E-Coaching Core Message #4 Fall 2007 (Tip #53)

Hybrid Teaching and Learning Strategies -- Combining Social Networking Features with Blogs and Discussion Boards

The initial intent of this ecoaching message was to match tools with pedagogical strategies; in effect, attempting to answer the question, what performance goals or instructional objectives can blogs, wikis, podcasts, discussion boards, etc. help learners to achieve?

Not surprisingly, the world of elearning pedagogies and tools is too dynamic and the possibilities too infinite to capture in this way! It is like trying to match a cell phone or a book to its best uses! A communication device is desirable because of its flexibility and communication devices are changing almost daily. Even a book is now sometimes a searchable, downloadable ebook. (Check out the new Amazon Kindle Reader that claims to be the " iPod of e-book readers and Amazon's electronic bookstore is its iTunes." (www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_7560156?nclick_check=1)

So, in the midst of all these possibilities, how can we make progress with making great use of these tools for instruction? Here are a couple of ideas.

Just as new interdisciplinary fields are emerging with the intersection of two or more fields, we may want to create new instructional tools by combining features from the different elearning 2.0 tools. For example, we may want to consider taking a feature or two or three from social networking, photo and video sites and combining it with a blog or a wiki or a discussion board to accomplish a course goal, such as engaging students in multiple course projects, requiring analysis, professional commenting and teamwork.

Hybrid Pedagogical Strategy with Individual Course Projects

Here is one hybrid pedagogical strategy that you may want to consider when you have your course projects or complex assignments.

If you like your students to create their own course project but still want to involve and engage other students or a small group with the creation and development of multiple projects, you might want to try the following:

Create a personal project blog or discussion board area for each student.
Each student posts a project topic or abstract as the first proposed phase of a his or her course project. This is another good pedagogical strategy of "phasing" course projects to ensure timely progress and personal responsibility.
Other students -- either from a designated small group or the class -- review the project abstract and add comments, ideas, suggests resources, or adaptations, or cautions. This is similar to the "comment" and tagging" features of the photo-sharing sites such as Flickr (www.flickr.com) or blogs of all types. All comments become part of the individual project as it is evolving over time.
Each student responds, replies and suggestions changes and tweaks and even new approaches to the project as appropriate.
At some point the faculty member also blogs and comments on the project progress and input. This can be private or public or a combination of both as you choose.
This cycle of posting and commenting is repeated or not depending on the number of project phases or complexity of the project.
Each student integrates the ideas and suggestions as appropriate into his or her project. This cycle of posting and commenting and project evolution shifts the project from being the sole production by one student to a collaborative group project.
Each student also posts regular notes that update his/her status similar to the "update my status" feature on Facebook. (www.facebook.com) This status can be something as simple as "I am researching some of the suggestions this week," or "I am not making much progress right now."
Each student posts the completed project as required by the course assignment.
Each student's group or class members then review/see the final product and again make comments or evaluations.

Tweaks and Comments on this Hybrid Pedagogical Strategy

Here are a few comments and observations about this strategy and how it compares with blogs, wikis, journals, and the social networking sites. An earlier ecoaching tip provides a table listing some of the key differences between a journal, a blog and a wiki. (Ecoaching Tip #47). You may find this useful to reference with the discussion below.

This hybrid pedagogical strategy is most like a blog in that it is individually "owned" and created by one student. It is similar to a wiki in that there is an end product -- a project report, paper or presentation of some ilk.
This strategy shares characteristics of a journal in that it is "authored over time" and serves to track and record activities and progress.
It is also like a journal or a discussion board in that it is "organized chronologically from first posting to most recent."
It shares the ability with blogs, wikis, journals, etc. "include media of all types, such as pictures, video, text and weblinks."
This hybrid strategy shares characteristics of social networking sites such as the Flickr and Facebook sites referenced earlier. This means that learners are probably comfortable with this type of interaction and pleased that it is part of their learning environment as well. These social networking sites encourage regular, even daily and even hourly checking-in and commenting and seeing where everyone is and what they are doing and what they are thinking. This sharing of where they are in a project and what they are thinking next can encourage awareness of metacognitive strategies and how projects and thinking evolve over time.
This strategy promotes community in that students no longer focus only on their projects, but through their review and commenting develop ownership and critical thinking about many of their fellow learner projects.
This hybrid strategy promotes community and cognitive presence shaping and sharing a sustained focused conversation over time.

No doubt there are many more tweaks and adjustments to this hybrid strategy, but the best part of this approach is the social aspect of learning and creativity that it promotes. Yet it still provides for a way to "sense" the individual and their particular knowledge and skill development for grading and assessment purposes.

Tapping into the Power of the Elearning 2.0 Tools - Closing Thoughts

The Web 2.0 environment as defined by Wikipedia on 11-25-07 is a "perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services -- such as social-networking sites, wikis, and folksonomies (collaborative tagging) -- which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users. With every morph of these tools and services the web 2.0 tools are becoming better tools for learning and candidates for many more hybrid pedagogical strategies.

What is one of the most fundamental truths about learning? That learning is active and specific and internal to the learner. Web 2.0 tools empower the learner to comment on their own work, the work of peers and the work of experts. The new tools enable real-time and asynchronous collaborating; and encourage, stimulate, and enthuse learners to create new content and to support and challenge each other in the process.

If you can, try this hybrid strategy with even one discussion board activity and see what you learn! And then share with us!

References and Other Interesting Resources

E-Coaching Tip 47: Journaling, Blogging and Wiki-ing

Great things to do with Flickr. http://www.elearningservice.com/blog/2007/10/23/great-things-to-do-with-flickr/

O'Hear, Steve and Edited by R. MacManus. E-learning 2.0 - how Web technologies are shaping education August 8, 2006 / 12 comments. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/e-learning_20.php. This is part of the Read/WriteWeb popular weblog that provides Web Technology news, reviews and analysis. It is the lead blog in the Read/WriteWeb Network, a growing network of blogs about web technology. http://www.readwriteweb.com/about.php

O'Hear, Steve and Edited by R. MacManus. Elgg -- social network software for education. August 11, 2006 / 0 comments. Also part of the Read/Write Web blog cited above.

Note: These E-coaching tips are for faculty who are teaching online in the School of Leadership & Professional Advancement at Duquesne University. These tips are from e-coaches who are available to answer questions, review your courses, and generally provide another resource to help provide the best teaching and learning experience possible for Duquesne faculty and students. Contact Rita-Marie Conrad and Judith Boettcher at eCoach@designingforlearning.info.

Ecoaching Table of Contents

judith@designingforlearning.org
Revised February 11, 2010
Copyright Judith V. Boettcher, 1997-2010