Shhh An Academic Went to #DevLearn

Don't tell any of the attendees at #DevLearn2011 but there was an academic in their midst this week! In fact, I was warned in advance not to "act like an academic." Since I profess right from the title of this blog to be ignorant, I decided that this was yet another area of my ignorance.

Truth be told though I wasn't the only academic at #DevLearn! We were however a minority population and we shouldn't be. This is one of my big takeaways from a wonderful conference! I have a whole series of takeaways and Aha's to share.

For those who are not aware #DevLearn is one of a series of conferences put on by @eLearningGuild #DevLearn has the well-deserved reputation of being the foremost, and the edgiest, conference on eLearning.

The underground definition of eLearning is corporate eLearning, aka The Training Department. One of the major buzzes throughout the conference was how to make training more informal, social, just-in-time, experiential, collaborative...

Hmm! Wait a minute, I hear a lot of these terms when talking about how to make K-12 and higher education better. I am sure though there is some big difference between the corporate and the academic versions of eLearning.

So I kept my mouth pretty much shut and continued to listen. In one of my first conversations a gentleman was talking about the conversion of his face-to-face (f2f) two day 8 hours/day training into an online format.

Those who know me well know that the term conversion is a hot button. I firmly believe eLearning cannot be "converted" from f2f. Courses, training, whatever you call the learning events, must be engineered completely differently than f2f trainings if they are going to be effective.

This gentleman went on to say that converting the trainings into 8 hour online sessions wasn't effective for the facilitators or the learners. He was looking to chunk the content more, stretch out the training, give people time to absorb the information and practice the skills.

Sounds a lot like teaching best practices in general. In fact his f2f sessions would probably be a candidate for chunking the content and giving folks time to practice the skills. But once again, I was thinking like an academic. I nodded in agreement but didn't once mention pedagogy or learning theory or brain research but he sure could have used some of that knowledge about how people learn.

There were many such times throughout the conference experience. I left Las Vegas yesterday thinking...

1. K-12 and higher education are doing a LOT of eLearning. They should be at this table in eLearning Guild, and at #DevLearn talking about and thinking about how people best learn online.
   
2. Corporate eLearning and instructional designers could learn a lot from "academics" and academics can learn a lot from corporate folks. We should be encouraging this conversation, not discouraging it.
   
3. eLearning whether it is corporate or academic is still, despite all the talk about informal learning, organized around training events. Call them courses which are a semester long, or an 8 hour 2 day training (both are training events), there is very little true informal learning happening.

And shhhh I am told that a certain Russian educational theorist... by name Vygotsky, was mentioned in a Friday morning presentation. I saw it on the Tweet stream! I guess I am not the only one who needs to not "act like an academic!" Vygotsky... Vygotsky! Still laughing!

This ignorant academic has more insights about #DevLearn, informal learning, how people learn. Stay tuned!

Begging for communication

Can I just say... I hate to beg. Does anyone really like to beg someone for communications? Probably not, but it is becoming a real pet peeve with me.

Several business people I have been dealing with... Well let's just say I believe if they want my business they will provide some service and will communicate with me. I shouldn't have to keep asking and begging for the information I want/need to move forward with a business arrangement. Grrr

And as an online instructor I shouldn't have to beg students to communicate with me. A couple of recent instances have me really perplexed. I wasn't sure one student was getting my messages. In my emails I said, please let me know if you are getting my messages. Can I be more clear than that? I expect you to reply. I shouldn't have to tell you to reply, as a matter of courtesy a student should say "Thank you I got your message about blah and I understand/will do the following..." I am very prompt at returning student emails... they should promptly let me know they got my message.

In another case a student let me know after a multi-week disappearance from an online class that they had a medical issue. Unless you are in a coma, please ask someone to open your email and send a quick message to the instructor letting them know there is a medical emergency. In this case the medical issue wasn't an emergency at all and the student could have advised me about the need for an extension of due dates. However since the student did not contact me in advance or at any time during the several weeks of absence nor were there replies to my messages asking if there was a problem, I had no choice but to apply the late policy.

Communication is a two-way street. Students have a responsibility to communicate with instructors. And instructors have a responsibility to reply in a prompt, informative manner. Making me beg repeatedly to find out if the student is getting my messages offering technical assistance so I know if the help worked just ticks me off. And I end up writing a blog posting! In this case I guess the ignorance lies with the online student population. Hopefully the following plainly stated message helps dispel that ignorance: Students... you have a responsibility to communicate with the online instructor!

Teaching comes before Technology even in the dictionary

I have had a long email conversation with a student who is creating online technology integration training for teachers. I realized this is a conversation which should be shared...

The conversation began when I put this comment on a recent assignment.

Teaching comes before technology even in the dictionary (quoted from Making the Move to eLearning). I would propose that you teach teachers how students can learn more effectively when using technology and not teach them about specific tools. If you look at the NETS-T standards from ISTE you will see the emphasis is not on tools and technology tips/tricks but on what technology can bring to learning. My little soapbox, I will get off it now but I couldn’t let this pass without asking for the focus to be curricular, not on tools.

My student replied... Whoa! Thank you. That expression is closer to what I was hoping to accomplish with Technology training for teachers. If teachers can use various multimedia to excite, peak interest and curiosity then the end result is more internalization of knowledge and skills for the students.

This has been my quandary since I started thinking about technology training for teachers a couple of years ago - do I present information on the 'how to' side of technology tools so teachers can become proficient using them? The expectation is once they know how to use technology, they will incorporate it in their lessons because they will understand its impact on their students. The other side is do I present the information of technology tools and their impact and leave teachers to their own devices on acquiring the 'how to' skills?

What I proposed in an earlier class was combining them by teaching the 'how to' side and requiring that the teachers use reality (project based) lessons to demonstrate an understanding of technology's use in the classroom. Am I on the right track with this?

Quite honestly, if I had my way in the classroom, those that have smart phones or notebooks would be able to use them in the class to do research. After Japan's tsunami, I used my iphone and document reader to show YouTube' videos on tsunamis and earthquakes to answer questions from a group of very nervous 5th graders who thought Alameda was going to be underwater - I had to use my iphone because the district's filter prevents access to YouTube and social sites but that's a whole other issue.

And I responded... The biggest fallacy is that if teachers know how to use a tool they will know how to integrate it into the curriculum. Really forward thinking creative teachers might, maybe. The vast majority need to see examples. If they see some examples they then can make the leap into new ways of using the tech in their curriculum area.

The way I was taught in the most intense but most valuable educational experience of my life was to be given a curricular task (just like we would give the students) be shown a few just-in-time tech skills to use with one or two tool choices, provided with or reminded of resources for figuring out other things with the tools (remember to use the Help menu... for example) and then given time and opportunity to struggle. Adults do not like to struggle but they learn from it.

Children tolerate struggling a little better, they seem more used to having to figure things out. We slowly train them out of that ability to figure things out on their own. By the time they are in high school they just wait for us to give them the answer because they know we will. If we let them create, let them find more than one answer, and if we accepted multiple forms of the answer, and we refused to step in and help them, they would keep that characteristic, but we don't. Think of how a child figures out a video game. They try, they lose, they try again and learn a new trick and make it a little farther. They share tips with friends and get a little farther. There is no manual, no help menu, they struggle and they love it. Schools train all this out of them, we teach them there is one right answer, the teachers knows the right answer, and if you wait long enough the teacher will help you get the answer they wanted all along. We might say we do something different in education, a few of us do, but the majority of education is exactly that for students... no wonder they prefer video games.

Bottom line is all the teachers are used to a world where there is one right way to do something, someone knows what that right way to do it is, and if you wait they will help you get it... Making them do something with multiple avenues to be right and letting them struggle on their own somewhat is good for them but uncomfortable.

The intermediate step is to give them the curricular task, give them a few skills to get them going, provide them with scaffolded resources in case they need them and a support network of other learners, and then help them before the frustration level is so great that they quit. The real trick in online ed is knowing when their frustration level is getting too high and it really is an art in online ed and I freely admit I have screwed up more than once and let someone get too frustrated.

This is a really long answer to tell you that I would suggest you design curricular tasks and projects and embed the necessary skill-building and resources into the support for the tasks. And keep the lines of communication open between them and other students, and between them and you.

In all fairness... I do have a dream job!

As promised... The benefits of being an online adjunct

Continuation of the Open Letter to University Administrators and HR Personnel:

Previously I detailed the cost-savings to the universities for whom I work as an online adjunct working at a distance. There are however myriad ways that I benefit from working at a distance. These help to mitigate the lack of benefits and resources of being an on-campus faculty member.

First of all, I can work from anywhere, anytime. If my best time of day is 4 AM that is when I do my course work. If I choose to work from my sofa or a coffee shop, I can do so. As long as my work is done regularly no one questions any aspect of my work attire, location, timing, etc. I don't have to cancel class because of a doctor's visit, I work before and after the appointment, or from the waiting room on my smartphone! My costs for attire are nil, literally I can teach in any stage or style of dress and no one ever knows. My costs for broadband and wireless are my own to bear but if I choose to take off to New York to see the grandchildren I can work from the airport, in the air with on-board wifi, and from the apartment once the grandchildren have been spoiled and are off to bed. My laptop and I have worked from Edinburgh, London, Maui, San Diego, San Antonio, New York, Philadelphia and other locales.

The workload varies by day, week, month, and time of year and I can balance the rest of my life around the work. Some days I have a lot of grading or course site preparation and must work for 6 or 8 hours. On other days I answer emails and respond to discussion boards in less than an hour with the rest of the day at my disposal.

My work can be done on my choice of equipment. Whether Mac or PC, smartphone or tablet, desktop or laptop; the equipment and software are my own. As long as I can access the course sites I can use any equipment and browser I like.

There are few if any staff meetings which I must attend. This varies with the university, a few do have web-based meetings which require attendance but these are always archived and can be accessed at a later time if I cannot attend online at the stated day/time. For the most part it can be said, there are no staff meetings, no committee meetings, and no one popping into my office to talk, or summoning me to their office on demand. The few administrators whom I deal with are truly wonderful people who fully understand the unique nature of online learning, and the student population in our courses. We keep in touch by phone or email. These fine administrators work very hard on behalf of all the eLearning faculty and insulate us from the many periphereal issues swirling around on campus which don't impact our courses.

When I explain what I do and how I do it to people they tell me I have a dream job. And I do! I know I do. Do I think universities are making money off me as a distance educator? Yes! Would I trade this and go back to faculty meetings, face-to-face sessions at specific times, parking, traffic, dealing with office mates, and being tied to one location for a whole semester? No! Never! I do love my dream job and I know that with every job comes a few drawbacks.

It works because I've made it work. I've curated a full time job by piecing together courses from several institutions, freelance-style, within an educational industry that has yet to figure out what its going to be when it grows up and become technologically self-aware. I am one of number of the early adopter online faculty - there are more like me scattered about, in coffee shops and home offices. For now, we are pioneers, but that status is rapidly changing.

Now... back to answering student emails from my sofa in front of the fireplace while still wearing my pajamas at 9 AM.