As a student, participation in NGL has ultimately been useful for me, because similar to my “as a learner” experience, it enabled me to identify the frustrations and successes associated with completing formal study in this mode. I was also able to make sense of the experience by exploring the research generated by NGL. As a result, this parallel perspective will further inform my role as a teacher. The value of experiencing something first hand, and then applying it reflectively to your own practice, is empowering; and in this way, the course has been transformative - even though the journey has been a bumpy one. Our course numbers were small, and I think this placed some limitations on the course that may not have presented, if there had been more participants. Based on the assumption that effective NGL involves participation, interaction and sharing, a smaller number of students may translate to a smaller number of interactions, less opportunity to share, and therefore little chance to connect, collaborate and construct (Siemens, 2005; Downes, 2011). Of course, small numbers may not always be an issue. For instance, if the participants know each other or have mutual connections, the interaction can be productive from the beginning because a social presence already exists. I also think that if the networked experience is facilitated in a considered way by applying principles of social presence, the participants may engage earlier and produce more meaningful interactions (Rourke, Anderson, Garrison & Archer, 2001). I liken it to being a good host, who has invited a number of individuals to a party, and some of the guests don’t know each other. It is a social assumption that the host will act as a conduit, inclusively identifying and building links between the guests. The communication is at first exchanged through the host; until eventually the other links grow stronger, and people communicate directly, rather than through the host. The host can then extricate themselves from that cluster to engage with another group. The social aspect of NGL, or what Salmon (2003) calls online socialisation, was lacking in the course, apart from a sharing activity that seemed appeared quite abstract. Dron and Anderson (2016) in their exploration of clustering, suggest that when a number of people are brought together, it is valuable to define what kind of cluster they actually are, so as to determine the nature and purpose of that clustering. ‘Groups’ tend to be the most common cluster of people, and are held together by a particular task or goal, and operate within a formal hierarchy in a restricted mode. This is the category that our course cluster fell into from the beginning, and until recently, struggled to progress beyond. Most of the participants in this course did not know each other, were geographically dispersed, and working in very different education contexts, but could have been a network, as that structure assists in the connection of distributed knowledge (Dron & Anderson, 2016). Unfortunately connection and participation was limited, while students were deciding whether to continue beyond census. Course design needs to select technology to match the needs and expectations of the student (Kirkwood, 2006; Bower, 2015; Dron & Anderson, 2016). It was a requirement of the course to use a blog - the social software typical of a network. However, in the confines of this course, the pressure to use the social software of NGL was counterintuitive to the needs of the student. It is imperative to examine the purpose of the learning, and fit the software to the learning rather than the learning to the software (Kirkwood, 2006; Bower, 2015). Blogs support network learning well, but until a network exists, software designed for groups is preferable in the orientation stage of a course. Modelling should take place first to inform the participant before the practise phase. In a similar way, the course design also needs to ensure that the capability of the software is conducive to the learning outcomes. I appreciated the value of Diigo, but there were a number of issues related to this software: my application to be a part of the relevant group took two weeks to be accepted; I found the resources shared in Diigo were uninspiring; and the group (present and past) appeared to be inactive. I did find Feedly a very valuable resource for accessing activity in the course; however again, there were problems with blog posts feeding into Feedly, producing misleading reports on participation. Some links on the course blog proved to be dead-ends; and I’m slowly succumbing to death by scroll on the course Blog. These were all totally understandable glitches, but didn’t instil confidence in me that NGL could cope with an online course in the same way as a LMS can. Some students struggled with the actual technology, while others were ready to engage and interact. As mentioned in “As a Teacher”, Universal Design Learning (UDL) is applicable to NGL because the needs of the NGL participants are as diverse as in any classroom (Socal, 2008). The activities need to be designed to cater for all levels of ability, but at the same time, not inhibit the learning of others. In the EDU8117 context, there was little activity for the first few weeks; and unfortunately, this lack of participation, prevented some students from linking to other student’s blogs. I found this frustrating, but I did not see this as the fault of the other students. It is a downside of students participating in knowledge creation. If the knowledge creation is dependent on something they have to wait to be created, students are forced to find alternative ways to create this knowledge, particularly when this is part of assessment requirements. The initial increase in participation seemed to be partially motivated by the participation reports and assessment requirements. However, as mentioned in this post (Duarte, 2015), assessment is an acceptable means of sustaining NGL participation; so from this point of view, a small assessment task at the beginning of the course, may have encouraged learning earlier in the process. One important aspect that separates the reflections “as a learner” and “as a student” is formal assessment. NGL courses appear to over-assess, and this may result from two things: the tendency to overcompensate for the lack of direct teaching; and the complex nature of the environment in which the course operates. The need to include every aspect of the curriculum is a characteristic of Assignment 1 – Parts A and B. Unfortunately; I found the task so arduous that any transformative learning I may have experienced was masked. At the time that this post was written, our group was experiencing a limited transition into a networked community. This has certainly occurred as a result of increased interaction, culminating in a video-conference meeting that was student organised. As mentioned in this post, when students are motivated to seek face-to-face interaction outside of the online network, this should not be considered a failure of NGL, but rather students, who are independent learners, using a different strategy to seek knowledge (Bell & Parchoma, 2010). To sum up, NGL will have a powerful influence on the future of education, and will significantly affect my approach to teaching in the future. What I have concluded through my role as a student, is that it is crucial for students to acquire the skills to navigate through a complex maze of information. Students will particularly value clarity of communication and the opportunity to equip themselves with the capability to seek and discover through transformative learning in this challenging environment. References
Bell, A., Zenios, M., & Parchoma, G. (2010). Undergraduate experiences of coping with networked learning: Difficulties now, possibilities for the future. In L. Dirckinck‐ Holmfeld, V. Hodgson, C. Jones, M. de Laat, D. McConnell, & T. Ryberg (Eds.), 7th International Conference on Networked Learning 2010. (pp. 904–911). Bower, M. (2015). A Typology of Web 2.0 Learning Technologies. Retrieved from https://library.educause.edu/resources/2015/2/a-typology-of-web-20- learning-technologies CoI. (2016). Description: Social presence. Retrieved from https://coi.athabascau.ca/coi-model/description-social-presence/ Diigo. (2016). My groups: Networked and Global Learning. Retrieved from https://groups.diigo.com/group/networked-and-global-learning Downes, S. (2011). “Connectivism” and Connective Knowledge. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-downes/connectivism-and- connecti_b_804653.html Dron, J. & Anderson, T. (2016). A typology of social forms for learning. In Teaching Crowds. Retrieved from http://teachingcrowds.ca/ discuss-the-chapters/chapter-3-a-typology-of-social-forms-for-learning Duarte, P. (2015). The use of a group blog to actively support learning activities. Active Learning in Higher Education 16(2) 103–117. Feedly. (2016). EDU8117 - 2016 Semester 2. Retrieved from https://feedly.com/i/category/EDU8117%20-%202016%20Semester%202 Jenner, M. (2013) Scroll of death vs Scroll of depth. Retrieved from https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/digital-education/2013/10/10/ scroll-of-death-vs-scroll-of-depth/ Kirkwood, A. (2016). Getting networked learning in context: are on‐line students’ technical and information literacy skills adequate and appropriate?. Learning, Media and Technology, 31(2), 117-131. Nat8117. (2016a). How NGL has informed my role as a Teacher. [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://nat8117.weebly.com/teacher Nat8117. (2016b). How could the course be improved? [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://nat8117.weebly.com/student/how-could-the-course-be- improved Nat8117. (2016c). Response to valuing the residue of experience a bit more.[Blog post]. Retrieved from http://nat8117.weebly.com/student/response-to- valuing-the-residue-of-experience-a-bit-more Nat8117. (2016d). Meeting in appear.in. [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://nat8117.weebly.com/student/meeting-in-appearin Nat8117. (2016e). Response to Week 1 reading. [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://nat8117.weebly.com/learner/as-a-learner Rourke, L., Anderson, T., Garrison, D.R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing Social Presence In Asynchronous Text-based Computer Conferencing Journal of Distance Education/Revue de l'enseignement à distance. Retrieved from http://auspace.athabascau.ca:8080/bitstream/2149/732/1/Assessing%20 Social %20Presence%20In%20Asynchronous%20Text- based%20Computer%20Conferencing.pdf Salmon, G. (2003). The Five Stage Model. Retrieved from http://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html Socal, I. D. (2008). Considering universal design. Retrieved from http://speedchange.blogspot.com.au/2008/04/considering-universal- design.html
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I'm feeling much more productive today, after the meeting last night. Thanks Brigitte, Miranda and Angela. I got so much out of the time spent chatting; it really reinforced the value of face-to-face interaction. I remember in one of our early readings (Bell, Zenios & Parchoma, 2010), it said that some students who are engaged in digital network learning, will still seek out face-to-face interaction. The authors reiterated that this was not a failure of network learning, but simply an alternative strategy that a student will use to seek out knowledge. I'm sorry that Melissa and Adam couldn't join us, but hopefully next time we can arrange a time that is fits in with everyones' schedules. Again, thanks for the chat; I certainly went away with a clearer vision of what is required for Assignment 1 and more direction in relation to Assignment 2. Best of luck for finishing the assignment this week. Don't forget to celebrate on the weekend! References Bell, A., Zenios, M., & Parchoma, G. (2010). Undergraduate experiences of coping with networked learning: Difficulties now, possibilities for the future. In L. Dirckinck‐ Holmfeld, V. Hodgson, C. Jones, M. de Laat, D. McConnell, & T. Ryberg (Eds.), 7th International Conference on Networked Learning 2010 (pp. 904–911).
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