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Post details: My Ideas on e-Learning 2.0

12/21/2009

My Ideas on e-Learning 2.0

We all know e-Learning, sometimes also known as "self paced learning". You find it on websites, on youTube and in Podcasts. I call it the "old way" of e-Learning and I believe it's a dying breed. Why?

- no pacemaker
- lack of discipline
- short attention span

[More:]

So what about the pacemaker? If learning is "self paced" you can learn anytime, anywhere. That mean you can procrastinate as long as you like. There is nobody who sets a deadline and after a while you may loose interest.

Why discipline? If you don't have enough discipline to set your own pace, you don't learn. Most people have other things to do. Watching the favorite TV-show, walking the dog, checking the fridge for the leftover pizza. Yes there is always other work to do.

How long can you concentrate? Will you watch a youTube video if it's 30 minutes long? Most people get distracted after 3 minutes. It's not nice, but it's the new zeitgeist. You've got trained by TV, you are used to split a movie or show into chunks between commercial breaks. Nothing in your life should be longer than 5 minutes if you need to stay focused.

How about live?

So how about live learning? Same problem huh?

Ok, it depends. If the teacher is good, you will do much better. Here is why:

- setting the pace
- adding interaction
- adding video
- adding chat
- adding feedback
- adding dynamic stuff

Here is your pacemaker. You have to show up in time, there is no excuse. Your dog have to wait (or you have to clean up later).

Good teachers add interaction to the class. In my classes I try to ask questions before I explain. This will activate the students. They will think about a possible solution, so the explanation will fall on fertile ground (most likely).

Adding video, chat and other dynamic elements like polls, quizzes and animations will also help to prevent students from falling asleep. I had some good experience with walking around different class materials in 3D worlds like Second Life. Even if walking your Avatar will not excercise you, it will help to indicate if people are sleeping already.

Examples

I have three examples that can already be used for e-Learning 2.0

Second Life

Second Life® is a 3D environment (no, it's not a game), where you can set up virtual classrooms. The tools you have here are:

- Avatars
- Rooms
- Voice
- Chat
- 3D Objects

An avatar that is a virtual representation of yourself. You can look like yourself or like your favorite movie star (it's also a great environment to producte animation movies).

Rooms in these 3D worlds must be rented. It's very similar like a hosted web site. Some schools in these systems like Second Life may allow you to teach in their rooms for free if you ask nicely.

Voice is implemented in Second Life but still in development on other 3D Systems like Open Grid. It's done via Voice-over-IP (VoIP). You cannot only hear the other people talking, you can even find out where they are in the room. So it's very similar to a real meeting.

Chat is just using text chat as in other Internet platforms. It's often used additional to voice if students don't want to interrupt the teacher.

All sorts of 3D Objects can be used here, so it's a great platform for architects, film maker and scientists.

Conclusion

3D Worlds are great for teaching/learning 3D related topics but using the system needs a lot of training itself. You need to get used to all the controls like moving your avatar, sitting, walking, changing clothes and even more details. Setting up the voice is sometimes difficult, especially if there is a company firewall blocking necessary ports. But if you are already comfortable in this 3D Environment it's great for learning.

WizIQ

WizIQ is a teacher/student platform that offers free and premium accounts for teachers and students. Teachers offer their classes here, mostly for free but there are also some paid classes. You have these tools:

- Voice
- Slides
- Video
- Screen Sharing
- Recording
- Private Sessions
- Public Sessions

Voice is implemented as VoIP, so that you can speak over the Internet. Interactive talking is a bit bumpy, since the system tends to crash often when more than one person has a microphone active.

Slides will be powerpoint slides that you upload before class and then you can present these to your audience. It's also bumpy from time to time since the slides may be invisible sometimes, especially for Mac users.

Video can be shared from youTube. The teacher select a youTube link and all students can watch it at the same time. This works fine usually.

Screen Sharing is currently experimental and not usable at the moment. Sharing your screen will slow down the system significantly and it also mess up with the recording, so I avoid it if possible in my classes.

All classes can be recorded. Recording a class is activated by default but you can pause the recording if you don't want to record. Recordings from public classe are available to all WizIQ users, not just to registered students in your class. So you can use your recorded classes as a marketing tool.

A private session is a class with all the tools but your students can attend by invitation only. Teachers usually fix a price with their students directly. Teachers with a free account can keep the last 3 recordings for their private sessions. Premium members can keep all private recordings.

A public session is a class with all the tools and everybody can join the class. There is no limiation in students, so you can have 1 or 100 students in your class. Public recordings are kept forever or until you request the admins to delete them.

Conclusion

WizIQ is a great social website where you can find lots of free lessons. Some of these don't show much quality and sometimes the teacher even won't show up for class. But you will also find great classes for learning a language or technical related topics. The system is a bit buggy and you have to expect it to crash occasionally. In this case you can quit your browser and login again to fix it. The recording is not always reliable but at least it's available for everybody after class so that you can watch classes you may have missed.

eduFire

A system that uses the most advanced technical system is eduFire. They offer you these tools:

- Voice
- Slides
- Screen Sharing
- Recording
- private tutoring
- public classes

Voice is implemented as VoIP and it is very stable with good sound quality. Even if several people are speaking, I never had a problem or a crash.

Slides are usually Powerpoint, you can upload them after you have entered your classroom. Unfortunately you cannot upload them beforehand, so you have to come to your classroom 30 minutes before class starts to upload your material.

Screen Sharing slows down the system a bit, but it's very stable and reliable. You can select what you want to share by "Desktop", "Application" or just one "Window". This is very convenient if you don't want to show your Desktop to everyone in class.

Recording of the class is off by default, but you can start it any time and you can also stop it and start again. It's very straightforward and reliable. The recorded sessions can be easily cued to a specific part of the presentation because you can select a slide name or chat message that you want to fast forward to.

Private tutoring is done by student's request. I haven't tried that yet. The student has to pay a fee that the teacher have set in his/her profile. The money will then be processed by eduFire and sent via PayPal to the teacher. There is a 15% processing fee that eduFire takes from the teacher's income for providing the service.

Public classes are public for everyone to register. The teacher can limit the number of seats for a class up to 99 Students. A teacher can schedule free classes or paid classes. For the paid classes, the student have to pay to register for a class. This money will also be processed by eduFire and the teacher will get it (minus 15% fee) via PayPal.

Conclusion

eduFire is using a professional software "Adobe Acrobat Connect" for their system. This explains why the software gives such a good impression. It's very stable and the recodings are reliable. But it's a pitty that recordings are only available to students who have attended the class. So you cannot (yet) watch a recording if you have missed a free class, you need to come it at least for a while to be able to access the recorded session. The quality of free classes is usually very good. Anyway you will find most classes are paid classes but the prices are usually moderate (between $5 and $20 per 1 hour session). It's also a great platform for tutors who want to meet with their studends in private sessions using a professional learning platform.