The eLearn Blog

An advantage to the classroom, for me, if that I focus on the teacher. When someone isn't a good teacher, certainly my mind wanders, but it's usually to what skills need improving. There are limits to what can be done appropriately in a classroom besides being attentive. Enter e-learning: does it encourage multitasking because students are on their computers, which is where they already spend time playing games, reading email, etc? In Paying Attention to Attention, Michael Feldstein and I wrote, "Multitasking is not only common - many practice it with pride." I know from my own experience how easy it is to be distracted by other demands on my attention.

A Boston Globe article, Multi-tangle, points out that working memory is limited and that everything we do, even the things that seem automatic (with the exception of what we can do in our sleep like breathing), tax the brain. The article goes on to point out that multitasking is becoming part of our culture; which brings me back to my question: does e-learning create a culture of multitasking?

Posted by Lisa Neal Gualtieri (Oct 28, 09 08:06 AM) | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

I find it fascinating to see who is reading eLearn Magazine. Our readers from July-September 2009 came from 176 countries and territories, the top ten being United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, India, Philippines, Germany, Spain, Malaysia, and Taiwan.

It is even more interesting to hear from them about how they found us and what they like. Linda Urban wrote:

Once again, I followed a link in an interesting sounding tweet related to online learning and found myself at an article in eLearn Magazine. This time, it's Mitigating Conflict in Online Student Teams, by Richard Dool, with some good solid suggestions based on experience working with teams. One last week I really enjoyed was Michelle Everson's article, 10 Things I've Learned About Teaching Online. And then there was the great experience of using the #lrnchat twitter meet-up, recounted by Dave Ferguson and Christy Petit, which opened up a whole new learning mode for me.

I continue to be delighted by the depth and breadth of knowledge that I find at eLearn Magazine. Thanks so much to those of you who gather and present this information - as well as to all the contributors!

Thanks so much, Linda, for letting us know what you've been reading and enjoying.

Posted by Lisa Neal Gualtieri (Oct 26, 09 08:13 PM) | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have been interested in the Kindle ever since Mark Notess wrote about it. As a book lover whose first job in high school was in the Brookline Public Library, I was unable to imagine the joys of curling up with a Kindle. Disclosure: I have never even held one, although I have seen some of the competing products. And my uncle told me that he got one for my cousin, Eileen, who loves it.

Okay, so maybe I am on the fence about using a Kindle for casual reading. What about for education?

The Boston Globe reported on the use of Kindles by 200 college students given free ones by Amazon.com. They found that "some students miss the decidedly low-tech conveniences of paper: highlighting, flagging pages with sticky notes, and scribbling in the margins." Students reportedly did not like the small keyboard and took fewer notes. They missed page numbers. It was hard to read on a dark early morning bus ride. Etc.

Pluses: the weight.

I wonder if a different design is needed to support students, and, if so, would the same one work for online students as those on campus or on the job?

Posted by Lisa Neal Gualtieri (Oct 25, 09 11:25 AM) | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

I never read Donald Schon's Educating the Reflective Practitioner but I just read a review of it. I was especially struck by "you as the master must make your thinking transparent to the learner."

This reminded me of when I took a mandatory course for parents when I enrolled my son in driver's education. I was not impressed with the instructor initially, primarily because of his response to my question about how to best teach someone to drive a car with manual transmission. He told me that everyone has automatic transmission and I should too. When I said that he hadn't answered my question, he restated his views on manual transmissions and my need for a new car. This did not make me highly receptive to his instruction, but I took notice when he said that the best thing to do henceforth when your budding driver is in the car is to voice your thoughts: How are the weather conditions affecting you, why are you slowing down, your concerns about the erratic driving of the car ahead of you, etc.

His point was that these generally unvoiced thoughts help the inexperienced driver, focused on basics, to taste the insights of years of experience. Transparent thinking. While Schon's book is not recent, making an expert's thinking transparent is not explicitly done in most courses, online or otherwise.

Posted by Lisa Neal Gualtieri (Oct 23, 09 01:14 PM) | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Having developed many online courses, I know what my thought processes are. But I rarely hear how others approach course design. There is a 3 minute video describing the Human Systems Explorer that I recommend; one of the best lines is from Dr. Michael Parker, Harvard Medical School, about how inhabiting the confusion can lead to good insights about how to explain complex material.

Posted by Lisa Neal Gualtieri (Oct 18, 09 10:58 AM) | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Quick: when you think downside to social media use, what comes to mind? For me, the first is time and the constant struggle I have with the illusive return on investment. The second - this is as an educator - is how much do I really want to know about my students? In general I love getting to know them as people, but I still remember the discomfort I felt at learning more personal information than I really wanted about a student who became my Facebook friend.

Managing Social Media Risks, by Bridget McCrea in T.H.E. Journal, covers another downside associated with the growing use of social media in educational settings: reputation damage. The article makes the excellent point that "many organizations and institutions prefer to ignore the problem" but that they should be active and diligent instead. Guidelines are mentioned, but they need to be created in a way that doesn't stifle the exact point of social media, and, of course, they need to be enforced.

I especially liked the comment following the article from David M. Adler, Esq.:

Many of our clients are asking for guidance on how to go about implementing social media as part of their online marketing strategy. First, we counsel clients to understand that employees are going to use social media with or without them. For companies seeking to leverage the social media frenzy the question is not "How do I control these relationships but, rather, "How do I leverage the value of all these relationships?" Second, we counsel clients to understand that they are building a social reputation, so it shouldn't be frivolous or uninteresting. Lastly, we counsel clients to focus on strategies that empower employees to become brand ambassadors, increase knowledge, share ideas and information and promote collaboration.

The rest of his comment is also insightful, and relevant to any organization, educational or otherwise. NIOSH is one of many organizations working through exactly these issues. But while organizations are dealing with social media risks, much of it still comes back to individuals. In the case of NIOSH, it's one person who tweets and hopes to continue doing so without too many restrictions imposed. And in my case, I'll return to my initial point: the biggest risk, I believe, is time management.

Posted by Lisa Neal Gualtieri (Oct 18, 09 09:44 AM) | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A chemistry teacher at St. Mark's School, a private secondary school, jubilantly told parents today that he gave online quizzes to students in the evenings because it freed up time in the classroom for teaching. The system he used (which he didn't specify) allowed him to control when a quiz started and ended so that all students took it simultaneously. This, he said, prevented the discussions that might occur if they were taking it at different times outside of the classroom. He furthermore said that he never handed out assignments now because they were all online. He could even tell how long a student spent on them.

What struck me about this was the mixed blessings this technology affords depending on perspective.

For the teacher, there are start-up costs: the effort of learning a new system and converting materials. Since other teachers didn't discuss this, he might be a rogue. Then, there are the benefits that accrue from freeing up class time and also not having to prepare homework handouts, not to mention that less paper is used (unless students print everything themselves). His assignments arrive online and he may have tools to assist with grading. Finally, at the end of a class, he presumably can save everything easily and without boxes and folders.

Not so many mixed blessings, then, but lots positive especially if there isn't a steep learning or conversion curve.

For the students, who are now taking quizzes as part of their study time, the attitude might not be as positive. The security aspect of this seems questionable because the fact that they take it at the same time doesn't insure much besides - well, that they take it at the same time. The online assignments seem valuable because there is less paper to carry or lose and because it is presumably easier to go back to see past ones. I don't know what students have at the end - and how easy it is for them to save all their work unless they print it. Often students lose access at the end of a class or when they leave a school.

For students then, there seem to be more mixed blessings, not solely advantages.

Finally, there are administrators who may be seeking solutions that reduce paper, increase security, or increase the amount of material covered in the classroom.

All technologies introduce trade-offs but they really only become apparent when different perspectives are considered. Generally decisions to introduce and use technologies are not made by students or even by teachers.

Posted by Lisa Neal Gualtieri (Oct 17, 09 04:15 PM) | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Allison Rossett made some e-learning podcasts that may be on interest to our readers. I haven't listened to them yet, so I'd like to hear your reactions. I interviewed Allison in eLearn Magazine and the funniest example she gave, in response to my question about what she finds exciting in e-learning, was in describing performance support:

The best way to appreciate performance support is to look at examples showing how it solves problems and elevates practice. I can remember twiddling my thumbs while waiting to do laundry in my dorm at college. When I wanted to do the wash, the washers and dryers were almost always busy, causing frustration late into the night. When I did get to it, the room-with scattered piles of laundry, wet and dry-disgusted me. This was the result of aggressive launderers, who chucked wash on the table if you weren't there to claim it. Enter e-Suds. The laundry process is civilized by introducing information and technology. USA Technologies installed Internet-based laundry systems on several university campuses. The system tracks the use of washers and dryers and then alerts students on the status of their laundry and the washers and dryers in close proximity via email, cell phone, or PDA . Imagine the benefits of knowing the "wash cycle is complete" on your load, or that a washer and dryer is available in Chavez Dormitory, floor 3, north end.

Posted by Lisa Neal Gualtieri (Oct 17, 09 03:59 PM) | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been thinking a lot about rapid e-learning.

Rapid e-learning is a new concept to me. My experience with and knowledge of e-learning comes more in the form of academic distant learning, and rapid e-learning, from what I gather, has more to do with corporate training.

Because I'm not very experience with rapid e-learning, I might have some naive ideas about what it is, what it means, and what it can or cannot do. On the other hand, because my understanding of it is not colored, I can look at it fairly objectively.

My big question is why is it called "rapid e-learning?"

I spoke with Tom Kuhlman the other day, vice president of communities at Articulate, and writer of the Rapid e-Learning Blog, which is owned by Articulate, but is surprisingly non-partisan.

"Rapid" can be a little bit of a misnomer, he told me. (Funny. I thought "learning" was going to be the culprit!) He even mentioned that the majority of rapid e-learning tools out there do little more than turn a series of PowerPoint slides into a Flash animation. The rapidity, he said, is the time savings of not having to learn Flash.

At the Online Learning Conference at Digital Sandbox two weeks ago in New York, I listened to a number of trainers and instructional designers from major corporations (JetBlue, Adobe, Kaplan) discuss the need to create "engaging" and "compelling" content quickly so it could be rolled out to hundreds of people who needed to learn a procedure, fast.

Some of the "e-learning" comprised nothing more than a few slides containing multiple choice questions. Some were adaptive. Some were not. To me, this screams, "assessment," not "learning," and I think it's important to distinguish one from the other.

I'll write more thoughts and reflections about rapid e-learning as I continue to learn how it's used and who uses it.

Posted by Jill Duffy (Oct 14, 09 09:55 AM) | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week I participated in my first twitter chat. #lrnchat happens every Thursday night from 8:30-10pm EST and is very active, started by @marciamarcia. While it has a theme for the week, people talk about a variety of learning topics. Saying the conversation flowed is putting in mildly; I found my heart racing while I tried to keep up with the discussion, especially to responses to my posts. It reminded me of IRC, which I used to teach with online in the 90's.

I highly recommend it to all learning professionals!

Posted by Lisa Neal Gualtieri (Oct 12, 09 01:26 PM) | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What do "Elvis' guitar broke down Friday", "even George Bush dances funny", and "every good boy deserves fudge" have in common? They are mnemonic devices memorized by two 10-year old girls (my daughter and her friend) in music class. A friend, Bill, who is a third grade teacher, mentioned the power of mnemonic devices recently at dinner, and my children chimed in with examples from science, math, and music. I remembered learning them in astronomy, but, as Bill pointed out, with Pluto's demotion some mnemonics are no longer accurate.

Others are short-term; I made up one for my husband when he had trouble identifying Laura and Lauren on his soccer team (LaureN has No bangs) and it worked immediately. And Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie's famous detective, used mnemonics to win memory games.

I still use "Thirty days hath September..." to know the number of days in a particular month (even though my cell phone has a calendar on it). When I looked up mnemonics online, I found countless examples I don't remember seeing before (did I learn them and forget?) None struck me as useful enough to memorize now, but I did wonder if mnemonics are more easily taught in the classroom than online. Any thoughts?

Posted by Lisa Neal Gualtieri (Oct 12, 09 11:55 AM) | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Toys are fun by definition, and we tend, alas, to have fewer toys as we get older and more serious in our endeavors. That was one of my thoughts as I read Laurie Rowell's latest contribution to eLearn Magazine about the uses of Flip video cameras for education. Not only did I want one to play with, but I started to see ways I could use them in my own teaching. As a proponent of storytelling, cameras and video cameras can certainly enhance sharing of stories. I encourage you to read the article and come up with your own ideas - and then try them out both as a way to play with new toys and to enhance your teaching.

Posted by Lisa Neal Gualtieri (Oct 8, 09 11:01 AM) | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've read a lot recently about recommender systems, which have been defined as "personalization tools that help users to find interesting information and services in complex online shops". Amazon is one of the best known sites that uses them, and they were smart enough to provide a bypass mechanism so that the present you bought on a topic only of interest to the recipient doesn't trigger new recommendations to you.

In e-learning, pretty much everything is online, providing massive amounts of data that can be monitored and analyzed. Yet I don't know of online courses that recommend "since you spent a long time reading that, you might also enjoy this" or even "here are some other courses you might find useful". Is it that the data is different, or harder to mine, than Netflix data; that students don't want or need recommendations; or that education is not a commercial venture (at least not in the same way as Amazon or Netflix) and the goals of recommender systems are not applicable here?

Posted by Lisa Neal Gualtieri (Oct 6, 09 11:47 AM) | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

You can learn math from Factoring with Mr. Yang in a comic-strip fashion. While I approached this course with cynicism, I found it surprising engaging (knowing that I am not their target audience).

In contrast, I started reading my first online book, The Twitter Book, available through Safari Books Online, a service the ACM provides members at no charge. As I read the book, I wondered how an online book is really any different than the electronic page-turner model of online education. Click, click, click.

Both the comic strip and the book are well-written. And both require you to click to get to the next screen. But the comic strip seemed to unfold in a way that the book did not. While reading the comic strip I never felt the compulsion to click through it like I did with the book and with many self-paced online courses. And I am more interested in expanding my knowledge of Twitter than refreshing my knowledge of factoring!

My conclusion: visual displays make an enormous difference. Do you agree?

Posted by Lisa Neal Gualtieri (Oct 4, 09 12:45 PM) | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)