Exploration

**Exploration** At this phase on OLA design, there is need to carryout an extensive review of the contexts for which an online designer aims his or her activity (Dabbagh & Ritland (2005). This phase entails a thorough investigation and documentation of relevant information related to the instructional or training contexts. This also involves collecting information on individual and collective beliefs on learning (Dabbagh & Ritland, 2005:115). In the proceeding sections, I will now present on my own assumptions about how learning takes place, the nature and contexts of my learners, what I teach, and the teaching-learning challenge that we face in the Department of Distance Education.

**Assumptions on how learning takes place** The debate concerning a clear definition of, and how 'learning' takes place, is still on- going. Therefore, we also need a moment before we can wholesomely take on, as so far presented, the general definition of learning as the acquisition of positive knowledge, skills and attitude (Crawford, 1996). The reason we need to take this moment is because even during the process of acquiring knowledge, skills and attitudes, there are so many instances and questions that go unnoticed! Knowledge, and consequently learning is constructed in different ways. This is why Vygosky aggitated that learning needs to be mediated by more experienced and knowledgeable adults. (Crawford, 1996) The video below explains four major concepts of a Vygoskian type of assisted learning.

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The video clip above has illustrated four major concepts of a social constructivist type of learning. This type of learning to which I for one partially subscribe emphasizes three major principles of learning namely; children's ability to construct knowledge; 2) learning as leading to development; 3) development as inseparable from its social context; and 4) language as playing a central role in a child's cognitive development.

With insights from the video, I should also submit some of how I learnt particular things in my childhood was by deliberately repeating and perfecting some skills and tasks until such a time when I perfected them under the guidance of a moreover knowledgeable adult. Today, I need to work with, and proficiently manipulate an object to in order to produce my own desired outcome.

Unconsciously by so doing, I gain skills so much so that, the way I use some of these skills becomes a habit. Therefore, as for one, when I unconsciously perform any learning task so proficiently as though they were habits, then I can comfortably claim that I have learnt. Normally, I realize this through a critical reflection, soon or long after I have performed that a desired task. In brief, I do not solely depend on the skills and knowledge that I get from an individual for me to say that I have learnt. This is because specific skills or knowledge today, could easily become absolute tomorrow, but habits die long. To me, in order to learn effectively, I think we need to keep manipulating instances and objects. However this may be a little different from how my learners actually learn.

**Students' and Educators' Contextual Background** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The __[| Department of Distance Education (DDE][|)]__, now the School of Distance, Open and Lifelong Learning has the mandate of conducting distance and external Programmes (EP) at Makerere University. Since 1991 it has been running a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) program for which my language education students enroll. These are basically in-service teachers who attained a diploma certificate in education, and who would now like to acquire a degree in education. Although every year, the whole program attracts over 750 students, those who opt for language education as a subject range between 130-150 students. This implies a lecture-student ratio 1:30. As a facilitator on this program, I have largely taught Phonology and Poetry for the last six years. The major modalities of reaching these distance learners have been using the mini face to face session of about one week in semester and largely via writing course modular books and pamphlets.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">As the demand for distance education programs at our University increased, Makerere embarked on an initiative to extend academic support to its distance learners in the early 2000. The first initiative was about using the Blackboard ( __[|http://blackboard.mak.ac.ug]__ ) as a proprietary management system for students’ outdoor learning (Bisaso, 2009). This Learning Management System (LMS) was introduced through the University's joint collaboration initiative with Tufts and Dar es Salaam Universities. The initiative was a Co-curriculum Development (CCD) project that was housed by its then, Faculty of Social Sciences. The aim of the project was to produce open content learning materials accessible to all the students of the three universities (Kabugo, 2010). The cost of using this electronic learning management platform was sharable by these three universities. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">When the project life span came to an end, the Makerere University continued using it by expensively paying for its subscription. The cost of this subscription had been annually increasing at the rate of 20% ( __[|http://dicts.mak.ac.ug]__ ) until early 2007 when due to budgetary constraints the university could not sustain the platform (Tusuubira, 2005).

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In 2007, Makerere University made yet a similar collaboration with the University of Western Cape in South Africa. The two universities sought to extend academic support to its students in form of authoring and distributing open access content on a Learning Management System called KEWL. Although KEWL ( __[|http://kewl.nextgen.mak.ac.ug]__ ) is a kind of shareware learning support platform with a few licensing restrictions, since its inception at Makerere University, both lecturers and students’ experiences in using this platform showed that it was complicated, hard to install and unstable, and therefore not a user friendly learning support platform (Kabugo, 2010). Therefore, the Directorate for Information and Communication Technology Support [DICTS] opted for yet a free open source learning support platform called Moodle. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Since February 2009, Makerere University is using Moodle and partly Sakai tools as student learning support system ( __[|http://muele.mak.ac.ug]__ ). Moodle is a customizable open source technology platform that the Makerere University e-learning Unit thought might constitute better learning support tools to its students. In other Universities such Cape Town, Sakai has emerged as preference for their on-line learning support needs of their learners ( __[|http://vula.uct.ac.za]__ ). Moodle and Sakai are PHP and Java-based quiet stable content and learning support systems respectively. The two have been tested to be sustainable in terms of the maintenance costs as well as in supporting multimedia learning applications. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Although since mid 2009, the Makerere University E-learning Unit has been training lecturers on how to use Moodle, up to date, there are very few lecturers who are actually using this platform. Lecturers postulate that this platform cannot to be used to address their own, as well as the contextual mobile learning needs of their students. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Where as an attempt has been made to use ( __[|http://muele.mak.ac.ug]__ ) as a learning management system, it should be noted that like Blackboard and KEWL, Moodle is also a computer-based learning support system which is unaccessible by the majority of Makerere University's distance learners who do not have Internet-computers In their remote villages and upcountry areas.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Due to the above major limitation, the School of Open and Life Long Learning of Makerere University, has maintained its traditional alternative learning support practice of relying on the of course modular text and pamphlets production and distribution.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Subject Content** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I am a teacher educator working in the Department of Language Education (DLE) of the School of Education, at Makerere University in Uganda. I have taught the Phonology of Luganda language to both full-time undergraduate, and distance education language education students of this university for the past six years. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Teaching Phonology -the study of the sound system of any language (Katamba, 1993) can be an interesting but at the same time be a vexing task! It is the role of phonology to establish what differences in the sound properties of given segments will lead to differences in the same structurally grammatical texts. I will give you a very quick example below; <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">At the very basic level, phonology establishes the difference between the way we pronounce sound /w/ (//read ‘wa’ as in; ‘w-ord’ or ‘w-hat’//) and sound /f/ (//read ‘fa’ as in beginning ‘f-unding-’ or ‘f-inding’//). The segmental phonological difference between /(wa)/ and /(fa)/ is that, when pronouncing /w/, both our lips (the upper and lower part) try to join, as they make an oval shape (//please observe your mouth as you say /(wa)///), letting the air freely out of the mouth, thus making a free sound. In contrast, when pronouncing sound /(fa)/, the upper front teeth bite the lower lips //(observe your upper front teeth and lower lips as you say /(fa)///, leaving limited space for the air to come out of the mouth, thus making a very sharp sound in completing this utterance.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Such physical variations in places of articulation, and the manner in which the invisible air is worked on, is what causes the difference in the way we hear the /w/ and /f/ sounds. Thus, there is a very big semantic difference between ‘w-__uga__’ and ‘f-__uga__’ in Luganda. ‘W__uga__’ means to swim while ‘f__uga__’ means to rule. As we hereby note, in Luganda, the semantic difference between ‘swim’ and ‘rule’ only lay in the phonological properties of the first segment beginning each word i.e. ‘__**w**__uga’ and ‘__**f**__uga’

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Learning Phonology (-the study of the sound system of any language), requires a regular practice of analyzing both the segmental verbal, as well as the corresponding supra-verbal elements of sounds in a given language (Kabugo, 2008). This is because, and as a matter of emphasis, it is the role of phonology to establish what differences in sounds, will cause variations in meanings of the same structurally grammatical texts in any given language. When analyzing sounds, we do not stop at individual units such as how /p/, /k/, /t/, or /a/ etc. are articulated. Rather, phonology is concerned with even those supra or extra-segmental properties of sounds such as pace, stress, lengthening and intonation. For example, there is a very big difference in the way we say;


 * 1) <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">It is raining! (In the meaning of, that’s great!).
 * 2) <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">It is raining! (In the meaning of, it’s annoying!).

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Basically, what causes the difference in the meaning of the above texts is the speed or pace, stress and the volume with which a speaker makes the above utterances. In the first sentence, we would normally speak with a very high pace, volume and stress, while in the second instance, one should somewhat be making a sluggish and a very low pace utterance. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">I have taken the liberty to make distribute detailed course content in a modular format. This work is written in Luganda language. The work is freely usable for only learning purposes, use of which, its authorship should be attributed. It is openly accessible __[|here]__.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Teaching - Learning Challenge** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For over the years, it has been a vexing challenge not only to me, but more so to my distance education students who offer Phonology, to only rely on the limited face to face sessions and our 'alternative' traditional practice of course modular text and pamphlet production, for them to independently but effectively learn this practical subject which deals with the analysis of both verbal communications and the sound systems of this language. These methods have offered very little opportunities for my distance learners to engage in meaningful student-student, student-teacher, student-content, teacher-teacher, teacher-content, and content-content interactions which are very essential in collaboratively negotiating meaning of verbal communication and sound systems in this subject. On my side as a lecturer, teaching phonological elements as voice variations, intonations, sound lengthening and pitch among other paralinguistic features, by entirely relying on texts has been a real teaching teaching challenge.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Although in the past, we have been trying to organize course pamphlets in a simplest language possible, the students have continued to complain that suchcourse modular books do not allow them with any interactivity to share, listen to, and analyze as many unstructured sounds and verbal clues as possible, in order for them to effectively learn the supra-segmental features and the rules of the subject.The students have further complained that unlike their full-time face to face counterparts, they do not receive regular and direct verbal explanations from the course lecturer, given the nature of their learning program. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Whereas we had also attempted to distribute audio lectures on CD’s to some learners in the past, the students’ assessment of the course content that was provided on these CD's showed that they the learners merely listened to such audio CD’s with having an opportunity to interact with this content. This project was thus abandoned, because it did not make any significant difference in students' learning of the subject matter, yet theprocess of recording, buying, production and distribution of these audio CD’s was also posing a significant threat the department's budget. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">** References ** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"> Crawford, K. (1996). Vygotsikoan approavhes in human development in the information era. Educational Studies in Mathematics Vol 31: 43-62. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Kabugo, David (2008). Introduction to the Segmental and Prosodic Phonology of Luganda. Makerere University, Institute of Adult and Continuing Education. Retrieved from; __[]__ Retrieved on 3rd October 2011. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'arial black',gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: justify;"><span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">Katamba, Francis. (1993). "A new approach to tone in Luganda", in Language. Volume 69. 1. pp. 33–67.


 * <span style="background-color: #fbfb93; color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">**Home Page** || <span style="background-color: #fbfb93; color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">**About the Author** || <span style="background-color: #fbfb93; color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">Exploration || <span style="background-color: #fbfb93; color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">Enactment || <span style="background-color: #fbfb93; color: #0000ff; display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">Evaluation || <span style="background-color: #fbfb93; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">** Reflection ** ||