Join our weekly webinar at 16.30 on Wednesday 15 May, via Blackboard Collaborate 11.

You can access the Week 5 webinar via this link.

This week’s webinar

PLEASE NOTE this week’s webinar is at 4.30pm rather than the usual 12.30pm.

This week’s webinar is on platforms for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and in particular focuses on the connectivist style of courses being often taught by individuals or small teams of academics. As well as an overview of emerging trends there will be an in-depth behind the scenes look at the ocTEL platform. ocTEL is built on the open source WordPress blogging platform which has been augmented with a set of additional plugins and some custom coding. Participants will gain an insight into the challenges of developing and running a connectivist style open course and have the opportunity to quiz the platform architect Martin Hawksey.

About the presenter

Martin Hawksey in an advisor at the Jisc Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards (CETIS), which provides advice to the UK Higher and Post-16 Education sectors on educational technology and standards. Martin was first recruited to CETIS to provide technical support to the UK Open Educational Resources Programme (UKOER) but his work in data collection and visualisation techniques has seen this role broaden out into the field of open educational practices. Martin has been involved with a number of MOOCs including CFHE12, LAK13 and ds106.

We will make the recording of this session available via the Course Materials page.

Webinar help and FAQ’s

For help prior to the webinar and some frequently asked questions please visit our help page.

If you have any questions contact octel-tech@alt.ac.uk.

Thanks to everyone who took part in ocTEL’s weekly webinar earlier today.

If you missed all or part of the week 4 webinar, the materials from the session are now available on the Course Materials page, which is updated weekly with materials from each live webinar.

Join us next Wednesday at 12:30 BST for the week 5 webinar on platforms and technologies. Check the Course Materials page for more information.

Join our weekly webinar at 12.30 on Wednesday 8 May, via Blackboard Collaborate 11.

The link for the Week 4 webinar is available via the Course Materials page.

This week’s webinar

If you are planning on taking part in this session please complete a short survey in preparation for the session via http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JFX9KG3

This week’s webinar focuses on effective learning resources and aims to offer a range of opinions and perspectives on the following key questions:

• What do we mean by ‘engaging and effective learning materials’?
• How do we find them and how do we evaluate them?
• If we cannot find ‘ready-made’ materials to suit our purpose then how do we best create/assemble/stitch together materials to plug the gap(s)?
• What are the pros and cons of using OERs and what do we need to know about them to use them effectively (e.g. licensing and copyright issues)?

After a brief introduction, there will be four 10-minute responses, each of which will respond to some or all of these questions and identify important issues for all staff who want to make more effective use of the growing range of online learning resources. Our presenters are (in order of presentation): Peter Hartley, Sarah Currier, David Walker and Panos Vlachopoulos, and finally Chris Pegler. We will then have some time for questions and discussion.

About the presenters

Peter Hartley, National Teaching Fellow and formerly Professor of Education Development at Bradford, is now working as an independent consultant and is Visiting Professor at Edge Hill University. Sarah Currier is Jorum Service Manager, Mimas (http://mimas.ac.uk). David Walker is Senior Learning Technologist at the University of Dundee and is conference organiser and co-founder of eAssessment Scotland (http://www.e-assessment-scotland.org ). Panos Vlachopoulos is Lecturer in Academic Practice in the Centre for Learning Innovation and Professional Practice at Aston University in Birmingham, with international working experience in Greece, Hong Kong and New Zealand. Chris Pegler is Senior Lecturer in the Open University’s Institution of Educational Technology, National Teaching Fellow, researcher into resource reuse, and co-chair of OER13.

We will make the recording of this session available via the Course Materials page.

Webinar help and FAQ’s

For help prior to the webinar and some frequently asked questions please visit our help page.

If you have any questions contact octel-tech@alt.ac.uk.

Thanks to everyone who took part in ocTEL’s weekly webinar earlier today.

If you missed all or part of the week 3 webinar, the materials from the session are now available at the links below:

• Webinar recording
• Webinar presentation
• Webinar chat

Everything is also available on the Course Materials page, which is updated weekly with materials from each live webinar.

Join us next Wednesday at 12:30 BST for the week 4 webinar on producing engaging and effective learning materials. Check the Course Materials page for more information.

Join our weekly webinar at 12.30 on Wednesday 1 May, via Blackboard Collaborate 11.

The link for the Week 3 webinar is available via the Course Materials page.

This week’s webinar

In this week’s webinar Keith Smyth from Edinburgh Napier University will explore the area of activity design for technology-enhanced learning. Drawing upon established and emerging models and approaches, the webinar will address key considerations for designing activities that place an emphasis on engagement, collaboration, and learners as co-creators of their own educational experiences and resources. The webinar will also explore how to structure the design of activities to support learning across the different stages of a course, and will provide opportunities for participants to share good practice as well as plan possible future enhancements.

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Thanks to everyone who took part in ocTEL’s weekly webinar yesterday.

If you missed all or part of the week 2 webinar, the materials from the session are now available at the links below:

• Webinar Recording
• Webinar Chat

Everything is also available on the Course Materials page, which is updated weekly with materials from each live webinar.

Join us next Wednesday at 12:30 BST for the week 3 webinar on Active Learning. Check the Course Materials page for more information.

Join our weekly webinar at 12.30 on Wednesday 24 April, via Blackboard Collaborate 11.

The link for the Week 2 webinar will be made available via the Course Materials page on Wednesday morning.

This week’s webinar

This week Helen Beetham, an expert on learners’ experiences of TEL and on digital literacy, will help us to focus on the learner perspective. During the webinar you will find out how much you really know about your digital learners and explore some myths that can get in the way of understanding learners’ needs. You will consider what aspects of learners’ digital capability are most relevant to their educational success and look in more detail at what we mean by digital literacy.

About the presenter

Helen Beetham has written widely on digital literacies and is currently synthesis consultant to the JISC Developing Digital Literacies programme. Previously she has led research programmes on learners’ experiences of e-learning and on curriculum design for technology enhanced learning. She is the author of many articles, chapters and online resources, and the editor of Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age (second edition available from Routledge in May).

We will make the recording of this session available via the Course Materials page on the ocTEL website.

Webinar help and FAQ’s

For help prior to the webinar and some frequently asked questions please visit our help page.

If you have any questions contact octel-tech@alt.ac.uk.

Thanks to everyone who took part in ocTEL’s weekly webinar yesterday.

If you missed all or part of the week 1 webinar, the materials from the session are now available at the links below:

Webinar Recording

Webinar Presentation by Liz Masterman

Webinar Chat

Everything is also available on the Course Materials page, which is updated weekly with materials from each live webinar.

Join us next Wednesday at 12:30 BST for the week 2 webinar on understanding learners’ needs. Check the Course Materials page for more information.

Join our weekly webinar at 12.30 on Wednesday 17 April, via Blackboard Collaborate 11.

You can access the Week 1 webinar via this link (please note the session will not be live until Wednesday morning).

This week’s webinar

This week’s webinar has two parts. First, there will be a short introduction and networking session, allowing participants to introduce themselves and raise any questions. The main presentation will be led by Liz Masterman, Academic IT Services, University of Oxford. Liz will draw together some of the key themes that have emerged from her research interviews with lecturers, staff developers and learning technologists, in which she explored the different ways in which they engage with technology-enhanced learning. These themes include the role of theory, accommodating students’ varied needs and preferences, reusing and sharing learning materials, and the relationship between institutional and grass-roots initiatives in promoting TEL. In the discussion that will follow Liz’s presentation, participants will be encouraged to reflect on the relevance of each theme to their own practice.

About the presenter

Liz Masterman is a Senior Researcher in the Academic IT Services group at the University of Oxford. She has been conducting research into lecturers’ engagement with digital technologies in both HE and FE since 2004, primarily in the fields of learning design and open educational resources. She has also led two investigations into the student digital experience, which additionally included eliciting the perspectives of academic staff. Liz was a trustee of ALT from 2009-2012.

We will make the recording of this session available via the Course Materials page on the ocTEL website.

Webinar help and FAQ’s

For help prior to the webinar and some frequently asked questions please visit our help page.

If you have any questions contact octel-tech@alt.ac.uk.

Thanks to everyone who took part in ocTEL’s first weekly webinar this afternoon.

If you missed all or part of the week 0 webinar, the materials from the session are now available at the links below:

Webinar Recording [skip to 1:42 in the recording for the beginning of the session]

Webinar Presentation by Diana Laurillard

Webinar Chat

Everything is also available on the Course Materials page, which we will update weekly with materials from each live webinar.

Join us next Wednesday at 12:30 BST for the week 1 webinar on TEL concepts and approaches. Check the Course Materials page later this week for more information.