Open networked learning – ONL202

After 12 weeks, it’s time to summarize and reflect on what I learned in the course Open Networked Learning (ONL202). The purpose of the course was for me to develop the view of online learning from a student perspective, and at the same time develop my way of teaching online. From colleagues who had previously participated in the course, I understood that I would also have to discuss with colleagues from other countries, which became another purpose for me. Namely to speak English which is something I rarely do.

The course was structured as follows:
Week 1: Getting started
Week 2. Connecting
Topic 1: Online participation and digital literacies (2 weeks)
Topic 2: Open learning – sharing and openness (2 weeks)
Reflective week
Topic 3: Learning in communities – networked collaborative learning (2 weeks)
Topic 4: Design for online and blended learning (2 weeks)
Topic 5: Lesson learns – future practice (1 week)

During the first week, I became acquainted with the course’s website, and a couple of digital tools that we would use in the course. On the website I made a small presentation of myself and also attached a picture from my hometown. I had used the Google Drive tool before. What was completely new to me was to start a blog for individual reflections on the course’s various themes and tasks. Two weeks earlier, we had started a new Dental Hygienist program at the university. The university pedagogical unit was eager to let the students start blogs for their reflections in the education, instead of the Portfolio that we used earlier. It became a bigger challenge and much more time consuming than we had imagined. Technical support spent many working hours helping us teachers to achieve this in the learning platform Canvas. They also ended up making instructional videos to help students start a blog and connect it to the learning platform. What I learned from this is that young people are not as good at digital tools as you might think, and there must be a better strategy and preparation for the next program start. However, it was very interesting to read their reflections from the first course and after their visit to a dental clinic. As for myself, I think I will continue to blog from time to time for my own pleasure.

What I benefited most from ONL202 was the collaboration with my classmates in PBL13; Joshua, Nadia, Natalia, Shirin, Soniya, Stavros and our facilitators Jukka and Paula. Although we came from different countries and different subject backgrounds, we developed a good community and friendship in the group. Many thanks for putting up with my crunchy English and everything I tried and wanted to say but could not express well in words. You were wonderful, and I hope we can keep in touch!

It was very tentative and careful the first time we met, and I do not think anyone really knew what to do. But we read through the first assignment and started discussing. The task was based on pedagogy’s problem-based learning (PBL) and the now famous FISh method. We used different digital tools for each task such as Coogle, Miro, Google Jambord, Canva and Memes. When I look at the work of other PBL groups, there are many more digital tools to discover and learn. It has also been very interesting to read other people’s blogs and not least from PBL13. The blogs show how different we perceive and think differently about the same topics, it contributes to in-depth learning. So thumbs up for collaborations in small groups when the group collaborates towards the same goal. I have also tried myself on Twitter, but have not yet discovered the pleasure of this. This may be because I consider myself more of a visitor than an online resident. I will follow on Twitter for a while and we will see how it develops.

What I will take with me in my own teaching is the importance of setting up the teaching with literature studies, mixed with smaller PBL tasks, collaborations in small groups with reality-related tasks, webinars with discussions in breakout rooms, Qustions & Answers forum, recorded lectures and sometimes synchronous meetings for topic-related group discussions and problem solving. There is much more to explore here to change my traditional teaching role to the new role of facilitator for students’ Personal Learning Networks (PLN). I will also use more open material from Youtube etc. Forgive me all ONL: ers because I will not contribute back here in the near future, although you never know!

In my next course which starts next week, we have got a big challenge due to the Corona pandemic. Of 50 students, only 8 people in a group may meet at the same time at the university. So how can we place 4 weeks of clinical training online?

After much thought, we have now planned the students in several smaller groups of 4-6 students. Practical training where students practice methods in each other’s mouths will take place at the clinic. In the Clinical Training Center (KTC) we will have technical teaching with training on phantom dolls and at the same time stream the teaching to other students at home around Sweden. Personally, I will sit at home at the desk with a phantom doll and a document camera and show different exercises and mix this with small PBL tasks and group discussions. Here I am glad that I have completed the ONL course which has given me “rye in the back” and been an eye opener for online learning.
If you have other tips on how we can solve the teaching, you are welcome to share them here in my blog.
Over and out for this time!

SCENARIO: TOPIC 4

“This year has seen higher education institutions respond to the impact of Covid-19 in an unprecedented manner. Due to this “emergency remote teaching and learning” situation I have been forced to move online and I have learnt a lot. But it seems that many of my colleagues, including myself, simply have copied our campus activities into synchronous online sessions and are providing students with material for self-study. I experience that we lose a lot of student engagement and a sense of community, therefore I believe that I need to re-think my teaching practice. It also feels like my role is changing towards being a designer for learning and to be more of a facilitator, which is new to me. When searching for support in this area, I came across the Community of Inquiry and some other models that looks interesting. But I am not sure how to use these as tools for design and how do I get everyone onboard, it seems like a lot to consider?!”

My reflectionsions on this topic

As previously mentioned in my blog, the dental hygienist education has been a distance education since the mid-2000s. The course design has consisted of lectures at the start of the course, followed by different material for self study, assignments and different forms of examination. When applying for the degree right for the education in 2019, it was decided that distance education was a continued concept. In spring 2020, we were two teachers employed from the previous education and three newly hired teachers. It was decided that I would be the course coordinator for the first course in the program.
I had no experience from the learning platform Canvas because we still had the platform Its learning during the closure period of the previous program. We therefore hired the Education Pedagogical Unit at the university for some pedagogical seminars. Among other things, we went through ABC Learning Design, UCL. https://abc-ld.org/

ABC curriculum design involves planning a course consisting of various activities in the course such as; acquisition, collaboration, discussion, investigation, practice and production. These activities should then be planned into weekly modules in the course. For me, this was not obvious and a challenge in how this would be implemented in practice. I therefore participated in several workshops during the spring to gain knowledge in how to build a course in the learning platform Canvas. I was informed that I would build in social activities, which was important for distance students who might otherwise feel lonely.

After watching the video with Marti Cleveland- Innes, I understand the approach with course design and the meaning of blended learning much better. The five-step model also provides support for a structured course design (Gillian Salmon). https://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html
To create good pedagogy for students in online learning, I need to change my traditional role as a teacher and design my courses so that they provide instructions, support and commitment to learning.
Students’ commitment on a cognitive level can be achieved through good course design and logical content of meaningful activities. On an emotional level, it is important to explain to students why learning activities such as webinars, group discussions and group work, etc. are important. Partly to be able to achieve the course objectives, but also to achieve a better collaboration with other students. At the behavioral level, e-learning materials with repeated key information and in various multi-media formats are important. For social engagement, I can create pedagogical processes with ABC-design and assist students in learning processes.

Blended learning is a learning model that combines different learning techniques delivered with a Learning Management System (LMS). In blended learning, I can use asynchronous and synchronous activities chosen for the best purpose for learning activity, and also chose digital tools appropriate for the learning.
Course design should include:

Social presence: the interpersonal reltionships in an online community such as activities in online spaces and structured activities to provide facilitation from me as a teacher and to provide relationships between students.

Teaching presence: is described as the effort and activity around the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes in learning communities for the purpose of realising personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning. It aslo include specified times for learning activities and examinations. Instructional guiding in course/ topics and feedback to help students understand their strengths and weaknesses.

Cognitive presence: problem based learning activities, triggering events and varied materials and approaches to engage students.

Emotional presence: Emotions is a part of humans experiences and it is important to support students to express emotions.

Boylens, De Wevers & Veet (2017) has written that designing blended learning with multimodal learning is to:

Incorporate flexibility

Stimulate interaction

Facilitate students’ learning processes

Promote an affective learning climate

So how did I design my first course in blended online learning?
The students presented themselves with text and photos as well as their expectations of the education and the future profession when the course started. After a synchronous course introduction in Zoom with 50 students, the students were divided into smaller learning groups of 5 students. Recorded lectures were posted during the course. We had weekly synchronous meetings where students had the opportunity to ask questions about the course content. Sometimes we had a special theme and breakout room for smaller group discussions. In this way, they got to know students outside their own learning group. They did one group work and one individual work which was presented in two different seminars. The students also created a blog for their own reflections. (This gave me a special experience when students failed to create a blog and the difficulty of connecting the student’s blogs to Canvas.)The course ended with an exam. The course evaluation was positive both in terms of content and structure.

My own evaluation is that there is a lot left to learn and do when it comes to develop my own course design.

In PBL13 we used the digital tool Canva for the presentation of this topic.

Task scenario – Topic 3
Most people I have come across have a rather weak idea of ​​what it really means to learn together. For the most part, we fall back on group work from school – we divide tasks between us and put them together on the same board when it comes to reporting a group project. When digital tools are put into this equation, things tend to get even worse: if a person in the group happens to be familiar with the tool, the work lands in his / her lap. I want to add an extra dimension to the course I lead by introducing collaborative elements, but how can I get people to really recognize the value of becoming part of a learning community and collaborating with their peers in a way that uses all the different skills which group members bring to work?

My reflections on this topic

Personal Learning Networks (PLN): P stands for personal and individual learning, L stands for social learning that can take place in networks with other people, N (etwork) can be divided into online learning community and online learning networks. PLN is part of the individual’s lifelong learning and learning is an active process and is driven by personal goals. PLN challenges the individual with new ideas that can be tested and experimented in their own context (Kay Oddone). There is some difference between the Online Network Learning Community (ONLC) and the Online Learning Networks (OLN). ONLC has a conscious structure with well-known participants who share specific goals, such as an educational program. OLN has a more organic form and flexible participation such as twitter and other social networks (Kay Oddone).

A pedagogical approach in Dental hygienist (TH) education is to teach students to collaborate in learning groups where they should feel a sense of community and striving to the same learning goals. By working together, better learning takes place. In the program, students have been divided into smaller groups so that they can build knowledge, solve problems and complete differens tasks together. An important part of professional training is to learn collaboration in order to be able to perform the best possible care together with patients and other colleagues. Social learning (Bandura 1977) is therefore important in the education so that the student gain experience of how collaboration can work and together they can develop skills when it comes to acquiring knowledge, developing critical thinking and self-reflection (Briendly, Blaschke & Walt 2009).

Even if the program and courses is given online, it is possible to create a social learning environment for the students where they can participate and interact with each other and the teacher (Briendly & Walter 2009).

In our learning platform Canvas, students have been given a collaborative tool “To work in a group” which helps them to distribute the tasks equally between each other. The purpose is that everyone shoud contribute equally to the group’s joint learning. The students also sign a contract for the group’s cooperation and tasks. When the students started the educationprogram, they were first hesitant about the approach. But when the course was finished, the course evaluation showed that they had discovered that it was fun, interesting and educational to collaborate in small learning communities. We also offered webinars where the whole group of students met. Sometimes we divided them into breakoutrooms for smaller discussions and sometimes we discussed in a large groups.

What surprised me as a teacher was that I “got to know the group well” and could see different personalities emerge. The students were also positive about these meetings where they felt that they could get to know all their classmates, and they learned to dare to ask questions to us teachers. Some expressed that they learned a lot from just listening to the discussions that took place. Breadoin (2002) writes about “witness learners” a learning behavior in students who participate in online courses. Parallels can be drawn to situations in a traditional classroom where teachers can note that students sometimes participate passively in the lessons.
Siemens (2002) has written that students’ interaction in a course can be seen as a continuum in four steps:

1. Communication

2. Collaboration

3. Cooperation

4. Community

In step 1 the students discuss with each other. Step 2 the students collaborate by sharing thoughts and ideas with each other and are each other’s resources in a common learning environment. Step 3 the students collaborate by doing different things / tasks together based on each person’s own purpose. Step 4 the students strive to achieve a common goal (Briendly, Blaschke & Walt 2009).

As a teacher, I need to be clear about the purpose of the learning objectives and the collaboration in the group, and open to discuss the purpose and process. I have to give clear instructions for group assignments and timelines for submission. The group assignments must be meaningful and create opportunities to be able to apply in practice. The motivation for participation must be embedded in the course design and I must show respect for the students’ independence to solve the tasks. Providing continuous feedback is important. It is also important that I use the technology available so that it becomes a source of motivation and not frustration (Briendly, Blaschke & Walt 2009).

For online learning to be successful, participants must be supported through a structured development process. The five-step model provides a frame or scaffolding for a structured design. The five-step model offers significant support and development for the participants in each step of online learning (Gillian Salmon). https://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html

Andersson (2011) also writes in his book “Theory and practice of online learning” about different theories. Behavioristic school of thought and strategies for teaching facts. Cognitive psychology involves memory, motivation, thinking and reflection to teach processes and principles. Constructivist stands for higher thinking that promotes situated and contextual learning. Strategies from these three theories accommodate different learning styles. Connectivism is a new theory that governs the development of network learning, an integration of principles explored through chaos, networking, complexity and self-organization.

For Topic 3, PBL 13 used the Google Jambord tool.

What openness means for my own practice

My grandfather and grandmother were born in the 1890s. They grew up during the industrialization period, and experiences an enormous technological development for example telephone and television. As children of poor farmers were opportunity for schooling limited. Grandma told me that she had been privileged to go to school for 5 years, even if it meant a long walk through the woods.

My son, born in 1982, grew up with TV, Internet, home computer, computer games and mobile. He has been in school for 16 years. Since the 1990s, we have been in process of transformation from an industrial society to an information- and knowledge society. Information technology and data development have taken place extremely quickly during this period. More and more young people are undergoing university and college education compared with before. In working life, there is continuous development of skills and lifelong learning, Digital technology and internet have become indispensable both in everyday life and at work (Bates 2019).

During my years as a teacher, there has been a pedagogical development, from traditional campus didactic classroom teaching, that students now are more active in their own knowledge acquisition. In Sweden during the 2000s, the Net University worked with the development of IT-supported teaching and exchange of experience between higher education institutions. Web-based learning platforms and distance learning meant that teaching took place independently of time and space, and people living in sparsely populated areas was given the opportunity to obtain an education. Today, distance learning is very common in university education, both courses and programs.  

The online teaching has led to the development of information and communications technology (ICT) as well as educational materials in form of recorded lectures and other digital materials with texts and sounds. The teachers’ material has copyright, and means that it is the teacher who decides whether the teaching material should be posted on the learning platform. Sharing materials benefits both other teachers and students. With no material shared, there is no teaching/education. On the other hand, it is important that the person who created the material can continue to assess the quality, if the material needs to be revised, or removed from the learning platform.   

Educational materials in form of media, books, scientific articles and reports, and published with open licenses and free to download from internet are very useful in teaching. The term Open Educational resources (OER) describes publicly accessible materials and resources for any user to use, re-mix, improve and redistribute under some licenses. One of these licenses is Creative Commons licenses. Taking part in other people´s, material, both teachers and students, contributes to collaborative learning. This will continue to develop the educational paradigm in the future (Bates 2019; Weller 2014).

Personally, I still have a lot to learn before I feel ready to share my teaching material in accordance with OER and Creative Commons licenses. However, my Grandma would probably been happy that I still contribute with distance education and try to develop the distance pedagogy for my students.

Topic 2 I learned many new concepts such as Personal Learning Environment (PLE), Personal / Professional Learning Network (PLN), Learning Management System (LMS) and Open Learning Network (OLN) and Massive Open Online Cource (MOCC). These different concepts spun for a while but now it feels more understandable (Bates 2019; Weller 2014) .

It becomes even more understandable when you understand that as a teacher you can use a Learning management system and use and mix different digital tools such as Google drive, Facebook, Blog etc. in the teaching.

For Topic 2 PBL13 used Miro

Who am I when it comes to digital literacy?

Well, I do not belong to generation Z, adolescents that were born in the 90s, and grew up with the internet. My digital experience began in 2003 when I, as a teacher, started using a digital platform called First Class for distance education. For educational purposes, I have also used the platform It´s learning, and now it is Canvas. The digital communication tool with colleagues and students has primarily been e-mail or Skype. A few years ago, I got Facebook and Instagram accounts for social contact with my friends. That is why I consider myself a digital immigrant in the digital places.

During the 2000s, the TH-program was among the first programs at my university that had distance education, and sometimes I lacked opportunities for technical solutions, such as tools for teaching and exams at a distance. About 10 years ago, a pedagogical development began at the university. Teachers were encouraged to use both synchronous and asynchronous pedagogy so called “blended learning”.

Digital development is very fast, and I think my university is at the forefront when it comes to online pedagogy. Therefore, when restarting the TH-program, it was an easy decision to make that teaching still should be distance learning. I also decided that I needed to study online pedagogy to increase my digital knowledge and digital skills.

Right now, I consider myself more of a visitor than a resident on the internet (White & Le Cornu). New digital tools that I have started to learn are how to write a blog and tweet chat as well as digital tools like Coggle and Miro. This means I am in the bottom of the pyramid of Online participation “I have tried” but is far away from the top of the pyramid there I can call myself “I am an online participator and have a digital identity”. (Beetham & Sharpe 2010)

Questions we discussed in the PBL 13 group and tried to answer:
How to support teachers to aquire digital competence?

How to involve/engage students in online learning?

How to help teachers transision to the Resident/Institutional quadrant?

What are the litteracies needed to engage in digital spaces?

The answers were published using the digital tool Coogle

For Topic 1 PBL 13 used coggle.

Problem based learning (PBL) is a student centered approach to learning where the student’s learning is based on reality based situations. The students collects information about a specific problem, discuss it togheter and then solvs the task together. The basic pedagogical idea is that it is learning and the learner who is in focus. In PBL, the student is responsible for his own learning. Nerantzi & Uhlin (2012) has developed a FISh model that can be used in collaboration with other students to structure the learning process.

In dental hygienist program, the pedagogy always has been based on active learning where the students have been involved in their own learning in different ways. The students have had access to digital lectures and course litterature. In their study groups, they have discussed specific issues or reality-based patient cases wich then was presented to other students in writing and orally and disscussed in seminars. We teachers have not called this PBL but I belive that the pedagogical way of thinking is about the same.