The most memorable online learning experience that I have had would be in this semester in another online course that I am taking. This course focuses on interactive multimedia and consists of creating tools to help people learn something. For example, one of the projects we had to complete was creating a comic strip that taught a targeted audience something. Whatever the topic was about, it needed to do something that myself and my partner had already mastered. This can be related to the Learning and Teaching as Communicative Actions (LTCA) theory, specifically the dramaturgical communicative actions. Dramaturgical communicative actions are those that allow the learner to reflect and create something based on the knowledge they now possess (Crosslin, 2018). I have found the projects within that particular class really engaging because I not only get to explain things that I have already mastered, but I get to “teach” it in a new way. Until that class I had never thought that a comic strip could be used to teach someone a concept. However, after creating my own and then getting the chance to review other students’ work, it became clear to me that comics can indeed be a very useful learning tool. And going back to the idea of dramaturgical communication actions, it was interesting to be learning but be showing mastery at the same time. On one hand I was learning how to use the software in which you create the comic strip, but on the other I was showing mastery of the topic my comic was about.
Another memorable thing from that online class is learning how rich media can be for learning. Another project we had was making a screencast video teaching viewers how to do something on a computer. Bates (2019) says that video media is always richer than a textbook simply because it has more than one thing going on. Video often has audio and visuals, which can enhance someone’s learning more so than just an audio or visual. Making the screencast video was an interesting process, and I learned that there was much more to think about. For example, I had to make sure that I was explaining things properly and that I was being clear but also making sure that what I was doing on the screen was matching what I was saying. I know that having the audio and visual in sync was important, and was definitely more difficult that expected. Here is the screencast video myself and my partner made!
Speaking of synchronicity, the last thing I would like to discuss is the semi-synchronous structure of this online course. This course was asynchronous in a way because we were able to conduct the projects whenever we wanted, as all the information we needed was accessible from day one. However, there was some synchronicity in that there were still hard deadlines for the projects. This meant that students could do the projects whenever they wanted, but still had to hand them in on a certain day. I found this to be useful because I could get ahead if I wanted to, but also had some structure to guide myself.
Bates, T. (2019). Understanding technology in education. https://via.hypothes.is/https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadi gitalagev2/part/chapter-8-understanding-technology/
Crosslin, M. (2018). Effective Practices in Distributed and Open Learning. https://via.hypothes.is/https://uta.pressbooks.pub/onlinelearning/cha pter/chapter-5-effective-practices/