Explanation of Different Approaches used to Implementation of eLearning

Learning in Groups

Learning in groups has become a popular tecnique during the past decade or so, and now many educators use it. Anyone who has taken part in IOI courses will be well familiar with the basic idea of learning in groups. The real challenge now is to apply what we know about the benefits of learning in groups to online learning in the virtual classroom. 

Once again the discussion forum comes to our rescue. There is probably no other way to arrange learning groups in an online course, other than through the use of discussion forums. Email can also be used,  but email has the disadvantage of not being threaded, so the conversation quickly becomes lost. Real time collaboration tools (see later section of this module) could be used, but where learners are spread around the world, this is rarely possible. The trick with the discussion forum  is obviously to manage the groups in such a way that active participation and collaboration can occur across geographical boundaries. 

Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom edited a volume entitled Taxonomy of Educational Objectives which was based on work that started in 1948 by a group of educators who attempted to classify education goals and objectives. Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain, as the taxonomy is known, provides a hierarchical arrangement of learning processes. It is a good idea to keep this taxonomy in mind when designing online learning activities, for in general, it is best to target the higher-level processes of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Here we demonstrate Blooms taxonomy using a hypothetical course on Integrated Coastal Management. 

Critical Thinking

In most walks of life, there are no clear-cut right and wrong decisions; this is particularly true in the area of coastal and ocean management. Competing needs and desires of different users, different sets of assumptions of different management frameworks, and the ultimate power of money, all contribute to a tangled web of possibilities. Ocean and environmental managers must often take good decisions out of this tangled web, so it is clear that critical thinking skills are essential, and that it is essential to make them part of any courses that are offered through the IOI-VU. Therefore, tools for developing critical thinking skills need to be part of our toolset for online learning.

Critical Thinking and Problem Based Learning

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action (Scriven & Paul, undated). According to Scriven & Paul, critical thinking can be seen as having two components:

1. a set of skills to process and generate information and beliefs, and

2. the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior.

Fortunately, the formulation of a well designed problem in PBL provides a firm foundation for the development of critical thinking skills. As part of KEWL, we will be adding content on critical thinking, and this content will also become part of the IOI-VU. In a future version of KEWL, we will include software tools specifically designed to promote critical thinking. In the meanwhile, the discussion forums can also be used for online debates around key issues, debates being a well established mechanism for promoting critical thinking.

Critical Thinking: A critique

Critical thinking varies according to the motivation underlying it. When grounded in selfish motives, it is often manifested in the skillful manipulation of ideas in service of one's own, or one's groups', vested interest. As such it is typically intellectually flawed, however pragmatically successful it might be. When grounded in fairmindedness and intellectual integrity, it is typically of a higher order intellectually, though subject to the charge of "idealism" by those habituated to its selfish use. 

Critical thinking of any kind is never universal in any individual; everyone is subject to episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. Its quality is therefore typically a matter of degree and dependent on , among other things, the quality and depth of experience in a given domain of thinking or with respect to a particular class of questions. No one is a critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with such-and-such insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies towards self-delusion. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions is a life-long endeavor.

(Scriven & Paul, http://www.criticalthinking.org/university/defining.html)

Continuous Assessment

Even in the traditional classroom, formal examinations serve little meaningful purpose. This is particularly true in the case of virtual classrooms, where setting an examination is all but impossible.  I have often been asked how to deal with the problem of security during examinations for online courses, and I can only chuckle at how meaningless is this consideration. We are dealing with a new learning paradigm here, and this new paradigm gives us the opportunity to do away with the outdated concept of the examination. In online courses we should concentrate on evaluation for the purpose of promoting meaningful learning, and learners should be rewarded for their participation in learning exercises on a continuous basis. We will cover this topic in more detail in the section on Creative Assessment of Learning.

Quality of Content

When they first start thinking about giving a course online, most people think about the content as the central issue. In actual fact the content is the least important aspect of an online course, and content does not even have to be available online. Online courses can be built around traditional, printed content, or printed content mixed with video and other types of materials. However, if you are going to devise an online course where the content is available online, then you will need to take care to ensure that the content is of a suitable quality. Poor quality content will lead to weak learning, and learners will quickly perceive the low standards, and will be guided accordingly.

Resource-based learning

Resource-based learning is identified by the following features: 

• learners actively participate in their learning; 
• learning experiences are planned based on expected and explicitely-stated outcomes; 
• learning strategies and skills are identified and taught within the context of relevant and meaningful units of study; 
• a wide variety of resources is used; 
• locations for learning vary; 
• educators employ many different techniques to facilitate learning; 
• educators act as facilitators of learning, continuously guiding, monitoring and evaluating learner progress; 
• educators work together to implement resource-based learning across study years and subject areas. 

(modified after: http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/~acrawfor/lrc2.html, downloaded 2001 03 18).

Instructivist vs Constructivist

Anatomy of an Online Course

An online course should have all the components provided by resource-based learning at a bricks-and-mortar university. These components can be broadly categorised as: (i) content, (ii) interaction and (iii) management (administration).

I will discuss the development of an online course based on my experiences while developing the ISISlearn course called "An Introduction to Integrated Area Management (ICAM)" (hereafter called the ICAM module). The course was developed from scratch here at IOI-SA, but my discussion should prove useful even to those wanting to convert existing classroom courses for the web.

Development of the ISISlearn course started with the ICAM module in May 1999, consisting of activities such as, (i) content development (research), and (ii) web and interface development, followed by review and evaluation before final release. The course was released in February 2001 with 12 participants (5 from outside of South Africa). A second module, "Coastal Processes and Coastal Ecosystems" is expected to be released before June 2001.

Table of Contents

When first developing content for a new online course you should create a 'table of contents' or index for the subject material. You should then define learning objectives for each section of the subject material. It is important to set the learning objective from the start because it will ensure that you will develop the content of quality and quantity to meet the learning objective. However, you will find that you are presented with the dilemma of providing all-inclusive content or not, because you cannot assume that all distance learners have access to resources, for example, a library.

I have found that while developing the content for the ISISlearn course that some sections of the course lends itself better to have all-inclusive content, while with others it is not possible. As a future online educator, you too will have to make decisions on what to put online.

Your students

You should have an initial idea of whom you are targeting for your new course. You should more or less know the following regarding future participants to your course:

(i) the average age,
(ii) their educational qualification,
(iii) their skill level,
(iv) their life/work experience,
(v) access to resources (including available time), and
(vi) the reasons for doing the course.

The above information will only be confirmed once people register for your course. However, it is important to keep this information in mind while developing the course, because you have to decide at which level you are going to pitch your course. You should have a minimum level for your online content in order to accommodate your "weakest student". You also need to set minimum requirements with which a participant can access the online course, for example, needing a sufficiently fast connection to access the online course.

Three content development components

I have tried to write about course development by dividing it into the 3 broad categories: (i) content, (ii) interaction and (iii) management (administration), but this has proved difficult mainly because of overlap between the categories. Instead I will look at course development by focusing on the two main activities, namely,  (i) content development (research), and (ii) web and interface development (management), when we started the development of the ISISlearn course. An online course should have most of the following components:

Interface development perspective:

(i) opening title page with an apply button, login button and information for prospective and registered participants,
(ii) an interface that will allow for the administration of new users, for example, adding of new users to a particular course, adding marks and notices, etc.,
(iii) an interface that will allow for interaction, for example, chatting, discussion forum, etc., 
(iv) prerequisites, both academic and technical for doing the course,
(v) orientation course to guide first- time users of the course,
(vi) index (table of contents) to access content,
(vii) a schedule or calendar with submission dates of assignments,

Content development perspective:

(i) title and index (table of contents),
(ii) learning objectives for specific sections or subsections of the course,
(iii) learning activities, assignments, self-tests, assignments, and breakdown of marks, 
(iv) glossary and references.