by David Jennings

Getting the right level of challenge

14/05/2013 in Course information

Continuing our series of featured contributions by ocTEL participants, here Nicola Whitton draws out some points from blogs and forums in the Week 3 activities (which she led). It’s good to see that several of the discussions from ‘past’ weeks are still drawing interest and interaction. 

I was struck by an interesting conversation in the ocTEL forums discussing the game NotPron. This is a particularly hard game, with a steep learning curve, that also requires high levels of technical expertise (or the ability and confidence to pick up technical skills very quickly). I think that NotPron is an interesting example of how technologically-simple games can stimulate learning; but it is a very bad example of how to make a game accessible for a wide audience.

Sue Folley blogged about the game, discussing the difficulties she had getting started and being able to play the game. In her analysis, the lessons learned from her experience for students:

… the hints provided were not sufficient scaffolding for me to guess what to even try to do to get to the next level. I suppose this is a lesson learned in making sure that that enough scaffolding is provided for all level of student, and it provided me with the insight of what it felt like to feel way out of my comfort zone.

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by ADavidge

ocTEL Week 5 Webinar

13/05/2013 in Course information

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.

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by David Jennings

Featured post: mixing it up and making new links

11/05/2013 in Course information

We’re going to experiment on ocTEL by featuring a few of your contributions to the course each week. These may be posts on blogs, forums or any of the discussion spaces that we track in the Course Reader. These will be contributions that point to new directions or linkages between different parts of the course. We’ve had to design ocTEL as a linear sequence, but there are many cross-cutting themes, as well as new connections — sometimes latent in the material — that you may spot as learners in a way that we as course authors may have missed.

Our first featured post, Jim Pettiward’s thoughts on Week 4, combines Jim’s thoughts on two of the weeks activities, and has a sceptical vein through it:

look at the Horizon (HE) Report in 2006 and you’ll see ‘Educational Gaming’ – Time to adoption 2 – 3 years. Look at the 2013 (HE) report and you’ll see ‘Games and Gamification’ – Time to adoption 2 – 3 years. In my view, this underlines the fact that with a few exceptions, gamification of learning is something that is often talked about but rarely implemented in any coherent way (in Higher Education)

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by ADavidge

Week 4 webinar recording now available

08/05/2013 in Course information

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.

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by ADavidge

ocTEL Week 4 Webinar

07/05/2013 in Course 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.

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by ADavidge

Week 3 webinar recording now available

01/05/2013 in Course information

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:

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.

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by David Jennings

Understanding Learners’ Needs – Week 2 Wrap-up

30/04/2013 in Course information, progress report

The week’s activities began with a good deal of interest and comment relating to the four ‘Readiness questionnaires’. Most comments and posts related to the limitations of this mechanistic approach to identifying learners’ needs. Colleagues identified that differing degrees of self-awareness amongst students, previous experiences of learning (whether face-to-face or online) and the mood of the moment are all likely to impact upon how the questionnaire would be completed and the value that students would place on the automated feedback that they receive.

We were then delighted to welcome Helen Beetham as our guest for the Week 2 webinar, which was enjoyable, informative and as promised provocative at times.  You can view the recording of Helen’s webinar, and can also view Helen’s slides.

During the webinar we considered the purpose of asking students about their preparedness for online discussion, and considered other approaches to identifying learners’ needs which focus less on student deficit assumptions and more upon understanding what students actually ‘do’ in terms of their practices.  Webinar participants were divided about the various ways that learners are willing to engage with technology, which led Helen to suggest that we should be very wary about making any grand statements about learners’ needs and preferences.  Instead, we should be prepared to recognize the situated nature of learning and make opportunities to speak to students about their use of technology, helping them to imagine different learner and digital identities. Read the rest of this entry →

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by ADavidge

ocTEL Week 3 Webinar

29/04/2013 in Course 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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by Rachel Harris

Expectations taster

29/04/2013 in About this course, Course information, Evaluation

Last week we asked you to tell us what your expectations are for taking part in ocTEL. If you haven’t already, please do add your views via the expectations questionnaire!

We are really hoping to hear from more of you, but from the responses so far, here’s a taster of what the ocTEL community looks like, and what you hope to achieve.
Pie chart of location of respondents
As you can see from this pie chart, most respondents are based in the UK.

The majority also indicated that they work in Higher Eduction, but some cover other sectors including the NHS, private and third sectors. Over half are learning technologists or lecturers, but other roles such as manager and teacher are also represented.

We’re also interested in what experiences participants had prior to taking part in ocTEL. Responses so far suggest most have some experience of using technology for teaching, and of using social media (SM) for their own learning and for networking. Perhaps reassuringly for the course team (!), there are also participants who have joined ocTEL with a view to broadening their understanding in these areas. In the words of one respondent “I know I have big gaps in my knowledge regarding pedagogical theory and instructional design. I’d like to start ‘shading in’ these areas and find out what else I need to know for the future.”

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by David Jennings

Keep moving (and skipping, if necessary)

26/04/2013 in Course information

At this stage of the course most of you will have felt at some point that you are “behind” in some way because you have not done all the scheduled activities.

There is no such thing as “behind” on ocTEL. Let us remind you of the advice we gave at the very beginning of the course.

One of the features of this kind of course design is to present you… with a range of options that can seem over-stimulating at first… Always remember that these are options: you don’t have to do them all.

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