CO11: Leaping over the Ditch of Digital Illiteracy

Leaping over the Ditch of Digital Illiteracy Life Long Learning : Leaping over the Ditch of Digital Illiteracy Life Long Learning by Silvia Purpurihttp://sunflower-efl.blogspot.com/       Connecting Online 2011February 4-6, 2011

Slide 2 : Digital:   Relating to or using signals or information represented as digits [....], non analogue.       Involving or relating to the use of computer technology: the digital revolution. http://www.wordreference.com/definition/digital  Electronic ; also : characterized by electronic and especially computerized technology http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/digital  Available in electronic form; readable and manipulable by computer. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/digital

Slide 3 : The way we teach, learn, work, communicate, play, LIVE is changing. http://www.redorbit.com/fun/cartoons/

Slide 4 : FROM:   "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates, 1981 - TO: http://www.redorbit.com/fun/cartoons/

Slide 5 : Are we Digital Natives or Digital Immigrants? http://flesolcobbcentral.typepad.com/tech/

Slide 6 : http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynetter/322112273/

Slide 7 : http://sue-on-education.blogspot.com/2009/06/still-on-module-2-digital-natives-and.html

Slide 8 : http://holyroodpark.net/heywayne/weblog/1616.html

Slide 9 : Digital Ditch or Digital Divide? http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/struc_geo/rocky/rocky.htm

Slide 10 : Divides & Ditches:  ever present, like the elephant in the room! http://nosark.com/2008/10/08/elephant-in-the-room/

Classroom vs Online Instruction : Classroom vs Online Instruction Online learning environments provide a very different learning and instructional experience   Significant changes in the way:   students engage with their study  instructors manage the course and interact with the group as a whole, and each student individually.   Both environments can and do use all the necessary pedagogical resources, in different ways.

Slide 12 : Online Environments - Unique Qualities   •   Time: Students choose when and for how long    •   Space: from anywhere, with a computer and an internet connection.   •   Communication:Web-based communication, both sync and async    •   Social Presence: established through the frequency, features, and content of online writing.   •   Learning communities: 3 core elements (social, cognitive, and teaching presence - Garrison and Anderson, 2003) are integrated.

Slide 13 : •   Social Presence: evident in student to student contact (discussion areas, forums, wikis,..) •   Cognitive Presence: evident in student to content contact (textbook readings, review of supporting materials, communication with peers/instructors, assigments). .   •   Teaching Presence: evident in instructor engagement with the class as a whole through public/private discussion, uploading of materials. 3     C O R E E L E M E N T S O F     L E A R N I N G     C O M M U N I T I E S

Teaching Presence : Teaching Presence 3 critical components / indicators of teaching presence:   1.    Instructional design and organization of course content and learning activities (set the curriculum, introduce learning activities, establish timeframes,..)   2.    Establishment and maintenance of an active learning community - facilitation / feedback   3.    Direct instruction (Effective presentation of content,  explanatory feedback, ...)     From: Anderson, T., Rourke, L., Garrison, D. R., Archer, W. (2001). Assessing Teaching presence in a Computer Conference Environment.

What students want: : What students want: www.wordle.net

Slide 16 : A research made by Michael Wesch and the students of "Introduction to Cultural ANthropology", Spring 2007, Kansas State University A research made by Michael Wesch and the students of "Introduction to Cultural ANthropology", Spring 2007, Kansas State University www.youtube.com

Two Case Studies : Two Case Studies Horizons UniversityParis - France University of TrentoTrento - Italy

Slide 18 : Case Study Horizons University  -Paris-   Education for Everyone Everywherehttp://www.horizonsuniversity.org/

Slide 19 : Course Developer Facilitator Teacher                     Courses: Decision MakingConflict ResolutionIntercultural Management

Slide 20 : Technology as the core of HU activity:     Makes "Education for Everyone Everywhere" possible   Essential to reach students all over the world   Has enabled HU to reach an adult population who decided to continue their studies while being engaged in professional life (life long learning)   Opens new academic and professional horizons of development and continuous education.    Positive feedback from everywhere in the world, mainly Asia and Eastern Europe.

Slide 21 : The classroom of the future - room for improvement! ADAPTABILITY of tools and methods   FLEXIBILITY in studying is a new reality for those accustomed to traditional learning/teaching.      ASSESSMENT: assessing remotely everyone's skills      COMMUNICATION: sync and async     Differentiated teaching for different students' needs.

Slide 22 : Technology to promote and sustain HU online activities   HU Moodle platform (events and news, forums,..)           Individual and group emails  to the students' HU email accounts http://www.thewirelessreport.com/category/hotzones/ http://thefoxisblack.com/2007/04/29/airplanes/

Slide 23 : Skype (individual/group conversationsboth sync and async)      Facebook & Twitter as informal add-ons for communication        "Public" and "private" communication tools  both sync and async  combined for best result. Communication via multiple means available to bridge the gap:

Slide 24 : Open Source Resouces e-resources page on HU platform with links to e-libraries

Slide 25 : Technical challenges for administrators, instructors,students and community members Digital natives VS digital immigrants   What helps?   Most tools: user-friendly    Blended internal communication support: innovation + tradition to adapt smoothly   Curiosity    Motivation to "keep the learning going" (life long learning) Willingness to teach/study + willingness to enter a new technological and communication dimension.

Slide 26 : Second Life and Horizons University

Slide 27 : Case Study    University of Trento-Italy-   Laboratory of Maieutics COMOL Online Community   https://comunitaonline.unitn.it/ https://esperto.provincia.tn.it/Elle3/

Slide 28 :

Slide 29 : OUR EXPERIENCE: the facts    Working on multimedia and e-learning since 1988   First  e-Learning system created internally in 1998    in 2003, from LMS to a Virtual Community (VC) platform   currently, a team of  ~15/20 people with the following competences: system administration developing methodology / design content production

Slide 30 : The cornestones of our approach    Using LMS in a real training contexts:   a LMS  cannot act as an isolated system from the IS the metaphor "course" is not capable of covering all needs for communication/cooperation carried out in training institutions. daily interaction participant<->VC needs higher flexibility in defining ROLES, RIGHTS, DUTIES, PERMISSIONS etc. A course is a specialization of a community

Virtual Communities and social network : Virtual Communities and social network representation of a community in the cyberspace  = VIRTUAL COMMUNITY   social network “community”: the person creates his/her list of contacts In our vision, the community comes first, people are then assigned to the community

Slide 32 : Online Community LMS:   built in 1998,in 2003 evolved into a VCS.  designed, developed and managed by the Laboratory of Maieutics - University of Trento. a collaborative web based platform with a LLL perspective

Virtual Communities and e-learning : Virtual Communities and e-learning VC: a paradigm to be used in educational settings, with at least these basic characteristics:    Generalization respect to "pure" educational settings suitability to support cooperation processes capability of modelling and preserving organizational structure and roles of the educational institution Network relationships among communities Inheritance mechanisms

Examples of VC : Examples of VC Community of Tennis Recreation Center   Community of the Secretariat of the Presidency   Community of the board members of the Faculty   Community of Project XYZ research group   Community of a teacher’s thesis writers   Community of the course “Database...” of the Faculty    Community of the recreational circle of the University VC: an ordinary aggregation of people, reunited in a virtual place for the most varied reasons and aims

Peculiarities needed in a VC settings : Peculiarities needed in a VC settings users can play different roles inside the community permissions and roles can be specific for each service permissions can be specific for each community users can be grouped independently from community membership in work areas communities hierarchies and nesting communities cross-relationships with other communities communities can inherit users/services/permissions from multiple parents services inherit characteristics from other services …………

LLL and LMSs : LLL and LMSs increased implementation complexities respect to LMS settings, considering the following differences between the two approaches: Temporal: not necessarily dependent on schooling or university studies Social: the platform could be used in social contexts of totally diverse life-long learning, even in conflict with each other Spatial: the place where the learner is conditions the modality of the supply of training iter andsituated learning. Anthropological: the subject uses the platform in completely different life periods- The problems arises considering that our social and even mental behaviors are affected by ICT

Slide 37 : L3 - Life Long Learning (LLL):   a 5-years project that will deploy a Virtual communities platform for several public administrations of the area     commissioned to the University of Trento by the Autonomous Province of Trento Virtual Community Learning Environment  deep integration with the Information System education and training made possible for 15.000 to 20.000 state sector and public administration employees support face-to-face, blended and full-online courses focus on the design aspects integrated with the platform web 2.0 and web 3.0 enabled a rich set of services developed in a LLL perspective

Slide 38 : Virtual Community offers L3 Life Long Learning:   Services of “traditional” asynchronous e-Learning   Services for the fruition of courses in “off-line” mode   Support services for cooperative and collaborative on-line learning   Services for time and project management of the community   Services for obtaining on-line information and the management of sources   “Personalized” Services   Services for persistency and LLL maintainance (L-ERP)

LLL and LMSs - 2 : LLL and LMSs - 2 the problems of content persistency and “persistence of digital data” reasoning along very long temporal scales, the moment a user utilizes several platforms in the course of his/her life 1. unique identification of subjects through different systems: ex.: Okkam (http://www.okkam.org) 2. unique identification of different systems and institutions: mortality of educational institutions 3. accounting system on taxes, enrolments, records etc., 4. the system of issuing certifications related with training 5. Information on  activtiies intrinsically related to learning environments consulted by the user during his/her career

Conclusions on our LLL experience (so far....) : Conclusions on our LLL experience (so far....) the extension of a LMS towards a Web 2.0 approach is not simply a matter of adding some services (blog, wiki, friends etc.) to a LMS.   LLL requires to consider factors in the ICT infrastructure, that at present are ignored by applications.    the metaphor of “course” VS “community”   LMS, financial and accounting, LLL issues, web 2.0, formal and informal learning

Slide 41 : http://www.redorbit.com/fun/cartoons/

Slide 42 : Leaping over the Ditch of Digital Illiteracy  Life Long Learning  Connecting Online 2011      Silvia Purpuri http://sunflower-efl.blogspot.com/     Thank you IT4ALL and WiZiQ