Much as I like my Mac, using it to produce materials for my online teaching has meant that I always have to remember to convert my files to Word and PowerPoint before uploading them to Blackboard. And also, it has not always proved easy to access students' work when it is on PowerPoint. In particular, sound and presenter notes can be elusive when accessing them on my Mac.
But now my elearning colleagues in college have taken pity on me and have helped me download Office 365 Education so that now I can produce and access files more reliably.
There seems to be no getting away from the fact that most students seem to use Word and Powerpoint, and universal access to materials is surely a basic prerequisite of online learning.
The next job for the elearning wizards is to help me decide which apps are most likely to be universally accessible. For example, using Padlet recently I found that not all students could access it, and of those who could, not all could add a comment. Using screencast-o-matic for screencasts works pretty well but sometimes students can't hear the sound - but that could be because they haven't got sound set up correctly. The same issue can arise with synchronous online tutorials.
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Students use Word because the OU tells us to
"There seems to be no getting away from the fact that most students seem to use Word and Powerpoint"
There's a reason for that. We're told to:
Personally, I resent paying the Micro$oft tax, so I use LibreOffice on Linux and save the documents as .doc when I have finished them.
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Hello Simon, when I referred to students I meant the students who come on my courses. They usually use Windows. The customer is always right, I suppose!
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Nice blog! And good comment point! Apart from a little suspicion associated with the fact that VC Martin Bean came from Microsoft (immediately prior to his OU gig), I have always wondered why the OU didn't go for a free software solution.... I am back to being a MAC user, but have paid for Office Education, which is not as nice to use, but fits the $bill$ in terms of 'accessibility'.
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Thanks for the warning of padlet! I was considering using it but must look into the accessibility aspect you mention.