Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Results of the poll - hours per week spent on the course

The poll recently carried out on the course blog was set up to find out how many hours per week participants in the course were spending studying in the course. There were nine (n=9) out of a possible 15 particpants who responded, a 60% response rate. The results to the question follow. For some reason, parts of the grid in the table have been lost. The table was organised in Word, and pasted into PaintShop Pro, then saved as a jpeg.

This is one way you can gather descriptive data and report on it as part of a formative evaluation during the running of a course.

Question - how many hours per week are you spending on average on the course?

I wonder if people who responded have any comments to make about the number of hours they are spending in study.
  • Is the amount of time spent adequate and/or acceptable to you? Please explain.
  • Is the time you are spending sufficient to help you understand the topics and keep up? Please expand.





7 comments:

Gordon said...

From a user perspective I think I much preferred the discussion forums as a quick way to catch up with all the topics, follow things in a linear manner and connect with the others on the course. I am not sure that a community has formed yet.

The blogs are time consuming to read. I have a bloglines feed set up, but am finding that I have read several postings and threads a few times because I have no way of knowing which items I have read before. When an alert comes up that new material has been added to a blog it has often been a comment on a previous posting so some searching is necessary. Maybe I am doing it the wrong way, perhaps when I first subscribed. If I want to catch up with a new comment I have to read the previous stuff again. This can be similar to threaded discussion but I find them much easier and more compact. It was a quicker process overall.

I am also finding that the research is apparently very limited in terms of refining things down to specific areas. I have had to trawl through a lot of websites and papers to find some relevant texts. This was reflected in someone's blog post, maybe Yvonne?

Is the amount of time acceptable? Yes, otherwise I wouldn't do it. If other things get really busy then I will have to back off.

Is the time sufficient to help me understand? Yes, part of my time has been spent in summarising documents or readings.

My thoughts, for what they are worth.

Gordon said...

Correction, it was Rika's blog. Couldn't edit my previous post.

Yvonne said...

Hi Gordon

The 'conversation' that we get with something like google groups seems to be missing a bit I agree. I use google reader for updates but it only shows post updates and not new comments. I try to remember to tick the 'email replies' button when I leave a comment but if I forget I can miss out on developing conversations - unless I spend time re-reading posts and checking on number of comments. By the time I've done this there's not always much time left to leave a meaningful contribution!

I'm not sure the wiki discussion area is being used very much - that could be used for questions etc. that develop in blog posts - although that then gets a little repetitive maybe.

Yvonne

Helga said...

Just wanted to add that I would like to spend more time on reading books and articles and have more discussions (online or during web conferences).
At the moment reading everybody's blogs and updating my own takes already so much time that little if left for other things.

Hilary said...

I seem to be spending most of my time looking at the blogs. I also have set up the bloglines but it doesn't seem to show me when a new comment has been posted, only a new blog entry. So I try to remember who has recently posted and then look at the blog to see if any new comments have been posted. Maybe I didn't set up the feeds properly?

The time I am spending at the moment is manageable and like Gordon, if work commitments etc increase then I would need to review.

Sue said...

Personally I'm not yet convinced about blogs and and wikis for engaging and interactive online teaching/learning.

I DO think wikis are a fantastic way to 'store'/present data and I DO think blogs are great for personal reflection purposes...but I'm feeling the discussion/interaction is disjointed by the need to read other's blogs and the comments, and then comment on the blog and/or comments.

From my past experience the BB forums allowed for better discussion and sharing of ideas - and included a touch idle banter and humour which made my learning experience enjoyable and engaging.

Rika said...

I agree with Gordon. I'm going ok but am finding it all a bit disjointed and struggling to keep up with everyone's blogging, my own blogging, the course blogging, the course wicki and do the course work and assessment......... phew! Am pretty gutted that i haven't been able to join in on any meetings but thursdays are just no good for me AND i've been so busy doing the above i still haven't sorted a camera and mike for my pc! Anyway - i guess i'll get there. by the way - did someone mention somewhere on their blogs about holidays - do we get holidays???? That would be lovely if we did! R :]