Webquest

Webquest, a new way of learning and teaching for students and teachers started from the late 90's. When teacher using the webquest in the classroom, teacher can broaden teaching materials from the out side of the text book and enrich information delivered to students. On the other hand, webquest adds most values to students. First, student increase thinking and analytical abilities when using the webquest. Students are required to make comparison, recommendations, contrast, and make decisions. They must read through number of reading materials in order to complete the tasks required on the webquest. Second, knowledge can be more retentive. Students are required to explore the material they found on the internet and reprocess them into different presentation formats. In this case, student must well understand their information and knowledge. For example, a student needs to be well prepared for his/her presentation in a retelling task.

Now a day, kids have more computer skills and abilities than we did in their age. Webquest is a great tool for students to practice/develop their computer skills. If a webquest is make up with full of interest materials, student will most likely to spend more time on the webquest rather than other time killing computer games. Moreover, because webquest is a virtual learning material, students can access it anywhere and anytime. It gives student another way to access new knowledge without physically attending class. As a result, students will have greater engagement with online learning and school study.

Discussion board and Forum

In my opinion forum can encourage students' participation and share every individual student's experience. Because every member can be anonymous in the forum, this could encourage some quiet students to express their opinions without being embarrassing when they make mistakes. On the other hand, teacher can give mandatory assignment to students and require them to make comments and discussions on the forum. This method can push every student to think and to participate in the discussion on the matter that required in the course. Forum can also stimulate students to increase their typing skills by posting and reply thread in the classroom. There are some challenges associated with forum when using it for teaching and learning. First, forums are not synchronous. Students or users need to physically click the refresh bottom to update the thread. Second, students need to be motivated enough to increase the participations. Teachers need to provide in depth information/materials regarding to the topic and the subject matter. Unfortunately, teacher has no effective method to monitor whether student have student the materials provided.

Online Learning in adult’s continuous education

This week I want to share some of my thoughts about the online learning in adult's continuous education. In the old time, I remember my Dad studied in a distance leaning program to complete his post-secondary education. Certainly, there is no internet at that time. Distance learners received his/her study materials in a package of mail to conduct self-study and to complete necessary exams. This was the old fashion way of distance learning to meet learner's convenience. After the existence of internet, an equal sign has place between the distance learning and the online learning. The old correspondence course has been replaced by the online learning course. Online MBA is one of the most popular adult education programs on this planet. However, online MBA has growing exponentially in the past few years, many educators and reputable institutions still have a receptive attitude on the online learning method. In Canada, only one university (Athabasca University - Online MBA) offers complete MBA course on the internet in total of 77 universities. On the counter part, in United States about 12-15 universities are offering the online MBA program. Unfortunately, I have found that none of these universities are accredited by Ivy League Universities. Obviously, none of the universities of Ivy League is offering online/distance MBA programs. As we can see in this phenomenon, North American universities are still being conservative toward the online education. I think MBA program has many values from the personal net working among students during the course. Personal networking in online education/online learning environment might not be perceived as substantial as traditional MBA program. Hopefully, through using the advancing new technology, online education could have closer community among online learners, for example using Google Doc and eportfolios.

Online Assessment

I believe may people have had many chance to experience the online assessment now a days. My response to online assessment is that the online assessment is a tool to make students and learners more convenience in the testing, learning, and teaching process. I think teachers take more advantages from the online assessment than student. Through using the online assessment tool, teacher not only will save time and effort (CAA, Computer Adaptive Assessment) but also collect more valuable information to assess other aspects of the student to enhance teaching. I have done tons of online test and WebCT test in my post-secondary education. The best advantages to me was I will less likely to have an exam crash with other exam; at least exams won't crash in the same 24 hr period. In addition, I could have the exam result back faster and have information of how well the is class doing in the exam by reviewing the accurate statistical data, such as class average, standard distribution, and class low/high marks. This is the best part I like the WebCT version of the exam. Besides the advantages and benefits of the online assessment, I have a concern about the online assessment that did not appear in the reading of module 6. From my practical view, the content integrity of the online assessment, the exam content might be compromised by those who took the online exam early than the others. This is the growing concern I have found that escalating among some management faculties. This issue might cause the teacher to set random multiple choice questions on the exam. Unfortunately, inequality issue is raised since random multiple choice in the online assessment will lead to deviations of difficulties between different student's exams.

 

Reference

Melissa R Olt. (2002). 'Ethics and Distance Education: Strategies for Minimizing Academic Dishonesty in Online Assessment', Capella University. http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall53/olt53.html . Accessed 10/26/2007

Video conferencing and Google Docs

When first time I heard the word video conferencing, I perceived it equal to net meeting. Many people can easily conduct a video conference at his/her home PC or with a laptop. There are many advantages listed in the article: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-video-conferencing.htm . I have seen many video conferencing applications on our campus. For example, Faculty of Management frequently conduct/participate in video conferencing with other scholars in the U.S. http://www.uleth.ca/man/calendar/display.cfm#e60 I believe video conferencing not only save our faculties' time and money but also keep them synchronous with new discoveries from other scholars more "instantly". If I am a HR manager of a chain business, I will be more than happy to use the video conferencing to broadcast the staff orientation and educational materials to intend staff. The method no only can better to distribute the information, but also creates a sense of unity among the organization.

As I can understand, Google Docs is an online "Office suite". It combines the features from web blog and office application (e.g. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint). It is very attractive to online educators and learner. One of the great features I found is that the Google Docs is free of charge. It makes students more accessible to word processing software; even student can not afford to purchase the Microsoft office. In addition, educators can monitor online learners' activities in the Google Docs. It gives educator greater convenience to track and measure students' work timely. Teachers or managers will love to have responses or feedbacks from students or staff. Software such as Google Docs, bridge the communication channel between teachers and students or between managers and staff. It is a great opportunity to make the learning communities much closer.

Learning Objects

Many people have been using different learning objects nowadays, especially from multimedia presentations. I believe many management major students have been using the online center website to practices the exam problem. When teaching in the classroom, many educators try to make the content relate to the real live and make it fun for learner. There are many ways to make the learning more interesting. It is getting more popular that games embed learning objects in classroom, especially in K-12 education. This method could draw learners' attention on the learning process. Here is website (http://www.sanford-artedventures.com/play/caveart/) that educator could use game embed learning object to teach young kids in the classroom. In this learning object, educator could easily assemble different teaching materials and present them to students in an effective and interesting manner with less effort.

On the other hand, I am advocate of using flash learning object. Materials in a flash format could be even convenience than using other multimedia type. As I have mentioned in my previous post, I have been downloading different small pieces of flash tutorial from the web to facilitate my self-learning of Adobe Photoshop. I found it is very convenience this learning object is small in terms of its volume size and I could play back and forth on the flash to find the needed information. In the classroom, teacher could use a flash learning object with sound embed to present in the class. For example: http://www.theatlantic.com/slideshows/fallows-china/.

Text Processing

From my understanding, Text Processing is about to make the intended audiences to fully understand the message tossed from the author to the viewer. In education, it is about to make the learners crystal-clear with all learning contents. I have some insights after reading the article "Text Processing: implications for online learning". First, create a good miro- and macrostructure, we undergo this process is to make it the learning site much easier to navigate and the content could be easier to understand. It is similar in a writing course that the instructors always require everyone to write essays with strong coherence and smooth transition from one paragraph to another. Second, speaks in the readers' language when teachers composing the expository text. It is a good idea to link the new knowledge with learners' background and previous knowledge.

I had taken an online course before. As the first time in an online setting course, I felt I had fewer patients when I do a course an on-site. I don't like to read the long paragraph on the monitor screen, so every time I have to read through a long article, I printed them in a hard copy. In the previous online course I have taken, I feel uncomfortable with the long instructions on the web page given by the instructor. It took me very long time to read through many paragraphs until I could reach the main point of the instruction and got to know what exactly I need to do. In the online teaching web page, it is very important that to make the content short and right on the point and avoid the information overload. If the information on the web page could be shorter and concise, learner would be easier to grasp the gist of the knowledge and feel comfortable/confident in the learning process. In addition, online instructor could make the content more related to learners' back ground, so learner could be more familiar, comfortable with new knowledge and develop his/her thought smoothly. For example, in this module 3, Dr. Beauain give a instruction "1) Gives an insight into 'text processing' and how you think that affects you as an online learner or how this will impact the development of your web pages (for personal, school or business use)", this instruction gives management students opportunity to better apply personal experiences into new learning concepts.

In developing the web page for business use, the concepts from "Text Processing: Implication for online learning" could be well applied. For example, web developer should make a clear site map for reader to navigate the web. More specific ways of creating business web site could be found on the following link: http://jlconsulting.com/articles/key-elements-of-a-good-website.php

SDL and Online learning in management perspective

Thanks to the flexibility and autonomy, the online learning education becomes more popular in the high education. For example, online MBA gets more popular among many busy individuals in the world. As a result, Self Directed Learning also becomes a core topic in the online learning. Applying the management perspective on this topic, I believed educators should tailor/establish more personalized online learning environment/context to cater for different learners/group of learners' attributes and needs. Coincidently, it has the same purpose of segmenting target customers in the marketing strategy to better serve the needs of customers and successfully deliver the value to customers (learners/students). Motivation is a key in self directed learning. By making the analogy with the marketing promotion method, educators could see themselves as a marketer in the promotional campaign. Through out the campaign (delivering the online course), educator may use various method to give more incentives to learners to motivate them become less procrastinated and be more active/participated.

On the other hand, in order to motivate learner to be more Self-directed, educators could utilize more other media technology such as flash and vedios. Here is links to two web sites in Chinese language(Sorry I couldn't find any web site like this in English version) which provides free tutorials of using computer software.

• Flash tutorial for Adobe photoshop: http://www.jcwcn.com/swf/newflashplay86.asp?url=/swf/qilianshan/shouhui/yuncai/jiaocheng/&num=001

• Flash tutorial for version of Microsoft office 2007: http://www.enet.com.cn/eschool/zhuanti/offices2007/

Blog and online learning

Please click to enlarge the picture

I have known and used blog when MSN introduced its blog to its msn users couple of years ago. The original purpose for its existence was to let people establish an online community to network with his/her friends as well as to express personal feelings. Using the blog in the cloassroom is a new way to exploit the information technology. I believe the most significant feature of blog is sharing information in a most convenient way. In the tradition way of online learing/education, one wish to share his/her information with others, who has to email every individuals the sender want to share with. With bloging, one can host a virtual space with no monetary costs and can share the information with other users with minimizing the email exchanges. Thanks to the nature and the function of blog, the information is stored in an unique virtual space. It will insure the integrity and consistancy of information to all viewers and viewers or selected viewers could be notified when there are new updates on the blog. Online Learners would be benefited by receiving instant update notice which will reduce the lead time; therefore increase the learning efficiency and even makes the online learning/education much more flexible. On the other hand, blog could get students' voice in his/her community. Without face to face conversation and interatcton, on one extreme, a student who has very introverted personality might feel more comfortable communicating with peers or teachers in a blog instead of in a classroom settings. It helps teachers easier to get to know every students and students could receive fair attention from peers and teachers.

Bloging is not only serving and enhancing the quality of distance learning that learner with limited access to on-site learning, but also serving the on-site learners to make their education more personalized and efficient.

Welcome to my blog

Hi all, my name is Jimmy Yuan. I am a 4th management student, focus in Marketing and Human Resources. It is my last semester at the U of L. I am looking forward to start a new life in Calgary in January.