• behaviorism—where instruction is teacher-centered, and assessments focus on knowledge rather than understanding. The learner is expected to demonstrate his knowledge by successfully completing tasks as instructed.
• cognitivism—where instruction focuses on transferring knowledge from the teaching environment into a real world environment by engaging the learner in active learning and drawing on their motivation and mental models.
• constructivism—where learners are never ‘taught’, but rather construct their own knowledge. Sometimes they are provided resource materials; other times, they must develop these as well.

As a corporate trainer, trying to develop my own philosophy of education seems a futile task. I would want my philosophy to be scholastically defensible, as well as a real tool for me to follow as I design and develop instruction. But as I have discovered over and over during the last two years,  the theoretical world of academia doesn’t always translate to the corporate world. Specifically as it relates to multimedia programs, courses or lessons, there are several over-arching considerations that drive the design and development, regardless of my personal philosophical position. They are

• My learners are employees. The only question the students must answer at the end of the day is “Can you do the job the way I want it done?”
• My learners are always distant from me, and their learning experience is 90% self-paced
• Many of my learners are not computer savvy, and may have slow or limited Internet access

From this perspective, Behaviorism is the closest model. My learners need to know the processes and procedures; my company needs to decide what those processes and procedures are. This isn’t an environment for learner-focused, collaborative, constructivist learning. At least from my company’s perspective…

But there is my perspective, too. As I stand before learners in some of my F2F classes, I see men (sometimes women) who have a very specific motive for being in class, who have a substantial prior mental model around our topic, and who are very adult in wanting to direct their learning. In class, I can draw on the alternative learning theories to exploit these traits somewhat; our class agenda is still strictly controlled by the needs of the company. My online courses are not multi-media…yet. Thinking forward, I find myself lacking imagination as to exactly which topics are appropriate for multi-media, and lacking some of the software skills to know exactly how I would develop them. So I’m left with a wish list, a philosophy I suppose, of how what I hope I could meet the needs of my company and provide value to my learners.

Here’s my list:

• The company must decide the core content of the program, courses, and lessons; however, students can direct and expand their learning through a library of Backgrounders and Primers
• Follow best practices for course and lesson development with respect to user control and content presentation, providing another level of non-behavioristic learning into program. As I approach a new topic, review the cognitive and constructivist theories and attempt to influence the course or lesson content or activities.
• Remember, remember, remember the stories and histories of my F2F learners. Design and develop for them, for their success, for their joy. In doing so, I have a better chance of contributing to my company’s bottom line as well.

Alessi, S.M. & Trollip, S.R. (2001) Multimedia for learning: methods and development. Allyn & Bacon. Needham Heights, MA.

- Equitable use
- Flexibility in use
- Simple and intuitive
- Perceptible information
- Tolerance for error
- Low physical effort
- Size and space for approach and use

(NCSU, 1997)

Accessibility focuses on how differently-abled persons experience, in our case, online learning, and what instructional designers/web developers can do to minimize the disconnect these users experience (USGSA, 1998 ).

When I consider the technologies that are commonly used in online education – asynchronous/synchronous, text, audio, video/image – most would fit into many of the ideas put forward by Universal Design. The one that really can’t be supported by online education is equitable use. I’m going to single out one of the guidelines for equitable use to support my position:

1b: Avoid segregating or stigmatizing any users.

I think this guideline includes economic access.

As I read the 2009 Horizons Report (NMC, 2009), it really bothered me that all of the technologies assumed that educational organizations and learners would have the economic means to develop, deploy, and access learning with these technologies.  I appreciate visionaries, but I have to wonder whether they are not just setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, saying that something will be adopted encourages the adoption of it.  Or manufacturers saying that buyers want certain features (and then giving it to them), regardless of whether the feature really is what the buyers ask for.  I know that this is how markets work, but can’t help feeling that it is to our detriment…somehow.

While thinking about how we’ve left economic access out of this question, I took a look at Digital Divide.org, an organization devoted to understanding and, hopefully, closing the gap between those who have this economic access and those who don’t. The web site lists 7 fallacies about the digital divide, and 9 truths that they have learned in the past decade of their research. Among the fallacies was that the key to closing the divide rested in investing in education and literacy. They feel that the emphasis on a ‘sensory’ experience of the web – use of image as symbol and voice, rather than text – reduces the need to remove illiteracy. I noticed that one of their comments about their research was

It took digital-divide researchers a whole decade to figure out that the real issue is not so much about access to digital technology but about the benefits derived from access. (Digital Divide.org, 2008)

So how can online learners, who don’t have economic access to technologies past basic access to a computer in a library that might still use dial-up to access the Internet, derive the benefits from technology in education?  What about those differently-abled learners who are also economically challenged? This quickly becomes a conversation of what is our moral and social obligations to provide equal access… a conversation that I feel wholly inadequate to consider, because I have such conflicting viewpoints. Digital Divide.org does present a reasoned discussion about why we should care, and why we will benefit, from closing the divide. I’ll leave the experts to carry on that conversation.

I just hope that as educational organizations seek to fulfill the visionary’s prophecies that they remember their users, and whether they have the $350 setup costs and $70/month access fees for such wonderful technologies as iPhones.

References:

North Carolina State University Center for Universal Design (1997). The Principles of Universal Design. Retrieved from http://www.ncsu.edu/www/ncsu/design/sod5/cud/about_ud/udprinciplestext.htm

United States General Services Administration (USGSA) (1998). 1998 Amendment to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Retrieved from http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?fuseAction=1998Amend

New Media Consortium & Educause Learning Initiative (2009). 2009 Horizon Report. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/CSD5612.pdf

Digital Divide.org (2008). Retrieved from http://www.digitaldivide.org/index.html

The primary problem with all three subjects is that they use HTML <frameset> as a way of structuring the web site. This was very surprising to me for the CSU-G portal, as I believe it receives federal funding and therefore falls under the Section 508 requirements. I suspect, however, that CSU-G is compelled to use frames as this section of the portal is actually hosted on the Blackboard.com domain. Using <frameset> allows delivery of content from Blackboard and still presents a unified portal to the student (access to library, student services, etc.)

I’m surprised that Blackboard is using frames because their market is academic organizations that fall under Section 508. Reviewing Blackboard’s statements about working towards accessibility seem to recognize that they understand this issue.

Other minor issues that I found included missing “alt” attributes on images, event handlers, hidden text, etc. Missing “alt” tags seems inexcusable to me, as they are 100% under the control of the web developer, and incredibility easy to work into the development process.

I also looked at my corporate LMS – hosted by Mindflash.com – with respect to accessibility. It uses HTML frames, of course that’s a no-no, but one that is unavoidable. Our biggest problem stems from using tables in Word to control the positioning of our images. We create content in Word, and the LMS converts that to HTML pages. The conversion process often places images incorrectly, so we’ve found that putting images into table rows controls that conversion process. Unfortunately, the screen readers pick up those tables as structure and attempt to read it as real data.  The images are also missing “alt” tags (of course). I’m not hopeful that I can find a way around this one – both with respect to Word and the ‘political’ discussion with my team about the need to support some level of accessibility. Our learners must be fully able-bodied in order to actually do the job they are learning about, so I have little, if any, persuasive powers for change.

Thinking about what I found showed me the truth in Gillenwater’s statement. Web accessibility is at the crosshairs of two powerful forces – the users who need the access (backed by their federal government who sees fit to use funding as a way of coercing compliance ), and the developers who must create it. Developers using Web 2.0 platforms (blogs, wikis, personal web sites), where a driving philosophy is that everyone is able to be an author/publisher of web content, are at the mercy of the platform publishers to provide some level of accessibility. Many of the other Web 2.0 technologies, such as podcasts and PDFs may also present issues for access-dependent users. WAVE displayed warnings for any type of linked content, Flash and forms.

Since many developers for online education are corporate entities, with their own set of economic constraints, it seems that finding accessible solutions may be low on their list of requirements. Given that the population of users who requires these accessible solutions is usually significantly smaller than those who don’t, I can’t find fault when portals like Blackboard come up short. On the other hand, I have family members who overcame challenging cognitive disabilities because their accessibility barriers were removed … at last. I watched this person struggle to receive an education worthy of his intelligence; an experience I’ll never forgot or take lightly.

Gillenwater, Z. (Producer) (2007, October 16). What does accessibility mean? [Episode 1]. Web Accessibility Principles. Tutorial retrieved from http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=448

WebAIM. (2009). WAVE (Version 4.x) [Software as service]. Available from http://wave.webaim.org/

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Lane makes a strong case for her complaints against the big app, Blackboard. I’m not sure that I can agree or disagree with her, however, primarily because of my 20+ year professional history in the software development industry where I have seen the gambit of well-designed and badly-designed applications, and my inability to see myself strictly as an educator. I use an LMS in my work as a content developer, and I found it challenging at the beginning. I’ve always chalked that bad experience to its confusing design, and my inexperience with this type of application.

Probably the biggest impediment to my indecision, however, is that I feel Lane is short-sighted in her message. Online education is not JUST about pedagogy…

• It is also about technology. IT departments have to make an application “fit” within the rest of their IT structure, and sometimes the best designed and supported application is the answer. Additionally, the technology questions are probably better framed as “architecture vs. vision of the institution” rather than the “features vs.usability” question.
• It is also about costs. In this respect, I agree that Blackboard is a trap.
• It is about usability. Applications designed to build on user’s prior knowledge – like how to author content in Word – recognize that LMS/CMS apps have a huge learning curve, and that one way to break down barriers is to tie into something the user is already comfortable doing.
• It is about change. Online education requires a different outlook on learning and teaching. Educators must reinvent their skills to work in this environment.

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There are several alternatives to the commercially available LMS/CMS. Here are two podcasts about alternatives

• Benefits and drawback of open source LMS/CMS
• Mobile learning – which I find very exciting as it put learning back into real-life context because the learner is no longer tied to a physical location.

Lane, L.M. (2008). Toolbox or trap?  Course management systems and pedagogy?  Educause Quarterly, 31(2), 4-6.

the theory and practice of design, development, utilization, management, and evaluation of processes and resources in learning (Seels & Richey, 1994:129, as quoted by Garrison & Anderson, 2003, Location 899.)

For me, Garrison & Anderson’s approach to defining technology in education as focusing on tools rather than techniques, seems practical, something that I can envision using in my work as a content/instructional developer.

those tools used in formal education to disseminate, illustrate, communicate or immerse learners and teachers in activities purposely designed to  induce learning (Garrison and Anderson, 2003, Location 916.)

This definition allows me to consider a wide variety of tools – like paper and pencil or a printed handout – not just the “cool tools” such as those found in Web 2.0. This definition also encourages me to consider the “learning problem” first, and avoid the temptation to just pick a tool that might be slick but not deliver the opportunity for inquiry that I want.

Community of Inquiry

Garrison & Anderson, 2003, location 808

Layered onto Garrison & Anderson’s definition of technology as tools, I also want to consider how the tools I choose foster and promote a community of inquiry. “Community of inquiry” is a conceptual model, originally introduced by Dewey, and adapted by Garrison & Anderson for 21st century distance education, which considers the social, cognitive and teaching presence of learners and teachers in the online environment. This community of inquiry works by melding the private world of meaning-making with the public world of knowledge. Learners read and reflect, and then bring their experience to the community where new knowledge is shared, explored, and integrated back into their own lives.

Social Presence, as part of the Community

A key component to a community of inquiry is social presence – the ability for a learner to make themselves known as a ‘real’ person, without the use of the normal visual cues used when we communicate with each other.  This ability is important because a community of inquiry requires a conversation among learners who respect each other. For it to be a quality conversation, it must move past the ‘pathological politeness’ (Garrison & Anderson, 2003, location 1319) common in online discussions, and reach a point where challenging questions and dissenting opinion are accepted without personal affront.

What tools promote this social presence? This is challenging, given that we rely so heavily on visual cues.  Garrison & Anderson (2003, location 1253) argue that text-based communications (email, discussion forums, group/individual chat), especially in an asynchronous environment, support the private ↔ public worlds that comprise a quality community of inquiry because text is more reflective, explicit and precise (2003, location 1259.) Within a text-based communication, learners can use typography (CAPS, highlights, etc.), word choice, and an open and cohesive writing style to bring their personality into 3-D.

Teaching Presence, as part of the Community

A facilitator’s role in a community of inquiry really takes on the mantel of the ‘guide on the side’ instead of the ‘sage on the stage.’ Probably one of the most important steps a facilitator takes is by beginning the class with Introductions. This begins to create the Social presence, described above, and sets the climate for the class.

In my experience, this side-by-side paradigm has been a somewhat unexpected pleasure.  I find that I see myself as more adult, rather than a plebe, which is congruent with the rest of my life. This has encouraged me to construct my own meaning and contribute to the community, rather than simply open my mouth as a fledgling expecting to be fed. My best experiences with facilitators have been when the facilitator provides a strong high-level review of the week and demonstrates their own engagement in our learning. I have been frustrated by facilitators who take on the attitude “it isn’t my content, I didn’t create the class”, although I recognize that many times they, in fact, don’t have much control over the content. Still, a facilitator who engages and brings their enthusiasm for learning will win the day for me over one who wrote the class.

Facilitators may have limited input into the choice of tools used to deliver the main content in their course. If the class is ‘pre-written’, they may have the option of adding additional resources (such as learning objects, current events, etc.) via weekly announcements, via the forum, etc. My opinion, based on my experience as a learner, is that the best facilitators – those who can create the climate necessary for a thriving community – will have exceptionally strong writing skills. They should be willing to contribute thoughtful assessments and forum posts, not just copy/paste from a rubric.

Garrison & Anderson, 2003, location 1389

Cognitive Presence, as part of the Community

Of course, the whole purpose of a community of inquiry is the cognitive outcomes – the changes in our knowledge and the meaning that we can make that affects our lives. This is why we choose to engage our time and efforts in an educational experience. Cognitive presence means facilitating the analysis, construction and confirmation of meaning and understanding within the community of learners through sustained discourse and reflection (Garrison & Anderson, 2003, location 1359.)

Core to cognitive presence is reflective thought – the higher order process involving reflection and conversation that includes creative, critical, and intuitive thinking. As illustrated in the image above, each “action” taken in a community of inquiry is based in some type of reflective thinking. It also involves both private (individual) and public (group) thought.

Tools that support the reflective thought process involved in cognitive presence are really limitless in my opinion. Although the public discourse will likely be limited to text-based communications, which as Garrison & Anderson have shown are appropriate and sufficient for a community of inquiry, the private acts of information gathering, reflection, and meaning making can support any type of tool the learner finds helpful. This supports an individual’s learning style, and gives the facilitator an opportunity to be a bit creative with the use of learning objects. If given the appropriate latitude to seek out their own information, a learner may choose to search YouTube instead of the Virtual Library, or to draw their own concept map instead of creating an outline while reading a text.

Conclusion

In my practice as an online content/instructional designer/developer (you know, one of those jacks of all HTML trade ), I am concerned with creating the best opportunity for my learners to gain the knowledge, skills, and context to do their jobs correctly and safely. To do this, I must understand the nature of this knowledge and how to present it. I must also understand the nature of learning and how to create the climate where it can flourish. The role of technology in this climate requires that I carefully consider which tools, how many tools, and in what situations I use these tools, so that they support the learners in their community of inquiry. It is the learning that is important, not the tools.

Garrison, R., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-Learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. Taylor & Francis e-Library. NY, NY.

“With the proliferation of information and the convenience of access to this vast ocean of information, it is the primary responsibility of the teacher to chart a way through this chaos, to provide order and create the conditions to encourage a deep approach to learning.”  (Garrison & Anderson, 2003, location 580)

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This quote from E-Learning in the 21st Century comes in a broader context that there are three domains that influence student’s perception of what it takes for them to succeed in a course – assessment, curriculum, and teaching (Ramsden, 1988, as cited by Garrison & Anderson, 2003, location 561.) The manner in which facilitators put themselves forward in these domains sends the one of two messages to students: be superficial with rote memorization, or be deep thinkers.

I am a child of technology. As the third generation in my family whose employment is/was based on their computer skills, technology as part of learning is like ducks and water. The WWW and a search engine  is no different to me than a yellow pad, a copy machine, and the Dewey Decimal system. They are all tools used in the same process that I’ve always known for learning – you have a question, you look for an answer.

No copyright claimed

The author’s point is about creating an environment where students create meaning from their knowledge, rather than just regurgitate lecture notes. How a teacher creates this environment in the Information Age apparently seems scary to some, but it just isn’t for me. As a learner, I am no different in this Age than my grandfather was before me. I must learn to evaluate sources of information on their merits. That, for me, is the essence of critical thinking. This is the role that I feel a facilitator should take.

And, from my perspective, there is no better lesson plan that experience. There is nothing a mother could say to her child about safe sex that isn’t learned the second he’s been told his girlfriend is pregnant. When I cite an unreliable source is the moment in which I learn not to trust everything I find on the WWW.  I don’t want a facilitator to tell me the source is unreliable; I want the facilitator to show me that the meaning I created from that information was invalid, irrelevant, etc.

Garrison & Anderson’s statement above, however, doesn’t come close to delivering the message about learning in the Information Age that screams from these two videos from Dr. Michael Welch at the Digital Ethnography Project at Kansas State University.

A Vision of Students Today

The problem, for educators, is not just access to information from a library on steroids. The problem is being relevant to our students lives in the Information Age. I’ve often thought about whether there have been previous generations of educators who have endured such a dramatic change in the educational environment as those of this generation. After viewing this video, I think the reality of life as an educator (which I long ago decided wasn’t really my cuppa tea) just overrode everything I thought I’d learned about teaching from this program. I may be a working adult, in an online program, but I am still in an ivory tower.  How can a modern educator even begin to touch the lives of these students ????

The Machine is Us/ing Us

I love this video – a history lesson, a ‘technology’ lesson, a sociology lesson, an anthropology lesson – all wrapped up in an excellent demonstration of what “Web 2.0″ means. Web 2.0 certainly offers many options for a collaborative, constructivist classroom, either online or F2F. Forward-thinking companies such as Google, Facebook, etc. are both creating a problem and solving it for us. They contribute to the WWW, which is changing the way our brains are wired, while at the same time showing us how to connect with our student’s lives. The challenge is for educators to not fear the technology monster, but to tame it.

References:

Garrison, R., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-Learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. Taylor & Francis e-Library. NY, NY.

But, I do have a BS in Geology; I’ve loved my studies of Botany, and Biology and Chemistry.  I nursed Tommy through 4 1/2 years of a very “technical” illness. So I haven’t given up trying to grapple with topics that try to explain how our physical universe operates and is governed. One of the reasons I haven’t given up is Richard Feynman. I don’t remember how, or when, I first heard of him, but I do know the effect he’s had on me. 

I’ve read, or attempted to read, most of everything that he’s published. I’m not sure how much my basic Physics knowledge has improved, but I absolutely have a better understanding of wonder and awe at our physical universe because of Dr. Feynman.

Bill Gates has obtained the rights to the Messenger Lectures that Dr. Feynmen delivered at Cornell University in the mid ’60s and has made them available to everyone through Project Tuva.  (Thank you, Bill!!!) I’ve started watching the videos and am glad to discover that the man I always imagined (while I read his words) is, in fact, quite close to the person he was. Maybe, like Bill has said, if I’d gotten to sit under Dr. Feynman, my experience with Physics might have been quite different. I guess I’ll get a chance to find out now.

I love the audio. The wind whipping past the mikes, the other birds off camera singing transports me to the Pacific Northwest.

Other cameras are available. Use this link .

Sunshine learned to watch out for himself at too young an age and I marvel at the strength of character and resolve that his chaotic childhood produced. He is making a life for himself I admire, and one I believe he enjoys. I miss holding him close, and seeing his happy smile and laughing eyes. But I know if I lived in the same town, his fledgling wings would not learn to fly.

When his life hits a bump though, I find myself wanting to go to him; to comfort him, and honestly, myself too. I want to rush in and rescue him and get him back into flying form. Instead, though, I need to trust in his strength. He’ll sort himself  soon enough. He always does.

I must still be studying this lesson in parenting.

I attended a 3-day workshop given by the Center for Digital Storytelling, which was an amazing experience. The purpose of the workshop was to help us learn to use digital technologies to tell a first person narrative. We also learned a bit about good storytelling techniques. Learning the technology(ies) was only about a third of the class. It was enough to give us an understanding of the basics, and some ideas as to what could be done, but it is not a workshop for technically-challenged persons. Participants must have some experience with either digital photography processing or with digital video processing…or come with someone who does.

The participants in my workshop were amazingly open people, willing to share deeply personal stories with complete strangers. I suppose there is some protection in that. I found their feedback on my story exceptionally helpful in finding ways to tell my story without being obvious. In other words, to let all of the elements–the images, the tone in my voice, the music, etc.–tell the story, not just my script.

This video is the result of the workshop

In Search of Sanctuary