I guess something that stuck out from the day was the underlying message about the value of social interaction and face to face. Nicola Ward (BT) mentioned the importance of having connectivity to be able to carry out tasks in social spaces, Gwen Noteborn of Maastricht University highlighted the importance of face to face lectures in relation to her research in webcasting. She mentioned how webcasting added value to students learning but couldn't replace the social aspect of coming together in one room for a lecture. Lindsay Jordan Educational Developer at the University of the Arts London also talked about that feeling and sense of remembrance you have when experiencing something in a physical space with a social aspect as opposed to an online space, to demonstrate this she presented wearing a blue spandex 'onsie' and a blue wig. Lindsay has a point, I don't think some of us will forget that in a hurry! So what does this mean for us as educational developers? How do we create that social experience for our students when it comes to online courses and in particular as Lindsay discussed in relation to the high drop out rates that we find with MOOCs.
The University of Sheffield has just signed up to FutureLearn and the first course to be launched from the university will be Discover Dentistry (shameless plug, go check it out). We'll be looking at using the tools within the FutureLearn platform to add elements of interaction and discussion whilst keeping motivation up. The platform is relatively new so it'll be an interesting experience for all so watch this space!
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Based on a work at navdeepinthought.blogspot.com.
