Several weeks ago, I detailed an elearning noncourse. Basically, they intent of the course is to evaluate the effectiveness of non-traditional approaches to learning. This course doesn't have any content...the content is generated through the interaction of participants.
We just finished week one. Here is a summary of the content generated through discussions: Elearning vs. Classrooms.
After one week, I'm surprised by how quickly content can be generated...and the difficulty of learning in different ways. All of us learn constantly...often without even being aware. Yet, when someone says "learning" or "course", there is an immediate gravitation toward traditional roles and behaviours. For example...some days, discussion in the course would be "soft"...and immediately I was tempted to play the instructor role - throw out content/answers etc.
The usual metrics of "is learning happening" change in collaborative learning - and it's disorienting (regular elearning with fixed content is one thing...but true exploratory learning - i.e. content is created through interaction, is more difficult than I anticipated). Amount of content read, volume of discussion, production of essays, etc. are not adequate measures of learning. What is? Relationships formed? Depth of concepts explored? Amount of content generated? Learner confidence?
Posted by gsiemens at September 23, 2002 9:52 AM