Forums aren't open yet for the collaborative parts, but I appear to have finished the first week's readings, & the activity responses are ready to go....
The main theme was Demolition of Myths. This was quite handy since my own tutoring work has just involved marking student assignments on the distinction between propaganda-based myth & evidence-based historical explanations in the context of Stalin's reputation(s).
(Positive myth #2: glorious war leader & saviour of the nation)
For H800, the bogeyman is sensationalist commentators who foment moral panic by lecturing us about the 'net generation', 'digital natives vs digital immigrants' & worse still, the 'Google generation'. All tosh, it seems. Some young people are quicker at this ICT stuff than us wrinklies, but some of them aren't, & they're all different from each other anyway. The sky is not about to fall in as a result of being rudely poked by multi-tasking youngsters taking a break from their iPods & Playstations to plagiarise their homework.
Nice to have some pretty graphs to confirm what I already suspected.
So I started anyway...
Week 1 begins gently with an overview of the module themes & a few readings, nicely interspersed with navigation tips, revelation that our experience of H800 is itself part of the subject matter & a cautionary note about tutors' working hours.
Immediately ejected from my comfort zone by being asked to answer an icebreaker question: something unusual about myself? Hmm. do I write about my cross-faculty wanderings (I've studied & taught modern languages, ICT, humanities from art history to philosophy) & make myself sound like an unbearable show-off? Or about my stranger personal habits & convince everyone that 'I'm a freak, I'm a weirdo'?
Make frantic notes about comfort zones, learner preferences, inhibitions & their potential to impede successful learning experiences.
Realise I've been sucked into having a successful learning experience.
Play Radiohead again.
My first visit to the H800 module website was frustrating. The site was open, but only one of the forums; the study planner was displayed, but none of the assessment links were active. Even when things go live properly on 2nd February it seems the content & assessment tasks are to be unveiled at carefully calculated intervals.
Now that's fine for people who study at carefully calculated intervals. I don't. I'm a binge studier, always have been, probably always will be. I'm also a worrier. Putting these things together means I like to have my study materials available & to know in advance what I'll need to do with them. I can then make my own decisions about how & when to do my learning. Isn't this what independent learning is all about?
More to the point of H800, shouldn't it be an option for online learners, especially at postgraduate level? It's quite disappointing that the (entirely appropriate) online delivery of this module seems to be being used as an excuse to perpetuate a patronising teacher-knows-best attitude to learning. 'Please Sir, can I have some more?' 'No, come back when we say it's time for your next crumbs!' 'But next week I have 30 assignments to mark/an operation coming up/my family visiting & I want to get ahead.' 'Tough.'
This isn't just a rant, of course. I know there are as many arguments in favour of slow-release learning materials as against. What I wanted to capture was the first raw emotional reactions, not necessarily logical/rational, but no less real. If I, as an experienced online learner, online tutor, advocate of online learning, feel briefly upset, hostile, even alienated by decisions taken by the providers of my next online learning experience, how much more likely is it that my own students - new to Higher Education, new to online learning - will find their learning impeded by such reactions?
It's been a while since I blogged. Lots of water has flowed under many bridges. I'm now on a race to complete my MA(ODE) before I retire...
