I am still rather concerned about the fragility of OU Live. One student said my sound kept cutting in and out in an OU Live session last night but students this morning seem to have found the sound quality good. There seems to be too much unreliability for OU Live to be an integral part of courses.
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Sound difficulties on OU Live
Wednesday, 11 Nov 2015, 14:49
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Edited by Patrick Andrews, Wednesday, 11 Nov 2015, 14:49
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I agree. We don't all have perfect internet access.
Jan
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Thanks for the comment, Jan.
I think most of us have internet access which is okay much of the time but is not always reliable. I wonder if it was significant that it often seems to be better in the morning.
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It is important not to have anything else at home hitting the same InterNet connection at the same time, such as someone else watching the new videos on the BBC web site, or downloading large emails, or applying updates. Such things impact the OU Live sound a lot.
Also, as soon as the kids get home from school the whole InterNet takes a bashing anyway. I think that is why everything works better online when the little
censoreddarlings are at school.New comment
Hello Patrick,
I agree, I participated in OU live on four separate occasions during completing DD206. I experienced a variety of technical problems, but I still enjoyed the opportunity. I think the issues are with students connection rather than the quality of the OU live. It does not seem to be something the OU pushes though. I am on my fifth OU module and OU live was only offered on one module I have studied.
Regards Sharon
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Thanks for your witty comment, Simon.
I ask the rest of my family to switch off their wifi while I am doing OU Live. I still lost connection once last week although my connection seems to be better than that of many of my students,
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Thanks for your comment, Sharon.
From my perspective, it looks like OU Live is an important part of the teaching and learning approach. Of the five courses I teach, they all use it to some extent and three of them have no face to face element. Perhaps it is more used in courses related to languages (mine are all in some way related to English and I often meet teachers of other languages who seem to use OU Live often). Perhaps it is not used so much for other courses.
When it works well, it can be great. I have had sessions with people spread between Bristol and Japan and it is a great feeling that we are all sitting there concentrating on the same course. Sometimes everything works smoothly but on other occasions, there can be real headaches.