Annotated Bibliography on Transparency in Online Education

“Teaching as transparent Learning”, George Siemens (link)

In this post, the author makes an approach to transparency in online education, as a potential to learning and peer-to-peer learning. Rather then an overview on the post, I’ll reproduce some of his affirmations, the ones I think the best reproduce the idea George Siemens desires to transmit.

Putting ideas out for discussion contrasts with formal “reach a conclusion and publish” model.

Watching others learn is an act of learning.

Social technology – such as Twitter, blogs, Facebook – opens the door to sharing the process of learning, not only the final product.

…individuals who share similar cognitive architectures (novices with novices and experts with experts) have greater capacity to communicate.

…when we make our learning transparent, we become teachers.

Transparency in expressing our understanding, our frustrations, and our insights helps others who are at a similar stage.


"Transparency in Cooperative Online Education", Christian Dalsgaard and Morten Flate Paulsen ( link)

In this article the authors relate the concepts of transparency and cooperation in online education and the role of social networks in these ones. For the authors, transparency promotes cooperation, once it allows students to have access to others personal information and works, and also promotes quality, by enabling Preventive quality improvement, Constructive quality improvement and Reactive quality improvement. The authors present some examples of how a system can promote quality, recurring to NKI’s practice. One of these practices is the “learning partner” service.



"Colaboração e Cooperação na Educação Online / Cooperative Freedom and Transparency in Online Education" (Futuralia, 12th March 2010), Morten Flate Paulsen (link)

In this presentation, Professor Morten Paulsen presents and compares NKI and Universidade Aberta’s models as online teaching and learning course providers. What I underline from this presentation to the theme “Transparency in online education” is the fact that Professor MFP includes freedom of transparency as a plus concept of the (no longer) hexagon of cooperative freedom. This is, the idea that transparency must be voluntary. So, online students should also be free to choose were they want to stand in the transparency-privacy spectrum.


"Social networking sites: Transparency in online Education", Christian Dalsgaard (link)

In this article, Chirstian Dalsgaard discusses the importance of social networking to the promotion of transparency in online education. The author focuces on the university’s reality, were students are often engaged in they’re own and individual process of learning. Social networking is an engine for cooperation, once it allows the sharing of thoughts, processes and products of leraning. Wile sharing this components, students became available to each other as resources for learning. In social networking the starting point is the individual, unlike foruns, typical from LMS’s, were the focus is on groups.


Cartoon “Transparency for Cooperation”, by Morten Flate Paulsen

In this cartoon, Professor MFP explains, in a very simple way, how transparency can be placed in practice, through the sharing of information about the students. Professor MFP also underlines the importance of the level of the shared information: one must be able to choose what information to share and to whom.


A final summary...
Transparency is a means to achieve cooperation. Social networking and profiling online students are two means to promote transparency in online education. In online education students are often engaged in they’re own process of learning so transparency plays a special role in this learning environment, once it allows students to access each others thoughts, prcesses and products of learning. Transparency is also an engine to promote quality because by accessing other work, one tends to improve the quality of is work, one may receive constructive feedback and one may learn from other’s work

AB on Online Teaching Techniques

I started this AB with a new challenge: improving the first AB with the tips and experience of Professor Paulsen and my colleagues on the first one. Secondly, I directed my research to the directives provided by Professor Morten F. Paulsen: including the approach of the web 2.0 in the theme “teaching techniques”.

Online Teaching Techniques, by Morten Flate Paulsen.

In this article, the author elaborates a framework for Online Teaching techniques, based, initially, on a bibliographic review on adult teaching techniques, whether FTF or online.

This framework is organized according to the “four communication paradigms used in computer-mediated-communication (CMC): information retrieval, electronic mail, bulletin boards and computer conferencing and it results on four classes on techniques:

The author finishes listing some techniques that, not being used nowadays in CMC, are, for him, suitable for this type of communication: in-basket exercises, panels, committee hearings, cognitive networks and jigsaws.

Please access the article to complete description of each technique.

Regarding the same article, Helena Prieto, student form MPEL'03 class, guides us through the online teaching techniques presented by professor Morten F. Paulsen, in a very pleasant vídeo.


Online Teaching Activity Index (from the Illinois Online Network)

Through this link we can access a list of 50 Online teaching activities. For each activity, one can consult: description of lesson, appropriate content areas, examples, goals and objectives, prerequisites, materials and resources, guiding questions, lesson outline and procedure, teaching strategies, accommodations, timeline and ideas for lesson evaluations and teacher reflection.


The State of Social Learning Today and Some Thoughts for the Future of L&D in 2010, by Jane Hart


In this article Jane Hart presents and discusses the urged need to include, promote, encourage, support and allow informal learning (as a learning technique) in enterprises.

For this, employers must be aware that in informal learning monitoring is difficult (or even impossible) to manage, like in formal learning environments, so this kind of learning must be understood as a way of facilitating communication, collaboration and information sharing within the organization.

Even for the more sceptical, findings point out that informal learning should be promoted more everyday: promotes grater conceptual understanding, once it is driven through autonomous motivation (Dan Pink).

Jane Hart organizes her research on social media tools/tools for learning in 5 categories, taking in account different concepts of learning. With Harold Jarche’s help, Jane Hart organized the 5 learning categories taking in account 4 spectrums. Please find this organization in the table below:

Vídeo – Social networks and the web 2.0 revolution

In this video, the author, Nik Peachey, explains, in a very clear and focused way, what is the Web 2.0 and its implications and power to the teaching and learning practice.






Final reflection:
Although I tried to improve the process of “ABing”, I still found it difficult to manage the “infinite” information one can find in the web. I’m still working on the “being able to effectively select web information” skill. Also, the limited time doesn’t help and my “objectiveness” skill is still “in progress”. Ufff…

Cooperative online education, by Morten Flate Paulsen

Paulsen, M. F. Cooperative Online Education. Seminar.net - International journal of media, technology and lifelong learning. Vol. N – Issue N – 20NN

In this article Morten Flate Paulsen illustrates the theory of cooperative freedom.

The author starts with some references, in order to clearly distinguish collaborative from cooperative work in distance learning context.

Professor Paulsen states that The Theory of Cooperative Freedom is based on the following three pillars: 1. Voluntary, but attractive participation; 2. Means promoting individual flexibility; 3. Means promoting affinity to learning community

Paulsen also connects transparency to cooperation, in an online educational context. Transparency promotes quality work, but should not be “used” indiscriminately.

Then, the author lists some social software and states the web 2.0 as cooperative learning facilitators. Some examples are wikis, blogs and bookmarkings. PLE’s (Personal learning environments) can surpass the role of LMS’s, once the first are better so serve students needs.

In order to illustrate the theory of Cooperative Freedom, Professor Morten Paulsen describes some of the investigation work about online cooperation he as been doing in NKI through 4 surveys about NKI’s services and tools. These services include, among others: students progress follow-up strategies (directed to teachers and to students) and the CLIP (Cooperative Learner Information Profile) strategy.

Interview with Prof. Morten Paulsen

Q & A with Ed Tech Leaders
Interview with Morten Flate Paulsen, by Michael F. Shaughnessy and Susan M. Fulgham

In this entreview, Prof. Morten Falte Paulsen talks about some projects in witch he has/is envolved. Then Prof. Morten describes the main ideas of his Theory of Cooreative Freedom.

The Theory of Cooperative freedom states that, online students seek for freedom, flexibility and social unity, all together, which is most of the times difficult to combine.

For its comprehension, the following explanations are of great help:

Individual learning provides superior individual flexibility, but very limited affinity to a learning community. It has a strong position in online education delivered by institutions with a tradition in distance education.

Collaborative learning requires participation in a learning community, but limits individual flexibility. One may say that collaborative learning requires that students sink or swim together. Collaborative learning is common in online education offered by traditional face-to-face institutions.

Cooperative learning focuses on opportunities to encourage both individual flexibility and affinity to a learning community. Cooperative learning seeks to foster some benefits from individual freedom and other benefits from cooperation in online learning communities. It thrives in virtual learning environments that emphasize individual freedom within online learning communities.

Through out the interview, Professor Morten Paulsen answers to some of the biggest pedagogical challenges that online courses providers (institutions, teacher, designers, …) face wile trying to respond to online students needs:

We should urge students to take part in and build a learning community. But we should also respect students’ preferences and choices, if they prefer to study alone. Therefore, a cornerstone in cooperative learning is that cooperation should be voluntary, but also attractive, appealing, and alluring. It should be offered as an omnipresent opportunity to those who seek cooperation.

The challenge for educational networks is to include services that allow students to produce and refine content that contributes to learning and sharing of knowledge.

(…)

PPEL - Collaborative vs Cooperative Learning

Collaborative versus Cooperative Learning – a Comparison of the two concepts which will help us understand the underlying nature of interactive learning, by Ted Panitz.

In this article, the author proceeds with an extent review on both concepts - collaborative learning and cooperative learning – , distinguishing them both theoretically, and practically.

Panitz operacionalizes both terms, giving several practical examples of what can be considered a cooperative activity and a collaborative activity:

“In the cooperative model the teacher maintains complete control of the class, even though the students work in groups to accomplish a goal of a course. (…) The teacher provides additional articles for the students to read and analyze, beyond the text, and then asks the students to work in groups to answer the question. The groups then present their results to the whole class and discuss their reasoning. A follow up question may then be posed to the groups to analyze the United Nations to determine if this has been an effective organization to prevent world wars and to make recommendations on possible changes needed to make the UN more effective. The teacher might use specific structures, such as a Jig Saw model, to help facilitate the group interactions. He/she might require a specific product such as a term paper or report, class presentations, and an exam at the end of the topic. The students do the work necessary to consider the material being covered but the teacher maintains control of the process at each stage.

In the collaborative model groups would assume almost total responsibility for answering the question. The students determine if they had enough information to answer the question. If not they identify other sources, such as journals, books, videos, the internet, to name a few. The work of obtaining the extra source material would be distributed among the group members by the group members. The group would decide how many reasons they could identify. The collaborative teacher would not specify a number, but would assess the progress of each group and provide suggestions about each group’s approach and the data generated. It might also occur to the students to list the reasons in order of priority. The teacher would be available for consultations and would facilitate the process by asking for frequent progress reports from the groups, facilitate group discussions about group dynamics, help with conflict resolution, etc. The final product is determined by each group, after consultation with the teacher. The means of assessment of the group’s performance would also be negotiated by each group with the teacher. Some groups might decide to analyze the UN, as the cooperative group was directed to do, or they might try to come up with a completely new organization. They might go back through history to determine how other periods of peace were created. The process is very open ended while it maintains a focus on the overall goal. The students develop a very strong ownership for the process and respond very positively to the fact that they are given almost complete responsibility to deal with the problem posed to them and they have significant input into their assessment.”

I believe this is a good starting point for the theme Cooperative freedom, once it helps clarify the difference between the concepts collaboration and cooperation.