MHE622

MHE622 – Week Eight – Reflections on Personalized Learning, Supporting Adult Learners & Concluding Thoughts

December 17, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Personalized Learning:
The Coming Era of Personalized Learning Paths article, posted by my classmate Jill Motyka, caught my attention this week. All during this MHE622 course this topic has been rattling around in the back of my mind. I predict, in the near future, we are going to see more analysis of and course building revolving around what Peter Smith calls ‘personalized learning’ and ‘connected learning’. With all the resources, people, content, etc. available I believe the next natural step is to ‘allow technology’ to bring these together to further the learning for the student -any type of student- and especially college-aged student and adult learners.

Bay Path University’s American Women’s College [TAWC] has their SOUL system of personalizing online learning for their contingency of undergraduate learners and I believe this is one ‘approach to personalized learning.’ However, I think the future will show more approaches that will see more ‘wrangling and curating’ of personalized approaches to learning. I believe these new approaches will even further augment the type of personalized learning TAWC is currently doing.

The wrangling and curating of learning I envision will tap into social networking, big data, and other knowledge bases using the Internet and other technologies. The result of this gathering as Smith concludes will allow us to, “…be able to scale those personalized learning paths—to millions of learners in the coming era.” I also predict that mobile devices and other mobile technologies will aid in distributing this new ‘personalized learning’ to the student.

Working with Adult Learners:
Being a life-long learner and involved, daily, in supporting faculty with delivery of their content to adult learners, the article Six Ways to Support Adult Online Learners, posted by classmate Carol Dykas, seemed interesting and the fact that bullet-pointed articles always attract me. This brief article holds wonderful reminders.

Kelly actually cites Natlaie Peeterse’s findings, “adult learners need to become more aware of how they learn.” Because adult learners come to ‘their learning’ with some prior knowledge adult learners, with some guidance, can become more self-aware and learn how-to learn better. These six tips offer great ideas that I can use when working with online faculty-to remind them to use these ideas with their students and I can use these ideas as I help teach faculty to become better online teachers- it’s a win-win.

Build on previous learning
Require critical reflection
Provide structured feedback
Use check-in quizzes
Monitor students’ participation
Pick up the phone

Concluding reflections & thoughts about what I have learned overall in the course.
As I reflect back over these very swift moving eight weeks, I feel I have learned much and confirmed much of what I already knew about online learning. Eight weeks ago my initial questions and hopes for this course were to examine current trends in the field and evaluate the impact these trends may have on the future of online education.

I feel especially better able to evaluate the effectiveness of various models of online education and more prepared to articulate the use of a variety of ‘disruptive technologies’ in online learning-and most specifically mobile learning. Many of my questions pertaining to the future, of online pedagogies, still go unanswered, which is normal-who can predict the future. However, having taken this MHE622 course, I feel more confident in articulating my ideas for the future of online education and learning.

References:
Kelly, R. (2012, March 2). Six Ways to Support Adult Online Learners. Faculty Focus. Retrieved December 8, 2014 from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/six-ways-to-support-adult-online-learners/

Smith, P. (2014, November 10). The Coming Era of Personalized Learning Paths (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE.edu. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/coming-era-personalized-learning-paths

Wiseman, M. (2014. October 22). Greetings to My MHE622 Colleagues. [weblog comment]. Retrieved from: http://mwisemanmhe.com/greetings-to-my-mhe622-colleagues/

MHE622 Foundations of Online Learning-Final Presentation-Mobile Learning

December 13, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Here is my Final Presentation for the MHE622 Foundations of Online Learning Course. I researched mobile learning and its impact upon higher education online learning.

MHE622 Wiseman Mobile Learning FINAL Presentation from Mary Wiseman on Vimeo.

A full transcript can be found here along with resources and image references.

MHE622 – Week Six – Reflections on Best Practices in Online Course Design

November 30, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Facilitating our online faculty in soaring?

My position at Bay Path University has me deeply involved in researching, synthesizing, training and supporting faculty in the best practices for online course design and delivery. So, I was really focusing in on ideas I could implement as I assist our online faculty to soar with their online courses.

The article entitled, “Three Ways to Breathe New Life into Your Online Courses,” has some very solid advice for implementing Web 2.0 and social media tools into an online course. As I think about the most common issues our online faculty struggle with I wondered “…how to help instructors stay current in resources, tools and lesson planning.” If some of my online faculty still struggle setting up a proper Discussion Assignment within their Canvas course, would they ever be able to handle the appropriate use of these Web 2.0 tools to engage their students?

How will I ever be able to suggest ‘purposes’ for tools that are: easy to use, have some relevance to the course content and goals, and enhance student learning?
How can our Online Learning & Digital Team best teach our faculty?

When our Team uses social media- such as Twitter, Google Plus and Linked In for example, as tools to stay connected to our professional peers, how do we ‘teach’ our online faculty to engage in some of these same practices? The article concluded with, this reassuring concept, “By relying on and enhancing instructor creativity, we can breathe new life into our online courses.” This is food for thought and I kept thinking,about this as I continued reviewing our list of shared resources.

The Pelletier article “What Online Teachers Need to Know,” contains timeless advice for online faculty. I believed the most important piece of wisdom was this key idea, “One of the most effective types of training I have found is to enroll in an online course yourself. This will give you the opportunity to experience what it feels like to be the learner, and will no doubt reinforce the importance of presence, communication skills, engaged discussion, constructive feedback.” I can relate [and agree to this suggestion] yet I was still curious.

Having just met some of the Brown University Online Team, at the NERCOMP Conference earlier this November, I wanted to read more about their “Best Practices for Teaching Online.” I liked how the Brown Team organized the basic practices and supported each with their recommendations. The content was solid, however, I did find some bad links and I felt the information could use some refreshing. That said, I did find a nugget of advice [for faculty] in assessing student work online:

“We want tangible evidence of understanding! To achieve this, we expect that you will work with your instructional designer to provide the student access to relevant content (even if it requires online research outside of Canvas) and challenge the student to use the information he or she discovers to generate evidence of that understanding.

For example: well-designed online courses ask students to produce a variety of “learning artifacts” including projects, papers, discussions, photographs, diagrams, illustrations, videos, recorded interviews, and collaborative projects, whether produced independently or in collaboration with other students or subject-matter experts in the field of study. A wealth of artifacts allows you to assess the student’s ability to synthesize course content in great depth, and with confidence and legitimacy.”

All these ideas can be synthesized into the work I do with my online faculty and particularly how to enlighten them as they soar within their own online courses. I also want to be thinking of these ideas as I support my most challenging faculty in searching for that tangible evidence of their understanding in properly using the Canvas Discussion forums and Assignments 😉

MHE622 – Week Four Blog- Reflections on Learning

November 20, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Students reviewing the iPad-based dissection manual in relation to a hemisected head.

I have been thinking about mobile technology more and more these days, perhaps because I know I need to spend some serious time, next week, on my presentation for my MHE622 course. So, this week, I honed in on shared resources revolving around mobile technology.

The Wylie article caught my eye as the premise was to urge educators to take advantage of a new wave of electronic devices that offer portability and ease of use on a budget. Within the third paragraph Marc Prensky, who has written on Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants, was cited saying, “Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.” Prensky goes on to summarize, that because today’s students are digital natives they used to interacting with technology and indeed actually ‘need’ mobile learning.

This article’s research was geared more toward the K-12 educational demographic. I would summarize the excellent points shared as being:

We should not ban, we should embrace technology in education and the classroom.
Those [students] not exposed to technology are unprepared to develop a respectable digital footprint [now, also referred to as a digital tattoo].
Students need the knowledge and practice of safely interacting with technology.
I would add, that the K-12 students moving up into the higher education system will be expecting to use their mobile technology in their classrooms.

The Lewis article brings the whole mobile technology discussion to the next level, which is out of our pockets and onto our bodies. The article discusses how wearable technology will transform education. I find this study fascinating, as I believe it further proves how much we are embracing our technology and expecting it to improve our lives. If wearable technology can aid us in monitoring data to track our: fitness, children and pets, etc. the next logical step seems to be to support the personalization of our educational efforts. Costs withstanding [for the moment, as costs will come down] I believe wearable technology will continue to help all of us better understand how we can be more productive and efficient with our personal learning processes.

Mayfied, Ohara and O’Sullivan (2013) discuss using iPad-based multimedia to improve dissection learning in an anatomy course. The investigation focused on how the iPad manual aided learner engagement, achieved instructional objectives, and enhanced the effectiveness and efficiency of dissection education. The study also recommended that, “Mobile technologies can become productive learning tools delivering learning content and integrating into the social learning environment of the anatomy laboratory.”

These resources got me thinking about Bay Path’s own Occupational Therapy and Physician Assistant Graduate Programs. While I have no first-hand understanding if and/or how they might currently be integrating mobile technology into the courses found within these programs…it seems to me that throughout Bay Path’s graduate program [both online and on the ground], there are opportunities to implement mobile technology and improve student learning.

References:

Kessler, S. (2011, May 4). 4 Ways Mobile Tech Is Improving Education. Retrieved November 14, 2014, from http://mashable.com/2011/05/04/mobile-education-initiatives/

Lewis, C. (2014, October 22). Wearable Technology: Will education look very different in the future?
Retrieved November 20, 2014, from http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/blogs-post/wearable-technology-will-education-look-very-different-future/187878

Mayfield, C. H., Ohara, P. T., & O’Sullivan, P. S. (March 01, 2013). Perceptions of a mobile technology on learning strategies in the anatomy laboratory. Anatomical Sciences Education, 6, 2, 81-89.
Retrieved from: http://baypath.worldcat.org/title/perceptions-of-a-mobile-technology-on-learning-strategies-in-the-anatomy-laboratory/oclc/5156370955&referer=brief_results

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon (MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5
Retrieved from: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

West, D. (2013. September 17). Mobile Learning: Transforming, Engaging Students and Improving Outcomes.
Retrieved from: http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/09/17-mobile-learning-education-engaging-students-west

Wylie, J. Mobile Learning Technologies for 21st Century Classrooms. Scholastic.
Retrieved from: http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3754742

MHE622- Week Two Blog Entry-Reflections on Learnings

November 2, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Tar Heel

First Shared Blog Entry Review: Academic Fraud

My daughter Xernay, attends Elon University in Elon, North Carolina [a 35 minute drive west from Chapel Hill] and for some time now she has been telling me ‘stories’ of student athletes – from Chapel Hill – being recruited with all sorts of promises such as- first pick on ‘easy’ classes, monetary stipends and private tutors, along with a realm of other ‘amenities’-just for playing ball. I had sort of brushed off my daughter’s comments thinking this was ‘urban myth’, until I read the Stripling article describing academic fraud, which Professor Testori posted on our Shared Resources Page.

When I read Stripling’s list for the football team’s eligibility

They didn’t go to class
They didn’t take notes, have to stay awake
They didn’t have to meet with professors
They didn’t have to pay attention or necessarily engage with the material.

I was infuriated! But, probably not as angry as Carol L. Folt, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and others who had been having the wool pulled over their eyes for so many years.

The article also cemented, in my mind, my daughter’s opinion that most of Chapel Hill’s football team were, as my daughter stated, “idiot guys who were only there to play football and never even went to class.” This article went on to describe how ‘anguished’ Ms. Folt was in the prolonged nature of the crisis.

I think those die-hard Tar Heel fans will be more closely watched-especially those who are ‘still’ employed by Chapel Hill. I gather there will be much stricter ‘management’ of academic registration and oversight of the Chapel Hill athletes. I wonder what Professor Debby [Ms. Crowder] is doing these days?

Second Shared Blog Entry Review: The Future of Distance Education
Having just spent 3 days attending, listening and presenting at the Online Learning Consortium 20^th Annual International Conference I was anxious to further dissect the article written by Steven Cohen and posted by Carol Dykas entitled Distance Learning and the Future of Education. The article’s use of ‘distance’ vs. ‘online’ does date the content. That said, this article has solid information.

Carol stated in her review how Cohen makes the point, “Advances in educational technology provide new ways to teach, new ways to learn, and new ways to measure the effectiveness of educational offerings.” I agree that face-to-face educational experiences allows, learning to happen in lounges, cafes and bars around the physical campus. Personally, I felt Cohen was ‘suggesting’ this could not be replicated in an online environment.

To this I would disagree. I do believe we can virtually replicate a face-to-face experience and build connections and friendships just like those a ‘real address’ gives. Cohen’s article was written in 2012 which means that Moore’s Law [which states that computer processing power doubles about every 18 months] has had enough time to further and virtually replicate the face-to-face experience Cohen mentions. And, we have had time to further our human interaction with technology and ability to interact with technology; think iPhone’s FaceTime, Skype, Google Hangout and the array of webinar conferencing technologies we have to use to augment our online experience. In my humble opinion, mobile technology is at the forefront of this trend, which lead me to review the article Jill Motyka shared.

Third Shared Blog Entry Review: Intensification of Online Retention
The Chris Tilghman, As CE Becomes More Central, Focus on Online Retention Will Intensify. Chris interviewed the vice-president of program development at InsideTrack. The very first ‘trend’ discussed is mobile technology and the hope that it will be the folks in higher education who will bring online learning to the tiny computers that everybody is carrying around in their pockets these days.

We have to start thinking of the ‘learning we desire to exchange’ in terms of the fluid movement that mobile technology allows. As Chen and Denoyelles state, “In order to improve mobile learning effectiveness, students and instructors need help adopting more effective learning and teaching practices across content areas.” Chen and Denovelles remind of that the use of mobile learning on the rise in higher education. They conclude that, “Instructors must gain knowledge of these innovative technologies and integrate them into the curriculum with sound facilitation and assessment strategies, as well as be able to support the mobile practices of students.”

To prove the importance of why the shift to implement technological innovation is import, watch this 4 minute video entitled A Vision of Students Today by Michael Wesch. If you have not yet seen this, I highly recommend the couple of minutes it takes to watch. It summarizes the characteristics and vision of students today and while it was uploaded 7 years ago, it is still relevant today.

“Today’s child is bewildered when he enters the 19^th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns subjects, and schedules.” -Marshall McLuhan 1967

Additionally this 3 minute video [below] created by Erin Brethauer, describes how teacher colleges are working to improve technology literacy of future educators. The accompanying article by Robin L. Flanigan describes how Clemson University is challenging traditional teaching techniques and placing an emphasis on focusing on how educators can, “… improve their curriculum, in technology and other areas, to help educators and benefit students…”

Change takes time and it is especially challenging for colleges and universities who tend to hold onto traditional methods of teaching. Slowly change can occur and I enjoy and am excited to be a part of that change.

References:
Chen, B., & Denoyelles, A. (2013). Exploring Students’ Mobile Learning Practices in Higher Education. Why IT Matters to Higher Education EDUCAUSE Review Online. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/exploring-students-mobile-learning-practices-higher-education

Cohen, S. (2012, October 1). Distance Learning and the Future of Education. Retrieved October 25, 2014, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-cohen/distance-learning-and-the_b_1928535.html

Flanigan, R.L. (2014. January 27). Teacher Colleges Seek to Shift to Digital Age. Education Week. Education Week. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/01/29/19el-teachers.h33.html

Stripling, J. (2014, October 23). Widespread Nature of Chapel Hill’s Academic Fraud Is Laid Bare. Retrieved October 23, 2014, from http://chronicle.com/article/Widespread-Nature-of-Chapel/149603/

Tighlman, C. (2014, March 12). As CE Becomes More Central, Focus on Online Retention Will Intensify. Retrieved October 27, 2014 from http://www.insidetrack.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/as-ce-becomes-more-central-focus-on-online-retention-will-intensify-c….pdf

X. Aniwar, (personal communication, November 1, 2014)

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