Annoted bibliography

Article:Supporting Transparency between Students
Author: Christian Dalsgaard (Aarhus University/Department of Information and Media Studies, Aarhus, Denmark)

Recent article, from June 10th-12th, New York, NY, USA.(2009)
Abstract—The paper presents the results of a case study that
explores the potentials of weblogs and social bookmarking
to support transparency in a university course. In the
course, groups of students used weblogs and social
bookmarking in their work. The objective of the case was to
empower students by providing them with tools that would
be visible to the other students in the course, thus, making
students’ ideas, thoughts and questions visible to the other
students in the course. The paper concludes that use of
digital media for transparency can support empowerment of
students and inspiration among students in a course, but
that the challenge is to create a balance between personal
tools and tools for collaborative group work that are also
suitable for transparency between students..

This is an article that I’ve read with great interest, because it focuses the relevance of social network in collaborative and cooperative learning. Among others, the author points out the importance of blogging and weblogs promoting collaborative learning and transparency. This article was a way to reflect on my experience in MPEL’03 and also the way we work and learn in this course. At the same time, it’s also a good starting point to reflect on my activity as a teacher, since I’ve started a blog with one of my teenage classes, only to find out later that some students already have their own blogs.

Article: "Peer review of online learning and teaching: Harnessing collective intelligence to address emerging challenges”.
Authors: Denise Wood and Martin Friedel, University of South Australia


"This paper describes the development of the online peer review instrument and supporting website, in which shared understanding about the scholarship of learning and teaching in resources developed for online delivery is made explicit. The project builds on extensive work that has been undertaken both within Australia and overseas in the development of peer review of online learning and teaching, which supports and stimulates the scholarship of online learning and teaching. It has the capacity to demonstrate quality learning and teaching through course development, evaluation, improvement and interactive learning. Evidence produced through such quality assurance processes can be used by academic staff as evidence to support claims for recognition and reward; a process which is required as an indicator against which Australian universities report via the Australian Government's learning and teaching performance fund."

The authors state that Web 2.0 and 3D virtual learning environments bring new challenges to educators. This study is bases on a online technique: peer review. Then, the authors present their experience. Each author has constructed and validated a peer review template. After this first step, they can invite their peers to complete the review. In this process, all students have access to all works through a personalised invitation, which is in turn emailed to the proposed reviewer.
When a reviewer logs into the platform they can access to a module called 'My Reviews', listing all of the reviews that the particular user has been invited to complete. This list identifies all reviews, including the dates the reviews are available. This is a very interesting scholar approach to an online learning and teaching technique that can promote transparency.

Book: “Theory and Practice of Online Learning”
Autor: Anderson, Terry and Fathi, Elloumi

During the last ten years, the Internet and the Wide World Web have fundamentally altered the practice of distance teaching and learning. Nowhere is this fact more evident than in the transformation undergone by single-mode distance universities as they seek to apply the benefits of emerging information communication technology (ICT) infrastructure to their core business, with a view to improving the quality and cost-effectiveness of the learning experience afforded their students.
The most interesting article, related to transparency in online learning, is chapter 11.

"This chapter focuses on the role of the teacher or tutor in an online learning context. It uses the theoretical model developed by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) that views the creation of an effective online educational community as involving three critical components: cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence.
Learning and teaching in an online environment are, in many ways, much like teaching and learning in any other formal educational context: learners’ needs are assessed; content is negotiated or prescribed; learning activities are orchestrated; and learning is assessed. However, the pervasive effect of the online medium creates a unique environment for teaching and learning. The most compelling feature of this context is the capacity for shifting the time and place of the educational interaction. Next comes the ability to support content encapsulated in many formats, including multimedia, video, and text, which gives access to learning content that exploits all media attributes. Third, the capacity of the Net to access huge repositories of content on every conceivable subject—including content created by the teacher and fellow students—creates learning and study resources previously available only in the largest research libraries, but now accessible in every home and workplace. Finally, the capacity to support human and machine interaction in a variety of formats .
The first task of the e-learning teacher is to develop a sense of trust and safety within the electronic community. In the absence of this trust, learners will feel uncomfortable and constrained in posting their thoughts and comments."

Article: "Learning Effectiveness Online:WHAT THE RESEARCH TELLS US"
Author: Karen Swan, Research Center for Educational Technology, Kent State University.

This paper reviews the literature on the learning effectiveness of asynchronous online environments. It looks beyond the commonly accepted findings of no significant differences in learning outcomes between online and traditional courses to examine that literature in terms of forms of interactivity, a feature of online environments that might matter or be made to matter in learning. It thus explores and is organized according to learner interactions with course content, student interactions with instructors, and interactions among classmates in online course environments. More recent notions of interactions with computer and course interfaces and virtual interaction are also briefly examined. The chapter concludes with a summary of what the research tells us and its for implications online learning.
This article points out that interaction with classmates is very important, in online courses as well as in traditional classrooms. Communication established between online students is different from face-to-face communication.


Article: "Social networking sites: Transparency in online education".
Author: Christian Dalsgaard.

The paper discusses the question: What are the pedagogical potentials of social networking sites?
Whereas collaboration and user-generated content are often highlighted as major potentials of Web 2.0 technologies, the paper argues that a central characteristic of social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Bebo and Ning is a combination of personalization and socialization. This combination has a potential to facilitate transparency between students. Transparency gives students insight into each other’s work.
Social networking sites do not necessarily involve communication, dialogue or collaboration. Instead, the paper argues, transparency is a dominating feature. An interesting aspect of social interaction in social networking sites is that the starting point is the individual or personal. This is in opposition to discussion forums, in which communication always takes place in a shared forum. In a social
networking site each individual has a personal page and profile, which the individual develops and modifies.
The paper will discuss how social networking may be utilized within university education by students sharing information and resources that are originally developed for themselves, but made available to others – for instance bookmarks, references, links, and notes.
In conclusion, the paper argues that the pedagogical potential of social networking lies within transparency and the ability to create awareness between students – potentially across institutions and nations.