Week 12 Activity 5 – Choose a technology…impact on Teaching and learning May 7, 2009

Identify a form of technology used in an educational context – desktop video conferencing tools such as Elluminate, WIMBA, Adobe Connect to provide synchronous online classrooms use by WBS on the MBA programmes for distance learning/blended learning students to reduce the “virtual” distance between students around the world and Warwick academics.

1. What do you think is the likely impact of this technology on the students’ perceptions of the quality of their courses, their approaches to studying and their academic performance?

Week 12 Activity 4 – Response to Eddy’s comments May 6, 2009

Eddy in his blog said:

I am surprised that the students stated preferences for one type of delivery of tutorial support to another is not treated as a highly significant variable against which this conclusion must be weighed. (p.76)  Isn’t it possible that students who manage to register for the course with their preferred form of tutorial are already predisposed to being satisfied with their style of tutorial of choice?  It is not stated whether the Price et all survey was of students who had been free to choose which form of tutoral support they had.

Perhaps a more telling experiment (although possibly ethically unjustifiable) would be for students to experience the mode of tutorial that they do not prefer and to assess their satisfaction in this situation.  Presumably, for example, a student who would have preferred online tutorial support because of their need for flexibility might well be expected to express a fairly high degree of disatisfaction with the experience of an “enforced” face2face tutorial system.

Do other people think that we are all inclined or disposed to assess favourably our preferred options?

I recognise that alongside a preferred option may well be a set of expectations that have to be satisfied in order for a student to express genuine satisfaction – nevertheless I continue to believe that the predisposition towards positive assessment of the preferred option needs to be factored into the analysis that Richardson and also Price offer.

I respondedwith this comment which I wanted to record here as it was quite reflective on past learning and how this experience on B700 actually conflicts with both Prices and Richardson’s research findings. Am I just a freak?

I felt the same as you – I took the same overall conclusion, and was frustrated to have had to read so much but maybe that’s my approach to academic articles – I skipped over the methodology and results bit but wonder whether someone more used to reading and intepreting such articles would have read it in detail and then been able to pick apart the discussion more analytically? So this leads to me to agree with your point about students would of course rate something unsatisfactory if they were forced to do something they didn’t want to, and how could their comments be valid if they hadn’t experienced the other. It’s very subjective as he identified in the 2005 article, there are many other things that influence a students’ satisfaction.

I commented in my blog earlier that “If they’ve never experienced it before to the extent that they have experienced face to face teaching then how can they make that assumption. People are always going to be more comfortable with what they know best.”

I want to tell you about my experience on one of the OU Business Studies courses (B700) PG Diploma in Management. There was the option to do a f2f residential or an online version. Everyone on the course had heard rumours of how much more work was involved in doing the online version so those of us who could, opted for the f2f resi. And despite me normally being a very “deep” learning, I was very strategic at this and just did enough to satisfy the participation regulations and in the end was disatisfied with the experience. Had I done the online version I suspect I would have been more deep in my approach and probably been more satisfied of gaining more from me efforts.

Week 12 Activity 4 – comparing attitudes to online and face to face tutorials May 6, 2009

Read: Richardson, J. (2009) Face-to-Face Versus Online Tutoring Support in Humanities Courses in Distance Education , Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 2009; 8; 69 -85 http://ahh.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/1/69 (accessed 6th May 2009)

This article tested the Price et al findings, by testing the different evaluations of students on 2 different humanities courses, delivered in the 2 different ways. The results found that PRices’ claims were pretty much valid and that the reasons why there were some negative comments about online tutoring on Price’s multidiscplinary courses was as he suggested, due to the fact the tutors are less competent at covering a multidiscplinary course than a single subject that they are an expert in.

1. Bearing in mind what I said earlier about the role of rhetoric in reports of educational research, do you find my conclusion – that institutions can feel confident about exploring the use of online forms of tutorial support – a convincing one?

I find this article very easy to read. I admit to jumping past the methodology and results sections as for me the most important bits are the introduction and discussion; but this shows in a way how we have to rely on the robust activities of authors if we are to skim through such articles. Hence relying on peer reviewed journals only is advisable. I did found the conclusion convincing in the context of these two courses; but the end results of the students weren’t obvious in the sections I read, just their opinions. I do challenge the fact, which the author admits, that you cannot force students to take one type of course over an other so to really measure the differences is difficult.

2. How do the accounts given in these two papers fit with your own experience of online tutorial support in H800?

Well it wasn’t until I read Richardson(2009) that I realised the online tutorial being written about was an asynchronous tutorial; I really thought Price was talking about an online tutorial like Elluminate. So first, there is a need to define the terminology used in each article to be sure you interpret the findings for your own context correctly.

In my experience of H800, I have found the online tutorial support (ie the forums) to be excellent. The things that are important to me are the tutor seeming to be “ever present” and participating in the forum with us; a evidence commitment to our success (eg feedback and opportunties to ask questions about TMAs); taking opportunities to let students take the lead. My experience on H800 has been far better than the 2 other online supported OU courses I’ve done; now would that mean if I did the RASI and the CEQ on these courses, my scores would not concur with the ressearch results here. Or are the tutors on this course working extra hard as they knew that in Week 12 we’d be critiquing their input like this.

What is interesting that with my current tutor, I feel quite comfortable in being honest and direct with her. As we read earlier in the course, about students feeling more comfortable with being less reserved in online forums, this can be common. But I’m not sure if it’s just her style of tutoring that invites this informal participative approach in me or if it is because it’s an online forum.

Richardson’s research found that people’s choices around taking face-to-face versus onlnie tutored courses was because, mainly, a feeling of comfort or not with technology, levels of flexibility enabled by the asynchronous tutorial and access to technology or disability issues. Where people felt less comfortable with online work, or as we have at work people who think “it’s not the same” – we need to overcome is people’s attitudes to online working. If they’ve never experienced it before to the extent that they have experienced face to face teaching then how can they make that assumption. People are always going to be more comfortable with what they know best.

I’m not surprised that the Openings course had less deep learning and more negative opinions about assessment as these courses are aimed the education-shy/deprived.

I’m certain that Richardson’s writing style has something to do with my favourable opinion of this article, if you compare it to the agressive nature of one of the debaters in the Economist debate who alienated me because of his approach.

Week 11 Activity 4 – Cost and elearning May 4, 2009

Activity 4a UKeUniversity which collapsed after spending about £50 million.

Activity 4b The next article was about how to measure the cost of elearning and comparisons with non-elearning courses.