In order to simulate the environment of a college level online course, the students were not given in-class reminders of assignments. Students were able to meet with the teacher during regular tutoring times if they had any questions. The students were also encouraged to ask the teacher questions via e-mail or some other electronic medium.
The first assignment was to read a post from the teacher and reply to that post in the forum regarding the practical application of learning about a learning system like Moodle. The students were encouraged to respond to posts from the teacher, as well as start new threads and respond to their peers' threads. The students were able to engage meaningful conversations regarding the purpose of Moodle, the benefits of learning about online courses, and how to complete online courses. Given that students were given privileges to start their own threads in the forum, several conversations began based upon extracurricular issues such as the presidential election.
The second assignment was to read a brief article about writing a web log (also known as a blog) for academic purposes. The students were to then write a well thought out response to the article and respond to a minimum of five posts from classmates. The purpose of this assignment was to give students an opportunity to engage in a meaningful dialog in a digital forum. The students also had the opportunity to provide input regarding the subsequent assignments. Students were able to engage in discussion regarding what guidelines could be used for blog posting. That is, what subject should be accepted, what ideas should be addressed and how the blogs should be formatted. However, the students did not take advantage of this opportunity. The third and fourth assignments were blog entries to be written based on a theme and rubric established during the second lesson.
Conclusion. Students were able to engage in an online environment which simulated an authentic online course that they might take in college. Students engaged with the content, but did not show a high level of interest in keeping up with the assignments. With respect to student participation, the majority of students consistently participated. Even though all students were given the opportunity to work on the first assignment in class, 97% (38 out of 39) of the students participated in the first assignment. The following assignments showed a decrease in participation with 71% (27 out of 38) for the second assignment, and 74% (28 out of 38) of the students participating in the combined third and fourth assignments.
Although these participation percentages seem to indicate that students are unprepared to take an online course, there were some limiting factors to this initial assessment. Students were only able to access the Moodle server at specific times on specific days. Furthermore, students could not access Moodle off-campus. In addition, this data seems to suggest a Hawthorne effect; the idea that people naturally increase productivity when an environmental variable is adjusted, but return to the standard level of productivity after the environmental change has become the norm (Merrett, 2006).
Even though 71% of the students participated in the second assignment, none of the students correctly completed the assignment. No student suggested topics for blogs, nor did the students describe how a meaningful blog post would be constructed. The instructions for this assignment included writing at least two paragraphs in response to the article and to respond to five posts from peers. Many of the student responses to the article consisted of two to five sentences, indicating that either the students did not plan their responses in advance, or that the student did not fully understand the assignment. Several students did not respond directly to the article. Instead, these students wrote responses to the concept of an online course. The responses to the student postings were rare and usually restated the ideas of the original post.
The final two assignments were completed in a less rudimentary fashion, but there was some lack of student participation in the process. Most students completed two blog postings on a favorite subject. One student's post bore remarkable similarities to an online political blog, and several students attempted to fill their blog space with random letters and words. Several students refrained from writing any blog entries.
Overall, students were able to engage in the Moodle exercise, but it is unclear if they learned how to interact meaningfully with CMS software.
Ning
Controlling question. Social networks are prevalent in many students' lives. Knowing this, the staff at EECHS created their own social network through Ning as a way to showcase student work and increase collaboration among peers. Many students already engage in social networks, but will students engage in an academically focused social network in a meaningful way?
Learning objectives / classroom goals. The EECHS Ning was utilized by teachers in a variety of settings. Students were asked to post blog entries, videos and discussions to forward the learning of all. Postings and responses for these projects were not restricted to just the students in the class. All students enrolled at EECHS and faculty and staff had access to the EECHS Ning, including off-campus, and could rate videos and other media.
Methodology and results. EECHS is a fully integrated Early College. That is, the classes and staff are spread across the local Community College campus with no public address system or functional central message board to make announcements or schedule upcoming events. Laptops for all students allowed widespread communication to take place. A Wikipage was initially adopted as an effective means for students to communicate, however, some important messages became buried in the Wiki and not all students were able to see them without drilling down the Wiki. In the fall of 2008, a Ning was created to allow quick communication. It soon developed a life of its own.
The EECHS Ning began with one member, the creator/administrator. Within one week, over 80 students (out of a 125 student population) had created accounts and began to interact socially and academically. Three students were chosen to be the first co-administrators due to their proficiency with social networks. A chat board soon appeared and a daily AVID internet scavenger hunt quiz, created by the Technology Facilitator, was published for all members. As the staff became aware of the potential of this social networking tool, assignment blogs and forums joined the student generated content. Blogs regarding English texts accompanied rants about the upcoming election. Forums on study habits accompanied boards about battles between pop culture icons such as the "Captain Crunch vs. Tony the Tiger" forum posted on November 22, 2008 ("Captain Crunch"). In short, the EECHS Ning became an amalgamation of entertainment and academic content. Posts that consisted of self-made comedy videos, Chuck Norris jokes, and birthday party invitations, accompanied academic material and assignments. Teacher directed academic content such as rubric assessed essays and digital storytelling assignments are also common and allow students to express themselves academically.
The EECHS Ning's original purpose, communication, has not been lost among the massive amount of information generated by students and staff. Broadcasted messages delivered to individual email accounts, events boards, and private messages allowed EECHS to finally have an effective method of distributing messages to its disparate population.
The EECHS Ning became home to 119 members including students, faculty, district technology personnel, and a course developer for North Carolina State University's William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation. The EECHS Ning fulfilled its original purpose as a communications website and allowed students to interact in an environment free of the predatory dangers of public social networks. Teachers and staff embraced the EECHS Ning as a showcase of student work and a method of fostering student collaboration that reaches beyond the classroom walls. Since the fall of 2008, a collaborative effort for the 2008-2009 C-SPAN Studentcam (www.studentcam.org) competition was developed between an AVID class and the 11th grade students at another high school. This collaboration was achieved mainly through an exclusive Ning (www.thseechs.ning.com). The use of Ning in the public school setting has proven to be a very versatile tool for collaboration.
Conclusion. While the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, there are difficulties which have come to light and demanded the attention of the faculty and staff of EECHS. First, student, some teachers, and Ning administrators have different internal scales of appropriateness for approving messages, pictures, and videos on the EECHS Ning. Some staff and students find content suitable for a public school display while others find it offensive. It is important to provide clear ground rules about content and membership with all potential Ning administrators. Second, Ning administrators should be aware of the value students' attribute to a social network. A ban for inappropriate actions means that a member's page is deleted. This intended slap on the wrist can be perceived as a catastrophic event and may affect classroom performance. Administrators must be mindful of this before banning a student who spent 12 hours on the page's style and content.
