Oh dear, I just did the University of Houston Distance Education test to assess my readiness for distance learning. According to my score I ”may need to acquire some new skills before proceeding with online courses.” That was a bit of a blow since Im currently registered on the #ocTEL MOOC. The site helpfully offered some initial advice to get me started. This included to increase reading and writing skills, learn some time management skills, or take an introduction to computers course. However looking at the results more closely and the way the test works it seems the problem is that I don’t actually need a distance learning course because I have no problem accessing on-campus learning opportunities. This decreased my score and generated the conclusion “proceed with caution”. I guess the advice itself is sound enough: treat the results of online self-administered tests with caution! Now back to my online learning studies.
Ex-OU, EX-BT Distance Learning. Currently Visiting Fellow Centre for Distance Education, University of London , Head of School of Media and Communication, De Montfort University, Leicester and Professor of Learning Technologies.