Home › Forums › Induction ("Week 0") › Small group reflection (Activity 0.5) › 12 mongrels wanted: small group for those of no particular pedigree
- This topic has 74 replies, 15 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 5 months ago by ScottJohnson.
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April 9, 2013 at 8:54 am #1293SharminaMember
I think for now if we stay here, we’ll all know where to find each other! What do you think?
What I’ve found interesting so far is the way the term ‘technology’ is being used. It seems to be that when anyone speaks of technology they’re thinking virtual learning platforms (including social networking sites) – is that what we’re limiting our definition to? What about things like powerpoint/keynote, using other forms of media in the classroom, like video-clips..and how about the use of gadgets, like computers, tablets, etc.?
I teach in the UK at M-level and use powerpoint (and I have to say, these are not simply bullet points that appear on a blank white slide – each slide has relevant photos/backgrounds, as well as animation) integrated with video-clips. My use of a virtual learning environment (VLE) is limited to uploading readings to a site managed by our administrator and downloading student work from the same site for the purposes of assessment. I’d love to learn more about how other forms of technology could make learning more effective and enjoyable for the students.
April 9, 2013 at 9:21 am #1297ShunaMarrMemberYes, unless anyone knows of a better place to decamp to, it’s as well to stay here where we have links to it. As instructed, I have been off snooping around the site in best James Bond style and I have added my own thoughts to this post about why there was such a broohaha about the email links. It seems lessons have been learned on both sides as to how to approach a MOOC sign in:
http://octel.alt.ac.uk/communications-in-large-online-courses/
This also has some useful links in how to set up your course profile worth checking out.
In response to Sharmina – I have seen posts on various forums about the different understandings of what ‘technology’ is. For my own part, what I hope to get out of this course are ideas about how to improve my teaching practice and make it more interesting and help it to be more student centred rather than teacher led.
With that in mind, I think that any gadget that can be used to enhance my practice could be considered ‘technology’. I therefore agree that innovative ways of using things like powerpoint, youtube, Moodle (our VLE), Turning point clickers, audio feedback, online games etc would be of interest. I have used all of the above and hope to learn more about new technologies, but more particularly how people use them, in order to be able to adapt them to enhancing my own practice.
April 9, 2013 at 9:30 am #1305Rich GoodmanMemberStaying here seems to make sense, hopping around to various other places could start to get confusing.
April 9, 2013 at 12:20 pm #1352SolentRogerMember10 PRINT “Hello”
20 GOTO 10I realised last night that was 30 years ag0 – it was for teaching of a subject not teaching of computing (if that makes sense). Learning about car engines and then doing a simple MCQ. However, I then went on to realise that my primary school used to sit us all down to listen to BBC Schools Radio on a big loudspeaker (well I was little) connected to a Rediffusion service in the corner of a room.
April 9, 2013 at 12:48 pm #1356SolentRogerMemberHello Phil and all others I don’t yet know.
Happy to stay here – make this our electronic base room. Yesterday felt like walking into a huge university with no timetable or idea of what subject I was taking and wandering around the corridors lost, chatting to random souls until I a decided to open the door of a seminar room and wander in.
Although there are around 1000 participants it now feels like I’m on a course with 12 people.
To pick up on the ‘what is technology’ question, once upon a time pencil and paper was introduced into the classroom to replace chalk boards allowing the students to keep a permanent personal record of their learning and take their notes home with them for further study, thus introducing portability.
hmmm – sounds a bit like proto Mobile Learning with a Personal Learning Environment? And the batteries never ran out!
But, it wasn’t networked, there was no social constructivism beyond the classroom/face-to-face. So do we define TEL as to include some some of comms/collaboration ability? Was school radio TEL by that definition or just resource delivery (ie audio book?)April 9, 2013 at 12:53 pm #1357doctorjenMemberyes, the GOTO business was a ‘computing’ lesson rather than learning about something using technology.
We used to have ‘films’ at primary school at the end of term, sitting cross legged picking the rubber off our plimsoles whilst a documentary about volcanoes in Iceland played on the ‘big screen’. We used to have a weekly TV programme, on a regular sized TV with big black flaps surrounding the screen to prevent glare – programmes for schools watched in schools. I always coveted a ‘speak and spell’ machine but never got one.
My experience of using computer technology for learning a subject would probably have been using a library catalogue terminal at University, I suppose. Certainly no TEL at secondary school, or to deliver course content at a UK Russell Group University in the early 90s.
I guess then, the first ‘proper’ engagement TEL was shockingly recent, probably some ECDL quiz then an online Masters with the OU in 2005ish! Crikey! What a sobering thought. (Brings the whole digital native/immmigrant/debate into a slightly different focus for me)
April 9, 2013 at 1:30 pm #1363ShunaMarrMemberThat’s a wonderful analogy you’ve given there SolentRoger – that’s exactly how I felt yesterday, and I wrote a comment elsewhere this morning about people tending to be happier in wee ponds than in the big ocean. It does feel like I’m on a course with 12 of us and we have a wee focus group to discuss what goes on ‘out there’ :).
I’m reckoning by all the reminiscences this morning that I can identify with (I’d forgotten about the TV on a tall, wheeled trolley with the big flaps, and listening to the radio in primary school) that you are all over 21 lol! However, having said that, I agree that so much of this is very recent – we were still using TVs like that at college just a decade or so ago (and acetates on slide projectors – and even blackboards begads!)
It was on a TV just like that where I watched the second aircraft plough into the twin towers in 2001, called in to the next door classroom by my colleague to watch it unfold. So I have a point of reference to know that all of the technology we use today is very recent and the learning curve has been practically vertical.
I’m considered in my uni to be one of the trailblazers – at the vanguard of trying out new things in teaching – and yet I know that I am woefully behind all the most recent developments and that I am having to run hard just to stand still at times. My reputation seems to be based on the principle that I’m not afraid to try out new ideas – so many of my colleagues still seem to use blank slides with just words on their powerpoint presentations. According to some student feedback, some even just read from the slides! So I’m not resting on my laurels lol
Thinking about the topics we have to tackle in this forum this week, it seems to me that the people who have ventured onto such a course as this are likely to be mostly the ones who are interested in trying new things (on the basis that the course itself filters out those not interested). However, even within that, there seems to still be a huge diversity of experience and capabilities within the group (judging by the inability of so many to set up an email filter – and yes, despite my experience in many areas, I can’t do that either lol!). So this leads me to surmise that some people will have lots of experience in some areas, some people will have a little experience in a lot of areas, some will have little or no experience – but they all come with a desire to at least try.
Will a MOOC be able to provide that? Well, the comment at the start of this post probably answers that – we’ll all sort ourselves into little groups that make us feel more comfortable and we’ll have the odd foray into new activities to stretch ourselves a bit at a time. My personal choice for now seems to be this group, a quick scan through the twitter feed of a morning and a weekly digest of the week’s news. As they state right from the start, it won’t be possible to keep up with all the content generated – but then, is it necessary? I have this sneaking suspicion that no matter which media I choose, I might still feel that all the best posts are happening elsewhere – but then, I only have so much time and effort to devote to it, and a lot of it doesn’t interest me. As long as I end up in a few weeks with a broader understanding than when I started, and a few good ideas about how to develop my modules over the summer, then I shall think ‘job done!’ 🙂
April 9, 2013 at 2:59 pm #1374SimonBatesMemberHi
Would be great to join this group if you can allow an unlucky 13th? I’m project manager for e-Learning at University of West England in Bristol.
Fairly new to the world of TEL on the whole, my role is quite focused on increasing the use of Blackboard in the faculty and supporting new projects and initiatives. It’s a kind of top-down/bottom up approach: we want staff to engage in TEL for their own reasons but have come to recognise that a set of minimum standards has to be introduced or we only end up working with the most enthusiastic.
So… I am interested in change management, motivations to adopt new pedagogies and technologies and most of all the move from instruction to construction as a basis for learning.
Hope it is not too late to jump in (my boss has put this MOOC in my performance review so I have to complete it!) I’ll be the one to turn the lights out!
All the best,
Simon
April 9, 2013 at 3:09 pm #1380ShunaMarrMemberHi Simon – I’m sure you’ve heard all the ‘Golden Hour’ jokes before 🙂 This is on my PDR too, so I’m in it for the duration lol!
Shuna
April 9, 2013 at 4:21 pm #1387trish_ocMemberHi Jennie,
well on a personal note I’m not here JUST because its free.. I think the fact there are so many like minded individuals who are willing to share of their knowledge that this has to be the key selling point (a bit of a tautology given the freeness of a MOOC?)
I don’t think I could speak to the elearning aspect yet as this is my first MOOC and I’m not sure whats going to happen from minute to minute.. but I do love that I can disappear into my class.. give my f2f lecture ( where God knows I try to bring in as much elearning .. we watched a Screencast on Pulse Code modulation!! ..as I can) then I can come back to my desk read some interesting posts and hope for some kind of e-spiration..
So if MOOCs are bad e-learning will have to wait til I’m a few weeks into this I reckon
Don’t think I’ve answered the question so am now off to the e-corner where I will stand for an indeterminate time 😉
Trish
April 9, 2013 at 4:31 pm #1389drannersMemberHi SolentRoger, I don’t think you have to include an element of collaboration in order for a tech facilitated learning activity to be considered TEL. So long as there is some form of technology used in the learning experience, I feel that this warrants using the term TEL. Where it gets more interesting, for me, is around the design of the learning activity. Once you can understand the objective(s) of the TEL learning activity, I think you can then start to categorise what form of TEL it is. I like Napier’s model of the 3E framework (Enhance, Extend, Empower) as a means by which to articulate the type of TEL experience a user is having.
April 9, 2013 at 5:10 pm #1400SimonBatesMemberDear Dranners and Solent Roger.
I think there are technological tools that work across the whole spectrum from instructivist learning on one side to constructivist learning on the other. Lecture capture for example in its simplist form is a technology but does not engender collaboration. However, if used in order to use classroom time for peer led activity, it is used for collaboration through a flipped model.
on the other hand, there is an increasing movement towards collaboration in learning and the more constructivist tools such as wikis, blogs, learning portfolios are great tools to support this activity and afford a great number of pedagogies.
April 9, 2013 at 5:12 pm #1401ScottJohnsonMemberIt’s fine with me to stay here. In spite of all the affordances available to enhance what we want to say, I find the medium does really determine (distort, distract) the message. The first consideration is can we exchange ideas and understandings with TEL or are we only concerned with creating entertainment?
As someone who’s naturally disagreeable I’m not convinced that the whole idea of presenting learning opportunities in all sorts of media options actually results in learning. Our whole notion of attention, persuasion and influence is based in media studies the seem to me to speak only of successful transmission and reception of bullshit. What if it was possible to teach things of value rather than amuse and occupy time? Does anyone think it might catch on in education?April 9, 2013 at 7:04 pm #1413millikenMemberThe whole nature of TEL is what we are here define and move forward with questions such as
Is this a genuinely diffferent way of structuring learning or just more of the same ?
Can we move away from viewing technology as mere resource delivery?
Will it become nothing more than a monitoring panopticon?
How will students react to this multitude of knowledge, views and practice?
Will this liberate or daunt?
How to we develope our skills to ensure that students are motivated and have the skills required to navigate this new environment?
How are environments created that ensure sharing and access are enjoyed by students?
I’d like to hear what light anyone can shed on this.
April 9, 2013 at 7:10 pm #1417millikenMemberAs a media teacher I can understand the the whole concern over ‘attention, persuasion and influence’. Knowledge about how these non face to face interactions are constructed is the key to communicationg in a TEL environment. As you rightly point out main function of the pupil teacher relationship is that of transmission and reception.
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