Taina Arkimo: My Edmodo-experiences during Pilot-course

I am a French teacher in Viikki teacher training school. Edmodo is my first experience of a digital platform. I wanted to take part in this project, because the digital baccalaureate is approaching in Finland and I wanted to find a new tool to work with my students and get them accustomed to this kind of environment. I also liked the way that this project was built: a couple of days of learning together at the beginning and the rest of the semester working and trying different tools with the help of the tutors that also kept pushing and encouraging.
The group I chose (1^st grade of upper secondary school) belongs to the first ‘generation’ that will perform their French baccalaureate in a digital form. I also have the pleasure of keeping the same group for three years. I found Edmodo a practical way of sharing information, documents and links. We don’t really have good school books for the long program in French, so a lot of the material comes from the teacher any way.
I used quite a lot of the assignment tool. Both my students and I found it a practical way of handing out writings. If there are not that many mistakes (grammar, spelling) it’s easy to give comments and grade, but in French there is usually a lot to correct, so I still found it easier to print the documents and make the corrections by hand. That is something I have to think of in the future. The digital way of working shouldn’t be more difficult or time consuming than the traditional one.

I created two types of small groups

-        the students worked in groups of 3-4 and made a presentation together (for the whole school), every group working on a small project that we put together in a common bigger project using Google slides. The project succeeded very well.

-        I also created a small group for each student so that they could use it as a digital portfolio and store their writings and all they find interesting in our French courses during three years that we work together

I am not assured that the Quiz tool it is very practical for foreign languages. Multiple choice or true/false are not the best ways of testing a foreign language and in productive exercises there are sometimes many correct ways to say things and the smallest spelling mistakes count (eg. accents in French). I still intend to continue and try different things with this tool, because it is practical otherwise.

It was mostly the teacher (either my teacher trainees or I) who uploaded documents and links on the platform but I tried to activate the students, too. Together we created mind maps on different themes (education, working life). There again we used a Google document. The idea was better than the outcome, because all did not actively take part in the project and they also found it difficult to study the vocabulary with the help of this mind map. They would have preferred the traditional list of words with a translation. However, I encouraged the students to link Quizzlets they’ve made for their fellow students to help them study the vocabulary. That was very useful, worked well and the Quzzlet-maker was also awarded a badge. This type of activity always has a positive effect on their grade, too. So, everybody gained something.

As I already told, I use a lot of my own material in my teaching, so I found library and folders very useful and it was a nice surprise to discover that the folders I made for one group could be used for all the Edmodo groups. Now I have a lot of material stored but I’ll still have to figure out how to organize and name all the folders.

I included my teacher trainees in this project, too. They had their own Edmodo group mostly for sharing information and discussing, but I also made them co-teachers of the groups they taught, so they could make their own trials and discover better the advantages of this kind of an environment. They appreciated this possibility.

I intended to work only with one group, but at the end of the semester I had four more groups and will definitely continue with Edmodo.

Have you always been teaching Blended Learning?

Pedro-Luis Garrido-Cano

SAFA

A long time ago. When I started working in engineering, someone showed me a diagram of what would happen to me in my work life. The image of that graph is stuck in my mind. Regardless of the work exercised (quality control, management, education), it has never ceased to be met.
This is the graph:

To understand this process we must start at the bottom and "climb" for the "Y" axis. In the first stage, you will be a "Rookie engineer". Here, you will always be working and you will have no "Business meetings" or "Business meals".
According to your climb in age and experience, you will cross over the border "Junior Engineer". We will find in the area between "Junior Engineer" and "Senior Engineer". At this stage, you will begin to have "Business meetings" and "Business meals". Thus, as you are ascending, your "Effective work" will diminish as the other tasks will occupy its place.
Finally, you shall cross over the border "Senior engineer" and you will become "Experienced engineer". In this area you have many commitments and "Effective work" will be drastically reduced by the "Business meetings" and "Business meals". Managers can analyze their work experience and will feel reflected in this graph.

And how can we move this work behavior graph to the concept of mixed education? The answer is found by changing the terms inside the graph, with those in the following:

I will change the "Y" axis, where it was before the rise in our profession, now is our progression from birth to working life. The area "Effective work" is replaced by our presential learning ("FACE to FACE" - F2F), "Business meetings" is changed by the "Labour Time" and "Business meals" for "eLearning".
It is clear that from our "Birth" to "Kindergarten" is where we devote more time to "F2F". Our "Labour Time" is limited to what adults teach, teaching us the basics of life and later the housework (pick up our toys, clothing, lay the table, etc.) and above all play. For "eLearning" will be limited to watching TV, cinema and (nowadays) we will have our "first computer" or some Video Console. And it is very likely "to borrow" parent mobiles!
If we analyze this behavior in children, we will soon realize that here we have the three concepts that form the Blended Learning ("Labour Time", "F2F" "eLearning"). Therefore, the answer to: Have you always been teaching Blended Learning? should be "Yes". Although we must also note that until recently we had not noticed or had not been given sufficient attention to it. But before taking any conclusions, consider what would happen during our school and working life.
In the next step, going from the "Kindergarten" to "Upper education" through the "School", we find an increasingly sharp decline in teaching "F2F". This kind of teaching is being replaced by (in the case of "Labour Time") time for homework, cultural visits, individual and group work, work placements, research, etc. And the "eLearning", initially, with seeking information through books, manuals, Internet and gradually in new platforms.
The challenge that we face is the standardization of Blended Learning. Because although, I drew an isosceles triangle, the reality is that the triangle type will be influenced by our "areas of interest".
This is what the need for standardization arise. Standardization that will help us to obtain the best results in teaching. And, it is with this research project that some answers will be given to questions like: how long to spend on each task?, what are the most desirable qualities of an eLearning platform?, how a student is motivated?, What work has to be done?, etc. Surely, this will raise more questions than answers or results. Otherwise, we will not have achieved our objectives: lay the foundations of a good standardization, if these questions are not included in the standardization process. And we will (probably) get a right triangle (which does not include any kind of learning).

If this project succeeds, will be the "seed" of a good standardization. In this way, we can go one step further: using this methodology as framework in the work market. Although this is beyond our study we can make a small reflection of the work market. In this time of crisis, we are seeing a lack of job opportunities for "adult" people. Among the major problems we encountered is the lack of flexibility in the retraining of workers and therefore people is unable to learn new technologies. Leading to a lower chance for changing jobs or way of working.

In my opinion, BLearning is a good tool to keep workers in the recycling activity. Because, as their time for "F2F" is drastically reduced, they cannot leave their job. If we can supply them with Elearning plus "F2F", we reached the top of our graph. And so, combine "Labour Time" and "Education" so that the "recycling" of workers can be an effective task.

And now a bit of advertising, if you want to participate in this exciting challenge. Meet us in Malaga (Spain) on 27, 28 and August 29, 2015 (Quality System for BLearning Education Conference, Málaga Conference web Page )
Project web page: blendedlearning-quality.eu

Register at the conference: Registration page

Blended Learning and Virtual Worlds

Michail Filioglou, EDRASE

Blended learning comprises by two distinct phases, the synchronous  and the asynchronous one.  A lot of attention has been recently given to the asynchronous part, with researchers trying to apply contemporary educational methods in distance learning. But there is a lack of research on the synchronous part.

When we are referring to the “synchronous part”, we are usually talking about the face-to-face meetings that the trainer has along with the trainees. This can happen at the beginning, during and/or at the end of the training. Another option is to use “Virtual Worlds”.

In the web-site of the “Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education”, a global grass-roots community event focusing on education in immersive virtual environments (http://vwbpe.org/about-vwbpe) is written that: “A virtual world is an online community that takes the form of a unique environment through which users can interact with one another and use and create ideas irrespective of time and space. Virtual worlds can be either 2D or 3D. They may be co-located or distributed. The core aspect that defines a virtual space is that a virtual environment provides a uniquely shared space for emerging relationships and serves as a foundation for the development of knowledge creation and sharing”

They also give some examples of virtual Worlds, which include :

•  Second Life, 
• OpenSim, 
• Unity,   
• Pinestest, 
• World of Warcraft, and   
• Eve Online.

The above mentioned virtual environments are segregated from WebEx, Sococo, VenueGen, and other platforms which are focused on more utilitarian purposes to a closed audience.

This is because virtual worlds are characterized by an open social presence, where the direction of the platform’s evolution is manifested in the community.

Out of the 28 Virtual Worlds Working Group (VWWG)  Australian institutions, 25 are using Second Life, 14 Open Sim and 7 are using other platforms, such as Vastpark, iSee, Unity3D, Quest Atlantis and three customised VWs for their own needs (Gregory et al. 2011). There is a variety of disciplines using VWs, with the most dominant in Education (22), Health (15), Business (12), Science (7) and a range of other disciplines (25), including history, art, sociology, law, engineering, architecture, visual and performing arts, tourism, hospitality, construction, languages, pharmacy, social and behavioural studies. There are approximately 200 students per HIE studying through a Virtual World.

In a recent research by Morrison et al.(2012)  it is referred that the influence of avatars on user trust in computer mediated communication environments is an issue which needs further research. 

The authors claim that this gap in literature should be addressed because many e-learning environments utilize computer mediated communication tools as first-order mechanisms to support distance learning student-teacher interaction. In their study they investigated whether or not there exists some effect from the uses of avatars on individual perceptions in computer mediated communications. Their results suggest that the use of avatars associated with trustworthiness affects trust development and  the perception of trustworthiness.

Another big study presented in Australia ( Gregory et al., 2011)

Showed that the use of virtual worlds in Australia’s Universities has become widespread. It is reported that the key things that they are using VWs for , are:

Research; providing students with virtual experiences unavailable to them; meetings; tutorials; social media; inter-professional education; ethical decision-making; experiential learning, collaboration; role-play; simulation; guest lectures' web-quests; excursions; tours; scenario based training; building; scripting; authentic assessment; programming behaviour of avatars and objects: interfacing VWs with motion capture suits and cybergloves; design and implement distributed spoils games.

Some challenges that remained unresolved are:

• Technical and financial support;
•  bandwidth;
•   acceptance;
•  accessibility;
• lack of vision;
• preparation of materials;
• many people on the one sim at the one time:
• timetabling;
• learning curve

References

·         Gregory, B., Gregory, S., Wood, D., Masters, Y., Hillier, M., Stokes-Thompson, F., Bogdanovych, A., Butler, D., Hay, L., Jegathesan, J.J., Flintoff, K., Schutt, S., Linegar, D., Alderton, R., Cram, A., Stupans, I., McKeown Orwin, L., Meredith, G., McCormick, D., Collins, F., Grenfell, J., Zagami, J., Ellis, A., Jacka, L., Campbell, J., Larson, I., Fluck, A., Thomas, A., Farley, H., Muldoon, N., Abbas, A., Sinnappan, S., Neville, K., Burnett, I., Aitken, A., Simoff , S., Scutter, S., Wang, X., Souter, K., Ellis, D., Salomon, M.,Wadley, G., Jacobson, M., Newstead, A., Hayes, G., Grant, S. & Yusupova, A. (2011). How are Australian higher education institutions contributing to change through innovative teaching and learning in virtual worlds? In G. Williams, P. Statham, N. Brown, & B. Cleland (Eds.), Changing Demands, Changing Directions. Proceedings ascilite Hobart 2011. (pp. 475-490).

http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/hobart11/procs/Gregory-full.pdf

·         Morrison, Rodger; Cegielski, Casey; Rainer, R. Kelly (2012) Journal of Computer Information Systems;Fall2012, Vol. 53 Issue 1, p 80