online learning

Here is a recap of a Framegame (by Thiagi) that I conducted toward the end of last semester. The book provides great insights into facilitating an educational game ... I amended the core approaches to work within an online setting.

Audience: The audience for the session included a group of educators who meet online Thursday nights to discuss and share ideas about various topics in the field of education during an informal peer learning session. On the night of the Framegame, 7 participants played in the game and a few others lurked in the virtual "corner". While many of the weekly attendees are k-12 teachers, some are educational technology specialists in college or corporate settings. Nearly all of the participants are using Internet based technologies to support learning activities. A growing concern is how to foster appropriate participant interactions within the online learning environment.

In one of my online classes, a few of us have been having a sidebar discussion on the human interaction that we feel as "missing" in an online learning environment.  We've had some great back and forth "conversations" in the asynchronous discussion forum that began when a fellow online classmate made the statement, "I can't help but think someday no one will attend class and there will be no 'campus'." This was followed by a thread of posts noting the human interaction that some feel can't truly be replicated in an online environment.  Here is a partial list of of missed interactions noted by members of my class:

• hearing people laugh (and I'll add, without net lag), 
• watching people discover things, 
• having a whole group of people excited about something at the same time (I'll add again, without net lag),
• real handshakes, winks, facial gestures (I'll add, not emoticons)
• Potlucks: great coffee, popcorn, whatever you like to eat or drink

I pointed back to my "Being Spaces" posts from back in June which prompted a referral to the book The Ape in the Corner Office: Understanding the Workplace Beast in All of Us. So, even for us distance students who are putting our hearts, minds and hard earned tuition dollars into this new learning environment, there is still a longing for what I often refer to as "the water cooler".  This theme will be part of a free webcast today hosted by the folks at Innovate  with Robert Sanders, the author of "The 'Imponderable Bloom': Reconsidering the Role of Technology in Education"  (see details below).  In the article, Sanders notes: