Flexible Learning Course

Image: the first matilijas (very tall poppies) by emdot

The mini conference for Flexible Learning will be on Friday 27 November, between 0930 to 1130, and will be held both online and face-to-face (room H311). This is a week later than anticipated but will hopefully enable more of you to attend.

Please confirm if you will attend - even if your plan is in draft, it will be a great opportunity for you to receive and give feedback and hear others' ideas. Morning tea will be provided as part of the celebration. I hope some of you can attend. You are welcome to invite colleagues to hear about your plan.

If you need to meet beforehand to firm up your plans, please make contact with the facilitators. And be sure and update your blog about your intentions to present or even with a media version of your presentation prior to the event.

At this stage you all should be well into composing your presentation about your own flexible learning plan. Remember, your plan should cover each topic that we have gone over in the course so far. If you need to review the topics or have a closer look at the presentation requirements, see the wiki.

When composing your plan, it would be beneficial if it were posted in a web-based format. Some suggestions for how to do this include:

• A slide presentation with supporting audio published on a popular media sharing network (ie. http://slideshare.net/ or http://myplick.com/)
• Youtube with a webcam on yourself.
• Audio recording of yourself loaded to Blip.tv and/or Archive.org
• A video recording of yourself giving the presentation, and loaded to Google Videos
• A recorded web conference (http://elluminate.tekotago.ac.nz/) or a recorded web presentation (ie. http://ustream.com/)

Ideally, we would like to hold a class mini conference later this month where each of you can present your plan and receive feedback from the class. We will be sending out an email about a date and time for the mini conference, and we will be talking about it at this week's class meetings, but in the mean time, we need you to start thinking about a time when you can present your plan, even if it is only in draft form.
Remember, you can send your draft ideas through to us on email if you wish to get some feedback before the mini-conference or before posting them to your blogs.

Class meetings:

• Face-to-face: Wednesday 11 November - 1200-1300 in H614
• Online: Wednesday 11 November 7pm on web-conferencing meeting link

Image: Room of Empty Chairs by PinkMoose

This is assignment 2. You need to prepare an online presentation. At the same time we are going to push you into using online multimedia of some sort. Your presentation could be another Youtube video. It could be an audio recording, or it could be a slide presentation on Slideshare or Myplick. There are many ways to publish ideas online, these are just a few.

Estimated time: two weeks - 2 to 15 November 2009.

To do

1. Prepare a presentation that outlines your idea for developing flexible learning. In it refer to some things you have learned in this course, and importantly, use your presentation as an opportunity to clearly explain your idea. Think of it as "selling" the benefits of your idea to someone who needs convincing. Your boss, your potential students, a funding agent. As a suggested starting structure:

• Background information that led you to your thinking;
• Blow by blow, what is it you plan to do?
• A day in the life of students who will get to enjoy the flexibility of your course - remember to include considerations such as access and equity, sustainability and cultural sensitivity;
• What do you need? Where will you get it from?

2. Publish your presentation online and embed it into your blog.

3. Give feedback to at least three other participants who have published their presentations to their blogs

What to do with feedback you get on your plan

Once you get feedback on your plan, make sure you write this up on your blog and describe how your plan may have changed as a result. Remember if you wish to illustrate or confirm key points about your plan which others may query, you can link to previous posts you have made on any of the topics. For example, if someone says "but what about sustainability considerations", and you know you have already written a post about this, then you can link to the post. However you may still have to explain how the sustainability issues you previously wrote about relate to your plan as it is now. (The date the post was made is a permalink and by right clicking on this - if using a PC - you can copy it.) If in doubt please ask for help.

We are continuing on with the same topics this week, Access & Equity, Sustainability and Cultural Sensitivity.

Estimated date of completion: 18 October 2009

Access and equity

• Research Universal Design and in a new post to your blog consider how these design principles could be applied in your course or new flexible learning development to support access and equity.

• Post to your blog a brief outline of how you identify yourself culturally, and your understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi (NZ) (or indigenous or ethnic groups in your own country) obligations in your organisation, and how they might be integrated into your teaching.
• Check out the Maori Strategic Framework on Polybase at Otago Polytechnic - this is not available to non-Otago Polytechnic staff - apologies.
• Join a meeting to talk about how we might improve the cultural sensitivity of teaching and learning.

• Face to face - Wednesday 1200-1300 in H614 (there is no meeting 14 October).
• Online - 14 October – 7.30 - 8.30 pm via the Elluminate meeting link (may be subject to change if there is a time that everyone feels is more suitable).

Someday Robots will Rule the World by Oskay

In this topic we will consider some wider issues that affect flexible learning such as sustainability, access and equity, and cultural inclusiveness. As you think about your own flexible learning development ideas, see if opportunities present themselves whereby you may be able to develop more equitable and sustainable practices? In what ways might you offer better services to people from different cultural backgrounds? How might you improve the levels of access and equity your course affords? Can you reduce the demand your course directly or indirectly places on natural resources and ecosystems?

Estimated time: three weeks - 21 September to 18 October 2009 (includes one week semester break). The semester break is: 28 September to 2 October 2009.

Access and equity

• Research Universal Design and in a new post to your blog consider how these design principles could be applied in your course or new flexible learning development to support access and equity.

Cultural sensitivity

• Post to your blog a brief outline of how you identify yourself culturally, and your understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi (NZ) (or indigenous or ethnic groups in your own country) obligations in your organisation, and how they might be integrated into your teaching.
• Check out the Maori Strategic Framework on Polybase at Otago Polytechnic - this is not available to non-Otago Polytechnic staff - apologies.
  
• Join a meeting to talk about how we might improve the cultural sensitivity of teaching and learning.

Meeting dates:

• Face to face - Wednesdays 1200-1300 in H614.
• Online - 23 September and 7 October, 2009 - fortnightly on Wednesday evenings - 7.30 - 8.30 pm via the [1]Elluminate meeting link].

Sustainability

• Because flexible learning often entails self directed, or self paced learning, people can lose sight of what would be a reasonable workload. In a new post to your blog, highlight useful points from Fred Lockwood's paper: Estimating student workload, readability and implications for student learning and progression

• Listen to this partial recording of Anna Hughes facilitating an activity called: Where do you Stand - which got a lunchtime group thinking about issues around sustainability.

Finishing the Activities on this topic

• Finally, write a post to your blog that summarises what you have discovered about the considerations of Access and Equity, Cultural Diversity and Sustainability, and relate them to your own ideas for developing Flexible Learning.
• How do you think you might treat these wider issues when you start developing your flexible learning idea?