Thanks Santanu for your interesting comments. I’ve heard the phrase ‘guide on the side’ before and I like it. It seems to sum up perfectly the sort of support you might expect in this kind of cMOOC. It also encapsulates the support I have had from OU tutors in the past.

I have been reading about Rocketship academies in the US, and it seems as though they are using these Khan Academy resources to support their classroom based provision, to make a blended learning approach.

I think your evaluation suggests that this is probably a great resource if it supplements your maths class, and you have a teacher on hand to…[Read more]

One thing that strikes me about learning to teach online by being an online learner is about modelling. When we are learning to teach in a classroom, we have had the experience of being taught by good and bad teachers, and we might observe or be observed by advanced teaching practitioners to support our development as rookie teachers. If…[Read more]

I really enjoyed Sugata Mitra’s presentation, and his experiments in non-directive learning were fascinating. I experienced a similar non-directive approach in an Open University module (H818) where each participant had to come up with a project and an ‘artefact’ to present at an online conference at the end of the module. We were supported in…[Read more]

Sooo… maybe I have only been interacting with tutors?!

That’s interesting Peter, that you don’t identify yourselves as tutors. Some of the webinar for week 5 focused on student-teacher/designer power differentials, and acknowledged that true equality of power was not possible. I wonder what this means in a MOOC such as this where we are all…[Read more]

I really like your idea of being able to draw on a bank of resources that we could remix as needed, and as I am involved in apprenticeships, I think your idea of them being created by industry experts is a fantastic idea.

In a way, that is what teachers have always done. You develop lesson plans and materials for a specific course, and when you…[Read more]

This might sound odd, but one of the ways learners I work with influence TEL is by not using TEL tools provided, thereby having a blocking influence.

I appreciate that the webinar and Julie’s presentation highlighted the need to involve learners in the decisions about TEL, however I am also mindful of Ford’s assertion that ‘If I had asked my…[Read more]

Where I work we have no real experts in TEL. While people are engaged in professional development, it tends to be based around teaching and learning, individual interests or key subject needs. TEL is not currently a priority (although I think that may change soon). So it is had to instigate professional development around TEL.

But individuals…[Read more]