12018

12018

General Session - Conference Presentation and Interactive Activity Only (40 minutes, no formal paper)

Janet Salmons, Capella University, Boulder, USA, jsalmons@vision2lead.com
 * Visual E-Communications to Enliven Collaborative E-Learning**

Collaborative e-learning can be defined as:"Constructing knowledge, negotiating meanings and/or solving problems through mutual engagement of two or more learners in a coordinated effort using Internet and electronic communications" (Salmons, 2009).

While instructors and students can collaboratively construct knowledge, negotiate meanings and/or solve problems using words—verbal or written—contemporary Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) offer diverse, visually-rich ways to work together. Visual approaches are valuable when the topic of study is by its nature visual, or where it is abstract and conceptually complex.

As Kress observes in his work on digital literacy, "the world told is a different world to the world shown" (Kress, 2003). Indeed, when students use visual collaboration they can acquire digital literacy skills, group process skills, as well as a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

Using a meeting space such as Blackboard Collaborate (Elluminate), instructors and students can transmit, view and generate images and media for the purpose of communication, elicitation or collaboration. Using other ICTs, such as Second Life or other virtual worlds, instructors and students can also navigate and interact within visual environments.

This interactive session will introduce key principles of collaborative e-learning (see http://www.vision2lead.com/Taxonomy.pdf) and demonstrate Visual Methods for Collaborative E-Learning using Blackboard Collaborate tools and features. (See the model online at http://www.vision2lead.com/Visuale-learning.pdf.) Handouts will be provided that include sample learning activities that utilize visual approaches in collaborative e-learning.

Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. London: Routledge. Salmons, J. E. (Ed.). (2009). E-social constructivism and collaborative e-learning. Hershey: Information Science Reference.

//Interactivity// Workshop participants will use shared whiteboard and other Elluminate tools in live demonstration of online collaboration.

All Audiences collaboration, visual communication, presentations, shared whiteboard