Personal Blogs

PLEs are very innovative and I believe that if they are implemented in education, however the difficulties, the advantages will be enormous. When students have their own environment they will eventually use it for their own learning and even exchange opinions and thoughts with other students and friends and in this way learning occurs.  The same happens in my situation too.  Even if it is informally I am learning when I have my own personal space of learning. I am strongly in favour of PLEs to be used in an educational context even if some problems occur while implementing it. These problems that will occur will not be so important compared to the gains that students and teacher will gain after the implementation and during the usage of such PLEs.

Consider also:

• Read ‘What are web 2.0 technologies and why do they matter?’ by Charles Crook.
• See if you can answer the question in the title for yourself. Make notes in your blog.

As suggested by Crook (2008), 2.0 implies that there is a step forward, an advance of the web, meaning that now we can do more with the web than what we could do before.

(a) What does Crook mean by the ‘virtualisation of exchange practices’? (p.6)

Virtualisation of exchange practices is the example given by Crook very succesfully, that the bricks and mortar contexts of real world trade to the electronic trafiic of virtual world trade. Thus, virtualisation reduces overheads and commodity prices are driven down as it is mentioned again in Crook's report.

(b) Would you agree that the learning dimensions that Crook sets out as characteristic of Web 2.0 can be grouped as either more social or more cognitive? (p.9)

Yes, I agree with the way that Crook presents them.

Read ‘Educational hopes and fears for Web 2.0’ by Neil Selwyn. Selwyn raises a number of fears on page 11, including disengagement and impact on ‘traditional’ literacies. Weller takes a different view.

(c) Which side of the argument do you favour at this stage?

I agree with Selwyn because all the drawbacks mentioned in the article, actually fears, do exist and there is a clear need to take them into consideration if we want to establish education 2.0.

Read ‘Learning and virtual worlds’ by Diane Carr.

(d) How is Second Life being used in ways that might counter the fears around Web 2.0? (Note that you will read more about Second Life in Week 25.)

First of all, students who are already experienced 3D animators or modellers find the modelling tools of Second Life bizarre and awkward and they often struggle more than other inexperienced users.  Also, technically minded students may not see the point of Second Life and they want to make some real programming rather than play around in a fake world.  Second Life as an educational setting, faces problems, like hardware problems, time lags due to varying internet connectivity and difficulties relating to class control and the formalising of lessons. Additionally, a motionless avatar could mean that a student is confused or alienated or simply the student went to make a coffee.  Second Life sessions could be intense and potentially confusing for inexperienced users and there might be also struggle with the interface or with the communications either text or voice.  Gamers might get disappointed with the graphics and the relative emptiness of Second Life.

Read ‘Learning and social networking’ by Neil Selwyn.

(e) Would you agree with Selwyn’s tentative conclusion that ‘the primary educational significance of social networking would appear to be its informal use’? (You may wish to revise your view later, when you have had more experience using social networking tools.)

I do not believe that the primary educational significance of social networking would be its informal use.  There are also other uses too that are equally important.

Why students were using technologies and their perceptions of technologies:

a) Information seeking and handling: several reported that searching with Google was their first action when trying to get information for an assignment.  Difficulty in evaluating creditability of sources found on the web.

b) Communication: Students use mobile devices to phone and text to each other; discuss issues related to their learning and assignment questions.  They use MSN Messenger for instant messaging and other software in order to communicate internationally.

c) Assignment preparation: Write assignments; take notes in Word, essay and reports.

d) Integrated learning: Students are able to download lecture notes or view course timetables was a plus for them as travelling expenses are reduced.  Time also is saved, thus giving more flexibility and freedom to arrange their learning and lifestyle, working situation on their own.

• Students are learning in a complex and changing environment using a variety of technological tools to support their learning.
• Students are adept at finding and manipulating information and synthesize across different information sources and use a plethora of communication tools to support their learning.
• More interactive interactions across all aspects of their learning.
• Technology is at the heart of all aspects of their lives.
• Technology-mediated learning environment can be distracting as some students need peace and quiet in order to learn.
• Ownership, personalisation and appropriation of technology are overarching themes which emerge from the data.
• Students are comfortable with technology and see it as integral; they are using different tools for different purposes knowing the pros and cons of the various tools.  Additionally, they have specific expectations, i.e. they consider the internet as a valuable source of information and they expect up to date information and communication on demand.

 

 

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?

Not so sure about that but I think that yes.

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

The acquisition metaphor descirbed by Sfard might be as well described by Marton's idea that some students regard learning as something that just happens to them and they acquire it.  Whereas, participation metaphor could be explained with the deeper approached that students undertake to learning.  Thus they are participating in their own learning process.

Do the concepts, theories and evidence described in the paper fit your own experience as a learner?

Generally yes.

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

Learning as the increase of knowledge

Some theories and concepts described in the paper might fit my own teaching but not completely. The argument is not fully described and justified.  There should have been more in depth information and explanations.

Beetham's article and notes on the key concept

v  Development of design principles from theories of how people learn and how can be applied to learning with digital technologies.

v  It is the activity that the learner engages in and the outcomes of that activity that are significant for learning.

v  Design for learning should therefore focus primarily on the activities undertaken by learners and only secondarily on the tools or materials that support them.

v  Learners need opportunities to make a newly acquired concept or skill their own: to draw on their own strengths and preferences and to extend their repertoire of approaches to task requirements.

v  There is a need for integration across activities, whether:

o   Associatively:  building component skills into extended performance

o   Constructively:  integrating skills and knowledge, planning and reflecting

o   Situatively: developing identities and roles

v  A learning activity is an entity that is meaningful to the learner, given his or her current level of expertise.

v  Different issues in activity design:

o   Authenticity of the activity

o   Formality and structure

o   Retention/reproduction Vs reflection/internalization

o   The role and importance of other people

o   Locus of control

v  Defining a learning activity: it can be defined as a specific interaction of learner (s) with other (s) using specific tools and resources, orientated towards specific outcomes.

v  Examples of learning activities might include solving problems, comparing and evaluating arguments, presenting facts or negotiating goals.

v  Jonassen classification of activities:

o   Rule based-associative learning

o   Strategy based-constructive learning

o   Role based-situative learning

v  Designing for learning outcomes: learning outcomes are typically expressed in the form learners will be able to (verb) (qualification) where the verb describes the kind of activity that learners will undertake (e.g. solve, describe) and the qualification describes the context, scope or method to be used (e.g. solve equations of the type X).

v  It has been argued that the current generation of digital technologies is better situated to open-ended outcomes that the technologies of the Instructional Design era.  Simulations and virtual environments are used to foster exploration rather than a linear progression through materials.

v  Individual learning logs and e-portfolios allow learners to collate evidence towards broadly defined learning loads and to reflect on their progress.

v  Collaborative technologies and VLEs can be used to capture dialogue, bringing to light the processes as well as the outcomes of learning.

o   A more broadly defined outcome leads to wider range of activities that need to receive support and feedback.

v  The resulting designs may be highly learner-centred, but only if there are sufficient teaching resources to support them effectively.

v  Designing for learners:

o   The aim is to make all learning facilities adaptive to individual needs (Dagger et al. 2005).

o   Depending on the task and context, it may be necessary to consider learners':

§  Subject-specific experience, knowledge and competence

§  Access needs, including any physical and sensory disabilities

§  Motives for learning and expectations of the learning situation

§  Prior experience of learning, including the specific model (I.e. online)

§  Preferred approaches to learning

§  Social and interpersonal skills

§  Confidence and competence in the use of information and communication technology (ICT)

v  Learners cannot be treated as a bundle of disparate needs:  they are actors, not factors, in the learning situation.  They make sense of the tasks they are set in terms of their own goals and perspectives, and they may experience tasks quite differently if digital technologies-with all the social and cultural meanings that they carry-are involved.

v  Another challenge is that is not clear that learners should be accommodated in their preferences rather than challenged to try alternatives.

v  An alternative approach is the provision of flexible learning in which learners make their own choices over issues such as the tasks they undertake, the meditational means they use and the evidence they provide for assessment.

v  Despite the capacity of technology to present a wider range of options, the limiting factor remains the availability of skilled practitioners to provide relevant feedback and support.

v  Designing with digital resources and technologies

v  The technologies available in the learning environment and how learners are encouraged to use them for specific activities are therefore essential aspects of design.

v  Design objects (artefacts):

o   Digital cameras and microscopes

o   Electronic whiteboards

o   Mobile devices

o   Laptop computers and web pages

v  The layout of a seminar room affects how learners interact, while different kinds of learning are possible in a fieldwork situation, laboratory or workplace.  Digital environments similarly help to structure learners' time and space and they support or constrain learners' interactions.

v  Properties of designed artefacts are often referred to as their "affordances" for a particular use: in this case their affordance for learning is to talk about tools and resources in terms of how they mediate learning.  As a result, the artefacts can have different meanings in different activity contexts.

v  Resources are content-based artefacts that use various representational media such as text, images, moving images and sound.  The medium used can have a profound effect on how content is assimilated and remembered and that different learners have different capacities with different media.  A choice of medium or the opportunity to experience two media in parallel-for example a spoken text and a visual diagram-have been shown to be particularly effective for learning.

v  For today's digital natives online research and the capacity to manage multiple forms of information are essential life skills and this alone, makes their use in education desirable.

v  The main intrinsic benefits of digital resources are their greater flexibility of access, reproduction and manipulation.  Simply being able to study at a time, place and pace to suit them can profoundly change learners' relations.

v  "Tool" here is used to designate an artefact designed to support a specific task function rather than to represent content, though as we will see this distinction is becoming blurred.

v  Tools for creating representations in different media e.g. Powerpoint, web editors, video and animation software, digital cameras-are all too often regarded as the prerogative of the learning designer, but there is no reason why they should not be used by learners to create their own representations of subject matter.  Applications can even be shared to enable collaborative representations to be built, as happens face to face with electronic whiteboards and with wikis online.

v  The portability of digital representations is particularly valuable in this respect.

v  Tasks of analysis are likely to be very subject-specific and there is a wide range of digital tools-diagnostics, informatics, design and manufacturing systems, specific analytical software-with which learners may need to become familiar.

v  Computing power is the potential of artefacts based on information (software) to be used as tools.  With these tools as mediators, learning activities can take place in an entirely represented space: for example, using models, simulations and complex digital environments.

v  Laurillard distinguishes five different media "types"-narrative, communicative, interactive, productive, and adaptive - with different capacities to mediate learning.

v  With the rise of networked computing, consideration of digital services must stand alongside consideration of digital artefacts when designing for learning.

v  Having learners explore different functions, make choices about use of a tool, and integrate it with other tools in the environment.  Designers should also take account of learners' own technologies, including mobile phones, email, instant messaging, and personal assistants, digital TV and radio and social software.  The use of such "private" technologies is an essential aspect of the construction of the personal identity and there are preliminary findings that it can help learners bridge the gap between their existing skills and the kinds of ICT literacy required in formal education.

v  Situative learners need a sympathetic mentor with insight into their context and the ability to support their developing role.  Teachers committed to a constructive approach require a wide range of facilitative skills-negotiating outcomes, supporting learner discussion, giving relevant feedback -and the ability to respond to learners' different needs.  Vygotsky argued that learning is a socially mediated activity in the first instance, with concepts and skills being internalized only after they have been mastered in a collaborative context.

v  Piaget and Papert give dialogue a secondary role but agree that it can support the individual processes of reflection and abstraction.  Opportunities for dialogue are considered crucial in most approaches to learning.  Some or all of these interactions can now take place through computer-mediated communication (CMC) systems.

v  Text-based media are by far the most widespread.  Expertise need no longer be "handed out" by the teacher from the front of the class, but can be contributed more equitably.  Turn-taking becomes less significant (everyone can "talk" at once) and many face-to-face markers of difference are removed.  Participation also becomes more explicit and the content of discussion becomes available for reflection and review-many online courses routinely assess participation.  The explicit nature of online dialogue makes it particularly good for negotiating and building shared understanding in collaborative tasks.  Perhaps, the main advantage of these new media, however, is the ability to participate with a much wider range of other people (e.g. remote experts, learners in other institutions and countries) and at a time and place to suite the learner.

v  Text-based CMC also requires new skills from learners.  The explicit nature of communication favours a more reflective approach than face-to-face dialogue; demands keyboard skills and good standards of written language, and also require the motivation to participate without the support of a live social context.  There are studies that report students being uncomfortable with these demands, for example, struggling with the learner locus of control or with the use of peer review and feedback.

v  CMC offers opportunities both to break with established modes of discourse, and to make explicit the ground rules and structures of power that exist.

Yiannis Dimitriades transcript

ü  He puts particular interest in supporting practitioners in real contexts, not in exploring theoretical processes and he's interested as he tells me in things that work.

ü  Instructional design is processes and steps and methods that guided, that were used in order to structure the process in order to be able to have high chances of success => not to guarantee the success [but] to increase the chances of success in the teaching-learning process.

ü  The difference with respect to the instructional design would be that not only there is content, there are also activities.  There is not only a teacher and an absent learner who simply practices.  But also there are learners, an individual, in a collaborative way.  So in this case, we do have content plus teachers plus learners plus activities.

ü  The current educational situation is that the situation is really complex.  In such a complex process, somebody needs a methodology at least in order to create new materials or new courses or new stuff.  And when you do have a complex situation, you need support.

ü  "What's the role for creativity for the teacher?"

ü  Learning design can support and make more explicit the process elements and the structural elements.

ü  Creativity is a huge word that can be understood in terms of how somebody designs something, how somebody enacts something-that is, makes it effective.

Design tensions:

ð  How you can include all these formal elements of learning design together with the creativity, improvisation, quality elements that normally are hidden.

ü  Scripting is one word that has been used extensively in educational psychology, mainly associated to the idea of guiding, of how you can provide scaffolding, in constructivist terms, on the processes.  One extreme of scripting could be the classical one, two, three, four, five steps that we have to follow in order to do something.

ü  They want to include models of students, models of teachers, models of contents, all elements of the environment, finally the process is so heavy-weight that [it] cannot be applied.

ü  Something that's not too heavy-weighted, that's practical, that's do-able, that's enjoyable and that can bring in individual creativity or whatever we prefer to call it, can be realised.

From what I have read from the above articles and my notes in Activity 1, I can see that there are some similarities.  For example, there is focus on learning design in the way that we organise the activities that need to be submitted and used while teaching.  We take into consideration the technologies that we will use and the students themselves as to what aims they are expected to respond.  The creativity of the teacher is strongly affected as to what the Principle of the school is thinking about the teaching ways that a teacher uses.  Most of the times the creativity of the teacher is in danger.  At the time, the most important sentence is that the design should not be heavy weighted but it should be practical, do-able, enjoyable and that it can also bring individual creativity.

 

 

1. As this paper was written more than 20 years ago, how has its central message held up? What lasting value does this paper have today?

I believe that this paper should be used for today’s teaching practices as the messages conceived are important and up to date. Authentic learning experiences are the key to successful acquisition of knowledge and skills, rather than teaching from the desk, offering implicit problems to students that might represent the “reality” but not an authentic situation.

2. If you had to summarise the authors’ arguments in a short paragraph what would you write?

Knowledge is situated, being in part a product of the activity, context and culture in which it is developed and used. Cognitive apprenticeship honors the situated nature of knowledge. People generally learn words in the context of ordinary communication. All knowledge is like language. Its parts are inextricably a product of the activity and situations in which they are produced. Conceptual knowledge is like a set of tools. The understanding, of both the world and the tools, continually changes as a result of their interaction. Learning and acting are interestingly indistinct, learning being a continuous lifelong process resulting from acting in situations. It is not possible to use a tool appropriately without understanding the community or culture in which it is used. Activity, concept and culture are interdependent. Learning must involve all three. The culture and the use of a tool act together to determine the way practitioners see the world; and the way the world appears to them determines the culture’s understanding of the world and of the tools. To learning to use tools as practitioners use them, a student, like an apprentice, must enter the community and its culture. Thus in a significant way, learning is a process of enculturation. In this process the activities involved should be coherent, meaningful and purposeful resulting in authentic activities, defined as the ordinary practices of the culture.

Cognitive apprenticeship (intuitive reasoning, resolving issues, negotiating) methods try to enculturated students into authentic practices through activity and social interaction. Cognitive apprenticeship supports learning in a domain by ending students to acquire, develop and use cognitive tools in authentic domain activity. Apprenticeship helps to emphasize the centrality of activity in learning and knowledge and highlights the inherently context-dependent, situated, and enculturating nature of learning. It also suggests the paradigm of situated modeling, coaching and fading, whereby teachers or coaches promote learning, first by making explicit their tacit knowledge or by modeling their strategies for students in authentic activity. Then teachers and colleagues support students’ attempts at doing the task and finally they empower the students to continue independently.

3. In the late capitalism of the twenty-first century, is apprenticeship still a relevant model for learning? Try and think in terms of the kinds of knowledge required for the work that is common in a modern economy.

Of course it is still relevant for today. But not like before. In a modern economy of today there should be teaching in an apprenticeship model but not in the strict way. I believe that it has to be followed and valued in the context of today in order to achieve best learning results. JPFs should be incorporated in learning and not to be left aside. Just like authentic situations would help students realize what, why and how they learn a specific aspect in their own authentic context.

Here are some comments on the following questions:

Please read the Sfard extract.

The extract amounts to approximately 2,500 words and should take around one and a half hours to read. As you read, you may find it useful to keep notes in your blog or in a personal file about:

1. How Sfard defines the acquisition and participation metaphors

AM (acquisition metaphor) according to Sfard is learning envisioned as a never-ending self-regulating process of emergence in a continuing interaction with peers, teachers and texts. PM (participation metaphor) according to Sfard is learning a subject as a process of becoming a member of a certain community.

2. How she distinguishes between them

In AM the human mind is considered to be as a container to be filled wioth certain materials and the learner as becoming an owner of these materials.  Once the knowledge is acquired, like any other commodity, it can now be applied, transfered to a different context and shared with others.  By investigating learning on focusing on the development of concepts and on acquisition of knowledge then the learning process can be conceptualised in terms of AC.

In PM learning is seen as a legitimate peripheral participation or as an apprenticeship in thinking.  The noun "practice", prominently features the terms "discourse" and "communication" suggests that the learner should be viewed as a person interested in particiaption in certain kinds of activities rather than in accummulating private possessions.  The learner should have the ability to communicate in the language of this community and act according to its particular norms.

3. The significance of Table 1 and the difference between questions of what learning is versus how learning happens.

Table 1 is a schematic comparison between the two metaphors that distinguishes between AM and PM according to their goals of learning, the learning itself, the student perspective and the teacher's on the knowledge/concept of each metaphor and finally what does knowing means in each metaphor.

• Learning is acquisition of something (AM) whereas learning in PM is becoming a participant in a community.
• How learning is happening?

In AM is through individual enrichment in order to have or possess a certain experience/learning.

In PM learning is happening through a community building and the learner is taking part in various activites as to share the feeling of belonging, participating and communicating with each other.

When you’ve read through the extract, use the AM and PM metaphors to reflect on the way you use (or have used in the past) technologies for learning in a formal context in comparison with an informal one. Select two contrasting examples from these learning experiences and simply note down what you learned and how you learned it.

• Informal Context

One technology that I have used to learn at home is my own laptop.  Before buying a laptop I had some computer lessons for ECDL that is the European Computer Driving Licence with which we were practicing at school in secondary education.  We were having an instructor and we had our own pc and we had to follow his instructions. After that, the instructor was giving us past paper exams in order to make practice and conquer knowledge more in a way of keep practicing and then gaining something more than the lecture provided to us (AM).  At home, when I bought the new laptop, I knew almost all the basics and I could work on my own to experiment and acquire new learning.  You can say that I belonged in a community with group work while I was at school, but after that I am on my own.

• Formal Context

While studying at the University I had an awkward experience of learning.  I was studying Physics and their learning goal was not teaching in the traditional way, but teaching like in the participation metaphor.  We were sitting in groups of 5-6 people and we had our own exercise books and we had to carry out our own experiments and come to a conclusion.  When we reached to a conclusion we had to call for the instructor to check the way we have come to that specific results and through a dialogue process we would then come to a result if we were right or wrong on our experiments.  It was a very difficult process for me and I was really sad that in the end I realised that from the 100 things I knew only the 50 of them.  We were splitting the works and experiments, the writing, the discussion with the instructor and finally, what was the purpose of this kind of learning? I have acquired only the half percentage from the whole learning that I had to get on with.  I was achieving lower marks on this course in comparison with other that I was making the work alone or at least with another person.

Now look at the words you used in your responses. Notice whether you’ve talked about:

• knowing more
• gaining something
• being able to do something
• participating in new activities or a new group
• having new ideas or new possibilities for yourself – feeling differently about something.

Doubtless you used several of these phrasings, so your learning might have been quite varied or rich in significance.

1. Do all these instances refer to learning in terms of either acquisition or participation or a combination of both?

A combination of both.

2. Did you find instances that do not seem to fit exactly with either acquisition or participation?

No I did not find such instances.

3. Is your learning process more oriented to you as an individual or to you within a social context?

I would rather see myself in an individualistic process of learning but this is not always the case.  I can learn in a social context too but it depends on the course, on the discussion, the people taking part in the discussion and whether I am a passive ear or an active participant in the discussion.

Well, here we are again...

In the same neighbourhood as before and head on to H800...as usual the first part of the course and in this particular activity 1, it is time to meet fellow students and tutor! Already done this!

Here I guess I will place my own thoughts about the tasks, positive or negative aspects, and why...I am finding it very interesting to get to know each other while working on the same module for a long period of time. It is good to know with what kind of people you will get on with while on this module..! The journey is already a good one and I guess that we are targeting to great results of knowledge...

When you are asked to introduce yourself is critical...I have written 500 words to introduce myself in just a few words...But they were not at all few words!!! At first, it might be a little bit difficult to get your head down and decide what you will write about you, but when you start you obviously find your way and get through it...! I enjoy it as I learn about different people, different cultures and characters!!!

I think that just like in other OU courses, it would have been a good idea to upload a photo that describes us in order for our group members to get another idea for our interests and ourselves too.

Read Seale Chapter 13 Community responses to accessibility: enterprises, boundary practices and brokers. Make notes in response to the following questions:

1. What artefacts inside and outside your organisation have created (or could create) points of focus for you and your colleagues when it comes to developing accessible learning resources?

Two examples of an internal artifact that captured our attention as a school were policy and in the past, a student that had a difficulty in accessing a learning resource as the student had a concentration disability that did not at all help the student to focus on that particular activity.

Examples of an external artifact are websites that I have just met in this course concerning accessibility guidelines.  These have helped me understand how difficult is to maintain accessibility in an online course etc.  At the same time, it influenced me and colleagues at school to think about the matter.  But most of them seem not to be interested saying that this is far from them.

Are there any artefacts that you think you and your colleagues have over-relied on or misused to the point that they are now negatively influencing your practice? If so, why do you think this is?

They are not interested in these aspects yet as they consider that policy is policy and is not yet applied in our context as it should have been.  The law is not so strict at this point that is one reason that teachers are so indifferent and those who are not indifferent do not have too much to say to support their ideas and arguments thus they quit trying.

2. Is there any evidence for mutual engagement, joint enterprise or shared repertoire in the community (or communities) you belong to?

There is no evidence for mutual engagement, joint enterprise or shared repertoire towards accessibility.  First of all, due to the lack of dynamic law of accessibility implementation in the school area and secondly, due to the fact that each and every teacher has a different opinion on the matter and this leads to conflicts.  There are teachers who do not pay attention to such accessibility matters, just to do their job and that's it.  There are also teachers who are just not interested as they will get more jobs and they will need training, seminars etc in order to get into the matter and this is extra time and extra effort.  The other category is the one who are interested but they do not find the right door to knock in order to get the proper attention!

3. Seale discusses the development of accessibility within an organisation as the creation of a constellation of practice rather than a community of practice. How helpful do you think this approach is?

A constellation of practice is more preferable than a community of practice because there are some communities of practice that may form constellations.  According to Wenger, these include related enterprises, facing similar conditions, having members in common and sharing artefacts.  Thus, it can be formed a coherent community and connections might be forged and strengthened between constellations of practices.

Do you think that the model shown in Figure 13.1 on page 182 would be useful as a trigger for discussion within your organisation?

If a constellation of practices is evident in the school I am working then the model shown in Figure 13.1 on page 182 is useful and definitely a model that is tempting for discussion among the members of the constellation.

Would it enable you and your colleagues to identify what changes or developments are needed and why they are needed?

The only thing that it enables us to do the model is to identify the certain communities that exist in the specified context and then to change the necessary communities in order to fit to the existing context so that the result of the accessible learning environment would be the one that is required.

Would the labels on the figure be different for your organisation? If so, how and why?

The labels on the figure would be exactly the same for the school I am working in.

 

 

Read Seale Chapter 11 Institutional responses to accessibility: rules, games and politics. Make notes in response to the following questions:

1.     Do you think that there are any incentives for your organisation to develop or improve the accessibility of its online resources? If so, what are they?

First of all, in my school as there are no disabled students and nobody ever has spoken to us about accessibility it is up to us to introduce accessibility in our own classroom.  However, there is a law about accessibility that promotes it but I do not think that it is something that everybody and everyone follow it.

2.     Think back to before you started this course. Are there any assumptions you had then about whether and how to make online resources accessible? (For example, ideas about what 'rules' you should follow.)

Going back to the course I have to admit that I did not even know about accessibility and I did not take it into consideration during the course as the creation of learning resources was all up to me but still I did not have an idea about these matters.

3.     Thinking about your organisation - can you identify people who make, enforce, advocate or implement 'rules' that apply to accessibility? (You may prefer to refer to roles rather than individuals.)

There are no such roles in the school that I am working but only the Principal is responsible to implement accessibility and us-teachers- to enforce it if I can share my thoughts with you.

4.     In your context, are there any internal politics regarding accessibility? If so, what feeds the political debates:

o   Values/principles?

There are political debates about the principles according to which government party is on the decision making.

o   Costs/resources?

The government is responsible as it provided a limited amount of money that can be spend on accessibility matters and each school can go a little bit above of this certain amount.

o   Attitudes/beliefs? Culture/tradition?

The Principal is responsible and the teachers themselves.

5.     Do you agree with Seale that 'there is a limit ... to the extent to which the institutional change framework can help us to understand the goals and motivations of institutions and teams'? (Conclusions, p.157)

I agree with Seale as it is true that even if there is a law attained from the government the organization or institution might not be able to put it into practice thus there is a limit to the extent to which the institutional change framework can give us an icon or clue about the goals and motivations of instructions and teams according to the specific institution.

 

 

Flickr

It is associated with photo management and sharing and it has two main goals to help people make their photos available to the people who matter to them and also to enable new ways of organising photos and video.  People can get their photos and videos from the web, from mobile devices, from home computers and other softwares that each one of us is using in order to manage their content.  After that, they can share them using the Flickr website, RSS feeds or email and blogs.  Additionally, there is the possibility using FLickr to work collaboratively with a family member, friend and other contacts with your permission to organise your stuff.  After all, this info accretes as metadata and it is also searchable so things are much easier to find them later on.

Reference:

Flickr (2010) About Flickr [online]. Available from: http://www.flickr.com/about/

Diigo

Any annotations you make on a web page can be saved and sent to students or colleagues. This tool is popular among teachers because it offers the ability to create accounts for a whole class and it protects the students' privacy.  It is also a personal research tool, a collaborative research platform, a social content site and a knowledge sharing community.

Reference:

Diigo (2010) About Diigo [online]. Available from: http://www.diigo.com/about

WiZiQ

Virtual classroom application that is fully equipped with 2-way audio, text chat, whiteboard, PowerPoint and PDF document sharing capabilities.  In addition, WiZiQ is a web-based platform for anyone and everyone who wants to teach and learn live, online. Teachers and students use WiZiQ for its state-of-the-art virtual classroom, to create and share online educational content and tests, and to connect with persons having similar subject interests.  In the virtual classroom with all the digital benefits at your fingertips, you can interact online using:

• Images, PowerPoint presentations and documents
• Full way audio and video sharing
• Live chat enhances the interaction amongst the participants
• Control Privileges with you having full control over the class like in real-world classroom

All classes on WiZiQ are automatically recorded so that you can revisit and even search for a certain topic anytime at your convenience.

Reference:

WiZiQ (2010) About Us [online]. Available from: http://www.wiziq.com/about_us.aspx

 

 

 

Read Seale Chapter 9 Developing accessible e-learning practice: the staff developer's perspective.

1. Apart from this course that you are studying now, think of a staff training event or resource that you have attended or accessed, related to accessibility and/or disability. If you have never attended such an event, imagine carrying out one of those listed in the resources or discussed in Topic 7.

What was effective or ineffective about the staff training event/resource?

Everything worked well and there was not a specific difficulty in the event or resources as they were all very interesting and informative.

To what extent did the following factors influence the effectiveness of the experience for you: content or focus; structure or presentation; role or expertise of the leaders/developers?

Every single aspect mentioned above played an important role in the effectiveness of my experience.  I cannot distinguish whether one of all the above was more important than the other or played a more intrinsic role than the other.

If you have not attended or accessed a staff training event/resource related to accessibility prior to this course, what are the reasons for this?

I did not have the choice to do so.  I did not even hear in my life for such trainings or the accessibility matter only concerned me when I had a class while I was studying in the University a course about Designing and technology which was a practical course and we had to know about accessibility matter.  After that, I had forgotten it again till now!

2. Use your reflections and answers to Question 1 to develop a conceptualisation of what you think makes or defines an effective accessibility-related training event/resource and an effective trainer or staff developer.

An effective accessibility-related training event/resource would be when staff developers will have a role to play in embedding accessibility across an institution and they will need to consider how to deliver development opportunities to more than just the converted and how to match these opportunities with the skill level and responsibility of the various staff.  Thus, an effective trainer or staff developer should be able to match development opportunities to the needs of a range of stakeholders, adopt a range of delivery methods and develop strategic partnerships with key stakeholders (Seale, 2006).

3. Should accessibility-related staff development be made compulsory for all those who work in post-16 education?

I suppose that is the least that it could be done for accessibility purposes to make it compulsory the accessibility-related staff development.

What are the reasons behind your answers?

This is because staff plays an important role and it has to be responsible for their resources that provide to their students etc, also to be aware of disabilities matter, assistive technologies and legislation matters according to accessibility and also about e-learning and its potentials.

What do you think are the pros and cons of making accessibility-related staff development compulsory?

The pros are that the staff will be more confident on what it provides to their students and they will have the possibility to attend to workshops, to have online information and resources which are developed by external agencies and also to use the hybrid approach (Seale, 2006).  Additionally, they have the option to use different strategies for meeting development needs.  In contrast, the cons are that they will have to be able to balance individual needs and institutional needs.  The institution has its own policies regarding accessibility issues and staff has to follow these policies, however, if they argue about the resources that will be required in order to work with the academics at a departmental and individual level they might need to bring about an external expertise.  They also tend not be targeted by accessibility related literature, projects and campaigns (Seale, 2006).

Reference:

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

 

 

 

Read Seale Chapter 8 Supporting the use of accessible e-learning: the student support service perspective.

1. How helpful do you think it is to have 'specialised' rooms or areas in an educational institution, which only disabled learners can use to access technology/online learning material?

I think that having specialized rooms or areas in an educational institution which only disabled students could use is by itself discriminating towards disabled students that really annoys me.  From the one hand is the discrimination and from the other hand it might be good.  But, it would have been better if these rooms could also be used from non disabled students too so that the discrimination itself could be eliminated.

2. Do you think student support services need to employ accessibility or disability experts? If so, how might the role of these 'experts' complement or work against the role of other staff working within student support services?

I believe that having accessibility or disability experts in the student support services is valuable and their role should complement the role of staff working within student support services because I think that each role in a school is interconnected with each other.  The student is the center and the rest of the roles in a school is supporting each other in order to offer to the student, disabled or not, the knowledge.  Thus, it is important to have these experts in order to satisfy disabled student needs too.

3. How are student support services organised or structured in your institution? In what ways do you think this organisation influences the way in which disabled learners are supported to use or access technology?

I am working in a primary school and the student support service is working in the school hours in the morning.  For example, when the disabled student has a less important class like Art, Music etc the specialist teacher will take these students in a separate room as mentioned above and work with the disabled children.  In that room there is a computer but they rarely use it.  As there are no visually impaired students or hard hearing students they do not have screen readers etc.  There are children with other disabilities that the specialist teacher does not think that computer will help I think and most of the time what the teacher does is giving printed material full of exercises and the student is expected to solve these exercises at home or with another teacher in the afternoon classes.

4. What would you change about the way in which students are supported in your institution and why?

Definitely the separate room should not exist but if there was such a room to be used not only by disabled students but also from non disabled students.  The right softwares to be installed on the computers in order to help students who need them so that they will not face extra difficulties in their learning.   Also, training of the staff and students should be a must in order to help the first to learn how to use these programs but also to have seminars in order to find out how to make their learning resources accessible.  Students themselves should find out how to use these programs to serve their own needs.