Coordinating with the US

I've just sent this mail to Bryan Carter. He skyped me yesterday evening (after I'd gone home) to let me know that he's got 15 enthusiastic students who're waiting to work with the Swedes - at least at the Course Launch.

As you can see, the details of the course are coalescing, but it's rarely possible to be definite at this stage of a completely new course. In my spare time I'm starting 5 courses altogether in the next couple of weeks, several of which need extensive web page and podcast production, travelling, coordinating with other agents, etc. However, one of the points of this course as a research project is to see what happens when a teacher tries to work this way in 'real life' (i.e. with very little time and very few resources to work with!).

The mail:

Dear Bryan,

Great to hear about the 15 interested students. The mail I sent out yesterday went out to 19 potential students from here (including a few people on the staff here). I'm waiting for them to disappear (or appear) over the weekend. Out of those 19, I regard about 12 of them as definites, and the others are somewhat of an unknown quantity.

My plan is to invite *two* buddy groups at a time at 45 minutes intervals, starting at 9.00 am your time. That way, we can 'fill the groups up' with people from the second group, if some of them don't turn up. Kamimo isn't such a boring place to be, so I don't feel that it's imposing too much to ask the second group to hang around (and, for example, talk to your US students).

I'll still only be handling one of my buddy groups at a time. What I have to do is do an ID check, so that I can register them, and then take them to Peer Gynt, so they know *exactly* where they need to be at Course Meeting 1. I'll also be checking that they've cracked the audio chat settings (by talking to them!) and that they know what they're to do with your students that day.

Are your lot prepared to work with my lot on a longer-term basis throughout the course (in their own time)? The assignments on my course are:

1. a short individual presentation on an SL-related theme (at Course Meeting 3 on Thursday, 27th March)

2. a role-play exam (at Course Meeting 4 on Thursday, 3rd April)

3. a joint presentation with the members of their buddy group on a theme of their choice (at Course Meeting 5 on Thursday, 10th April).

There's a lot of room for collaboration with your lot during this process, but I don't feel I have the right to make demands on them. We'll be practising presentations at Course Meetings 1 and 2, and there'll be some related materials on the course web site in due course. I'm aiming for the Course Launch and Course Meeting 1 sections of the site to be filled by this coming Wednesday. At the moment, I'm a bit reluctant to go further than that, since I'm not sure of my student group yet. It's a question of letting the course materials grow organically this time around.

I'll send you a more detailed sign-up sheet at the beginning of next week, and I'll keep an eye open for you on line today and on Monday.

Take care,

David