Learning online from a student perspective Video Lecture | Teach Online: A Comprehensive Approach for Teaching Online - Professional Skills

my name is Jensen Hughes I'm currently
studying a Master of Arts in learning
and as part of that subject I have to do
quite a lot of online involvement in
terms of posting to a forum peer
feedback and and certain weeks
moderating those forums so there's a
whole lot online content and that is
augmented by a face-to-face teaching
once a week I think online learning is
particularly important and relevant
especially as we go into the 21st
century and the rich information age we
live in I think it's really important
professionally because I think whether
whatever field you might be working in
digital is really important I look at
online learning as having various
professional outputs whether it be
enhancing training and learning helping
me establish communities of practice
within my work place where I can enhance
my and other colleagues professional
understanding and learning a bit more
about how to use technologies in that
online online spaces is a benefit
in terms of study currently digital
technologies have helped me source
information be able to locate
information on the move and also pick
that up and read it and digest it and
then do something with it any given time
I work full time at the Museum which is
anywhere between 40 to 50 hours a week
I'm studying 1 to 2 subjects per
semester at any given time having that
flexibility to pace my own learning is a
massive benefit also in terms of actual
coursework being able to choose when I
contribute to forums and how I
contribute to them has been a massive
time saver and I'm not limited to
certain hours within a particular day or
time and that's been hugely beneficial
learning is very much a social thing so
and particularly the way I learn is very
much social learning so that means
negotiating meaning and understanding
with my colleagues there's a
comfortability that it provides where I
feel like be comfortable to ask those
questions and question some some of the
ways that they're going about things and
vice versa and I think that the online
learning means that you've got it in one
context but the further you go online
the wider and wider those networks
become so that goes from what might be
you and a friend talking about it to you
and your classmates to you and your work
context and broader as that expands and
the insights and understanding of that
provides is all about that social
interaction
one of the greatest challenges I find
with with online learning especially
around group work is the lack of social
or face-to-face contact that you might
otherwise get and the challenge there is
that sometimes simple things like
communicating an idea it takes that much
longer and is that much more difficult
sometimes with online learning you might
feel a sense of isolation which doesn't
ordinarily happen in a general classroom
setting technology is a great device in
terms of the affordances it provides for
learning I think what needs to be there
is support in terms of how to use those
technologies effectively because there
is just so much there how can I utilize
it to the to the best means for the
student in terms of digital literacies
and and the teaching of digital
literacies a lot of what is done within
the coursework is pointing us to great
material and readings on that sort of
thing and there's a lot of material
about what it means to be digitally
literate and engaging with technologies
but in terms of how you actually go
about it and achieve that literacy it's
something that's largely self-directed
I'd say and just involves a lot of
critical analysis and working out where
and which materials is going to be most
relevant for what I'm needing to do
what I use at University in terms of
tablets smartphones is something which
is very much bring-your-own-device type
model in terms of how that might
integrate into coursework is left at
your discretion there is the idea that
students will need to often find their
own solutions and sometimes those
solutions mean going outside of various
portals whether it be learning
management systems or other so for
example when we found some of those LMS
systems too prescriptive or limiting
what we'd often do is is find our own
forums or our own means of communicating
outside of those everything's pretty
much online it would be very rare that
I'll walk into a library whether at
university or elsewhere and pick up a
book because I'll invariably often be
able to find a chapter from that book
online if I look long and hard enough in
terms of researching particular topics
the journal articles that were given
provide a really great understanding and
often difficult and complex
understanding that involves a lot of
reading outside of that what I do find
from the students perspective is there's
a lot of information so the idea of
knowledge is there it's very tangible
and is able to be gotten and taken how
to do that is another thing and
currently in the coursework it wouldn't
be something that's necessarily taught
what I will often do is go through the
reading list and and the majority of
those are available in the library as
PDFs and and the majority of those will
be journal articles some will be links
to particular webpages and what I will
often do is take all that information
download it to my tablet and then as I'm
reading it I'll use various tools to
annotate that and I'll use google use
Google Docs quite extensively when I'm
doing assignments because it allows me
to pick it up wherever I go whether it
be at work or at home or or elsewhere
when I'm given a particular assignment
I'll often use Google Scholar and just
troll the web for related material and
I'll I find that particularly useful
because you can see how much that
article or that authors been cited by
others and I find that piece supported
idea really
cotton in terms of okay this resource is
obviously a valuable one and I'll
utilize the the universities forums in
terms of getting information from other
students and what they've found and
similarly sharing those so that that can
be of benefit to the cohort other forms
of online resources that I use of blogs
quite quite extensively and I'll
subscribe and follow those particular
blogs or I'll actively seek those out
other ones will be various videos I find
through a lot of the content they'll
often be a talk or a presentation
related to that so some of those
channels include YouTube Vimeo some of
the iTunes channels as well as say TEDx
the use of open source technologies and
and how I use that as a student I'm very
much in favor of because I think what
you actually bring to the table people
can augment and add to and and further
along what you've developed and I'm very
much interested in promoting that for
example I'll make a lot of my photos and
images open source so that they can be
repurposed and reused and will often use
Creative Commons licensing that have
acknowledgments that allow people to do
that and I think that that whole
movement of open source is ultimately a
positive thing especially for education
with the access that the access that
students have to some of these
technologies it needs to be opened up
some advice I'd have for teachers in
terms of using technology in the way
they deliver their teaching and learning
is not to be afraid of it and to bring
to the to allow students to enhance that
experience and bring solutions where
possible and allow them to steer the
conversations and and navigating the use
of that technology because in some
instances you'll find that the students
will be far more able and willing and
capable of doing that then you ask so
don't be afraid to to let them lead
those conversations and that's pretty
much it it's not a massive it's a good
thing
you