Directorate of Human Resources

Distributed collaboration:Supporting Small Groups Online

George Roberts

July 2010

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Before we begin

• When you return from the break, please organise yourselves into 3 small groups of about 4 people that as nearly as possible align with your department/School/discipline

• Each group should have a sheet or two of flip-chart paper and a pen

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Identify groups

• Notice what happened• Who spoke?• How were they chosen?• How might similar emergence occur in distributed

groups?

• Choose a recorder

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Design for Learning

Background reading

Individual task

Group taskPlenary

Follow through

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development

Plan

Activity

• Form groups• In groups

• Identify topic• Write

objective(s)• Plan session

• Plenary• Present• Debrief

Brief overall

Brief A1

Group work

ObjectivesIdentify topic

Determine approach•Inductive•Deductive

•Kolb position

PresentDebrief

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Task

• In your groups develop a short online group activity and prepare a presentation of this activity using the flip chart paper.

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Objectives

At the end of this session you should be able to • Describe some similarities and differences between small group

working online and in face-to-face situations

• Recognise and describe your context in which online groupwork will be used in terms of pedagogical approach, and sequence

• Apply the maxims of stance to setting up group work

• Identify roles that can be taken in group work and recognise issues that might arise for a moderator

• Produce an outline of an online small group activity that is relevant to your current practice

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Feedback groups

• Channel?

• Relationship?

• Roles?

• Topic?

• Outcome?

• Task?

• Assessment?

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Rules: Sequence & Stance

• Sequence• Where are you in the course? Is it the

first week or the 8th week?• Have groups been used in other

settings?• Do people know one another yet?

• What is the interactional function of groupwork (as opposed to the instrumental or regulatory or hueristic functions?)

• Maxims of stance (Scollon 1998)• Channel• Relationship• Topic

e-Tivity Sequence

(Salmon)

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Division of labour: Roles

• Such as:• Initiator• Researcher• Recorder• Summariser• Reporter

• How are role assumed?• Assigned• Emergent• Hybrid

• Responsibility?

• Moderation: issues for consideration

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Tools

• Shared documents (Word; Google docs)• e-Mail• Discussion forums (in VLE; PHP bb)• Instant messaging (MSM, Jabber, Skype)• Virtual Learning Environments (VLE: e.g. Blackboard)• Learning object repositories (Harvest Road HIVE, Merlot, Intralibrary)• Audiographic systems (LiveClassroom, Elluminate, Instant Presenter)• Blogs (Blogger, TypePad, WordPress)• Wikis (MediaWiki, Confluence)• e-Portfolios (PebblePad, OSP)• Social networking (Elgg, mySpace, FaceBook)• Knowledge management systems (Hyperwave)

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Open Course Tools

• VLE e.g. Blackboard, Moodle• Strengths: administration, privacy, institutional security, suite of tools, consistent

interface• Weakness: difficult to admit guests, rarely best-of-breed, little student/peer

initiated interaction (all teacher-led)• Wiki e.g. Confluence, MediaWiki, GoogleSites

• Strengths: peer collaboration, easier to open to guests• Weakness: interfaces and mark-up, can lead to messy sites, hard to navigate

• ePortfolio system e.g. PebblePad• Strengths: learner controlled, dialogic, walled gardens• Weakness: idiosyncratic interfaces, needs learners to be motivated

• Blogs e.g. WordPress, Blogger, TypePad• Strengths: learner controlled, dialogic, open environments• Weaknesses: needs confidence & digital literacy/awareness

• Knowledge sharing e.g. Diigo, delicious, Twine, Zotero• Strengths: quick & easy, links of links, personal, transportable• Weakness: content focussed, yet another interface, online

• Content sharing: e.g. Flickr, YouTube, SlideShare, Blip TV, Scribd

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Blogs

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/

http://del.icio.us

http://www.downes.ca

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Blogs 2

http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/education/arts/diaries/home.html!

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/groups/en-all

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development e-portfolios

http://elgg.net/

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Virtual teamwork

• 200+ 1st year Business students

• Formed randomly into virtual teams of 6 members each

• Students collaborate online for 4 weeks to create a PowerPoint presentation on a specific teamwork theme (e.g. ‘motivation’ theory)

• Issues: • Practicality, logistics• Learning • Engagement• Assessment

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Online tutoring (podcasts)

• Online CPD short course

• Weekly podcasts allow tutors to introduce and explain key ideas and comment on previous week’s learning points

• Easy and quick to produce

• Wiki is perfect for collaborative writing

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Online tutoring (Wiki 1)

• Groups produce a collaborative presentation whose content is first discussed/debated/organised using WebCT Discussions

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Online tutoring (Wiki 2)

• The full history of page revisions is preserved in a Wiki

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Partnerships in Practice

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development

Contributory model of blended learning

• Collis & Moonen (2005) suggest that blended e-learning represents a shift from

acquisitive model of learning contributory model of learning

I know

I know what the group

knows

I increase what the

group knows

“In blended learning activities are king” (Betty Collis, University of Leicester, Oct 2006)

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Techniques for contributing

Collis & Moonen 2005

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Contributory model of blended learning

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Task

• In your groups develop a short online group activity and prepare a presentation of this activity using the flip chart paper.

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Delivery and support

Wider aims: good practice

• encourage student-tutor contact• encourage student-student co-operation• encourage active learning• give prompt feedback• emphasise time on task• have and communicate high expectations• respect diverse talents and ways of learning(Chickering & Gamson, 1987)

independent of the mode of engagement

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Rules

• Disaggregate

• Time factors

• Content factors

• Delivery factors

• Sequence

• At least 3 navigations

• Table of contents

• Index

• Marginalia

• Hypertext

• Activity

• Self-assessed exercises (SAEs)

• Group activities

• Tutor-marked assignments (TMAs)

• N.b. all activity must be assessed

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Rules

• Objectives• Interactional, instrumental, regulatory, heuristic,

imaginative, representational, personal• Task/outputs/product

• Netiquette

• Response time

• Equal treatment

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Participants’ experiences 1

Vicki:

“At the beginning of the task I typed something in, and then lost it, and couldn’t find where it had gone. And that was frustrating because I spent all that time typing it in and then just couldn’t find it”

Nick

“for people from other campuses or other universities, because they have firewall, network problems and security problems as well. That’s the only pitfall.”

Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development Participants’ experiences 2

Vicki:

“I think you’re probably more careful about what you say. And also the fact that it’s printed, it’s there, you’re not going to say something that’s totally off the wall. Because it will be there and everybody else will know that you’ve said it, it was a daft idea. You’re not going to expose yourself in that way.”

Cathy:

“Well the fact that it is a permanent record reminds people sometimes that they have to think quite long and hard about what they put in there. So, whereas if you’re sitting in a group and you say something which is profoundly embarrassing you can laugh it off and say ‘Oh God!’ you know. Whereas if you’ve posted something on the WebCT site and everybody can read it you’re less likely to perhaps open up.”