Friday, 23 May 2008
Places available on eModerating and Online Tutoring course (online)
5 weeks - online - in MoodleStarts 4th June 2008
contact helen@reachfurther.com
I am running an eModerating and Online Tutoring course in partnership with Park Lane College in Leeds. This is an introductory course for those starting to or planning to teach online in HE, FE or even in schools. The format - 5 weeks online in Moodle - is based on successful courses I have run in the past with local, national and international participants and builds on my work with Professor Gilly Salmon at Leicester University. I'm delighted to be able to offer the course to teachers and tutors inside and outside the college as I know that a mix of participants from different institutions will, as in my previous courses, form a lively and mutually supportive community.
Although it's in Moodle, the skills taught are generic and not VLE-specific. Moodle is very easy to use :) £295 plus VAT
More information at http://reachfurther.com/?page_id=82
Contact me for more details helen@reachfurther.com
Labels: courses, e-facilitation, e-moderating, emoderating, Moodle, online learning, online tutor, online tutoring, VLE
posted by Helen Whitehead 2:18 PM
Thursday, 29 November 2007
Accessibility of e-learning materials - why bother (Moodle)?
Why should educational developers and learning technologists make efforts to ensure their e-learning materials are accessible?There is of course the legal side of things in the UK: The Disability Discrimination Act, Part IV 2001(SENDA) requires responsible bodies to anticipate the requirements of disabled people or students and make appropriate adjustments. This applies to all the interactions a student makes with a school, college or University, and includes every element of course delivery.
More importantly, it is about equality of opportunity. One of the reasons I am so passionate about e-learning and online learning is that it is accessible to those who for various reasons cannot access learning in person - thos who cannot get to a face-to-face class by reason of disability, lack of transport, work commitments, young children, etc. etc.
While physical accessibility for those with visual, hearing or motor problems is obviously important, as well as provision for those with dyslexia, clear and unambiguous language should be used to support those whose first language is not the one you are teaching in.
I strongly believe also in ensuring intellectual accessibility - avoiding unecessary jargon, vocabulary and style that excludes some learners. Each subject discipline has a level which it expects its students to reach but one should not make language etc. unnecessarily difficult to understand. There are benefits to all students in clear and unambiguous instructions, and a functional and well-designed navigation and layout.
Moodle, for example, offers the following accessibility features:When creating pages within any VLE, sensible rules to follow are those for ensuring accessibility of any web page.
- Conforms to XHTML 1.0 standards
- Uses stylesheets to control layout.
- Optional stylesheet selector can be implemented.
- Auto-detection - for use on mobile phones, TV sets, consoles and handheld devices.
- If content is web-based using HTML mark-up, then learning content can be used with Screen Readers.
- Works on multiple operating systems and browsers.
- Use simple presentation and design
- Provide meaningful text to hypertext links and a text alternative to images (Moodle forces this)
- Create HTML web pages rather than using proprietary document formats (e.g. Word documents)
- Avoid defining text appearance using tags and font colours
- Remove any unecessary menus, blocks and columns on the page
- Avoid large blocks of italicised text, as these can be hard to read for most users
- Use simple table formatting and avoid creating tables within tables
- Within the course, where possible, open links in the same window
- Include an option for students to compile and print materials
Labels: accessibility, e-learning, VLE
posted by Helen Whitehead 8:27 AM
Monday, 22 October 2007
Links for week commencing 22nd October
Some interesting social software for learning:
Ecto
http://www.ectolearning.com/
Their blurb: "Ecto is a hosted, open networked Personal Learning Environment. Use Ecto to transform learning into an interactive, collaborative, and student centered activity. Ecto is the only learning management system built from the ground up on the principles and architecture of social software."
It's an online service and at the moment you can join for free although it's a commercial offering. At the moment it looks pretty vanilla - it seems to be social networking aimed at learning and teaching, nothing really new about it.
ELGG
http://elgg.org/
Elgg is an open source social platform based around choice, flexibility and openness: a system that firmly places individuals at the centre of their activities. ELGG is being used by a LOT of universities and educational organisations, but you do need a server to run it on so it's not a solution for individuals.Labels: e-learning, education sector, elearning, FE, HE, online learning, social networking, universities, VLE, web applications
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:20 AM
Thursday, 2 August 2007
Levels of Technology/Web/VLE Use in Teaching and Learning
1 Administrative
Syllabi, submission dates, room allocations, last-minute changes, etc.
2 Supplemental
Materials to support the traditional classroom, but not critical to the course (e.g. notes, handouts, slides, reading lists, Internet links).
3 Essential
Students require regular web access to be productive members of the class. Most materials, tasks, assessments available on website. Teachers require ICT literacy and sufficient course development time.
4 Communal
Course website used for communication purposes. Much course content generated through asynchronous discussions, real-time chats, publication of documents, audio and video-conferencing. ‘Design for e-learning’ expertise and e-moderating skills needed.
Blended courses need go no further than this.
5 Immersive
No classroom-based teaching. Courses are taught online.
(with acknowledgment to Dr Ale Armellini)Labels: learning and teaching, learning technologies, levels of transition, VLE, Web 2.0
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:51 AM
