Blogging Reflections

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I did struggle with this assignment. It was a little difficult for me to write blog posts with very little direction as to what topics they should cover. Was this an opportunity to research deeper into subject matter presented in class that we found interesting? Was this a forum to share our personal experiences and challenges as related to the class? Was the content posted not important, and so was this an exercise in using and responding to blogs?

That being said, I greatly enjoyed following the blogs of my classmates. This was a great opportunity to learn more about my classmates, their perspectives, and their backgrounds. I very much enjoyed reading Travis' blog, and was grateful for his feedback on my posts. It was also very exciting when other classmates responded to my blog! I could see how keeping a blog and following the blogs of peers would create a virtual open forum that is engaging and gives users a sense of community. It is very encouraging to receive feedback from your peers, especially if it is not required of them.

I am personally concerned with the amount of time it takes me to craft a blog post. I have similar issue crafting discussion posts in class. Some nights I feel like I am only able to read 1 reading and/or complete 1 post. I do set aside at least 20 hours a week to work on my coursework (however, I am taking 2 classes). I honestly think that, even with practice, it will always take me 1 to 2 hours to craft a discussion post (or to read and digest 20 pages). This does create some anxiety for me, as I am always worried about whether or not I will finish everything by its appointed deadline. However, the positive interest in my experiences and progress from my classmates, as exhibited in their responses to my blog, was reassuring and gave me a little push to keep going.

Although this has been a time intensive process, I am interested in continuing to blog about community in distance education. I also am interested in saving my discussion posts from class in my learning journal so that I can refer back to them after the class ends.

Using Social Media to Create a "Sense of Community"

Merriam-webster.com defines community in three ways: as "a united body of individuals," as “an interacting population…in a common location,” and as "a body of persons of common...interests scattered through a larger society." Tom Adamski, former CEO of Rosetta, describes communities in his TEDx talk (2012) as "an organic construct" that is "built off of the elements of our human nature: our wants, our desires, our psyche."

Communities are built naturally in a traditional education setting. Students interact face-to-face with other students in their classes and on campus. As they get to know their peers, they identify and connect with people with interests, challenges, and goals similar to themselves. Students can then turn to these connections for support and encouragement throughout the completion of their program and beyond.

These communities also serve as reminders that their studies should be a high priority. In a tight-knit class community, the absence of a student is not only noted by a professor but also by their peers. In classes where verbal discourse is encouraged or required, students must stay engaged in class conversation and up-to-date with the course materials or risk possible public humiliation.

Online education, unfortunately, does not offer students the same access to their peers as in traditional education. Communication is largely asynchronous. Students also do not have easy access to the personal characteristics of their classmates: their age, background, personality, interests, sense of humor, etc. This makes it incredibly difficult for students to connect and form communities in meaningful ways and that give them support (moral or otherwise) in their studies.

In cases where online classrooms fail to give students a sense of community, social media may be utilized to assist students with connecting with their classmates. Because communities are formed by individuals meeting in a common location, institutions can assist students in building communities by dictating the common ground where they will exist: Facebook, Google+, a university sponsored social media platform, etc. Profile features, similar to those found in Facebook, can be utilized to assist students with locating peers with similar interests and backgrounds (Ren et al, 2012). Centralized, free, and open discussion forums can be utilized to give students a common ground to meet and communicate.

Not all online students are comfortable with or have experience using social media. Instructors can further assist with institution-wide endeavors to build online student community through helping students to construct online communication literacy and social media skills. OnlineUniversities.com’s 2010 blog post 100 Inspiring Ways to Use Social Media In the Classroom contains a detailed list of activities instructors can add to their curriculum/coursework to assist students in building these skills.

Online communities have the potential to encourage student engagement and prevent attrition in online distance education programs. However, in order to take advantage of this potential, institutions must commit to offering students a virtual common ground to meet, as well as encourage students to use it. At the same time, because communities are built organically, institutions must allow students the personal space to use the virtual common ground and to make it their own. If institutions force students to participate in communities that they (the institution) feels is most necessary and beneficial, they risk low student engagement.

References:

Adamski, T. (2012, December 26). Community – Making an old concept new [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AKfvRF_Mh8

Community. 2014. In Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved October 23, 2014, Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/community

OnlineUniversities.com. (2010, May 4). 100 Inspiring Ways to Use Social Media In the Classroom [Blog Post]. Retrieved from http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2010/05/100-inspiring-ways-to-use-social-media-in-the-classroom/

Ren, Y. et al. (2012). Building member attachment in online communities: applying theories of group identity and interpersonal bonds. MIS Quarterly, 36(3), 841-864. Retrieved from http://www.misq.org/

Blogs and Discussion Posts

Truthfully, I have been struggling with this blog assignment. The purpose of this assignment seems to be to utilize two Web 2.0 technologies to reflect on our course material as well as comment on our classmates' reflections. There is a lot of research that points to blogs and learning journals as helpful reflective tools for students (and instructors) to track growth in content understanding as well as learning skills and critical thinking (Pang, 2009). Through reading and commenting on the blog posts of other students, students can track their classmates' progress and compare it against their own. This "transparency -- in the sense of allowing individuals to observe, compare themselves with, and emulate others -- is a feature of many social networking and Web 2.0 applications" and can give students helpful insight into their learning community (Poellhuber & Anderson, 2011, p. 105).

My question is, however, aren't our conference posts in LEO (UMUC's learning management system) a type of learning journal? In class, we are required to share regular reflections on our texts as well as comment on the discussion posts of our classmates. The purpose of these discussion posts are: to demonstrate comprehension of the material through critical thinking, and to encourage a discussion between students that results in the collective building of understanding of topics and themes as directed by the instructor. Reading these posts gives us insight into our classmates' background and experience with the class materials. Reviewing our earlier posts also gives us helpful insight into our own growth and the material that we've learned throughout the class.

If, then, our discussion posts are similar to a learning journal, is the purpose of this assignment to simply to practice using a Web 2.0 technology? And should we be copying and pasting our conference posts from class into our learning journal in our e-portfolio (for our capstone) so that we can review them after our class is finished? Thoughts?

References:

Pang, L. (2009). Application of Blogs to Support Reflective Learning Journals. DE Oracle @ UMUC. Retrieved from http://cdm16240.contentdm.oclc.org.ezproxy.umuc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p16240coll5/id/83

Poellhuber, B., & Anderson, T. (2011). Distance students' readiness for social media and collaboration. International Review Of Research In Open And Distance Learning, 12(6), 102-125. Retrieved through http://www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=EJ963934

Openness in Education

In his TEDx talk, Wiley (2010) discusses that the internet has given educators the means to share their knowledge and expertise in an unprecedented way. He states that the "more open we are" in education in regards to sharing our content "the better education will be," and that not sharing is selfish and contrary to the spirit of education.

My first reaction to watching this TEDx talk is that this type of sharing would not be possible on a large scale in the United States. At present, university enrollments are down across the country due to changes in financial aid and military tuition assistance. Students are also doing more shopping around and research before selecting an institution that fits their lifestyle and needs. Universities are showing that they are sensitive to these changes in the market place by employing tactics such as video applications for admissions, heavy marketing and prospective student outreach, flexible hybrid or online coursework, and more career focused degree programs to hook students. If universities are competing against each other for their student body, I would understand their reluctance to "show their cards." What if they divulged the components of a popular program and another university used these notes to engineer the same/similar program?

With this thought in mind, I turned to the internet for proof that openness in education was perhaps was a bit too utopian for a capitalistic society. I was completely wrong! There are many examples of open courseware from US universities available for free online, including from: University of California - Irvine, Yale University, Tufts University, University of Notre Dame, University of Massachusetts, Utah State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, and New Jersey's Science and Technology University. In addition to these open courseware sites, many universities have shared content through massive open online courses hosted by providers like EdX and Coursera.

Many of these universities are ivy league schools or top ranking institutions, and may not have to compete for new students like other smaller or state universities. However, it is clear that opening access to coursework is on the minds of US educators. Although some of the open courseware sites have been available since the early 2000s, the field of open education is still developing as educators continue to experiment with different ways to open access and content.

References:

TEDx Talks. (2010, April 12). TEDxNYED - David Wiley - 03/06/10 - Open education and the future [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb0syrgsH6M&feature=player_embedded

Peer Encouragement and Barriers to Research

I chose to write my first paper for OMDE 603 on using Facebook groups for distance learning. In my paper, I covered topics such as using Facebook groups as the learning management system as well as a device to create student communities. My purpose in writing the paper, however, was to discuss the positive effects of online peer encouragement and its potential for distance education.

Unfortunately, I found that there is a surprising lack of research on both peer encouragement and online communities in academic settings. I searched high and low for articles on online student community outside of classes, i.e. as part of a digital student union or a student support groups. The only research I could find on online communities was either from a marketing perspective or about building a sense of community in a class. This lack of research makes me wonder if the idea of low-pressure student peer support groups and peer encouragement has not be fully examined or realized in distance education.

If this is true, how does one make a case for why this type of student engagement is important? My mentor at work had suggested that I submit a blog post to an e-learning blog for consideration. For the past few weeks, I've been trying to search for supporting studies and papers on this topic. Unfortunately, I really don't have any time to truly flesh out this argument. For the past 2 weeks, I've been working on a paper for another class (OMDE 608). Another obstacle I've encountered is that many articles that look the most promising in UMUC's library are not available in full text. I have used the DocumentExpress feature, which has been incredibly helpful.

On a related side note, you will not believe the unique research you can find when you search the library for "virtual cheerleading." Thinking I had miraculously discovered some potentially relevant research, I opened DocumentExpress to find a conference proceeding regarding a cheerleading (the kind with pom-poms) fitness program in a 3D virtual reality environment/game. Not exactly what I was looking for...but thank you....

Welcome to My OMDE 603 Journal

Hello! Welcome to my OMDE 603 blog. For the next 5 weeks(?), I will be posting my thoughts, challenges, and victories as related to OMDE 603 Technology in Distance Education and E-Learning, a course I am completing as part of my Masters in Distance Education at University of Maryland University College. My intended audience will mostly be my classmates and instructors. If you have found me through other means, however, please feel free to weigh in. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.

Currently, I am working furiously on Assignment 1. My goal is to have my paper finished by this evening. For some reason, I am so excited to write about my topic (Facebook Groups as utilized by online stand up paddle communities) that it is actually distracting. I need to narrow my focus, and maybe save some notes so that I can use later assignments as opportunities to flesh out some topics.

I wonder if this blogging assignment would be a great opportunity for us (my classmates and I) to act as virtual cheerleaders and cheer each other on. Athletes in the stand up paddle groups that I am examining in my paper utilize their Facebook Groups to train together asynchronously. They report their progress in their training by posting on the group's wall. Other group members will then "like" or comment on the posts with words of encouragement and advice. As I explain in my paper, this virtual cheerleading is effective in motivating the athletes in 2 ways. The comments show the athletes that other athletes are monitoring their progress, making them accountable for their fitness goals. The comments and "likes" also give the athletes positive reinforcement, and a feeling that a larger community cares about them and their success. The groups I am following on Facebook have grown rapidly in popularity as a way to train for/complete monumental distance races and events.

The two stand up paddle groups that I am researching are the 100/100 Paddle Challenge (a group devoted to paddling 100 miles in 100 days), and the Back of the Pack Chattajack (a group of everyday paddlers that are training for a 31 mile race on the Chattanooga called the Chattajack).

Sometimes, I feel like completing online classwork is a monumental distance event. This type of supportive online community could be used to help give distance education students the momentum they need to stay continuously enrolled and complete their programs.