What is the difference between a Learning Outcome, and aim, and an objective?

You may, or may not ;-p be wondering what the differences are between aims, learning outcomes and objectives. In a nutshell:

• Learning Outcomes (LOs), aims and objectives are often used synonymously, but in fact refer mainly to intentions.
• LOs are related to the achievements of the learner rather than what teacher hopes to achieve in a session or course.
• Aims are focussed more on the teacher’s intentions, and individual sessions that they are facilitating.
• LOs and objectives are more difficult to differentiate because objectives are frequently expressed in ways that are similar to LOs, and express statements about what a learner will gain from participating in a course or activity.

Click here to access a thorough guide to learning outcomes(UCE Birmingham)

Click here for a briefer overview of learning outcomes and questions to ask yourself while writing them.

Do you have other great sites or resources that either illustrate the differences, or are really helpful for developing LOs? Please share.

Images

WWW. cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo by lumaxart: http://flickr.com/photos/lumaxart/2364727849/

Students learn from those who care. cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo by shareski: http://flickr.com/photos/shareski/2712355703/

Creative Commons by Ethos Consultancy NZ is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Why get involved in an online community?

This is a cross-post of a guest blog post (Participating in Online Communities for Mutual Support) written for Madelyn Griffith-Haynie’s wonderful online resource, http://www.ADDandSoMuchMore.com. Many thanks to Madelyn (CTP, CMC, A.C.T., MCC, SCAC, Foundational Concepts of the Intentionality Series) for given me the OK to cross post. It’s all about reciprocity, so please pop across to have a look at her site.

Personally and professionally, I don’t know what I would do without being a member of online communities.

I am constantly challenged to think and reflect, as well as affirmed or guided in some of the ideas I am developing.

On the social side, I have had the pleasure and privilege of ‘meeting’ a vast variety of people from around the world, including Madelyn, who are incredibly generous with their time, and with sharing their thinking.

You might be saying to yourself,

• “But I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said,”
• “I don’t have time,” or
• “What if I say something wrong?”

I know I had similar concerns before I started getting involved in online communities.

So why might you want to get involved?

In July 2011 in her blog post Creating Community Together, Madelyn threw down a challenge that read as follows:

“Let’s work together for the mutual good of our communities and our planet – becoming resources for each other because it is simply the right thing to do – meaning the thing that will create the kind of world we want – a world that works for EVERYONE.”

You may have already taken up her challenge and are comfortably participating in and contributing to online communities. But you may also be sitting on the fence and not feeling very comfortable about jumping into the online community spaces where you may feel you need to build your digital literacy skills before joining the conversations.

In this blog post I would like to describe what I mean by digital literacy skills, give a brief overview why your voice is important in online communities, and finally, I’ll provide a grab-bag guide to getting involved.

Why online communities?

Over a period of about 13 years I had become increasingly interested in how human beings interact and ‘learn’ in online spaces, especially when they are offered opportunities to become **immersed. An immersive environment enables people to experience a variety of approaches and ideas, at the same time as exploring them intellectually.

During this period the Internet grew in popularity as a place for formal and informal learning, and hardware and software became more affordable. I have become increasingly excited by the potential of eLearning and Mobile Learning (mLearning). Being able to connect is providing a range of ways to co-construct understanding, to develop creative problem solving skills, and to become more culturally aware. This, however, entails a paradigm shift away from content to a greater focus on mutual support and synergistic thinking, as well as an increasing requirement for individuals to possess digital literacy skills.

**Immersive digital environment / experience: Adapted from gaming environments, references to immersive experiences illustrate instances where an online CoP member becomes immersed in the ‘narrative’ of the community and its interactions. As such, the member feels as though they are part of an online ‘universe’, where they have the option to create and design the spaces (Adams, 2004).

What is digital literacy?

Digital literacy can be broadly categorised in three distinct skills sets (Reynard, 2009).

• The first skill set is being able to navigate the Internet to locate and evaluate resources.
• The second skill set includes being able to create, repurpose, share and comment on resources hosted on the Internet.

These skills usually require some sort of account creation or membership to a community (for example, YouTube), as well as awareness of rights to use and re-use digital objects. Associated activities may include the sharing of links, images, or commenting on blogs.

To move to this stage of development is to move from the consumption of digital resources to the creation or adoption of an online identity.

• The third skill set involves the co-creation of ideas online and the active cultivation of an online identity. This requires a sophisticated level of digital literacy skills, whereby participants make sense of existing knowledge and reinterpret it in a way that fits within their existing knowledge framework, thereby, disconnecting, and reconnecting “knowledge fragments through knowledge creation” (Littlejohn, 2011, Para. 3). This sense-making will often occur within learning ecologies, online communities and networks (Siemens, 2003).

Healthy, established online communities tend to have members who have developed mutual trust and respect, and are reasonably confident in their digital literacy skills.

Other members, who remain readers of conversations and content (sometimes known as ‘lurkers’) are likely to have developing digital literacies, less confidence in their online persona. That is not to say one is necessarily directly related to the other, but rather to highlight that full participation, which leads to an immersive experience, requires digital literacies development.

Why your voice is important

I have explored online communities in a variety of situations, prior to taking on the position of national coordinator in New Zealand of a pilot project to develop a Virtual Professional Learning and Development (VPLD) Model (initiated in October 2009 by the Ministry of Education, who also funded the project).

My initial experiences were in line with the current research findings of the time (e.g. Hallam, 2008; McDermott, 2002) – but it was one thing reading about the challenges and another thingexperiencing them!

I found that a vibrant online community depended on establishing a balance between too little and too much communication, between facilitated and organic activities/contributions, and between confident and ‘developing’ contributors.

I discovered that, with encouragement and support, members could be mentored through the process of developing digital literacy skills. However, many members had not participated in an online community before, and were not aware of the level of engagement required to really get the ball rolling, so community enthusiasm waxed and waned.

I was frequently disappointed that I was the only one to respond to a post or discussion, or that responses were superficial.

Without a reasonable level of engagement from online community members, there was little sense of a mutual support network, and in turn, of their voices influencing developments and policy.

Nevertheless, slowly but surely, membership, momentum and the quality and quantity of contributions grew over the next 3½ years.

Some of the challenges

Time and opportunities are needed for the more confident members to ‘model’ some online community building behaviours, so that other members are able to build an identity within a newly formed group. Individual participants also face challenges that include (but are not limited to):

• unfamiliarity with netiquette and notions of reciprocity in an online space
• uncertainty of purpose
• lack of confidence in the value of their contributions
• workload and other life commitments (which impact the level of community engagement)
• little or no peer support
• lack of access to appropriate technology and connectivity.

A grab-bag guide to getting involved in online communities

One of the things you need to do, if you want to get involved, is join a community. First you’ll need to find an online community that is formed around a topic that interests you. This could be through recommendations from friends or colleagues, or through a simple online search.

Once you have found a likely community take a trip around – set by 30 or 40 minutes to dip into all the spaces on the community site, and get a feel for the tone of the conversations.

• If you don’t like the tone, don’t join the community.
• Don’t give up though – find another one that seems to be more your ‘fit’.

And then, once you have joined:

• Set up an online profile.

Start by considering what other members of this specific community would be interested in; keep it short and sweet initially. And don’t share anything you wouldn’t be comfortable sharing with someone if you met them face-to-face for the first time.

• Upload an image to your profile; it doesn’t have to be of you – it can be your dog, your cat, your garden, your car, or something meaningful to you.

An image helps people feel as though they are ‘getting to know you’ because, as humans, we are pretty visual creatures.

• Within two weeks of joining the community, find a blog post, resource, or online discussion that resonates with you in some way and ‘like’ it.

• Within one month of joining keep your eyes open for a blog post, resource, or online discussion that resonates with you in some way and leave a comment.

• In no longer than two months, locate a resource you think is interesting or useful, and share it with the community.

You only need to add a couple of sentences about why the resource caught your attention.

And don’t get disheartened if you don’t get any responses…other folks are going through the same online journey as you 

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LAST COMMENT

So NOW you know that if you found this information helpful, “reciprocity” means you INTERACT, right?

So THAT means that you do one or more of the following –

You:

• click “like” on the page (from the TOP on the WordPress Menubar for WordPress.com visitors – anyone can “like” at the bottom, near my tiny photo below, where I clicked to “like”)
• share it on one of your social networks, like FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc. (at the bottom of the article, on THIS blog)
• leave a comment (keep scrolling down for comments – AND you can reply to comments from others to get a full-fledged conversation going), or
• rate it five stars, found at the top – you’re pretty great about that already, btw!

As always, the goal is to affirm and acknowledge, not to “vote” or argue — so keep things totally positive as you interact, even if your point of view is completely different as you speak your truth ~ mgh

Image

Techsoup’s online community. cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo by techsoupglobal: http://flickr.com/photos/techsoup/6002875102/

References

• Adams, E. (2004). Postmodernism and the Three Types of Immersion. Retrieved December 26, 2007.

• Hallam, G. (2008). The Australian ePortfolio project and the opportunities to develop a community of practice. Paper presented at the Ascilite 2008: Where are you in the landscape of educational technology? Retrieved December 20, 2008

• Littlejohn, A. (2011). Collective learning and charting. Retrieved November 6, 2012.

• McDermott, R. (2002). Knowing is a human act. Upgrade: The European Online Magazine for the IT Professional, 3(1), 8-10.

• Reynard, R. (2009) Beyond social networking: Building toward learning communities. Retrieved June 22, 2010.

• Siemens, G. (2003). Learning ecology, communities, and networks: Extending the classroom. Retrieved February 28, 2007.

Related Articles from Ethos Consultancy

• The Ethos Consultancy Homepage
• Hazel Owen’s Profile on The Ethos Consultancy
• ICT Enhanced Learning and Teaching Wiki
• mgh Ethos Consultancy Profile Page – with links to blog articles there

Related Articles ’round the ‘net

• What Is Digital Literacy? (webroot.com)
• Why universities should acquire – and teach – digital literacy (guardian.co.uk)
• Non-Profit Works to Raise Digital Literacy Rate (foxcharlotte.com)
• Digital Literacy and Libraries (cherylbecker.wordpress.com)
• Digital Literacy in the Disciplines Application Form (digitalliteracywork.wordpress.com)
• The Importance of Parental Involvement in Digital Literacy (webroot.com)
• Participating in Online Communities for Mutual Support (addandsomuchmore.com)

Related articles

• Participating in Online Communities for Mutual Support (addandsomuchmore.com)

Framing mobile learning from the perspective of learners’ experiences

Mobile learning has been around as a concept for quite a while, as something that involves “any sort of learning that happens when the learner is not at a fixed, predetermined location, or learning that happens when the learner takes advantage of the learning opportunities offered by mobile technologies” (MOBIlearn, 2003). Interestingly, even though ostensibly in this definition, the focus is on the learning and the experience of the learner, it still returns to the affordances offered by the technology.

In a paper recommended by Tessa Gray (here), she pulls out the following quote:

There is an ongoing need to examine the pedagogies that are suitable for m-learning, and to conceptualise m-learning from the perspective of learners’ experiences rather than the affordances of the technology tools (Traxler 2007, p. 1)

Tessa goes on to explain that Viewing mobile learning from a pedagogical perspective ”unpacks a pedagogical framework – developed from two mobile learning projects (Australia and UK) from a socio-cultural perspective”. She also indicates that the 3 aspects highlighted are authenticity, collaboration and personalisation.

What are your own experiences with mLearning (either as a learner or a facilitator / teacher / trainer)? What are your responses to the framework in the paper? Is it something you might find useful?

Reference: “Guidelines for learning/teaching/tutoring in a mobile environment”. MOBIlearn. October 2003. p. 6. Retrieved June 8, 2009.

Image: ‘21st Century Research Tools: Computer, EasyBib+iPhone+App,+and+Books‘, Found on flickrcc.net

Related articles

• Education 3.0 and the Pedagogy of Mobile Learning
• The Importance Of Mobile Learning In (And Out Of) The Classroom
• The 4 R’s Model and Mobile Learning Activities

What impact is participating in a Virtual Professional Learning and Development programme having for students? Check out this video

This video provides some teacher’s reflections and insights as to how participating within the Virtual Professional Learning and Development programme programme has helped their students and impacted their practice.

We would like to acknowledge and thank all of the participants who shared their reflections in the video. The camera and editing work for this video was done by Michael Lintott.

With thanks also to the Ministry of Education and Te Toi Tupu for their ongoing support.

 

Organisational approaches to e-learning in the tertiary sector: An annotated bibliography

Tertiary sector organisations have developed a range of approaches around planning and implementing eLearning. This report gives an overview of some of the research literature relating to a variety of approaches.

The executive summary for the report reads as follows:

The key findings of this annotated bibliography are:

• The most common organisational approach to e-learning is where high-level objectives and supporting policies and plans are set centrally but the responsibility for implementing these is at the faculty or departmental level.
• Organisational approaches to e-learning are more likely to be successful when they are supported by institutional strategies, policies, plans, monitoring and evaluation. E-learning strategies are more likely to be effective if they take into account organisational culture and are underpinned by a rationale that has strong support from stakeholders.
• Organisations need to consider student preferences. They also need to ensure students have the skills and capabilities needed for success in e-learning. It is also important that organisations provide relevant and timely support, particularly technical, for both their students and staff.
• Organisations need to provide infrastructure that supports their e-learning objectives and meets stakeholder and learner needs. It is important that organisational ICT systems can link with each other and with students’ information technology devices.
• Staff development and support are essential if organisations are to adopt e-learning successfully. Organisations should consider providing incentives for staff to adopt e-learning and participate in associated development. Staff efforts in adopting e-learning also need to be recognised. Staff must be given time to explore and experiment when they are adopting e-learning.
• Benchmarking of e-learning capability has been used by a number of organisations. Benchmarking can be used not only for comparisons with other similar organisations but also to more clearly identify performance in an e-learning context.
• It is unclear if organisations can save money through e-learning. While it requires investment in infrastructure, staff development and the creation of supporting materials and resources, cost savings are possible. Savings are derived not only from economies of scale but also from other measures such as reuse of materials.

Source

Image: ’workstation‘ Found on flickrcc.net

What are the most important issues for students and parents when it comes to satisfaction with Higher Eduction?

What are the most important issues for students and parents when it comes to satisfaction with Higher Eduction (HE)? This infographic (based on US data) highlights important factors, as well as providing some guidelines for improving the overall college experience. I was particularly impressed that parents…an often neglected or unheard voice in education…are included – and there are 5 suggestions (scroll down to the  end of the infographic) about how colleges can work with parents. This is perhaps something less relevant where mature students are concerned, but it is likely to be a benefit for those students moving into HE directly from High School.

 

Could learning analytics lead to the ‘Wal-Martification’ of Higher Education?

As a self-professed skeptic of learning analytics (I’m still not totally convinced they are great for the learner…even if they might be a great tool for education institutions), I was reassured to hear Gardner Campbell (director of professional development and innovative initiatives at Virginia Tech) speak so well. Campbell speaks of the possibility that learning analytics might ‘dumb down’ higher education. He also suggests that the learning analytics as a concept should support our notion of education should be, as well as reflecting positive learning experiences rather than focussing on information…especially that related to ‘failure’.

For a full overview (and access to the interesting comments that follow, click here. I would highly recommend checking out the podcast, which is part of the Chronicle’s Tech Therapy offering, hosted by Jeff Young and Warren Arbogast.

Download this recording as an MP3 file, or subscribe to Tech Therapy on iTunes.

Image: ‘business chart showing success‘ http://www.flickr.com/photos/57567419@N00/5961260280. Found on flickrcc.net

 

Millenials under the microscope: Resources, ideas and a quiz from Cyberwise

The wonderful team at Cyberwise recently shared the following resources, focussed on the Millennial Generation, in NewsWise. Whether you are convinced or not that folk are ‘wired differently’ because of the ability to be ‘connected’, creative, and communicating 24/7, these resources are well worth dipping into…and the quiz is fun too

The world has changed dramatically in the last ten years; we are plugged in and tech’d out like never before, and these changes are having a huge impact on those growing up immersed in a newly connected world. Just ask the first generation to enter adulthood having grown up digital — a 2.3 billion-strong tribe of “Millennials” (18-29 year olds).

Research suggests these twenty-something’s are markedly different in their attitudes, beliefs, and habits than any generation that has proceeded them. They are connected, informed, passionate, idealistic, technically proficient... and majorly stressed out. And guess what? They want and even need our help as they chart a course through this new world. So this week’s NewsWise is dedicated to the Millennial Generation, those brave young souls who are guiding us all into the digital future. Check out our blog and all the great resources (including a quiz to find out how “Millennial” you are) we’ve gathered for you about Millennials, or as we like the call them, the “indicator species” of the digital age.

Image: ‘connectivity‘ http://www.flickr.com/photos/65256426@N00/839920747. Found on flickrcc.net

 

Building the Network for Learning: Commentary by Niki Davis

You may, or may not, be familiar with the Network for Learning (N4L) that is being developed in New Zealand. The potential of such a network is huge, but it requires a collaborative effort to actually make it work. It’s not so much about the infrastructure, it’s more about the people, the connections…the opportunities to collaborate, share, and build. How can you get involved, if you are not already? In her column While waiting for the Network for Learning we are building it!  (CINZ) Niki offers some suggestions, while also adding ideas for the overall planning behind the N4L. (All quotes from the article reproduced in this post are with kind permission of Niki Davis.)

Niki provides a useful overview of the background to the N4L.

Let me introduce you to the crown entity that has been established this year called the Network for Learning Ltd. (N4L). The New Zealand Government is making a significant investment in infrastructure that will deliver ultra-fast broadband (UFB) to more than 97% of New Zealand schools by 2016, including support for upgrades to schools’ internal network infrastructure (SNUP). This began as the Ultrafast Broadband in Schools (UFBiS) initiative in 2010 and the best information is probably on the Ministry of Education “Enabling e-Learning” website led by Margaret McLeod and Howard Baldwin http://elearning.tki.org.nz/. In 2011 cabinet approved a business case for a managed network with managed services for schools and decided that this “Network for Learning” would be overseen by a new Crown-owned Company, (called the “Network for Learning Ltd”/N4L; incorporated in July 2012 seehttp://www.n4l.co.nz/about.php). The Network for Learning Ltd. aims to realise the benefits of this infrastructure investment in terms of improved educational outcomes for students in line with government policy. The N4L Ltd is accountable to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Education who have appointed N4L’s independent board to govern this crown company. The board have now appointed a chief executive and are gaining additional staff to ensure a network service is available to all schools in 2013.

To conceptualise what the N4L ‘looks like’ in practice, Niki gives an insight into what is underway in the Cantanet and Westnet clusters, as well as  activities in initial teacher education that provide significant resources and networking activity that should benefit and accelerate the growth of the N4L and its impact”. Niki goes on to say

I trust that readers will therefore support the case for those involved in initial teacher education to be encouraged to actively participate in the N4L with our colleagues and their students in schools. After all, to limit access would reduce the preparation of newly qualified teachers for schooling today and block development. For that reason I have developed a discussion paper (see http://wikieducator.org/NfLandITE) and sought and received support from key agencies including the Tertiary eLearning Reference Group, TEFANZ, the VLNC Council, and DEANZ, the national association for open flexible and distance learning representing all sectors of education and training.

Will you join the conversation? “Only then can the N4L emerge and grow to play its part to support increased educational outcomes and related economic benefits for all students and their communities throughout Aotearoa New Zealand”.

•  While waiting for the Network for Learning we are building it! (HTML)Resource
• Niki Davis – University of Canterbury, e-learning lab, Christchurch, New Zealand.
• Niki Davis Virtual Schooling Column (PDF)PDF document

Image: cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo by katypang: http://flickr.com/photos/katypang/2628074710/

 

Creative and Critical thinking: Creating space for innovation

Ewan McIntosh’s session on Monday was so inspirational we rocked up 45 minutes early to ensure we have a seat for his second session today. The room is completely packed with people sitting on every available floor space, propping up the room at the back and around the sides, and standing outside the double doors craning their necks to see in. The place is a sea of mobile devices, and the wireless is groaning as the Tweets flow. Great stuff. (But maybe a bigger venue…?)
The last Ewan did this session was with 6 people in Texas…and if it fails it’s our fault . Some of the reasons innovations tend to get blocked are those folk who have leader in their title tend not to be the innovators, and (along with many other things), there is negativity around and dismissal of ideas. On the other hand for innovation to happen it is important for active listening, people who will join in, assume valuable implications, deal with you as an equal, and support ambiguity.

In pairs or threes we had to share an innovation that we would like to see implemented, but hasn’t been done so far. To explore the ‘dilemma space’, we were asked to use ‘and…and’ thinking, rather than ‘yes…but’ (‘yes, but we’ve got an exam’). Using a map with an axis (‘Measurable performance’) titled ‘Rock values’ (refuge, solidity), and on the other ( (creative development) a ‘Whirlpool values’. Both people have to be willing to give up their idea and to come up with another one.

Pitching is a very important skill in life, and part of it is being aware of some of the barriers you are going to face. Really neat idea of using speech bubbles to capture the negative comments that are likely to occur in response to an idea, and then coming up with responses to them. However, you also need to have the flexibility to come up with your idea if it’s genuinely flawed (see Pitching at NLC schools on the No Tosh site). You need also to be able to almost predict the conversations, and work out what you are prepared to compromise on – but also what your underpinning value are that you are not willing to give up on.

Think this could be an approach…a great catalyst. Thanks, Ewan!!!

Images:

• ‘arne jacobsen, aarhus town hall 1937-1942‘ - Found on flickrcc.net
• ‘182/365 Sparkle ( 2)‘ - Found on flickrcc.net
•  ’Sky Master‘ - Found on flickrcc.net