Reflection

I just have an aha moment, and it only comes now. I have just realised that I have written a very long essay, and have read and used almost all the readings for this course. I have not only just used them, I have applied and integrated them into understanding my own local context and its politics and culture. This brought to the fore good and not so good experiences. I now understand my colleagues better because of this experience.

My materials developer colleague told me a story of his friend's boss. His boss is doing a survey for his PhD course, and gave each employee the questionnaire to complete, and only about 20% of them completed the task. He decided to call them into a meeting room, and he took out a box of chocolate from his cupboard, and gave each one of them the questionnaire to complete, and he promised them that when they are finished, they will get a slab of chocolate. I now realised, what may have been the issue here: What is it for me? The issue was for him to do the work for after hours, for a fee. And I wanted to learn how to the task myself. I also wanted to learn how to do it. This was the tension. This links well with the role as an online designer as explained by Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland (2005:115-116), which is central to the systematic model of online learning. At least something good came out of this tension.

I guess what I also saw in this particular instance is that I was put in a desperate situation where I had to swallow my own pride and ask. The human dynamics here had to do with the fact that he also felt isolated in process. So, I was at my weak space and he was there too. We needed each other.


 * Question: **If my context does not support what I am studying, even though I believe it is for the benefit of the context, how do I go about addressing it, as an individual? What becomes the role of Higher Education Institutions in this case?

The other issue I had was around the responses from my [|questionnaire]. I think I was pleased with myself when I developed them. I felt they were well thought through. I had a range from 0 to 10 for each question. Working on the range was such a high moment for me. This would meant respondents would have to thing carefully before they respond. To my horror, the first one comes with all 10. I know I don't agree with him, because I know where my flaws are. And I realise I could have asked qualitative questions too. And now I am not happy that I am not going to get the feedback I want. I was however pleased to receive this kind of feedback from Cheryl, which confirmed my thinking. I then revised the [|Online Learner precourse questionnaire]. I look forward to creating an online learning resource that teachers and teacher educators would find useful for their students. These comments are not to read by you, hence the font and colour choices!!

Comment:

As you have developed a Self Quiz on Integers, we assume this is to help learners (no grade mentioned) test themselves on how well they understand integers. While the heading "Introduction to Integers" suggests that you are going to be providing a tutorial of sorts and not just the self assessment, we assume that this is part of the larger plan. The introductory phrase: "In this course you will be introduced to ways of working with integers and their properties", kind of cements this perception! You may need to make a little clearer on your site what exactly you are going to provide so that a reader will know what to expect. I have been through all 35 questions and tried a couple of wrong ones - they are always the most interesting as you have to guess why the students got them wrong and provide suitable feedback. You have provided some very helpful item-specific feedback on a number of these questions, but this will need to be extended to them all, especially 27-35. This is the hardest work in quizzes! The other thing that you need to consider is how you grade these. If you give the students a second time to answer and there are only two options - you encourage guessing and then this is not a reliable measure of what the learners REALLY know. If these results are not going to be used in any summative fashion then this might be ok, but make sure your reasoning is explained in your eportfolio. You might also want to provide an instruction (or explanation) before the quiz that says there are 35 questions and that you can press next to continue and explain the difference between save without submitting etc. as it is not entirely clear what the learner needs to do. You don't have to make any changes to the prototype - merely document what you think you should change in the light of these comments and hopefully the comments from a learner and a peer. CHW

I am more than happy with the way the course has been structured and run, as well as how the e-Portfolio has been used for assessment. For that, I think great! The issue I have is around technologies, and access before and after the contact sessions. This was hard for me but I was not going to give up this time. So, in a space of a month, I had to learn: I think the course should use wikispaces again for the e-portfolio. The lecturers were great and detailed to give comments and support and nudging us not to give up. Now to think of it, Cheryl did say that Gerald and I were using moodle, but I never thought of exploiting that. Perhaps we could have someone within CET, such as an assistant whom we know we could call on or even form a forum before and after we leave the course. I think a structured support system would help.
 * To use moodle for my prototype
 * To use the wikispaces for my e-portfolio
 * To use geogebra to create artwork
 * To prettify everything at the end

The other issue for me is the Enactment Phase. I think this is the crucial and challenging one of the three phases. I read it and I read other articles on it, and reviews of Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, and I can only say, I still have not yet internalised it. Perhaps making students responsible for presenting it during session time and spending more time operationalising it would help.

Thank you, I hope you have enjoyed reading my work.