Thanks for all your contributions, comments, help and advice in the past – I look forward to welcoming you to my new site.

Colin

I wasn’t convinced that trainers had the necessary skills to run engaging online events. I feared that learners couldn’t or wouldn’t participate. On the technology side of things, the Internet connections via dial-up modems were painfully slow and unreliable, and the web conferencing software was new and comparatively just out of Beta mode.

Since then, of course, nearly everyone now enjoys fast Internet connection through high-speed Broadband both at work and at home. The Web Conferencing software has evolved into a reliable platform, benefitting from over 10 years of development and enhancement. Additionally, besides having computer access at work, almost everyone has a laptop or desktop computer at home.

And so, it is within this climate, that the online classroom is now a very viable and beneficial medium for delivering learning.

Also, we have learned many lessons about it. The first lesson I learned was that the online classroom technology would not automatically deliver good learning, in much the same way as using PowerPoint will not automatically create great slide presentations. In an effective online classroom event, the technology is there to deliver the learning – and it should be transparent.

The second lesson, and the most important one, was that the classroom trainer could not simply transfer their classroom delivery skills into the online classroom. As you will discover, there are many new skills and techniques for you to learn.

Trainers need to think beyond the physical aspects of classroom, and instead create learning relationships with their learners, using the resources available to them in the online classroom. These learning relationships require the trainer to master new facilitation skills and techniques, as well as acquire mastery of different tools and resources than the ones we use when the trainer and learners are in the same room together.

Teaching at a distance does not prevent good communication, although we might sometimes feel that it hinders it. Because we cannot rely on body language to indicate the important visual cues you get from your learners, we must be more direct. Being able to identify these all-important cues, remains an important challenge for everyone who facilitates learning remotely. We must learn new techniques to obtain these cues. And we must help and encourage learners to become engaged in the lesson.

Like every training modality that has come before – classroom, CBT, correspondence courses, video, and so on, – there is no guarantee that the online training session will automatically translate into learning. The only key to effective online learning is held by two groups of individuals. The instructional designer, and the instructor or facilitator.

Effective learning builds on solid instructional design, but if you have ever seen a good classroom trainer, you know that what they do is way beyond what has been designed for the course. A trainer can bring real-life experience, humour, and adaptability to a session, and create a comfortable engaging learning experience to the learners. We must strive to bring that to the online classroom too.

In online learning sessions, it can be challenging to capture that level of connectedness that comes naturally in the classroom. However, this exciting new medium, is just that. It is technology that provides the functions and facilities to enable a trainer or a facilitator to use their new-found skills and techniques to enable learners to learn in an effective manner.

In this programme, Dr Aleks Krotoski concludes her investigation of how the World Wide Web is transforming almost every aspect of our lives.

Joined by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Al Gore and the neuroscientist Susan Greenfield, Aleks examines the popularity of social networks such as Facebook and asks how they are changing our relationships.

And, in a ground-breaking test at University College London, Aleks investigates how the Web may be distracting and overloading our brains.

View the programme

I signed up to a webcast on ‘Introducing interactivity into course creation to improve learning outcomes’ last week and was really looking forward to it. The pre-event admin was spot on and I logged on eagerly at 15 minutes before time to ensure that I had all the client software downloaded in time.

The first (slight) let down was that I couldn’t log on until 5 minutes before start time. However, I logged on and the event started.

The first thing I was disappointed about was there was no welcome, no chat, no real introduction – it just started with no acknowledgement that there was an audience. I was feeling edgy because I was the only participant showing. Was I the only attendee then?

As the session progressed, there was no interactivity of any kind – I wondered if it was in fact a recording. So I checked in the chat box – ‘no you are not the only attendee’, said the Host. Ok, so how could I interact with other delegates?

After 20 minutes still no interactivity of any kind (not even asking a question or letting me interact with a Poll or Chat question). And then Bingo! a participant entered a question in the Q&A panel. And then one of the attendees (a well-known IITT member) asked the question to ‘all attendees’ – is there anyone there? A couple of replies saying yes they were there but hadn’t realised there were more attending!

32 minutes and still no interaction, but I twigged it wasn’t a recording as the rapport between the two presenters (one in Norway I think and one in London) gave it away.

35 minutes and the presenters closed the session – no-one asked a question – and the meeting ended swiftly.

So, not a good – even decent – experience of an interactive online learning event. But I did learn some very valuable lessons from the event – how not to run such an event – and just how professional the IITT webcasts are!

Features interview with IITT Chief Executive Colin Steed. Listen to the programme.

• 11 were working on their mobiles (presumably emails, Twitter, messaging, etc. although one was playing a game),

• 5 were listening to their iPod/MP3 player,
• 3 were on their laptop,
• 2 were talking on the phone,
• 1 was reading a book
• 1 was reading a newspaper, and
• 1 (me) was watching.

I can remember not too far back (less than 5 years ago) when they were either reading (newspaper/magazine/book) or doing nothing.

Interestingly, as far back as I can remember, no-one ever spoke to each other!

This online book describes a study, funded by Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC), that involved teachers in the Faculty of Education at the University of Wollongong implementing innovative teaching approaches to support mobile learning. Palm Smartphone and Apple iPod technologies were used by undergraduate and postgraduate students to assist their learning across a range of curriculum areas.

The book outlines authentic activities, assessment strategies, and professional learning approaches that teachers across the higher education sector can easily adapt and implement within their own discipline areas.

New technologies, new pedagogies: Mobile learning in higher education is by Jan Herrington, Anthony Herrington, Jessica Mantei, Ian Olney and Brian Ferry (editors), Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong, 2009, 138p. ISBN: 978-1-74128-169-9 (online)

It is fully downloadable from this site either as individual chapters or as the whole book in pdf form.

Lynda Weinman

I have to admit I am in love with Lynda.

Now before I raise too many eyebrows, start the gossip machine working, and even give some false hope to my wife, I am spending a lot of time with Lynda Weinman – but I can explain.

Lynda Weinman is the founder of the fantastic Lynda.com learning portal and I have to admit that I am hooked on it. I worked out that I access it on average daily, and sometimes more than that.

Lynda.com contains online training for almost all software that I know. In the last six months I have learned, from scratch, Moodle, Adobe Connect Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Powerpoint 2007, Sony Vegas Pro (pro video editing software), Windows 7, Dreamweaver, Captivate, as well as many others. I am currently doing ACT!2010, which has just been released.

There is no catch – it costs around $15 a month for as much as you want. The courses are of the highest quality and work well on a standard broadband connection using Firefox (or IE). Video downloads fast!

There are special bulk licence deals for multi licences and I would urge you to check it out (www.lynda.com). You can try before you buy as a lot of the courses let you try the first few lessons free.

Lynda is addictive. Try it out now.

It doesn’t have to be new or old—just something that shaped how you view your work and do your job. I would be happy to then provide a ‘recommended by trainers’ section in this Blog.

In fact I still write and record my own music – but that’s another story.

I have been doing some research on podcasting and I recently came across a great example of how Podcasts were being used by teachers in the US. It’s from a music teacher, Barbara Freedman, from the Greenwich High School’s Electronic Music class. It’s a great example of using podcasts – and what a great motivator for the musicians too! Take a look (or should I say listen) : Electronic Music Podcasts

A great way of using graphics with the podcast too – it adds something doesn’t it?

Music lessons were never like this in my day! Oh how I wish they were.