Team Built Moodle Course on Social Learning
Our team created an online course using a LMS called Moodle. The course was organized on M. David Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction learning theory. The intent was to create an authentic and real world experience for students that would be relevant for their own area of interest in the educational field. The students were first asked to look at a lecture which looked at social learning as it related to informal and formal learning and in particular some important thinkers in the field such as Bandura. The distinction was important as most people assume that a formal learning environment is more effective and where most learning in a classroom or the workplace happens. The research has showed otherwise and the introduction was to share why the more collaborative and social nature of informal learning is many times more effective. Following this there was a video by Bandura on the famous Bobo the doll experiment. The next part of the course introduced the students to what a networked students who uses social media in a more problem based learning environment looks like. The instructor becomes more of a facilitator and the student has more freedom to focus on what they need to learn in a more authentic and meaningful way. The students were then asked to learn on how to use Twitter and hashtags to focus on specific topics in education and follow a conversation to gain understanding and resources. Next the students were asked to review lists of hashtags and to choose a topic of interest and either to follow a synchronous conversation in real time or an asynchronous conversation that was based on the hashtag but taking up a longer period of time. Afterwards students were asked to reflect on what they learned and with what their peers learned and to respond to the post to someone else in the classroom.
The collaborative process of our team was done with online meetings using Google Hangouts and a checklist of topics and tasks that needed to be completed. Much of the work was done independently and then brought together after it was completed by each team member. The tasks were divided so that Cynthia worked on the powerpoint design and graphics and Terry and myself contributed slides to areas that we were assigned. Terry contributed sections on different social media tools for the slides. I took all the content and prepared and posted it too the Moodle as well as chose the sequencing and structure of the lessons including the types of modules used to present the content. Overall I found that it was much easier for me to work on the Moodle without assistance based on my level of experience and interest in learning more about how to use this chosen LMS. I for the most part chose web pages and the forum tool to post the content. Rather than give a test or quiz, I chose the forum tools and peer feedback for assessment of the students and their understanding of the content. The wide range of experiences and knowledge that students came to social learning and social media with meant that I hoped the students own experiences and background could further inform the other students in the course on how to effectively use social media for learning.
The data we received from the students indicated that they were familiar with Twitter but that they hadn’t necessarily looked at using it as a source of professional development and learning. Since this was one of the key goals of the course I felt it was successful.
I believe the course could have been improved in several ways. I think that if given time that a synchronous class meeting to participate in a twitter chat would have been helpful. Also I think that each social media tool has its own strengths and by using only one social media tool such as Twitter that we could have better differentiated the learning by giving more options using some of the other tools such as Pinterest or Instagram.