Does Requiring Blog Posts Make People Learn? A Case Study

Okay, so here it is. The last of 15 posts required for the semester. I've changed my mind about this over the course of the past few hours.

Generally, requiring students to post improves the quality and educational value of the posting. I was wondering if I would just whip through posts to get them done in this class. In truth, I did just whip through several of them right in a row. However, I think I gained valuable insight from reading and writing the posts, and even if no one else from the class reads any of them I think they accomplished most of what they were intended to. I didn't really contribute to online class discussion if you count our class as "over" because I think I am the only one still posting. However, since the academic goals of our class were not limited to just a semester, it seems as though in some standards my posts are still valuable because they can still be read and responded to by others in the general blogging world, or by any member of our class who still peruses other class members' blogs from time to time.

Also, a side-note: I was a Writing Fellow for two semesters and have a whole soap box about how powerful writing is as a mode of learning. It is SO important and helps us in ways that verbalizing and reading cannot. I'm growing my belief that the writing required to communicate in a distance setting is one of it's greatest advantages. Especially if graduate school is all about publishing anyway, blogging is an excellent baby step towards entering official academic conversation.

So I've decided that requiring posts is a valuable approach to communities of inquiry. People need to reflect on what they are learning, and forcing them to articulate some of it will likely help them learn more, remember better, and begins to create the community of learners that is the goal of many distance ed programs. Anytime you get feedback on your articulations, you can improve and expand your thinking, so the interaction possibilities are very valuable as well. I've also decided that posting just takes practice, so requiring people and getting them started in posting will eventually increase their ability and possibly their desire to post on their own. In my opinion, the risk of compromising the posts because they are required is outweighed by the benefits of getting lots of people posting, reflecting, and refining their thoughts.

What do we do about the Fallacy of Self-Projection?

This is a comment from Walter Dick in regards to designing instruction: "...designers should not make design decisions based upon what they, themselves, would like, or what they think their own children would like. There is almost always a gulf between the designer and the learners. That gulf includes age, education, and experience. The only way to bridge the gulf in to spend time with the learners and their instructors. Enter their world rather than making them enter your own."

So how can you tell when you are doing this? In other words, I think I ALWAYS do this when I try to plan a lesson at my job or make instructional (or even organizational) decisions. I can't help but consider my own perspective when I try to imagine what the learner would experience navigating any setting. This is probably even worse in distance education settings because designers and teachers often have the LEAST amount of access to the actual learners. How can you enter their world when it is on the other side of the planet? I also anticipate that this "gulf" is biggest as far as the experience, particularly technological, is concerned. No matter how much you want to think you remember what it was like to learn how to use a computer, I don't think you remember accurately. People who know computer programs very well are often bad teachers because so much of their knowledge has gone underground into the implicit rather than explicit part of how to do something. (I've had similar experiences with professors trying to teach something and being unaware of how many unfamiliar words they are actually using.) And people who are designing instruction just get better and better at computers because they are exposed to them all of the time, unlike learners who might be first-time users every time.

I can see the problem with trying to imagine what it would be like if you were one of the learners, because so much of our development is unique that you will probably get it wrong. I hope this doesn't sound derogatory to anyone, but it is simply not the same for me to learn a new computer program, function, or feature as it is for my mom, and not the same for her as for my 92 year-old grandpa. I grew up with computers in my home and feel as though I haven't known anything different.

So, you can't assume your experience would be similar to the learners in an instructional setting. How do you solve this when you are designing?

Learn By Doing

I didn't think it was appropriate to complete a course about distance education without any experience as an actual distance education student, so I took matters into my own hands. I found a free course offered about family finances on the Church's website http://providentliving.org/media/training/peaceheart/main.html. I haven't finished the whole thing but I tried to evaluate how effective I thought it would be based on the circumstances of some people I know. Trying to imagine how they would respond to the course was very interesting and brought up some considerations I hadn't thought of previously.

Since money matters are often sensitive and private, I saw a huge advantage to being able to go through this course independently with no other known learners involved. People who would never want to admit publicly about their money problems could easily go through this whole course and learn valuable information without anyone knowing. At first I thought the course was simply audio over a power point, but going through it showed that the designers of the course have included several pictures with audio testimonials from anonymous people about how they applied principles to overcome financial problems. To a small extent, this could replace some learner-learner interaction as far as helping people recognize that others are experiencing the same circumstances.

The course also had audio and comments from church leaders about finances, and a general voice-over as the teacher. There is no two-way learner teacher interaction in this model but there are a few interactive features in the course such as a debt calculator where you can enter in your debts and your income, a question with a box to enter your own personal thoughts about some of the topics and a button to print them out (these could either be kept to yourself or submitted to someone else as proof that you completed the course), and debt-elimination calendars etc. So while interpersonal learner-teacher interaction is lacking, the learner-content interaction was actually more interactive than I thought it would be.

There is no video in the course and the pictures seem slightly lower quality. I don't understand a ton about computers but I'm pretty sure this must have been a conscious choice to keep the course simple and accessible to people with low bandwidth or something. It didn't seem to affect the credibility or my experience with the content very much.

Overall, I think it was a great example of how, with whatever limitations implied, this form of education can be highly effective for helping individuals receive instruction they would otherwise be unable to receive.

A Graduate School Victory

I was just reading an article by Walter Dick about instructional design and creativity and whether or not the ISD model so commonly used prevents creative instruction. He made some excellent points about how there will always be constraints with different value placed on them by different consumers, and that often come at the expense of each other. So there is no perfect design method that will excel in accommodating all constraints with no conflicts.

I thought this made a lot of sense in the distance education context. Some people/institutions really care about cost, and so distance ed might be the most cost-effective way to provide instruction. Perhaps this comes at the expense of learner-teacher interaction, which is often the most difficult to scale across large groups (thank you for pointing that out in your class presentation on Tuesday John). Others might really value a cutting-edge feel on a media rich environment, but that could come at the expense of simplicity of use for the less-technologically literate learners. It seems as though the trick is to be able to clearly identify and prioritize values and then communicate them well to designers. Dick also pointed out that designers must also be in a climate that supports whatever those valued constraints are. For example, if you don't have enough time or resources to make instruction creative, it does not necessarily mean that you can't or wouldn't design creative instruction. I liked that he pointed out management's responsibility to provide the correct design environment.

I suggest an alternative definition for creative instruction. The two definitions given in the article included instruction that keeps learners motivated while accomplishing the objections of instruction and instruction that engages the learners and goes beyond their expectations. These both seem somewhat limited. What about instruction that turns learners into creators? What about instruction that produces something as an end result beyond just a bunch of test scores.? I think creative instruction creates creators and creations. Learners are empowered to create knowledge out of raw information, interactive relationships with instructor and other learners, and solutions to problems and products out of processes. There is something highly motivating in exercising power of creation for any learner when given the right context.

Hence, our class requirement to "create" posts on our blog.

The Graduate School Victory is just that I thoroughly enjoyed and at least somewhat understood an article that I was not technically required to read and may or may not get credit for reading. That sounds more like a graduate student than much of my experience so far.

Perspective on Technology and Religious Education

"Unfortunately, while society may indeed be surfing upon the waves of a technological tsunami it is, nonetheless, in danger of drowning in a sea of information. Mankind's inner thirst for absolutes can only be quenched by Divine Truth and not by diffuse data-bits!" Frank Marangos wrote this in an article in 2003 entitled, "The Internet and Distance Learning: Plumbing the Well of Cyberspace for Religious Education." At the time of publication, he pointed out that over 2 million people daily were accessing the internet seeking spiritual or religious information. I would guess that number to be higher 6 years later just because more and more people have internet access.



Isn't that hopeful? That of all the information available on the Internet, many people are seeking out spiritual in addition to material or intellectual pursuits. All of the advantages of distance education suddenly seemed so valuable to me: that with great flexibility and independence, and at relatively low cost, "Divine Truth" as Marangos called it, is becoming more and more accessible. The new features on Mormon.org are one example of this. People who want to know about the LDS church can search the Internet and find a myriad of information. Some is true and some is misleading. But now, technology has enabled people all over the world to access the full-time missionaries and ask whatever questions they'd like to. Missionaries are not physically allowed in some places, but ANYONE with Internet access can ask questions they have to official church representatives instead of having to guess about the accuracy of whatever site they find.



It also made me think about the implied responsibility of all who use the Internet to say something: there is little good in producing just a bunch of "diffuse data-bits" that clog up our sea of information. (Many of you are probably thinking this blog sounds like a lot of diffuse data-bits right now). It seems as though in the cultural arts and in the sports world, people are willing to pay a premium to see the best talent, production, competition, etc. In the internet, where access is usually free, perhaps the only price we pay is our limited time given to reading whatever we choose. Hopefully I can 1) make meaningful contributions and 2) choose wisely what I give my time to while "surfing" our "sea of information" as Marangos said.

How much does Distance Education really cost?

A reaction to Joseph Pelton's article pointed out some things I had not considered about the cost of creating any kind of education. I was most interested in the concept that as new technologies develop, they also develop a need for maintenance that needs to be considered in the cost. It takes money to build a classroom, pay a teacher, and buy textbooks for students. Once you invest that in the educational experience, however, there is usually very little that must be done to ensure that the textbooks keep opening up every day and that the classroom doesn't fall down. Maintaining a classroom management system or my close to 4 years old Dell Latitude, however, could be so much more expensive that distance education is not a cost-effective solution at all.

This reminds me of another interesting issue we talked about in this course although I can't remember which class period it was. Essentially, we were discussing the same issue mentioned here about how if the students are still going to have a high level of teacher interaction, you have to put a teacher and their invested time in as part of your cost analysis for an independent study course. It becomes very time-consuming for university professors to design and then teach an online version of a class that they already offer in person. Teachers lacking the resources to instruct through online methods may be the biggest answer to the question of why universities are not currently offering more distance education options.

The role of writing in Online Learning Groups

I was interested in the comment by Carabajal et. al about trust developing in groups. Instances where an online learning group "surpassed the level of affection and emotion found in traditional face to face groups" were discussed. My first reaction to the thought of an online learning group would be that it is harder, not easier, to trust and develop personal relationships in a face to face group simply because we tend to make so many judgments about other people based on what we see, hear, and feel when we are in their presence. How people are dressed, for example, has a lot to do with whether or not we trust them.

In thinking about it more, though, I'm certain that seeing comments written out rather than hearing them spoken has a different effect on the recipient. The fact that the comments will be recorded and kept may make us more careful in what we "publish." For example, as bad as the comments I may on my blog may seem, they are more organized than how I usually speak in person about a topic because I have a chance to edit and adjust them before putting them in front of everyone else. Once they are printed on the blog, they are always available for review. If you don't understand what someone said, you either ask them what they meant or act like you understood it and move on in a verbal conversation. In a written dialogue, participants can still ask what people mean, act like they understood, or employ a third option of reviewing and rereading the comments to find deeper meaning.

I also wonder if interactions in the written word are more explicit and thus more expressive. If you want someone to know you are happy or pleased with what they did, you can just smile in person. You might tell them. Knowing that no one can't see me smiling behind my computer screen, I resort to more clearly articulating what I'm feeling and may even overstate it to make sure that everyone understands. This might be a reason that relationships could develop even better in an online learning group than in the classroom.

I think the biggest factor, though, is still something mentioned earlier in the article about how people are less inhibited in groups because there is more anonymity. If the online format gets more people to open up about their ideas and be themselves because there is less social risk involved, it promotes more true self interactions and might eliminate some of the shallow surface level discussions so common in face to face interaction. This seems like one of the best possible benefits of an online learning environment.

Developing Independent Learners through Distance Ed

I just read Bill Anderson's article about Independent learning in The Handbook of Distance Education. What excited me most was the comment on p. 117 that read, "…studies suggest that for students who learn in a distance education context, the ability to learn autonomously improves over time.” This seems like a hopeful perspective in relation to the observation towards the end of the article which stated that as more fields utilize distance education options, the types of students enrolled in distance ed will be increasingly diverse in their backgrounds as well as their skill set and their propensity toward self-directed learning. Since distance education is the ONLY option in some situations, Anderson pointed out that it will become imperative to help students develop their abilities as independent learners through a distance setting. He pointed out that a fair amount of study and practice has taken place regarding strategy development in face to face settings, but not in distance education settings.

I really liked the theoretical frameworks (if that's what we're calling them) presented in the article but want to understand specific applications better. So, if I'm designing a distance education setting, what do I do to promote and develop independent learning? How can I assess the students' independent learner characteristics early on in a course? What affordances would be most important to help students who are not already self-directed learners?

One of the only thoughts I've had so far is that web analytics could play a significant role in assessment of independent learning. Knowing how students are navigating an online course would be revealing. If you could see which students are using which resources and when, where students seem to get lost or stuck in a course format, etc., you would be able to discern who is most autonomous in their learning.

One advantage to a distance environment is that as students leave a "paper" trail of their questions, collaboration, and resource use, their independent learning strategies could become very visible. For example, if part of a class website allows free posting of questions by students, their efforts to ask and answer questions by each other would quickly reveal who the most autonomous learners are. Having students evaluate their own strategies for navigating the course might also help them recognize their level of independent learning and could allow them to make plans for improvement.

Garrison's Community of Inquiry?

Garrison addresses the social interations in a blended learning environment by saying that "Personal relationships may be an artifact of a successful community of inquiry, but they are not the primary goal. Sustained communities of inquiry are dependent upon purposeful and respectful relations that encourage free and open communication."

So here's my question...how is this different between adolescent and adult learners? Garrison asserts that academic community and engaged learning and discourse are the goal of a blended learning environment. While this might be the motivations of a PhD student, what about high school students enrolled in their required distance ed course, or the struggling student who is trying to graduate through a distance ed experience since the regular classroom attempts failed? I think that personal relationships, social interactions, and the sense of community that drive adolescents to facebook and other online communities may be an indication that the social CAN be more motivational than the intellectual for young learners. Especially when young people find themselves on daily defense and definition of their own identities, why not acknowledge that the desire and opportunity to learn might be the side show rather than the motivation on a socially interactive learning environment? I would love to hear some thoughts on this.

General Conference--The Ultimate in Distance Ed?

Today I thought carefully about General Conference broadcasts through a distance educator's eyes. Based on Moore's theory about the types of interaction, General Conference is an interesting mix of learner-learner, learner-teacher, and learner-content interactions.

General Conference consists of five two-hour sessions, where a prophet and apostles speak from a building in Salt Lake City to the whole world. There are over 13 million members of the church around the world, with many of these people tuning in through radio, satellite, or the internet to listen to the speakers. These people may or may not be f2f with others in the same room tuning in at a distance. In truth, many of the people actually get a better view of the speakers on their TV's or internet than those who attend f2f in Salt Lake City due to the sheer size of the meetinghouse.

Who do we consider the teacher in this setting? If the speakers are considered the teacher, it is important to note that the only immediate feedback they can observe from those being taught is whether or not they hear laughter at their jokes or an amen at the end of their remarks. Almost no option exists for finding out whether people are receiving the messages being sent. So the learner-teacher interaction should more accurately be labeled the teacher-learner interaction because it is so one-directional. Learners can receive the content but that is all. And the teachers have personal relationships with practically none of the people they are speaking too. If we consider the Godhead as the teacher, (God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost), then we know that individualized learning is occurring with millions of people simultaneously because 1)God knows the needs of each of his individually learning children and can teach them plainly according to their own understanding and 2) the Holy Ghost is not bound by limits of time, attention, or energy like a human teacher is. This is an interesting illustration to me of the principle described in the Church's missionary manual Preach My Gospel: "The Holy Ghost is the power by which we teach and learn." So highly effective learner-teacher interaction is going on during General Conference, but the teachers would be pretty helpless without the medium of the Holy Ghost.

At first I was surprised to realize the effectiveness of General Conference as distance ed based on how relatively limited the technologies involved are and the massive number of learners. Then I considered that much of the learner-content interaction and especially the learner-learner interaction occurs after the actually conference is over. We hear the content once as learners, but review talks for months afterwards individually as well as in church classes, home and visiting teaching settings, and family home evenings. And although the powerful experience of watching conference establishes instantly an expanded sense of the community aspect of the church, that aspect is reinforced in the weeks to follow as everyone in the church is talking about the same speakers and same principles discussed in the five sessions that occurred months ago. Once it occurs, conference becomes part of an existing culture in the Church that greatly facilitates its review and application. Most of this church culture happens face to face.

In general, then, (he he he), General Conference is not standalone distance ed. It is a distance ed experience that blends in with a largely face to face learning environment, at least for the learners involved. My takeaway from trying to articulate this perspective is that in any situation where I'm seeking to teach ANY content, whether at a distance or face to face, I should strive to enlist the Spirit to compensate for inadequacies in technology or my own pedagogy.

What collaborative and individual structures has the Lord given us? Going back to our discussion about types of interactions, it's clear that we've been provided avenues for learning with and by other learners as well as learner-teacher interactions.

The family is God's primary learning unit. In an ideal setting, all other formats for learning support family learning rather than supplant it or replace it. The family is a mini model of God's family, which includes Heavenly parents and all of God's children. Earthly parents can act as more knowledgeable others mentoring their children in the process of becoming like God. An immediate family unit is a subset of the large community of practitioners in which each of God's children are apprenticed and striving to become like him. I have never been a parent, but my understanding is that parents often learn as much from their own children as children are learning from their parents. This is an almost constant, permanently built in form of learner-learner interaction. Families are also responsible as a team unit to accomplish the task of returning home to God. Children are accountable to help each other and their parents learn and live the principles of the Gospel.

Every auxiliary of the church also facilitates collaborative learning opportunities. Serving in any calling requires working with others, for others, and sometimes on others. People don't receive training before these opportunities--they receive it during these opportunities, implying that the learning will happen in the experimental lab of life. I believe this is what we accepted when we chose to participate in the plan of salvation--that we would act, and that we would also at times be acted on by others. The church is commanded to meet together often and to strive for Zion, which is a community state as well as an individual one.

This doesn't, however, remove the responsibility to "work out your own salvation." We are commanded to have PERSONAL prayer and PERSONAL scripture study, which are activities inviting instruction from God Himself. All ordinances of salvation are also individual events. We take the sacrament one person at a time, receive baptism and confirmation one by one, etc. Even though we often attend the temple in groups, the learning in the temple is on an individual basis.

Response to Readings from 1.6.09

What is the difference between a conceptual article and a theoretical article? These two words always seem to be hanging around each other in the same sentence like Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumb but I don't know what the difference is. I looked up concept in the dictionary: A general idea or understanding, esp. one derived from specific instances or occurrences; a notion or thought. Then I looked up theory: a system of assumptions, accepted principles, and rules of procedure devised to analyze, predict, or otherwise explain the nature or behavior of a specified set of phenomena; an assumption or guess based on limited knowledge or information.

So it sounds like a conceptual article presents ideas derived from observations of specific experiments or settings. A theoretical article sounds like concepts organized and strung together and accepted as a system, still based out of observations, but with a more descriptive and possibly predictive function. It seems odd to me that theoretical articles should be inescapably related to application and suggestions for practice. Why would you talk theory without application? However, both articles suggested that we have few articles published about distance education that directly address how-to's for distance education based in sufficient research.

The most interesting comment I found was in the second article (from Handbook of Distance Education) which said, "It is evident that publication of experimental research in the field of distance education is not yet held to the standards of experimental research in other fields of social science." I found myself wondering why it would be different in distance ed than in other fields. Is it possible that if your new idea is flashy/interesting/groundbreaking enough, people will pay less attention to your methods or even the specifics of your results? Today in my 652 class about assessing learning outcomes, my professor quoted Dewey as suggesting that when we get into the realm of things that are difficult to assess in education, we still attempt to improve through creating activities or events. We simply make decisions based on what we believe will be somehow beneficial. This sounds like distance education...until we've figured out exactly how to measure and test what parts are effective, we just keep trying stuff that we think is beneficial.