onlinepivot
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OU drop-in – Assessment issues
As part of the pandemic response I’ve been running informal weekly drop-in sessions offering Open University experience to the sector as colleagues in other universities seek to shift to an online & distance mode of education. Last week we focused on assessment. This is not really my area of expertise, but I’ve developed enough courses and we had sufficient others in the webinar to make it a useful discussion. Amongst the topics we looked at were: Is this the end of exams as we know it? Moving to project based assessment Demands to retain exams (eg professional bodies) Ungrading eportfolios Plagiarism/cheating The video (with me attempting to use the Question…
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OU sector drop in – student support
I hosted the second of the OU sector drop in sessions on Wednesday. The focus was on student support. You can see a recording of the session below, but here are some thoughts: Icebreaker activities – sometimes those activities that work well face to face can be intrusive or less welcome online. Nigel Gibson told how he doesn’t use the “here are two truths and one falsehood about me, guess which is the lie” icebreaker. This can make people reveal things about themselves online they are not comfortable with. Recreating social interaction – there is research that suggests students who form social bonds with others are more likely to continue…
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Online Pivot questions – online completion rates
I’m responding to queries from a number of different routes, so I thought I would post responses to them here also. This one came via Contact North’s Ask an Expert site. Question: I am worried about completion rates in online learning – I gather that they are really low. What do we know about completion rates? Response: It depends on what is meant by online learning. That is sometimes equated with MOOCs, ie free, open courses that are unsupported. Here the completion rate is very low – about 10%. But in this case the learner has no investment in the course (they often sign up and never even attempt one…
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2026 – the year of the face to face pivot
When the current crisis is over in terms of infection, the social and economic impact will be felt for a long time. One such hangover is likely to be the shift to online for so much of work and interaction. As the cartoon goes “these meetings could’ve been emails all along”. So let’s jump forward then a few years when online is the norm. We can imagine the following: Hip start-ups rediscovering office working – but they won’t call it this of course, it’ll be something new like “cooperative physical co-location”. They’ll rave about the physical water cooler moments around the, erm, water cooler. Unis will offer advice on “physical…
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The advantage of your own platform in a crisis
So here’s my Covid-19 conspiracy theory – Jim Groom started it all to demonstrate how useful it is to own your own domain and tools. And also to relaunch DS106 Radio. Allow me to elaborate. Organisations, particularly higher education ones can be slow to react. Someone commented once that the OU was like the army or the health care system, it took its time but when all those elements aligned it was powerful, robust and effective. The OU, like every other HEI, has been dealing with the very immediate issues of the Covid-19 crisis, and doing it very well. This is where those industrial systems pay off. However, like many…
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OU sector drop-in: report and next one
Yesterday I ran the first OU sector drop-in. The aim is to see if we can gather OU expertise and offer support to others who are attempting the online pivot. I deliberately didn’t record this one because it was a bit trial and error (mainly error on my part) and also I thought people may want to speak freely. But I think I will record later ones for those who can’t make them. This one was general, so people could ask any question, but we decided to theme later ones. I’ve set up a google doc so you can add suggestions for themes, format and useful links if you want:…
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Get ordinary
One thing the crisis has revealed very starkly is that it is the everyday that we value. It is not the expensive truffles you need now, but toilet roll. It is not the innovative silicon valley entrepreneur we value now but the person stacking shelves in supermarkets. There is a lesson in this for education too. I’ve seen people suggesting radical new ideas, innovative things to do in teaching and research. Now is not the time for your social distance jetpack idea. The best thing we can do for students, staff and researchers is to try and keep things as everyday and calm as possible. And by everyday I don’t…
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Open University help for other institutions – drop in sessions
via GIPHY Several people (no, they’re not imaginary) have asked if the OU can make its expertise available to other institutions and educators as they engage in the online pivot. Of course, the immediacy of this shift is very different from designing a purposefully distance ed course with the luxury of time, so some of that expertise may not be appropriate. But some of it will. In addition, I think as the immediate implementation settles down people will start looking more medium to long term. Will the first semester next year be at a distance? Should we build in more distance ed options as part of our contingency planning? So…
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Emotional support in the time of crisis
Amidst the excellent advice and community spirit shown for the online pivot, it has also become apparent that non-specific, non-academic support is going to be valuable. I blogged before that with our GO-GN network we know that emotional support is as valuable as academic support. In a PhD it is as (if not more) important to find people who understand you, and what you are going through as it is to find advice on your chosen methodology. For students and educators, as we go through this unprecedented global convulsion, this type of emotional support will be more valued. Not because it will help students stay on the course or get…
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The robustness of distance ed
The online pivot is perhaps better considered as a pivot to distance ed, in that it is focused on delivery and support to students remote from campus. Online is how we will mostly realise it, but it is the distance that is the key factor. For many OU students, in terms of their study (although see below), the next few weeks are as near to business as normal as can be managed, when compared with the disruption students on face to face campuses will encounter. A long time ago (2007) I wrote an article called “The distance from isolation: Why communities are the logical conclusion in e-learning“. It argued that…
