The Discussion Forum is Dead; Long Live the Discussion Forum
May 08, 2013 | Filed in: Tools
by Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel
There are better forums for discussion than online discussion forums. The discussion forum is a ubiquitous component of every learning management system and online learning platform from Blackboard to Moodle to Coursera. Forums have become, in many ways, synonymous with discussion in the online class, as though one relatively standardized interface can stand in for the many and varied modes of interaction we might have in a physical classroom. The rhetoric of a physical classroom -- its pedagogical topography -- can certainly dictate how we teach within it: where the seats are, which direction they face, whether they’re bolted down, what kind of writing surfaces are on the walls, how many walls have writing surfaces, whether there are windows, doors that lock, etc. The same is true of the virtual classroom: is it password protected, what kind of landing page do we arrive on when we enter the course, how many pages allow interaction, can students easily upload and share content. Each of these predetermined variables allows (and sometimes demands) a certain pedagogy.
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There are better forums for discussion than online discussion forums. The discussion forum is a ubiquitous component of every learning management system and online learning platform from Blackboard to Moodle to Coursera. Forums have become, in many ways, synonymous with discussion in the online class, as though one relatively standardized interface can stand in for the many and varied modes of interaction we might have in a physical classroom. The rhetoric of a physical classroom -- its pedagogical topography -- can certainly dictate how we teach within it: where the seats are, which direction they face, whether they’re bolted down, what kind of writing surfaces are on the walls, how many walls have writing surfaces, whether there are windows, doors that lock, etc. The same is true of the virtual classroom: is it password protected, what kind of landing page do we arrive on when we enter the course, how many pages allow interaction, can students easily upload and share content. Each of these predetermined variables allows (and sometimes demands) a certain pedagogy.
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A MOOC by Any Other Name
August 13, 2012 | Filed in: Open Education
by Hundreds in Google Docs
On August 13, as part of a collaborative exercise in Hybrid Pedagogy’s MOOC MOOC, nearly 500 participants worked together in seven separate documents to create essays about MOOCs. They were given specific parameters -- half a day, cite three sources, write exactly 1,000 words, and illustrate with an image. Working in sections of about 50 participants each, each group succeeding in massively co-authoring, and massively peer-reviewing their articles. The article below stood out as one ready to publish, but all the articles were noteworthy. We’ve included a short Storify at the end of the complete piece below, including links to all the Google Docs in which the essays were written.
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On August 13, as part of a collaborative exercise in Hybrid Pedagogy’s MOOC MOOC, nearly 500 participants worked together in seven separate documents to create essays about MOOCs. They were given specific parameters -- half a day, cite three sources, write exactly 1,000 words, and illustrate with an image. Working in sections of about 50 participants each, each group succeeding in massively co-authoring, and massively peer-reviewing their articles. The article below stood out as one ready to publish, but all the articles were noteworthy. We’ve included a short Storify at the end of the complete piece below, including links to all the Google Docs in which the essays were written.
Read More...Theorizing Google Docs: 10 Tips for Navigating Online Collaboration
May 14, 2012 | Filed in: Tools
by Jesse Stommel
My Hybrid Pedagogy co-editor (Pete Rorabaugh) and I hatched the plan for this journal in a Google Doc, and we’ve since written 29,316 words in that document. Before the end of 2012, we will likely produce the equivalent of a lengthy academic book. We contribute ideas synchronously and asynchronously, writing together at specific times and taking turns in the document on our own. Our collaboration runs so deep that single sentences are usually co-composed, our cursors occasionally blinking in unison within a single word. While I still recognize the texture of my own language and the idiosyncratic turns of my writerly voice, I don’t take ownership of my own writing the way I once did. And it isn’t just that I’m no longer attached to the sentences I write when collaborating; rather, I find myself more and more unattached to (but not detached from) the writing I do no matter the circumstance.
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My Hybrid Pedagogy co-editor (Pete Rorabaugh) and I hatched the plan for this journal in a Google Doc, and we’ve since written 29,316 words in that document. Before the end of 2012, we will likely produce the equivalent of a lengthy academic book. We contribute ideas synchronously and asynchronously, writing together at specific times and taking turns in the document on our own. Our collaboration runs so deep that single sentences are usually co-composed, our cursors occasionally blinking in unison within a single word. While I still recognize the texture of my own language and the idiosyncratic turns of my writerly voice, I don’t take ownership of my own writing the way I once did. And it isn’t just that I’m no longer attached to the sentences I write when collaborating; rather, I find myself more and more unattached to (but not detached from) the writing I do no matter the circumstance.
Read More...Infiltrating the Walled Garden
May 02, 2012 | Filed in: Tools
by Wm. Beasley
Learning Management Systems (LMS) are walled gardens. They provide substantial control over the environment in which learning activities take place, and at first glance this appears to be a good thing. For this reason they are often relatively appealing to faculty members beginning to make the transition from fully traditional classroom instruction. The level of control is familiar… but it is also misleading when taken in the context of the full learning process (see “Hack the LMS: Getting Progressive” for more on this).
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Learning Management Systems (LMS) are walled gardens. They provide substantial control over the environment in which learning activities take place, and at first glance this appears to be a good thing. For this reason they are often relatively appealing to faculty members beginning to make the transition from fully traditional classroom instruction. The level of control is familiar… but it is also misleading when taken in the context of the full learning process (see “Hack the LMS: Getting Progressive” for more on this).
Read More...How to Storify. Why to Storify.
April 14, 2012 | Filed in: Tools
by Pete Rorabaugh and Jesse Stommel
Storify describes itself: “Storify lets you curate social networks to build social stories, bringing together media scattered across the Web into a coherent narrative. We are building the story layer above social networks, to amplify the voices that matter and create a new media format that is interactive, dynamic and social.” It’s a beautiful description and yet we’re not sure we buy it. For us, Storify feels more like the layer beneath social networks. The layer where the archiving (not the “amplifying”) happens. Story doesn’t “drive” or “build” thinking. Story organizes and maps thinking. The power of Storify, then, is in its ability to cohere and preserve, to create a blueprint for a much wilder and more disparate conversation happening on the web.
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Storify describes itself: “Storify lets you curate social networks to build social stories, bringing together media scattered across the Web into a coherent narrative. We are building the story layer above social networks, to amplify the voices that matter and create a new media format that is interactive, dynamic and social.” It’s a beautiful description and yet we’re not sure we buy it. For us, Storify feels more like the layer beneath social networks. The layer where the archiving (not the “amplifying”) happens. Story doesn’t “drive” or “build” thinking. Story organizes and maps thinking. The power of Storify, then, is in its ability to cohere and preserve, to create a blueprint for a much wilder and more disparate conversation happening on the web.
Read More...Experiments in Mass Collaboration
February 15, 2012 | Filed in: Critical Pedagogy
by Pete Rorabaugh and Jesse Stommel
We see the banking model of education in classrooms where desks are arranged in tidy rows and in every labyrinthine online class portal. Mass collaboration disrupts organizational structures imposed from the outside and encourages students to build new channels of communication and new habits of analysis. Mass collaboration pushes students out of the classroom or online class portal and into the world, where their work has more immediate relevance and a much larger audience. Finally, mass collaboration redraws the role of the instructor, shifting power dynamics and forcing students to take ownership of their own learning.
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We see the banking model of education in classrooms where desks are arranged in tidy rows and in every labyrinthine online class portal. Mass collaboration disrupts organizational structures imposed from the outside and encourages students to build new channels of communication and new habits of analysis. Mass collaboration pushes students out of the classroom or online class portal and into the world, where their work has more immediate relevance and a much larger audience. Finally, mass collaboration redraws the role of the instructor, shifting power dynamics and forcing students to take ownership of their own learning.
Read More...Document Sharing and Markup
February 13, 2012 | Filed in: Tools
by Pete Rorabaugh
Text becomes our voice in digital space. In the land-based classroom, we speak. In the online classroom, we compose. What we write, the way that we write, and our interactions with the writing of others determines who we are in the online or hybrid classroom. Critical pedagogy, the tradition of progressive, socially and politically conscious teaching, asserts that our voice is an expression of our power. As such, the way we write establishes an authority about which we should be conscious.
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Text becomes our voice in digital space. In the land-based classroom, we speak. In the online classroom, we compose. What we write, the way that we write, and our interactions with the writing of others determines who we are in the online or hybrid classroom. Critical pedagogy, the tradition of progressive, socially and politically conscious teaching, asserts that our voice is an expression of our power. As such, the way we write establishes an authority about which we should be conscious.
Read More...