Synchronous Conversation, A Reflection

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Synchronous Conversation,

A Reflection

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Twitter: @jonacuso

Post 205

When asked about the successes and challenges I experienced during the Laureate Faculty Development’s Hybrid and Blended Learning Certificate training, I must confess that there are more successes than any other thing. Even today my personal satisfaction with this instructional model continues to be fruitful and very successful, I continue to believe that this educational model remains incredibly interesting and a field that needs to be researched much more. On the other hand, when I dropped in the certificate online classes, lots of the data proposed to us participants were not new to me. I had been trying out some sort of online learning with my language students at Universidad Latina ever since I studied through the Distant Education Program, at the English Language Institute, University of Oregon. What the Laureate certificate has given me is the rationale and theory I was lacking to ground my teaching practices today much more effectively and soundly.

Through this certificate I expanded and continue expanding lots of the basic concepts proposed by my two instructors at the University of Oregon, Sandra Jeffs and Deborah Healy, who guided my first steps into this virtual learning/teaching journey. Because of these two professors I got confronted with the LoTi Assessment (LOTI Levels of Technology Integration, n.d.), and then –as a language instructor- I made the decision to become much better in the use of technology. Due to my in-depth analysis of LoTi and my former training with the University of Oregon and with a Language Fellow, Skye McLeod, appointed to Costa Rica by the Department of State of the US, I started carrying out empirical blended language teaching and learning for my students at the university by creating several Web pages with content for my courses, which ended up being open 24/7 and beyond the course time boundaries.

LoTi Diagram (LOTI Levels of Technology Integration, n.d.)

When introduced to the Universidad Latina’s Moodle platform, I was really quick in starting to use all possible tools provided by the system. I have come to a point in my professional development and practice in which my courses are some sort of a “flipped classroom” where we come to class to discuss projects and results, but via online I provide whatever I consider necessary for them to complete learning tasks and fulfil the learning outcomes that have been traced per each week of work. The experience has been quite satisfactory and fulfilling, too. I have also learned lots from my empirical attempts and from my students who have been willing to be guided and taught in this way. This has been the greatest achievement or success with my content and language courses at the university. And the Laureate Certificate has given me a much wider understanding of what initiated almost eight years ago, back in January 2008.

While working on one of the modules of the certificate, to have us experience what it meant to be part of synchronous communication, we were asked to get together online despite our location on the planet or our time zone. In terms of the tool used for a synchronous meeting with some of my online partners in the certificate, I suggested using AnyMeeting.Com, a free virtual classroom service that can hold up to 100 participants at the same time. As for its advantages, AnyMeeting.Com allows you to create a virtual meeting room where the host can send as many invitations as there are participants. Anyone can join the classroom and be able to be seen by other participants (as long as they have their webcam on); meeting guests are able to chat while the host is talking (There is a small place to chat and post questions for the speaker.); and anyone can be promoted to be a speaker and to share from videos to documents with the rest of the partners. Its only two drawbacks in its free version is that AnyMeeting.Com has advertisements on the right side of the meeting room (since it is sponsored to be used freely by anyone) and does not allow you to record the meeting (a feature for paying users). But aside from that, there are no issues to complain about. It will remind participants via email, one day before the meeting starts that they have to sign into the classroom without having to sign in for an account.

“Synchronous learning environments support learning and teaching and offer students and teachers with multiple ways of interacting, sharing, and the ability to collaborate and ask questions in real-time through synchronous learning technologies” (Higley, n.d.). Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) should not be the exception to become a way to propitiate deep learning experiences to our students; they should be fair grounds for life-long lasting learning that can become applicable in any hybrid, online or blended teaching scenario, especially when using “synchronous learning technologies” that can potentiate this deep learning we instructors want to see among our learners competencies.

References

Higley, M. (n.d.). Benefits of Synchronous and Asynchronous e-Learning. Retrieved from eLearning Industry: http://elearningindustry.com/benefits-of-synchronous-and-asynchronous-e-learning

LOTI Levels of Technology Integration. (n.d.). Retrieved from Educational Origami: http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/LOTI