If you are familiar with VoiceThread, you already know that there is another possibility to consider regarding carrying on an online discussion. If you are not familiar with VoiceThread, please use the following link attached to the logo for a brief introduction to what it has to offer.

After exploring VoiceThread, please post your thoughts on the use of this technology. Reflect on the following questions as you compose your post:

• Does VoiceThread open a new door for discussions?
• What possibilities do you foresee for VoiceThread in online learning?
• Does VoiceThread offer any advantages over text-based discussions?
• Are there any drawbacks to VoiceThread?

Please post your ideas as to whether or not you think VoiceThread offers a viable alternative to the traditional discussion board. Cite additional resources to support your views.

Discussion Rubric

Plagiarism Detection Software

Even though people who knowingly cheat tend to stay one step ahead of those who are trying to subvert it, many techniques exist to detect online plagiarism. The most effective way to detect this type of cheating is through the use of plagiarism software and online services such as Turnitin and EVE (Jacoy & DiBiase, 2006). Turnitin is part of a medley of authentication services offered by iThenticate, which entered the market with services to check written materials for publishers and researchers. Turnitin checks for plagiarism by searching an immense reserve of materials.

Online services have contributed significantly to the detection of plagiarism and serve as the most effective deterrent to academic dishonesty. That said, one of the most shocking bits of information is the fact that some plagiarism detection services (not Turnitin) take the student writings and turn around and sell them in term paper mills (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009).

Deterring Plagiarism and Assessment Design

Studies have been done to try to determine whether lack of knowledge plays a role in plagiarism or whether plagiarism occurs as a result of intentional cheating. It has been determined that confusion exists as to what constitutes plagiarism and when students are educated on the topic, the percentage of students plagiarizing drops (Chao, Wilhelm, & Neureuther, 2009). Even though I thought I understood plagiarism, I was surprised to learn that there is something called “self-plagiarism” which is recycling previously submitted work for another purpose (Laureate, Inc.). In addition to educating students on what constitutes plagiarism, I think that the requirement of submitting assignments to Turnitin serves as a deterrent.

As an online instructor, I would also use Dr. Pratt’s approach to designing assessments. His tests require students to gather their information using resources as well as their own thinking in responding to questions. Authentic assessments that call for a personalized approach to a “real world” project are more difficult to plagiarize due to the fact that collaboration is allowed but ultimately the personal application of knowledge is what must be demonstrated (Laureate, Inc., n.d.).

Additional Strategies

Additional considerations to deter cheating and plagiarism are continuously evolving. Using manual detection, while not as automated or as successful as these services, offers a number of techniques for detecting culprits who copy and paste rather than think and write. Services such as Proctor U are available for students who need to take online assessments. Using Proctor U, the student logs in, is connected using a web cam. Prior to the test, the student must prove identification with a photo ID and a picture is taken of the student for Proctor U’s file. After the student has answered some identifying questions, the test is ready to begin. The student’s computer screen is monitored by the service while the test is in progress (www.proctoru.com). From my perspective, students who cheat are actually only cheating themselves because in the end, they won’t have the skills necessary to do the job.

References

Chao, C., Wilhelm, W., & Neureuther, B. (2009). A study of electronic detection and pedagogical approaches for reducing plagiarism. Delta Pi Epsilon Journal, 51(1), 31–42. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Education Research Complete database.

Jacoy, C., DiBiase, D. (2006). Plagiarism by adult learners online: A case study in detection and remediation. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 7(1), 1-15. Retrieved from the Education Research Complete database.

Laureate, Inc. (n.d.). Plagiarism and cheating. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5364570&Survey=1&47=6469801&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Technology, in general, and multimedia in particular, have an incredible impact on online learning environments. High speed internet, laptops, desktops, and an ever-increasing number of mobile devices are putting engaging learning literally at the fingertips of anyone who can afford a smartphone. Along with the technology is the ever-greater opportunity for expressing thoughts, opinions, and information with audio, video, animation, programmed interactivity, and combinations thereof. No longer are people satisfied with passively accepting information. Technology allows for the sharing, collaboration, debate, and creation of information and experiences in a manner far different from traditional learning. Technology offers a chance to personalize learning in terms of topic, time, place, and manner.

The most important considerations an online instructor should make before implementing technology are the purpose it will serve and the accessibility requirements. Using an online tool, program, or technique in a gratuitous manner that serves no educational purpose is a waste of everyone’s time. Likewise, creating a multimedia learning object that disregards the well thought out principles developed by Dr. Richard Meyer interferes with, rather than bolsters, information. Incorporating technology that requires hardware or software not available to students serves to frustrate rather than inform. The article on using a rubric to assess and encourage interactivity in online courses had a number of excellent criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of an online course. If technology can be used to further the goals of promoting social rapport among instructor and learners, allowing for learner to learner, learner to instructor, and learner to content interactions; allows for two way audio and video communication, collaboration, and feedback; encourages spontaneous and voluntary input from learners; and encourages and allows for prompt instructor responses, then it can be considered integral to the course (Roblyer & Wiencke, 2003).

Usability and accessibility of technology implies that it is important to ensure that technology is appropriate given the needs and manner of access by students. Flash is an extremely interesting topic and consideration in the world of online learning. Up until the advent and widespread use of the iPhone and iPad, Flash was the one programming language that was accessible on all platforms. Due to Steve Jobs’ refusal to enable deployment of Flash on these devices, students who need to access Flash based learning are unable to do so. What effect does this have on the future of distance learning, the increased and ubiquitous use of mobile devices to access learning materials, and the multitude of Flash-based learning already available? Now that BlackBerry smartphones allow for Flash media, the outcome of this debate has yet to be determined.

The technology tools that are most intriguing to me for online learning are the interactive use of video.
Today I was looking at an open source video company called Kaltura (http://corp.kaltura.com). It contains interactive video features that allow learners to record video and edit it as well. Users can create customized video players and Kaltura offers online editing and support for iPad, mobile, and HTML5 support. Instructors can assign its use for creating student introductions, live streaming, video commentating, and annotations. The end result is that it can be used to increase feelings of presence, connection, interaction, and engagement – all of which result in more effective learning!

Reference

Roblyer, M.D., & Wiencke, W.R. (2003). Design and use of a rubric to assess and encourage interactive qualities in distance courses. The American Journal of Distance Education, 17(2), 77-98.

In addition, it is of utmost importance for the instructor to have a firm grasp of the learning management system and its capabilities. The ability to send email, view and contribute to discussion, post announcements, collect assignments, and post grades comes with a learning curve and every LMS is different. Tutorials and training are always essential, but I have found in addition to that, the best way to learn a new system is to dive in and start experimenting.

Communicating clear expectations to a learner is essential, particularly in an online setting, because learners need to know what the course involves and how to plan for fulfilling the course goals. Online learning is attractive to adults with busy schedules and work and family obligations, so the ability to look ahead and plan is of utmost importance. Knowing what to expect also helps to give the learners a sense of control as they organize the many important facets of their lives (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010).

As part of communicating course expectations, the syllabus is key and is considered a contract between the instructor and students. It should communicate an overview of the course, objectives, required supplies, grading information, contact information, course schedule, and rubrics for all graded materials. Information on technical support, school policies, and library information should also be included. In addition to the syllabus, teaching guides should be interspersed among the course materials to introduce and explain lecture material in a personalized manner (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010).

Additional considerations an instructor should take into account are techniques to actively involve students in their learning. As mentioned previously learner to learner, learner to instructor, and learner to content interactions are key in online learning. Targeting the various learning styles is important so a variety of approaches should be used to appeal to all types of learners. In addition, instructor presence is of utmost importance in setting the tone of a course and creating a rapport with students. Studies have shown that “learner satisfaction with their online learning course is directly related to the social or virtual presence of their faculty member” (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010). In addition to successful learning, every instructor strives to receive positive feedback from students and maintaining a strong presence is an important part of that equation.

One of the challenges I am currently grappling with that is an important consideration when creating an engaging course is using an active learning approach. I understand this concept from a problem solving or training perspective but find it challenging to apply in an informational style course, economics or finance for example. The more I think about it and search for examples, the closer I feel to finding a style but I am not there yet. Anyone’s insight or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

References

Boettcher, J.V. & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson

Sincerely,

Leslie

“Great project plans often fall by the wayside when well-intentioned people start to do what they feel is necessary to achieve the best results” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, & Sutton, 2008).

OK, I’m guilty! I go way out of my way to do things the best way they can be done and I am creating my very own scope creep. It started out innocently enough – a project to develop an online course with an instructor was handed to me late. After a few weeks, it became clear that the instructor was plagiarizing her materials and needed to be replaced. The replacements came on board a few weeks prior to the class opening so the most efficient way to get fast results was for me to design and develop all the materials (I’m just supposed to design — there is a development team). I found that it was more efficient for me to do everything myself and besides, I had everything done the way I wanted – what could be better? That course was finished and we never missed a deadline. At the same time, I had three other courses to work on. Two of them are finished but the third one had an instructor who turned in his materials MONTHS late – namely the course opened a week ago and he still has materials outstanding. Week three opens on Monday and I was recently given week 4 lectures. I still find that I am doing a lot of the development myself because it makes things “easier” for others but pulls me behind. Not only that, but I had this great idea to add videos to the course and everyone liked the idea back in October but they didn’t get around to actually doing them until February and March. Now I have 17 videos to edit, create title slides for, convert to FLV format, modify the custom Flash player, upload the movies, and test. Oh, and did I mention that because the instructor was so late with his materials, the master course was split into four live sections so that now instead of modifying one course, I have to modify four?

I am starting to assess the situation and realize that even though I kept sounding an alarm that the instructor was late, I should have let others help me more and stopped trying to do so much myself. Since I am PM and ID, it is all I can do just to work on my daily materials but maybe if I let others do more, I would have more time for monitoring my projects. A risk management plan would be a good start and constraints related to certain individuals who are chronically late should be considered (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, & Sutton, 2008). The good news is that my boss is chipping in but he told me today that the person who gets help is the one who whines the loudest. I need to be more of a whiner. In addition, one of the developers is doing a video for me – hopefully I’ll turn the rest over to him!

References

Portny, S.E., Mantel, S.J. Meredith, J.R., Shafer, S.M., & Sutton, M.M. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Note to all: As I write this at around 10:00 pm, Thursday, March 31, my blog post indicates that it is 2:00 am April 1 – obviously a time zone issue.

The website, projecttimes, is a nice resource because it offers a compilation of project management blogs, articles, training, jobs, and other PM related resources. I found a nice post on not just cost estimating but dealing with unrealistic parameters and expectations. The article was intelligently written and helpful. The comments left by readers made me think of our discussion posts – a lot of thought went into them. In short, this site impressed me as being for people serious about being successful project managers. I would use this site when looking for quality information and resources related to project management.

http://www.projecttimes.com/george-pitagorsky/effective-estimating-and-the-courage-to-push-back.html

The website, gantthead.com, is described as an online community for IT project managers and contains a lot of general project management resources including discussion boards that are accessed by project managers from all over the world answering questions and offering advice. I had to do quite a bit of searching to find a discussion area that did not require membership to access and had recent posts and responses. When I did a search on “estimate”, a number of entries were found (http://www.gantthead.com/discussions/discussionsTopicContainer.cfm?ID=5832). This resource would be helpful for getting timely, expert advice to specific problems that you, as a project manager, may be encountering. Gantthead also offers articles on estimating (and many other PM topics), downloads, and links to a number of project management tools.

http://www.gantthead.com

When experiencing the same message delivered three different ways, it is easy to see that messages delivered face-to-face can be most accurately interpreted. Text alone leaves room for reader interpretation that may or may not be accurate. Without the aid of tone of voice or facial expressions and body language, it may be difficult to understand the underlying emotion of the author. Voice only provides for additional information about the message to be gained beyond words alone. Vocal inflections, volume, and pacing of the message can all convey urgency (or lack of it), friendliness, anger, excitement, or any other emotion letting the receiver understand more fully the motivation behind the words. The face-to-face message conveyed the words as well as the motivation more fully than the voice message. We could see Jane’s expression, hear her words, and learn from her body language that she was understanding of Mark’s busy situation and didn’t blame him for being behind in getting her the information she needed.

All three methods of communication have their advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation. I normally prefer email because it creates an automatic record of correspondence that I can refer to. Leaving voicemail messages tend to make me feel uncomfortable and often it is not possible to speak to an individual personally. After reflecting on this week’s activity as well as my recent FaceBook experience (see postscript below), I can truly see the downfall of solo text and need to aspire to using the method that allows for the most accurate conveyance of a message, namely in-person delivery.

Postscript: What I Learned From the Friend of a Friend
Straight text may contain the content of the message but it leaves a lot of room for interpretation. I learned this the hard way on FaceBook last week when the friend of a friend responded harshly to our mutual friend’s post regarding horrible legislation the governor of Michigan signed into law giving him the power to break up unions and take over local governments and school districts. This person I didn’t know posted a nasty remark about union people and teachers being lazy and included other various insults. Normally I wouldn’t have bothered to say anything but my son is a hard working, dedicated teacher and what she said was very offensive. I responded politely but let her know she was pretty uninformed. It turns out this person was just as upset as I was and was being totally sarcastic, but based on her words, I had no way of knowing. From now on, if I don’t know someone on FaceBook, I’m going to keep quiet. Likewise, I will think twice about delivering certain types of messages in print.

In retrospect, I failed to anticipate some of the common mistakes discussed in our text that can impact a project negatively. To begin with, I failed to realize that just because my weekly approach to course work has stayed the same, doesn’t mean it won’t ever deviate (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, & Sutton, 2008). Even though I thought I was being organized and proactive, if I had put together my own Work Breakdown Structure, I could have seen where I was slipping up. Now I know that printing out the weekly materials is only part of being organized. If I had set up a weekly calendar, I could have seen at a glance when each deliverable was actually due. I was also distracted by the fact that the expectations for discussions in this class are slightly different and I focused my attention on meeting that responsibility while failing to realize I was missing something else. As our text points out, “sometimes, things change” (Portny, et al., 2008). Project management can require juggling not only a number of people but many activities as well. A visual method of organizing and checking activities is a necessity.

Even though this was not a major project, it was a learning experience for me that can be applied to larger projects. Repetition, to a certain point, can reinforce procedures but it also creates the possibility of making assumptions that can impact a project negatively. Had I been more deliberate in my planning by breaking the work down into a written component, I would have seen where my assumption was incorrect.

References

Portny, S.E., Mantel, S.J. Meredith, J.R., Shafer, S.M., & Sutton, M.M. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Fortunately for me, I can be a proponent for improving societal perceptions of distance learning on two fronts. Experiencing distance learning first-hand as a student is the ultimate perception changer. I would certainly recommend distance learning to any adult, particularly if they are seeking an advanced degree. Distance learning requires a considerable amount of time but the convenience it offers is worth it. For example, I have all of my work done with the exception of this reflection which I am writing on my laptop as I travel on a train from Detroit to Chicago. When we arrive in Chicago, my paper will be done and all I will have to do is find a wireless connection to upload my work. My requirements will be completed and I was afforded the opportunity to study anytime and anywhere. That, to me, is priceless!

The second front I can use to advocate for distance learning is in my position as an instructional designer at a business college. In my department, we develop lectures one-on-one with instructors so that their real world experience is communicated effectively to their students. When I work with instructors, my goal is to represent him or her and the knowledge each has to offer in the most dynamic way possible. Communication, as explained by Dr. Siemens, is of utmost importance and my department is continuously looking for ways to make lectures and information more accessible to students (2010). Currently, we are urging our instructors to work with Jing so that they can create custom video delivery of messages and information to their students. Reception on the part of instructors has been extremely positive. I am also very excited about the fact that in a week, three economics professors will be getting together to film a number of video “roundtables” discussing various aspects of global economics as lead-ins to their weekly sessions. This will be a first in the online department where I work and I am really looking forward to it. Another occurrence I am looking forward to is the complete rollout of our new learning management system, Desire2Learn. This LMS has a feature that allows students to rate and comment on individual lectures and I am hoping that we will be getting invaluable feedback as to how our students perceive the work we are doing. Knowing what works and what doesn’t work from the perspectives of our ultimate customers will be invaluable!

In terms of skeptics, I think that these people generally fall into groups of those who are uncomfortable with technology or those who have had a bad experience as a distance learner. It is true that distance learning is not for everyone. Some people feel more comfortable in a traditional setting with a minimum of technology, but I am always quick to point out the positives of my distance learning experience. Education is absolutely life changing and no one should ever have to stop learning. Distance learning offers opportunities, quality, and convenience to people who would otherwise not be able to continue their education. I think that doing a good job as an instructional designer and making people aware of the benefits of online learning will be the avenue most available to me to be a distance learning advocate.

References

Gambescia, S.F. & Paolucci, R. (2009). Academic fidelity and integrity as attributes of university online degree program offerings. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration (12)1. Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring121/gambescia121.html

Laureate, Inc. (2010). The future of distance education [Video podcast]. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com