e-chronicle

Introduction (Nic Brett)

SANJT is a program proposed by Southern Square University to assist geographically isolated students to participant in Clinical Practice lectures and tutorials without having to leave their home campuses. This will be achieved by setting up a learning community in the multi-user virtual environment – Second Life.

History

Southern Square University has its main campus situated in Lismore, NSW. It also has a number of satellite campuses which service country NSW. Each of these campuses has a nursing department that runs the same courses as the main campus in Lismore.

In the first year of the course, all nursing students have compulsory Clinical Practice lectures and tutorials at the Lismore campus to prepare them for their first Clinical Practice placement.

Previous solutions

• The head of Clinical Practice, Dr Jan Summers, conducting the tutorials and lectures at the various satellite campuses. This has been successful in the past. However, as the program grows, Southern Square University thinks it vital for its more isolated students to experience different scenarios which may occur in larger hospitals where most of the students would be undertaking their placement.

• Four-day residential school. Students would stay on campus and be away from home for up to a week, depending on how far away their home campus is. This is both costly for the university and the students. Students have to pay for their accommodation, meals and travel (the university does give each student a small subsidy).

SANJT solution

In order to keep the costs down for both students and the university, SANJT proposes the following program:

1. Create a Clinical Practice simulation in Second Life. This simulation would emulate what happens in the Real Life (RL) Clinical Practice tutorials and lectures. The cost of this project initially is high; however, this could be offset by working with other faculties and hospitals to share the cost of the build, and the federal government also supplies funding for innovate learning solutions through the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.
2. Train staff how to use and teach with the various technologies that will be used to teach clinical skills to their students. These include del.icio.us, Wikis, Nings, blogs (social networking), Web conferencing and Second life. This could be achieved by staff attending workshops conducted by e-learning specialists who work either at Southern Square University or who are external contractors. Also, supply staff with online and offline resources. A subscription to EDUCAUSE and the book, Second Life: A Guide to Your Virtual World, by Brian White (White 2008).
3. Ensure that all of the satellite campuses have adequate computer resources to run all of the necessary programs for the course. Students can attend their Clinical Practice lectures and tutorials from home; however, it is strongly advised that they attend at the computer labs at the university as they can experience the Clinical Practice with the RL as well as SL colleagues. This will also enable students at the satellite campuses to discuss what happen in the Clinical Practice tutorial and lecture with a lecturer/tutor who is in the room with them.
4. Have an one-week compulsory induction course Welcome to the Nursing Faculty at Southern Square University this course will include:

• Tour of the university, which would include the library, social venues and services, and the IT facilities
• Q and A with lectures and faculty members
• Three-day IT course to:
  • Assess the student’s IT skill
  • Teach them how to use the social networking tools, eg. Ning, blogs and Web conferencing
  • Teach them how to use Second life (also supply students with the guide to Second Life and other online resources)
  • Set up support groups over the three remote campuses and main campus to encourage this type of learning.

Key features of the e-learning community (Trent McAllan)

The following technologies will be used by Southern Square University to deliver its courses online. Not all of these will be used across all departments and courses by the university. However, the following will be used by all students who must complete the Clinical Practice coursework prior to their first Clinical Practice placement:

Compulsory

• Learning Management System (LMS)
  The university has decided to use Moodle as its LMS; it has been chosen over other LMS’s because it is open source. Due to it being open source piece of software, there is a lot more support available for both administrators of the system and end user documentation than propriety software such as Blackboard. The LMS will provide a formal structure for interaction between the lecturer and students, by the lecturer being able to post:
  • course announcements
  • course content materials (e.g. subject outline, assessment tasks and information, readings, podcasts)
  • calendar of events
  • forums to allow conversation threads to evolve on specific topics.

• Multi-User Virtual Environment
  Second Life provides students a synchronous 3-D space which will provide the virtual space that the off-campus students will use to complete their Clinical Practice lectures and tutorials. As stated in the overview SANJT Solutions, the Second Life environment will be very costly for the university to establish, but as more departments come online and more students use the space it will become much more cost effective. To help inexperienced users of Second Life, the university will have ‘tutors’ in Second Life to help students find their way around the island and facilities that have been constructed in Second Life. The proposed uses of the Second Life campus will be:
  • to provide a synchronous interaction with students and lecturers
  • ‘real’ experiences with patients without the need to travel
  • provide a place to ‘hang out’ with other students and to chat.

• Social networking site
  All students will be required to join the social network that will be set up at the start of the subject. It is anticipated that this tool will be used throughout the four years that this cohort of students is together. The use of a social networking site is to provide an informal means of communication between students and their lecturers. It is designed to promote discussion, and as a place to share ideas and sources. The social networking site that the University has decided to use is Ning for a variety of reasons:
  • It is hosted off site, which means that the Universities IT department does not need to host the server or worry about managing the users.
  • Can continue beyond the length of the course, as a source of continued support.

• Blog
  Students will be required to establish their own web log (blog). This blog will be a place where students can post their reflections on course readings and other events that they experience through this course. Students have been asked to establish their own blog as opposed to using the blog tool available in Moodle is because the blogs that they set up will not be closed off once the course has completed, they will continue to exist as long as the author contributes to it. The blogs can be set up at a variety of sites such as:
  • Edublogs
  • Wordpress

• Web Conferencing
  Web conferencing will be used from time to time by lecturers to communicate with students that are unable to attend lectures or small group tutorials throughout the semester. Although these are generally one way interactions with the host of the conference presenting the information to the participants who are receiving the information, the lecturer/tutor can:
  • post questionnaires
  • host power point presentations
  • play live video
  • the presentations can also be recorded to be played back later if a student needs to refer back to the web conference to clarify a point that has been made.

Although the following technologies are not compulsory, it is suggested that all students have an understanding of what they are and how they could be of use throughout the course:

• del.icio.us
  The use of del.icio.us would be useful on a number of levels:
  • students can share resources they come across by adding to the tag that is set up for the course
  • with each tag, students have to include in the “Notes” why the particular resource is of relevance and interest to the group
  • allows students who do not have their own computer the ability to always have their bookmarks with them.

• Wiki
  A wiki has the benefits of:
  • providing a space for students to collaborate on group assignments
  • creating a body of work that will exist even after the subject and course have been completed, which will leave a legacy of learning.

• Email
  Allows students:
  • to asynchronously contact their peers or tutor when they do not wish to share with the group for privacy reasons.

• Chat/IM
  • is a lot simpler to use and is less time consuming than logging into Second Life to ‘chat’ with other students
  • students can arrange to chat or IM with their peers or tutor when the need arises.

Justification for considering the e-learning community as a collective learning opportunity (Joseph Yeo)

Definition of a learning community

Before we determine if the e-learning community is indeed a collective learning opportunity, we need to know what a learning community is. The diagram below provides an outline of a learning community.

(Kilpatrick, Barret & Jones 2004)

The e-learning community as a collective learning opportunity

1. The e-learning community is made up of a group of learners:

• • who are all undertaking the nursing degree, in their first year
  • who are geographically isolated, but still able to come together as a community online
  • who are committed to be part of the community in the climate of trust and collaboration.

2. The e-learning community is linked by, and shares, common goals and values:

• • in the learning objectives of the course
  • in their shared common learning experience as self-directed distance students
  • in their pursuit of nursing knowledge and practice
  • in the participative and collaborative learning process.

3. The e-learning community is collaborative, in that:

• • learners interact, cooperate and collaborate socially and cognitively
  • learners work together to achieve their shared goals, and potentially creating new knowledge
  • learners interact, cooperate and collaborate on multiple levels of the community: one-on-one, small group and the community as a whole.

4. The e-learning community is vibrant:

• • with learner interactions, cooperation and collaboration
  • with activities and tasks set in real life context.

5. The e-learning community respects a variety of perspectives:

• • within a culture of trust
  • by their willingness to accept and respect each other
  • by their willingness to entertain new ideas and accept change
  • by their willingness to take risk in collaborative work.

6. The e-learning community actively promotes learning opportunities:

• • by providing flexible, blended learning to meet learners’ needs
  • by encouraging and fostering interaction, cooperation and collaboration
  • by providing the opportunities and tools for interaction, cooperation and collaboration
  • by providing learners with activities and tasks in real life context.

7. The e-learning community enhances the potential of the learners:

• • with the provision of flexible, blended learning process
  • by encouraging learners to interact, cooperate and collaborate in the social learning process
  • by building a climate of trust and openness so learners are comfortable with sharing of knowledge, dialogue, inquiry and risk-taking
  • by the provision of constructive feedback from other learners and experts (including the tutor).

8. The e-learning community fosters the creation of new knowledge and skills through:

• • learner’s self-directed learning online and off-line
  • the interaction and collaboration processes
  • group activities in which learners define problems, decide upon solutions, and act to achieve the solutions.

Educational rationale for the design elements (Sabina Levine)

The key consideration here is the remoteness of many students, and as such the objective is to provide these learners with engaging and interactive learning experience whilst making it relevant in the process. For this reason, there are a number of design elements to consider:

Meaningful Interaction

One of the main objectives of this learning community is to provide its remote students with an opportunity to interact. Meaningful interaction is recognised as a key element in stimulating learners’ motivation, as well as the level of learner engagement in the process of knowledge acquisition (Woo & Reeves 2006). However, not all interaction is meaningful. The challenge is to engage our learners through the aid of learning community. Therefore, the community should incorporate a number of options which provide for learners by means of generating knowledge, immersing themselves in their learning experience, whilst working collaboratively with one another. In order to facilitate these elements, all students will be required to join the social network which will be set up at the start of the subject. The social networking site will provide an informal means of communication amongst students and between students and their lecturers. As covered earlier in Key features, this element of the community, which will reside on Ning, is designed to foster discussion, and serves as a place for sharing ideas and sources. Overall, the aim is to engage learners through the incorporation of the meaningful interaction into the education process.

Second Life is another tool that is able to cater for meaningful interaction. However, the setting here is somewhat different. This tool is a computer-generated virtual world that allows students to jointly partake in simulated activities, which replicate real life scenarios. Learners are able to experience and experiment within this virtual world, whilst at the same time interacting with virtual versions on their teachers and other students. Considering that these students are in remote areas, thus having few opportunities for face-to-face interaction, the interactive and virtual aspects of Second Life are significant to the learning process. The type of learning interaction that occurs within Second Life adds another dimension to the overall learning experience.

Social Constructivism – Second Life

Constructivist view considers learning to be an active process where learners absorb and construct their knowledge through their own individual filters. These filters have been formed and developed throughout one’s own life experience. The theory focuses on the process of the development and construction of knowledge. The real value-add to knowledge acquisition lies in the generation of new ideas. This is achieved through learner’s ability to incorporate and apply new information to real life situations. Taking into consideration our learning context, Second Life facilitates a virtual reality based on real life situations. As such learners are not only able to draw on own experiences when presented with tasks, but they also have an opportunity to gain new experiences through the virtue of partaking in the Second Life activities.

Second Life allows learners to create their own virtual world which replicates authentic situations. This is one of the principles of constructivist design (Black 1994). This element is of a particular value considering our learners are in remote locations. It is imperative for learners to have an opportunity to explore, interact, bounce off ideas of one another, and of course reflect on their own experiences. A considerable advantage of Second Life is that it provides a safe environment where learners can make mistakes, without any real impact on patients or training resources. An opportunity to make mistakes is vital to successful learning solutions as found by a recent study (Jones 1997). It is through mistakes that learners can develop a deeper understanding of the content as opposed to simply memorising the correct answer. Second Life is a place where participants are able to collect, assimilate and then apply the information to the problems presented. Furthermore, they are able to make mistakes, which too can contribute to their further knowledge construction.

Social Learning Theory

Being a part of a learning community provides learners with an opportunity to observe others. Observing others is one of the major aspects in the learning process. The design elements of this community should, therefore, cater for observation to take place. Within Second Life, adult educators are able to demonstrate and role-model procedures and processes. At the same time learners are able to observe one another, as well as everyone’s chosen course of action within the virtual world environment. Furthermore, students are able to benchmark their performance against those of others and as such learn further and even improve if need be.

Observation aside, learning has often been described as a social process (Wenger 1999). In other words, learning occurs through interaction with others and within a social process. This being the case, the community needs to incorporate appropriate design elements in an effort to provide a number of tools to foster the social interaction. The social networking site (Ning) has already been covered as mode for social interaction. Admittedly, not all learning needs to occur within the social context (Wenger 1999), self-reflection being an important part of the learning process as well. For this reason, learners will have access to individual blogs where they can self-reflect on their own learning experience, as well as any associated findings and discoveries.

Wiki is another tool which will foster learning in the context of it being a social process. Here, learners will be able to collaborate jointly in order to achieve the desired outcomes of their group tasks and various assessments. Our learners will be able to collaborate on wiki as a group in the development of learning tasks and group assessments. Each learner will be able to not only contribute to the group output, but also observe what other learners have generated. The feedback that the tool allows to provide can also be a key to further learning as constructive feedback, which is expressed in a diplomatic manner, can promote further adult learning.

Community of Practice

Creating a community of practice is one of key objectives in ensuring our learners are able to get the most of their course. The aim is to foster knowledge sharing, collaborative learning, address individual learner’s needs and provide learning resources. One of its functions is a learning support mechanism where the central theme is sharing and collaboration. Community of practice is of particular importance to remote learners, where they have a minimal opportunity for face-to-face interaction. With this in mind, a number of design elements are required in order to contribute and promote and maintain this community of practice. Already, the social networking tool and Second Life have been discussed. Furthermore, learners will have access to emails, so that they are able to contact peers and tutors in an ad-hoc manner if need be. Access to emails also provides our students with a level of confidentiality which may not be possible within other solutions such as Second Life and Ning. Chat/IM is another option available for students, as it is less time consuming and can address immediate questions or concerns.

To promote the community of practice further, another technological element learners can utilise is del.icio.us. The tool promotes sharing of resources and further collaboration amongst the students. Students are able to bookmark resources which then become central to the community of practice. One other design element which will provide a formal structure for the community of practice is the LMS (Moodle). The tools that facilitate sharing and collaboration have been considered; however, there is still a need for a structured element within this community, which allows for course announcements, course content materials, readings, assessment and tasks calendar. This is considered to be an administrative element of the community of practice.

The “look and feel”

The visual appeal of a learning solution, in our instance Second Life, is an important element to learner’s overall level of engagement. In order to gauge what elements of the design are able to draw learners in, a study was conducted into computer games (Jones 1997). The objective of the study was to uncover reasons as to why some computer games are able to generate a somewhat high level of engagement, where participants are engaged for hours at a time. The idea behind this study was first to establish what these elements were, the next step in the study was to ascertain if the same principals could be applied to learning environments. The objective was to replicate the same high level of engagement within the learning environments as in computer games.

It was concluded that one of the major elements contributing to the overall positive experience of the computer games and, therefore, high level of engagement was the game’s visual aspect. Jones then concluded that the quality of multimedia such as images, sounds, and animations, are key in getting learners involved and engaged in the learning environment . Second Life consists of, and incorporates, a variety of rich visual graphic images. Furthermore, it allows learners to create their own Second Life persona. Learners can choose what their “avatar” looks like, from its clothing to its eye colour. Through this feature, learners are then able to identify better with their virtual life representative to a more meaningful and enjoyable experience for the learner.

Storyboard of the SANJT e-learning community (Nic Brett)

References

Black, J & Thalheimer W 1994, ‘Constructivist design of graphic computer simulations’, Instructional Technology Research Online, accessed 9 May 2008, <http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/Publications/cdgcs.html>

Jones, MG 1997, ‘Learning to play, playing to learn: lessons learned from computer games’, Instructional Technology Research Online, accessed 9 May 2008, <http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwitr/docs/mjgames/>

Kilpatrick, S, Barret, M & Jones, T 2004, ‘Defining learning communities’, The Association for Active Educational Researchers, accessed 21 May 2008, <http://www.aare.edu.au/03pap/jon03441.pdf>

Redmond, P & Lock, V 2006, ‘A flexible framework for online collaborative learning’, Internet and Higher Education, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 267-276.

Wenger, E 1999, Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge University Press, New York.

White, B 2008, Second Life: a guide to your virtual world, Que Publishing, USA.

Woo, Y & Reeves, TC 2007, ‘Meaningful interaction in web-based learning: a social constructivist interpretation’, Internet and Higher Education, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 15-25.

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Other useful sources of relevance

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Starr, R & Goldman, R 2005, Learning together online: research on asynchronous networks, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey.