Virtual Environment Technology Tools
When using technology tools in a virtual learning environment, what do you believe are the three most important things to consider?
One thing is to make sure your tool meets the needs of the instructor and students.
What do you think the other two are?
When using technology, it's important to consider the nature of the technology and how it might serve the needs of the students and instructors.
It is also important to think about possible obstacles that student might face with a given technological instrument. For example, do the audiovisual components require a high bandwidth in order to operate? That might make or break an instrument in a given setting.
Instructors should also consider the accessibility and implications for the given technology -- such as cost, skill level the administrator must have in order to operate the instrument or even the required level of competence for students. It would not make sense to choose a learning technology that is too sophisticated for students to operate.
Haley,
WOW - thanks for your organized thoughts and details on the topic. It is important to know the technology that can best serve the purpose of the lesson/course/etc. I like to say that using the "lowest common demoninator" is the best. That would be teh technology that all students and the instructor can use and the technologh that works with a multitude of computers/devices/etc.
Nice job.
Hi Dr. Wilkinson,
I believe the three most important things to consider when using technology tools in a virtual learning environment are:
1. The tools must present to students a single, consistent, and intuitive interface.
2. The tools must provide all the components required for a course, e.g. Syllabus, Administrative Information, Teaching Materials, etc.
3. The tools must be capable of supporting numerous courses.
Thank you.
Susan Ceklosky
The 3 most important things to consider are
1) the tool
2) tool fit: how the tool is implemented or used by both students and instructors
3) Tool learning : the learning that results from the use of the tool
Not every problem is a nail requiring a hammer. Tool selection, fit and learning objectives all must fit for the tool to be right in the environment.
And just because a tool is available doesn't mean it is suited to any use. Therefore, choosing the tool is one of the more important parts of the process.
One example I have is related to social media. The entire world is alight discussing what social media brings to the various groups that participate in it. Sites like Twitter are repeatedly being considered for use in the classroom. In this instance Twitter, being the tool, is not a simple fit into an educational environment. It might be usable in an online situation. But what is its use? How is it implemented? Does its use achieve a learning objective?
As we can see here, just because the tool seems cool and hip, doesn't mean it will work. Sometimes the latest rage, is not suitable at all for learning environments.
Great points!
The level of expertise for instructors is often a serious concern. Some instructors are not at all comfortable with students knowing more than they do. On the other hand thought, you can learn some of the most interesting things from students.
Instead of expertise, I like to think of it as level of competence. I dont need to know everything, I just need to know enough to guide the students in finding out more about the tool or the process.
For example, if I had waited until I felt fully confident with using wikis in the classroom, my students would have certainly suffered for the delay. In addition, we would not have had the same types of experiences with troubleshooting and dealing with tech issues that we now have.
I advocate "a be minimally prepared and jump in with 2 feet approach", when it comes to tool implementation.
But the caveat is that I feel super comfortable with technology, due to my background in engineering. I never feel there will be a problem that I can not figure out how to fix.
I know others may not be so confident in this area, and thus they might take a more cautious approach to the implementation of tools.
Joy Robinson
Really good points. I like that you used competency rather than expertise. The fear of the unknown really plays a large role in the online environment for both student and instructor.
When using a technology tool in a virtual learning environment, the three most important things to consider would be:
1) the intended purpose of the tool (is the tool intended to support lecture or something else?)
2) the ability and ease of the instructor to use the tool for the intended purpose (does the tool help the instructor to do his/her job conveniently?)
3) the ability and ease of the students to use and benefit from the tool (do the tool help the students to get knowldge conveniently?)
That is correct and important to remember
Connectivity (bandwidth) and network assets must be sufficient to accommodate the tools and user population, not just for a particular course but of the whole online institution.
Competence relative to instructor handling of the tools to be utilized.
Not to overuse the tools such that close student interaction with the instructor is compromised.
I agree with the first two but not to sure what you mean with the overuse of tools.
I agree with many of the above responses. Important things include:
Easy to learn how to use the tool
Ease of use throughout the course - students should be focused on the material and not with awkward or difficult tools
Actually enhances learning of the material and not just something trendy or for show
An instructor can become too fancy in use of active elements in documents (too many popups & dropdowns, long scrolls, slide count & content, etc.).
I believe the 3 most important things to consider when using technology in an online learning environment are:
1. The technology tool is a good fit for the course outcomes. Technology should not impede the objectives of the course. For example, I have used our school's course website to share course content and post assignments. But the file size limits on the site prevent IT and graphic design students from uploading very large digital projects.
2. Instructors must be comfortable with the technology and training provided well before implementation. Too many times I have seen an exciting new technology roll-out with a very short time frame for instructors to learn the technology.
3. Technology tools must work on all computers regardless of type, operating system and bandwidth. Students and instructors need to be assured the tools will work on any computer they might access. Assessment of these tools must include a testing phase on a variety of computers.
I particularly like your 3rd answer. We need to make sure that technology is "transparent" which means that it doesn't matter the type, operating system or version of a software.
When using technology tools in a virtual learning environment, I believe the three most important things to consider are:
1. Technology requirements. This typically means computing resources that would need to be available to the student, such as the Internet connection speed, PC hardware requirements, PC software requirements, PC peripherals, etc.
2. Relevance and applicability. Requiring students to have obscure or unused technology and resources would be counter productive. For example, in teaching accounting courses, it would be unrealistic to expect that students would have CAD drafting software, for example. Another example would be requiring students to have Microsoft Word 2003 when the current version is 2010.
3. Ease of Use. Using a learning management system, or application, that is very difficulty to use would be unproductive. Most institutions have streamlined their online learning management system.
