Countdown to FSLT16: Crazy fun grown up?

There have been and still are some challenges in getting FSLT16 ready to run. The course has grown in complexity since it was first run in early 2012. I have spent a lot of time trying to recover some of the earlier simplicity. In a way this parallels the path that all MOOCs have taken. … Continue reading Countdown to FSLT16: Crazy fun grown up?

Academic Practice in practice?

What is the model and purpose of academic practice development? Producing 21st C Cardiff graduates in your discipline? There are two pillars of Welsh Government policy: Social justice is as important as a buoyant economy. Nationality is an issue. Language is an issue. A concept of privilege pervades the process. Much is made of the Welsh context. A … Continue reading Academic Practice in practice?

Sharks and TELephants

  The challenge for technology enhanced learning (TEL) is that it not be used to impoverish people. Let me begin to explain. I can help you teach. I may be deluded, of course, but it is none the less something I believe and something that I can act on with an established and evolving repertoire. … Continue reading Sharks and TELephants

Tealab? TEL me about it

Reviving Tealab: Tealab is explicitly a Teaching Laboratory and discussion "space". There are a number of excellent initiatives across the university that lap over the territory. When Tealab was set up it was intended to replace the Learning and Teaching  Forum (LTF),  with a focus on people (possibly "younger" whatever that might mean) interested in … Continue reading Tealab? TEL me about it

Flipping questions

These are the questions about flipped teaching that we will be discussing: Why would you reduce the time spent on "homework" and increase the time given to didactics? Is the significant difference only that texts are presented as multimedia? How do you design for the periods between class? Is higher education is moving from a … Continue reading Flipping questions

Widening Participation Working Group Away Day (Oxford Brookes University)

Semi-live notes from very interesting and data filled Oxford Brookes University Widening Participation Working Group Away Day at Marston Road. (Of 30 people in the room only one obviously black man and two Asian women. Matches our BME student profile? c. 10%) The day was framed by demographics about where Brookes sits, and politics in … Continue reading Widening Participation Working Group Away Day (Oxford Brookes University)

First Steps Again

FSLT15 is off to an easy start so far. It will be interesting to see how many attend the webinar on Monday. There are about 60 participants signed up and about 26 are taking the course for University Credit (10 credits CATS level 7, M-level). The course is validated and acceptable on 3 programmes: The … Continue reading First Steps Again

Implementing the new blended learning

Having written, "Where is the new blended learning? Whispering corners of the forum" with Richard Francis (Francis & Roberts 2014), I and colleagues are starting to develop underpinning frameworks for communication and dissemination and to suggest programme developments and tools for teaching. The following abstract for a 45 minute workshop session, submitted to a conference … Continue reading Implementing the new blended learning

Drop ins: MOOCs and the price of learning

As an undergraduate in the US in the early 1970s, it was not uncommon for there to be people in our classes "auditing" the course. (Auditing in the sense, "listening", i.e. attending but not enrolled.) While auditing was supposed to be governed by regulations there were a range of practices from entirely informal dropping in, … Continue reading Drop ins: MOOCs and the price of learning