Friday 2 March 2007

Beyond e-moderating

I've just finished doing a course called Beyond e-moderating and need to get together with two other colleagues who've also done it to see if it's worth running at our university.

There's an ambiguity to the title: beyond e-moderating in the sense of 1) more advanced/developed e-moderating or 2) there's more than just discussion boards now.

The course seems to want to keep both possibilities available in tension: more of the same (albeit extended and developed) for some people, other things (inc. blogs and wikis) for others.

On the recent course I was on, some participants expressed a scepticism of blogs and wikis (why though if they're already signed up to the value of online interaction through discussion boards?). Others, however, enjoyed engaging with other tools for online publication and collaboration.

I think it would be interesting to run the course internally but I think I'd like to see more on the use of blogs and wikis (possibly even something on synchronous working - virtual classroom or IM) in the context of the bigger picture of getting students to reflect, publish, give, receive and act on feedback, work together, generate and share ideas collaboratively etc..

I don't think that there's one right tool for all of these kinds of different but overlapping activities.

1 comment:

jupidu said...

Hi Tony,

I like to read your reflections about our course.

Starting in 2002 we offered many train the trainer courses including eModeration for university teachers and we mixed a lot of tools: forum, chat, telefone conference, group rooms, ...

For not so experienced users these tools were too much and no energy was left for working and reflection on competences of moderation, cooperation and so on.

For that I love the "normal" Gilly Salmon course - only discussion forum. The participants sometimes complain but they are focussed on the process itself and learn a lot.

Bye, Jutta
PS: That was my most intensive learning during the advanced course: how I struggleg with your WIKI :-)