Week 6 Discussion Summary

This week, we were split into smaller groups of 5 people. Each person posted what they thought the most significant quote from the week's reading was. Then everyone in the group posted a short response to that, and finally the original poster had a final say on their own quote. It was an interesting way to run a discussion, although it seemed difficult to say everything on a topic in 50 or 100 words though and really come to a big conclusion on anything. It also seemed hard to advance the topic with such a restriction on the word and post limit. Our group talked about things such as developing a strong framework, using examples, spending more time on doing activities, using games, and deciding how much blending of classroom and eLearning there should be for a course.

My most valuable contribution was my initial post on the quote I found most significant:

“Many lectures have too much theory and not enough concrete, specific, realistic examples. Remember, not everyone can reason from general concepts to particular applications, or at least not without the help of examples that they can understand and apply.” (Horton, p. 64)

"This part of the lesson centered around using examples in eLearning. When the instructor cannot see the student’s response during the course or lesson (where the student’s face or questions can convey lack of understanding), it is important to have included many examples designed to make sure the concepts can be understood and applied. Having more examples might help make up for the lack of direct interaction between students or with the instructor by giving the student more concrete evidence on which to base their learning instead of trying to draw from theory alone."

I feel this was my best contribution because it introduced an idea that is very important to consider when designing eLearning, something that must be kept in mind. It is something that will be useful in our Web Conference coming up. Being able to give good examples will help people understand the topic and be able to discuss it better. Using examples helps people understand topics and be able to apply them to their lives. In the discussion that ensued we came to the conclusion that the examples needed to be valid and realistic to be effective. Otherwise, they may come across as a waste of time to the learner.

I am looking forward to the future discussions, since I found it a little hard to do a lot of in depth focus on this one. I will have to consider more the usefulness of this type of discussion as compared to other methods.