TwitterMOOC – Designing a New Learning Environment

Watching the development of MOOCs over the last year, largely from the perspective of a student taking the courses, the question which has fascinated me has been to what extent any teacher could set up their own online course.

Being the Moodle fundi at my school I immediately thought of Moodle as a platform, and indeed there are Moodle servers available who will host any course you create for free, or for a small fee. But in many ways this is unsatisfactory. Moodle is a bit of an acquired taste for many. It is also somewhat clunky and lacks sex appeal! While its functionality gives it enormous power and wins devotees from amongst those who are prepared to master the learning curve required, for the average teacher it is usually one bridge too far.

As the resident Moodle Champion I speak to many teachers about the interface, and usually get the same response – it’s not very user-friendly! Many teachers do respond well to blogs. They are relatively easy to set up, and the templates and widgets that most blog servers provide supplies the necessary eye candy. There are class blog platforms, and all easy to set up and administer.

But, the functionality of the blog is limited. You can post and you can comment. Sure you can embed videos and set up polls, but ultimately the ability to generate discussion is limited.

Nevertheless, I decided to go about setting up a small (mini MOOC) using a blogging platform. I decided to call the site twitterMOOC because I wanted to use twitter hashtags to allow students or readers to add short comments using the course hashtag as a stream on the blog page. I do something similar on my Moodle pages, and it forms a great back-channel for my classes, and is good for questions, and comments. I knew that you could add tweets to a wordpress blog using a widget. Unfortunately you cannot add a twitter feed which draws in references to the hashtag, you can only link it to a user account. I got around this by adding a link to a tweetchat.com feed using a course hashtag. Twitter provides a neat badge which allows you to set up a button the reader can press, which automatically includes the hashtag in a tweet.

I have now set up a prototype course on the site. It uses a page on the blog to embed text and video links, and a twitter feed and link to tweetchat room so that users can follow chat around the course. To my mind it looks like a promising platform. It cannot offer a course such as you might find on Coursera or Udacity, but readers can read text and watch videos on different aspects of the topic, and can comment on the blog, or tweet comments or links of their own to further material.

I am looking forward to people play-testing the site and giving feedback on the idea. Hint, hint!

If it works, it is something that any teacher could set up easily, with minimal IT skills, and maintain easily, adding content periodically.

 

The Mentored MOOC

I have been thinking about how to implement MOOCs within blended, or online contexts within a high school environment. The question I have been asking is, what features would a high school MOOC require to make it more suitable for that context. How would it differ from the kinds of University level MOOCs, such as Coursera, EdX, Venture-Lab or Udacity that we have seen spring up over the last year or so?

This week, a Coursera course on The Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application was suspended after one week because of teething problems over the implementation of a smaller group discussion methodology which proved unworkable. This is a huge pity because the notion of running a massive course, about 45 000 people had signed up, and using small group discussion (groups were to be no larger than 20) give a sense of intimacy, was a refreshing and bold innovation. Hopefully the problems will be resolved and a powerful infrastructure added to course design on the coursera platform which will enable this feature.

On my own Moodle platform, one is able to form classes into smaller groups, and this is a very useful feature indeed. I have divided all my Information Technology classes into mentor groups. These groups provide first of all a support group – your mentors are supposed to give you support when you get stuck, but the group is also used for any collaborative work. The screen shot shows an assignment assessment page for a mentor group. As a teacher i can call up each group at a time on the screen – useful for assessing group projects, but also for getting a sense of how each group is doing.

What Moodle cannot yet do is give teeth to the idea of a smaller group unit within a course by providing a group page with links to Chat, Discussion Forums, Skype or Google Hangouts for that group alone. It can be done for a class as a whole, but not for groups within a class. This would be a highly desirable feature. Hint, hint for any developers reading this!

I have found that the mentor group idea provides not only a useful administrative unit within a classroom, but also works fairly well to regularize the informal help that students give each other. By formally recognizing this as valuable, you, as a teacher, can encourage students to help each other out. Some students tend to guard what they have learned as if it were a precious resource to be hoarded, and the mentor group tends to break this attitude down. I further encourage this by letting students peer assess each other’s contribution to the group for group projects.

Ideally, a Mentored MOOC would use students’ knowledge as an integral part of the course structure. The peer assessment module in Moodle (The Workshop) allows teachers to appoint other students to assess work. This is a mountain of work, but it does allow one to use students who have already progressed to a certain point to help mentor and assess those who have not yet mastered a skill. A Mentored MOOC would need to have this mechanism built into its interface.

I believe that mentorship will be the crucial factor in making MOOCs successful within a high school environment. I cannot really see the video, quiz, assignment model of most University MOOCs working with school children. It really needs a format which will allow students’ learning to be scaffolded by fellow students who have already mastered a skill.

 

Alternate Reality – Games in the Classroom

As part of the Cognitive Education programme at Roedean School, I was given a slot in the time-table at the end of last year to run an alternate reality game which would help us consolidate our Habits Of Mind programme, and highlight Thinking Skills within the school. The game itself was designed to foreground the importance of cognitive education, and hopefully to give students a chance to use thinking skills and strategies they have been learning within an open-ended, extra-curricular context.

The game I designed was set up to work largely without a puppet-master (in alternate reality game parlance the pm is the games master, controlling what happens next). It consisted of a series of clues, puzzles to be solved, leading to a solution which would save the planet. At each stage solving one puzzle led on to a new challenge, taking the player deeper into the game and towards a solution.

In the framing story we gathered all our grade 8 students together in The Realm, a multi-media room able to accommodate an entire grade, and told them that we would be engaging in a morning’s collaborative exchange with a school in England around Habits Of Mind. When we logged on to the computers, however, and accessed the website of the school we were collaborating with it became clear that there was something wrong. The (hoax) website of this fictitious school had a scrolling message on it and a computerised voice suggesting that the school had been taken over by aliens and urging us to “join the resistance”. By cracking a code, students were able to access a hidden page which contained a diarised narrative of a series of events detailing the crashing of a meteor on the school property, the strange behaviour of a number of staff and students, the discovery that aliens had landed and were controlling the others as zombies, that some (the Habits Of Mind class) appeared mentally resilient enough to resist. By accessing links to the Habits of Mind Blog of the teacher leading the resistance, more clues emerged – an easter egg needed to be found on the school website, another code cracked and eventually, following clues the trail led to a letter purportedly written in 1908 which was on display in the Realm as part of a school history presentation. This letter fleshed out details of an earlier, and similar attempt by aliens to take over the world, and gave vital clues as to how to combat the present attack.

All the characters and places were fictitious and involved a fake website, fake class blog and Facebook page. Staff helping run the session had been deliberately left in the dark so that they did not inadvertently give students clues. My own role was to look puzzled – something I think I managed quite well.

Feedback from students revealed that some were demotivated by the withheld scaffolding. they were not sure what they had to do, and did not enjoy this feeling. the task simply became too much.

“Our group found this task horrible. It had no excitement, it did not make sense, it was pointless and we did not learn anything from it. The teachers did not help us and we felt as though they just threw us in the deep and just wanted something to fill the day. The task dragged and we had no motivation to continue. It was too complicated to understand and unrealistic.” 

This reaction was quite natural given normal schooling practice, and was expected. What I had not expected, I suppose naively, was the reaction of some staff, who felt the whole thing had been an unmitigated disaster. I heard the next day that they had gone running to the headmistress to complain that it had been too unstructured, too difficult, and without educational value. Luckily I was backed up by my Head Of Department, and luckily the headmistress had paid us a visit and been able to see the levels of engagement in the room.

While some girls were undoubtedly demotivated, others were thoroughly engaged and relished the difference between this and normal structured school activities.

“We found this task hard at first as we were confused about what was expected of us and where to find all the sites and information, but we enjoyed it more as we went along and all pitched in and tried to come up with solutions together. We also enjoyed cracking the codes as it was very fun, and we worked together well.“

The majority seemed to find the task engaging, but also difficult and therefore frustrating.

“We really enjoyed decoding the message as we had to think and plan well, although this was tiring, it did give us a sense of achievement. We found this task hard at times as we thought we would need more clues and it was frustrating at times.”

This, to my mind, indicates that the exercise was a success – that it was pitched at just about the right level. A critical thinking task which did not challenge and frustrate was the worst case scenario for me. I wanted the girls too grapple with the task, to get frustrated, and to feel the elation of solving genuinely hard problems.

In the room, girls were animated and engaged for most of a morning session between 7:30 and 1pm: few were off task, there were simply too many clues to puzzle out. They tended to form naturally into groups, but slipped into competitive modes, often sitting on portions of the challenge they had solved. They used a variety of technological solutions, cell-phones, iPads and the computers in the centre to crack the codes.

One unforeseen boon was the wealth of associations thrown up by the clues as red-herrings. I had planned a few red-herrings to use if students were solving the tasks too quickly, but as it turned out there were so many unintended cross-references between the clues that students added to their own bafflement quite successfully! We ended the session with a presentation by each group on what habits of mind they had used to solve the mystery, and some feedback. This provided a sense of closure and an opportunity to situate the game back into the classroom environment.

This was my first attempt at creating an Alternate Reality Game in the classroom and, although I have a great deal of experience using Role Play Games, it was different. Many things happened serendipitously that had not occurred to me, and I suppose my main advice for anyone else wishing to try something similar would be to make sure that the clues are rich in cultural associations as this throws up its own richness. the way things worked out made the whole thing seem far more planned than it actually was, simply because I had not over-thought it too much. In many ways you have to trust more, and not be afraid just to jump into it.

 

Gamification in The Classroom

This term I am experimenting with gamifying one of my classes. Over the last few years I have identified a need for an online computer skills class which will allow students to brush up on their ICT skills above and beyond the time spent in class: either for remediation or enrichment.

I decided that this would be a good opportunity to play around with gamification. Spreadsheets, databases and the like can be very dry and off-putting, and yet they represent key skills both in school and beyond, for the world of work. By gamifying the course, perhaps I could leverage more engagement. I wanted to go beyond the usual points, badges and leaderboards. I would need to use the course to generate marks for the school reporting system in any case.

I was inspired by Paul Andersen’s TED Talk:

I immediately set about creating a framework within which students could work at their own pace through various exercises to hopefully master various computer applications such as spreadsheets, databases and so on. I decided to use a framing story, with a central riddle which needed to be solved. Here’s what I posted on the course Moodle page:

Professor Jane Muller of the Faculty of Astrophysics at Harvard University has discovered an anomaly at the heart of the Universe, which threatens to destroy the very fabric of the space-time continuum! The Möbius Effect, as Jane has called it, was set in motion by an alien race which eats off the resultant chaos.

It’s pretty complicated, but basically, if you think of Time as a Möbius band, a bit like a continual play car radio tape rather than a linear progression, then you’ll understand that what has happened before is about to happen again, but more so! And it will continue to happen, and to intensify until someone can figure out a way of making it stop. Professor Jane Muller might just be that person.

I said it was complicated. The actual formula is

Make sense?

Jane has figured out a way to get around that and make time go back to normal, or relatively normal anyway.

But she needs some help – and that’s where you come in!

A computer virus, probably released by the same alien race that set off the Möbius Effect in the first place, has corrupted all her files, and she needs someone, a bit of a computer boffin, like you, to help her put all her work back in order so she can get on with the job of saving the Universe!

Are you up to it?

Good!

To help Jane you will need to work though each of the levels below, until you become a Level 10 Geek Girl and can help solve the riddle at the heart of the Möbius Effect!

Level 1: Spreadsheet Suzie

---

The virus has taken out all Jane’s spreadsheet formulae, and without those formulae, her calculations will be way off!
Download each of the spreadsheets in turn, fix them according to the instructions Jane has left for you, and upload the file for Jane to continue with her work! You will be given experience points based on your performance.

You need 100 XP to become a Level 2 Geek-Girl

Each Spreadsheet completed correctly earns you 20 XP

Good Luck!

I then set up a number of levels, each one with a series of tasks to be worked through. Each task, successfully completed, earns the student experience points. After a certain number of experience points the player levels up. I tried to set up each task so that it was fairly self-contained, had some kind of logical link to the framing save the universe narrative, and covered the syllabus adequately.

I planned to scaffold the tasks in a number of ways:

• in-class instruction and assistance
• online SCORMs and videos
• peer-metoring

Because all the tasks were set up on the class Moodle page, I was able to assign grades to each assignment. These grades are of course equated with experience points, but can be used as grades for reporting purposes. Because one can create a spreadsheet off Moodle, I plan to use this to create leaderboards created using a Mailmerge, together with the relevant badges earned.

This is the plan, but I know that I will need to tinker with it as I get feedback on how it is being received. I will follow-up with a blog on the programme in a few months.

 

More Feedback from Moodle

Every year our grade 8 and 9 students spend four days engaged in a challenging task which calls upon them to find real world solutions to a problem, and present their findings. This year we used Moodle for students to give us feedback on the task, and to vote for the winning presentations.

Students were organized in groups and had to research, cost and plan an educational tour to any destination. Each group had a mentor, with whom they had to check in once a day, but they could work anywhere on campus or from home, virtually.

As one student wrote:

“It was also nice having the freedom to do the work where ever we wanted to, and not just have to sit in a class. We were also in charge of our own time which I enjoyed as we were able to work better as we gave ourselves little breaks after working for a long period of time. It was also nice to be in charge of ourselves, but also having a mentor that we could go to when we needed was helpful. I enjoyed this task as it was something completely different then what we usually do, and we got to see how difficult it actually is to plan a tour.”

Each group had to develop their own criteria to evaluate the other groups, and use these to vote for a Gold, Silver and Bronze Medal presentation. The primary reason for choosing to use Moodle for this purpose was ease of use. Having submissions made electronically provides a record of the evaluations which could be tracked by the many teachers involved in the cross-curricular task. Much easier than handing around pieces of paper! It was also chosen because it is far easier for the students as well, as it allowed for students to complete the evaluation in their own time – something they enjoyed about the whole project generally.

The four days of the project showed a glimpse of the kind of learning experiences which are going to become increasingly common in the future. While this project used Moodle only for feedback and for voting a winner, all groups worked digitally on laptops, cell-phones or on desktop computers all over the campus and from home.

What struck me though was the use of our learning management system, not as a channel for presenting content to students, but as a feedback channel for students to communicate information back.

 

Teaching Kids To Hack!

Ever since Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s speech last year in which he foregrounded the need for more computer programming in schools, there has been a mushrooming of initiatives around coding for kids. As an ICT Teacher, this is something I have thought long and hard about over the years.

Back in the 1990s I used Logo quite a bit, and it was fun, but both the students, and I found it limiting. So I started introducing JavaScript. Because it works in the browser, and you do not need a compiler, students can start coding right away. I start with a little html and then jump in with some JavaScript, getting my students to code a simple web page calculator which inputs two numbers and then adds, subtracts, multiples and divides the numbers. I use tutorialised content and whole-class, step-by-step instruction. Bearing in mind that this is a general class, not students taking IT as a subject, this is sometimes too much for a few students, and they struggle to complete even this, heavily guided task.

I then ask the students to use what they have learned to design a more complicated calculator, such as a web page which can do multiple conversions: such as kilometers to miles, kilograms to pounds, and so on, or to engage in their own project. A significant group of students clearly relishes this challenge, and every web page greets one with fun applications such as personalised greetings, web pages that change background colour depending on one’s favourite colour, and so on.

I think JavaScript works quite well as a general introduction to programming. It is relatively easy to learn, has a great deal of support and tutorialised content on the Internet, such as Codecademy so students can take it further and doesn’t need compilers which need to be configured. It also allows students to learn enough to be able to tweak downloadable JavaScript code for their websites.

You will lose a certain number of students with JavaScript, however, because it is not visual, and requires accuracy and debugging. It is very dry to learn. For any students who start switching off, it is important to give enough help and support to enable them to at least complete a simple project, and give plenty of opportunity to add visual elements using the design view of programs like Dreamweaver. For this reason I get students to do their JavaScript coding in the code tab of Dreamweaver. This seems to work well.

 

Flipping The Assessment?

It is exams time at our school, and amidst all the hype around the Flipped Classroom, I wondered if I could Flip the Assessment in any way.

Once again I am running my Information Technology Exams in a nearly paperless environment. Students still receive a printed exam paper so that they do not have to read the screen, but all the source files for the exam are posted on the school Moodle, students upload their replies, and I assess and give feedback online, posting a copy of the marking memorandum at the same time. The graphic shows the Moodle interface at work.

What I find so liberating about this way of working is that it is much quicker than opening a digital file to assess and record feedback on the question paper or rubric sheet, as I used to do when assessing ICT work, and then recording the marks on a separate spreadsheet. This required three separate interfaces: the student digital file, recording feedback with pen and paper, and entering the marks on a spreadsheet. Using Moodle, everything is assessed, and feedback recorded in the same interface. I then simply generate a spreadsheet of the marks at the end. What a pleasure!

The feedback and assessment is also available to students as soon as the batch has been marked, simply by toggling from hide to show.

The graphic shows the Moodle page once everything has been made visible to students, with download files, upload links and memorandum files available to students as soon as the exam has finished.

This means that when students get to class for the big hand back of papers, I have already dealt with the inevitable queries about marks being added up correctly and so on. I can concentrate on going over the paper and discussing, and modelling responses. Because the memo is posted online I do not have to go over every aspect of the paper, but can zone in on the worrying areas. I feel that this way of handling exam feedback is far superior to the rather rushed and unsatisfying hand-backs that time allowed in the past.

In a sense, this amounts to a partial flipping of the assessment process. By making the feedback, marks and memos available outside the classroom ahead of any formal handing back of papers session, I can use the time in class to make sure that my feedback achieves some meaningful remedial purposes as well.

A full flipping of the assessment would be to have students work on the exam questions at home, and for the assessment to be done with the student in class. I have used this with normal homework, paper-based assessments in the past, with great success. I found that by giving the student feedback during the marking process, talking to the student while doing so was very effective, and I feel that students greatly appreciated such a direct form of feedback. I would move around the classroom, sitting at student desks, or if this was impractical, calling them to sit next to me in the “hot seat”.

When I first became a teacher (of English), I spent a great deal of time at home marking scripts that I often felt students never read on their return. Students would often look at the mark, and leave the homework or test behind them when they left. By doing the assessment in class, next to the student, talking them through my reactions to what they had done, I felt that they really listened to the feedback, and could also explain their thinking to me, allowing me to award partial marks or explain why I couldn’t award a mark for an answer. I found that students really seemed to appreciate this one-on-one interaction, and perhaps, for the very first time gained insight into why and how marks were awarded for tests.

Sadly, though, the way the examination process is set up does not allow the time and space for this. But it is certainly something that platforms such as Moodle enable.

The optimum system would be for peer mentors to do the assessment and feedback, and an ideal Flipped Assessment model would entail peer mentoring and assessment, such as we find in the Personalisation By Pieces model. Although Moodle does have a peer assessment module, it does not have a system where peer mentors could be allocated according to a skills ladder, where someone is assessed by someone else who is one level above them.

I sincerely hope that any Moodle developers out there read this and get inspired. Such a skills ladder system would enable gamification approaches as well.