Stuck, "behind", confused, something else

[David Jennings]

Evidently there’s little activity here so far — the only posting at the time of writing being from Elizabeth, our most prolific and reliable contributor.

I’d welcome your feedback about this.

• Is there something about the way that this activity is written that your stuck with?
• or confused by?
• Are you generally feeling “behind” on the course? (if so see see my blog post about feeling behind)
• Something else?

All comments gratefully received. And they will help us adjust our approach both to the rest of this course and future versions of the course accordingly

[Kathrine Jensen]

Not stuck or confused but simply not set enough time aside to complete this activity this week. So I am using this time on Saturday to write a blog about bits of the activities for this week, skipping what I have not done. Will probably post this on Monday so a bit behind.

[David Jennings]

Thanks, Kathrine! Interested to here if others share this position, or if there’s a spread of different perspectives.

[JaneBritton]

Completely behind.  Revision sessions and exams in my uni this week – not time for much else.

[GraphDesProject]

The weekends, I agree are easier to manage the workload. However, I found some of the links on this activity to what I expected to be readings or videos a little odd – some linked to course outlines etc. So, I didn’t engage with it very well. I had read the JISC “In our own words” before. Cherry-picking!!

Sancha

[imogenbertin]

Confused by the length of the week 2 activities. I did something about surveys – maybe I posted it in the wrong place. I watched the webinar (frustrated again by the delay in the recording being put up…) then I discovered there were a massive bunch of other readings and some extremely complex cognitive questions about those readings that were “below the fold” on the web page which I’d missed.

 

At which point I was put off and depressed and thought feck it, nice weather, let’s try and get the garden under control. I find the webinars very inefficient for time spent versus information acquired though I thought Helen’s interactivity using Elluminate was great.

I think the week’s activities should fit on the equivalent of one A4 page and really be even MORE signposted for relevance/action than they are!

You did ask… Imogen

[David Jennings]

Thank you, Imogen. Yes, I did ask, and, believe me, I’m grateful for your reply — thoughtful as ever. It arrived too late for us to do anything about this week’s materials, and, to be honest with you, we have planned the activities for the rest of the course, so I can’t promise that we’ll be able to edit them to ensure that they all meet your “one A4 page” spec. But your account of the hazards of them being longer is persuasive, and definitely something for us to think about within the rest of the course and any re-runs.

I’m glad you made it into the garden — time well spent, I’m sure — though sorry that you were cursing ocTEL as you headed out there…

[Andrew Chambers]

I was talking to a colleague/peer today and she dropped this course into the conversation. The next sentence was “15 weeks!”.  Consider simplifying the duration as well as the activities… I’m finding little time to take part due to the term duration and breadth of reading and activities required. For a model course you might like to take a look at MOOCMOOC. That was very successful when I took it but much shorter and very social and interactive in a sense…

[imogenbertin]

I am really enjoying what I am learning, David, please don’t get me wrong! Just want to report I cannot access  the Rheingold video at work (I’m behind a firewall) so another 45 minute learning opportunity crashes… All videos should be on YouTube for access reasons where possible (I know it often isn’t)… down with Elluminate! down with Vimeo…! down with Blip…!

but I am actually sort of gestating a digital literacies online course for adults so everything I am finding out is fascinating and deeply appreciated…

[David Jennings]

Andrew, Thank you, and yes, it’s likely that ocTEL 2.0 — should it come into being — will be shorter. (I’m a little confused by your 15 weeks comment, though?) Will definitely take a look at MOOCMOOC. 

[David Jennings]

Thanks again, Imogen. We will think about this (and don’t get me wrong either: to make this & future versions of the course better, we genuinely thrive on detailed feedback). I acknowledge the accessibility issue. Speaking personally, and not necessarily in line with ocTEL/ALT policy, I say Up with the Open Internet! up with diversity! [mutter] down with overbearing firewalls! One hopes these accessibility problems will clear themselves up, but I appreciate that could take a few years, so, yes, we must consider stop-gap solutions. 

[Ted O’Neill]

“down with Elluminate!”

Agreed. I just want a nice, simple recording I can grab and go. Plain old mp3/mpg/youtube recordings would be easiest. I don’t need all the bells and whistles. A podcast subscription would make it easy. I have loads of time on the train everyday.

Or, is there a convenient way to dump elluminate into my phone or iPod that I’m missing?

[cbokhove]

I think there should be less choice. Many tasks, further then ‘if you do 1 thing’, has too many options: “this is about this”. Interesting. “This about that”. Interesting. But if everything’s interesting it can be hard too choose. In addition, having all the participants being distributed over many possible topics imo means less engagement on one topic. Because everyone could be doing something slightly different. And then there are 3 ways to do this: mail, forum and twitter (and diigo, and..). I think there ought to be a way to integrate all the media, as now all the media don’t build up enough momentum. And then we’ve got a spiral downward, because that demotivates me a bit, so I post less so etc etc

[David Jennings]

Hi Ted, Elluminate is genuinely multimedia, in the sense that the audio syncs up with the chat and visuals on the screen. Hence there is no simple support for dumping onto your phone — or even to a video file. 

As an experiment, however, I’ve made an audio recording of last week’s webinar (I have trimmed the silent passages where people were working collaborative on whiteboards and responding to polls).

It is quite a lot of work to produce this, so, to continue doing this, it would be good to have positive feedback that you’ve listened to it and found it useful.

 

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