Virtual Learning

Hi people,

we had an interesting seminar on micro and mobile learning yesterday. In these forms of learning the content gets divided into very small learning units (usually 2 or 3 minutes). The form of these units could be short questions, text writing exercises, listening comprehensions, word quizzes, either online or via mobile phone. The learner gets the learning units step by step offered in small chunks. The advantage is that it does not take much time. Learning is easily integrated into the learner’s day. Learning happens continuously. Micro and mobile learning is used for changes in behaviour, communication training, sales training, management training or time and self management.

My idea was to use it especially for in-firm training for people who work with a computer. It might be a supplement to a training session. One example could be healthy living at the work place. There an individual training plan could be integrated into daily work. The employee gets suggestions to do easy exercises to prevent visual defects, a decrease in concentration or back or neck pain depending on the person’s health and goals.

Additionally, micro learning could be used for language learning. Short vocabulary learning units and quizzes would be offered bit by bit. Wouldn’t it be amazing to learn 3 new words a day in with hardly any extra work?

In my opinion, micro learning is a good supplement to many forms of learning. But it usually should not stand alone. The exercises need to be explained in advance, the person’s motivation has to be checked and the goals have to be settled. Plus, it does not help you to know new words if you never use them in a situation. Some longer learning units might also be necessary after a few micro units.

I still doubt that teachers at state schools will send text messages to there students soon. I also doubt that micro learning is useful for in class teaching because it might be very distracting. To integrate micro learning to a class’s private computer use also seems complicated to me. You need to know a lot about your class’s computer usage and the behaviour of the participants needs to be very similar. This seems to be far-off reality.

But I really, really like the idea of micro learning and would definitly recommend it where it is useful.

Juliane

Hello everybody,

as I promised lately I want to write some comments on LMS and LCMS first.

Well, I never heard of these terms before but after a little research I found out that I already used some of these. LMS and LCMS seem to be the terms for a learning platform where learning content can be stored, managed and saved. But it even seems to be more than that. Also the learning itself can be managed.. The complete learning environment… grades, feedback, material, interactions with students and teachers and so on.

All right, from my own experiences I worked with “Edu Commsy”. This was mostly used for managing learning material and informing students about news. But people could interact via email as well. I think I only did it once. I used some more platforms but I forgot their names. The platform that was used at my US college was “Blackboard”. They describe it as: Hamline’s online learning software which includes course work and online courses. But I never had to use it. I also heard of “Moodle” in another seminar.

But what about Systems like Stine or Piperline (the one I also know from the US)? Are these maybe LMS and the others are LCMS???? Because they don’t offer content. Stine includes things such as register classes and grades. Piperline includes e.g. access course schedules, register, check class rosters, account balances, feedback and more.

That’s it about my experiences with LMS and LCMS so far.

One last comment on the group work. We met in person and not online. One group member was missing… Where are you???

In the last session unfortunatelly none of my group members appeared. I realized that I understood the presentation a little wrong. We are supposed to PRODUCE a LEARNING UNIT about the topic. I gotta inform my group about this and I guess we have to change plans a bit.

That’s it for now…

I’m pleased about comments…. Juliane

Hello out there,

I am back! It´s been a while but I was NOT lazy..just I didn´t mention it here…

Since two weeks we are working on a group project. We are intending to make a presentation on LMS (Learning Management System) ans LCMS (Learning Content Management System).

To get this topic I selected the attached lovely picture…

To watch the group work progress you might want to check out our Wiki:

http://wiki.loveitorchangeit.com/tiki-index.php?page=Nature-group

It is my first Wiki and I think I could like it. We collect our ideas there and try to note the progress of our group work.

That´s all for now. I´ll be back later to write something more about the group work and my experiences with LMS and LCMS and the group work.

Juliane

Reading the other comments I realized a couple of things:

1. It is interesting if the topic is also the method (it is a e-learning seminar on e-learning). So you might directly transfer your own learning experiences to the results. Just wonder if this is too many steps at once…but not sure about it yet…

2. E-learning offers a great way of interacting with other students. I never had that many chances of interaction in another seminar. ONE MORE ADVANTAGE

3. Intermediate steps of the learning process can be documented. You can write drafts, change it anytime, leave thoughts and notes and delete it later. Almost no other traditional media offers that many ways. Usually it is just the final that is published… This is a chance for a new way of documenting and also evaluating the learning process (individueller Lernfortschritt). But also a big risk of getting lost into details, I guess…. So the teacher really needs to structure the process and needs to know where he wants to take the students (klares Lernziel).

Juliane

Hello again…

So this is Task No. 2…

Here I first want to talk about what E-Learning is about, secondly, list advantages and disadvantages in eLearning and last, name setting, situations and content where e-learning is suitable…. (note: if people can’t agree on spelling they might not agree on one definition….?!)…

Big Brother (:) Wiki defines E-learning as computer enhanced learning which includes every learning situation where a computer is involved. The instructional material can be on a CD-Rom, a DVD, a local area network, the internet… Interestingly, the definition is less on the learning (how is the learning organized, how is the learning process…) but on the media used. So it seems to me that “E” defines the term more than the “learning”. ???

When choosing a media it is supposed to be the best choice. This also applies to e-learning. But how can I choose the best media? Is there a list which media is the best for which learning situation, setting and content… Most likely not… if you got one… I’d be interested…

One HUGE advantage of e-learning are the costs (how unpedagogical)! I guess, that is one reason why e-learning has sucessfully found its way into almost every on-the-job and off-the-job training. It is an investment to implement e-learning but later running expenses are low. E-learning generally offers easy access to information and far more ways of action than some traditional methods (applying, discussing, creating…). E-learning can be used anywhere, anytime. It offers good tools for constructivist learning as we define modern learning. Last, e-learning offers a good opportunity to adress the new generation and might help to reduce drop outs and disengagement (for the last argument see: “Educationg the Net Generation”, B. Pletha, Santa Monica Press).

Despite from all the advantages e-learning is NOT the solution for every learning situation. Especially motivation is a problem for e-learning (don’t remember where but I once read a study on that). Although it is possible to do it anywhere and anytime people don’t do it all the time. As with every learning situation there needs to be a little motivational support (or pressure) to get it started and to stay tuned. This is one big disadvantage of e-learning. The social aspect of a traditional leanring situation should not be overlooked. It might be interesting to chat with a person but still it is different from talking person-to-person. So we use these different ways of communication for different situations and with a different motive force.

To be more precise I would suggest to use e-learning for certain settings. This could be the preparation for a seminar. It could be useful to use it for special situations: like training people from different countries on the same topic where it is inefficient to get them together (Australia’s outland, international companies…). Using e-learning in classroom should be a good addition to other methods (by the way: is e-learning a method by itself???)..

Waiting for your comments…

Trying to create another trackback…

Juliane

http://loveitorchangeit.com/seminars/summer2008/2008/04/08/task-2-what-is-elearning/ 

Hi everybody,

so I am trying to start my “Blog project” here. This is the so called Task 1 and I am supposed to write something about my experiences with Online learning and my expectations on the seminar.

Well, lets start with my experiences… While working in a bank I had the first contact with E-learning as a user. It was a fairly boring CBT (Computer Based Training) with filmlets and multiple choice questions we had to run through every year. It seemed more like a burden to me. But this was not about the CBT itself but it took time I could have used for “real work”.

While studying I had a seminar on New Media in English classroom (Andreja Ivanic) where I developed a Web Quests (applying for a job) and wrote a paper on it. For those of you who are interested: a Web Quest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format using different types of media. The Web Quest has a pretty straight format which can be found on the internet.

In one class I taught I once did a Web Search on “traveling abroad” using the internet. I might add the work sheet if I find the right button….;) The class I held was fairly okay but I also had problems appearing. But it was fun though… Traveling Abroad

That’s all about my experiences. In the seminar Virtual Learning I want to find out more about how I can use the computer as a media of learning. It is very important to me that it is not to complicated to imply it into my every day lessons: Cause this is one thing I found out for my teaching: Try to make it as simple as possible and as complicated as necessary. It is about finding the right and best suiting media and sometimes and only sometimes the computer could be the right one!

That all for now… see you soon…

http://loveitorchangeit.com/seminars/summer2008/2008/03/19/task-1-how-about-yourself/#comment-38