[ElizabethECharl]

I totally agree that to ensure that learners stand a chance of achiveing the best outcomes possible, having this research skill under their belt is imperative. Any activity such as yours Imogen that makes this explicitly clear and raises awareness of how important this will be on their journey through academia is to be encouraged and undertaken as early as possible in the course. It seems the more we assume learners understand the basics the more likely that this is not the case.

[ElizabethECharl]

Jim – I am glad that it has demonstrated another way that Google Forms can be used.

[ElizabethECharl]

Activities such as:

# Searching for online resources on the various databases – as they have different interfaces which can be disconcerting for learners who are pushed for time.

# Research skills – searching and evaluating resources with instructions and tips along with the opportunity to undertake practical exercises out of a variety of examples.

# Opportunity to practice – ‘Boolean operators’ and how to best construct them to create complex searches.

#Used to create learning activites that linked through to collaborative documents where shared work can be part of the activity rather than a separate unit – would work well in a blended learning environment.

The ability to create just-in-time videos mean that if an issue/practice appears to be problematic for learners, you can produced something quickly and distribute it to the class/learner in good time to be picked up at the next session.

Jing was very easy to pick up it took me between 10-15mins to get the hang of it and I have used it in the past to produce acceptable videos for learners.  It doesn’t require a huge amount of technical know-how. It can also be used to capture a screenshot and then annotate it.

 

 

 

 

[ElizabethECharl]

Graham – thank you for raising the vexed and very real issue of the inconsistency of metadata being added to items. For although most people do add tags these tend to vary from item to item.  As I mentioned in my post I was very impressed at the amount of resources that I found on YouTube. Also I know some of my colleagues use these as I have received call out requests for alternative items when a selected item is suddenly no longer available. Regarding using Google in this instance I chose not to use it as I wanted to test the effectiveness of the individual resources’ search mechanism.   At our institution the intention is to encourage all content from staff and in the near future students to be uploaded into a consortia cloud based provision and that will then plug into Moodle.  It is good to know that there is such good quality teaching resources out there.

[ElizabethECharl]

James – a really interesting post on Cognitive Apprenticeship.

Like Sancha I have to also state that as I was reading your post I immediately recognised how this mirrors a high percentage of the approach I take in my practice both in F2F classroom situations and in providing remote support to our learners. I have not been overt when delivering skills workshops, etc., in linking it to communities of practice for media and cultural studies learners as they tend to be working adults and part of the community already – but it is a valid point.  I definitely think that as individuals on a daily basis we are continuously fluctuating between the master/apprentice role depending on where and what we are doing in a learning/teaching environment.

[ElizabethECharl]

Peter – seems like a useful tool.  Will definitely have a closer look at this. Thanks.

[ElizabethECharl]

Sancha,

I hope you will be able to bring that point up at the webinar or it may be made clearer during it as to how resources are organised and criteria used to categorise the resources.  If is is going to be difficult I think that would be a shame for all users as that would be another barrier to accessing.

[ElizabethECharl]

Peter – an excellent suggestion and a good way for the learners to be introduced and become familiar with the resource and for me to keep up to date with the content.    I will have a look at the Dynamic Learning Map project.

[ElizabethECharl]

Jim – I like the concept and the approach.  A good curtain-raiser on digital profiles.

[ElizabethECharl]

Hi Sancha – thanks for the feedback.  Yes the timing can sometimes be an issue and one alway seem to need more time than anticipated – I don’t think you learners are slower. If learners are undertaking the webquest on their own outside of the classroom I am sure they will probably exceed stipulated 20 mins. I would probably be more generous and give 30 mins so would tweak it accordingly or give 20 mins as a guideline.

[ElizabethECharl]

James – I liked the concept and think it would be very engaging for students to contribute to it, with clear instructions of how to do so and then let loose on the web to scavenge entries for the various decades.

[ElizabethECharl]

Kathrine – apologies for the typo.

[ElizabethECharl]

Jane –

Thank you – absolutely it could be used in that manner with just minor tweakings:

1) change of topics as agreed during the session; and

2) the name section retitled to team/group name that they come up with and enter during the  session.

[ElizabethECharl]

Katheine,
Thank you for the feedback. I understand exactly what you mean and I was in two minds about how to allow for collaboration in that I want the individual input but was concerned that if they could see others responses they would be influenced by this and I wanted a true reading from the individual learner. Your suggestions of them being able to see this after their input is a good one. Perhaps a link to the responses spreadsheet after completion….
To allow for collaboration I could also at a set point during the session make available the feedback having anonymised it. In groups of 2/3 depending on the size of the class the groups would quickly review the links and criterias given for a particular topic, assigning points to each out of a maximum of 5. Each group would have only 5 points and would have to discuss and agree as to where each point was assigned. This could be made available on another Google Doc and or spreadsheet that would total up the points as assigned by each group…

[ElizabethECharl]

Hi Anna and Sue,

I just want to echo Sue’s comments, I found it extremely frustrating and left it feeling like a dunce and it reconfirmed  my resistance to playing these games for fun.  It was not fun at all! The idea of encountering such a similar barrier whilst studying a course that I had given up time and money to undertake with this level of frustration would lead me to stop studying.  I would only have found it exceptable if it was being used to highlight a deficiency or gap in my skill set – in which case I would hope that a remedial pathway would be provided to fill that gap or lacking skill/ability.  😉

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