Let's stay positive and learn

Week 4’s task

Open Educational Resources OER’s

1. Ideas from Online Learning Task Force Case studies
• Partnerships with professional IT stakeholders to ensure good quality IT links and facilities
• Whole uni and staff buy in to the online learning – it is not piecemeal but productive and effective
• Student buy in – online learning is not seen as a cost cutting measure but as a means of teaching the student better – it is wanted rather than rejected
• Seminars rather than lectures are pre-eminent for online learning
• Synchronous learning as well as asynchronous is seen as important still.
• I like the idea if real time and your time. It makes it feel personal and specific
2. 3-5 questions to ask other group about their collaborative opportunities. Apply questions and ideas from task one for these questions. Identify and plan strategies for working collaboratively with stakeholders.
3. Locate OER which could supplement the activity of week 3 (twitter) and discuss issues of reusing them.
Open Education resources are digitalised materials offered freely and openly for educators to use and resource. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources is this not what a book is for?
JISC and HEFCE project August 2010 -2011  http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/oer.aspx making freely available materials from pilot universities license permitting.
Wikieducator is an international online community project for the collaborative development of learning materials, which educators are free to reuse, adapt and share without restriction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikieducator
Learning4Content wiki project which asks educators to provide materials and time to make information freely and openly available.
http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content
Case Studies from HFECE Report 2011 on the integrated use of on-line learning . Read case studies. http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2011/11_01/
Open University http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=3636 This unit will help you to write a learning unit and provide you with links to various resources for open-learning materials. You will learn about the different purposes of self-instruction and receive advice about the techniques and strategies to help the learner.
Open Educational Resources – Opportunities
and Challenges for Higher Education  http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/images/0/0b/OER_Briefing_Paper.pdf
Wikiversity http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources

Reflections week 3 - searching for positives

I must admit I didn't enjoy this week at all apart from working with such a good group of people. It began and ended with a sense of confusion for me. I just didn't 'get' the task we were asked to do. Thankfully my group helped me through this and we managed to work together and to produce something which I am rather proud of. However I am still unsure of the actually crux of the task. I read the instructions about 20 times and I still didn't grasp it. I am not a stupid person (I don't think) and I just struggled. I have learnt some valuable lessons though for on-line learning from the point of view of my students.

* Instructions must be clear and concise as to the task required

* No question is stupid and if one is thinking it then others will be too - therefore a tutor should be on hand to guide and reassure. (I presume tutors can see what is going on in the groups)

* Students must talk to each other - this is easier for us as tutors to do this - for students admitting they have no idea what is going on may not be easy - the tutor therefore must be sensitive to this and pick up on these comments via the discussion board

* on-line tutorials should not be scheduled for first thing the day after the release of the instruction on the vle - give students a chance to actually participate - 24 hours notice should be given

I felt lost and isolated on Monday and Tuesday until I spoke to my group. I must say I am rather disappointed and disengaged by the whole task. I see the importance of learning design and activities but I did not see the context of it. For me as a lecturer who was wanting to see how to prepare online courses I feel I have not learnt things which will be of use to me. Perhaps those who have a clearer teaching and learning background will have. I felt like giving up this week but after talking to the voice of reason at home I have decided to stay and see the course out. Hopefully this week I will have a clearer idea of what is going on and I am trying to take the positives out of the last week.