Töö allikatega, viitamine ja viidete haldamine e-õppes. Teine nädal.

Kõigepealt videokonverentsist.
Kuna mul on õnnestunud osaleda päris mitmel videokonverentsil, ei oleks see olnud minule uus kogemus, kuid tutvumise mõttes oleks see päris lahe olnud. Kuna ma ei saanud osaleda, olin loengul samal ajal, siis vaatasin konverentsi ajalugu.Meelids ka Hansu üles pandud vooagregaator NetVibes, kuskohast saab enda blogisse pandud uusi kommentaare lugeda :)

Nüüd aga asja juurde:
http://viitamiskursus.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/teine-nadal-folksonoomia-ja-uhisjarjehoidjad/

Põhimõtteliselt on blogi ka omaette folksonoomia-allikas. Oma blogile olen lisanud päise allamärksõnapilve, et õppejõududel ja lugejatel oleks mugav mu blogis orienteeruda, sest endalegi üllatuseks on minu nn. õpiportfoolio arenenud väga laiahaardeliseks peegeldamise ja tööde esitamise keskkonnaks. Kuna mulle meeldib kirjutada, siis kasutan meelsasti oma blogi mõtete kajastamiseks ja seetõttu vajan kursusetööde märksõnadega eristamist.Visuaalse naudingu lisamiseks olen erineva sagedusega esinevad märksõnad pannud suuruse järjekorda.

Delicious vs. StumbleUpon.

Delicious on mulle tuttav keskkond, alustasin deliciousiga mitu aastat tagasi, kui selle veebiaadress oli veel lahedal kujul www.del.icio.us.Põhimõtteliselt delicious on lihtne vahend veebiaadresside salvestamiseks, nende märksõnastamiseks, teiste huvitavate veebiaadresside otsimiseks jne. Sotsiaalmeediat on sinna ka lisatud, nagu ka loengumaterjalidest lugeda võis.
Kui ma StumbleUponi avasin, siis ei saanud hästi aru kuidas see veebilehti salvestab, aga see oli natuke mõnusama keskkonnaga (samas keerulisem) kui delicious. Olles visuaalselt atraktiivsem, toimis see Firefoxi aplikatsiooni abil, mida ma ei tahtnud alla laadida. Ma avastasin ühe keerulise mooduse, kuidas brauserisiseselt seda kasutada, kuid kas ma tahan nii palju aega raisata? Võin öelda, et tallatud rada on kergem käia, ehk siis delicious on lihtsamalt üles ehitatud ja seda on mugavam kasutada. Selleks ei pea ma alati toolbari installeerima, et lehekülgi salvestada (kuigi mul on see olemas).
Hiljemal kasutamisel märkasin parema hiireklahvi menüü küljes ühte stumble ikooni pärast tööriistariba allalaadimist. Ilmselt tuli mulle päris palju "pahna" sellega süsteemi kaasa, aga õilsa eesmärgi nimel ju võib. Igatahes StumbleUponile lisandus üks hea võimalus hiirega lehekülgi lemmikuks salvestada.

Suurim pluss Deliciousil on kasutusmugavus ja lihtsus, StumbleUponil sotsiaalne mõõde paremini välja toodud.
Suurim miinus Deliciousil on ehk mitte nii atraktiivne väljanägemine (lihtsuses peitubki võlu, tegelikult) aga StumbleUponil tundus see miinus kalduvat tööriistariba installeerimise poole. Samas ma ei uurinud ka päris põhjalikult, ehk oleks mõne lihtsama stumble'imise variandi ka leidnud. Foorumist ma ei leidnud oma küsimusele, kas ilma tööriistaribata antud keskkonda on võimalik kasutada.

Sellised mõtted põgusast "maitsvast komistamisest" (otsetõlge).
Minu delicious on delicious.com/maibrittkuuskmae, see on hiljuti avatud ühe konkursi tarbeks. Isiklikku, algset, on piinlik näidata, kuna ei ole seal koristamas käinud. Kõik mis arvutist tuli läks sinna üles, mistõttu peaks osa sisust privaatseks tegema.
Komistuskivide lehele panin sellise kasutajanime http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/britake/, aga sealne konto on üsna tühi eelmainitud põhjusel.

E-Learning Week 8 - Reflection

I had some thoughts concerning Ketlin's post of week 7.
She said she did not have a clear image of a decent e-course in mind before she started this subject, but she has learned a lot now. I must admit, that I have learned something as well, but it is fairly simple for me to surf around in the e-learning environment. I am feeling pretty good now that I have passed one bad e-course example, I even decided to give the lecturer course feedback so that she could improve her courses. After learning some basics and browsing through materials I feel pretty secure in open learning environments. I am also proud that I have participated on an e-course of the lecturer who got a quality mark from EITSA (Estonian Information Technology Foundation), so I have a few courses to compare.
I just hope that all of our group's materials of our course will be posted before evaluation, because group work matters 25%, not your own effort in the group, as far as I understand.

Explain, which type of learning environment is best suitable for your e-learning course prototype?

Our group has decided to adapt an open personal learning environment, because it is easier to follow and there are no extra passwords to remember. The other point would be that social media applications require a lot of mobility and time to get acquainted with the whole concept, thus a weekly space is left for the student to learn the things and reflect on them. We have put our materials in the web, namely a weebly-based page, which gives the objectives, main information, tasks, and the facilitator's blog (the name is made up thus there is no need to contact the person who is the "facilitator" there). Tools for learners would be a few social networking tools and also a blog for reflection. Since there is no groupwork, only minor skype chats may occur, but it is not clear yet, whether the learners would be keen on it. Some tasks are made in twitter, thus there will be an agregator for twitter feeds as well.
Why did we choose Weebly?

• easy to navigate, just a few clicks
• simple to create, and manage, just a few drag-and-drop items + text, embeddable code, etc.
• forum/feedback/blog option
• simple interface

What was the most important thing you learned this week? What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

I still learned that it is possible to do group work so that not everyone is present, but through collaboration with some and then the others it is possible to manage with group tasks very easily. There has to be a keen person who "fuels" the conversation, and participants who do work in time. I had quite a lot of fun setting up the weebly course and inventing facilitator's blog posts and comments. I love creative work!


What is your evaluation of this week's groupwork? (What did go well and what did not? How did groupwork influence fulfilling your personal learning contract?)

According to my observations this week has been productive, we have been online and decided things together, and there was no need to schedule time, we were all online and had a spontaneous meeting. This made our task division even more effective. Well, since everybody agreed that PBworks is not the best environment for course presentation, we decided that we would change it. As we had at least 2 weebly users, we decided to use this environment. We have had several talk sessions with the group and that is assuring, everyone took part nicely.

Describe what has changed in your personal learning environment and in group environment?

I love my organization :) but group environment changed in the sense that there appeared a new web page for the course prototype.

Prediction of Possible Business Models in Social Media in the Future.

Introduction

Social media is very clever in implementing business models in such a way that the user does not even notice while being hooked up in engaging content or an interesting application of a social media site that they find themselves paying for a service. Having tried to avoid spending money for social media-based applications has not succeeded since I have been tempted to try out the possibilities of upgraded services just to feel how it is to benefit from something. This experience has led to the conclusion that one should think about all the pros and cons of the service and come to a conclusion if buying upgraded services is necessary. I understood that there is a possibility to avoid paying when you leave the passion for an application aside or think rationally about the application benefits whether they are really necessary or not.
Having read through all possible variants of revenue models in social media, a warm feeling of recognition appeared. Nowadays social media and media economy mostly demands novelty and unique solutions in order to please the customer. When I find a social media-based web page, I have constantly found myself thinking about the websites’ conception how a certain site gains money from its customers while being totally free in the first glance. In further investigation certainly a kind of revenue model becomes apparent since the people behind the website mostly need an income.

E-Learning Week 7 - Reflection

What was the most important thing you learned this week? What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

I will take Chiara's example and talk about the conference I attended, E-learning conference 2010. I got a lot of inspiration through that and when the materials are put up, I hope there is a possibility to look at them. In the conference I had this e-learning course in mind several times. But I will not talk about the conference, since there are more important issues to be discussed. I learned that there is a possibility that without the group leader things get done as well. Chiara was so kind this time as to lead the forces, thus I was happy that other people take the lead as well!

What is your evaluation of this week's groupwork? (What did go well and what did not? How did groupwork influence fulfilling your personal learning contract?)
Describe what has changed in your personal learning environment and in group environment?

Concerning group work I will reflect on Chiara's post, that the communication was not all that terrible, since she got hold of the groupwork to her hands and pushed us into working. I think we would have done it anyway, but work and school and other down-to-earth activities kept the team busy on the given times (one-two people were present, still). As far as the tasks are divided, I think people do not have to be online at the same time, everyone can improve/add something to the discussion later. I remember that everyone had their excuses, thus there should be other communication options/means to collaborate. The contract did not fulfill its purposes from the leadership point of view, but I think that everything is still on track.
We have not changed our environment yet, but I think that we should place the final product somewhere else than Pbworks (but I am growing to like the environment for this course a bit).

My personal learning environment is the same, I think. I still use a blog, which is a kind of portfolio for my learning experience. I use Skype for chats and task division, and E-Learning course for task monitoring.

Töö allikatega, viitamine ja viidete haldamine e-õppes. Esimene nädal.

Kirjutan vastuseks sellisele postitusele: http://viitamiskursus.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/esimene-nadal-sissejuhatus/

Mulle meeldisid väga viitamise 10 käsku - viitamine on minu jaoks eriti armas teema, kuna hetkel on meil koolis aktuaalsed aastatööd ning ülikoolis on loomulik, et ma pean üliõpilasena (omades oma osa viitamisest) oskama korrektselt viidata.
Mulle meeldib kõige rohkem blogis viitamine, seal ei ole vaja hakata nuputama, millist stiili kasutada - APA, MLA või Chicago. Lisaks veel küsimused, kas Vikipeediat arvestatakse või mitte (jah, pigem arvestatakse allikaid, millest artiklid kokku kirjutatud on, aga miks siis üks õppejõud jonnakalt vaid Vikipeediale viitas? - võib esitada retoorilisi küsimusi), kas ma peaksin lisama numbri ja joonealuse viite või sulgudes oleva kirjanduse loetelu katke... väga keeruline.
Õnneks on tänapäeva tehnoloogia väga uuenduslik ja teeb üliõpilase elu kergeks (ma ei soovitaks keeleõpetajana kunagi Google Translate'i, aga kui muidu ei saa, siis soovitan saadud tõlke alati üle kontrollida; nii on ilmselt ka kõikide veebimaterjalidega), seega olen avastanud väikese üliõpilase abimootori nimega Citation Machine, mis paneb sinu sissetrükitud andmed kenasti korrektsesse vormi. Kui ISBN numbrit tead, siis on veel parem, ei pea midagi sisse toksima (aga alati kontrolli, enne kui seda teadustöös kasutad).

Uudiste kirjutajana tean, et alati tuleb algallikale viidata ja jälgida, ega lool liiga karme piiranguid ei ole. Mul on omapärane kogemus enda läbiviidud intervjuuga, kus ajakirjanik võttis minu loo, kirjutas sellest sobivas mahus materjali oma nime all ümber ja esitas lehes. Kahjuks ei suuda ma originaalartiklit leida, aga otsingust on näha pealkiri "Pärnu kooli teeb USA kolledžiga koostööd". Loo ümberkirjutanu ei viidanud ei originaalartiklile ega selle autorile, aga kuna ta oli mu sõbranna, siis andsin talle andeks.

Kommenteeriks rusikareegleid ja 10 käsku järgnevalt:
Kui ma ülikooli sisseastumisesseed kirjutasin, olin küll omadega veidi puntras, aga viitamist ei unustanud. Ilmselt tegin seda erinevates stiilides, aga tundub, et tahtsin võimalikult palju viiteid ära näidata, ei tea kas selle pärast, et uhkem oleks või selle pärast kui palju vaeva ma nägin.
Praegu võingi öelda, et eksin selle reegli vastu, et viitamisel tuleb kasutada läbivat stiili, aga samas kõik on harjutatav, ma olen ka arenenud.
Kuskohast on pärit 10 käsu adaptatsioon viitamise kohta? Ma ilmselt olen viitamiskuulekas, korralikult kasutan (enamasti) viiteid. Kui tõesti aega ei ole, siis jätan viitamata, aga selle võib minu uneaja arvele panna.
Viitekogu ei taha hästi kolleegidega jagada, sest seal on mul üks segapudru.
Ahjaa, allikate kohta tahtsin kirjutada, et neid tuleb pidevalt uuendada, kuna informatsioon vananeb nii kiirelt, et kõigega ei jõua end kursiski hoida.

Töö allikatega, viitamine ja viidete haldamine e-õppes. Sissejuhatus. Esimene nädal.

Tere.

Kirjutan vastuseks sellisele postitusele: http://viitamiskursus.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/esimene-nadal-sissejuhatus/

Selline ma olengi. Pildistamise hetkel asusin tööl ja üritasin asjalikku nägu teha.

Olen ennast juba päris palju tutvustanud, küll eesti küll inglise keeles. Paraku on sellest blogist, mis oli algselt mõeldudki taolise Vikiülikooli kursuse jaoks, saanud minu Tallinna Ülikooli IMKE (Interactive Media and Knowledge Environments) inglisekeelne õpiblogi.
Taustast nii palju, et olen eluaegne Pärnakas ja eluaegne Ühisgümnaasiumis käija, kes oma õpetajahariduse hankis Tallinna Pedagoogikaülikoolist ning uut haridust juba uuemast, Tallinna Ülikoolist taga ajab ülalmainitud magistriõppe läbijana.
Töötan Pärnu Ühisgümnaasiumis inglise ja prantsuse keele õpetajana ja tiigrihüppe haridusportaali aineeksperdina.
Kõige selle kõrvalt kasvatan ka tubli koolieelikut Ukut, ja kui natuke rohkem aega on, laulan naiskoor "Lindas". Põhitähelepanu on hetkel õppimisele ja töötamisele suunatud.

Kursuselt ootan ma uusi põnevaid ressursse ja tegelikult panen ka ennast proovile, kas sel korral olen võimeline sellise kursuse lõpuni käima (kus ei ole reaalset käsku midagi lõpuni teha). Tuttavaid on ka tore kursusel kohata :)

E-Learning Week 6 - Tasks and Reflection

What do you consider as important elements in an e-learning course?

1) A well-educated course facilitator - the facilitator's role is the most crucial as he or she has to build up a course for people who might not even meet the facilitator and coursemates. The facilitator has to know the basics of building an e-learning course as well as have a good grasp of the material.
2) A nice introduction - to define the outcome and goals of the course.
3) Good materials - by materials I mean videos, texts, notes, etc., which draw the learners' attention in such a way that they memorize things very easily. The materials to my mind should be concise and very striking, especially for younger people.
4) Evaluation - understandable criteria for passing the course. Those should be not too harsh and not too simple, because with too tight schedule a learner could never do well in a course with harsh requirements, and with too broad criteria the result might not come out as well, too, because then they just forget about the requirements and think there is time enough to pass.
5) Feedback - this is an important part, since every person needs reflection for how he or she has advanced. It can be a mark or a comment.

What was the most important thing you learned this week? 

I think I realised that groupwork is tricky work since there is no ideal time when you can meet, there is no ideal pattern that the group co-operates on, because the people in the group are so different. Yet you manage to do all things well and on time, which is a relief.


What is your evaluation of this week's groupwork? (What did go well and what did not? How did groupwork influence fulfilling your personal learning contract?)

Groupwork went well, because we met online and discussed which parts should be done and which tasks should be divided. I think that according to personal learning contract I can regard myself as successful, because the group managed to do well. I was a bit puzzled, though, that there is a kind of dependence on the group leader. Puzzled, because I think that grown-up people are able to think on their own as well. But all in all we managed well and all parties did their job on time.

Describe what has changed in your personal learning environment and in group environment?

Nothing has really changed in these learning environments. I have taken my blog as a learning blog or portfolio and for group work we are still using Pbworks. Maybe we will switch to another one, but currently all of it is as it was before.

Reply to the Facilitator's Questions of Week 3

Should every group member be responsible for all the points you have made? For instance, who should make sure that everyone has the information that is necessary for the next tasks. Is it a task for every group member to check or is it a group leader's task to take care of? 

Actually every group member took part in the creation of the points, I just formulated the final "product". The following steps will be agreed upon with the whole group, and I think we will collectively distribute tasks needed for future. I believe each group member will get familiar with the necessary information, this is not definitely my task, but as a group we support each other. I also allowed access to write into our space, so you can comment there now, I believe.

I had a look at your group environment in pbwiki about the criteria for a good online course. As I don't have access to that environment and I am not allowed to leave comments I present them here:

1. "Practical = sufficient length of the course" - a strange combination :). I found the following claim also very subjective: "The course should take up time as much as it would not disturb one's private life". I would argue that our private lives are very different and how one can quarantee that it doesn't disturb participants' private lives?
Another claim: "There is a need for the course and the need persists because of its good quality." A course can be good, but the need for that course might change due to different reasons, one of them can be out-to-date knowledge and skills it provides and encourages...

2. I so much agree with you that a course should be free, but somebody should pay for the costs at some point. Currently we have a list of courses in our wikiversity, which are for free, but certificate is given only to those who have either paid for this or enrolled to a formal program. Of course it is not the best solution, but at least it is a step further to open up the education for everybody.

3. Your claim: "The course has to be inspiring, and provide with lots of interesting ideas and new thoughts." It used to be that way that a course should be already designed in a way that it provides lots of interesting ideas and new thoughts. Now we encourage participants to say their opinions, share their experiences, discuss and argue. And I believe that all the participants can contribute to this. Of course another problem is the level of engagement from the participants... So a good course should provide opportunities for participants to provide their ideas and thoughts...

But in general, these are really good and relevant points a course designer should consider.

Thanks for the time spent on looking through our work I totally agree that there were some personal subjective thoughts, but this was the reflection of our group on the ideal course design. Since there are 5 people, everyone contributed their preferences and we had this great mash-up of thoughts. I know that there is no one clear solution for a course, and the facilitator has to make amendments on some points, but every course designer gives his/her best to create the best course.
I think that if a course wants to be up-to-date, the facilitator has to renew the course components and constantly keep the information and different applications updated - it takes up a lot of time and ideas, but I think it is possible for some time at least.
As for free courses Wikiversity is a really great environment to continue life-long learning without getting the certificate (for those who do not care about certificates).

E-Learning Week 5 - Reflection

Tasks:

Revise your personal learning contract if needed, considering what you have learned so far, what is going differently from your initial plans, how the environment has changed. Please start a new blog post for revision and keep the first version of the contract. Refer to the first version.

Since I  created my learning contract based on some knowledge already, I think it would be unfair to change anything there. After week 6 I can add if my experience with the e-learning tasks of my pupils went well or if I did anything wrong (not to encourage my pupils' motivation).