As for what was learned in the last class, Synchronous Learning in the Workplace… well, nothing much. If I did have to point to specific take-aways from the course, here they are:

• Synchronous learning platforms and the technologies surrounding it are not a replacement for sound instructional design. When teaching online, you still have to adhere to instructional design principles in order to deliver quality instruction.
• You must think of ways to interact with the learner, create activities to engage them and provide opportunities to apply what they are learning wherever possible in synchronous learning.
• Enable social presence wherever possible in synchronous learning sessions.

It will be a while before I return to complete the WELPS certificate as my experience during the course was different from the previous courses. With a break, I hope to recharge and re-engage as soon as possible.

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I knew this wasn’t going to be easy attempting to take a graduate level course online while balancing career and family. Over the last couple weeks, things have come to a head and I’m beginning to regret my choice of taking a course for the Spring semester.

My personal challenges this year are really not all that worthy of illustrating here in this forum.  Let’s be serious, do you really want to hear them?  Personal challenges aside, this semester’s class has a different feel to it.  Unlike the other courses I have taken in this certificate program, the pace at which the discussions have been moving has been staggering.  It’s very difficult to keep up and more often than not, it is nearly impossible to “jump in” to the discussion if you have been away from it for a couple days.

I have other work to do and other obligations to meet.  I don’t live on the class discussion forum, and yet I feel my classmates do.  Nothing against them, but what I’m observing is the biggest drawback to online education in general.  In most courses, the only way for the instructor to measure your contribution to the course is through the number of posts you make to the discussion board.  This is your attendance.  However, I think many people taking these courses mistake quantity over quality even though the instructor clearly states that they are looking for substantive discussion.

It’s too late to drop the course now and even if I did, I would feel as though I failed it.  I have to remember that done is better than perfect in this scenario.  I already have the degree and all I’m doing is working for a certificate of completion to add to it.  Nothing more.

Frustrating… to say the least.

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• Communication Modes
• Rehearsal/Response Options
• Instructor Pacing
• Social Presence

The class was split up into groups and each was assigned a feature to explore and research.  Our goal was to find what research is out there and published on these features and share our findings with the class.

I was actually pleased to be assigned to the subject of Social Presence in synchronous e-learning.  One of my goals since starting the WELPS certificate program was to find ways to bring social media into e-learning and the workplace.  Conducting some research this week led me to some recent papers on the use of social media in the classroom.  I read about three papers and a couple articles on the subject.  Out of these papers and articles, I found a few that speak well to the subject at hand.

First thing’s first: let’s define Social Presence in learning.  Out of all my research, pretty much all of them agree that Social Presence is…

Tools, systems, structure and functionality that supports social interaction between people and group members.

All of the articles I found agree too that when Social Presence is reduced, communication decreases leaving people and group members feeling disconnected.

The Papers

Enhancing Social Presence in Online Learning: Mediation Strategies Applied to Social Networking Tools

Key points:

• Using social media tools like Twitter and Facebook to create or augment social presence in e-learning places the responsibility on the students to participate and make the necessary connections with others. However, guidance by the instructor must be given to ensure that social media is being used as an educational tool and not a message board or photo sharing site.
• Since most incoming students to college courses and people in younger generations are already engaged in these spaces, instructors should make a concerted effort to engage with their students.
• Students participating in online courses often have a sense of isolation, impacting their success.  Therefore, participation in social media spaces with fellow students builds a sense of community they may not receive in the virtual classroom.

Tweeting the Night Away: Using Twitter to Enhance Social Presence

Key points:

• Although learning management systems (LMS) and virtual classrooms offer a wide variety of tools for social interaction and social presence, some lack the ability to offer just-in-time social interactions and connections.  Twitter can offer free-flowing, just-in-time interaction.
• Learning can take place outside the context of the classroom environment.  Twitter enables users to connect with their fellow students without being tied to the LMS or virtual classroom.
• The nature of Twitter enhances the student to write concisely due to character restrictions (140 characters), target specific audiences and maintains and ongoing relationship after the class complete.
• Instructors should provide clear guidelines for use to support learning and interaction with fellow students.

—–

As you can see, if the synchronous e-learning platform you use does not afford social presence, there are ways around it by utilizing third-party applications.  In order for it to be effective, some guidance should be provided for it’s usage.  However, too much guidance will stifle social presence which should develop organically among the learners.

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What does that mean?

The common myth is that something more visual, like a video, is better than text or spoken word for example.  The truth is, it is not the delivery mechanism or media that is chosen for instruction that facilitates learning, it is the components that make up the instruction that enables the learner to gain new knowledge or change their behavior (whichever the primary performance objective is).

Those “components” and their examples are:

• Communication mode – text, audio, graphics
• Instructional methods – definitions, examples, demos, practice
• Instructional architecture – receptive, directive, guided discovery, exploratory

Out of these components, I wonder how a learner’s learning style comes into play? According to the authors, the media doesn’t matter.  It’s the components employed that are important as to whether or not the learner gains new knowledge or changes their behavior.  Certainly, some media is going to work better than others at delivering a message based on learning style.

Perhaps I’m falling into the very myth I’m trying to debunk here.  One thing I didn’t notice in the text was discussion of some upfront audience analysis that should be done before pulling instructional components together to create synchronous e-learning.  It wasn’t covered in the first two chapters of the text.  Maybe it was only assumed this would be done before any instructional components were pulled together.

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Due to course scheduling, I wasn’t able to register for a course during the Fall ‘09 semester because, well… there wasn’t one scheduled that I wanted to take.  In fact, had I went with my original plan of selected courses, I wouldn’t have been able to take the courses I wanted to until the start of the upcoming Fall ‘10 semester or following Spring ‘11 semester (I think).  Either way, it would have had to sit out for quite a while in order to take the courses I wanted to and receive my certificate in a timely manner.

Unfortunately, I had to compromise somewhat.  Please don’t misconstrue me.  Every course that is part of the WELPS Certificate are worth their weight in gold.  However, I have a feeling that IPT 511 – Synchronous E-Learning in the Workplace, where GoToMeeting will be the preferred application for the course, will be a cake walk.

For the last two years in my professional career, practically all of the training I delivered was synchronous over virtual classrooms.  If the course description is correct…

Students will examine principles and techniques for developing and implementing synchronous web-based learning strategies to improve performance in the workplace.

… this is going to easy.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure I’ll learn something new. I always seem to in these courses which has made the experience thus far very worthwhile.

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