We are currently half way through the delivery of the second semester to the first cohort (Feb 08 starters) and halfway through the first semester for the second cohort (Sept 08 starters).
Student numbers
eCommunications First Cohort. (Began: February 2008)
Semester 1
28 students began. There have been 5 withdrawals
eCommunications First Cohort. (Began: February 2008)
Semester 2
23 students began this semester, including 1 who has yet to fully enrol.
2 withdrew in the first few weeks.
Authoring of materials and related issues
Modules 1-6 have been fully completed.
Semester 1 has been redesigned for the delivery of the second cohort who began in September 2008. The Action plan from the Annual Quality review includes most of the changes required and also lists several more points that need attention. Some of these points came out of the Exam Board held in September 2008.
Modules 7-12 are being designed and written.
First Exam Board. 10.09.08
All the students in the cohort successfully passed the first two modules. The averaged student mark for both these modules produced nine distinctions and nine merits or good merits.
The team were praised for the online materials, teaching, marking and support given to the students. Action points arising from this Exam Board are covered in the College’s Quality Review Action plan which is preferred to later.
Future enrolment
We have decided to open up enrolment for Sept 09. This began on week beginning 10.11.09
Use of Social Software – Blogs, Wiki and Forum
This is again going well and I am capturing data on how students are using this technology
Evaluation
Data has been collected on how staff and students have experienced using the social software. Additionally data has been collected on staff trialling the software and student knowledge and experience before they started the course.
A focus in the first delivery of semester 1 was how students have engaged with the wiki.
Several initial reports have been produced on this and placed on the project wiki. The Interim reports to JISC, also on the project wiki, have been concerned with this too.
A face to face meeting is to be arranged before Jan 2009 to investigate student use and experience of the blogs and forum.
Future reports will be placed on the project wiki and sent to JISC.
These reports will form the basis of the dissemination.
BA Hons Progression
Several meetings have taken place on this to firm up the content and methods of delivery. The last meeting was scheduled for 13.11.08 but has been rearranged for a future date. Decisions have been taken on modules, and delivery.
Dissemination
The educational use use of blogs, wikis and the forum was included in two inhouse training sessions: ‘Top Tips Training’ delivered to Sheffield College staff on 2.7.08
To date our experience of Social Software has worked, but it may not always do so. It would be good to disseminate as late as possible so as to capture more student experience. Dissemination is a required part of the JISC project but also an invaluable part of how the online eCommunications Dept publicises its work and raises its profile.
Friday, 14 November 2008
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Experience of using Social Software in Semester One: February - June 2008
These are some preliminary comments on what our students have reported about their experience of using social software.
Experience of the process of blogging, considering such things such things as: setting up an account organising 'Permissions and 'Settings', uploading images etc being able to blog regularly
None of the students found this difficult. Only a few (4.2%) experienced some difficulties. One quarter of the students found blogging easy. This is supported by student comments where few comments were made about difficulty.
The process of using the forum, considering such things as getting access to the forum and personalising account. Details were requested here about uploading the student’s image or avatar and adding their name, being able to visit the forum regularly finding their way around the forum creating posts and topics and editing posts.
Again none of the students found this very difficult and only 16% found that the encountered some difficulties or problems. ^8% of the students found the forum easy or very easy to use.
Most students noted some initial problems, ‘ I had some initial issues logging in and navigating the forum. After speaking with a couple of people I was soon on the right track. ‘ ‘ Again like the blog I found a few initial problems with finding my way around the site. At times it did feel a bit like the do things. However, it didn’t take too long – a couple of week’s maybe to get into the flow of things. Once the communication started to take off between fellow students everybody soon realised we were all in the same boat so to speak and everybody started to chip in and help each other wherever possible,’ and ‘ I think the only problem, if any, was the navigation of the different topics and finding where I should be. But after a day or so I got the hang of it. It is quite daunting at first, maybe a colour coding system for the different areas of the forum and/or groups would be good initially.’
There were some specific issues, ‘ I wasn't given access rights at first to the forum. I found navigating it difficult at first. Still not sure,’ and ‘ I had a minor problem at one stage where the forum kept telling me I wasn't logged in when I tried to reply to a post. This happened for a couple of weeks. Other than that I found it very easy to use. ‘ There was also some useful advice, ‘Saving the entry instead of submitting it sends the message to never never land and I couldn't figure out how to retrieve it! There must be a drafts section or similar! :o) .’ Finally there was a comment that many of the online tutor team would understand from a student who apprecitated the visual dimension of WebBoard, which had previously been used by any of the online courses at The Sheffield College, ‘ I would prefer if when logging onto my account I could see at a glance any new postings per topic area -unless I'm missing something, you don't get that option. Always found it useful on WebBoard .’ Another student took up this point, ‘ Although I found accessing the forum easy enough there were a couple of things that made using the forum frustrating: 1. If another user did not personalise their account details it was very difficult to know who made specific postings - it would be much clearer if instead of using Student ID's, the system used individual people's names. 2. It was frustrating every time you log in to have to navigate around the forum boards to locate the actual one you required - maybe a good feature to add would be one where you can click on a link that will show only new postings since the last visit? Or possibly an option to view the last topic you looked at when in the forum previously. ‘
The process of using the wiki, considering such things as getting access to the wiki uploading, images and videos, being able to visit the wiki regularly, students finding their way around the wiki, creating pages, editing content , creating links to pages and working with others in the wiki.
A large number of students (20%) found the process of using the wiki very difficult, 16% found this difficult. Only 20% found it easy or very easy. The comments demonstrate this. This comment is fairly typical, ‘18. I had quite a few problems when using the Wiki. Firstly, just the look of it is fairly bland and not very explanatory. Secondly, the old adage springs to mind, ‘being thrown in at the deep end,’ as this is exactly how I felt. I spend most of the week franticly trying to fathom out how and what to do. And thirdly, as this is an online course I feel more support and guidance should be given as I’m sure many students like myself will have never experienced Wikis before. ‘ One or two were quite forthright, ‘ The WIKI structure is unclear. When we designed the course handbook, it was difficult to navigate from one page to the next. Instructions on how to create a document on WIKI would have been welcomed. Another student was even more critical, ‘ The Wiki was probably the worst experience of the course so far for me. I found it really hard to get to grips with it as there was no real step-by-step guide to help navigate your way around it. I do feel more support is needed here from the tutors where they can see there is clearly a problem in how things are developing or not as was the case. One suggestion might be to perhaps a week or so advance warning of the first Wiki activity, this would have been helpful as it took the best part of the week for me to fathom out just how to access/create/post and edit various things. Unfortunately for me I appreciate this problem might have been magnified as the rest of the team I was supposed to have be working with were none existent until the last few days, by which time they had no real chance of reaching their potential. This of course had a knock on effect to the final ‘team’ grade we were awarded.’
This view was in the minority, though and others, though were more positive, ‘ The wiki took a little getting used to. Especially when creating a narrative. That took a bit more technical skill.’ ‘ I found publishing on th ewiki [sic] easy enough. The collaboration part was more of an issue.’
A few students had specific issues, ‘ I had access logging on to the WiKi as my password didn't work, or it allowed me to logon one time but then not the next When I did gain access, none of the content was available to me, and this resulted with me adding my work, but not being able to see anyone elses which proved a huge disadvantage as at that point I realised that my work was completely different to everyone elses and I had obviously missed the point somewhere! Even gaining access now is laborious and the listings on the left hand side have no logical structure or order.’ ‘ I did not have access to the wiki for days. When I got access I could not see the sandpit etc.’
A few students were more confident, ‘The overall use of the Wiki was easy. There were some areas that were extremely frustrating tho. Adding a table was a nightmare when you needed to edit columns and rows. Formatting often had a mind of it's own. Documents could be linked to pages, but as soon as someone edited that page the link would 'drop', and have to be readded EVERY time. This is a good idea for group collaboration, but only IF ALL members of a group engage. I dare not look how many hours I put into it due to others not contributing enough.’
The experience of Reflective Blogging , including comment on how useful the reflective techniques were that were used on the course and which of these techniques was found to be the most useful.
The overwhelming majority of students made favourable comment here. A typical comment was, ‘Reflective blogging I really enjoyed. I found the techniques given were very useful in particular the critical issue. I found by writing down how I felt and coped with certain activities not only helped me get through the critical issues at the time but also helped me in how I should approach and prepare for similar activities in the future. ‘ Only one student was less than enthusiastic, ‘ I hate blogging but the reflective techniques were fairly straightforward. I found the 'critical incident' example the most useful. ‘ Another had not been able to engage fully, ‘ Due to personal circumstances I didn't have time to complete all the study from the course, and used reflective techniques I already possessed. I will catch up with reading the course content over the summer. I found the blog easy to use, although features are limited.’ Another student commented, ‘ This is the first time I have used reflective blogging and it was good to be directed. However, having done this a couple of times I felt I had become repetitive, I have the same problems and trepedations [sic] for each new piece of work. It feels silly writing the same things. ‘ This comment, though, perhaps reveals more about the students not engaging with the reflective blogging techniques.
Overall, though, as has been stated, the majority of student stated that they had found reflective blogging useful and interesting. The techniques that were preferred ranged from the critical incident blogging technique to the questioning technique, to the open reflection technique. There was no favourite choice.
How appropriate is the forum as a tool for discussion
There were a range of replies here. Generally comments were favourable. There was only one comment that contained a negative aspect. ‘It was appropriate. I didn't see the point of assessing when the participants started to engage into discussions (ie: early, middle or end of a discussion) as it was not mentionned [sic] as part of the assessment criteria and a deadline was provided for each discussion activities. ‘ The student had obviously not properly read the assessment criteria that was made available as part of the online materials or the whole course emails that directed students to reat the assessment criteria before they began activities. The rest of the comments were typical of the following, ‘ Very appropriate. The forum once it got established was a great tool for discussion. Many view points differed but I feel they were all received and commented on tactfully. I personally learnt a massive through reading and posting on the forum and I considered it to be a fun and very easy way of learning hoe to communicate on the web. In my opinion the forum created a great atmosphere between fellow students, it was a great place to go get help, advice or just simply to receive a friendly encouraging comment and, wherever possible, give out help advice and friendly encouraging comments.’
How appropriate the wiki was as a tool for collaborative work
The following comment was representative of many comments , ‘The Wiki for me wasn’t a great experience. However, by the time it got towards the end of the semester I did start to get to be a bit more encouraged by it’s collaborative capabilities. The final team SW activity went quite well but still I’m not a big fan of the way the site has been constructed. ‘ Others were more enthusiastic, ‘It was perfect. it's the tool that should be used on all courses, even so-called "off-line" ones as computers are a vital part of communication for all studies these days. Intranet, email, message boards are no longer used just by tech students.’ and ‘ Great. I really enjoyed this. It was so easy to see how we could produce a collaborative piece of work this way and using the forum to guide us through the process and share ideas made it even easier. ‘ Some expressed anxieties, ‘ I found this quite difficult because there were no clear borders on who is responsible for what .’ Others, though saw the potential of this software, ‘ The wiki is great for collaborative work. I like the structure of having different pages. ‘
How blogs might be continued to be used on the course.
Some students thought that reflective blogs should not figure so prominently, ‘ I think there should be less time on reflective blogs, it would be more useful to have an area where students could discuss certain issues, such as problems, ideas and issues that may not be understood. In this particular area students could interact and share ideas. I know there is a forum for this, but certain student may find it easier to discuss with one another rather than a tutor. I think this would be more helpful to the students and tutors could also interact with this if necessary and help students if they are struggling. I think there shouldn't be quite so many blogs, alternativly [sic] there could be more questions given to help people to blog or maybe another solution to this is get people to write a blog diary in certain social networking groups such as face book. I think by doing this the students may not feel as pressurised when writing blogs. ‘ A typical answer, though, was ‘ The way Blogging is used on the course is suitable. Another Blog could be used separately (for privacy reasons)for collaborative work as it lets the participants add all sorts of media easily.’ and ‘ A record of your learning activity as it’s good to look back and see the ups and downs of the course as you progress. I feel more interaction might be a good idea between fellow students and tutors by way of encouragement like adding comments or leaving feedback.’
How the course forum might be continued to be used on the course.
Some students were happy with the forum, but had no further comment to make, ‘ Forum is an excellent environment for discussions and to ask and share questions about the course. I have no further ideas. ‘ Others made interesting suggestions, ‘Forum is a good social space for discussion and interaction, but for group collaboration work, it is not that helpful. ‘A hub of online learning. A place for interaction with tutors and other students. A social space for discussion and interaction A place to ask questions and seek help I think the forums could be used more often for support and not just for assessed interaction.’
How the course wiki might be continued to be used on the course.
Given some students’ problems with using the wiki, the comments here were interesting and have been presented fully:
1. A place for collaboration where groups can produce work is what the wiki will be most used for.
2. As a collaborative tool, I found it to be excellent. I'm not sure what else is possible.
3. I think the wiki could have a faq page and answers so people can reference this in the future.
4. I didn't see a big difference between GoogleDoc and the WIKI in terms of collaborative work and information sharing. the WIKI was unclear to use. I would like to see how businesses use WIKIs and understand why they use it instead of another tool. We might benefit from using different WIKI tools and let the participants evaluate and select the one that they feel most at ease with.
5. I feel the Wiki could be better constructed. It needs an easy-to-use guide and much clearer step-by-step instructions in how to create a profile/page/post etc. A couple of weeks notice before starting the first activity would have been better in order to give students a real chance of fulfilling their potential. Also I feel the first activity on the Wiki should be an independent one, as opposed to working in a team. This is because I feel it is unfair to deduct points from everybody in the team because various team members didn’t have the time to access the site early enough. Of course I appreciate working as a team is important to the Wiki collaboration process but as the first activity a just feel it would have given everybody a fair chance to find their way around it in their own time with out jeopardising other student’s grades.
6. It is a good area where group work can be used
7. it's perfect for collaboration on group work. I think myself and everyone else enjoyed the wiki experience and would like to continue with that in semester 2.
8. The wiki is ideal for collabaration excercises [sic], but found parts of it confusing.
9. I really liked the activity of producing the course handbook on the wiki, so I think other similar activities would be good.
10. I think that wiki's can be ok for collaborative tasks if boundaries are clearly defined...we could continue to use them maybe as a long term project, building up a record of the semester...each student being assigned a particular area to work on or rotating tasks. Fri, 7/4/08 2:21 AM
11. A place for collaboration where groups can produce work. A virtual classroom. Wikis are wonderful places for people to jointly produce information about different topics. I have thought about asking for a place to post reviews about interesting articles I have read in the paper about Social Web topics. I guess a wiki could be used for this purpose.
12. The Wiki is all of the points above(!)
13. A record of your learning journey - although some attention would have to be given to the accessibility of the Wiki and navigational issues I do not think this was an effective tool for the collaboration of groups to produce work - Google Docs was much better!
14. If given immediate access at the beginning of the project it could be used for most projects as was the Google docs document.
15. The Wiki could be useful in future collabaritive assignments. Now we have experienced the WIKI we could probably makea better job next time around.
16. A place to ask questions and seek help; a social space for discussion and interaction; A place for collaboration where groups (and individuals) can produce work
17. I have'nt [sic]yet had enough experience of 'wiki-ing to determine how it might continue to be used on the course - for it's [sic]sins, I prefered [sic]the google collaborative activity, because at least you found out if things had been changed (you got an email notification) - to learn if a wiki has changed, you need to log into the wiki and wade through it
18. As a place to present work so that it can be shared with other students - a bit like "How have you approached this" as you might do in the classroom
19. Please make sure the links are reliable, I think communication about the projects we did should be in one place. Using the wiki when it had many pages that were editable by anyone meant that it was quite easy to miss a message or instruction. Therefore it should be agreed at the beginning of the project where any planning should be done. When we did it messages were being left in the forum and the wiki. Just have one place, so people can both leave and see messages and know that they will be seen.
20. A place for collaboration where groups can produce work is the best reason for the using wiki`s [sic] , it can save people time and costs and is convenient to access at anytime.
21. A place for collaboration where groups can produce work.
22. A place for collaboration where groups can produce work A hub for online learning A reference point for future learning and future cohorts
Experience of the process of blogging, considering such things such things as: setting up an account organising 'Permissions and 'Settings', uploading images etc being able to blog regularly
None of the students found this difficult. Only a few (4.2%) experienced some difficulties. One quarter of the students found blogging easy. This is supported by student comments where few comments were made about difficulty.
The process of using the forum, considering such things as getting access to the forum and personalising account. Details were requested here about uploading the student’s image or avatar and adding their name, being able to visit the forum regularly finding their way around the forum creating posts and topics and editing posts.
Again none of the students found this very difficult and only 16% found that the encountered some difficulties or problems. ^8% of the students found the forum easy or very easy to use.
Most students noted some initial problems, ‘ I had some initial issues logging in and navigating the forum. After speaking with a couple of people I was soon on the right track. ‘ ‘ Again like the blog I found a few initial problems with finding my way around the site. At times it did feel a bit like the do things. However, it didn’t take too long – a couple of week’s maybe to get into the flow of things. Once the communication started to take off between fellow students everybody soon realised we were all in the same boat so to speak and everybody started to chip in and help each other wherever possible,’ and ‘ I think the only problem, if any, was the navigation of the different topics and finding where I should be. But after a day or so I got the hang of it. It is quite daunting at first, maybe a colour coding system for the different areas of the forum and/or groups would be good initially.’
There were some specific issues, ‘ I wasn't given access rights at first to the forum. I found navigating it difficult at first. Still not sure,’ and ‘ I had a minor problem at one stage where the forum kept telling me I wasn't logged in when I tried to reply to a post. This happened for a couple of weeks. Other than that I found it very easy to use. ‘ There was also some useful advice, ‘Saving the entry instead of submitting it sends the message to never never land and I couldn't figure out how to retrieve it! There must be a drafts section or similar! :o) .’ Finally there was a comment that many of the online tutor team would understand from a student who apprecitated the visual dimension of WebBoard, which had previously been used by any of the online courses at The Sheffield College, ‘ I would prefer if when logging onto my account I could see at a glance any new postings per topic area -unless I'm missing something, you don't get that option. Always found it useful on WebBoard .’ Another student took up this point, ‘ Although I found accessing the forum easy enough there were a couple of things that made using the forum frustrating: 1. If another user did not personalise their account details it was very difficult to know who made specific postings - it would be much clearer if instead of using Student ID's, the system used individual people's names. 2. It was frustrating every time you log in to have to navigate around the forum boards to locate the actual one you required - maybe a good feature to add would be one where you can click on a link that will show only new postings since the last visit? Or possibly an option to view the last topic you looked at when in the forum previously. ‘
The process of using the wiki, considering such things as getting access to the wiki uploading, images and videos, being able to visit the wiki regularly, students finding their way around the wiki, creating pages, editing content , creating links to pages and working with others in the wiki.
A large number of students (20%) found the process of using the wiki very difficult, 16% found this difficult. Only 20% found it easy or very easy. The comments demonstrate this. This comment is fairly typical, ‘18. I had quite a few problems when using the Wiki. Firstly, just the look of it is fairly bland and not very explanatory. Secondly, the old adage springs to mind, ‘being thrown in at the deep end,’ as this is exactly how I felt. I spend most of the week franticly trying to fathom out how and what to do. And thirdly, as this is an online course I feel more support and guidance should be given as I’m sure many students like myself will have never experienced Wikis before. ‘ One or two were quite forthright, ‘ The WIKI structure is unclear. When we designed the course handbook, it was difficult to navigate from one page to the next. Instructions on how to create a document on WIKI would have been welcomed. Another student was even more critical, ‘ The Wiki was probably the worst experience of the course so far for me. I found it really hard to get to grips with it as there was no real step-by-step guide to help navigate your way around it. I do feel more support is needed here from the tutors where they can see there is clearly a problem in how things are developing or not as was the case. One suggestion might be to perhaps a week or so advance warning of the first Wiki activity, this would have been helpful as it took the best part of the week for me to fathom out just how to access/create/post and edit various things. Unfortunately for me I appreciate this problem might have been magnified as the rest of the team I was supposed to have be working with were none existent until the last few days, by which time they had no real chance of reaching their potential. This of course had a knock on effect to the final ‘team’ grade we were awarded.’
This view was in the minority, though and others, though were more positive, ‘ The wiki took a little getting used to. Especially when creating a narrative. That took a bit more technical skill.’ ‘ I found publishing on th ewiki [sic] easy enough. The collaboration part was more of an issue.’
A few students had specific issues, ‘ I had access logging on to the WiKi as my password didn't work, or it allowed me to logon one time but then not the next When I did gain access, none of the content was available to me, and this resulted with me adding my work, but not being able to see anyone elses which proved a huge disadvantage as at that point I realised that my work was completely different to everyone elses and I had obviously missed the point somewhere! Even gaining access now is laborious and the listings on the left hand side have no logical structure or order.’ ‘ I did not have access to the wiki for days. When I got access I could not see the sandpit etc.’
A few students were more confident, ‘The overall use of the Wiki was easy. There were some areas that were extremely frustrating tho. Adding a table was a nightmare when you needed to edit columns and rows. Formatting often had a mind of it's own. Documents could be linked to pages, but as soon as someone edited that page the link would 'drop', and have to be readded EVERY time. This is a good idea for group collaboration, but only IF ALL members of a group engage. I dare not look how many hours I put into it due to others not contributing enough.’
The experience of Reflective Blogging , including comment on how useful the reflective techniques were that were used on the course and which of these techniques was found to be the most useful.
The overwhelming majority of students made favourable comment here. A typical comment was, ‘Reflective blogging I really enjoyed. I found the techniques given were very useful in particular the critical issue. I found by writing down how I felt and coped with certain activities not only helped me get through the critical issues at the time but also helped me in how I should approach and prepare for similar activities in the future. ‘ Only one student was less than enthusiastic, ‘ I hate blogging but the reflective techniques were fairly straightforward. I found the 'critical incident' example the most useful. ‘ Another had not been able to engage fully, ‘ Due to personal circumstances I didn't have time to complete all the study from the course, and used reflective techniques I already possessed. I will catch up with reading the course content over the summer. I found the blog easy to use, although features are limited.’ Another student commented, ‘ This is the first time I have used reflective blogging and it was good to be directed. However, having done this a couple of times I felt I had become repetitive, I have the same problems and trepedations [sic] for each new piece of work. It feels silly writing the same things. ‘ This comment, though, perhaps reveals more about the students not engaging with the reflective blogging techniques.
Overall, though, as has been stated, the majority of student stated that they had found reflective blogging useful and interesting. The techniques that were preferred ranged from the critical incident blogging technique to the questioning technique, to the open reflection technique. There was no favourite choice.
How appropriate is the forum as a tool for discussion
There were a range of replies here. Generally comments were favourable. There was only one comment that contained a negative aspect. ‘It was appropriate. I didn't see the point of assessing when the participants started to engage into discussions (ie: early, middle or end of a discussion) as it was not mentionned [sic] as part of the assessment criteria and a deadline was provided for each discussion activities. ‘ The student had obviously not properly read the assessment criteria that was made available as part of the online materials or the whole course emails that directed students to reat the assessment criteria before they began activities. The rest of the comments were typical of the following, ‘ Very appropriate. The forum once it got established was a great tool for discussion. Many view points differed but I feel they were all received and commented on tactfully. I personally learnt a massive through reading and posting on the forum and I considered it to be a fun and very easy way of learning hoe to communicate on the web. In my opinion the forum created a great atmosphere between fellow students, it was a great place to go get help, advice or just simply to receive a friendly encouraging comment and, wherever possible, give out help advice and friendly encouraging comments.’
How appropriate the wiki was as a tool for collaborative work
The following comment was representative of many comments , ‘The Wiki for me wasn’t a great experience. However, by the time it got towards the end of the semester I did start to get to be a bit more encouraged by it’s collaborative capabilities. The final team SW activity went quite well but still I’m not a big fan of the way the site has been constructed. ‘ Others were more enthusiastic, ‘It was perfect. it's the tool that should be used on all courses, even so-called "off-line" ones as computers are a vital part of communication for all studies these days. Intranet, email, message boards are no longer used just by tech students.’ and ‘ Great. I really enjoyed this. It was so easy to see how we could produce a collaborative piece of work this way and using the forum to guide us through the process and share ideas made it even easier. ‘ Some expressed anxieties, ‘ I found this quite difficult because there were no clear borders on who is responsible for what .’ Others, though saw the potential of this software, ‘ The wiki is great for collaborative work. I like the structure of having different pages. ‘
How blogs might be continued to be used on the course.
Some students thought that reflective blogs should not figure so prominently, ‘ I think there should be less time on reflective blogs, it would be more useful to have an area where students could discuss certain issues, such as problems, ideas and issues that may not be understood. In this particular area students could interact and share ideas. I know there is a forum for this, but certain student may find it easier to discuss with one another rather than a tutor. I think this would be more helpful to the students and tutors could also interact with this if necessary and help students if they are struggling. I think there shouldn't be quite so many blogs, alternativly [sic] there could be more questions given to help people to blog or maybe another solution to this is get people to write a blog diary in certain social networking groups such as face book. I think by doing this the students may not feel as pressurised when writing blogs. ‘ A typical answer, though, was ‘ The way Blogging is used on the course is suitable. Another Blog could be used separately (for privacy reasons)for collaborative work as it lets the participants add all sorts of media easily.’ and ‘ A record of your learning activity as it’s good to look back and see the ups and downs of the course as you progress. I feel more interaction might be a good idea between fellow students and tutors by way of encouragement like adding comments or leaving feedback.’
How the course forum might be continued to be used on the course.
Some students were happy with the forum, but had no further comment to make, ‘ Forum is an excellent environment for discussions and to ask and share questions about the course. I have no further ideas. ‘ Others made interesting suggestions, ‘Forum is a good social space for discussion and interaction, but for group collaboration work, it is not that helpful. ‘A hub of online learning. A place for interaction with tutors and other students. A social space for discussion and interaction A place to ask questions and seek help I think the forums could be used more often for support and not just for assessed interaction.’
How the course wiki might be continued to be used on the course.
Given some students’ problems with using the wiki, the comments here were interesting and have been presented fully:
1. A place for collaboration where groups can produce work is what the wiki will be most used for.
2. As a collaborative tool, I found it to be excellent. I'm not sure what else is possible.
3. I think the wiki could have a faq page and answers so people can reference this in the future.
4. I didn't see a big difference between GoogleDoc and the WIKI in terms of collaborative work and information sharing. the WIKI was unclear to use. I would like to see how businesses use WIKIs and understand why they use it instead of another tool. We might benefit from using different WIKI tools and let the participants evaluate and select the one that they feel most at ease with.
5. I feel the Wiki could be better constructed. It needs an easy-to-use guide and much clearer step-by-step instructions in how to create a profile/page/post etc. A couple of weeks notice before starting the first activity would have been better in order to give students a real chance of fulfilling their potential. Also I feel the first activity on the Wiki should be an independent one, as opposed to working in a team. This is because I feel it is unfair to deduct points from everybody in the team because various team members didn’t have the time to access the site early enough. Of course I appreciate working as a team is important to the Wiki collaboration process but as the first activity a just feel it would have given everybody a fair chance to find their way around it in their own time with out jeopardising other student’s grades.
6. It is a good area where group work can be used
7. it's perfect for collaboration on group work. I think myself and everyone else enjoyed the wiki experience and would like to continue with that in semester 2.
8. The wiki is ideal for collabaration excercises [sic], but found parts of it confusing.
9. I really liked the activity of producing the course handbook on the wiki, so I think other similar activities would be good.
10. I think that wiki's can be ok for collaborative tasks if boundaries are clearly defined...we could continue to use them maybe as a long term project, building up a record of the semester...each student being assigned a particular area to work on or rotating tasks. Fri, 7/4/08 2:21 AM
11. A place for collaboration where groups can produce work. A virtual classroom. Wikis are wonderful places for people to jointly produce information about different topics. I have thought about asking for a place to post reviews about interesting articles I have read in the paper about Social Web topics. I guess a wiki could be used for this purpose.
12. The Wiki is all of the points above(!)
13. A record of your learning journey - although some attention would have to be given to the accessibility of the Wiki and navigational issues I do not think this was an effective tool for the collaboration of groups to produce work - Google Docs was much better!
14. If given immediate access at the beginning of the project it could be used for most projects as was the Google docs document.
15. The Wiki could be useful in future collabaritive assignments. Now we have experienced the WIKI we could probably makea better job next time around.
16. A place to ask questions and seek help; a social space for discussion and interaction; A place for collaboration where groups (and individuals) can produce work
17. I have'nt [sic]yet had enough experience of 'wiki-ing to determine how it might continue to be used on the course - for it's [sic]sins, I prefered [sic]the google collaborative activity, because at least you found out if things had been changed (you got an email notification) - to learn if a wiki has changed, you need to log into the wiki and wade through it
18. As a place to present work so that it can be shared with other students - a bit like "How have you approached this" as you might do in the classroom
19. Please make sure the links are reliable, I think communication about the projects we did should be in one place. Using the wiki when it had many pages that were editable by anyone meant that it was quite easy to miss a message or instruction. Therefore it should be agreed at the beginning of the project where any planning should be done. When we did it messages were being left in the forum and the wiki. Just have one place, so people can both leave and see messages and know that they will be seen.
20. A place for collaboration where groups can produce work is the best reason for the using wiki`s [sic] , it can save people time and costs and is convenient to access at anytime.
21. A place for collaboration where groups can produce work.
22. A place for collaboration where groups can produce work A hub for online learning A reference point for future learning and future cohorts
Monday, 29 September 2008
A New Semester
Here is a brief summary of the JISC project and the eComms FdA development
Summary of Progress of JISC Project to date.
During this reporting period the Widening Participation through eLearning project has kept to the original project plan and there has been no change to the budget plan, apart from a minor reallocation of funds to different budget headings. This budget change was proposed by the project and agreed by JISC earlier in the year.
The first semester of the Online eCommunications FdA began on 18 February 2008 and finished on 30 June 2008. Social software was used extensively in the delivery of this degree and by students in their individual and collaborative work. The use of this social software and the pedagogical implications of its use remains the main focus of this project. Two modules were fully delivered: Approaches to Communications and The Social Web. One module was partially delivered: Professional and Personal Development. This last module is delivered over three semesters and will finish in June 2009.
28 students enrolled and began this FdA and 23 students completed this semester. All the work has been marked and all the students have provisionally passed both of the completed modules; an exam board will take place on 10 September 2008 where the external moderator will give a final decision on student achievement. Data has been collected on the following:-
Staff views on the implementation of a social software solution for the degree. To gather this data, two reflective practice meetings have been held on staff experience of the trialling of this technology. One meeting was minuted by an external, competent minute taker; the second meeting was taped and transcribed.Student views and experience of using social software. To gather this data two online questionnaires were conducted using surveymonkey. One before the course started and one on completion of semester one. The second questionnaire focussed on the use of the course wiki, as this is the tool being investigated for this seminar. In seminar two blogs and forums will be investigated. Data was also collected through a face to face minuted meeting with 8 of the students. Additionally data was collected from the student activities where they were asked to reflect on their experience of using social software during the semester.
Initial evaluation of this data has been completed. Work is now being undertaken on more detailed evaluation and the preparation of further questionnaires and the drafting of interview questions for future meetings.
A justification for this choice of technology and the implementation of a blog, wiki and forum solution has been produced.
The choice to use an eportfolio solution hosted in an instance of sheffcol, the content management system for TSC, remains unchanged.
Activities and Progress
Workpackages
Work has been completed on:
Workpackage 1: Project management
Financial statements have been completed and included in the half yearly reports.Quarterly Steering Group Meetings. These have been held regularly. The last meeting was held on 21 April 08.
The next meeting of the Quarterly Steering Group will be on 21 November 2008.
Three weekly Implementation Group and Quarterly Implementation Group Meetings. These meetings have been held more frequently, often weekly and sometimes twice a week. Sub groups of the PIG have also been set up (subPIGs). Agendas and minutes have been used for all of these meetings and minutes circulated to the full Implementation Group.
Three Weekly Highlight Reports to the Steering Group. It has not been necessary to produce these reports due to the frequency of the minutes that have been circulated following the regular, often twice weekly, Implementation Group meetings. The Half Yearly report has been used to report back to the Steering Group. Additionally a short report has been circulated to all relevant TSC staff giving brief details of important information, issues and changes.
Workpackage 3: Half Yearly Reports
Half Yearly Report a (Sept 2007). Half Yearly Report b (Jan 2008).
Half yearly Report c (July 2008).
Initial report have been produced for the following:
Workpackage 4: Justification for choice of technology to be embedded in the course.
Workpackage 5: Implementation of a blog solution.
Workpackage 6: Implementation of a wiki solution
Workpackage 7: Implementation of an eportfolio solution
Workpackage 8: Implementation of a forum solution
Workpackage 9: Trialling of the chosen technology.
I
Workpackage 11: Dissemination
The project website can be found at: http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/ This website is password protected. Relevant members of the community will be given access to this site. Two in-house dissemination activities have been held at The Sheffield College.
Additionally, work is underway for Workpackage 10: Evaluation of Project, as all the work undertaken for the other workpackages contributes to this final evaluation.
Evaluation
There are eight factors to evaluate, each linked to evaluation questions. These remain unchanged from the Project Implementation Document. These are:
How students anticipate that the specific technologies being evaluated might be beneficial to their learning: What are the specific benefits that students anticipate?
How tutors anticipate that the specific technologies being evaluated might be beneficial to their learning: What are the specific benefits that tutors anticipate?
How students respond to specific uses of the technologies eg a blog: What is the accessibility, responsiveness, adaptability and functionality of technology?
How tutors engage students' interest through the use of the technologies eg a blog: What is the accessibility, responsiveness, adaptability and functionality of technology?
Student experience of the technologies (eg a wiki) in aiding and changing learning eg a wiki: What is the accessibility, responsiveness, adaptability and functionality of technology?
How tutors orientate students towards the technologies eg a forum: What is the accessibility, responsiveness, adaptability and functionality of technology?
How students motivation changes in relation to the use of the technologies eg an e portfolio: What is the accessibility, responsiveness, adaptability and functionality of technology?
Whole Project: How successful has the project been for learners, tutors and stakeholders? What lessons have been learned? What has been the impact of using the technology?
There are specific methods of data collection for each of these evaluation areas and as stated in Section One, several of these have already been undertaken.
There have been several changes in the method of data collection.
Data has been collected from student activities where they were asked to reflect on their experience of using social software during the semester. Reflective blog entries have been especially useful here.
It has been found to be easier to design questionnaires that while concentrating upon one specific tool, such as a wiki, which was the original intention, also cover questions on other tools as well.
It was decided to replace the questionnaire to tutors with two reflective practice meetings; these have already taken place. (This last point was reported in the Jan 08 interim report).
To date the main focus of the data collection has been on the student and tutor experience of using the course wiki, although, as has been stated, other, relevant data has been collected.
Future data collection will focus on the student and tutor experience of using reflective blogs and the course forum. Work has already began on designing further evaluation tools to address this.
Outputs and Deliverables
Minutes from the following meetings are available from the project website:
Quarterly Steering Group Meetings.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/Project+Steering+Group
Three weekly Implementation Group and Quarterly Implementation Group Meetings.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/Project+Implementation+Group
Three Weekly Highlight Reports to the Steering Group.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/JISC+Progress+Reports
The following reports and initial reports are available from the project website:
Short reports circulated to all relevant TSC staff giving brief details of important information, issues and changes.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/Where+we+are+now
Workpackage 3: Half Yearly Reports
Half Yearly Report a (Sept 2007). Half Yearly Report b (Jan 2008).
Half yearly Report c (July 2008).
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/JISC+Progress+Reports
Workpackage 4: Justification for choice of technology to be embedded in the course.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/Implementing+a+Social+Software+Solution
Workpackage 5: Implementation of a blog solution.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/social+software
Workpackage 6: Implementation of a wiki solution.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/JISC+Project+Reports
Workpackage 7: Implementation of an eportfolio solution.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/ePortfolio
Workpackage 8: Implementation of a forum solution.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/social+software
Workpackage 9: Trialling of the chosen technology.http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/Trialling+of+the+chosen+technology
The Exam Board
Our first Exam Board went well. All the provisional grades of our students were verified. All our students passed the two modules that were presented.
Semester Two: Feb 08 Cohort
The first cohort of students have now moved into their second semester. They are in the fourth week of study and settling in well. They are engaging with the course materials, although one or two are a bit slow to start on the forum activities. An issue that might be emerging here is the make up of the learning sets and whether we have got a correct balance and number of learners in each set. There well may be genuine reasons that explain students not posting onto the forum topics. This will need to be monitored over the next few weeks and the online eComms FdA team have agreed to review this issue mid semester.
Semester One: Sept 08 Cohort
Our new cohort of 28 students are also settling in well. They are currently in week 6 of the semester; this cohort began their studies on 15.09.08, the Feb 08 cohort began on 29.09.08. There has been quite a lot of rewriting of the content, especially in the Approaches to Communications and the PPD modules. A key change is the introduction of eNotebook activities that we hope will engage the learners but also lighten the stress as these activities are not assessed.
These students have completed an initial questionnaire on their experience and knowledge of social software.
Authoring of the remaining modules
Popular Culture and the Internet is nearly ready to place on mysheffcol. Meetings are taking place to discuss the other modules.
Summary of Progress of JISC Project to date.
During this reporting period the Widening Participation through eLearning project has kept to the original project plan and there has been no change to the budget plan, apart from a minor reallocation of funds to different budget headings. This budget change was proposed by the project and agreed by JISC earlier in the year.
The first semester of the Online eCommunications FdA began on 18 February 2008 and finished on 30 June 2008. Social software was used extensively in the delivery of this degree and by students in their individual and collaborative work. The use of this social software and the pedagogical implications of its use remains the main focus of this project. Two modules were fully delivered: Approaches to Communications and The Social Web. One module was partially delivered: Professional and Personal Development. This last module is delivered over three semesters and will finish in June 2009.
28 students enrolled and began this FdA and 23 students completed this semester. All the work has been marked and all the students have provisionally passed both of the completed modules; an exam board will take place on 10 September 2008 where the external moderator will give a final decision on student achievement. Data has been collected on the following:-
Staff views on the implementation of a social software solution for the degree. To gather this data, two reflective practice meetings have been held on staff experience of the trialling of this technology. One meeting was minuted by an external, competent minute taker; the second meeting was taped and transcribed.Student views and experience of using social software. To gather this data two online questionnaires were conducted using surveymonkey. One before the course started and one on completion of semester one. The second questionnaire focussed on the use of the course wiki, as this is the tool being investigated for this seminar. In seminar two blogs and forums will be investigated. Data was also collected through a face to face minuted meeting with 8 of the students. Additionally data was collected from the student activities where they were asked to reflect on their experience of using social software during the semester.
Initial evaluation of this data has been completed. Work is now being undertaken on more detailed evaluation and the preparation of further questionnaires and the drafting of interview questions for future meetings.
A justification for this choice of technology and the implementation of a blog, wiki and forum solution has been produced.
The choice to use an eportfolio solution hosted in an instance of sheffcol, the content management system for TSC, remains unchanged.
Activities and Progress
Workpackages
Work has been completed on:
Workpackage 1: Project management
Financial statements have been completed and included in the half yearly reports.Quarterly Steering Group Meetings. These have been held regularly. The last meeting was held on 21 April 08.
The next meeting of the Quarterly Steering Group will be on 21 November 2008.
Three weekly Implementation Group and Quarterly Implementation Group Meetings. These meetings have been held more frequently, often weekly and sometimes twice a week. Sub groups of the PIG have also been set up (subPIGs). Agendas and minutes have been used for all of these meetings and minutes circulated to the full Implementation Group.
Three Weekly Highlight Reports to the Steering Group. It has not been necessary to produce these reports due to the frequency of the minutes that have been circulated following the regular, often twice weekly, Implementation Group meetings. The Half Yearly report has been used to report back to the Steering Group. Additionally a short report has been circulated to all relevant TSC staff giving brief details of important information, issues and changes.
Workpackage 3: Half Yearly Reports
Half Yearly Report a (Sept 2007). Half Yearly Report b (Jan 2008).
Half yearly Report c (July 2008).
Initial report have been produced for the following:
Workpackage 4: Justification for choice of technology to be embedded in the course.
Workpackage 5: Implementation of a blog solution.
Workpackage 6: Implementation of a wiki solution
Workpackage 7: Implementation of an eportfolio solution
Workpackage 8: Implementation of a forum solution
Workpackage 9: Trialling of the chosen technology.
I
Workpackage 11: Dissemination
The project website can be found at: http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/ This website is password protected. Relevant members of the community will be given access to this site. Two in-house dissemination activities have been held at The Sheffield College.
Additionally, work is underway for Workpackage 10: Evaluation of Project, as all the work undertaken for the other workpackages contributes to this final evaluation.
Evaluation
There are eight factors to evaluate, each linked to evaluation questions. These remain unchanged from the Project Implementation Document. These are:
How students anticipate that the specific technologies being evaluated might be beneficial to their learning: What are the specific benefits that students anticipate?
How tutors anticipate that the specific technologies being evaluated might be beneficial to their learning: What are the specific benefits that tutors anticipate?
How students respond to specific uses of the technologies eg a blog: What is the accessibility, responsiveness, adaptability and functionality of technology?
How tutors engage students' interest through the use of the technologies eg a blog: What is the accessibility, responsiveness, adaptability and functionality of technology?
Student experience of the technologies (eg a wiki) in aiding and changing learning eg a wiki: What is the accessibility, responsiveness, adaptability and functionality of technology?
How tutors orientate students towards the technologies eg a forum: What is the accessibility, responsiveness, adaptability and functionality of technology?
How students motivation changes in relation to the use of the technologies eg an e portfolio: What is the accessibility, responsiveness, adaptability and functionality of technology?
Whole Project: How successful has the project been for learners, tutors and stakeholders? What lessons have been learned? What has been the impact of using the technology?
There are specific methods of data collection for each of these evaluation areas and as stated in Section One, several of these have already been undertaken.
There have been several changes in the method of data collection.
Data has been collected from student activities where they were asked to reflect on their experience of using social software during the semester. Reflective blog entries have been especially useful here.
It has been found to be easier to design questionnaires that while concentrating upon one specific tool, such as a wiki, which was the original intention, also cover questions on other tools as well.
It was decided to replace the questionnaire to tutors with two reflective practice meetings; these have already taken place. (This last point was reported in the Jan 08 interim report).
To date the main focus of the data collection has been on the student and tutor experience of using the course wiki, although, as has been stated, other, relevant data has been collected.
Future data collection will focus on the student and tutor experience of using reflective blogs and the course forum. Work has already began on designing further evaluation tools to address this.
Outputs and Deliverables
Minutes from the following meetings are available from the project website:
Quarterly Steering Group Meetings.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/Project+Steering+Group
Three weekly Implementation Group and Quarterly Implementation Group Meetings.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/Project+Implementation+Group
Three Weekly Highlight Reports to the Steering Group.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/JISC+Progress+Reports
The following reports and initial reports are available from the project website:
Short reports circulated to all relevant TSC staff giving brief details of important information, issues and changes.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/Where+we+are+now
Workpackage 3: Half Yearly Reports
Half Yearly Report a (Sept 2007). Half Yearly Report b (Jan 2008).
Half yearly Report c (July 2008).
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/JISC+Progress+Reports
Workpackage 4: Justification for choice of technology to be embedded in the course.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/Implementing+a+Social+Software+Solution
Workpackage 5: Implementation of a blog solution.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/social+software
Workpackage 6: Implementation of a wiki solution.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/JISC+Project+Reports
Workpackage 7: Implementation of an eportfolio solution.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/ePortfolio
Workpackage 8: Implementation of a forum solution.
http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/social+software
Workpackage 9: Trialling of the chosen technology.http://ecomms-tsc.wikispaces.com/Trialling+of+the+chosen+technology
The Exam Board
Our first Exam Board went well. All the provisional grades of our students were verified. All our students passed the two modules that were presented.
Semester Two: Feb 08 Cohort
The first cohort of students have now moved into their second semester. They are in the fourth week of study and settling in well. They are engaging with the course materials, although one or two are a bit slow to start on the forum activities. An issue that might be emerging here is the make up of the learning sets and whether we have got a correct balance and number of learners in each set. There well may be genuine reasons that explain students not posting onto the forum topics. This will need to be monitored over the next few weeks and the online eComms FdA team have agreed to review this issue mid semester.
Semester One: Sept 08 Cohort
Our new cohort of 28 students are also settling in well. They are currently in week 6 of the semester; this cohort began their studies on 15.09.08, the Feb 08 cohort began on 29.09.08. There has been quite a lot of rewriting of the content, especially in the Approaches to Communications and the PPD modules. A key change is the introduction of eNotebook activities that we hope will engage the learners but also lighten the stress as these activities are not assessed.
These students have completed an initial questionnaire on their experience and knowledge of social software.
Authoring of the remaining modules
Popular Culture and the Internet is nearly ready to place on mysheffcol. Meetings are taking place to discuss the other modules.
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Update on eCommuncations FdA Project: 14 May 08
Background
We are now in week 11 of the delivery of Semester 1 to the first cohort. To date we have had very few withdrawn students, there are currently 26 live students out of an initial cohort of 28. As retention is good, it is hoped that the two classes which started in February 2008 will progress to Semester 2 in September 2008.The students are progressing well with the work and we believe we have pitched the course at the right level and provided interesting and engaging individual and collaborative activities.
Workload
We do need, though, to reduce the workload for future delivery. We have addressed this issue this semester by making some activities optional and lightening the workload in the PPD module. In future we could reassign optional activities to another category, for example call these activities ‘eNotebook activities’, the idea here being that students would keep an electronic notebook of the non assessed, optional activities for future reference. We might also ask them to evidence a selection of these eNotebook activities for their ePortfolios. In future the forum activities will not be assessed individually but students will be asked to provide evidence of contributing to a required number of forum activities. A final point here is that we are considering beginning the assessed activities later in the modules to give students time to feel comfortable with the skills, knowledge and content.
Activities
Some of the activities need a bit of fine tuning. For example we have added word guides to activities now; these were not in place at the beginning of the Semester. We are examining the activities to ensure that they give clear direction and whether examples are needed for some activities to clarify what we want the students to produce. We will make changes accordingly for the next delivery. We will also be fine tuning the assessment criteria for each activity to ensure that tutors have no ‘hidden’ outcomes when they are marking.
Deadlines for activities
It has been decided to make the end of each module the official deadline for all of the activities. Students who require extensions will have to go through the official SHU processes. We will, though, still retain ‘course’ deadlines (unofficial deadline) in order to be able to manage the student completion of activities throughout the course. We are therefore asking students to complete activities within one or two weeks and to ask for extensions if they can not meet these ‘course’ deadlines.
Social Software
phpBB Forum
Initially many students found it hard to navigate through the forum. It is not as intuitive or visually accessible as the educational alternatives such as Moodle or WebBoard. Having said that, now that the students have gained some facility, they are engaging with the forum activities and producing high quality work. It is interesting that some of the learning sets in the forums are making more postings now than in the opening weeks – evidence that they find this tool useful and appropriate to their needs.
Blogger
Reflective blogging is difficult to achieve and maintain and we have been impressed by the general success of our students here. It is early days, but most of our students have set up and are maintaining a reflective blog. They have engaged with the technology and produced some appropriate and exciting work.
Deki Wiki
As with the forum, there has been some impressive work here. There has been some real collaboration and The Social Web activity requiring the students to produce a student handbook was a real success. Students took charge of their learning and managed the activity well. A few students controlled too much and others were a bit too quiet, but overall sound collaborative work was produced. I don’t think we could have expected more here. An issue was that the wiki was not ready for the students to use over the end of the Easter holidays, as had been hoped. This issue will not occur in future years as the wiki has now been set up.
Evaluation to Date
Data has been gathered on:-
The process of selecting the social software solutions for the course.
Staff experience of trialling the social software.
Student experience of using social software prior to the course.
Data is being gathered on:-
Staff and student experience of using the social software in delivery to the first cohort.
Evaluation questions are being drawn up to give to the students shortly.
Some of this data has already been placed on the project wiki.
In the wiki, there is a section in the last Interim Report to JISC (Jan 2008) on the process behind the decision to use dekiwiki. There is also a section on The implementation and justification for using social software on the course. We have captured some student responses to the social software by evidencing forum postings from the first cohort .
BA Hons Progression
A meeting was held with TSC and SHU on Tuesday 7th of May to discuss and finalise the form of the top up year. I’ll place the minutes of this meeting on this wiki when I receive them.
Authoring of Content for Semester 2 and 3
Module 4 has now been placed on the online pages. Module 5 and 6 are being written.The minutes of the meetings related to these modules are being placed on this wiki.
External Examiner
Deirdre Hynes has been confirmed as our external examiner; I will be contacting her shortly.
Marketing and Publicity
A brochure about all the College’s online courses is now in draft form and will be mailed out to past online students. The eComms FdA is publicised in all the College’s HE brochures and the team will do as much as possible to publicise it online.
We are now in week 11 of the delivery of Semester 1 to the first cohort. To date we have had very few withdrawn students, there are currently 26 live students out of an initial cohort of 28. As retention is good, it is hoped that the two classes which started in February 2008 will progress to Semester 2 in September 2008.The students are progressing well with the work and we believe we have pitched the course at the right level and provided interesting and engaging individual and collaborative activities.
Workload
We do need, though, to reduce the workload for future delivery. We have addressed this issue this semester by making some activities optional and lightening the workload in the PPD module. In future we could reassign optional activities to another category, for example call these activities ‘eNotebook activities’, the idea here being that students would keep an electronic notebook of the non assessed, optional activities for future reference. We might also ask them to evidence a selection of these eNotebook activities for their ePortfolios. In future the forum activities will not be assessed individually but students will be asked to provide evidence of contributing to a required number of forum activities. A final point here is that we are considering beginning the assessed activities later in the modules to give students time to feel comfortable with the skills, knowledge and content.
Activities
Some of the activities need a bit of fine tuning. For example we have added word guides to activities now; these were not in place at the beginning of the Semester. We are examining the activities to ensure that they give clear direction and whether examples are needed for some activities to clarify what we want the students to produce. We will make changes accordingly for the next delivery. We will also be fine tuning the assessment criteria for each activity to ensure that tutors have no ‘hidden’ outcomes when they are marking.
Deadlines for activities
It has been decided to make the end of each module the official deadline for all of the activities. Students who require extensions will have to go through the official SHU processes. We will, though, still retain ‘course’ deadlines (unofficial deadline) in order to be able to manage the student completion of activities throughout the course. We are therefore asking students to complete activities within one or two weeks and to ask for extensions if they can not meet these ‘course’ deadlines.
Social Software
phpBB Forum
Initially many students found it hard to navigate through the forum. It is not as intuitive or visually accessible as the educational alternatives such as Moodle or WebBoard. Having said that, now that the students have gained some facility, they are engaging with the forum activities and producing high quality work. It is interesting that some of the learning sets in the forums are making more postings now than in the opening weeks – evidence that they find this tool useful and appropriate to their needs.
Blogger
Reflective blogging is difficult to achieve and maintain and we have been impressed by the general success of our students here. It is early days, but most of our students have set up and are maintaining a reflective blog. They have engaged with the technology and produced some appropriate and exciting work.
Deki Wiki
As with the forum, there has been some impressive work here. There has been some real collaboration and The Social Web activity requiring the students to produce a student handbook was a real success. Students took charge of their learning and managed the activity well. A few students controlled too much and others were a bit too quiet, but overall sound collaborative work was produced. I don’t think we could have expected more here. An issue was that the wiki was not ready for the students to use over the end of the Easter holidays, as had been hoped. This issue will not occur in future years as the wiki has now been set up.
Evaluation to Date
Data has been gathered on:-
The process of selecting the social software solutions for the course.
Staff experience of trialling the social software.
Student experience of using social software prior to the course.
Data is being gathered on:-
Staff and student experience of using the social software in delivery to the first cohort.
Evaluation questions are being drawn up to give to the students shortly.
Some of this data has already been placed on the project wiki.
In the wiki, there is a section in the last Interim Report to JISC (Jan 2008) on the process behind the decision to use dekiwiki. There is also a section on The implementation and justification for using social software on the course. We have captured some student responses to the social software by evidencing forum postings from the first cohort .
BA Hons Progression
A meeting was held with TSC and SHU on Tuesday 7th of May to discuss and finalise the form of the top up year. I’ll place the minutes of this meeting on this wiki when I receive them.
Authoring of Content for Semester 2 and 3
Module 4 has now been placed on the online pages. Module 5 and 6 are being written.The minutes of the meetings related to these modules are being placed on this wiki.
External Examiner
Deirdre Hynes has been confirmed as our external examiner; I will be contacting her shortly.
Marketing and Publicity
A brochure about all the College’s online courses is now in draft form and will be mailed out to past online students. The eComms FdA is publicised in all the College’s HE brochures and the team will do as much as possible to publicise it online.
Saturday, 22 March 2008
Reflecting on a Critical Incident
On 24th of February I began reflecting on what happened on the day before when several things didn’t run as smoothly as I would have liked. I initially recorded my thoughts and after a conversation in a JISC meeting on 12th of March, decided to rework my thoughts into this blog entry.
I have two aims here. One is to address a critical incident and find a way to move forward. The second is to use the technique of blogging on a critical incident – we are teaching this technique to our eCommunications students.
In reality there were two incidents, but they are interrelated.
The first was my conversation just before the eCommunications meeting with our Multi Media Designer. I mentioned that we wanted to have different learning sets for Mod 3 and he immediately said we couldn't do this as the forums couldn't be reconfigured once the initial learning set had been set up. I took it as read that we weren't talking about creating new learning sets that would run across Kate and my groups, but he didn't work on this assumption. However, as he was a Multi Media Designer and not a teacher, he was not to know this and made a totally reasonable assumption that we wanted to totally reconfigure the learning sets using students from Kate’s group and my group. This is interesting, isn't it? As teachers we were all working on an educational decision and on an educational way of organising things and the Multi Media Designer had absolutely no idea that was how we would work. I never thought to tell him as I assumed he'd know. My initial reflection on this was to identify that it would have been better if I could have anticipated what he might know or not know about how we are teaching and delivering the course. I was, however, aware that it is often a difficult thing to be able to anticipate in this way. I did make a decision that in future, if a similar situation arises, that I must try and step back a bit and ask myself what he would or wouldn't know.
The second, related incident was with the Senior Programmer. I had sent him an email following the eCommunications meeting on Friday 23rd in which I asked him to come up with a solution by Wednesday the 28th of February about our using a wiki for the course. The Senior Programmer has been incredibly supportive of our eCommunications development and he actually made a point of coming to see me to talk this over later that day. We met and discussed things and he agreed to try and find a solution by
*Spending Monday seeing if he could set up an extension to enable media wiki to allow closed pages (there is a warning on this extension that it might be unreliable)
*Talk to our IT Manager to see if TSC will fund having several instances of mediawiki on the server (this is expensive though. We mean up in the £1000s.
Having protected areas is, according to our Senior Programmer, messy and could be time consuming
During this discussion our Senior Programmer said that he'd spoken to Mark Power (from JISC)and Mark's colleague at Bolton and said that there was confusion over what we could do. Our Senior Programmer explained that since he had originally set up the password to mediawiki, it had been configured so that we could all use the same password to enter the media wiki, but that following this we could then create an individual account and thus have individual access to the wiki. This was not my understanding. I thought that we all had to use the same password. I was a bit bemused.
Reflecting on this I could not understand how I had misunderstood things. I made an initial decision that in future meetings and discussions I need to take care to make sure that everything is as clear as it can be when talking to our Senior Programmer or to the Multi media Designer. I really thought that I had been doing this but it is difficult. I reflected that it really comes down to conversations where lots of technical terms are being used that I don't fully understand the implications of and not being aware of what I don't know. It is very difficult to write things down and seek clarification during a meeting, which might be informal. I am aware that even in a formal meeting the final record is dependent on the ability of the record taker and the subsequent competence of those present at the nest meeting to verify that the minutes are a true record.
My initial reflections were that I needed to do more to understand the position of the people we are working with who do not necessarily have an educational perspective and also to try to be more aware of my ignorance of the technology and to try and address this. I realised that I had not reached any solutions here, but it was a start.
The next stage in my reflections was prompted by a discussion at a JISC meeting in Birmingham on 12th of March. During the morning session a point was raised about Peter Galison and the concept of the ‘trading zone.’ Galison recognised that when people from different disciplines and expertise came together to work on a project, they produced what he called a ‘creole’ in order to understand each other. I found this concept immediately attractive for several reasons:-
As an English/communications teacher I was interested in and had knowledge of creoles – it was, if you like, within my area of expertise.
The concept clearly addressed a problem I had been wrestling with.
The concept recognised that the problem was not about things I should have done or needed to do, I now realised that I was approaching the critical incident from the wrong angle.
Lastly, as so often happens, when I came across this concept I realised that it was in many ways familiar to me. Until I was introduced to it, it lay just beyond my ability to articulate it. But as soon as it was explained to me, all the pieces fell into place. To use another technical term from my area of expertise, it was an epiphany. I realised this is something that often happens to me and I assume all of us.
My final reflections now take me to realise that the implications of the critical incident are simultaneously easy to understand and hard to address.
The following, taken from Wikipedia, shows the way forward. All involved in the project, the stakeholders, need to agree on ‘rules of exchange’. The first stage is to recognise that we don’t need to know everything about each other’s expertise and knowledge base and that we don’t need to.
An interesting point about using the Critical Incident technique here, is that the final process, for me, has taken place well beyond the period of my initial reflections. Even before I had heard of Peter Galison I was trying to engage with and change my initial decisions in view of subsequent events. It seems, therefore, that the technique is much more of a 'live' and ongoing process that I had at first thought.
Overview of the ‘trading zone’
Peter Galison produced the "trading zone" metaphor in order to explain how physicists from different paradigms went about collaborating with each other and with engineers to develop particle detectors and radar.
According to Galison, "Two groups can agree on rules of exchange even if they ascribe utterly different significance to the objects being exchanged; they may even disagree on the meaning of the exchange process itself. Nonetheless, the trading partners can hammer out a local coordination, despite vast global differences. In an even more sophisticated way, cultures in interaction frequently establish contact languages, systems of discourse that can vary from the most function-specific jargons, through semispecific pidgins, to full-fledged creoles rich enough to support activities as complex as poetry and metalingusitic reflection" (Galison 1997, p. 783)
In the case of radar, for example, the physicists and engineers had to gradually develop what was effectively a pidgin or creole language involving shared concepts like ‘equivalent circuits’ that the physicists represented symbolically in terms of field theory and the engineers saw as extensions of their radio toolkit.
Exchanges across disciplinary boundaries can also be carried out with the help of an agent: a person who is familiar enough with the language of two or more cultures to facilitate trade.
At one point in the development of MRI, surgeons saw a lesion where an engineer familiar with the device would have recognized an artifact produced by the way the device was being used. It took someone with expertise in both physics and surgery to see how each of the different disciplines viewed the device, and develop procedures for correcting the problem.(Baird & Cohen, 1999). The ability to converse expertly in more than one discipline is called interactional expertise(Collins & Evans, 2002).
[edit] Areas of Application
The U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative calls for a “broadly inclusive interdisciplinary dialogue on nanotechnology” that would incorporate a wide range of stakeholders (http://www.nano.gov/html/society/Responsible_Development.htm). This kind of a dialogue will require developing creoles that allow different stakeholders to communicate, and also interactional expertise (Gorman, Groves, & Catalano, 2004).
The convergence between nano, bio, information and cognitive technologies will set an even greater premium on the development of trading zones and interactional expertise (Gorman, 2004).
Computer science education requires development of trading zones between experts in the social and learning sciences and computer scientists (Fincher & Petre, 2004). Each of these communities uses different methods and speaks a different language, hence the need for a creole and also for interactional experts.
Managing environmental systems like the Everglades also requires the development of trading zones (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bwfuller/Trading_Zone_Paper--Boyd_Fuller--Distribution--Jan_1-05.pdf). Brad Allenby suggests the development of a new kind of expertise in Earth Systems Engineering and Management, which will include an interactional component (Allenby, 2005).
A workshop at Arizona State University on Trading Zones, Interactional Expertise and Interdisciplinary Collaboration raised the possibility of applying these concepts to other applications like global health and service science, and also identified avenues for future research (http://bart.tcc.virginia.edu/Tradzoneworkshop/index.htm).
I have two aims here. One is to address a critical incident and find a way to move forward. The second is to use the technique of blogging on a critical incident – we are teaching this technique to our eCommunications students.
In reality there were two incidents, but they are interrelated.
The first was my conversation just before the eCommunications meeting with our Multi Media Designer. I mentioned that we wanted to have different learning sets for Mod 3 and he immediately said we couldn't do this as the forums couldn't be reconfigured once the initial learning set had been set up. I took it as read that we weren't talking about creating new learning sets that would run across Kate and my groups, but he didn't work on this assumption. However, as he was a Multi Media Designer and not a teacher, he was not to know this and made a totally reasonable assumption that we wanted to totally reconfigure the learning sets using students from Kate’s group and my group. This is interesting, isn't it? As teachers we were all working on an educational decision and on an educational way of organising things and the Multi Media Designer had absolutely no idea that was how we would work. I never thought to tell him as I assumed he'd know. My initial reflection on this was to identify that it would have been better if I could have anticipated what he might know or not know about how we are teaching and delivering the course. I was, however, aware that it is often a difficult thing to be able to anticipate in this way. I did make a decision that in future, if a similar situation arises, that I must try and step back a bit and ask myself what he would or wouldn't know.
The second, related incident was with the Senior Programmer. I had sent him an email following the eCommunications meeting on Friday 23rd in which I asked him to come up with a solution by Wednesday the 28th of February about our using a wiki for the course. The Senior Programmer has been incredibly supportive of our eCommunications development and he actually made a point of coming to see me to talk this over later that day. We met and discussed things and he agreed to try and find a solution by
*Spending Monday seeing if he could set up an extension to enable media wiki to allow closed pages (there is a warning on this extension that it might be unreliable)
*Talk to our IT Manager to see if TSC will fund having several instances of mediawiki on the server (this is expensive though. We mean up in the £1000s.
Having protected areas is, according to our Senior Programmer, messy and could be time consuming
During this discussion our Senior Programmer said that he'd spoken to Mark Power (from JISC)and Mark's colleague at Bolton and said that there was confusion over what we could do. Our Senior Programmer explained that since he had originally set up the password to mediawiki, it had been configured so that we could all use the same password to enter the media wiki, but that following this we could then create an individual account and thus have individual access to the wiki. This was not my understanding. I thought that we all had to use the same password. I was a bit bemused.
Reflecting on this I could not understand how I had misunderstood things. I made an initial decision that in future meetings and discussions I need to take care to make sure that everything is as clear as it can be when talking to our Senior Programmer or to the Multi media Designer. I really thought that I had been doing this but it is difficult. I reflected that it really comes down to conversations where lots of technical terms are being used that I don't fully understand the implications of and not being aware of what I don't know. It is very difficult to write things down and seek clarification during a meeting, which might be informal. I am aware that even in a formal meeting the final record is dependent on the ability of the record taker and the subsequent competence of those present at the nest meeting to verify that the minutes are a true record.
My initial reflections were that I needed to do more to understand the position of the people we are working with who do not necessarily have an educational perspective and also to try to be more aware of my ignorance of the technology and to try and address this. I realised that I had not reached any solutions here, but it was a start.
The next stage in my reflections was prompted by a discussion at a JISC meeting in Birmingham on 12th of March. During the morning session a point was raised about Peter Galison and the concept of the ‘trading zone.’ Galison recognised that when people from different disciplines and expertise came together to work on a project, they produced what he called a ‘creole’ in order to understand each other. I found this concept immediately attractive for several reasons:-
As an English/communications teacher I was interested in and had knowledge of creoles – it was, if you like, within my area of expertise.
The concept clearly addressed a problem I had been wrestling with.
The concept recognised that the problem was not about things I should have done or needed to do, I now realised that I was approaching the critical incident from the wrong angle.
Lastly, as so often happens, when I came across this concept I realised that it was in many ways familiar to me. Until I was introduced to it, it lay just beyond my ability to articulate it. But as soon as it was explained to me, all the pieces fell into place. To use another technical term from my area of expertise, it was an epiphany. I realised this is something that often happens to me and I assume all of us.
My final reflections now take me to realise that the implications of the critical incident are simultaneously easy to understand and hard to address.
The following, taken from Wikipedia, shows the way forward. All involved in the project, the stakeholders, need to agree on ‘rules of exchange’. The first stage is to recognise that we don’t need to know everything about each other’s expertise and knowledge base and that we don’t need to.
An interesting point about using the Critical Incident technique here, is that the final process, for me, has taken place well beyond the period of my initial reflections. Even before I had heard of Peter Galison I was trying to engage with and change my initial decisions in view of subsequent events. It seems, therefore, that the technique is much more of a 'live' and ongoing process that I had at first thought.
Overview of the ‘trading zone’
Peter Galison produced the "trading zone" metaphor in order to explain how physicists from different paradigms went about collaborating with each other and with engineers to develop particle detectors and radar.
According to Galison, "Two groups can agree on rules of exchange even if they ascribe utterly different significance to the objects being exchanged; they may even disagree on the meaning of the exchange process itself. Nonetheless, the trading partners can hammer out a local coordination, despite vast global differences. In an even more sophisticated way, cultures in interaction frequently establish contact languages, systems of discourse that can vary from the most function-specific jargons, through semispecific pidgins, to full-fledged creoles rich enough to support activities as complex as poetry and metalingusitic reflection" (Galison 1997, p. 783)
In the case of radar, for example, the physicists and engineers had to gradually develop what was effectively a pidgin or creole language involving shared concepts like ‘equivalent circuits’ that the physicists represented symbolically in terms of field theory and the engineers saw as extensions of their radio toolkit.
Exchanges across disciplinary boundaries can also be carried out with the help of an agent: a person who is familiar enough with the language of two or more cultures to facilitate trade.
At one point in the development of MRI, surgeons saw a lesion where an engineer familiar with the device would have recognized an artifact produced by the way the device was being used. It took someone with expertise in both physics and surgery to see how each of the different disciplines viewed the device, and develop procedures for correcting the problem.(Baird & Cohen, 1999). The ability to converse expertly in more than one discipline is called interactional expertise(Collins & Evans, 2002).
[edit] Areas of Application
The U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative calls for a “broadly inclusive interdisciplinary dialogue on nanotechnology” that would incorporate a wide range of stakeholders (http://www.nano.gov/html/society/Responsible_Development.htm). This kind of a dialogue will require developing creoles that allow different stakeholders to communicate, and also interactional expertise (Gorman, Groves, & Catalano, 2004).
The convergence between nano, bio, information and cognitive technologies will set an even greater premium on the development of trading zones and interactional expertise (Gorman, 2004).
Computer science education requires development of trading zones between experts in the social and learning sciences and computer scientists (Fincher & Petre, 2004). Each of these communities uses different methods and speaks a different language, hence the need for a creole and also for interactional experts.
Managing environmental systems like the Everglades also requires the development of trading zones (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bwfuller/Trading_Zone_Paper--Boyd_Fuller--Distribution--Jan_1-05.pdf). Brad Allenby suggests the development of a new kind of expertise in Earth Systems Engineering and Management, which will include an interactional component (Allenby, 2005).
A workshop at Arizona State University on Trading Zones, Interactional Expertise and Interdisciplinary Collaboration raised the possibility of applying these concepts to other applications like global health and service science, and also identified avenues for future research (http://bart.tcc.virginia.edu/Tradzoneworkshop/index.htm).
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
18 02 08 The online eCommunications FdA course begins - A very busy couple of weeks
The online eCommunications FdA started yesterday, the 18th of February. We’ve been working towards this date for such a long time now and it feels strange to have passed it. In the event I was too busy to post a blog on the day and I’ve also been too busy to do so in the last few weeks.
There has been such a lot to do – last Thursday, I realised that not only was everything going to be up and running by the start date but that it was all going to be very impressive in terms of content and presentation.
In previous posts I’ve noted how much we have had to do but I am still amazed by how much work everyone has put in. People have agreed to take on huge tasks, often with no idea of what they were agreeing to.
We still need to sort out the wiki, we are using Wikimedia but need to explore have a unique password and username for each user and the possibility of having some areas open only to certain groups. We are trying to resolve this now. In contrast the forum is already working very well. Since the course began more than 20 of the current 26 students on the course have made postings. Most have made multiple posting and often the postings and lengthy, engage with the activities that we have set and are building on the postings of others. All this is very encouraging.
Perhaps the most significant thing to come out of the course starting is a point made by Kate in our authoring meeting this afternoon, which is that we are all getting to know the students and therefore we are now coming to understand our audience. This will be immeasurably helpful as we write further modules and re edit existing content.
There has been such a lot to do – last Thursday, I realised that not only was everything going to be up and running by the start date but that it was all going to be very impressive in terms of content and presentation.
In previous posts I’ve noted how much we have had to do but I am still amazed by how much work everyone has put in. People have agreed to take on huge tasks, often with no idea of what they were agreeing to.
We still need to sort out the wiki, we are using Wikimedia but need to explore have a unique password and username for each user and the possibility of having some areas open only to certain groups. We are trying to resolve this now. In contrast the forum is already working very well. Since the course began more than 20 of the current 26 students on the course have made postings. Most have made multiple posting and often the postings and lengthy, engage with the activities that we have set and are building on the postings of others. All this is very encouraging.
Perhaps the most significant thing to come out of the course starting is a point made by Kate in our authoring meeting this afternoon, which is that we are all getting to know the students and therefore we are now coming to understand our audience. This will be immeasurably helpful as we write further modules and re edit existing content.
Friday, 18 January 2008
Going Public
Having read Mark's comments I've decided to let anybody view this blog and see what happens. I think that's what he means by 'going public' .
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
Back for Term Two
We are all back for the new year and we have just over a month to go before we start to deliver the new degree. We have decided to make a big push on trialing the blogs, wiki and forum over the next few months
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