Personal Learning Network

Throughout our ED431 course we have been encouraged to create or expand upon our personal learning network.

Infographics or mind maps of PLNs are always interesting. I use them for ideas for new or underutilized sources. Email subscriptions come daily or weekly vying for my attention. I once wrote, “I feel somewhat overwhelmed by the daily e-mail nudges from Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, numerous newsletters, Diigo, and so on. It’s as if I’m hearing, ‘Look at me! No, me! Over here! now over here!’”  and that still holds true. Our attention is sought by so many, whether it be online or in person.

I was already on Twitter, but added my current classmates to my Followed list as well as some that they were following. I am more of a reader of tweets than a poster of them, but did manage to post a few this semester. I find Diigo extremely useful for keeping track of useful information as well as Pinterest. I am often seeking help for various teaching or technology issues and am very appreciative of the assistance.

As I have progressed through various courses in ONID, I find myself returning to class pages, where an instructor has provided helpful links for specific topics. An example this semester is the videos Skip shared on how to create Google Forms surveys.

My colleagues in my department and at elearning provide a wonderful exchange of ideas. Meeting faculty from other disciplines in UAF’s iteach training has given additional perspective to teaching approaches.

Although there are many, many, more, here are a few sources I read regularly and will recommend to my classmates:

• iteach.uaf.edu
• globaldigitalcitizen.org
• techlearning.com
• freetech4teachers.com

I appreciate the sharing of useful sources by my classmates. It has been inspiring to see the products of their homework assignments. My own homework assignments suffer from a lack of clarity. I read many sources, get lost on side trails, and then find that after many hours I have done little actual writing. Days or weeks will then pass, and I have to start all over. Despite the writing issues, I do feel that I have learned quite a bit from the class and will continue to modify my PLN over time.

Surveys with Google

It was fun to go through the videos at Atomic learning and watch Dr. Via’s videos to see how to create a survey using Google docs. The instruction was deceptively easy, because once I began my own survey, I soon discovered how easy it was to stumble, particularly when incorporating branching logic.

Background. Our Applied Business program at UAF’s Community and Technical College provides office skills courses in the classroom. Because of lower enrollments in the classes, they are stacked and meet once a week for three hours. The courses include keyboarding, skillbuilding, document formatting, intermediate keyboarding, alphabetic filing, 10-key calculators, office procedures, and records management. The syllabi have been fashioned so that students have a schedule of learning activities and testing, but the schedule is flexible as long as the work is completed by the end of the semester. Class meeting times are spent working one on one or in small groups with the instructor. Enrollments in the courses have been declining, and our department hopes that enrollment may rise if we offered the classes through elearning, thus reaching a wider audience.

With that in mind, I created my survey regarding the office skills classes. My survey is located at https://goo.gl/forms/iOipqaPOSC0shypk1 My classmates and instructor have completed the survey and provided feedback.

Although the current feedback isn’t terribly meaningful, it was useful to make sure the survey would work and also interesting to see the resulting graphs. I am well versed in creating graphs and charts in Excel, but wasn’t sure how to convert the graphical results in Google to my own sheets.

Analyzing Results. Although my respondents were few, the extent of the graphical results in Google Forms was impressive. Less impressive was my ability to share those results. Because I could not discover a share link for the form results, I began to recreate the charts in the googlesheets form results. I quickly found that when mulitple criteria were involved, I would need to restate the data with all options and include a COUNTIF formula. Instead, I did a quick workaround capturing the image of those charts and placing the image in the googlesheet. All of the charts are on separate sheets, but I could also have put them in one long scrolling sheet like the original results. My googlesheet of results is here (note that there are 12 sheets in the workbook):

 https://docs.google.com/a/alaska.edu/spreadsheets/d/1ET6wb433GdUmqI9u7AIrYjfXjeryPtRfjB8zTruK1iw/edit?usp=sharing

I feel this post would be more graphically interesting if I had included screenshots like my classmate, Nikki Stein. Instead, I opted to work in googlesheets. Upon reflection, I think her method was better for sharing results.

 

What is mlearning or mobile learning?

“Mobile learning (m-learning) is flexible education via the Internet or network using personal mobile devices allowing students access to education anywhere, anytime” (Webopedia, 2016).

Through two surveys—one in 2012 and one in 2014–conducted by University of Central Florida instructional designers, a large percentage of college students were found to own a mobile device of some type, with younger students owning more smartphones and older students owning more tablets and e-book e-readers (Chen, 2015).

Although ownership was high, use was far higher for social and entertainment purposes than for productivity and education. Devices are popular, but “Effective use of mobile technology is less about tools and more about students’ digital literacy skills, including the ability to access, manage, and evaluate digital resources” (Drenoyianni, 2008).

Instructors rarely had assignments requiring use of a mobile device.  A majority of instructors disallowed use of mobile devices in the classroom. It would seem that there are two issues here. One is the need for training of faculty in the use of mobile tools and second is to support students in the use of technology in their learning on more than an informal basis. Students can be adept at the use of technology in taking and posting photos, podcasts, or videos, googling for information, and tweeting items of interest. Those same skills can be brought into the classroom for a more engaging experience in sharing and collaborating with others.

Mobile devices allow students to participate at their own time and convenience. This connectivity changes learning venues and also expectations.

“People of all ages, almost from all parts of the world, are using their mobile devices to communicate, connect, and share personal experiences.  They are building their own informal learning and social communities via their mobile devices and social networking sites” (Gerstein, 2013). Mobile learning facilitates connecting with others and makes learning more engaging and relevant.

In higher education, cost of devices is less of an issue because a device can be considered a required material for a class just as access to textbook materials is required. School districts have a greater budget issue to address when incorporating mobile devices.

An interesting local development is the strategic plan presented by the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District which includes personalized learning for every student with the use of technology. (FNSBSD Strategic Plan, 2016). The proposal includes partnering with Education Elements to implement personalized learning. On their web site, Education Elements claims that school districts will see a difference in one year of the use of blended learning. Education Elements “leverages technology to differentiate learning and achieve better student outcomes as a result” (Education Elements, 2016). Emphasis is on engaging the passion of teachers and the excitement of students. It was difficult to discover specifics on the plan other than the marketing materials at the website of Education Elements. However, they did share an excerpt from their personalized learning plan (Kim, 2016).

Personalized learning involves students working at their own pace and progressing once proficiency is achieved. Technology will be used to manage the plan as well as to engage the students. Media coverage in the Fairbanks Daily News Miner has said that the role of teachers becomes more focused on guiding and answering questions. Much of the success of the proposed program may have to do with changing the mind set of current pedagogy and getting additional training for teachers. (Bohman, 2016). It will be interesting to see what happens.

Whitney Hoffman (2011) has created an inciteful infographic regarding mobile learning and digital natives that I am including here:

My takeaway is that to better engage our students, we should seek additional training if needed, and incorporate mobile learning elements to our classrooms as appropriate. All teachers want to interest and inspire their students. As online instructors, we can immediately make use of mobile learning and need to learn how to do that most effectively.

REFERENCES

Bohman, A. (2016, December 3). The future of public education: Faribanks school district to roll out personalized learning. Published by Fairbanks Daily News Miner. Retrieved from http://www.newsminer.com/news/education/the-future-of-public-education-fairbanks-school-district-to-roll/article_9437b7b0-b9fc-11e6-82d0-2762d7de7ec1.html

Chen, B., Seilhamer, R., Bennett, L., and Bauer, S. (2015, June 22). Students’ Mobile Learning Practices in Higher Education: A Multi-Year Study.  Retrieved December 14, 2016, from http://er.educause.edu/articles/2015/6/students-mobile-learning-practices-in-higher-education-a-multiyear-study  University of Central Florida

Drenoyianni, H., Stergioulas, L., and Dagiene, V. “The Pedagogical Challenge of Digital Literacy: Reconsidering the Concept—Envisioning the ‘Curriculum’—Reconstructing the School,” International Journal of Social and Humanistic Computing, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2008: 53–66.

Fairbanks North Star Borough School District, Strategic Plan. (2016).  http://www.k12northstar.org/cms/lib010/AK01901510/Centricity/Domain/1500/16-1004%20BOE%20-%20Reg%20Mtg%20-%20Report%20-%20Personalized%20Learning%20Plan%20Approval%20-%2017%20Fairbanks%20North%20Star%20Borough%20SD%20Proposal%20PPT.pdf

Education Elements, (2016 December).   https://www.edelements.com/

Gerstein, J. (2013, May 6).Chapter in handbook of mobile learning: team and community building using mobile devices.   Retrieved December 13,2016, from https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/chapter-in-handbook-of-mobile-learning-team-and-community-building-using-mobile-devices/

Hoffman, W.  (2011, Mar 5). Learning to communicate. Retrieved December 12, 2016, from http://differentiatedinstruction.co/2011/03/05/learning-to-communicate/

Kim, A. (2015) Excerpt from Personalized Learning Playbook. Published by Education Elements at https://www.edelements.com/hubfs/PL_Playbook/FINAL.PL.Playbook_Excerpt.pdf?submissionGuid=95eb148a-e751-4b73-aa29-b6178d4a8771

Mobile learning. (2016, December 14) in Webopedia.  Retrieved December 14, 2016 from http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/mobile-learning-m-learning.html

News-Miner opinion. A new approach to learning: District, parents, teachers should work together on new (2016, December 11).  Retrieved from http://www.newsminer.com/opinion/editorials/a-new-approach-to-learning-district-parents-teachers-should-work/article_e36f88ec-be86-11e6-b3ed-4bdc69a16bd7.html

Pandey, A. (2016, October 17). Why adopt mobile learning for online training – 10 questions answered.  Retrieved December 8, 2016. https://elearningindustry.com/mobile-learning-for-online-training-10-questions

Pappas, C.  (2015,December 26). How to create responsive design for mobile learning Retrieved December 8, 2016. https://elearningindustry.com/7-tips-create-responsive-design-mobile-learning