We did it our way

Having submitted the final marks for the e-learning elective of the MPhil HPE (formally HSE) degree, I have the classic song running through my head " I did it my way...." knowing full well that it is not I, but WE that did this module our way. Each person that has been involved, from facilitators to participants, has shaped the way in which I facilitated the module. My experience has grown through reading past blog posts of former facilitators in this module. I have learned an enormous amount from the participants and their blogs over the years as well!

Now, the module officially comes to an end with the final submission of marks for the final group in this elective and it is a bitter sweet moment. It's a moment which has encouraged me to find ways to use this module as the basis for further faculty development opportunities and has sparked an idea that I hope to share one day soon.

I would just like to sign off with a very big thank you to each person who has contributed to this blog. To each student who has contributed to the type of posts that we as facilitators have made over the years.

Happy lEarning!

Time to implement and evaluate = the starting bell

So now we reach the stage where we have analysed our context according to an identified problem, designed an intervention, developed materials and plans and hopefully are ready to implement our PILOT / PROTOTYPE for testing through an evaluation process. Please remember, that in the case of this module, we understand that there is not nearly enough time for a full and in-depth engagement with this process. It is however necessary to have tried to prepare for the final two phases in the ADDIE cycle. A reminder of that full cycle and what it entails is available on this blog and will therefore not be repeated here. I will however continue to share my 'quasi' process as I have throughout the module.

As you will recall, I have outlined the process I have followed in the previous weeks of this module. I am now about halfway done with the development of the Google site that I am creating and it is starting to take shape. I used one of the templates that are available on Google sites for users to edit and found it quite easy to add documents, text and images as I needed them.

My implementation plan is for the staff members for whom the site is developed to receive an overview of this site and the purpose / outcomes during a face-to-face discussion in the form of a meeting. This will be supported by email correspondence. I will be requesting feedback from them on the usefulness of the site via a Google Form which will then provide information as to what needs to be added or removed from the site. I am also open to the possibility that this may not be the best way to support staff development in this unit and will have to respond accordingly as part of the evaluation.

If this were to be an assignment for the module, I would most likely focus on faculty development literature  to support my planning of the evaluation stage and instruments. I would also identify when, where and how evaluation instruments would be delivered and how these would be analysed. I would refer back to the learning theory and approaches discussed in the motivation section of my assignment where I would have outlined the theoretical and philosophical reason for addressing this problem and for choosing the tools that I have to address it.

Finally, being an educational researcher, I would most probably design my assignment to allow for minimal changes to be made before I could run a pilot study with the necessary ethics committee approval. That, I hope, is the way that many of you will approach this assignment. As a proposal for your head of department, funding committee, or ethics committee in order to innovate your teaching in 2017.....and with that, have rung the starting bell for the new academic year and another ADDIE cycle just around the corner.

Development takes time

Last week we discussed the process that Design requires and the multiple factors that play a role in the planning of a course. This is true for all teaching and learning interactions, whether online or offline and should be clear by now to you as facilitators on various levels and MPhil Students.

One of the difficulties that arise when people start working on e-learning or Blended learning programmes, is that the expectation that technology will decrease workload is not met. Initially, it will take as much time to develop an online component for teaching as it would a face-to-face one; if not more! This is not to say it is a completely negative thing to consider. Remember, the more time spent on developing something really well, the less time it will require in future for you to use it effectively. That said, let us continue to explore the ADDIE process through the pseudo-prototype that I am creating for this module.

I have spent a lot of time looking at the various technology options I listed in the Design Phase last week. I had to consider the outcomes of the course, the capabilities of the participants and the functionalities of the sites I thought would be useful. I also had to think very clearly about what I want the participants to do on the site I create and how much of an input would be needed from my side. Is this an e-learning course (fully or mostly online), or is it a blended course which has at least 50% of the interaction online with additional face-to-face interaction? I constantly reminded myself that if I am given a Fridge, I can't expect to bake a cake in it :) i.e. whichever site I use, I need to understand its' functionality or affordance to know that this is the best option for the outcomes that need to be met.
So, by way of reflection, I will share my process to now in an easy to follow list:

1. Identify need and problem that must be addressed through analysis.
2. Document the outcomes, aims, learning theories to support my thinking, research technologies available (cursory).
3. More in-depth research on the technologies that are options for use in the protoype.
4. Decided on Google Sites based on affordances and ability to meet my aims and outcomes (ease-of-use, accessibility, ability to create an overview of the course and upload documents, ability to embed links)
5. Created a Google Site using a template that is available for all users. 
6. Began uploading and designing the site.

As you can see from my process above, the development part of the course is now underway. It is taking time, and this is to be expected. Remember, when you do start developing your protoype, it won't be perfect. It definitely won't be 100% ready for implementation, and it may not even be your final choice. However, this is the point of the ADDIE process, it is recommended as a cyclical process for a reason. 

In submitting your assignment for this module, you will discuss the implementation in theory and also plan on how you will evaluate this innovation. We know you do not have access to your students now as you do in the beginning of the year due to exams and classes ending. What we also know is that this module, and assignment, is a great way for you to have started early on planning for next year. This is but the first round of a cycle and will hopefully go through a pilot implementation phase next year and evaluation before being refined and implemented again. You may even decide that this assignment will now be used as the basis for an innovative research proposal that you could submit at your institution for an educational study next year! Whatever your decision, the time you're spending now on development of the prototype will be a great learning experience for you and hopefully for your students as well.

I look forward to seeing your reflections on the development phase and to sharing my prototype with you next week!

The devil is in the details: Reflecting on Analysis and moving forward to Design

Reflecting on the analysis phase, we are reminded that student needs are often linked very closely with personal learning expectations and the status quo in any programme, more so than the outcomes of a module or learning opportunity. Remember that regardless of the mode of delivery, a curriculum (programme or module) should be developed with the outcomes at the forefront of decisions made around teaching and learning opportunities and assessment.

I re-read the article by Gedik et al in preparation for this post and am reminded of the necessity of planning. The use of the knowledge that you have developed over the course of the MPhil programme regarding learning, curriculum design, and assessment, among others, is imperitive if you are to design an effective blended or e-learning intervention for this module. For a more detailed discussion on the Design phase of the ADDIE process, please refer to the post on this blog focusing on the topic.

To continue with my endeavour to demonstrate the process using this particular elective, I will reflect on my thinking and planning thus far and how this influences design. Just as a disclaimer, I will remind you that this is an example of how I am approaching the ADDIE process.

I initially decided to re-organise the e-learning elective into a Faculty development opportunity for a fellowship in which I am involved centered around HPE. However, my analysis resulted in the following realisations. Firstly, this is already a registered programme and our Univeristy already offers a Blended Teaching and Learning Short course which is also accredited for staff members.  In analysing the module and potential student cohort, I have concluded that there is a wide variety of participants with regard to roles. This includes clinical facilitators, academics and a combination of both. I have also discovered that potential participants are using mainly e-mail communication to engage with students via electronic means with a range of perspectives regarding the need for e-learning and skills development in this regard. Therefore, as with any potential design, I had to take the findings of the analysis into account and recognise that I need to change my idea.

My decision was therefore to focus on staff development within my own centre, particularly focusing on the support team responsible for supporting lecturers on a technical level more than on an academic one, in developing skills around the use of learning technologies. Analysis of the current "programme" and "students" resulted in the following findings:

• There is a wide variety of resources both online and off-line for the participants to use in gaining experience and skills in providing training and support to lecturers.
• The resources are not organised in a central location or according to known protocols.
• Participants have, for the most part, been self-taught over a period of time making it difficult for new members to gain expertise without physically shadowing or being taught by more experienced members.
• New participants/members find it overwhelming to develop their skills without the use of a formalised and structured training programme.
• The overall aim of the support team is to provide training and development opportunities for lecturers to facilitate student learning using technology.

Moving on to the design phase, my initial reflections are that I need to develop a programme which is constructively aligned. I am using a site to help me visualise and plan this initiative called Learning Designer which uses both Blooms Taxonomy and Laurillard's Ways of Learning as a theoretical basis for curriculum design and planning. 

Aim: To enable support personnel to develop an understanding of learning technologies and support opportunities at SU. 

Outcomes:

At the end of this programme, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the roles and responsibilities of the integrated support systems at the University responsible for learning technology systems.
2. Understand the purpose and function of the supported learning technologies.
3. Use each of the supported learning technologies.
4. Provide basic instructions to end-users on how to use the supported learning technologies.
5. Create training materials for novice and intermediate end-users of the supported learning technologies.
6. Conduct a training session for academic and administrative personnel on the learning technologies required for their work.
7. Identify the most applicable learning technologies for stated educational needs by academic personnel.

Potential Teaching and Learning Activities

1. Reading (Acquisition) the team vision / mission
2. Meeting with the team to discuss (Discussion) roles and responsibilities
3. Reading (Acquisition) training manuals for the learning technologies.
4. Creating (Production) a module with all available activities on the learning managements system.
5. Creating a podcast (Production)
6. Creating a training video for publishing to YouTube (Production)
7. Facilitating a consultation session with a client and providing solutions and resources for the client (Investigation)
8. Co-facilitation of a training session (Collaboration)
9. Identifying FAQ's and training needs with team members based on feedback from clients and partners (Collaboration)

Potential delivery (e-learning prototype)

There are a number of options which can be used for this personnel development opportunity. I am currently considering the following:

1. Google Sites

2. Wikispaces

3. Sharepoint

4. One-on-one training

Regardless of which one I will use, the following should be included as separate pages, files and activities. Each of the delivery methods allows for this type of delivery:

• Overview of team vision, mission
• Profile of each position in the team 
• Summary of each Learning Technology and links to formal training manuals
• Examples of current training resources
• Monitoring processes for training of staff

Analysis of what?

Within the context of this module, you will have discovered by now that you are required to develop an e-learning or blended learning intervention within your teaching and learning context. While there is still much to be discovered and understood around the concepts of instructional design, one of the more commonly used methods of design is the ADDIE process.

Each week, for the next three weeks, you are expected to consider one of these concepts by reflecting on your personal blog. As this first week of the module comes to a close, we, as facilitators, expect to see you posting your thoughts and reflections on your personal blog regarding the analysis of your context.

If you scroll down on the course blog, you will see that over the years we have spent time posting on here about what exactly each phase of the ADDIE process is. So for the purpose of not repeating myself this year, please have a look at this post from 2015 regarding the ANALYSIS phase of the process.

You will recall that I asked for everyone of the participants in this module to complete a short survey at the beginning of the module. I used Google Forms to create this survey. If you are interested in learning how to use this very useful tool, please work through the tutorials provided by Google Forms for this purpose. Forms can be used for surveys and provides you with a quick and easy way of identifying needs or answering questions from a large or small group of people in a relatively short time period. Recently, Google Forms included a quiz option which responds to the needs of educators looking for ways of using this free tool for assessment purposes.

We used the Form tool to identify how you as students in our module are currently using technology in your teaching, what your conceptions are about the use or necessity of technology in teaching as well as to identify some demographic and support information. To date, only half of you have responded, making it difficult to draw any conclusions, I will however share what we have in the results here. [I did this by saving a PDF copy of the responses on the form to my Google Drive and have created a hyperlink to that file here]

As the module continues, I will build on this ANALYSIS of my student group to demonstrate how the ADDIE process can be used in practice to develop a new or improved course.

Please remember that ADDIE is a cyclical and repetitive process, as with any other design-based intervention. You are working on your first iteration of this process and for this module, will only be able to complete the first 3 phases and theoretically plan the final 2. Do not feel overwhelmed. We are here to help and will be commenting on each persons' blog as well as this one going forward.

Good luck!

Practice what you preach? What are we doing and why are we doing it?

As we embark on this final journey through the MPhil HPE (formally HSE) elective, I experience a sense of bitter-sweet anticipation. Is this the year that it is better than any before? I certainly hope so.

As much as I have asked the student group this year to be self-directed in their approach to the module and clarify their own expectations, I realise that I need to practice what I preach. I realise that over the years one of the biggest lessons I have learned is that most people learn by seeing something in action. So this year I have a major expectation for this module, and that is for the facilitators to practice what they preach, to provide a space for students to experience the ADDIE process required as a framework in the module beyond just theoretical and practical posts.

Throughout this module I know that there will be constant questions, and that is great! I look forward to hearing the answers from others as well as trying to provide some myself. While we engage in this way, we will try to remind everyone of the focus for each week. I can promise you this, the one way to be sure to avoid too much stress in the module is to stick to the schedule for your blog posts.
Each week you will be required to post your thoughts and plans around a planned intervention/change in your curriculum for next year.

Week 1 = Analysis
Week 2 = Design
Week 3 = Development
Week 4 = Implementation and Evaluation

By sticking to this schedule, writing as many blog posts as you like to clarify your thoughts, reading your classmates blogs and engaging in discussion using the comment section; you will succeed.

You will succeed in being able to submit an assignment that shows your understanding of teaching and learning in HPE as it relates to the knowledge you have gained in this field over the past two years. You will be able to use that knowledge to use this module assignment as the beginning phase of a potential proposal for an intervention in 2017. Most importantly, I have yet to find someone who has completed this elective who has not said that they have learned something new in the module, whether about teaching with technology or just their own philosophy of teaching and learning.

So hear goes.....we begin our journey together and I look forward to having you along as travel partners as I embark on the final leg of this epic adventure.

2016: The final frontier

Today has been interesting. Definitely the most technical issues we have ever had with a contact session thanks to network issues and pc's not working. What is awesome....besides that fact that I used that word way too many times today, is that I still find it exciting to share information with colleagues who may one day be the authors of blended learning/e-learning articles I will reference.

This, being the final time that the elective is being offered, is bittersweet. I will however endeavour to have as much fun learning as we always do in the module and know that whomever chooses to join in, will enjoy it just as much.

Implementation and Evaluation: A dream or a blueprint

The final phases of ADDIE are often our "ultimate goal" when trying to incorporate an innovation into our teaching and learning practice. I would like to suggest that we rather look at the IE as our blueprint. A blueprint for what the next cycle of ADDIE should be in this particular scenario.

Instructional design should be, and almost always is, an iterative process. Just because you have completed one cycle of ADDIE, does not mean that you have now successfully implemented an innovative prototype and can move on. We should be using the implementation phase to document EVERYTHING that happens when we are able to put our plan from the first 3 phases into action. With the evaluation phase, everything that has come before, especially your notes from the implementation phase, is very important. Here you take time to reflect on where you have come from, what the initial problem and assumptions were, how you expected the change to be accepted and adopted, and what has actually happened. Once this is done, you are more than likely to come up with new questions for analysis, and so the cycle begins again.

As a reflection of this, and guideline, here is the completed diagram for this module:

Hopefully, this completed diagram is one that you are able to plot your assignment on. If not, that is OKAY! Context is important, theory is important, and as a result, your assignment should be different from that in another institution, department or module. The important thing is for you to be able to philosophically discuss why yours is different and why it should remain that way.

Congratulations on completing your first cycle, or at least a part of it, with ADDIE. From here we can only move forward, and back, and forward again :)

Development and prototypes......are you ready?

In the development phase of the ADDIE process, you are expected to apply what you have now established about your context, i.e. your students' needs and abilities, the shortcomings in the curriculum, the possibilities of the tools. This application needs to use the information from the analysis phase as well as the design phase.
One of the aspects I find comforting about this type of approach, is the fact that each phase encourages you to ensure that you have enough information and have done enough to move on. If for some reason you reach the development phase and are not sure of the exact steps you should be taking now in order to deliver the teaching and learning activity in full, then it means you have missed out on something and need to go back to the design or analysis phase. And this for me, is very encouraging.

By now you should all be at  a space where you have a clear idea of the problem, a decent plan to address the problem, and the tool you need to do so. The development phase is the fun part!

But what are you developing? Why are you developing? The answers may seem simple. Your assignment instructions tell you that we expect a prototype at the end of the module. Your programme tells you that everything you do is to facilitate learning.
So what is a prototype? Michael Allen, in the book "Leaving ADDIE for SAM," defines a prototype  as follows:
"A prototype is, by definition, rough and incomplete. A prototype is not a fully functioning instructional component......" 
In a HPE context, I would liken a protoype to a skeleton with a few muscles, and the epidermis attached. It gives me the basic idea of my work (a body with soft tissue attachments and a protective covering), but doesn't truly give me the ability to learn about the human body in its' entirety. Your protoype for this module may be one with ALL the muscles, but it will still take time, feedback and testing to decide if you have included all the layers of the skin and the internal organs.

I hope this makes sense and possibly eases the tension a bit regarding what is expected of you. Again, I will remind you that this protoype and the assignment you leave this module with is the beginning of an innovation in your teaching practice and will be very rewarding in the end.

Our weekly diagram is expanding and with this addition today, we also reach the end of the cycle with regard to what is reasonably expected of you to complete for the module. You can see now how the design and development phase could almost be seen as one activity. The next two phases are not always possible to complete in the short time you  are engaging with the module, but are important and should still be completed in good time.

Design and Develop: Partners in crime

For the next two weeks you will be expected to work through, and reflect on, the design and development phases of your innovation in lEarning. For this post, let us focus on the Design phase, with a hint toward the Development phase of the ADDIE model.

Generally, the design phase is one in which you will create a solid plan for the prototype, set objectives for the teaching and learning activity/module, decide on assessment methods and make final decisions regarding the tool or media that you will be using. It is also imperative that you receive feedback on these ideas as you are formulating them; from colleagues, students, or fellow MPhil colleagues!

So, as illustrated below:

•Determine objectives or outcomes for the learning activity

•Determine the teaching approach or method aka classroom/online activities

•Determine the assessment activities linked to these objective and learning activities

•Confirm the tool or media used

•Put everything on paper

•Create a rough version of the prototype

As with any other teaching and learning intervention, remember that this lEarning process is one which should be theoretically grounded. As an example, please see the following articles (also loaded in your SUNLearn Reading folders). These authors remind us of the importance of a theoretical basis for our work, specifically drawing on learning theories. Flynn et al The second article uses the ADDIE process in their intervention and may therefore apply to what you are doing now, especially as an example of how the ADDIE can be used. Gedik et al

One of the important outcomes of the design phase, once a good theoretical background is laid, is for a rough idea of the prototype to be selected and developed. Examples of these could be using a wiki for gathering information in a group assignment (e.g. wikispaces.com), using tools such as clickers or audience response systems (socrative.com) for in-class questions/games/interaction, creating interactive teaching and assessment online classrooms via a learning management system or Google (blendspace.com), perhaps you would like to create short videos/podcasts (screencast-o-matic.com), or encouraging critical thinking and analysis/scaffolding of information to understand the connections between concepts (cmaptools.com). The possibilities are endless. The important thing to remember is not to be carried away by the excitement of the tools, but rather to refer back to the theoretical basis for the change and the guidance from your analysis phase.

So there you go.....Analysis done! Actually not, remember, the value of any design-based process is that you constantly review/analyse/evaluate what you are doing in each phase and apply this to your design.
You have found a problem and thought of possible solutions in your Analysis phase. Now you will start designing your intervention and analyse the feasibility of your idea as you go through feedback from those around you. When you reach the next phase, analysis of what you are developing will help you to go back and refine your design, and finally, your evaluation of the entire process may end up in a new needs analysis or highlight gaps in your initial analysis. We grow as we learn and we learn as we change the landscape of our teaching environment.

Happy designing!

Solving a problem.....what problem?

This module, along with others in the programme, makes the assumption that you are using a theoretically-grounded method or methods to solve a problem in order to facilitate learning for your students or for fellow colleagues in the case of faculty development initiatives. The question for this week is, what is the problem? How are we to know what the problem is that we need to solve?
This is where the ADDIE process begins. Analysis of the audience and the environment, or the curriculum, will guide you in understanding what it is you need to address and potentially guide you in deciding how to address the problem.

ADDIE, and other instructional design processes, is an iterative process. It requires the educator to begin with Analysis and then move through the process which will ultimately end with the process being another form of analysis through Evaluation.

Throughout this module, I will build on a graphical representation of suggestions and guidelines for how you will be able to frame your lEarning prototype or intervention within the ADDIE model.

Analysis could include identifying the module or programme and analysing it to determine where extra work could be done to facilitate learning based on feedback from students or academic outcome. It could include conducting a needs analysis with students through a survey or questionnaire, a focus group discussion, or analysis of module feedback comments. Once you determine whether or not your assumptions of the problem are supported by the afore-mentioned analysis, you can investigate potential solutions and analyse their ability to address the problem.

An example: 
An introduction to clinical practice module requires students to understand the value and importance of the patient interview. In the past, you have experienced students struggling with the patient interview in more senior phases of your course and make the assumption that if their introductory module were improved, their subsequent clinical practice modules would demonstrate this improvement through effective patient interviews.
Analysis for this scenario would include evaluation of the current teaching approach in the introduction to clinical practice module; a needs analysis investigating the need for a change or improvement in the  module executed by conducting focus group interviews with junior (currently in the Intro module) and senior students. 
Lets' assume that the students highlight a lack of preparation for real clinical practice and communication skills but shows that the theory of clinical interviews is strongly emphasized in the module.
The next step in analysis would include researching methods that could improve communication skills, methods that could facilitate application of theory, etc. You find that application of theory could be supported through the use of a flipped classroom, or assignments providing evidence of competence. The research should then go further to determine which would be most suitable for your environment and may then include a survey needs analysis where you determine whether or not students have access to technology that will enable them to engage with course material prior to class time (for a flipped classroom) or possibly record and submit electronic assignments demonstrating competence in interview skills.

As you can see from the scenario above, analysis before embarking on a solution to an assumed problem is essential. If I assumed that the way students are taught are incorrect and blindly went in to change the module structure, I would have no evidence to support it and may in fact have changed something that didn't need to be changed.

With this, I encourage you to begin your analysis process for your module/course. Comments are welcome should you have any questions, better yet, comment on each others' posts!

And so it begins....The boring admin part :)

Welcome to the FINAL module of your MPhil HPE coursework! I trust that you are approaching this with great excitement and not trepidation. As the final module, it is expected to be one that is complex and fitting for that of a "seasoned" and "critical thinking" Health Professional Educationalist.

Don't worry though, this module is far from boring. It is one in which, as promised, you will hopefully get to flex your HPE muscles that you have built up over the past two years using technology to facilitate the teaching and learning process. Though technology is a focus, I hope to engage with you in a discussion where we will start to change the way in which we approach these teaching and learning interventions, shifting from an E-learning to a lEarning approach. An approach in which learning is the focus and the electronic/technology component is just one of the tools used, along with content, teaching style, interactive group activities, assessment, etc.

In saying this, I would like to remind you that the approach that is used in this module is one of experiential learning. This means that you will be working on designing a new intervention/prototype, but at the same time use technology in a way that you could replicate in future as a teaching and learning tool through the blogs.

For each week of the module, you will have one aspect to focus on. The purpose of doing it in this way is for you to be able to focus your thinking and reading (and definitely writing) in a structured manner. As discussed at the beginning of the year, and in the module outline, we will be using one of the many instructional design approaches out there. ADDIE is a very basic, but useful method to use when embarking on the design of a new intervention. There are obviously many other design-based methods out there, however, for the purposes of this module, we will be focusing on this one.

I will be engaging with all of you on your blog as well as on this central one. It is also required of you to engage with your colleagues participating in this module on their blogs in order to learn through discussion and possibly collaboration. Please be sure to re-read the assessment structure for this module in the module outline and ask any questions you may have regarding this via the blog or the SUNLearn module forum.

I will be posting something specific to the focus of the week on each Monday of the module (don't worry, this post isn't it for the week) in order to begin the thinking and planning for your assignment. Remember, the finished product of this module is not to have completed the full ADDIE cycle, as the time given for the module is not sufficient. Instead, you are expected to at least complete the first three phases of the process Analysis, Design and Development; and then if it is not possible to complete the process with Implementation and Evaluation, to theoretically conduct these in a discussion in the assignment.

I look forward to this Exciting and Engaging
lEarning modulE!

*SUNLearn Forum message*

Dear Colleagues

I am happy to welcome you to the e-Learning elective. Please remember that we will be working exclusively via the blogger platform. The Central Blog healthElearning ( http://mphilhse.blogspot.co.za/ ) will be used to post discussion topics and share suggestions and guidelines for the focus of each week. The interactivity from your side via the blogger platform is compulsory and contributes to the mark for this module. This will require you to blog at least once a week on your personal blog that you created as well as comment on your fellow MPhil colleagues' blogs during the module. Though we will not use the regular academic platform, it is still an academic exercise and I would like to encourage you to search for, and share, as many articles as it applies to the work you will be doing in preparation for your assignment at the end of the module. 

A suggestion is to use the terms Blended Learning, when searching for articles, as this is the more common/acceptable term used these days. Some of the more useful databases, apart from Google scholar, are Wiley Online, Springer and Ebscohost. These can be found on the library website.

As a reminder for you, these are your colleagues that you will be working with for the next 4 weeks on this module:

Humphries	Petro	http://barebonesanatomy.blogspot.com
Masava	Beloved	http://belovednet.blogspot.com
Muniru	Ayishetu	http://simulationsatsmd.blogspot.com
Rambiritch	Vanitha	http://vanitharam.blogspot.com
Tin Maung Maung	Yamin	http://pomeyamin.blogspot.com

Please visit their blog to share your constructive ideas and feedback on their posts as the module progresses.

 I will post this forum announcement on the blog as well for those who may not check to see them here

Another year, another....

Today marks the eve of the e-learning module contact session with the MPhil HPE Class of 2015. I find myself wondering.... Is this another year with more of the same? Another year of angst and exhaustion following a tough contact week and even more nerve-wrecking proposal presentations this morning? Is this just another year of trying to come up with a witty theme and style for the module blog that half the participants aren't going to remember how to find in September when the module is about to begin?

Well, do not fear. I'm not some despondent, tired-to-be-teaching-the-same-module-again, type of facilitator. No, in fact I know that no matter how prepared or unprepared I may feel for our session in the morning, I am going to be excited when 8h00 arrives. Here's why...

At the end of this exhausting, angst-filled week that has marked the beginning of your final year, I get the chance to inspire an idea in at least one of you. I don't know if it'll be more than one or all, who will choose to take this elective at the end of the year (I will be happy with at least one though :) :) ). What I do know, is that every year, including the year that I sat exactly where you are right now, there is at least one person who finds this module liberating, a melting pot of ideas that consists of all the assessment, theories of learning, methodology, leadership, etc. that has been company in the early hours of the morning. In fact, I found this module so liberating that I branched out into a new career path while still using my passion for HPE as my true north.

And so, as I end of this part of the post, I would like to complete the sentence that I started in the title by saying: Another year, another opportunity to generate interest in the use of technology for enhancing teaching and learning.


Now for the " hard" part:

You will have signed up for blogger and started your own first blog (for many of you) by now. This blog post that you have written will remain text written in invisible ink unless you let us know where you are in the cyber-universe.

1. In the comments below, type your name and your blog address ONLY. 
2. Visit one of your classmates blogs (using the address you found in the comment section here).
3. Read what your classmate has written and respond to them in the comment section under their post.
4. Write your blog address and password down somewhere where you will remember it! (If you have a google/gmail account you use regularly, you will not need to do this as it is the same as that password)

And that is it!

You have completed your contact session for one of your 2nd year electives. Now I will say goodbye...and hopefully, hello to some (or all) of you later in the year again.

Struggling along and asking for directions....

It seems that many are getting a bit stuck along this journey. Do NOT despair!  Often it is about stopping and asking for directions when we take a detour on a trip. You may just find that the person who is assisting you is more interesting than if you hadn't wandered off. With that, I encourage you all to keep in touch with each other and to email me if you need to, as some of you have.

The Development phase in the ADDIE process is about trying to implement what you have planned without actually implementing  just yet. Let me explain with a very basic example of how someone would go through the first three phases of ADDIE...

I am a lecturer who has realised that my students aren't grasping a particular concept and believe that a group assignment may help them to understand this concept. However, this particular class doesn't work well together in small groups and often moan when I ask them to do so. I consider using Facebook as a platform since I know almost everyone in the class is using it for social reasons.

The Analysis consists of doing a small survey with the class about their interest in Facebook and use of it, as well as how they access the internet (home/cellphone/campus computers). I discover that they do not want to use Facebook for academic purposes and that there are some students who do not have mobile or home access to the internet. I then search for other options and discover that a site called Wikispaces is a nice option that will allow everyone to contribute to a wiki (online resource) without actually having to work on it simultaneously. I also need to find out if I need ethical clearance for attempting this if I want to write it up or present it as educational research.

I can then move on to the Design phase. In this phase I plan the assignment and ensure that I understand the website/online space of Wikispaces completely. I also decide on which students will do what and how they will be assessed. I need to design a basic training/demonstration session for students in class and ensure that there will be sufficient support for them, via email / message box in my office if they have questions.

This is where I will start the Development of my intervention. I set up the Wikispaces class page and invite each of the students to the site. I create a "training manual" for them on how to access and use the site and include a clear description for them on what is expected in the assignment. This includes reminding them of the fact that the internet is an open space requiring good academic writing skills and plagarism is not allowed.

This brings me to the focus we've had this week. The development of your intervention requires that you prepare fully for the Implementation phase. Should the first three phases be correctly carried out, the implementation phase shouldn't require new content to be created or excessive problems to arise. You will be prepared. Your materials are prepared. Your "plan B" options are in place. You are ready to IMPLEMENT.

Midion's Blogsite

Dear All We are struggling to add Midion's blogsite to the Course blogs on the right hand side. Until we sort it out, I want to invite everyone to view and bookmark his site to go and comment. His site address is: http://midionmapfumo1.blogspot.com/ Midion - now you have to write some posts for your fellow students to comment on!

eLearning Tools

I came across this ineteresting classification of eLearning Tools the other day - many of which I had not heard of before: http://c4lpt.co.uk/top100tools/best-of-breed/. If you click on the links on the page, they just go to a short description on the same site - not very useful. You have to do a search to find the actual website hosting the tool mentioned.

Despite all the criticism often leveled at PowerPoint, it comes out as 4th most popular tool in their analysis: http://c4lpt.co.uk/top100tools/analysis-2014/. Used properly, PowerPoint is an extremely flexible and powerful tool providing visual input and animation. However, many use it as a memory jogger and just place multiple bullet points on their slides - so called "death by bullet points". I posted a short video on YouTube on how to rather use PowerPoint: http://youtu.be/sICh1PNjFM4.

All of this can be overwhelming but the conclusion is don't make it complicated for yourself or for your students!

Developing your design

This week we take a step toward using what we have learnt in the analysis phase and putting it into action. The trick here is to NOT jump straight in and do  anything, rather, it is time to use the power of the pen / keyboard and design the intervention you have planned. Think about the students you are targeting, the module that you are working in, the problem you're addressing.....then, and only then, can you start to design the intervention.

I am currently sitting in another province in South Africa, on a family holiday. It would have been great to just jump into the car and start to drive. However, there were a few things that I needed to do first. I needed to know when both my family, and the family we're visiting, would be able to be on holiday. Once we knew that, we planned the route we would travel, estimated the amount of money we would need for our trip, looked at the weather to determine what clothes to wear, etc. etc. etc.

If we had not done all of this, we could easily have ended up driving along and getting stuck without petrol. Or perhaps we would have by chance arrived at our destination and found the family we're visiting were away on business. This is a very simple example that I am using to illustrate the importance of the phase we have just completed, Analysis, and the phase we are entering, Design.

Using the analysis of your situation, you will now need to design the intervention with particular attention paid to the possible pitfalls. If you are designing a new method of assessment using technology, have you thought about the adaptations needed in the teaching and learning activities of the module? You could be thinking of creating a learning activity using social media, but have you considered the ethical implications of this?

The design of any intervention requires a step-by-step plan of how you will execute your proposed endeavour. Do not underestimate the importance of this step....if we did that in the example I gave earlier, I would have ended up Richmond with a very unhappy family in tow :)

Analyse what? - Simple ways of finding out what your students want

In my previous post I suggested that you find out what the student needs are before starting any e-learning project. Remember, without a clear picture of what the needs are in your environment, you could be creating a lot of work for yourself designing a fantastic project or intervention that will never be used or appreciated.
There are different ways of determining what you should be focusing on, and I would like to share a few with you:

• Discuss potential issues with colleagues (often, what you identify as a problem is something that a colleague has already addressed and found a solution for)
• Conduct a short 'desktop analysis' of student feedback that has been received over time for your module.
• Send out a survey to students asking what their problem areas are in a module

These are just three ways of finding out where an intervention is needed. For the third idea, sending out a survey, a Google Form is a quick and easy way of collecting data.  Here is a short video clip on how to create and send the survey. I've also included the view that students will get as well as the results you can expect to see. 

Adding ADDIE to your GPS

Today the journey has officially begun for the 2014 tour group on the e-learning MPhil HPE safari. In order for us to be sure to reach our destination, we will have to add the route to our GPS. For this journey, you will need to follow the ADDIE route and to do so, let us go slowly through what that really means. ADDIE is a popular instructional design process whereby you systematically develop your e-learning prototype for this module. In this week, we are doing what all good travellers do, and that is to do an Analysis of your intended surroundings.

In this week, you are required to investigate possible ideas for your prototype, as well as identify who your target market is and what it is that they need.  The analysis includes analysing the job, selecting task functions and selecting the setting. Remember, you cannot expect your e-learning activity or project to be successful if you do not know what need you are fulfilling!

To help you get started, why don't you read this interesting article.

On your mark.....get set.....go!

Setting off on the Journey

We are less than a week away from setting off on the journey to the land of ADDIE. As I contemplate the process of designing the e-learning intervention/prototype that the students of this module will go through, I realise the importance of understanding the journey that all of them have already been on. I realise that there are those with extensive tour-guide experience in the land of Assessment, those who have collected the various postcards from the world of learning theory, and others who are tanned from enjoying the ocean of curriculum development. I look forward to being the tour guide on this next journey and hope that you are all buckled up, ready to enjoy the ride.