I must revisit my initial idea of peer-feedback, after some very constructive critical comments on the discussion board. Indeed, the ‘thumbs up and down’ idea could be subject to abuse with colleagues giving each other more positive notes than to other members of the board.

But I will still maintain that some peer-feedback would be of use. One focusing only on positive feedback, where the ready-given responses to feeds/entries could be as such:

“How would you rate the above entry in terms of its relevance to the discussion topic?

·        OK

·        Very relevant/useful

I am beginning to realize the problem a lot of people have with online marking, responses or criticism is that, unlike spoken words given here and now, the online feedback stays there permanently. We don’t want to hear of our flaws (in deeds or in thinking), and if we already do, then the right course of action is to reflect and move on. Negative online feedback is a painful remainder that on that particular occasion we were wrong.

Imagine this; A world where you and your friends meet in the pub, a restaurant, or a coffee shop, order drinks, and sit down to socialise, and talk, and share your experiences. Someone starts talking about something, someone responds , two other people respond, not one after the other, but:

BbOoTh AaRrEe TtAaLlKkIiNnGg AaTt TtHhEe SsAaMmEe TtIiMe

Three and then four people start to talk, not waiting for each other to finish, and to make matters worse, you're each saying something different in the same tone, and then all 8 people join in !

Who do you focus on? can you focus on anyone? Maybe if 2 or 3 people are talking you might be able to pick out a voice but 8 people? What about 16 people? They never shut up ! But you manage to pick out something that some one is saying, and now you want to respond. Everyone is still talking VERY LOUDLY so you close you eyes to focus on your own voice, and join the conversation, or the shouting, or whatever you want to call it. You don't really know if anyone heard you, but when you finish what you're saying, you stop talking to pick out something new from the chaotic situation, and then you close your eyes, and start again.

Welcome to the world of on-line text chat ! But with a difference. You use your eyes, and not your ears. Ten conversations are going on at the same time, but it does not matter because your eyes can pick out the conversations that you want to participate in. If you want to remember what someone said earlier on, you can scroll up, read, and re-read it as many times as you like ! (If there's no video cam, you can also join the chat unshaven, in your pyjamas, listening to some music, watching TV, and eating a tub of Ben & Jerry's).

You can also save the conversation on your local drive, or on the university e-learning discussion board for future reference.

Chat can be a fantastic tool for online learning, where in a very short space of time great minds can meet, focus on a particular topic, and share their ideas. This is true especially when discussions are joined by experienced tutors (Like Rory and Sian) guiding the conversation topics at various intervals.

So until we can develop faster than light travel, go to a nearby star system (Distance and speed depending on how far back in time you want to see), and use a super high resolution telescope with a very wide lens pointed at earth in order to lip read what was said by a particular group of people at a certain time (I don't think sound can travel that far). Until we can do all this, we should certainly further explore the benefits of text chat !       

I have to admit that when I first heard about the digital natives and the digital immigrants, specifically within this environment of e-learning, my immediate thought was that the Digital Natives are teachers and lecturers (You) wanting to persuade and teach students (Us) about learning technology, so that we can migrate to a new way of learning (e-learning). 

But that is not the case ! As defined by Mark Prensky [1] the originator of this theme, the Digital Natives are students that: 

"have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using; computers, video games, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age."  

But how strict is this definition? Speaking from personal experience, I was once upon a time a High School student during the early 90's in Syria, which at the time was certainly not very digitalised. My only experience of using a computer during that time was a 1 month summer course learning BASIC programming using a Commodore 64. I didn't begin using computers properly until starting university in 1995, as a Computer Systems Engineering Student at Sunderland University. I have not spent my entire life surrounded by Digital Gadgets, but I do not consider myself less comfortable using such technologies than those who have.

I turn to the Internet first rather than later for information, I enjoy experimenting with how to use new technology first before turning to a manual, and I do a fair bit of on-line socialising. So by Prensky's definition, am I a Digital Native, a Digital Immigrant? Something in between? Or are computing and technology graduates an exception to this definition? 

Also, the most complete and popular social networking site on the internet at this time is Facebook Launched in the year 2004, 3 years after Marc Prensky's paper: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants [1]. So there seems to be a new generation that came after the original Digital Natives of the late 1990's, what do we call this new group? 

  "If we ask ‘native of where?’, we begin to see that each demands a territory, a nation‐state or a landmass"[2]   

 So I am slightly confused about what is meant by Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants, who belongs to these groups? Findings in [3] suggest that there are a number significant minorities within the younger generation that are not as technologically adept as their fellow students, and that there are indeed differences between age groups, and between student groups in difference locations. The paper suggests that "age maybe less important than exposure to technology", a statement which makes more sense to me than Prensky's definition.

My mother and elder members of my family have been exposed to technology for a relatively short period of their lives, but they are confident Digital consumers. And I'm not sure how they would react if I told them that in some academic and learning circles they are known as "Digital Immigrants". They would probably laugh, but even so I don't see the point in using terms that divide directly or indirectly people from each other based on their age.  

Having said all this, I do agree with Prensky's intentions. This is an age where students (of any age) have access to the conveniences of the Digital world. There are more ways to interact with each other than ever before, and they have access to anything they need when they need it. They don't even need to go to the library to find information because it can be found from home on the internet in many formats; Wikis, Videos, News Articles, Blogs, etc.

Therefore teachers must adapt and make use of this technology in order to make learning more of an effective and enjoyable process. But also, the appropriate educational bodies must provide teachers with all the support they need so they can this.  

[1]Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

[2] Digital native' and 'digital immigrant' discourses: a critique:

https://www.vle.ed.ac.uk/webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template/readings/bayneross.pdf 

[3] Net generation or Digital Natives: Is there a distinct new generation entering university?

https://www.vle.ed.ac.uk/webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template/readings/Jones_2010.pdf

Even when plunging into the ‘black hole’ of the online, the basic rule of thumb to follow is the same as offline,  to remember the human (from an article on netiquette). Despite the tech element, it is still all about interaction and building relationships. Transferred into the educational context, the classroom might be swapped for a VLE, accessible at any time and place, but technology should not supersede pedagogy. And the learning theories that I have in mind here are blend of humanistic approaches and social constructivism, a balance of individualism and collaboration.

For that to work, the students need to be instructed what they are using the technology for and what is expected of them in terms of input (content plus assessment criteria) if they are to treat the online component seriously and not as a fancy (and probably clumsy) add-on. The purpose of different tools and choice of online activities should also be made clear so that students do not develop wrong expectation. This would refer especially to self-study courses where the student is left altogether to their own devices. To illustrate what I mean, I will refer to the first story ‘The black hole’. There is perhaps a natural tendency for people to moan and groan or exchange views on topics unrelated to the course but that can be done on a separate, non-learning, forum, e.g. ‘virtual cafe’ and the purpose of such a forum should be clearly spelt out and differentiated from that of learning forums and this is what happened in the story about ‘the black hole’. The message got ignored, sucked into a vacuum, leaving the student distressed and disappointed. It’s possible, however, that it was the course design that was to blame rather than the self-absorbed cat-loving fellow students. Namely, the design could be summarized as ‘laissez faire’, the students were let to get on and in doing so the cat group opted not to respond to the other student’s call for help. For obvious reasons (age, different outlook and priorities) she hadn’t engaged in interaction with them and so she might have been perceived as an outsider and intruder, somebody they did not care about.

To develop a sense of community and add dynamics to the course, many online courses introduce groupwork. Things might go wrong though, especially when individuals present different views on how to go about the task. In order to facilitate smooth collaboration and get students more involved and perhaps become watchdogs themselves, a working agreement could be devised at first which could describe in detail how they are going to collaborate and behave towards each other. The students could regularly reflect on the effectiveness of the agreement, refining it if need be. 

Creating rubrics specific to groupwork could perhaps encourage more active participation from quieter or idler students. It is true that, similarly to a traditional classroom, there will be an array of learning styles on an online course, with some students sharing their ideas publicly more readily while the more reflective types might lurk in the shadows of online back channels but certain mechanisms need to be put in place which will squeeze the minimum from the latter, especially in the case of groupwork. Assigning a leading role to a quieter student, putting them in a position of responsibility might spur more activity on their part too. Collaboration could also be subject to anonymous peer assessment, something one presenter in the workshop I recently went to  had introduced on their course. What is more, the peer assessment could influence the final mark, which kept all the potential idlers on their toes!

Since the online overly relies on the written word, there is much more permanency. Once you write something on an online forum, it's frozen there and irremovable (unless there is a good reason to take it off, e.g. abuse, indecency, etc.). So, greater care needs to be taken when posting messages but, on the other hand, there needs to be more forgiving  of other people's mistakes, being it spelling, grammar, a silly question or a daft contribution. Sometimes, the computer screen creates a buffer or a distance; you cannot see the recipient, their face or gestures, you deal with lone words, making the one who typed them become somehow disembodied and dehumanised. This might induce more assertiveness in you, make you feel more vociferous and bold in your opinions, putting forward criticisms. I think it's always worth asking yourself a simple question ‘Would I say something like this to the person face-to-face?’ (the flamer story).

The online might exert an interesting influence on how people present themselves and how much of personal info they decide to disclose, and how much of it they tamper with, embellish, distort and how fast they allow the truths to trickle into the open. This is particularly interesting in the case of people who are perceived as 'different' by the society at large, for example due to their disability or people who have experienced some misfortune in their life. In order to receive equal treatment, some of them will choose to hide the fact of their otherness. This way the online might promote inclusion more effectively than face-to-face.

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of flow, the process through which we are going while trying to achieve our goals is more enriching than the success of attaining them at the end. This can be explained by the sense of enjoyment one derives from overcoming obstacles on the way, often through trial and error, momentarily groping in the dark in order to be enlightened in the most unexpected moment, forming hypotheses, scrutinising them to either refine them or refute them. It is these little successes (and likewise failures) that provide a sense of fulfillment, progress and flow.

I am now embarking on a new journey and although the final destination seems to be clear – completion of the introductory module of the post-grad course in e-learning, the adventures on the way seem equally, if not even more, enticing. As a true traveller, I cannot NOT keep a log of events – let it be ICTraveBlogue (50% after all).

LOOKING BACK & AHEAD

In order to explain how the idea of the flow applies to blogging, let me go to the roots. I’ve had a go at blogging before. While doing an online course in autumn 2008 (ICT in the Classroom), one of the tasks was to set up a blog. Mine was very impressionistic and featured a handful of stories from distant places, embellished with pictures and music. It’s still floating somewhere in the blogosphere but I’ve given up on it as I didn’t have a clear idea of what to fill it up with.

At the same time, I discovered a few blogs kept by language educators, some of them exemplary, some of them not. I also tried blogging with my learners but again due to insufficient planning, the blogs soon fell into oblivion. There’s been and still is a desire in me to blog but seeing how many people reach for this tool to share their personal or professional musings, I feel overwhelmed and somewhat reluctant to throw in my two pennyworth. Sometimes, I feel like there are too many words already produced and the blogosphere becomes a massive dump of verbal waste, creating a sort of e-pollution. Cautious and maybe overprotective of my digital identity and image, I’m slightly sceptical about blogging.

Blogging means getting enmeshed in the Web, Web 2.0 to be exact. By establishing your online presence in the blogosphere and contact with your audience you build social relationships. As in real life you look after your reputation, maintaining your online self requires careful planning and management. This is your online footprint, coded in pixels and bytes, easily replicated and reproduced elsewhere by means of pings, tweets, mentions, linkbacks. Therefore, to prevent the blog from becoming a double-edged sword, some quality-assurance formula is essential. This means determination,  an awareness of the audience, sharing interesting, thought-provoking ideas and posing good questions for the audience to ponder and finally being willing to involve in the dialogue. I am an educator in the first place, a technologist in the second so pedagogy will always come first and thus the basic questions to ask yourself before venturing into the blogosphere are 'why am I doing this and what do I want to achieve?' and 'how do I want my audience to benefit from it?', questions I keep asking myself before each face-to-face or online class.

Ideally the ideas shared with the reader should be new but these are sometimes hard to come by and perhaps require a spark of genius ;-) I much rather prefer the other route of the so-called ‘creative recombination’ which might involve the following steps (aptly described in the course on Personal Learning Environments):

·         Aggregate

·         Remix

·         Repurpose

·         Feed further

In case of this blog, the aggregation has been partly managed by my course tutors – it’s the module list of core and secondary texts. It’s also the input from fellow students in form of the discussion forums. Lastly it’s the blogs and sites on e-learning I have been following for a while, Steve Wheeler’s or George Siemens’ to name a coupls. Combined with my personal experience of being an online student and tutor, this should provide enough food for thought for this blog. By engaging with concepts pertinent to e-learning, I am hoping to increase my expertise in the field. But an additional goal is to harness the idea of blogging, dispel any sceptisism about its feasibility and instill a healthy habit of reflecting on the web reality/e-learning. This is the journey or the process I am going to take part in and hope to derive a sense of flow. This should be easier as the blog at the moment is to grow in a closed environment, a little greenhouse visited only by my tutors – less worry about my digital footprint. Another ‘bonus’ is the fact it’s subject to assessment – otherwise my procrastinating self could easily forget about the required frequency and quality of postings.

In order to do so I need a plan too. I thought I could start with setting up some basic rules by filling in this simple but imaginative worksheet from Blog of Proximal Development:

Week one of 'Introduction to digital environments for learning' is drawing to a close.  An interesting activity, and in many ways challenging as the different student types discussed had a lot in common, so it wasn't always easy to come up with something new.

Having found time to finish reading 'e-tivities' by Gilly Salmon this morning, I find that the last few pages of the book to be relevant to this exercise.  The book is divided in to two similar length parts, starting with an introduction to e-tivites and makes use of Gillys five-stage framework.  Part two concentrates on resources for practitioners and is divided down in to a number of digestable sections, each a couple of pages in length.  Many of the sections  look at issues raised in the course discussions such as: 'Promoting collaborative groups', 'on line emotions' and 'Patterns of participation'. The patterns of participation section is particularly relevant as it discusses the characteristics of most (if not all) of those partisipants studied, alongside a number of others that give a fuller picture of the social mechanics of discussion boards.

I found the book a challenging read so it has taken some time for me to complete it.  However the resources section makes this a worthwhile read for anyone looking at online learning from any perspective.

Salmon, G. (2002) e-tivities (the key to online learning). Abingdon: RoutledgeFalmer.

Having looked over all the case studies for week one, I find they appear to have more in common than not.  There is a general consensus that preparing the students in advance is key, to this I add that the staff need to be prepared well too.

It can be difficult to find somthing original to say once the threads have got underway, I guess this leads to some original thinking at times.

The big day has arrived, so I have had a go at the week one activities.  There are only a few contributions so far, so I have dived in in the hope that I am on the right track and that it will encourage others to dive in too.  The pace of contribution will probably quicken towards the end of the week as everyone consciously tries not to be identified with any of the characters in the case study!

I tried to buy an ebook reader today but Waterstones were out of stock of the model I chose, the assistant told me they had two on the stock system but they were both faulty customer returns...  I hope such a device will make referring to articles easier as I won't have to flick from session to session on the computer.

Well, I guess this is where it all begins.  I am looking forward to being on the receiving end of education for a change. 

Not a totally good day of e-teaching, a faulty projector and downloaded youtube videos that decided not to play.

I'd like to offer three things as final thoughts regarding the IDEL10 course.

• First is a word cloud IDEL10 Wordle BW.pdf (you might want to save this and open in a pdf viewer that has the ability to rotate the view). It was created based on the over 20,000 words I wrote in 26 posts in this blog over the past three months. The cloud was generated by http://www.wordle.net. Students, Discussion and Learning seem to be the most frequently used words. Yep, students sure discussed learning. 
• Second is a mindmap elearning mindmap.pdf centering on e-learning created in Google Docs. It's different from what I would have drawn three months ago. The technologies mentioned are the ones we encountered, although I can see now that I have omitted Twitter, even though I tweeted on a regular basis with the hashtag #mscel. And of course there are many other technologies out there.
• Third, I looked at the course learning outcomes as described in the IDEL10 Course Guide, page 5.

1. "Critically evaluate a range of technologies in terms of their impact on teaching and learning." Although the use of most technologies throughout the IDEL10 course was on a rather basic level, there are lots of critical remarks regarding technologies and technology use in my blog.
2. "Begin to design your own online learning resources." Although the word design is frequently used in my blog (look at the word cloud, it's wedged in the second N of learning) there were not many activities regarding design in the course itself. I think I learned most about design by critically looking at the setup of the IDEL10 course, and the way this design was employed by the different team members.
3. "Contextualise your own practice in terms of the key issues emerging from current research in e-learning." Wherever possible, I brought in anecdotes from my own experience, although want might say that these anecdotes were used as much to contextualise the readings, as the other way around.

Finally. I know I have been a "difficult and demanding student" like I wrote in my last blog post. I do hope though that some of my criticism of the IDEL10 course will make it into the team's evaluation. Should this lead to more specific questions you'd like to ask me, please contact me.

Thanks to all of you, and in particular to Clara (you're in the word cloud as well, upper left corner, right above the word 'also', that can't be a coincidence ;-) for bearing with me.