eBook by Professor Curtis Bonk and Dr. Elaine Khoo (Waikato University) called "Adding some Tec-Variety - 100 + activities for motivating and retaining learners online".
The book is available via Amazon but the authors have also
generously provided access to a free download of a pdf version of the book. 15 chapters with 10 chapters devoted to the “tec- tools”
framed by 3 introductory and 2 closing / consolidating chapters.
The first chapter introduces the rationale and values for
writing the book. The R2D2 (read, reflect, display, do) components used in an
earlier (2006) book (empowering online learning:100+ activities for reading,
reflecting, displaying and doing by Bonk and Zhang) is also introduced and
discussed. The framework for tec-variety (tone / climate, encouragement,
curiosity, variety, autonomy, relevance, interactivity, engagement, tension and
yielding) also presented and substantiated. Chapter 2 covers the various
literature on on-line learning attrition and retention, leading to the focuses
of the book on setting up the right background for helping learners retain
motivation in an online learning environment. Chapter 3 summaries the key
learning theories’ stance on motivation – behaviourism, cognitivism,
constructivism, social culturalism.
Each of the principles for assisting online learners to
succeed then covered. Each principle recommends 10 learning activities, backed
by examples, exemplars and resources. Principle one is to set up a tone or
climate to ensure learners’ are psychologically safe, comfortable and have a
sense of belonging to the course; Principle 2 covers the encouragements aspects
of learning with feedback, responsiveness, praise and supports. Principle on
curiosity has activities to provide for surprise, intrigue and exploration of
the unknowns. Variety is principle 4 to provide novelty, fun and fantasy. In
the principle on learner autonomy, activities to encourage learner choice,
control, flexibility and opportunities are presented. Relevance is covered to
provide activities for accessing meaningful, authentic and interesting
learning. Interactivity recommends online activities for collaboration,
team-based and community learning. Engagement is assisted by activities to
bring about greater effort, involvement and investment (buy-in). The critical
thinking aspect is addressed in principle 9 on tension with activities that
challenge learners and provide opportunities to work with dissonance and
controversy. The last principle discusses outputs in the form of goal driven,
purposefully visioned and learner-owned evidence production.
Recommended activities cover a range of traditional (variants
of discussion forums) to web-based, multimedia / multimodal type items. The
emphasis is on learning centred activities with the learner contributing and
producing content, either individually or with others, for discussion, critique
and consolidation.
The penultimate chapter covers the important task of
motivating instructors. The last chapter summarises the approaches and offers
tables listing all the various activities and the risks, time, costs, learner-centredness
and activity duration as a ‘selection’ tool.
Overall, a good overview of the possibilities for using a
range of online learning activities, anchored by sound pedagogical rationales.
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