Week 8 – E-tivities (Gilly Salmon)

What have you learned about designing online curriculum?

How has your thinking changed about this?

What key things will you want to keep in mind for designing an online distance e-learning course in the future?

Gilly Salmon makes some very interesting points in this chapter, but my key take-away from this reading material is: brevity. Brevity in the volume of material shared as a spark and brevity (balanced with clarity) in the e-tivity brief. As I mentioned in my previous reflection and Salmon (Ch3p18) concurs, “that ‘overfilling’ an e-tivity is the enemy of active engagement online and the productive use of time.” This is especially relevant in the module I am currently tutoring on, as the pace is very quick – students are given a new concept to explore and challenge to undertake each week. Keeping it simple and to the point avoids it being too daunting, as nobody is particularly effective if they are feeling overwhelmed by information. On a part-time online course too, we cannot expect the students to be engaging for solid blocks of time as they would do in a full-time campus based course, so the material and challenges need to be flexible.

Salmon (ch3p16) also calls for a rhythm to the structure to reassure students, something that I have witnessed first hand, with my “responsibility as an e-tivity designer is to provide regular activities that provide a framework”. The first few weeks with any new group of students involved a lot of encouragement and hand-holding, until they find their feet and understand the flow of the course and what is expected of them. I will be working on how I can be more supportive and patient with future cohorts.

Language used in briefs for e-tivities needs to be considered too, as Salmon (ch3p32) suggests, using “verbs as invitations to the task.” This links back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs too, something I am a lot more aware of than I was prior to the course.

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Salmon, G., 2014. E-Tivities. New York: Routledge.

“Build in motivation as part of the process of undertaking the e-tivity itself and not as something separate from it. Motivation occurs because of the learning activities. Avoid trying to motivate people simply to log on and ‘discuss’. Instead, provide an e-tivity that makes taking part worthwhile.” Ch3p3

“When developing e-tivities, we need to look right from the start at how the learning can be appropriately assessed, whether based on individual or group wor. E-tivities rarely produce one ‘right’ answer; therefore assessment outcomes can be judged in a number of ways. Make this clear to participants.” Ch3p6

“For the pragmatic, time-poor student they need to be convinced that doing the e-tivity adds value to their learning!” Ch3p7

“If you don’t get the outcomes you were looking for, then change something about the e-tivity for a second try next time.” Ch3p8

“Be very specific about what you need your participants actually to do.” Ch3p9

“There are special aspects of working online that may interfere with active learning and which need to be taken into account in the design of the e-tivity task. The first is the role of emotions. Feelings such as frustration or anger are typically associated with the technology appearing tnot to work properly”. Ch3p9

“We know that people enjoy learning from the experiences of others as well as from resources such as websites and books.” Ch3p10

Explore reflection during action (during the e-tivities) and after action (after the e-tivity)

“Flexibility in thinking is thus increased learning to be problem solving. Another key aspect of learning through reflective processes is that each adult learner will have different ways of dealing with ideas, using perhaps his or her own well-established learning approaches.” Ch3p13

“…make it clear you are looking for participants’ views, feelings, experiences and ideas”…”encourage them to end their message with a question or challenge to others, to encourage others to reflect too.” Ch3p14

“Try to ensure that all the information that participants need to post their first message in response is contained in one online message – and one screen if possible.” Ch3p15

“Your responsibility as an e-tivity designer is to provide regular activities that provide a framework – e-tivities that start and finish at predictable times and actions that occur regularly, such as the e-moderator’s summary. In addition, you need to provide interest and motivation through underlying rhythm.” Ch3p16

“Remember that ‘overfilling’ an e-tivity is the enemy of active engagement online and the productive use of time. If you provide too many resources and too many questions,, your participants will use them and have little time for each other.” Ch3p18

“…your written invitations to e-tivities need to be completely clear. It is important to be brief both in your stimulus and in your invitations – no more than one screen – and to indicate clearly the kind of brevity you expect in response.” Ch3p31

“Concentrate on inviting online actions and state what behaviour is expected of participants during the e-tivity. Be very specific about what you need your participants to do. I suggest you use verbs as invitations to the task.” Ch3p32

“Knowledge involves thinking with information. Participants do not start completely ‘cold’, but start with some information or knowledge.”…The e-tivity designer presents an issue: a dilemma, problem, challenge or model.” Ch3p32