Why this blog?

Hi everyone. (Waves to anonymous cyberfolk).

My name is Jo-ann Larkins and I teach at the beautiful Gippsland Campus of Monash University in Victoria, Australia.

Image source: Monash University

I have a teaching position that I don't think a lot of academics would  be envious of. I mainly teach compulsory first year statistics pretty much right across our campus. So whilst my students might be studying Business or Science or in a few cases Education, they all have one thing in common at the start of a semester. They are generally reluctant to be taking my class. They tend to be scared of the content and indeed of very concept of doing Stats. They're worried. And a lot of them are trying to do this in a totally distance education mode with no face to face contact or class time!

At that's where the fun part of my job comes in. Finding a way to break down those preconceptions, challenge their attitude, facilitate uptake of necessary content, assess progress and prepare them with a skill set sufficient to pass an exam in the short term and statistical literacy skills for the long term. And yes, I do think this is fun, but then I am a Statistician / mathematician by choice and this means my brain is possible mis-wired.

For some light relief and possibly to preserve my sanity, I also teach second year science students reading, writing and research skills. We explore those generic job skills they need to round them out as future scientists: Scientific literacy, communication skills, ethical considerations and the ability to be work as part of a multidisciplinary team. It's the coolest lecture program to deliver with references to Mythbusters, TED talks and Big Bang theory just as an example.

So I see Technology as a Tool to deliver the best learning experience for my students. From the University's compulsory LMS (Learning Management System - we have recently migrated over to Moodle) and recording lecture audio and video, to Google hangouts to facilitate student contact and collaboration and Wikis for online group work with remote students, I'll try it if it can enhance the learning environment or engage reluctant learners.

I'm lucky in that in a previous career life, I worked with control technology in the power industry and so am not shy about trying something new.

And that's why when an email came around at work advertising ocTEL - The Open Course in Technology Enhanced Learning a MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) being run by the ALT (Association for Learning Technology) - I thought Why Not? I might learn something useful.

There's always more to learn. (I may need my head read though).


I think I'd like to finish with a video I found when making sure I have defined MOOC correctly. This is by Dave Cormier, one of the originators of the term MOOC. I think is is what ocTEL could be like.