[philtubman]

“we could argue that all technology conforms to the paradigm of the time, otherwise it wouldn’t be adopted or become accepted”

I think this is a very profound comment. We need to change the way society thinks about itself before we can change the way it educates itself basically. If we want a more open (source)  education system, we need to open our society and way of thinking of each other at the same time.

wow!

(you made me think…)

[philtubman]

I think that engaging students in the process of the course is extremely important.

I supported a tutor, who, 3 years ago, did a ‘flipped classroom’ with lectures online and discussion in lecture time.

On yr 1 of this, he was very excited and tried to explain the advantages to the students. Mostly (except for some that needed the files ‘offline’) the feedback was good and the students appreciated the technique.

So, in yr 2, he used the same assets and planned to do the same thing. Except that this time the initial lecture was just after he returned from a trans-atlantic flight and he didn’t do the explaining as well. This year the students did not like the flipped classroom, and complained about the loss of lecture time. Weird stuff.

in yr 3 he didn’t teach the course, so no feedback about flipping, but this shows to me that the students absorbed the inital passion he had for this, and took it in good faith. Second time round it looked like he was slacking off to the students and they slated him.

First impressions count, and can take much longer to shift. Lecture 1 is the sweet time when the students are listening and eager as pups. Get your enthusiasm for the topic and pedagogy out in this time period and the rest will follow more harmoniously.

for example something as simple as showing the recommended couple of minutes from the Mazur lecture gets your students to understand WHY you are doing this, and HOW it is going to help them.

[philtubman]

ps imogen,

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.

 

I think we need to qualify what ‘completion’ means in a MOOC like this one. Certainly in an EdX or Coursera (x)MOOC, completion refers to watching all the videos and completing all the assignments – which is pretty standard and like any classroom progamme.

These types of cMOOC are a bit different, as participants find their own way and the materials are just there as a starting point. Co-creation of course materials is partly what this cMOOC is about, which makes ‘completion’ a slightly harder concept to grasp.

Does this make the value of any participation in these experiences also harder to grasp?

[philtubman]

I have been thinking about the collaboration that occurs online and how this differs from the physical situation.

Certainly here on octel I have been reading discussions and replying where i can, but the discussion topics (for now at least) are rather impersonal which makes you feel ‘separate’ from the others, and more aware of your own mistakes. I find this page from Moodle philosophy which describes the separate and connected-ness of online discussion forums: http://docs.moodle.org/24/en/Philosophy#Connected_and_separate

The problem I see is that on MOOCs which have HUGE discussions, between strangers, it is hard to move beyond the separate towards the ‘connected’ state. I think the ‘socialisation’ phase of Salmons 5 step plan is there to shepherd participants towards a social way of working together, and comments like this show how important it is to enable real discussion, rather than pasting of my ideas and there you go attitude to larger discussion groups.

This problem is partly solved on a ‘blended’ model of delivery as the students see each other and have f2f contact as well to support the socialisation which is necessary for quality connected online learning.

Perhaps the solution is to forget that we are all strangers and act as though we are all friends on facebook chatting away, but its a hard mould to break when your thoughts are public and your profile is linked to you directly as a professional. What I have learned so far from ocTEL MOOC is how to blog – this is partly a psychological effort to publish openly, but i hope my musings (even if they are wrong) are better for being open.

🙂

[philtubman]

ps i’d be interested to follow up your ideas on homeschooling furrowing the path for mainstream education in later years. Do you have any links or could you elaborate on this idea.

having spoken with Sugata at the 2009 ALT-C, it was clear to me that the idea of 4-5 kids working together was the key, and the problem solving inquiry based learning style.

I do wonder how well these ideas ‘scale’ or ‘transfer’ though. For example i have read critiques of Montessori practicethat point right back to her (ad-hominem) as the success factor. I wonder how much this can be said of Mitra’s methodology…

I guess what I am coming to, and how this relates to homeschool, is that I believe it is the ‘personality’ of the tutor as much as anything that motivates learning. I think this is problematic from a tech perspective as the ‘techs’ are trying to create ‘replicable’ or ‘transferrable’ pedagogic situations but they will work one year and then fail mysteriously the next, and then work again.
The ‘learning’ part of ‘learning technology’ means that suddenly all the rules of ‘technology’ (eg. replicability) do not apply any more.
This is a headache in one sense, but when we start to fit the technology around the tutor (ad hominem) as well as the learning context or educational content, we can stop worrying about trying to embed technology in the same way and concentrate on personalised technology choices that empower people to teach and learn

It certainly broadens the task of an LT, but I think that with the diverse array of technology choices, the conversations we have with tutors can be more along the lines of ‘what do you feel comfortable with trying’ and less the exasperated ‘but don’t you see that if you use lecture capture, VLE, [take your pick] it will be better for everyone’.

Its like taking the constructivism that eLearning bods cherish, and actually applying it to our own practice – ie taking our tutors one step at a time into their ‘zones of proximal development’ rather than forcing new technology paint-by-numbers style on peoples working practices.

[philtubman]

hello, re: Sugata Mitra, I’m a big fan but its worth reading these critiques of ‘rousseau-vian’ self directed learning to balance out the good feeling you get from Sugata’s ALT-C or TED talks:

http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/negroponte-10-reasons-why-his-ethiopian.html

http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/sugata-mitra-slum-chic-7-reasons-for.html 

 

[philtubman]

i love this video. I do wonder if this is the modern equivalent:

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21683616 

 

[philtubman]

Hi Simon, Most LC tools have ‘public’ note taking channels. I have recently had the idea that students should be told to make their notes on the public channel of the LC, just to see if peer collaboration can be fostered. Sometimes technology has hidden affordances…

[philtubman]

i’d like to be in this group. folk education sounds very interesting to me…

[philtubman]

yip yap, can i still join in the small group for mongrels?

PS hi SolentRoger!

[philtubman]

clickers are a really useful tool for science teaching. you might find some of this video useful (19-20 mins-ish) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYiI2Hvg5LE

 

[philtubman]

The course is not formally ‘assessed’ in this way. The modules have been written to allow participants to follow the resources which interest them, and use the opportunity to ask others questions that may emerge. It allows you to carve your own path through the modules, and share your favourite resources with others carving a similar path.

Hope this helps

[philtubman]

The course is not formally ‘assessed’ in this way. The modules have been written to allow participants to follow the resources which interest them, and use the opportunity to ask others questions that may emerge. It allows you to carve your own path through the modules, and share your favourite resources with others carving a similar path.

Hope this helps

[philtubman]

I *think* that there is no specific forum for this in the forums http://octel.alt.ac.uk/forums/forum/induction-week-0/ so you can try some of the other aggregation methods, such as using your blog and linking it into the reader http://octel.alt.ac.uk/category/reader/ within your profile.

There is also the JISCMailing list most people have found if you don’t want to use your blog, or you could use twitter with the hashtag #octel

Most other weeks will have a forum in this wordpress site to use I *think* (for comments etc.) but why don’t you try some of the other methods in Week 0 too so you know ou have made the best option going forward.

[philtubman]

We can put something very brief on Twitter – but that doesn’t appear to be the appropriate medium for this task. I’m thinking that it should be via the Jisc mailing list?

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