Building beyond the course, or even the program: how can virtual worlds extend the learning environment and create community?

SUNY CIT 2012 – Stony BrookEileen O’Connor, Ph.D.

Eileen.oconnor@esc.eduEmpire State College

Agenda

• Background – Teaching & learning – different connection & modalities, always

being tried (review)– Including other faculty – Research island – island design; virtual shifting

• Framework of a learning environment • Expansive efforts to date

– Teachers coming / student research / outreach to other students / outreach to admin/admissions – how can you extend beyond a course too?

– Considerations and issues – development, maintenance, support ; sharing design – reality and feasibility

http://commons.esc.edu/open/

http://commons.esc.edu/open/2012/05/04/call-for-papers/

On August 22-24, 2012, SUNY—Empire State College will be hosting a virtual conference on open education. The conference is global in scope and will be occurring over multiple time zones; therefore, the event will be conducted in a virtual world called Second Life. The modality will be a synchronous/asynchronous mode—participants can attend sessions as they occur, or session presentations will be recorded for play back at later times. Currently, we seek individuals to participate in the conference.Call for Presentations (and Posters)The OP*EN Virtual Conference welcomes presenters and posters that integrate one or more of these themes, as they relate to the concept of open education. As the aim is to cover open education for a world-wide audience, we would value a range of presentations, challenges, and discussion-starters around these areas:Philosophy: what conceptual, sociological, institutional, and educational underpinnings separate open education from other forms of teaching and learning? What are the core issues in defining openness, and what other forms of openness are required for open education (open leadership, open science, etc.)? Are there related concepts, constructs, and paradigms that serve or enhance openness as a concept? Process: what ways can a resource, course, learning experience move into the process of becoming “open”? How can current courses and resources be moved from behind ivory towers into open educational areas? How can current post-secondary institutions transform themselves into open universities? Projects: what are the examples of projects within your experience, personal, institutional or within your learning sphere that you would like to offer as a model or best practice? Policy: are there institutional issues that surround Open Education within your educational sphere? Have projects and ideas been brought forward within your institution and what organizations, governance groups, unions, or professional organizations have spoken to these issues? What areas do you expect might influence policy within your educational and learning sphere? What public policies effect openness (regulation, legislation, grants, accreditation)? Practices: in what ways have you or your colleagues begun to consider and develop open resources and practices? We encourage a variety of presentation styles as well as topics. The only common element we ask from all presentations and posters is that it should in some way challenge your audience to take openness to the next level.

Abstracts/summaries/battle plans or other treatments should be emailed to open@esc.edu by June 22nd, 2012.

Call for Presentations (and Posters) On August 22-24, 2012, SUNY—Empire State College will be hosting a virtual conference on open education. The conference is global in scope and will be occurring over multiple time zones; therefore, the event will be conducted in Second Life. The modality will be a synchronous/asynchronous mode—participants can attend sessions as they occur, or session presentations will be recorded for play back at later times. Currently, we seek individuals to participate in the conference.

The OP*EN Virtual Conference Abstracts/summaries/battle plans or other treatments should be emailed to open@esc.edu by June 22nd, 2012.

Continuing to advance in collaboration & community through tech – instructor techniques Over time, I have solidified an approach to

getting students into the virtual environment Various types of meetings / experiences

Integrating multiple interactive technologies – no need to wait for Learning Managements Systems to do it all

Soliciting student perspective and ownership Continuing the cycle through ongoing course

development Generative . . . and fun too ; engaging more, different,

and new types of learners Examining emerging “ideas” – open / badging

Invest in

yourself

(In my situation), why is community & continuity so important?

Many challenges face new teachers – what is needed in your content area?

Attitudes that can help an instructor grow towards valuing “community”

Willingness to experiment with emerging tech

Testing, evaluating, improving (publishing)

Valuing the social/professional

Starting prof. relationships among students (then letting them operate

independently)

Looking for new ways to connect & grow your

courses

Can your courses grow with more professional

connections among students?

Acknowledge the pedagogical value of community in your educational context

Developing virtual environments, present ideas & past practices – ideas to consider

• On a shoe string ; without programming or artists (at least initially) – Images & design – inelegant but practical & growing– Gained insight from ongoing pilots with my students –

expanding my knowledge regularly – Considered grants (no luck) then worked ideas into

courses • Having courses do “real” work within a professional masters

– Having virtual locations that serve as teacher resource areas; creating simple and useful

– Involving others – pros and cons

At the outset, students across the state give simple virtual presentations & guest speakers

came

The dean

speaking

ESC has an island

Over time, a more elaborate learning

space emerged; a private island

NOTE: and, although Second Life became more expensive, new ways to develop virtual environments are growing rapidly

In the new science center, meetings, presentations, and discussions expanded

Students began to design pods with their own science projects (sum. 2011)

Community & innovation expanded in spring 2012

Involving other faculty

Advancing interactive

design - integrating

shared video into

discussions

Advancing interactive

design - having poster session and

judging

Introducing badging, soliciting student

feedback

A faculty-led affinity group began - VirtualESC

A cross disciplinary and cross center (ESC is distributed across NYS) effort to share knowledge & applications and to “save our island” in the time of rising costs

• Meetings: basic to advanced techniques; application sharing; outside speakers

Including other faculty members

Brought in faculty in other disciplines that could present their areas of expertise to my online students

Before the presentation – helping with getting ready . .

. and any stage fright

Which requires some “training” Quick start guide Animations / tutorials

For the casual visitors &

presenters, headsets/speech

are the most complex problem

Running the show Being the sage

behind the machine – the Great and Powerful Oz

During the presentation

OTHER TECHNIQUES ---DESIGNING FOR IN-COURSE COMMUNITY – LOOPING, INTERACTIONS, FEEDBACK (ACROSS MEDIA)

Discussion board

Virtual meetings –

discussions

Talk alouds – discussion boards before new topics/

projects

Multiple media loops

(YouTube too)

Encouraging communication & idea sharing

For instance, working online, students watch and discuss videos about the course contents

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz1ld2AUTUQ

Each group meets in a separate, sound-

isolated location; later they post a PPT summary of the

group’s ideas & join in a discussion board w/

the whole class

APPLICATIONS BECAME

MORE SOPHISTICATED

THIS SEMESTER

Here’s a link to a 2 minute video overview of this project:

Looping across time and venues -- using technologies, interactions,& evaluations

Assignment

Presenting

Voting

First, the virtual island was expanded to add the conference center

The science lab assignments included the creation of a poster in PowerPoint

These posters were put into pods for the students for this course

Students came and presented to classmates & to “judges” (former students)

Judges & students (optional) voted on posters for a variety of characteristics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=hz1ld2AUTUQ&NR=1Here’s a link to a 2 minute video overview of this project:

Another new technique: a virtual speaker addressed badging

• After the presentation, students broke into groups and discussed the possible role of badging – in K12 & in graduate courses

• (Badging will be incorporated into the summer course requirements too)

• Here are YouTubes from the video discussion: – http://youtu.be/FECB2m3QNPg

http://youtu.be/gDXdhjZHeVI– http://youtu.be/-N2LtOp4XBs

New ways appearing for peer assessment valuing and extending learning (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges)

Use badges to make web-

evident learning more valued

and identifiable and to ensure quality work &

governance without constant

supervision

Grad course• Create, model, make

criteria, require, assess• Elect which stays

Dean award• Ensure follow-up

Badges: ongoing / generative• for input, continuity, and

ownership

Revisions /review• in later Grad course

EXPANDING WITH MORE INNOVATIONS – USINGHIGHER-ED COMPLEX PROJECTS TO GENERATE OPEN RESOURCES

Determine if any grant funding would be possible

Integrating student ideas & badging into

future course planning

CREATING OR EXTENDING PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS —TO STUDENTS & NEWBIES

Host website, locations (Facebook; virtual), topics, purpose, governance, and meetings-with-practitioners to connect students and others moving into new careers with ideas, jobs, & personal connections;

Develop, model, create, peer-review, define-assessments, and promote the initial projects within a graduate course; follow-up with a dean letter; task later courses with revisions;

Extend to appropriate interest groups – evaluate, improve, continue, & sustain: delegate ownership and revision to a later course, seek ongoing oversight & maintenance thru badges

For e

xam

ple

BENEFITS & USES Strengthen connections within

and to an organization (job searching)

Develop resource gathering; create an organizational present with the aid of a social network & virtual meetings

For e

xam

ple

BADGES – reinforce, validate & value Use badges to promote, extend,

monitor, and support the endeavor; For example, badges for:

Creator of a Professional Development Day Website Organizer and Moderator Gold Star Meeting Attendee $5K Fund Raiser Bronze Star New Member Mentor (based

on resumes reviewed by practitioner, perhaps)

Facebook Organizer

Badge

For e

xam

ple

Citizen Scientist: All-Sorts-of-Science

Host a website or e-assemblage for media, science links, data-gathering activities, tutorials, and the like focused on topic-based, field-science studies that can support real scientists

Develop, model, create, peer-review, define-assessments, and promote the initial project and website from a graduate course

Extend to the public – evaluate, improve, continue, & sustain: delegate ownership to later course, a school

partnership, or a professional organization seek ongoing oversight; use badge system to

ensure quality & encourage sustainability

For e

xam

ple

BENEFITS & MOTIVATION

REAL connections with & support for science (Cornell; www.globe.gov; www.nasa.gov)

Science literacy; science sharing; extending & creating new knowledge and understanding; helping other nations

For e

xam

ple

BADGES – to reinforce, validate, value, & sustain

Use badges to promote, extend, monitor, and support the endeavor;

For examples, badges for: 10 Great Pictures or Videos of Bugs or Crazy-

landforms or Star-clusters or Red Oaks Badge Bronze Helped-Fellow-Researcher Badge (entry

level # of Likes by other citizen-scientists who found this badgees discussion-boards tips to be helpful)

5 Useful Science Data Points Badge (generated by scientist who assert validity / utility of data gathered)

Can I get a Best Brain Badge?

For e

xam

ple

New considerations – making online more real but . . .

• Schedule for synchronous– but when moving to collaboration that can be a

problem– Online work is not necessarily independent work by

students / a new paradigm now within online itself • Plan for yours’ and students’ growth over time • The detailed startup helped / but they need to

have good computers– server issues too can happen; challenges with

headsets

Adding new pods for upcoming course in summer 2012

Ways of thinking – generating & valuing new outcomes in classrooms & programs

Implement research on learning

(constructivism)

Value more than just papers

Evaluate both collaborative & individual work

Start small (part of a course) evaluate

improve

USE YOUR COLLABORATION AS A WAY TO TEST NEW

APPROACHES FOR LATER USE IN

CLASSES

Ways of thinking – expanding scholarly & committee work

Initiate a collaboration within your content area

or committee

Structure store (web resources), scheduling,

meeting locations

Create criteria & evaluation for materials

to be saved

Determine governance & maintenance; consider publication & sharing

Considerations . . . in general, for effective collaborations

Timing / scheduling –

when will interactions

occur?

Saving interactions

and materials – how will you

save the results

achieved?

Ownership / governance – what will make

the collaboration

efforts sustainable?

Creating opportunities . . . & requirement

• Becoming firmer in my own beliefs and values – Progressing despite the odds

• Mapping to professional organizations – Empowering students – Immersive, enriched environments • Threaded with empowering conversations

• Valuing knowledge, growth, and ideas – Seeing growth in more then “just papers”

Thank you – eileen.oconnor@esc.edu