Reads – Page 3 – Davey Moloney

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| May 8, 2019

Read "What I learned about online teamwork" by Rebecca J. Hogue

I have been teaching online teamwork for years. I know that my students were not taught how to work together in an 100% online format. For many of my students, this is the first time they have been asked to work in an online team. It means I need to teach them how to work in an online team – by teach I mean provide them with some tools that will help their work go smoother. I’ve also had issues over the years. No matter how much I “teach” them about learning online, I end up with at least one group, per semester that doesn’t work well together – that runs into conflict where I am left backchanneling with the different members of the team, which is not ideal. This semester I saw a change. I know that when online teams work well, they become a highlight of the students experience. They learn to love doing online teamwork (yes, it is true, it does happen!). I’ve been asked to share some of the things I do to help support online learners, learn how to do teamwork online.

📜 Read “What I learned about online teamwork”

by Rebecca J. Hogue

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daveymoloney

| May 3, 2019

Read "Rethinking the purpose of online learning: 5. Setting priorities" by Tony Bates

In this post I want to set priorities, but before doing that, I need to add a couple of other purposes which I took for granted. Indeed I should have started with these... The most important reason for online learning for most institutions was to increase student access, with 95% of institutions rating it as either important (23%) or very important (72%). Closely linked in second place was the opportunity to access students from outside the regular catchment area (88%). This is no surprise: student access and flexibility have always been a priority for online learning, bringing in new students, and enabling students with part-time or full time responsibilities in work and/or family to pursue their studies. Also rated as important (82%) was to increase the rate of credential completion, presumably by allowing students to take courses online that would not otherwise be available on campus because numbers were capped or courses were not offered on campus in some semesters. A high proportion of institutions (77%) also rated student retention highly. I interpret this to mean that although completion rates for individual courses may be slightly lower for online than campus-based courses, the flexibility they provide allow more students to complete overall. Getting down the list we see the value of online learning for ‘providing pedagogic improvements’ (71%), a pretty general category that might include developing skills for a digital society. Ranked at the very bottom of reasons offered to institutions was to reduce or contain costs, but even here 47% of institutions ranked this as important. It is important though to remember that this question asked for opinions. Although the survey went to institutional leaders, such as Provosts, it is probably answered by several different people in the same institution. Knowing their opinions is valuable, but it’s not quite the same as identifying actual priorities in terms of resource allocation, for instance.

📜 Read “Rethinking the purpose of online learning: 5. Setting priorities”

by Tony Bates

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daveymoloney

| May 3, 2019

Read by Tony Bates

This series is turning out to be longer than I initially anticipated. In the first three posts I looked at the following possible reasons for online learning: - Ontario’s strategy to use online learning to ease pressure on high schools - using online learning to reduce the cost of higher education - using online education to support disadvantaged students: no online learner left behind. In this post I want to look at a fourth justification: developing the skills that students will need in a digital society.

📜 Read “Rethinking the purpose of online learning: 4. Developing skills for a digital society”

by Tony Bates

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daveymoloney

| May 2, 2019

Read "Rethinking the purpose of online learning: 3. Supporting disadvantaged learners" by Tony Bates

This is the third post in a series on rethinking the purpose of online learning. In the first post, I discussed Ontario’s strategy of making it mandatory to take four high school courses/credits online. In the second, I examined Kevin Carey’s claim that online learning could radically reduce the cost of higher education (at least in the USA). In this post, I want to look at which students do best or worse in online learning, and whether we could be doing a better job supporting ‘weak’ or struggling students.

📜 Read “Rethinking the purpose of online learning: 3. Supporting disadvantaged learners”

by Tony Bates

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daveymoloney

| May 2, 2019

Read "Rethinking the purpose of online learning: 2. Using online learning to reduce the costs of higher education" by Tony Bates

This is the second of three posts examining the purpose of online and digital learning. In the first post I looked at the government of Ontario’s strategy to require high school students to take four of their 30 credits online. In this post I examine Kevin Carey’s claim in the Huffington Post that online learning could dramatically reduce the cost of higher education but hasn’t done so yet because of the commercialization of online learning.

📜 Read “Rethinking the purpose of online learning: 2. Using online learning to reduce the costs of higher education”

by Tony Bates

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daveymoloney

| May 2, 2019

Read by Tony Bates

What is the purpose of online learning? Online learning has been hitting the headlines recently: - the Ontario government requiring every high school student to take four online courses out of the 30 high school credits required for an Ontario high school diploma; - claims that online learning is not appropriate for low income and under-represented minorities - Kevin Carey’s rant about OPMs and the creeping capitalist takeover of (American) higher education I have found myself being asked by the media to comment on all these, but underlying each of my responses has been my considerable unease about the gap between some of the claims and the reality on the ground, and above all not knowing the possible motives behind some of the developments we have been seeing. Each of these developments raises questions about the perceived purpose of online or digital learning. I examine this through three blog posts: - mandatory online courses in Ontario high schools: good or bad strategy? - can online learning dramatically reduce the costs of higher education and reduce inequalities in the system? - beyond access: rethinking the purpose of online learning

📜 Read “Rethinking the purpose of online learning: 1. Ontario’s k-12 initiative”

by Tony Bates

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daveymoloney

| April 15, 2019

Read "OER19: tears, laughter and hope" by

clareEdTechBlog

OER was the one conference over the years that was always on my ‘must go’ list but I never felt that I had a legitimate reason. I wasn’t formally involved in open education, either for research or teaching and learning. Yet, by default, I am an open practitioner, I instinctively share and ensure that as much as possible of what I do within a closed professional setting, is published and licensed with CC BY. This is entirely my choice, one taken from a position of ‘better to ask for forgiveness than permission’. Colleagues have commented on it as something that is quirky and very Clare. Attending a conference with an entire programme dedicated to open was therefore a delight and hearing that others have the same experiences and thoughts even better.

📜 Read “OER19: tears, laughter and hope” blogpost

by Clare Thomson

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daveymoloney

| April 9, 2019

Read "hands-on digital skills" by Melissa Highton

This blog is another about some more institutionally provided technologies. #openblog19 At University of Edinburgh we know that our people are our strength. This is a place of knowledge creation, and a place of knowledge sharing. It is a place in which we invest in the digital skills of our staff and students. It is true in any job that there is a need for learning and development and when you work in the digital sector the need is even more urgent in a rapidly changing environment. As Director of Learning, Teaching and Web Services I am lucky to have responsibility not only for the institutionally provided learning technology, but also the institutionally provided digital skills training provision. You know me, I like to have a strategy or framework for such things. Our strategic investment in Lynda.com has been a huge success. The digital skills training team are excellent and they have invested the kind of time and effort in managing this service for the institution which has brought us return in terms of take-up and impact which puts us at the forefront of the UK HE sector. All staff and student at University of Edinburgh are offered an account with Lynda.com. We’ve seen a steady increase over 3 years to the current 15,000 users.

📜 Read “hands-on digital skills” blogpost

by Melissa Highton

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daveymoloney

| April 8, 2019

Read "The most valuable lesson I ever learned #OpenBlog19" by shorrock – follow the dot

So it's over a fortnight since Neil Withnell challenged me to write a post with this title as my contribution to #OpenBlog19. At that point I didn't even have a blog (or at least it wasn't live) but I knew I'd get round to it eventually. Which is ironic, or at least it might be ironic in a minute when I've explained. The title feels a bit like a TED Talk topic if I'm honest but here goes. The most valuable lesson I ever learned... is you need to spend time on the right stuff. In higher education, as in life, time is a precious resource and all too often I think we don't care enough about how we spend it. If you have a minute (ahem), let me give some examples:

📜 Read “The most valuable lesson I ever learned” #OpenBlog19

by Simon Horrocks

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daveymoloney

| April 4, 2019

Read "OER19: Moving beyond" by Catherine Cronin and Laura Czerniewicz by

Maren Deepwell

The days are ticking by and it is nearly time for OER19! We are immensely excited as we prepare to welcome you to the 10th annual OER Conference — whether you are travelling to Galway or participating virtually. The theme for OER19 is ‘Recentering Open: Critical and Global Perspectives’. It has been our hope that this theme will invite not only critical and global perspectives, but also multiple interpretations — of open iself, of the concept of recentering, of the meaning of critical, and indeed of the point-of-view of many of the questions ‘we’ ask about open.

📜 Read “OER19: Moving beyond”

by Catherine Cronin and Laura Czerniewicz