As is often the case with such OU initiatives, Cloudworks seems to be rolling along nicely under its own steam, with a few enthusiasts left on board, but a bit wonky round the edges & largely ignored by the rest of the world. The About page's link to the Cloudworks blog, confidently promises to give 'current information on what we are working on and our plans for the site' but actually returns an error page. It turns out the blog is now somewhere else, but the last entry was in March 2012 & the one before that, in February 2011. Many of the cloudy worlds here are uninhabited, created by well-intentioned visitors who reneged on their divine responsibilities & never returned to carry out their seven days of follow-up work. Search attempts are frustrated by inconsistent tagging - I almost lost the will to live, ploughing through Mind-Maps, MindMap, Mindmap, Mindmapping, Mapping tools, etc., etc. to locate resources to complete an activity. An entirely innocuous comment I tried to post on an existing 'cloud' prompted a stern message informing me that my comment had been identified as possible spam & was awaiting moderation - not a very friendly reception.
My initial explorations concluded somewhat negatively. Invited to give the three words I would use to describe Cloudworks, I offered 'random, inconsistent, time-consuming', observing in my notes:
there's no guarantee a searcher will find anything useful or a contributor will reach an audience. I'm sure there are some treasures in there, but how many of us have time to rummage? It has a kind of nosiness value, to see who is following who, like checking out friends of friends on Facebook, but I doubt that's why it's being funded!
Yet Cloudworks turned out to work really well as a platform for a clearly defined collaborative activity such as the one we were asked to carry out for H800 - posting a design narrative for a learning activity (as a cloud) linking it to fellow students' responses (in a cloudscape) engaging in dialogue around our postings & keeping track of that dialogue (via the cloudstream).
I could envisage Cloudworks being mainstreamed in the OU as a way for tutors to share, compare, discuss tutorial plans & resources for the modules they teach. It's so much more efficient & consistent than the current clunky hotch-potch of VLE-based facilities we use. Perhaps when H800 is over, & I have more time.............
I agree Lynne, I was pleasantly surprised by how well the activity worked. Up until that point my 3 words for Cloudworks would have been exactly the same as yours.
ReplyDeleteDave
Thanks, Dave - it's reassuring to hear that you were initially sceptical, too.
ReplyDeleteMy main reservation about using it professionally is its 'open to the world' nature. Many of my colleagues are VERY possessive about their materials & I suspect they'd be reluctant to share them outside the password-protected OU sites. Still worth considering, though.