Term 1 at UCL is coming to a close and there’s almost time to reflect on my e-learning practices.
I’ve been running a course – MSSL’s ST4 – almost entirely free of the photocopier. Does this make it e-learning? Who cares?
Notes/slides were delivered using our VLE, WebCT, but lectures ran as normal – using materials largely unadapted from the previous year (I have inherited this particular course). The existence of the course discussion forum was mentioned, but by and large ignored by the 15 students. To be honest, I think they have better things to do than chat.
Similar use was made of the VLE by me and my colleague for our Space Technology course, PHYS3C64/SS15. The online materials supplemented the normal lectures.
I’m planning a similar use for Project Management next term.
I think the students regard whatever we are doing as pretty normal. They are probably surprised if a course doesn’t at least have a web page. By and large they cope with many of the hurdles of the VLE very quickly. I’m looking forward to seeing how 80+ undergrads, who aren’t necessarily techies, get on. This time, they’ll be receiving a dead tree edition of their notes anyway so WebCT will be used for extras: optional slide-sets, some coursework briefing documents, and a forum for coursework Q+A.
Outside of my own sphere, I haven’t heard much of the last institutional workshop on e-learning strategy, nor have I been able to keep up with much more than my immediate colleagues. What about you?
Friday, December 10, 2004
Friday, November 12, 2004
Overviews of e-learning research papers
For those of you who'd love to read more research papers on e-learning but don't know where to look, this website seems like it will be very useful:
http://www.elearning-reviews.org/
It's run jointly between Stanford University and a centre in Switzerland, and compiles brief reviews of research papers related to e-learning. I've only just discovered it - the site is a bit ugly but the content looks really useful.
http://www.elearning-reviews.org/
It's run jointly between Stanford University and a centre in Switzerland, and compiles brief reviews of research papers related to e-learning. I've only just discovered it - the site is a bit ugly but the content looks really useful.
Monday, November 08, 2004
Julie's Introduction
Hello, I'm Julie Voce and I'm one of two Learning Technologies Support Officers. My role is to provide support, advice and training on all aspects of Learning Technology. The main area I deal with is the Virtual Learning Environment, WebCT, however this will probably change as people embrace other technologies like Computer Assisted/Aided Assessment.
To let you know a little more about my background, I have a MEng in Computer Science so in theory I'm quite techy with experience of programming in C, Java and obscure languages like Haskell and Modula-2. My first job after graduating was at UMIST (now part of the University of Manchester) on an EU funded research project which developed a piece of language learning software for intermediate to advanced learners of French (Freetext). Whilst at UMIST I also taught on the MSc in Computer Assisted Language Learning, where our students had to develop a WebCT course and I am pleased to say they did remarkably well.
For more information about learning technology see: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/learningtechnology/
To let you know a little more about my background, I have a MEng in Computer Science so in theory I'm quite techy with experience of programming in C, Java and obscure languages like Haskell and Modula-2. My first job after graduating was at UMIST (now part of the University of Manchester) on an EU funded research project which developed a piece of language learning software for intermediate to advanced learners of French (Freetext). Whilst at UMIST I also taught on the MSc in Computer Assisted Language Learning, where our students had to develop a WebCT course and I am pleased to say they did remarkably well.
For more information about learning technology see: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/learningtechnology/
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Let's not go there
In Derek Morrison's Auricle, a frightening 2nd-hand account of rampant corporatisation - use the Official VLE or get a slap. Derek:
The First Party was James Farmer - article here - note the many, many messages of outrage and support.
The paradox is, I suppose, that teachers require support and infrastructure to deliver their teaching. What they don't want is for the provision, when it comes, to completely dictate their teaching practices. If we can't have provision then we'll require to be left alone to work. That's natural enough when we are talking about £200 OHP units but not necesserly the outcome when the technology costs are orders of magnitude greater.
Creativity is not an optional extra in the education field. I sincerely hope our institution doesn't go this way (towards a proprietary monoculture of tools), and, to date it doesn't look like it will. An example of second-mover advantage, perhaps?
Message from Earth to institution; weblogs, wikis etc - you need to support them.
The First Party was James Farmer - article here - note the many, many messages of outrage and support.
The paradox is, I suppose, that teachers require support and infrastructure to deliver their teaching. What they don't want is for the provision, when it comes, to completely dictate their teaching practices. If we can't have provision then we'll require to be left alone to work. That's natural enough when we are talking about £200 OHP units but not necesserly the outcome when the technology costs are orders of magnitude greater.
Creativity is not an optional extra in the education field. I sincerely hope our institution doesn't go this way (towards a proprietary monoculture of tools), and, to date it doesn't look like it will. An example of second-mover advantage, perhaps?
Friday, October 29, 2004
The time taken to add one lecture
OK, so I’ve got this 2-hour lecture, ready to go onto the OHP, for Space Systems Technology. The notes, in practically book-chapter quality, are already on the WebCT course, so I shouldn’t feel compelled to put anything else online. But I do. Somehow, I want to make the customer offering complete (note how I come out with spontaneous marketing-speak now?), and also make a handy on-screen revision tool that might jog the memory more than memory itself.
Let’s see what’s involved in providing Powerpoint – they like to print out the Notes pages, and why not – and Impatica versions of an existing presentation. I’ve already anticipated a little by having a sequence of slides, illustrative of the progressive degradations that you get when compressing images, be longer than I would use for actual overheads. The sequence itself is like frames of a movie, and the learning point is all about comparison rather than analysis of any particular one.
First of all, I make sure I’ve got my Powerpoint file ready (it’s called “processing” and the course is called PHYS3C64), so let’s start the clock. Here are the steps:
1. Transfer processing.ppt (786 kb) to a network drive
2. Log on to server running Impatica 3.0.2
3. Find the source file, Add to batch list. Enable navigation controls and HTML output. (There’s loads more : zip, SCORM, ipk)
4. For this one, I don’t want to introduce two lots of compression artefacts, so I go to the Media tab and (here’s hoping this is right) set the JPEG compression to 100%. I assume that normally, it will compress the whole slide-image as one entity.
5. Oops I spotted an option “apply extra compression” in Output Files. Turn that off.
6. Hit Impaticize!
7. 38 slides take a minute or two.
8. OK, now I’ve got a processing-imp.jar. Turns out it’s 930 kb. Haul this back to my PC, along with the 1 k html wrapper it makes, and the copy of the player it spits out.
9. Bundle these puppies together in a dummy folder.
10. I already have the 3c64 setup as a Network Place – using the webdav info provided in MyWebCT. Copy the dummy folder across. For some reason I can’t copy files this way, only folders. However, I can move files once they are present on the server, so I put them where I want now.
11. Log on to WebCT.
12. The next bit takes ages, it seems. Putting two additional files at arbitrary places in an existing content module seems overly clunky (I know, I know, it’s because HTML forms don’t generate Events). WebCT doesn’t help me by not having a proper file browser dialog for selecting to-be-linked file, just this huge list in a tiny font.
13. Switch to View mode for a quick test. Press F11 to get more actual screen back. Click through the subject icon, this link here and Boing! my first slide.
14. Having minimal/no compression is good for me (I’m working on a fast-ish network) since all my text and graphics are clean. Now how about that series of compressed photos. The slides are now coming out at 800 x 600 rather than my native 1024 wide. Excellent – all OK.
15. My native powerpoint file is launched ok from WebCT (although it leaves an empty screen on the browser – weird).
16. Check that the titles are consistent in this module’s table of contents. It should say “Science Data Processing – for on screen viewing” and “Science Data Processing – Powerpoint for Printing”. Getting the phrases rhythmically the same is important, I feel. One thing I hate is when the browser launches a helper app without warning!
17. All done. Update Student View so they actually see the new stuff. Takes no time (but funny how it goes through all the hidden files too). All I have to do now is wait for the complaints.
18. About 40 minutes, including typing this lot. I’ve probably missed Top of the Pops now.
Let’s see what’s involved in providing Powerpoint – they like to print out the Notes pages, and why not – and Impatica versions of an existing presentation. I’ve already anticipated a little by having a sequence of slides, illustrative of the progressive degradations that you get when compressing images, be longer than I would use for actual overheads. The sequence itself is like frames of a movie, and the learning point is all about comparison rather than analysis of any particular one.
First of all, I make sure I’ve got my Powerpoint file ready (it’s called “processing” and the course is called PHYS3C64), so let’s start the clock. Here are the steps:
1. Transfer processing.ppt (786 kb) to a network drive
2. Log on to server running Impatica 3.0.2
3. Find the source file, Add to batch list. Enable navigation controls and HTML output. (There’s loads more : zip, SCORM, ipk)
4. For this one, I don’t want to introduce two lots of compression artefacts, so I go to the Media tab and (here’s hoping this is right) set the JPEG compression to 100%. I assume that normally, it will compress the whole slide-image as one entity.
5. Oops I spotted an option “apply extra compression” in Output Files. Turn that off.
6. Hit Impaticize!
7. 38 slides take a minute or two.
8. OK, now I’ve got a processing-imp.jar. Turns out it’s 930 kb. Haul this back to my PC, along with the 1 k html wrapper it makes, and the copy of the player it spits out.
9. Bundle these puppies together in a dummy folder.
10. I already have the 3c64 setup as a Network Place – using the webdav info provided in MyWebCT. Copy the dummy folder across. For some reason I can’t copy files this way, only folders. However, I can move files once they are present on the server, so I put them where I want now.
11. Log on to WebCT.
12. The next bit takes ages, it seems. Putting two additional files at arbitrary places in an existing content module seems overly clunky (I know, I know, it’s because HTML forms don’t generate Events). WebCT doesn’t help me by not having a proper file browser dialog for selecting to-be-linked file, just this huge list in a tiny font.
13. Switch to View mode for a quick test. Press F11 to get more actual screen back. Click through the subject icon, this link here and Boing! my first slide.
14. Having minimal/no compression is good for me (I’m working on a fast-ish network) since all my text and graphics are clean. Now how about that series of compressed photos. The slides are now coming out at 800 x 600 rather than my native 1024 wide. Excellent – all OK.
15. My native powerpoint file is launched ok from WebCT (although it leaves an empty screen on the browser – weird).
16. Check that the titles are consistent in this module’s table of contents. It should say “Science Data Processing – for on screen viewing” and “Science Data Processing – Powerpoint for Printing”. Getting the phrases rhythmically the same is important, I feel. One thing I hate is when the browser launches a helper app without warning!
17. All done. Update Student View so they actually see the new stuff. Takes no time (but funny how it goes through all the hidden files too). All I have to do now is wait for the complaints.
18. About 40 minutes, including typing this lot. I’ve probably missed Top of the Pops now.
Dan's introduction
As requested, allow me to introduce myself. I work as the FISO for the Life Sciences faculty, a job which centres on staff IT training and advice, and website development, but also happens to include quite a lot of e-learning-related work.
In many cases the e-learning work has been using WebCT, since that's the main e-learning vehicle provided at UCL, but also important is Tony Gardner-Medwin's LAPT tool. It provides self-paced learning through questions and answers; I've had some involvement in developments with that.
I do have an interest in website development and programming, which has meant that I've been able to develop various web-based tools. Here's a personal project of mine which I've been working on:
http://hiv.sourceforge.net/
(N.B. It's a personal project done in spare time - not connected with UCL!)
My UCL homepage:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/is/fiso/lifesciences/
In many cases the e-learning work has been using WebCT, since that's the main e-learning vehicle provided at UCL, but also important is Tony Gardner-Medwin's LAPT tool. It provides self-paced learning through questions and answers; I've had some involvement in developments with that.
I do have an interest in website development and programming, which has meant that I've been able to develop various web-based tools. Here's a personal project of mine which I've been working on:
http://hiv.sourceforge.net/
(N.B. It's a personal project done in spare time - not connected with UCL!)
My UCL homepage:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/is/fiso/lifesciences/
Auricle ... diverse platforms
Dan suggested we look at Auricle, Bath's e-learning website (actually a blog, though more formal than this one).
This will go in the sidebar (the bit over there, under our names) when I get time. Meantime, one article caught my eye directly, about diversity of toolsets in e-learning. Derek Morrison says
This will go in the sidebar (the bit over there, under our names) when I get time. Meantime, one article caught my eye directly, about diversity of toolsets in e-learning. Derek Morrison says
I put forward a couple of refreshing alternatives to the 'e-learning=proprietary VLE' furrow now being ploughed by many institutions. I think we have a lot to learn from institutions that have opted for an eTools and services model as an important part of delivering on their learning and teaching strategies, so I'm revisiting this theme today.More.
Please Welcome ...
... Dan Stowell and Julie Voce, as team members. Whilst probably known to most readers here anyway, can I suggest that they say a little bit about themselves?
WebCT conference
From reading the October 04 WebCT newsletter, it looks like we just have enough time to convince our HoD's to send us for tapas-leave in Barcelona - the annual WebCT jamboree.
e-learning reports - introduction
Hello, and welcome to e-learning reports.
This blog has been set up by staff at UCL to illustrate, entirely unofficially, how the development of e-learning tools works in practice. We don't have any particular message, system or theory to impart. We are not experts by any means, nor are we e-learning strategists. This will be a record of our observations "doing" teaching through electronic media. Education practices are continually changing, now more than ever. Taking part in this blog is one easy way of keeping in touch.
We'll also recommend websites, blogs and other resources that will allow you connect with other interesting e-learning topics and practitioners.
Along the way, we'll learn about what works (and a little bit about why), reveal common frustrations and difficulties -- and their solutions -- and hopefully inspire others to get involved too.
Comments from you will always be welcome; in fact, they are expected of you!
This blog has been set up by staff at UCL to illustrate, entirely unofficially, how the development of e-learning tools works in practice. We don't have any particular message, system or theory to impart. We are not experts by any means, nor are we e-learning strategists. This will be a record of our observations "doing" teaching through electronic media. Education practices are continually changing, now more than ever. Taking part in this blog is one easy way of keeping in touch.
Use the site feed for an easy way of keeping abreast of new articles. Paste this feed URL into your feedreader (Help! What does that mean?) : http://elearningreports.blogspot.com/atom.xmlThe team members will be reporting on their experiences of creating courseware, adapting existing materials, and incorporating electronic tools in their teaching practices. Some of the team members may be learners, and we'll see reports on their perspective, too. The reports you'll see will be fresh from the field, reflecting the reality of teaching practice.
We'll also recommend websites, blogs and other resources that will allow you connect with other interesting e-learning topics and practitioners.
Along the way, we'll learn about what works (and a little bit about why), reveal common frustrations and difficulties -- and their solutions -- and hopefully inspire others to get involved too.
Comments from you will always be welcome; in fact, they are expected of you!
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