What is e-learning?

Uses for e-learning

E-Learning Tools

Turning Traditional Learning into e-Learning

VLEs

Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are web applications that run on a server and are accessed via a web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.) They are designed to assist with the delivery and organisation of courses. They often contain, discussion forums, chat areas, areas for delivering content, tests, quizzes and grade books. Courses can be delivered entirely online but by and large courses are ‘blended’; traditional lectures and seminars supported and enhanced by use of a VLE.

VLEs generally have two ways of being viewed; as a student or as a teacher/instructor. The student view shows the courses the student is enrolled in and all the relevant material for those courses. The teacher/instructor view allows materials to be created, added and edited. Teachers/Instructors don’t need to know about web design in order to use a VLE as they include all the features required in one relatively easy to use package.

VLEs are in essence ‘delivery systems’ with most e-learning able to be delivered though a VLE. For a particular chunk of e-learning, it may not actually be the VLE that is facilitating the learning but the chunk of e-learning is delivered to the learner by the VLE. An example could be a podcast of a lecture that a student can access by going to the relevant part of their course site on a VLE.

Examples of VLEs include Blackboard, WebCT, and Moodle.

Blogs

The term blog is a shortened form of weblog, a web-based, reverse chronologically ordered log of posts. Many blogs are posts about a single topic of the authors choosing, however, there are also many blogs which are used as an online journal or diary of someone’s life.

In education blogs can be useful to keep a daily or weekly progress report, on study; on a project, on a class, as a reflective journal.

A brilliant feature of blogs is their ability to have RSS feeds which notify readers when a new post has been made, rather than requiring readers to constantly check for new posts.

RSS

Really Simple Syndication/Rich Site Summary are known as RSS feeds, Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis, are common tools associated with RSS. A summary with links back to the source site is provided by an XML feed which end users access through a feed reader or aggregator such as Google Reader or Netvibes.

These summaries of new posts automatically arrive in the feed reader and alert the user to new reading available. Rather than going out to every site you are interested in to check for new information, it comes to you! A bit like having a newspaper delivered to your door rather than going to the newsagent to collect it.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking allows you to organise your bookmarks or favourites online so that they are always available wherever you have an internet connection. This is unlike your bookmarks or favourites in your web browser, which are only available on your computer. You can organise your bookmarks into separate categories using ‘Tags’ and share them with other people, for example tagging a bookmark with a module code. These tools are also ideal for collaboration. An example could be where a group of learners create their own web resource list. del.icio.us is probably the most well known example of a social bookmarking tool, others are mentioned in the Wikipedia article on Social Bookmarking.

Blackboard has built a social bookmarking tool called Scholar into its latest release. This can be used to create bookmarks on a course-by-course basis and bookmarks can be shared across courses and with other (invited) scholars (on campus or further afield).  Depending on how you feel about opening up your teaching resources with people other than your students, you may find Scholar's somewhat "walled garden" approach either appeals to you or adds unacceptable constraints . You can import your bookmarks from your browser or del.icio.us account into Scholar, but it seems to be a one way trip. It would be nicer if it could interoperate with social bookmarking sites rather than try to establish its own exclusive space: if only because you probably have more than one way of discovering, storing, and sharing your bookmarks.

For an entertaining introduction to social bookmarking, watch the Common Craft video Social Bookmarking in Plain English. The video itself can be ambedded in your Blog, Wiki and even Blackboard as a useful introduction to this topic for your students.

[Comment: I could have but haven't embedded it here because it may be useful to have a separate page for such videos. What do others think? Chris Jobling]

Wikis

Wikis are a set of web pages which can be quickly and easily edited through a web-browser. The main feature of a Wiki is an 'edit' link or button on the page which gives you a simple editing panel enabling you to add content without needing to know any web languages.

Wikis are brilliant tools for collaborative activities, such as brainstorming, group projects, collaborative document creation and many more. They can be used both as a creative tool and a presentation tool.

Where did the term Wiki come from? Wiki is the Hawaiian word for 'Quick' and was thus chosen as the name for software that makes editing web pages a quick process.

If you want to experiment with Wikis, there is now a Wiki component that you can add to any Blackboard course page. It is not dissimilar to this wiki but it is visible only to the participants in a module.

Podcasts

Short audio clips available to be shared by an RSS feed.

• The power of podcasting over ordinary downloadable audio clips is their ability to be automatically downloaded to listener’s computers and even synchronised with their audio device, e.g MP3 player or iPod.
• Podcasting is a good medium for sharing additional resources, interviews, book passages, key point summaries.
• The audio format allows resources to be heard wherever the listener is.
• It is not restricted to the lecturer's own audio. Other podcasts, lectureres, historical recordings, etc. can also be made available in this form (providing fair-use copyright law allows this of course!)

Podcasting case study:

One lecturer at Swansea records his lectures and after minimum post-processing adds his recordings to his Blackboard course pages using the new Podcast tool. Form Blackboard you can choose to have Blackboard either deliver the audio as a streaming MP3 (plays within Blackboard or can be downloaded) or have Blackboard construct a subscribable iTunes compatible RSS feed for the whole sequence. (The latter option requires that the RSS feed be published on the public Internet which, unfortunately perhaps, does make your podcasts discoverable by search engines.) The MP3 files themselves can either be uploaded into Blackboard or linked to a URL if the audio is stored on another web server. The latter allows the possibility of linking other people's audio into your lectures!

Video

Video has a variety of uses including film and television programmes, demonstrations, language learning, videos of lectures and reviewing students’ work e.g. filming and then analysing the performance – either tutor, peer of self-review. Video can be put on DVD or CD or delivered over the web using streaming.

Forums

Web forums, internet forums, message boards, web boards, discussion boards, discussion forums, discussion groups and bulletin boards are all different terms for the same potentially powerful tool. They are in effect online spaces where learners and tutors can leave and reply to messages. Forums allow learners to communicate with each other at any time ‘asynchronously’ - they don’t have to be online at the same time. Because of this they can take their time when composing their replies. This can be hugely beneficial to those for whom English is a second language, those with communicative difficulties or those who generally find it difficult to contribute to face to face discussions in traditional seminars.

Chat

Chat tools allow real-time (synchronous) communication between one or more people. Unlike forums, everyone needs to online at the same time to chat. Chat can involve typed questions and answers or, increasingly, audio. Various common tools for online chat include MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Skype, with most VLEs also containing one or more ways to use online chat.

Chat can be used for a wide variety of purposes – for online seminars, interviews, online office hours etc.

Assessment Tools

Most VLEs contain assessment tools which can handle a variety of question types – multiple-choice, matching, multiple-response, text and so on. There are also dedicated assessment tools, both commercial and non-commercial. Examples include Question Mark Perception, Respondus, and Hot Potatoes.

Content Creation Tools

There are numerous commercial and free tools for creating self-paced learning materials. Some require a high level of technical skill such as Flash and Toolbook, while others require only basic IT skills for example Course Genie, Quandary, LAMS, and Microsoft Producer, to name but a few.