Making connections

Three of us had a great time at the weekend making collaborative connections on Twitter to arrange an impromptu Elluminate session. Alan in Leeds, UK; Philip in Adelaide, Australia, and myself in Joburg, SA. We all came together within a couple of hours and had a good session, even with Alan's mike problems. (Technical glitches can be very frustrating in Elluminate).

I've been reading a paper for my ECA which talks about mechanisms for reducing the 'distance' in distance learning and boy, did we do it then. I've written about this before; I find student-led Elluminate sessions really rewarding and there is actually no distance between us as we grapple with the ECA and share our different approaches. For me it was indispensable as I really needed that connection to get the adrenaline running again. I'm now in Base Camp 2, which feels a bit easier. I will be working for two weeks flat out now, as much as I can.

The other wonderful connection I made yesterday was with a lady in the OU Library, who helped me with access for a paper and signed it 'from a fellow South African'. We have struck up email contact and it's fabulous to talk to someone who knows MK and South Africa as well. We can share the joys and challenges of each country. We love SA, it's spacey, and as she said has sun and big blue skies, lots of them. We as a family are considering moving back to England and to MK, for me to apply to do a PhD at the OU. But what to do for the best? There are three of us in the family, and each has their own opinion. It's like having two cakes, each with nice things and not-so-nice things on top. Of course one wants one cake with all the nice things, and it's just not possible. It's very rewarding to make a connection with someone who understands both.

Using Elluminate for student support

We had a really great informal session on Elluminate last night. My new laptop was the business, the audio worked a treat and nothing was going slowly. As I said on Twitter, the session actually changed my perception of Elluminate. It's a really valuable tool for getting together with fellow students and sharing experiences, concerns, laughs and giggles informally. I also loved us discussing possible dimensions of 'ownership' and drawing diagrams on the whiteboard at the same time - that's so powerful.

Using Elluminate for learning

Saturday was the last scheduled Elluminate (audio-conferencing) session and more challenges. My audio disappeared and Elluminate always seems to work slowly for me and sometimes freezes up. Is this due to low bandwidth - Elluminate is supposed to be tolerant of such conditions? We sometimes record 1/10 of our promised access speeds on speed tests.

Later that afternoon however the audio disappeared completely from all applications on my laptop. Everything was set up fine and we couldn't figure out what was wrong. I made a decision, raided a hoard of nuts as it were, and invested in a brand new laptop. I'm sitting writing on it now and it's really great so far. We'll preserve the old one as the family games machine....

Overall technical problems and slow access speeds have been quite a serious issue for me on H800. Tuesday is our next informal chat on Elluminate so I'm keen to see how things behave then.

Meanwhile fellow tutor group member Tracey comments that 'sometimes I'm not sure what the objective of the session is or what outcome if any has been achieved by the end of it'. I personally question the practice of pasting extracts or summaries into text boxes on the whiteboard - my own whiteboard jumps around remorsely when this is being done, so much so that it's very difficult to look at. The whole session for me then becomes dominated by what the technology is doing rather than what I'm supposed to be learning. The best Elluminate session that I attended was when Julie made a record of what we were saying in a separate word doc and posted it in the forum afterwards. We didn't have to worry about what the whiteboard was getting up to and just spoke freely.

I will be researching use of Elluminate for low bandwidth conditions for my ECA, and also how to use it for the most productive and enjoyable learning experiences. It's a great tool with loads of potential.