For me Topic 4 and Topic 3 were highly related. Maybe because I focused mostly on group work when discussing learning communities in Topic 3 and not really discussing the full potential of collaborative learning… It is also because in Topic 4 our PBL group focused on how to keep online learners actively engaged and I realized that creating a virtual community is very important, i.e., to build a group identity that you feel responsible for.

In a paper by Nipp et. al. (1) they discuss how to make group work successful and by this how to design the course for online learning when it comes to working together. I realized that it is very important to dedicate a lot of time in the start of the course to build this community, to connect and making your students being seen (by peers and/or the facilitators). One should not underestimate the power of social networks! If you feel a responsibility towards your collaborators in the group it is more likely that you will contribute to the work and thereby increase the learning. By putting a lot of effort to this in the beginning of the course it will set the ground for the following activities and engagement. When the community and the technical platform is set it is time to continue to the next step and build up knowledge as referred to as the five stage model (2). At each step the students will need different types of motivation and the facilitators should be less and less important. However, students are of course individuals and will not reach a certain level of knowledge at the same time point and not be open to a certain level of information at the same stage. Therefore it is good to repeat the information in many different ways and over and over again. In the ONL181 it was very good to repeat the aims/tasks for each topic and when I had settled with the different technical platforms and my community I could finally appreciate this information. Right information at the right time, but the right time will differ between students!
The design for online learning have obviously a lot in common with the design for campus based courses, e.g., constructive alignment. But I think in online learning the online platforms/tools might be more new to the students than the tools in a normal classroom and one should try and make it as simple as possible. However, in this ONL course one learning outcome is to use these tools, so “the complexity is part of the game” in this case. It may also be more difficult to create a community online and more effort might be needed on this subject. You do not accidentally bump in to each other as you may do on the campus and it is not as easy to relate to someone without a face to go with the name. But HOW can you create this community? Reading the paper about seven strategies of designing for retention, i.e., ICEBERG (3), they report strategies to keep students engaged but sometimes it is hard to know how to do it and it may still be complicated. Feedback is very important, but how should it be given? By students and/or facilitators? In our larger ONL community it was obligatory to comment on at least a few of other member’s blog posts. However, many members had the feeling that no one was reading their posts and it was not so much feedback. To be engaged as a student one way might be to be assigned a certain task and deadline and having a forum to follow up that this actually was done. To feel that your work matter. On the other hand a more flexible way of handling deadlines might not scare students away. It is a balance. To conclude I think feedback or notification of your work is important, as well as motivation/interests. But how to give feedback and how much time a teacher (or students) can put on this is more difficult.

(1) Mary Beth Nipp, Journal of Instructional Research 2017 (https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1152959.pdf)
(2) Salmon, G (2013) The Five Stage Model. https://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html
(3) van Ameijde et. al. https://jpaap.napier.ac.uk/index.php/JPAAP/article/view/318/473