Summary of Block 2 (Part 1)

Well here goes for Block 2. Thanks to John and Les for your comments and agreement about Block 1! Reviewing and summarising is biting into my Week 21/22 study time, but it's a double week so a little bit more flexibility. The course is very intense and there is such a lot in each week's worth of activities, that I have come up against a "No more!" moment, until I get this lot off my chest.

We started in Block 2 with Weeks 8/9, our first double week with activities linked together as an integrated whole over two weeks. I found these two weeks very tough, but at the end very rewarding as I could apply it to my professional understandings. We were firstly introduced to the ideas of learning activities and learning design. Learning design is the means of guiding the creation of learning activities, and representing them so that they can be shared between the different role players involved. This scaffolds the process and provides a way of promoting and sharing good practice. These ideas are immediately relevant to me in my practice of process-based quality management and the project that we did at the University of Pretoria for example, where we scaffolded the instructional design process by implementing an online quality management system, which enabled the instructional designers to review, evaluate and share the best way to carry out the steps of the design process in their local context.

I plan to use my blog to say more about pro-active improvement based approaches to quality management (now being referred to as quality enhancement in the UK); in contrast to the checking and inspecting approaches which have been used under the name of quality assurance in education for some time. For now off the soap box and back on the summary.

Weeks 8/9 showed us lots of different design tools and we got a chance to experiment with some of them. We used Compendium LD for example, and took a look at Cloudworks, a new social networking site developed by the OU for sharing learning design ideas. For me, there were too many tools to try out, I would have preferred to concentrate on one or two, especially since our forums were very quiet after the TMA. I would have preferred to be led through these vital two weeks with lots of examples and assistance, and did feel rather isolated at this time.

In Week 10 things really started to come back together again. We looked at lots of different sources for learning which are 'out there' now, beyond the confines of formal education. We considered the ins and outs of Wikipedia and Citizendium, opened up a Delicious account and did an exercise on searching for journals in the OU library. Finally we were encouraged to start blogging, which is when I experimented and set up this blog. I wish I had done it before!!!

The final activity in Week 10 was to look at re-purposing OERs on the OU OpenLearn website. I have to admit I never got as far as this one, despite how interested I am in the topic, and it's still on my to-do list to go back to.

Now I am in Block 3, I can see that we were starting to establish elements of our own personal toolkit - or PLE (Personal Learning Environment). I particularly enjoyed starting to blog, and making this blogger interface rather than using the rather pedestrian OU provided one. We return this personal / institutionally provided debate in Block 3.

Summary of Block 1

I've been wanting to do this for a while now. The feeling came after the end of Block 2, doing the TMA and just wanting to go back and review what we have done so far, to consolidate it in my head and enable me to feel that I have a instant-recall mental map of what we covered. I sometimes see comments in the general forums that the time pressure on the course is such that we don't often go back and review - and also that summarising and reviewing is a useful learning activity. Of course it is. So here goes for Block 1, my own take on what we did.

We started out in Week 1 with an introduction to some different learning technologies and a review of our own learning experiences. We were also starting the process of getting to know each other in the tutor group forums. We began to consider global technology developments and how the the different generations are relating to them - is there really a Google Generation?

Then in Week 2 we looked at different examples of technology enhanced learning from various countries, including a lovely interactive radio case study from South Africa, where I am based. There was an introduction to social views of learning and participation with John Seely Brown, who is one of the key authors for this course.

Week 3 continued with the theme - What it means to learn. We read about and discussed the foundational paper by Sfard on acquisition and participation metaphors, an introduction to activity theory, how people behave online, and vicarious learning - learning from the learning experiences of others.

Week 4 continued with the social dimensions of learning and two papers which form important pillars of the course - Brown et al. on the the situated nature of learning in its context, and Engestom's seminal paper on activity theory.

Then a bit of a change of direction in Week 5 to look at different forms of new media and how these relate to the acquisition and participation metaphors - do the new media suggest a new more social form of learning? We began to look at what Web 2.0 really is, and its implications for learning.

Week 6 was TMA01. It was highly reflective, asking us to explain how our chosen course activities helped us to understand aspects of our own or others' use of technology in learning, and to what extent we found the ideas of acquisition and participation useful. It was a big challenge to put together a piece of work like this after returning to formal study since last graduating 16 years ago, but I did enjoy it (in hindsight!!). I was thrilled with my mark for TMA01 and had managed to put together what the assignment was asking for, whilst relating it very much to my own professional interests.

Week 7 was a quiet week, we considered our experience so far in the course forums, and read about the whole idea of handling multiple perspectives, and promoting inclusive, collaborative discussion rather than competitive debate.

Recording this summary really gives me a good sense of what I have achieved and the distance travelled, both by myself and with my tutor group colleagues. It also helps prevent H800 indigestion!!

Getting back to blogging?

Well the news was that it took another two weeks for my son to get well....another week off school and then half term. Desperation sinking in that we just couldn't control his nasty cough. We've now covered absolutely all the angles with the doc and he's been back at school two days....only four more weeks til the August holidays. So good to see him back on form.

Re-surfacing again

Our whole family has been sick for a week with really nasty flu. I still don't know whether I will be able to get my child back to school tomorrow.....but the course rumbles on and one has to keep up....I m just about to start looking at last week's work. It's the shortest day of the year here in Joburg and the longest in the UK. I wish I was at home.....

Freezing in Johannesburg

After all my claims last week about the weather - it's very cloudy and jolly cold here today! Cold front just coming over. Cuddled up with my computer and a hot water bottle on my knees.

TMA02 Reflections

It's the week after I completed TMA02, the second assignment. This one carries twice the weighting of the previous one, ie 40% of the continuous assessment mark. I found it challenging, creative and tough all at the same time. I love being creative and put in three diagrams. I love illustrating my work and now hope that it's recognised as adding to my textual explanations - after all a picture speaks a thousand words and we are meant to be multi-media, are we not. Even thought about making a video to describe what I understand by learning experience, but that will have to come in the goodness of time!

After we have done the TMA, we are supposed to have an Elluminate session to discuss what we would change about it and what ideas we have about being assessed. Personally, after getting to the end of the Everest challenge I would rather not ponder about different ways I could have made it to the summit - this way was just fine thank you! All my chosen activities allowed me to investigate / express my understanding of a particular aspect of technology enhanced learning and its application to my specific context. I also brought in lots of connections to quality management which is my professional area.

I did write about blogging, about being inspired by fellow tutor group members John and Tracey, and about how rewarding I am finding this blogging thing. I regard it as a fun 'scrapbooking space' within which to privately reflect and share with others if they are interested. I am am also inspired by Martin Weller's blog (http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk) where he explains that that blogging provides an alternative forum for academic discourse – liberating academics from the need to write journal or conference papers if they wish to put forward an argument or discuss a point of view. By being able to self-publish in a blog, it is possible to establish an online academic identity. Much food for thought....

A lovely Highveld Day

Today is a typical Highveld winter day. We don't tend to get rain in winter in Johannesburg, so the skies are clear. It's cold in the mornings and evenings, but warms up during the day. The houses are cold because they're built for the summertime heat; no such thing as central heating!

Everywhere you go you see bare trees silhoutted against the blue sky. It is beautiful but by the end of winter, you get desperate for some rain. Everywhere gets really dusty and dry. Finally in September or October the storms start again.