Creating elearning experiences

The Web Standards Group (WSG) is a 5000+ member strong community of practice delving into the inner workings of web standards and accessibility. As the site proclaims the group “is for web designers & developers who are interested in web standards (HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, XSLT etc.) and best practices (accessible sites using valid and semantically correct code).” Web standards were introduced as part of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendations on the interoperability of software to access the Web. The idea behind the standards was to make the web accessible to everyone no matter what software they were using.

The goals of WSG are to educate designers and web programmers in the art of standards coding and to provide the support and forum for discussion and interaction with community members to take place. WSG makes use of a web based forum, email lists and advanced article submissions. The forum is rather simplistic in design and functionality and does not appear to be a very active area, compared to some forum boards I have been apart of. The email list is where the majority of the grunt learning power exists. You could almost say its a very cognitive learning environment were people learn through other peoples coding. Ian Crawford mentions that the accessibility to information is important when enabling learning to take place. The cognitive learning model within WSG is the learning from other peoples trial and errors and gaining access to the wealth of knowledge and experience of peers in the group. Shirley Saunders found that “adults learn extensively from belonging to and participating in groups of people”, much the same can be said for members of WSG who subscribe to the mailing list. Quiet often there are questions emailed not just on web standards but more so on how to code something to work correctly. The questions is not directly targeting the web standards but in order for the individual to correctly code the markup language they enquire with the community. There are usually more than one answer directed back at the question asked. People appear to be mostly polite in their manner and generally form some sort of informed answer that provides assistance. There was recently an email sent around regarding DocType’s, what each meant and which was better. There were many responses, some more confusing than others, but all the participants were trying their best to put forward their own interpretations based on their own past experiences and learning’s on the topic. As part of the social learning, it came down to creditability as to which response I found was more convincing.

Some other activities that are included in the WSG mailing list are weekly reading/links on general topics of web standards, coding principles, coding hints/tips and other best web practices.

Learning in this group could be classified as passive community of learning. Passive in being that you don’t learn if you don’t participate/read the weekly readings, email lists etc. There is definitely a presence of learning. People are contributing to other people’s questions on standards and coding principles and those who are lurking learn also. If they take note of the discussion and can use the hints in practice. The WSG is a community of practice where by community members interact on a mere social level to achieve better web standards and practices. They are consistently interacting with each other to enhance the community and spread the good stuff to all members in the community. Without the interaction between members the community would not thrive and therefore learning would be at a minimum.

From reading Cornford’s paper on the Prevalence of Social Learning I was able to grasp a larger concept of what social learning is. I also realised what social learning models are and that this model has been around for some time. My own opinions of social learning were somewhat expanded upon and in today’s society I believe social learning goes somewhat unnoticed in certain groups or communities and people are unaware that they are taking part in a social learning environment.

Social Learning to me prior to reading this article was focused on learning skills and tasks whilst interacting in a community or group or workplace. Cornford makes note that “there has been increased recognition that much learning occurs in settings such as workplaces, in shops and eceryday activities.(p73). I can draw on my own experiences as totally agree with what was said.  The majority of my learning my current skills in web development and php programming came from social interaction and learning my doing. I also immersed myself in the world of code and programming as much as possible with the outside of work commitments and I can feel myself become better at what I do everyday.  Also when I was “studying” my undergraduate degree in commerce, the best knowledge I learnt was from actually doing or for use of better words, practising accounting. Being able to demonstrate and pass on those skills also strengthened my knowledge and of course contributed to the social learning of others.

I also call on fond memories of an online gaming community that I help start with Angus :p  With user motivation high at the time there was great success with social learning and teaching. Newer members were brought up to speed on the groups social etiquette when it came to online gaming and competitive play. The willingness for new members to join, required them to read and understand the groups guidelines and abide by them in order to stay apart of the community. This forms the basis of social cognitive theory where there are interactions between the individual and the environment.

more to follow…

What has changed?

The most significant change since Brown’s report has been the emergence and availability of high speed broadband internet. This has enabled many home users to access larger amounts of information in a short period of time. It has also allowed for higher quality video streaming which has opened the doors to sharing various savoury and unsavoury videos, eg YouTube. This has also opened opportunities to develop more complex video tutorials and web applications. Access to the internet has become available to everyone, it is affordable and can even be used on a compatible mobile phone.

Today many activities are channelled through internet traffic. Everyday activities like shopping for groceries, to your favourite book can be obtained over the internet.

The advance in technology and the ease of access have allowed for this generation to gain a greater knowledge of the world and have access to answers by “googling” the question. Google has become the biggest search engine across the globe in its short life span and the phrase “just google it” has become a common term in today’s language.