Setting Up an Online Learning Experience

The significance of knowing what technology available to you is so you can familiarize yourself with it and find the most appropriate technological tools for your course. Most online learning communities take place in a course management system or a learning management system. It is highly important that the instructor know how to navigate around the system before the beginning of the course. Knowing what technology is available is also so significant because you can use them to enhance the learning experience and interactivity of the course. However, Boettcher and Conrad (2010) that just because the technology is available to you doesn’t mean that you have to incorporate it all into the course. You should only use what you are comfortable with, preferably one to three that are best suited for the learning goals that you’ve established.

Communicating clear course expectations to the leaners is essential because it will help clear up any misconceptions that may arise during the course.

Additional considerations that should be taken into account are presence, community, and patience (Boettcher &Conrad, 2010). Presence is important because the instructor has to be there in order for the students to have some sort of satisfaction and sense of trust. Presence is broken down into three smaller categories which are social, cognitive, and teaching. Social presence is establishing your personality through discussion boards and chat. Cognitive presence is the students wanting to understand and learn ideas in depth. Teaching presence consists of the course materials and the instructor mentoring, guiding, and shaping the knowledge of the learners in the course. Community is important because the lack of face to face interaction, learners need strong system where they can learn from, support, and share with each other. This is done by building and establishing a community. Last is patience, because it is easy to become frustrated with yourself and the learners if things are not going as you’ve planned.

Resources

Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Online Learning Communities

Learning communities are defined as a group of people, usually consisting of students and faculty that explore content together in order to construct meaning and gain knowledge and to support and challenge each other academically (Pallof and Pratt, 2011).

Online communities significantly impacts both student learning and satisfaction within online courses in that it gives learners a better perception of learning, a feeling of being a part of something larger, and increases social pressures to succeed.

The elements essential to the building of an online community as discussed in the video are people, process, and purpose. I think that this is important because you cannot have a community let alone an online community without people. Also essential is social presence because it helps to define who the people are as they participate in the course. Next, you need to have purpose. The purpose for people coming together would be to take a course. Then there is process which is how and when the course is delivered. In addition to process, there is also method which is how the people/learners communicate within the course. Although not mentioned as an essential to building an online community, I’ve added the facilitator because you need someone to actually build and facilitate the course. There would be no course, purpose, and people without a facilitator.

Online learning communities can be sustained by keeping the learners engaged and participating in the course. They need to have activities and dialog that will provide continuous reflection, challenge, and support each other. This can be also be achieved by setting up Rules of Engagement which dictates how the learners will engage, how often they’re expected to participate, and how often the institution expects the students to participate.

References

Palloff, R. and Pratt, K.(2011). Online Learning Communities [Video]. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5089770&Survey=1&47=6354370&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1&BrswrOK=1&PrevRef=http%3A%2F%2Fsylvan.live.ecollege.com%2Fec%2Fcrs%2Fdefault.learn%3FCourseID%3D5089770%26Survey%3D1%2647%3D6354370%26ClientNodeID%3D984650%26coursenav%3D1&submit1=Continue

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