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damon_tokyo posted an update in the group Language teachers 10 years, 7 months ago
Hi Alicia, (Julie, Barbara)
Yep! Crashed soon after the webinar. Up early and at my desk on a rainy Tokyo this morning. How are we going to start “Activity 0.2: Small group reflection”? The three guiding questions are pretty general – to allow us the freedom to find our own focus I’m guessing.
I think the best way to start Activity 0.2 is to try and answer the questions. I’ll give it a go! 🙂
1. What can we tell about the range of experiences and preferences among ocTEL participants?
As expected (or at least as I expected! 🙂 ) the range of experiences and preferences among ocTEL participants is huge!
2. What challenges does this present for the course?
The challenge for the course is to cater for all those different experiences and preferences. I think these groups are a great way to help us focus on our particular interests. I expect the seminars to be quite general to give us a starting point to talk about the topic under the light of our particular interests, in this case, language teaching.
In what ways is a MOOC like this one well or poorly suited to these challenges?
I’m not sure what they mean by a MOOC “like this”. This is my first MOOC so I have nothing to compare with but I think a MOOC is a good place to meet with people from all over the world, with different experiences and skills. We can meet in a group like this to focus on a specific topic but we are also exposed to so many different ideas and topics! I have already learnt so much about things that I had never thought about like badges and the importance of goal setting and careful guidance.
OK. My turn!
1. I agree the range of experience, professional focus, goals is huge. If I were to be asked to crudely divide participants into two, I might say that there is one group whose job is to focus on and deliver TEL to others and another who are the ‘others’. Does that make sense? Of course, there are so many weaknesses in that proposition, but it was something that popped into my head while participating int he webinar last night.
2. I think the challenge is for the participants to take advantage of the ‘course’. I’d rather focus on that, than, at this stage, thinking about potential feedback for the designers of the course framework: hats off to them so far!
3. The same. My first one 🙂 I’m learning to be as autonomous as my ‘ideal’ student!
Hi Alicia and Damon! Thanks for brining the subject of activity 0.2 back, i was about to forget it…
1. Well, i have to admit that for me, the range of profiles from ocTEL participants is not that broad since it consists mainly with higher ed professionals who use TEL in their practice. I agree with Damon then that here are some “others” (thinking about Lost and Nicole Kidman which has nothing to do with anything here).
2. If there is a challenge, then it would be to find a common ground, at least inside groups as Alicia put it, and to have broadly common goals. The challenge is also to follow the full course as it is a problem faced by all online courses.
3. Having followed several MOOCs already, each one has its own rules and is more or less connectivist (i took part in a hectic one about OERs where i didn’t understand what was expected from the start, tough one even though it was in french!). As of now, the community is very active, which i’m not sure is because of the MOOC, but i think it will ease the challenges noted.
I’m not sure I I understand Damon’s groups.
A. The first group the people in charge of delivering this MOOC and we are “the others” (participants)?
B. We (participants) are the first group and our students are “the others”?
C. None of the above?! 🙂
I think the answer is A? In that case I agree with you. I wasn’t really thinking of the people in charge of the delivery when I wrote my comment and I still think that there is a broad range of experiences and preferences/interests within the group of participants. There is probably a big group of higher ed professionals that use TEL in their practice as Julie mentioned. But there are different groups within that group: language, music, art, science, from areas with/without easy access to technology, tech savvy/not so savvy/no savvy at all students, etc.etc. etc. And I think there are also other groups like administrators and tech support people that can be again grouped into the same categories above.
The answer is C! Which means my ‘crude’ division, was so crude as to be unintelligible. I’ll give it another go. There are those whose job/profession – their job description – it is to deliver the infrastructure and training for TEL, they are qualified (in various ways) specialists in the field. In short, your ‘administrators and tech support people’.
The other group are those who use TEL to support their teaching, but who are not expected by their institution to necessarily deliver TEL.
I am in this latter group: my main focus is to teach English to Japanese college students and to run an English Language Program. We use CMS to deliver the program and have introduced various WEB 2.0 ideas to enhance certain aspects of it, but we rely on a technical support department to implement much of this.
I’m happy with the breakdown of all participants into a myriad of interests, skill levels, roles and so on. Again, as you say, ‘language, music, art, science, from areas with/without easy access to technology, tech savvy/not so savvy/no savvy at all students, etc.etc. etc.’ 🙂
I get it now! 🙂