Edited by Darryl Dyke, Saturday, 25 Jun 2011, 08:50
You know, there is one over-riding problem I've come accross with the way the OU works these days. It is, basically, that more and more of it is online.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for technology. I think the internet is a marvellous tool for all sorts of applications but, it can be inconvenient, if not disasterous, when it goes wrong.
Take yesterday for example. I sat down in the morning with the intention of getting a good chunk of the coursework for U101 (Design Thinking) done ready to move on to the TMA. Now, the thing about U101 is that all the coursework is online, there are no books. This has been commented on in the forums about why, when we are paying the same for this course as we do for similar 60 point courses, don't we get any books. The plausible explanation is that because design changes so often then the coursework needs to be updated on a frequent basis so it would be uneconomical and impractical to have printed coursework.
Of course, every student has the option of printing the online pages for themselves but, given that the course is not cheap to start with and that there are a great number of pages to print, the cost of doing this would be difficult to justify. So U101 is a strictly online experience, which is fine. Right up until you log in and find out that because of a "system error" your course site is down and you are left sitting twiddling your thumbs waiting for the OU tech staff to sort it out.
Now, personally, I do a lot of my studying during the day. It's when I get peace and quiet and I have the time to do some quality studying, not something half learned with family life carrying on noisily in the background but real learning where I am able to take things in and reflect on their place in the coursework. Unfortunately, it's also the time when most of these "shutdowns" occur.
Yesterday I missed an hour of quality study time because I couldn't access the course materials. On other courses this hasn't been too much of a problem as I can just get the books out and work on a different element until the system comes back online. When you don't have books this isn't an option.
I'm not advocating cutting down lots of trees to make books with a limited useful life but, as a suggestion, and a bit of design thinking, how about a mirror or Beta site so that the course materials are accessible when they are required and when students can fit studying into their lives.
Time Squeezing.
You know, there is one over-riding problem I've come accross with the way the OU works these days. It is, basically, that more and more of it is online.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for technology. I think the internet is a marvellous tool for all sorts of applications but, it can be inconvenient, if not disasterous, when it goes wrong.
Take yesterday for example. I sat down in the morning with the intention of getting a good chunk of the coursework for U101 (Design Thinking) done ready to move on to the TMA. Now, the thing about U101 is that all the coursework is online, there are no books. This has been commented on in the forums about why, when we are paying the same for this course as we do for similar 60 point courses, don't we get any books. The plausible explanation is that because design changes so often then the coursework needs to be updated on a frequent basis so it would be uneconomical and impractical to have printed coursework.
Of course, every student has the option of printing the online pages for themselves but, given that the course is not cheap to start with and that there are a great number of pages to print, the cost of doing this would be difficult to justify. So U101 is a strictly online experience, which is fine. Right up until you log in and find out that because of a "system error" your course site is down and you are left sitting twiddling your thumbs waiting for the OU tech staff to sort it out.
Now, personally, I do a lot of my studying during the day. It's when I get peace and quiet and I have the time to do some quality studying, not something half learned with family life carrying on noisily in the background but real learning where I am able to take things in and reflect on their place in the coursework. Unfortunately, it's also the time when most of these "shutdowns" occur.
Yesterday I missed an hour of quality study time because I couldn't access the course materials. On other courses this hasn't been too much of a problem as I can just get the books out and work on a different element until the system comes back online. When you don't have books this isn't an option.
I'm not advocating cutting down lots of trees to make books with a limited useful life but, as a suggestion, and a bit of design thinking, how about a mirror or Beta site so that the course materials are accessible when they are required and when students can fit studying into their lives.
This is, after all, what the OU is about!