Hello Siti and All!
What you have planned sounds really good to me, but it must be tedious to have to travel to regional centres to visit your students? You wrote: “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 assume that the online activities are there when the students went their separate way. As such, I think your strategy of making use of every opportunity (such as tutorials and discussions) to have the students to know one another better and therefore support each other in virtual space is great!
Are you including the “Post it” activity we did in Week 2 for the first 10 days? I heard of one icebreaker recently where they call it the Martian Stare! Each student jolts down what they s/he thinks of the other ie. favourite car, food, music etc (no sign language or body language allowed) before exchanging information about each other. Apparently it was quite hilarious.
Also I think your allocation of one Emoderator per 10 students is great! Only the cynical me is wondering how long before the administrators clamp down on the budget and have a ratio of 1:20 instead? It is not uncommon in uni. to have a lecturer facilitating 30 p/g students in an online course.
As for fasting, I often wonder how one can manage to abstain from food for so long??? I would not be able to do it! Wow! Hats off to you, Siti!
Thanks Siti, is great to keep in touch
Jenny
Siti wrote at October 27, 2003 06:13 PM
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.
Dear Siti, Vicki, Wenda and All
Thought I start a new thread so we can all get the alert to read the postings.
Thank you so much for each of your responses and suggestions.
Siti’s suggestion of an introductory f2f, Vicki’s observations that f2f meetings generate much high participation rate and the need to have really structured activity plus Wenda’s timely reminder of the importance of being valued and the support from peers – all points towards one thing: there is no better plan the existing strategy. And as suggested by both Siti and Vicki, develop a plan as I move along.
I don’t know why but somehow, after reading all your messages, I feel much more confident than I was.
Thanks heaps! Folks!
Jenny
Hello All!
Was trying to post the following queries last Friday but was unable to log in …until Saint Kirsty (Yes, I have promoted her to sainthood too for starting this weblog!) came to my rescue!
I was sharing with my Supervisor about my success and experience in the Emoderating course. I felt privileged to be able to count myself part of this exciting online community and expressed concerns about my ability to generate the same level of success and enthusiasm in my forthcoming modules…..indicating that perhaps I should have a contingency plan just in case!
Which brings me to the aim of this email. 2 questions if I may:
1) Do any of you intend to have a contingency plan, if Stage 1& 2 did not generate the level of bonding that is necessary for subsequent activities? Makes me wonder if Saint Val actually has Plan B in her strategy kit? :-)
2) Do you think the process (ie. the activities) is robust enough to be able to lure the participants to stay in the course and complete the course even if they are not as committed eg. not logging in everyday and only once in a while to complete the activities?
I would be most grateful for any feedback and comments
Jenny
On our Radio National yesterday was a program about relationships that begin online. In one case the intercontinental email phase had led to engagement, but the f2f phase failed, almost on first sight.
In the discussion of this, someone commented that as soon as you involve the written word you have fiction (this wasn't said cynically, or implying intended deception - just as an observation). Interesting - I'm sure many of our greatest writers would protest that they have used the written word as a vehicle for the real truth.
During the course we discussed possible advantages of being "unseen" and "heard" differently in online situations. I hadn't considered the notion of it being "fiction". Deep and philosophical? Anyone else find the concept intriguing, or should I have just changed the station?
Cheers
Kathi
Just thought I'd update everyone on the whereabouts of Kirsty.
Last seen trying to keep her eyes open yesterday afternoon at a workshop in Sydney that we both attended, following on from a "pleasant" occasion, involving a little wine, the previous evening.
Better keep those Beroccas handy for the rest of the week, Kirsty!
Cheers for now.
Kathi
this sound interesting look forward to hearing what you learn!!!I'm just beginning a new online course on 1st November - all of my group are in Nepal so it's an interesting challenge!!!
Vicki
Hi All,
It's great to see that people are dropping into the weblog. This week I'll be interstate and may not have regular internet access as I'm lucky enough to be going to Networking 2003 a conference about flexible learning, so I'll report back any things I think may be of interest.
Kirsty
I facilitated a f2f workshop today.
One participant had me working SO hard - seemed stone faced, I didn't think I had buy in, etc, comments seemed OK but body language said "No way".
He thanked me greatly at the end, told me how much he enjoyed it and how much he got out of it.
It turns out he was dog tired from some strenuous activity yesterday.
Now, in an online situation, his comments would have come across OK and I wouldn't have been SIDETRACKED by his physical signs.
A situation where lacking those signs can occasionally help?
(Boy, did I work super hard on him with no real reason!)
Kathi
Hello one and all I thought I left a message here yesterday but /i obviously did not!!! So here goes I'm trying again...hopefully I 'll be successfulnow (-:
Vicki
Hi Everyone,
There are a few features of this system that I'd like to draw your attention to:
1: Posting a Comment, then viewing all the comments from the main page.
2: Putting a URL/hyperlink in a post
3: Editing an Entry
I've found these all really useful to know (especially that last one when I realise I've left something out or my speed typing has got away from me)
So your initial task is to discover how to do at least 1 of these actions that you didn't know already and posting a comment in response to this post explaining how to complete these actions. If you discover something else in the Help function here that you think others would find useful include that also.
Hello Kirsty and Everyone!
Found my way here...thanks to Kirsty's clear instructions. So posting a short email to test if the notification is working...see you all this evening!
Thank you once again Kirsty for all your hard work....we are much indebted indeed! [e-courstey]
Cheerio
Jenny
I came across this weblog entry about the use of "blogs in education" and thought it may be of interest to this group (especially as we are experimenting with one here!).
It includes a matrix that summarises it nicely in my mind.
Kirsty
You are brilliant!
SO grateful to have email notification system in place. This is what really keeps me involved in online forums. Funny how just that extra effort of having to go into the web can deter you, isn't it, but if you have an email notification to inspire you, it's so much more effective.
Well done and thank you!
Kathi
Hi Everyone,
After a some wandering in the wilderness of weblogs, I've discovered a nifty setup that will automatically send a daily list of that day's posts in the early morning USA time. To subscribe to this free service, there is now a subscribe box in the left-hand menu.
After you enter your email address and click subscribe you will be redirected to another site www.bloglet.com and presented with the following confirmation message "You have successfully subscribed to e-moderating Sparks!
Your Bloglet password has been emailed to you.
from here you can return to e-moderating Sparks,
or visit your Bloglet subscription manager."
I'd suggest storing this password somewhere safe for future reference.
Cheers,
Kirsty
Hi all participants, it's great isn't it that Kirsty has set this up for us, three cheers for Kirsty. I will value being part of the group but not the one in " charge "
I would be sad to have to say Goodbye to all of you this way we can continue to share our challenges and support each other.
Thanks a million Kirsty Val
Hi everybody,
Just to inform that I have login. Thanks Kirsty to make this possible. My email address: sctan@imu.edu.my (Office) or chengts @pd.jaring.my (Residence)
Soh Cheng
It's really easy to use !
Many thanks for setting this up for us :)
Grace
Hello everyone, I have found the site and made my way here. Kirsty, can you reply to a message - that is can they be threaded? Or do we always need to create new entries?
Also, you mentioned that we could notify our email address when a new entry is entered. Do you know how to do that?
This is fantastic. Really looking forward to staying in touch and sharing ideas.
Wenda
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