OU Conf: user-generated content etc

Darrel Ince – Let the students do it

Big idea: The student generated course.

e-Learning course – students learn about e-learning (20 weeks), then develop a course (12 weeks), use that as assignment. Select the best on TMA mark and rework them into a course.

We define the structure – the main chunks – for the students to develop. Give them the learning outcomes. “We don’t want anarchy” but may encourage it later. 15h chunk, done in collaboration with another student. A process for assigning topics.

The course is generic. Could get used very widely, incl beyond the OU.

Final draft May, Oct 2009 first presentation. Topic is Web 2.0.

Also got funding to get 120 students to write a book for us on computer music; partnership with OUP and local print-on-demand shop.

IPR issue – all Creative Commons?

John Woodthorpe, Jill Shaw, Mirjam Hauck and Tita Beaven –
User-generated course content: its application in ICT and language courses

John blames Tony for this.

fOUndit – Open Source CMS – collect, share and rate online resources. Basically links to relevant URLs that live beyond the course – social bookmarking – very very similar to Digg.

Pilot with T175 and L314 Spanish and L315 German. Languages students picking it up much more than T175 people. Interested in potential for gathering user-generated course content. Library involved too.

Karma system for rewarding/recognising valuable contributions. Important thing is not the quality of the resource you find, but the quality of your analysis.

Login credentials is interesting – don’t know if people really are OU students. OpenID might be the solution – Alex Little has openid.open.ac.uk working – an OU OpenID server, login with your OUCU – needs people to use it or it’ll fade away and die.
Terry di Paolo – U122 Recognising acheivement

Audience – little to no post-compulsory educ, paid and voluntary work.

APEL – need to be clear about what we want them to do and what past learning is.

30 pts, MCT host, 25 wks, 1st pres Nov 2007, 12 students and 2 tutors, 3 eTMAs + ECA. All online.

First four units – think about past learning and what we mean (4wks). Last three units (20 wks) analysing, looking across learning experiences, plan next steps. Record work in MyStuff. Experiences verified by manager/supervisor as a true representation.

Students like it. Desirable to employers, workers don’t want a degree/diploma; stepping stone to HE. Unions supporting. Accreditation of prior learning – not what the course is doing, it’s more using prior learning as material for a course, the credit is for the analysis.

Credit Transfer Centre – interesting links and issues.

Could be a very open offering? Tutors mainly do assessment – vital bit of course. Tutors also important in clarifying what is meant by a learning experience. So not entirely decoupleable.

Could be really interesting to accredit the actual learning experiences too, to give credit at multiple levels.

Author: dougclow

Data scientist, tutxor, project leader, researcher, analyst, teacher, developer, educational technologist, online learning expert, and manager. I particularly enjoy rapidly appraising new-to-me contexts, and mediating between highly technical specialisms and others, from ordinary users to senior management. After 20 years at the OU as an academic, I am now a self-employed consultant, building on my skills and experience in working with people, technology, data science, and artificial intelligence, in a wide range of contexts and industries.

%d bloggers like this: