Jane links to an interesting article on developing an organisational LMS without splashing out huge amounts of dough.

Now I know nothing about the organisation in question but when the key criteria they were looking for are summarised as:

“1. More effective tracking and reporting of training activity
2. Ability to assign modules to individuals, groups, or company
3. Ability to provide on-line testing
4. Ability to associate required training modules with annual certifications
5. Ability to create pre-requisite training
6. Ability to capture on-line and instructor-based training
7. Ability to provide managers with access to training activity for their direct reports
8. Ability to link to our training records in our HR system”

leading to…

“1. Launch On-Line Training
2. Training Management
3. Certifications
4. On-line testing
5. Technical Training
6. New Hire Orientation
7. Supervisor Technical Development
8. Leadership Development”

I get a bit depressed. To tell the truth I’d love to work in the corporate sector but it seems like the lines between learning and training are as defined and clear as ever. It seems like a corporate LMS is basically accepted as being a content delivery platform, incorporating computer-based testing which then integrates nicely with HR records / tracking.

Apart from simply meeting obligatory (e.g. H&S) training (the regulators will figure out that this doesn’t work eventually and things will have to change) I really don’t see the use. HR & Managers can track which components have been completed but that more often than not means nothing other than the person in question is OK at completing online modules.

Learning is about what goes on inside and between people, it’s based entirely in reflective, cognitive exploration and social, communicative expression. These don’t help, they are just admin.

[via Ray] Marina Sapozhnikov writes in tech learning that it’s All Quiet on the Discussion Front.

” * “I hope you realize the importance of online collaboration.”
* “Participation in online discussions constitutes a significant portion of your course grade.”
* “Now that the initial stage of confusion and uncertainty has subsided, I would like you to become visible in the course by starting to participate in the Discussion Board forums.”

Postings like these may sound familiar to online instructors who are teaching classes comprised of non-native students.”

She puts it down to, ahem, “cultural limitations and differences” (ouch, sounds like the author is the one with the limitations!) and prescribes the use of collaborative projects, setting clear expectations and grading policies and the rather vague creation of “a learning environment that fosters collaborative learning and “creation of a network of distributed intelligence” (Hamilton & Zimmerman, 264)”.

I’m coming at this from two different angles though, firstly I don’t think that the opening quotes are at all only the preserve of the ESL teacher or teacher dealing with non-native English speaking students… I think that teachers across the spectrum using discussion boards would appreciate it!

Secondly and more importantly is this annoying & oft repeated little ode to discussion boards:

“Discussion forums, with their excellent opportunities for constructing knowledge through collaboration, provide plenty of room for such sharing. Thus, it becomes an important task of online instructors to promote active Discussion forum participation of all students regardless of their cultural background.”

Says who? I think it’s fairly obvious from the tone of the article that it is in fact rather difficult to get ‘sharing’ going in discussion forums. Why do we spend so much time questioning the ways in which we can use discussion forums to get these collaborative results? Let’s try to be critical and look at the tools that we have, we’re trying to peel potatoes with a fork no?

D’Arcy’s been a playin’ with WordPress 1.5 and finds out it supports enclosures no problemo… just as well considering what I’ve been planning on using for the Fireside Chats! Phew :O)

Am spending this week off with the girls (summer hols before they start pre-school / prep) so will most likely be posting lite (if at all) but not off email. Am looking forward to Fairies in Fitzroy Gardens, The Wind in the Willows (maybe) at the RBG (maybe, it’s a bit pricey…), splashing about in the pool tomorrow (going to be 37, phew) and just hanging out :o)

The Blogtalk Downunder website, hosted by incsub and put together by yours truly (hence the dodgy bits ;o), is now online… check it out!

We’ll announce the invited speakers over the coming weeks (and we’ve got some WICKED invited speakers) and we’re hoping to publish all the papers progressively prior to the conference through the site… so grab a hold of the RSS feed straightaway! And as if that wasn’t enough we’ll be podcasting the presentations, aren’t we the bloggiest :oD

-We’ve also been extra kind and will provide email updates for those non-rssy types, you can subscribe at the site or below:

email:


The conference itself is going to be fantastic, we’ll be in the centre of Sydney in the beautiful Aussie autumn (great time to visit the reef and fnq too, if you fancy adding on a week) kicking off with some engaging workshops, followed by two days of papers, invited speakers, panels (and a potentially marvellous conference dinner!) and winding up with a uniquely Sydney-based Blogwalk on the Sunday… if I told you any more I’d have to…

So please spread the word and the call for papers (html or pdf), get cracking with your abstracts (not long left, you need to get them in by JANUARY 31st!!! and we’ve already had a good response!) and get under here!

And remember, it’s a triple blind refereed conference so that means DEST eligible… you have no more excuses.

Well deserved, arstechnica name WordPress web application of the year, come on over all of ya :o) [via Wordlog]

Unfortunately I don’t have time to really get in-depth with the results of the ad hoc research that preceded my communication dynamics paper at ASCILITE in December (results posted here (and here in .doc) anyone who wants to have a more thorough look please feel free to do so!) but I think I can come to some rough conclusions…

If I can assume that the audience was fairly representative of tertiary education in Australia and New Zealand then it’s probably fair to say that:

1. Moreorless all Aus & NZ tertiary institutions use one or more Online Learning Environments (OLEs)

2. Around two thirds of these instances are WebCT or Blackboard who collectively have a presence in around 70-80-% institutions (often multiple OLEs are used)

3. On the whole teachers are ‘supposed’ to use these OLEs for the distribution of content (25 explicit mentions out of a sample of 44) and online communication (20 explicit mentions)

4. In terms of online communication over 90% of institutions use discussion boards (with around half of that also using email)

5. The aim of using these communication tools is varied, however from the 44 respondents there were explicit mentions of community (14) , deep & higher order learning (12), collaboration (9), greater interaction & participation (9), engagement (6), sharing (6), empowerment (4) and reflection (4). It’s probably fair to say that cognitive presence and social presence are what we are striving for.

6. On the whole people are dissatisfied, when asked ‘How’s that going’ (to their previous answer) 18 responses were negative, 16 unsure or not particularly positive or negative and only 5 positive.

Simply put, I read this as meaning that despite the maturity and 100% adoption of OLEs, the understanding that teachers are to use them for online communication and the ubiquitous adoption of the discussion board, teachers in Tertiary educational institutions in Australia and New Zealand are unsure of or unhappy with (or both) the results.

Why?

Well, you can argue that people are slow to use online technology, which is probably fair enough, but…

That often gets extended to the argument that teaching online is different from teaching face to face and consequently people need a heap of new skills, which IMO doesn’t cut it (good teaching is good teaching, good teachers action research, adapt and develop ALL the time in different contexts).

And much more often that teachers need more training, more PD and more support … which would be valid if we were talking about, say, a new industrial machine / complex administration system or similar, but we’re not. Do most teachers need training in using email? Howabout in browsing the web? Or using a search engine? Or writing a comment on a weblog (go on try below, tell me what you think!)?

Well, OK, that’s not entirely true because, fact is that teachers do need training in using most big co. OLEs (because they’re so complex / unintuitive), and we do need all the Gilly Salmon’s of the world to explain how we might use discussion boards because it’s a hell of a struggle to facilitate any kind of social or cognitive presence with them whatsoever!

And the problem is that we blame ourselves, we try and learn 5-step models, set up comprehensive APD programs and await the student evaluation scores with fear or not at all (as we’ve had to be on the boards night and day for the last semester to get anything happen and are soooo bloody tired). But IT’S NOT OUR FAULT.

The problem, I reckon, is the design of these OLEs and more specifically the design of the discussion boards… not just the ‘type’ of discussion boards that they happen to be but the social, communicative and cognitive design that is inherent within them by the very nature of them being discussion boards. They have been around for a very long time (technology speaking), they are available in every Australian and New Zealand tertiary institution to every teacher and they have been overwhelmingly used as Q&A areas (which, incidentally, is what they’re pretty good for) or not at all. If we are going to start to achieving anything close to what we would like to in online teaching and learning we’re going to have to go back to the board (so to speak) and ask ourselves whether we’re going to get there with the tools we’ve got and if not what are the tools we need?

Communication dynamics: Discussion boards, weblogs and the development of communities of inquiry in online learning environments