lodeStar Learning Web Journal

By Robert "Bob" Bilyk

Evidence of our learning is often manifest in the decisions we make and the questions we ask. As accounting students, we ask for information that helps us match the best accounting method to the business: cash or accrual. In religious studies, we learn to ask probing questions to discriminate between cult and religion. In computer science, we make decisions about the design pattern that best suits the programming task. As students of pathophysiology, we ask questions and collect evidence in making decisions related to the best care of patients.

Decision-making ranks high in the taxonomies of learning objectives. To make good decisions, we need to understand the underlying facts, concepts, rules and procedures in a given domain. Good decision making can be the application of all that knowledge that we have acquired through reading, attending lectures, constructing projects and so forth. It is partial evidence that we can correctly apply what we have learned.

Although decision-making is integrated with problem-solving, in this discussion, decision-making is limited to using one’s knowledge to make the best choice out of a finite set of choices. Engaging students in decision-making scenarios has tremendous advantages.

To expand on this further, let’s look at a hypothetical online course called Choices in Small Business and Entrepreneurship. We can picture the syllabus aligned to the text. Module 1: Corporate Structure. Module 2: Forms of Organization....Module 10: Taxation. In Module 2, we can picture the course dutifully assigning the topics and the matching readings. Topic One: C-Corporation, Topic Two: S-Corporation, Topic Three: Sole Proprietorship, Topic Four: Limited Partnership, and so on. Perhaps the course aligns discussions to each of these modules. Commonly, the course aligns a test (open-book or otherwise) to the module. The students read, discuss, hopefully retain and then do their best on the test.

Creative instructors mix it up a little. They vary the strategies and develop the course beyond the read-discuss-test paradigm. For example, they introduce role-playing between a student playing the role of business advisor and a student playing a client. Another strategy they use is to require students to perform an analysis in which they read a case-study and then draw on their knowledge of the readings to construct the analysis in response to the reading.

Decision-making scenarios can be a useful strategy in the online course that 'mixes it up'. Let’s assume, for a moment, that the course organized the readings as described above and the capstone was an analysis paper. The decision-making scenario could be a stepping stone to the analysis. In the decision-making scenario, students could be introduced to a business case. In order to make the right decisions, students would draw from their new knowledge and select the right questions to ask in order to collect the needed information.

The decision-making scenario serves as a step in a progression that leads to the analysis paper. Students become engaged in something that mimics ‘real-life’. After all, their courses are intended to prepare them for application in real-life. The decision-making scenario would be engaging and provide immediate feedback to the students. Did they ask the right questions? Did they get the right background information in order to make a decision? Did they ask questions in the right order to get at the information efficiently? And so on.

A decision-making scenario is an activity that an instructor can easily set up given one of several of LodeStar’s templates. The template most commonly used by instructors to present scenarios to students in which they make decisions is Brancher. Added to Brancher’s capabilities are several relatively new templates: Interviewer, Organizer and Splicer.

In short, Brancher allows instructors to combine text, graphics, images, videos and animations in order to present content and ‘branch’ the student according to student performance or student choices. Brancher is an all-purpose template that can be used for simple presentations or complex decision-making scenarios. For more details on Brancher, search this web journal for past articles.

Given that we have already discussed Brancher earlier in this journal, let’s focus on a newer template called Interviewer.

To describe how Interviewer works, I’ll pick on another example: Basic Instructional Design. In this exercise, the student must draw from her knowledge of the course text: "Building Online Learning Communities: Effective Strategies for the Virtual Classroom" by Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt. In the scenario, the student is given an assignment by the dean to design an online course for teachers on how to integrate technology into the classroom. The college dean character in this scenario provides some information. The student is given three choices on what to do next. After choosing, the student is given feedback. The feedback becomes part of a transcript. A meter provides a visual indicator of how well the student is doing. As the student progresses a transcript is built. The student can review the transcript at any time and see each choice and the feedback given.

The example given is just that: an example. It doesn’t flesh out all of the paths that could be taken by the student. It gives a sampling of the interaction between student and content. Nevertheless, this suggests what could be done to engage students in the content. Decision-making scenarios could even be used with an on-site class. Before each decision, the class discusses the reasoning behind its choice.

To view this example, click on Designing an online course .

A decision-making activity takes time to set up. The pay-off is that students are given something novel and engaging. The online course slips out of the well-worn path of predictability. The experience will reflect well on both the course and the instructor.

By Robert "Bob" Bilyk

People recognize the wisdom of that ancient proverb - “Give a man a fish....” Generally, it is better for us to teach a skill that leads to self-sufficiency than to provide a hand-out. The way we teach online can sometimes be related to a ‘hand-out’ where we don’t really teach students how to think for themselves. Instead we hand-out information and supplant the ability for the student to figure out things for himself.

In teaching, we do it all the time. I often observe one person teaching another a computer skill. The instructor says ‘do this’, ‘do that’. The student blindly follows rarely remembering the long list of steps. The expert computer user approaches the task differently. Without knowing the precise procedure, she looks for familiar patterns and let’s her hovering mouse bring up tool tips that guide the way. When we tell the novice ‘to do this’ we are supplanting the ability of the novice to generate strategies that might not only solve the current problem, but problems that are similar in nature as well.

In online instructional settings, it isn’t a leap of imagination to picture a teacher doing something similar. ‘Learn this, ‘learn that’, ‘Here are the five characteristics of...’, ‘ The important dates are ….’, ‘Look for these signs...’ A tremendous opportunity may be lost for students to look for patterns, to generalize, to produce their own rules, to arrive at their own conclusions....in short, to think.

When learners are encouraged to manipulate and construct their own knowledge, the instructional strategy is said to be ‘generative’. When the instructor serves as the only means of supplying knowledge, the instructional strategy is ‘supplantive’.

Neither strategy works for all learners all of the time. Try teaching a starving person to fish or refrain from telling an exasperated computer user what to do. The learner and the context will suggest which strategy is best. The main point, however, is that we expand our instructional strategy tool bag and include activities that are generative in nature.

Let’s look at a simple example.

An instructor is tasked with creating a unit on design. Prior to sending out students on a webquest to explore various schools of designs in the modern period, she develops a unit to help students recognize the elements of design and to realize that they can be observed in art, architecture, furniture, furnishings...in many things.

In a supplantive lesson, she picks one of the schools of design and produces a presentation that covers the following topics:

Elements of Art
Principles of Design
etc.

She dutifully lists, with encyclopedic thoroughness, all of the elements, their definitions and examples of their use. She does the same for each of the topics. Her students read through information and complete a quiz at the conclusion of the module.

Much of eLearning is done this way and sometimes for good reason. In compliance training, which constitutes a good chunk of corporate eLearning, companies want to expose employees to information and certify that they have understood the content and completed the training.

Getting back to our design example, a second instructor takes a different approach to the design module. She wishes that her students were observant of the world around them. She wishes for her students to be observant of patterns, choices of form, color, line, texture, structure, etc; and find similarities in art, architecture, and in product design.

Her strategy is to reveal a particular design through a series of images. Let’s call it the mystery design. Each slide has two images. On each slide one of the images represents an example of Art Deco, the mystery design. The student is asked to pick which image of the pair is an example of the mystery design. Art Deco is found in architecture, artwork, furniture, furnishings. An art deco vase might be paired with a neo-classical vase; an art-deco building might be paired with a byzantine building. Students are able to repeat the exercise until, without even knowing the art deco label, they find which image represents the mystery design. To do this successfully, they must abstract from the images the principles of Art Deco design..

Here is an example of a generative activity created in LodeStar 6.3, at the time of this writing, the latest release.

http://www.engagelearner.org/lodestar/Mystery_Design/index.htm

This article belongs to a series of articles on instructional strategies. Each installment will be matched by a twitter message (a tweet) announcing the availability of the installment. When anyone wishes to respond to the topic,
hover your mouse over the message and click on the reply icon. Complete the tweet in the box that pops up and click ‘Tweet’ to send it.

You can follow us by visiting http://twitter.com/lodestarlearn

By Robert "Bob" Bilyk

Introduction

As a follow-up to the 2011 Minnesota eLearning Summit, I’d like to share a sampling of instructional strategies that an instructor can use in his or her online course and illustrate each strategy with an instructional snippet.

So, I hope you’ll follow along as I offer this discussion in a series of installments. My real hope is that this becomes the basis for dialog through Twitter.

The first installment enumerates some of the problems evident in today’s eLearning, but quickly offers several views of how to remedy the current malaise. It’s a bit of a repeat of the opening salvo of my session, but the linked example allows one to listen fully to some of the thought leaders in our industry.

Each installment will be matched by a twitter message (a tweet) announcing the availability of the installment. When anyone wishes to respond to the topic,
hover your mouse over the message and click on the reply icon. Complete the tweet in the box that pops up and click ‘Tweet’ to send it.

The messages that I and my cohorts are looking for include more examples of the strategy, Web 2.0 apps, questions, objections -- anything that will contribute to a deeper understanding of the strategy.

You can follow us by visiting http://twitter.com/lodestarlearn

Strategy One -- Open the door to your LMS and let the world in

This strategy speaks to attitude and building community. Students need to know that by completing a course topic they will be one step closer to being able to do (or think) something that they have not been able to do before. As importantly, students need to know that the content is relevant in a ‘real-world’ context. Opening the door to the ‘real world’ can be accomplished by one or more of the following:

• Stream in a YouTube Video or a channel from Blip.TV
• Make a movie of a visit to a job site, submit to YouTube and then stream the video into your course.
• Embed a Web 2.0 application that allows us to hear the viewpoint of others
  Stream in a podcast that originates at an interesting ‘real world’ setting

To do these things, I choose a new template that LodeStar Learning is working on. The template is called Splicer. It allows instructors to embed easily such content as YouTube or content that can be embedded through the use of an embed tag or IFrame. Splicer also supports embedding Zebra content. (Zebra is a cloud-based environment that enables individuals to create highly interactive games, simulations, demonstrations, etc. and publish them. We will talk about Zebra in a later installment.)

The LodeStar template named Splicer is available to anyone with LodeStar 6.0 and above. In a future installment, we’ll cover where to get the Splicer template and how to add this to your list of LodeStar tempates.

The Splicer example is called Hearing From Our Thought Leaders. Now - one disclaimer. This industry has many many thought leaders who are tremendously articulate about their area of expertise. This sampling is in no way representative of the breadth of discussion in the field of instructional design. As a matter of fact, I chose the leaders based on very different criteria. They range from respected time-tested scholars to those who offer a practitioner’s perspective or, perhaps, a very different perspective.

The following outline presents an overview of the example and why I’ve included each part.

If you’re pressed for time, here’s what to focus on. (If you have more time and want to explore more deeply, hear out each thought leader in full.)

Listen to M. David Merrill’s criticism of eLearning but hang in there as he offers what objective eLearning should really satisfy.

Listen to Michael Allen describe how his new tool, Zebra, is really a different kind of eLearning software and how it promises to introduce a playful and exploratory environment to online learning.

If you have more time, spend it with Thiagi after the 8 minute mark in the video. It will give you an interesting perspective on performance improvement instruction.

Then take time to hear how Michelle Pacansky Brock invokes the power of the human voice in her online lessons using a Web 2.0 application called VoiceThread.

In the example, you’ll also hear from Tom Chattfield, a game theorist, who lists what we can learn from gaming environments; Sugata Mitra, who describes the power of a self-organized learning community; and Eugene Jars, whose SlideShare (even without audio) highlights some important things to consider about instructional design.

Finally, I conclude with one of the most powerful ideas of all: Crowd-inspired innovation. In his talk, Chris Anderson describes the power of sharing our work on the internet and allowing that to inspire others and fuel their innovation. What would happen if crowd-inspired innovation were applied to online learning?

Conclusion: In this example, I demonstrate how the Splicer template can stream in a variety of sources and media types into an online learning activity. Splicer can easily be imported into Moodle, Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Sharepoint Learning Kit and other LMS systems and through its mash-up ability, it literally serves as a portal to the world.

In addition, the instructor can easily combine his/her own mp3 files, graphics, branching logic, and assessment items.

View the example at http://www.engagelearner.org/lodestar/Thought_Leaders/index.htm

Join the discussion at http://twitter.com/lodestarlearn

By Robert "Bob" Bilyk

Now that LodeStar 6.2 is available, in planning for the next step, I continuously reflect on what we’re trying to accomplish.

The driving force of LodeStar is to place more instructional strategies within reach of instructors who design and deliver online but are pressed for time. One of my favorite web sites for elementary instruction is the Glossary of Instructional Strategies (http://www.beesburg.com/edtools/glossary.html). It is a very simple list of all the things that teachers typically do in classrooms. The question that I often ask is that, if we enumerated the strategies commonly used in online learning at any level, how long would the list be? Are teachers challenged to vary their strategies due to technical limitations?

As I scan the research on professional development and online learning, I see a lot of discussion of policy, basic competencies, quality rubrics, and so forth, but I wonder how much the effort of so many people is translated into meaningful, relevant experiences for students. Are teachers effectively using instructional strategies to increase the probability that learning will take place? Or are we just boring our students to death?

I was recently at a dinner held in honor of an eLearning evangelist. At the dinner, I made my typical comment that many of the metrics in support of eLearning were rising favorably. Students have more access to computers; bandwidth is improving; computers are becoming cheaper, more powerful and more mobile; web services were proliferating -- all of the positive vital signs, but one: professional development. Professional development has plateaued or declined.

In response, a chief learning officer of a virtual university offered that instructors don’t necessarily make good designers of online courseware. He suggested that the work of eLearning development should in the hands of professionally trained developers. Instructors should be facilitators and supporters of content produced by others more qualified to do so.

This was the second time that I heard such a comment. The first time was at a luncheon sponsored by an educational group focused on policy. In response to the comment, one of our hosts observed that, in comparison to public institutions, private virtual colleges spent a lot more on the production of instructional resources and less on the delivery of those resources to students.

This isn’t the future that I particularly wish for online learning: that course development would be concentrated in the hands of a few. Rather, I have always held out hope that our institutions will meet the challenge of eLearning with more professional development, and... more collaboration between colleges, more mentoring, and more instructional design support. For a while the Minnesota State College and University System (MNSCU) blazed the path. Minnesota Online as well as the Center for Teaching and Learning, both part of the MNSCU system office, provided support for a statewide learning management system, learning object repository and an electronic portfolio (eFolioWorld). In its heyday, Mn Online provided grants, training, technical support, system licenses for tools, and a lot of cheerleading. Now both MnOnline and CTL have been downsized.

At a time when so many instructors find themselves creating and delivering an online course, the support system is crumbling.

One only needs to look at the courses to recognize that instructors continue to need support. Every once in a while I'll browse through an online course. I'm usually disappointed. A little professional development would go a long way.

To start, our profession has a lot to learn about motivating students -- especially younger ones.

The first impression a student gets to online learning is the stale, stalinist structure of the Learning Management System. Students who are accustomed to FaceBook, IPhone/Droid apps, and Web 2.0 – in short, a colorful, animated, mobile and connected world -- are asked to pick through the menu items that have become the standard fare for online learning: Course objectives; Required Reading; Evaluation; Teacher Bio.

The learning management system, of course, plays an extremely critical role in institutional instructional delivery – but the way it is used and what it offers is quickly becoming outmoded.

One exception is the way instructors use the discussion boards and chats in LMS systems. We all know that the only true distance in today’s education is the distance between the back of a lecture hall and the professor’s lectern. The best online instructors have done a marvelous job involving students in discussion forums -- students whose insights wouldn’t normally be heard. The best online instructors spend countless hours connecting to students and facilitating discussions. Teacher to learner interaction isn’t usually the problem. The challenge comes with learner to content interaction.

On that note, here are some things to consider.

Movies and magazine articles hook their audience interest in a few seconds. In online learning, how much stuff do students wade through before they encounter a motivational event? A motivational event might be a video, a simulation, a connection to someone currently working in the field...

Robert Gagne, a famous psychologist, talks about informing students of the objectives. On one level, it seems beneficial for students to understand what the goals and objectives of the eLearning course are – but the perfunctory recital of course objectives often punches the joy out of learning. As designers of courseware, teachers should be circumspect about everything. Following Gagne’s elements of instruction like a recipe card won’t help.

My favorite quip is against the ubiquitous links to PowerPoint. A student finally logs into the LMS environment, wades through the course objectives and the instructor bio only to be launched out of the environment into a PowerPoint.

I asked an instructor about this once. Her response: PowerPoints are easy to create and students can print them.

So what is really lacking?

For one, relevance and motivation. We don’t do enough to motivate students.
Secondly, authentic assessment. We create proxies to demonstrate understanding. Quizzes, for example.

We lack integration of student thinking and activity with both course content and other learners. Rather than having students read an endlessly scrolling page and complete an assignment, how about engaging students in making critical choices, sharing their decision-making path with other students, collaborating with other students in making critical decisions and interacting with the content by categorizing, choosing paths, assembling components, testing what-if hypotheses.

Sometimes instructors only need to be made aware that they can do things differently. They use dozens of strategies in the classroom, but only a subset of them online.

The future of LodeStar is squarely focused on opening up the possibilities for both instructors and their students. That may mean more types of interactions between learner and content, but also opportunities for learners to collaborate with one another and interact with new and emerging technology. We also welcome any opportunity to participate in the ongoing professional development of teachers.

We’re interested in your observations. What are your reflections on online learning? To help prompt your response, I’ve assembled comments from some of our industry’s thought leaders. Some of the videos are indictments against the status quo. Others challenge our notion of what learning should be or can be.

You’ve read some of my thoughts. Now take a moment to challenge and expand your notions about eLearning. Click this link and watch the videos. Then offer your comments. I want to read your thoughts.

http://lodestarlearning.com/samples/WebJournal_May/index.htm

By Robert Bilyk and Mark Burrs

We're on the eve of releasing LodeStar 6.2, which is another important milestone for us. LodeStar 6.2 will be the first release that is available for both the PC and the Mac. As importantly, LodeStar 6.2 introduces another new template – Organizer. Organizer represents a refocus on simple apps that instructors can create quickly and gain a huge benefit.

Let's start with the Mac version. We're delighted that we can finally offer a version that runs on both platforms. With the Mac market share rising to above 15 percent, it's high time that we did. All of the features that are available on the PC are available on the Mac with the exception of the Latex Math Editor. The future of LodeStar, however, is in the further broadening of the platforms on which LodeStar can live. An important next step for LodeStar Learning is to convene a group of people, both virtually and locally, who can help steer us in the right direction for LodeStar 7. If you would like to take part in this informal advisory, email us at support@LodeStarLearning.com.

In the meantime, LodeStar 6.2 introduces the Organizer template. As you may know, authoring in LodeStar involves selecting a template that embodies a specific learning or presentation strategy, filling in or mashing up content, adding metadata and intellectual property information and then exporting to a SCORM-conformant learning management system. Organizer represents a critical instructional strategy.

For example, the steps of CPR must be completed in a specific order. After learning CPR, can a student place the steps in order? This reinforces retention of key procedural steps.

After learning about the causes of the American Civil War, can students rank order the causes from greatest to least importance. This is logical organization that requires a student to think critically about each item. Similarly, students can be asked to organize items based on temporal or spatial criteria.

Organizer enables instructors to add this instructional strategy easily to their toolbag of strategies both online and in the classroom. Imagine using Organizer with a Smartboard in front of the classroom and asking students to think about and discuss order.

In the example below, we challenge you to organize the items according to a poll published by Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, on the 10 worst cars of the Millennium.

http://lodestarlearning.com/samples/Worst_Cars/index.htm