Grainne Conole paper on Learning Design
In a nutshell, the challenges faced by teachers while designing for learning are:
Priya: "All the four users I interviewed [for her Module 1 project on Cloudworks] believed that learning designs are heavily dependent on the context and so, they cannot be shared or reused much"
Seema: "Learning Design Tool provides a more standardised framework allowing designers to pick the right tools considering range of factors such as level of learning outcome (Knowledge acquisition-understanding-problem solving), level of guidance(high –medium-low), content focus (information-application-evaluation), content application (procedural-interpretive-creative), learner freedom (low-medium-high), learning form (practising-choosing-designing), learner preference (teacher centered - working with peers- learner-centered) and different type of engagements.
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Daniel paper on Social Capital
Michelle: [social capital] has been described as a composite of norms, trust and networks that enable participants to work together effectively to pursue shared goals...Daniel suggests that for virtual learning communities that it is conceptualised as ‘a common social resource that facilitates information exchange, knowledge sharing and knowledge construction through continuous interaction, built on trust and maintained through shared understanding’
Benefits/Drawbacks of Social Capital
Benefits have been identified in terms of traditional communities that include
The future potential role of research using interdisciplinary research approaches to research social capital in online resources is described and a list of 8 future research points is included.
Ayman: I agree that we're somewhere in the middle because virtual learning environments with all the technology available could not bridge the gap (f2f) from the social perspective. I think that's exactly one of the researchable areas mentioned at the end of the precis. Research in this area is still not mature enough to compensate for the social effect from face-to-face interactions. I can prove that by how our own relationships changed dramatically after the first residential and then the second residentail. We felt so good we asked for a third didn't we? Technology is so great in automating routine tasks of the learning process, but has it never made it up for how we trust one another just by being over the wire.
Sean:
VLC
F2FCoP
DCoP
"Daniel does note, ““Lave and Wenger (1991) and Brown and Duguid (1991; 2000) observed that shared language and codes facilitate individuals' abilities to gain access to people and information, but when individuals do not share language and codes, they can fail to come together…they also warned about the dangers of having well defined community boundaries, which can make it difficult for a community to integrate new members and assimilate new knowledge into the community from other communities (Wenger, 1998).”
Sean: "I am also beginning to see the importance of temporality as just clarified by Don (perceptions and focus on time). Is temporality an issue for individuals in a DCoP or the DCoP itself? I would assume that a DCoP as an entity would have medium- to long-term goals, but does that mean participants in the community need to? If membership is fluid or has a high turnover rate, would there be an impact on the temporality of the DCoP".
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| The five overarching themes on design approaches and methods |
In a nutshell, the challenges faced by teachers while designing for learning are:
- the rapid pace of technological change and range of pedagogical approaches causing confusion in adoption of suitable technologies and pedagogical approaches
- the increasing size and diversity of the student body
- the increasing requirement for quality assurance
- technophobia
- lack of time to explore the use of technologies resulting in lack of awareness of different possibilities
- aversion to the risks inherent in experimentation
- fear of being supplanted by the computer
- low levels of dissemination of ICT-based learning projects
- lack of ICT-based learning examples to model
- lack of support and training
Priya: "All the four users I interviewed [for her Module 1 project on Cloudworks] believed that learning designs are heavily dependent on the context and so, they cannot be shared or reused much"
Seema: "Learning Design Tool provides a more standardised framework allowing designers to pick the right tools considering range of factors such as level of learning outcome (Knowledge acquisition-understanding-problem solving), level of guidance(high –medium-low), content focus (information-application-evaluation), content application (procedural-interpretive-creative), learner freedom (low-medium-high), learning form (practising-choosing-designing), learner preference (teacher centered - working with peers- learner-centered) and different type of engagements.
-------------------
Daniel paper on Social Capital
Michelle: [social capital] has been described as a composite of norms, trust and networks that enable participants to work together effectively to pursue shared goals...Daniel suggests that for virtual learning communities that it is conceptualised as ‘a common social resource that facilitates information exchange, knowledge sharing and knowledge construction through continuous interaction, built on trust and maintained through shared understanding’
Benefits/Drawbacks of Social Capital
Benefits have been identified in terms of traditional communities that include
- Resolving collective problems more easily
- Facilitation of community advancement
- Making interactions more enjoyable
- Facilitation of dissemination of information
- Reducing selfish behaviour
- Encouraging behaviour that is socially acceptable
- Improving educational and health outcomes
- Minimising cost and bureaucracy
- Bridging cultural differences
- Enhancing trust and solidarity
- If the social capital is high within communities, it may limit inter-community communication as allegiances to one’s group may be negative e.g. criminal organisations.
- They may be so cohesive that they exclude others from entering e.g. nepotism
- Sometimes the reach of social capital is overstated resulting in the inappropriate analysis of the potential benefit/limitations
The future potential role of research using interdisciplinary research approaches to research social capital in online resources is described and a list of 8 future research points is included.
- Social capital lacks clear definition and consequently, it is difficult to develop concrete measurement scales.
- Social capital is a complex construct that is a mixture of more primitive variables like trust, reciprocity, cooperation, shared norms and shared understanding. There is lack of a clear, concise and consistent framework for understanding which of the contributing variables are most influential, and how they interact with each other.
- Studies have shown that social capital emerges from interaction and it depends on the characteristics of individuals and groups. Nonetheless, it is not clear what the key characteristics of individuals and groups might be that can contribute to the development of social capital.
- Research on social capital mainly assumes that social capital is correlated to positive, pro-social outcomes, but such research ignores the negative ways that social capital may be manifest.
- Social capital depends on different levels of trusting relationships. However individuals in virtual communities are geographically and culturally distributed and often have different levels of knowledge and skills. Since these individuals span space, time, and cultures, they have little knowledge of others beyond assumptions and stereotypes. A lack of sufficient information about others hinders individuals' abilities to develop trust.
- Trust primarily develops through interaction in face-to-face encounters. There are limited computational tools that can augment, promote and maintain trust in virtual environments.
- Social capital has been applied to understand different social issues but there is no work done on the effects of social capital on learning in more traditional environments, technology-based environments or "blended learning" environments.
- Social capital depends on other variables such as cohesion among individuals, but few studies correlate the influence of cohesion on the overall social capital in a group.
Ayman: I agree that we're somewhere in the middle because virtual learning environments with all the technology available could not bridge the gap (f2f) from the social perspective. I think that's exactly one of the researchable areas mentioned at the end of the precis. Research in this area is still not mature enough to compensate for the social effect from face-to-face interactions. I can prove that by how our own relationships changed dramatically after the first residential and then the second residentail. We felt so good we asked for a third didn't we? Technology is so great in automating routine tasks of the learning process, but has it never made it up for how we trust one another just by being over the wire.
Michelle: (from her Module 2 paper) Virtual learning communities are formalised,
focus on learning goals, often have a defined and limited lifespan and
fixed goals. Distributed communities of practice are commonly associated
with higher levels of trust, shared understanding, informal learning
goals, a life-span that is determined by the value of the outcomes for
members.
Sean:
VLC
-
- We begin as individuals with a goal
- Join the PhD in E-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning programme
- Programme has pre-planned and fixed goals
- Domain specific
- Individual learning needs
- Social interaction based on learning needs and/or community requirements and support by VLE.
- VLC exists in pre-defined VLE
Social capital
Trust, cooperation, shared norms and shared understanding maintain(?) VLC.
Influences participation
-
- Temporal (physical)
- Required residential
- Student/faculty adhoc meet ups
- Lancaster University Faculty & Admin Staff
- Interactions with students
- Interactions with other staff members
Social capital
Trust, cooperation, shared norms and shared understanding built in VLC, encouraging further means/needs for interactivity.
Leads to possible formation of new communities.
Feeds back into VLC
DCoP
-
- Informal learning goals
- Life spans determined by value community provides its members
- Multiple VLEs & F2F meetups
- Moodle, Mahara, Edumodo, international F2F meetups
Social capital
Trust, cooperation, shared norms and shared
understanding built in VLC and F2FCoP, encouraging further means/needs
for interactivity.
Leads to possible formation of new communities (i.e. F2FCoP, DCoP).
Feeds back into VLC and F2FCoP
Sheila: "I'm thinking very specifically of an online course I taught last year where three or four individuals had much greater social privilege than others in the class (who were more typical of the usual student population of this first-year introduction to literature class). The individuals with greater social privilege were engaging on a much more critical level than the other students, most of whom were still struggling with basic literary analysis. The central characteristic of this online environment became much more critical and competitive than similar courses I've taught in past semesters. And I'll admit that it was a pleasure as an instructor to have students engage at this level, but I did think that it served to alienate many other students in the class who could not contribute at the same level. "Alienate" may be too strong a word, but the gap in that particular class was quite profound.
"Daniel does note, ““Lave and Wenger (1991) and Brown and Duguid (1991; 2000) observed that shared language and codes facilitate individuals' abilities to gain access to people and information, but when individuals do not share language and codes, they can fail to come together…they also warned about the dangers of having well defined community boundaries, which can make it difficult for a community to integrate new members and assimilate new knowledge into the community from other communities (Wenger, 1998).”
Sean: "I am also beginning to see the importance of temporality as just clarified by Don (perceptions and focus on time). Is temporality an issue for individuals in a DCoP or the DCoP itself? I would assume that a DCoP as an entity would have medium- to long-term goals, but does that mean participants in the community need to? If membership is fluid or has a high turnover rate, would there be an impact on the temporality of the DCoP".
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