Assignment 3 MDDE 601
- 1. A COLLABORATIVE DISCUSSION: PROPOSING THE INCLUSION OF A MOBILE STRATEGY IN MDDE601:INTRODUCTION TO DISTANCE EDUCATION MDDE 623: INTRODUCATION TO MOBILE LEARNING Presentation date: Wednesday, November the 12th, 2014 Presenters: Chrysochoou Chrysoula Shaw Jeff (Google images,2014)
- 2. OUTLINE Learning outcomes Slide 3 MDDE601:Introduction to Distance Education Slides 4-5 Proposal Slide 6 Reasons for choosing it Slide 7 How to adopt a mobile strategy for Communication Slide 8 Edmodo application Slides 9-15 How to adopt a mobile strategy for Assessment/Feedback Slide 16 Handouts application Slides 17-21 Join our Course Slides 22-23 References Slide 24
- 3. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this presentation, you will: Increase your understanding of how to adopt a mobile learning strategy Engage in critical reflection and evaluation regarding the benefits and challenges related to the inclusion of mobile learning strategies Be introduced to two useful mobile learning apps and acknowledge their importance
- 4. MDDE601:INTRODUCTION TO DISTANCE EDUCATION Main characteristics The first core course in Athabasca University’s Master of Education Is required for all students Follows an instructor-paced procedure Is presented via the Moodle Learning System (LMS) Instructional materials include two textbooks, one e-book and online articles Teacher-student communication is stressed upon through communication boards Content Presents the contemporary forms of distance education Explores the application of said forms in different settings (K-12 schools, post-secondary institutions, workplaces, training environments Provides a wide range of insightful theory and research Offers distance learners the chance to explore distance education technology, acknowledge the importance of learner support and examine the management of distance education programs (Athabasca University,2013)
- 5. MDDE601:INTRODUCTION TO DISTANCE EDUCATION Assessment tools Four discussion forums One collaborative group project Three individual assignments Course goals and learning objectives To promote independent learning To provide flexibility For students to become effective and competent distance learners Increase their critical thinking and researching capabilities through scholarly writing assignments (Athabasca University, 2013)
- 6. PROPOSAL MDDE601: Introduction to Distance education has been chosen to adopt a mobile learning strategy and include mobile technologies in order to constitute an enhanced cognitive environment. Incorporating a transactional distance theoretical framework, will create a sense of familiarity by promoting interaction of learner-learner, learner-lecturer, learner-content, learner-interface (Makoe, 2013). A new impetus will be given to the course, making it more demanding, yet challenging and interesting. Simplicity will be the main focus to the implementation, but will not always take priority, as learning will remain the main focus of the course. (Google images,2014)
- 7. REASON FOR CHOOSING MDDE601:INTRODUCTION TO DISTANCE EDUCATION Lack of interaction: Students need to interact with both their fellow classmates and the instructor for help, and instructors need to assist students in their cognitive development Need for more contact and encouragement of both student-to-student and student-to-tutor communication and collaboration (Fuegen, 2012) Need for two-way communication to be enabled Need to adopt a student-centred approach
- 8. HOW TO ADAPT MDDE 601 TO A MOBILE ENVIRONMENT (COMMUNICATION) Communication in a course, whether it be student-student or student-instructor, should be seamless and ensure the user feels comfortable and familiar with the process. Poelhuber & Anderson (2011) discuss the fact that students learn better from applications that they are familiar with and are not required to learn how to use. For this reason, Edmodo was chosen as the mobile application for the communication portion of the mobile implementation. It’s similarities to Facebook would be familiar to the students, therefore there would be a minimal learning curve on the interaction.
- 9. EDMODO SETUP The setup of Edmodo would be a fairly simple process for the instructor as it is very user friendly. The steps are as follows: Download the free application on your mobile device and sign up for free as a teacher. Choose the course title you wish, and attach a welcome statement, if desired. Then choose from multiple options to personalize the course such as adding polls, creating a discussion, adding small quizzes, etc. To allow students to access this group they must also have the Edmodo application downloaded and search for the group ID.
- 10. EDMODO
- 11. EDMODO DISCUSSION BOARDS Separate discussions for each part of the course are easily established in Edmodo through the use of ‘Small Groups’. Each course is considered a group. After the instructor creates a group, there is also the option to create smaller sub groups which will divide the course up. The instructor has the choice to add all of the students in the class into each group or choose specific students to add to each smaller group. This allows for either discussion among the entire class or among smaller groups to take place.
- 12. EDMODO DISCUSSION The discussion board within Edmodo allows the students to post to a board. The posting process is very similar to the method used by Facebook, as shown below.
- 13. EDMODO SMALL GROUPS MANAGEMENT The picture shown below is an example of how the small groups are divided up in a class. The example below is shown in the perspective of the instructor.
- 14. EDMODO SMALL GROUPS PAGE The picture below showcases the small group feature. The group is more specialized into a specific topic (or for the purpose of this course, discussion group).
- 15. BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF USING EDMODO BENEFITS CHALLENGES The benefits of using Edmodo include it being a very user friendly application, in addition to bringing familiarity to the user due to it’s similarities to Facebook. This will allow the students to adapt to this application very quickly, further benefitting the learning process (Poelhuber & Anderson, 2011). ( One challenge of Edmodo could be in the setup of the course, as it is a long and tedious process to setup each of the small groups and then add each of the students to the specific groups as required. This process is affected by the rate that the students join the group at the start of the semester, as they need to be added to groups, however, this cannot be done until they are added to the main group. A second challenge of using Edmodo for a communication portion of a mobile environment is keeping track of the interaction of each individual student as there is not a counter to see quantity of posts each student provides.
- 16. HOW TO ADAPT MDDE 601 TO A MOBILE ENVIRONMENT (ASSESSMENT/FEEDBACK) Brown (2004-2005) states that assessment is still the most important thing that an educator can give a student, whether that assessment be formative or summative. For this reason a more assessment driven mobile application was chosen to be used for this portion of the course. The application ‘Handouts’ is a simple way to deliver the course assessments to the students, allow them to submit their work and receive feedback all in one place.
- 17. HANDOUTS SETUP Using handouts is a very similar process to using Edmodo. The instructor is required to download the application, sign up as an instructor and create the course desired. The course will be again given a course ID in which the students should receive upon registration and will allow them to access the course. In the course, the instructor has a mailbox in which they will receive messages from the students, if need be with regards to any of the assigned work, a handouts tab which all of the assigned work is placed in, and finally a students section which allows the instructor to interact with a student by giving them their assessments, checking completion of work, or sending private messages with regards to work.
- 18. HANDOUTS (STUDENT SECTION) The picture shown below is an example what the instructor will see when they open up the course (students in the class has been selected, but the other options are clearly visible).
- 19. HANDOUTS (ASSESSMENTS) The picture shown below is an example of when the handouts portion (assessment portion) of the application has been selected.
- 20. HANDOUTS (ASSESSMENT DISTRIBUTION) The picture shown below is an example of distributing one of the assignments to the class and includes what options are available to the instructor.
- 21. BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF USING HANDOUTS BENEFITS CHALLENGES Handouts is again a very user friendly platform which provides the instructor with the options of uploading assessments in multiple, different formats. This is beneficial for the reason of not needing to remake previously made assessment assignments, rather, they can just be uploaded as they are. It also allows the instructor to provide instant feedback to the students upon completing each assessment (either to an individual student of the class as a whole). This application is not completely free for instructors, as once more there are more than 26 students per class, a yearly charge is allotted. The students are required to use a second application for their assessment in addition to Edmodo. Using two applications can be overwhelming to some students as it is far less convenient.
- 22. JOIN OUR GROUPS YOURSELF AND HAVE A LOOK (EDMODO) Download Edmodo and enter as a student to the group below
- 23. JOIN OUR GROUPS YOURSELF AND HAVE A LOOK (HANDOUTS) Download Handouts and enter as a student to the group below
- 24. References Brown, S. (2004-05). Assessment for Learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, Issue 1 (p 81-89) Edmodo. Retrieved from https://www.edmodo.com/ on November 4, 2014. Fuegen, S. H. (2012). The impact of mobile technologies on distance education. TechTrends, 56(6), 49-53. Retrieved from http://0- eds.b.ebscohost.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/ehost/detail/detail?sid=fd445134-cef9-4a78-82f5- dd24da00701f%40sessionmgr115&vid=0&hid=103&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPXVybCxpcCx1a WQmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=ehh&AN=82763727 Handouts. Retrieved from http://handouts.in/ on November 4, 2014. Makoe, M. (2013). The pedagogy of mobile learning in supporting distance learners. In M. Specht, M. Sharples, & J. Multisilta (Eds.), Proceedings of the 11th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning. Retrieved from http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-955/papers/paper_45.pdf 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. The Centre for Distance Education. MDDE 601: Introduction to Distance Education. Retrieved from http://cde-student.lms.athabascau.ca/course/view.php?id=51