By David Wells, editor at Surviving the OU
David has now completed TMA04 and moves on to the EMA as H800 nears a conclusion
Hello everybody! If you’ve missed any of the previous posts then find them here: Entry 1, Entry 2, Entry 3, Entry 4, Entry 5, Entry 6, Entry 7, Entry 8 , Entry 9, Entry 10, Entry 11, Entry 12. and Entry 13.
TMA04: Three parts to the final TMA
The final TMA of H800 was split into three main sections. Well, strictly speaking it was Part A and Part B, with the second part taking up a considerable portion of wordage, but there were three main parts. Part A we had to read a paper by McCarthy entitled ‘Learning in the Café: pilot testing the collaborative application for education in Facebook’ and then make points on the numerical evidence.
Next up in Part A was a paper by Mary Thorpe entitled ‘Effective online interaction: mapping course design to bridge from research to practice’ that we had to read through and record out observations on, in relation to two questions. Not too bad here, all pretty straightforward.
Part B was a 3,000-word monster and all pivoted off the statement: ‘Learners now have ownership of technology-enhanced learning.’ We then had to explain to our tutor what we thought of the statement, within the framework of the following:
- what you consider to be the most powerful arguments and evidence in support of this claim
- what you consider to be the most powerful arguments and evidence against it
- your own position in relation to the claim
- some of the principal implications, for practitioners in technology-enhanced learning, of the points you have made so far in Part B.
EMA Preparation
Just a quick note then on the EMA. Two technologies are required and I’ve chosen Instructional Video and Asynchronous Forums as my two. The EMA, as you can imagine, is a bopper. 6,000 words in fact. More on this in due course. In the meantime, here are the explanations of the two technologies in case you’re wondering.
Instructional videos can be used within a course context to introduce new skills, knowledge or behaviour to be learned or reinforced. … Then, determine what type of video production will best support the intended learning. Welcome Video. Welcome videos can be used to introduce students to you and your course.
A discussion board (known also by various other names such as discussion group, discussion forum, message board, and online forum) is a general term for any online “bulletin board” where you can leave and expect to see responses to messages you have left. Or you can just read the board.
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