Welcome to the third week of the course.

Learning Path Week 3

What kind of support do you have to provide during the course?

Introductory Video Tutorial for Week 3

At the beginning of week 3 I will post here an introductory video tutorial that will guide you along the learning path.

Administrativ

Define a registration process
Formulate questions to be clarified with applicants.

Technical

Communicate the expected IT-literacy in advance of the course.
Provide tutorials for specific tools and skills required to follow the course
Install a technical help desk (e.g. mail address or thread in discussion forum

Tutorial

Provide tips for effective online learning.
Moderation of asynchronous discussion forum keeps participants engaged and provides them with the crucial feedback.
Tele-Teaching of live online events is very effective to keep learners interested and engaged

E-Moderation of asynchronous discussion forums

Gilly Salmon’s five stage model is a well-tested approach to online learner support. She proposes to design a sequence of more and more challenging communication tasks.

Welcome every newcomer to the discussion board with a few friendly words and an encouraging invitation to cooperate.
Start with an easy topic as a warm up where everybody can share ideas and experiences.
Invite people to exchange opinions, ideas, homework etc. to promote social learning.
Organise group work in which a shared effort is made to develop a common end product.
Encourage how to find inspiration for cooperation in public discussions boards

Develop skills of online moderation

You may read lots of books about swimming and never be able to keep yourself afloat in the water. It is good to know how to swim, but you certainly have to practice in the water to acquire this skill. The same is true for moderation.

There is helpful information about how to set up and moderate online discussions for beginners. (see “Guidelines moderation discussions”). There are plenty of tips and recommendations that are useful to read from time to time even for experienced moderators. (see “Tips for Moderators of Online Discussions”)

If you want to develop the skills of moderating I warmly recommend you the book e-tivities by Gilly Salmon. She regularly offers online courses about this topic on the internet. Online courses are an ideal setting to learn and practice the skills of an e-moderator.

Qualitative Analysis of Online Discussions

Assignment 3.1 E-Moderation of asynchronous discussion forums

1. Form a group and agree on a discussion topic
2. Appoint a person to moderate the discussion
3. Take turns in your role as moderator
4. Discuss your experiende
5. Share your experience in this discussion board

Attention: Only course participants have access to the forums.

Tele-Teaching – Live Online Learning

Technical Challenge

Select an adequate tool to run your live online learning sessions. GoToMeeting, WebEx or Zoom are some of the most popular commercial tools available. Have a good look also at free tools such as Jitsi Meet.

In any case you should familiarize yourself with the handling of the tool. Generally you will find excellent tutorials that show you the available features. However nothing replaces your firsthand experience by practicing as often as possible synchronous communication. At best you make it a habit to use these tools as a means of collaboration in your development team.

Why to set up live lessons

You can invite a class or a group to a live lesson and communicate synchronously. This form of online teaching comes closest to face-to-face teaching. Participation is possible on a smartphone or on a notebook. You can

address the participants
grant speaking rights to individuals
show slides or any other application and draw and write on the whiteboard
interact with the class (asking questions, show how to solve a problem by application sharing etc.)

Particularly serious problems in live lessons

Technical problems prevent participants to take part actively.
Participants are passive and poorly motivated (lecture style)
Learners are flooded with information (switch off)
Learning is superficial (poor attention)
Learners do not feel addressed and are distracted.

Methodical tips for the moderator of live lessons

Prepare for technical issues, by asking everyone to take part in a connection test before the sessions start.
Inform participants in advance: Duration of the lesson, learning goals, expectations, rules of conduct, tips how to learn
Communicate all of the details about how to handle the software in great detail. No matter how much you feel it’s obvious what to do, some may be confused.
You might want to set up a dual monitor configuration on your computer or use a dummy participant on your smartphone, so that you can control what the participants see.
Use a slight show: Slides are helpful to structure the lesson but avoid details and leave lots of space for writing and drawing and pictures instead of text
Variety adds spice: Explaining, performing, practicing, discussing, activating, group or partner work.
Limit each session to 60 – 90 minutes. Make sure you have breaks between blocks in long sessions.
When possible, keep the number of people attending small.
Motivate: Formulate expectations, emphasise relevance, encourage, control learning progress, recognise and reward achievements, make progress visible.
Your role as a moderator: You are less a presenter of concepts than a learning guide. The aim of the live lesson is to encourage learners to work together

How to establish interaction

Active listening: Ask the participants, e.g. to write their own script during the lesson, to summarize important elements, to fill in learning materials etc.
Involve learners: Invite the participants to speak, ask questions or make additions. Ask open questions. Formulate provocative statements, point out inconsistencies and ask questions to provoke debate or reactions. Ask the participants to show, write, draw on the whiteboard...
Keep learners alert: Ask frequent yes/no or OK questions and report the results back to everyone.
Quizzes: Prepare stimulating questions and quizzes (open, multiple choice, yes/no) and report the results.
Surveys: Have surveys answered, e.g. to determine previous experiences, interests, needs.
Tests: Have tests processed as homework and discuss them in the next live lesson.
Assignments: Send practice materials that the participants work on individually or in groups.
Application sharing: Let them work on applications in Application Sharings and comment what you see.

Assignment 3.2 Moderation of synchronous Zoom Event

1. Selcect a topic for a live lesson of 15 minutes
2. Invite a group of people and run the lesson
3. Reflect on your experience
4. Share your experience in the discussion board

Attention: Only course participants have access to the forums.

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