Empowering electronic courses by introducing collaborative activities

Empowering electronic courses by introducing collaborative activities A case study: Introductory eBusiness eCourse for students of Computer Science Ž. Komlenov, D. Pešović, Z. Budimac Department of Mathematics and Informatics Faculty of Science, University of Novi Sad

Empowering electronic courses by introducing collaborative activities – overview • Investigating current practice of collaborative learning in Computer Science courses • Introducing it into our own teaching endavours at an early stage of studies – introductory course on eBusiness • Open source toolbox (Moodle, Magento, WordPress) • Collaborative assignments (wiki, eStore, business blog) • Promising results

Empowering electronic courses by introducing collaborative activities – contents eLearning trends Contemporary tools for learning Goals and challenges Collaborative learning in Computer Science courses Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness course Course structure Toolbox Collaborative activities Results Conclusions and further work 3

eLearning trends • High quality eLearning succeeds only when designers understand the • educational • economic • technical challenges they face • and the best practices to address them • Concept of eCourses • Learning management systems reign • Emergence of Web 2.0, and consequently eLearning 2.0 • Enabling and encouraging participation through open applications and services • Aiming at collaborative nature of learning • Bringing focus on content syndication, its reuse, adaptation, and personalization

Contemporary tools for learning • Content is • used rather than read • more likely to be produced by students than courseware authors • Modern eLearning platform becomes • a personal learning centre, where content is reused and remixed according to the student’s needs and interests • not a single application, but a collection of interoperating applications – an environment rather than a system • Educational institutions tend to apply interlocking sets of open source applications • In our case as means of introducing collaborative activities in an introductory eBusiness course

Goals and challenges • Collaborative work bravely introduced to first-year students, together with Web 2.0 tools • Goal: to allow students, grouped in appropriate teams of 3-5 collaborators, to go through several phases of an imaginary eBusiness development • Giving them possibility to learn how to use Web 2.0 tools • Helping them in gaining soft skills and valuable experience through team effort • Beneficial experience for institutions • having similar courses in their curricula • that are struggling with incorporating interactive Web 2.0 tools in their teaching practice while maintaining an ever growing LMS

Collaborative learning in Computer Science courses • Collaboration in an online course – through small group projects, simulations, case study work, or using other methods • Enhances problem-solving and enjoyment of the task • Presents the heart of any learner-centered online course • Is the best way to tap into all learning styles present in the group • Is quite appropriate for Computer Science courses, since new knowledge is often applied to complex and unstructured tasks • Most courses in systems analysis and design and many programming courses require students to work on group projects • As well as a number of courses in computer architecture, graphics, software engineering, database design, project management, multimedia and interface design, database management systems, information systems analysis and design, etc.

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness course • Introductory course on eBusiness • Offered to students of Computer Science in the first year of their studies • A blended course that proposes student-centred learning • Conducted using contemporary eLearning technologies • Particularly eLearning 2.0 tools for the implementation of collaborative activities, which have been gradually introduced • Students are required to build their knowledge through activities that engage them in active learning • Thematically, similar courses are quite rarely offered in this way, especially to first-year students

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseCourse structure • Crucial eBusiness topics, offered as lectures and exercises, together with supporting online resources and activities • A certain amount of advanced topics provided as additional self-study material • Students can (on voluntary basis) • use discussion boards/participate in chat sessions • form databases of useful links • explore eLessons that test their progress in gaining new knowledge • For grading purposes • three online tests are delivered during the semester in the controlled environment (results produced form 60% of students’ final grades) • collaborative activities are performed completely online (forming the remaining 40% of the grades)

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseToolbox • Most LMSs-like platforms focus more on distribution of learning material than social interaction or possibilities to construct shared knowledge • We have opted for some specific additional tools in order to fulfil the possibilities offered by the chosen LMS (Moodle) • eCommerce platform – Magento • Blogging tool – WordPress • Exclusively open source solutions • Considerable initial cost savings • Flexibility and availability of additional features • Possibility to extend and customize them according one’s specific needs

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseToolbox – Moodle • A reasonable decision to use an existing eLearning platform instead of developing a new one from scratch • Thorough market analyses of the established open source general purpose LMS solutions • Moodle as the final choice, for its fine basic features and great extensibility potential • Successfully used at our Department since 2004 • eBusiness course built in Moodle, using a variety of its modules • Some of the assignments set up and solved within it (for instance using Wiki module) • For others additional applications are used • subject-specific tools (for instance an eCommerce platform) • more powerful versions of means of collaboration compared to the ones existing in Moodle (e.g. advanced blogging functionality)

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseToolbox – Magento • One of the best open source eCommerce platforms • Wide range of customization and fine-tuning capabilities • Modular architecture – each module is responsible for certain type of features, processes or activities: • analytics and reporting • catalogue browsing • customer accounts • order management • search engine optimization • marketing promotions and tools… • Reasonable complexity of the platform • Support for the development of multiple Web stores within one Magento-powered site

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseToolbox – WordPress A rather popular blog publishing application and content management system, having a templating system, including various widgets themes integrated link management a search engine-friendly, clean permalink structure the ability to assign nested, multiple categories to articles multiple author capability support for tagging of posts and articles a rich plug-in architecture Offers a nice balance of functionality and stability Allows an arbitrary number of simultaneous blogs to exist within one installation 13

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseCollaborative activities Inclusion of group exercises can help students get diverse ideas, views, opinions and feedback A set of team assignments, all gathered around one big goal – thinking of the online presence of an imaginary eCommerce company/organization Self-assigned groups of students (3–5 per group) Both individual and team effort taken into consideration while grading the assignments, based on the success of the final products the team’s own assessment of their operations professionalism (attendance at meetings, cooperative attitude) initiative (suggesting ideas, working towards common goals) independence (completion of tasks at agreed-upon deadlines, researching topics and sharing resources) 14

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseA set of assignments Online business model Of an imaginary eCommerce company/organization In a wiki form (created using the appropriate Moodle’s module) eCommerce Web site Putting the business model into practice – building a Magento eStore Marketing tools and promotions Improving the eStore focusing on usage of Magento’s marketing tools and promotion mechanisms: pricing rules, customer groups, time period, landing pages for campaigns, polls, newsletters, etc. Business blog Creating a business blog in WordPress and maintaining it for a while to build up the online presence of the company/organization 15

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseResults In 2008 we had 71 students Growing interest in the course topics (41 student in 2007) In 2009 (67 students) we introduced the presented set of collaborative assignments in our teaching and grading scheme Only the first assignment was experimentally introduced even in previous course runs Still comparable results, with remarks on the way students dealt with new practical collaborative assignments Final grades on a scale from 5 to 10, 10 being the highest mark, and 5 standing for students that failed the course Similar to a certain extent in 2008 and 2009 Smaller amount of both highest grades and students that did not pass the course in 2009 The overall distribution of grades seems to be more reasonable 16

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseFinal grades Comparison of final grades accomplished in 2008 and 2009 17

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseTeamwork analysis Students generally managed to solve all the tasks successfully They could deal not only with new technologies but also with gaining soft skills needed for effective working in teams Some of the assignments received with greater enthusiasm naturally the first one and later the last one as the end of the semester approached Assignment 3, improving the eStores focusing on the use of marketing tools and promotions, was the most difficult one possibly because it assumed both the fulfilments and corrections of the previous task it also required the students to learn how to use a complex set of Magento’s marketing tools in a short period of time in the busiest part of the semester 18

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseAverage grades on team assignments Average grades on team assignments in 2009 19

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseCount of individual grades on team assignments Count of individual grades on team assignments in 2009 20

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseChosen solutions – Assignment 1 21

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseChosen solutions – Assignments 2 & 3 22

Collaborative learning in practice – eBusiness courseChosen solutions – Assignment 4 23

Conclusions Collaborative work performed by students requires careful planning on the part of the instructor, and is not without its difficulties for students But the benefits can be substantial increased participation by students in all parts of the course better understanding and retention of material mastery of various soft skills increased enthusiasm for self-directed learning Students achieved admirable results, and the majority of them passed the exam smoothly They were satisfied with the newly developed competences for successful working in teams Usage of Web 2.0 tools was particularly convenient in our circumstances 24

Further work Developing more subtle mechanisms for group formation and teamwork evaluation Control of group formation process, specially paying attention to the diversity of groups with respect to personal characteristics, learning styles and pre-knowledge of potential group members Although students generally like to choose their own co-workers for group assignments, student-selected groups under-perform when compared to instructor-selected ones Employing techniques of data mining in order to form and analyse student profiles for group formation develop some instruments that would help us in the process of teamwork assessment 25

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Empowering electronic courses by introducing collaborative activities