Reading 4

Cole, M. (2009).Using Wiki technology to support student engagement: Lessons from the trenches. Computers & Education, 52(1), 141-146.


This paper reported a fail experiment of using Wiki technology to support student engagement. The author used Action research as her research method. Action research is " a cyclical process of reflective practice particularly suited to educational settings " and has been defined by Carr and Kemmis (1986) as "imply a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practices, their understanding of these practices, and the situations in which the practices are carried out” (p. 162).

The experiment changed the content of the modules into 6 thematic groups and used lectures and presentation slides to help students consider issues on the Wikis, as well as used seminars to include Wiki-based reflective activities. Students were told to post wiki materials which would be used to create one exam question. However, students posted zero posts to the wiki after the 5 week experiment. The findings revealed that students were only interested in the pre-set learning activities. The two thirds participants had visited the wiki but posted nothing on it. The reason of lack of wiki posts included: technical constraints (37%, difficulties with using the technology), time constraints (29%), lack of interest (20%), self-confidence (doubts about the quality of their contribution, 14%).

The suggestions and reflections provided from this paper:
1. instructional scaffolding is required. Students were reluctant to publish Web-based material for peer-group review.
2. Educational technology must support a balance between the the needs of lecturers and students, and between the cost (time for learning and using new technology ) and the benefits (engagements, interest and improved learning).
3. student motivation for using technolgies were linked to their perception of fun and individual browsing behavior. Students may actively post among friends but be little willing to engage with other students.
4. "technology needs to support a pre-existing educational behaviour rather than trying to import behaviour from other domains."
5. The design should make students feel social technologies are enjoyable ( fun-to-use) or intrinsically useful (fun-gained).

My thoughts:
1. let students rate wiki contributions for their peer and themselves. Rubric could be provided and rated on the basis of frequency, quality, novelty, etc.
2. Learning involves altruistic behaviors and people wish to make their individual efforts rewarded.
3.education should consider student's learning relevance.

Reference:
Carr and Kemmis, 1986 W. Carr and S. Kemmis, Becoming Critical: education, knowledge and action research, vch, Berlin (1986).

Reading 3

Glass, J. &Sue, V. (2008). Student Preferences, Satisfaction, and Perceived Learning in an Online Mathematics Class. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 4(3), 325-338.

Research question:
Which learning objects do students prefer and use the most?
Which learning objects that students were most satisfied with?
Which learning objects had the most impact on students’ learning?

Methods:
Weekly surveys about the courses. Students were asked whether they used each of learning objects (PPT, Text, Video lectures, homework, discussions, and quizzes), and how much they felt that each one contributed to the learning of the weeks’ course materials. The final survey allowed students to rate each LO and evaluate the overall course.

I didn't see they compared the student learning achievement and the LO they used. But are they related? will different LOs influence student's learning success? Different LOs may contain diverse key content related to the exams, quizzes, or discussion board.

Reading 2

Hrastinski, S. (2008). What is online learner participation? a literature review. Computers & Education, 51(4):1755-1765.

The author reviewed 36 references to re-define online learner participation and to analysis the related research issues. First, she defined the 6 levels of the concept of online learner participation from the references. Second, she classified the type of online communication, methods of research analysis, and the units of analysis. There were 7 types of units of analysis: quantity of messages or units, messages or unit quality, learner perceptions, messages lengths, system accesses or logins, read messages, and time spent. Although actively posting/writing in online communities is the commonly understanding of participation, lurking or little contribution on writing were increasingly recognized that learning still occurs through such behaviors in online settings.

The author redefined the online learner participation as “a process of learning by taking part and maintaining relations with others. It is a complex process comprising doing, communicating, thinking, feeling and belonging, which occurs both online and offline.”

Reading 1

Preece, J., Nonnecke, B., and Andrews, D. (2004). The top five reasons for lurking: improving community experiences for everyone. Computers in Human Behavior, 20(2):201-223.

The authors reported that the reasons of lurking in online settings in the study: “not needing to post; needing to find out more about the group before participating; thinking that they were being helpful by not posting; not being able to make the software work (i.e., poor usability); and not liking the group dynamics or the community was a poor fit for them.“ They also concluded that “most lurkers are not selfish free-riders.”

Week 6- a podcasting research (2)

Copley, J. (2007) Audio and video podcasts of lectures for campus-based students: production and evaluation of student use. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 44(4), 387-399.

Another article about podcasting/ podcasts I have read recently is Copley’s research. Copley (2007) produced audio and video podcasts for undergraduate students to deliver lecture materials. The research results showed the majority of students had positive attitude towards the use of podcasts. The most commonly use of podcast materials was revision/preparation for assessment, to enable note-taking at own pace, to review on missed lectures and to have a completed record for own interest. The author also suggested that podcasts are particularly useful to students with specific learning needs, such as international students or anyone who may require more time for note-taking and learning.

Podcast materials can be easily downloaded and played on learners’ PCs or mobile devices, such as portable media players, portable digital music players, PDAs, and mobile phones. Hence, many researchers argue podcasts can serve as one form of mobile learning. However, in Copley’s (2007) research, the finding revealed that more than 80 percent of students prefer downloading and playing audio and video podcasts on a PC rather than using them in a mobile learning environment The implementation of the educational podcasting did not support mobile learning as the expectation.

However, the results were not surprising me. Most of podcasts only contain audio content. Unlike traditional materials where learners could still rely on pictures or graphics to support in understanding, audio podcasts reply solely on the audio voice of the recorder to transmit knowledge. If learners want to have an effective learning, they need to focus on one thing at one time. It should be difficult for learners to do multitasks and complete effective and efficient learning activities simultaneously. Also, if the podcast language is not the native language of the learners, the learning effect may be greatly reduced, unless the podcast content is intended for language learning.

Podcasting increased the flexibility in learning, but for better learning outcome by using podcasting to support mobile learning, it still challenges instructors and instructional designers.
I think audio podcasts should design and contain uncomplex, repetitive, but not boring content. Also, providing some questions in podcasts for learner to reflect and evaluate their understanding is a possible useful approach to enhance learning. Reflection does not require too much reference at hand and does not require learners to remember new information. This allows learners to take control of learning content and enables learning to take place at the learner's convenience.

Week 6 prompt

How do issues such as authorship, copyright and open access impact your desire, ability and willingness to engage in produsage, both personally and professionally?

Wow! The six week intense class is going to finish so soon. By this class, I have tried many Web 2.0 technologies, Twitter, Facebook, Diigo, Flickr, Youtube, Technorati, Citeulike, Delicious, etc. Some of them I have been very familiar with, some of them I have heard but never have a chance to try, and some of them I have just learned from this class. There are so many useful tools and functions that I would definitely keep using them in the future. For example, I often use Youtube to search tutorials to learn new technologies and its features. Citeulike is a novel tool for me, but I know I will use it from now on as a PhD student to help me collect academic articles and search and expand the research topics I’m interested in. Flickr can be not only a simple photo sharing website but also a visual learning tool that could enable a community to discuss and exchange ideas through one or a series of specific photos.

Also, I have been very familiar with Blogs and Wikis, and will keep use them to collect my personal ideas (in personal and professional fields) and use wikis with classmates to collaborate group projects.

Although I believe those innovative technologies could be used to enhance learning experience, there are so many approaches and applications that I have never thought about that before. For example, an instructor can use Twitter as a means to communicate students and parents, and incorporate Twitter into the course to facilitate collaborative learning. One of the characteristics of Web 2.0 tools is information sharing. I think this can be exploited to provide a platform for feedback from peers, instructors, or a community of practices. However, no matter what technologies you, as an instructional designer, will use, the most important thing is how you can incorporate them to increase motivation and promote learning.

Week 6- a podcasting research

Lee, M.J.W., McLoughlin, C. & Chan, A. (2008). Talk the talk: learner generated podcasts as catalysts for knowledge creation. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(3), 501-521.


Podcasting is a kind of Web 2.0 technologies, although we did not talk much in this Web 2.0 class. It refers to the method of distributing multimedia files and releasing files to the Internet. Most people claim the term is from a combination of iPod and broadcasting. This new technology combines the strength of blogging with digital media (audio, video) technology to present multimedia content. With RSS feed feature, subscribers can receive new podcasts instantly and automatically.

Mostly, podcasting has been used in education to deliver learning materials, which are frequently created by instructors, such as audio/video recordings of lectures, supplementary materials, guest speaker’s talks. A relatively few researches show the learning effects on learner-generated podcasts. Lee, McLoughlin, and Chan’s (2008) study is one of the research that asking students to create learning content podcasts in education.

Lee, McLoughlin, and Chan (2008) argued that learner-generated content enables learners to engage more and deeper in the learning context by build and organize knowledge rather than passively receiving learning materials. Hence, they applied a quantitative approach to explore the learning outcomes of podcasting created by groups of students. In their study, students were required to re-think and synthesize the knowledge they acquired in the coursework through the podcast production process. The result of the study found the evidence of knowledge building and of student engagement with collaborative learning, and this approach fosters learners’ control and ownership of their learning and of the technology.
The concept of learner-generated content reminds me that we have also employed this idea in our produsage creations. We also need to reflect what we have learned from our experience and apply the idea into our produsage assignment. Through these two produsage assignments, I did learn a lot from Yoon Jeon and XinRong by discussing and sharing our ideas. In addition, I think Web 2.0 technologies provides many features that enable users/ learners to create content, and it is a useful learning approach that should be advocated and employed in education for a better learning performance.