Today I was in Stirling for a Glow technical meeting. It's fair to say that a good bit of it was too technical for me but there was some interesting stuff there too. In particular, I had my first look at the Virtual Learning Environment - GlowLearn.
Now, before I go any further, I should say that I am extraordinarily sceptical about Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) in general. In my experience, most are more about content delivery than about learning. Delivering content is of course a part of learning but there is so much more to learning than content. Most VLEs also provide management and assessment tools, however, I find the assessment tools (in general) fairly limited too. If I had a free choice of Virtual Learning Environment, I'd go for FirstClass, especially FirstClassEd which can do the content delivery, digital portfolio and assessment stuff but is stronger on communication and collaboration tools than the other environments I've seen. It seems to me that the creation and support of communities of learners is more important that simply delivering content and administering quizzes.
So, if I seem overly critical of GlowLearn, it's probably my dislike of VLEs in general that's the problem. I'll try to restrict myself therefore to four observations.
Firstly, GlowLearn seems to be largely about content delivery and quiz administration. :-) However, I suppose the point is that GlowLearn is only one aspect of Glow and the whole package (it could be argued) is about the creation and support of a community of learners.
Secondly, the interface looked fairly dull - largely text based. I suppose that it's not dissimilar to the rest of Glow in that respect. However, it is only a pilot testing version, so perhaps they are more interested in checking the functionality at this stage.
Thirdly, although I said GlowLearn is largely content delivery and quiz administration, there is quite a nice wee feature that allows you to attach short messages to tasks/assignments or quizzes. I think that this has potential. It could allow focused conversations about specific aspects of your online course. For instance, you could attach a private message to a quiz for a student along the lines of, "Well done on the last quiz Jimmy. This one's a bit trickier though, so think carefully before attempting question 5." I could see it having value as a means of providing targeted feedback and support to individuals. However, I do worry that it sits outside the rest of the Glow messaging system. The danger is that pupils could have messages here, there and everywhere and not even know they exist. Some sort of coComment system of pulling messages together in the one place, ...or a mechanism for forwarding them automatically to a pupil's email account, ...or an RSS feed of messages, ...or something similar, would seem essential. {As an aside, RSS seems to be conspicuous by its absence across the whole of Glow. That seems like a mistake. :-) }
Fourthly, the chap said that every quiz had to be submitted to a teacher for marking. I think that's bizarre! The feature I would find most useful would be to create an automatically marked, instant feedback quiz so that the pupils themselves could check their understanding without requiring input from the teacher. The instant and anonymous marking of a quiz like this is what makes them attractive to pupils. The presenter seemed open to the idea of instant feedback quizzes but made it sound like they just hadn't thought about it. Hopefully it will appear in post-pilot versions of GlowLearn. :-)
Sorry if I seem to have been grumpy throughout this post. I am in fact pleased to see the various bits of Glow starting to come together. Up until now it has felt a bit like vaporware, but it's good to see things coming together that teachers and pupils can use.
What would you look for in a VLE? Can anyone offer good examples of VLE use to counter my cynical attitude?
Now, before I go any further, I should say that I am extraordinarily sceptical about Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) in general. In my experience, most are more about content delivery than about learning. Delivering content is of course a part of learning but there is so much more to learning than content. Most VLEs also provide management and assessment tools, however, I find the assessment tools (in general) fairly limited too. If I had a free choice of Virtual Learning Environment, I'd go for FirstClass, especially FirstClassEd which can do the content delivery, digital portfolio and assessment stuff but is stronger on communication and collaboration tools than the other environments I've seen. It seems to me that the creation and support of communities of learners is more important that simply delivering content and administering quizzes.
So, if I seem overly critical of GlowLearn, it's probably my dislike of VLEs in general that's the problem. I'll try to restrict myself therefore to four observations.
Firstly, GlowLearn seems to be largely about content delivery and quiz administration. :-) However, I suppose the point is that GlowLearn is only one aspect of Glow and the whole package (it could be argued) is about the creation and support of a community of learners.
Secondly, the interface looked fairly dull - largely text based. I suppose that it's not dissimilar to the rest of Glow in that respect. However, it is only a pilot testing version, so perhaps they are more interested in checking the functionality at this stage.
Thirdly, although I said GlowLearn is largely content delivery and quiz administration, there is quite a nice wee feature that allows you to attach short messages to tasks/assignments or quizzes. I think that this has potential. It could allow focused conversations about specific aspects of your online course. For instance, you could attach a private message to a quiz for a student along the lines of, "Well done on the last quiz Jimmy. This one's a bit trickier though, so think carefully before attempting question 5." I could see it having value as a means of providing targeted feedback and support to individuals. However, I do worry that it sits outside the rest of the Glow messaging system. The danger is that pupils could have messages here, there and everywhere and not even know they exist. Some sort of coComment system of pulling messages together in the one place, ...or a mechanism for forwarding them automatically to a pupil's email account, ...or an RSS feed of messages, ...or something similar, would seem essential. {As an aside, RSS seems to be conspicuous by its absence across the whole of Glow. That seems like a mistake. :-) }
Fourthly, the chap said that every quiz had to be submitted to a teacher for marking. I think that's bizarre! The feature I would find most useful would be to create an automatically marked, instant feedback quiz so that the pupils themselves could check their understanding without requiring input from the teacher. The instant and anonymous marking of a quiz like this is what makes them attractive to pupils. The presenter seemed open to the idea of instant feedback quizzes but made it sound like they just hadn't thought about it. Hopefully it will appear in post-pilot versions of GlowLearn. :-)
Sorry if I seem to have been grumpy throughout this post. I am in fact pleased to see the various bits of Glow starting to come together. Up until now it has felt a bit like vaporware, but it's good to see things coming together that teachers and pupils can use.
What would you look for in a VLE? Can anyone offer good examples of VLE use to counter my cynical attitude?
Technorati Tags: Glow, GlowLearn, Virtual Learning Environments, VLE, DavidDMuir, EdCompBlog
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