Thoughts on RPL

Well, Ive listened to Willies input on CAPL and RPL. The history was fascinating! I have worked with CAPL to RPL three students in the National Certificate in Mental Health. It was a fantastic process. I did think in some ways they ended up doing more work than the students enroled in my course, gathering evidence can be a huge task and I don't think it is always the easiest option.

I think there is a lot more scope for portfolio based assessment in my course where students gather their own evidence but I do think it is important that this does not become too big and too much about students proving endless bits of paper evidence otherwise how does it differ from them just doing course assessments? I do think in the RPL process the onus is on students to provide evidence but Like Willie explained in her example the facilitator has a responsibility to match the evidence provided with course outcomes and I think this definatley requires some flexibility and the capacity to see links or the big picture where others might not.

In our face to face session the other day Bronwyn was talkng about courses that start with a quizz where students can test their knowledge against course outcomes, If they pass the quizz they can move on to the next bit. If they don't, they do some activities then try again. I think this concept has huge potential as an evidence based portfolio made easy.

In my course I have endless unit standard performance criteria which the students have to provide evidence of meeting. The result is tedious workbook tasks which I give little weight to. The online self directed quizz approach would be an excellent way of managing this stuff efficiently for me and students - definatly something to work towards in my flexible delivery plan.

One thing Willie mentioned which I found particularly interesting was the idea that "we learn at our points of need...we learn when we need to learn". That is absolutely true of me. I have no room in my busy little head for learning things which aren't immediately applicable. If I can't apply learning immediately it doesn't tend to go in or if it makes it in, it gets lost in the wilderness and refuses to find its way back out!

I'm not sure though that this is true of everyone. I have a high tactile element in my learning style and I think the need to apply information in order to retain it is part of that learning style. Somehow the process of application activates my internal filing system and I can store the information such that it can be successfully retrieved (some might call this deep learning).

My husband is one of those walking encyclopedia types. He scores very low on tactile qualities but very high on visual (I have practically no visual). He has the capacity to retain and recall endless bits of random knowledge picked up from beer lids, tobacco pamphlets and matchbox lids. Actually he reads a lot of science and natural history journals too but the point is that he just kind of learns all the time and it's not on a need to know basis and he doesn't need to apply it in order to retain it.

Following my CAPL experience I made my students learning journal a much more significant aspect of their work. It is an ongoing year long assessment including some structured tasks given each term and other reflective exercises or personal journalling that the students can choose to do. There is one submission date per term and students can choose to submit or not. I set significant time and space aside for reading these assessments and providing formative feedback but there are no rights or wrongs. There is a final submission date at the end of the year and students know in advance that they have to be finished by then. The flexibility around submission for this assessment has been a very successful and entirely appropriate innovation given the nature and content of the task. It allows students to explore self at thier own pace . students

Colleagues have talked about using blogs for Journal assessments but blogs absolutely would not be appropriate for human service students doing this task. Students are not journalling about their flexible learning Journey, they are journalling their life story. In human service journals the focus is on self awareness - what makes them tick and learning about what to share, how to share it, what not to share, clarifying and establishing personal boundaries, figuring out why and how they respond or react the way they do, how life experiences have imacted on their values, attitudes and behaviours, acknowledging their values, strengths, risk area's, predjudices and so on. This level of self exploration is essential in human service work to prevent workers from imposing their values and cultural expectations on vulnerable clients but it can make some students feel very exposed and vulnerable and there are frequently times when students share highly personal, intimate or traumatic life events. I myself shared some very personal life experiences during my own social work training and I'm very glad I didn't do this online.

I have been thinking that an unpublished google doc shared between student and facilitator would be a good online journal tool as this would allow ongoing formative feedback to ecourage deeper reflection while protecting the student's privacy rights.

Even more thoughts on Fexibility!!!!!

I seem to be struggling to come up with creative names for this and my previous 2 posts which have been about completing the reading and post requirements for 'Examples of Flexible Learning'.

I have read past plans - all of them as I do appreciate the opportunity to learn by example. Check out the following 2008 participants. These were the plans and blogs I particularly enjoyed;
Kristi Carpenter from Occupational Therapy
Megan Gibbons from Sport and Adventure
Penelope Kinny from Occupational Therapy

Kristi mentioned the importance of flexibility in terms of assessment due dates which I think is a particularly interesting issue. I recently wrote a policy for our school to facilitate consistent practice in submission, extension, resubmit and resit processes. We now have a strict extension policy which is what my colleagues and I wanted but in fact this doesn't fit with my own philosophy or with my personal preference. Personally speaking I like autonomy. I like not to be treated or feel like a naughty child. I like to be left alone and have people trust that I will do the necessary tasks when I can. I have tended to apply this attitude in the programme I coordinate and it has worked - It means that I have to plan for bulk marking sessions and so I do. I feel uncomfortable imposing the extension policy that I wrote because actually it is punitive and in conflict with a flexible student centred practice.

What I particularly liked about Kristi's plan and reflection was that she was thinking in terms of the interactive face to face class room environment and how she might capture or mimic that atmosphere in an online setting. From my perspective this is the single most important thing I would like to achieve in an online learning environment. Interestingly colleagues in my field of practice who are anti online learning are so because they believe that the quality of face to face interaction can not be emulated on line. I am beginning to think otherwise and in fact I feel quite excited about the challange this brings. Clearly you can not capture non - verbal aspects of communication on line but I do think that online forums allow for a depth of reflection not always experienced in face to face settings. Another related thing that is beginning to excite me about online teaching is the extent to which students become exposed to their colleagues work. I always have an urge to copy the A+ submissions and hand them out to the class but in online learning everyone can have access to each others work and I think this has huge potential in terms of raising the quality of work accross the board. Instead of there being one teacher there are twenty! Very cool.

In her plan Megan talked about the shift from expert giver of knowledge (Lecturer) to 'Facilitator' . I think that perhaps this shift is organic when you have twenty students sharing on line. I recently introduced a group of students to Google Documents. I had only just been introduced to them myself and had very little idea about how they worked. We had great fun figuring it out together. Students are using the google docs to collaborate on group work assessment pieces. They have shared their documents with me so I can check in on their progress and give them ongoing feedback and suggestions. I also really like the increased capacity for formative feedback that online teaching enables.




Megan also mentioned that she had found blogs as a median for online role plays to be much better at facilitating student connection and engagement than the Blackboard discussion board had been. That doesn't surprise me. Blackboard has limited scope for personal expression so it's not surprising that it doesn't lend itself to community building.

More thoughts on Flexible Learning

Not entirely sure why we would watch the video promoting the University of London’s distance programme. Was their something specific we were supposed to gain from this?

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the recorded panel discussion on flexible learning but sound quality could have been better. Didn't stay for it all but picked up the following;

Robyn Jay described technology as an en-richer and enabler for adult students with literacy issues and I certainly see this as being significant in terms of flexibility.

Leigh Blackall questioned the extent to which technology does enhance and enrich learning when so many people struggle with it (was he playing the devil's advocate?). I think most of the struggle people have with technology is fear of the unknown and for adult students the fear of looking stupid. I don’t think this need be an issue if people are adequately supported or scaffolded in the first instance to develop the skills they need. This doesn’t just apply to technology but to any learning environment.

Stephan Ridgway noted that online learning assumes people are self directed learners and that not all people are. He noted that in any group there are always students who are more dependant than others. This is certainly a position that I take but I take it with the view that by the end of my course students will be independent learners. It seems to me that incorporating online skills into their course is in keeping with building their independence while not doing so is utterly disempowering.

David McQuillan suggested that not being self directed is the same as not being motivated. I just want to say that I think that self direction and motivation are two entirely different things. I suggest that the capacity for self directed learning is a learnt behaviour or a learnt skill while motivation is an attitude or state of mind. I have worked with students who are initially completly lacking in the ability to self direct but they are so motivated they not only master there illiteracy but they learn to manage their own learning in a year long course. I have also worked with students who are completely capable of self directed learning but entirely unmotivated. I think it is important to keep these too things quite separate.

David also drew attention to the fact that teaching the necessary technology can be built into a course. I agree but I think that getting this right would be difficult in a wholly distant course. I would always want to have a good week or two ice breaker and course orientation where there was an opportunity to get a sense of peoples needs in a face to face environment. I think something like 90% of communication is non verbal. You cannot pick up on the nonverbal cues – facial expressions, body language and spatial positioning on line but in two weeks of face to face at the outset, you could pick up on enough to put appropriate support in place.

Leigh suggested that perhaps flexible learning by which I’m sure he was meaning online learning in some ways targets people who are advanced learners. This takes me back to Robyn’s initial comment about technology being an en-richer and enabler for people with adult literacy issues.

In my view online learning need only cater to advanced or self directed learners if it is set up to do that. My thinking is that online learning provides the flexibility to cater to all learners and that the challenge for us as teachers is to set up our virtual learning environment in a way that manages this.

Some thoughts on Flexible learning

In his article Reorganising Universities for the information Age, Annand (2007) draws attention to the age old struggle of coping with change! I love his reference to the early 19^th century uprising of the Luddites and his comparison between this group and contemporary educationalists fighting for retention of their craft. What I don’t understand is how anyone can fail to see the extent to which online learning can enhance our craft, particularly when the object is flexible learning.

Flexible learning originated in the hearts and minds of radical education reformers. It is about promoting life long learning opportunities that are accessible to all. An article in the June 2007 Economist discusses a system being developed by IBM’s India Research Laboratory in India. The system is based on something called “voice extensible markup language” and aims to create a ‘spoken web’ enabling illiterate people to access and use the internet, follow links, set up websites etc using spoken language and their mobile phones (sorry I couldn't find a decent online link). I’m not sure how the technology differs from the text converting technology used by people who are visually impaired or that which I saw in a recent TV documentary enabling severely impaired people to communicate their thoughts which are picked up and played back by computer but the point is that online technology allows people access to education who didn’t previously have it.

I do not think that online learning is right for everyone but nor is face to face. It’s simply another tool for my kete allowing me to better cater to the needs of students who are diverse in their characteristics, personalities, socio-cultural up-bringing, ethnicity, generational needs, gender needs, learning support needs, experiences in their world, maturity, emotional needs, general support needs, life circumstances and so on (let’s call all these factors learning styles). In short online learning enhances my capacity to cater to the diverse learning styles of my student group.

There is a problem with online teaching and learning options when they cease to be a tool one includes in their kete and start to be the new regime enforced by political and economic agenda’s. Unfortunately New Zealand has entered a new era and online teaching and learning are being imposed. As I see it, this climate makes it absolutely essential that I up-skill in preparation for a digitized learning environment. This is particularly so if I value the craft of teaching and value the importance of offering students a flexible learning environment. “It is the increased possibilities of instructional media and communications within the electronic environment that requires additional expertise, and this need not strip academics of their core academic responsibilities even in an industrialized setting.” (Annand, 2007).

Wow I’m back. I was beginning to think I’d never make it

Hi there everyone. This feels like a home coming. I am so excited to be back and very happy to be here. My apologies to all the lovely people who left comments on my blog and I am sorry I never responded - I will get back to you all! Unfortunately other priorities have demanded my attention and drained my energy this past term. I am an all or nothing kind of girl and so I think that I will always blog in bursts. Perhaps when my three children grow up and leave home I will have more time for regular blogging but for now work, compulsory professional development, children and husband seems to be as much as I can manage!

That said having tuned back into this course I see with some shock it is almost over. Oh my gosh but I guess that make sense since it’s nearly mid term! Anyway, lots of catching up to do so I better get stuck in.

Amber's Flexible Learning Needs!!!

Amber rang me last week to enquire about the National Certificate in Mental Health (Mental Health Support work) (Level 4). Amber had initially found out about the course through her boss who had explained to her that he was obligated via his funding contracts to ensure that she completed the National Certificate in Mental Health. He had explained that if she completed the course while working in a mental health service she would be eligible to receive a $2000 scholarship. Amber and I got talking about her situation.

Amber is 36 years old, she is a single mum raising three children and she works part time as a mental health support worker in a residential setting. By choice Amber works during the day while her children are at school and is home by three. Amber had not engaged in any study since secondary school. She had not enjoyed secondary school and was of the view that knowledge learnt in life and on the job was more valuable than what she termed 'book knowledge'. During our conversation she explained that she was 'nervous about putting herself out there' and revealed that she lacked confidence in her ability to learn in a classroom setting. She explained that she knew she could learn because she had taught herself significant computer skills but that she felt she worked at a much slower pace than others, that she was easily distracted and consequently got behind and became confused. Amber wanted to know the following;

Amber’s questions	My Response
Could she start the course immediately?	I explained that she could not as she had missed the first term and consequently missed key information that would set her up for the year.
Could she do it online in her own time and from her own home?	I explained that she could not as the course wasn’t currently online.
Could she access resources online?	I explained that she could independently access resources but that I hadn’t stored specific resources anywhere for her to access.
Could she leave at 2.30 in order to be home by three for her children?	I explained that she could if she needed to but that she would miss key material between 2.30 and 3pm and would need to either follow up with me to catch up on this or access it from peers.
Did I provide any additional support?	I explained that I ran tutorials between 3pm and 5pm after class but I acknowledged that this would be a problem for her since she had to be home for children. I explained that I had an open door policy but that I taught three days a week and was often in meetings. I explained that emailing me questions was the best option but that I wouldn’t always respond to these immediately.
How would I cater to her learning needs and to her learning style?	I explained that I was a creative teacher and made a conscious effort to cater to the learning needs and styles of all my students in teaching and assessment strategies but that because there was a range of learning needs and styles to cater to, I wasn’t able to cater specifically to hers all the time.
Since she had to come to class would there be plenty of opportunity for social interaction?	I explained that because the course was fulltime taught in one contact day per week, the contact day tended to be very busy. Consequently social interaction opportunities were typically limited to lunch times, group project work where students gathered out of class time and end of term celebrations.

Amber was articulate and her clarity about her needs made me realise how much more I could be doing to provide a flexible learning environment for students!

The Flexways site which is recommended reading from our flexible learning course provides an excellent, succinct and clear overview of flexible learning. I strongly recommend reading this. It is a great starting point.

Cheers For Now
Jenny

Totally Distracted....or is this simply my PLE!

I got on the computer sometime this morning with a view to meeting course requirements. It's now 9.18pm, Boston Legal is on in 12 minutes and I haven't done anthing that I was supposed to have done. I have;

• Spent time figuring out how to use Googlereader and note that I did have to update my password again in order to 'sign in'. I managed this without any stress so consider myself to be on the way to online literacy.

• I found the 'manage subscriptions' button (I suspect there is a more technical name than button)

• Subscribed to all the bloggers on the 2009 flexible learning participate page (was I supposed to do that?)

• Had a quick read of recent posts on these, sorted blogs into folders and generally got my head around the usefulness of this resource. It seems I can only store Blogs here or rather I can't store static web pages - is that right?

I then followed the suggested reading links that Bronwyn provided. Having read the 10 tips on writing a blog post and following a link to 23 Questions for Prospective Bloggers - Is a Blog Right for You? which outlines the qualities of successful bloggers, I concluded that I haven't really got my head around blogs at all - I thought I had! I was thinking yeh a great place for me to go blablablabla until my heart (or mind) is content but apparently not! It seems that there is a whole short and snappy technique around writing blogs the purpose of which is to attract interesting or interested follower's! Uh oh - this awaken's my competitive self - what if no one is interested in what I have to say! - Is it just me or is it kinda cult like???

I then followed Bronwyn's link My PLE is like my cooky baking to Sarah Stewarts blog and that was pretty much it for me. I spent the remainder of the day and evening on Sarah's blog and following the interesting links she provides. Sarah you have way too much interesting content on your blog!!! So far I have only done 2007 in depth. I do strongly encourage fellow newcomers to go read this blog from the beginning. Although time consuming it is fascinating to be privy to Sarah's social media/ online learning journey. It's funny, honest, informative, comforting, inspirational and in my mind, gives quite a different picture than the Ten tips link above.

Some things I learnt, discussion points and links that particularly interested me;


A PLE or Personal Learning Environment

It seems that a PLE is simply a kete filled with all the tools one chooses to use in their personal learning much as I as a social worker have tools I use in my work with people and more literally a carpenter or gardener have tools they use in their work.

This introduction to the concept of a PLE is timely as I was beginning to wonder how to manage all this new information I am learning. Online learning and Social Media is a whole new culture perhaps even a whole new world that I know so little about. I don't have schema's or a filing sytem in my brain in which to store all this new information and it is increasingly merging into a muddled mass with no clear lines or boundaries. In describing her PLE, Sarah provides a lovely visual in which her cookies have merged into a giant cookie blob on the baking tray and this perfectly captures how this feels for me. Unfortunately it's not a visual that works for me. My brain is such a chaotic place that I have to compensate by managing tangible material in orderly systems.

The idea of capturing all the tools I am discovering in a diagram appeals as a means of imposing order and thus enabling me to figure out how it all fits together or not. There is certainly much scope in this concept and I will return to it at a later date. In the meantime check out Sarah's PLE and the links to other PLEs she provides. My PLE is like my cooky baking.

I particularly enjoyed David Delgardo's explanation and the brief but very informative history he provides of Learning Management Systems (LMS) and 'e-learning' relative to PLE and 'e-learning 2.0'

I also found the following link useful.Personal Learning EnvironmentsView more presentations from Stephen Downes.

I discovered that I'm called a 'lurker'. This means I read other peoples blogs without leaving messages. Such negative connotations!!! I doubt that I will remain a Lurker - just while I am finding my feet.

I looked at a range of video's about making effective powerpoints and slide shows and I discovered 'Slideshare' via Sarah's blog. I did put links in before bu I seem to have deleted them.

Another topic that particularly interested me on Sarah's earlier posts were those discussing online identity. It's getting late so I might come back to this very interesting topic another day.

Interesting links Sarah provided that I am keen to follow up include;
"Learning to be myself" Konrad Glogowski - 8th Grade Teacher who thinks it is important that students know him as a person.
Gráinne Conole, A Professor of E-learning in the Institute of Educational Technology at the
Open University described by Sarah as having an easy, friendly blogging style.
online identity and transparency and online identity score. Michele Martin who promotes transparent online communication
Leigh Blackall struggling with the concept of whether to be a teacher or facilitator

It feels a bit strange and invasive to have delved into Sarah's online world and to have extracted and inserted bits of it in to mine.

Through the course of my journey today I also figured out Delicious and saved some links in my delicious site so all in all a lot of learning today but I haven't done the tasks I have to do. Having to do set tasks raises this question for me. If flexible learning exists on a continum from teacher directed to self directed what are the points along the continum and at what point is the learning truly flexible ?

Cheers For Now
Jenny

PS - one last thing!
I am Me and I am OkayLink to a Virginia Satir Poem - storing it here seems as good a place as any