Hi All,
I've tried to quote some comments made by the students to illustrate the 6 themes described in activity 3.
I might be wrong, please correct me if I did so...here are my findings:
Vignette A
Six themes quatations:
1. Utility and ease of use are key factors in the appreciation of ICT tools provided by the course
“Packet Tracer … I’ve got a lot of respect for that – very, very good. So I’ve been using that quite a lot actually. Also I like the quick reference of it. You’re reading through something and you want to work out the output for something and you think, oh I’ll check on that and you can fire it up and within 15 seconds you’re logged on”
2. The relevance of ICT tools to the work context can fuel study commitment
“It was the online labs. So you can actually get on and program proper CISCO equipment, actually test what you were learning and get actual real life work done, even though it was still virtual. As long as you … are programming a proper CISCO router hundreds of miles away then … that’s quite useful because you get to take that away straight away and be able to program real routers and stuff. When reading from a book you’ve not got reassurance that you can do it.”
3. ICT elements in courses introduce a practical element into study, which is much valued by students
“… it’s a really enjoyable course – probably the best course I have done with the OU. Probably because there is so much hands-on. A lot of things in the OU is not. I like the hands-on stuff.”
4. Online study methods are valued where they support students’ feelings of control and being able to make progress
“… for the quizzes … I will put the answer I think is right and if I am not sure I will then go back and look it up and I’ll read a bit around it and sort of double check … you can then jump back and reread through it and then you will be certain … and it will fix in your mind.”
5. ICT tool usage can help to connect study with application to practice in the workplace
“There’s always somebody who’s had the same problem at some time but it can be frustrating when you find lots of people have had the same problem and nobody actually has the solution … it’s often out there somewhere, but yes, I mean you often do copy examples. I certainly have in my real life work. You rarely kind of start from scratch and build the solution. It’s somebody else will normally point you in the right direction and say ‘oh you need to set this line of code here’ … that’s certainly helped me in the past few years anyway.”
6. Students’ different work contexts influence their attitudes towards the ICT in their course.
“It’s made me realise that I could use online systems a lot more like that … I would strongly be more open now to doing something like a Netlab-style system or a packet tracer system to study with more, or to work with.”
And:
“Yes definitely … as long as they are kind of realistic such as Netlab is and you know that’s realistic. A lot of simulations I’ve used in the past just don’t really accurately mimic what they are trying to mimic. So I think that element to it is quite important.”
If you put some quotes differently, please let me know..
Eugene