Teaching using the DLS at RMIT

1. Teaching using the DLS at RMIT Professor Brian Corbitt Head, School of Business IT Dean, Research.

2. Using the Web for teaching • 1. Plan
Before you start to build, work out what teaching and learning goals you want to achieve. • 2. Design
Decide on the best strategies to achieve your teaching/learning goals, given the resources available. • 3. Develop
Source, write or otherwise create your resources, set up your communication and assessment strategies and get someone else to test your site. • 4. Deliver
Deliver your educational strategy. This involves managing your students' expectations and your time to meet their needs while not having to be online 24/7.

3. Using the Web for teaching • 5. Evaluate
Evaluate the outcomes of your project. • How effective were your strategies and materials in meeting your teaching/learning goals? • Were the needs of your students met?

4. How is the web different to print and face-to-face teaching? • Providing learning materials online is different to lecturing or providing print-based study guides. • The web is: • Visual - so use pictures, colour and highlighting, and use screen space thoughtfully. • Non-linear - students will jump around, rather than read your materials from start to finish, so organise your materials with headings and folders so they won't get lost, build in hyperlinks and accept they will choose different pathways. • Not text-friendly - so minimise text and break it into screen-size 'chunks' so students don't need to scroll. • Multimedia - so use audio and video (eg via software like iLecture) - but watch the file sizes.

5. How is the web different to print and face-to-face teaching? • Providing learning materials online is different to lecturing or providing print-based study guides. • The web is: • Networked - so use web links, online discussion activities and collaborative online activities.･ • Interactive - students expect to be able to do things online, rather than just read, so build in activities such as quizzes, discussions and games, and consider encouraging students to contribute 'content' to the unit site. • Accessed at different times - so allow plenty of time for collaborative online work, and don't expect all of your students to be able to attend chat sessions. • Different - so include an introduction that explains how to use the tools and lets them practice.

6. Online materials checklist • 1.Is there a clear explanation of what's expected of students, what they will need to complete the work, and what they are to do? • 2.Is there a clear explanation of where the resources and tools they will need are, and how to use them? • 3.Is there a content structure that is logical, with a clear heading hierarchy - eg divided into study blocks or major activities? • 4.Are there sufficient and appropriate activities to engage the students in active learning?

7. Online materials checklist • 5.Are there sufficient opportunities for students to interact with each other and teaching staff via the communications tools in order to check, share and build on their understandings? • 6.Are there opportunities for students to engage in both independent and collaborative work? • 7.Are there sufficient opportunities for students to take advantage of the wealth of web resources available on the subject (without wasting too much time in inefficient searches and downloading large and/or irrelevant documents)?

8. Online materials checklist • 8.Are students given opportunities to exercise control and discretion over what and how they study, and the activities they engage in? • 9.Are students able to monitor their learning progress through appropriate assessment tasks and feedback?

9. USING THE DLS • Blackboard provides a range of tools to organise and deliver unit learning materials online: • Add File: to create html files or upload files such as html, Word, PowerPoint, movie, picture, audio files • Web Link: to create links to websites and e-readings • Folders: to group items together

10. USING THE DLS • Blackboard provides a range of tools to organise and deliver unit learning materials online: • Learning Modules: to group items together in order, with a contents list • File Manager: to manage files • Selective Release: to control the release of items in the site according to date, group and other criteria

11. Why have an online communication strategy? • Communication is a vital part of teaching and learning. • Online forms of communication are no longer viewed as poor substitutes for face-to-face communication. • They are certainly different, but have actually been found to encourage superior types of communication for teaching/learning purposes.

12. Why have an online communication strategy? • The DLS online communication tools may be used quite simply, but as they differ, it will pay to select the best tools for each communicative purpose. • Adopting a rational and consistent approach will help your students find the different types of information they need.

13. Why have an online communication strategy? • It should also enable both students and staff to feel they have a free flow of communication of exactly the kind they need for various purposes, whether they be private messages, social chat or contributions to collaborative projects.

14. Social contact • Students need to feel that their online learning environment is safe, welcoming and conducive to meaningful communication, if they are to be expected to take part in interactive tasks. • You will need to devote some attention to developing trust, including using a welcoming, sincere tone in all your own online communications as well as getting students to introduce themselves early in the semester.

15. Social contact • Fostering positive social contact is more than making students feel 'at home'. • Meaning-making is ultimately a social activity (Vygotsky 1978), and people learn more readily from 'salient' (ie real, important, consistent) others than from non-salient entities (Short, Williams & Christie 1976). • Social contact has also been found to be a key factor in students' motivation to complete unit learning tasks and continue their education (Wells 1990).

16. Social contact • Social contact and salience can also be generated through asynchronous discussions , whether they be blogs, journals or threaded discussions, though it is important to moderate them well to maintain a respectful culture. • Social cohesion will be damaged if students post inflammatory messages, or post them in the wrong category (eg post social messages to serious unit 'content' discussions), and an important part of moderating is coaching students in the correct protocols.

17. Social contact • ･A blog may be the best asynchronous discussion type for generating social contact as it creates what feels like a democratic space, and lends itself to tidy organisation of comments. • If you set up a blog topic for introductions, the whole group's introductory postings can be visible on the same page, creating a handy collection of profiles for future reference. It can be especially effective if students and teaching staff upload a photograph as well as a description of their main interests. • ･A journal (with public access) can work in a similar way, in that once each student has posted their profile message, other class members can just click on their name in the journal topic to read their profile and post them messages (in effect it is a personal blog).

18. Social contact • Threaded discussions have also been used successfully for many years for introductions and ongoing social chat, though if students are inexperienced they tend to make mistakes such as posting replies to the wrong message, or posting replies when they should be creating fresh threads, which can sometimes make a discussion difficult to follow. • Derek Powazek's Design for community: the art of connecting real people in virtual places (2002) provides more information on building and maintaining virtual communities.

19. What are the hazards with online group work? • These are the hazards (all of which can be avoided):･ • Freeloaders - some students will sit back and let others do all the work, knowing they will probably still receive good marks. Two things you can do to avoid this are to use some kind of self/peer assessment and to divide the task so that some parts are assessed individually. • ･IT/access difficulties - some students may not have strong IT skills, or may have limited or slow access to online collaboration areas, and this may limit their ability to contribute. Some mentoring and technical support will be necessary, especially in the early stages, and you should always choose the simplest technology available for the task.･

20. What are the hazards with online group work? • These are the hazards (all of which can be avoided):･ • Timezones and slow responses - when some group members are in different timezones or are only occasionally logged on to DSO, communication can be slow and frustrating. To overcome these problems you could set up groups according to timezones, or encourage students to make agreements to check DLS at particular times convenient to themselves, or set up group chat sessions for synchronous audio and text chat and file sharing. • ･Personality/communication problems - these include domination, conflict, non-cooperation, etc. You cannot assume any group will operate smoothly, whether it is online or sitting around a table. You or a tutor will need to monitor online group discussions, be available to answer queries, model appropriate behaviour, provide feedback and be prepared to deal with communication problems. Being present online in the early stages will generally pre-empt more serious problems that could otherwise arise.

21. What are the hazards with online group work? • These are the hazards (all of which can be avoided):･ • Clumsy document creation - when students are working on group documents individually, version control and formatting problems can be awkward. • Wikis offer one solution, but if you are not ready for these then simple, early advice on file naming and use of templates will not go astray.

22. How to use the DLS • Plan what you want to do • Log on • Go to Control Panel • Complete what needs to be done • Save it via “ok” • Check the student view