I was delighted to receive my copy of this text and read it eagerly, on the hunt as always for ideas for my online
classes. I am currently teaching three fully online papers, which will bring my
tally of online classes to six this year. I love teaching online and strive to
be innovative and to try something new online in every class each semester.
For a long time, the trend in online
learning was to ‘put a course online’ and teach it as closely as possible to
how it would be taught on campus in a f2f context. This might mean lots of
readings to download, copies of lecture notes and PowerPoint slides. Gradually,
this shifted to ‘lecture capture’ via Panopto, and online discussions which
usually took the form of a weekly forum where students were assigned literature
to read and discuss with a stimulus question and guidance from a lecturer in
discussion (if they were lucky).
All rather dull…
Not a lot of magic there!
This book is in the tradition of Salmon’s
e-tivities (2nd edition 2013) and McDonald’s Protocols, in that it
collates practical suggestions for activities in online classes; is predicated
on a solid base of research and theory; and clusters activities according to
the rhythm of online teaching and the needs of online students.
Why would these rhythms and needs be any
different online, you might ask?
Therein lies the purpose of the book and
the heart and soul of Bonk & Khoo’s work: the activities are specifically
designed to motivate and retain learners who could otherwise disengage, drop
behind, drop out and disappear. The statistics show that a great many online
learners do not complete.
The point is: To humanise the cold online classroom,
establishing an inclusive climate for learning, to emphasise the construction
of knowledge, learning participation, student ownership and creativity.
Yes, humanity, inclusion and creativity
online!
I’ve been a fan of Curtis Bonk’s work since
the 1998 'Electronic Collaborators' text co-authored with Kira King (aka ‘the
Bonk-King book’, much to the amusement of Kiwi readers). I’ve spoken
with Curt during his visit to Waikato (in 2002), and in Orlando, Florida at a
Hypermedia conference in 2006, and I found his work ‘The World is Open’ to be a
source of inspiration. TEC-VARIETY continues this vision, and I was
particularly drawn to the statement: “We live in a world rich with golden
nuggets of free and open learning content as well as technologies for
interacting and collaborating about this content” (Bonk & Khoo, 2014, p.2).
Elaine Khoo is a close colleague and
friend, and we have collaborated on a project together, involving
student-generated podcasts in teacher education. We’ve presented at ASCILITE
and have authored journal articles together. Elaine too, has been a source of
inspiration throughout my Doctoral journey as her research broke ground in a
similar field and hers was one of the PhDs I read and cited.
Knowing the authors, I knew the activities
in the text would be insightfully theorised, informed in particular by key
learning theories, based on many years of international experience, and also
relevant to New Zealand contexts. I was not disappointed.
From the start, the book clearly works at
the intersection of technology, pedagogy and learning.
The use of the memorable acronym –
TEC-VARIETY – guides the reader through ten principles of online learning in
support of student motivation and retention.
For each principle, there are ten activity
ideas. Do the maths: that’s 100 activities, each of which is presented in a
clear format with instructional considerations, variations and extensions, as
well as time-cost indices.
A few of my favourites:…
Tone: Video Intro
Encouragement: Critical friends
Curiosity: (The most downloaded chapter so
far) Contextual and Cultural blogs
Variety: Serious play, via online séances,
and encouraging teacher education students to sign up to teach a language
online.
Autonomy: Open exploration weeks, OER
explorations
Relevance: Pubcasting: embedding multimedia
interviews with researchers and academic writers, discussing their most recent
findings or publications
Interactivity: Wiki-based brainstorming and
co-creation (e.g., student-generated tutorials, class glossaries, e-books);
comapping (collaborative mindmapping)
Engagement: Microblogging
Tension: Structured Controversy
Yielding Products: Course video summaries
None of the activities are particularly
high-tech or out of the reach of our faculty – all can be accomplished in Moodle (or any other LMS) and using systems and support readily available to us here and now.
Several of the book’s accolades refer to
chapter 14 – which looks at how to work with colleagues to encourage them to
try new ideas.
I am thrilled and proud that the work of my
co-blogger and my own studies are cited in the text.
Importantly, the book has an accompanying
website http:tec-variety.com
And in the spirit of openness, the text is
available as a free download from the site, along with additional resources.
The entire e-book or any of the 15 individual chapters can be downloaded free
of charge.
The authors take an interactive approach,
inviting readers to trial and provide feedback on the activities, and to
suggest modifications and contextual improvements. The intent is to continually
update the book site “with new pedagogical activities and ideas, technological
tools, reviews and announcements as well as stories of best practices” (p.5).
The text is self-published by Bonk’s Open
World Books, and this in itself is a source of inspiration as an act of
intellectual generosity, and integrity.
The final word might go to Curtis Bonk’sown blog:
“Online instructors can learn how to
design a safe climate for learning, give feedback, foster interaction and
collaboration, nurture student autonomy and creation of products, and much
more. The intent is for higher online learning retention and the development of
more self-directed online learners”.
TEC-Variety is fresh and ready for
immediate and flexible application. I’ll be keeping my copy handy!
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