Engaging online learners 3

Photo by Steve Wheeler

In previous posts here and also here, I wrote about how to engage learners in online collaborative writing. I developed a 5 step model based on the work of Lani Gunawardena (1995) which I used to promote deeper and more critical engagement for online learners working in wikis. Here's a snapshot of the model:

The model starts with Exploration (where students are finding out about their new learning environment, discovering the do's and dont's and generally orientating themselves on the wiki). I mentioned in a previous post about an introductory activity where each student is encouraged to create a space in which they introduce themselves with a few words and an image that represents them. 

Next comes Exhibition - where they are encouraged to talk about themselves, to show and tell best practice and to reflect on their experiences. They are also asked to perform tasks such as 'Mining for Gold' - finding useful websites, online resources etc, that they can share with the group as 'gold dust resources'. 

Third comes Explanation - here they describe in deeper terms their ideas and provide other group members with more detail. They may for example, elaborate on why their 'gold dust resources' are so useful. 

Fourth, there is Elaboration - here students start to edit each other's postings and append arguments or discussions with counter arguments. They may expand upon their resources, or annotate each other's postings. 

Finally, Evaluation is where students place a value on the validity, reliability, veracity and relevance of their work. They judge the significance of their collaborative efforts and decide where they will go next in their learning journey.

Graphics and concept by Steve Wheeler

Reference
Gunawardena, C. (1995) Social presence theory and implications for interaction and collaborative learning in computer conferences. International Journal of Educational Technologies, 1 (2/3), 147-166.

Engaging online learners 3 by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Posted by Steve Wheeler from Learning with e's