Topics: Project Background | Site design and learning | Online Tools | Guidance | Conclusion | Try this Site

Background and Rationale

Mylearningcenter.net was created as a thesis project for the Hayward State Masters in Online Teaching and Learning program. The web site converges elementary school education with online learning methods.

In an online learning environment, students are usually separated by distance and discussion is facilitated with online tools such as forums, chat and e-mail. Writing is the main mode of communication. One of the greatest strengths of this learning environment is that learning is asynchronous-- it is not confined to a specific time. It is easy to address multiple learning styles in a hypertext medium. Text, sounds, video and manipulates (using Java, scripting and other programming) are readily accessible online. Furthermore, many students who do not communicate well in person, communicate better online through writing.

The traditional school model is synchronous-- it happens at one time. Discussion is facilitated by whole class and sometimes group discussion. The most common communication is oral, followed by written. One of the strengths of traditional schooling is that an instructor can see and hear students to verify they are on task. He can intervene when a student needs help and is generally accessible to students.

This web project seeks to glean the best of both learning environments, while addressing state language arts and technology standards. Students work online with easy access to their teacher's Internet bookmarks and electronic school resources. Teachers can easily appeal to different learning styles by linking to images, video and sound files. Teachers can provide clear feedback to students by adding grades, comments and suggestions. Students can add comments to their work for the teacher to read during the writing process. Work can be done at school, home, and in the library-- asynchronously. The teacher can also have oral discussions with the students and provide assistance to those who need help in class.

The learning center also seeks to leverage classroom technology by enabling students to use home computers for their work, freeing up classroom time for other lessons and providing students meaningful and verifiable computer access. The learning center addresses technology classroom management issues by circumventing problems created by printing during class and limited computer time.

In this model, teachers are encouraged to focus on the task instead of computer time. Since this site enables students access to their work from any Internet connected computer, teachers should define the objectives for the assignment, be it research or creative writing, and then provide students adequate time for the task. Instead of having students write during a fix lab or classroom session, students are given a clearly defined task and access to computers. They may work on the assignment in class, the library, lab or at home. This closely mirrors the way adults use technology as a tool.

Site design, learning, and standards

This site was designed to address technology standards. Quicklinks was created to help teachers and students make efficacious use of Internet technologies and electronic research sources. eWrite was designed to give students control over text formatting. With a presentation system, students can present their writing to the class.

This combination of Internet efficacy and flexibility makes Mylearningcenter easy to integrate with standards technology and Language Arts in many areas such as:

• Oral Language
• Written language
• Research methods
• Use of technology tools and multimedia
• Formatting and presenting electronic work

Several design features exemplify good practice in online teaching. Supporting evidence is provided as a subtopic with a footnote to the resource.

1. Technical assistance: I have provided an online help file integrated into the eWrite application as well as assistance in the student and teacher guides. Teachers can answer questions via e-mail or in person the next day of class.
• It is likely that students will face technical issues when working online and teachers cannot assume that students are able to solve problems without assistance. Teachers "must remain helpful and flexible". 1
• Technologies for supporting out of class communication include, telephone, fax and e-mail. All students must have access to support. 5
2. Social learning and communication: The eWrite application provides students and teachers a place for online communication with their teacher. Students and teachers can write comments to each other and teachers can edit student work online, adding changes or comments. Students are provided with a teacher e-mail link. Students can communicate with others about the assignments and resources by using the online forum tool. A general sharing forum is also provided. The importance of human interaction in learning, and online learning in particular is well documented.
• "Learning with technology has been previously acknowledged as a communication challenge for the student-teacher interactions because the student-teacher interactions are considered most important in any learning situation and especially in distance learning (Moore, 1990; Bates, 1991). However, the students reported student-student interactions to be important too. In support of these findings, Lauzon's (1991) research shows that the isolation of the learner from the instructor and other students limits the learning process.: 7
• Quoting Andrew Feenberg (1999), "Even after all these years, the most exciting online pedagogical experiences still rely on human interaction. And for the most part, these interactions continue to be text-based."2
3. Teacher training: Mylearningcenter acknowledges the difficulties of transferring a course from the classroom to the online environment. The hybrid of face-to-face and online addresses issues teachers will have when taking a class online. Although many of the competencies of teaching face-to-face and online are similar, there are issues such as, technical expertise, access to technology, experience facilitating online discussion and teacher resistance to teaching with technology. The hybrid, modular model of Mylearningcenter allows teachers to continue to organize and manage their class as they have always done, yet take advantage of online tools designed to meet technology and curriculum standards. Students who do not have computers at home, may work in school on the assignments.

• Areas of competence for teaching online were identified in several studies. Those competencies include course planning and organization, verbal and nonverbal presentation skills, collaborative teamwork, questioning strategies, subject matter expertise and involving students and coordinating their activities. 3
• Instructors must be comfortable with the technology to be able to troubleshoot problems and help students with technical issues. Furthermore, the technology must be available to all students. 1
• The historical, social, organizational and political influences of classroom education prevent the widespread adoption of technology as a learning tool. 4
• Asynchronous discussions can include 20 or more students. "However, the success of a large group depends on the skill of the instructor as facilitator, his or her knowledge of the electronic medium, the content being discussed and explored..." 1
1. Online Discussion: An online discussion area provides students an opportunity to learn from each other and a "Sharing" forum provides a place for community building online. In the teacher's guide, teachers are encouraged to establish norms of communication before students are allowed to use the discussion area and the eWrite application.
   • Discussion, both online and off, facilitates constructivist learning and community building. Furthermore space should be made available for other issues in an online course. 1
• "If clear guidelines are not presented, students can become confused and disorganized and the learning process will suffer. 2
2. Evaluation: Teachers can evaluate student work online. Successful lessons must include an evaluation of student work. The eWrite online evaluation method makes it easy for teachers to provide students on-going evaluation during the formative stages of their assignments. Student grades are kept private in the published version of student work.
3. Motivation: Student work can be "one click" published by a teacher to be available on the web. With an audience, students are more motivated to do good work. Research connects computer-based word processing with improved attitudes towards writing.
   • "The use of word processing by children as young as third-and fourth-graders can produce striking changes in their attitudes towards writing." Computers have been shown to increase student motivation to learn. 6
4. Learning modalities: Students can add pictures to their work and present their work online or in class as an oral presentation, using a projector. Students can explore any hypermedia resources in the Quicklinks application: video, interactive animations, simulations, text, images, music. Teachers may use Quicklinks to appeal to various learning styles and intelligences.
• According to Gardner, "a contrasting set of assumptions is more likely to be educationally effective. Students learn in ways that are identifiably distinctive. The broad spectrum of students - and perhaps the society as a whole - would be better served if disciplines could be presented in a numbers of ways and learning could be assessed through a variety of means." 8
5. Use of electronic resources: links are structured with the Quicklinks application. Teachers can create libraries of links for each project. With a structured link system, students spend less time searching the web. Teachers can pre-screen links to make sure they are appropriate for the students, address the topic and contain accurate and up-to-date information.
6. Copyright and fair use: I have included guidance in the student and teacher pages on this topic. This guidance is an appropriate way to introduce the concept of online ownership and copyright laws, a subject students, beginning in the third grade, need to study to meet technology standards. I have provided links to public domain clip art for students as a copyright-safe resource.
7. Technical equity issues: I have provided a Macintosh editor for the eWrite application. The main editor works only on the PC. A javascript senses the computer platform and forwards to the correct page.

Several modifications for elementary school use:

1. A "forum" can be as simple as a two way discussion between teacher and student. Although this limits some social learning opportunity, it is simpler and more tailored to the younger student and parents who may be concerned about sharing information online. It is also easier for teachers who will likely be new to online learning methods. A full, customizable forum is also available.
2. I have addressed privacy issues by ensuring that student names are not available to the public. During the writing process, student work is controlled by passwords. Once published, the display page does not show the name.

Tools to facilitate online learning

1. Quicklinks: use this application to bookmark your links. Book marking helps students make the best use of their time online. It also helps keep them on task. It is good practice to bookmark web site for students.

2. Technology Standards Search: identify relevant technology standards for any 1-5 grade level and lesson objective. This is provided on the home page below "Today's Technology Skill", a skill that rotates each day.

3. eWrite: This is the online writing application. Students write their compositions with this tool. Teachers write comments that students can read and evaluate student work online. Teachers can use comments to motivate and adjust student progress at each step of the writing process as well as involve students in a discussion about their work at each step of the writing process. Students should be encouraged to write comments to the teacher, facilitating a simplified form of online communication between student and teacher. Students who do not speak up in class may do so in their written communication.

4. Learningcenter Forums: Students share information in three forums. The forums can be easily customized by adding and removing entries to the database that stores the forums online. Currently forums focus on three key areas: online resources, current assignment and sharing-- a place for community building.

5. Research Tools: Several research links, public domain clip art links, and a Yahooligans search box are provided as tools for the research and writing process. The tools are available on the home page and a special pop-up research page integrated into the eWrite editor.

*To try the tools, you must have a user name and password. To receive permissions, send me an e-mail.

Guidance

I have created two guides-- one for the teachers and another form the students. These guides address how to use the site and online learning topics.

In the teacher guide, teachers are encouraged to develop two-way online discussions to lead to dialog in support of social learning theory. They also get background on how to use the site with classroom technology programs to increase student access to technology, reduce paperwork, simplify publishing, and use asynchronous learning as a management tool. Teachers also receive guidance on how to use the web site tools and introduce the program to students. For details, go to the teacher's guide.

In the student guide, I provide some rules for online activity. Students are advised to stay on task, and use technology appropriately. They are also given some guidance on the limitations of communicating online and on how to receive help with the technology of the web site. The guide is written in simple language for grades 4-5 students. For details, go to the student guide.

A help file for the online text editor provides assistance on using the tools and some tips for better use.

Conclusion:

Mylearningcenter.net was created as an online learning web application that is appropriate to the needs of Elementary school teachers and students. It addresses classroom technology management issues and Elementary level technology and language arts standards. The site was designed as a modular, tool-based hybrid of online learning and face-to-face learning.

Resources:

1 Palloff and Pratt. Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace. Jossey-Bass Inc., 1999.

2 Palloff and Pratt. Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom. Jossey-Bass Inc., 2001.

3 Cyrs, Thomas. Teaching and Learning at a Distance. Jossey-Bass Inc., 1997

4 Cuban, Larry. Oversold and Underused. Harvard University Press, 2001.

5 Institute for Distance Education. (1997) Three Models of Distance Education. Retrieved June 22, 2002 on the World Wide Web: http://www.umuc.edu/ide/modlmenu.html.

6 Dublin, Pressman, and Woldman. Integrating Computers in your Classroom, Elementary Language Arts. Harper Collins College Publishers, 1994.

7 International Journal of Educational Technology. (1999) Experiences of Students, Teachers, and Administrators in a Distance Education Course. Retrieved July 12, 2002 on the World wide Web: http://www.outreach.uiuc.edu/ijet/v1n2/downs/index.html

8 Distance Learning Resource Network. DLRN's Technology Resource Guide. Retrieved August 27, 2000 on the world Wide Web: http://www.dlrn.org/library/dl/guide5.html