Task 2 – Unit 3 – Learning Object – Transparency in Online Education

The task 2 of unit 3 Course “Processos Pedagógicos em Elearning” aims to create learning object (LO) related to Transparency in Online Education.

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TasK 1 – Unit 3 – Transparency in Online Education

In task 1 of Unit 3 of the Course Pedagogical Processes in Elearning students were asked to built an annotated bibliography related to the “Transparency in Online Education”.
To prepare the bibliography were carried out research, documents analysis of shared readings, notes, organize their documents and the publication of results of this work in this blog.

Shaughnessy, Michael F. (2009). An Interview with Morten Flate Paulsen: Transparency in Online Education
Retrieved from:
http://www.educationnews.org/michael-f-shaughnessy/8076.html

Annotacion:

Michael F. Shaughnessy  interviewed in 12 of December of 2009 Morten Flaute Paulsen.
In this interview Michael started by requesting to Phd Morten Flaute Paulsen to speack about his experience in online education  as well as the works that he is developing.
The Phd Morten Flaute Paulsen comments his experience in the NKI, having come to live in Portugal, where he collaborates in some courses in the Open University.
The Phd Morten Flaute Paulsen still speaks of his in EDEN as well as in EURODL journal, which was launched and supported by EDEN.
The Phd Morten Flaute Paulsen relates in this interview that the transparency in online education  implies that the people can see information of each other.
However, as it is related by the interviewed, it can be complicated to define the limits of the information that the others can see without jeopardize privacy of the individuals, so it is necessary to create an adequate profile.
According to interviewed, students must have one high degree of control of the visibility of their profiles.
Morten Flaute Paulsen defends that the transparency improves the quality of online education, by presenting the following positive effect in:
– Improvement of the quality of prevention, because we are inclined to present works of better quality when we know that other people will go to have access to our work;
– Improvement of the constructive quality, therefore we can learn with the others, because we have access to its work;
– Improvement of the reactive quality, we can receive feedbacks from the others, when we share the works with them;
Furthermore, with the transparency in online education, Phd Morten Flaute Paulsen relates that contributions of weak quality decrease duu to the growing up of quality of the same ones.
The interviewed also relates the article published in IRRODL Vol. 10, N.º 3 (2009) of which is co-author with Christian Dalsgaard, where both defend that the transparency is basic in the social nets.
Whereas in the forums the information is static, in the social nets the participants have a personal page and a profile, that is developed and modified, this personal page works as a personal representation of the individuals in web, so social nets sites are different from debates groups.
Socialization is a very important factor in online education, this process is initiated with the construction of a personal page and with its linkings to other personal pages.
In this interview Phd Morten Flaute Paulsen defends that nets are also personal, due to the fact that the only way of communicating between them are by subscription or signature, so communication is a question of transparency and conscience.
The interviewed relates that transparency is particularly important in the scope of cooperative learning, students work in related projects, but not in collaboration.
In cooperative learning, one of the challenges that Phd Morten Flaute Paulsen relates is that the pupils have the opportunity of following the activities of each other (transparency).
Michael F. Shaughnessy questioned Phd Morten Flaute Paulsen if he already had published other articles on this thematic, the reply was affirmative.
However the question of the transparency may also create some problems to the organizations, for example sometimes those organizations have to deal with inadequate contents, copyrights and with criticizes of unsatisfied students.
In this interview, Phd Morten F. Paulsen relates the expectation about the new global catalogue of the NKI, that includes more than a thousand profiles of students.
When students are divulging their profiles, they become more visible before other pupils, professors and the all  world.
The profiles show the reasons that led  a student to choose an online course or what students are looking  for, at the same time other students use these profiles to show to the family, to the friends and to the colleagues what they are to studing or even use them as an online curriculum vitae.
According to Morten F. Paulsen, students with their presentations become true ambassadors of online education, in those sites they share experiences which quickly are spread by the research engines and become a way of recruit new students.
Phd Morten Flaute Paulsen defends that professors and the contents of a course must be transparently evaluated. He finishes the interview with a reference to the ethical and moral needs to find a balance between transparency and privacy.

Paulsen, Morten F. (2009). Keynote: Paulsen – Visualizing student profiles through NKI’s online catalogueand student network.
Retrieved from:
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/2340

Annotation:

In keynote on the intervention of Phd Morten Flaute Paulsen, in Cambridge International Conference of Open & Distance Education a highlight is given to the form as online students become more visible. Morten Flaute Paulsen presents a case of success in the NKI, relating that according to the theory of cooperative freedom applied to online education students have a great individual flexibility, but have also access to a learning community.
Sometimes the harmonization of flexibility, where the student can do a course on his rhythm, with the access to a learning community is difficult, so these parameters are hard to conjugate.
The underlying philosophy to the theory of cooperative freedom is that students must keep their individual freedom in a learning community, this community is considered common resource.
This keynote has more topics, an individual planning system, which is optional, implemented in 2004 by the NKI as well as the adjudication of the Boldic in 2006.
The question of the presentation of students is mentioned, which must contain details concerning to the date of beginning, of partners of learning as well as of the courses that they have, the spreading of some personal information is stimulated..
The elaboration of these presentations/profiles allows companies, schools and universities to know better the students, who opt for their courses.
Moreover, the transparency in online education grants the possibility to students to share their experiences with other students, with friends, familiar and even with the enterprise world.
The transparency in online education allows students to become visible, many times their presentations attract new students.
However, Phd Morten Flaute Paulsen reveals his concerns about the type of information that should be published by formulating a question “Transparency or privacy?”
Phd Mortem Flate Paulsen is more inclined for transparency, although there are some risks.

Paulsen, Morten F..Dalsgaard, Christian. “Transparency in Cooperative Online Education”. (2009)
Retrieved from:
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/671/1267

Annotation:

Throughout this article, published in June of 2009, Dalsgaard and Paulsen start for arguing the relation between net works and the cooperative learning, distinguishing it from the individual learning and the collaborative learning.
The first type of learning develops in the net, by articulating a strong flexibility of the student with the interest in integrating a learning community.
In the second situation the student works alone, whereas in the third situation the collaborator presents little flexibility and chooses to work in given group that has strong pretensions in collaborating.
In this extensive article the authors argue that transparency will have to be a basic characteristic of online education, because improves the quality standards of a course. 
The transparency is basic in online courses that are supported in the theory of the cooperative freedom, where students can learn with the shared works by others in the net.
Transparency in online courses can be improved by stimulating the students to create personal sites or blogs, where they are able to describe and show their interests.
In the NKI, transparency is already in online education, public profiles are not limited to the students, teachers and employees have also public profiles.

Siemens, George,  “Teaching as transparent Learning” . (2009)
Retrieved from:
http://www.connectivism.ca/?p=122

Annotation:

George Siemens, in an article  entitled “Connectivism”, published in day 28 of April of 2009, considers that because we are considered transparent apprentices, we will be able to get great benefits.
Following the sharing of knowledge and opinions, namely the development of a set of tools as blogs, wikis and Twitter, George Siemens says that he received many feedbacks and positive critics that allowed improvements.
The author relates that he concentrates in what he earned, however he considers that the readers of his sites and articles improved their knowledge not only from the readings but also from their  own commentaries.
Furthermore, subjects are discussed, knowledge on that subject grows up significantly, because critics and feedbacks are received by other individuals.
However, George Siemens says us something very important, that the participation and edition of content in Web 2.0 is not an affirmation of his knowledge, on the opposite is a sharing of thoughts, so that others may explore and together can arrive to the understanding of the trends.
According to George Siemens, “to observe the others to learn constitutes a learning act”, that is when somebody decides to share thoughts and ideas in transparent way, the observer becomes a professor for the others who are observing.
The tools of Web 2.0 (Twitter, Blogs, Facebook) allow much more fast knowledge sharing, allowing that the process of learning is also shared and not only the final result of studing.
George Siemens speaks about the experience that he had with Stephen Downes, in which they had encouraged students to use blogs, debates in the Moodle forums, translations, activities in the Second Life among others, those activities allowed promoting strong the relations between the students and constructing nets.
However, after the end of the course, they don’t have enough information that allows them to conclude that students keep these nets, although they believe that some students still involved involved in some debates.
The most important argument used by George Siemens is that when the learning process is transparent, learners becomes professors, even when students are in a new scope of knowledge and do not have confidence to dialogue with the specialists.
Thus, we will have to be transparent in the processes of learning, we should be able to express our opinions, our frustrations, our perceptions and we should collaborate with others students that are in the same level of the learning process.
In this article, the idea of the learning through the sharing is explored, as well as education as transparent learning process “Connectivism”.

Dalsgaard, Christian. “Social  networking sites: Transparency in online education”. (2008).
Retrieved from:
http://eunis.dk/papers/p41.pdf

Annotation:

In this text Christian Dalsgaard comments the problematic of the pedagogical potential of the works realized in the social nets as well as the associated transparency questions.
Dalsgaard considers that one of the main characteristics of the works realized in the social nets is the joint between the personalization and the socialization.
The author relates that one of the excellent aspects of the social interaction in social nets, is that the moment of the realization of works is associated to the fact that we are leaving the individual or the personal (profile of the individual or personal page) for the social one.
In the personal profile the individual can edit more or less information, it is also possible to publish photographs, videos, links, texts among others elements.
The page of an individual profile is not personal or confidential, it can be public, at least for those integrate the net of the individual.
The social Web allows that other individuals see the activities of their friends, meaning the actions of the social place.
Each individual has his own original relations, so works developed in the social nets can be in Blogs, Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and/or Youtube, among others.Dalsgaard relates that Paulsen considers that  transparency is important in the long-distance education.
The transparency here is argued as a requirement so that the students work of cooperative way.
The transparency means that the students become visible by constituting true learning resources for others, who follow them.
To finish Dalsgaard concludes that the social places are not new management systems of learning and consequently the great pedagogical potential of works in social nets is in transparency and in the ability of creating conscience between students.

Lisbon, 22 of September of 2010