Training Open University associate lecturers to use Elluminate for tutorials (SEDA parallel)

Staff dev for associate lecturers at the OU

* Induction
* Central briefings
* Regional events (generic and faculty-based)
* Online material

(Olivia Fox, City University London)

"I'm proud to say that in staff development we are second to none." (para-phrasing)

The OU in the North West

* 1000 Associate Lecturers
* 15,000 students

* Also, we support business school tutors for North of UK, and Openings tutors.

Media of delivery
* Face-to-face
* Elluminate
* Combined face-to-face & Elluminate

Eg. Tutor session in October - 16 in the room; 18 online

Previous events
- Training on and about Elluminate
* Familiarisation
* Improver
* Role of teacher
* Learning Styles
* Teaching activities
- Generic training
* Exploring TutorHome
* Move to Outlook
* ALs as role models for reflective practice (dual mode)

"Elluminate was made for tutoring math" - interesting!

Elke St John - quite a portfolio of online training
* Library
...

we had the first dual mode training

Now all either Elluminate or dual-mode.


Benefits of online Staff Dev events
* Improve performance of teachers - start as a spectator, before being the tutor.
* Reach a bigger cohort of tutors

Now: Elke St John

Traps to avoid before session
* Send out pre-training information, eg. podcasts (links) Top tips; Audio set-up; Accessing room
* Set-up forum for questions - R08-TRAINING (anonymise email questions - onto the forum)
* Stress that it is online training
* Emphasise that headset is necessary

How to devise an effective session

Pedagogical Issues
1. adapting the f2f teaching skills
2. non-verbal communication
3. raising hands
4. time issue (you might get through more content, or less)
5. silence (especially with smaller groups)
6. class room management
7. follow-up with forum discussion
8. participant workspace necessary

class room management - Good for dominant students (oh, dear. a technical issue)

Technical Issues
1. multitasking technical aspects necessary
2. text chat
3. keep training simple
4. create a safe learning environment

Reflection on our experience
* Laughter in sessions/humour
* Not making assumptions
* Recording of training
-- do we need an Elluminetiquette?
-- certain classroom ethics can be developed

Did you understand? 20 green ticks -- did everyone really understand, group pressure.

* Situated learning eg. Lave et al training is not useful if not carried out on Elluminate
* Learning by doing , eg. Brown et al
...

Conclusions...