Welcome to the course!
I am delighted to post the first blog post for the Online, Distance and Blended Learning course.
When I was offered the chance to tutor on it, I was delighted. I have been involved in distance and blended learning for over 20 years and it is an area that has evolved hugely. We can now offer online experiences that simply were not possible 20 years ago and there has never been a better time to be an online learner. My experiences relate primarily to professional development and over the years, I have trained many teachers and other educational professionals in various aspects of e-learning. In this blog post, I am going to offer my 3 top-tips for online learning:
- Be present for the students: There is sometimes a misconception that online learning can be prepared beforehand and that the students then largely work on their own. In my own experience, that just isn’t true. You have to organise the course in a way that there is a ready source of support. The students need to feel that they have someone working alongside them, even if you are far distant geographically. I have usually achieved this by working in tandem with a second tutor. Between us we monitor the contacts that we have with students, notice if they have gone quiet or not logged on and keep checking in with them. This can also be achieved by organising students into buddy groups, so they have peers that they can work with. It isn’t about spoon-feeding- it is about making sure they don’t feel alone or isolated as they work.
- Be realistic about what can be learned: It is so easy to enter into a programme of online learning with huge plans, but be realistic about what the students can achieve. It is better to break big chunks of learning into small, manageable ones with frequent tasks or checks. Finding out after 12 weeks that a student is struggling because they can’t do a final assignment can be avoided if they have had 10 small tasks to do which build up to that point.
- Don’t try to be too clever with the tech: You can do an astounding amount with technology now, but the more complicated it is, the more you or the students are likely to fail with it. Unless complicated technology is actually your teaching point, stick to tried and tested solutions – and not too many of them. Audio and video are now mainstream – but artificial intelligence and virtual reality could stretch things too far (unless you are confident and can be sure they will work for the students). There are plenty of good, creative ideas out there – use those and just keep your eyes on the horizon – some of tomorrow’s new tech becomes mainstream in time. (Yes, I taught a ‘Classroom of the Future’ session about 18 years ago where I talked about playing video on demand over the Internet! No one really believed it at the time!)
Thanks for this introduction. From the first pages, I can see you practise what you preach! It is delivered in manageable chunks, and is very accessible. At the moment, at this point, I feel a break is in order before I take the step of creating my own blog! It’s interesting to have a student’s experience in this way — very effective. Thanks for making the start of the course so straightforward, and I look forward to continuing it.
Thank you, Valentina. It isn’t always easy but breaking things down really does make a difference. You can even tackle quite complex areas in small chunks. By all means take breaks. It will actually help you to digest the course better – a bit like learning a language – a little and often. It is quite nice to take the time to reflect between sections too. Thank you for commenting! All the Best, Ros
Just like Valentina, I’m really grateful for the friendly start. I don’t know if it’s my incompetence, but already my attempts to set up a blog look different from the video. I’ll try again on Monday. It is good to feel the frustration of being a student though and I’m sure it will boost my empathy. Maybe I’m just clicking the wrong thingy.
Have a lovely weekend.
Carina
Carina,
Thanks for commenting on the blog – this is letting you know that I have seen your comment. If you are still finding it hard on Monday, get in touch with me and I’ll try and help! Good luck, because blogging is fun once you get the hang of it. Ros
Thanks for getting us started! WordPress has always scared me a bit as I felt I needed more technical competence than I have, but the video was very helpful, Karen
that said, I haven’t tried making a blog post yet!
Thanks, Karen. WordPress can look complicated, but just try to think of it as a notebook where you add pages to it (posts). There is a lot you can do that is complicated. If you want some time looking at it, just let me know when you are available. All the best, Ros
I’ve set a blog up, but I reckon I’ve put it in the wrong place…
https://campuspress.stir.ac.uk/janecsonlinelearningblog/wp-admin/index.php?page=msreader.php
I think I’m in the same boat if it’s any consolation ..https://campuspress.stir.ac.uk/educatingpractice/
I couldn’t agree more about reducing the feeling of isolation when studying online. I am using the conference facility (Big Blue Button) on Canvas to have online discussion with students about their progress. They were really appreciative of this approach and spoke about how they had never really interacted with other students on their programme before. The value came as one student commented that she felt she could understand more by hearing other students discuss their thinking and approach to an assignment, often triggering further questions/thoughts or grateful that someone had raised an issue that they hadn’t felt comfortable about raising so far.