Now coming to the end of another 'hectic' week with the Oxford online VLE computer course. This week we have been allocated into three different groups: RED, GREEN and BLUE. I am in the GREEN TEAM. It turns out that we are the smallest group with six members (the other two each have seven). Nevertheless, being 'physically-challenged' myself, I am of the firm opinion that "small is beautiful".
The team are a great set of people. Lindsey started the ball rolling by suggesting we used Google Documents [Docs]. I confirmed that I was also a gmail user; however, I knew nothing of this aspect of Google, but was keen to learn.
Geli then stepped in because he had used this facility before and he took it upon himself to get us all registered - he did this fairly promptly.
Jenny then pitched in quickly [and did a good job inserting useful slides to the presentation] because she is off ski-ing for a break on Friday for a week. This will bring our number down to five - but the Green Team will soldier on.
John had some problems due to being busy at work and home, etc. Actually, I had previously checked his blog and left a comment about how busy his life seemed. He left messages on our Discussion board apologizing, and promised to get into things this coming weekend - I am sure he will.
Maxine in Australia input some brilliant ideas and slides to our presentation (despite a visit to her dentist).
I, in the meantime, inserted a logo (Robin Hood) and really, really wanted the team to use a Green Template from within Docs, but failed to get to grips with this application. It did not 'behave' as I expected it to do. I am a fan of PowerPoint 2007 [having recently passed my ECDL - European Computer Driving Licence - in that module] and tried some techniques from that software, but they did not work. I got very frustrated and felt that my contribution (and team effort) was being wasted.
Another delaying factor for me was that my partner was taking off to France for a week via EuroStar to improve her French. Therefore, that took a necessary priority during the earlier part of the week. Audrey departed on Thursday morning and I got down to things properly after that.
After catching up with a backlog of reading from Discussion boards and drafting out some ideas, I was then in a position to add something more tangible to our Google Docs presentation. I set my alarm clock for 0530 on Friday 13th, got up early, logged on and put my ideas down for the rest of the team to consider.
I will return to this blog later...
13 February 2009
05 February 2009
WEEK ONE - Reflexions
For this task each student has to put down his/her thoughts on the course so far. These are mine in no particular order:
1. I am slowly getting used to some of the chit-chat that goes on within these online courses. Personally, I prefer to 'hold back' and not start spouting about anything until I have weighed up the situation. I do this in face-to-face (F2F) meetings most of the time. I never was one for small talk. Perhaps it comes from being a Psychologist and Historian [I prefer to observe rather than get involved and change the situation under observation]; my parents were not loud mouths; and a boss from my Export Manager days (Alan Webster from Gentransco) always used to say "keep your powder dry". So that is my style with these gatherings - and now I have transferred it to online groups too. However, I feel that this will change as the month-long course progresses.
2. I am looking forward to next week when, I assume, we will begin to learn about more specific aspects of teaching online, etc. I want to end this course armed with a set of multi-media tools that I can put to good use for the benefit of our students.
3. One of the things I have felt concerns feedback. It is essential that an online student receives fairly quick feedback after they have made a comment or entered into a discussion. Obviously, Patsy at Oxford is fully aware of this and she is good at responding - in a positive manner - fairly rapidly. It is a full-time job monitoring such a course. It needs more than one person doing such a task. I express this feeling because, until I have got used to navigating around the system, I thought that one of my contributions was being ignored.
4. I enjoyed putting into effect both the Delicious Bookmarking system and Flickr photo website. Added to this, now that I am 'forced' to use it again (after an absence of four years), I now fully appreciate the Blogger.com website. It has many useful features, the help system is 'helpful', and the appearance can be altered in such a variety of ways. It is fun. Equally, I failed to realize, all those years ago and until the other day, that anybody could have as many blogs as they wished. For some stupid reason I believed that each person was only allowed one blog and, if you needed another, you had to apply separately. Added to this, I somehow lost my old password and found it extremely difficult to get back into my old (2005) blog. This resulted in me thinking that I would perhaps need a new email address in order to 'trick' my way back into the blog system! Needless to say, after some head-banging-against-the-wall moments, I got back into the Google/Blogger system. All's Well that Ends Well.
5. Next week I need to read through more of the tips provided by the other contributors - otherwise, I will limit my learning opportunities. Some good points are being made, especially by the tutors.
6. Oxford Brookes webpage layout / design: I feel there is an over burden of boxes. For me, the whole feel is too box-y and in the style of an early 1990s layout [perhaps based upon tables rather than CSS]. I am not a Cascading Style Sheet expert (I know nothing), but feel that your website or BlackBoard layout will have to have a complete re-design sooner than later.
7. I know three of us (Robyn, myself and, perhaps, Judith) are on this course because we wish to implement short one-hour workshops for our students. Our VLEs will not be intensive, month- or semester-long, "let's-have-a-party" and form a 'social network' courses. What we want primarily is ideas, techniques and tools for courses that are short, sweet and simple.
That brings me to the end of my 'academic reflexions' for this first week. Bye for now, Alec in Hull.
1. I am slowly getting used to some of the chit-chat that goes on within these online courses. Personally, I prefer to 'hold back' and not start spouting about anything until I have weighed up the situation. I do this in face-to-face (F2F) meetings most of the time. I never was one for small talk. Perhaps it comes from being a Psychologist and Historian [I prefer to observe rather than get involved and change the situation under observation]; my parents were not loud mouths; and a boss from my Export Manager days (Alan Webster from Gentransco) always used to say "keep your powder dry". So that is my style with these gatherings - and now I have transferred it to online groups too. However, I feel that this will change as the month-long course progresses.
2. I am looking forward to next week when, I assume, we will begin to learn about more specific aspects of teaching online, etc. I want to end this course armed with a set of multi-media tools that I can put to good use for the benefit of our students.
3. One of the things I have felt concerns feedback. It is essential that an online student receives fairly quick feedback after they have made a comment or entered into a discussion. Obviously, Patsy at Oxford is fully aware of this and she is good at responding - in a positive manner - fairly rapidly. It is a full-time job monitoring such a course. It needs more than one person doing such a task. I express this feeling because, until I have got used to navigating around the system, I thought that one of my contributions was being ignored.
4. I enjoyed putting into effect both the Delicious Bookmarking system and Flickr photo website. Added to this, now that I am 'forced' to use it again (after an absence of four years), I now fully appreciate the Blogger.com website. It has many useful features, the help system is 'helpful', and the appearance can be altered in such a variety of ways. It is fun. Equally, I failed to realize, all those years ago and until the other day, that anybody could have as many blogs as they wished. For some stupid reason I believed that each person was only allowed one blog and, if you needed another, you had to apply separately. Added to this, I somehow lost my old password and found it extremely difficult to get back into my old (2005) blog. This resulted in me thinking that I would perhaps need a new email address in order to 'trick' my way back into the blog system! Needless to say, after some head-banging-against-the-wall moments, I got back into the Google/Blogger system. All's Well that Ends Well.
5. Next week I need to read through more of the tips provided by the other contributors - otherwise, I will limit my learning opportunities. Some good points are being made, especially by the tutors.
6. Oxford Brookes webpage layout / design: I feel there is an over burden of boxes. For me, the whole feel is too box-y and in the style of an early 1990s layout [perhaps based upon tables rather than CSS]. I am not a Cascading Style Sheet expert (I know nothing), but feel that your website or BlackBoard layout will have to have a complete re-design sooner than later.
7. I know three of us (Robyn, myself and, perhaps, Judith) are on this course because we wish to implement short one-hour workshops for our students. Our VLEs will not be intensive, month- or semester-long, "let's-have-a-party" and form a 'social network' courses. What we want primarily is ideas, techniques and tools for courses that are short, sweet and simple.
That brings me to the end of my 'academic reflexions' for this first week. Bye for now, Alec in Hull.
"Who Am I?" - Part II
After my previous ramblings about the above topic [sometimes there is a need to 'get things off your chest'], I now wish to revert to an earlier thought on how I would tackle this topic. That is, to simply point anyone who is interested to other aspects of my current web / real life. This can be presented under the following four weblinks:
1. This is my own website (via the University of Hull) that I established in 1997. I constructed this in the 'olden days' - long before any of the modern web authoring software was available - as part of a teacher-training course (HETC - Higher Education Teaching Certificate). The website was part of my final-year project called "Teaching Topics on the World Wide Web". It is ancient by today's standards and is desperate for a complete update. Added to this, I must insert some interesting images. Anyway, here it is and I am still proud of it and its content: http://www.hull.ac.uk/php/cesag.
2. Part of my academic work at the Study Advice Service at Hull University includes my role as a multi-media developer. In 2007, we began to compile a set of educational video clips giving academic advice about writing and study skills. Due to lack of storage space within our computing system, it was decided to place these on YouTube. The total now is 18 video clips and these can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=SAStudyadvice&view=videos
If you wish to 'Add to Favourites' or leave a 'Comment', then please do so - the more the merrier. A series of other interviews are planned for later this year.
3. As part of this Oxford Online course we were encouraged to use the Flickr website. As a photographer, and following the positive remarks of our university photographer (Mike Park), I really took to this website. Obviously, like many websites, there is tons of work yet to do. Anyway, another aspect of "Who I Am?" can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34788179@N03/
Again, please leave comments if you wish.
4. Here, within Blogger, I have another weblink. This was created back in April 2005 as part of another university course I was attending. This was with Cascade on a multi-media course and we were introduced to the fairly new concept of blogging. I was quickly produced the following blog about my local history research:
http://hullstrawlingheritage.blogspot.com/
After the course was over, I quickly forgot about this blog and it was dormant until now. I seem to spend my life going from one academic course to another - not really!
1. This is my own website (via the University of Hull) that I established in 1997. I constructed this in the 'olden days' - long before any of the modern web authoring software was available - as part of a teacher-training course (HETC - Higher Education Teaching Certificate). The website was part of my final-year project called "Teaching Topics on the World Wide Web". It is ancient by today's standards and is desperate for a complete update. Added to this, I must insert some interesting images. Anyway, here it is and I am still proud of it and its content: http://www.hull.ac.uk/php/cesag.
2. Part of my academic work at the Study Advice Service at Hull University includes my role as a multi-media developer. In 2007, we began to compile a set of educational video clips giving academic advice about writing and study skills. Due to lack of storage space within our computing system, it was decided to place these on YouTube. The total now is 18 video clips and these can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=SAStudyadvice&view=videos
If you wish to 'Add to Favourites' or leave a 'Comment', then please do so - the more the merrier. A series of other interviews are planned for later this year.
3. As part of this Oxford Online course we were encouraged to use the Flickr website. As a photographer, and following the positive remarks of our university photographer (Mike Park), I really took to this website. Obviously, like many websites, there is tons of work yet to do. Anyway, another aspect of "Who I Am?" can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34788179@N03/
Again, please leave comments if you wish.
4. Here, within Blogger, I have another weblink. This was created back in April 2005 as part of another university course I was attending. This was with Cascade on a multi-media course and we were introduced to the fairly new concept of blogging. I was quickly produced the following blog about my local history research:
http://hullstrawlingheritage.blogspot.com/
After the course was over, I quickly forgot about this blog and it was dormant until now. I seem to spend my life going from one academic course to another - not really!
Anyway, that is that for now - four strands of my life. I have one more blog entry to do to complete Week One of this current course...
"Who Am I?" - Part I
One of the 'Icebreaker' Exercises we have to complete on this course is to answer the existential question: "Who am I?"
It is, of course, the oldest question since the dawn of time (or humanity) - and unanswerable.
There are perhaps two avenues when it comes to answering this question: external or internal. The former route I would see as those people 'running away from themselves'. This technique creates lots of noise, is a smoke-screen and avoids facing up to the actual question. They are deeply [shit] scared to even look inside themselves.
Should the external group ever begin to gaze inwardly, they again avoid answering the question directly by tending to blame their parents "for fucking you up". This Larkinesque approach or slight-of-hand firmly puts blame on the father and/or mother (or another). These people conclude that they never will know who they are. Their "I am" has been distorted and disturbed; their heart, soul and life will never be right as a result of the actions of others. Perhaps long-term psycho-analysis will put them on the right track and then they will be OK and get on with life - in their dreams.
My present 'internal' conclusion about "who am I" is not to be found in the past or the future nor at the end of some inner or outward journey.
It is here and now.
I am NOW. Now is all there is.
I am the sum total of all my past thoughts and actions. They have brought me here and now.
Some of this current thinking is based upon my recent reading of The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (2006) - a Christmas gift - and some Kristnamurti books [these especially kept me going during my bleak, depressive Cardiff years 1978-84].
Anyway, back to the now and let me end this serious blog with a joke by George Burns. It was perhaps during his last public appearance as an after-dinner speaker in the States. He was in a tuxedo (not sure if he had his big cigar or not), but he stood up and came out with the usual opening line: "I'm really glad to be here tonight". Then he paused for a moment to look around the room at his audience. Then he added, "At 98 you're glad to be anywhere!".
It is, of course, the oldest question since the dawn of time (or humanity) - and unanswerable.
There are perhaps two avenues when it comes to answering this question: external or internal. The former route I would see as those people 'running away from themselves'. This technique creates lots of noise, is a smoke-screen and avoids facing up to the actual question. They are deeply [shit] scared to even look inside themselves.
Should the external group ever begin to gaze inwardly, they again avoid answering the question directly by tending to blame their parents "for fucking you up". This Larkinesque approach or slight-of-hand firmly puts blame on the father and/or mother (or another). These people conclude that they never will know who they are. Their "I am" has been distorted and disturbed; their heart, soul and life will never be right as a result of the actions of others. Perhaps long-term psycho-analysis will put them on the right track and then they will be OK and get on with life - in their dreams.
My present 'internal' conclusion about "who am I" is not to be found in the past or the future nor at the end of some inner or outward journey.
It is here and now.
I am NOW. Now is all there is.
I am the sum total of all my past thoughts and actions. They have brought me here and now.
Some of this current thinking is based upon my recent reading of The Secret by Rhonda Byrne (2006) - a Christmas gift - and some Kristnamurti books [these especially kept me going during my bleak, depressive Cardiff years 1978-84].
Anyway, back to the now and let me end this serious blog with a joke by George Burns. It was perhaps during his last public appearance as an after-dinner speaker in the States. He was in a tuxedo (not sure if he had his big cigar or not), but he stood up and came out with the usual opening line: "I'm really glad to be here tonight". Then he paused for a moment to look around the room at his audience. Then he added, "At 98 you're glad to be anywhere!".
03 February 2009
VLE: Virtual Learning Environment - online course
As part of my intensive, one-month long, online computer course with the Oxford Brookes College, I have to keep a learning log to reflect upon my experience during this time. This is it.
Today I have set it up. That is enough for now - after all the aggro I have had trying to re-establish myself with this ancient (2005) blogsite - so I am going away to think about it.
Today I have set it up. That is enough for now - after all the aggro I have had trying to re-establish myself with this ancient (2005) blogsite - so I am going away to think about it.
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