From time to time I use a system called OU Live. OU Live is a software application that tutors use to deliver learning events (such as tutorials) through their computer. It’s taken me quite some time to get used to it because teaching through OU Live is very different to teaching face to face.
When I first learnt about OU Live it immediately stuck me that there were loads of things that that you could do in during face to face tutorials that you certainly can’t do in OU Live. I really enjoy planning and running face to face tutorials; they are a great opportunity to share your enthusiasm about the subject that you’re teaching. They are also a great opportunity to learn from your students and to immediately understand what aspects of your tuition works and what aspects don’t work.
Teaching ‘electronically’ is very different: it’s harder to get a more direct connection with your students and it’s also difficult to know whether certain concepts are understood well enough so you can move to other topics: it’s more difficult to see ‘the whites of their eyes’!
Over time, I have been persuaded that OU Live offers some really great opportunities for students. Although you can do things in face to face settings that you can’t do in OU Live, I’ve also come to see that the opposite is also true: you can do things in OU Live sessions that you can’t in face to face sessions. I’ve also realised that one of the challenges for the university is how to share best practice in how to use OU Live not only between tutors, but also between module teams.
This blog post aims to summarise my understanding of different ways that OU Live can be used; it is a post that connects with the broad idea of ‘OU Live pedagogy’. It aims to share some ideas about how it can be used during the presentation of an OU module. Some of these approaches have been picked up by chatting with colleagues, and others are methods that are currently used today. I’ve also added a couple of approaches that I’ve invented (but other people might have also thought of them too).
In essence, I’m posting this as a really rough ‘grab bag’ of tentatively named pedagogic tools that I hope someone might find useful. If you have any comments, or have accidentally found this useful, do get in touch.
On-line tutorials
When I first started to use OU Live I used it to replace face-to-face tutorials. There are two situations where I’ve needed to do this. One of the modules that I tutor is completely on-line; students can be from different parts of the country (or even different parts of the world). In this situation, face to face tutorials are obviously impossible: the only thing that we can do is to run OU Live sessions.
Another situation was where I wasn’t able to physically get to a tutorial due to a scheduling clash. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to reschedule the event for the weekend since the new date would then be too close to the TMA cut-off date. To get around this problem, I decided to run an evening OU Live tutorial, which I then recorded. I was pretty surprised that a good number of students came along to the session (including some students who were never able to get to the face to face sessions).
In some respects, an OU Live tutorial can become a bit like a face to face tutorial (if you plan it well). A tutor can present materials, do some talking, set up activities, ask for student responses, and even get students to work on a shared task by putting them into ‘breakout rooms’: there is a lot that is similar. There are, however, some differences. OU Live sessions can be pretty tiring for the tutor. A tutor can’t just ‘glance across’ a classroom to see what is going on. Instead, a tutor has to engage with a cognitively demanding interface and very regularly request students to ‘do stuff’, to ensure that their attention is maintained. Tutors might also be faced with technical issues of challenges to contend with, i.e. some students might not have microphone headsets, they might have connected up the microphone jack to the headphone jack, or they might have set the volume setting so low that they can’t hear anything at all.
Another point is that sometimes the material designed for a face to face session might not be easily transferrable to an OU Live session because it just isn’t appropriate. Students can’t write things on pieces of paper and exchange notes, or move to an empty space in a room (with the intention of demonstrating a physical concept or idea). For an OU Live tutorial to work and work well, tutors (and, arguably the module team), need to come up with a learning design that is appropriate for the on-line environment. Also, tutors and students need to be given some time so that they become familiar with the on-line environment.
I believe that an OU Live session can replace certain aspects of a face to face session, as long as they are designed with a lot of care and attention. A final point is that an OU Live session shouldn’t go on for as long as a face to face session. Longer sessions, for some reasons, just don’t seem to feel right. We all need a break from looking into a screen.
Demo tutorials
A couple of months ago, I was alerted to some OU Live training materials (OU VLE) which shows how you might use OU Live during tutorial sessions (you might have to have ‘tutor permissions’ to be able to see these). These exemplar sessions cover a range of different subjects, and they are quite short (around ten minutes), which means that you don’t have to go through an entire tutorial. If you can access these, I do recommend them.
The first one is entitled ‘Working with metre in poetry’ makes use of highlighter and a web tour (from around the seven minutes mark). The next session, entitled ‘Multisensory pronunciation training’ was all about learning German. What was really nice about this one was the way that the ‘put your hand’ button was used and how the tutor used the webcam.
A subject that is close to my heart has the title, ‘Writing and running simple code’. This makes use of the application sharing feature from around the two minute mark. I also liked ‘Finding and using secondary sources in legal essay writing’, where the whiteboard was used from around the three minute mark. I really like the way that ‘click and drag’ is used.
There are, of course, other exemplars. Do have a look; it’s a really good resource.
On-line debate
A week or so ago I was chatting with a really experienced tutor who said that he really enjoys running OU Live sessions. He told me that he had teamed up with another tutor. ‘We have a debate’, he said. ‘One of us takes one view, and the other tutor takes an opposing view. Our students love it!’
This struck me as a whole other way to use OU Live. TV programmes like Newsnight have a very familiar format. OU Live not only allows us to create a ‘virtual TV studio’, but it also allows us to create a situation where the ‘virtual TV audience’ can ask the experts some questions. Another thought is that we could potentially create situations where students can (and should) be encouraged to challenge the points of views that are exposed by the experts.
From my perspective, I would really like to see an example of how this might work. There are aspects of technology and computing education where ‘the debate’ format might work. Another point to bear in mind is that to get the best out of these opportunities, module teams need to be considering these opportunities when they are designing modules.
Recording a lecture
Running an on-line tutorial can be a tough business; there’s a lot going on. You’ve got slides, different OU Live tools, students talking, problems with microphones, text messages appearing and also the need to manage and control activities.
During the presentation of a module a tutor might discover that some students might struggle with a certain topic. Rather than to offer comments through a discussion forum, or perhaps a group email, another approach is to run, and to also potentially record, a short lecture. OU Live can be used to record a short session that can be considered to be akin to a ‘video podcast’.
When a session has been recorded, tutors can then refer students to the resource in their correspondence tuition, as well as during examination preparation sessions.
I used this approach to run a revision session for M364 Fundamentals of Interaction Design. I kept getting scuppered by technology. The first time I ran the revision session there was a power outage at the university which meant that students couldn’t login to my session. The second time I ran the session, I discovered that I couldn’t use the record button, and after the session students contacted me asking when a recording would be available. The third time I ran the session, I just made a recording; there were no students. When I had finished the recording and I had made it available to everyone, I let all the students know by making a post to the module discussion forum.
One question is: how long should a ‘recorded lecture session’ last? Unfortunately, I don’t have any research to back this up, but when it comes to student engagement my instinct is to try to keep them pretty short. This is something that I ought to look into.
Focused Demo
The idea of a ‘focused demo’ pretty much follows on from the idea of a lecture. Quite a few computing modules make use of some specialist software, such as programming environments such as Eclipse, Netbeans or Sense (you don’t have to worry about what these are, just know that they’re special bits of software). For design and engineering modules, students might have to use tools such as Open Design Studio. Some students might find that some of these pieces of software pretty baffling to use, especially if they’ve never seen them before.
One approach to help students is to ‘show’ them how to use a piece of software. OU Live has got a great facility called ‘application sharing’, which means that you can show students what you see on your screen. You might show students how to begin to use a software tool during an on-line tutorial, but there’s always the risk that things might go wrong, i.e. an internet connection might go down, or a big and complex bit of software might begin to misbehave.
Rather than doing a ‘live’ demo (which is, ultimately, a really good thing to always try to do), another idea is to record what could be loosely called a ‘focussed demo’, i.e. you could show students how to use a particular bit of a software system by recording a quick demo using OU Live.
If you’re teaching programming, you could also use this approach to show how to solve a particular problem.
Drop in session for students
I remember when I was an undergrad our human-computer interaction lecturer said to everyone, ‘I’ll be in my office on a Wednesday afternoon between these times… if you have any questions about anything, just pop in to see me: I’ll be very happy to have a chat’. I thought it was a great way to encourage informal discussions about the course, and the materials.
After having a chat with my colleague from the South East region, I discovered that she used the exact same approach to support her students. Rather than running a face to face ‘drop in session’, she ran a virtual one.
The way it worked was that she would advertise times when she would be available for a chat in her tutor OU Live room, and students could just turn up if they wanted a chat about anything. She would keep an eye on what was going on in the room whilst doing other things: exactly the same way that it used to work when I was an undergraduate.
What I really liked about this approach was how informal it is. There is no plan or agenda, but it clearly suggests to students that they can ‘drop by’ and gain some support if they need to. I haven’t tried this approach in my own tutoring, but I am certainly going to!
Additional support session
For students who struggle with some aspects of a module the university can offer something called an ‘additional support session’. This usually takes the form of a one to one session between a student and a tutor. There are different ways that an additional support session could be run. One way is to run a face to face session at a regional centre (or another venue that could be booked by the university). Another approach might be to have a telephone session. A third way is to run an additional support session through OU Live.
One of the main advantages of using OU Live for an additional support session is that both the student and the tutor can make use of the whiteboard. In some cases, a tutor might decide to prepare a couple of slides so the tutor can work through some of the ideas that a student might be struggling with. This might be particularly useful with arts subject, languages (where a tutor might write things onto a whiteboard), or even mathematics, where a tutor might take a student through how to solve an equation, or work through other mathematical ideas.
In the big scheme of things, face to face is always better than on-line, but on-line can certainly be (with adequate planning) significantly better than the telephone. One question that should be asked if one is faced with running an OU Live session is: ‘how can I make the best use of this tool to help this particular student?’ One way to get a feel for how to approach a session is to take the time to explicitly ask the student which areas to focus on. When we know a bit more, we can use the time that we have a whole lot more effectively.
Session between students
After recording the M364 revision session that I mentioned earlier, I noticed an interesting discussion on one of the module discussion forums. One student proposed the idea of an ‘on-line chat’ in a module wide OU Live room. I seem to remember that this started a short debate between tutors about whether students should be left alone in an on-line space that is operated by the university.
In a face to face university, students chat with each other in university owned common rooms and corridors all the time, so why shouldn’t this happen in an on-line space? The tough thing about distance learning is the isolation, so it seemed like a really good idea to allow students to chat to each other about a forthcoming (or impending) exam.
I sense that different people have different views about the use of on-line spaces, but I also can see that module team members, forum moderators, or curriculum managers might be able to play a role in facilitating (or seeding) student led discussions through on-line rooms. Plus, in some modules where group work is essential, I sense that the use of OU Live has the potential to play a pivotal role.
Final thoughts…
One of the things that I really like about OU Live is that you can record sessions which is one of the things that you can’t easily do in a face to face session: if you’ve missed a face to face session, it means that you’ve missed it. The recording facility gives tutor the power to create new types of potentially transitory learning resources that have the potential to help students in a number of different ways.
Recordings
My own (personal) view about recording is that we should record everything, since this has the potential to help the widest number of students. Also, if a tutor makes a recording of an on-line tutor, students need be clearly told that they will be recorded: they should be given sufficient information to help them to make a decision about whether they wish to come along to a ‘live’ on-line session.
There are differing views about recording OU Live tutorials. One argument is that if they are recorded, students won’t bother turning up; they’ll just watch the tutorial. A counter argument to this is: if they don’t come along then they won’t be able to influence the tutorial in a way that will allow them to get their best possible learning. A recording, I argue, should show students what they’re missing so they become suitably motivated to come along to the next live session.
Another argument is that if a session is recorded then students might be less likely to participate during a session. This might well be the case, but I don’t see this as a very strong argument. It’s very easy to forget that a recording is being made, and if there are exceptional points that a student wishes to share with a tutor then perhaps an on-line session isn’t the best place.
A final argument that I’ve heard is: ‘a tutorial is a tutorial; if you want to record something that students can access as a resource, then perhaps it should be recorded as just that: a resource’. My point is that there isn’t any reason why we can’t do both. OU Live allows us to do this, and there’s no reason why tutors can’t reference one type of resource from another. During a ‘lecture’, you might hear the recorded phrase, ‘… and it was exactly this point that we covered during our earlier on-line tutorial’ (which students then might be tempted to go and listen to).
As far as I am aware, there isn’t yet any explicit faculty wide guidance about the recording of OU Live sessions, but I hope that there will be some one day. When it comes to recording, my argument is very simple: we should use technology to help as many students as we can, irrespective of when and at what time they study. Recordings of OU Live sessions can help with this, but I accept that there are important debates to resolve, especially the ethical dimension.
Module teams
One of the main points of this blog is that OU Live can be used in very different ways. A lot can be done, but to get the best out of it, tutors (and staff tutors, who manage tutors) need a steer to understand how OU Live can be best used in the context of a module. From the module team perspective, it’s important to offer explicit guidance to tutors about how it should and could be used.
Also, there is no reason why module teams cannot run their own OU Live sessions. An OU Live session run by a module team should, of course, have a very different feel to any OU Live sessions that are run by tutors. One idea is that a module team might run a series of ‘introductory lectures’ for a module: one at the start of a module, and one at the start of each major block. This could be distinct from the sessions that tutors run which is all about small group work.
The module teams also have an important role to play in offering advice and guidance to tutors about the types of activities they consider to be useful. At the beginning of a module presentation, the module team are the experts, and the tutors will occasionally need help in terms of understanding what to do in terms of how to effectively design a pedagogically engaging on-line tutorial. Suggestions from the module team, perhaps working in collaboration with experienced tutors, can be invaluable.
Using OU Live for research
OU Live can be also used for research. I’ve been recently been involved with an internal research project that has been all about understanding tutor experience on on-line modules. The approach that the researchers (who were fellow associate lecturers) took was really interesting: they used OU Live to as a way to not only to help to facilitate a research interview, but also to record a research interview too. The tutors managed to convert the recorded sessions into MP3 format and pass them onto me for analysis.
Group Tuition Policy
The university has recently been working on something called a ‘group tuition policy’, which is a university wide policy that aims to improve the learning opportunities that are available for students. I’ve yet to fully appreciate the full significance of this policy, but one thing that I have heard is that students will be offered different types of session so that they will be able to attend a wider variety of learning events. In the ‘new world’ of the group tuition policy, there may be on-line equivalents of face to face sessions. I fully expect there to be a need to ‘group’ tutors together for on-line sessions in a way that my faculty currently groups together tutors for some face to face events.
Concluding points
This blog has considered the different ways that OU Live can and has been used. I’ve heard it said that technology can move and develop a lot faster than pedagogy. Put another way: we’re still figuring out how to most effectively teach using these new interactive tools. As I mentioned earlier: you can do some things in face to face tutorials than you can in on-line tutorials.
It has personally taken me quite a bit of time to understand that there are a whole range of different interesting, exciting and dynamic opportunities that couldn’t have been possible if you only adopted face-to-face teaching. A continued challenge that we have to collectively grapple with is how to effectively manage the important blend between the two.