1. The Digital One-Day
Identity, literacy and community in (partially) synchronous distributed learning environments

2. Aim of the Digital One-Days
3 events of current interest as new form of CPD
Online identity
Digital literacy
Communities (of practice) in HE
(in the event, 2 have run)
Cover the topics
Exploring the potential of
Synchronous
Distributed
Collaboration

4. Innovation and novelty
Topics are challenging
The environment is challenging
There is an interaction between the environment and the topics

5. Questions
Might identity, literacy and community be threshold concepts in educational development?
Does the Trojan mouse effect persist in any new learning environment?
Any novel medium with or through which learning, is done serves to foreground not the medium but the meaning of learning
i,e, discussions about e-learning are really discussions about learning

6. Outline The environment The learning design The topics Evaluation
Elluminate
Brookes Blogs
The learning design
The topics
Evaluation
The questions

7. Elluminate
New breed of collaboration tools allowing people to be simultaneously present in an desk-top computing environment based on a classroom metaphor
2-way voice & video communication
Text chat
Graphics
A “White Board” on which “Slides” can be displayed
Presenters
Participants
Icon-tools such as “hand-raising”, emoticons (smiley faces), polling

9. Uses Teaching events Meetings
Distributed/distant co-presence at face-to- face events (conference streams)
Benefits
Reduced travel – time, cost and carbon saving (?)
Recorded for replay
Distributed groups

10. Disbenefits? Technical Cultural Expectation management
The Internet is not like the movies: Lag
Hardware/software compatibility
Institutional firewalls
Cultural
Literacy: how to use the $%^&*! thing
Community:
Interruptability, participation, open plan spaces
Identity: representation of the self
Expectation management
It is different from both face-to-face and “traditional” on- line discussion-based distributed elearning

11. Learning Design Website “home page”
joining instructions and briefs
Familiarisation sessions
Simple activity flow
Breaks and continuity

14. Topics Identity Literacy Community Technical/political Ego Social
Multi-literacies
Skills and competence
Community
Image:

15. Community and literacy have become “aerosol words”
Constructed communities and constructed identities (where there is an intentional aspect) are problematic where authenticity is valued
Literacy is a function of community and identity
Digital one-days introduce genre questions which expose the inter-relatedness of these concepts
With academic & digital literacy, communities of learning & practice, and online identity (Facebook etc), these concepts are exposed as foundational or threshold concepts for doing and being in higher education

16. Evaluation
Some considered the online interface ‘much richer than face-to-face sessions’, found the different channels useful.
‘Interesting and productive environment’ effectively replicated a face to face workshop/seminar in terms of medium and activities.
Useful learning medium once acclimatised
Breakout groups worked well for engagement
Interesting conceptual stuff from the panel discussion
Excellent questions raised
The moderators and the participants with different views of a very interesting topic, with moderation that made sure that all was somehow held together
The experience of taking part in online learning in this format.
The (useful) flow of presentation through to reflection and discussion

17. Challenges
A participant who thought the familiarisation session went well referred to the session itself as ‘fraught with problems’.
Participant who came late took the first 30 minutes to catch up, experienced technical difficulties particularly with sound at first and did not manage to get a webcam working at all.
Communication a challenge in the medium. Sound problems
Difficulty with giving attention to a presentation for full 20 minutes
Bandwidth broke up audio in breakout groups
Attending an online workshop from the work place different from attending a face to face events as the presence of the web, msn, and telephone is distraction affecting concentration; needs discipline

18. Questions
Might identity, literacy and community be threshold concepts in educational development?
Does the Trojan mouse effect persist in any new learning environment?
Any novel medium with or through which learning, is done serves to foreground not the medium but the meaning of learning
i.e. discussions about e-learning are really discussions about learning

19. Thank you George Roberts, Rhona Sharpe, Patsy Clarke
Josie Fraser, Helen Keegan,
Helen Beetham, Richard Francis, Frances Bell