The Ed Techie
I wanted to experiment and see if it was possible to develop an OU undergrad course delivered entirely online. So using MS FrontPage HTML editor (for which, I plead forgiveness), I created a dummy. I chatted with John Naughton about it he was one of the big internet enthusiasts at the OU and had been there since pretty much its founding. I remember showing him my mock up of a course web site and declaring think it about 80% there Because he knew better than to crush young enthusiasm he didn point out that it was in reality not even 8% there. He encouraged me to continue to develop a prototype and along with Gary Alexander we worked on a course project, which was outside of the formal structure. The driving principle was that all OU material would be delivered online and if we did that, what would it look like
Then in a meeting about the Technology Faculty foundation course, it was demonstrated that we really didn have a coque samsung galaxie a20e replacement ready and by 2000 it coque 360 samsung a5 2017 silicone was going to need a serious overhaul. joytag coque samsung a6 2018 The staff to do this weren available and so we were in a bit of a bind. I can remember if it was John or I who said we have a replacement we could have ready for pilot next year. blogged enough about T171, and i found some old content in Scribd. If you interested there are some academic publications on the use of narrative in the course here, issues of scaling up, and assessment approach. We produced it in a short time frame, it piloted in 1999 and in 2000 launched coque one piece samsung a6 officially with nearly 15,000 students. It marked the OU shift to elearning in a significant way for example because we had to recruit nearly 600 online tutors, many of whom then went on to stay with the OU in different roles it increased the knowledge base of online education. It also brought a lot of new students to the OU who hadn studied with us before, and for a Technology/Computer course had over 50% women in the cohort. Because of the way funding worked back then, the OU were under on our projected student numbers, which meant that we would not only lose their funds but be punished in future rounds. By running a second presentation of the course in 2000 we met the requisite student numbers and brought a significant financial boost to the OU (you welcome).
it really helps to have someone well respected and connected like John to absorb the institutional uncertainty; sometimes (only sometimes though!) ignorance is a blessing because I was coque 360 pour samsung s10 unaware of the actual complexities of creating an OU course I could propose doing this, whereas if I had been truly knowledgeable I would seen all the problems;allowing room for experimentation can have big benefits I spent time playing around developing the course before there was an official course. This was work time that could have been a complete coque samsung s8 world map waste of time;sometimes you have to trust your instincts. Market research amongst our own students suggested online learning may not be that popular, and there were lots of limitations, but it was clear to a few of us that it would be significant. So, better to do it then that play catch up a few years later.
Covid 19 bit: The most obvious bit here is hey you can create online courses that students like to study! Strangely, this still seems to be big news. More helpfully, I think the model we developed for T171 is pretty useful to adapt and can help speed production. We had three blocks, each based around a published book. Students were directed to read parts of that, we created some content to expand on issues, and some to fill in gaps. Then there were activities to discuss and develop skills. But samsung a10 coque vert use of the books really helped create a spine for the modules. You could now do this by adapting OER content, for example an open textbook from BC Campus might form the spine, or some material from OpenLearn.
I cover our scaling up model in a later post, but consider this assessment: we had no final exam and instead students created websites (we provided a free WYSIWYG HTML editor) which they submitted as zip files, which we then unpacked on to a server so the two independent markers could access them. We set out what the content of the website should address but not the style and phew, did we get a range of designs! Clipart gifs were definitely a thing back then. But what I want to stress is that if we could do this with first year undergrad students on a distance ed course back in 1999, then you can find a way to do away with an exam in 2020.
All of this means that I tend not to ask for anything. If I can do the talk, then I do it. But since Covid 19 hit I done over 20 webinars, largely for free, and I started to realise that I not making the best use of these offers. I don mean to maximise return for myself (although, contributions to the vinyl collection are always welcome), but to use what little position or influence I have for something else. For example, Maha Bali, who is much smarter than I, asked for her . I just waived a fee for a talk at the coques personnalisees iphone 5 5s se Irish Universities EDTL event next week, instead asking them to donate to Black Lives Matter UK. Others have spoken for free but in exchange for places for free places (particularly in online events) for students.
This post is partly to prompt others like myself who instinct is to be helpful but aren really be thoughtful enough. I need to get better at making the ask. I would add, this is coque samsung s8 coque iphone 11 plus luxe distinct from people who make a living from keynotes, you should definitely pay them and not offer payment in kind like this it for those small, free, coque a personnaliser samsung s9 low budget talks that many academics give to each other. Indeed, waiving your fee so they can pay someone else might be a good use too. But also I wanted to sound out any other ideas for what might be in such an ask if money or places weren available, or that might be more useful. Any suggestions25 Years of OU 1997: summer schoolscomments
Mon, 15 Jun 2020 10:02:50 +0000
OU summer school in 1995
Of course, no account of early OU life would be complete without mention of summer schools. coque samsung s9 plus silicone integral When I joined the OU, it was part of your contract that you spend 2 coque samsung a8 3d weeks working at one of our summer schools. These were one week long residential courses held at a number of universities over the summer months. In many ways they were the core part of the OU identity, and had an often justified licentious reputation. Like coque iphone 8 Vegas, people used to say happens at OU summer school stays at OU summer school heard a story once from one of the founding staff that campus universities were snooty coque samsung galaxy a5 2016 vache about the OU and didn want them soiling their campuses over the coque samsung s8 rou summer (until they realised it was a good money spinner, having boozy, hungry students occupying their coque samsung a8 2018 fun empty sites all summer). So in order to progress samsung coque transparente s8 the OU senior management seriously considered hiring cruise boats and going around the British coast hosting the summer schools. I for one would like this idea to be revisited. This was enormously useful in developing modules later.
These summer school weeks were amongst the most exhausting and rewarding I have done in my academic career. In one of the computer sessions coque iphone 5 I used to run, we would get students to hand craft and publish HTML pages online. For many it was a revelation and they were (nearly) always full of gratitude for the experience (compare with full time campus students who are often, erm, not full of gratitude). Student surveys used to regularly show that the summer school was the thing most students didn want to do prior to their study, and the component they valued the most afterwards. As Ray Corrigan points out in his account, the as customer approach doesn really allow for this kind of transformation.
The Covid 19 bit: What summer schools really modelled was blended learning in a way that many unis are now deploying. If you view the campus bit of the blended approach as a stretched out summer school and the online bit as the distance coque iphone 4 ed element, then it showed how you can get the benefit from both modes. Students used to come with queries and have remedial sessions on content they had struggled with, engage in groupwork, have general interest talks and also socialise, all of which then refreshed their distance ed study. Instead of viewing their blended provision as a campus course with some online bits when needed, I think educators would be well served to conceive of their courses as distance ed ones with ongoing residential provision an extended summer school offering that complements the core provision.
25 Years of OU: 1996 online tutor groupscomments
Wed, 10 Jun 2020 11:25:31 +0000
The FirstClass CMC system
When I joined the OU we still largely held f2f tutorials, but with some online support. Some specialist courses had been experimenting with totally online tutor groups. We coque pour portable samsung galaxy a10 used a system called FirstClass, and once you had your dial up modem working, it was pretty easy to use with its own software client, and it would synchronise offline so you could dial in, get updates and then disconnect. Prior to always on broadband this was important! The History of the OU blog has a good entry on the conferencing software and courses that used it at the OU…