Portfolio task 2
Analyse Salmon’s model. Does it resonate with the ways in which you teach face to face? Do you have any online experiences that can be reflected on in light of this model? Read the full article by Mazzaloni and Madison. How does this support or challenge Salmon’s notions?


Experience of Stage 1:
Salmon’s model explains different stages/ levels of e-tivities. What is an e-tivity? According to Salmon an e-tivity:
· Interests, energizes, involves the reader and has a purpose
· Allows participants to interact through text based messages
· Is created, planned and lead by an e-moderator
· Is asynchronous
· Is run on bulletin boards, chat rooms, forums, etc.
· Is easy and cheap to conduct

E-tivities consist of the following:
· A small provocative statement or question which invites answers, discussions, etc.
· An invitation which explains the online topic, the purpose of the e-tivity and also the norms for interaction
· It is an online activity consisting of contributors/ participants
· Is moderated by a knowledgeable person who also takes the responsibility of clarification, summing up, giving feedback and providing direction
E-tivities can be categorized into 5 stages. These are
Stage 1: Access
Stage 2: Socialisation
Stage 3: Information exchange
Stage 4: Knowledge construction
Stage 5: Development

Stage 1: Access
Stage 1 sets out that the starting point to any e-tivity is to be able to logon successfully and use the software and knowledge of how to carry out the needed activity.

“What really matters here is acquiring the emotional and social capacity to learn with others online. Technical skills can be acquired and disposed of as needs be. Feelings about being unable to take part successfully are more significant than precise technical skills.” (Salmon 2002, p 12)

“At stage 1, e-moderators should first focus on building e-tivities that enable participants to become involved and contribute and start to develop skills for themselves. Stage 1 e-tivities should directly enable participants to increase their comfort with the use of the technology in an integrated and worthwhile way for them….
The key is to mobilize participants' understanding about why they are learning, why in this way, as well as what they have to do to take part. Even the most apparently confident individuals need support at the beginning.” (Salmon 2002, p 16)

“To demonstrate value at stage 1, make it very clear to participants the purpose of your programmes of e-tivities (for them) or how stage 1 links to and integrates with the rest of the learning or networking process, its role in assessed compo­nents (tests and assignments) and the amount of time they should allocate to working on it.” (Salmon 2002, p 17)

Stage 1 seems obvious needed and crucial. If it does not happen, no e-tivity takes place. When you are unable to log into the activity it can be very frustrating. E.g. The experience of the video conference in this elearning module.

So much happened before the event (the video conference) actually started, before I logged on and knew what to do that I think there should be a Stage Zero in Salmon’s model. Two weeks or so before the event, the organizer of the event, the instructor and moderator, Stevie sent out emails announcing the event. She had divided the e-learning ‘class’ into smaller groups of 3 people- two students and a moderator and scheduled for different days and times. She was thoughtful about the time I could join the event- being in another country and time zone. The video conference I would participate in was set for about 4:30 pm UK time, I could participate, as I normally did, after my work day starting 9:00 pm.
Something at Stevie’s end changed and just before the event was to take place, the event was rescheduled to another day and time, but the exact day and time would be announced later. It was announced later but using a different form of e-communication. The first announcement was conveniently made by email, the details of the second were announced in NOW! There was a link which had software the participants had to download to start the video conference. This was available through a link in NOW.

I remembered the day and time for the event. I normally took the elearning calls at home, but
· My internet connection at home was not working,
· The internet connection at college was not available for me at 9:00 pm,
· Going to a cyber café would not work in this case as it was a video conference. The cyber café did not offer facilities for a video conference.
So I requested a friend to allow me the use of his office.

I reached the venue 1.5 hours before time to download the video conferencing software so that I would be ready for the conference in time. To download it I needed to go to NOW, the NTU learning online portal where Stevie, my instructor had posted the link. For this I needed my user id and password. Thankfully I had those on me. (Getting the link over email would have been easier.) I logged on and tried to download the software. I finally managed to download a version of the software but could not get user authentication. Frantically I sent Stevie a mail in case she needed to give me permission to enter the videoconference. Four mails and two overseas phone calls later, I got authenticated and was allowed into the ‘classroom.’ On entering I found I could see Stevie but she could not see me and the audio did not work. But I was logged into the ‘classroom’ and was ready with Stage 1. The planning, time and actions before stage one were crucial, so according to me there should be a Stage 0. I still do not know why there was a lack of authentication and no video and audio. Maybe the version of software I downloaded was not correct, maybe the Windows XP, my operating system was not appropriate. I still need to find out why all the things did not work perfectly.

The video ‘conference’ (this had now become a video conference for one participant and writing conference for another) with Stevie and me (the third participant was absent) started with stage 1 activities where Stevie took me on a tour of the ‘classroom’ interface explaining the different tools of the whiteboard, the use of the different ‘gesture’ icons to structure the interaction placed on the top left of the screen, the written chat area on the left which I was using to communicate with Stevie, and the video window through which I watched Stevie. With this interaction I became familiar with the software Elluminate .used for video conferencing.

Stage 2: Socialisation
Stage 2 of Salmon’s model is the stage when people who have logged on to an e-tivity, need to establish their online identities with the online group. At this stage expectations and goals are expressed, norms of interaction, introductions are made and differences, if any, are explained.

Salmon says of this stage: “When designing effective e-tivities for stage 2, it helps to consider what it means to enter a new and fresh world with people from a wide variety of backgrounds and perhaps cultures and countries. When asynchronous computer-based learning first started, there was a belief that there would be a strong discontinuity between people's location-based physical selves and their online or virtual personae. However, e-moderators using computer mediation for teaching and learning soon came to realize that online learning groups often can develop their own strong online identity.” (Salmon 2002, p 22)

I found one of the mails I posted in a discussion forum in the e-learning module brings out stage 2.

April 10, 09
I am Sumita writing from India. Currently this e-learning module is an e-learning experience for me. I would not be able to study in this module if it were not e-learning based. E-learning in my context is simply 'learning from a great distance'. The very fact that this is possible is incredible. It could have been the old fashioned printed material coming to me from Pete and Stevie, but now it is email, hopefully a chat and the liveliest is this discussion forum through which I am learning and interacting with a class.
Having said this, the experience is very patchy for me. As long as I am able to log onto the internet and stay connected I receive the module and the experience. As soon as my internet goes off, which it has numerous times, I am shut out. When I am finally able to log on again, I have to catch up on many threads of discussion and have not yet been able to cover all that I seem to have missed in between.

The other fact I am most conscious of is the time lag. And it is because of this I have not yet been able to connect through a chat. With all the obstacles, this module still remains a miracle. And I hope I am able to learn all that I need to at the end and complete it. Amy tells me that I am still not enrolled and I wonder at that because I am allowed by the software to participate in this discussion!
Sumita

An e-tivity should soon take on a pace of its own and enthuse people to participate. At first when I participated in discussion threads in this module, I was hesitant. I felt exposed. But once I started, and got a response, mainly from Pete, I found myself hurrying home at the end of the day eager to logon and see if there were any responses, had I invited contact through my comment. An entry in my journal illustrates this:
“Once I opened the discussions it felt suddenly real, the opportunity to observe people in the module, listen to what they were saying, and then adding my own responses felt REAL and not distant. After work, returning home I fixed up my computer to see if Pete had put in a comment- he had. This felt good. I think to keep the experience real it will be important to keep posting something on the discussion forum, invite interactions from others and wait for them. The fear of not connecting seems almost like it would happen in a normal classroom.”

“To promote groups and achieve much more collaborative learning later on, e-tivities that are explicitly about exploring cultural knowledge are very valuable at this stage, particularly those that explain differences.” (Salmon 2002, p 23). This was true of the Wiki activity in this e-learning module. We were again divided into groups of 4 people each. We had to learn to logon to the pbwiki site and together create a wiki about ‘ What I see from my window.’ This seemed simple enough on the face of it. It turned out much more interesting than that- there were a lot of cultural overtones in the contributions.
e.g. The wiki activity in the e-learning module I underwent at NTU.

Salmon says “This second stage is over when participants start to share themselves online and the basis for future information exchange and knowledge construction has been laid down. Essentially you are looking for the majority of members to have some under­standing about the group or community's ability to work together online and how they might contribute to learning and development through this medium. They should be interacting with each other and some trust should be starting to build up. They should be sharing stories and ideas and exploring styles and ways of working.” (Salmon 2002, p 24).
This never really happened in this stage 2 activity of creating a wiki. We did begin to interact on email –there were a flurry of emails at various times during the activity, a few exchanges on Facebook, I tried calling and left messages on phones, chat room and finally in the wiki message space itself. There were a few exchanges but these never picked up enough to become ‘conversations’ and more in depth interactions.


Stage 3: Information exchange
Any e-tivity promotes involvement and interaction. This needs to be clearly organized with the relevant structures differentiating one interaction from another appropriately placed. In an audio conference it would be
· Waiting for each person to complete what they are saying.
· Indicating the end of a conversation, etc.

In multiple threads the participants would need to
· Keep track of the flow of information,
· Keep pace with asynchrocity,
· Knit the information from different threads together.

In an synchronous discussion or in a blog it would help to have the instructor/ moderator sum up different threads together.

“At this stage, participants need knowledge of tools for remote access to information and knowledge of strategies for purposeful information retrieval. However, information in e-tivities should be short and should be there to initiate action and interaction. We call this information the `spark'. Even at stage 3, participants' efforts in finding and reading masses of information online will divert them from active and interactive learning.” (Salmon 2002, p 26)

According to Salmon, at stage 3, participants begin to actively look for interactions, ways to interact with participants and look for encouragement from the moderator. In this stage there would be many calls for help, and clarity (Salmon 2002, p 26). As participants become more familiar with the e-tivity they begin to navigate and make ‘contact’ which then goes further to more interactions-regular ‘conversations’ ensue, relationships begin to be established. The dynamics of the group also begin to get clearer and not only that but ‘how to operate successfully’ (Salmon 2002, p 28), becomes clear.
I have not had a strongly stage 4 experience. The closest I have come to it is a long group interaction on Facebook when a batch of us re-established contact and finally managed to plan and attend a get together, collecting from different cities and even countries, after 30 years of graduating.

Stage 4: Knowledge construction
In stage 4, the participants become online authors. In an online discussion, moderator’s knit together information from different threads, bring in fresh theories and also wrap up discussions bringing the e-tivity to its end.

These two stages are where Mazzaloni and Madison’s findings support Salmon’s model. Their findings are that the moderator plays a crucial role in online discussions. According to them a moderator joins discussions to do any one of the following:
o Provide thoughtful comments which will stimulate further discussions and motivate students into further enquiry.(Paloff and Pratt, 1999)
o Answers to questions asked
o Wrap up a discussion at the end- answer remaining unanswered questions, “finish off or tidy up any extended discussions.”
o Correct any misconceptions that are appearing in the discussion.
o Ask another question- to redirect the discussion, to increase the depth of enquiry, to stimulate interest, to check how much students know
o Redirect the discussion
o Clarify understandings of key concepts
o Link or knit together different threads of discussion
o Take on the role of ‘guide on the side.’

E-tivities in stage 4 have a core purpose of learning, development and discussion. The questions/ problems/ strategic issues being discussed need not have a correct or incorrect answer. In fact they could be interpreted in many ways. The knowledge that finds its way through serious contributions by participants needs to be sorted out by the participants, understood, digested and converted into further discussion or application into participants’ lives. A lot depends on the participant- what she makes of the content and the e-tivity experience. This is experiential learning. The participant would develop individual interpretations out of the content of the discussion.

Such activities can strongly develop cross cultural knowledge.
There are many such blogs and forums on the net. E.g. My son was applying for college admission and went to blogs where other students offered opinions, findings, experiences, tips, etc. He came away with a lot of knowledge about the admission process and was able to make his choices appropriately. He is now successfully pursuing his graduation in the U.S. (Salmon 2002, p 31 )

At this stage, Salmon states, e-moderators become important. They demonstrate skills to develop and sustain group interaction, pulling different threads of the discussion together, ‘weaving together key points from e-tivity responses’.

This is the role I now understand Pete took on during our various discussions in the classroom in NOW. He would identify a point in a comment which he thought the participants should look further into, he would agree to comments, and take them further into the discussion, or encourage a participant to probe or reflect further on a particular thought or opinion.
“The best e-moderators also summarize from time to time, span wide-ranging views and provide new topics when discussions go off track. They stimulate fresh strands of thought, introduce new themes and suggest alternative approaches. The value of an online discussion can be very high so long as interest and focus last. But there is no need artificially to extend discussions and plenaries. E-moderators need e-tivity closing as well as opening skills!” (Salmon 2002, p 31 )

“This stage can be considered completed by a joint outcome produced or an independent collaborative e-tivity in evidence. Once you've got participants to this stage, they will have their own sense of time and place and momentum. Another clue is that they can comfortably and supportively challenge and build on each other's contributions.” (Salmon 2002, p 33)

In the e-learning discussions I don’t think our discussions reached a mature stage as described above.

Stage 5: Development
Stage 5 is when participants in an e-tivity plan on how they are going to continue to learn and grow. At this stage an instructor or teacher will encourage, support and comment on the developments.

I would like to be able to initiate a discussion and I am going to try and do that for two batches of students who will no longer be either attending the college or will be away for a length of time. These are students who have graduated and are now looking for placement. I would like to start a discussion for the different problems they face and hand hold them to a successful placement. There are 23 such students out there all over India. The second batch of students are the next batch who are looking for internships and will be joing internships at different organizations, again all over India. A blog or discussion forum would be one way to keep in touch with them.

I need to structure this further and in greater detail.