What is the quality of my learning networks: diversity, depth; and, How connected am I?

The quality of my learning network has increased dramatically since the beginning of the class and even more from the beginning of the semester.  I’ve been wanting to use more web 2.0 tools and increase my learning network but with working full time and taking classes, it had been difficult.  My last class required I keep a blog and this class continued that exercise.  I believe that to make something habitual, you need to be disciplined to keep doing it until it becomes habit.  I feel that I’ve reached that point with blogging and look forward to continuing my posts.

Also valuable was the requirement to respond to a professional blogger’s post.  This was a bit intimidating and without being an assignment, I’m not sure I would have done it on my own.  Now that have, I will continue to do so.  I’m a firm believer that if you don’t put yourself “out” there, things won’t happen.  This class gave me the little push I needed to accomplish that.

I’ve also discovered the value in using Google apps.  I preferred Netvibes to iGoogle, but being able to combine iGoogle with my Gmail, Google Docs, Google Maps and other useful applications,  I’ve made the switch.  Google also integrates well with my iPhone.  I’ve also started to use Diigo, Evernote and Remember the Milk on a regular basis.

Without integrating many of these tools into the coursework, I know I wouldn’t be at the point I am today and for that I’m thankful.  I always like to learn new things and look forward to seeing how these tools will continue to improve and change my life as an individual and learning practitioner.

How has what you learned in this course changed/altered your view of the process of learning?

The concept of Connectivism has changed my view on learning because it’s put some structure on how the way students learn is changing.  It helped me to recognize how teacher-centered my learning was when I was in grade school and how it was so personal and individual.  That kind of learning was so limiting.  Students today have so many opportunities to connect with other students and even the world around them.  They have an opportunity to express themselves in many different ways and to participate in instruction and activities that address many different learning styles.  I feel a little regret that I didn’t have those experiences growing up but I look forward to the opportunity to use these tools for my continued growth and learning.  I graduate in the Spring and I had been wondering how I will continue my growth after school.  Learning some of these new tools has given me the answer.

What questions are still outstanding?

The main question I have now is how to share and incorporate these tools into my course designs.  In many ways I’m limited by what my company will allow me to use, but in the meantime I will continue my personal use of these tools so that when they are available at work, I’ll be in a better position to recognize their value and how to incorporate them into my design.

In a perfect world, we would be able to go back to our workplace or school and implement some of these new tools.  In the real world, many of us are blocked from accessing these tools we’ve learned to enjoy that not only benefit us but could benefit our employers as well.  However, let’s just assume for a moment that we could implement some of these tools.  How do we use them and what do we need to consider when implementing them into our classroom?

When researching online learning best practices for another class I’m taking this semester, I came across General Guidelines for Distance Education Programs from Distance learning: Principles for effective design, delivery, and evaluation written by Mehrotra, Hollister, & McGahey. (2001) One of these guidelines stood out above all others:

• Identify the teaching or learning objectives to be achieved, and then choose the technology tools that make the goals achievable.

I’m very excited about using these tools, but we can’t let our excitement cloud the reason for using them in the first place.  There’s so much “buzz” in my workplace about Web 2.0 and what tools may be available to us in the future, but:

• Have we really taken the time to decide how to use these tools and are they more effective than the tools we currently use.
• Will the benefit of using these tools outweigh the time and energy that we spend in trying to have them implemented?

I’d argue that it does but these are questions we need to answer as we move forward.  I have no doubt that Web 2.0 is already changing the way we learn and the way we’ll design learning in the future.  Let’s enjoy the journey but not forget to step back from time to time and reevaluate our destination.

Resource:  Mehrotra, C. M., Hollister, C. D. & McGahey, L. (2001) Distance learning: Principles for effective design, delivery, and evaluation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Retrieved November 23, 2008 from http://www.rodp.org/faculty/pedagogy.htm.

1. Awareness – Engage students to become technologically literate.  Students need to know whats appropriate and not appropriate when using different digital technologies.
2. Guided Practice – Provide students with guidance on the appropriate use of technology.  Students need to know they’re in safe a environment where take can explore and take risks with the support of their teacher.
3. Modeling & Demonstration – Teachers and other adults need to be positive role models to demonstrate what it means to be a good digital citizen so students can follow their example.
4. Feedback and Analysis – Adults should offer constructive criticism and maintain an open discussion about how technology can be used in school and in society.

With the support of parents and others in the community, teaching digital citizenship can improve the safety of the classroom and online in general.  If we instill these values in our students today, will safety and security be less of a concern in corporate tomorrow?

Currently, safety and security is an issue of concern at the corporate level.  I’d think we need to set similar expectations and maintain a code of conduct when using tools in the corporate environment as well, but a blog post by Michele Martin may suggest otherwise.

She was an instructor and facilitator of an online Work Literacy course that presented various Web 2.0 tools for learning professionals.  The 5 week course had 3,000 visitors with 749 creating profiles and posting on each others walls.  There were 60 forum threads and 45 blog posts among numerous other communications.  Through all of this communication, she didn’t witness a single inappropriate or unprofessional exchange, nor did she receive complaints from any participants.  The only potential issues she witnessed was when there were a few participants that were there to sell a product.  In these cases, the other participants mostly ignored them so in a sense they were self policing and didn’t acknowledge this behavior.

Can we leave this self policing to chance in a corporate setting?  If not, how much control do we need to have over the tools we use?  If we provide too much control, will learners be discouraged from using the tools?

• Group 1 – Using a web 2.0 tool, will research and create a list of the top 10 restaurants in the area. (recommended tools: Yelp or Urbanspoon)

• Group 2 - Using web 2.0 tools, will research 5 attractions and take or find picture of each one. (recommend using Picassa for photos)

• Group 3 – Using Google Maps, will incorporate content from groups 1&2 to create Google Map for family.

This lesson will incorporate Connectivism, Project Based Learning and elements of Constructivism.

• How will we know if we’re successful?
• How will we know what we’ve learned?
• How will we know how to become better at what we do?

Reflective practice, introduced by Schon, involves thoughtfully considering one’s own experiences in applying knowledge to practice while being coached by professionals in the discipline.  As a new practitioner of instructional design, research and reflection are essential to my success. I need to think about what I’m doing each day when I’m completing a needs assessment or when I’m stroryboarding a new e-learning.  It’s important that I reflect on why I made the decisions I’ve made and where I acquired the information to make those decisions.  I need feedback from peers and coaching from mentors and supervisors.  I need to read industry publications like ASTD’s T&D and the E-learning Guild’s Learning Solutions E-Magazine.

During these past three weeks in class, I’ve become the reflective practitioner of which Schon is speaking.  Although Schon introduced this concept in 1987, with Web 2.0, reflective practice has never been easier than it is today. Blogs and wiki’s allow me to share my ideas with co-workers, classmates and other professionals in the industry. Because I’m a novice at blogging and new to the field, it’s yet another opportunity to solicit feedback and improve as a designer.  I read other professional’s posts to learn from and reflect on what they’re presenting.  By using Diigo, I’ve joined other e-learning and instructional design groups where we share and comment on links to blogs and sites that may be of interest to other group members.

I look forward to my journey as an instructional designer.  Research and reflective practice will be my guide.  Michelle Martin said it best on her blog, The Bamboo Project, when commmenting on reflective practice.  She said, “reflection is about–considering what you can learn from your experiences and then doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t.”  I want to do more of what works. How about you?

After reading the Wikipedia reference to social network services, I discovered that I started social networking when I joined Classmates.com in the late ‘90’s. The interface as I remember was relatively simple. I joined as a member and created a profile with my high school name, college name and years of graduation and then searched for fellow classmates by the same categories. The website allowed me to send an email through the site to classmates of my choice. It would be years later that I joined MySpace to keep in touch with my group of friends, send them party invitations, make plans with them for the weekend and be reminded to wish them a Happy Birthday. Who would have guessed how much social networks have changed the way we communicate and provided us with additional opportunities to learn and network?

Today, I’ve created a diverse social network via MySpace, Facebook, Linked In, Wikispaces, iGoogle and Twitter, among others. I keep a blog and post photos to Flickr and Mobileme galleries. I saw little value in social networks beyond keeping in touch with friends and networking through Linked In until recently. I continue to read in trade journals about the importance of using Web 2.0 and social networks as tools to enrich the learning experience.

Where do I go from here?  I think it’s very important as an Instructional Designer to continue to learn and keep up with industry trends and new technologies.  Social networking affords us that opportunity.  The E-learning Guild and Work Literacy are currently sponsoring an online conference called Work Literacy: Web 2.0 for Learning Professionals.  This is a great example of how we can use social networking to increase our knowledge in the field.  It’s no mistake that they’re using Ning, a Web 2.0 tool to present this conference.

Blogging is another excellent use of a social network to increase our learning and to share what we know with others.  As a new blogger, I look forward to sharing my ideas with other learning professionals.  I hope that other new instructional designers will relate to my successes and challenges and I look forward to feedback and advice from those seasoned in the field.

Lastly, I want to explore the use of Ning to create my own social network.  When I’m not taking class, I enjoy acting in community theater productions.  Recently, I’ve seen extensive use of Facebook in the theater community to post auditions and advertise upcoming productions.  I envision a social network, specifically for those interested in theater, where they can do this and more.  The network would have discussion boards related to audition tips, where to take private dance or voice lessons and reviews of local and Broadway productions.  The network is already established and active, the challenge is to encourage the potential members to use the site.

The more we use these tools, the better prepared we’ll be to understand how to apply them to enrich our learner’s experiences.  I look forward to the endless possibilities that Web 2.0 and social networks offer and I look forward to your shared experiences on this journey.

In the reading, Solomon and Schrum state “Web 2.0 signals a transition from isolation to interconnectedness.”  They go on to say that these new tools allow multiple learners to participate and collaborate rather than work alone.  As an instructional designer in a corporate setting, collaboration is a major focus.  While each person may have a specific role, most of us work on projects as a team.  We particpate on multiple teams with various functions.  However, when I think back to how I was taught in school, we had very few group projects and homework was done as an individual rather than a collaboration.  Incorporating Web 2.0 into the classroom will help foster these skills.  In the podcast, John Seely Brown, mentioned that we must focus more on a collaborative learning environment or context of learning rather than the content of learning.  Web 2.0 creates an architecture that allows for this focus of collaboration.

As educators, we need to embrace these tools by using them ourselves so that we can make decisions about how to apply them to the classroom so that we encourage collaboration and learning by discovery.  Our learners are already using these tools for many reasons.  We need to take advantage of their motivation to use these tools and get them excited about learning.  My question is this, with so many Web 2.0 applications available with similar functionality and more being developed each day:

1. Where do we start?
2. Do we choose tools currently being used by our learners?  Does it matter?
3. Will the tools we use be outdated in a few months or a year?

I’m looking forward to your thoughts and comments.

1. Less is more.
2. Trust the process.
3. Planning a lesson requires more thought and planning than actual writing of instructions and giving direction.
4. Sprinkle.
5. Scaffold.
6. It’s not always what you think the learner should know.
7. The sooner you “hook” the learner, the better. (hook=elicit an emotional response)
8. Constructivism requires the facilitator to “think on their feet.”
9. Constructivism requires a safe environment to be effective.

These are just a few of the themes that have been brought up in class.  If you have any to add, please feel free to comment.  This class has been one of the most enlightening of the program.  I was not so eager to take another Saturday class but this was a truly rewarding experience.  Thanks to Dr. Ackerman for practicing what she was teaching.  I look forward to “sprinkling” some constructivism in my future courses.