Onlne PD Full Discussion

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Contents 1 Online PD 2 Participating Online or at a Distance 3 Listservs and Learning 4 Teacher Needs and the Technology Learning Curve 5 Online Community 6 Being Funny Online 7 Getting Participants’ Feedback 8 Why Learners Leave 9 Providing PD Online or at a Distance 10 Open Entry/Open Exit Courses 11 Sharing Online PD Content 12 Online Design 13 Online F2F and Judging 14 Creating Champions 15 Videoconferencing and Video Online 16 User Technical Support 17 Online Platforms 18 RePurposing F2F Workshops 19 Pitfalls in Online Course Development and Delivery 20 Informal Approaches 21 Knowing What Works

Online PD

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Subject:[NIFL-AALPD:1226] Online PD
From: jataylor (jataylor_at_utk.edu)
Date: Mon Mar 29 2004 - 10:08:23 EST

Hello everyone, At this time, this question is for our guests. Each of you have a unique involvement in the area of online professional development for teachers. Since there is much going on in this area, I'd like for you to help us get started in exploring some of the important questions for online PD.

First, please tell us more about your work:

Why did you/your organization become involved in online professional development? What need(s) were you addressing? How did you decide to address those needs?

Describe the online PD you/your organization offer. How is the online PD you offer (or have offered) similar or different from more familiar forms of online delivery (i.e. course platforms)?

What have you found to be particularly important for making online PD successful for teachers? What changes have you/your organization experienced in the development and delivery of online PD, perhaps even as a result of this?

Thanks so much! I look forward to an exciting week ahead!

Best,

Jackie

Jackie Taylor
Co-Facilitator
NIFL-AALPD
jataylor_at_utk.edu

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Subject:[NIFL-AALPD:1228] RE: Online PD
From: Beth Wheeler (bwheeler_at_sbctc.ctc.edu)
Date: Mon Mar 29 2004 - 10:55:18 EST

good morning,

washington state adult education is exploring distance learning for abe/esl students. as part of a pilot effort, able network staff designed and piloted an online "new teacher orientation". this course helps instructors new to the system understand more about relationships - with the state office, their individual campus, and with other instructors at their site. there is some philosophy of adult education, lesson planning, etc. as some folks come to our system without the benefit of prior teaching experience.

the course has been offered three quarters now and each quarter the instructors revised it to more completely meet the needs of the students. there is a waiting list each quarter and instructors who have been in the system for several years are asking to be admitted. when this course was offered, there was not intent to move farther into the realm of online staff development. however, with the success of the course, able network is exploring additional offerings online.

beth wheeler, program administrator
distance learning
sbctc
olympia, washington

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1231] Online PD From: Dlhargrove_at_aol.com Date: Mon Mar 29 2004 - 11:21:04 EST

Hi everyone,

Florida first became involved in alternative ways of delivering PD about 4 years ago, when we were in the middle of a budget crisis in adult education. Travel budgets were cut considerably, so not many practitioners were able to attend regional or statewide workshops. We needed to come up with an alternative way of assisting our colleagues in receiving Inservice Points. This was about the same time that web-based training was beginning to emerge. Through the efforts of one of our Practitioners' Task Force committees, the first of many online web-based trainings was developed.

When we decided to develop our first course, there were a number of things we looked at:

1. What was the most pressing need for PD?

2. What did the State require be included in order to get this online PD course approved for Inservice Points?

3. Do we need to track the individuals progress? If so, is there a way of tracking without buying an expensive Learning Management System (like Blackboard, WebCT?)

4. How will we measure the success of the course?

Adult education programs survive because students remain in the program and complete their goals. If there aren't any students in the programs, there's no program... we all know that story. To that end, we developed our first wbt called,"Improving Retention in Adult Education programs." It was a 5 hour training, developed using Macromedia Dreamweaver.

After much discussion, it was determined that we could track participant progress through online activities that were submitted throughout the training as opposed to using a learning management system (too costly for us.) Each training contained a number of modules. Within each module, participants were asked to complete activities. These activities were electronically submitted to a Program Specialist at our Dept. of Education, who kept a log on all activities. When the activities were completed, and the post test and evaluation submitted, the Program Specialist would send the inservice certificate to the participant.

Not all activities were submitted, however. In many cases, participants were asked to post their ideas or suggestions regarding an issue they just read. Bulletin Boards were created using WebBoard and participants shared their experiences via the boards. This has proven to be a great way to share information.

We had only one problem.... we weren't RETAINING participants in our Retention Web-Based Training! Sure, we had loads of educators logging on, even from out of state. But for some reason, they weren't finishing the material. After a lengthy process of emailing and calling those who did not complete, we realized that our primary purpose for developing this online learning was NOT the only reason people signed up. For many, they didn't need inservice points.. they were just there to get the information and resources and then they left! Measuring the success of our course took on a whole new meaning. In our newer trainings, we've now included a section that asks, "Why are you here?" with options like, "To receive Inservice Points" to "Just gathering information."

We also realized that, although online learning was perfect for delivering instruction, there's no substitute for face-to-face and other personal forms of communicating. Two years ago, when the term, "Blended Learning" came to fruition, we decided to try pairing one of our web-based training courses with a traditional workshop. Participants who signed up were sent to the web to complete some prework and then met for a day of training. This process seemed to work very well. The only problem was with the travel cuts as discussed earlier. We had to find another way of bringing in the human factor.

With that said, we created a position last year through the Florida TechNet grant called, "online facilitator." We moved the adminstrative function from the Dept. of Education to our new facilitator who not only keeps track of all participants, but also emails welcome letters. Our online facilitator looks at what participants are submitting and responds via email or phone to questions or comments. This process has just started this January, so we haven't been able to really determine its impact.. but it appears to be positive. We are also experimenting with a LMS on a select few WBT's through another contact, and are anxious to see the results of that as well.

Hope this basic overview has been helpful to anyone who might be considering developing their first web-based training for PD. It's always nice to be able to see how others have evolved through this process.

Debra

Debra L. Hargrove, Ed.D.
Technology Coordinator
Florida TechNet
http://www.floridatechnet.org

6025 Audubon Manor Blvd.
Lithia, Fl 33547
P ~ 813.657.0789
F ~ 813.657.0970

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Subject:[NIFL-AALPD:1232] Distance staff development
From: Judith Diamond (JDiamond_at_irc-desplaines.org)
Date: Mon Mar 29 2004 - 11:55:15 EST

Commenting on staff development at a distance:

Illinois has three service centers, one for each geographic third of the state. The centers deliver staff development and supportive services for all funded adult education programs including ESL and ABE/GED.

Many, many people come to on-site or regional workshops. However, there are others who because of distance, time, or access difficulties cannot attend.

We tried one online workshop, The Brain, Memory, and Learning. It was offered three times. Each time, the workshop ran for six weeks. We found that, though there was a fair amount of interest in signing up for the workshop, the participants' ability and interest in keeping up with the tasks waned after about the third week. We are now in process of developing some shorter online trainings that would be combined with at least one on-site meeting.

More successfully, we have just completed a video and an accompanying text for ESL teachers called: A Framework Comes Alive: Experience an ESOL Classroom. It is an exciting, fun video featuring a great ESOL teacher and his class along with a panel of experienced ESOL instructors commenting on various aspects of teaching. The guide contains specific suggestions elaborating on the video and includes both activities for teachers to bring into the classroom and a Trainer's Guide for programs who want to use the video on-site. We are very excited about this whole project. It has received an enthusiastic welcome from teachers and programs. We will be showing the video and demonstrating training possibilities at COABE this year.

Judith Diamond
Adult Learning Resource Center
Des Plaines, Illinois

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Subject:[NIFL-AALPD:1235] re: Online PD
From: Jennifer Elmore (jennifer_at_jelmore.com)
Date: Mon Mar 29 2004 - 14:34:11 EST

Greetings!

“Why did you/your organization become involved in online professional development? What need(s) were >you addressing? How did you decide to address those needs?”

I've worked on a number of different distance/online professional development resources, so I'm not sure where to start! Perhaps a bit of background would be useful.

My first experiences with online professional development occurred at the National Center on Adult Literacy, where I worked as a Project Specialist four years ago (with fellow panelists, Steve Linberg and Ashley Del Bianco.) From my perspective, online PD came into focus for me/NCAL for several reasons.

When I started at NCAL in 1994, I was involved in various, face-to-face professional development initiatives. Many of NCAL's trainings occurred in regional or national contexts; thus, we covered a fair amount of geographic territory. My colleagues and I thought a great deal about the actual physical distances that we, as trainers, traversed as well as the distances that we perceived within the individual organizations we served. (In other words, we often found that staff in a single organization - though geographically close - grappled with "distance issues" because their divergent schedules and roles inhibited collaboration and community.) Long story short, we became interested in developing new ways, as trainers, to bridge those distances.

Another powerful factor pointed me/us in the direction of distance PD resources. Many of our workshop participants expressed an interest in receiving ongoing support and advice from us - beyond our face-to-face meetings. Participants also wanted to preserve and develop professional contacts and communities that they'd formed in our workshops, so we started to think about ways to facilitate this. (We also recognized that lasting organizational development really required access to continuous support. A "one-shot" training would likely not engender lasting change.)

In 1996, NCAL started work on the LiteracyLink project - http://litlink.ket.org/. NCAL was charged with the development of online resources to accompany/complement the Workplace Essential Skills and GED Connection videotapes and workbooks. We were building an online forum for learners - we decided to extend this resource to include a professional development component for teachers and administrators. Steve Linberg and I developed an online PD course system called LitTeacher - that, for a time, paralleled the learner resources online. (This course system, though still a viable delivery mechanism, is no longer accessible through the LiteracyLink website.)

The first online courses that we developed focused on technology planning and on integrating various types of technology into practice. At this time (mid-late 1990s), NCAL had received a great many requests for training in the area of technology planning. Adult education programs wanted to learn how to:

-craft technology plans that complemented their organizational goals -fund their technology plans -begin to implement their plans - acquire resources, secure support staff, train existing staff to use technology, provide ongoing support to staff re: integrating technology into practice.

So, we felt it made sense to re-purpose our face-to-face technology planning resources for delivery in a distance forum. The demand for this content seemed to support this choice - we hoped to reach a wider audience.

As something of a follow up to this first course (and as a complement to our Workplace Essential Skills and GED Connection work), we developed a series of "integration" classes for teachers. These courses were designed to help teachers navigate the new technologies that their programs were beginning to acquire.

In a nutshell, I feel that I moved towards distance PD, in response to four major factors: -requests from the field to bridge distances with "distance resources" -the realization that effective PD required access to ongoing support -the opportunity to build onto an existing distance project -the growing demand for information and training on technology-specific topics - namely, technology planning and implementation.

This response really only addresses Jackie's first question! I'll write more in due course.

Cheers,
Jennifer

Jennifer Elmore, M.S.Ed.
Education Consultant
http://jelmore.com

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Subject:[NIFL-AALPD:1236] Re: Online PD
From: Eunice Askov (ena1_at_psu.edu)
Date: Mon Mar 29 2004 - 15:35:13 EST

Wow! The list has had an amazing amount of discussion already, and Monday isn't over yet! As a guest, I am supposed to speak about my experience in online professional development. Penn State's Adult Education Program has been doing credit-based distance education (M.Ed.) for at least 15 years, starting with audioconferencing, then videoconferencing, and now online through Penn State's World Campus www.worldcampus.psu.edu. We now offer the M.Ed. in Adult Ed. www.worldcampus.psu.edu/pub/adted/ as well as the Certificate in Family Literacy www.worldcampus.psu.edu/pub/famlt/, both completely online. In this unique kind of professional development, because many people want the courses to apply to a master's or bachelor's degree, retention has not been a problem. In other words, they have a clear purpose in registering for the courses. Our discussion boards are lively, centered around the issues in the courses. About half of our assignments are done as group projects so that online "learning communities" truly do develop. As an instructor, it has been very rewarding for me to have been teaching online since January 2000. I feel that I know my online students just as well (if not better) than my face-to-face students. I'll have to continue this tomorrow...off to the dentist! Nickie Askov

Eunice N. Askov
Distinguished Professor of Education
Penn State University

More on the Family Literacy Certificate, added October 24, 2005:

The Goodling Institute for Research in Family Literacy offers an online Family Literacy Certificate through Penn State's World Campus. There are five courses that cover three specialization areas: adult literacy; parental involvement; and children's education. You can learn more about the Certificate in Family Literacy Program at http://www.worldcampus.psu.edu/pub/famlt/.

Spring semester 2006, three Family Literacy Certificate courses will be offered online through the World Campus: Adult Literacy (ADTED 457), Early Literacy Development and Parental Involvement (ADTED 458), and Introduction to Adult Education (ADTED 460).

The Family Literacy Certificate Program is now offering an alternative to the five-course certificate. You can pursue three-course specialized tracks in adult literacy, children's education, or parental involvement.

These thirteen-week courses can also be used as electives in bachelor's or master's degree programs. The courses begin January 18, 2006. For more information, visit the World Campus web site at http://www.worldcampus.psu.edu/wc/index.shtml or contact Sheila Sherow at sms20@psu.edu.

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Subject:[NIFL-AALPD:1240] Fwd: Online PD
From: Jerome Johnston (jerej_at_umich.edu)
Date: Tue Mar 30 2004 - 00:04:23 EST

Hi. I'm the director of the Project IDEAL Support Center at the University of Michigan. IDEAL stands for Improving Distance Education for Adult Learners. Project IDEAL is a consortium of 14 states working together to develop (and evaluate) distance education as an option to reach adult learners for whom time or distance make classroom learning an unworkable option (http://projectideal.org).

First, please tell us more about your work: Why did you/your organization become involved in online professional development? What need(s) were you addressing? How did you decide to address those needs?

Offering a new program in distance education for adult learners is different than adding a new course to a literacy center's classroom offerings; it's akin to re-inventing the school. There is no way that teachers and administrators can attend a 1 to 2 day workshop and digest all the things they need to know, and then develop an effective plan for offering instruction at a distance. They need to spread their learning over many weeks, developing and refining the various elements of their plan (recruitment, orientation, teaching, and assessment). Online PD was the only way we could see to accomplish this goal.

Describe the online PD you/your organization offer. How is the online PD you offer (or have offered) similar or different from more familiar forms of online delivery (i.e. course platforms)?

The Support Center provides each member state with everything they need to offer online professional development to their teachers: a PD website, a curriculum, a "textbook", a study guide, and a guide for those who will facilitate the PD. The Center provides ongoing support to each state's trainer, ranging from training in the use of the website to mentoring each trainer while they facilitate the course. Every summer there is a workshop for trainers from all the member states where they can refine their techniques for building a virtual community of distance teachers.

DISTANCE LEARNING 101 is a 6-8 week "course" in planning to teach at a distance. Participants spend about two hours per week working on exercises designed to guide their planning for this new activity. The state's trainer/facilitator reads and reacts to each exercise and facilitates an asynchronous discussion of each week's topic among all the participants.

Example: one exercise asks each participant to develop a curriculum for a face-to-face orientation for prospective distance learners. After viewing all the exercises the trainer might post a discussion topic like this: "will you accept anyone that applies for your distance program or will you be selective and take only those students with the highest likelihood of succeeding? What indicators would you use to identify those most likely to succeed?" Staff from the same literacy center are encouraged to work on the exercises together.

The website looks different from Blackboard or WebCT which are built on an expert-novice model of instruction. The Project IDEAL PD model is one of community-building. We want teachers to feel they are professionals exploring a new area of skill development and getting assistance from fellow professionals, not guidance from a "sage on the stage." All the exercises ask participants to develop a plan--for recruitment, orientation, teaching and assessment of distance learners. The trainer's role is to get all of the participants in the course to provide constructive criticism of each other's plan. The textbook (Handbook of Distance Education for Adult Learners) is a handbook with the collected wisdom of teachers in many states on these very topics. The handbook is revised each year with new tips from participating teachers.

DISTANCE LEARNING 102: STUDY GROUPS. This second PD course is for teachers with one year experience teaching at a distance. Having mastered the mechanics of distance, teachers are ready to think in a more focused way about pedagogy. Each participant develops a case study of a difficult pedagogical problem. The essence of the study group is having the study group members examine the cases one at a time, practicing the art of asking questions that further probe the nature of the problem and developing strategies to deal with the learner's difficulties. Essence of a sample case study: "I have a student who is having a difficult time in ratios and wants to practice at home, and I'm having a hard time "talking" to him online to explain the procedures."

What have you found to be particularly important for making online PD successful for teachers?

Facilitation, facilitation, facilitation. The trainer needs to "work the group" intervening in the ongoing electronic discussion in ways that question contributors about their meaning and redirects discussion as needed to keep the discussion alive.

What changes have you/your organization experienced in the development and delivery of online PD, perhaps even as a result of this?

Facilitating discussions with Socratic dialogue is hard work, and a skill that facilitators frequently need to practice. We have changed our support strategy to provide more opportunities for facilitators to practice these skills.

Online is fine, but there is a need to balance virtual activities with telephone and face-to-face to keep the sense of community alive.

J E R O M E J O H N S T O N
Institute for Social Research - University of Michigan
Program on Teaching, Learning and Technology
734/763-3079 (734) 615-6638 (fax) jerej_at_umich.edu

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Subject: Re: Online PD
From: eileeneckert_at_hotmail.com
Date: Tue Mar 30 2004 - 10:22:52 EST

Jerome, Could you talk more about this statement?--
The website looks different from Blackboard or WebCT which are built on an expert-novice model of instruction. The Project IDEAL PD model is one of community-building.

How does an "expert-novice" oriented site look? How does yours look different? Thanks,

Eileen

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1246] Online PD
From: mthacher_at_otan.us
Date: Tue Mar 30 2004 - 11:31:24 EST

Hi Everyone,

Online professional development can mean so many different things. I appreciate Eileen's list, because when I think about my own experience, the most significant learning has also been some of the most informal. For example, I've learned A LOT about assessing reading skills by reading this list for the last week! These kinds of discussions among colleagues who are passionate about their work are very precious to me. So, the listservs are one very important way of developing professionally, even though they aren't "courses." Maybe that is partly because they do form a community. Some of you I've met and I can "hear" your voice in your posts. Others I haven't met but I feel as if I know you.

California is a big state, and my organization, OTAN, is responsible for supporting adult education in the area of technology. My particular focus is helping teachers use technology effectively with students. One exciting development recently is the formation of a Technology Mentor Network. We are just at the point where the bigger programs are figuring out how to create such a position, or at least a few release time hours for such a person, but there might be only one such person in each agency. So, when we created a Technology Mentor Network listserve for CA, there was a tremendous response, and now there are over 50 people on the list. To me, we are providing each other with just-in-time professional development. My hope is that this network will continue to develop and will offer a variety of PD opportunities to the state.

Another example - we are currently in the midst of a 2-day Distance Learning Symposium, and yesterday we had Cheryl Keenan in for a keynote question and answer session via video conference. It was an interesting conversation, and somehow less formal that having Cheryl up on the dair in front of us. Her office is in the process of moving, and the conference room she was speaking from was piled with equipment, but she could still stand there and talk to us about technology and distance learning in adult ed.

I think there are lots of applications for videoconferencing in PD, for exactly that reason, it's very personal. It's almost as good as being in the room with the participants, and once you have the equipment the cost is minimal now that we can do it via the web. I have seen ABE/ASE teachers in San Diego teaching pull-out math groups to several sites at once via videoconferencing, and the students were very comfortable with is. The students at the distant sites talked with the teacher and asked questions just as if they were together in the room. I really think we have only begun to explore this medium.

On the down side, I recently participated in one of the TESOL online pre-conference sessions, on blogging, and the content was interesting, but I couldn't keep up with the volume of email and the reading. I guess I'm one of those who was looking for specific content, which I got to some extent, rather than the full online experience.

Gee, it's hard to write a short post on this topic! I look forward to reading all your collective wisdom.

Marian Thacher, OTAN
Sacramento, CA

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Subject:[NIFL-AALPD:1249] Re: Fwd: Online PD
From: Mona Curtis (MCurtis_at_tvcc.cc)
Date: Tue Mar 30 2004 - 11:41:26 EST

In regard to this discussion about distance learning, PD for teachers through distance learning is one thing. But distance learning for students is very different. At least for the students I work with, technology is very foreign to them. Many of my students come to class the first time without ever having touched a mouse (a computer one, that is). There are distance learning opportunties using the TV or videos. But this requrires a lot of self motivation which many students don't have. I don't mean to say they aren't motivated to learn English. They are, certainly. But they're not accustomed to this type learning, often coming with little or no education in their native country. Face to face is the only real way of reaching them.

Mona Curtis
ESL Coordinator
Treasure Valley Community College
650 College Blvd.
Ontario, OR 97914
www.tvcc.cc
541-881-8822 x 316
fax 541-881-2747

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Subject: NIFL-AALPD:1254] RE: online PD--Blackboard
From: Jerome Johnston (jerej_at_umich.edu)
Date: Tue Mar 30 2004 - 12:36:27 EST

I perhaps mispoke; it's not the core design of Blackboard and WebCT so much as the way these tools are frequently configured given their prominent use in undergraduate education. Students in a Blackboard class have a list of courses in which they are enrolled, there are assignments to be turned in to the instructor, and a gradebook is an important tool.

In our PD implementation we try to use the metaphor of a workgroup instead of a course. We emphasize collaboration, exploration, and helping each other develop new resources or teaching strategies. Look at the Home page for one of our sites at http://projectideal.org/researchq_pd.htm#profdev). You will see that we emphasize Discussions (where you work with your colleagues to solve common problems) and Contributions (where you post resources that will be of value to other participants).

Could Blackboard be configured to emphasize these features? Yes. But I haven't see it done. Perhaps others know that it is being done and can direct us to some examples.
v

At 10:22 AM -0500 3/30/04, Eileen Eckert wrote:

Jerome, Could you talk more about this statement?--

“The website looks different from Blackboard or WebCT which are built on an expert-novice model of instruction. The Project IDEAL PD model is one of community-building.

How does an "expert-novice" oriented site look? How does yours look different? Thanks,

Eileen

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1257] RE: online PD--Blackboard
From: Eileen Eckert (eileeneckert_at_hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Mar 30 2004 - 14:17:30 EST

Responding to Jerome's statement: "it's not the core design of Blackboard and WebCT so much as the way these tools are frequently configured given their prominent use in undergraduate education. Students in a Blackboard class have a list of courses in which they are enrolled, there are assignments to be turned in to the instructor, and a gradebook is an important tool."

I agree completely and I see agreement in others' posts about the importance of the discussion board, and mindful facilitation of what happens on the discussion board, and the advantages of asynchronous discussion for promoting reflective dialogue.

I was having a discussion recently with my old college roommate, who is now on the faculty of the veterinary college here in Davis, CA. I was telling him what a wonderful tool online learning platforms can be for reflective dialogue and "think aloud" work. He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. Turns out he was defining online learning platforms from his experience with an online version of "traffic school" from the DMV, where there was a "lesson" presented and then a quiz. UGGHHH. No wonder he wasn't interested.

So our philosophy, background knowledge, and preconceived ideas all influence our approaches to online learning. If we think of it as a means to transmit knowledge from expert to novice, we'll be stuck trying to overcome the barriers formed by approaching online learning with that mindset.

Could online learning be configured to emphasize "Discussions (where you work with your colleagues to solve common problems) and Contributions (where you post resources that will be of value to other participants)"? Yes!

Strategies include giving participants guidelines for participating in the discussion. Here are the guidelines I have given my students (adults returning to college) to get started:

Discussion Guidelines

While we establish the course and the discussion, please post at least 6 messages per week: two original messages, two replies to someone else, and two responses to others' replies. In this way we’ll develop an ongoing discussion with everyone participating and taking responsibility for the learning of the community. Your messages should be “substantive” using the checklist below. You don’t have to be able to check every box on the list, but you should be able to check at least 2 out of 3 on the original messages and 2 out of 5 on the replies. Your messages will probably need to be at least 4 or 5 sentences long. (Please feel free to add shorter replies, notes, or questions as well).

You can use this checklist to evaluate your own contributions before you click on “post.”

Original messages

• I have summarized the key ideas in a reading or group of readings and

stated what they mean to me (my opinion and the reasons for it)

• I have discussed or given examples of how the key ideas apply to me or why they don’t
• I have discussed how this reading connects to others

Replies to other messages

• I have re-stated the author’s point in my own words
• I have given reasons or examples of my own for agreeing or disagreeing

with the author’s point

• I have added to the original idea with my own reasons, evidence, or

examples

• I have shown another way to look at the issue being discussed
• I have asked a clarifying question

I combine this with other strategies, and I'm always learning how to do better at facilitation, but I've found that having some guidelines is helpful to students and helps make the discussion central to the course.

Eileen

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1262] Re: Fwd: Online PD
From: Bonnie Odiorne (bonniesophia_at_adelphia.net)
Date: Tue Mar 30 2004 - 17:34:58 EST

I agree that initially "face to face is the only way to reach" a new technology user, to allay his/her fears, to learn how to think sequentially to perform basic functions, AND to relate the technology to their learning by doing basic computer-related tasks. By this I don't mean doing learning software, but the basic nitty gritty of learning a computer as a way of learning o r reinforcing the learning of reading/English/spelling/writing/math by adding the kinesthetic/visual modality that technology affords. Yes, the purely technological questions can throw one off the course as they struggle over that, but that, too, is learning. Once they've achieved a degree of proficiency I have them e-mail me, send attachments of completed lessons. We make sure we have some fun time, and do material related to students' needs and interests in addition to ABE/ESL and employment readiness. But the distance learning can't take place without a lot of teacher interaction (assuming the basic technology proficiency has been gained) via e-mail, or my online comments on assignments in Workplace Essential Skills. I'll send them attachments with corrections/questions. References to other websites for grammar or other skills questions. Reinforce learning with video when in class. Just giving a student a day's worth of computer training and expecting them to be a distance learner is unrealistic. And I've also liked using online classroom communities as a resource (communityzero before they started to charge). I haven't used blackboard myself for this, but I'd like to learn how. Does Blackboard itself have an online training for teachers?

Warmest Regards,
Bonnie Odiorne Ph.D
Program Faciliator
Working Smart
Computers 4 Kids
Silas Bronson Library Information Technology Center
Waterbury, CT
Integrating Technology, ABE and ESL Instruction

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1270] Re: Online PD
From: David Rosen (djrosen_at_comcast.net)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 12:14:49 EST

NIFL-AALPD Colleagues

Nickie Askov wrote:

Penn State's Adult Education Program has been doing credit-based distance education (M.Ed.) for at least 15 years, starting with audioconferencing, then videoconferencing, and now online through Penn State's World Campus <www.worldcampus.psu.edu>. We now offer the M.Ed. in Adult Ed. <www.worldcampus.psu.edu/pub/adted/> as well as the Certificate in Family Literacy <www.worldcampus.psu.edu/pub/famlt/>, both completely online. In this unique kind of professional development, because many people want the courses to apply to a master's or bachelor's degree, retention has not been a problem. In other words, they have a clear purpose in registering for the courses. Our discussion boards are lively, centered around the issues in the courses. About half of our assignments are done as group projects so that online "learning communities" truly do develop. As an instructor, it has been very rewarding for me to have been teaching online since January 2000. I feel that I know my online students just as well (if not better) than my face-to-face students.

I wonder if others have found, as Nickie suggests, that a key to retention in online adult education PD (more than a short online course or module) is enrollment in a tuition-bearing course which leads to credit, CEU's and/or a degree.

Nickie has partially answered my earlier question about what helps to build interactivity: effective discussion boards and projects. Anything else, Nickie? And can you tell us what else is effective in building online "learning communities" and what a successful online learning community looks like?

Thanks.

David

David J. Rosen
djrosen_at_comcast.net

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1286] Re: Online PD
From: Eunice Askov (ena1_at_psu.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 15:28:47 EST

Hi, David! In response to your question ("... what helps to build interactivity: effective discussion boards and projects. And can you tell us what else is effective in building online "learning communities" and what a successful online learning community looks like?"), I'll tell you what we do at Penn State in our World Campus courses. During the first week of the course (orientation), students are asked to create a very simple home page using a template. They are also asked to post a riddle on the "Introductions" discussion board about themselves (to be answered only by looking at their home page). This activity seems to loosen up the atmosphere and to get the students to look at each other's home pages. They start noticing commonalities of hobbies, etc.

After about a week into the course, I ask students if they have preferences for group membership. When the online groups are established, they are given specific tasks to perform as a group. They know that they are given the same grade as their group projects so they each have a vested interest in the group's performance. Each group is given a private discussion board (not available to the rest of the class) for their group work, or they may communicate by the course email and chat systems. (I have found that chat does not generally work well with the entire class. However, at the beginning of a course I hold "office hours" occasionally in a chat room so that students can ask questions. We then post the chat logs so the entire group can read them.)

What stimulates the development of online learning communities? I think it is having a common task that about 5 people are asked to do. The task should be "problem-based," requiring thinking and reflection. (If it's too easy, they won't work together. For example, one group task in my research course is to design an evaluation strategy given a workplace literacy scenario.) They are supposed to trade off leadership of the group for the various assignments. An effective online group is one that does work together with everyone participating to produce a thoughtfully developed product. Every semester I get the comment in evaluations that they expected to learn from the instructor, but they did not expect to learn so much from each other.

I like the checklist that someone recently posted for participants to ask themselves in posting to a discussion board. (I will use that in the future.) I usually tell students to post only if they have something new or different to say. If I see a student posting, "I agree with So-and-so," I send that student a private email reminding him/her of the ground rules for posting. Students are evaluated for the quality and quantity of their postings on team and general discussion boards. I weigh participation very heavily in assigning grades because it is the only way to know how and what the student is learning in an online course. I see my major role in the course, in addition to evaluating individual and group assignments and participation, as stimulating thoughtful discussions. I often post a question to elicit further depth in a discussion. Often some of the students will do the same!

These strategies may work only in credit-based courses. I have never taught in any other type of online professional development. Maybe Jere Johnston will add to these remarks. Nickie Askov

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1297] Re: Online PD
From: Beth Wheeler (bwheeler_at_sbctc.ctc.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 19:49:03 EST

nickie, thank you for your some great ideas to build the online "learning community". it is encouraging to hear someone with your experience state you feel you know your online students as well as you get to know your students face-to-face.

beth wheeler
office of adult literacy
washington state

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1327] Belated into - LONG
From: Duren Thompson (solveig@utk.edu)
Date: Mon Apr 05 2004 - 08:22:02 EDT

Hello everyone, as an invited guest, I greatly apologize for my tardiness in participating in this discussion. My life and work interfered with my being able to respond until today. I am, therefore, an excellent example of some of the "factors" in online professional development.  ;)

I have - all in one go - read all of the postings for this event in just this past hour. I will begin by addressing Jackie's initial questions to guests and then respond individually to a (large) number of folks' posts from the past week. Again I apologize for the "sudden flurry" of e-mails, but this is the best time for *me* to share and build.

I work for the Center for Literacy Studies in Tennessee. The Center houses a number of grants from around the country, including the Southern LINCS Regional Technology Center, the EFF Training Center, and the EFF Assessment Consortium, as well as the Workforce, Learning Disabilities, and Program Leadership Special Collections. In addition, we hold two grants within Tennessee to provide professional development for all Tennessee AE practitioners, including those participating in our welfare-to-work system through the Department of Human Services (which we call Families First). I am entirely funded by the AE "state office" grant - my focus is on TN professional development and infrastructure support as it interacts with technology. (Yea, that's kind of broad - but I have *great* co-workers like Jackie to help untangle knots!)

When I was hired in 2000, development of online professional development was already on the scope of work for the year. (I'm still checking into the history - whose idea was it? Who was our "champion?") Sandra Fugate and I, along with our director Connie White, immediately plunged into research as to what was already out there - what software/delivery system should we use? Who is already doing online PD? What's working? What's not? We attended a Florida Tech conference, called dozens of state directors, spent hours on the internet and demo'd several types of learning platforms. We were incredibly fortunate to be able to draw on the work from Florida (Thanks Deb!), IDEAL, Kentucky, PBS/LiteracyLink, West Virginia, the PD Toolkit, etc.

Prior to this work on Online Professional Development, CLS in TN had been involved in quite a bit of "informal" PD via discussion lists and web sites. Within the state, my predecessors had been working to assist practitioners to integrate technology into the classroom as well as their own professional activities. Immediately prior to my coming on board, the state AE director ceased communicating with individual AE program directors via paper - he insisted they all have e-mail accounts and chose to communicate with them only via e-mail. As a state, we had been working with practitioners on creating their own web pages, gaining access to e-mail for instructors, and integrating LINCS and other web resources into the AE classroom. This helped to set a "base" for what we wanted to do.

Like many, I believe we reached out to online PD as a way of overcoming barriers like travel, time, money, etc. Also - it was the "in thing." We *literally* started out with "Let's offer an online course. - OK, what content will we cover ?Hmm... anything our practitioners want or need will *do.*" We were *convinced* that the course HAD to be free to practitioners. We did NOT want to them to have to pay for course hours. We had a pretty limited budget - like $5000 - so we weren't really in a position to *buy* fancy courseware - we would have to "rent" it from the University or other organization. Eventually we found a source within the University of Tennessee - the College of Outreach and Continuing Education (whose job is to do distance Ed and non-traditional courses - go figure) - who would let us use their BlackBoard server for $300/course - limit of 30 "students, and only the Instructor could ask for tech support (the learners would have to call us.) Connie was a *BIG* supporter of not re-inventing the wheel and strongly encouraged us to "buy" or "borrow" an existing course from someone else. We actually talked with Florida, West Virginia, and PBS about "renting" or using thier courses - even their facilitators. But the more Sandra and I researched, the more we found that the courses out there weren't really geared for our TN practitioners needs OR they weren't what we were finding was considered the most effective online learning methods.

Eventually we decided to use a "version" of Florida's Online courses that went along with their Handbook for Adult Education. They were very generous in letting us "grab" all their content and then play with it. But we wanted to put it in Blackboard. And we wanted to have it cover more hours/content. And we wanted it to be more interactive - we wanted it to be an opportunity for practitioners to network - they always complained that they never got to talk with one another. We also wanted to integrate a "hands-on" component. A "go try it out in your class/with your learners and then come back and tell us what you thought" piece.

We decided to turn one of Florida's 5 hour "independent" courses into a 12-hour facilitated, cohort-based, course over 6 weeks. In theory "2 hours of work per week." AND (because of our brand-new develop-at-the-same-time AE Professional Development points system) the course could not require much more of learners than a "face to face" professional development workshop (where all you have to do is sit and listen and or participate in discussion groups.) No grades. No "tests." No "evaluation" of writings, discourse, or discussion for "quality." With the state office's assistance we determined that the only thing required was "completing" ALL assignments - which meant mostly that they had to *say something* related to what they had read in, or done with, the course material. If you didn't complete all the assignments, you didn't complete the course, and didn't get "points" or a completion certificate.

We spend hours - HOURS - developing content and putting it in Blackboard. We had the option of hiring a consultant to put the content in BlackBoard for us, but at the last minute, determined that it was going to be about as much work to type up the content and give it to them as it was to put it in BlackBoard ourselves. So Sandra and I became course developers, learned html, Blackboard, and online facilitation all at once. While the "out of pocket" cost was only $300 to the Center, the man hours were pretty extensive (but we're *much* better and faster at it now!)

We too, thought that the face-to-face component, a chance to meet each other, build community, and learn the software was critical to success. We "advertised" the course via our statewide discussion lists prior to a large training event in July and then had an *after hours* training session (instructors stayed beyond the end of the conference an extra hour for two days in a row in order to be the first to participate in online PD). We had 28 folks in our first class. Sandra and I were co-facilitators. Boy, did we learn on the fly. There were times when I was updating course content and structure hours before we "released it" to the learners - based on what we had learned in the first few weeks.

Our director, Connie, again ever pushing us to try new things, asked us to offer the course again in September - with a facilitator who had not been involved in the development - Jackie. (Allowing us to research "What is it like to be "handed a course to facilitate?" "How do you "train" a course facilitator?" "What is the role of the "Technical Support" person vs. the content facilitator?") And then Connie asked us to hold the course again in January (2002) without the face-to face component. We learned more - "How do we handle "registration." "When is someone "dropped." "How do you write "step-by-step directions?" "How much tech support will they need?" Next we challenged ourselves to develop a new course (again based on one of Florida's 5 hour components) - but this time we wanted to integrate collaboration - group work. We're still working on making that work smoothly. (We've been most successful with *pairs* rather than groups.)

In year two Connie had a new challenge - offer the same two courses 3 times each in the year (meaning that there really wasn't any month in the year when there wasn't an online course going on) AND limit facilitators to one - not two - AND train a facilitator in the new course, as well as a new person in the "old course." Year two had much lower participation rates. We began to ask if online courses were really only for "tech" folks - early adopters. We cancelled on course for lack of interest. We began to look at our data to determine the best times in the year to offer courses. But, we had also attracted the attention of our co-workers here at the Center. *They* wanted to develop courses too.

This has been year 3 so far. This year we offered the "old" courses one time each - with healthy attendance in each session (22 out of 28 completed the January' 2004 session) and Gail Cope developed with Donna Curry a new "hybrid" course for the TN EFF statewide implementation. Practitioners attended a fall all-day workshop and then participated in a 4 week/8 hour course in January or February. So we "trained" two new "developers." They developed their course around a single web site - the EFF Teaching/Learning Toolkit. They also "pioneered" two new things - larger class sizes - 50 learners in each session - to start - and "required" attendance. Practitioners were told at the Fall workshop that they *would* be participating in a spring online course and when they would participate. We are still processing all the "things learned" from that one (Gail and I talked *today* in fact.).

Lastly, so far this year, we created another new course and, at the same time, are trying out a new online learning tool - "The Learning Manager (TLM)." Based on practitioner request, we knew that our new course was going to be on learning disabilities in AE. Again, Connie encouraged us to not re-invent the wheel - but we were unable to find any online courses already developed addressing this topic. Thus again, something new, we converted a text - "Keys to Effective LD Teaching Practice" (Based on Bridges) - into an online course, drawing on the wealth of resources in the LINCS Learning Disabilities Special Collection and using a similar framework to the previous two courses (the EFF courses loosely use it as well.) As Blackboard has changed its pricing scheme and is not necessarily advancing with new SCORM-compliant technologies, we partnered with the MidWest and Southern LINCS RTCS to investigate other options. NIFL too, wanted a "central" place to collect AE online courses so *everyone* could share. Again, budget was a factor and after some pretty detailed analysis, the two LINCS RTC's invested in TLM. It was fully installed 2 weeks before the course was scheduled to start in March. I'm facilitating 26 practitioners, learning the new software, and molding a new course - as we speak. Sorry I was late to class - I've been busy!

Gad! This is long. I'll put an overview of the "stuff" we've learned in another e-mail.

Duren Thompson
Center for Literacy Studies
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1363] PD from a tech geek's perspective (long)
From: Steve Linberg (steve_at_silicongoblin.com)
Date: Wed Apr 07 2004 - 14:13:27 EDT

Hello everyone.

First off, my apologies for arriving so late to the discussion. I'll spare you the tearful details of the sudden and unexpected crush of emergency work that landed on me last week, other than to say that I'm shaking it off today and hoping it's not too late to contribute.

To those I don't know, my VERY BRIEF background is that I'm a computer programmer who fell into adult literacy by accident about 10 years ago; I taught ABE for a few years before returning to the technical side of the field, doing programming and development mostly still in the adult education arena. I built LiteracyLink for PBS with Jennifer Elmore and other NCAL staff in the late '90s, and have been running my "Technology Helping Literacy" portal site LiteracyTent (http://literacytent.org) for a few years now and working on various other technology-related projects.

PD is relevant to a lot of the work I've done over the past 5 years; as some of you know, LiteracyLink initially contained an online course system for professional development, and we ran a few dozen courses over the years. Since I designed and built the system from the technical perspective, I'm intimately acquainted with the issues involved in providing such a service from the developer angle. The LiteracyLink courses were an early offering in the field of online PD for adult educators, and it was clearly defined as a content DELIVERY system, but not a content DEVELOPMENT system. In other words, it was not a system for teachers to CREATE courses on; they picked from a menu of predeveloped courses facilitated by NCAL staff. It had an internal, web-based mail system and a portfolio structure for interaction between teachers and facilitators.

A later project, PDK, amplified the portfolio structure and included threaded discussions as part of a more project-based PD system, an alternative to the "online course" model.

Last year, I began to build a new online course system of my own from scratch, following on my experiences with the above projects and feedback from professional developers about what they felt were shortcomings of the available commercial systems like Blackboard and Community Zero and so forth. It's a great deal of work to build such a system from the ground up, particularly working alone, and I got it to a rough prototype / proof-of-concept stage before having to reluctantly set it aside to focus on paying work. One of the interests I have in following this discussion is trying to get a sense of how satisfied people are with the commercial systems for online courses/PD at this point, and whether I should dust the project off and do another round on it, or retire it if it isn't needed.

My own issues and concerns with the available systems include the following:

1. Feature sets

Designing a system for user friendliness, power and flexibility is a real challenge, and a difficult set of goals to balance. Extremely simple systems can be easy to use, but might not be powerful enough for advanced users' needs. Powerful systems can be famously difficult to get running and have prohibitive learning curves. This is a generic tradeoff that applies almost everywhere, of course, but is no less important in technology.

Put very simply, how easy to use are the powerful systems? How powerful are the easy-to-use systems? Is there a satisfactory balance? Are there any that excel at both?

2. Accessibility

Those of you who know me are probably tired of hearing me bang this drum, but accessibility to online materials has been one of the most important themes in my work since the beginning. For example, I pushed very hard with LiteracyLink to make sure that every single page in the site (over 4,000 pages when we handed it over to KET) was valid HTML and met all of the Bobby standards for accessibility to users with disabilities, meaning that there were text transcripts of videos for the hearing-impaired (or for people whose systems couldn't access video, which is less of an issue today but was important when the site was being developed), descriptions of images for users with visual disabilities, no reliance on color for meaning (for colorblind users) and so forth. It took a huge amount of work to be sure we consistently covered all of those bases, and I saw very few other systems that attempted that level of accessibility. I don't get the sense that there have been gigantic improvements today, but I'm probably a little out of touch with very recent developments.

Also falling under the category of accessibility is the issue of multiple platform support. Many of the big systems being deployed today have either instructions or actual feature sets that assume (or require) users using Windows and Internet Explorer, and don't work with other browsers or operating systems. As a longtime advocate of platform neutrality on the internet, this always makes the steam pour from my ears. I myself use Mac OSX and Linux, and hold a very dim view of systems that only work on one platform (usually Windows), or that only provide key functionality under Windows. The whole point of the internet is to join together ALL computers that can speak the TCP/IP protocol (which virtually all do now), and systems that only work on a SUBSET of that only hurt the big picture and fragment the internet instead of strengthening it. I'd better not get started on this tangent - I can feel my blood pressure rising already.  :)

By way of example, I'm currently deploying the Moodle online course system on LiteracyTent for people who want to test it out, and might run it as a service if enough people want to use it. I like that it's open source - that's a gigantic point in its favor from my perspective - and that the data is relatively portable (see my next point). One very big strike AGAINST it in my book is that some of the editing features (for formatting text) only work in Internet Explorer. That alone was almost enough to cause me not to deploy it, but I decided to hold my nose and go ahead with it and let people decide what they thought. It's something I'd like to see fixed, though (and maybe I'll do it myself if I have to).

Supporting multiple languages is another huge piece of the accessibility arena - we don't all speak English, after all. This is an enormously complex area to work in, and requires very good resources and access to quality translators, but I like to keep the picture as wide as possible when thinking about these things.

3. Vendor lock-in

This is another hugely important issue for me. I'm well aware of the fiscal realities involved in deploying an online service of any kind, as I run servers and a mix of free and pay services. Any vendor of any software system has to be concerned with retaining customers, and this is certainly not new or unique to online PD systems. Customer retention strategy generally falls, from my perspective, into two broad categories: loyalty-building and vendor lock-in. A heavily-biased (for me) example of "loyalty-building" might be Apple Computer; if you're not a Mac user yourself, you probably know one or two, and you know that we tend to be rabidly, fanatically loyal followers of the One True Way. This isn't because you can't switch from Mac to Windows if you want to - there aren't any real technical barriers to switching between Mac and Windows in either direction these days. It's because of, generally speaking, overall satisfaction with the experience, rather than being "locked in" and unable to switch if we decided to.

Vendor lock-in, on the other hand, is (sadly) a much more common strategy in businesses of all sorts: making the customer dependent on the service in one way or another. In software, this is usually accomplished by using what is termed "proprietary data formats," meaning that documents created with commercial applications and services are usually created in ways that at least discourage, if not outright prohibit, using other systems to work with them. I've become increasingly alarmed about this in recent years and have begun speaking about it at conferences in a talk I call "Data Persistance (don't let the computers eat your work)." I don't want to get too sidetracked on this very big issue here, but an example of how it plays out for me is that I can't easily read the papers I wrote in college just over 10 years ago, because they were created with an old version of Microsoft Word, and those files can't be read by current versions and there are no translators available. Since the document formats themselves are a trade secret of Microsoft and not open, there's no way to read them and the data is basically lost. I should have saved them as text files back then so I could take them along with me, but I didn't think to. (Note to fellow techies: yes, I do actually have a method for retrieving them since I happen to collect old computers; I can do a complex daisy-chain of moving the documents forward in small steps on older machines, from diskettes to LANs to CDs and so forth, but I haven't bothered to set it all up yet, and this would be a good way past most non-tech-geek users' capacities or interests).

Put more simply and bringing it back to PD, how portable are the courses developed on the big systems? If you build a course on Blackboard, can you export it to Community Zero (beyond a manual process of a lot of cutting and pasting and hoping the structures are roughly compatible)? Do any of the available systems, for example, follow the SCORM [1] standards for data neutrality? When I last looked, I couldn't find any that did, but maybe in the past year or so some have started to. You could argue that it isn't in the interest of a business selling access to an online course system to make it easy for people to leave and take their courses somewhere else, but maybe the situation has improved since the last time I looked.

[1] SCORM (Sharable Course Object Reference Model) is a proposed standard for course structures - SCORM-compatible courses should theoretically be portable between any systems that support it. Read more at <http://www.adlnet.org/>; there's a 3rd-party "cliff's notes" summary at <http://www.rhassociates.com/adl_background.htm>, but I have not personally reviewed this for accuracy (although I have no reason to suspect that it isn't accurate).

It does seem to me that there are many more PD systems available online today than there were even a year ago, and this seems like something of a mixed blessing. For example, a lot of community colleges in my area each have systems deployed of their own, which they encourage/require people to use instead of going to commercial vendors. This is fine in and of itself, but if we have an increasing number of incompatible systems popping up, that will lead to problems down the road (especially given the often very short lifespan of companies providing technical services in the modern economy).

4. Cost

Finally, there's the cost of PD systems. What are the prices like these days? What does it cost to run a course? Nothing? Hundreds? Thousands? Are there per-learner fees? Limits on number of participants? Limits on data storage? Unlimited in every capacity?

The system I was designing and building, of course, would seek to "score high" on all four of these issues: in other words, be

1. Powerful and friendly for new and "power" users alike

2. Accessible to everybody and all platforms

3. Standards-compliant with no "vendor lock-in", so people could easily take their courses elsewhere if they wanted to switch platforms

4. Affordable (but sadly not free, unless people either want to fund

development or be bombarded by flashing ads at every turn once it's running)

I have just enough hubris as a programmer to tackle a project with such lofty goals and a reasonable expectation of success, and just enough common sense to realize that doing so is a huge amount of work. The prototype as I left it was on a good enough foundation that I have confidence it could be continued, but it would not be something I'd enter into lightly - and it may very well be that there are platforms out there now that are satisfactory enough (is that redundant?) that it wouldn't be worth doing, which would also be fine because it would free me up to think about other problems.  :)

In short, I would only resume development on my own system if it seemed that there were widely unsatisfactory circumstances still out there in the field today - it is a significant risk for a small business to enter an arena dominated by giants with huge development teams and resources. If there are systems out there today that rate highly in the arenas I outlined, I'm happy to leave it on the shelf and move on to other projects. I can and will also continue to offer open-source systems I can host myself on LiteracyTent, as inexpensive alternatives, if there's interest there.

That's a summary of my own perspective as a technology developer in the PD arena. I will continue to read, with great interest, all of the perspectives on these issues offered in this discussion.

Sorry again for being late,

Steve Linberg

Steve Linberg, Chief Goblin
Silicon Goblin Technologies
http://silicongoblin.com
Be kind. Remember, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1365] RE: PD from a tech geek's perspective (long)
From: Judith Diamond (JDiamond@irc-desplaines.org)
Date: Wed Apr 07 2004 - 15:01:51 EDT

Steve and all:

We used Moodle for our online course: The Brain, Memory and Learning. We were very satisfied with it except for the Chat. I won't describe all the technical difficulties, but there were many and it became a very frustrating experience. We were told by tech people outside Moodle that our server was not powerful enough for the Chat. So maybe others would not have the same problem.

Judith Diamond
Adult Learning Resource Center

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1366] Re: Moodle - from a tech geek's perspective
From: Marian Thacher (mthacher_at_otan.us)
Date: Wed Apr 07 2004 - 15:24:33 EDT

I heard *a lot* about Moodle at TESOL. I talked to instructors from a variety of places (San Jose State University, Alliant University in Irvine, CA. someone who teaches for the UN, and a university in Texas) who were using it and were very enthusiastic about it. I started investigating us being able to use it for adult ed in California because it's *free*! I encountered resistance re the cost of the server to run it, and that they didn't like the programming it uses (MySQL?) and didn't want to have to support it.

I gather from Judith's post that maybe server space and speed is an important issue. Steve, can you comment on that?

And, is anyone else using Moodle and what do you think of it? The fact that it's free is a big plus in my book. It would really level the playing field for the smaller adult ed programs, of which we have many, that couldn't afford their own Blackboard server or whatever. It would mean that any adult ed teacher could either put their course online or create online support for their existing course, if it works. But that's the big question - does it work??

Marian Thacher
OTAN

nifl-aalpd@nifl.gov (Steve Linberg) writes: <snip>

”By way of example, I'm currently deploying the Moodle online course system on LiteracyTent for people who want to test it out, and might run it as a service if enough people want to use it. I like that it's open source - that's a gigantic point in its favor from my perspective - and that the data is relatively portable (see my next point). One very big strike AGAINST it in my book is that some of the editing features (for formatting text) only work in Internet Explorer. That alone was almost enough to cause me not to deploy it, but I decided to hold my nose and go ahead with it and let people decide what they thought. It's something I'd like to see fixed, though (and maybe I'll do it myself if I have to).”

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1367] Re: Moodle - from a tech geek's perspective
From: Steve Linberg (steve_at_silicongoblin.com)
Date: Wed Apr 07 2004 - 15:57:25 EDT

On Apr 7, 2004, at 3:23 PM, Marian Thacher wrote:

”I heard *a lot* about Moodle at TESOL. I talked to instructors from a variety of places (San Jose State University, Alliant University in Irvine, CA. someone who teaches for the UN, and a university in Texas) who were using it and were very enthusiastic about it. I started investigating us being able to use it for adult ed in California because it's *free*! I encountered resistance re the cost of the server to run it, and that they didn't like the programming it uses (MySQL?) and didn't want to have to support it.

I gather from Judith's post that maybe server space and speed is an important issue. Steve, can you comment on that?”

Sure can - and I actually see now that Moodle is up to version 1.2, which features an "improved and more cross-platform WYSIWYG editor" among other things - which sounds like good news. I'll upgrade the test version I'm running on LiteracyTent shortly.

As far as server features and capacity go, it is certainly important to run it on a good backbone. MySQL is the database backend; it's actually written in PHP, a language used for a lot of web applications. It's not my favorite language personally (I'm much more of a Perl hacker), but it's simple to use and work with. I have no problem supporting it on my own servers, I'm perfectly comfortable with PHP and MySQL. (I use MySQL extensively for many other projects I do as well, so everything is already in place.)

I haven't experimented with the chat feature Judith was encountering problems with, so I'm not sure what the technical limitations were, but I would be very surprised if my own servers couldn't handle it (unless it involved some kind of proprietary module that wasn't compatible or didn't run on Linux). I'll kick the tires and give it a try.

My hunch is that if you have computers you can run in a server capacity at a local center, and someone with the expertise to set it up, you could probably run it yourself if you're reasonably tech-savvy; I set up a test version on my powerbook running OSX without too much trouble. However, if you want to make courses available to people outside your center, you definitely want to be running it on a "serious" server with a solid infrastructure (speed, fail-safe network, data backups, and so forth) and good maintenance people. I can certainly provide this myself on LiteracyTent, and certainly other people administering servers can too if they want to. That's the beauty of open source!  :)

”And, is anyone else using Moodle and what do you think of it? The fact that it's free is a big plus in my book. It would really level the playing field for the smaller adult ed programs, of which we have many, that couldn't afford their own Blackboard server or whatever. It would mean that any adult ed teacher could either put their course online or create online support for their existing course, if it works.”

I agree that that's a gigantic plus. Again, if I were going to run Moodle as a service on LiteracyTent, I would want to do so as affordably as possible - and the fact that Moodle itself is free helps a great deal - but there's still cost to me as a service provider for bandwidth, power, and my own maintenance, so there would have to be at least a cost-covering course fee to make it possible for me to do. I can't see that it would be very high, in all probability, but I'd have to look at the demands it makes on the system overall and come up with some reasonable figure. I'll wait until a consensus builds that it's useful or not before worrying too much about what it would need to cost.

”But that's the big question - does it work??”

That's what I want to know from all of you! :)

Again, if anybody wants to try it out and missed the earlier discussions about it here, please feel free to access it on LiteracyTent and play in the sandbox, as it were. Please don't distribute this information outside the field - I don't want the whole world coming to my server and kicking up dirt - but any adult educators are welcome to try it out and decide for themselves what they think. Note that creating a course requires a privilege level higher than what you get as a default when you sign up, so if you want to try it, create your account, and then email me your username and I'll give you the higher privileges you need. Note again that this is really a test deployment - don't run a "live" course on it at this point, all of the data in it will go "poof" at some point.

The site is at <http://moodle.literacytent.org> Use the username and password "ltmoodle" to get to the site, and then register an account and go crazy. :)

- Steve

PS. I will probably take it down briefly today or tomorrow so I can upgrade the system to the new release, and we can look at the new features.

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1369] Re: Moodle - from a tech geek's perspective
From: mcnutt (mcnutt_at_utk.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 07 2004 - 16:48:19 EDT

I can't speak to Moodle particularly, but I've been in Distance Education for about fifteen years, and *free* is never free. Whenever you use a free product, you have to spend staff time developing in-house expertise to install, maintain, and troubleshoot the product. Support, when it exists, tends to exist either in the form of a user-community, or volunteers in an open-source development group. In either case, you can never get help "right now" when something goes wrong. You are stuck with "post a message in a forum and wait for someone to get back with you." It's simply not a viable model for anything considered a "mission critical" function. Further, all of the end-user training ends up falling on the local system administration. The frustration level tends to be high, adoption low, and long-term viability questionable.

Bill McNutt
Technical Coordinator
Center for Literacy Studies at the University of Tennessee

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1370] Re: Moodle - from a tech geek's perspective
From: Steve Linberg (steve@silicongoblin.com)
Date: Wed Apr 07 2004 - 17:54:45 EDT

On Apr 7, 2004, at 4:47 PM, mcnutt wrote:

”I can't speak to Moodle particularly, but I've been in Distance Education for about fifteen years, and *free* is never free. Whenever you use a free product, you have to spend staff time developing in-house expertise to install, maintain, and troubleshoot the product.”

Yes, exactly correct. There's no such thing as free unless you do it yourself, and even then you have to figure in the cost of your own time.

For me as a service provider, using open source / free software (the two are not exactly the same thing, but that's a different discussion not terribly relevant here) has many advantages, one of which is being able to run services at a substantially lower overall cost, and another of which is being able to modify and customize services written in any programming language I'm comfortable with (and even ones I'm not if I have to :) - but even if everything else were free and my time itself were somehow free, there's still the cost of servers to run the software on, the price of power and physical security, and of course bandwidth, which is usually metered.

So no, there's no such thing as "free" in software or services, it's just a question of how and where the money moves around. People often talk in terms of "Total Cost of Ownership" (or TCO) when discussing such matters. In my experience, the TCO of free software is still substantially lower than for proprietary software, and I personally find it more secure and stable, simply because if if there are problems, they tend to come to light quickly, and if I have to crank open the hood and go in there myself to fix something, I've got everything I need to do so and am limited only by my knowledge, as opposed to having to wait weeks or months for a patch or a service pack from the vendor who welded the hood shut (to use a popular analogy).

”Support, when it exists, tends to exist either in the form of a user-community, or volunteers in an open-source development group. In either case, you can never get help "right now" when something goes wrong. You are stuck with "post a message in a forum and wait for someone to get back with you."

Also true, although the turnaround time can be quite rapid depending on where and how you ask for help. And the usenet archives on Google are almost criminally helpful if you're really stuck on something and don't know where to look or ask. If you're willing to really dig, you can find answers to almost anything. Any problem you're having with technology, the overwhelming likelihood is that someone else has had the exact same problem and asked about it somewhere, and possibly received an answer you can reference.

(It doesn't necessarily mean the solution will be easy to implement, or even up-to-date in a rapidly-changing field, but it sure can be a help in a very right-now sense a lot of the time.)

”It's simply not a viable model for anything considered a "mission critical" function. Further, all of the end-user training ends up falling on the local system administration. The frustration level tends to be high, adoption low, and long-term viability questionable.”

I'd say that you've got to have someone willing to take on the role of solving technical problems, whether it's someone on your staff, or someone you have access to with that job description. You can also get paid support for free software from a variety of sources if you need someone you can call on short notice to fix something. I've worked in that capacity a number of times, doing support/maintenance/customization of open source systems and services running elsewhere.

Steve Linberg, Chief Goblin
Silicon Goblin Technologies
http://silicongoblin.com
Be kind. Remember, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1372] Re: Looking at examples (was Moodle... tech geek)
From: Duren Thompson (solveig@utk.edu)
Date: Fri Apr 09 2004 - 13:22:18 EDT

I realized that it might also help folks if they were able to "look" at the content/structure of a BlackBoard (or any) online course (I know it helps *me*). I am glad to offer ours for perusal. We always set up an "observer" account in our courses so guests - like funders, or coworkers, or other professional developers - can "take a look" at our courses if they'd like. I know of at least one state, Oklahoma, who asked if they could "have" our content. Our state director asked that they credit us and Florida appropriately - but said *sure.* They used the observer account to "get" the content information out of BlackBoard (rather than using BlackBoards's problematic export system).

If you are interested in either of the two courses: GED2002 part 1 - Teacher and Student, or GED2002 Part 2 Teaching Tools, please contact me off list and I'll be happy to arrange for you to "visit." We have the two recent "sessions" of each course you can look through if you wish - with all the learner responses and comments. I'll have to manage access if a lot of folks respond - as we only have one observer login ID and I think there would be problems if a group was all trying to log on using that ID at once.

The Introduction to Learning Disabilities in Adult Education online course is still mid-session - and really still in the "beta" phase in TLM. We will be showing it a bit at COABE. When the course is no longer live, however, I should also be able to offer folks a similar "peek" into that course as well. The Center is still in the planning stages about the TLM server (for example the issue discussed earlier about other agencies being able to use the server and the TLM "learning management platform" to deliver whatever content they wish) - if you *do* have questions, please direct them to jjstephe@utk.edu off list for more detailed info.

Florida's courses and Kentucky's are fairly public - does anyone else have online material (public or "private") that could be "looked at" by folks on this list (or even others not on the list?). I really find that reviewing an array of styles, structures, options, etc. helps me to make design decisions/recommendations.

Duren Thompson
Center for Literacy Studies

At 03:57 PM 4/7/2004 -0400, you wrote: [snip]

”Again, if anybody wants to try it out and missed the earlier discussions about it here, please feel free to access it on LiteracyTent and play in the sandbox, as it were. Please don't distribute this information outside the field - I don't want the whole world coming to my server and kicking up dirt - but any adult educators are welcome to try it out and decide for themselves what they think. Note that creating a course requires a privilege level higher than what you get as a default when you sign up, so if you want to try it, create your account, and then email me your username and I'll give you the higher privileges you need. Note again that this is really a test deployment - don't run a "live" course on it at this point, all of the data in it will go "poof" at some point.

The site is at <http://moodle.literacytent.org> Use the username and password "ltmoodle" to get to the site, and then register an account and go crazy. :)

- Steve

PS. I will probably take it down briefly today or tomorrow so I can upgrade the system to the new release, and we can look at the new features.”

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Participating Online or at a Distance

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Subject:[NIFL-AALPD:1225] participating online or at a distanceNIFL-AALPD:1225]
From: jataylor (jataylor_at_utk.edu)
Date: Mon Mar 29 2004 - 09:42:45 EST

Hello Everyone! This question is for any/all of us on the list. Our experiences in participating in professional development online are as important as our experiences in developing/delivering online PD. Some may feel it is more important. With that in mind, I cannot think of a better place to start!

What have been your experiences in *participating* in professional development online or at a distance? (Examples include online courses, webcasting, videoconferening, audioconferencing, discussion lists, email, chat sessions, etc.) Why did/do you participate online or at a distance, versus other options?

Please describe the professional development experience(s). What stood out to you? What aspects/features of the online or distance professional development did/do you like or not like? What can be done to improve the learning experience? How do these experiences compare to your experiences with other types of professional development?

Thanks!
Jackie

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Subject:[NIFL-AALPD:1227] Re: participating online or at a distance
From: Art LaChance (arthur_at_ellijay.com)
Date: Mon Mar 29 2004 - 10:50:45 EST

I entered adult literacy back in the late 80's. At that point most of us couldn't even spell adult literacy. All we were trying to do was help folks learn to do math better or maybe build up reading and writing skills. The majority of people involved were retired school teachers from local churches or community clubs who had organized volunteer programs. I got involved in response to a friends suggestion that the program needed help. There was no "training". I remember clearly my first day. I walked into the evening classroom and was greeted by an elderly gentleman, husband of the retired school teacher organizer of the church program. He smiled and asked if he could help me and I told him I'd like to volunteer as a tutor. He asked if I had a GED or HS diploma, I told him I had a BS in Occupational Ed. He stepped asided and said "OK, go ahead ", and motioned me into the large room with about 10 students sitting at tables.

At the time the various lists became available via NIFL the only information gathering options were to participate in the limited state provided staff development or somehow get engaged with the higher institutions in some sort of practitioner inquiry project. Staff development consisted primarily of K12 philosophically based curriculum delivery options, while virtually all of the computer based delivery systems were designed for middle school students.

I became interested in the lists mainly as a means of acquiring validation for issues that we were experiencing in the classroom. Issues that violated standard K12 "education" philosophy. What I discovered from discussions on the lists was that a very large proportion of our adult literacy field is locked into that which they know best, or the K12 processes. We are changing, albeit slowly and painfully, to discussion and philosophy that is far more relevant to adult level learning. Additionally, State provided training is gradually adapting over to what is needed vs what is popular.

I guess one could cruise the internet and research applicable self training options but how would one identify that which is relevant? I think most of us rely on administrators to provide training to help improve the efficiency of our efforts.

Art

Art LaChance
Gilmer Learning Center
Ellijay,Ga

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Subject:[NIFL-AALPD:1229] RE: participating online or at a distance
From: Jane Mencer (jmencer_at_famlit.org)
Date: Mon Mar 29 2004 - 10:56:12 EST

I have taken, created, and facilitated several online PD courses but would like to talk about one in particular. I recently completed (taking, as a student) an excellent, two-month, online course for instructional designers called Leveraging E-Learning. It was sponsored by Friesen, Kaye and Associates, http://www.fka.com, and taught by Dr. Will Thalheimer of Work-Learning Research, http://www.work-learning.com/. Dr. Thalheimer distilled approximately 1,000 studies on work-learning research into eight key learning factors. The format of the course included required (online) reading and completion of two very relevant projects as well as participation on a discussion board and in several synchronous sessions.

Honestly, why did I take it? I was the lucky door prize winner at an online learning conference this past September. Lucky, I certainly was!

The one negative comment that I have is that the discussion board was, for the most part, a dead zone. My classmates only posted what was required. No real discussion took place though we were encouraged to use it actively to query and learn from each other.

One major point of the course was that e-learning's unique capability is contact with learners over time. This fact, though not always used to its fullest in other e-learning courses with which I have been involved, offers the greatest hope for the effectiveness of this delivery mode. I am a staunch supporter of e-learning but recognize that it is not a magic pill. E-learning, like classroom training, has the potential to be wonderful and effective...or not.

Jane Martel Mencer
Instructional Designer
National Center for Family Literacy
325 West Main Street, Suite 300
Louisville, KY 40202-4237

phone: 502/584-1133 ext 169
fax: 502/584-0172
e-mail: jmencer_at_famlit.org

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Subject:[NIFL-AALPD:1230] RE: participating online or at a distance
From: Beth Wheeler (bwheeler_at_sbctc.ctc.edu)
Date: Mon Mar 29 2004 - 11:03:26 EST

hello,
i have participated in one online course that is mandatory for instructors wishing to teach through washington state's two-year distance education system. i approached this course with trepidation - i really like to see folks face-to-face. i was pleasantly surprised to find the camaraderie develop in the discussion boards between "students". as with other f2f courses i've taken, i was sorry to end the relationships developed at a distance. while i would still rather be f2f in a classroom situation, I would not hesitate to enroll in another professional development opportunity online.

beth wheeler

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Subject:[NIFL-AALPD:1238] RE: participating online or at a distance
From: Eileen Eckert (eileeneckert_at_hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Mar 29 2004 - 17:15:01 EST

I'm going to try to just answer Jackie's question: What have been your experiences in *participating* in professional development online or at a distance? (Examples include online courses, webcasting, videoconferening, audioconferencing, discussion lists, email, chat sessions, etc.) Why did/do you participate online or at a distance, versus other options?

Upon re-reading the question, I realized I was thinking of professional development as something that had been designed and packaged as professional development. I wasn't really thinking of the informal activities through which I develop professionally. But, having re-adjusted my assumptions (temporarily at least), here goes.

Informal activities produce much greater learning for me than the few formal online experiences where I've been a student. Some of the informal PD includes:

1. Observing, reflecting on, categorizing, and experimenting with what's going on in the online courses I've taught (and writing about those observations etc.)

2. Participating in discussion lists, and then observing, reflecting, categorizing, experimenting... My learning from these goes well beyond the content of the discussions. I think about the changes, or not, in myself and other discussants, and what that means in terms of what I know of adult learning theory, research, and practice. This has helped me learn more about mental models and their roles in how we see the world and how we learn and teach, and about Freire's writings and teachings.

3. E-mail discussions off-list with people I only know through the list. Art LaChance and Debbie Yoho especially helped me learn more about how to participate in the lists, and if I haven't learned everything they've taught me it's my own responsibility.

4. Face-to-face discussions about online learning with others who use the lists or who have participated in online courses.

5. An email exchange I had with a colleague that occurred several years ago and from which I am still learning.

For me, the feature that is probably most important is that I have the autonomy to decide what and how I will learn. The experiences may be beyond my control, but what I put into them, and what I take from them are totally up to me. For example, one of the things I grapple with as I participate in the lists is the question of differences in expectations around how men and women participate. Another is the question of class and professionalization of the field, and yet another is the issue of insider vs. outsider status, who grants it and what it means. None of these is an explicit topic, but they're all ongoing themes in my professional development from participating in online discussions. And I want what and how I learn to be up to me; I think I'm the best judge of it!

Eileen

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1268] Re: participating online or at a distance
From: David Rosen (djrosen_at_comcast.net)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 11:43:57 EST

NIFL-AALPD Colleagues,

Jackie has asked:

"What have been your experiences in *participating* in professional development online or at a distance? (Examples include online courses, webcasting, videoconferening, audioconferencing, discussion lists, email, chat sessions, etc.) Why did/do you participate online or at a distance, versus other options?"

Please describe the professional development experience(s). What stood out to you? What aspects/features of the online or distance professional development did/do you like or not like? What can be done to improve the learning experience? How do these experiences compare to your experiences with other types of professional development?"

I would like to hear from adult education teachers who have participated in professional development online, or at a distance. In the online or distance learning environment what has worked for you, what hasn't?

As an online learner myself one thing that has worked is having a very well organized course. I like the directions to be very clear -- where to go, what to do, how to submit work -- and appreciate redundancy in directions if it makes it easier for me as a learner to find and do things.

I have learned that it is important to pay a lot of attention as a learner to whom the online instruction is designed for (i.e. teachers or administrators or both? Kind(s) and level(s) of class(es) you are teaching. What the objectives of the online staff development are, etc.) Of course, it is important that the online staff developer makes the intended audience(s) and objectives clear.

But what about you? As an online learner, what aspects or features of online learning have you liked/not liked?

David J. Rosen
djrosen_at_comcast.net

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1269] RE: participating online or at a distance
From: David Rosen (djrosen_at_comcast.net)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 11:52:35 EST

NIFL-AALPD Colleagues,

Jane Mencer wrote:

"...the discussion board was, for the most part, a dead zone. My classmates only posted what was required. No real discussion took place though we were encouraged to use it actively to query and learn from each other."

For asynchronous online PD to be interactive a lively discussion board is key. Guests and others: how can an online facilitator make a structured PD course or online module discussion board effective?

Also, what other asynchronous features can make online PD interactive?

David J. Rosen
djrosen_at_comcast.net

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1272] : participating online or at a distance
From: Janet Isserlis (Janet_Isserlis_at_Brown.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 12:23:43 EST

One thing I wonder about, too, is face to face interaction. I was peripherally part of a distance course last spring out of Lancaster, UK, and believe that participants (all within the UK) had an opportunity to meet together at the beginning and end of the course. (If anyone from that course is online, please jump in and correct anything I've mis-understood).

Obviously, face to face meetings aren't possible in many instances, but when we're talking about regional learning, it seems to make sense to bring people together to start building the connections they'll need and want to maintain electronically.

other thoughts?

Janet Isserlis

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1276] RE: participating online or at a distance
From: Mingle, Mary E. H. (MMingle_at_lhup.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 13:17:25 EST

Q: How can an online facilitator make a structured PD course or online module discussion board effective?

Eileen provided some excellent suggestions for structuring discussion in an online course in one of her messages yesterday. In an online learning environment, learning activities need to be described in a very structured and detailed way, including information on expectations for the final result (for example, Eileen recommended instructing participants to: "please post at least 6 messages per week: two original messages, two replies to someone else, and two responses to others' replies"). I know it may seem restrictive to provide so many guidelines and expectations, but knowing these expectations up front will lead to greater benefits to learners. In a classroom setting, the facilitator can interrupt a learning activity to clarify instructions or prompt students to respond more completely. Although an online facilitator can provide these prompts in an asynchronous communication environment, I find we get better results if we are clear from the beginning. If points/grades are awarded for completion of various online learning activities, participants can be awarded points not only for posting a comment, but for responding to others.

Q: What other asynchronous features can make online PD interactive?

Embedded activities are useful. These can be simple multiple choice question and response activities that check the learners understanding of the material by providing instant feedback. No points or grades are assigned; only the learner knows whether he/she has delivered a correct response. Many course management systems include features for grouping participants and allow small groups to communicate with one another by e-mail, a group discussion board, or a live chat (synchronous communication). File sharing features allow participants to upload documents that are viewable by all in the group (for example, participants in a course can share copies of their lessons or forms they use in the day-to-day operation of their programs. Or, participants can engage in individual Web research and share links with one another.

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1278] RE: participating online or at a distance
From: Dlhargrove_at_aol.com
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 13:41:45 EST

David and all,
In response to your question, "For asynchronous online PD to be interactive a lively discussion board is key. Guests and others: how can an online facilitator make a structured PD course or online module discussion board effective?"

One idea that we're tossing around as we begin to edit/create new onPD is the notion of including an activity whereby the online user not only posts their own comments to a particular action/activity/assignment, but also that they choose 2 or 3 other users comments and actively compares and contrasts their comments with those of their own.

We haven't implemented it yet, just something we're thinking about.

Debra

Debra L. Hargrove
Florida TechNet

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1279] Re: participating online or at a distance
From: Dlhargrove_at_aol.com
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 13:46:03 EST

Janet,
I agree with your comment, "Obviously, face to face meetings aren't possible in many instances, but when we're talking about regional learning, it seems to make sense to bring people together to start building the connections they'll need and want to maintain electronically."

With budget cuts at an all time high in our state, many participants are looking to the Internet for their PD...electronic communications has broken the geographic barriers that once separated one adult educator to another. But there's so much more to sharing information than just typing it in a small box. Although not required, I think including a blended learning approach to an on PD can only make it stronger.

Debra Hargrove
Florida TechNet

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1281] RE: participating online or at a distance
From: Aaron Kohring (akohring_at_utk.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 13:58:20 EST

Debra and all,

This technique was used in an ESL instruction course that I participated in at the University of Tennessee. Only part of the class was online- we still had some time in the classroom face-to-face. But the online discussions were very lively as we were asked to respond thoughtfully to at least 3 other postings when making our responses. There were some very good examples of not only comparing and contrasting ideas, but building new knowledge out of that.
Aaron

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1282] Re: : participating online or at a distance
From: Jennifer Elmore (jennifer_atjelmore.com)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 14:28:08 EST

Hi Janet - and all.
I think face-to-face meetings can have a significant impact on the quality of online interaction.

I've facilitated pure distance courses as well as hybrid training experiences (that is, PD involving in-person and distance components). I definitely prefer and recommend the hybrid approach, if at all possible; I'm a big fan of "bookending" online training with face-to-face meetings for the following reason(s).

I feel that in-person time (particularly, a training "kick-off") can help create a foundation for online community. My general sense is that participants enjoy meeting in real time/space. Having the chance to connect with colleagues in a tangible setting seems to facilitate the move into the (perhaps less familiar) virtual arena. I think folks generally feel more secure about participating actively online, if they both know and are committed to their audience.

In a pure distance situation, however, participants do not always "know who's out there." Even if the online course provides space for bios, introductions, etc., a lot of people (in pure distance groups) tend hang back initially because they want to get a sense of the crowd before entering the online fray. The upshot of this is - conversation is slower to get started. This start-up lull can cause some participants lose interest/momentum - which, in turn, can set the stage for sporadic participation overall.

In a nutshell, I think that pure distance training experiences tend to require more from the facilitator, especially at first. S/he bears more of the community-building burden, I think, and must be prepared to actively engage participants - both individually and as a group.

Jennifer

Jennifer Elmore, M.S.Ed
Education Consultant
http://jelmore.com

"One thing I wonder about, too, is face to face interaction. I was peripherally part of a distance course last spring out of Lancaster, UK, and believe that participants (all within the UK) had an opportunity to meet together at the beginning and end of the course. (If anyone from that course is online, please jump in and correct anything I've mis-understood).

Obviously, face to face meetings aren't possible in many instances, but when we're talking about regional learning, it seems to make sense to bring people together to start building the connections they'll need and want to maintain electronically.

other thoughts?

Janet Isserlis

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1289] Re: : participating online or at a distance
From: Marian Thacher (mthacher_at_otan.us)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 15:45:37 EST

Janet Isserlis wrote:

"Obviously, face to face meetings aren't possible in many instances, but when we're talking about regional learning, it seems to make sense to bring people together to start building the connections they'll need and want to maintain electronically."

I feel that in my work I could be doing a much better job of using online connections this way. In California we are just at the beginning of implementing some online professional development, so I can't comment on that yet, but I am involved in a lot of workshops at conferences and elsewhere, and online communication offers the perfect way to follow-up, report and reflect on implementing strategies in practice, and maintain connections. This happens on an individual basis. I might make a connection with one person who really wants to follow up on something, or I really want to follow up with them, but it certainly doesn't happen for everyone. And maybe that's OK. As someone pointed out (was it Debra?), maybe those who were just coming to get certain information got it (or not). But I would like to be better at offering and encouraging the opportunity for people to stay in touch and follow up with each other. This would have to be very targeted, though, maybe pick one area to focus on for the year. Otherwise it would get too overwhelming or too diffuse.

Marian Thacher
OTAN

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1293] Re: : participating online or at a distance
From: Beth Wheeler (bwheeler_at_sbctc.ctc.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 16:33:40 EST

good afternoon,

washington state abe professional development staff is just dipping toes into the online pd ocean. they have developed and are offering an online new teacher orientation that has been very successful - and has a waiting list of interested participants each quarter. another area they have explored is the blended approach. an initial workshop would take place face-to-face with follow-up activities taking place online. the reception from the field has been less than enthusiastic, but the very issues you mention, Debra, are reasons we are moving toward offering more staff development opportunities online.

beth wheeler
washington state office of adult literacy

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1296] Re: participating online or at a distance
From: Bonnie Odiorne (bonniesophia_at_adelphia.net)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 18:11:33 EST

I'd like to respond to this post, and to the one which asked, in essence, "why do they leave?" In my case it wasn't as much a lack of expertise, or even of interaction, or even a fear of work. It was committing myself to something when I already had a full place, and the "illusion" of online learning is that it's easy and convenient. It isn't always either. The classes that worked for me were more modules; I haven't tried to do anything for credit yet, though I've always been tempted by Penn State's M. Adult Ed. program. The main reason I love distance learning, and would love to teach it, is that I share many of the restrictions of our students: not able to drive, lack of adequate transportation, scheduling a course around part-time jobs. I've found also that the lack of discussion is disturbing, especially in one course where my group members had disappeared. But that's not what I'm looking for, necessarily. i just want information, mostly.

Warmest Regards,
Bonnie Odiorne Ph.D
Program Faciliator
Working Smart
Computers 4 Kids
Silas Bronson Library Information Technology Center
Waterbury, CT
Integrating Technology, ABE and ESL Instruction

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1304] RE: : participating online or at a distance
From: Marie Cora (mariecora@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Apr 01 2004 - 11:10:30 EST

Hi everyone,

Actually, I have to agree with Janet that if at all possible, it might be good for there to be at least one opportunity for participants to get together - and I fully acknowledge that this is not always possible - and it might not even be the point of that interaction (i.e.: developing a distance course exactly BECAUSE folks cannot be face to face.

But my father-in-law, a long-time University Prof in sociology, is now doing a couple types of distance learning - one form in which the participants come together 3 times in 3 different locations of the country - and he does say that this type of DL has been the most successful.

What also jumps to mind for me with the course above is that, as David noted in his reply, this course is tuition-based, credit bearing, etc. But all that said, not all courses can be this way, not all people could participate in this way - so what might be the fate of courses that don't have these 'support structures'?

marie cora

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1316] RE: : participating online or at a distance
From: Jennifer Elmore (jennifer_at_jelmore.com)
Date: Thu Apr 01 2004 - 18:54:49 EST

Hi all.
Reponding to Marie's question about the fate of non-tuition-based and non-credit online classes...

The classes that I've developed have generally been free to participants, and they have not involved university credit. (Most participants, however, have been able to secure professional development credit within their organization or region for their work.) Thus, the standard incentives for participation, associated with a tuition-based or credit-bearing course, do not apply to my students.

I try to provide a different kind of "incentive scaffolding" to support participation in free, non-credit courses. Most often, this support structure involves (ironically enough) flexibility as well as attention to participants' immediate and pressing professional dilemmas/questions.

When starting a new course, I try to focus on folks' (other) incentives for participation. Raising the incentives issue actively and early - and revisiting it regularly with the whole group and with individuals - seems to improve retention and ongoing involvement. Here are a few tips that I've found useful:

• In general, try to make connections between course content and specific issues participants are encountering in their professional lives.
• When the course commences, invite participants to identify 2-3 key questions (or areas of interest) that they would like to pursue in the course/that they hope this course will resolve.
• Help participants tailor course activities to more directly address and pursue their questions.
• Follow up with participants regularly re: their progress in these areas.
• Suggest additional resources to support participants' investigations.
• Connect individual participants (whose questions are similar) - in order to build community around "like" issues.

Jennifer

Jennifer Elmore, M.S.Ed.
Education Consultant
http://jelmore.com

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1332] Re: participating online or at a distance
From: Duren Thompson (solveig_at_utk.edu)
Date: Mon Apr 05 2004 - 08:26:50 EDT

At 02:27 PM 3/31/2004 -0500, Jennifer Elmore wrote:
[snip]

“In a nutshell, I think that pure distance training experiences tend to require more from the facilitator, especially at first. S/he bears more of the community-building burden, I think, and must be prepared to actively engage participants - both individually and as a group.

Jennifer”

We think this is true as well. I, as a facilitator, work very hard to be a caring, supportive, "nurturer" in an online venue. Sandra and I started with this belief from the very beginning - based on a presentation we heard from an online course facilitator at the University of Florida. He was supporting campus-based courses, and emphasized the real need to be "available" to online learners - for tech support, encouragement, and cheerleading - especially in the critical 1st 1-2 weeks. This is where we drew our "1st week slowly" model from.

I was startled recently on an online evaluation to have someone complain that "The facilitator only talked to me twice during the course - I felt ignored.." (Broke my heart actually. I was upset for days.) Early on Sandra and I found that if *we* responded to everyone's posts - they didn't seem to talk to each other much. *We* were meeting their need for interaction - so we worked to "randomly" respond and encourage conversation amongst participants on the Discussion Boards. This meant that a quiet, uninsightful/average poster could get "lost" in the "randomization." Now I actually keep a list of participant's names by me when I "randomly post" and check mark who I post to. If they haven't heard from me directly in over 2 weeks (nothing they've posted has "moved" me to comment), I deliberately make sure I respond to them to keep them from feeling ignored. Feels silly - like I'm working to be "fair" with small children - but it seems to be important.

Not that I feel we have the whole "encouraging insightful, collaborative interactive on the Discussion Board" thing down by any means - no we regularly fret over it (and I'm taking a number of these cool ideas back with me to try). But these things *do* seem to make a difference in *retention* of AE practitioners in Online courses.

Duren Thompson
Center for Literacy Studies

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Listservs and Learning

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1248] listservs and learning
From: jataylor_at_utk.edu
Date: Tue Mar 30 2004 - 11:37:02 EST

Hello everyone ~
Some of us mentioned experiences with discussion lists and professional development. Art, you mentioned that you became involved in NIFL discussion lists primarily “mainly as a means of acquiring validation for issues that we were experiencing in the classroom.” Jean, you noted that you participate in listservs as a means of keeping on the “leading edge” and for your own professional development. I understand both of you to convey a PD need for learning and/or discovery over time, is this correct? Can this need for informal PD be met in any other way?

Eileen, I understand you to say that not only has participation with discussion lists been an ongoing, informal learning experience for you, but one that can transcend the online interaction and has potential for lasting change – can you tell us more about what you mean?

What needs do discussion lists meet that cannot be met by participation in other types of interactive, synchronous or asynchronous forums? If for example, one of the national lists were converted to a different format – like a bulletin board instead of a discussion list, how might our experiences be similar or different? What new needs would be met, and what needs would no longer be addressed?

Lastly, how do our experiences with different types of listservs compare? In other words, are the experiences of subscribers to fully-moderated lists similar or different than open lists? How might these two formats impact the learning experiences in different ways?

Your thoughts?
Jackie

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1250] Re: listservs and learning
From: Chris Francisco (cfranc2@ilstu.edu)
Date: Tue Mar 30 2004 - 11:49:51 EST

Jackie and all,

I must stress that "staying connected with practitioners from diverse areas of the country" is very important to me. I find that learning from people outside of my immediate human experience is invaluable. I joined the NIFL listserve for this very reason. I also belong to the Charter School listserv to understand other educational components. These resources are immediate and on-going. Often I am aware of key "action" steps that should be taken. The communication is a vital part of my professional health and growth. Again...they must be relevant and they must be nurtured! Be well...

peace,

Chris

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1253] Re: listservs and learning
From: Eunice Askov (ena1_at_psu.edu)
Date: Tue Mar 30 2004 - 12:32:16 EST

Jackie, to address your questions in the third paragraph below, discussion boards (bulletin boards) have the advantage of being threaded--that is, people add their comments under a specific topic. In our online classes through Penn State's World Campus we set up separate discussion boards for each topic. Students learn to post to the appropriate bulletin board. I have been amazed at the thought that goes into these postings. Discussion boards encourage us all to think about a topic before making a post. That's what I like about the asynchronous nature because it encourages us to think about what we want to say and encourages learning to take place.

Listservs, on the other hand, seem to be more informal and spontaneous (conversational). One problem with listservs is their disjointed nature due to multiple threads or topics. Often an interesting topic is lost because someone else jumps in with a new issue. As Jere pointed out, a good facilitator (like Jackie) can really encourage thoughtful responses, but most of the NIFL listservs are moderated by volunteers who really don't have the time that it requires to moderate a listserv discussion. Moderated lists, however, can function much like discussion boards as long as the conversation builds in some coherent way. Nickie Askov

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Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1258] Re: listservs and learning
From: Art LaChance (arthur_at_ellijay.com)
Date: Tue Mar 30 2004 - 14:32:18 EST

Jackie,
I think Professional Development - and wonder exactly what does it mean. Improve my ability to deliver services ? That's where I go. Then what is involved with that. What process can get me there. It reminds me of a statement that I heard one time from somewhere that it doesn't matter what you deliver as much as how you deliver it. So training in curriculum delivery or how to fill out paperwork or how to do