Reading the chapters on Voice and Tone in Facilitating Online Learning was very interesting. I almost wish I had read these chapters before beginning my online discussions! I had no idea that there are patterns in text that provide alternatives to body language, facial gestures and voice inflections (p.105). I also didn’t know there were six voices that a moderator can have.
According to the book, the most effective and engaging moderators use three different voices. As I reviewed the six voices I was surprised that consistently used only one of the voices – the Personal Muse. This voice puts forth a personal internal dialogue about central issues; holding personal beliefs up to question (p.112). Yet, I didn’t quite use this voice correctly either. The true Personal Muse voice is usually pragmatic, rather than argumentative where there is no “winner”. Most of my posts have had an argumentative voice to them. I also used the Conceptual Facilitator voice in a number of my postings where I focused specifically on elements of other students’ postings, taking juxtapositions from readings, etc. (p.108). But again, I took more of a negative or argumentative take on many of these postings.
As for tone, I think I failed this test as well. The tones that were listed in chapter 6 (i.e. nurturing, curious, imaginative, neutral, etc.) are not tones that I used in many of my posts. I was, at times, grilling or touchy and played the devil’s advocate more than once. These are not tones that an effective moderator should take. The following examples from my posts show my argumentative, ‘my way or the highway’ style:
Post Example #1: Online learning would be sufficient for my theory course because the content of the course could easily be shared via the internet and other sources of technology. In fact, online may be even more effective because of the ‘multisensory channels’ that are available (Kearsley, 2000). However, for the clinical portion of my teaching, the context is extremely important. Students need to be able to assess their patient using all senses including touch. I, as the instructor, need to be able to visualize and guide the students in their nursing care. More importantly, the personal interaction between nurses and their patients is the foundation of our practice; it would be hard to establish trust and rapport through a computer screen, especially when most interactions are relatively short. Nursing is using more patient simulation (a mannequin) but it would be extremely difficult to depend on this technology to teach realistic, ‘hands-on’ patient care.
Because of the personal nature of nursing care, I believe Kearsley’s ‘Multisensory’ theme would be very difficult to master using only technology without any face-to-face experiences. Additionally, the ‘Unbounded’ theme would be difficult to achieve in nursing. Yes, my students are out of the traditional classroom setting but they are in hospitals, community clinics, schools and homes providing personalized care to their patients. They are ‘unbound’ to the classroom but never from their patients. Even if we were to use cameras and computers and microphones to assess our patients from afar, we would still need someone, a human, to connect the patient to a monitor or blood pressure cuff or insert the thermometer into their mouth to take a temperature, or place a stethoscope on their chest to listen to their heart and lungs so, the human ‘touch’ factor is always there on some level.
Post Example #2: Good points Ann. However, I didn't take the concept of 'just in time' learning as literally. I think it's not just about having a computer at your fingertips at all times but rather, it's the fact that just about all of the information we could ever want or need is housed in a cyberworld and it's our choice as to when, where, how and why we access it. This is really quite overwhelming to me but I do think it's true. What do you think?
After reading Chapter 7, Critical-Thinking Strategies, I learned that in order to be effective and maintain forward momentum as a facilitator, I have to strive to deepen the dialogue by offering full-spectrum questioning, making connections (i.e. between readings and personal experiences of other students) and honoring multiple perspectives (p.140). I think if I work on making my posts and thoughts less personal and more focused on readings and generating new knowledge, I will become a more effective facilitator, adding more to the discussion at hand. I have learned a lot and am excited to put these strategies to work!
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Blog #2 Book Talk
In Chapter 6 of the book, Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology, readers are introduced to the lifelong learning era of education. The authors highlighted that at the onset of the Industrial Revolution there was a concern that immigrant children would not learn ‘proper’ American values and the English language without formal schooling so Horace Mann (an education reformer from Massachusetts) fought to make school a requirement for children via state mandate. This began a system of instruction using a common curricular format.
This is still the norm today. Children learn a common array of knowledge, language and social interaction in hopes of making them more ‘American’. I read this more as making them more ‘middle-class’. We live in a middle-class, 9 to 5 society so being a part of this norm helps with social and economic success – the true American way of life. This, of course, sets up a divide between the haves and the have-nots. Schools can only be as good as their local tax levies allow so not everyone can get to the same level of education or socioeconomic status –unfortunately, this is the success that most Americans really value.
The chapter also takes a look at ‘Responsibility’ in education - who really has the ownership over educating children? The chapter highlights that over the years this responsibility has moved from parents to the state to individuals and parents. According to the authors, parents are now beginning to take some of their control back when it comes to how/when/why their children are educated. Parents are now more open to home-schooling, learning with technology (online, distance education, correspondence courses, etc.) and being more flexible with what is being learned. This sounds great but I am left wondering what middle-class America will think? I don’t believe we, as a society, have made the paradigm shift in our thinking that will make it absolutely acceptable to have a ‘home-school’ diploma in all circumstances or a degree in ‘valuable life experiences’ on our resume. Presently, I think corporate America or even local companies will glaze over the resume that includes such creative, open, ‘out of the box’ educational pathways and instead choose the person that has the piece of paper from a traditional, ‘tried and true’ educational setting.
What do you think?
This is still the norm today. Children learn a common array of knowledge, language and social interaction in hopes of making them more ‘American’. I read this more as making them more ‘middle-class’. We live in a middle-class, 9 to 5 society so being a part of this norm helps with social and economic success – the true American way of life. This, of course, sets up a divide between the haves and the have-nots. Schools can only be as good as their local tax levies allow so not everyone can get to the same level of education or socioeconomic status –unfortunately, this is the success that most Americans really value.
The chapter also takes a look at ‘Responsibility’ in education - who really has the ownership over educating children? The chapter highlights that over the years this responsibility has moved from parents to the state to individuals and parents. According to the authors, parents are now beginning to take some of their control back when it comes to how/when/why their children are educated. Parents are now more open to home-schooling, learning with technology (online, distance education, correspondence courses, etc.) and being more flexible with what is being learned. This sounds great but I am left wondering what middle-class America will think? I don’t believe we, as a society, have made the paradigm shift in our thinking that will make it absolutely acceptable to have a ‘home-school’ diploma in all circumstances or a degree in ‘valuable life experiences’ on our resume. Presently, I think corporate America or even local companies will glaze over the resume that includes such creative, open, ‘out of the box’ educational pathways and instead choose the person that has the piece of paper from a traditional, ‘tried and true’ educational setting.
What do you think?
Saturday, June 5, 2010
BLOG Post #1
I have really enjoyed the discussions in this course but my favorite activity has been the Personal Preference Profile. I liked this assignment because there was an activity involved that didn't guarantee that everyone would come up with the same answer.
Sometimes with discussion, I find myself struggling a bit with trying to come up with something new and profound to say (ok, maybe profound isn't the goal here) but I don't want to duplicate or jump on someone else's bandwagon all the time so taking the Kindomality survey and then writing about the results and what I thought about the results was refreshing.
On top of that, I then got to read everyone else's posts which was really interesting! Even though most of us were 'Shepherds', our summaries or thoughts about what that meant to us were all different. Even more fun was hearing about the personalities that were different than our own! It was a small, probably unscientific survey but it really helped us open up and look at some of our similarities and differences as a group. Additionally, it was multifaceted so one small survey lended itself to about 3 different activities and outcomes.
The social part of the assignment was really what was most important to me. One of our readings for this week talked about the 'human dimension' in online learning and how important this. Additionally, in Facilitating Online Learning, there was a section that talked about a group of online students that got together after the course was over and found themselves laughing and hugging and genuinely happy to see each other even though they had never met. I think it's activities like the Kingdomality survey that help groups get to know each other personally and become more cohesive which I'm finding is extremely important in online learning!
The only negative for this assignment as well as some of the other discussion threads is that some students go on really early and others go on closer to the assignment's due date so most times the same people are usually responding to each other which isn't necessarily negative but I think it would possibly help if students were told to add some variety to who they reply to. For instance, telling students to respond to 2 different students each week may get the diversity of thoughts needed and also help to foster a relationship between students that have not had as many opportunities to interact with each other because their schedules are different.
I have really enjoyed the discussions in this course but my favorite activity has been the Personal Preference Profile. I liked this assignment because there was an activity involved that didn't guarantee that everyone would come up with the same answer.
Sometimes with discussion, I find myself struggling a bit with trying to come up with something new and profound to say (ok, maybe profound isn't the goal here) but I don't want to duplicate or jump on someone else's bandwagon all the time so taking the Kindomality survey and then writing about the results and what I thought about the results was refreshing.
On top of that, I then got to read everyone else's posts which was really interesting! Even though most of us were 'Shepherds', our summaries or thoughts about what that meant to us were all different. Even more fun was hearing about the personalities that were different than our own! It was a small, probably unscientific survey but it really helped us open up and look at some of our similarities and differences as a group. Additionally, it was multifaceted so one small survey lended itself to about 3 different activities and outcomes.
The social part of the assignment was really what was most important to me. One of our readings for this week talked about the 'human dimension' in online learning and how important this. Additionally, in Facilitating Online Learning, there was a section that talked about a group of online students that got together after the course was over and found themselves laughing and hugging and genuinely happy to see each other even though they had never met. I think it's activities like the Kingdomality survey that help groups get to know each other personally and become more cohesive which I'm finding is extremely important in online learning!
The only negative for this assignment as well as some of the other discussion threads is that some students go on really early and others go on closer to the assignment's due date so most times the same people are usually responding to each other which isn't necessarily negative but I think it would possibly help if students were told to add some variety to who they reply to. For instance, telling students to respond to 2 different students each week may get the diversity of thoughts needed and also help to foster a relationship between students that have not had as many opportunities to interact with each other because their schedules are different.
Welcome!!
Ok, I think I've got the hang of it now! Welcome to my BLOG everyone!!
Ann, thanks for your message on my former BLOG page - I came up with the phrase 'teaching to learn while learning to teach' at about 1am. Amazing what the brain thinks of when it's running on fumes! I had no idea what that statement meant in the morning! :-)
Treesa, thanks for telling me about blogspot.com!! Much easier!
Ann, thanks for your message on my former BLOG page - I came up with the phrase 'teaching to learn while learning to teach' at about 1am. Amazing what the brain thinks of when it's running on fumes! I had no idea what that statement meant in the morning! :-)
Treesa, thanks for telling me about blogspot.com!! Much easier!
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