Week 12 Lecture: Presentation

Today is the day we presented our webquest for global warming. It is quite useful. We found out many things that need editing in our webquest from the feedbacks, as well as good examples from other groups' presentation.Still a bit unsure about the objectives though, are objectives suppose to be written for e-learners or  for the teachers? how do we decide which perspective should we set our objectives in?  It is fun to hear the students from Africa singing. :)

since we have our assignment 3 back, after we proceed to to either discrepancy model, what exactly do we need to do?  Where does it end? task analysis? Or just like the assignement 3, we need to list out our objectives during the 3-face assesment model and rank it according to subordinate or superordinate relationships? or do we have to begin the learning design ?
For example, this is the discrepancy model. Step 1: List the goals of the instructional system. Step 2: Determine how well the indentified goals are already being achieved. Step 3: Determine the performance gap. Step 4: Prioritize gaps according to agreed-upon criteria. Step 5: Determine which gaps are instructional needs and which are most appropriate for design and development of instruction.
After we finish step 5,  what are the things we should do? have to find that out~~~

Lecture week 11

Today we have webquest group discussion, finally have some progress and a satisfied draft for our final version. 

:p

Webquest

Thoughts after the lecture: 

OMG, we have to do the thing all over again!

It would be more conveneint for us to know more about the requirements. We have almost finish our project and suddenly we found out that we have overlooked so many information that need to be incorporate in the webquest. Hence,  have to plan to meet again. :(

Problem solving and Affective learning

Problem solving

~~~higher level of learning

~~~require previously acquired knowledge or skills

~~~used to solve unfamiliar problem (personally i feel that cognitive learning theory would be more suitable in problem solving-co-ordinating with a bunch of people for unfamiliar problem will create more problems-- at least i think so~~~)

~~~well structured- problem is clear with the "right" answer

~~~ill structured- problem could be unclear while answer is depending on personal perspective

Affective learning---attitudes

~~~Brain washing?

~~~seems harder to measured or influenced the  learning outcomes

~~~personal experience__this would be the hardest thing to teach the learners, and often most neglected learning outcomes, since no exams on affective learning. 

~~~maybe measured in disiplinary system instead? 

~~~one question- what is the desirable attitude? 

Procedures and Principles

Today's lecture is about 2 intellectual skills in instructional strategies.

Procedures: an ordered set of actions(steps) to achieve goals.
Principles: higher order of procedures, the outcome maybe fuzzy, but it is necessary to ensure the overall goal is achieved as a result of learning.In an e-Learning situation, the two toughest Instructional Events for teaching Procedures and principles are Practice and Feedback.With the use of E-learning, i think the best method to use a platform(blog or forums, like WetPaint and diigo) sort of like wikipedia, where students are given tasks to collaborate and contribute their efforts to the same platform so they would know what others have learned.
Although this is not something new on Internet, it is still one of the more effective method where people can gather their thoughts.

Facts and Concepts

My understanding of facts: concrete information that is objective. It describes the relationships among concepts.

My understanding of concepts: It is abstract and differed according to people's perceptive. Hence, it should be define operationally according to different context.

Although facts and concepts seems to be closely related, it is in different category according to Gagne's classification. 

Facts are part of declarative knowledge whereas concepts are classified as intellectual skills, although some would argue that concepts could be declarative knowledge in some situations. 

I think it is interesting while in the readings facts are only part of declarative knowledge, along with labels and names, facts and lists, and organized discourse, it is mentioned alongside with concepts in the lecture.

Since concepts are build up from facts, is it feasible to separate them during learning design? or we should automatically incorporate learning strategies for facts while designing learning strategies for concepts?

3-face assesment model

Regarding this model, I think it is a helpful process that allows us to re-evaluate existing learning instructions. However, there one problem appeared when we try to apply this model in the taxi drivers’ case. It is easy to determine the problems but we do need some discussion before we can decide whether this problem is caused by the learning process. It could be the drivers’ attitude that causes this situation, but reading the newspaper alone it is hard to determine that since we have no personal contact with the drivers and we could only analyze the article. Hence, we assume that it is caused by learning problems since the companies insist to use road safety courses to solve this problem. However, it is easier to proceed to the following steps when we decided that it should follow the discrepancy model. The problem exist may be simple because we do not have sufficient information in our hands regarding the situation. In my opinion, this model could be very useful, but we need to do appropriate research in order to gain the most benefit from it.  

Adjusted Learning Design

After

Before

Needs assessment

Basically, i fell that the three models seems quite comprehensive and complete. It explains in details how to proceed from each little details from the problem model to either discrepance model ot innovation model. My only doubt is that will it restrict the creativity of E-learning? As this models solve the solutions based on the existing problem. Of course, one cannot ignore the reality and disregard the current situation and the needs of everybody. However, i feel that this models could potentially missed some learning opportunity or potential. But maybe it's only because i have not fully understand the full potential of the whole process yet. On the whole, i think it is good that thorough evaluation and research have been done to understand the needs of the party concerned. While i agree that we should listen to the experts opinion on the discrepancy model, i think we shuold also take into the consideration of those who are non experts and listen to their views. As the experts are most likely to accept those E-learning methods better, it is important to know how those ordinary users feel about implementing E-learning course.

Learning design

Leaning design comprises of task, resources, and support. Although I think the learning design seems to help us identified the learning process, I do think it is a bit too simplified. This model seems to suggest that learning is a linear process, although we can see clearly what are the learning activities through this model, I think it is hard to decide how much the students are able to learn in the process. It does not take into the account about the students that have a hard time keeping up with the learning activities. Also, it is very task oriented and seems to be pretty rigid to me. 

learning theories

From what I understand, behaviourist is all about reinforcements, rewards and punishments. The assumption is that human are selfish beings that only do things when there is a reward and stop doing things when they know there are punishments for those actions. It does sound a lot like our national educational system’s approach. Although this method has always attracted harsh criticism, I think it is simple and effective in some ways. Of course, as a child I was not impressed by this method, where we are forced to learn something without giving any chance to think about it. People always blamed my generation for not having the ability to think, but what’s to think about? It is not like our education really encourages creative thinking. And of course we do want to avoid punishment and driven to pursue rewards. However, when I look back, can understand the difficulty of teaching 30 or even 50 students in a class where teacher are forced to showed some progress in the children. Plus, children are really kind of scatterbrain; it would be lots of work if we teach them using cognitive or sociocultural method. I am not sure if it would be effective. However, this method may contain an oversimplistic view on human nature. We can see from life and history that sometimes people would keep on doing unacceptable things despite being trained or punished, that is students with bad discipline cannot be expected to be “punished” into good behaviours. It is unfair to say that this learning method is totally ineffective, however, it could not be the ultimate answer to help a human being learns. For cognitive approach, the basic assumption is that people do intrinsically have the motivation to learn, until the interest are destroyed by forceful learning. The problem is, kids may have interest to learn something, but it is not necessary that they would like to learn everything. That is why we say every kid has different talents and different interest. It is fine if we just want them to learn something, whatever it is. But if we want the learners to acquire some necessary knowledge, cognitive method are simply not enough. Sometimes we do have to give some restrictions on what we want the learners to do, so that the kid does learn the thing we want them to learn. I think cognitive method should be applied when the students have the basic ability to express themselves and this would be good for self expression. However, I think in terms of E-learning, sociocultural could be quite effective. The good thing about internet is that it has the space to accommodate every kind of opinion and information, instead of the mainstream ideas only. It is also a great platform of gaining new tools and resources to learn with. Reflection after tutorial Overall, i think all three learning theories can be applied to E-learning, as well as other learning activities. The behaviorism would be useful to acquiring the basic skills to handle the technology in E-learning, whereas cognitivism helps us to think and reconstruct our own reality. It is useful in the world of Internet today as even within the same platform or same topic, different people can have their own interpretation and own learning process even within the same exposure. However, sociocultural appriach would ve compatible to the conceot of web 2.0 where everyone can be the content designer and everyone can be the receiver of the information. Hence, there is an collaboration and interactivity involve in the learning process and everyone is educated. Hence, we are all learning together.  

E-learning

Since in our primary school, I guess the introduction of E-learning has already begun. We used to have special computer sessions that suppose to be a modern and useful learning session, but I think back then all we do is play computer games in the end. I understand why E-learning is such a fashion in our world nowadays, but I still feel the standard does not meet to the public’s expectations. People can argue to me why it is so important and why it is so essential, I still find learning through computer or Internet kind of dull. True, we do gather lots of information from the Internet and so on, but I feel I am acquiring knowledge and bits of information only. My process of learning is never really done through E-learning, rather I am applying my skills to the Internet to get things done. Maybe it is because I have not really known the real meaning of E-learning, or maybe its fullest potential has not been utilized yet. I have not really experienced all types of E-learning as stated in the readings, but I remained unconvinced for now that E-learning is better than traditional learning methods. Well. Maybe I am old-fashioned.