The title of this post is also the title of the book by Marc Prenski where he justifies the meaning of games in long-life education. However, there were two things that I remembered the most after he finished his presentation:

1. There are verbs and nouns in education. Verbs are what we want students to do in order to achieve their goals and nouns are the tools they use to perform that verb.

2. Nouns are variable and change all the time; verbs are always the same, they don’t change.

He also shared an example:

Verb: presenting
Noun: Powerpoint
Noun: Prezi

Both are made to be a tool for presentations, however, the have different interfaces, foster different dynamics and offer different outputs.

The question is: are we putting more attention into nouns rather than verbs?

After identifying these sections and reviewing the subjects of H809’s blocks 2 and 3, I decided to adopt this structure:

• Title
• Context of the research
• Research question
• Importance of the research
• Target Public
• Literature review
• Proposed method
• Data collection methods
• Sample definition
• Data analysis methods
• Hypothesis
• Research design
• Ethics
• Funding
• Strengths
• Limitations

General guidance

National center for accessible media [ go to the website ]

• the level of detail – is the technical level suitable for you in your role?
I take part in media development and in general, the level of detail of this resource is appropriate for my role in an introductory stage, for example, I can use this site to introduce new employees in my area to accessibility issues in media design. The HTML code is useful as well as the examples and the description of technology for printing is also useful since the authors specify the input such technology require. However, I found that the website itself was not as accessible as it should be. It was difficult to read the attributes “highlighted” in a different type of font. Besides, there was no possibility to adjust the font size (I had to use the built-in function in the web browser). In addition, more images could be included in order to depict the concept and help people with mental disabilities understand the topic.
• is the guidance complete – does it provide links to further information?
The links for further information complement the information given and the sources are relevant for the context.
would you recommend this guidance to anyone else in your organisation who needs this information?
Actually, I bookmarked this site on Delicious for further reference.

Web pages

WAI Guidelines and Techniques [ go to the website ]

• the level of detail – is the technical level suitable for you in your role?
The information that this website presents is very complete, and the most positive feature is that the information is classified according to different roles related to websites and digital content. In my case, I explored WCAG, which is “a detailed technical description of the guidelines and their Success Criteria”andi t is “intended for: Web content developers (page authors, site designers, etc.)”. However, I couldn’t find any other representation but text.
• is the guidance complete – does it provide links to further information?
The information is complete and provides several techniques and examples that leads to accessible media and websites. The site is that broad that it is very difficult to go back to previous webpages.
would you recommend this guidance to anyone else in your organisation who needs this information?
I’ve already shared this site with my teamwork.

Accessibility 
Screen Readers and the Web [ go to the Website]

• the level of detail – is the technical level suitable for you in your role?
The aim of the video in the home of this website is to demonstrate the relevance of standards for people that uses assistive technology, in order to have a satisfying experience browsing websites. The video achieves its aim, because an expert user of screen reader technologies finds himself trapped on inaccessible websites with useless information. The message is evident and the examples relate to the most important issues on accessibility for screen reader users. This video could be used to sensitize web developers about how the impact of their developments and use of standards to the final user.
• is the guidance complete – does it provide links to further information?
The video links to W3C’s website. The guidelines expressed on the video refer to them.
• would you recommend this guidance to anyone else in your organisation who needs this information?
It is a great video to introduce accessibility issues within web developers.

Dyslexia Style Guide [ go to the website ]

• the level of detail – is the technical level suitable for you in your role?
The website is concrete and gives guidelines as well as the arguments of why it is important to follow them. However it does not go beyond to mention them, I mean, it does not propose or guide the way to make such implementation in web design through code, scripts and so on and so forth. In that case, the website is not as complete as it could be.
• is the guidance complete – does it provide links to further information?
The website presents many links for further information about dyslexia, however, it does not provide links on technical guidance for development of accessible websites for people with dyslexia.
• would you recommend this guidance to anyone else in your organisation who needs this information?
Is a basic site that could help to contextualize the developer about the basic needs and requirements that a student with dyslexia will demand. Therefore, I would recommend it for that purpose

Power Point

Accessibility Essentials 3
Using Microsoft® PowerPoint Accessibly within Teaching and Learning [ go to the website ]

• the level of detail – is the technical level suitable for you in your role?
The use of Microsoft Power Point in education has increased exponentially the last 5 years at EAFIT University, moreover, because of the facilities provided by the institution for each classroom (a computer with video Beam and Internet access). Despite of this increasing popularity, teachers were not oriented about good practices for slide show presentations until now. This site provides such practices, but once again, there are no techniques or tutorials of how to implement such practices. For instance, explaining how to get to the master slide would be required in order to carry on the guidelines.
• is the guidance complete – does it provide links to further information?
It provides links to examples and one link to the “complete series”
• would you recommend this guidance to anyone else in your organisation who needs this information?
This could be a good start point for teachers.

Accessible PowerPoint – Guidelines [go to website]

• the level of detail – is the technical level suitable for you in your role?
There is not much detail in the guidelines presented in this website. They are also very related to main guidelines for every element in websites in general.
• is the guidance complete – does it provide links to further information?
This sections does not contain further resources.

• would you recommend this guidance to anyone else in your organisation who needs this information?
I found this site very general. I would not.

Questions

What research questions are being addressed?

1. Is the Virtual Classroom a viable option for educational delivery? (On the whole, are outcomes at least as good as those for traditional face-to-face courses?)
2. What variables are associated with especially good and especially poor outcomes in this new teaching and learning environment?

NOTE “ The most important “product” of the project is knowledge about the advantages and disadvantages of this new technology, as they may be influenced by variations in students’ characteristics and in implementation techniques and settings.”

Hypotheses

HI: There will be no significant differences in scores measuring mastery of material taught in the virtual and the tradit ional classrooms.

H2: VC students will perceive the VC to be superior to the TC on a number of dimensions:

2.1 Convenient access to educational experiences;
2.2 Improved access to their professor;
2.3 Increased participation in a course;
2.4 Increased level of interest in the subject matter, which may continue beyond the end of the course;
2.5 Improved ability to communicate and cooperate with other students in doing classwork (group collaboration skills);
2.6 Improved overall quality, whereby the student assesses the experience as being better than the TC in some way, involving learning more on the whole or gaining more from the course The total study involved over 200 variables and over 50 hypotheses

Setting

What is the sector and setting? (e.g. school, higher education, training, informal learning)
Higher education and formal learning

Concepts

What theories, concepts and key terms are being used?

Education

“Education is the structuring of a situation in ways that help students change, through learning, in intentional (and sometimes unintentional) ways” (Johnson and Johnson 1975, p. 2).

CMC

CMC is particularly suited to the implementation of collaborative learning strategies or approaches, in which both teachers and learners are active participants in the learning process.

Seminar-Type Segments

seminar-type segment in which the students assumed the role of teacher. Individuals or small groups of students were responsible for reading material not assigned to the rest of the class, for preparing a given summary for the class, and for leading a computer-mediated discussion on the topic or material for which they were responsible.

Virtual Classroom (VC)

Courses delivered online. Mid-term and Final examination are in traditional mode.

Traditional classroom (TC)

Courses delivered face-to-face.

Mixed-mode courses

Offered, partially on-line and partially in the Virtual Classroom. In the mixed mode from 25 percent to 75 percent of the coursework is conducted in the Virtual Classroom, but the class also meets face to face every week or two.

Methods

What methods of data collection and analysis are used? (e.g. the number of participants; the type of technologies; the use of interviews, surveys, observation, etc.)

Online: 80 students
Face-to-face: 98 students
Mixed-mode courses: 203 students

Data collection rested primarily on pre- and post-course questionnaires administered to behavioural data (including grades, SAT scores, and records of the amount of on-line activity) and qualitative data (participant observation in class conferences, personal interviews with students, and case reports by instructors).

We used an automatic statistical analysis routine to profile participation patterns in each class conference.

Findings

What did this research find out?

IN GENERAL:
“Though the average results supported most of the above predictions, we found a great deal of variation, particularly among courses”
In general, whether or not the above outcomes occurred depended more on variations among courses than on variations among modes of delivery. The totally on-line upper level courses at NJIT and the mixed-mode courses at both Upsala and NJIT were most likely to result in students’ perceptions that the Virtual Classroom was better in any of these senses. The totally on-line freshman level sociology and statistics courses at Upsala were the least successful by most of the above criteria

“The extent of collaborative learning was highest in the mixed-mode courses”
“Though students overall tended to feel that the VC is a better mode of learning, this finding varied significantly among courses”

Results were superior for well-motivated and well-prepared students who had adequate access to the necessary equipment and who took advantage of the opportunities for increased interaction with their professor and with other students, and for active participation in a course. Students lacking the necessary basic skills and self-discipline tend to do better In a traditionally delivered course.

Finally, the VC delivery mode seems better for courses that treat a few topics in depth rather than for survey-type courses that attempt to cover a large number of topics
in a short time.
Limitations: What are the limitations of the methods used?
“The students in the Virtual Classroom section of Introductory Sociology were a particularly weak group academically.”

Defining the sample was not proper and it affected the research results.

Ethics

Are there any ethical issues associated with the research?
None

Implications

What are the implications (if any) for practice, policy or further research?
“ [it was] decided not to repeat the experiment with that course unless selection criteria could be
applied to exclude students with poor academic skills.”

“[They] would not recommend repeating a totally VC-based course in introductory sociology at Upsala. The students lacked adequate equipment access and adequate basic skills in reading and writing.”

Reference

Teaching Sociology in a Virtual Classroom
Author(s): Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Robert Meinke
Source: Teaching Sociology, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Oct., 1989), pp. 431-446
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1318421 .
Accessed: 04/02/2011 09:50

Key:

Visual impairments: V

Hearing impairments: H

Mobility impairments: M

Cognitive impairments: C

References

IBM (2007) Understanding Disability Issues when Designing Web Sites [online], http://www-03.ibm.com/ able/ access_ibm/ disability.html (accessed 13 October 2010).

Mortimore, T. and Crozier, W.R. (2006) ‘Dyslexia and difficulties with study skills in higher education’, Studies in Higher Education, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 235–51; http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/ login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/ login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=20219071&site=ehost-live&scope=site also available online at (accessed 13 October 2010).

Seale, J. (2006) E-Learning and Disability in Higher Education: Accessibility Research and Practice, Abingdon, Routledge

Skills for Access (undated) Challenges to Learning [online], http://www.skillsforaccess.org.uk/ challenges.php (accessed 23 June 2010).

I believe that elearning has potential to make education accessible for a greater number of people. Since technology-enhanced learning allow people to take courses without the need of displacements, people have the opportunity to choose the place and (in general) the time to access the courseware and interact with fellow students. This feature facilitate, for instance, that people with mobility impairments have access as well.

Furthermore, most systems tolerate users’ faults; therefore, people have the opportunity to repeat actions when they do some mistakes.

On the other hand, technology-based interaction rely on two senses (sight and hearing), therefore, people with visual or hearing impairments.  

The first situation that made me aware of the relevance of accessibility in elearning was the first time I had to interrupt my routine because of a minor accident. One day I hurt my eyeball with a piece of metal. In order  to prevent that the bruise will go infected I had to keep the eye closed for two days. Those days I couldn’t read, work on the computer, write or do anything that required precision or extra effort fro the good eye. I remember that even my mobility was affected.

Since I couldn’t study or work because of my condition, I realized all the skills disabled people have to develop in order to actively participate in online discussions and explore online resources.

Later on, in H807 (Innovations in elearning) the activity suggested to try accessibility tools that helped visual impaired sutdents explore web pages. Despite I have found very useful tools, it was frustrating to realize that not all the web pages are designed to be read or modified by such tools.

Since my hands-on experience with this technology, I become aware of the features that courseware must have in so that the content is as much accessible as possible.

2.             If you were to conduct an analysis at this point in time, of the costs and benefits for you personally as a learner in studying this course online, what would the analysis look like?

At this point the analysis costs and benefits will be evenly matched because education must be inclusive. Education is a right we all have, and a well design learning experience should include all these factors.

For example all courseware I have explored so far at The OU are oriented to fulfil disable students requirements. Such features have also been helpful for me (who has English as a second language) to better understand the graphics, read the transcription along with the audio or the video. 

3.             Seale uses the imagery of a magic fairy to make the point that many of us are waiting desperately in the hope that we don’t have to take responsibility for accessibility because somehow or other it has been ‘miraculously’ taken care of for us.

◦                                  What metaphor, analogy or imagery would you use to describe your or your co-workers’ current attitude or expectations regarding finding solutions to accessibility ‘problems’?

EAFIT is just starting to design their first online degrees, therefore, accessibility has not been yet considered as an urgent subject. Somehow their situation is similar to Seale’s description; everybody is relying on Systems to solve accessibility issues as if the LMS would be a sort of an Artificial Intelligence development from a Hollywood movie. 

4.             If you attended a conference where the main theme was making online learning accessible, what kind of information or evidence would you wish to hear from the presenters that would help to inform or change your practice?

If there is evidence that disabled students rate the learning experience as excellent as those students that do not have to use assistive technology to explore the courseware or to interact with their fellow students; and at the same time, they achieve the learning outcomes, that would be enough motivation to put more effort in making elearning accessible. Furthermore, it would be more interesting if all participants agreed that the improvements enhanced the experience.

5.             Thinking about accessibility:

I opine that some students have learned to manage and adapt the environment so that they do not feel that declaring their disability will change anything. However, I believe that other students want to avoid administrative procedures that the institution may develop related with their impairment. 

Nonetheless, for an institution, knowing the exact numbers of disabled students registered can give them a broad perspective about the current status of student population. Such numbers can lead to the design of strategies, guidelines or regulations about this subject. If they know these actions have more impact in more students the design of accessible courseware is justified.

6.             In our working lives we are all constantly managing our identities – both public and private.

I am an open person so I can easily share personal information with people that I know I will have a further relationship either if it is personal or professional. I prefer that people know me for who I am and have enough information to understand my actions.

My notes:
- In fact the use and appropriation of technologies are becoming ubiquitous.
- Students from the net generation are multitasking
- Students spend a big part of the day looking at a screen laptop pcs, phones and PDAs. On such devices the visual experience is rich in terms of graphics, colors and shapes. In contrast, a chalkboard is less appealing, (almost) non- interactive and most important… linear. Those features, added to the average size of the auditorium might cause loss of attention from the students and lack of interest on the topics.

1. Is the message being presented in this visual way any different from the primarily text-based presentation of findings used so far this week?

The fact that the message is presented by students in such a concrete manner make this video convincing. However, the content of the message    is very  similar to the text-based reports read earlier.

2.  How important is the medium and the technologies themselves in terms of conveying messages about this research area?

I believe that the medium to disseminate find¡ngs  in this and any other area is directly connected to the aim of the message, the “target market” and the message itself.

In other words, since this video is (as I understood) a way to sensitize teachers about the current situation in education and the influence the technology has upon students, ( not only in their personal lives but their academic as well) the mean and the format in which is presented is appealing. The video is intended to reach the mass and ( I guess) so it did.

However, if this video were used for disseminationg s research report, say, in a conference, he video might be complemented by another element wheter a report or a speech where the methodology, the results and the discussion were also shared and not just the results. In this way, the research would have the validity needed to be considered within the academic field.

3. What are the implications for your own practice?

The students that now are begining in high education are part of the so-called ‘Net Generation’. E-learning and learning practitioners have to work dynamically to fulfill their expectations, meet their needs, catch their attention and adapt education processes to fit into the new demands from the market.

I agree with Price et al about the pastoral dimension that online tuition may have. Since students and tutors are usually having asynchronous communication and due to the nature of distance education, online tuition might have a stronger orientation to pastoral care. Thus, distance education learners will have more support to overcome the challenges that distance learning has.

Do you agree that the absence of what the authors call ‘paralinguistic cues’ in an online environment can limit the effectiveness of online tuition?

I also agree that absence of ‘paralinguistic cues’ may affect online tuition. However, I don’t believe that this is the main reason for student’s poor performance or unsuccessful experiences. Nonetheless, nowadays there are other means to help overcome this situation. In one hand, there are lots of communication means that can help students and teachers establish a more natural dialogue. One example is Elluminate. Elluminate integrates oral and visual communication to fulfil other expectations that only written communication may not .

Do you think the innovations described in Weeks 8 and 9 as ‘learning design’ would induce more desirable approaches to studying on the part of the students?

Richardson (2005) states that research conducted during the last 25 years have disclosure the student’s perceptions about learning and the teacher’s perception about teaching. He also states that the following 25 years, research might be oriented to identify the interplay between student’s and teacher’s perspectives and approaches found and analyzed so far.
“[International research groups] are trying to find ways to help teachers create better learning experiences for students, which are pedagogically grounded and make innovative use of new technologies.” (Conole,n.d.)
As seen on the previous quotes, teachers have the responsibility for creating an interesting learning experience for students as well as encourage them to achieve the learning goals proposed. Teachers also have the responsibility to communicate to the student what is the final goal of each process of learning and how learning activities have been tailored towards. Since teachers bear in mind that learning activities might be aligned with the learning outcomes and purposes, they are and will be able to engage students with the course. Hence, the student would have a more desirable approach to studying.

Compare Marton’s idea that some students regard learning as something that just happens to them with Sfard’s account that you read in Week 3.

“The language of “knowledge acquisition” and “concept development” makes us think about the human mind as a container to be filled with certain materials and about the learner as becoming an owner of these materials” (Sfard, 1998) . This position may lead to Marton’s idea about the passive attitude of some students about their learning. In this case, memorizing is the “acquisition” – most of the time in a short span- of concepts and terms related to a topic. This approach to studying is adopted in some ways by students that just let their teachers act as transmitters while they act as passive receptors.

You may not have encountered the literature that I describe. In Week 4, Chris Jones asked you to think about your own definition of ‘learning’.
Do the concepts, theories and evidence described in my paper fit your own experience as a learner?

During my experience as a learner, I’ve been involved somehow in the three approaches to studying in HE described by Richardson.
Each approach is related to my motivation to learn about the subject of study, the teaching strategies and the moment of my life.
Richardson (2005) quoted from Eley (1992) , Vemetten, Lodewijks, & Vermunt, (1999) and Scouller (1998) the demands of different course units, the quality of the teaching, and the nature of the assessment as elements that influence on the students’ approach to study. These elements also influence as my adoption of different approaches to learning. However, there are two more elements that also influenced, they are: my affinity with the subject matter, and “the moment of my life” I was living at that time. This means that when the subject matter is not aligned with my skills or my interests it is more difficult for me to adopt a deep approach.
Nonetheless, as I grow up learning process becomes more conscious. Thus, I now understand my own approach to learning as much as the relevance and the subtle links among subject matters in my long life exerience.

Which of Säljö’s five conceptions of learning best fits your own definition?

My definition of learning is: “Learning is long-life process. The inputs of this process are the concepts, behaviors, phenomena, elements and relationships amongst all of them. Also, these inputs may include technologies and individuals whose interact with the learner during the process. The output of this process is a point of view a perspective that the learner creates from the information collected from the inputs in his/her own mind. Such point of view or perspective influences his/her perception of the environment that surrounds him/her and the future decisions related – in some extent- to it.” Therefore, I believe that the Säljö’s conception that better suits is the fifth: Learning as an interpretative process aimed at the understanding of reality. The keywords are: Process, understanding, and reality. In this case, the learner collects some elements to transform them into their perception and understanding of reality.

If you have (or have had) a role in teaching or training, do the concepts, theories and evidence described in my paper fit your own experience as a teacher or trainer?

As a teacher I try to question students by encouraging them to reflect upon their practice vs. theoretical foundation. I find this practice aligned with kembert’s fourth conception of learning, which is “teaching as facilitating understanding on the part of the student.
A step ahead in my teaching practice would be leading students to achieve “conceptual change and intellectual development”. Reaching this goal will only be possible by gaining more experience (differing from paper’s author perspective) and gaining a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

Do you find my argument convincing?

I understood Richardson’s arguments and i found it fairly convincing. However, since the article is from 2005, I’ve seen how research has started to pay more attention to a technology-enhanced student-teacher relationship.
Such fact is an evidence of the validity of this argument ( I guess) that even more that the article itself.

You may find the similarity between the models in Figure 1 and Figure 2 beguiling, but are the models really justified?

The models are clear and they depict the relationship among the elements that influence both approaches. However, the models do not describe which combination of factors result in a specific approach. Moreover, this would result interesting in that it such factors might help finding connections to establish the further relationship between teacher-student that the author mentioned.