TELTA Module (Introduction)
The following is a description/reflection on the Tuesday afternoon webinar that took place on 10th January 2017 from 13:00 to 14:00.
Description
Instructors: Pauline Rooney and Frances Boylan.
After welcoming the new cohort of approximately 21 students to the 8 week online TELTA module, Pauline conducted an online poll. The question:
Q.1) Who has previously enrolled in an online course had the following respond:
Yes: 6
No: 10
Q.2) Did you complete it?
Yes: 2
No: 3
This was only my second ever webinar and it was the first time that I enrolled on an online course. Naturally, I was feeling a little apprehensive but I found the style and pace of this induction seminar to be quite acceptable.
According to Pauline, the average completion rate for MOOCs is 7%. This concurs with a study carried out by Katy Jordan who carried out research into MOOC completion rates as part of her PhD studies in the Open University.
MOOCs
Mooc completion rates ‘below 7%’
Open online courses’ cohort much less massive at finish line
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/mooc-completion-rates-below-7/2003710.article#
We were then given some advice in relation to how to use the tools inside the webinar application which is Blackboard Collaborate. Pauline told us that we a student can use the ‘raised hand’ icon to indicate that the student wished to intervene and say something. She told us that we could then speak by clicking on the microphone icon or be seen and heard by using the video camera icon. However, she advised against using the latter as the bandwidth required could really slow things down. There is a ‘Chatbox’ within Blackboard Collaborate that can be used for text chat throughout the seminar without having to request permission from the instructor to speak.
Note: The webinars are recorded so it is possible to
This is the fourth iteration of the TELTA module for DIT and the approach is as follows:
Course Activities
(1) Immersion – in the use of a range of software tools
(2) PLO – each student has to develop a set of Personal Learning Objectives (PLO) from the outset
(3) Independent learning activities
(4) Collaborative group work
(5) Reflective writing
(6) Community – extend this beyond the classroom by using (say) Twitter.
Communication
We were promised that communication would be via the (open) Twitter (#dittelta) app and via the (closed) Slack app. After six weeks of the course, I can now say that Slack was used extremely frequently but as a student on the TELTA course, I hardly got, nor was I encouraged, to use Twitter. There was very little conversation in the #dittelta from the three lecturers (Pauline, Frances, Kevin) nor from the students. This was a pity because I was hoping to get tips in relation to who to follow in specific eLearning sub-fields. For example, it might have been interesting to follow Stephen Downes or George Siemens in relation to MOOCs or connectivism. Although I learned a lot on the module, most of what I learned was from personal Internet research and from links provided by the lecturers and students in our closed Slack class group. In my opinion, this led to a more insular rather than open educational experience. The discussion board in Blackboard is to be for more formal activities such as posting individual and group work as well as responses to peer articles or artefacts.
At the end of the webinar, Kevin talked about other people (e.g. ex students of the course) becoming involved in the current cohort’s conversation on Twitter but that never really happened.
SoundCloud
On the Induction Seminar from 26:30 to 28:57, I compare and contrast WhatsApp and Slack. I want to record this on SoundCloud.
Themes and Timeline
10 Jan – Orientation
17 Jan – Exploring the Current eLearning Landscape (Individual)
24 Jan – Content & Resources (Group)
31 Jan – Communication (Individual)
7 Feb – Student Activity & Collaboration (Group)
14 Feb – eAssessment (Individual)
21 Feb – Digital Futures (Individual)
28 Feb – Student Presentations and Wrap-up
14 Mar – Assignment Submission
Assessment
7 Continuous Assessments (Weekly Activities)
An Annotated MindMap of a module you are involved in, indicating where, why and how technologies could be integrated within your teaching, learning and assessment practices. (*)
A 600 Word Reflective Piece which reexamines your PLOs in light of what you feel you have achieved during the module.
(*) Note: Frances pointed out that, as a Maths teacher, I could take a topic (e.g. geometry) and use the mind map as a way of figure out a way of integrating technology into teaching that topic to (say) 5th and 6th year students. This would be a ‘paper’ exercise of assessing how that might benefit my students. In the webinar, I used the example of developing the module ‘Algebra through the Lens of Functions’ to teach to my Transition Year Maths class using iPads. Pau;one said that this would be fine. You don’t have to be teaching the module. You could be involved in creating eLearning content for the module.
All three aspects of the the assessment must be passed to achieve the 5 ECTS credits.
This Week’s Task
Kevin took the microphone 40 minutes into the webinar to introduce the individual task for this week which is titled Exploring the Current eLearning Landscape. He showed two images of a 14th-century lecture hall in Bologna, Italy and a 21st-century lecture hall in Oxford, England. The point he made is that not a lot has changed in the architecture of these classrooms over 700 years. He went on to say that there is no real direction in technology in education and it is an opt-in, rather than a mandatory, feature of our education system. Is technology a bad thing? Digital distraction. What we seem to have often done with technology is simply replicate existing pedagogies, and also to supplement (in an opt-in fashion) existing pedagogies.
Readings for this week’s tasks:
(1) VLEs
(2) What is technology doing to pedagogy.
(3) TedTalk from Daphne Koller (the founder of Coursera).
(4) National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (Roadmap for Digital Learning).
Post a response of 250 – 300 words by midnight on Sunday 15th January and a 100 word response to a peer’s work by midnight on Monday 16th January.