Nicholas Bowskill

Yes I agree Susan. i think it could be difficult indeed online but fun to try maybe. I guess I'm thinking about at least changing the emphasis to include more graphics - but production, understanding etc may be issues.

i think it would be interesting to see how others interpret the term graphic representation too. The pie-charts we use are generated as a summary of a discussion - basically to bring together small groups and then to bring together the view of their ideas across the room. We've then explored them being put online to sustain the dialogue or develop it.

Last message from Oz as I'm off for the plane home in an hour or so. See you all online again in around 2 days. G'Day!

Nick

G'day from a rainy Sydney. It's Saturday morning here and despite some strong showers they're still surfing and jogging out there.

Vance thanks for that list. There certainly are some great resources out there. The more integrated they can be within the VLE the better but that's often not too much of a problem. thanks.

G'Day Susan ;-)

Thanks for your interest in this and there are a number of ways I've worked with these ideas.

1. A Chinese tutor created a graphic/diagram to summarise the discussion for both Chinese and English participants. The idea was really to support the Chinese but it actually helped and stimulated everyone's thinking.

Following this initiative others then followed and generated their own graphical responses. There wasn't a lot of them but it was enough to suggest the idea of student-generated graphics as a basis for inter-cultural communication. Useful particularly where one group is at a disadvantage in terms of the language used for the course.

I could see your tools following a similar pattern if the control was shared. In fact it would be interesting to experience an exchange based primarily on graphical representations of communication with text as a secondary mode wouldn't it?

I can also see how your really interesting and valuable contribution could also feed into further work on inter-cultural and open course moderation. Our work touched on it and we were really aware of this as a new project idea but we haven't had funding to do more on that just yet. There are opportunities for you and others there perhaps.



2. We organised face to face sessions (different context and project to the one above) in which we ran Shared Thinking sessions to support collective reflection. The visualisation of the multiple perspectives, generated by the process, was used as part of the face to face session but also went online. This product - typically a pie-chart - was then used in a discussion forum to allow wider participation (and further involvement of those involved). In addition, I developed an image gallery feature to allow researchers to compare and contrast products (all anonymous) from different sessions. This aims to support individual participants, group discussions and research. See http://sharedthinking.info for an overview and a sample of the emerging gallery as a demo of knowledge-building (following Scardemalia and Bereiter for that bit).

Hi from a very hot and sunny Sydney. Really sorry to have missed the session but I will try and listen to the recording and the slides look interesting already.

I really share your point Sylvia about the role of the graphic recording tool on there. Is this something open only to the presenters? I can see a lot of applications for it under the student control.

Shared visualisation and representation is something that interests me greatly. When we did a project with China we made a shift from text as the main vehicle for communication between UK-based participants and those in China. It was introduced by one of the Chinese co-tutors who was aware of the experience of the Chinese learners struggling to comprehend and communicate in English. They were very capable at doing both but time-pressures and the flow of the conversation made pressure for them so one of the Chinese tutors mediated by representing and summarising discussions through visuals.

So, I can see how this tool or facility can support and develop inter-cultural collaboration particularly in mixed teams and mixed time-zones on a course. I think sometimes when we design for online learning we are still working in a very limited vision of distributed but like-minded participants. There is a whole-shift again to one in which we change to organising collaboration to be culturally sensitive and to work with diversity as a resource rather than a challenge.

Anyway, before I go off on a major ramble (which is actually a sign of you having reached my mind with these comments and ideas) let me say thanks again and if you have any more on this and different applications you've tried or identified do please share them. Many thanks.

Nick
not in Glasgow! ;-)

Hi Folks,

I've been pre-occupied with organising a conference trip and I'm leaving tomorrow for Australia. However, I do hope to be picking up messages on the way and once there so no reason not to participate.

I don't think we ever got to looking at the video resources did we? In the spirit of OER why don't we explore them together? We could start with the Introductory video and/or look at the others afterwards. Here's the link

http://www.viu.ca/iel/teachlearn/art_of_teaching_2/intro.asp

Has anyone any thoughts on them individually or even as a set? I picked out what students do, what tutors do and what the activities look like as a broad framework. Does that help?

Nick,

Scotland