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e-moderators “Although eLearning has been around some while most of it is delivered via networks with very little if any support from ‘real’ people.” Thus ran the programme information for the January 2003 eLearning Network conference: Support Issues in eLearning. Interesting how the industry sees itself. In the business world, the use of ICT to support learning has often revolved around mechanistic drill and practice, rote learning and testing, little interaction with tutor or other learners. This conference sought to share experience of improving tutor support and making learning more effective. Today's allbelievers newsletter will focus on Trainers in Cyberspace, a presentation by Dr Gilly Salmon from the OU Business School, of relevance to all contemplating strategies for using eLearning in Christian education. Salmon talked about research carried out among a large number of MBA students in the early 1990s, and in particular asynchronous interaction. Out of this work came a five-stage model for learner support from e-moderators. “We coined the term ‘e-moderator’ - rather than ‘e-tutor’ or ‘e-teacher’ - because this job had never existed before. It involved extra training and gaining understanding extra to that possessed by a ‘tutor’ or ‘teacher’ and so needed a new title.” “Our work was based on the belief that knowledge is constructive and must be applied in order for it to be useful,” she added. “At Level One of the five-stage model, the e-moderator is called upon to encourage the eLearners and offer them practical, technological help - because, at this stage, the eLearners do not know if it is their lack of technological skill or using ‘broken’ technology that is preventing them from learning. “At Level Two, the e-moderator has to encourage socialisation and team building among the e-learners in order to ensure that they will collaborate with each other online later on,” said Salmon. “At this stage it is important for e-moderators to remember that emotions play a part in things other than learning. They need to compete for the learners’ attention as well as get the learners to work well together and help the learners to become excited about learning from each other. “At Level Three, e-moderators must ‘shine a light’ for the learners - to construct pathways for the learners that allow them to reach the knowledge they need and to be able to come back along the pathway to communicate their successes with the rest of the group. “If you get past this stage, you can begin to see some productive results from the learners,” said Salmon. “However, if you cannot reach this point, there is no point in starting the eLearning process at all. “The fourth Stage involves the e-moderator constructing context-specific knowledge. This means that the e-moderator must plan, set objectives and summarise. All of this does not involve what is conventionally thought of as ‘teaching’,” she stressed. “The final stage involves assessing, evaluating the learning … measuring how well the learners are learning to learn. “You can't just ‘put people online’ and expect them to learn,” said Salmon. “To enable learning to take place, you need an e-moderator to be a mentor and coach.” More can be found at http://oubs.open.ac.uk/gilly and http://oubs.open.ac.uk/e-moderating. Next time: Dr Salmon on e-tivities.
Yours in Christ, |
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