The Inevitable ECA Page

OK, so like those of the H800 students that are still trying to keep their blog alive, I am joining your ranks in positing an entry on the last push to get the ECA out the way. Given that my last assignment wasn't that crash hot, I really had better get this write. My two topics are: 

  1. Blogs and blogging.
  2. Learning Design.

Including my and experiences of others in these two technologies. I must confess that I'm still a bit mystified as to why I chose the second topic. This is one of those 'gut feelings' that I can't see the way through this wood, but hopefully it'll turn out fine once I start to grapple with it more. 

We've been discussing in our group the value of sharing our writing processes with other members in our tutor groups (or even across the course), but that seems like a 'bridge too far' for the OU at the moment. Put it this way, no-one is saying anything officially from OU on this except that 'joint work' is not permitted, and nor is 'publishing one's assignments' online. 

However, we are allowed to publish our structure and thoughts and so here's a synopsis so that if anyone can get something out of this, then great. If they can see a glaring ommission then even better if they leave a comment. Right here goes:

Blogging

There's no shortage of papers to choose from on the phenomena of blogs and blogging. This is quite a straight forward piece. However, the glaring omission that most of this research makes (imho) is that there's no empirical evidence to suggest that blogging actually DOES make a learner a better learner. In other words there's no controlled studies to show either (i) that blogging makes a better learning experience and (ii) assuming that it does, what aspect about the blogging experience is the ingredient that seems to make for a better learner.

Note that I'm not suggesting that loads of very academic folks haven't thought or written about this - lots of conjecture - but not much empirical research.

So I guess you can see where my recommendations for future work is going to go. In terms of making suggestions for practitioners, yes I've got a few of those - more from anecdotal research rather than empirical research. Principally (based on Thorpe's (2007) paper):

  • Make blogging compulsory - assessment marks work well here
  • Give the first blogs a template structure of what to write - because first time bloggers don't know where they are going (where's that mirror?)
  • Strongly suggest using the blogs to allow 'roles' to be played out - because taking on roles allows people to comment contrary roles. Gets over the initial 'hump' of feeling embarassed about positing (positively) critical comments.  
  • Give as many options as possible to allow people to construct their own personal learning environment (PLE) - because options provide something for everyone. For the blogger that is JUST doing it for the course, through to the novice blogger who thinks 'what the heck!' and jumps in with both feet.

There's a part of me that would also like to present some stats about the blogging activity of either our tutor group, or even that of the whole H800 course. It seems superficially to me that 'macro' blogging, instead of micro-blogging (aka Twittering) has been a success for only a minority of us. Generally it seems that most of us have set up a blog because we were asked to do so, but only a minority have kept up regular blog entries. Even fewer blog entries have comments assigned to them - suggesting that as a group at least, we're not as social as the software appears to allow us to be. There again, this is an option if I'm stuck and twiddling my thumbs with nothing to think of saying - unlikely!

Learning Design

Somehow, when I was reading this section first (Wks 8 & 9), I really got the wrong end of the stick. I really was conflating learning design with curriculum, course and programme design. Although there's overlap, I 'get it' now that learning design is specifically design whose focus is on uncovering the the hidden assumptions that teachers make about a learning activity. OK, I want to focus primarily on the Hybrid Learning Model (because I love the groovy cards that they've produced), which I've used as a starting point to help our staff at the primary school in discussing what they were considering when they were constructing their lessons and we started to see just how many of our assumptions were implicit. If one of us falls ill, it's very hard for a replacement teacher to come in and take over during the recovering period of the original teacher, essentially because too many assumptions are not known.

Again, like blogging, I cannot find much information on any empirical evidence to show that using learning design tools actually helps educators to transfer their hidden learning activity to another educator - the primary purpose of learning design. There is only one study that I know of that shows that students who had their course learning design elements explicated through this process, did in fact get higher course marks than their counterparts who did not get this information; but it's a study of only one. Clearly space for replication.

I guess my interest lies more in the overlap of learning design and curriculum design. I think it's somehow here that the issue of the appropriateness of technology to a learning activity becomes most usefully discussed, or explicated. In other words I'm not sure that a learning design activity, with or without learning design technology, makes much sense without a strong sense of curriculum design - either designed by oneself or perhaps handed down from a national, provincial, state or other regional curriculum design body.

Combining the Two Technologies

There's a part of me that wants to be 'clever' and use some of the learning design tech to build up my suggested learning activity that justifies the use of blogs for my blogging example. However, I'm aware that this might be 'too clever' and fall hopelessly between the cracks because it will not fit into one of the neat headings that the fancy H800 designers have made for us (how ironic). Having been (imho) burnt by this in my last assignment, there's a sense of hesitancy to try this. "Just do the ECA and get a pass!" is the main thought that goes through my head. Not something that encourages taking risks and thinking laterally, but in fairness that's not stated as one of the learning outcomes for taking part in H800. 

Next blog will flesh these ideas out (I hope).

Reference

Thorpe, M. (2007). Effective online interaction: Mapping course design to bridge from research to practice. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 24, 57-72.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.