[jimpettiward]

Hi David,

I guess my comments are related to my own teaching context. I have no doubt that there is a lot of merit to what Saylor Foundation and the likes of Coursera and Udacity are doing, but I’d really like to see some concrete data on who is taking their courses, what they’re gaining from them, where they are and so on. (I’ve seen the completion rates research from Katy Jordan and the breakdowns of where people are taking the courses but these, while useful, don’t paint a very complete picture in my view).

If these xMOOCs etc are promising free education for all then they are, essentially, offering an alternative to university (without, as yet, any means of accreditation). Their courses seem to be for people who, for one reason or another, cannot attend university. That’s great, but also means it won’t necessarily have such an impact on those students who are attending university. The impact may be more a question of how universities respond to the threat/challenge of these free education providers (depending of course on what you consider to be education).

What I do know is that if students coming to my institution were told that the content of their course would involve following a free online course provided by a random group of professors in the States, they’d probably question why they’d paid such high fees… In my view, ‘progressive-thinking deans, professors etc.’ should be willing to explore new models of education and be aware of the huge changes and challenges that we currently face, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they need to sign up for one particular individual’s view of what constitutes ‘free education’. If professors/teachers want to find ways to make  their expertise more widely available through organisations like the SF that’s great – I’m sure they do it for many reasons – a genuine wish to make knowledge more accessible, professional / career development etc. – but perhaps we need more information about their impact before we get too excited…

Having said that, if I’m able to find reliable resources more easily which can be used to support my teaching then I have no problem with using them (as long as that’s not all I’m offering).

* apologies for the rambling…. 😉

[jimpettiward]

I’m not sure that the Saylor Foundation is particularly relevant to what we do in universities. Or if it is, only in the same way that the opening of a new library might be relevant.

At best, if you’re lucky, you might find a nice set of already curated materials related to something you are teaching. I think, as an educator, you’d probably still need to cast a critical eye over the materials, but the site might provide a shortcut to finding some good resources. You could then link to the materials as extra support for what you’re teaching, although I don’t think that this would form the main content of your course, and students would probably feel aggrieved if it did. Basically, as a source of OER the Saylor Foundation could be useful, but once you start talking about courses I think it becomes less relevant.

Some of the issues I have with the Saylor Foundation:

Who is the audience for all this material? Essentially these courses are being designed with no knowledge of who they are for.
There is very little scaffolding of the content. For example, instructions are frequently along the lines of –  ‘read the entirety of this webpage’ – then what? What activities and processes should I engage in after I’ve read this page?
I see these as courses for hobbyists, people interested in a subject who don’t need to get accreditation or who have already got the qualifications they need. In my experience, students on degree programmes at universities tend to have a fairly instrumentalist approach to study – they are doing it in order to achieve something specific, a recognised qualification which will lead into a good career.
The goal of the Saylor Foundation is to make education free to all, which begs the question….what is education according to Michael Saylor? Did he or anybody he knows, get their education entirely from looking at websites? Or did he go to school? Then university? Education and content are not the same thing.

 
* some of these issues also apply in the case of xMOOCs in my opinion
 

[jimpettiward]

I like the idea of a MOOR…. With colleagues at my institution, we’ve been creating content for a MOOR over the last year or so (although arguably it’s actually just an OOR). The challenge we’re faced with is to create learning paths through the materials/resources which are there, and in this way to ‘moocify’ it. The resource so  far (still very much in development) can be seen here:

http://www.celtelearning.org/

Really, what we’re trying to do is provide teaching staff both inside and outside our institution with a clear e-learning professional development path/framework and to link this to SEDA fellowship. The idea is to specify various paths (levels) which lead towards accreditation. The learning would be evidenced through some kind of eportfolio or learning record store and there may be an option for a certain amount of online support. We’re thinking that this process would be free for those inside our institution, but for external participants a fee would apply for SEDA accreditation or any tutor support . So, as an OER or as a MOOC (MOOR), it would be free to use, but for any accreditation a fee would be charged – in some ways it’s a  kind of  freemium model I guess. We’re also looking to collaborate with other institutions to develop the resources and paths further…

Anyway, early days so remains to be seen how it develops…

[jimpettiward]

Hi Ali,

I’d echo Elizabeth’s comments about applying what they learn to their own work – always a good idea where possible.

One thing I’ve done in the past is to have small groups of students look at the same example answer/paper from previous assessment cohort, then give each of them 2 or 3 criteria and ask them to try to find examples of that criteria being met (or not) in the work. They then present their findings to others in the class. I found that this helped reassure me that they had really understood (and helped others understand) the criteria being used to assess their work.

BTW – are we really down to just this small group of Octelites, or is there another space somewhere that I’m missing??

 

[jimpettiward]

I agree that simple tech support is often missing for this kind of elearning intervention and there are often the obstacles to adoption of technologies for teaching and learning are simpler than we might think…. I try to constantly remind myself not to assume very much knowledge in the people who’ll need to use the technology (not in a judgemental way, but just because most lecturers won’t have had as much time as I’ve had to get used to and experiment with the different technologies – this is part of MY job, but not necessarily theirs).

In terms of webinars, I agree with James that they are often pretty much a lecture-delivery tool. But even if all the features are enabled, they can be quite a challenging medium for sychronous voice communication – it’s interesting that in most of the MOOC webinars I’ve been present at, very few or no participants have been willing to contribute through voice, preferring the chat window – and that’s out of 50 – 100 participants who between them have vast experience of e-learning…..Maybe this reticence is more common in UK-based MOOC webinars? Maybe US-based MOOC folk are more chatty? Not sure…

Another thing I try to remember is not to ask lecturers to use online tools in ways I wouldn’t be comfortable with myself – so if I don’t really contribute vocally to webinars, can I really expect/ask others to do so?

[jimpettiward]

Hi – just a quick word about Screencast-o-matic. We use it a lot for CPD at my institution and I echo what others say about its ease of use. (we’ve even persuaded our IT department to start using it!)  Another great feature is how easy it is to edit screencasts and add notes so users can easily skip to the relevant place in longer videos (10 – 15 mins). But if you download as MP4s or upload to YouTube these notes can’t be viewed so we’ve been simply putting the links in Blackboard so users view them directly on the Screencast-o-matic website.

One disadvantage with Screenr is that you can’t make your screencasts private. When I was looking at these tools for giving students feedback this was a reason not to use Screenr. I went for Jing at the time, which is a good tool but fiddly in terms of filetype and requires a software download. JISC has a basic guide which might be useful if you’re just starting out http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/guide/free-online-screencasting-tools

Also agree about the institutional barriers – can be very frustrating… it can be quite difficult to find a quiet space within an institution to create screencasts so I often advise staff to do them at home if at all possible. We tried using Google Hangouts but found that inside the uni we got sound but the video didn’t work… 🙁

[jimpettiward]

Sancha –  feel free to steal! I chose something about digital profiles as it worries me how little some students seem to think about how they (re)present themselves online. … in some institutions they don’t seem to get much help with it either.

Elizabeth – thanks for your comment. I was interested in your use of Google Forms for the activity – it never would have occurred to me to use it in that way but I like the idea and intend to try it myself.

[jimpettiward]

Hi Tim,

It looks like this forum was only for Week 1 – judging by the tumbleweed 😉 , and by the other small group topics.

I don’t think, in the short term at least, these forums will get any more user-friendly so I guess it’s a case of using whatever’s out there (Google +, Twitter, the Course Reader etc.) to get a sense of what others are doing and trying to build up a more coherent network / group.

Cheers

[jimpettiward]

Welcome to the world of online learning!
The underlying assumption of these questionnaires seems to be that a) online learning is completely different from any other type of learning and b) you need to be a particular type of student to benefit from online learning. I’m not sure how useful it is to draw such a strict distinction between online learning and any other kind of learning. Many of the questions asked in these questionnaires are not specific to an online context, for example: ‘Are you a self-motivated and self-disciplined person?’ (Illinois) or ‘I am good at setting goals and deadlines for myself’ (PennState).

All of the questionnaires contain questions about access to technology (computers, phone lines etc.) and IT skills (email, file management, installing software, using chat rooms etc.). These are all useful questions to ask, but I wonder if someone without access to a computer or any IT skills would necessarily be considering an online course in the first place?

Some of the questionnaires go into more detail about learner attributes (Houston, PennState). One potential difficulty lies in the learner’s level of self-awareness – it’s not always easy to accurately judge yourself, especially if the criteria aren’t particularly clear. For example, what does the statement ‘I learn pretty easily’ actually mean?

In summary, some of these tests could be useful in certain contexts as long as the person using them is aware of their limitations and they are not used in isolation. The questions about access to technology and trying to raise a learner’s awareness of their own ability to use various technologies are certainly important. I’m less convinced by the questions related to student attributes (e.g. independent learning, time management etc.) I also found the advice given at the end of limited use. My own teaching context is blended learning, so I would not use them as they are designed for fully online provision.

[jimpettiward]

Help! Confused with the forum layout!

Hi,

I’m a bit confused with the way this forum works so I made a quick screencast to ask for help. Any suggestions very welcome…

http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cIf3hoV0mP

Jim

 

[jimpettiward]

Hi all

It might just be me, but I find the structure of this forum quite difficult to manage – I can’t seem to find a way to make the most recent replies appear first which means I have to click through pages to find anything, and with fairly long posts there’s a lot of scrolling involved.(any advice on how to manage this more efficiently gladly received).

Would anyone be into the idea of setting up a Google+ group and maybe a Diigo or Delicious bookmark group (as suggested by Roger for the main course, but one just for us as well?) I’ve used Diigo quite a lot and found the sharing and community aspects really useful. Fairly new to Google+ but it seems to have potential and I reckon it’s always good to experiment with and get to know new tools/services.

Any thoughts?

[jimpettiward]

Hi Lucy, I know what you mean about OERs and I think it’s quite common to feel that way about them. In fact, I’ve often felt a little reluctant to use other materials, whether online or on paper for some of the same reasons you suggest..

I do think now though that with so many people out there creating so many different things that remixing and reusing others content (with attribution) obviously is becoming a vital part of our practice… I think there’s probably a happy medium somewhere between using OERs for inspiration, minor repurposing and using one or two ‘gems’ here and there.

Thanks for your comments on the elearning matrix. In terms of the forums, I find most threaded discussion forums pretty difficult and uninspiring to use but that’s probably just me. I’ve used hot potatoes ‘back in the day’ to create fairly bog standard language learning exercises – never thought of HP as particularly engaging though. Haven’t used it for a long time so may be better now..

Jim

[jimpettiward]

Hi Roger. Thanks – I’m really hoping to be able to continue developing the matrix and see where it can go. The little OERs on there are mostly things I’ve collected over time rather than the result of a specific search. I’ve found the OER repositories like Jorum/Merlot etc. to be quite frustrating to use – erratic and badly labelled results, strange formats for resources etc. Have you had good results with them?

Jim

[jimpettiward]

Hi Jane,

Great to have you with us. What are you using to redesign your study skills module? Will it be part of a VLE or an OER? Would be good to compare notes. This is my second Mooc, although I’m only half way through the first one so a relative novice also! Finding it very interesting so far, especially in terms of the connections we can all make with others in the same area.

Jim

[jimpettiward]

Hi Roger,

Yes, 2 Moocs is a bit daunting! For me, one of the things I like about the Mooc format is the fact that you can dip in and out of them, contribute more when you have a bit of time, or for topics of particular interest, then just lurk around for a bit at other times. I’m really enjoying the experience so far and think I’m getting a lot out of it. The other Mooc (OU Open Education H817) is structured slightly differently as it is delivered primarily via their Moodle platform and a blog aggregator – some really good communities have formed though, and so far I’m learning as much from other participants as from the ‘official’ material (which is kind of the point I guess). Early to say about this one, but looking forward to seeing how it develops and differs from H817.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how a relatively low-level, small-scale Mooc might work in my area. Definitely some exciting possibilities there.

In terms of Digital Literacies, I’ve been working with a colleague for a while on developing an OER – The eLearning Matrix – it’s in the early stages in terms of content but we’ll be adding more on Dig Lit in the Tutorials section in the coming weeks. There’s quite a bit on Blackboard already (which we call Weblearn at LondonMet…)

I’m also doing a small-scale project aimed at students, researching their experience of Digital Identity and Being a Digital Learner. The aim is to build a resource with advice, case studies, demos etc to help students manage their ‘digital lives’ (identity, study etc) more effectively. As we all know (I think!), the Digital Native idea is a load of old %*&&£$.

I’ve added a subscribe by email box to my blog. I also used the RSS feed to subscribe to yours and seems to work fine.

Jim

 

[Author]

Posts