All posts by Ashanti Morgan

About Ashanti Morgan

Ashanti Morgan is a Senior Instructional Technology Consultant and Program Manager for the Global Learning Experience (GLE) initiative at DePaul University. She also teaches computer productivity courses online as an adjunct professor in DePaul's School for New Learning.

Ashanti has been working in the instructional design industry for over a decade in a variety of sectors including higher education, K-12, and non-profit. In her current role at DePaul, she manages faculty training, strategic planning, and global course development for the GLE program, an initiative that exposes students to intercultural exchanges while collaborating virtually with students abroad. She also provides instructional design expertise to faculty in a variety of disciplines across the university.

Ashanti earned her master’s degree in Instructional Technology from Northern Illinois University. She also obtained her bachelor’s degree in Organizational & Corporate Communication from Northern Illinois University.

Public Speaking Online: Can It or Can’t It Be Done?

Business and professional communication is an essential skill, but it no longer takes place solely in person. An important component in preparing students to segue to a professional career is ensuring that they have a plethora of experiences—today, this should include working in a virtual space.  

Many industries offer telecommuting options, require global Web-based presentations, etc. Students who are charged with working in these organizations must understand the etiquette when communicating synchronously and asynchronously.

So developing an online course in public speaking must include a myriad of opportunities to create experiences that enable students to hone communicating in an online context.

As the instructional designer for this type of online course, I spent countless hours researching what strategies other institutions (higher education and professional industries) employ when teaching a public speaking course online (one of the more popular online courses) or communicating in a professional setting.

After sifting through several examples, I created sample projects segmented by synchronous and asynchronous solutions. It was important to distinguish between the types of solutions to ensure that students get experience working with each. See the sample projects listed in the table below.

Synchronous Presentations

Sample Project Description

Examples of Technology Applications

Utilizing a web conferencing solution, create groups of students that deliver presentations in real-time to one another along with the faculty member.
  • Wimba
  • Adobe Connect
  • Blackboard Collaborate

Sample Project Description

Examples of Technology Applications

Utilizing a video recording device, require students to obtain a set number of audience members and someone to film them delivering a speech.

  • Optional: Require students to pan the audience to ensure that the criterion is met
  • Camera phone/video camera
  • Flip camera
  • Video camcorder

 

Asynchronous Presentations

Sample Project Description

Examples of Technology Applications

Utilizing a video-recording device, require students to record themselves delivering a speech.
  • Webcam recording
  • Camera phone/video camera
  • Flip camera
  • Video camcorder

Sample Project Description

Examples of Technology Applications

Utilizing an application that enables audio narration, require students to create and record a narrated PowerPoint presentation. Students submit the PowerPoint.
  • Screencast software
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Voicethread

Each of these examples lends itself to creating different experiences for students to communicate professionally in a virtual space.

As technology becomes more ubiquitous in global work settings, students who are acclimated to presenting in multifaceted formats are better equipped to deliver on-demand and work with a variety of technologies.

Illustrative Multimedia: Meaningful Enhancement of Online Course Content

Multimedia is not a new concept. It’s been around in multifaceted forms long before learning management systems and the development of online courses came to fruition.

If asked “what’s the most popular form of media in today’s society?” one would be able to argue the Internet or television depending on your generation, technological savviness, etc. With the evolution of the Internet and the creation and mass use of online video services such as Hulu and video sharing websites such as YouTube, having access to varied forms of multimedia is becoming increasingly more common. So should professors and instructional designers incorporate multimedia from sites like these into an online course? In my humble opinion, absolutely. These sites offer content from a variety of credible entities. With course design, whether face-to-face or online, vetting what peripheral resources are included is essential.

For the purposes of this blog, let’s look at Merriam-Webster’s definition of multimedia:

  • Multimedia (noun): a technique (as the combining of sound, video, and text) for expressing ideas (as in communication, entertainment, or art) in which several media are employed; also : something (as software) using or facilitating such a technique

When developing an online course, the collective use of audio, video, and text can certainly enhance course content, but can it detract from it? I would argue yes. Clark and Mayer (2003) suggest that instead of presenting words alone, we recommend presenting words with pictures. Our recommendation is not to add pictures that decorate the page (called decorative illustrations) but instead to add pictures that help the learner understand the material (called explanative illustrations).

Being strategic is imperative not only in identifying which textbook to use, journal article to reference, or technology to incorporate into your course, but also when deciding which forms of multimedia will enhance the fundamental concept being discussed.

So, what should one consider when selecting media? The first question I would ask myself is “does the medium help illustrate and contextualize the concept(s) for a given topic?” If the answer is yes, then utilizing differentiated media can address varied learning styles. The use of audio, visual, and kinesthetic multimedia and learning activities helps to liven up the course by supporting learner engagement.

In a course that I recently developed, I had the pleasure of working with an innovative professor who identified television sitcoms and motion pictures to help articulate the course concepts. When she was unable to find existing media, this professor strategically utilized resources such as theater majors on campus to portray and video record these concepts.

There are a plethora of resources that exist on the Internet and internal resources available through most higher education institutions. The need to develop new content is unlikely given that individuals and organizations have made acquiring content much more conducive via proper permissions (i.e., creative commons, licensing rights via authentic websites, etc.) to utilize their content.

Once you have the framework of your course solidified, identifying (and in the professor’s case, creating) illustrative multimedia can help to ensure that your course content is relevant and piques students’ interest.

Resources

Constructing Effective Online-Learning Environments via the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Framework

As designers developing online courses, we’re always looking for purposeful ways to ensure that the instructor, content, and student interactions are strategic, cohesive, and meaningful.

What’s more, we are also tasked with staying abreast of and introducing faculty to research, theories, and methodology associated with constructing rigorous and effective online pedagogy.

At the 27th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning, the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework was the focus of several sessions including sessions from Northwestern University, the University of Illinois Springfield, and Capella University. Intrigued by the implications of the framework, I wanted to learn more about the framework’s efficacy in higher education.

The premise of the CoI framework suggests that creating an effective online experience requires a collaborative community. The CoI framework, developed by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) is defined as follows:

An educational community of inquiry is a group of individuals who collaboratively engage in purposeful critical discourse and reflection to construct personal meaning and confirm mutual understanding.

The Community of Inquiry theoretical framework represents a process of creating a deep and meaningful (collaborative-constructivist) learning experience through the development of three interdependent elements—social, cognitive, and teaching presence.

  • Social presence is “the ability of participants to identify with the community (e.g., course of study), communicate purposefully in a trusting environment, and develop inter-personal relationships by way of projecting their individual personalities” (Garrison, 2009).
  • Teaching Presence is the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes (Anderson, Rourke, Garrison, & Archer, 2001).
  • Cognitive Presence is the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2001).

CoI is a framework that many higher-education institutions cite to inform, and in some cases measure, the effectiveness of online-course development.

The granular elements of the CoI Framework are listed in the table below. The “categories” and “indicators” provide explicit examples of how , the CoI model elements can be interpreted by an online-course designer.

Garrison D, Arbaugh J. Researching the community of inquiry framework: Review, issues, and future directions. Internet & Higher Education [serial online]. July 2007;10(3):157-172.

In 2007, a peripheral resource, the CoI survey instrument was developed and ultimately, validated. This survey instrument correlates with the CoI framework and is being utilized in studies at some institutions as an end-of-course evaluative tool.

As a course designer, I’m always looking for ways to equip faculty with a slew of resources to get the wheels turning as they think through the course content and design.

For some professors, it can seem intimidating at the outset of development to segue from teaching face-to-face to online. It’s especially challenging to identify strategies that will translate to meaningful online teaching presence. One strategy to brainstorm ideas for not only teaching presence but cognitive and social as well is utilizing the CoI framework elements to flesh out assessments and learning activities that align with each.

For example, with social presence, the professor can structure discussions via group cohorts that are led by a weekly discussion leader. This strategy allows students to establish a rapport with the cohort members. Additionally, students are empowered and accountable for the content they are charged with leading during their respective week.

Concepts such as these would serve as an invaluable resource to faculty members, especially those new to teaching online. Creating a central repository for faculty members to share and collect resources may serve as a community for online pedagogical strategies.

RESOURCES

The Community of Inquiry website:
http://communitiesofinquiry.com/
http://communitiesofinquiry.com/methodology

Garrison D, Arbaugh J. Researching the community of inquiry framework: Review, issues, and future directions. Internet & Higher Education [serial online]. July 2007;10(3):157-172. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed August 29, 2011.

Arbaugh, J.B., Cleveland-Innes, M., Diaz, S.R., Garrison, D.R., Ice, P., Richardson & Swan, K.P. (2008). Developing a community of inquiry instrument: Testing a measure of the Community of Inquiry framework using a multi-institutional sample. The Internet and Higher Education. 11 (3-4), 133-136.