by David Jennings

Wrapping up Week 8: the E in TEL

10/06/2013 in Course information

Last week’s theme on ocTEL focused on a fundamental question in Technology Enhanced Learning: why are we doing this? In what ways is TEL better than other forms of learning? Many remain suspicious that it isn’t better, so we need good, robust answers to this challenge. If we’re saying learning is enhanced, what kinds of enhancement could we, and should we, be aiming for?

Contributions are still coming in on these question, so perhaps it’s premature to declare a ‘wrap-up’ — I certainly don’t want to discourage further thoughts — but Week 9 on managing TEL projects and risks is now under way, so a little clearing of the ground is in order.

The first activity kicked off with by encouraging you to review some recent examples of new TEL models that purport to make learning cheaper and/or more accessible, with a view to identifying implications for your own teaching and learning practice. Much of the debate tended to start from an assessment of whether these models are either inspiring or irrelevant.

Joseph Gliddon has a natty technique with his to-camera video blogs, demonstrated to good effect in his slightly dystopian extrapolation from Open Educational Resources to widespread job losses in higher education (do check the comments as well, presenting a few different sides of the argument, including a startup business: “We question the added value of a university and think that there’s more to e-learning than watching one-way video. We can do better and we will do better.” Hmmm, well at least there’s one bit of that we can all agree on.) Read the rest of this entry →

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by ADavidge

ocTEL Week 9 Webinar

07/06/2013 in Course information

Join our weekly webinar at 12.30 on Wednesday 12 June, via Blackboard Collaborate 11.

You can access the Week 9 webinar via this link.

This week’s webinar

In this week’s webinar we have two presenters from Imperial College London who will discuss their experiences of project management. Julie Voce will introduce a two-year institution-wide project to review and implement the new College virtual learning environment. Lisa Carrier will give an overview of a three-year Department of Medicine project to create and evaluate a blended multidisciplinary postgraduate programme. Both presentations will introduce the projects and the methodologies used and discuss topics covered during week 9 such as planning, risk assessment, key successes and failures, and lessons learned.

About the presenter

Julie Voce is the E-learning Services Manager at Imperial College London. Prior to this she was the Learning Technologies Support Co-ordinator at UCL and a Research Assistant in Computer Assisted Language Learning at UMIST. For ALT, Julie is involved with ALT’s Online Newsletter (http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/), the ocTEL MOOC and was Co-Chair of the 2012 ALT conference. In addition she is Chair of the UCISA Academic Support Group (http://www.ucisa.ac.uk/en/groups/dsdg/asg.aspx) and is involved in the biennial Technology Enhanced Learning survey (http://www.ucisa.ac.uk/bestpractice/surveys/tel.aspx). Alongside her role at Imperial, she is in the second year of a PhD in Technology Enhanced Learning and E-Research at Lancaster University.

Lisa Carrier’s background is in psychology, pedagogy and management. Lisa has extensive teaching experience in Further and Higher Education, and in the last 8 years she has been involved in designing and promoting e-learning best practice in HE. In her current role as e-Learning Manager at Imperial College London, Lisa helps academic and clinical professionals design postgraduate blended curriculum. She has managed a number of projects in Postgraduate Medicine, which have become showcases for innovative education, and received awards for enhancing student experience. Lisa is a qualified coach and an experienced manager, with specific interest in change management and organisational learning.

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.

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by ADavidge

Week 8 webinar recording now available

05/06/2013 in Course information

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

If you missed all or part of the week 8 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 9 webinar on keeping things on track and cheating Murphy’s Law. Check the Course Materials page for more information.

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by David Jennings

Week 8 webinar details and minor changes

31/05/2013 in Course information

Timing and practicalities

Please note that next week’s webinar will be on Tuesday 4 June at 12:30pm British Summer Time. As always, we’ll be using Blackboard Collaborate. For help prior to the webinar and some frequently asked questions please visit our help page.

To join the webinar please follow this link after 12 noon on Tuesday.

Maximising learning for minimum cost, but who’s the online learner? iTunes U as an example

We have looked at iTunes U a couple of times already (in Weeks 4 and 5, occasionally arousing some controversy) as a repository of digital educational material provided by universities and other institutions. iTunes U has delivered over 1 billion downloads, providing unprecedented free public access to educational content for learners and teachers worldwide.

Tuesday’s webinar will present the potential of iTunes U to deliver free educational content and how this content is being used, offering the first full profile of the iTunes U learner and their practices and opinions of the materials they download. The data was gathered through a large survey (over 2000 responses) carried out over two years using the iTunes U site from The Open University, the UK’s most successful iTunes U provider in terms of numbers of downloads (over 60 million) as well as amount of collections uploaded (over 400). The session will conclude with ideas about how to introduce the use of free iTunes U materials to teaching, either in the classroom or as self-access resources.

About the presenter

Fernando Rosell-Aguilar is Lecturer in Spanish at the Open University, United Kingdom, where he writes teaching materials and chairs the presentation of courses with 800+ students. He also coordinates the provision of materials from the OU department of languages on iTunes U. In 2004 he received the Open University teaching award for his online learning materials. His research focuses on online language learning, mainly podcasting as a teaching and learning tool, CMC learning environments (such as audio and video conferencing) and digital literacy. He has published his research in international journals such as Computers and Education, Language Learning and Technology, ReCALL, CALL, JaltCALL and Reading Matrix, and regularly presents at international conferences.

Enhancement strategies

On the original Course Materials page, we billed Week 8 as “Maximum learning for minimum cost”. Reflecting the fact that enhancing learning has more dimensions than just getting more bang for your buck, we’ve changed the title to “Enhancement strategies”. There is a still a strong focus on efficiencies of scale, widening access, extending the reach of learning opportunities and reducing costs — but also a recognition that enriching and deepening learning and the learners’ experience is an important aspect of Technology Enhanced Learning.

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by ADavidge

Week 7 webinar recording now available

30/05/2013 in Course information

Thanks to everyone who took part in ocTEL’s weekly webinar with Nancy White yesterday afternoon.

If you missed all or part of the week 7 webinar, the materials from the session are now available on the Course Materials page, which is updated weekly with materials from each live webinar.

Gráinne Hamilton, this week’s lead tutor, has blogged about the session:

In the webinar, Nancy covered the impact of the contexts we teach and learn within, considering the ‘we, me, many’ – groups, individual, networks. Much of the discussion focused on how to move towards interaction and developing peer support online. Some of the participants described examples of courses they want to develop more peer-to-peer interaction and experiential learning within, sometimes in international contexts, and Nancy and the group came up with a range of suggestions that could help. These included:

Read the rest of this entry →

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by ADavidge

ocTEL Week 7 Webinar

27/05/2013 in Course information

Join our weekly webinar at 17.00 on Wednesday 29 May, via Blackboard Collaborate 11.

You can access the Week 7 webinar via this link.

This week’s webinar

PLEASE NOTE this week’s webinar is at 17:00pm rather than the usual 12.30pm.

Have you ever felt like you were planning a dinner party when what you really wanted was a picnic? We have lots of options about how we design learning to engage and facilitate peer to peer learning. But sometimes it is easy to get stuck with “what we’ve always done.” Join Nancy White as we explore our repertoire of possibility for groups and learning. With Nancy, we’ll practice some of the real time webinar facilitation techniques that tutors can use to enable a supportive, collaborative and / or co-operative environment.

About the presenter

Founder of Full Circle Associates, Nancy White helps organizations connect through online and offline strategies. She is internationally recognized as an online interaction designer, facilitator and coach for distributed learning, teams and online communities. Nancy blogs at http://www.fullcirc.com/, teaches, presents and writes on online facilitation and interaction, social architecture and social media. She is co-author with Etienne Wenger and John Smith of “Digital Habitats: stewarding technology for communities.” (http://www.technologyforcommunities.com).

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.

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by ADavidge

Week 6 webinar recording now available

22/05/2013 in Course information

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

If you missed all or part of the week 6 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 17:00 BST for the week 7 webinar on supporting learners with tutor and peer communications. Check the Course Materials page for more information.

 

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by David Jennings

Some (late) notes on platforms and technologies

21/05/2013 in Course information

With apologies that this is late, which is entirely my fault, here’s Phil Tubman’s take on some of the discussions that took place last week on Platforms and Technologies.

Last week there was a lot to do. Participants were advised to dip into the activities that have most resonance with their practice or thinking.

Activity 5.0 is a chance to think about platforms and technologies in relation to Kolb’s experiential learning cycle. James Kerr did an analysis of Social Media tools, and concluded that SM tools can support activities in any quadrant of the experiential learning cycle. For example YouTube videos can be consumed, reflected on and created, so this fits into all areas. Stephen Brown also made a similar observation, but extended the idea to all technology, and did an analysis on use of clickers in classrooms:

clickers could be used by learners to record their emotions (click every time you feel angry/sad/amused/etc. while listening to/watching/reading/doing XYZ), so they are seemingly compatible with the diverger style, but if the results were collected together and displayed and the class were asked to reflect on them then wouldn’t that support the assimilator style?

I commented that this is only available if the clicker providers allow this functionality, as most clicker systems are very closed in terms of the interactions that are possible – you can only answer a question when it is ‘sent’ to you, which limits the experiential learning potential.

The emergent theme is that it is usually not the tool that ‘places’ it in a quadrant, but the learning activity. Sancha talked about this in his reflection of the design process.

I do wonder if Kolb realised what impact online social interactions would have on his cycle, as the ‘thinking’ quadrants (reflect and do) seem to happen more in these social spaces.

Activity 5.1 asks participants to think about what ‘drives’ their takeup of technology, and how platforms and technologies support or detract from this. Alice Shepherd’s blog post took the templates provided from Hill et al, added a few more logistical dimensions, and noted that ad hoc arrangements sometimes drive technology choices:

During the ash cloud a few years ago, I was prompted by circumstance to learn about how to do screencasting because so many of my students were stranded overseas close to exam time and needed to attend a virtual class, asynchronously as they were in multiple time zones.  This emergency meant I started to use this technology and have returned to it many times since!  So, there is serendipity as well.

If you have further stories to share regarding virtual classroom technology or open source pedagogy, the forums are ready and waiting…

 

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by ADavidge

ocTEL Week 6 Webinar

20/05/2013 in Course information

Join our weekly webinar at 10.00 on Wednesday 22 May, via Blackboard Collaborate 11.

You can access the Week 6 webinar via this link.

This week’s webinar

PLEASE NOTE this week’s webinar is at 10:00am rather than the usual 12.30pm.

Start with the end in Mind: Gilly Salmon tells stories about assessment and feedback from the perspective of e-tivities (online activities). She’ll cover the new e-tivities framework (‘invitation’) and the latest news of ‘Carpe Diem’ learning design workshops.

About the presenter

Gilly is Pro Vice-Chancellor, Learning Transformations at Swinburne University of Technology. She is internationally renowned for her significant contributions to online education, including research, innovation, program design, teaching methods and the use of new technologies. Recent publications include Podcasting for Learning in Universities and Learning in Groups.

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.

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by ADavidge

Week 5 webinar recording now available

16/05/2013 in Course information

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

If you missed all or part of the week 5 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 10:00 BST for the week 6 webinar on providing timely, effective assessment and feedback. Check the Course Materials page for more information.

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