e-portfolios

Boney M

Nothing to do with elearning, just light relief.

Discussion boards

Katrina Meyer wrote (as part of her journal article)

If you are considering undertaking research or assessment of student online discussions, be prepared. It is difficult and frustrating, intellectually demanding and demanding of one's time. Nevertheless, additional evaluations of online discussions are needed: we need to know if our current theories of learning and discussion apply to learning and discussion online, whether our decisions as instructors and designers of online activities are having the result intended, and how we can make improvements in practice so that future online discussions are better than those that have gone before.

I fully agree with these comments as many of the studies I have read are in a similar vein and it would be good to see a range of studies that show how we can make improvements to enhance the learning in this environment.

Mark Brown - book chapter

Exploring the continuing (in)significance of elearning drives.

Sauna in Korea

Online communities

Leach, Harrison, McCormick & Moon (2004) discuss the dynamics of online communities. They argue that those designing online learning environments need to give consideration to the infrastructure and the initial stages of the implementation as these are key elements to building a successful online community. I would certainly agree with this as it is so important to have participants easily find their way around the online environment so that the infrastucture is not something they need to focus on but that the content is easily accessed as is the areas where participants are able to build a community spirit.

I had a ring this morning from one of the participants in the group who mentioned how easy she found the online learning environment I had made and how it catered for different styles of learners. I think this is crucial so that again is part of the building of the infrastructure so that all learners feel that they are being catered for.

Online Feedback and Student Perceptions

Journal of Interactive Online Learning
www.ncolr.org/jiol
Volume 5, Number 3, Winter 2006


Great article by Morgan and Toledo - it is about what value students have on handwritten feedback from tutors




as opposed to typewritten (using 'tracking changes' with comments).




Students showed that they valued the handwritten marking, for example one student stated, “I don't know why, but the handwritten
feedback seemed more personal and I feel like I better understood her thoughts.”