Online Faciliation Activity

“If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.”

(John Dewey, 1859 - 1952)

The learning outcome for this activity was to examine the usability of a Student Response System in the classroom. My intent was to use discussion to uncover some of the positive and negative aspects of using Student Response Systems (SRS) in the classrooms of my fellow students.

Planning

From the outset it was obvious that a challenging part of this activity would be to gather the learners together for a 30 minute activity. Planning therefore centered around the use of an asynchronous approach which would allow each student to access the material, comment and revisit as their schedules allowed. It was also obvious that due to the lack of direct support, the method of facilitation would need to be a tool or system that was easily accessible and one that everyone had some familiarity with. Initially I was intending to use a blog (my online portfolio) for this purpose however through my subsequent participation with the ' XXX Community' page I realised that setting up a Google +  (G+) community of my own was more a suitable and dynamic medium for this activity (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Online facilitation activity initial setup

My activity was designed to use a short introductory video about some of the features of SRSs (in this case Socrative ) as a method of ensuring that all students had a base knowledge of the subject before they participated in the discussion. The video was recorded using Adobe Captivate and simulated a typical classroom setup of Socrative, showcasing some of its more useful features. This was then followed by three discussion questions centred around the  usability of an SRS - whether the technology aligned with the student's own pedagogy, how this tool could be used in their classroom and what issues could be seen with the use of this technology. Finally an exit question was used to gauge whether the activity was useful to the student - this was a broad indicator to highlight whether the activity needed changes. The lesson plan contained within Annex A outlines the activity plan in detail.

Post-Activity Evaluation

Establishing a community

One of the main issues I had with this activity was that there didn't appear to be a cohesive learning community within the XXX class to begin with. The cause of this is unknown however Lehman and Conceição (2013) highlight the importance that faculty play in maintaining student engagement and retention in online studies. Whatever the reason, by establishing my own G+ Community I was attempting to create the conditions that appeared to be missing from the XXX community. In hindsight, this was an ambitious task hampered by the last minute establishment of my community which meant that the students were not familiar with my site. In any future use of this approach, I think I would create the community site a lot earlier and add content relevant to the learner and the activity. In this particular case I could have published my 'technology for learning' content on my community site rather than on my blog, raising the site awareness and engagement of my fellow students which in turn may have made them more likely to participate in the activity.

Engaging the lurkers

While most of the XXX students did joined my G+ Community, some did not participate. This behaviour is known as 'lurking'; an activity whereby nonparticipants are able to observe the social behaviour and content of a site (or technology) before they become involved (Savin-Baden & Sinclair, 2011). In this case while the lack of involvement by the lurkers was frustrating, it did give me an insight into the realities and challenges of operating a digital classroom. One thought I did consider was whether I should have opened this activity up to a wider public audience. While this would mean that the activity was being accessed from people outside the group, it may have allowed more discussion around the chosen topic and potentially drawn the lurkers into the conversation.

Establishing persistent discussion

Due to this activity being asynchronous (Figure 2) it was difficult to get a persistent and enduring discussion going - comments were generally given once only. Although it is tempting to suggest that a synchronous approach would address this deficiency, I still think that my chosen method remains valid as it offers students a chance to respond at their own pace allowing a more considered response (Hew & Cheung, 2012). While my initial thoughts on the reasons for this lack of discussion centred on the absence of a XXX community, Hew and Cheung (2012) suggest that there are a number of reasons why students can be reluctant to participate, including the lack of a response from the instructor (me in this case). In this area I know I could do better. Although I did respond to some of the initial comments, as more students posted I found my involvement reduced. At the time, I justified this as 'letting the students take over the discussion' but in hindsight I realise that they still required the facilitator to guide and support the conversation. If I was to run this activity again I would make an effort to respond more frequently with the caveat that the responses would attempt to push the comments back towards the other students as a method of increasing peer-to-peer interactions.

 Figure 2 Screenshot of asynchronous discussions

A wider use of technology

Having now seen the other facilitation activities I can see that there are a variety of approaches to the same requirement. Some used a community site like mine, while others embedded videos into Google documents and forms. While I created my own video (Figure 3), others researched and used a pre-produced videos - these are all valid approaches. On reflection what struck me was the skill-sets that teachers must now possess. Not only do they have administer the digital classroom, they also must maintain their pedagogy, teach the appropriate content, maintain student engagement as well as providing expert IT support when required. Even though my exposure to these requirements was short, it is not difficult to see that operating a digital classroom is very demanding. If I was to run this type of activity again (perhaps to a larger group) I would establish a support community to help me with some of the more intricate technology requirements. 

Figure 3 A new skill set - Creating a Youtube video using Adobe Captivate 8

Case-in-point was the creation of my introduction video (Figure 3) which I immediately recognised was outside my current skill-set. Luckily, the video I created was short and so did not require too much 'up-skilling' to achieve a useable product. Despite this new found knowledge I recognised that it took up a lot of my time to produce, distracting me from the actual content. In the future I would either out-source this requirement (my organisation has videographers) or more likely, use content that is already available on sites such as YouTube as some of the other students did. In this manner I can concentrate on the content and pedagogy rather than the technology.

The development and facilitation of an online activity has been a valuable experience. Sometimes it is difficult to see how to practically implement technology such as Google+ and YouTube. In creating this activity as well as being involved in my fellow students work, I have gained a valuable insight into the practical usage as well as the pros and cons of online learning. While it is a daunting prospect to push new approaches and technology into the classroom, it is only through trial and error that we can advance our teaching practice towards achieving better learning outcomes.

 

References

Hew, K. F., & Cheung, W. S. (2012). Student Participation in Online Discussions : Challenges, Solutions, and Future Research. Retrieved from Ebrary database.

Lehman, R. M., & Conceição, S. C. O. (2013). Motivating and Retaining Online Students : Research-Based Strategies That Work. Retrieved from Ebrary database.

 Savin-Baden, M., & Sinclair, C. (2011). Lurking on the threshold: Being learners in silent spaces. In R. Land & S. Bayne (Eds.), Digital Difference : Perspectives on Online Learning (1 ed.). Dordrecht: Springer. Retrieved from Ebrary database. 

Annex A: Online Facilitation Lesson Plan.

Lesson Plan: Online Facilitation - Student Response Systems (SRS)

Resources: Teacher and students require internet access and a Google account. Ensure that these are setup before the activity begins.

Introductory Activity: ·         Outline the purpose of the activity to the student; To examine the usability of a Student Response System in the classroom. ·         Students are directed to a short video which outlines some of the capabilities of Socrative, a Student Response System. Students will use this information to reflect and comment on how this type of technology may be applied in their classroom.

Lesson Outline: Discussions are asynchronous allowing students to logon at anytime and from anywhere. Once students watch the video and comment against the questions below, the comments will allow more discussion around the practical application of SRS technology in the classroom.

Questions

How would you use a tool like Socrative in your classroom? Discussion Points   The use of SRS's as a pre-course assessment tool,   Assessing the pre & post activity understanding of students,   Identify the assumptions of the group and using this to guide the discussion.

What issues can you see with using this technology? Discussion Points: Overheads for the teacher with respect to running the technology and the lesson,   Obligations of students to BYOD or does the school supply?,

Tell me about how a Student Response System aligns (or doesn't) with your own pedagogy? Discussion Points: Social Constructivism - promoting online social interactions,   Andragogy - recognition of prior experience if used correctly,   Behaviourism - if used for very low level questioning (may still be appropriate).

Exit question: Was this activity useful to you? Final question to gauge whether this activity needs improvement (broad measure). Students can make comments if they wish.

Case Study: iPads for workplace education

 

The information contained within this case study is based  upon interviews conducted with the SEACERT program head and the technical adviser. Some information has been omitted to preserve anonymity.

XYZ School Context

The ABC Company is responsible for moving people and freight internationally using a fleet of ships. ABC tasks the XYZ School to carry out a variety of training courses in order to prepare new and existing personnel for life aboard a ship. The focus of this case study is one of these courses, the Sea Certification course (SEACERT) - an intense course that uses theory and practical lessons to cover fire fighting, saving a sinking ship and hazardous chemical handling. The company's expectation of each graduate is that they will be able to work as part of a team to rescue injured personnel and save the ship should an incident occur - all risky activities making this course high stakes.

Background

The School runs twenty SEACERT intakes of 16 students every year, a total of 320 students. The majority of the students have freshly graduated from high-school and therefore have no sea-going experience. A smaller number are returning graduates who are conducting re-fresher training prior to returning to their ship.

With every new course, the School has found that students expectations of the learning environment are evolving. In particular, historical evaluations of this course highlighted a high level of dissatisfaction with the course handout, a 250 page student study guide that students are given at the start of the course. This dissatisfaction prompted the School's management to investigate the use of technology as a method of increasing student satisfaction and resulted in the introduction of iPad's into the theory portion of the course. As the first example of the educational employment of this type of learning technology (for the organisation), the SEACERT course makes a good case study to inform the future use of technology-based solutions.

Use and integration of iPads into the SEACERT course

The  justification for the introduction of the iPad into the SEACERT course was primarily based upon the financial cost of printing the student study guide for each student (XYZ School, 2012); if realised the transfer of this content to an electronic tablet would result in a saving at the six year mark. As well as the financial incentive the School saw tablet devices as offering an opportunity to increase student engagement, increase the ability to contextualise the content, and offer immediate formative feedback (p. 9). All of these factors resulted in the purchase of a class set of iPads, with the integration left up to the School.

The current implementation

The current implementation of this technology into the classroom is as a direct replacement of the hardcopy student study guide. On the first day of the course, each student is issued an iPad, which is theirs for the duration of the course. Students are asked to sign for their iPad with the caveat that if it is damaged or lost, the student must reimburse the cost to the school - an approach that has had some unintended consequences which will be explained later. As each students exposure to technology varies, the School conducts a familiarisation session on the first day to bring everyone to the same level and therefore reduce the requirement for in-class support from the instructors.

The devices are only used for the theory component of the course, during which students access the re-formatted student study guide using iAnnotate, a pdf application that allows the user to annotate/interact with the original document. Students use this application to highlight keywords or phrases, fill in formative quizzes, and make their own notes. Due to infrastructure restrictions, nether Wi-Fi nor internet services are currently available in the facility; instead the student study guide is accessed locally having been loaded onto each iPad by the staff. At the end of the course, students are given the opportunity to save off the study guide and their notes which can be used as a reference in the future.

How the use of iPad technology is founded in learning theories and models

The introduction of this technology into the classroom was justified for its pedagogical as well as financial benefits. Whereas this pedagogy was founded on ambitious aims to increase student engagement, the actual implementation has been less successful.

Increased engagement through a social pedagogy

One of the primary justifications for the introduction of iPads into the SEACERT course was the pursuit of increased student engagement. When considered against the claim that engagement is a prerequisite for learning (Middlecamp, 2005), and that it increases the likelihood that new knowledge and skills will be retained (Wolfe, 2010), it can be seen that this is a worthwhile pursuit. While not a learning theory in itself, engagement occurs in social conditions like those that exist under social learning and social constructivist models (Woollard, 2010) and therefore we must look for evidence of these models to link iPads technology to engagement.

Despite being espoused by the School, the current implementation of the SEACERT course does not employ iPad/iAnnotate technology in a manner that promotes the social conditions required to foster engagement. Instead the iPad's are utilised under a instructor-lead and overtly behaviourist pedagogy which uses them as digital textbook's in what Puentedura (2014) identifies as 'substitution' - the swapping of one tool for another without any change in the function. As well as deviating from the Schools espoused pedagogy, this approach is also at odds with workplace expectations of graduates who need to work in cooperative and collaborative teams - functions of a social constructivist approach. While engagement certainly occurs under the current pedagogy, it is difficult to differentiate whether the students are engaging with the content or just simply with the technology

Adult learners and andragogy

Given that all students that attended the SEACERT course are adults, it is an obvious leap to suggest that Malcom Knowles's andragogy (Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 2011) may have some application. Key attributes of this theory are the need to know, readiness to learn, and the students orientation to learning (p. 139). Certainly the closeness of the content to the workplace application mean that most if not all of these criteria are fulfilled.

If the criteria are applied to the iPad/iAnnotate implementation, it can seen that as a pedagogical support tool this technology enables students to research information specific to their circumstance, it allows anytime, anyplace access to the content, and provides the capacity to make notes and access quizzes built into the student study guide. Despite this alignment to andragogical principles, the current implementation still suffers from  'substitution' (Puentedura, 2014) in that these functions were also incorporated into the original textbook. Regardless of this, it is easy to see how this technology could support andragogical principals if it was developed further. Indeed the original proposal suggested the use of contextualised, highly interactive activities backed up by formative feedback, all initiatives that would create greater alignment with Knowles's andragogy as well as creating the engagement desired by social constructivists.

Benefits and issues arising from the incorporation of the iPads into the School

Benefits arising from iPad technology

Just like other departments, the XYZ School has been forced to explore ways in which to reduce spending while still maintaining normal outputs. Certainly the introduction of iPads falls into this category with the projected savings expected after six years. Despite this monetary focus, this project is also an innovative method of acquiring cutting-edge technology for the classroom. While some teething issues are apparent, these are somewhat negated by the practical experience the school is gaining in the deployment and maintenance of technology in the classroom. The expertise and knowledge gained through this trial-and-error approach places the School in a powerful position to take advantage of emerging learning technology should further funding be released in the future. 

Although the current School pedagogy does not fully support the integration of iPad technology into the classroom, it is heartening that it does still recognise the potential. The initial proposal highlighted the ability of mobile learning devices to create engagement, contextualisation and conduct formative assessment (XYZ School, 2012), views that parallel those of the wider educational community (Johnson, Adams, & Cummins, 2011; Miller & Doering, 2014) who see mobile learning as a tool that supports better learning outcomes. While the potential to realise these benefits still exists, it would take strong organisational and educational leadership to overcome some of the current implementation issues that the School faces.

Issues arising from iPad technology

As alluded to earlier, the introduction of new technology into the classroom has not been without its problems. Whereas the physical handout allowed students to easily search for information, the iPad/iAnnotate implementation has been less successful. Students have commented on the extra time it takes to find simple information, while instructors have noticed a corresponding reduction in learning time. Although students are instructed on the effective use of these devices at the start of the course, searching an iAnnotate document is just one of many teaching points that the student has to master. Add to this the size of the document and the skill-set required to efficiently search, filter, and make sense of the information found (Terras & Ramsay, 2012) within it and the struggle that students face becomes clearer.

As with the original study guides, the School expected that students would use the iPads to conduct study at home however this has not been the case. Investigating this issue further, the School has found that as the majority of students live in shared accommodation, they are reluctant to take the devices home in case they are lost or damaged (for which they are liable for). This unintended consequence has been meant that the opportunities to reinforce the day's lesson or conducted pre-reading for tomorrows lesson have been significantly reduced. As an interim solution, instructors now hand out question sheets at the end of the lesson however without the actual course material in front of them students are forced to rely on memory. Cognitive learning theory tells us that in order to transition information from our working memory into our long-term memory we need to revisit the information (Weisberg & Reeves, 2013), something that is undoubtedly harder without reference material to study from.

Critical analysis of professional development and other strategies used by the organisation to support the incorporation of iPad technology

Professional development

The introduction of iPads into the XYZ School occurred over two years ago. Since this time the original instructors have been replaced by new staff, each of whom require up-skilling in the use of this new classroom technology. Although in-house training does occur, it is predominantly based around the manipulation of the iPad rather than it's effective employment in the classroom. In recognition of this deficiency, the School has contracted another training department to provide workshops that will cover the use of this technology in the classroom. While these will certainly inform instructor practice, there are concerns that the underlying pedagogy will not alter. As Papa (2010) highlights, the mere presence of technology in the classroom does not guarantee good learning outcomes. What is required is educational leadership that promotes a pedagogy that utilises the technology in a manner beyond its current substitution. As stated earlier, the original vision and justification for iPads at the School outlined a pedagogy that acceded to social learning, social constructivism and andragogical principles. This vision has yet to be realised and it will take significant leadership to forge a path towards this approach.

Organisational development

The XYZ School is a small department within a larger organisation (ABC Company) which means its leadership focus is organisational rather than educational. The implementation of this approach is evident in the centralised model used by the organisation (all decisions come from the ABC Company) whereas the XYZ School desires to have more control over decisions that affect learning outcomes. While both  sides have valid reasons for their stance, Papa (2010) suggests that the de-centralised model desired by the School encourages creativity and active student/employee participation; all traits that align with the organisations expectations of graduates when they return to the workplace.

While it is easy to suggest that more freedom be granted to XYZ School to implement learning solutions as they see fit, the reality is that in a commercial organisation production outputs and pressures will influence what is taught and how. Without a strong educational leadership resisting these influences, innovative learning solutions like iPads will struggle to be implemented in a form that supports better learning outcomes.

References

Johnson, L., Adams, S., & Cummins, M. (2011). Technology outlook for New Zealand tertiary education 2011-2016: An NMC horizon report regional analysis.  Austin: The New Media Consortium.

Knowles, M. S., Holton, E. F., & Swanson, R. A. (2011). The adult learner : The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development (7th ed.). Oxford: Elsevier Inc.

Middlecamp, C. H. (2005). The art of engagement. Peer Review, 7(2), 17-20.

Miller, C., & Doering, A. (2014). The New Landscape of Mobile Learning : Redesigning Education in an App-Based World. Retrieved from Ebrary database.

Papa, R. (2010). Technology Leadership for School Improvement. Retrieved from Ebrary database.

Puentedura, R. R. (2014). SAMR and Curriculum Redesign. Retrieved from http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/2014/08/30/SAMRAndCurriculumRedesign.pdf

Terras, M. M., & Ramsay, J. (2012). The five central psychological challenges facing effective mobile learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(5), 820-832. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2012.01362.x

Weisberg, R. W., & Reeves, L. M. (2013). Cognition : From Memory to Creativity. Somerset, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons.

Wolfe, P. (2010). Brain Matters : Translating Research into Classroom Practice. Retrieved from Ebrary database.

Woollard, J. (2010). Psychology in the Classroom: Behaviourism. Retrieved from Ebrary database.

XYZ School. (2012). Use of tablet mobile computing devices in teaching at the XYZ School. Anon: XYZ School.

Formative Assessment in a technology-based classroom

Despite a significant portion of in-class formative assessments being carried out using traditional solutions, technology-based approaches have begun to make in-roads into the educational environment. In particular, Student Response Systems (SRS) are widely used in secondary and tertiary settings to allow teachers and student to interaction without the overheads normally associated with formative assessment. 

Whereas first generation SRSs used 'clickers' and required considerable investment in hardware, the latest generation of mobile and web-based products offer more functionality at little or no cost. Online systems like Socrative  allow teachers to dip their toes in the technology water, without having to fully commit to what might be a radical change.
Click on the picture above to see an overview of this technology.