When we designed ocTEL we reasoned that anyone who was still with us in the three to four weeks at the back end of the course would, by definition, be fairly earnest and committed to Technology Enhanced Learning. Therefore we created activities that would give you the opportunity to relate the areas of study to your own circumstances and embed them in your practice. Hence the practical activities, action plans, case studies.

There hasn’t been much take-up of these activities so far (kudos to James Kerr for being the exception). Fair enough. We’d like to understand, if we can, a little more about why that is. A first hypothesis — with the benefit of hindsight, and a little of our own experience — is that anyone who is still with us in the three to four weeks at the back end of the course is, almost by definition, fairly tired and short on spare time…

Is that right? Are there other reasons? We’d really like feedback, especially from those stalwarts of you who have stayed the course, so that we can adapt the design of the activities if necessary. For example, is it the case that the action plans and case studies are interesting-but-not-urgent, so you might make a note to come back to them at a time when they’re directly relevant to a phase of your work? Or are these activities simply asking too much, so we should consider something simpler instead?

At this stage it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to make changes to this run of the course, but we’d love to know what you think so we can amend our approach in ocTEL 2.0, if there is such a thing (we are reasonably optimistic that there will be). Read the rest of this entry →

Last week’s theme on ocTEL focused on a fundamental question in Technology Enhanced Learning: why are we doing this? In what ways is TEL better than other forms of learning? Many remain suspicious that it isn’t better, so we need good, robust answers to this challenge. If we’re saying learning is enhanced, what kinds of enhancement could we, and should we, be aiming for?

Contributions are still coming in on these question, so perhaps it’s premature to declare a ‘wrap-up’ — I certainly don’t want to discourage further thoughts — but Week 9 on managing TEL projects and risks is now under way, so a little clearing of the ground is in order.

The first activity kicked off with by encouraging you to review some recent examples of new TEL models that purport to make learning cheaper and/or more accessible, with a view to identifying implications for your own teaching and learning practice. Much of the debate tended to start from an assessment of whether these models are either inspiring or irrelevant.

Joseph Gliddon has a natty technique with his to-camera video blogs, demonstrated to good effect in his slightly dystopian extrapolation from Open Educational Resources to widespread job losses in higher education (do check the comments as well, presenting a few different sides of the argument, including a startup business: “We question the added value of a university and think that there’s more to e-learning than watching one-way video. We can do better and we will do better.” Hmmm, well at least there’s one bit of that we can all agree on.) Read the rest of this entry →

Timing and practicalities

Please note that next week’s webinar will be on Tuesday 4 June at 12:30pm British Summer Time. As always, we’ll be using Blackboard Collaborate. For help prior to the webinar and some frequently asked questions please visit our help page.

To join the webinar please follow this link after 12 noon on Tuesday.

Maximising learning for minimum cost, but who’s the online learner? iTunes U as an example

We have looked at iTunes U a couple of times already (in Weeks 4 and 5, occasionally arousing some controversy) as a repository of digital educational material provided by universities and other institutions. iTunes U has delivered over 1 billion downloads, providing unprecedented free public access to educational content for learners and teachers worldwide.

Tuesday’s webinar will present the potential of iTunes U to deliver free educational content and how this content is being used, offering the first full profile of the iTunes U learner and their practices and opinions of the materials they download. The data was gathered through a large survey (over 2000 responses) carried out over two years using the iTunes U site from The Open University, the UK’s most successful iTunes U provider in terms of numbers of downloads (over 60 million) as well as amount of collections uploaded (over 400). The session will conclude with ideas about how to introduce the use of free iTunes U materials to teaching, either in the classroom or as self-access resources.

About the presenter

Fernando Rosell-Aguilar is Lecturer in Spanish at the Open University, United Kingdom, where he writes teaching materials and chairs the presentation of courses with 800+ students. He also coordinates the provision of materials from the OU department of languages on iTunes U. In 2004 he received the Open University teaching award for his online learning materials. His research focuses on online language learning, mainly podcasting as a teaching and learning tool, CMC learning environments (such as audio and video conferencing) and digital literacy. He has published his research in international journals such as Computers and Education, Language Learning and Technology, ReCALL, CALL, JaltCALL and Reading Matrix, and regularly presents at international conferences.

Enhancement strategies

On the original Course Materials page, we billed Week 8 as “Maximum learning for minimum cost”. Reflecting the fact that enhancing learning has more dimensions than just getting more bang for your buck, we’ve changed the title to “Enhancement strategies”. There is a still a strong focus on efficiencies of scale, widening access, extending the reach of learning opportunities and reducing costs — but also a recognition that enriching and deepening learning and the learners’ experience is an important aspect of Technology Enhanced Learning.

With apologies that this is late, which is entirely my fault, here’s Phil Tubman’s take on some of the discussions that took place last week on Platforms and Technologies.

Last week there was a lot to do. Participants were advised to dip into the activities that have most resonance with their practice or thinking.

Activity 5.0 is a chance to think about platforms and technologies in relation to Kolb’s experiential learning cycle. James Kerr did an analysis of Social Media tools, and concluded that SM tools can support activities in any quadrant of the experiential learning cycle. For example YouTube videos can be consumed, reflected on and created, so this fits into all areas. Stephen Brown also made a similar observation, but extended the idea to all technology, and did an analysis on use of clickers in classrooms:

clickers could be used by learners to record their emotions (click every time you feel angry/sad/amused/etc. while listening to/watching/reading/doing XYZ), so they are seemingly compatible with the diverger style, but if the results were collected together and displayed and the class were asked to reflect on them then wouldn’t that support the assimilator style?

I commented that this is only available if the clicker providers allow this functionality, as most clicker systems are very closed in terms of the interactions that are possible – you can only answer a question when it is ‘sent’ to you, which limits the experiential learning potential.

The emergent theme is that it is usually not the tool that ‘places’ it in a quadrant, but the learning activity. Sancha talked about this in his reflection of the design process.

I do wonder if Kolb realised what impact online social interactions would have on his cycle, as the ‘thinking’ quadrants (reflect and do) seem to happen more in these social spaces.

Activity 5.1 asks participants to think about what ‘drives’ their takeup of technology, and how platforms and technologies support or detract from this. Alice Shepherd’s blog post took the templates provided from Hill et al, added a few more logistical dimensions, and noted that ad hoc arrangements sometimes drive technology choices:

During the ash cloud a few years ago, I was prompted by circumstance to learn about how to do screencasting because so many of my students were stranded overseas close to exam time and needed to attend a virtual class, asynchronously as they were in multiple time zones.  This emergency meant I started to use this technology and have returned to it many times since!  So, there is serendipity as well.

If you have further stories to share regarding virtual classroom technology or open source pedagogy, the forums are ready and waiting…