Distant Learning Plan Reflection

Having just completed the UBD unit planner for my final project it brought me right back to the Typhoon Day when school was cancelled yet I was excited to keep the class moving ahead in spite of the obstacle of not actually going into school. First and foremost I was eager not to lost momentum. Theory of knowledge as it is taught at YIS meets once or twice a week so is a challenge to keep in the forefront of student awareness. If class were to be entirely derailed on account of a one day storm that loss of 90 minutes of class time could mean that students might not think of the course for as long as two weeks.

While I had been using Diigo for a year or so prior to this academic year, it had been more as a replacement delicious then clouded with a dark and gloomy forecast of termination. I had only experimented with the annotative capabilities of diigo and hadn’t fully considered the potential there for classroom and “distance” learning. I put distance in quotes because most of the students in my classes live within a 30km radius of each other with a very efficient public transportation system linking them. However, when a strong typhoon hits, those 30km might as well be 300km because it is foolish to venture outdoors.

When I sat right down and evaluated what I wanted students to gain from this class it occurred to me that it would be necessary to be in the same room as long as I had a method of introducing key questions related to an example of written media and students could interact regarding their response. While perhaps this a pattern I should evaluate more closely, authentic learning (click for great article on this) tasks in my classes often follow a similar pattern where I introduce the necessary elements and get students actively working with concepts as quickly as possible. In this case, even though we weren’t at school diigo enabled me to set-up the lesson by posting notes on a resource for my class to reference.

In terms of discussion there are many options to be considered from skype to IM but twitter offers a few advantages that most do not. First, twitter discussions occur in real time. Second, twitter discussions are publicly viewable and particularly aided with the use of #hashtags. Third, twitter discussion are written and can be viewed online for some time following thus making it easier for others to see to increase opportunities for collaborative learning and also for informal or formal assessment. I admittedly stayed pretty close to my computer all day to monitor discussion but I could follow along or join discussions late as they occurred naturally.

Pros – The outcome of the experience is that I am very pleased with the way the class came together. It was fantastic to see students who rarely speak up voluntarily in class engage more fully in writing and gain insight into their depth of thinking. It was also very enjoyable to interact with small groups of students in a near learning conference environment for the day. I found I was able to give these small groups more of my focused attention than I typically can during a given 90min class.

Cons – A virtual classroom can facilitate learning effectively if all the students have access to the infrastructure and technical expertise to manage. In both cases we had issues during the typhoon day. A few student were without power and internet access but I imagine as wireless networks become even more stable this should continue to become less a factor. Similarly, some students lacked the technical expertise to be able to log in to diigo and view the site and simultaneously operate twitter. I know some of you are thinking, “What? Aren’t these the digital natives?” Regardless of expected technical proficiency, a dry run would have reduced this issue but unfortunately timing was such that this was not possible.

One additional consideration are the other time demands for teachers. Had I needed to implement a similar lesson for four other classes that day, it could have been overwhelming to try and manage all courses in this fashion.

On the whole, I was really pleased with the outcomes and it is definitely a trick I am glad to have up my sleeve. At the same time, if I were to do it again, I would do a dry run before needed to implement the task, discuss contingency plans for power outages or for those students that are unable to contact their classmates, and develop other emergency lesson approaches so that I would not be following many multiple twitter discussions. As much as I wanted to keep the learning happening, in spite of the wind and the rain, it is nice to have the occasionally cup of coffee in the comfort of your own dry home. – AC

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