E-moderating Sparks

Hallo everyone,

Just thought I'd let you know that I have made an attempt to see what everyone is doing post -emoderating. Looks like there's some exciting development with Wenda, Kirsty, Kathi and Jenny. You are already putting to practice what you have just learnt - how wonderful.

Me? I'm having a small break - everything at work is fairly quiet to-day. Many are still on vacation due to the Hindu Festival of Lights on Friday. To-morrow all will be back to normal - so I can expect a lot of traffic on the road as well as noise here.

Being a Muslim, I have started to fast today - this will go on for 29 or 30 days -during this holy month of Ramadan. We fast at dawn and will break fast at dusk - about 18.5 hours of nothing (no water, no food, no evil thoughts too)but pure goodness in our heart. I always enjoy the fasting month as it really gives me a chance to lose a bit of weight and make me realise how I don't really need to eat all the time.

I will have to seriously start working on the online course content - and hopefully I will be able to make it work just as well as what we had gone through. It will be tough as we are going to have 50 students - but there will be five of us moderating - so I hope that we can handle at least 10 students each and get them communicaion with each other.

By the way, i tried to log in using the passwprd given (emod) but have been having a problem as it kept saying invalid password. Have you changed the password by any chance? I will make another attempt later and see what will happen this time.

Nice to be in touch again.
Cheers and have a nice day.
Siti R

Hello Jenny,

Thought I might give a try and see how you feel about my plan. I plan to have all the students to come in initially to the campus and get to know one another face to face. During the 10 days that they will be on campus, we will get them to identify with each other so that when they go online, they will be able to visualise each other and that may promote greater discussion and participation among themselves.

The course I am planning will be a blended mode - some face-to-face sessions with online and printed materials given. The on-line session would be to provide the support and friendship among the students.

I don't think I have any contingency plan as yet - it will have to be as I progress and as students evaluate the effectiveness of the online course. The blended mode that I will be using will require that I also travel out to meet the students at certain regional centres over a weekend in between the semester. During this time, i will be able to further ensure that they get to know each other as I can plan for tutorials and discussions.

Jenny, I think the best thing to do is to see how your first session goes and from there you would be able to have an idea of the kind of contingency plan to have.

Good luck in your planning. Of course you can always get Saint Val to let us share some of her ideas occasionally!

Siti R

Hello Jenny (and others!!)
I think the suggestion that you make a start and hten develop acontingency plan based on what happes makes good sense. I've just started with three new courses with the OU - the first one is a group doing a certificated course and they have some online work and face to face tutorials...I've found htat the group memebers who have already met usually contribute more so Sits's suggestion about getting the students to meet certainly seems to work well in practice. What iI think is important is that we have clear structured activities...and clear signposts so tha tparticpants know what they need to do.
Which brings me onto my second group of students - they are all in Nepal and the course is online (althouhh I will go out to Kathmandu in december and April for a residential). What I've decided to do as a direct result of the course is to make the activities much more structured and take the students though a sequence like the one we went through...so my first activity is for each particpanyt to post a few sentences on the view from outside their window (I used to ask them to say something about themselves, their work and the view from their window)...the next activity is to say something about themselves and their work adn why they are doing the course..so I'm making it more structured than previously. I don't have a contingency plan other than I will contact anyone who does not parpticipate and encourage them to do so.
Hope these thoughts are of use
Vicki

Hello all

I made a very similar point in my belated evaluation I just completed for Val. I wish we had been a little less compliant, so that we could experience some of Val's contingencies. with an active and eager group like we were, it certainly is a much easier task for the emoderator.

I think as others have mentioned, key to getting me involved was actually feeling valued and even missed if I wasn't there. Val emailing me when I was absent and seeing notes from others to welcome me back etc, certainly helped. Using the student tracking tool is something I would like to do a lot more. How often have they been on line, when was the last time they were on line etc and send encouraging emails if there are any gaps.

Any thoughts?

Wenda

Oh Yes, and like Siti, I can no longer log in????

Hi all,
Yes, I guess the issue is what CAN you do as a contingency?
If you have planned as well as possible, tried to anticipate potential problems, all you can do is closely monitor to make all the strategies that we have discussed are used to full effect in the most timely fashion (and maybe use this blog for ongoing discussion of progress).
I mean, you can't really change to f2f or mail-based if online falls apart mid-module (can you?).
You can only plan, monitor, finetune and keep improving (and if you employ half the strategies you have with us, you'll do just fine, I'm sure!)
Kathi
(PS Siti, very impressed at your religious observance - although weightloss does sound a value added bonus. For myself I barely used to get through the far more lenient observances of my very Catholic childhood of many decades ago.)

Hallo Kathi and Jenny

Fasting during the month of ramadan is easy because everyone (sort of) is fasting too - so it is just that you miss a couple of meals, that's all. I usually wake up early at 5.00am and have an early breakfast - because fastinf starts at 5.30am - then I go to work and just miss out on my tea breaks and lunch. When I get back after work - I start cooking and we break fast at 7.00pm - so it is as though you have had a busy day at work and missed out on your meals!!!

I had problem fasting when I was in the UK way back in 1985 and it was summer time - when fasting began at 4.00am and breaking of fast was
at 9.45pm. I could not complete the one month - as I was really exhausted. But, in 1973 when I was in UK, fasting was during winter and it was a dream because fasting started at 7.30am and ended at 3.45pm - so it depends on the season. This is because the Muslim calendar is short of 12 days of the normal calendar. In Malaysia - it is always the same - 5.30am to about 7.00pm.
Another good thing, during this time, we have what we call as food bazaar for breaking fast. So many kinds of delicacies are sold at the bazaar - you don't even need to cook if you are too tired - you buy and take home all the wonderful dishes available. Of course this defeats the purpose of fasting (we are supposed to understnad how people feel when they lack food and drink - so that we can emphathise with the poor) as some people tend to overeat during this period. But then Malaysia is famous for it's food - and you will find even non-Muslims are busy buying the food sold at the bazaar - as some of the dishes are not available all the time - only during this season. I know some of my non Muslim friends who look forward to the fasting month because of the food bazaar!
Looks like I am giving a very long lecture on fasting. Interesting eh!
Regards,
Siti R