Electronic Discussion forums

I have set up discussion forums for both the Higher and Advanced Diploma courses.

Although I had already set up a forum for the Higher Diploma last term, only one tutor had contributed to it and when I checked, the topic was not available to students, so it was not suprising that there were no posts! I have now made sure that it is available.

In each course there is a discussion area for staff only (which is hidden from students) and one for students and staff. I want staff to be able to comment freely on different aspects of using the learner portal to deliver the Diploma, hence the staff only discussion. To date there have been no posts added in either forum on either course! Hmmm! - maybe the next step is to go into the classroom in order to encourage the students to add a post. I will use the upcoming training session on 2nd November to encourage the staff to do the same.

A lull in the proceedings

I have not posted to my Blog for some weeks now. Summer holidays came (and are now a distant memory) and we have been very busy implementing the new Learner Portal across the College. I have been heavily involved in training for the wider college and this has taken a large proportion of my time.

A meeting took place at the beginning of October with the course leaders of the two IT diploma courses and this provided an opportunity for me to outline what I need from them. As a result of this meeting we are planning to do some more training in the use of the PDP and other aspects of using Moodle tools such as submitting assignments electronically. I need to ensure that all staff are using these tools effectively in order to properly evaluate the effects of their use.

Writing up my findings

The time has come to make some sense of the baseline data that I have gathered to date. Although I had to present findings to the curriculum teams at the event in July, I was able to generalise to a degree - now I must collate the information and present it in a report format for contribution to the Project Manager's report. I have been editing videos that I shot back in June and it is a useful experience (I'm very glad I videoed the interviews now - I would never have remembered everything). Reviewing these interviews has brought back lots of small nuggets of information that will help to summarise the way the teams worked before the intervention of the various technologies (Moodle, including electronic ILP's, Mahara etc.)

Evaluation feedback to Curriculum team

July saw an event which aimed to showcase what the curriculum teams have achieved to date and I was able to feedback to the teams the results of initial baselining. The video below is my presentation to the teams

This event also provided an opportunity for the teams to think about how they will use the different technologies in their delivery, which in turn ensures that I can evaluate as per my plan

Learner interviews

My attempts to interview the learners were not very successful. Unfortunately, by the time I was ready to interview them, they were no longer attending classes at the college, so my plan to hold a focus group with them and to use the voting buttons came to nothing. Although I did manage to speak to a couple of them, they were reluctant to be videoed. I used a voice recorder to record our conversations, but the quality was very poor and the only voice that stands out is mine! Fortunately, this was not crucial to the evaluation.

I am going to plan my interviews and focus groups further in advance for the coming academic year and make sure that the tutors are aware of these dates, so this does not happen again.

On the move

I'm on the train to Birmingham - again! Whilst the breakfast is very welcome - it would be nice if an event could be held in London. Today's event is all about looking at the learner experience. I am getting ready to do a group interview with the Diploma students in the next week or so, so I hope I will be able to use what I learn today to help me ask the right questions. I am going to use voting buttons, which I hope will lead to a fun and engaging session.

Questionnaires and interviews

The learners have now completed the online questionnaire and I now need to save the results electronically. I have begun to interview key staff who are working on the Diploma and my attempts at interviewing are highlighting some issues.

I am using a a very funky orange Flip camera to record my interviews. In the first interview, conducted with a member of the Entitlement and Support team, I held the camera and frankly it looks like we did the interview sitting on a bus. Second time around, I used the tripod that comes with the Flip. Although the film does not look as jerky, the angle of the tripod meant that the subject was looking down and in her own words it made her look miserable! Third time lucky then...I have just conducted my third interview, this time with a professional tripod and this enabled me to sit behind the camera and the interviewee was able to look at me as she answered the questions. An altogether better result and I will use this tripod in the future.

My questions have been OK and I have managed to stick closely to the questions as written and this has been fairly successful. I intended to interview a number of other staff from the school of Computing, but I am going to ask them to submit their answers on paper now as we are close to going live with the Diploma course on Moodle and I want their feedback before this date (12th May).