E1n1verse – WoW, Learning, and Teaching by Michelle A. Hoyle

When I last saw J, my supervisor, we were disagreeing about how to do the motivational essay coding for my first World of Warcraft survey.. My plan was to go through the essays first to come up with some themes. Then Basil and I would independently code them for theme. My reasoning was I wanted the coding to be free from subjective bias. If two of us agreed independently, then that would be better than just my assessment of the data. J. thought it was unlikely Basil and I would agree, so she set me the “Great Date Night Experiment.” In this experiment, Basil, my partner, and I would sit down on “date night” and test out my theory on a small scale. Basil would read one essay and summarize the main themes or ideas he thought were represented in the essay. I would independently do the same. Then I would report back to J.

Read the rest of this entry »

I joined the Open University (OU) as an Associate Lecturer (AL) back in May 2000 to teach the university’s T171: You, Your Computer and the Net course, the university’s first large-scale foray into online teaching. As one of hundreds of new ALs, I was thrown into the world of FirstClass, the university’s chosen platform for collaboration and discussion in its courses, and among its students and associate lecturers. If you haven’t already heard, the death knell for FirstClass has been sounded. I believe the transition away from FirstClass for courses is expected to be complete by October 2010. As part of that transition, our e-mail accounts need to go somewhere, but where?

If you’re a student, you may already be using your own personal, non-OU e-mail address at the university. If you’re an associate lecturer or other academic/support staff, having a .open.ac.uk e-mail address is an important part of your professional identity. According to David Wilson, director of strategic planning in LTS, a choice is being considered between Google Apps Education Edition and Microsoft Live@edu and should be made shortly (in Snowball 36 – November 2009). It will definitely be put into place for students, but it may extend further than that. The decision has not yet been made, so we have a very small window of opportunity to provide some input as to our preferences. I’ve constructed a very small, unofficial survey at SurveyMonkey to do that.

Read the rest of this entry »