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Here are several items on the general theme of online learning that have caught my attention recently…

TOP OF THIS LIST: Learning in Communities, by Stephen Downes, LearnScope, March 4. This is some of the clearest thinking about online learning that I’ve read in a long time. Excerpts:

“With the discussion and – dare I say it – hype surrounding online courses, learning objects, and other forms of online content, people have to a large degree stopped talking about the idea of the learning community. But they shouldn’t. Learning – even online learning – still occurs for the most part in communities. Students take part in online classes and seminars, they exchange thoughts and ideas in mailing lists and on discussion boards, they work in project teams and work groups. The concepts of learning and community are almost inseparable, even for the self-study student…”

“…There remains a great deal of misunderstanding regarding the role and implementation of online discussion and online communities in online learning. Probably the greatest misapplication of online community lies in the idea that it is an adjunct to, or following from, the creation and design of an online course. This is perhaps most clearly exemplified by the existence in itself of course discussions. In more institutions that I can count, when a course is offered online, the discussion community is created with the first class and disbanded with the last. The community owes its existence to the course, and ends when the course does.”

Brilliant! This should be required reading for everyone in the online learning world. (Thanks to Collaborative Learning Environments for this link.)

Read the rest of this list…

1. Learning is fundamentally a social activity and don’t you forget it! That’s according to Maish R Nichani’s Nov. 25 eLearningPost article. Nichani blasts a Nov. 24 EContentMag article Elearning on the Rise: Companies Move Classroom Content Online, which covers the business world’s current conventional wisdom about e-learning. Of this sort of “shovelware” approach to e-learning, Nichani says, “…It’s like old wine in new bottles. Instead of having instructors regurgitate bullet-points to numb students, now we have multimedia on the web to do the same, only more effectively and efficiently. …E-learning is not about providing multimedia instruction just-in-time; it’s about providing the raw materials for learners to think purposefully about a problem and to negotiate its meaning in a group setting.” Right on, Maish! The e-learning emperor has no clothes!
2. M-Learning with Disadvantaged Kids , by Nancy White, Full Circle Associates, Nov. 2. M-learning is learning delivered via mobile technology. I really didn’t know anything about this until Nancy clued me in. It’s got intriguing possibilities, especially in the developing world or impoverished communities where computer access is scant but cell and satellite phones are becoming ubiquitous. Here’s one m-learning project. Cool stuff!
3. Contrarian finding: Computers are a drag on learning, by G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 6. According to a major new German study, when a youth’s still-developing brain is overexposed to computers, long-term learning ability may suffer. Seems more about correlation than causality to me, but the study is very large, involving 175,000 15-year-old students in 31 countries. Worth considering. (Thanks to eLearnSpace for this link.)
4. Porn class underenrolled, by Alex Halavais, a communication professor at SUNY Buffalo. This is about a conventional classroom-based class, but he’s including a lot of online components. So why was it underenrolled as of Nov. 10? He writes, “There are a couple of possibilities. The catalog system says that instructor permission is required. It’s not, and students can enroll directly, but that may be tripping people up. Or, people might just be afraid of the content, which is strange but possible.”
5. Experience with a blog-only class. Here’s another one from Alex Havalais. He’s in the midst of experimenting with offering a class via a group weblog. So far, he’s underwhelmed by this approach. Motivation appears to be a key issue. A requirement for the class is to post regularly to the blog, but several students are not doing that. In Responses to the weblog-only class (Dec. 6) Havalais writes, “I don’t think it’s that students don’t want to, or can’t, post regularly. It’s just that the pattern of classes helps act as a reminder for what needs to be done and when. I need to figure out a way to encourage more frequent posting. It may be a simple metric: post three times a week and then you are good.” In this posting, he includes comments from several students in this class. While I’m not surprised that he’s less than thrilled with the results of a weblog-only class, I think there’s probably lots of room to include a weblog as part of a class – even a required or major part, especially for online learning.
6. Use of Narrative in Interactive Design, Boxes and Arrows, Oct. 28, by Nancy Broden, Marisa Gallagher, and Jonathan Woytek: In e-learning, it’s crucial – but challenging – to keep the learner psychologically engaged with the lesson. In an interactive setting, the potential for distraction or pauses is significant, which makes it far too easy for e-learners to tune out and thus miss the benefit of the lesson. In my experience as an e-learner and an e-learning developer, maintaining a strong sense of flow or narrative can be the key to success. This article isn’t specifically about e-learning, but it’s a must-read for anyone involved in e-learning.
7. Learning is about students, not tools. On Nov. 22, eLearnSpace published this first-rate article by George Siemens: Learning Management Systems: The wrong place to start learning. He starts by explaining that many e-learning projects start by choosing a major tool – the learning management system (LMS) – and then go on to design their e-learning courses. This tools-first focus is completely backward, and he explains why. (Thanks to eLearningPost for this link.)
8. Is Open Source in Your CMS Future? Speaking of e-learning tools, this Dec. 1 Campus Technology article talks about what really should be key considerations for any content management or learning management system: efficiency and customization. Open source software has a lot of potential to provide both advantages. (Thanks to Online Learning Update for this link.)
9. Learning Circuits E-Learning Trends 2004. The results of two recent Learning Circuits surveys, focused mainly on e-learning in corporate settings. I can’t say I found anything here surprising, but it is useful to stay abreast of current trends.
10. Does multimedia really enhance learning? That claim is often repeated, but is it true? On Nov. 26, Eric Tremblay says yes, and supports this with a detailed review of a 1996 article by Lawrence J. Najjar published in the Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia. (Vol. 5 Issue 2, pp 129-150, not available online) Sounds like a good read. Does anyone have a copy I could borrow for personal use? If so, e-mail me. Thanks.