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According
to Klemm (1995), there are often too many students who "lurk"
in online conferences without being actively involved. He
states that television and lecture puts students as passive
learners. However, with distance education, this type of behaviour
will no longer be posssible. The responsibility has shifted
to the learners who are now required to participate more often
and with greater effort. Klemm (1995) suggests eight ways
to counter this type of behaviour. They are:
- require participation
- don't let it be an option
- form learning
teams
- don't settle
for just opinions
- make activities
interesting
- structure the
activity
- require hand
in "deliverable" assignments
- know what you
are looking for and involve yourself to make it happen
- allow peer grading
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Going into any
presentation especially online presentations, one tries to
align oneself with people who share similar interests and
are dependable. Using the discussion threads and other work
as guidelines, I chose Jody and Faisal to work with me. However,
due to unforseen circumstances, our presentation was delayed
for 4 weeks because of technology problems, time constraints,
student attrition, and just bad luck. When we finally presented,
I felt so relieved as I had rehearsed this presentation many
times in my mind. The presentation was not without technology
problems as our professor's audio suddenly stopped working.
During this down time, we collaboratively as a group decided
on our task for next session. The skill of "thinking
on your feet" which is an important skill for classroom
teachers is vitally important in distance education. Our professor's
voice echoed with apologies, but as a distance learner, I
have come to expect this kind of delay and have come to realize
no one is to blame. The technology Gods might have had something
to do with it, but as a mere mortal, all I can do is cross
my fingers.
In this audiographic
conference, we brought to the table the issue of copyright
and other legal issues in distance education. This was definitely
an interesting issue in the ever changing landscape of distance
education. Moreover, this topic is very open to debate. Therefore,
involving and engaging the students in such a way that they
became active learners was not a problem. We wanted to make
sure we had a breakout session so that the student could do
just that. We posed the question of "how do we motivate
teacher to follow the copyright law?" This deliverable
assignment brought back some very thoughtful answers. We also
included surveys giving the learners hands-on tasks. Pacing
and gauging the time was difficult because we were always
worried that our audience was not hearing us. However, using
the pre-made outline as a guide was useful as the slides were
slow to load due to my 28.8 kp Internet connection. Opening
the chat room while we were presenting and allowing the audience
to comment as we spoke would have made the process more transparent.
This process would allow us to get a feel of the audience
reaction just as in a face to face presentation.
The peer evaluation
at the end was indeed a good feeling. Knowing you have done
something well and sparking interest in a topic as mundane
as copyright law was very gratifying. Audiographic conferencing
leadership is a learned skill that requires much practice
as well as technological cooperation.
Our presentation
met the following criteria:
- offered an advance
organizer
- goals of the
presentation were clear
- presented and
prepared as a team
- graphics supported
the teaching objective and the event
- graphics matched
the audio component
- inspired and
engaged conversation with the class
- summary of the
Centra included in portfolio with your analysis.
- slides posted
to the web and linked from the home page under our names
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