In response to Grant, I missed the webinar! Darn it..

The questions to explore for Activity 0.2 are:

What can we tell about the range of experiences and preferences among ocTEL participants?

What challenges does this present for the course?

In what ways is a MOOC like this one well or poorly suited to these challenges?

In all honesty I don’t know about the first point, but I can surmise.

What can we tell about the range of experiences and preferences among ocTEL participants?

That we all have a background in education and/or training and/or IT/Computers
Some people have been in e-learning since the advent of computers and networks (PLATO)
Some people have recently joined education/training.
People take different routes into e-learning / Technology Enhanced Learning / Learning technology, some have been teachers in the past, others have come straight into the industry.
Some people still don’t get what ‘it’ is and it’s confusing.

My own preference during online activity is to try and be organised and considerate of other users and I definitely don’t like things being overly complicated or in the wrong place. Einstein said it best ‘Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler’. Good course design is about providing good usability and clarity. Everything in a course must have a clear reason and purpose for being there.

What challenges does this present for the course?

People will come with differing / conflicting views about aspects of e-learning (see I did it again, it’s taking time to get used to the term TEL) and what it is supposed to do. There is likely to be an expectation that everyone knows how to use the technology or understand how behaviors change between online to offline. With around 270 members in this course, I’ve yet to see evidence of this amount of people in the forums. The challenge is ‘could more be done to engage each participant?’ after all teachers must do this in the classroom to ensure that everyone has been engaged, why should this be any different online?

The other challenge is the sheer volume of communication / information, I still get this feeling I’m missing out somewhere as this is my first MOOC (i’m not a veteran) that I’m actively engaging with mainly to see what will come of it. I’ve managed to gain one very good piece of information which is the SAMR model.

In what ways is a MOOC like this one well or poorly suited to these challenges?

Going back to my earlier point of the amount of people on the course vs the amount of participation. I’m glad the group members in this forum are conversing. As I’ve noticed other forums have 1 or 2 members, this is a flaw. In theory you could end up in a group that has members who never participate or drop out. There are strategies to avoid this and it’s about getting engagement going ‘hitting the ground running’ I call it. Forum Moderators have to work very hard during the first few weeks to establish rapport and provide the fertile ground for these activities to be achievable or to ensure that there are enough people in groups to ensure success. They also need to ensure that people are guided to success.

What I have noticed is that a number of people have already created forums based on location or status, To use an analogy

It’s a bit like a big conference room where people have left the main discussions area, gone to a room, put a notice on the door that it’s for people only from ‘xyz’. They’ve then shut the door, instead of leaving the door open and inviting people in they’ve ended up on the own.

There maybe a reason why this happens, but it strikes me as odd.

In summary my view is MOOC’s are still developing as a concept, but the success of MOOC’s rests in the hands of the people running them.

Could it be that high drop out rates are a direct result of people being allowed to fail? because not enough is done to chase low attendance or the lack of contribution.