Creating E-Tivities

Creating E-tivities

Explanation

E-tivities is the name Gilly Salmon gives to frameworks for enhancing active and participative online learning by individuals and groups. An e-tivity, simply put, is an online activity. It involves at least two people working together in some way within an online environment and is described in greater detail in her book E-tivities: the key to active online learning.
Some of the key features of e-tivities are:
• They are small, discrete pieces of information that provide a ‘spark’ in thinking.
• Individual participants 'post' contributions in an asynchronous environment.
• The e-tivity involves some interactive or participation (by, for example, responding to the postings of others).
• There is a summary, feedback or critique from the e-tutor
The purpose of e-tivities is to create motivating and stimulating learning through interaction by students and the e-tutor. The discussion topics produced in each block of this training course are e-tivities. They each provide a 'spark' for thinking, contributors 'post' within an asynchronous environment, there is interaction, and within your VLE environment there would be feedback from an e-tutor or e-trainer.

Three Examples

There are three examples of e-tivities below, each relevant to different stages in Gilly Salmon's five-step process.
E-tivity 1 (relevant to Stage 1- Access & Motivation)
Purpose - to be able to access the VLE Asynchronous Discussion tool
Task - to post an initial message introducing yourself to others
Interaction - checking by the e-tutor that students can access and to provide feedback for motivation.
E-tivity 2 (relevant to Stage 2 - Online Socialisation)
Purpose - to introduce yourself to others in your group
Task - to post a message introducing a topic of the student's choice via the Conference Room tool
Interaction - contributions from others in the group within a 'threaded' discussion. Participation and summary by e-tutor.
E-tivity 3 (relevant to Stage 4 - Knowledge Construction)
Purpose - to analyse your preferred methods of learning and to consider alternative processes or models
Task - to post thoughts on a particular piece of reading on learning methods
Interaction - others members of the group to provide their own interpretations and thoughts. E-tutor to moderate and summarise.