For me this weeks assignment brought home to me the importance of evaluating the proportionate weighting of content delivery and student interactivity in flexible learning design. This type of analysis is appropriate to a blended teaching design in which technical media is embed in the content delivery, interactivity and assessment mechanisms.
Although limited by its size, a qualitative study into blended learning (Ellis, Steed, Applebee, 2006) analyses and discusses two distinct teacher conceptions framing their blended teaching designs and students learning outcomes
“… conceptions of blended learning focusing on critical investigation of the environment that students find themselves in, and those that see technological media as one way of helping students to achieve the intended learning outcomes of course design, tend to be associated with helping students to develop new ideas and understanding. In contrast, conceptions of blended learning that emphasize technological media at the expense of student learning, tend to be associated with using media to deliver information or to even replace some responsibilities of being a teacher. Significantly, the former categories of blended learning and teaching are associated with approaches to design that influence the way teachers teach, and the latter categories of blended learning and teaching are associated with approaches to design which are not related to approaches to teaching.” (Ellis, Steed, and Applebee, 2006)
Applying their analysis to the DFLP course design raises some issues for course designs which emphasize digital information literacy– an implication being the weblog interactive interface assumes the student has the scaffolding of access, interpretation and creation.
How do the facilitators think they teach through the emphasis on technological media in their design?
Do we think we interact and are supported sufficiently through their blended technological media design?
Are participants encouraged to conduct their own critical examination of the environmental design?
Yes, DFLP does seem to favour the weighting of online delivery and assessment – but is this at the expense of hands on teaching and learning of the content?
So far so good, although there have been instances when interactivity is measured as technical digital media publication – weblogs. But is blogging a substitute for the value of debate, feedback in a classroom or 1-1 discussion.
This may be also be a question of learning styles. For me assimilating, processing academic content and communicating thoughts is a proirity as “the social physical and artifactual surrounding in which human cognition and human endeavor takes place.” (Fischer 2006) can be frustrated by having to multi-task – critically examing learning materials and navigating the digital technical media interface.
The digital information literacy is in its own right a discrete and challenging arena as much as it is interwoven into the interactive social networking, collaborative and assessment of flexible learning design.
My own experience of the pace of weekly course readings, postings and eluminate meetings can be at the expense of learning.
I am resolved to explore the flexibility of the DFLP assessment schedule, find out a bit more about my particular learning styles and hopefully learn to modify my objectives so my writing process becomes more manageable.
Ellis, R. A., Steed, A. F. and Applebee, A. C. (2006). Teacher conceptions of blended learning, blended teaching and associations with approaches to design. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 22(3), 312-335.
Fischer, 2006
Susan Ellis's Weblog 
April 16, 2008 at 9:46 am
Susan your post is a good critique of the usefulness of technologies in teaching and learning. You mention from the reading by Ellis et al, (2006) – “conceptions of blended learning that emphasize technological media at the expense of student learning, tend to be associated with using media to deliver information or to even replace some responsibilities of being a teacher.”
For this example, use of 50 min videos in class spring to mind. Teachers are often guilty of this and leave the class to watch while they go away and catch up on admin.
How much better the learning experience would be for students if they were given several short video clips to critique, and a set of questions to ponder and discuss amongest a group. Or if the teacher remained in the classroom and played short sections of the video – then got groups to discuss the item using pre-prepared questions – the teachers did this all the way through and then summarised the discussions at the end.
With regard to the rest of the quote you mention, also from Ellis et al (2006) “approaches to design that influence the way teachers teach” – where media are used to help students meet learning objectives and gain new knowledge. This leads me to one of your excellent questions:
“How do the facilitators think they teach through the emphasis on technological media in their design?”
The predominantly online format has been chosen for DFLP due to the current trends in education for web-based resources and social networking as a means of interaction. In this age of digital information and the need for high level literacy and self-efficacy (belief in one’s ability & confidence), it is essential that DFLP models innovative strategies for online learning and interaction.
If staff in the tertiary sector are unable to meet the requirements of the Digital Strategy in NZ for online content, confidence and connection with communities, business and government then this will have far reaching effects for NZ’s potential in the global economy. See: http://www.digitalstrategy.govt.nz/
On the website you can – “View the Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 online and participate in the online discussions provided at the end of each section, or participate in the digital strategy wiki where you can make suggested edits and add comments.”
Submissions close 5pm Monday 12 May.
Your post is very thought provoking and I really like the way you have taken a theme – technology and design for learning and worked through it in reference to readings. It is great to see you are not afraid to challenge the status quo and ask intelligent questions to get some discussion going.
April 16, 2008 at 9:51 am
and what I forgot to add to the end of my post – is if government is now using a wiki for the public to use for submissions, surely we as educators need to get with it and learn how to use wikis. we would be doing our teachers a disservice if we did not bring them into the 21st century with as technologies.
There are also more and more businesses and organisations using blogs and social networking strategies to communicate. Soon it will be as commonplace as Eftpos and think back to how much grumbling there was about that technology.
Luddites might need to set sail for a tropical island somewhere with lots of sand for burying their heads…deep.
April 16, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Outstanding post Susan! I mean it! At last you are blogging!!! I am really excited by your critique, and I’m glad Bron has made it in the comment first. Strong response I think Bron 🙂
Susan, one of the things I realised when listening to Willie Campbell talk last night (recording available on the course blog and wiki) is that we don’t have enough of an assessment of prior learning process in this course. I’d like to explore possibilities of interviewing each person who expresses interest in passing this course before they start the course. In that interview the objective would be to negotiate the curriculum and possibly fst track those that clearly know a lot about the content already.
But before we can do that, we have to make sure the learning objectives and assessment criteria are solid. I think Brons response might possibly shine a light on some of the hidden curriculum in this course. Maybe we should bring it out into the open more, using Brons justification above.
Oustanding blogging Susan, where have you been all this time?
April 17, 2008 at 12:37 am
I love the picture near the end of the lake as an example of blended design! The important thing is that if we want to teach, we must understand how to think and study, and how to communicate this. See the new book on amazon.com: “Teaching and Helping Students Think and Do Better”.
April 18, 2008 at 1:23 am
It is a challenge to become comfortable communicating and sharing through Blogs and wiki’s Susan. Personally I now feel very comfortable communicating through blogs. It takes more thought and time than a spontaneous conversation but I think it is still a really useful tool and one we could use more in this course I think. I would love to get a conversation going with some of my class mates here. I hope is starts to happen. I agree Leigh when I listened to Willy’s presentation. That was my feeling too, for learning to be learner centred and flexible to learner needs some idea of where learners are at what their individual needs are would be useful I think.
Thanks for this post Susan, maybe we can ‘chat’ some more 🙂