Trials & tribulations of an online student

I am just about to complete a course on international students. It was a very intensive 4 week online course. On the positive side it had a good combination of activities and integrated content well. On the slightly negative side there were too many activities and readings for the allotted 4 learning hours per week. The structure for each week went something like:

• Audio overview of the weeks up and coming activities (and a reflection of the previous week after week one) - with transcript which ticks the inclusiveness box
• Essential reading and suggested additional reading
• Collaborative activity in the discussion forum collating outputs in a wiki e.g. short overview; table to complete on a given topic
• Additional discussion with the rest of the group on an issue; challenge; case study

All good online activities.

One of the problems is that this course took place over 2 bank holidays so people were popping in and out including me, which meant the groupwork did not work as well as it could. Maybe the organisers of the course should had thought about these exceptional circumstances in the planning, although, some of the participants were outside of the UK I think the our bank holidays inadvertently may have had an impact on them. It, also, meant that we all did not get to know each other as well as may have been expected, despite a good start with respect to sharing our profiles in the wiki.

The good thing is that the organisers are leaving the course open which will give me the opportunity to reflect on what I have learnt with respect to the subject of teaching international students. Despite the course being quite intense I have picked up quite a few ideas from my fellow participants which I think I could transfer into an online context so blog post on this to follow.

From an eLearning practitioner side to keep up your art of eLearning up-to-date I highly recommend regular doses of being an online student. It help you to get ideas on online activities but also you get the experience from the other side.

I have another online starting in June preparing courses for delivering online (I just wanted to see if I have missed a trick), a few of my colleagues are on that it will be interesting to see how this impacts on the dynamic of the group.