Disclaimer: Nothing you will do this week will be assessed, so sit back and enjoy the ride.

Tasks (you will also find these as a Moodle checklist in this week):

-          Get to know Moodle, Skype and your video recording set up

-          Watch my introductory video (a text version will be provided as well as subtitles)

-          Produce and share your own video

-          Watch the videos produced by the other students

-          Join the synchronous Skype session to discuss the process

 

After having watched my introductory video, it is already time for you to get productive:

Produce a video of 3-6 minutes length in which you speak about an experience you had with learning by watching. Did you see something on TV or online which made you learn? Do you remember a scene from your private or professional life where you saw something happen or somebody do something, which inspired you to do the same or adopt certain actions? Tell us about it, post your video on Mediahopper and share it on the Moodle forum.

I know it is a big ask to have you produce a video of yourself and I am aware that many if not most of you might feel uncomfortable with this. You will not only put yourself out there for others to see and hear, you will also have to see and hear yourself on video, which most people would prefer not to, especially in an online environment, where it is easy for us to hide behind texts on screens.

I am convinced, however, that recording this first video will be a very beneficial experience for the remainder of the course and possibly your work afterwards.

 

If you have serious considerations about this tasks or difficulties with production, uploading or any other matter relating to this course, please talk to me and we will find a solution.

This video will not(!) be assessed, so it is a very low level exercise, although we will come back to your production in week 8, when not your video will be assessed, but your critical reflection of it. All you need for now is your webcam or mobile phone camera, yourself and your topic. Do not worry about sound or picture quality or your presentation. We are just playing around.

 

I hope you find the activities or e-tivities of this week enjoyable and beneficial, as well as purposeful. Feedback on your e-tivities will be provided in the synchronized Skype chat.

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Voluntary reading starts here for those of you who want to know why we are doing the things we do the way we do them in this week:

This block is aligned according to Salmon‘s five-stage model., as it provides a solid and well structured line of progression (applied below) and borrows from Rogerson-Revell‘s work on constructive alignment (see literature list):

1. Access and motivation

Students, i.e. you, are welcomed by the course tutor, i.e. me, by means of video. Students access the video and hence get used to the Moodle platform and how to access and use it.

2. Online socialization

Students are asked to produce individual videos in which they should talk about a personal episode in which they learned something from watching someone or something. As students share their experiences, the group gets to know each other, they socialise online.

3. Information exchange

By means of their videos as well as by the following discussion about these, they share information about both their individual stories as well as their experience producing and watching the videos.

4. Knowledge construction

By discussing in a live Skype chat how the videos made them learn about the other course participants, about different scenarios and instances of learning through watching and about the potential benefits and difficulties having used video as a technical tool in education for all this, they construct knowledge in what could be labeled a community of inquiry.

5. Development

Thus they develop, hopefully, the confidence to pursue on this quest together with everyone else on the course.

 

Throughout these five stages, the activity and interactivity of the students increases, from merely watching to producing to discussing.

 

Last modified: Wednesday, 13 December 2017, 3:25 PM