Comments on: Distributed Online Learning Frameworks

By: Anne Marie Cunningham

Anne Marie Cunningham — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:53:42 +0000

Hi Mike
Thank you so much for the great reply. It has made things so much clearer.
I see now the benefits of the distributed model. I suppose I have been making some moves towards this by encouraging students to use delicious as a social book-marking tool. There is no SB tool in Blackboard (yet) but I am also aware that students need a way of keeping hold of their resources beyond university.

Next, my query about public/private was not particularly related to the dangers for health related professions, though I am aware that this could be an issue. I use a discussion board to handle queries from 300 students, rather than respond to individual emails. This may save me some time as students may be finding that I have answered a similar query already. But my main motivation has actually been that it could be useful for students to see the interactions that I have with other students. So I do believe in being public to a certain extent. But I also feel that at least within Blackboard students are protected. If they say or do something silly then it stays within Blackboards walls so it is a relatively safe place. But if our discussions were completely public then this could have negative consequences for some. Perhaps I am being over-sensitive about that. Some students told me that others may be more likely to post on the discussion boards if they could do so anonymously but I thought that any possible benefit of this would be outweighed by the reduction in information for me and others. At the end of the day if a student emails and says that they want some advice in private then I respond to them by email. This happens rarely.

So thank you again for your great answers. And it was so much nicer to watch and listen to you than just read a reply. And you do anything but ramble!

I am also thinking about the networked learning model. While I can appreciate that learning takes place through interaction, I suppose I doubt that the collective as a whole has the intelligence, rather than being distributed throughout the collective.

I must dig out your posts on networked learning too!

By: Anne Marie Cunningham

Anne Marie Cunningham — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:39:30 +0000

Hi Mike
Thank you so much for the great reply. It has made things so much clearer.
I see now the benefits of the distributed model. I suppose I havce been making some moves towards this by encouraging students to your delicious as a social book-marking tool.

Next, my query about public/private was not particularly related to the dangers for health related professions, though I am aware that this could be an issue. I use a discussion board to handle queries from 300 students, rather than respond to individual emails. This may save me some time as students may be finding that I have answered a similar query already. But my main motivation has actually been that it could be useful for students to see the interactions that I have with other students. So I do believe in being public to a certain extent. But I also feel that at least within Blackboard students are to a certain extent protected. If the say or do something silly then it stays within Blackboards walls so it is a relatively safe place. But if our discussions were completely public then this could have negative consequences for some. Perhaps I am being over-sensitive about that. Some students told me that others may be more likely to post on the discussion boards if they could do so anonymously but I thought that any possible benefit of this would be outweighed by the reduction in information for me and others. At the end of the day if a student emails and says that they want some advice in private then I respond to them by email. This happens rarely.
So thank you again for your great answers. And it was so much nicer to watch and listen to you than just read a reply. And you do anything but ramble!

By: Mike Bogle

Mike Bogle — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:19:22 +0000

Inspiring change, modelling openness {seesmic_video:{“url_thumbnail”:{“value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/glh2xTYwuy_th1.jpg”}”title”:{“value”:”Inspiring change, modelling openness ”}”videoUri”:{“value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/sLVoKVgjTf”}}}

By: Giedre

Giedre — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:54:54 +0000

Fantastic vision, Mike! Could every course in the uni have something like this? Oh, wait… Why don’t we pay BB to do much less and lock everything up instead…. ?

By: Mike Bogle

Mike Bogle — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:23:29 +0000

Distributed course models, networked learning, openness {seesmic_video:{“url_thumbnail”:{“value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/WnBzQ02AWo_th1.jpg”}”title”:{“value”:”Distributed course models, networked learning, openness ”}”videoUri”:{“value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/BKvsrOGGdD”}}}

By: Anne Marie Cunningham

Anne Marie Cunningham — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:15:19 +0000

Hello Mike
Thank you for picking this up and running with it. I guess, I’d like to know what the advantage of this distributed model is over using a VLE, like Blackboard. Why could distributed be better?

Next, one of the reasons Silver seems to choose this approach is that is it open and public. Why is this better? Is learning in public really better than private? And if so why?

I think that these are pretty fundamental questions and may come under the aspects you didn’t have time to cover tonight. I’m sorry about that!

I guess we will be hearing a lot more about these ideas:)

Anne Marie

By: E-Learning Tyro

E-Learning Tyro — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:10:03 +0000

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