Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – moving towards e-learning delivery

Introduction

Our first webinar for 2013 was a Serendipity unconference session – recorded here. The topic chosen by poll from ideas posted on the whiteboard was that of:

  • moving an organisation towards e-learning delivery of courses: organisational change strategies.

This is a topic that recurs periodically – and each time we talk about it there are different ideas and insights shared helping us all to consider what we might do to move our own organisations in the direction of e-learning whether this is part of our formal role or because it is our passion.

The Session

We started with a blank whiteboard headed with the topic title for ideas about strategies. This wasn’t blank for long as we all had many ideas about encouraging change.

The whiteboard remained central to the session with ideas added throughout the session.

The whiteboard gives only a flavour of the ideas and discussion. These were expanded upon in both text chat and audio and included:

  • more depth on some of the strategies and how they have worked in practice for participants
  • a brief mention of models for change and technology acceptance.

To get the full picture check out the recording, then add your own ideas and suggestions as comments on this post.

Conclusion

This was a terrific session! The time flew by, and as always when we discuss organisational change there were many ideas flowing. This was a session that could probably have gone on much longer with more in depth exploration of strategies and their practical implementation and also  closer look at the models for change and technology acceptance.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is a FineFocus session. Join Phil Hart (@philhart) for “E-portfolios – a personal journey” in which Phil will share his experience of developing e-portfolios to provide complete evidence for Recognition of Prior Learning in higher level vocational qualifications. Join us on Thursday Jan 10th at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning Jan 11th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

 

 

Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – pros & cons of online courses

Introduction

This session was “buzzy” right from the start and throughout! If you missed all or part of this session then the recording is well worth a watch and listen.

The Session

We had five potential topics very quickly and on polling the clear winner was “Online courses – benefits/cons”.

To start with we used a whiteboard to share our various understandings of “online courses”. This is something we often do at the start of a Serendipity session to establish our own awareness of the possible different perceptions of the topic we plan to discuss.

We then moved on to some lively discussion. Initially we brainstormed the  positives and used these as springboards to talk about and share our own personal experiences of online courses. We then did the same for the negatives. With only a short time left we took a very brief look at working with different student “levels” in an online context.

TakeAwaysResize

As is usual we finished with a whiteboard for our best “Take-aways” from the session, and as often happens in the best learning situations some humour crept into the “take-aways” 🙂

Conclusion

This was a great session and was definitely one of those where we just didn’t have enough time to talk about everything. I left resolved to investigate several tools that were new to me – although the available time for that is extremely limited at the moment!

Our Next Session

FineFocusSmallOur next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session. This week a chance to find out a little more about Elluminate’s capabilities for you as a presenter in “Can I really do that virtually?”  Join us on Thursday June 30 th at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning in Australia – in the usual Elluminate room