So we have qualitative feedback to help us to improve our lesson discussion performance.
In addition, I use Social Network Analysis (SNA) to review each individual's interactivity (In-Degree, Out-Degree, Cluster Role, Two-Way Communicator Roles) to help you to understand how active, interactive you are, and what role you play in Lesson 2 discussions. We will cover SNA in Lesson 6 discussions. It is a great way to understand the effectiveness of online community, network, and interactivity etc.
I think we have many quality postings although our average postings were below the historical average. We do focus on the quality of the discussion not just quantity. Without a certain level of quantity, the quality could be limited. I hope we will have both positive quality and quantity discussions in upcoming discussions.
Instructor's Reflections on Lesson 2 Discussion Topics
Here are my reflections on Lesson 2 discussion topics to help you to conclude each discussion topics.
KEY-1-Foundation: Instructor's Reflections
It was inspiring in reading many great postings that engaged you in critical thinking to understand the foundation of online learning.
Gunawardena's and Ally's chapters readings complement each other.
Here is a question that I would like you challenge yourself constantly when you are engaging yourself in deep thinking of online learning.
It seems we would agree Ally's proposed multiple components and Gunawardena's different constructs are positive for online teaching, design, and development. Interaction seems to be the key. If we agree with this claim, the more would be the better. If we agree, how much do we need?
KEY-2-Attributes: Instructor's Reflections-1: Collaborative Intelligence is better?!
I enjoyed reading many of our thoughts in this thread, particularly the thoughts in "community centered is the ultimate goals for online learning interaction."
If one agrees that the values of human learning lie in learning community, it seems to suggest that collective intelligence has more value than individual intelligence. Current trends in online learning community seem to advocate that collaborative work is better than individual work. Will individual creativity (individual intelligence) be replaced by collaborative work (collective intelligence)?
Does more interaction occurring in online learning community generate greater and better knowledge? Who else should learn in online community in addition to the learners? Who should compose learning instruction, Students or experts/instructors?
What are your thoughts? Keep challenging yourself.
KEY-2-Attributes: Instructor's Reflections-2: Online Constructivist group weakness?!
You should understand how critical online Constructivist group collaboration is to online learning. None of online instructional strategy is perfect. As an educational technology leaders, we need to be aware of both strengths and weaknesses of instructional strategies. It would help you to determine when to integrate which instructional strategy understand what circumstance.
Baron (2005) identified the weaknesses of online Constructivist group collaboration.
- Restrictions in time, space, pace, & relationship
- Often overly confined by leader expectation and institutional curriculum control
- Usually Isolated from the authentic world of practice
- "low tolerance of internal difference, sexist and ethicized regulation, high demand for obedience to its norms and exclusionary practices." Cousin & Deepwell 2005
- "Pathological politeness" and fear of debate
- Group think (Baron, 2005)
Anderson (2010) argued Constructivist learning in Groups is necessary, but not sufficient for advanced forms of learning. In addition, online group collaboration doesn't prepare digital lifelong learning and beyond the course learning.
We will cover Network Connectivist Collaboration in ETC655.
KEY-3-Twitter: Instructor's Reflection
When it comes to technology integration, it is very common that we think in a conventional way to use the technology to replace existing instructions. It is a good step to take. Perhaps, we should think creatively, innovatively, and non-conventionally.
One of previous students shared how she integrated Twitter for her younger learners. Entire class share one account. The teacher control the log in. They discussed what people/institutions/organizations (such as museums) they would like to follow. As a class, they view their twitter feed together and discuss whether they would like to tweet about something as a class.
I think it is an excellent and a creative integration because when it comes to the technology, we frequently think 1-1 ratio. In fact, sometime working collaboratively is more effective. Agree?
KEY-4-Personal Portal Linkage: Instructor's Reflection
Here are some thoughts and reflections that you have to share with you after reading all our posting in this lesson.
Personal Portal Linkage with the concept of PLE addresses authentic learner-centered applications for online self-regulated learning. Indisputably, self-regulated learning is critical to face-to-face learning and online learning. When placing self-regulated learning into connectivist learning, it is more than just significant, rather it is obligatory to PLEs. Effective PLE construction and exploitation, particularly applying Personal Portal Linkage, demands that learners hold an ample understanding of the values and prominence of PLE, mastering multiple learning gadgets and tools and organizing their online learning portal on diverse learning platforms and environments (e.g., mobile devices, & tablets) as PLE. Regardless, formal, informal, personal, or life-long learning, learning is always personal, constructive, ubiquitous, and collaborative. Simply providing Web 2.0 tools in the absence of effective personal portal linkage building and task scaffolding is inappropriate, although online learning environments lend themselves to self-regulated learning approaches (e.g., inquiry based learning, & problem based learning). Although network learners are free to organize their own set of network tools, people, and resources, Many online learners felt overwhelmed by the complications of networks, particularly the network tools. This is explained as lack of skills as new PLE literacy related to organize effective multi-tool personal environment to gain control and ownerships.
I encourage you to go beyond by integrating Personal Portal Linkage with PLE for formal learning. We should integrate it for all types of learning, formal, non-formal, and informal learning.
If you are in ETC655, we will examine more different linkage designs to support PLE and Open Network Learning Environment. What we experience Personal Portal Linkage and PLE is just a first step of personalized learning.
Personal Portal Linkage is personalized but yet it is networked and collaborative while it may be powered by technology, but yet it is rooted in the notion of pedagogy.
Some wonder why multiple platforms for learning. I like us continue asking ourselves this question. In ETC655, you will find an answer. Remember, an answer doesn't we agree or disagree. We need to see each pedagogy's strengths and weaknesses. It is more than we like or dislike. As an educational technology leader, we should have knowledge under what "context" what pedagogy is more effective for certain learning.
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