Learning along the way

When writing up project outcomes, some valuable learning which happens during projects is not easily captured. One of the things I’ve learned along the way recently is to include some of the most able students when testing resources if possible, to see if the resources have enough depth to challenge a range of students. Also, since I’ve been making quite a few audios of museum staff talking, I’ve been wondering whether to reconfigure Museum Studies teaching a bit so that some of the more lecture-style sessions are online, saving staff contact time for more interactive and personalised sessions. Good idea in theory, but it’s not clear whether students would listen to the audios, whether they might feel a little short-changed at having so much online, and whether the audios would date too quickly and not seem relevant.

It’s also been extremely valuable to get to know the archives in the Museum of English Rural Life in more depth than before through having to select objects for digitisation. In fact, I feel I know the Museum much better now than when I started the project in January, which I hope will contribute to the effectiveness of my teaching.

Two useful reports which were presented at the evaluation training day last week:

OER: The value of re-use in HE – Accessible report: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning/oer/OERTheValueOfReuseInHigherEducation.pdf
• OER Impact study – Full research report:

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning/oer/JISCOERImpactStudyResearchReportv1-0.pdf

Especially useful on how tutors use OERs (in a small-scale study, 39% were found to use OERs as they were, 22% provided a ‘pedagogical wrapper’ for them, 28% repurposed them). This will help us decide how to reconfigure resources for open access.