Thoughts+on+seminar+topics

__Update: Monday 7 June__

So we've got the rest of this week to figure out our topic and get that theme signup agreement form filled out. I'll put a table underneath this with some random ideas I have listed out from the skim-read of our module's readings... if you have some more ideas please add them to the table. I'll leave a couple of columns blank so that we can make notes, etc in line with each of the ideas if needed... I'm thinking maybe put a cross next to those ideas that you are sure will not work so we can forget about those... a circle next to the ones (or one) that you think has some potential. That way we can narrow these down fairly quickly and hopefully start coming up with a gameplan on Wednesday. //Note: in the sheet that's due on Sunday - we need to suggest the format, timeframes, etc as well as the theme so we'll need a bit of time to figure all of that out once a theme is sorted. Ideally, we'll have a theme by Wednesday and can flesh out the rest over the following couple of days.//

Hi Mark and All, I have marked the ones I like as opposed to the ones I didn't!

I'm with your ideas Andy, and have added to them Alan I like this one - also the question of whether developing countries can skip a step - ie not bother with the larger physical institutions and just go straight to virtual institutions. Access could be via whatever devices they have, phones etc. Sounds good. Potentially is this the questions that gets addressed at the 'end' of the seminar (along with 'what are the issues because of these differences?') ||  ||   || This one sounds interesting as well. I wonder if we could have a number of possible 'case studies' to look at, with the successes and struggles clearly identified (or maybe the seminar participants have to work these out and come up with generalisations?) Are we going to put our global emphasis on Africa or do we want to look wider? Are there NZ comparisons we should also be looking at? ||  ||   || Mark
 * ................................................................................................................................................................ || XO || ............................................................ ||
 * The cost factor in distance education and how this differs from country to country ||  ||   ||
 * Reading 13: "what do you see as the most important comparisons between online distance education in developed and developing nations?"
 * The role of e-learning in increasing literacy in developing nations ||  ||   ||
 * Comparing "globalized" e-learning for developing countries with locally managed e-learning ||  ||   ||
 * Comparing govt. initiated and prviate e-learning and the differing motives behind each of these in developed and developing nations ||  ||   ||
 * Compare govt' policies and statements on the place of IT in various countries; consider what these policies say about each country's priorities and the issues facing their education system ||  ||   ||
 * Case study: African Virtual University
 * Public-private partnerships in global e-learning ||  ||   ||
 * The implications of the treaty of waitangi on e-learning in nz secondary schools ||  ||   ||
 * compare access to technology for e-learning in nz with a range of other nations and discuss the implications of similarities and differences there ||  ||   ||
 * what steps need to be taken to provide universal access to technology for education in nz and in what ways can these steps apply to other nations? ||  ||   ||

We're running weeks 15-16 (June 26 - August 6) as far as I can tell... Maggie has said that we're looking at around **20 - 25 hours** for the total seminar running time over the fortnight (that's about how much we'd expect people to participate.) This needs to include any time required for reading resources / people making their way round a website and looking at the links / time spent composing discussion forum questions and so forth. This places our seminar during Module 3: Global Perspectives on E-Learning - so I'm guessing that our seminar must be based clearly in this topic area.

The readings for that module are 13, 14 and 15 - plus a 2010 ebook, which we don't have a link to yet.

The way I see it, we can't really choose a suitable topic until we have a handle on what sort of issues are dealt with in the module so can I be a nerd and suggest that we at least skim over the module 3 readings. I don't know if it's realistic for us to read them right through in the next week so that we've still got time to make decisions - so here are a couple of suggestions to kill both birds: **please let me know what you think...

1) we all read through the intros of each reading, skim over some topic sentences and conclusions to get the gist of what we're looking at 2) each of us reads one of them and provides some bullet-point issues to the group, based on which we can decide what to cover 3) I've totally lost the plot and we don't need to look at these readings until week 15: we can just choose a topic now**

Once we've decided on a topic - we can create some new pages (here or in the group thread on Stream) to discuss format, etc... but I think it makes sense to figure out what our topic is before we start coming up with methods... and we want to make sure our topic is relevant from the outset so we don't need to change anything later on.

Last point: we have this space, plus the Stream thread + the synchronous chat space on Stream as planning resources. It would be awesome if we can figure out some times that we are all able to communicate and go over ideas at the same time. I reckon that while most of the work will be done asynchronously, the chat function is still a pretty good opportunity that we can jump on, but we will need to schedule this as we are all busy people. Probably not important just yet - but worth thinking about as we'll need to plan the time if we're going to use this function later.

Cheers, Mark

Hi Mark

I think skimming all the readings is a good idea. Was planning to do that in order to come up with ideas for project. I'm happy for online chat or skype (my username: mcnallychapman) I usually study Mon to Wed after 7:30 and then some other sessions at weekends. Will be happy to meet for synchronous discussion, i would be keen to check out the stream chat facility etc. Right then off to parse the readings.

Cheers Andy

Hi Mark, Andy, James. I'm with you on #1. Will post a bit later with more thoughts on your ideas mark (Brilliant start by the way - cheers and virtual chocolate heading your way!)

Alan

Hi Andy,

Sweet as. James has also voted for #1 so we may as well go ahead with that. I've just posted a message to the group discussion on Stream because I'm confused about what sort of topics are relevant, how we should pinpoint these, etc. In the meantime, I'll get stuck into the module 3 readings too and hopefully we can start considering topics the beginning of next week?

mark