[LauraMcLoughlin]

I look forward to reading your post. I suppose we can think up percentages ourselves, very intersting though.

[LauraMcLoughlin]

Hi Stuart,

I must say I agree with the statement on providing support and advice. Not so sure about peer and machine assessment, I’d love to hear more. Peer assessment in particular. When I used it, either in class or online, students were reluctant to be too critical but maybe I didn’t introduce it properly, so I’d like to hear positive experiences and how it was done.

As for machine assessment, it has limited applications in my own field (foreign languages), useful for right/wrong kind of answers, traditional grammar drills, but anything else has to be done manually!

I use discussion boards a lot in online courses, I find assessing these very time consuming and difficult too. I would be interested in suggestions.

 

 

[LauraMcLoughlin]

I looked at communities of practice and social constructivism. I suppose it coild be argued that social constructivism would appreciate an attempt to look at learning from the learner’s perspective, which the introduction of the teaching machines might be doing. Skinner does refer to learning at own pace, so that is a change of focus from teacher-centred enviornments. However, the interaction with the environment is missing and there is no collaborative construction of knowledge. Nor do the students form a community of practice, as their only interaction is with their machine. Interesting experiment for the 1950s, certain,y an early form of technology-enhanced teaching. Today, I like to see an element of social networking together with the use of technology. I teach foreign languages, social interaction (and the skills involved) is not optional.

 

[LauraMcLoughlin]

Yes, great video. I love the name “teaching machine” , rather than “learning machine”, but maybe that’s where the “modern equivalent” comes in.

[LauraMcLoughlin]

Hi everybody,

So interesting to read through everybody’s experience. I did the same e-moderator course as Julie Watson, about 4 or or 5 years ago. In my case too participants were all lecturers, from the same institution but different backgrounds. I enjoyed it.

In my blended learning course this year, I used anymeetings too, like Gordon. Both the e-tutors and the students found it really easy to use. We didn’t have a “blackboard” feature where students could write collaboratively on the screen (at least not in the free version), but I did try the collaborative board once and it turned out to be very messy.

This was a beginner module in Italian, but I don’t think online learning is suited to beginner/access level more than other levels. Incidentally, our module is perhaps uncharacteristically long for an online course. It spans over 4 semesters (2 academic years of 24 weeks each) and takes students to an intermediate level of fluency.  I wonder if anybody else has experience of long online courses.

Laura

[LauraMcLoughlin]

Hi, is it possible to join two groups?

I joined the Foreign language teachers group yesterday and then saw this one, which also is of great interest to me. I teach Italian and am currently involved in designing, creating and e-tutoring (!) in an online diploma for beginners. I’m interested in ideas for encouraging meaningful interaction among adult participants, as well as anything else on designing and running online/blended learning modules.

Laura

[LauraMcLoughlin]

Hi, I teach Italian (both in class and online) at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Glad to join this group. Google+ is good and easy to use.

Looking forward to this course.

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