Date post: | 29-Nov-2014 |
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What’s the alternative?
Widening participation by making VLE-based distance learning available to those without internet access
Centre for Open Learning of Mathematics, Science, Computing and Technology (COLMSCT) Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).
Val HancockCOLMSCT Associate Teaching [email protected]
The OU Associate Lecturer (AL)
Student
Student in prison
Action ResearchResearch• Student interviews• Prison education staff interviews• Prison Tutors forum
Action• Prison Tutor Support wiki• Trial• Tutor pack• Alternative materials
Research• Statistics• Tutor questionnaires• Student questionnaires
Student interviews (formal)
We’ve got an intranet with Moodle. Can we load the course
website on it?
Can my brother access the forum and tell me what’s being discussed so that I
can reply?
I print things off at home and bring it in
for the students
I wanted to do a Computing degree but I
have to do Sociology instead because you don’t need internet access for
that
I didn’t know you could submit assignments by
email, I thought you needed to go to the
website
Not having internet access slows you down. You have to get a book from the library which they might have to get in
for you.
Prison education staff interviews (informal)
Prison Tutors Forum
There was an e-activity at the begining of the course which required students to
engage in online discussions on their rain gauge experiment, I got around this one by
anonomising examples of the messages post to the TGF and printing it off for my
student to use for his assignment
Just wonder what colleagues do in this
situation?I hopefully can and will see the students
F2F but what about all the online stuff?
When it comes to changing TMAs, accepting paper instead of eTMAs and so on, how much authority
does the AL and/or the course team have? At what point do these alterations need permission from
elsewhere in the university?
I think it is too much to expect either the prison
Education Officer or myself to provide hard
copies of everything they need
Are you allowed to take CDs or USB sticks into the secure unit? This is often a problem in prisons and so in the past I've had to resort to printing
off things that would be easier to transfer digitally
(assignments, CMAs etc). If you can create a CD-R with
all the course website material on it makes life
much easier.
I'm not clear on who provides the student with TMA questions when they are only available online (I sent a hardcopy of TMA01 just in
case)
Alternative approaches
Course news Alert prison education staff by email, phone or post
Web referencesOffline versions of web pages emailed or on CDPrinted pages
Internet searchesMediated search by OU library, tutor or prison staffAlternative sources e.g. books, DVD encyclopedias
Videos & podcastsOffline versions emailed or on CDTranscripts emailed or on CD
Collaborative toolsOffline tutor group (or dummy) forum/wiki/blogOffline responses
Download assignmentEmail as attachmentPrint and post
Computer Marked Assignments
Post paper OCR form
Assignment submissionEmail to electronic submission systemPaper submission
Course website Download to prison intranet running generic Moodle
Course Component Alternative approach
Homing pigeon
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/homing-pigeon-faster-internet-africa/story?id=8550501
Tutor Pack
• Getting started• TMA00• M150 course website• General support• Useful forums• Useful sites
General Advice
TMA01•Question 1 (i) (b)•Question 1 (i) (f)
TMA02•Question 2 (v)•Question 3 (i)•Question 3 (iii)
Specific Advice
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90
Score
1 2 3 4 5 6Assignment
Assignment Marks
Offender Learners
Entire cohort
Statistics9 students registered• 2 withdrew before the course started• 1 did not complete the course• 6 passed the course
EDO FrameworkCategorise activities requiring internet access
Essentialstudents will fail the course if the activity cannot be carried out
Desirablestudents can pass the course if the activity cannot be carried out but their overall grade is likely to be affected
Optionalmany students outside prison will not engage with the activity
Discussion
• What are your experiences of problems due to lack of internet access?
• How did you overcome these problems?• What do we mean by ‘accessibility’?• Is the EDO framework useful?• Is this a learning design issue?
Further information• Alternative approaches to online activities for prisoners
and others without access to the Internet (COLMSCT project): http://www.open.ac.uk/colmsct/activities/details/detail.php?itemId=474c44f736651&themeId=48a9748015077
• An Objective Evaluation of Online Forum Usage Amongst Prison Tutors in a Distance Learning Environment (EISTA 2009 conference paper):http://www.iiis.org/CDs2008/CD2009SCI/EISTA2009/Abstract.asp?myurl=E362EX.pdf
• Val Hancock: [email protected]