The Digital One-Day

George Roberts

Audiographic environments Identity, literacy and community in

(partially) synchronous distributed learning environments

OCSLD Consultants Away Day 08/07/2010

Aim of the Digital One-DaysExploring the potential of Audiographics for

CPD SynchronousDistributedCollaboration

3 events of current interest as new form of CPD Online identity Digital literacy Communities (of practice) in HE (in the event, 2 have run)

Outline

The environment

The learning design

Evaluation

Questions & Discussion

QuestionsHow might you use audiographics in

your practice?

Does the Trojan mouse effect persist in any new learning environment?Any novel medium with or through which

learning, is done serves to foreground not the medium but the meaning of learning

i,e, discussions about e-learning are really discussions about learning

Innovation and noveltyTopics are challenging

The environment is challenging

There is an interaction between the environment and the topics

The environmentCore

Elluminate

FrameBrookes Blogs

WordPress

AdjunctsZoteroTwitterDeliciousSelected web links and feeds

AffordancesCommunication

SynchronousAsynchronous

CollaborationCould use a threaded forum

Continuity

Elluminate

New breed of collaboration tools allowing people to be simultaneously present in an desk-top computing environment based on a classroom metaphor2-way voice & video communicationText chatGraphicsA “White Board” on which “Slides” can be

displayedPresenters Participants Icon-tools such as “hand-raising”, emoticons

(smiley faces), polling

UsesTeaching events

Meetings

ConferencesDistributedDistant co-presence at face-to-face

events (conference streams)

Uses

Remote participation in a meeting

EVOLVE Educamp meetup

http://educamp.pbworks.com/ , http://educamp.olt.ubc.ca/

http://www.evolvecommunity.org/

Trainers in Europec. 100 people15 Countries

JISC Institutional Innovation

BenefitsDistributed collaboration

PlenarySmall group

Information sharingWhitebardDesktopApplicationsFiles (documents, etc)

Reduced travel – time, cost and carbon saving (?)

Recorded for replay

Disbenefits?Technical

The Internet is not like the movies: LagHardware/software compatibility Institutional firewalls

CulturalLiteracy: how to use the $%^&*! thingCommunity:

Interruptability, participation, open plan spaces Identity: representation of the self

Expectation management It is different from both face-to-face and “traditional”

on-line discussion-based distributed elearning

Learning DesignWebsite “home page”

Email joining instructions and briefs

Familiarisation sessions

Simple activity flow

Breaks

Continuity

Adjunct componentsTwitter

AnnouncementCommunityAdditional back channel

DeliciousLink sharingTagging/folksonomy building

ZoteroReference managementCitation sharing

(Internet radio)

http://digident.brookesblogs.net/

Delicious items tagged

“digident”

OCSLD twitter feed

Continuity items

Link to seminar

recording

Reference sharing

EvaluationSome considered the online interface ‘much richer

than face-to-face sessions’, found the different channels useful.

‘Interesting and productive environment’ effectively replicated a face to face workshop/seminar in terms of medium and activities.

Useful learning medium once acclimatisedBreakout groups worked well for engagement Interesting conceptual stuff from the panel

discussionExcellent questions raised The moderators and the participants with different

views of a very interesting topic, with moderation that made sure that all was somehow held together

The experience of taking part in online learning in this format.

The (useful) flow of presentation through to reflection and discussion

ChallengesA participant who thought the familiarisation

session went well referred to the session itself as ‘fraught with problems’.

Participant who came late took the first 30 minutes to catch up, experienced technical difficulties particularly with sound at first and did not manage to get a webcam working at all.

Communication a challenge in the medium. Sound problems

Difficulty with giving attention to a presentation for full 20 minutes

Bandwidth broke up audio in breakout groupsAttending an online workshop from the work place

different from attending a face to face events as the presence of the web, msn, email and telephone is distraction affecting concentration; needs discipline

Community and literacy have become “aerosol words”

Constructed communities and constructed identities (where there is an intentional aspect) are problematic where authenticity is valued

Literacy is a function of community and identity

Digital one-days introduce genre questions which expose the inter-relatedness of these concepts

With academic & digital literacy, communities of learning & practice, and online identity (Facebook etc), these concepts are exposed as foundational or threshold concepts for doing and being in higher education

QuestionsHow might you use audiographics in

your practice?

Does the Trojan mouse effect persist in any new learning environment?Any novel medium with or through which

learning, is done serves to foreground not the medium but the meaning of learning

i.e. discussions about e-learning are really discussions about learning

Thank you

George Roberts, Rhona Sharpe, Patsy ClarkeJosie Fraser, Helen Keegan,

Helen Beetham, Richard Francis, Frances Bell