cybertree

Der Forschungstag bietet die Chance, verschiedene Themen in interdisziplinären Runden zu diskutieren.

Dieser Workshop bringt deshalb diejenigen zusammen, die sich mit den Forschungsbereichen Lernen in Unternehmen, Lernen in der Hochschule, Lernen in der Weiterbildung, Lernen mit Kindern & Jugendlichen beschäftigen. Sie können die Themen aus HR-Sicht, aus lerntheoretischer  Perspektive, mit lerntechnologischem Interesse als Forscher oder Praktiker ansprechen.

Eine Liste mit einigen aktuellen Stichworten: e-Learning, Mobile Learning, Learning in the cloud, Learning analytics, Lifelong Learning, Gamification, adaptive & persuasive Learning environments, Lernen in der Industrie 4.0

Das Organisationsteam des World Café: Sabine Moebs (DHBW Heidenheim), Kay Berkling (DHBW Karlsruhe), Dirk Reichardt (DHBW Stuttgart)

Wir laden Teilnehmende aus allen Fachbereichen der DHBW , anderen Hochschulen und Duale Partner ein zu einem Workshop im World Café Format, um uns und die jeweilige Forschung kennen zu lernen, potentielle gemeinsame Themen zu finden und Wissen und Erfahrungen auszutauschen.

Wir wollen im World Café die folgenden 3 Fragen diskutieren:

An welchen Forschungsthemen und Projekten arbeiten sie derzeit?
Vorstellung aktueller Aktivitäten und Erfahrungen mit Forschung, nicht nur an der DHBW.

Welche (interdisziplinäre) Themen stehen ab 2015 auf ihrer Forschungsagenda und welche Partner wollen sie einbinden?
Haben sie schon Ideen und suchen noch nach einem oder weiteren Kollaborationspartnern?
Welche Erfahrungen haben sie mit interdisziplinären Projekten gemacht oder haben sie Fragen dazu?

Welche Förderprogramme haben sie im Auge und welche weitere Unterstützung benötigen sie?
Forschung braucht Geld – wie haben sie ihre Finanzierung gesichert, welche Wege können sie empfehlen oder auch nicht?
Forschung braucht Support. Forschung an der DHBW ist relative neu. Was funktioniert gut, wo sind noch Lücken, wie können wir Ressourcen als eine Hochschule effizienter nutzen?

Sie können sich einen der begrenzten Workshop-Plätze sichern, wenn sie vorab bereits die Antworten zu diesen 3 Fragen in den virtuellen World Café Rahmen eintragen. Unter allen, die sich vorab anmelden wird eine Kopie des aktuellen Buches “Der Teufelsfürst” der Heidenheimer Autorin Silvia Stolzenburg verlost. Oder sie kommen am 5.2.2015 einfach zum Workshop auf dem DHBW Forschungstag.

Anmeldung zum Workshop im virtuellen World Café Rahmen

And before you know it, it’s time to pack the boxes and leave…

I am moving back to Germany next month. I managed to squeeze in 3 weeks in Moshi (Yeah!) with Foot2Afrika , before I start my new job. Preparations for both events keep me very busy, never mind wrapping up my research in Dublin, finalizing all kinds of things and saying good bye to all my friends in Dublin. Gonna miss you guys - don’t be strangers, Germany is just a short trip away

This time a German friend from college is coming as well, so IT training is the flavor of the month.. Over a glass of (good!) wine the idea came up in spring and now, just a few months later we are getting ready for the trip.

We have done some fundraising: both of us online at betterplace and me offline with a coffee morning at DCU and with my sponsoring card “harrassing” pretty much everybody I talked to the last 4 weeks.. So far we have raised about € 1300; another €80 and we have reached our goal.

We also asked for a list of things Foot2Afrika send us. Friends gave us some of the items and we got some donations or vouchers from stores. Thanks to all of you!

Now I am pretty much done with the preparation. Started with the Lariam, so all set..

Now I just need to get my boxes picked up by a moving company. Sounds trivial, but indeed it took 2 weeks to get an offer from 3 companies. Now there are four days left before I am leaving the country and I still haven’t had the chance to arrange a time with the company with the lowest offer. But that’s just a little problem I will probably laugh about in max 1 weeks time

Next week at this time I will be back in Moshi - looking forward to the Foot2Afrika crowd, familiar and new faces.

I just went over the conferences & journals I’d like to submit to in the coming months. Here is a conference, that might be interesting for everyone on the MOOC Openness in Education: OER13. The conference is in Nottingham, UK next spring.

The deadline for submissions is October 31 - almost a full month to go! Typing this, I realize I have fallen behind schedule with my writing. I’ll try to catch up until next week…

I just had a discussion on skype last night with one of my webgrrls colleagues, Cornelie Picht , about all the MOOCs and interesting events and discussions on Twitter- and how these are such a different experience depending on where they originate. It seems the English-speaking world has embraced the concepts a lot better than the German-speaking “scene”.  But the main problem is: what to choose and where to stop?

A nice problem - admittedly.. So right now there are at least three MOOCs  I find really interesting and worth spending my time on. And then there is the colearncamp (German) in Frankfurt coming up at the end of this month! The colearn, or Corporate Learning, Camp has ~90 participants registered for each of the 2 days. That looks like an interesting Saturday But back to the three MOOCs..

First of all: what is a MOOC? MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course. Just recently I looked at the usability, accessibility and UX of a widely advertised MOOC, the MITx course on Circuits&Electronics. I presented the results at AISHE-C . Over 150′000 people from around the world had signed up for the MITx course - that certainly makes it Massive. It is online and still open for guest users and it was free all along - that makes it online (first O) and sort of open (2nd O). Actually, as a registered user it was even possible to download the textbook. So, yes, open it was/is. And it had a course structure - actually very much so. So there you have it: Massive, Online, Open and a Course. It allows for the massive student population to learn and discuss - MITx provided a Wiki for that. Impressive speed: no matter what time of day, questions would receive at least 1 answer within minutes. There was always someone awake and logged in.

MobiMOOC started on Saturday. The topic list is as long as it is impressive: global impact of mobile devices, mobile learning curriculum framework, mLearning for development, train-the-trainer, corporate learning, mobile activism in education, augmented learning, mLearning pedagogy and theory, mobile gaming,  mobile health (mHealth) and a collaborative exchange on mLearning tools. Should be interesting to see how that will fit into 3 weeks. They have a schedule outlined - unfortunatley I missed the first 2 webinars, both scheduled yesterday. But no problem, I can watch them later on.

Yesterday was the start of oped12 - Openness in Education, a MOOC on, well, the title really gives it away. I received the first Daily, followed the instructions and registered this blog. So you will find more about oped here over the coming weeks. It is the longest course; it runs for 12 weeks until the end of November. I just went back and checked -loads of other blogs registered already!! I am really looking forward to what and how people share.

And last, but not least, the CFHE12-MOOC on Current/Future State of Higher Education. The course starts 8 October and runs for 6 weeks until mid-November. I am particularly interested in the topics in week 2, Net pedagogies: New models of teaching and learning, week 4, Big data and Analytics and the topic in week 6, Distributed Research: new models of inquiry. Looks like this will be a busy fall;)

Looking forward to seeing / reading many of you in one or all three MOOCs

Was passiert, wenn 10 Frauen aus dem Bereich e-learning (mit dem Namen sind wir gestartet) zusammentreffen und eine Arbeitsgruppe gruenden? In Frankfurt sah das am vergangenen Wochenende so aus:
Zunaechst einmal haben wir geklaert, wo wir uns sehen; das drueckt sich im Namen aus. Aus dem kick-off der AG e-learning ist die AG Lernen geworden: Wir setzen Technik zielgerichtet ein, um das Lernen zu verbessern.
Was macht die AG Lernen?

Die Arbeitsgruppe wird fachlischen Austausch bieten, Kooperationen innerhalb der AG und ausserhalb mit anderen webgrrls und nationalen und internationalen Netzwerken suchen. AG-interne Weiterbildung zu aktuellen Themen wird durch Webinare fuer die webgrrls und Externe ergaenzt werden. Die Interessenvertretung der unterschiedlichen in der AG vertretenen Gruppen, Autorinnen, Online-Trainerinnen, Forscherinnen, Provider usw. wird einen weiteren wichtigen Bereich darstellen.

Mit Verantwortlichen fuer die verschiedenen Aufgaben versehen, waren wir nach gut 2,5 Stunden “reisefertig” - sowohl ins Wochenende, als auch auf die zukuenftig gemeinsame Reise durch die wunderbare Welt des technik-unterstuetzten Lernens.

We’ll keep you posted;)

Hypothesis 1
Applying conversation style texts corresponds with more intense learning for beginners.
Hypothesis 2
Using selected still images rather than streaming video can increase learning if the auditory narration quality of the original video is maintained.
Hypothesis 3
Learning materials providing a mix of different media lead to improved learning results.
Hypothesis 4
A balance of skill and challenge managed by the system corresponds with increased learning.
Hypothesis 5
A clear set of learning goals outlined by the system corresponds to improved learning.
Hypothesis 6
Providing a choice between a linear course structure and an open learning environment improves learning results.
Hypothesis 7
Ongoing system feedback about progress corresponds with more intense learning.
Hypothesis 8
High levels of interactivity of a learning environment correspond with a focus of attention on the activities in the learning environment.
Hypothesis 9
Better ease of use of the learning environment corresponds with clearer focus of attention.
Hypothesis 10
A clear increase of the resolution of videos and images leads to increase of learning.
Hypothesis 11
The sequence of the multimedia mix (first text, then video versus first video, then text) affects learning.
Hypothesis 12
Ease of use of the learning environment enables interactivity with the system.
Hypothesis 13
Increased attractiveness of a learning environment enhances flow.
Hypothesis 14
A clear set of learning goals corresponds to improved flow.
Hypothesis 15
Improvement of QoS when delivering various multimedia types can improve the flow experience.
Hypothesis 16
A more intense flow experience corresponds with improved learning results.
Hypothesis 17
A balanced skill and challenge ratio by the user and domain model of the system enhances the flow experience.

This post has been sitting in my dashboard as a draft for a couple of weeks now. Won’t make a draft again - too dangerous to just forget posting it…

It has been a very interesting experience - as well as exhausting and at time frustrating. From what I have seen in the feedback forms so far, most of the participants seemed to have had a good experience. Some seem very keen to continue improving their academic writing skills.There are a lot of pointers in the links I posted during the last few weeks.

Some people were interested in books on the topic; here is a collection I know is available in the DCU library:

Lennart Bjoerk, Christine Raeisaenen (1996) Academic Writing - A University Writing Course

Rowena Murray (2007) Writing for Academic Journals

John M. Swales, Christine B. Feak (2009) Academic Writing for Graduate Students - Essential Tasks and Skills

Here is a book with the “principal requirements of plain English style” and it is available as a PDF online:

William Strunk, Jr.
The Elements of Style

For those who are interested in creating online courses yourself: there are loads of books around. The following are very hands on and I know they are definitely available in the DCU library:

Kathleen Iverson (2005) E-Learning Games - Interactive Learning Strategies for Digital Delivery

Gilly Salmon (2000) E-Moderating: the key to teaching and learning online

Gilly Salmon (2002) E-tivities: the key to active online learning

Gilly Salmon’s books are a bit, hm, matured; but they are still of good help to get started.

Unit 3 provides an introduction on the presentation and visualization of data. We also looked at the structure of paragraphs. The comments in this blog equal the attendance - I just provide the bare minimum.

Some of the Videos & Websites used:

The Academic Word List  (website)

Describing Bar Charts (website)

Four Types of Charts (video)

Parts of a paragraph (website)

Parts of a paragraph (video)

After a total of 4 weeks testing the LUCie users or learners have given quite a bit of feedback.

A few lessons learned:

Although Moodle is used by many in their respective universities, the navigation in the system is a problem for many. That is understandable as it violates a few very basic usability rules; e.g. its completely different navigation in different parts of the system.

One of the most discussed issues was that there is so much writing to do. Some people raced through the pages, reading everything, skipping the exercises. That leaves me a bit clueless - how do you expect to improve your writing other than write? Oh, and then write a bit more.

Peer reviews do not work well. Collaboration was not popular. Participants want “the teacher” to correct their writing.

Many of the participants have not used a wiki before and found it very difficult. Everything new needs a good, simple introduction!

But the internet has a big impact on the way people learn after all: most people find it tiring to work their way through the lessons. They would rather just have activities; they browse, choose, complete and then pick something else.

I can understand that many found FreeMind a bit difficult to use, but everybody liked it in the end. It  requires to understand the concept of mind mapping AND getting to know a new tool at the same time.

I wonder about this Digital Natives hype; the testing so far shows once more that you cannot take anything for granted. Users still shy away from new tools. Most not only require some written introduction, but also ask for some face-to-face tutor support.

The Academic Phrasebank provides vocabulary matching the parts of academic texts.

All the components of scientific texts parallel the experimental process. 

These stages can be summarized in a question, capturing the main idea that has to be
covered in that section.

The unit included a revision of how to use articles.