Units 1-7

All the pages for the units are now complete. (In draft form anyway - I'm expecting all the SAIDE reviewers to have a lot of good ideas for improvement ;-)

Permissions

I've just received permission from Terry Anderson to use his blog post on audio feedback in the assessment unit. Awaiting confirmation from Kaye Cleary that we can use her assignment in the same section. Gilly Salmon is on holiday at the moment but we should hopefully hear from her by the end of May regarding the use of her 'five steps' diagram and her response to superimposing her model over my 4 quadrants model. The password protection will be lifted from those pages as and when we get the go-ahead (with changes made accordingly if required).  

The 'Apply this!' task pages

Each unit now has one major task. There is a link to the 'task page' at the bottom of the main page for each unit. The tasks need to be developed - at the moment they are just empty shells. One suggestion I have is to produce a self-assessment rubric for each one, so that users can evaluate their performance against a set of quite detailed criteria. I will produce a model for one unit if I get feedback that that will be useful.

Gabi

I have now completed Units 1-4, plus most of the 'front matter' and 'end matter'. Next step is to tie up a few loose ends in Units 5 and 6, and complete Unit 7.

In terms of overall structure, I have tried to streamline the reflection and self-assessment elements by creating one major task at the end of each unit, and repeating those tasks in Unit 7, the 'Reflective Practice' unit. The reason for this is that I think some aspects of the tasks will be best done after students have worked through the whole course. (E.g. in order to write an induction plan for learners, which fits logically after Unit 2,  it would help to have the broader understanding of constructivism, communication tools and assignments discussed in all the later units.)

I have changed some of the smaller 'tasks' that were at the end of units into reflection activities, and absorbed some of them into the new, larger tasks.

Gabi

Gearing the site towards new Web users
I have included a diagram on the Introduction page which attempts to show how the site is designed to be used. (I made the image using my recently discovered 'greenshot' screen-capture software - it's brilliant - enables you to capture a section of your screen and then edit it with annotations, arrows, etc., and save it as an image file...) I hope this helps users who are not very familiar with using web sites to use this site.

I have also increased the 'Support for tutors' section, collating all the links that might provide support  for new web users in one place.

Site map
You will see there is a link in the left hand navigation panel to 'Site Map', which unfortunately is empty. The site map will give users an overview of all the pages in the site, and how they relate to one another. I am trying to work out how to do this in Weebly - I think it requires some html to be written and 'dropped in' - any advice will be welcome...

Links between internal pages
Each unit has several 'hidden', internal pages, which are not visible from the left hand navigation. If you follow the 'Unit' link form the left hand navigation panel for any unit, you will see several links under the heading 'Unit content'. This is where the main content is for the unit. Once you click on a link from there, you will go to a new page containing that content. I have added links at the bottom of each of these pages that take you 'Back to Unit X main content' and 'Next: x.' (Here's an example from Unit 1.)

'Chunking' paragraphs
Many of the paragraphs in the original Word document appeared rather long and heavy when placed on the Web, and so I have shortened them where possible, and also created more paragraph divisions so that there is more white space. (An interesting model is the BBC's web site, which seems to operate on the principle of 1 sentence = 1 paragraph. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8028949.stm for an example.)

Glossary
As mentioned in earlier posts, the glossary is a bit tricky because with Weebly you can only link to whole pages, not to individual words on a page. I earlier broke the glossary into five separate pages to address this problem. I have started linking words in the text to the glossary pages, but would like feedback before completing this. You will see on the Learning Outcomes page that some of the underlined words link to other units, and some link to the glossary. I don't know if this is confusing. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Other work is in progress - I will report in separate posts.

I've now added Units 5 and 6. Not much new to add in the blog except that I've password-protected a couple more pages, where I still need to obtain permission from sources. These pages can be viewed using the password I have given to SAIDE.

I recently discovered a great social bookmarking tool, Diigo. I would like to suggest that we use Diigo as a mechanism for reviewers to collaboratively comment on the materials here. We can do the following things with Diigo:

1. Diigo has a fantastic annotation and highlighting function.  When you annotate a page (using a 'sticky note'), you can choose whether to make that annotation private or public. In our case we would make comments public, so that other reviewers can see them - and comment on the comments.

2. Diigo enables groups to have a private discussion forum. I have set up a discussion forum for us at http://groups.diigo.com/groups/saide-supporting-distance-learners - please e-mail me if you would like an invitation. (Once you are a member you can invite other members.)

3. Diigo could also be a useful shared reference library for SAIDE feedback-givers if we want to refer to URLs in our comments. 

It is very simple to open a free account in Diigo and use these functions. (And by the way I don't have any vested interests in Diigo - I'm just a fan!)

Looking forward to hearing other people's thoughts on this idea.

Gabi

Unit 4 added
I've added Unit 4, with SAIDE's feedback implemented. The main change from the original version is that I have set the scene a bit more, by getting tutors to focus on their own web behaviour and their own need for learning about the Web, before launching into discussions on learner support.

'Facilitate'/ 'mediate'
I have avoided using the word 'facilitate' and replaced it with 'mediate' wherever this made sense - in response to SAIDE's feedback that the word 'facilitate' has been overused in education in SA recently and has been misunderstood to mean complete abdication of responsibility on the part of the educator :-)
Support for tutors' own web literacy development
I have included a section more or less verbatim from Tessa, called Support for Tutors, giving suggestions for tutors to increase their web literacy at a team/ organisational level. I've also tried to weed out any bits that look like we are making the assumption that tutors are very e-literate. (Still working on this - will go back over earlier units as well with my 'assumptions' weeder!)

NADEOSA quality criteria
I've also added the NADEOSA quality criteria guidelines for learner support in a tab that is accessible on the left menu bar - I think these are a really useful reference point - not just for South Africans. It's a great document.

OERs (Open Educational Resources)
I've also extended and refined the list of resources in the 'open learning' section - will probably be adding more to this section before finishing the site. (This could be an ongoing job for someone within SAIDE once the site is 'live'.)

New design
And... Weebly has added some new designs, two of which have good left-hand navigation bars that are suitable for this layout. We now have three Weebly designs to choose from - I'll try to publish it three times with the different designs when I'm finished, so you can easily compare them.

Found scaffolding pictures with Creative Commons licenses!
Final point - I have discovered a fantastic Flickr search engine that searches ONLY for Creative Commons-licensed images - it's at http://www.compfight.com/. There are loads of pictures of scaffolding and climbing walls available on a share-alike/ attribution/ non-commercial license, so I'll be dropping those into the 'Constructivism' page in Unit 3 as soon as I find suitable ones.

On with transferring my changes to Units 5, 6 and 7 from the Word doc... watch this space!

I have now added Unit 3 and also tidied up more of the overall template, links to internal pages and so on.

I have added separate pages for the 'Apply this!' task for each unit, and will return to these pages as I continue working on the site, adding more guided learning activities.

Please note that the text is by no means final - as I add the text for a new unit, issues often arise that affect earlier units, the overall outcomes/ introduction, etc. and so I frequently make changes to other pages.

There are a couple of pages that are password-protected - these are pages that I need to get copyright permissions for. (It's the same password used for accessing the weebly development site.)

Comments welcome at any stage!

Thanks,
Gabi

I have started developing the 'shell' for all the units by creating a template for the first page of each unit, which will have links to the main content sections.

I have broken the glossary into sections (A-E, F-J, etc.) to try to address the problem that it is not possible to create links to individual words or phrases. (See earlier blog.)

I have also added the text for Unit 2. In the process, I changed the order of Unit 1 and 2 and shifted some of the content around. It seemed to make more sense to start with 'The Learner' than diving straight into issues of open learning and e-learning. These two units may be slightly incoherent as a result, but I will come back to them as I work on the later units... please bear in mind that this is work-in-progress!

I have implemented most of the feedback for these two units, but there are some outstanding points which are yet to be incorporated - especially with regard to the 'teaching', 'reflection' and 'assessment' aspects. Watch this space for further activity in this regard...

As always, feedback welcome!
Gabi

Dear SAIDE support team,

Today I tightened up the Intro page and learning outcomes, started developing the glossary, and added the revised content for Unit 1.

You can access the pages on open learning, e-learning and the Unit 1 Summary from the Unit 1 main page.

A few points to note:
1) The glossary: Weebly does not allow one to put a link to a  specific word or phrase on another page. The links take one to the beginning of the Glossary page, which is not very satisfactory, but I think we will be able to solve that. (At some point we will need a techie person to look at the weebly with these kinds of questions in mind.)

2) The website is very text-heavy at the moment. I will try to put some of the information into diagram/ flow-chart format where appropriate, and add some pictures for visual relief. Links to YouTube might help too. The final product must be easily convertable into PDF format though so people can print it, so I won't get too carried away here!

3) I'm struck by the irony that the 'learning guide' (as I'm now calling it) is promoting the whole idea of supporting learners, but I'm not sure what kind of support our learners (the users of this resource) will be able to get...! I know there are possibilities in the pipeline of offering it as a course, which would help.

Feedback will be welcome! You can click on the Comments button or e-mail me your thoughts :-)

Gabi

I have added the introductory sections (Introduction, Acknowledgements, Course Outcomes, a Study Skills section from Commonwealth of Learning) and a 'Feedback' page. Please note - there are still several gaps, and the wording in the intro sections is likely to change as the work progresses :-)

There are some grey areas, such as the use of the word 'learning guide', to replace 'e-book' which we used in previous versions. ('E-book to me now has connotations of those books that you download onto a special e-book reader, such as Amazon's Kindle or the Sony reader.)

I have also been working 'behind the scenes' on revising the Word document for the first few units - to be uploaded into the Weebly in the coming days.

Gabi