Feedback on the mobile learning webinar

As part of my mobile learning webinar on 20th March I asked all eight participants to complete a short feedback survey at the end. Getting student feedback is important at all times and my face-to-face students also complete a feedback form for each module at the end of the semester. As this was my first ever webinar I was especially keen to hear if I had got the balance right between pace, amount of content and level of detail. This survey also had the benefit of being entirely anonymous so hopefully everyone felt comfortable being completely honest with their opinions.

 I decided to use google doc's form function to produce my feedback questionnaire, which you can see here. There were several reasons for choosing to use google rather than one of the specialist survey websites like surveymonkey or surveygizmo: as I already have a google account there was no need to create a new one and I have already used a google docs form to survey students and was impressed by the ease of use and management of the results. For this questionnaire the form consisted of a mixture of twelve multiple choice, Likert scale, and free-text questions followed by a final option to add any other comments.

The initial responses to the questionnaire were rather slow with only three people completing it on the day of the webinar. Four more people completed it one week later, possibly reminded of it by their attendance at the next student webinar, and an eighth participant completed it the following day.

The aim of my first question was to find out whether I had advertised the webinar properly and included in the presentation that the advertising suggested would be covered. Students were asked to say Yes, No or Partly to the statement "The webinar met my expectations based on how it was advertised". Happily all eight respondents said "Yes" it had met their expectations.

Question 2 was the first of the Likert scale questions. These questions were all to be answered on a five-point scale with 1 meaning "Strongly agree" and 5 meaning "Strongly disagree". The second question was "The trainer clearly stated the webinar objectives", 6 of the students strongly agreed with this and 2 strongly disagreed. Perhaps the two who disagreed missed the objectives when they were mentioned at the start of the webinar.

Question 3 was an attempt at quality control regarding the content of the webinar, "The webinar covered all the stated items". 4 participants strongly agreed with this, 2 students agreed and 2 strongly disagreed. This result suggests that the relationship between the stated content and the actual points in the webinar could have been made more clearly.

Question 4 asked  whether "Examples were used to illustrate concepts." 2 participants strongly agreed, 4 agreed, 1 neither agreed or disagreed and 1 strongly disagreed. These responses suggest that more attention to illustrations could have been made.

In question 5 I wanted to assess the interaction between the webinar participants with the statement "The trainer encouraged and successfully managed discussions."  5 participants strongly agreed, 1 agreed, 1 disagreed and 1 strongly disagreed. I would say this is a satisfactory result but that perhaps more opportunities for discussion could be offered in the future.

Question 6 stated "The trainer was knowledgeable about the subject matter". This is of course a totally subjective point and heavily reliant on how well the host presented the webinar but happily 6 participants strongly agreed with this statement and only 2 disagreed or strongly disagreed. The two negative votes are nevertheless disappointing as I have spent a long time researching the subject.

 Question 7 looked at the responses give to participants by the host "The trainer adequately responded to
 questions asked". 5 participants strongly agreed, 1 agreed, 1 disagreed and 1 strongly disagreed. The majority seem to be happy with this aspect and as there were no questions asked at the end of the webinar I am a little unsure of the basis for the negative answers.

The eighth question looked at whether the participants actually felt like they had learnt anything by attending the webinar "The webinar improved my knowledge of mobile learning."  3 participants strongly agreed, 3 more agreed, 1 disagreed and 1 strongly disagreed. This question could also provide an indication of whether the right level had been reached in the webinar. As the presentation was advertised as an introduction to the area anyone who had previous knowledege would have answered this point negatively. It would however still be preferable if everyone said they had learnt something regardless of prior knowledge. Perhaps in the future this kind of question should be linked to one about previous knowledge.

Question 9 was the final Likert scale question and asked whether "The presenter was clear and understandable". This question could be interpreted both to include physically being able to hear the speaker but also whether the vocabulary chosen was at an appropriate level. 5 participants strongly agreed with this, 1 agreed, 1 disagreed and 1 strongly disagreed. Hopefully the negative votes are due to the technical problems of my microphone (background noise) rather than my poor choice of vocabulary or grammar.

In question 10 I wanted to find out if the pace and amount of information were ok with the question, "Was the right amount of information covered in the alloted time?". All 8 participants responded that "Yes, the amount was just right for the time given.". Knowing how much to include is always difficult so I am glad I seem to have got that right.

Questions 11 and 12 were open questions looking for further feedback from the partipants. These allowed the participants to say what they wanted entirely in their own words. Question 11 asked "What was the most helpful information you learnt during the webinar?". Students mentioned items like the definitions that were explained, the benefits of mobile learning, and the discussion of the frameworks. It was also commented that being able to share experiences with the other participants was very interesting.

Question 12 asked for constructive criticism and suggestions to improve the webinar, "How could this webinar have been improved?". The audio quality problem was mentioned here along with a desire for more practical examples of mobile learning in use. One participant commented that some of the content was "over their head" so perhaps I didn't quite match the needs of someone with no prior knowledge at all times.

The final question was a free-text opportunity for the participants to make any other comments. Aside from complimentary messages it was again commented that it was really nice to meet other students on the course. It seems like the social aspects of such webinars should not be underestimated.

 As the feedback from the students was generally positive I am quite pleased with these results. Bearing all of their comments in mind, for the future I will attempt to:

1) Include more opportunities for group discussion.
2) Include more examples of successful mobile learning projects.
3) Ensure that the objectives for the webinar are clear.
4) Ensure the audio quality is acceptable.

All in all, despite being quite nerve-wracking the webinar was a very enjoyable and educational experience for me. The participants seem to have enjoyed the format and were especially pleased to have the chance to meet and interact with fellow students. I would definitely not hesitate to use this form of teaching again given the right circumstances. To my mind a webinar is very similar to a traditional lecture (sage on the stage) and therefore does not directly offer all of the possibilites online learning has but in combination with other tools, such as discussions and blogs, it could form part of an excellent online or blended learning programme.

Theoretical Models for (Peer) e-Mentoring

Last week we had an excellent Virtual Office Hours (VOH) session with myself, Marty and Julia in which we really got to grips with some of the theories which could be applied to the use of peer mentoring in a blended or online course. Marty has already posted on the subject in his blog:

http://limey76.blogspot.com/

but I think the issue is so important that, at the risk of repeating something Marty has already said, I would like to also share my thoughts here.

Before I begin that there is also some important background information I have gathered from Ormond Simpson's "Supporting Students in Online, Open and Distance Learning" (2002).
Simpson begins by dividing student support into two distinct areas - academic suport and non-academic support. Whilst academic support involved tasks like defining and explaining, non-academic support is concerned with advising and acting. As the peer support I am providing for Nicky is being done in a non-teaching role I therefore think it falls into the non-academic category. Simpson later lists the characteristics of non-academic support as empathy, stress management, listening, warmth and openness. This is hopefully exactly what Nicky has been receiving from me as a mentor so far.

Another interesting practical point that Simpson raises are the results of a study into which sources of support are most important for students. 32%, the largest amount, said that family and friends where the most important source of support followed by tutors in second place with 29%. The third most important source was other students with 21% and lastly support given by the institution was voted most important by only 17%. This result makes it clear that the majority of students find family and friends or fellow students to be the most important source of support. If this support is being provided informally then it should be encouraged by the institution, perhaps by facilitating ways for students to meet or pairing off mentors and mentees.

In our VOH session we talked about how Garrison et al's Community of Inquiry model can be applied to mentoring. Garrison breaks the Community of Inquiry down into three components which all need to be fulfilled in order to create a success learning environment: cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence. At first glance, it seems that mentoring can be order to the social presence area of the framework. Social presence is the ability of learners to be seen as real people whilst studying in a virtual environment. Having contact with another student in a mentor-mentee role will obviously allow this. In addition I think there is also an argument to include mentoring in the cognitive presence sector of this model. Cognitive presence is about being able to establish meaning and I think mentors can provide support in this role helping others to make sense of the information they receive. Although for this module we are purely concerned with peer mentoring, successful online teachers should also be providing a mentoring function to their students. In that case it would therefore be possible to also assign mentoring to the teaching presence sector and thereby place mentoring directly in the middle of the Community of Inquiry model - in other words, right at the centre of the educational experience.

In addition, we also briefly discussed the cybergogy model and in my research I also found that Palloff and Pratt have some interesting points to make regarding mentoring. To stop this post getting any longer I shall return to these in the near future.

Neil

Garrison et al (2000) Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. In The internet and higher education 2, (2-3): 87 - 105

Simpson, O., (2002) Supporting students in online, open and distance learning (2e), London: Kogan Page

http://communitiesofinquiry.com/welcome [Accessed 4.3.2012]