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- Designing an Online Learning Environment
My Dualities in an OLE
Diversity/Coherence: “The culture of teaching is primarily one of isolation, where teachers are most concerned with and motivated by improving student learning, rather than improving their own teaching practice (Dunn & Shriner, 1999).” If we stick with strict coherence we’ll only be finding solutions for today’s questions, if we see a diverse background we can compare all of our options.
Online/Face-2-Face: Yes, the principles of forming communities online are the same F2F, but the current use of on online media (text based discussion boards) restrict community from forming as easily as it would in a F2F environment.
Identification/Negotiability: All though you will surely benefit from having a diverse group, some people might have certain perceptions of a person in an identified role, but they might interpret statements or attitudes
- For instance, just because I am a peripheral member of CoP, doesn’t necessarily mean they have nothing to offer.
- Additonally what happens when someone falsifies their identity or doesn’t give an accurate description. For instance, does the physical appearance of my avatar in Second Life necessarily represent me, no!
Local/Global: To form a community you have to be coming at it from the same direction as in the e-ILF example it would be better to experience in your “inquiry circle” with a another fifth grade biology teacher than a high school French teacher
Participation/reification “A teacher’s classroom practice is much more closely tied to her identify as a person” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999). This practice is largely passed on internal reflection and the personal choice to make that transfer.
Designed/Emergent If participants are restricted on what they can and cannot do they will likely be able to change with their needs. Example would be the Moodle community, it was originally designed as a social constructivist tool, but the community supports the use of adding in very didactic quizzes, linear lecture based resources, etc. Although some of these added blocks don’t support the original design the Moodle community was grown to support these features.
