how-do-we-use-the-wiki-as-a-faq

Alternatively should there be an hierarchy of content links that helps students navigate tothe content they seek.

One way of getting around this the wish to have students read what you want them to is to send them emails with the important announcements in a regular ( perhaps daily email summary of links).

What do you think should there be a centralised repository of changing information like our blog or should the important information be sent out to student by email?

You might also answer  where you think the most prominent place on a website is for instructions or info on what to do or how to do it. That is should students have access to announcement pages to announce their findings tot eh rest of the class if that was requested of them?

This has been a bit af an ongoing issue perhaps because of the diversity of environments that are now available to the =

This idea of  simpler technologies not imposing distracting extra cognitive load on learning - was one of the points we were looking at in last weeks LMS online discussion in session 5  - the argument summarised there went that the simplified form filling of wikis and blogs allowed online communication between people on the web for learning ang other things - without them having to learn how to make web pages to communicate - so the assumption or implication is (not agreed o by all) is that learning about web page design is becoming a thing of the past. This is despite my own efforts  to in elluminate how to make webpages using Komposer and css templates last week. (it became  a difficuly task when I could not find the template site).

But for now just to get past the password resetting problems first - an alternative to the way that has been tried by many in thir emails to me - that is different is to go to this address
http://edublogs.org/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword

and then enter your username or your university email address

Then wait to see if the email comes through to your student email address at the uni with a new password rather than a reset page link (give it 5-10 minutes) and make sure to check your junk / spam mail box too!

Use the new password and then go to the instructions in our own wiki to change the password to something you will remember more easily.

But I also did want to emphasise that there have been recently enormous breakthroughs in the simplification of making web pages via Web 2.0 software - and that the resetting problems encounter by some might seem to be off putting enough to say that maybe this simplification may to some extent still gets in the way of learning much like learning web page design and there is still a requirement for lots of calm persistence and patience and supportive cross suggestions for solutions or possible other simplified methods.

So even the simplest systems like those at edublogs need some explaining for people/students to become comfortable enough with for them to use them for learning.

The explaining might be considered to be like the practicial tutorials that I have suggested (there are also possible theory based tutorials you can do as well)  for assignment one - There are of course many ways that these tutorials might be made available or done but they should attempt to be as non intrusive and easy to follow and access as possible and again not step in the way of the real content learning. 

So a design feature you might be hoping to achieve is make instructions or tutorials as  transparent or invisible asossible  - that is to say so that the requiremetns of the technology do not get in the way of learning the thing or area of content that is the real focus of the online learning. ( We are lucky in this subject our whole purpose is to look at these technologies and see how useful or how distracting they are.

But when something like this free blog site at edublogs sends out  reset password messages that do not work when the user follows the instructions given then we need to ask are we still at the point of having to teach technology first before teaching other content.

What do you think? How off putting is it ? and maybe what suggestions do you have for how we get around these sorts of issues or technological glitches?

This is a sort of extreme example of the establishment of a social presence that was probably not there in real life or the f2f environment. It is discovered or developed by this guy in a very strong way - and maybe much stronger than real life by the use of youtube in personal diary type entries - not unlike a blog but as video. A vlog.

Can this sort of social presence be a way around the needs for social presence in online learning environment or is it going to too far? What about video diaries instead of blogs in online educational settings? What would appeal to students?

Are there benefits for learning of similar types of activities in video online that will generate a sense of personal social presence and that would add a personal social dimension to learning in the online world? How could this be done ? Do we need video introductions a la big brother contestants ? Is the value of the youtube example that it is not trying to impress or be any more than a straight personal reflection? Does it seem more real because it is unaffected and not staged too much? Would it be better if it was staged a little more?

Anyway what helps establish the lonely guys social presence online is that he tells us what he has for breakfast - scrambled eggs and bacon - maybe Bill was wrong on this breakfast thing in our subject. This my attempt at an humourous aside - the use of video here as humour is actually a bit boring possibly spurious posting I think. ( I am not exactly sure if he really does not know how to make scrambled eggs and bacon so maybe it is not so real but it does demonstrate the importance of banality or ordinariness and therefore reality of social presence?)

Further what is really interesting is that the online girlfriend of the lonely yourtube guy from Australia actually makes alot of videos on youtube presumably for the lonely guy and telling him and the world what she had for other meals - eg eggplant parmesean and then stuffed provolone chicken and potatoes:

Is this sad frivolous or a breakthrough in communication and social interaction and the projection of personal social presence in posting?

As those who were in the chat know I asked everyone to migrate to Elluminate from the Skype text based chat and then we found that as with the previous week some students could not get in. This week we discovered that it occurs after we got to ten students in the Elluminate area for the Uni.

What i did not realise is that the uni has only bought a 10 person licence from Elluminate. The reason for this are "elluminating" As expected they relate to economics and demand and the financial expectations around online as an area of interest at the University.

The detail of the Elluinate environment and the way it is licenced are important issues for us anyway if we see ourselves as those who are learning about Online Education and Training in this subject.  So it is on task look at and discuss and comment on this issue here in the subject blog.

Despite or perhaps because of my enthusiasm for the environment when I was told I would finally have access to the environment for teaching this semester I failed to ask or just assumed or did not hear that the environment licence was for 10 ten person interaction. Possibly my fault but as the uni will not allow a subject to run with less than 15 initial enrolments ten  is a strange number to use as a base line minimum.

The number ten is however significant, as could be expected, based on what is considered to be the extremely expensive licencing criteria that Elluminate imposes.  Part of that criteria is the need to understand that an Elluminate licence is a rental cost and not really a purchase.

If you consider that the 10 seat virtual room is  only rented for one year and costs $8000.00 there is a very strong disincentive and difficult justification on an economic basis for such expense at the university for an unproven and not widely called for application.

IF you think about it a $16000.00 justification on the same basis for a 20 seat installation then it would be even more difficult to get approved for funding.

This has relevance for students studying how to implement online teaching and learning in their own institutions. Learning about Elluminate is therefore "elluminating" for financial as well as educational reasons.

Is it for example justified to force students to gain experience in using such an expensive tool especially if it is unlikely to become widely deployed by those student in their own circumstances because of the economics of educational institution in this country. This issue of expense is also of relevance to the way that online learning is perceived by organisations generally as one where savings or costs are relatively small by comparison to actual real not virtual building and power cost of providing f2f teaching spaces.

In organisations generally the perception (perhaps falsely held or promoted) is that online learning is cost effective relative to face to face and education in general in Australia is considered to be a money maker by private schools and even governments.

The view that online training is relatively inexpensive is also widely held in industry especially when they take into consideration the down time of training and the expense of getting staff to one location in terms of air fare and accommodation costs for a couple of days of PD (that those trained will in most circumstances never follow up on) .

You might dispute that there is some truth to the idea that online could possibly be cost effective, You can make a comment on the end of the post here on this if you like.

The circumstances here at the University are that because of the cost Elluminate - it is not yet being actively pursued here at Melbourne.  A smallish badly funded trial was all that was approved and there is no likelihood this year that extra funding or double the amount already allocated will occur.

You might be surprised to hear that I think this is good because despite some of the obvious advantages that Elluminate has - alternatives will now need to be investigated by this subject.

Already Matt and now with the support of Ben has found an alternative called VisIQ that they cannot really test until a few of us get in there and see how it goes. Those alternatives are what we will pursue alongside a devious way of accessing Elluminate that we will also fall back on.

One of the issues is how much should blog comments or discussions be focussed on assessment or getting points. Related is the question of whether having an assessable requirement to force comments in other students' blogs and or in group or subject blogs leads to spurious commenting to achieve points. As Bill says should you tell everyone that you had Corn Flakes for breakfast (or even worse direct someone to your own blog by commenting in someone else's or the group blog that they should go to your blog to see what you had for breakfast) Is this just going to mean that there are a whole lot of fairly meaningless posts that then take an inordinate amount of everyones time up in reading where the reading is not that rewarding except for the person who posted because of the requirements of the subject.

This is a very central issue to this subject OET. There is an assumption (that I have made) that students do not post online without an incentive (Dayle also refers to this in the blog post on hints for discussions here). Grades can be a very sharp or a very blunt incentive here but my experience is in either sharp or bunt versions they do work. However I think Bill is pointing the probable unintended consequences of the blunter method (that is not being used in this subject but was used in FLE) where everything posted is counted and encouraged and so some if not a lot of posts might be made for the purpose of just accessing the available marks. My method of indicating that all posting and commenting is worth doing is really to get the interactions going and generate some sense of social presence but it may result pretty directly in spurious posting as a major outcome. What is your opinion? Have I got the point that Bill was trying to make correctly interpreted here? Anyone's comments welcome - possibly avoid saying what you had for breakfast this time.

However we do need to cast some "light" on  this  "Elluminate" environment but also Sue has agreed to give us the benefit of her training in the use of it later so we will have more on how it works. Now just some brief points we did not make last night which might have prevented the loss of some in the depths of cyberspace.

So briefly

1. Elluminate is a virtual classroom with online voice and sharing of application views as well a whole lot of little features like hand raising and simultaneous text chat and voting and a whiteboard or powerpoint viewer etc
2. it is not Web 2.0
3. The University of Melbourne has only just agreed to buy a version of it
4. it is really a rent situation rather than a purchase because you pay per total number of students who can be in it simultaneously ( it may seem expensive to some)
5. It uses java and so when you click the link to go into it it check that you have a recent installation of that  and then you might have to authorise a download
6. you must agree to download something and then agree to license agreement and then make up a username - best if it is your own first name except it is Bill or Ben in our case
7. so there are a series of steps before entering the environment that you have to be prepared to wait for before it loads and appears on your computer ( I think this is where we lost people so it is important to recognise that people have to be prepared for these steps and not feel that they are downloading viruses when it asks you to do those downloads - generally however it is important to be wary of software that asks you to download and install anything on your computer.
8. You need to be able to hear the sound if you are using voice so you need speakers and the volume settings turned up on your computer however if you are going to talk you also need a microphone plugged in to your computer
9. It is far better to have headphones or a headset with headphones and a mike if you are going to talk because if you just use the speakers on your computer there is a chance that the mike will echo the sound for the speakers (although i think Elluminate has a facility for reducing this echo quite a bit)
10. do not  go and spend a lot of money on a headset if you have not  got one yet a  $15 headset from  Kmart or  BigW or some such is about all you will need if you want to talk and listen with headphones that are integrated.

Now that is not all the info you need but next week and through the online chats as well as starting in the Skype text chat areas i am expecting we will use Elluminate more so the above is just to orient you. Sue will explain more later. Others like Sue or Dayle who are familiar with the working of Elluminate or anyone who has an opinion on it or how it works or the things they like or hate about it might want to make a comment here.

Generally chat takes a little while to get used to - all those different chat conversations overlapping and interweaving tend to make it appear chaotic as a first impression. Maybe i am getting more used to it myself but i think there were enough reasonably experienced online chatters from FLE 1st semester and others from elsewhere last night so that things did not seem as messy as they might sometime seem. What did you think was it messy? - Use the comments at the bottom of this message to say what your impression was or whether it was a complete waste of time because you could not get in perhaps?

On this last point some had trouble with the LMS chat and to make matters more confused we then decided to have two chats open at once - one in the LMS and one in Skype text chat. The Skype text chat was set up for the subject but it is not part of or really a major part of the LMS strategy for being online. However there were no real dramas with Skype I believe and it is still better as a chat environment than almost anything else I have tried for chat - again there might be differences of opinion on this so feel free to comment.

Student who did not have Skype and who were not previous Skype users, had to download and install Skype. They then had to make sure they had a Skype name but of course we all did not have those names  and they did ot have ours and so maybe finding our chat for OET2008 might have been a bit difficult. This is again often a big stumbling point but it seemed less so in this first session. However I am not sure I was just unaware of problems others were encountering.

So I might have a completely rosy view that most seemed to be fairly comfortable with Skype and where things were and to do the setting up of Skype fairly easily. But there were some students who may not even been able to find us so if that was the case or you found Skype itself a bit cumbersome or difficult comment here.

Skype, as a text chat area is more colourful and has a better layout than the LMS chat -

As I said some could not really get into the LMS chat area at all or were kicked out of periodicaly. I think that is where we lost some student especially Scot who got into the LMS chat and then got kicked out I think and perhaps did not see that we had moved to Skype fairly quickly. I am wondering if we should ever confuse the issue by starting with the LMS chat area first and moving. Was that a mistake. Should we start in one place and stay there til all work out a way to get that area to work or if things are not working move if there is a possibility of all finding there way to the new area for chat? Moving is always going to cause confusion - what do you think in an online chat environment should you persist and allow students to solve the problems that inevitably arise? What is your current thinking about best practice - you comments are welcome at the end here. ( Too much to comment on already I think? )

Now even as I say that I realise there is no way of really knowing how successful the chat on the 6th was if we do not hear from those who tried but could not get it to work so leave a comment here by pressing the comment button and tell us if you had any problems or issues and that is surely enough to comment on here.

We had a look at the webpages, the online discussion, the online chat in the LMS and then had a quick look at Skype as a text chat area too. That was really all we dealt with.

The real content starts next week possibly with a bit of a focus on assessment issues and the use of various Learning Management Systems. Again for the time being this is going to be on the Wednesday but this time at 8.40pm - there is a likelihood we will shift the real time chat to Thursday at 8.30pm as that seems to be popular in the poll that is in session one.

Some of you might have questions so just press the comments button below this and anyone can have a go at answering - even me.

The look and metaphors that are used through the subject are a little old fashioned and do refer to the idea that the f2f lecture tutorial model works online. I am wondering if you feel the are reasons for staying with a style that lists sessions and workshops?

My feeling is that there needs to be some order I think and some level of familiarity and academic orientation and rigor so a lecture workshop style is one that many are comfortable with and may find easier to get their heads around in an online environmnet .

But that style might eventually be a problem in giving the subject the possibility of generating its own content through student posts as interests  that may begin to cluster on topics of importance as we proceed.

You might comment at the end of this message on either you general feelings on how to structure online subject or more specifically on how you think things should develop in this subject.