 Okay, so I think I might I might get started and thanks for all the messages from I see some Interesting weather reports. I think I'd like to be in Croatia from from what I see in the chat So on behalf of the Eden network of academics and professionals or in that as we call ourselves You're very welcome to today's webinar about asynchronous approaches to teaching and learning So We have a set of wonderful speakers lined up for you today I'll introduce them in more detail in a few moments, but you can see them there on screen. We have Sarah Lonis Patulak, sorry, I've put your today Joining us from Vermont from Middlesbrough We have Rima Altawil joining us from Canada But but attached at the basket University, which is not which is in the middle of Canada Not not exactly where you are and then we have Katrina Niche coming to us from Trinity College Dublin as you can see by her fancy background and My co-moderator today is is my colleague from the NAP committee and and our illustrious leader Vlad Myhescu So, yes, nice wave there Vlad as well. So we have a really interesting topic today and I'm really excited to hear from our participants On their approaches to asynchronous learning we came up with this idea because really During the pivot online over the last few years Pandemic essentially was sponsored by by zoom And a lot of really good asynchronous approaches such as discussion boards We're Probably not used in a way that they could have been and You know these approaches have been part of the DNA of online and distance education for a really long time My my estimate is about 40 or so years. So I thought let's look at these approaches again. I Am asynchronous approaches tend to be more inclusive Flexible, you know for time engagement flexible in terms of distance There's a lot of really good benefits in terms of student learning However, they can be quite challenging to do well. So that that's one of the things we'll be thinking about Getting good discussion going on discussion boards can be very challenging in my experience. So the way in which we approach that is part of One of the things we'll talk about today So delighted to have you here. I'm going to Hand over to Sarah in a moment and I just read her bio now that I have it in front of me. So Dr. Sarah Lone as a fatulik is director of for digital pedagogy and media in the office of digital learning and inquiry or delink Which I think is a fantastic acronym at Middlebury College in Vermont Where she gets to work with awesome colleagues to create digital learning opportunities and environments that support learner agency and equity That's a fantastic bio statement there, Sarah So over to you, Sarah Wonderful, thank you, and I will start sharing my screen Alright, hi everyone. I'm so happy to be part of this conversation today and thanks very much for the invitation I am right now located in at Middlebury College in Vermont Which is about three and a half hours north of Boston about two and a half hours south of Montreal So we're kind of nicely situated to have the best of both worlds And I'm sorry that my colleague Jenny was going to be joining us to go through this presentation She wasn't able to join us in the end But I'll do my best to take us through things and I really appreciated the pandemic was sponsored by zoom comment I've written that down as a quote to Attribute of course in the future to order but and it is challenging to do well And I think those were a couple of the things that we're driving The drove our creation of of the cookbook as a resource So let me in this presentation going to talk a little bit about the cookbook What it is what some of the values that we that we think about around good asynchronous learning are How they're embedded in the cookbook and then share a few example recipes from the cookbook So the asynchronous cookbook is an openly licensed resource Which is both a website and a downloadable PDF for faculty and learning designers Who are looking to expand their knowledge and practice of asynchronous activities But maybe like to integrate some more asynchronous activities into their courses These are in the format of a cookbook. So each of the activities are Rendered in the format of a recipe and the recipes draw on online learning research and good practice They are designed to provide concise and specific instructions and examples And the key ingredient in each of the recipes is really meaningful interaction And I'll talk a little bit more about these points in a moment as we go through But these recipes can be used no matter what modality a faculty member might be teaching in they can be used For teaching if you're teaching a primarily in-person on-ground class They can be used in blended or high-flex modalities or or fully online modalities So just to give a little bit of background is as to why we created this resource and in order to do that I need to tell quickly tell the story Of a little bit of our institutional response to the pandemic and to give a little bit of that context Because the cookbook was was really born from that Our our institution At the moment of the pivot to remote teaching in the spring of 2020 Did not mandate a particular modality that that faculty had to had to teach in as as some institutions at least in the united states did Our so the institution didn't mandate a particular modality then nor have they since they've really left that that decision up to Individual faculty to the discretion of the faculty as to whether they would teach Asynchronously live synchronously some blend or you know some blend thereof our group D link Though did recommend asynchronous as the primary modality when we were talking to faculty about what? Good and equitable online or remote teaching and learning would look like Four reasons of equity I think is as Orna already highlighted given the challenges of the transition to remote learning Which our students experienced as well challenges with time zones students, you know going to all different time zones around the world Internet access unstable living situations in some cases living situations that weren't optimal for their studies and so From the beginning we recommended asynchronous as as a primary modality So coming up on to the second pandemic fall now after after faculty or institution had had the opportunity to Experience and perhaps become a little comfortable with some aspects of remote teaching and learning We had some faculty who were interested in Expanding their repertoire of asynchronous activities looking for more activities to expand and We wanted to be able to provide to them examples and really illustrate those examples of what interactive asynchronous learning could look like So we came up with the idea of a cookbook In order to be able to provide Step-by-step instructions and also focus on a relatively narrow set of technology tools To help faculty combat decision fatigue We were excited that some faculty were interested in expanding their use of asynchronous activities At the same time we recognized that faculty were and are all of us Burdened by the challenges of the pandemic And so we wanted to be able to provide something that would be relatively easy to learn and implement in their classes One other point that I would make about the cookbook itself is that it actually thinking about the range of Resources that our office created to support faculty during the pandemic It complemented our camp design online Which was a originally a two-week synchronous and then a fully asynchronous Course for faculty that took them through really more of a high level focus on online course design And without getting into the nitty gritty of activity design. So the asynchronous cookbook really focuses on that level of activities So that's a little bit of a background as to what brought us to the cookbook I may be be perhaps i'm preaching a little bit to the choir here But we recommended asynchronous learning for the reasons that that orna described that we felt that it best addressed um flexibility and equity for students in the in online remote um also hybrid Learning experiences as well as on-ground courses. So this is a practice that we have continued to recommend to faculty here at the undergraduate college classes have resumed fully in person on ground We continue to recommend that faculty use asynchronous activities in their courses as a way of For adding some flexibility to their course design Building an asynchronous activities that students can become comfortable with They know what to expect. I think can really provide Sort of a cushion And cause fewer interruptions to learning in case of a need to pivot And so that's an argument that we have have made with our faculty And asynchronous activities also address learner variability. We know that not all of our students thrive in live discussion type settings And so adding an asynchronous activities provides a way for students to meaningfully participate and show what they know in a in a in a manner that is most comfortable for them And and really closely related are the questions of equity that we've already touched on That asynchronous learning can help to address barriers to full and equitable participation In synchronous learning. We found that some faculty's approach to including students who Might need to come into class remotely While other students were in person was to record a synchronous live session And then ask those those students who couldn't attend the live session to watch the recording And we have tried to to say that you know to faculty that that does provide the students access to the content But it doesn't provide them access to a meaningful learning experience And so can we build some asynchronous activities perhaps around that In order that students can actually engage in in the learning process with their peers as well asynchronous learning We feel can also provide Some low bandwidth alternatives to students for whom internet access continues to be an issue So these are two key components that we thought of As we were designing choosing and designing the activities that ended up as recipes in the cookbook I think when at least when when many faculty at our institution heard, you know, the term asynchronous learning They tended to think of it as one type of interaction in particular interaction between students and content If you have ever sat through a required training that asks you to watch a few videos Right click a few buttons and then take the quiz at the end I think that's what many faculty had experienced not having experienced any other type of asynchronous learning. So We have emphasized with faculty That asynchronous learning can be active engaging and completed in a community of peers and instructors That interaction between students and interaction between students and instructors is also possible Not necessarily best left to face to face for synchronous modalities I think as many faculty just kind of feel as a as a default starting point as that's been their experience And so the recipes in the asynchronous cookbook aren't aren't just a sort of You know second-rate alternative to face to face But interaction is really a key ingredient in all of the recipes interaction between students between students and instructors And between students and content as well excuse me so as our instructional design team came together to Create the cookbook. I'll just give a couple of of Insights into things that we were thinking about We ended up selecting press books as the platform for the cookbook Press books is an open source book content management system And so it very nicely fit the genre of what we were trying to do with the cookbook We also appreciated That press books generates a pdf file for offline use And so that we in in that sense we were able to provide the contents of the cookbook in another modality In a low bandwidth way for folks who might need to access and interact with the with the cookbook offline The cookbook is Creative Commons licensed And so it is available for folks to use and adapt and I'll I'll talk more about that later And I just want to sort of give a shout out to my instructional design team. It really was a team effort putting this together Identifying recipes writing the recipes in the cookbook and sharing them out with faculty So, um, thank you orna very much for posting willing to look at book We're going to dive now into taking a look at a couple of sample recipes before I do that just to give a Sort of big picture overview of what's in the cookbook the cookbook currently includes 15 recipes These are organized into a variety of categories That are represented in the screenshot on this slide including discussion activities mapping activities games simulations and labs writing activities presentations And things that fit more broadly into the category of class climate um activities The cookbook also includes a few introductory chapters that share some key concepts for designing asynchronous activities We tried to keep these short But we really wanted to share some of the thinking that I just described in terms of How we're thinking about asynchronous learning being interactive And we also provide some scaffolding for group and teamwork in asynchronous settings Given that many of these activities do Are designed for group potential group work students working with one another We wanted to share some some of our thoughts about how best to Set that up in in an asynchronous environment So please feel free to to look at the cookbook And and look through it as I am also going to take a look at a couple of recipes together So the first recipe That I wanted to share with you all is text based annotation I'll come back to the slide in a moment, but i'm actually going to click over to the cookbook Um, so every recipe has the same structure. It starts off with an introduction We wrote this assuming that faculty may not know what these particular activities were So the introduction provides a really brief definition Or introduction to the type of activity and it also gives a little bit of information about Pedagogical information about when and why you might want to use this activity in your class The recipes include Things to think about to prep ahead in the case of doing text annotation or social annotation With on text You will want to select your readings ahead of time make sure they're available in a digital format That is scanned in with optical character recognition And then every recipe has a list of ingredients Some of these some of these ingredients are standard across the recipes So this was an opportunity for us to say To faculty that every activity should have clearly articulated learning goals Every activity should have clear instructions or prompts and expectations for students And every activity should have some kind of assessment or feedback strategy So those ingredients are present throughout all of the recipes and then other ingredients are specific to the recipe itself So in this case digital readings And a social annotation tool, which will be a critical component of this activity I'm then down to the step by step instructions, um, which mirror in in many cases the ingredients So step one is to identify your learning goal again to make this a little bit easier for faculty We have tried to present Example learning goals that they could use and modify in their courses. Um, and so here We're saying, you know, there are a lot of and here we're also signaling There are lots of different reasons that you might use a text based annotation activity in your class You might use it for interaction as a place for students to discuss the text In the margins of the text you might use it as a way to help deepen students understanding of the content by adding additional thoughts multimedia Additional content to the readings. So identify your learning goal and then create a prompt or instructions for the activity Again, we share a sample prompt that can be modified based on the learning goal Next is to choose a social annotation tool Here you'll notice that that what we've actually done is is in most cases tried to Narrow the possible suite of tools because we know that there are approximately 10 good jillion ed tech tools available Which is a lot to navigate and a lot to choose from we've tried to narrow the suite of tools to ones that that that our institution licenses Also, because we are able to support those tools And so that's something that is a little bit specific to the institution in this In this particular recipe But we give a little information about the two tools that that we have available to faculty hypothesis and perusal and some information about more links to to more information about how to integrate those with our learning management management system and to use them The final element of this recipe is instructions for giving feedback or assessing and so here again, we Take the opportunity to point out a few things that faculty will want to think about when they're giving feedback on this type of activity We point out that any graded assignment For example should closely tie back to your learning goals and the specific instructions that you've given so Those are a few pointers that that we share in this section And finally every recipe includes an example in most cases. It's an example of A faculty member at our institution who has has actually integrated this activity into one of their classes So this is an example from a history professor At our institution just a short little paragraph about How she used perusal to meet a particular learning goal and then finally some additional resources And so that's the the basic structure of a recipe In terms of the interaction type how you know Where interaction is present in this recipe? I think that you could use text-based annotation to have students talk to students to have students and instructors Interact with one another and for students to interact with the content So I think this could be used to meet all of the interaction types In terms of flexibility this recipe allows students to engage with content and each other over time And in terms of equity it provides a way for students to again Don't necessarily perform well in live discussions to contribute thoughts and engage meaningfully with their peers So that is Our text-based annotation recipe I had one other example that I could quickly share it is Choose your own pathway simulations. So something a little different. This is Choose your own pathway simulations can be useful certainly in a variety of disciplines Particularly our colleagues in the sciences might find this a useful asynchronous activity So again, it has an introduction that describes a little bit about some of the The the reasoning behind why you might want to use this in your course The list of ingredients including learning goals prompts and assessment strategies Identifying your goals. This one offers a little bit this given that designing simulation is a little more complex This offers a little bit more scaffolding around designing a real world scenario with things to think about in terms of branching decision points as you create your scenario Give some ideas for online tools And then gives an example Of a scenario that has been constructed with different decision-making the learning objectives And that is an example that faculty can use to design their own scenario In some of these places you may notice that we don't dive into depth about I would say sort of the the buttons to click with the technology to make this happen And if faculty have additional questions about that we encourage them to come Talk with our office and we can sort of talk through the recipes and customize it for their class So in the interest of time, I will say in terms of what's next for the asynchronous cookbook We are currently expanding the cookbook with new chapters And new recipes. We've just added a few A new chapter and a few new recipes and we'll be adding more by the end of november And we are also again press books. This is openly licensed and press books Does allow you to import books from other press books installations So if you any of you at your institution are running press books We are very happy to provide An archived copy of of the cookbook that you could install on your own press books installation and then customize To meet the needs of your institution to be a little more customized to your institution So we would be excited to to share and collaborate in that way And I love if you'd like to reach out to me To make that happen So I think that's the the the Brief run through. I appreciate your time. Hopefully we have some time for some questions Here's my email address if you'd like to be in touch and I just wanted to give a little bit of a shout out to our My learning design team who Can help put this together Thanks so much. Sarah was really great to hear the story of your cookbook Um and press books is a really great platform Um, I think someone in the chat was asking about the pdf. Is it is it possible to download that from the press books platform? It is uh, it is a little bit, um, you know what I'm going to share my screen again because I will You're going to demo it now. I like it I'll I'll show I'll show you where it is because actually as I was looking through and prepping for this I realized it was maybe a little hidden and so I think we'll try to find a way to highlight that link on the front page But for the moment, um, if you're at the cookbook, um going to um I think it is um the how to navigate this book Page which is the top element in the table of contents There's a link you can also to download a pdf of the book and I'm going to grab that link uh, and also put it into the Um Chat window as well so that you can you can directly hopefully click on that and get a pdf That's fantastic. Thanks, Sarah. And I think somebody's somebody Maria is there is offering is talking about a translation What do you think about that? What language would that be to Maria? Yeah, so would you be up for that's portuguese? Absolutely. I one of the the wonderful things I think about you know, um openly licensed materials is is that um You can take it and customize it to your context and so whether that's you know A translation or whether it's switching out middle brief specific tools for your institution specific tools Adding recipes, you know, any of that would be would be wonderful. So essentially Once you've got a hold of the book You can pretty much make any changes. Um, we have an ncsa license. So um, we just ask you to share a like And to give credit back and that's it Fantastic Okay, thank you, Sarah We might come back at the end with additional questions Um, and we might move on now to our next speaker Uh, which is Rima Altauil coming hailing from toronto, ontario Rima is a lebanese canadian educator with a passion for using educational technology To create interactive and engaging experiences She started her career in the field of education as a teacher in the lebanon um And she currently is working uh as a instructor and a senior learning construct Consultant and instructional designer And undertaking her her edd studies at athebaska Where she's researching the influence of nonverbal cues on student interaction and engagement in asynchronous discussions So very curious to hear more about that and welcome rima. So i'm going to pass over to you now Thank you so much for now I'll just take if a second to share my screen. I have so many things open as usual And while i'm doing that I will take the opportunity to thank you, sarah For uh, this amazing presentation about the asynchronous Cop orna put the The link Uh, and I had the chance to look at it and I found it to be really very interesting So thanks for making it come to life I think i'm sharing my screen now. So let's see Can everybody see it? That's fine. Yeah, perfect. Awesome. Thank you. So as orna has just said i'm doing my doctoral My doctorate studies in distance education at at the baska university In canada alberta, but I reside in toronto and I was so happy to read in the chat All the different countries that everybody's joining us from Today, so that's very exciting and i'm looking forward to hearing your questions once I Uh, finish my presentation. So keep them coming, please um Of course today, I'm going to talk about as orna said electronic non verbal cues or what I refer to as e and vc in the online course asynchronous discussions so This is specific to the discussion boards or the discussion forums where people Lug into the course and they start interacting together and talking together through textual Communication inside the discussion forum My interest in this topic stems from my background in communication and my experiences And online learning as a student Before the popularity of or the zoom bull or the popularity of video technologies during kovat This is one, uh, as sarah mentioned and orna as well This is when asynchronous discussion forums were used as the main strategy for interaction and engagement in the online course activities Uh, it really makes me curious to see how they have resided and how they have declined Uh, not many people are using them right now despite all the benefits that sarah mentioned so, uh Based on the research that I did before I'm going to talk a little bit today about A study that I conducted Around communication and the discussion forums, especially non verbal communication and discussion forums Discover whether first of all they existed And if they did how they impacted or if they had the potential to impact the level of interaction and engagement In the discussion forums, but before we start how about we engage in some Medi-meter activity So for this purpose, I would invite you to either scan this qr code On your phones or on your computers if you're at the computer go to menti.com And you can enter this code and I think I have the link right here Which i'm going to put in the chat for everybody Yep, I got it So if you click at this link in the chat box you can access menti meter Okay So while we're talking about, uh, non verbal communication And before I start that I want us to try to join menti meter and i'm keeping an eye on the Number of participants that we have here Are we able to join Yes Good Okay, so Here we go Take a few seconds to write as many words as you can that come to your mind when you think about non verbal communication And while you're doing so I will clarify that in communication studies The importance of non verbal communication comes from the fact that it is a very old communication system Much older than languages themselves It's so ingrained in human nature that it sometimes overshadows verbal messages particularly When revealing messages related to personality Emotions and attitude and when I say personality it means also personal characteristics first impressions and all of that And in case of discrepancies People usually and I'm happy to see the body language very big in the center because people usually believe Non verbal communication over the verbal Communication so let's say for example you ask a friend. How are you feeling today? And they go like I'm fine Very fine. I'm very happy today You do not take that As they are happy and I'm sorry for my typo here probably meant he met her to take my last Letter so looking at these words that keep coming. I notice that Many of us are focused on the facial expressions body language Movements, but I see some written and discussion forums and writing style and applause And voice and all of these so But let's look at the bigger ones gestures, body language Smile and facial expressions. So if we move to our next Question What happens when we take all these away when we remove them from the communication process? So when we are communicating with people Asynchronously through text in the discussion forums, we remove the facial expressions We remove the body language We removed all nonverbal communication that's expressed through voice What remains so in your opinion do nonverbal cues exist in the asynchronous online course discussions when we removed all those Nonverbal cues that I just mentioned or at least you put as really really big While we're talking about this or thinking about this question I would like to clarify that in this context Or in communication studies verbal communication the word verbal the term verbal means expressed through the use of words those words could be spoken or written Therefore when we talk about nonverbal nonverbal in this sense becomes without The use of words beyond or beyond the actual meaning of words I'm happy to see that many people think that yes they exist in the asynchronous online discussions Which also takes me to the next question and if you think it's yes What do these cues look like? Write the words or expressions that come to your mind What are what like if you set facial expressions body language body movements gestures voice and we're communicating only through words Okay emojis excellent icons tone interesting Looking at these words, especially emojis emojis, of course emoji and emojis they can be the same I noticed that many of them are related to face-to-face interaction even online Smiley faces and emojis I wish to hear more That's why I'll give us so When these are taken away Acknowledgements capital letters smiles Okay, well most of these are related like a lot of these are related to Nonverbal communication through body language or surrogates of body language, which is emojis and icons and images But i'm interested to see More about other categories that are related to time Oji recording Is going to express the verbal through the nonverbal through the voice, but if we take that away Time using punctuation Certain choice of certain words all of these are related to some nonverbal Categories so Looking at communication studies as I said I have some background in communication studies So looking at the communication studies, we notice that other than body language and facial expressions and What we call? Paralinguistics the tone or the attributes of the voice. There are other nonverbal categories Some of them are related to the touch to the body movements to the aesthetics like signs and symbols to things we smell and to chromatics And chronemics chromatics is the relationship or the messages sent or received or exchanged through the use of colors And a chronemics through the use of time Of course, some of these cannot be exchanged through the written a nonverbal communication but Some of them do get exchanged And while I was Thinking about all these categories in view of my knowledge In communication and my studies In communication studies, I asked myself these questions that I just asked you So I pondered on these questions when I was an online learner and a discussion based Online course where interaction happens only through nonverbal through a discussion forums And I wondered how come some instructors are able to Create a community in these classes. How come they are Able to provide the environment that's inviting everybody to interact that's making me become more engaged in those classes And it's not something they said it's something they did. So what are the actions? That spoke louder than words in an environment where communication was happening only through the written word So I conducted a research To explore those actions or those nonverbal cues Following the exploratory mixed method design So my research included some qualitative questions In which people talked about what made them interact in those courses how they felt that They They felt the teacher's presence and their colleague's presence How they interacted with them and based on that I created a quantitative survey in both phases I had instructors and Learners participate. So I had both professors and students participate in this study And they were all very experienced in discussion based online learning courses because this happened before COVID My aim was to explore first of all whether nonverbal cues existed based on the Categories that I talked to you about These categories I called them electronic nonverbal cues I called them electronic nonverbal cues or envc as you see here Just to differentiate them to distinguish them from the common nonverbal cues that are exchanged during face-to-face Interactions. So when I say envc, it means they are exchanged electronically only through text based online Not necessarily only asynchronous discussions, but I conducted my study in asynchronous discussions The findings of my study suggested that there were at least Four categories of nonverbal cues that are mostly present in the literature on nonverbal communication Which can infiltrate the textual communication in the discussion forums And these Categories have the potential to influence the online learning experience a very simple mind map These are not new but a very simple mind map shows what these can be So some of them are as you mentioned emojis But I didn't use them as one category because they fell Under a bigger category of visual cues actually in the world of communication Facial expressions and body language, especially body movements They also fall under the bigger category of visual Nonverbal cues a visual verbal cues because we perceive them through our eyes So the chrony mix is set and the lack of communication talking about each one of them I start with the 2d visuals because they are the easiest to talk about These are perceived as I said visually And almost most respondents to the questionnaires Identified the 2d visuals as a form of envc Which included of course Served gates for body language in the form of pictographs emojis and emoticons Just like you profile pictures and photographs of family and pets Illustrations in the form of graphics and diagrams Font style as you mentioned a little bit and the formatting And the layout and the length of the post postings What people said about these cues was very surprising to me For example, when we talk about the length of the posting When we talk about interaction, why people interact and don't interact with certain people Some people said, for example, if the posting is too long I tend not to read it so I don't interact with that person For example, but I'm going to talk about this a little bit after Another category was chrony mix Chrony mix is very related to time I'm sure many of us heard the expression time talks According to scholars in the field of communication Chrony mix is the strongest survivor of all nonverbal cues when The body language and the perlinguistics and other nonverbal cues disappear The very interesting part about chrony mix is that it becomes very evident In textual communication, especially in the discussion forums Why? Because the LMS, most of the times, allows for timestamps And especially this generation that communicates a lot through text They look at the timing, they become very sensitive To when a message is sent and the time lag between a message and a response So when other senses, it's like losing other senses When the other nonverbal cues disappear like facial expressions And the smile and the tone of the voice People become very sensitive to messages exchanged through the use of time For example, they can tell you that I had a very good experience in a certain course Because the instructor was responsive When they used the word responsive, it means they were answering their questions quickly Quickly is related to chrony mix So the use of time has influenced how they perceive the learning experience I chose here from my study a quote that a participant wrote And you can see how unknowingly the person was talking about chrony mix For example, the person said Someone who participates regularly, regularly This is the frequency And thus in a timely manner Taking the time to proofread their posts Designing and using all these things I tend to respond to those people in the online asynchronous discussion But look at the frequency again People who have too much presence, right? Too much, it's like they dominate the discussion Posting first, first, first Tone of the voice and what you mentioned are the people that I avoid interacting with So we can see here the relationship between the chrony mix And the level of interaction Chrony mix was also very related to the lack of communication Lack of communication or silence And I would distinguish between the two in a second Was one that influenced that was usually related to negative learning experiences The principle of lack of communication as being a communicative Or having a communicative value or a message value Is based on the principle of communication Which states that we cannot not communicate So lack of communication is by itself a way of communication Or a way of sending a message Or at least it can be perceived as a message And it can influence the learning experience And here, if we read this quote from one of the respondent who wrote If the teacher does not respond So the teacher, lack of communication Or no one responds to what I write Then I'm left in a cloud of ambivalence If I'm ignored, I take it as a negative response But when this occurs, I contribute only enough to get my mark So lack of communication is directly connected with interaction I really like this last quote that I added here From a respondent who wrote It makes me very upset when an instructor does not log into the course website For several days during the week So this is connected to the chronemics And it's also connected to the lack of communication Four to five days in a row when it happens, I tend to become very disturbed And the person was saying I'm still disturbed by that until now So lack of communication or no communication Is also perceived and interpreted and it influences the learning experience Silence in that matter was distinguished in my study Because they were saying, they were talking Respondents were talking about silence as Not communicating Or using it to express discontent But also communicating but leaving something untold So it's not what people say It's what they do not say that also has a communicative value In this, in the mind of people who participate in discussion forums Here, the last category I'm going to talk about Was a little bit difficult to name Because there was nothing that looked like it In the studies of communication It resembled a little bit the tone of the voice Or the style of writing as I was reading Right now I smiled when I was reading your responses Because yes, many people identified it But it had an additional component related to it And that was a little bit about the effort That people made while communicating online The easiest way to talk about it Is perhaps by giving you a very simple example I'm going to show you this example right now So in my study I gave the participants two layouts Of a discussion posting And I asked them to look at these two layouts And answer a couple of questions One of the questions or the last question was Which layout are you most likely to respond to So if you put in the chat, if you were participating in this Which layout would you just put in the chat Layout A or layout B Which layout are you most likely to respond to Or you can put no difference Okay, Linda has no difference But I can see mostly B's and I cannot see any A's Which is very interesting actually Because even the respondents in my study They had very similar responses So as you can see, some said there is no difference Mostly 79% of instructors, of professors 75% whereas almost 80% of learners Said that they would interact with B With a writer of B, layout B But no one As I can look at the chat right now No one said that they would interact with layout A I didn't know what to call it It's not only formatting It's not only the style of writing It's also the effort So I called it ESET for the electronic style Effort and tone that appear together as one set And although no one talked about the formatting of the text In this question, everybody almost intuitively Was inclined to respond to the writer of layout B I asked people to clarify And I wish I had I wish I had the chance to ask you And probably after you can express your comments Why? Why did you choose to respond to the writer of layout B? I asked them if they had I asked the respondents to justify the answers If they had any justification Or to clarify their choice I didn't It wasn't They didn't have to But some chose to What they did not know Was that what's written in layout A Is exactly the same thing that's written in layout B Unless they really took time to read it Except for the hello everyone And at the end Regards or something like this So this is exactly the same text So these were the responses They described layout B as being more reader-friendly Organized easier to navigate and visually pleasing But what was really interesting for me Is that they described the personality of the writer Although they don't know who that writer is They've never met the writer It's like the first impression They described that person as being the writer of layout B As being friendly, warm, inviting, open, inclusive, engaging, pleasant, fun Thoughtful of the time of others Chronemics again And not taking themselves too seriously Imagine they don't know It's just in a survey Whereas they described the writer of layout B As someone who took themselves very seriously And did not put enough effort Into making their thought or opinion Meaningful to their peers So how is interaction impacted? It's impacted through several factors Including the layout Of course, my study This study showed that At least four categories of electronic nonverbal cues Chronemics ESET Absence or lack of communication And visuals Of course everybody identified visuals Have the potential to influence the learning experience Particularly engagement, modification, social presence, teaching presence, and interaction So moving forward with my studies I am researching currently The aspects of ENVC That contribute towards interaction and engagement That lead to deeper learning in the asynchronous discussion based online environment So moving forward I want to see how those ENVC can contribute to interaction And to engagement And whether this interaction and engagement Can also lead to deeper learning Because when people are engaged They tend to read more and learn more So I will keep you updated Of how this is going to evolve And looking forward to your questions or comments Thank you for listening and for allowing me To share a little bit about my research with you Thanks Rima Vlad, I think there's a question there Do you want to put it to Rima? Yeah, sure, thank you Rima Very nice presentation We have one question from YouTube actually Because we also have people on YouTube So the question is if your research is already published But I think Orna already put an article about it But maybe you can talk more about this Rima Absolutely, thank you so much It is published actually in the February issue Of Erodil, February 2019 February 2019 It's published under the title of ENVC Thank you so much Orna ENVC and text-based online learning environments Thank you Rima I think maybe we will have time for more questions At the end of this session I encourage you to ask To put your question in the Q&A section Or in the chat or on YouTube And we will get the answers from participants Orna, please Thanks Vlad And thanks very much Rima It was really interesting The thing with the message A and message B It just gets me every time So very pleased to introduce Dr. Katrina Neeshe now Newly doctored, so I definitely have to use the doctor So Katrina is working in Trinity College As an academic developer In her previous role She worked in the Irish National Forums Development of all those who teach priority Katrina has worked on a number of online teaching And technology enhanced projects Including the open teach project Where we work together And the assessment for learning maths project as well So welcome Katrina and over to you Thank you very much Orna I'm now I hope sharing my screen with everyone Yeah, it's perfect Super thanks And thanks very much Orna Both for the introduction And for the invitation And to those in need And for the invitation to speak this afternoon As Orna has said I'm currently working in Trinity College Dublin As an academic developer But in her previous life I worked with Orna in DCU on the open teach project So Orna asked me to come along today To just speak a little about the asynchronous activities That we did as part of that open teach course So just to give you a bit of background On the open teach project It began in 2019 And ended in 2020 And it was pre-COVID But as it happened it was very timely We knew as online educators We already knew that teaching online was different However, I think for the vast majority of educators They've now found out that too in the last 18 months And essentially what we did Is we developed a short course That was informed both by a literature review And in needs analysis And the literature review Was called teaching online is different And it enabled us to develop the course Which we rolled out then in March 2020 So there were initially 80 people Who registered for the course And then as it was just at the beginning Of the pandemic we had 400 signed up So why did we do asynchronous activities? So the short course was 10 hours 10 to 12 hours in duration And we had two hours of synchronous teaching And the remainder was asynchronous And the reasons we did the asynchronous Goes back to what Sarah and Orna were talking about earlier Is to meet the needs of the learners The busy educators Who wanted asynchronous activities But also because it's recognized as Sarah outlined As an effective teaching practice And again, as we saw with Sarah It has to include interactivity So the literature that we examined A lot of it looked at this interactivity In terms of when we've heard these terms already today The social and teaching presences And many of the studies that we looked at And were examined online teaching Through the lens of the community of inquiry And really what we knew ourselves But also what we found from the literature Was that this idea of being present For the students is very important To encourage student engagement So what did the open teach Actual course look like? So I've just taken a screenshot here From what it looks like in DCU The virtual learning environment in DCU Which is called LOOP Now this is an archived version of the course Because this was back in March 2020 But I'll just show you a little bit from it So to develop the course Okay, we did the normal thing We decided what the learning outcomes We used the ABC curriculum design Learning design methods Which are linked there at the end of the slides To help us select the activities That we wanted to do for, you know, to match So that the students would achieve the learning outcomes And we decided at that stage As well to use scenario-based learning So we picked three topics And I'm sure you probably can't read them there On the slides But the three main areas were the social presence The online class and collaborative activities And sporting students and using discussion forums So, you know, very similar to what Sarah was talking About earlier And the discussion forums that Rima was speaking about So they were our three things We came up with three dilemmas Three different educators The dilemmas they had And we fleshed them out In terms of having asynchronous activities For the students to do So if we just look there I'm going to give you the, oh yeah And the final thing that Sarah meant to mention Was that in order to make this user experience This engaging course We used a design thinking methodology around that And we found that very effective And we had a publication on that Which is again linked to in the end of the slides But in terms of looking at what exactly we did If we take that first unit there The introduction and we look here These were the activities the students had to do In that first unit And as you can see here The one outlined in red That was the synchronous activity So there were two of them But that's it The remainder of the activities were asynchronous And it was a very interesting listening to Rima there About the discussion forums And the verbal and non-verbal cues And what they were We used a lot of discussion forums And we found them quite effective in this So I'll just show you a couple of examples For example, this icebreaker activity We asked them This is the, you know People here I'm sure are familiar with icebreaker activities But we asked them to pick a word Or a picture That, you know, represented how they felt About being on the course at the moment So just selected one here was Someone who picked Amethyst Which is a gemstone Which represents the facets of their life And intuition, wisdom and resilience So this was their discussion post And now you must remember We had about 200 students on the course at this stage And we wanted everyone to get a response So we encouraged other participants To respond to each other And in this particular case Someone came up with this response That they loved the image Because this reminds them of their holidays In Aquil Island And, you know, also for this person responding They wanted to develop some wisdom During the course So we ensured that everybody had A response in their icebreaker activity Or in their introduction Either from one of the facilitators ourselves Or from another student And because there were so many students We broke them into groups And we as facilitators You know, took a few of them each And, you know, I hasten to add here Which you meant to add earlier there But this was a team effort And there were five or six of us working on the course And the names are all mentioned there Earlier on on the literature review But we all worked together to provide this So it's not easy to facilitate these discussion forums As you know And then how did we keep that going During, you know, during the course And what did we do So we encouraged different forms of interaction And again, interesting from Reema's point of view With, you know, what is considered verbal And non-verbal But we encouraged them to have text or audio And there's me in my former role And given a video as part of the introduction In a way to encourage other people to do so And when a discussion forum was coming to the close At the end of that We kind of brought all the responses together Summarizing in some format And one example here is some of the words People put up to describe themselves We summarized them all together in this work Workout for people just to take home with them At the end of the discussion forum We also used Twitter And we tweeted out messages And maybe tweeted out resources But I think the main focus of the Twitter in this course Was keeping that social presence going During the course And making sure that, you know, people could connect With each other all the time And then another thing we did Which we had a few questionnaires During the, as part of the activity And again, these are Could be completed whenever the students wanted But this particular one was to ask them What they'd like to be covered in the next Synchronous session or in the synchronous session And finally then another activity we did Which was group projects So the groups worked in synchronous mode together But they recorded their activity Both as video and also as a document And then we responded The interaction from the facilitators on this Was in an asynchronous manner We responded to those projects And had communication with them In the project discussion forums Synchronously So again, if I remind you that We had a number of units in this course The first unit was on social presence So the way we presented that We wanted things to be interactive And engaging for the students So that, you know, they felt they were, you know Partaking in activities all the time So the first dilemma we had was Immer's dilemma and it was around social presence And we created animations Which are available there in YouTube And I have the link to those on my slides as well But the animations were super The students or participants really liked them And the idea here was that They were presented with the dilemma In this case, Immer had a dilemma Like many people will discuss about How, and it's interesting as well How the discussion boards have fallen off Because of COVID Because of the lack of engagement And we asked, you know, this We presented the Immer dilemma in an animation forum And then we asked our participants To come back with ideas On how they could help Immer solve her dilemma And this, they get these responses Back in the discussion forum But at the end of the discussion forum We created a mind map for them Linking together, as you can see Immer, what would you do for Immer Linking together the different types of activities That they came up with And pulling in all the threads From the discussion forum Into one big mind map That they could take home with them And in fact, then that was in the first unit For the second unit Where we were looking at Mihal's dilemma We actually created a kind of a template Mind map for them to start With Mihal in the center And asked them after they posted Their discussion in the discussion forum To add maybe a word Into the or a picture Or whatever into the mind map as well And again, this kept them Gave them a resource at the end And a resource they created themselves To take away So I suppose the question then is You know, how did this go? Did people engage? And as you can see here We gave a badge to people So we had 400 who initially signed up Probably 200 who turned up A lot probably due to the busyness Around the beginning of COVID Didn't manage But we had 200 And then we had 140 I think Was who actually received the badge And completed the course fully Which we were very pleased with We did a participant post-survey And I'm not sure if you can see these things But we asked them The blue there is positives, yes We asked them If they thought the open-teach course Had an impact on their understanding Of teaching online And the vast majority of them said yes It had And then we also asked them Would they apply this knowledge? And again 97% of them said they would So they're very positive results From the participants And then as I said One important thing for us Was the sense of community Our presence that we wanted to develop And you know 70% of them felt That they partook in the open-teach community For the course Which was really really very good Considering at the time We were all in That was late March 2020 We were all not just from a work-based scenario But in a personal scenario We were all obviously very concerned About what was going on So to generate that community then Was absolutely great And some of the common stand That we got back from our participants So was like no knowledge of online teaching beforehand And now I could teach online to my learners And this is somebody who attended An let's say an 80% asynchronous course And then being facilitated to work through the course In a way that made it seem so easy It's also a very positive comment About how it went So overall it was a very successful course And was run again later But it was the interactivity Around the asynchronous activities That seemed to keep everyone engaged all the time So this journey and looking back On the open-teach project Because as I said it ran again last September And that was my last involvement with it But it actually made me reflect back And looking to my own practice here now In Trinity where we're looking at I'm involved in a project called digital by design And the purpose of this is to help build Digital capacity for education in Trinity And basically to build from the pandemic experience That staff have had And to mainstream those practices that worked And this project has a number of phases And the first phase we're looking at at the moment Was still almost completion Is the research phase We're looking back at what happened Asking our academics in Trinity What worked for them and what didn't work for them Also looking at the literature out there And at other universities and what worked and what didn't And what everybody would like to bring forward Into the teaching going forward And we're very much into a discipline-specific focus Around the three faculties in Trinity And with the view to developing professional development For our staff But what we've done in our research phase Is very interesting in terms of asynchronous When we look at asynchronous activities And we ask them what makes of asynchronous And synchronous do they do in their teaching We found, as people have suggested That asynchronous was less likely To have a courage than synchronous And that's at a module level For both staff and students said this And that however, instead It was more likely More common instead to have synchronous And everyone referred to Sorry, to have asynchronous And everyone referred to pre-recorded lectures And discussion forums And just to give you an example here There was an awful lot of positivity Towards the pre-recorded lectures From the student's perspective Because of the pause and rewind And from a lecturer's perspective In terms of the flipped classroom Looking at the discussion forums What we found about them That when we asked them about the teaching activities They had completed And these were a mixture of synchronous And asynchronous activities We found that they rated discussion forums As the least effective And that's exactly what Sarah has been saying too And Orna from the beginning And they were the least effective Rated by both staff and students And what they said, for example They tried to use them But the student didn't engage And from the student perspective People said They said they were scared to post questions And an example of one that worked Was where a professor gave a mark For each posting to the discussion And then this generated This was the best discussion board The student experienced Because people contributed More and more as the weeks went on And became a little bit of a hub For discussing course material So it did work in some instances And this is what we're trying to do Is bring what worked forward And these kind of things forward And so we asked also in the survey What would people like And yes, people going forward The staff and students both want a mix Of sync and asynchronous activities For the future But people are concerned Of what is the proper appropriate blend And that's something I suppose You have to figure out for your course And as I say, for the open teach We had an 80-20 and 80-async And it really worked very well But we want to take forward That it's not just prerecorded lectures And poorly performed discussion For us that form part of our asynchronous activities There's a lot more to it So moving back to the digital by design project Our intention is to develop activities Our professional development for staff and students That supports them in both the synchronous And asynchronous teaching approaches And of course, I love Sarah's cookbook there Which I had had a look at before today And really think that would be a great resource For us to link out and provide So that's me done Gaurav Mahogwaf Thank you very much for listening If there's any questions Thank you Katrina And Vlad, I think you're going to field a few questions, I think Yeah, sure. Thank you, Katrina Very interesting research You've done there at Trinity We have actually a couple of questions First, a very practical one From our YouTube viewers Which MindMap software did you use? I think that was MindMump MindMump And then we had Mind I have used a number of them But as far as I remember That was MindMump Okay, thank you And then we have a second question What is the best instructional design model For e-learning? Well, I can't say I'm not biased So absolutely, and I'm sure Orna will compare Using the ABC learning design Is absolutely super for us In terms of matching activities Through learning outcomes But I also think from an instruction Of design perspective We added on the design thinking And we looked at how the ideal developed design thinking And which is all about empathizing with your users And there's five stages in that design thinking To producing your material And really, I think that helped shape What it looked like The look and feel of the material And so I would highly recommend Looking at design thinking I agree because But I'm also biased Because I love the ABC model So I cannot say But they work together We use both They work together very well And we took the design thinking After the ABC After we had taught about our learning activities It was more the design thinking Then came into the presentation of it And the flow of it And that kind of thing Sure And the content course Of course Until we see if there are any other questions I have a question for all three of our speakers And so my question for you is Where do you think the asynchronous interactions Are most necessary or advantageous? So in what part of the process Would you feel it's most needed of them? And you can jump in either of you To answer this I will talk a little bit about my background As being a Lebanese Canadian I have a lot of interaction from people in Lebanon And the digital divide is so strong there Then that when they move to the online learning And relying only on the synchronous Caused a lot of people to be at disadvantage Especially with the power cuts And the internet cuts as well So in places where people do not have Equal opportunities to technology Or to the infrastructure To have virtual learning happening synchronously I think asynchronous learning is very Has lots of benefits for those people But these are not the only ones But I'm just reflecting on my own background Yeah, sure Thank you, of course We are all aware of this situation And this makes total sense Thank you, Rima Sarah, would you have an input on this question? I do But I think it's a complex mix of variables That lead to whether the interaction is Whether the design is going to be synchronous Or asynchronous So I would like to have a sort of a pat answer But I feel like I don't I agree, though, with Rima That the equity issues that we're seeing That were a spotlight was shown on them During the pandemic But they existed before even our The campus that I'm at right now It's a fully residential For your undergraduate college So the students live on campus most of the time So when they are here and in person We think we may assume that Internet access, for example, isn't an issue And while internet connectivity may be less of an issue We also have certain assumptions about our students Who's our imagined user Who's the student for whom we design Right? And that we privilege our instructional designs For that student And that is often a privileged student Who has their laptop, has their own devices And so I think that a combination of asynchronous And synchronous potentially That including asynchronous activities is really important And that's something that we've been trying to argue With our faculty who may tend toward Synchronous as the default So that's the position that we've been coming from And I think then your blend That's a really interesting question What's the blend? And I'll also say that I've we've been able to lean into What Orna described as 40 years of research In online and distance learning Around asynchronous learning To make the case for asynchronous learning I'm feeling less solid ground Talking about the blend of synchronous and asynchronous Because that feels newer We have less of a research base And now there's so much more of that That's happening because of the pandemic So I'm just thinking out loud That's an area that I would love to see Further development and some of the great work That these panelists are doing Is contributing to that To think about what is that blend What are the variables that we want to consider And to respond to But I do think asynchronous needs to be part of the mix Thank you I think you're right That we need to find the balance between them And the correct answer is it depends Because just try to see what best fits you And your course and your learning personality And the learning personality of your students So yep, I totally agree Kajona, would you answer this? Yeah, that's exactly what I would say Is that this mix has been a problem It's how much should I do asynchronous And how much should I do synchronous And I think the asynchronous The benefits for equity have been highlighted a lot But I also think even looking at the research We're doing in Trinity The synchronous, a lot of students like The synchronous live chance And I think if you got rid of that You're now talking about another unequal balance So I think and then again I think it's interesting to understand Being more asynchronous than the other faculties I think it can be discipline specific And I don't, you know, it's like anything There's no one size fits all And I think though when you're designing Of course, you definitely need to take both Into consideration And you know, with respect to what we've discussed In a minute, we'll go back to your design thinking And literature learners and their needs And meet those And that should help you decide that Thank you Thank you for all your answers I don't see any other questions in the chat Or Q&A So Orna, back to you Thanks Vlad And actually Sarah had something in the chat But it might have just come to the hosts and panelists But it's a nice way But providing multiple modalities Is a way to address learner variability And that's very much kind of in line With that universal design for learning Which definitely is something to consider If you're trying to make your learning More inclusive and accessible Because I think it's actually Accessibility Day Today in Ireland I'm not sure if that's an international day So it's a nice way to end So let me thank you to all our wonderful speakers For your talks, really interesting I really enjoyed the session And thank you to all those who came along for coming You were great at participating I really enjoyed some of the emoji And the non-verbal communication That came through that Rima's talk prompted Somebody did a very interesting clap image You might have to take a picture of that And thank you again for coming to this Eden app session And if you'd like to join Eden You can get the details on the Eden website Which I'll put the link in the chat now in a second So thank you very much Have a good evening