Dear Ravi (et al on the boards),
I think that you can spark the imagination and the conversation without 'speaking' per se. My colleague who teaches an online course in French grammar says that her students have great discussions and debates on grammar topics online.
The orchestration only serves to get them started. Once they get the hang of working online, they start to develop a sense of how, and how much they contribute. While the online environment is familiar to us all through the Internet, online learning environments - or should I say active ones - are still relatively new. People have mainly used learning environments, like Moodle, Optima and Blackboard as assignment pick up and drop off areas. Now, with the growth in social media, students are beginning to see what communicating and participating in an active online environment is about and they will start applying those skills in the active online learning environment. What is required is the framework or rules of play, hence the orchestration.
It will be stiff at first -both you and the students will be trying to figure things out. You will be trying to figure out how to ask the perfect question or formulate clear instructions and they'll be trying to figure out what you mean. By the time you get to mid-course both you and your students will have an idea about how things work and by the 3rd round of teaching that particular class, things will feel natural and comfortable.
Another thing I should mention is that the whole process will be labour intensive the first time around. It still boggles the mind how much time you need to plan an online course and I never give myself that luxury or I underestimate the time that I truly need. The result is that my courses are full of unclear instructions and awkward exercises but I subscribe to Samuel Beckett's philosophy - 'Fail. Fail again. Fail better next time' or something like that.
Best wishes,
Paula
************************************
Paula Haapanen
Coordinating Lecturer - English
Lappeenranta University of Technology Language Centre
PO Box 20
53851 Lappeenranta, Finland
Phone: + 358 5 621 2213 (direct)
-----Original Message-----
From: European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing - discussions on behalf of Ravi Murugesan
Sent: Mon 1/10/2011 12:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Using Moodle for courses in EAP?
Hi Paula,
Thank you for the really helpful response. The PDF handbook you've mentioned seems to offer a thorough treatment of how to teach online.
Orchestrating interaction does sound like the most effective solution to encourage participation among students in a learning management system. However, giving students a sort of plan that tells them how they should participate or interact in an online course is not the same as a classroom teacher having the ability to "spark" their students into participating and discussing. A classroom teacher does this by speaking. Can an online teacher do this through writing? That is, can an online teacher learn how to write over the forum or other tools in an LMS in a manner that encourages interaction and debate among students?
Regards,
Ravi
--
Ravi Murugesan, MS, ELS
Head, Educational Services
Cactus Communications
Mumbai | Tokyo | Philadelphia
Email: [log in to unmask]
--- On Tue, 1/4/11, Paula Haapanen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Paula Haapanen <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Using Moodle for courses in EAP?
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Tuesday, January 4, 2011, 5:00 AM
Hi Ravi,
I found the same thing in my online courses (we use Blackboard at our uni, but it's basicially the same thing). To that end, I attended a course for promoting dialogue in online courses and the conclusion that we came to was that the interaction had to be orchestrated to a certain degree.
What that meant in practice in my courses was that students were instructed to a) put their texts into a forum and b) give feedback, based on specific criteria to 2 other people. Moodle, I believe, also has a wiki function, so collaborative writing is also an opportunity for people to work together online. Again, this would have to be orchestrated, where for example in a group of 4, 3 would write and one would be an editor or something like that. Finally, I have a colleague that has used the forums to discuss/resolve issues and so each student is responsible for uploading a question and students are then required to respond or to add to the question. They are also encouraged to challenge each other on the responses.
Finally, what I learned on the dialogue course was that there are different models to follow, each distinguished by the amount of moderator implication, i.e. how much the tutor/instructor/professor is involved. The following link is to a book that I think was partially developed on the course, and it's called Quality Teaching in Web-based Environments: Handbook for University Teachers (http://www.helsinki.fi/julkaisut/aineisto/hallinnon_julkaisuja_73_2010.pdf) (for those who are interested, it's available in Finnish and Swedish too :). It has a whole section on 'interaction'.
Hopefully it will be of some inspiration.
Good luck and let us know how it goes,
--Paula
**************************************
Paula Haapanen
Coordinating Lecturer - English
Language Centre
Lappeenranta University of Technology
PO Box 20
53851 Lappeenranta
Finland
Phone: + 358 (0)5 621 2213 (direct)
-----Original Message-----
From: European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing - discussions [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ravi Murugesan
Sent: 4. tammikuuta 2011 12:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Using Moodle for courses in EAP?
I have taught scientific writing courses over Moodle to graduate students in Japan. I think Moodle works very well for collecting students' assignments, giving feedback, and keeping track of submissions and grades. However, I've found that a lot of students don't interact over the forum that's part of our courses, even if it's a one-to-one forum (just one student and one instructor in each forum). I haven't used all of Moodle's features, but from my experience I think it's easy for students to remain silent or passive.
If you want to conduct a blended-learning course on academic writing over Moodle, I'd suggest you use Moodle for the following:
- Providing handouts, presentation files, or reading material
- Managing assignments, evaluations, and grading
- Administering quizzes (multiple-choice quizzes and other types of quizzes can be created easily)
A greater part of the classroom time may then be available for interacting with students and resolving their doubts.
I'd like to hear if any teacher of academic writing has managed to make students into active learners on Moodle. I intend to make a presentation in the MoodleMoot conference in Japan next month, which will largely be about the academic writing courses my organization has conducted using Moodle. I hope to learn more about engaging learners in Moodle during the conference.
--
Ravi Murugesan, MS, ELS
Head, Educational Services
Cactus Communications
Mumbai | Tokyo | Philadelphia
Email: [log in to unmask]
On 29 Dec 2010, at 13:23, Ida Klitgård wrote:
Dear all,
I'm going to use Moodle in my spring courses in EAP (one in academic writing and one in academic reading) for students of English as a foreign/second language and would love to receive ideas and suggestions for exercises, tasks, etc. in a blended learning context.
Thanking you in
advance.
Best wishes and a Happy New Year to everybody,
Ida.
--------------------------------------------------------
Ida Klitgård, ph.d., dr.phil.
Lektor i akademisk engelsk
Roskilde Universitet
Language and Intercultural Communication Services (LICS)
Institut for Kultur
og Identitet, 03.2.4.
Postboks 260
Universitetsvej 1
4000 Roskilde
Tlf.: 46 74 24 67
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://magenta.ruc.dk/lics/akademisk_engelsk/Underviser_/
--------------------------------------------------------
Ida Klitgård, PhD, Dr.Phil. (Habil.Doctor)
Associate Professor in English for Academic Purposes
Roskilde University
Language and Intercultural Communication Services (LICS)
Department of Culture and Identity, 03.2.4.
P.O. Box 260
Universitetsvej
1
DK-4000 Roskilde
Denmark
Tel: 46 74 24 67
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://magenta.ruc.dk/lics_en/english_academic/idak/
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