Social Networking Tools, Should Teachers Use Them?

I’m in the fortunate position of having three teenage daughters who are right into the use of tools such as Bebo, Facebook MSN for social contact, etc so I had a captive audience (so to speak) to run an impromptu survey on the use off these tools. When asked if Bebo, Facebook, MySpace etc should be used by schools/tertiary institutions for teaching the replies were unanimous and immediate.

“NO WAY! Keep out of our stuff, just use your Blackboard and eLluminate and leave our stuff alone!”

After such an adamant response, said daughters were asked to text (okay for teachers to use that..) their friends and ask them the same questions that I had asked them. Responses were swift and very much to the point. Not one person was in agreement that it would be a good idea for teachers to use these tools for teaching purposes. All agreed that teachers could use their own tools – and in a social networking capacity – and use texting but use of ‘their’ tools was considered to be an invasion of their territory and unacceptable to them.

So, if the use of social networking tools becomes a normal part of online communication for teaching institutions then, going by the responses gained from this far from scientific survey, they will have to develop their own tools if they want to avoid negative issues with their students.

After showing them what could be done, I asked what they thought of eLluminate and Blackboard. eLluminate was ‘pretty cool’, and had features they thought were really useful such as remote access to student desktops, showing your own desktop and running through tutorials on it, chat and audio, showing websites, plus many others.

Blackboard was thought to be great for access to resources and for self-testing, and email or texting were the preferred communication methods.

So, there we have it; the results of a far from scientifically conducted survey. I wonder how it would compare with a properly conducted national survey. Hmm...

Some Reflecting

eLluminate was seen by all who took part in the session to be an excellent teaching tool that has very good functionality and is fairly straight forward to use. New users can be brought up to speed quite quickly. As a tool for facilitating an online community of L2 & L3 students, eLluminate was considered by all who took part in the test sessions to be eminently suitable, in the words of one of the Lecturers who took part, ‘really good’.

It was mentioned that Lecturers would themselves benefit from taking part in test sessions on eLluminate prior to attempting to run online courses, and some wondered if I was being paid to run the session for them!

Introducing entry level students to the online learning experience is not without its pitfalls but all were in agreement that it can be done successfully and that none of the potential problems that could be encountered were insurmountable.

My own feelings on the subject of facilitating online communities of any level is that, aside from experience in using computers, most of the issues we came across during this exercise would be common to all levels and not just at the entry level. Issues such as dealing with isolation, timely expert responses etc are common to all. The exception would be for inexperienced learners who may not have the dedication needed to complete courses per se without the communal encouragement one gets in a normal classroom situation. That would be the challenge for the course facilitator, to keep these students engaged and succeeding so that their experience in the online arena is positive and rewarding. If it is, the chances of them not completing are vastly reduced.

Session Points of Success

Attendees learnt a little about the platform used - all managing to log in and take part successfully.

eLluminate ran faultlessly in all sessions. As the main group of participants worked in the same building it was felt that there was no need to have an alternative platform in case eLluminate fell over as, for them, part of taking part was that they could gain some experience in using it. If there had been problems the session would have been re-scheduled.

The icebreaker used (doodling on the whiteboard, loading images, general chat) proved to be very successful. All participants took part in it.

Participants contacted f2f after the session all commented that they'd learnt something on the topic and that it was a very useful exercise for them.

Session Points of Failure

There was only one: one person left the session early as they had misinterpreted what it was about.

In any future session I would make certain that participants were clear in their understanding of what would be taking place.

Strategies

There were several used:

• · Idle chit chat at the beginning of the session
• · The use of the whiteboard for doodling/displaying of images/websites
• · Asking questions
• · Discussing an element of the topic then asking for comments
• · Having a clear map of what would be discussed during the session and returning to it if speakers went off subject too much
• · Stepping in when talk stopped
• · Complimenting and thanking speakers on and for their input

Were these successful? A resounding yes they were. The session flowed very well and participants continued to discuss the topic right till the end.

Facilitation Plan

A synchronous session will be run on Thursday the 31st January at 3.30 pm using eLluminate on the subject of Introducing Entry Level (L2 & L3) Students to the Online Learning Experience. The session participants will all be familiar with using a computer - they will either be currently teaching, or work with computers on a day to day basis.

Medium Choice
eLuminate was chosen as the session medium because of its capability to cater for various learning styles, because it is a synchronous environment, and because all session participants lacked familiarity with it and hoped to learn enough about its use/capabilities to enable them to incorporate it as a teaching tool in their various programmes.

Meeting Purpose

The intent in running the session is that the participants can explore the issues that might prevent students at this level from participating fully in an online program, and attempt to provide answers to any problems a facilitator may encounter.
Information pertaining to the session will be passed on verbally, and via email.

Strategies

Initially once participants are connected it it planned that we will make use of the tool in an informal way, load images, draw on the whiteboard, and engage in a little idle chat. Doing so will alow participants to relax a little and gain some experience in using the medium. Questions will be asked of them (e.g. Can you write your name on the board?) to ensure that they know how to contribute. If replies are negative then a solution can be found.

Email Content sent to Participants

'Below are headings of areas we might wish to explore in the discussion. They can be added to or omitted as the case may be during the session. What I am attempting to achieve by running the session is to extract(?) and discuss information from your vast knowledge and experience that would assist a person who is attempting to teach L2 & 3 students via the online method. I hope that we can identify pitfalls and solutions to the many problems such a student faces and that the information would be of assistance to anyone setting up/facilitating classes of students at this level who will be taught online. I also hope that participants will gain knowledge themselves that will be useful to them when faced with teaching online in the future.

Introducing Entry Level (L2 & L3) Students to the Online Learning Experience

Issues for Discussion

Skill levels – computing

• Internet access/usage
• Broadband
• Hardware & software requirements
• Software knowledge requirements

Social Interaction

• Isolation
• Creating a sense of Community
• Creating a sense of ‘belonging’
• Times for idle chat?

Facilitation

• Timely Responses
• Readily available ‘Expert’ assistance
• Pastoral care
• Course material

Look forward to seeing you online later today.'

Participants

• Anne Macleod
• Julie Notman
• Phil Morrison
• Paul Hamilton
• Rob Patterson

All participants except Rob know each other well and work together on a daily basis. The session that Rob attended was limited to the two of us.
Learning styles of the group were not ascertained prior to the session but as eLluminate encompasses visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles, it was felt that, providing elements of each of these styles were used, knowing what individuals preferred was not necessary for the session.

Ages of all participants are in the 40s or 50s.

Skills Required

Maintaining a successful online community is different yet not different to maintaining a f2f community. The successful facilitator will actively encourage participation in both arenas by various means, including encouragement, positive and timely feedback, elucidation of responses, provision of adequate resources, and normal pastoral care.

With online communities the facilitator must be much more disciplined as its easier to overlook the 'lurkers' or occasional participants and concentrate on those who participate more fully. In f2f communities the lack of participation is much more apparent and more likely to be mitigated with timely responses.

Part of the reasoning behind the choice of medium for this session was that the participants wanted to gain some familiarity with it and evaluate it as a tool they may use it the future. All agreed it is very usable with great functionality and would become part of their arsenal of teaching tools.

Another aspect was whether or not people with limited prior knowledge could be brought up to speed with eLluminates usage remotely. We found that, providing the meeting link emailed out worked, the only limiting factor was getting set up with a headset. Being able to take control of users computers remotely mitigated this successfully.

IT/Systems Support/Alternative Media

ITS Helpdesk - available during normal business hours. Support can be obtained outside these hours by prior arrangement.

Bronwyn Hegarty (course facilitator) offered to be on call if need be.

I ran a test session prior to the actual event in order that any potential problems could be identified and eliminated. None were found other than those involving setting up headsets for attendees.

In the event of eLluminate not starting or malfunctioning a call would be made to ITS for rectification of the problem. Any issues that arose around usage could have been corrected by calling Bronwyn for assistance.

No issues that couldn’t be dealt with by me arose.

If they had, we would have re-scheduled the session but running a test session on the morning of the actual event indicated that there were no issues anyway. As we wanted to test the platform itself we didn’t set up Skype or MSN as a backup as we saw no need to.

A recording of the event was made by selecting Auto on the drop-down box when setting up the event. I ran the recording after the event to check on a few items in the discussion (Recordings tab on http://elluminate.tekotago.ac.nz/index.html). No others who took part wanted to access it so it was deleted after a few days.

eLluminate

Over the last week or so I've been conducting test sessions on eLluminate (you can read all about eLluminate here), a superb online facilitation/conferencing tool, with the intent of finding out just how suitable - or otherwise - this tool is for teaching entry level students. Conclusion: its terrific providing you take care to mitigate the potential problems such as getting users set up, familiarity with software etc. I'm creating a Wiki on what we did and the outcome of it and our recommendations. Once its complete I'll add the link to this blog.

Back to it

Well the break was certainly very good, much needed, and just the thing we all should have on a regular basis. Does the body and soul no end of good...
I ran a session (well, two really..) on eLluminate last week. What a great real time platform it is! Participants were most impressed with with could be achieved using it - and the group was comprised of Lecturers who all have a fair bit of knowledge about using computers and software.
Details of the session findings will be blogged later once completed.