I agree with Jo’s point that there is always some power differential but I suspect that this is pretty minimal in ocTEL as we tutors have no real sanctions or influence which is associated with ‘authority’. The ocTEL course team have had various discussions about the tutor role but this has mainly been about what we should be doing rather than…[Read more]

A couple of unrelated comments:

Jo – I am a tutor so you may have been interacting with one of us without knowing. We don’t necessarily identify ourselves but have a remit to look at the forums and other inputs and either comment or initiate topics to keep things moving. Do you think we should be doing something different?

Thrun has now become…[Read more]

Thanks for this. I wondered how you had used this technique elsewhere in courses.

A salutory tale, James – you are not alone! I and colleagues was once forced to deliver a mass lecture/interdisciplinary/tech-supported/CAA-assessed/cross-faculty module which was a complete disaster for all concerned. Them on high justified the decision to offer the module in the pursuit of interdisciplinary and efficiency – both of which failed.…[Read more]

One of the advantages of Glomaker when I was using it was that it was transportable so you could store it on your own computers, access it through the VLE etc. I don’t know how many people are using it nowadays and I was unable to inspire my colleagues with it at the time (probably my fault rather than Glomaker’s).

I used it a bit a few years ago and found it quite a useful tool to create short clips where you wanted to contrast different views or opinions on an object/concept/theory. But I am not sure what has happened to it in terms of further or current developments.

I think that we do need many more resource banks of the type you describe but I don’t think that MOOCs are the best analogy. I suggest an investment in MOONs – massive, open, online ‘nuggets’ – along the lines of the Khan Academy but using more sophisticated delivery when this is warranted by the subject matter (multimedia, animation etc). There…[Read more]

Interesting thought – where I would disagree is at the point where students might become ‘dependent’ on the learning platform which then ‘disappears’ when they leave the institution. Are we preparing students for the move that they will have to make from the ‘one-stop shop’ which their institutional VLE might provide into the possibly unsupported…[Read more]