The Role of a Mentor

In our session yesterday we were very pleased to hear from Bronwyn Beach and Vanessa Marsh from GippsTAFE.

2007 was Bronwyn's first year working full time at GippsTAFE. She is an experienced drug and alcohol counsellor and now teaches these competencies in a program aimed at people currently working in the area of drug and alcohol counselling. Because all her students are working the program is offered flexibly; a mixture of RPL and online training.

Vanessa is an experienced online facilitator with a good, working knowledge of the use of the online classroom, Elluminate, but no expertise in the area of drug and alcohol counselling. She works in the GippsTAFE Innovation Department and one of the roles of this department is to promote and support the introduction of online learning across the institute.

Early in 2007 Bronwyn decided that she would like to introduce weekly Elluminate sessions to her program. She approached the Innovation Department and it was decided that Vanessa would act as her mentor offering her support and assistance through the process.

Bronwyn had previously participated in a number of online classroom sessions and although she had never been a presenter approached her first session with a fair amount of confidence. How hard could it be she thought. However she found the experience overwhelming even though Vanessa was there as a co-facilitator; there was just too much happening. Her students were new to this type of learning, there were a number of technical issues and due to shyness they were reluctant to speak.

Before the next session Bronwyn and Vanessa revised their approach. Vanessa advised that they should limit the number of Eluminate tools that they would use to allow the students to become more comfortable with the technology. Vanessa would be responsible for trouble shooting and monitoring the text chat so Bronwyn could completely ignore these aspects and focus on her presentation. The students were asked to write down any questions and could ask these at set times during the session. Bronwyn also developed pre-session activities that the students were asked to complete. This helped them to feel more confident about contributing to the online session.

As the year has progressed Bronwyn has become much more confident about using Elluminate and now needs very little help from her mentor, Vanessa. She has gradually increased the range of Elluminate features that she uses. Her sessions include brainstorming, audio presentations by her students and some assessment activities. She conducts and records RPL interviews in Elluminate and has even used it in conjunction with the virtual world, Second Life, to conduct an online role play.

Student feedback has been very positive. Most reported that they found their first session wierd as they were not used to communicating online in this way but they have have quickly got used to it and requested longer sessions. They like the flexibility of studying online and appreciate the added interaction of the online classroom sessions.

From Bronwyn's point of view she says that the addition of the Elluminate sessions has made it much easier to teach flexibly. The ability to record sessions is great for proving learner engagement when it comes to audit time. Her skills in using Elluminate have grown so she now feels much more confident and is even teaching other teachers about how to use an online classroom.

Here are Bronwyn's five tips for those just starting to use an online classroom:

• have a co-facilitator
• keep it simple and don't use too many functions at once
• use pre-session activities to help students prepare for each session
• control hands up; pause for questions at set times in the presentation
• treat it like a normal lesson

Thank you to Bronwyn and Vanessa for sharing their valuable experiences with the group. The session was recorded, please contact me at lynnh@gippstafe.vic.edu.au if you would like a link to the session.

This is the final Classrooms Online session for 2007. Thank you all for your interest in the network and I look forward to meeting you online again in 2008.

What Happened at our Show & Tell Session

At our recent Show & Tell Session Jan Bruce and Carole McCulloch were the presenters.

Jan teaches disability studies using a blended model. She told us how she had recently used Elluminate to record a role play for her students to listen to. The issues addressed in the roleplay were then discussed in a face to face session. Her students found the task engaging and are keen to participate in future role play conducted in this way. We were impressed by the simple sketches she drew on the white board to set the scene for the role play but Jan commented that she is keen to enhance future activities by greater use of images.

Carole's presentation was about how to use the technique of appreciative enquiry when conducting an online classrooms session. We enjoyed a very interactive session as she demonstrated this process.

We finished with a paired brainstorming activity where members of the group were encouraged to come up with their own idea about how they could use an online classroom with their learners. It was a lot of fun!!!!

Online Survey

As the year draws to a close I am keen to find out how online classrooms are being used for teaching and learning and identify any barriers that may be stopping teachers using the tools.

Classrooms Online has been funded by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework and part of our project involves reporting on these factors.

I recently sent out a survey to the group to find out how they have been using online classrooms with their learners and I have been pleased by the response. If you would like to contribute your experiences in this way please participate in the survey by clicking on the following link:
http://tinyurl.com/3xokwa

Show & Tell

We are nearing the end of the year and I thought it was high time that we listened to the members of the Classrooms Online network tell us about their individual journeys in the use of online classrooms.

Our next session will be held on Friday November 23 @ 1.30 pm EDST in Elluminate. I am calling this session “Show and Tell”; this means it is now your chance to tell us all how you have been using online classrooms.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to implement the use of online classroom with your learners you would be very welcome to tell us how you would like to do this and even try facilitating a short activity with us as your audience.

Please email me at lynnh@gippstafe.vic.edu.au if you have an online classroom story or an idea you would like to share so that I can plan the agenda. The session will be quite informal; a real chance to chat about our experiences and ideas. I already have one volunteer to present at this session.

Looking ahead, the final Classrooms Online session for 2007 will be on Monday December 3 at 11 am EDST; please note this in your diary.

Wikis

I have recently come across three wikis relating to the use of online classrooms.

http://vet-computer-networks.wikispaces.com/virtual-classrooms
A wiki looking at the technical requirements of a number of different online classrooms.

http://liveonlinesessions.wikispaces.com/
http://synchfacilitation.wikispaces.com/
Two wikis looking at the facilitation of synchronous events using online classrooms.

They are well worth a visit.

Please consider making a contribution to these resources.

Online Event

This week (November 7-9) the Australian Flexible Learning Framework is conducting an online event called “e-Show and Tell”. This online event showcases some of the latest developments and future directions of e-learning in Australia and internationally.

The event is free and many of the sessions are conducted using the online classroom, Elluminate. It is a fantastic opportunity to learn more about e-learning as well as observe how different presenters facilitate sessions in online classrooms.

I would particularly like to draw your attention to the session scheduled for Friday 9 November at 11 am (AEDT) by Jonathan Finklestein who was our first guest speaker for Classrooms Online. Jonathan is the founder of LearningTimes and an international speaker on synchronous learning tools USA. His session will explore unique, real-time online group activities for the live virtual classroom. You will find out about innovative learning activities and facilitation approaches that will open your eyes and take online synchronous learning to the next level of engagement.

Registrations are now open at:
http://networksevents.flexiblelearning.net.au

Live Classroom with Clint Smith

On Tuesday we enjoyed a session with Clint Smith from Eworks in Wimba Live Classroom. The group was small but our locations varied from Townsville to Tasmania and included several towns in rural Victoria showcasing one of the great advantages of using an online classroom.

We began the session with a guided tool of the platform. Then Clint demonstrated how to use the polling tool. In Live Classroom this allows you to pose questions that require the participants to type in an answer rather than just use multiple choice. Once all the reponses were entered Clint published these to the whiteboard and used the information to initiate discussion amongst the group. This was a great way to include all the participants in the discussion and get the session rolling.

Thank you Clint for an informative session and for demonstrating your well developed online facilitation skills.