We’re in transition here in terms of study materials provision. With the push for student e-portfolios coming hard, it’s imperative that well-designed and presented study materials be prepared for offering on line or via digital media. Until then and until students are engaged positively in using online systems, feel comfortable and confident with their use,
Continue reading ...You know how the old saying about mothers goes …. they’re sociologists, counsellors, tutors, managers, chauffeurs (add your own personal favourite). So it is these days that I find my role as a university lecturer diversifying in the oddest ways. Now this has probably got more to do with the nature of the discipline field … theatre, and preparing young artists for a professional role in the entertainment industry. Most of my classes are involved with training students for careers as actors. Yes, I teach and direct, but also and for nearly 10 years now as the industry has changed its face, I’ve been training them to think about themselves and their work in a business-like way. Empowering them to engage in what the economists like to call disintermediation, and which in the arts industry means extracting yourself from the middle man and the control they can have over your work (aka agents of all kinds). The jury’s out on whether or not it’s a good thing to cut the painter entirely, and let’s face it, actors wouldn’t be actors if they didn’t have an agent to blame for most things.
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The focus of this post concerns the changing nature of our ‘classrooms’. School’s in for the year and we’ve hit the ground running as they say; at least we’re there on the ground in traditional classrooms, in workshops, and online. The electronic revolution is nibbling insistently if not biting hard yet … at least as far as e-learning is concerned in my neck of the woods.
Last night I worked in a virtual classroom in a live chat with a very small group of students … hope this grows! Memo to self: strategise getting them on board! They still need help, as do my colleagues, to make sense of this Web 2.0 world. I’ve also been working in a traditional classroom in the stand and deliver mode this week, but even there I’m more interested in getting the students to do the learning, rather than to stroke my own ego by giving them the goods culled and mediated through my own experience.
Continue reading ...I am sure this is a terrible title for the post but as it’s a staging-post post on a journey, it works for me. The journey is the one that this blog is charting … my adventures in online teaching and learning. For a while now, and through various courses I’ve taught, I’ve been concerned
Continue reading ...Michelle Martin’s Bamboo Project blog is great. I’ve found her blog ‘voice’ both warm and enthusiastic, so I have no doubt she’s a top teacher. I’ve been sucked in to a small but growing group of bloggers who are taking Michelle’s via Problogger Darren Rowse’s ’31 Days to a Better Blog.’ I wrote in a
Continue reading ...Doh, here I go again! I’ve long believed the first axiom of teaching is ‘Take nothing for granted.’ Had a couple of hours lab workshop this morning on Macs with a third-year group of students. I’m teaching them how to use the apps and services available on the web to create their own online, digital
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