As promised, here's a link to the presentation I gave at the recent OU Curriculum conference:
OU Curriculum Conference: Curriculum innovation across boundaries Jan 17-18, 2006.
Course in progress: involving students in real-time course production
Tony Hirst, Ches Lincoln & Chris Bird
Abstract
In December 2005, the Faculty of Technology launched two online discussion based study groups on behalf of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY) covering the topics 'Robotics' and 'Design for the Web'.
The aim of the discussion groups is to expose high achieving schoolchildren aged 14-18 to HE course materials and undergraduate level academic discussion on a range of relevant topics (one or two per month).
The discussion environment we are using is First Class, with a customised web based interface, closely coupled to samples of web page based OU course materials taken from the Technology Short Course Programme courses T183 and T184.
Rather than work to a fully predetermined curriculum, we aim to be responsive to the interests of the participants. Consequently, we are developing a model whereby users can influence the choice of discussion topics by their suggestions in a special Crucible conference. Popular topics can then be 'bubbled up' as full blown 'timetabled' discussion topics in to the full Study Group work areas.
This approach tends towards a student-led topic selection model, mediated by the group moderators, that allows topics to covered to a depth useful and appropriate to the needs of the group's members.
Personal reflection is supported by the provision of a personal learning journal, which participants can use to reflect on their own personal learning journey through each discussion topic.
Biographies
Tony Hirst – Lecturer, Dept. of ICT, Co-convenor Robotics Outreach Group, fundholder OU/NAGTY online Academic Study Groups project
Ches Lincoln – Phoenix/FirstClass System Administrator, Faculty of Technology
Chris Bird – Associate Lecturer, Technology Short Course Programme FirstClass conference moderator
The presentation is annotated, in places, with comprehesive notes (that get cut off in occasion o the PDF - anyone know how to fix this?)
- Download presernation as PDF
- Download presernation as a Powerpoint presentation
PS for those with access to the OU intranet, there is now a Curriculum Conference website with copies of keynotes, individual presentations etc.
Update: a discussion area to support the conference was set up after the fact (March 17th) on one of the many Moofle installations that the OU has around the campus now! Since the initial announcement post, there have been - err - no postings... Hmmm....
Posted by ajh59 at January 19, 2006 09:35 AM