[imogenbertin]

I have a lot of experience as a learner using of one of the business world’s modern equivalents of teaching machines – self-guided training with quizzes (if you fail a quiz, your manager has to unlock it for a retake, and you have to explain  yourself!). Shorthand: SGTs.

On the one hand this is very effective in getting people to pass quizzes and to absorb constantly changing knowledge in a way that scales, cost-wise. On the other unless they have a way of taking notes so they can re-find the knowledge and apply it when needed, it doesn’t really work too well.

Another interest of mine is learners with cognitive deficits where “quizzes” or teaching machines which start off highly supportive and gradually remove prompts until the learner can carry  out the activity independently – here the “teaching machine” approach updated to smartphones works very well. (eg http://www.wirelessrerc.org/sites/default/files/publications/ASHA%202012%20Memory%20Aids%20FINAL.pdf )

Trying to follow the activity, if I think of Socratic method then SGTs do nothing for open questions or the midwifery of thought. If I try to understand emergent learning, which I don’t think I do yet, then I think that SGTs/teaching machines have a definite place as a technique for formative and summative assessment.

[imogenbertin]

It would be fantastic if the webinar recordings could be converted to Youtube –  this would be much more accessible including offline using the Playtube app. Just a thought but probably too much to ask of our long suffering volunteer support team…

[imogenbertin]

I found it very annoying not to be able to choose an image specifically for this course and to have to have yet another password controlled account, this time with WordPress,com. The Gravatar website has a confusing user interface (the help system being designed for developers) and this made it time consuming (a big barrier) to add an image. Definitely would have preferred a straightforward image upload specific to the course…

[imogenbertin]

Hi Megan

 

I have participated in webinars on my ipad, using the collaborate feature. There is a limited functionality (unless I am missing something I have not been able to add to the interactive whiteboard) but other than this it is great.

I did not need to do anything extra apart from download the app and ensure I had the webinar address.

Hope this helps/reassures?

Neil

 

[imogenbertin]

I really like your point about VLEs and safe spaces. In 2011-2012 I used eportfolios with a small group starting in the first semester with entirely private reflections on the VLE that only the learner and tutor viewed, plus a few collaboration tasks (small groups tackling different topics to create a small wiki for  example).

 

In semester 2 they had to create public eportfolios. I found despite being mature learners studying a topic that implies public posts (digital marketing) there was a lot of resistance to “going public”. But equally they hated the clunkiness of the VLE interface (Blackboard campus pack) which pushed them towards using eg WordPress for their public portfolios. It took a lot of work to get them going and if it had not been a summative assessment to complete the eportfolio, then I think only about one-fifth would have completed. I don’t think that level of encouragement to complete is scalable for MOOCs.

 

So then do we just accept the massive dropout rate for MOOCs? I still think that by improving basic navigation and ‘signposting’, completion can probably be improved a lot. But I also worry that, as you mention, whole swathes of learners are excluded, or experience MOOCs as a “failure”.

[imogenbertin]

Hey Alison I dropped out of EDCMOOC! What were the figures for people who actually completed the assignment?

[imogenbertin]

Hello. I’m a wannabe learning technologist trying to do the CMALT so I’d like to join this group if you’ll have me?
I posted my “big question” and intro here:
http://octel.alt.ac.uk/forums/topic/cant-be-bothered-to-spend-more-time-finding-where-to-post-so-here-goes/#reply-899
It was great of David to reply, and I want to thank all the team who are volunteering their time to provide us with this opportunity but… I completely disagree with him! A simple interface with options for complexity is a better default option than something which tries to immediately be all things to all people…

Bold generalisation: most people do courses to shorten/avoid mistakes or approaches that do not work and only a few from boundless curiosity. Are MOOCs really a good way to learn if it’s all undirected and “whatever y’ere having yerself”?

This MOOC has a likely audience of “head boys and girls” who are likely to conform, create and complete and so is not representative of average learners. Real learners are desperately time-starved, often have problems with the basics of the technology, and aren’t quite sure why they are doing their course unless it’s work or qualification related. This MOOC is probably made up of people with well developed professional ethics that are well suited to techniques like peer feedback and peer assessment. Real learners may need a lot more help…

I also wonder if it is a mistake for MOOCs not to have progressive, structured assignments? Because the networking can become too unstructured when people are not considering the same issues at approximately the same time – discussion becomes cacophonous declarations echoing in empty halls, rather than focussed development of thought.

It’s great that that many of the OcTEL activities aren’t password protected – I had no access to a login for most of the week yet I was still able to use the links and recordings. I thought the help pages were very useful, and the clear collection of links and activities, but I would like better indication of what resources are “core”.

Secure passwords are a mistake – they are an absolute nuisance and a big entry barrier. If you must, make it really easy to reset them and guide users. I don’t know why the OcTEL platform default-linked to everyone’s twitter name and email but that was probably not a great idea either… how many people do you know who use twitter email?

I’m unconvinced about starting with big deep questions when people are not yet oriented – intro content first! Another massive barrier to many learners, and one I personally found very off-putting.

I know David is aware of the email problem and I’m sure he didn’t mean to spam our inboxes… they are very personal spaces. I do object to some of the snarky comments about using mail rules – I do know how to manage mail rules, but I don’t want that hassle or the feeling that the course has an unmanageable amount of traffic. The course reader/digest is a much better default option – I really like that approach, and would like to learn how it is being constructed.

This forum is hard to navigate (constant redisplay of the original post, removal of paragraph breaks, difficulty moving forward and back through threads). It will restrict communication and I see some groups (the “mongrels”) already plan to decamp elsewhere as a result, meaning more time has to be spent by all us trying to keep an eye on the discussions.

It would be great to see clearly the duration of webinar recordings (and all course resources) to help time planning. I have to dip in and out in odd five or ten minute slots. I’m sure many others do too. I would really prefer a progress-sensitive course platform that takes me straight back to where I left off and shows me what’s the next core task I need to complete.

Elluminate takes forever to load. Why not edit the immense preamble from the webinar recording? or give instructions how to skip – not obvious. I thought it started at one minute 42 seconds, not one hour and 42 mins!

A shame you have to separately download the slides if you want to cut and paste any information into your notes. Elluminate is hard to restart in the place where you stopped if you don’t have time to view the whole recording in one go.

Here’s all I have learned so far which I regard as a very poor yield for around 4.5 hours but I’m hoping next week will be more productive:

Diana Laurillard’s stratification
– Acquisition
– Enquiry
– Discussion
– Practice
– Production

Dave Cormier’s stratification:
– Orient
– Declare
– Network
– Cluster
– Focus
I think it would be interesting to understand more about the affordances of learning on this MOOC. I’d love to know how you are accessing the course in terms of:
– length of typical access
– device (desktop/laptop/mobile)
– time of day (same time, scheduled time, erratic when you can?)
– where from? the course reader, or going to the website directly, or links from emails?
– what are you finding works or doesn’t work for you?
All the best, Imogen

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