Designing in features of evaluation gives you a chance to see how your TEL resources are being used, and also provides evidence that might help people to buy into what you’re doing (or tell you if you’ve got it totally … Continue reading →

The sun is shining here and our daughters are bouncing on the trampoline outside. It’s week 9 of ocTEL, and although I have to confess to some MOOC weariness I’m determined to be one of the 4% who make it … Continue reading →

The Saylor Foundation is a non-profit organisation whose “mission” is “to make education freely available to all” regardless of a student’s location or finances. Sounds good, eh? The Saylor model is all about aggregation: it pulls in open or creative … Continue reading →

I’ve not been the best at interacting with other participants on this course (mainly due to time constraints). But by the looks of it I’m not alone. The small group for distance learning forum, to which I subscribe, hasn’t seen … Continue reading →

When you learn to drive, your instructor makes sure you know how to parallel park, do a three-point turn and perform an emergency stop. In other words, he gives you exactly what you need to get through the driving test. … Continue reading →

After a two-week hiatus while I built sandcastles on the beach in Spain, it was good to get straight into a meaty bit of theory when I started catching up on ocTEL: David Kolb’s learning styles model and experiential learning … Continue reading →

Week 4 of ocTEL was a bit like week 0 for me: I spent a lot of time feeling quite dislocated from the subject matter and reaching for something I could use. I have to say I didn’t find all … Continue reading →

I come from a long line of unsociable learners. The writer James Hogg, a distant relative, taught himself to read and write alone by candlelight in an Ettrick farm cottage. My own father is teaching himself Gaelic; in the 1980s, … Continue reading →

So how do you find out if you’re ready to take an online course? Well in my case you dive into one unthinkingly (ocTEL), complain about how difficult and confusing you’re finding it and then gradually try to find out … Continue reading →