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Here is my learning design:

Context

This e-tivity has been designed to be part of an introductory management course called Moving into Management. This course is aimed at learners entering or recently promoted to management positions for the first time. The course is 12 weeks with an expectation of learners studying for no longer than 10 hours per week. All learning activities and resources will be online and facilitated through Moodle. This particular e-tivity is planned for week 4 of the course. This course is practical in nature, recreating the expected scenarios, challenges and difficulties new managers will face. This elearning course will comprise of a series of e-tivities where elearners are required to engage online sharing their ideas, opinions and experiences. Throughout this course, learners are encouraged to self-reflect creating a realistic self-image – by developing their self-awareness it is anticipated that they will develop their managerial ability.

Description

The effective group decision-making module has been developed into elearning format where learners will actively engage with a set of tasks provided by the etutor through the Moodle platform. This e-tivity will involve the learners being exposed to the barriers commonplace in the decision-making process and the strategies available to overcome these barriers. Learners are required to reflect on the process, highlight the challenges involved and to consider effective strategies.

Although the learning outcome of this e-tivity is to improve the decision-making of groups managed by the learners, they are encouraged to think of decision-making in a personal and workplace setting, and at a group and individual level.

The diagram on page 2 depicts the role of the etutor on the left and the role of the learner on the right. Down the centre of these two is where they interact together. To the right of the learner are optional tasks.

Over the next couple of weeks we're looking at the design process of elearning and in particular designing what Gilly Salmon referred to as E-tivities. This area is probably the area I am most interested in, I gained a lot of feedback and insight in H800 covering this area.

I recently, coincidently, re-visited Salmon's 5 stage model of moderating for TMA03. Something triggered in my mind about my current night course that I teach on, I hoped I would come back to it but didn't expect it to be this week!

A bit of background, I teach a supervisory management course over 11 weeks, one night a week, 3 hours per session. I ask the learners to set up a gmail address and I add them into a Google group. From there I post discussion activities pre and post lecture. I try to use video, audio or ask about their own experience, the criteria I use is short, simple and different [from the class]. Over 3 courses I have achieved varying degrees of failure. I have reflected on this and made some changes but in truth I have not planned this out properly. It fails on 3/5 of Salmon's criteria for all interactive activities.

I have some barriers to overcome, this course is not an elearning or blending learning course, the micro community is an innovation I have developed myself. Therefore learners are unaware of this aspect when they sign up to the course. We average about 10 learners on a course, should this be easier to manage or more difficult? as every learner counts.

I think stage 1 is probably the most important of the 5 stages closely followed by 2 [naturally enough], I feel this is where I'm falling short. I need to spend some time on Access and Value, address technical issues, get them to play around and really sell it. There have been some learners that have taken to it, but without the support of colleagues it lacks purpose.

What I noticed recently though, and it demonstrated some tunnel light, is that an audio piece I uploaded had some technical glitch, everybody commented to me at the next class that it wasn't working - maybe managers make great lurkers!!

Karl

I have structured the interview questions around some key themes and discussions from block 1, namely;

1. Concept of Innovation, what understanding is there in the unit, is it formal and acknowledge or informal and culture based.
2. Innovating and /or following, how the LIU works is it made up of innovators and innovating or more along the early adopters lines.
3. Tangible benefits, analysing one particular example of innovative practice, how it cam about, the results and the lasting impact on process.

I'm particularly interested from a management viewpoint if Innovation is prominent and supported - is it therefore encouraged, measure, rewarded. Or is it less formal and occurs due to necessity and/or individual innovators.

As part of the refective process required in part 2 of TMA01 I have decided to copy the text from part 1 into wordle to see if there are any points of interest.

Dominant themes are there such as elearning, innovation, learners etc. Some interesting highlights include the environment, resources and collaboration, these represent 2 areas we need to address [environment & resources] and a goal we hope to achieve [collaboration]. The faculty do seem to be highly rated in the wordle which is a little concerning but it may due to the use of both terms teacher and lecturer.

In Case Study 3 I looked at Simulation Gaming in Business from the University of Glamorgan. As I'm from a management background this took my interest, also I'm aware of the gaming approach used in many business programmes but was interested to view an innovative approach.

Firstly, the innovators looked for an alternative to the spreadsheet dominated financial gaming processes and looked to something that could be advanced in other subject areas [it has since been used in Nursing & General Induction].

The approach of this innovation is similar to that of the University of Swansea's Podcasting in Archaeology, in that they identified a learning need or gap and created an intervention to address this. In this case it was a common difficulty in conceptualising the difference between large and small businesses and how they operate. Like many elearning developers / innovators they were worried about motivation of both staff and learner.

The motivational worries seem unfounded and they received largely positive reposnse when learners were asked to compare this "gaming" approach to traditional case studies. Staff also presented a positive response to this intervention.

It is clear from this case study that this project was literally from "scratch" and required input from a large and varied team including student volunteers, over an extended period of time. The innovative nature of this project required this and it is anticipated in the future that role out would require less technical input and time commitment.

K

I'm delighted with this week's focus on case studies on elearning, following on from our discussions on innovation.

The first case study I looked at was on the use of Podcasting in Archaeology in Swansea University. I selected this case as I'm a big fan of podcasting in general, whether for entertainment, general interest or work. I have used podcasts in my Instructor role to add a "different voice" to the input.

Elizabeth Mullet has already analyzed this case study so I'll avoid repeating her detailed observations but rather focus on the potential and limitations of podcasting in this environment.

Podcasting with images was introduced to give a more engaging and personal input from the lecturers rather then the generic content that can be sourced from text books. The lecturers took advantage of their archaeological visits to sights of interest by recording images and adding commentary. In effect they were customising and personalising the learning experience for the learners, many of whom would not have had the opportunity to visit such sites.

What's interesting about this innovation is that it addressed and succeeded in improving on a lack of site recognition amongst learners. It is "learner-centred" and encourages collaboration amongst learners even on different courses. This has expanded into the faculty whereby they share with colleagues outside of their university.

It is clear that the podcasts create an element of "authenticity" to the learner environment and encourage reflection amongst learners. It is an opportunist innovation though, as the podcasts are created in tandem with site visits but what if there were no site visits or how can the same benefits be gained outside of this subject area. The case study also mentions learners have an interest beyond "PowerPoint", have published on-line themselves and have used web 2.0 technologies in their own assessed work. What if the audience were not so accepting of technology? possibly a more traditional learner would this innovation achieve the same level of success?

K