[Martin Hawksey]

Oh, and this is what a reply looks like.

[Martin Hawksey]

Share away (I think the clip is CC so feel free to remix 😉

[Martin Hawksey]

Something I’ve experimented with in this area is Google Hangouts On Air. This is part of Google+ and the browser does need to install a plugin for it to work so it may create institutional barriers. With Hangouts you can have private invited sessions but if you select ‘On Air’ the hangout is automatically broadcast via YouTube and a recording is also made. Within Hangouts you can share your desktop (although the quality is great and something you should be aware of). Here’s an example of a session I recorded with Marc Smith who is a Social Network Analysis expert http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXLXHKnDi9s. You don’t have to have others in your hangout so if you want you can just make quick videos.

For quick ‘howtos’ where screen quality is important I use screenr http://screenr.com. It’s  similar to screencast-o-matic in only requiring java to use. I like it because you are limited to 5 minutes per video so it helps prevent rambling. When I’ve done a recording I download the video file (mp4) and upload to YouTube (there is a YouTube export tool, but I don’t like the way the account is connected in the screenr)

[Martin Hawksey]

we did talk about it. The issue we wrestled with was the balance between course and participant created spaces. We were trying to stick to the connectivist philosophy, the Downes quote “the users are assumed to be outside the system for the most part, inhabiting their own spaces, and not mine” was particularly at the forefront of my mind.

We were aware that not all participants would have their own spaces which is why we included the forums. We have been and continue to encourage participants to create other spaces. When we are told about these or find them where possible we add activity feeds to the Course Reader to promote further clustering.

[Martin Hawksey]

Hi Imogen,

It’s fair to say using the gravatar service has frustrated a number of people. It’s probably worthy of a blog post to explain why we’ve gone down this route, but in essence it was a short-cut to avoid having to deal with security vulnerabilities associated with image upload and one less interface/plugin for us to integrate in our long list of add-ons.

[Martin Hawksey]

Hi Leonie – your gravatar image will be used on other sites that use the gravatar service. So for example it won’t overwrite your facebook or twitter profile images. The service was developed by wordpress.com so the main place you’ll see gravatar images being used is in wordpress blog comments.

Martin

[Martin Hawksey]

Thanks Martin – I found this last night. It would be great if a global message can be sent to all octel participants to encourage them to populate it along with Mendeley group. If everyone added five references and links relevant to the topic what a great resource we’d be starting.

 

thanks

Roger

 

[Martin Hawksey]

Hi Roger, There is a group here http://groups.diigo.com/group/alt-octel

Martin

[Martin Hawksey]

Hi Shuna,

A feeling of disorientation at the start of open courses is very common but it sounds like you’ve done a great job in getting your personal workflow setup. Regarding your questions:

Clicking the little star icon next to a post in the course reader. Doing this should save it to you ‘favourited posts’ (this only works in the course reader).

In forums you should be able to receive email notifications for posts by clicking the ‘subscribe’ button.

If this doesn’t answer your question or you need more information let me know

Martin

[Martin Hawksey]

Hi Roger,

Thanks for your feedback, all very useful. Below I’ve tried to address each of the areas you mention:

Course Reader
I take your point about adding more of a snippet and will look into this. Out of interest were you aware that clicking the post title expanded the post to show it’s content?

Mendeley Group
As it happens one of the course participants has recently done this and you can join the group here and we have just started pulling activity from this group in the course reader.

One of our underlying philosophies is to not create places on every platform going, but instead let participants find or create the spaces that suit them. This way we hope to accommodate the wide variety of learning styles, workflows, personal preferences etc of participants but also allow new communities to form which are sustainable being the course. One thing I thing we can do better is signpost these communities. To help this I”ll start a page with these which I hope to top up with a list of all the participant blogs.

Small groups
As other MOOCs have found formal group forming can be very problematic. Instead we’ve opted for groups to be self-forming so people are free to continue these, swap groups, join multiple groups.

Facebook page
If Facebook is where you feel most comfortable I’d definitely encourage you to create a page. I’m sure there will be others on the course who would find that place useful and if you do create a page we’d definitely add it to the other places page to help people cluster.

Fixed signature
Within the octel site if you are logged in this should be automatically filled in. Unfortunately we can’t pass these details to external sites. I’d be interested to hear any tips or advice others have to do this.

If I’ve missed anything or something is still unclear let me know

Martin

[Martin Hawksey]

In your profile go to the edit page and you’ll see some fields for blog url and a button to get your rss feed

[Martin Hawksey]

Hi Lynne, the only thing I can think of is on the gravatar site you haven’t selected an image to use for the email address you’ve registered the course with (if it was a secondary email you have to select an image to use for that as well)

[Martin Hawksey]

Hi Sharmina – JISCMail is handled separately. If you visit https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=OCTEL-PUBLIC&A=1 you should be able to unsubscribe one email address and subscribe on another.

If you are still having problems let us know

Martin

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