The ocTEL participants' big questions split in two groups: pedagogic and strategic with just one question recorded in the latter.
The pedagogic questions selected are mainly organisational (dealing with time zones, large lecture-only courses, balance between guidance and freedom, balance between teachers and learners needs). Some questions address directly learning issues (ensuring the desired outcomes, assessing learning outcomes). Hence, if ocTEL is meant to help its users to find responses to their questions, one expect that it gives some elements and principles to analyse the characteristics of a TEL environment from the perspective of learning management, and some elements to assess learning qualitatively (nature of the outcomes). My own big question about learning outcomes is considered, having it in mind might be a relevant guide to drive my participation.
The strategic question: "how do we persuade 'reluctant' members of staff to engage with TEL" is of a different nature than the former indeed, but it is closer to the so-called "Candidate big questions" which are of a "cultural", "management" and "economic" nature.As a matter of fact, economy seems to be the keyword describing at best the core content of this presentation, with one equation which I discover :
1:25 staff:student
The main challenge seems to be able to solve this "ratio problem". Eventually, I am somewhat surprised. I perfectly understand that the economy of education is a real problem (especially nowadays), but having it on the fore front invites to look at TEL in rather specific way; it makes me wonder what will be the orientation of the course. In any case, I am still interested to learn. Let's see!