Fifeab's Blog

1. Finish reading and tasks for the previous weeks. Later submissions would not be taken into account.

By the grace of God, I have consistently met the deadline for all the reading and tasks so no back log of the previous weeks.

2. Revise your personal learning contract if needed, considering what you have learned so far, what has gone differently from your last plans, how your personal learning environment has changed. Please start a new blog post for revision and keep the previous versions of the contract. Reflect on your study process and the course. Have you fulfilled your goals? What did work for you and what did not?

Looking through my personal learning contract, everything I planned to achieve was achieved; nothing went contrary to my plan.  My personal learning environment has improved tremendously, because at the initial stage of the course I was struggling to create and write on my blog but now, I can create, write, and even personalize it.  All my goals are fulfilled.

3. Assess your work based on your learning contract. What is the grade you deserve? This grade will be taken into account for your final grade.

I have achieved all I planned to do:

• One of my objectives was to be able to use some Web 2.0 tools and now I can effectively use some of them, such as, blogs, wiki, google docs and weebly, even I can play two social networking games now (Farmville and Pet Society), this is a plus.
• I am very familiar with e-learning concepts, theory, and instructional design models.
• I can now design e-course, also, I have enhanced my group collaborative and communication skills.
• Lastly, I also got familiar with presentation design software. In fact, I have been using a few of these tools in my current research work and I will use the presentation design software for my presentation in an international conference QQML2010 that will take place next week.

Having highlighted all I have achieved in comparison with my personal learning contract, I think by own assessment, I deserve an “A” grade.  I am testifying that am not as the same as I started this course, the course have enhanced my professional skills.  I am highly encouraged to enroll for other e-course in the nearest future.

Appreciation

Everything that has a beginning definitely must have an end.  I praise God for fulfilling my dream concerning E-learning course.  I want to use this time to thank the course facilitator (Terje) for what God has used her to accomplish in my life.  She might not know this, for sometimes, it has been my desire to go through a course that will expose me to Web 2.0 tools because I am a “digital immigrant” and indeed this e-learning course has done it.

I wouldn’t have been able to do the course if not for Terje’s support, the course had started four weeks earlier before I contacted her and she gave her consent that if only I would work hard I could still join the group. Terje, you have been used by God to achieve one of my dreams, God bless you and all yours.

To my group mates, I thank you all, especially Marbritt, sorry to be personal.  I remember the first week when I was creating my blog I got confused at a time I had to chat with her and she explained what I could do which I did and I got result. Maibritt, you have been a friend, God bless you richly.

On the group work, I was never discouraged once on the group work because I had experienced group work at several times in my life.  I know that we have individual personal traits, as such, one must be tolerant and patient in dealing with group members especially adults.

Everybody is unique and nobody is useless.  Though there could be some group members that are not positively inclined to do their parts of the work my attitude to such is that group work must be done the onions is upon me and other likely minded members to get it done. All was well and under control so I thank all of you for your contributions.  God bless you all!!!

1a. What was the most important thing you learned this week? What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

The most important thing I learnt this week is the issue of “unintended consequences” in formative evaluation and Claude Bernard’s quotation.

“The true worth of a researcher lies in pursuing what he did not seek in his experiment as well as what he sought.”–Claude Bernard, (1813–1878) French physiologist

As I thought about some unintended consequences of some movies, books and other media of disseminating information in our society, I wonder what could be done about negative unintended consequences.

c. What is your evaluation of this week’s groupwork? (What did go well and what did not? How did groupwork influence fulfilling your personal learning contract?)

Everything went well in our group work though we didn’t have much to do but it was a time of reflection on the past weeks.  Our thought about  evaluation of our group work is in our  prototype course blog.

d. Describe what has changed in your personal learning environment and in group environment?

Nothing changed in both personal and group learning environments.

a. What was the most important thing you learned this week? What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

We fine tuned the content of our course prototype this week.  To be candid, we experienced synergy of group/team work and it was prolific.  Indeed, two good heads are better than one.   As we work together week by week we get to know each other the more and appreciate individual potentials.

c. What is your evaluation of this week’s groupwork? (What did go well and what did not? How did groupwork influence fulfilling your personal learning contract?)

We worked as a team and everything went well.

On fulfilling my personal learning objective, the group work has prompted me to  use Weebly and by this my learning objective is being fulfilled gradually.  I must say here that Maibritt has been a challenge to me on weekly basis and I enjoy it.  She motivates me to learn and use many of the social software. Maibritt, thank you and keep it up!!!

d. Describe what has changed in your personal learning environment and in group environment?

Nothing has changed in the two learning environments.

a. Explain, which type of learning environment is best suitable for your e-learning course prototype?

In our group we chose an open learning environment that is called Weebly-base page weebly.com because of its features such as:

• simple interface which suit our target audience (elderly ones);
• easy to navigate with minimal number of clicks;
• user friendly in spite of its simplicity.

b. What was the most important thing you learned this week? What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

Well, amazingly I was flabbergasted to know that there are several Web 2.0 tools that are available to use for different purposes. There seems to be  many options to explore for  E-learning/ Distance Learning programmes.  The thought that came to mind is that with these numerous Web 2.0 facilities, I foresee a situation where  classroom based learning would be de-emphasized faster than we thought while Online Learning would increase greatly.

Secondly, I am excited at the spirit with which the group work took this week.  We had no formal meeting schedules but we really collaborated and we got things done with ease.  At different times during the week we collaborated and different member at different times initiated the collaboration and others too participated actively.

d. What is your evaluation of this week’s groupwork? (What did go well and what did not? How did groupwork influence fulfilling your personal learning contract?)

Like I mentioned above, the group work was very fruitful this week.  I thank every member for their contributions and cooperation during the week.  It was very encouraging moments!!!

e. Describe what has changed in your personal learning environment and in group environment?

Nothing has changed in my personal learning environment but the group environment we have added weeby.com as the environment for our prototype course.

a. What was the most important thing you learned this week? What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

Interestingly I learnt about social networking games this week.  In my group I was assigned to work on week 4  of our prototype course which is on games in social networking.  Before then I can say I knew very little about it but during the week I read about it and I was able to play two of them.  I played Farmville and Pet Society, I found them very interesting and I learnt a lot about nature generally even while playing games though I had limited time because of  some other commitments especially my thesis.  Writing a course prototype for the first time was a challenging but exciting moment for me.  E-learning course has imparted my life, being an administrator for the past seventeen years now learning to be a course facilitator, what an exciting moment!!!

c. What is your evaluation of this week’s groupwork? (What did go well and what did not? How did groupwork influence fulfilling your personal learning contract?)

Our groupwork this week was not properly organized in the sense that we could not meet even though  the meeting was scheduled twice;Friday and Saturday. Many of the group members were not available for the two schedules, nevertheless, we shared the group task among ourselves.  I hope next week will be better and I want to plead with members to create time for the meeting so that we can brainstorm and do a good job.

My personal learning contract is being fulfilled gradually in the sense that one of my learning objectives is to be able to write/design e-course and during this week i actually wrote one.

1. Reflect and summarize on course readings in your personal Weblog: What do you consider as important elements in an e-learning course?

Important elements in an e-learning course are:

1. 1. A well defined scope and objectives: This is important because (1)the main objective  will explain the need for the course in question, (2)it helps to facilitate the mapping of the content, and (3) it helps the potential learners to figure out whether the content is relevant to him or her and thereby apply for the course or otherwise.
   2. Comprehensive and Relevant Content: The course content should be comprehensive, relevant and concise and be appropriate for the context.  It should be packaged well for the learners.  If the course content is not relevant then the main objective would not be achieved at the end of the programme.
   3. Relevant Tools - Easy Graphical User Interface and Interactivity:  Good visual design motivates learners to study.  Interactivity is important because learning by doing is preferred than learning by reading for it makes learning permanent (concretizes learning).
   4. Well Designed Assessment/Evaluation: Assessment/evaluation should match with the objectives to reinforce learning.  So also immediate feedback is very vital.

1. What was the most important thing you learned this week?

The summary of what I learnt this week was that there are diverse types of learning metaphors, learning theories (behavioural, cognitivist, constructivist and social constructivist) which inform the type of instructional design model  (ADDIE, ARCS, ASSURE and others) to use for any e-learning course.  I think the most important thing is the linking and mapping of learning theories with instructional design model.

What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

The week is loaded and I was tempted to think that we have got almost all that we needed to design an e-learning course.  What is now left for me is to apply it in a real sense of it.  Those metaphors are many but interesting. The fact that learning is a continuous journey is very important for one to know because it seems to me that as a lifelong issue, it is both structured (formal learning) and unstructured (informal learning).  It is obvious that learning by doing is an active and participatory process and it is better than learning by reading alone, this would inform the design of e-learning course to be made very interactive.

Was there something you didn’t quite understand and want to know more about it?

Definitely, there are many parts of this week’s reading materials that I am yet to have an in-depth understanding because there are many relevant links posted, nevertheless, the materials are great resources to me.

1. What is your evaluation of this week’s groupwork? (What did go well and what did not? How did groupwork influence fulfilling your personal learning contract?)

We held the group meeting as scheduled only four of us out of five met and I think it is a good number.  We discussed on the topic of our course prototype and we shared the tasks week among ourselves.  My personal objectives has changed because I realized that it should be overtly written as I was reading the materials this week and preparing to draft the goals and objectives for our group prototype course.

1. Describe what has changed in your personal learning environment and in group environment?

My learning objectives and evaluation have changed.

1.Revise your personal learning contract if needed, considering what you have learned so far, what is going differently from your initial plans, how the environment has changed. Please start a new blog post for revision and keep the first version of the contract. Refer to the first version.

Nothing has changed in my personal learning contract because everything is going according to the initial plans.

Task

1.  Find at least one good and one bad example case of course design and reflect your opinions of these courses in your personal Weblog. Visit the blogs of your groupmates, read their reflections of course designs and add your opinions as comments about these courses.

To determine whether a course design is good or bad, I think there should be a set of measures to evaluate or judge the course design.  I think a good course should be designed following standards which includes but not limited to:

a) Course Design :The course structure, learning objectives and instructional strategies should be clearly spelt out.

b)Course Facilitator: A good course requires good and experienced facilitator who will be able to encourage and facilitate different types of learners.  Patience and perseverance are needed here.

c) Reading Materials: Relevant and current materials that meet the need of the learners according to the learning objectives should be provided. The language should be cleared, directed and well presented.
d) Interaction and Collaboration: There should be three ways interaction and collaborations, that is, with learner and content, learner-and facilitator and among learners.

e) Use of Technology : The technology should be easy to navigate, user friendly and provide tutorials or help facility.

f) Assessment: There should be a well spelt out criteria for assessment and learners are well informed of it. Deadlines should be given to challenge the learners to do the required tasks. In short learners responsibilities be clearly stated. Each task done should be assessed and feedback given promptly to encourage learners.
Example of good online course: E-learning-IFI7139

This course follows the  template of a good online course.  The course outline is well structured, the objectives are spelt out and learners’ responsibilities are stated.  The course facilitator is always giving feedbacks and reminders to learners.  Interactions and collaborations with learners and facilitator, and among learners are done and encouraged.    The materials provided are relevant , current and accessible to the best of my knowledge.  The technologies used are easy to navigate and appropriate links are given. In fact, the learning strategy employs for this course is learner-centred learning strategy.

Example of bad course: Well I don’t know of any specific one for now but I want to say that any course design that does not take the above standard into consideration is a bad one.

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2. As a group define what are the criteria for a good online course and reflect it in your group space (whatever you choose this to be), but make this group space visible to other groups by posting a link on E-learning/Participants page under your group.

The group task has been posted on our group space.

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Readings and Reflections

1.  Explain, what are the components of course design?

Following the readings of week 4 the components of course design are the essential elements, parts or ingredients needed to design a course.  They are:

a) Identification of  Instructional Goal: The overall goal of the course must be identified first

b) Instructional Analysis: The instructional analysis has to do with the skills needed to achieve the required or set performance .

c) Objective settings: What the learners are set to gain or achieve at the end of the course.

d) Media selection:  The needed media to deliver the instruction be selected

e) Instructional strategy setting: The strategy that would be employed to achieve the objectives, it could be the method, programme and practices.

f) Evaluation and project management:  The criteria to measure the outcome of the course.  (Dick & Carey’s Model in The Herridge Group, 2004).

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2.  What was the most important thing you learned this week? What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

The most important thing I learnt this week is the Instructional System Design (ISD) model which is entrenched in ADDIE = Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation.

I had an interesting experience with my group during our collaboration for the group task.

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3.  What is your evaluation of this week’s groupwork? (What went well and what did not? How did groupwork influence fulfilling your personal learning contract?)

The group work this week was very good.  We were able to collaborate through the use of Google Document we had our group chat on skype.  It was my first experience to have a skype group chat and was an exciting moment.  All the group members contributed to the draft while  Maibritt uploaded the final draft on our group workspace.  Also, Maibritt has been encouraging other members of the group to meet the deadlines.

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4. Describe what has changed in your personal learning environment and in group environment?

On my personal learning environment nothing has changed and for the group we changed the Pbwork to Google Document to accommodate multiple editing and changes.

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My Activities this Week

It has been a very tedious week for me.  I read a lot because I had to combine the activities for week 1 and 2 and part of week 4 in order to participate in the group work.  Apart from reading activity, I also had an online session with my course facilitator (Terje) it was my first time experience but very interesting one, personally, am excited to see part of my aims being achieved. I also had an online collaborative meeting with my group members on the group assignment.

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My Personal Learning Contract

My Objectives:

• To learn how to use web 2.0 based e-learning system
• To acquire the necessary e-learning skills to be able to impart the same;
• To learn how to design and structure an e-learning programme.

(Modified Objectives)

• To familiarize and describe e-learning concept, principles, theories, instructional design models.
• To identify, create and use e-learning tools such as weblog, wiki, google documents and others.
• To develop e-learning  prototype course.
• To develop distance learning skills of  collaboration and communication.

Resources:

• Reading Materials: Materials posted by the facilitator, other relevant materials  that were bookmarked by me and others.
• Human resources: the course facilitator; my group members; and other experts on the course.
• Tools: my laptop; internet connectivity; Web 2.0 tools: like blog, wiki, skype, del.icio.us, and others.
• Suitable and conducive learning environment.

Methodology:   It requires determination and hardwork from my part as I do the following:

• Read through the materials posted by the course facilitator,  my colleagues or myself;
• Learn how to create and use the tools such as, weblog, wiki, delicious, and others.
• Interact with the Course Facilitator:
• Attend all the online class and group meetings;
• Collaborate with other learners, I mean my group members;
• Do both the individual and group tasks promptly.

Evaluation: Well by the end of this programme the outcome would be compared with my  objectives:

• I will use some of the Web 2.0 based e-learning tools, such as wiki, blog, google document, skype and others;
• I will design and structure  e-learning course.

Self Reflection:

I will review all my inputs and output of the whole programme.

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What was the most important thing you learned this week? What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

Actually, it is amazing for me to learn in-depth about self-directed learning concept especially the aspect of making students personal learning contracts.  I must say that I have never been espoused to this vital aspects of learning that is student-centred.  This made me to think critically and an idea came to my heart, the importance of information literacy in self-directed learning.  To be an effective learner in self-directed learning system, in my opinion, one must be information literate, that is, have the ability to recognize your information needs, to source for and find it, analysis and evaluate it, use it to construct your knowledge appropriately.  Information literacy is the catalyst for lifelong learning and survival kit for information society.

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