Thursday 31 January 2008
A dropout
Just received a mail from one of the people I mailed this morning (but hadn't got hold of on the phone). She's on sick leave and can't participate.
A mail from a recently-enrolled student
We're getting new enrollments all the time. One of them just contacted me with her avatar name, but she didn't realise she'd need a headset in order to be able to use the audio chat. On the other hand, she hadn't received the 'welcome' letter (the paper version) which has useful information about this in it.
So … I've sent her a copy and made a mental note to myself to include the links to Bryan's and Judith's instructions about the audio on the Business Pages section of the course web site.
So … I've sent her a copy and made a mental note to myself to include the links to Bryan's and Judith's instructions about the audio on the Business Pages section of the course web site.
The text of the 'Welcome' letter
Dear Student,
Thanks for applying to the Oral Production course - we’re looking forward to working with you this term. This mail is intended to give you some practical information before the course actually gets going on 7th February, and to supply you with some more details about what’s planned for the Course Launch day on 7th February.
To start off with, there are now some places you can go to get some more detailed information about what’s going to happen on the course.
The course web site can be found at:
http://www.humsam.hik.se/distans/existstud/op/index.htm
You’ll see that some of the links on the home page are already active. If you click on the ‘Blog’ link, you’ll come to the course blog, which already has a couple of posts on it. The ‘Podcasts’ link also takes you to the place where you can listen to the Pre-Course podcast about the course. I’ll be making a podcast each time there’s a major course event.
(A podcast, by the way, is a kind of radio programme on the web. You can either listen to it directly from your computer screen, or click on the ‘Subscribe’ button on the podcast page to download each podcast automatically to iTunes on your computer. You can then transfer the podcasts to an iPod, or burn them to CD. There’s a ‘Refresh’ button in iTunes which will automatically search for new podcasts and download them automatically too.)
The Course Launch links and the Meeting links will become live when we need them, and you’ll find pages, information and downloadable files relevant to each course event there.
Most importantly, you’ll see a link called ‘To Kamimo Island’. This is a ‘SLURL’ - it takes you to a web page with a button on it, which will automatically open the Second Life program on your computer and take you directly to Kamimo Island, Kalmar’s island in Second Life.
I’ll mail you separately about the exact procedure for Course Launch day. However, the big picture is this: you’ll come along to Kamimo Island at the time allocated to your buddy group (which buddy group you’re in is part of the ‘exact procedure’, which I’ll notify you about in a while). I’m going to ask two buddy groups to come along at the same time, just in case someone can’t make it. If everyone’s there, I’ll just ask the second buddy group to wait for about ten minutes, whilst I work with the first one.
I’ll be there as Davric Rinkitink (OK, I was watching a lot of Aristocats at the time!). I’ll take each buddy group on a quick tour of the facilities we’re going to use, and then introduce you to one or two American students, who’re studying at the University of Central Missouri (one of the Kamimo Islands partners).
The Americans will then take you to somewhere in Second Life they’ve been doing some research into. They’ll want to ask you some questions about that location for their own course, but you’ll need to keep your eyes and ears open (virtually!) because you’ll be making a presentation about it at our Course Meeting 1 (there’ll be more information about how to do that on our web site next week).
This is what you need to do before 7th February:
1. Download the Second Life program, create yourself an avatar and visit Kamimo Island.
2. Then make sure that your audio chat is working (we’ll be talking to each other on the course), and have a look at the island. If you go over to the huge metal dragonfly that’s in the Welcome area and click on it, your avatar will get in and be taken for an aerial tour of the island!
3. Last, but not least, let me know what your avatar’s called (if you haven’t already done this). It’ll make things a lot easier for me on Course Launch day!
If you have any questions, or if you need help with any of the technology, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
I’m looking forward to working with you this term.
Yours,
David Richardson
Högskolan i Kalmar
HV
Thanks for applying to the Oral Production course - we’re looking forward to working with you this term. This mail is intended to give you some practical information before the course actually gets going on 7th February, and to supply you with some more details about what’s planned for the Course Launch day on 7th February.
To start off with, there are now some places you can go to get some more detailed information about what’s going to happen on the course.
The course web site can be found at:
http://www.humsam.hik.se/distans/existstud/op/index.htm
You’ll see that some of the links on the home page are already active. If you click on the ‘Blog’ link, you’ll come to the course blog, which already has a couple of posts on it. The ‘Podcasts’ link also takes you to the place where you can listen to the Pre-Course podcast about the course. I’ll be making a podcast each time there’s a major course event.
(A podcast, by the way, is a kind of radio programme on the web. You can either listen to it directly from your computer screen, or click on the ‘Subscribe’ button on the podcast page to download each podcast automatically to iTunes on your computer. You can then transfer the podcasts to an iPod, or burn them to CD. There’s a ‘Refresh’ button in iTunes which will automatically search for new podcasts and download them automatically too.)
The Course Launch links and the Meeting links will become live when we need them, and you’ll find pages, information and downloadable files relevant to each course event there.
Most importantly, you’ll see a link called ‘To Kamimo Island’. This is a ‘SLURL’ - it takes you to a web page with a button on it, which will automatically open the Second Life program on your computer and take you directly to Kamimo Island, Kalmar’s island in Second Life.
I’ll mail you separately about the exact procedure for Course Launch day. However, the big picture is this: you’ll come along to Kamimo Island at the time allocated to your buddy group (which buddy group you’re in is part of the ‘exact procedure’, which I’ll notify you about in a while). I’m going to ask two buddy groups to come along at the same time, just in case someone can’t make it. If everyone’s there, I’ll just ask the second buddy group to wait for about ten minutes, whilst I work with the first one.
I’ll be there as Davric Rinkitink (OK, I was watching a lot of Aristocats at the time!). I’ll take each buddy group on a quick tour of the facilities we’re going to use, and then introduce you to one or two American students, who’re studying at the University of Central Missouri (one of the Kamimo Islands partners).
The Americans will then take you to somewhere in Second Life they’ve been doing some research into. They’ll want to ask you some questions about that location for their own course, but you’ll need to keep your eyes and ears open (virtually!) because you’ll be making a presentation about it at our Course Meeting 1 (there’ll be more information about how to do that on our web site next week).
This is what you need to do before 7th February:
1. Download the Second Life program, create yourself an avatar and visit Kamimo Island.
2. Then make sure that your audio chat is working (we’ll be talking to each other on the course), and have a look at the island. If you go over to the huge metal dragonfly that’s in the Welcome area and click on it, your avatar will get in and be taken for an aerial tour of the island!
3. Last, but not least, let me know what your avatar’s called (if you haven’t already done this). It’ll make things a lot easier for me on Course Launch day!
If you have any questions, or if you need help with any of the technology, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
I’m looking forward to working with you this term.
Yours,
David Richardson
Högskolan i Kalmar
HV
Making contact with the students
I received the latest definitive list of students at the end of the day yesterday, so the first task today was to make contact with them. As usual, the list was lacking some essential details, and some of the details there were wrong! I went down the list of cellphone numbers and called anyone I hadn't heard from, or who didn't have an e-mail address listed. It was a nice experience - makes the students into real people!
The next step was to create records for the students on the database I use (a Filemaker relational database). It makes it so much easier to manipulate the information later on. Once they were there, I could allocate them to buddy groups (and one of the students had already told me on the phone he'd have to come right at the end, so I could put him in group 6), and then export their e-mail addresses to an e-mail list.
Then I created the text of a 'Welcome' e-mail (see next post), and sent it off. And, as it happened, just before I sent it off I got a call from yet another person who wanted to join us! It'll be like this right until we get going.
The state of play right now is that there are 19 students who've received the 'Welcome' e-mail. I'm currently treating 7 of them as provisional, since I have reasons to suspect that they might have changed their minds about studying on the course. There's another one student who's probably married to someone I have been in touch with. I haven't included her on the list yet, but she is probably a definite. I'll put her in a different group from her husband. I don't think they'll both be able to be on line at the same time, which will make Course Meetings interesting. They live in Partille, though (near Gothenburg for the non-Swedes), and there's a strong organisation of study centres in that part of the world, so there's a good chance they'll be able to find an alternative way in.
I'll be in touch with them again after the weekend, with exact details of the time they need to turn up on 7th February. That gives me a chance to refine the lists a little more, as people get in touch with me.
I've deliberately left the whole question of research into the course out of the picture at the moment. This 'Welcome' e-mail is long and complicated enough as it is, and I don't want to confuse matters in the students' minds! I'll bring up Alexandra's research in a separate mail next week.
The next step was to create records for the students on the database I use (a Filemaker relational database). It makes it so much easier to manipulate the information later on. Once they were there, I could allocate them to buddy groups (and one of the students had already told me on the phone he'd have to come right at the end, so I could put him in group 6), and then export their e-mail addresses to an e-mail list.
Then I created the text of a 'Welcome' e-mail (see next post), and sent it off. And, as it happened, just before I sent it off I got a call from yet another person who wanted to join us! It'll be like this right until we get going.
The state of play right now is that there are 19 students who've received the 'Welcome' e-mail. I'm currently treating 7 of them as provisional, since I have reasons to suspect that they might have changed their minds about studying on the course. There's another one student who's probably married to someone I have been in touch with. I haven't included her on the list yet, but she is probably a definite. I'll put her in a different group from her husband. I don't think they'll both be able to be on line at the same time, which will make Course Meetings interesting. They live in Partille, though (near Gothenburg for the non-Swedes), and there's a strong organisation of study centres in that part of the world, so there's a good chance they'll be able to find an alternative way in.
I'll be in touch with them again after the weekend, with exact details of the time they need to turn up on 7th February. That gives me a chance to refine the lists a little more, as people get in touch with me.
I've deliberately left the whole question of research into the course out of the picture at the moment. This 'Welcome' e-mail is long and complicated enough as it is, and I don't want to confuse matters in the students' minds! I'll bring up Alexandra's research in a separate mail next week.
Wednesday 30 January 2008
I've just got the list of students …
I've just got the definitive list of students - which is par for the course for a distance course. My list has got 7 e-mail addresses out of 23 names, which means that I'll be doing a fair bit of telephoning tomorrow to try to get hold of their e-mail addresses.
Ho-hum …
Ho-hum …
What I did before lunch …
The home page for the course web site is now ready. I used a screenshot from Kamimo as a background. I'm not fantastically good at making web pages, but I hope it works, at least. Clicking on the title of this post should take you there.
I've also made a podcasting site on .Mac and produced the Pre-Course podcast giving students some basic information about how the course is going to work.
I've also made a podcasting site on .Mac and produced the Pre-Course podcast giving students some basic information about how the course is going to work.
Practical Preparations
The students on the course need to hear from me today (one week to go). What they need to access is:
• the course web site
• a blog
• and a pre-course podcast
I've just got myself a .Mac account, so I'll be doing the podcasting using that. I've started a blog on Blogger, and the web site will be constructed in Dreamweaver and put out on a Högskolan server. The iWeb program on the Mac is a wonderful tool for making web sites, but it's a bit limited for an entire course site.
Although this is the start of hands-on preparations, I've been mulling over what to do and how to run the course for a long time now. In the words of Bertil Martinsson "Alla slott började som luftslott" (every castle started off as a castle in the air)! The procedure for constructing a course like this is to start with the budget, which I did in late October. The allocation of hours was 46.5 for the entire course. These are 'clock hours', so they've been broken down to fit the various course activities. The breakdown means that we can have 5 two-hour sessions in world + the Course Launch.
We've tested the logistics and technology of the course quite a few times in the last couple of months (including on the pilot course in September-October 2007), so that bit's under control.
The administration seems to be working, in that the applications have been coming in and being processed the way they should. We had a few problems with studera.nu at the beginning, but they seem to have been sorted out.
So, what needs doing now is:
• decide on the details of the assessments (so that I can see what needs to happen during the course meetings, and what it needs to say on the website)
• create the website (which is going to involve a bit of Photoshopping and then quite a lot of Dreamweaving)
• make the first podcast
• update the blog
• create a database on Filemaker for the course
• do a mailshot to the students
Wonder if I'll get it done by lunchtime!
• the course web site
• a blog
• and a pre-course podcast
I've just got myself a .Mac account, so I'll be doing the podcasting using that. I've started a blog on Blogger, and the web site will be constructed in Dreamweaver and put out on a Högskolan server. The iWeb program on the Mac is a wonderful tool for making web sites, but it's a bit limited for an entire course site.
Although this is the start of hands-on preparations, I've been mulling over what to do and how to run the course for a long time now. In the words of Bertil Martinsson "Alla slott började som luftslott" (every castle started off as a castle in the air)! The procedure for constructing a course like this is to start with the budget, which I did in late October. The allocation of hours was 46.5 for the entire course. These are 'clock hours', so they've been broken down to fit the various course activities. The breakdown means that we can have 5 two-hour sessions in world + the Course Launch.
We've tested the logistics and technology of the course quite a few times in the last couple of months (including on the pilot course in September-October 2007), so that bit's under control.
The administration seems to be working, in that the applications have been coming in and being processed the way they should. We had a few problems with studera.nu at the beginning, but they seem to have been sorted out.
So, what needs doing now is:
• decide on the details of the assessments (so that I can see what needs to happen during the course meetings, and what it needs to say on the website)
• create the website (which is going to involve a bit of Photoshopping and then quite a lot of Dreamweaving)
• make the first podcast
• update the blog
• create a database on Filemaker for the course
• do a mailshot to the students
Wonder if I'll get it done by lunchtime!
Getting going
Today's the day everything starts in earnest. We've been accepting a few late entries on to the course, so there's been no point in trying to fix the class list until now. As soon as you depart from conventional campus teaching, you tend to find that getting accurate information about the students is a) difficult and b) essential!
So far I've only had 5 course information sheets back, out of 23 people who've been given places on the course (the deadline was on Monday, 28th January), but this is pretty much par for the course. There isn't an 'etiquette' for how you're supposed to act as a student on a flexible course, so I'm not surprised that it's taking prospective students a while to get their heads around what to do.
We put out an internal announcement about the course for staff at Högskolan too, and I'm fairly sure that some of the new names on the list will be staff.
The forms that have come in have been well filled in, with all the information I needed. So far, the reasons why students have chosen the course are nearly all focussed on the actual content (i.e. they want to improve their oral skills in English), with just one person who also wants to 'study the phenomenon'. The sources of information about the course are evenly divided between the conventional (www.studera.nu) and personal contacts.
Two prospective students have so far declined their places, but I'm going to start calling the people on the list (when I get it later on today) to check on their intentions, and I'm expecting more people to decline then. If we end up with 10 students, I'll be well pleased. It's a small number of students for a viable course, but this is the very first time it's been run (and it hasn't been advertised), so it's a good number to have. Basically, though, we'll run the course with the people we have and sort the finances out later. We'll almost certainly market the course properly for the autumn.
The next post describes the practical steps I'm going to take today …
So far I've only had 5 course information sheets back, out of 23 people who've been given places on the course (the deadline was on Monday, 28th January), but this is pretty much par for the course. There isn't an 'etiquette' for how you're supposed to act as a student on a flexible course, so I'm not surprised that it's taking prospective students a while to get their heads around what to do.
We put out an internal announcement about the course for staff at Högskolan too, and I'm fairly sure that some of the new names on the list will be staff.
The forms that have come in have been well filled in, with all the information I needed. So far, the reasons why students have chosen the course are nearly all focussed on the actual content (i.e. they want to improve their oral skills in English), with just one person who also wants to 'study the phenomenon'. The sources of information about the course are evenly divided between the conventional (www.studera.nu) and personal contacts.
Two prospective students have so far declined their places, but I'm going to start calling the people on the list (when I get it later on today) to check on their intentions, and I'm expecting more people to decline then. If we end up with 10 students, I'll be well pleased. It's a small number of students for a viable course, but this is the very first time it's been run (and it hasn't been advertised), so it's a good number to have. Basically, though, we'll run the course with the people we have and sort the finances out later. We'll almost certainly market the course properly for the autumn.
The next post describes the practical steps I'm going to take today …
Thursday 24 January 2008
Meeting with Bryan's Students in SL on 24th January
I had a meeting today with two different groups of Bryan's students in SL today. We used the classroom space at Hyperborea Bryan often uses, and I presented some basic information about the course and what we wanted the US students to do. I used the audio chat facility in SL, which Bryan had hooked up to some speakers, and they used text chat.
It's quite odd communicating that way, since you don't really know how what you're saying is being received. It's also quite difficult to stop yourself responding emotionally to the apparent body language of the avatars you're 'speaking' to. Some of the heads will drop because of a lack of mouse movement, and it's hard not to think that they're getting bored.
So far, the US response has been very positive. We'll see now what happens when we actually get down to working together.
It's quite odd communicating that way, since you don't really know how what you're saying is being received. It's also quite difficult to stop yourself responding emotionally to the apparent body language of the avatars you're 'speaking' to. Some of the heads will drop because of a lack of mouse movement, and it's hard not to think that they're getting bored.
So far, the US response has been very positive. We'll see now what happens when we actually get down to working together.
Skype call with Bryan, 23rd January
Bryan was on-line at around 3pm our time (8am his), so we took the opportunity of discussing the meeting we're to have later today (24th January).
Bryan's got around 14 students (7 in each group) who're interested in working with our students. However, neither of us have been able to define too clearly yet exactly what 'working with' involves, since we don't know yet! Bryan's students are doing a Composition Course where they visit different places in world to gather information which will be included in various essays they write during their course. They've recently started using SL (I think it was Tuesday, 22nd January), and most of them access SL from a computer room on campus, so they're usually in the same room as each other as they work in SL.
One of the initial questions is: what do they get out of working with my students? The answer is: extra credits! Bryan's made it clear to them that the results of questions they ask the Swedish students will gain them extra credit for their essays.
My initial plan/request is for one, or a pair of, US student (s) to turn up as each group of Swedish students turns up on Kamimo (our island) on Registration Day. My plan is to introduce 3 Swedish students at a time to the environment, and then hand them over to a US student. The US student will then take them to a location on SL they've discovered, show them around and glean their reaction to it. My group of students will then use the impressions and information they've collected as the basis of their first presentation on the Oral Production course.
I'm meeting Bryan's students in SL today (24th January) to present my course to them, and to ask them how much of a commitment they're able to make to it. Ideally each US student (or pair) will become part of each of the Swedish study groups, and work with them all the way through the course, both providing them with inputs from different places in SL and acting as practice audience for their presentations (thus increasing the variety of the feedback they get as they go through the course).
We'll have to see how much of a commitment they're able to make in practice. I'm relying on my students to work together outside course meetings as they go through the course, but I can't require the US students to do this (since they're not on my course!).
Bryan and I also established a line of communication (very important with this kind of contact!). He'll have Skype open in his computer room, and I'll send him both documents to be displayed on his whiteboard and a Veodia link, if I decide to use one. Veodia is a live video feed program I'm testing this term. One of its features is that you can send a link to a live video feed and have it immediately displayed in SL. It'll enable me to appear in 'RL' in SL. I might use it for showing body language, etc during the OP course.
Apart from that, I'll be appearing as an avatar in Bryan's teaching space on Hyperborea this afternoon.
Bryan's got around 14 students (7 in each group) who're interested in working with our students. However, neither of us have been able to define too clearly yet exactly what 'working with' involves, since we don't know yet! Bryan's students are doing a Composition Course where they visit different places in world to gather information which will be included in various essays they write during their course. They've recently started using SL (I think it was Tuesday, 22nd January), and most of them access SL from a computer room on campus, so they're usually in the same room as each other as they work in SL.
One of the initial questions is: what do they get out of working with my students? The answer is: extra credits! Bryan's made it clear to them that the results of questions they ask the Swedish students will gain them extra credit for their essays.
My initial plan/request is for one, or a pair of, US student (s) to turn up as each group of Swedish students turns up on Kamimo (our island) on Registration Day. My plan is to introduce 3 Swedish students at a time to the environment, and then hand them over to a US student. The US student will then take them to a location on SL they've discovered, show them around and glean their reaction to it. My group of students will then use the impressions and information they've collected as the basis of their first presentation on the Oral Production course.
I'm meeting Bryan's students in SL today (24th January) to present my course to them, and to ask them how much of a commitment they're able to make to it. Ideally each US student (or pair) will become part of each of the Swedish study groups, and work with them all the way through the course, both providing them with inputs from different places in SL and acting as practice audience for their presentations (thus increasing the variety of the feedback they get as they go through the course).
We'll have to see how much of a commitment they're able to make in practice. I'm relying on my students to work together outside course meetings as they go through the course, but I can't require the US students to do this (since they're not on my course!).
Bryan and I also established a line of communication (very important with this kind of contact!). He'll have Skype open in his computer room, and I'll send him both documents to be displayed on his whiteboard and a Veodia link, if I decide to use one. Veodia is a live video feed program I'm testing this term. One of its features is that you can send a link to a live video feed and have it immediately displayed in SL. It'll enable me to appear in 'RL' in SL. I might use it for showing body language, etc during the OP course.
Apart from that, I'll be appearing as an avatar in Bryan's teaching space on Hyperborea this afternoon.
Meeting with Alexandra P, 23rd January
Alexandra and I met up to start the process of constructing a data-gathering exercise around the Oral Production course this spring.
I explained the basic situation around the course:
• between 10 and 20 students
• most of the students Swedes, but a couple of 'foreigners'
• a link-up with Bryan Carter's students in Missouri (to be defined more clearly on 24th January)
• a mix of communications technologies in support of the course, including a course blog, podcasts and a simple web site
Alexandra described how she would like data to be gathered, if possible:
• me keeping a journal (this blog for the time being) about everything that happens on the course, including all the contacts with students
• recording of SL sessions, using a program like Camtasia (if we can find one which works for Macs)
• RL video recording of David at work (to see what happens in RL as he teaches)
• RL video recording of at least one student on this side of the Atlantic (my suggestion being Peter Carlsson, who's also an IT-techician/pedagogue in our department here)
• 'probes' (still pics taken by friends of students as they participate in the course)
• questionnaires for all participants
We discussed how we'd inform the students about this data-gathering. Alexandra's drafting a letter to go out to them soon.
I explained the basic situation around the course:
• between 10 and 20 students
• most of the students Swedes, but a couple of 'foreigners'
• a link-up with Bryan Carter's students in Missouri (to be defined more clearly on 24th January)
• a mix of communications technologies in support of the course, including a course blog, podcasts and a simple web site
Alexandra described how she would like data to be gathered, if possible:
• me keeping a journal (this blog for the time being) about everything that happens on the course, including all the contacts with students
• recording of SL sessions, using a program like Camtasia (if we can find one which works for Macs)
• RL video recording of David at work (to see what happens in RL as he teaches)
• RL video recording of at least one student on this side of the Atlantic (my suggestion being Peter Carlsson, who's also an IT-techician/pedagogue in our department here)
• 'probes' (still pics taken by friends of students as they participate in the course)
• questionnaires for all participants
We discussed how we'd inform the students about this data-gathering. Alexandra's drafting a letter to go out to them soon.
About this blog
'OP' is the Oral Production, 3hp course which is being run by Högskolan i Kalmar on Second Life during 2008. So far as we know, it's the first 'regular' course in Sweden which is being run in its entirety on SL. Alexandra Petrakou from Högskolan i Kalmar wants to gather data about the planning and delivery of the course, and has asked me, David Richardson, the course teacher, to keep a record of what goes on during the planning, production and delivery of the course.
It's a bit difficult for me to keep track of pieces of paper, so I've decided to try to keep this journal as a web log!
It's a bit difficult for me to keep track of pieces of paper, so I've decided to try to keep this journal as a web log!
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