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Experiments with connectivism from a moderator’s point of view
Jutta Pauschenwein, Erika Pernold and Eva Goldgruber
Classic online courses
For more than 10 years the ZML team has designed and
moderated online courses in closed learning environments
for a maximum of 15 learners. The participants
were university teachers, schoolteachers and trainers
who had to pay for these courses, which usually lasted for
3 to 4 weeks. Course topics (42 to date) were arranged
around e-learning pedagogy, the use of technology in
learning and social competences such as moderating or
reflecting online group dynamics.
The approach of Salmon’s five-stage model for virtual
groups - access, online socialization, information exchange,
knowledge construction, and development - was
adapted to the learners’ needs. Members of the ZML team
were trained to become e-moderators. As moderators
they developed ‘e-tivities,’ structured online tasks with a
purpose, a task and the invitation to interact with other
learners. Course participants were invited to fulfill these
tasks in an e-learning platform and to discuss and reflect
upon them in a forum (sometimes in the form of a wiki or
blog). This concept fostered collaboration and learners
wrote between 500 to 1900 contributions during these
courses.
The moderator plays an important role, as it is her or his
responsibility to help learners to become active (especially
during the first week), build an online group, and act in
a self-responsible way. The moderator did not always assume
the role of an expert; the larger part of moderating
activities consisted of monitoring participants’ individual
learning processes. In this way the moderator got to know
the participants rather well.
Open course based on connectivism
(miniMOOC12)
In February 2012 approximately 60 participants began
the first open course, ‘Formation of the WLL+ network,’
giving the ZML its first experience of how such an online
training course could function.
The concept was based on connectivism and MOOCs
but included the approach of Salmon as well. The moderators
formulated online tasks according to the concept of
e-tivities. The participants should remix, re-purpose and
feed forward their learning results and reflections, fulfilling
online-tasks over a period of three weeks, which were
formulated by the moderators. The online-tasks should
help the participants to use Google+ as an online environment
and explain how to build a network. All content was
accessible at the WLL project blog (6), and participants
communicated via Google+.
The hybrid course (miniMOOC13)
The concept of MOOCs was used again with some
changes in the next open course, ‘Content Strategy in the
WLL+ network’ (January and February 2013). One major
course objective was to use the concept of MOOCs
again but without losing the knowledge, experience and
core of ‘classic’ online courses. The moderators aimed to
combine the benefits of a protected learning process in
a closed virtual environment and the challenges of open
training. In this advanced concept learners could opt to
collaborate in a closed setting first and afterwards progress
to an open course.
1. Preparation phase – Online Socialization in a safe environment.
The first 10 days of the course were carried
out in a closed facebook group. In this period the learners
socialized with each other, shared materials and acquired
technical knowledge for the open phase (see Figure 1).
The moderators supported and encouraged the participants
to be active and visible in the virtual environment.
Figure 1. Facebook group.
Figure 2. Google+ Hangouts.
2. Open phase – training around ‘Content Strategy.’ At
the end of the preparation phase the participants of the
closed facebook group had to leave the protected environment
and mix with other learners who had not participated
in the preparation phase. During the open phase
the learners could actively attend an online video chat in
Google+ where experts gave a small amount of input and
discussed participants’ questions (see Figure 2). These
video chats were recorded and streamed via YouTube.
The learners were able to watch the videos afterwards as
well. The learners had to solve online tasks and share their
findings with others. Again links, contents and tasks were
collated on the Web Literacy Lab (7) site. By using the material
and the videos, learners were prepared to deal with
the tasks and contribute to video chats.
Experience Track |278