Virtual Learning Environments

Here’s the video conversation thread on virtual learning platforms — it’s great to put faces to names and continue the discussion in this forum, so keep the videos coming:

TokBox – Free video chat and video messaging

I know its a clever title.

When first looking at the question of my first online learning experience I would have said that this was my first truly online course. Like many of the rest of you though, I have had various other mixed online and onsite courses. So looking at the definitions provided by the reading then my first online course was during my Junior year of High school. I took an elective computer course on Cisco networking which had most of its curriculum online. Although there was a teacher to guide us, the majority of our material was online. The online portion was only a small percentage of the course though and would be defined by Harasim as merely an adjunct online course. The majority of the work done in the class was hands on lab work including physical networking hardware as well router programing through telnet. It was during this class that I experienced my first MOO. This was around the time of the first of the Matrix movies, so for immature male teens, most of which were also in the computer programming classes, and whom were bored with lectures, the temptation to use the Telnet applications to communicate and take ourselves out of the physical classroom was too strong.
Because I made a comment about blackboard already, I think I should elaborate on what I meant. Like a few others in the class I am new to the New School and was required to take the Intro to Media Studies course. The course itself was not bad, it was rough around the edges and needs some fine tuning, but it was the Blackboard online experience that left a bad taste in my mouth. Mainly the poor dialogue box and time out problems. In the past I have had courses which relied heavily on blackboard and have never really had a problem. But the New School’s blackboard just seemed, for lack of a better word, annoying. So, when I said I was glad we weren’t using blackboard, I really meant that we weren’t using the same blackboard as last semester. Also, isn’t the great thing about this class the chance to play around with all the other tools we can use to create VLE’s. I for one am looking forward to the Second Life experience.

Considering Josephine’s question, “What platform was the first online class that you took and what was that like?  Did you think this was an effective platform for creating rich learning experiences?”  I wanted to respond that my first online class was a Women in Film course I took during my undergrad career.  The online portion of the course was administered via Blackboard, and based on Linda Harasim’s definitions of the categories of e-learning, I would say in the example of that course, our online component was operating in adjunct mode.

We had one day a week where our film screenings took place, and another class was devoted to discussion.  We used Blackboard in order to post our thoughts on the films in review format (a weekly exercise).  I remember very much enjoying reading what others had to say about the films, especially those who didn’t speak up very often during class (this touches on the article’s point about how distance learning can create equality, giving more shy class members the opportunity to compose their thoughts).

However, in general I would say that the platform was not as effective as it could have been; a lot of what was covered was redundant – most people simply re-stated what they’d already said in class – and it felt like an afterthought most weeks.  Because of this, no one really engaged in a discussion in the boards; rather, we all simply went in, posted our required post, and logged out.

I think that this example of an e-learning environment could have been made more effective if the professor had created specific discussion points and assignments for Blackboard that helped to enhance/extend our conversation with each other, rather than simply having us re-hash what we’d already gone over.  It would have been a good place to perhaps compare themes to other films we’d seen, or to post relevant articles/examples of things that we didn’t get to discuss in class.  I think this would have opened up the boards for further dialogue between the class members, which I think is a key element in rich learning experiences.

I’m curious to hear about others’ first experiences with online classes as well…Henry mentioned being relieved that this course was not in Blackboard, so I’m especially curious to hear about others’ experience with that as well.

Take care!