Week 15: Final course reflections

After reflecting on my semester's worth of blog posts for this class, I realized many of my views about online schooling aspects have changed:

• How I viewed online schooling as a disruptive innovation has shifted. In week 1, I viewed online learning purely as a “shift in the learning platform” and as “an opportunity” (Christensen, Chp. 4, “Disruptively Deploying Computers”). By Week 14, I saw the effects of disruptive innovation in a more complex light, recognizing the value of a blended traditional and online schooling approach. (I wrote about this extensively in the class discussions forums).
  
• I am much more skeptical of for-profit virtual schools than I was at the start of the semester; I wasn't aware of the online schooling marketplace, its stakeholders, and the power many wield. With the resources some for-profits have, they're able to produce more professionally marketed web sites and can offer more multimedia in their courses. On many of the district virtual school sites, their sites look very “template-made” and they offer little in the way of multimedia; this less-professional look could put them at a disadvantage in the marketplace, even though their product may be equal or better than what is offered at for-profit outlets. (Sometimes these entities aren't in direct competition for the same students, however.)
  While I think for-profit virtual schools can offer a quality education, research we read definitely pointed to instances where, time and again, online schooling was used to either save money for a school district or make money for a for-profit company. This issue has stayed with me because in a for-profit world, if these schools ever stop making money and their investors decide they are too costly to continue operating, what will happen to the education they offer and the role they play in the school world (and marketplace)? Where will their students go if they close? I think that non-profit and not-for-profit models must be supported to provide stability in a rapidly changing and uncertain marketplace. (Could online schooling for-profits be experiencing some sort of bubble? I don't follow their stock prices -- I'm just curious about this based on other bubbles the U.S. economy has recently experienced.)

• After taking this class, I thoroughly know what virtual schooling is and how it will continue to play a huge role in every aspect of education, presently and increasingly in the future. I spoke to a representative from K12 on the phone, looked at many other virtual schools' web sites, read what other students in the class discovered, interviewed other online learners, and delved into the assigned studies and articles. I now have first-hand experience with the online school world outside of TC classes (which are the only online classes I've taken), and this knowledge has made me both an “educated consumer” and an “educated educator."

• The mid-term project creation, and review of other students' work, provided me with direct experience and a wide perspective of how different online curriculum must be from f2f/traditional curriculum in order to be successful. Online schools offer such amazing possibilities to support multimodal expression and learning.

• Student-to-student interaction, synchronous vs. asynchronous discussions, offering how-to-succeed in online class orientations vs. not offering them, credit recovery motives vs. extra enrichment reasons to take online classes, professional development to help new online instructors understand what world they're stepping into, accountability and assessment in online schooling with so many different course providers – all these issues are vitally important to understand, and I wasn't as aware of them at the class's start.

• While virtual schooling is a very strong educational platform, it is not appropriate for elementary and lower middle school grades. Before I took this class, I wasn't aware that anyone had even considered online schooling for younger children; I now know with more surety that this format isn't developmentally appropriate for all ages.

Overall, I am an even bigger supportive of online schooling now because I've learned how it can be made an optimal experience, the factors that can detract from quality, how popular this format is becoming, and how important it could be to guaranteeing more access and equity in education -- IF it is done in thoughtful, carefully designed ways with the priorities on quality education for all. In addition, more and more online schooling opportunities are being offered, of varying qualities and for many different reasons and student groups. Because of this, there are countless areas of research which need to be looked into as this new field grows.

Week 14: The most difficult aspect to researching final project

One of the most difficult aspects of the research was finding conclusions and answers to my research questions. MOOCs are a very new format of digital online learning (starting in 2008). Not many studies have been done about them. The few that exist are qualitative and rely on small sample sizes for data. Still, they have succeeded in capturing and confirming the difficulties of participating in a MOOC: primarily, its lack of structure and too much information to process; secondarily, if one isn't comfortable with the software and websites needed for participation, many barriers to deep engagement.

Ideally, I would like to have found out answers about how participants benefit from MOOCs, looking at the different participation levels at which they self-select and how they handle processing so much information and making sense of it. I think there are many research possibilities here: self-regulated learning (is this a skill that can be taught?), dealing with cognitive overload and lessening its effects, how design/tool usage can help people process information better. No studies have yet been done about these aspects.

I found the three levels of participation interesting and worthy of study, as it seems that participants are getting different benefits from all three. Lurking, which consists mostly of reading posts in discussion forums, is available to all. Being “memorably active”, which requires creating projects and offering them to the group for feedback, entails being fluent in any media creation software, time to make the project, and already having a fair amount of knowledge on the topic. I can assume that, as with all learning, MOOC participants “start where they are”; are there conditions, however, that should be met prior to participating in a MOOC which could optimize the benefits of it?

Running my own survey gave me answers that I needed in order to confirm my experience and to help me think about how to adapt MOOCs for middle and high school students. Through the generous idea sharing and anecdotes from the self-selected sample, I read about many helpful ideas and insights that I could use in developing a MOOC for younger students. At this point, it is still a lot of trial and error, as with many other parts of online learning. I'm seeing more clearly how, with a group working together on it, educators will eventually figure out best practices, models and designs.

Recommending that we do interviews was a great idea, as it provided me the opportunity to get information that I needed to learn more about the relatively new and quickly evolving field of online learning. In these conversations, via Skype and email, I was able to ask questions that helped me fill in gaps in my knowledge about the topic. They acted as supplements to the information found in the few studies. Since I think that well-done qualitative studies can be very useful, and these interviews could be the basis for doing a more in-depth set of interviews on the topic, they might point me in the right direction for some conclusive findings about how MOOCs work.

New questions:

-When a field is very new and there are few studies available, how are these initial studies viewed?
-What is the best way to conduct research on topics that have so many variables?

-When a topic has very few studies to orient researchers, what is the best way to approach research?

Week 11: More research is needed, quality traits are emerging

To figure out the benefits and weaknesses of online schooling, more research is needed. In order for that to happen, educational researchers need more funding, time and freedom to pursue the emerging frontrunners seen as crucial elements of online schooling. This week's readings highlighted the following three:

1. group discussions (text, audio, video) to facilitate "learning through dialogue" (A. Brown et al., 1998; A. L. Brown & Campione, 1994; Lea & Nicoll, 2002; Rogoff, 1994; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994 in Haavind, 2006)
2. student-student interaction
3. how courses are designed

The primary role of discussion seems an established norm of high-quality online schooling. Online school designs that put the teacher in the sage-on-stage role, possibly cutting into s-s interaction and discussion, should be avoided or at least minimized. Online curriculum designers need to not only keep the end user in mind, but also the optimal learning environment needed to promote in-depth discussion, metacognition, process learning, and asynchronous (allowing for time and reflection) meetings. Have online schooling design standards been established yet?

 After reading Zucker, I began to think more about how funding requirements and timeframe could affect study outcomes, and most probably do quite regularly. Ideally, they shouldn't, but the money/timeframe element will always be a part of how research is conducted. These constraints must be fully acknowledged in research findings when discussing study outcomes.

Week 10: Reflections on virtual schooling -- an effective learning format!

I've had a few grand realizations about what virtual schooling is this week. My views on online schools and schooling have definitely become more clear. Reading and discussing the three meta-analyses helped me realize that:

1. Virtual schooling has many strong features as a format on its own. Comparing it to f2f settings may provide some useful starting points to understanding how to improve both teaching formats; however, the comparison doesn't completely answer the question. It may be time for some well-funded, extensive qualitative studies on virtual school to really show their strengths, weaknesses and complexities. Are there some available? I've discovered this week how new this field of research is, especially compared to the amount of studies done on f2f schooling, which still has many weaknesses in need of solutions.

2. Virtual schooling, in its current format, will not serve elementary school students and their learning needs well. Its current strengths depend too much on students already having many levels of computer and digital literacy skills, including how to discern information online and read, analyze, synthesize information and comment to peers. In addition, young students don't yet have the developmental capacity to organize their time, their work, online resources, and the many interactions that take place online. Many cannot even read well or comprehend what they are reading.

3. A focus on process and allowing students to reflect on what they are learning (metacognition) is a very important part of online learning. If curriculum units leave this element out, the students' educational experiences may not be as optimal. Plus, regular access to metacognitive practice usually doesn't take place in a f2f classroom. I suppose that it could, but an instructor would have to get very creative and not short-change this activity if something else came up during very limited class times.

4. Could requiring students to take more online courses make them spend more time "in virtual class" and on school work? I don't think this is a bad thing, especially if it helps students learn more and even better (though no study has proven this yet). For those of us who love school, I think all of the extra activities and access to resources are wonderful. While policy makers occasionally propose lengthening the school year to provide extra skill practice, if it were shown that online schools actually provide that practice and time, could this be the solution instead? Instead of a longer school year, how about blended f2f & online schooling year round? What would this do to summer vacation schedules? Would nature camps have to provide wi-fi to campers so they could complete their required schoolwork? What if future studies show that online learning is the most effective, rewarding and enriching way to learn? The mind reels at the possibilities and problems at what could be a vast overhaul of the educational system as we know it.

5. I keep coming back to the access problem. If online schooling becomes the norm, how do we provide access -- really solid broadband+ access -- in areas not wired and with few computers and little current software and no teachers to teach? This fast push towards online schooling as a cost-cutting measure is completely misdirected in this financial aim, and may leave more students far behind their super-wired and technologically fluent peers.

On another note: Thinking about our curriculum units from last week, the team-based approach to creating them seemed vital to the process. When I think back on all of the email exchanges, Google doc sessions, and Skype calls that Deepa and I had, much important work happened in these digital conversations. Our collaboration and idea sharing made our unit better than if we had done them individually.

Week 9: Reflections on curriculum unit/Do differently next time

The many different curriculum units presented a multitude of new ideas in various contexts. Reading about new innovations, tools and website while they are being used in someone's project reveals much more about their full capabilities and the potential problems and issues that arise in implementing them. Following are a few examples which I found inspiring and effective:

• For the 6^th grade ecology unit, I liked that there was a separate page just to contact the instructor. As course designers, we shouldn't make assumptions about what our end users know. We should make information as easy and straight-forward to find as possible.

• For the Analyzing Linear Equations unit, I thought that the link to the Khan Academy video as a supplement was carefully chosen (not too much reliability on video, just at relevant points). I liked having discussion forums for math problems, where students have to write and articulate their views on math; this is good practice not only for writing but also for students to understand and reflect on their process (meta cognition). The creators used real-world examples in appropriate assignments; preparing an oral 5-minute presentation of the final project on population growth is also related to current events, which turns a math class into an interdisciplinary field. I had not heard of "We The People" app or the K2OALT Authentic Teaching and Learning site, so that was useful to discover. In addition, they used mindmap to figure out mathematical concepts. This really intrigued me, and I am interested in seeing what student mindmaps look like on this topic.

• For the virtual visit to the Met unit, the creators showed an innovative use of Slideshare, which made their curriculum accessible from anywhere without needing to log in. Their Survey Monkey survey to get feedback from students showed awareness and value of the end user. Currently, I'm taking an offline class where after every session, the instructors ask for feedback via an online form. They do this because it keeps them in touch with how they are doing and gives an opportunity to students to express anything they want to on a weekly (dependable) basis.

• The American revolution unit introduced me to some software and sites I'd never heard of before (specifically, Museum Box; Fodey.com, Newspaper Clipping Image Generator; and Notely.net, Organization tool for students).

• The Earthquake unit made great use of Canvas (also new to me), which ordered items like links and the calendar in a visually appealing format. I like how the discussion forums link off of the calendar and how instructors included the points value of the assignment right on the page. (I think it's important to make the grading criteria as clear as possible. It's a primary component of fairness.) I'd heard about Voicethread, and it was very helpful to see a use of it. I now know some experts I can go to if I have any questions on how to use it. (It is so interesting that students can record their answers right on the video and then send it to instructors for feedback.)

What I would do differently for the next online curriculum unit I co-create would depend on the subject. Certain tools seem more universally applicable than others (e.g., Voicethread could be used with any class, while Museum Box might be better suited for the arts/humanities).

For a refurbished 2-dimensional design and art online class, I would like to add mindmapping software (as seen in Canvas), a rubric (very generally focused to allow for maximum unfettered creativity or perhaps even generated by the class), a contact page (of not only the instructors' info but also fellow students), and an ongoing survey (able to be taken at any point during the course). This would emphasize a priority on process, discussion, analysis, some scaffolding, creative freedom and end-user input as foundations for a successful online course.

Week 7: Concerns about curriculum unit

My greatest concerns in creating an online curriculum unit are figuring out how to develop a unit which engages and challenges and then how to accurately assess student progress -- from a distance.

Elements of teaching 2Ddesign in a traditional classrooms include pencils, sketchpads, and a bulletin board for critiques. This can carry over to a digital format to benefit all students, if they have full access to necessary tools.

My primary concern relating to what I've expressed above is access to tools. How will students access scanners, digital cameras, web cams and all the associated illustrating and font software?

Students will be posting their work digitally. Will image quality be enough for me and other students to tell how well they are doing?

There may be a lot of time spent in the class acquainting students with the hardware and software. Everyone should post images at the same resolution for fair critique. All students must have access to the same tools for assessment to be equitable, also.

Week 6 blog posting: Google spreadsheet, View of schools changing

Q: Did you change anything in the Google spreadsheet? If so, what? Has your view of the schools you chose to research changed from the first week you looked at them? If so, how?

A: After reviewing what I included on the Google spreadsheet, I realize that I didn't need to change anything. The original facts that I included still stand.

I do have a new appreciation, however, for how difficult it can be to foster s-s interaction in online courses that either have students enrolling/ending at different times or just have one student as a member. (Based on the info from their website and from the research I did, the K12 system seems to have many of these students.)

Also, I think that the discussion forum is an incredibly important part of online learning. For many of the online charter schools that cater to self-paced learners, I cannot see how they can get online discussion as part of the curriculum, even though it could be very enriching to students. These schools have a quandry to deal with: How do they provide the benefits on s-s online discussion, which can do the following--

• hone writing skills
• provide time and space for thoughtful reflection
• acts as an equalizer for in-class participation
• be a space for multimodal expression and additional learning (through links)
• give students practice analyzing/considering other students' writing and then responding to it

Discussions in written forms which can accommodate multimedia provide practice in many literacy areas (foundational and "new"). If online schooling students can't access this, they are missing out on a lot.

In addition, I think ensuring that curriculum is created specifically for online schooling and that teachers are trained for online instruction are both significant components of successful online schooling. As I learn more throughout the semester, I'm seeing its unique characteristics more clearly; they require those knowledgeable about them to make sure that the schools are teaching at their best.