Progress?

I have been doing some detective work on what is on offer around the world, online learning wise, in my subject of Psychology.

Here is what I have found!
http://inst.santafe.cc.fl.us/~mwehr/0indexComPsy.htm

which seems to be an interactive course of sorts with a lecture and then online exercises for poeple to do and really self directed learning week by week.

This second one http://psych.hanover.edu/KRANTZ/tutor.html#Learning

is more comprehensive but basically follows the same format as above. A lecture ( most of the content is blocked unless you are online student ) and then a tutorial which is usually some online test or exercise and then a homework assignment and then some reflection on the experience.
I couldn't really get a handle on how this is all assessed but I see there are discussion boards and emails but no mention of Blogs or Podcasts or any of the other things we have been discussing on the course.

My overwhelming feelings are
1) very low tech
2) content is ...... well ----- hard to judge but more pop psych than what you would expect in a psychology course
3) minimal facilitation and feedback from course supervisors
4) what seems to be on site activities that encourage students to see Psychology in action

Any thoughts from course members and have you had a look at what your discipline offers?

Progress?

I have been thinking this last week about Assignment One and what is the best way to go about it. I also have been reading with interest Sarah and David's blogs and what their thinking is shaping up to be.
I think it is extremely hard to completely do away with some face to face interaction course such as Psychology in Occupational Therapy. Ot's are expected to work with people one on one and probably about 75% of their work involves that nebulous 'non-verbal' part of human interaction. This includes the subtle nuances of body language, reading patients fear and joys, seeing an environment and how best the occupational practice might enhance 'occupation'.
I have therefore come to the conclusion that blended delivery is probably the path that I will take. I do, however, have a plan which I will develop through my Wiki http://www.wikieducator.org/Psychology_in_Occupational_Therapy.

I must admit that I am a bit in favour of the 'secret squirrel' approach so I will initially develop some solid ground rules. By this I mean a solid foundation of what are course requirements, what equipment is needed, what level of expertise participants must have with soft and hardware ( I might even have a course pre-requisite). I do this because I still see at eight weeks a number of technical and competence problems surfacing in a group of experienced learners.
Next I will establish a solid line of communication and one central method of conducting the course. At the moment I see nothing that is better than Blackboard ( please someone - enlighten me) but participants will be encouraged to have an individual Blog and to be actively involved in group discussion. Indeed, this will be one of the assessment requirements and I will quantify how much is expected. I will also designate one person who is the central point of contact for course concerns with a guarantee that queries will be responded to within 12 hours in business hours.
Assessment will be at three stages. Stage one will be withing four weeks of the course starting and will essentially consist of an informal assessment of work completed so far. It will not count toward a final mark for the course but will encourage participants to complete by giving guidelines as to what they need to learn, what they have done well, where they may look for resource to help them. I have used such an approach in my face to face teaching and found it to be very successful and appreciated by students.
I will have a clearly defined course structure ( more detail in the Wiki) and although there will be some room for flexibility this will be negotiated with the group. Because I am delivering this course to 40+ students I will have to develop some method to overcome this.

As to the content of the course I will provide resource that will encourage students to develop specialist areas of the Wiki which will form part of their assessment. I will also consider having students rate each member of their small group using a specialist scale of have developed for my face to face classes. Although this usually gives an overly optimistic mark it does encourage active participation.

I still have a ways to go but this is my starting point.

recent surveys

A couple of interesting sites that examine online learning, uptake, and hopes for the future



http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/cda/doc/content/us_media_Media%20Democracy%20Survey_062507.pdf





and





http://www.nsba.org/site/docs/41400/41340.pdf



which has some answers for some of the discussion that has been going on.

Wiki set up

I have set up a Wiki page about Psychology in Occupational Therapy which I would encourage people to add content and edit. In particular, I am wanting links for the first part of the introduction on orientating people to the content etc. , although additions to other areas would be welcomed.

The image does have meaning!

http://www.wikieducator.org/Psychology_in_Occupational_Therapy#Working_Online

A Grumpy old man

I am sick and tired of being the grumpy old man of the group but I do believe that there has to be someone in any community who reminds us where we actually are at. Like last night with Elluminate and Skeipe and the great daylight savings scam. Sure technology is great and we should all embrace the future and ----blah, blah, blah. However, there is a place for just standing, breathing in the fine air, and contemplating just exactly how much better all this is compared with where we were. I was reminded about all this when someone was recently explaining to me about the new BMW which didn't carry a spare tyre any more. Great boot space, more room for the kids in the back seat. BMW has developed a new type of tire which can 'self repair'. This means that when it is punctured it will still allow you to drive a number of miles so you can get to a garage and have a new wheel fitted, then continue on your journey. Unfortunately in NZ there are only a few dealerships who stock the replacement wheel, so if you have the misfortune to have a puncture whilst travelling down the West Coast of the South Island you may limp into a grage but the homely old mecahnic will scratch his head, quietly grin and inform you that the nice motel down the road does a great discount for weekly stays as this is how long it is going to take to get a replacement wheel from Auckland. In Europe and North America, of course, there are BMW dealerships every block or so , therefore you won't have such a problem. A case of the techno guys thinking up some great new thing but being so transplanted from the real world that -------, you fill in the gaps.

This all came about also because I was looking around for some resources for an upcoming tutorial on establishing and recognising authority and accidentally came across this Blog which I though might prove interesting to the group. Sure it's centered around commercial blogging but it does have some salient points. http://natewhitehill.com/top-5-reasons-most-blogs-dont-last/

Wiki's, Henry and I

Just a quick word. I have posted a link to an article by Henry Jenkins (opposite) where he discusses young and mature learners and shatters some of the assumptions we may have about them. Certainly rang a few bells for me.
I also took time to read the posting that Leigh recommneded on Wiki's and Blogs and, in particular, the information on setting up an online course using the same. I was struck by how much this resembled Blackboard (although, probably a little less confusing than Blackboard) and the thought I had was why does everybody hate Blackboard so much. As someone who came to Blackboard only this year and had one day to set it up fdor a Yr1 course I was suprised how easy it was to put course information up and to track who was reading what and give feedback about exams, changes of venue, issues raised in class, etc. I would be intersted to hear from the group as to what other mediums they have tried, what you thought of them, and what worked best given the overall demands of a course.

Wiki's and a Sinclair Spectrum

Here I go again. Possibly moaning. At least another petulant rave about something. I started (on Leigh’s prompting) to explore the world of Wiki’s. I was immediately thrown back years to my Sinclair Spectrum ZX80 or something. It was the first computer I ever bought and boy was it fantastic for the time. Fifteen whole K (yes (15K) of memory. Probably about the size of a very small email. But it was just so powerful. I wanted to write a maths program that could do all my t-test, correlations. Regressions, ANOVA’s, factor analysis, and regressions and I found one written for Apple in Basic so I started to program the damn thing. Totally illogical and incomprehensible language that was made for people who didn't want anyone else to be able to master computing.
And it was just like my first experience with a Wiki. What a complicated language. And does it need to be? No. It has a basic toolbar which could be added to so that all those brackets and bars and dots could be done away with. Leigh tells me that someone, somewhere, is working on it. About time.

It is a fantastic idea, and the quality of information on Wikipedia attests to how useful and informative it can be, aside from all those rogues from Air NZ, Greenpeace, NZ Govt, etc who try and alter the pages so their organisation looks a little better.



And yes! I did get the little 15K Sinclair to perform my stats. Unfortunately, by that time bigger, better computers had come along and had ready made packages that did it faster and better.