I wish to learn more about the different tools for online learning and collaboration and to find new ways to integrate them in a single sytem. I think the course itself is such an attempt and studying it I can see what is really effective and what not.

I also want to see how collaboratively can be created a course online.

· What resources will i need: What software tools and resources i am going to use? Resources can be people, different artifacts, materials.

I will explore all the available resources and software tools and try to install from scratch blog, forum, wiki, etc. and see how they work.

· How will i do it: What is my strategy to achieve my objectives? What is the order of my actions? How will i use different resources in my actions?

I will read and participate in activities. Learn and explore different software tools.

· Evaluation criteria: How do I know that i was successful? Develop measurable criteria to evaluate your activities in respect of your objectives.

Was I successful in installing e-learning tools?

Was I collaborating in team activities?

· Self-reflection: Did i achieve my objectives? Use the criteria what you developed to assess how well did you work. Reflect, what worked and what did not?

I installed a blog system- b2evolution, a forum system – phpBB. I used the blog already provided in the elearning course.

I also used the google framework and edited the group course building experience in this field.

I communicated with team members mainly in skype and email.

I need to work on time management, allocating time for an engagement and following the process with the deadlines.

Checklist for teams:

1. Goals
2. Results and productivity
3. Team structure
4. Team operation
5. Team skills

I read about the ASKs system for online collaboration. ASKS addresses some problems of groupwork in any online environment. The system enables the instructor to build a repository of model responses that can easily be incorporated into tailored feedback for students. It makes evaluation easy and efficient. Meaningful feedback can be constructed for each student from an existing database. Frequency or quality of student contributions can be assessed. This factor reduces the subjective element common to the evaluation of online discussions.

The importance of content providers in elearning:

With the increase of social tools, learners and teachers will be able to create new ways of learning environments.

Themes in educational institutions to be changed:

• Students owning their learning
• Standards and curricula that guide rather than dictate
• Constructivist teaching strategies that empower students
• Trust and adult supervision
• Democracy and empowerment
• Global Workforce Competence: Making schooling relevant to the workplace. Nordgren (2006)

Web 2.0

Weblogs (Blogger, Wordpress), microblogging environments (Jaiku, Twitter), social repositories of new media objects (Flickr, Youtube), social bookmarking spaces (del.icio.us), community portals (Facebook, MySpace) etc. give new freedom and increase creativity and responsibility for the learners.

The main change in industries will be the reorganisation of knowledge creation at horisontal (between industries and universities) and vertical (within industry) level (Beach 2003).

Main changes at new Web 2.0 social spaces:

• Self-manageable tools;
• Learning at personal spaces;
• Continuous invasion to new spaces
• Distributing one’s personality between spaces;
• Community as an identity
• Publishing artifacts to define communities and ourselves

Self-directed learning and self-management of learning objectives is paramount.

Self-directed learning leads to the need of learner defined contracts (ePortfolio)

Conversational contracts presume that as learning procedure continues the contracts should be updated.

The construction and reconstruction of the learning process should consist of:
- sustaining self-conversation with oneself about learning
- externalizing learning conversation for the learner
- passing the control back to the learner as the language of awareness and skills of learning
- this process goes in spirals, initiating learning networks
Students answer the following questions in the process dialog:

• What is my purpose in learning? (purpose phase)
• Which learning startegies do i follow? (startegy phase)
• What is my learning outcome? (outcome phase)
• How do i evaluate my learning outcome? Was the startegy effective? (review phase)

Support dialog:

peer support, resources and space for coping with the new freedom.

Referent dialog:

A set of rules - mutually agreed and then followed.

• Why I wish to learn something, what is meaningful for me?
• What is my strategy to achieve it? What is the order of my actions?
• How do I know that I was successful? What worked and what did not?

Group Contracts

Keeping this public unwritten contract is the basis of any functioning activity system, the distribution of labour and the establishment of norms inside the community

Personal Learning Contract

Step 1: Diagnose your learning needs. A learning need is the gap between where you are now and where you want to be in regard to a particular set of competencies.

Step 2: Specify your learning objectives. Each of the learning needs diagnosed in Step 1 should be translated into a learning objective.

Step 3: Specify learning resources and strategies. describe how you propose to go about accomplishing each objective. Identify the resources (material and human) you plan to use in your various learning experiences and the strategies (techniques, tools) you will employ in making use of them.

Step 4: Specify target dates for completion. Put realistic dates, unless there are institutionally or other required deadlines.

Step 5: Specify evidence of accomplishment. what evidence you will collect to indicate the degree to which you have achieved each objective.

Step 6: Specify how the evidence will be validated. For each objective, first specify the criteria by which you propose the evidence will be judged.

Step 7: Review your contract with consultants. you will find it useful to review it with two or three friends, supervisors, or other expert resource people to obtain their reaction and suggestions.

- Are the learning objectives clear, understandable, and realistic? Do they describe what you propose to learn?

- Can they think of other objectives you might consider?

- Do the learning strategies and resources seem reasonable, appropriate, and efficient?

- Can they think of other resources and strategies you might consider?

- Does the evidence seem relevant to the various objectives, and would it convince them?

- Can they suggest other evidence you might consider?

- Are the criteria and means for validating the evidence clear, relevant, and convincing?

- Can they think of other ways to validate the evidence that you might consider?

Step 8: Carry out the contract. as you work on it you may find that your notions about what you want to learn and how you want to learn changing.

Step 9: Evaluation of your learning.

Internet-based instruction does not automatically guarantee a rich learning environment. WWW is a resource-rich multimedia environment with great potential to serve large numbers of widely dispersed students at low cost.

The majority of the online courses are text, converted to electronic form and placed on the web or esend by mail to students to read.

The advantage is the immediate access to the material and the ease of editing it.

The criticism of this kind of courses is that they do not use the multi-modal instructional means available online. Even if such a course is accompanied by a forum or chat, it is like an artificial embellishment and is not very useful.

The effective text in online courses needs to be short and distributed among other multimedia components.

These multimedia components might be referred as learning objects — they include text, electronic mail, discussion boards, chat utilities, voice over internet protocol, instant messaging, synchronous audio, video clips, interactive activities, simulations, and games., self-grading exercises, quizzes, examinations and web sites.

I explored the http://www.nationalgeographic.com/kids course. It is truly great - so active and versatile, well suited for the age group and full of activities.

This is probably the future, but there is definitely a barrier. The producers of such a course is a corporation. E-learning needs to be within the ability of a teacher - of the content provider. There is a niche to be filled of software which can be visually programmed for different activities, and games, being at the same time compatible with elearning standards and course editors.

It is a huge challenge - to make technology accessible to the content provider.

2. What was particularly interesting/boring in this week?

Useful common documents in an online course:

These documents could include

• a personalized letter of welcome for each new student.

• general information about online learning, technology requirements, and the resources available to students for technical help and for obtaining the proper software and Internet services required for the course.

• information about how to access the course on the Web, and how to navigate it it successfully.

• student log-in and password information for course Web site.

• rules, procedures, and help for use of the interactive tools.

• a course syllabus—preferably on public pages so that prospective students can see what they are getting into in advance—including instructor or tutor contact information; a course overview; a course schedule; a list of required text and materials (if applicable); clearly defined academic and computer skills prerequisites; clear communication about expectations; instructions about activities, assignments, and deadlines; faculty contact information and office hours; and student support contact information.

• administrative regulations, including guidelines on plagiarism, privacy, academic appeal procedures, library facilities, and access to counseling and advisory services

Good practice in undergraduate education:

1. Encourages contacts between students and faculty.

2. Develops reciprocity and cooperation among students.

3. Uses active learning techniques.

4. Gives prompt feedback.

5. Emphasizes time on task.

6. Communicates high expectations.

7. Respects diverse talents and ways of learning.

http://www.tltgroup.org/programs/seven.html

• Develop tolerance for ambiguity (recognize that there may be no “right” answer to a given question, emphasize cognitive flexibility).

• Use scaffolding principles (create material that is slightly too difficult for the student, to encourage cognitive “stretch”).

• Use problems that require students to understand and manipulate course content.

• Create opportunities for high levels of interaction, both student-student and instructor-student.

• Integrate formative assessment throughout the course.

3. Was there something you didn’t quite understand and want to know more
about it?

4. What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

Requirements for web designer:

Below is a partial list of the types of applications that programmers typically work with in a Web-based course.

Open-source code-based programming languages include

• Hypertext markup language (HTML)

• Java

• Javascript

• Perl

• Extensible markup language (XML)

• PHP

• MySQL

Proprietary GUI Web-development software packages include

• Macromedia Dreamweaver^®, Flash^®, Director^®, Authorware^®

• Microsoft .NET^®, Visual Basic^®

• Adobe GoLive^®, Photoshop^®, Illustrator^®

Reigeluth distinguishes two kinds of instructional design: basic and variable methods.

The basic methods are principles. They are true under appropriate conditions regardless of the program or practice (variable methods). A practice is a specific instructional activity. A program is a set of prescribed practices. Practices implement underlying principles. A given instructional approach emphasizes the implementation of one or more of these instructional principles.

Effective learning environments are those that are
problem-based and involve the student in four distinct phases of learning: activation of prior
experience, demonstration of skills, application of skills, and integration.

Learning is facilitated when:
· Learners are engaged in solving real-world problems.
· Existing knowledge is activated as a foundation for new knowledge.
· New knowledge is demonstrated to the learner.
· Knowledge is applied by the learner
· Knowledge is integrated into the learner’s world.

Online just as offline teams go through the group dynamics:

the beginning is orientation and defining of roles and responsibilities. In online collaboration groups are also slowed in the beginning by learning the technology, but once it is done, they go ahead and synchronize their efforts towards common learning goals.

Synchronous communication through chat makes it possible for groups to discuss issues and clarify their common goals.

Wiki becomes ever more popular for collaborative learning online.

Teams develop their own rituals to strengthen identity, culture and motivations, they allocate tasks and create evaluation criteria.

Collaborative learning

Communities of practice
Groupware and collaboration tools

E-learning is a field of online learning, based on the technology-delivered instructions and carried out predominantly online.

E-learning is learning enhanced by technology in a new type of interactive environment. It is internet-enables, real-time delivered, individualized, dynamic, aided by development of online communities of learners , practitioners and experts.

E-learning can go beyond the world of instruction into the domain of knowledge management and creation.In this way it becomes a competitive advantage for leading edge corporations in the knowledge economy.

E-learning is predominantly learner-centered. It is fueled by the learner’s interest, motivation, time-managements abilities and goal-setting clarity.

What is e-learning 2.0?

E-learning 2.0 is related to Web 2.0 - a concept conjured by O’Reilly. It encompasses the technology and results of the existence and use of simple and open personal and collaborative publishing tools, such as blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, podcasts used for e-learning.

Open social software tools revolutionize the way of teaching through closed institutionalized learning tools.

Learning communities and individualized learning tools made the learner responsible for the learning process.

The learner has a choice of the cooperative and individual learning settings.

Online course design

E-learning makes instructional design a key. It restructures the educational processes. Learners in higher education are self-directed.

The emergence of numerous open source and open access tools and services make it possible for learners to achieve their goals in learning spaces which they have chosen and created.

E-learning not only helps a learner to gain knowledge and competences in an area of their choice, but also develops skills such as:

- ability to find and evaluate learning tools;

- ability to form expectations about the feasibility of support learning;

- composing distributed learning spaces from a set of separate tools;

- collaborating in knowledge sharing systems;

- manage one’s own learning;

- learn to perceive other people’s points of view and communicate effectively online.

 I still try to understand the whole structure of the course and try to adjust my own time so that I can schedule learning and exploration hours.

 I do not see myself in the list of participants, probably because I started my blog later.

I am going to find a group with which to work. I hope that I will be able to catch up with the course.

 I have studied in the E-learning Master Program at the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics.

Aside from studying about e-learning, I have learned the best things online. Most of the topics I have learned weren’t in a formal course. The existence of internet and the possibility of people to share their experience in numerous minute themes make it possible to find information on almost anything online. This in itself is magnificent.

I have used MSN messanger, icq, skype, aim, yugma, CommunityServer, technocrati, flickr…

 I expect to learn a lot of new software for e-learning and social networking and to learn what other people find useful and enjoyed.