Thread:A Mathemateical journey is going to be a popular OERu offering! Initial reflections (3)

Hi Betty,


 * Yep, Moodle will be able to administer and award a mark for an objective item (MCQ, True / False) type assessment and the OER Foundation hosts a Moodle install. I'd suggest that the development team consider not including the outcome of the initial assessment of quantitative skills because this creates authentication and identity validation issues. We will not have a reliable way of ensuring that the user who takes the test will be the student applying for assessment services at one of the OERu partners. One option to consider is a completion requirement where the learner provides some form of evidence that they completed the test in an e-portfolio -- but that the grade is not counted towards the final grade. At the point of assessment, the OERu conferring institution will be able to validate identity in accordance with local procedures and requirements.
 * I'm looking forward to see how the learning plan design evolves -- this is going to become a valuable feature / option for OERu delivery.
 * Aaah -- your "Blackboard" refers to synchronous web conferencing. It will be good to trial these technologies for OERu delivery in the prototype context. A few things we will need to consider in the design:
 * The OER Foundation will not be able to host Blackboard /Collaborate. The Foundation only uses open source software as a matter of policy.
 * There is an open source web conferencing system - BigBlueButton. I've not used the system much - -so we would need to do a little testing, see how it scales etc.
 * If ESC is running the OERu prototype in parallel mode with full tuition students on campus -- you could provide web conferencing access using your own system (but ESC will need to carry that cost). This may not be possible for all OERu partners
 * The disadvantage with synchronous web casting for an international context is to find a suitable time for 24 time zones. The only way to create a reasonable window is to schedule two sessions for each planned conference instance - -One for the Americas and the Pacific, another slot for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
 * Web conferences be recorded -- but not the same as the live event.
 * Drawing on our own data from the Learning4Content courses, in cases where web-conference were scheduled - -attendance was low around 15% of registered participants.
 * I think expose learners to individuals with a passion for maths -- In terms of reaching the maximum number of OERu learners, I think short video vignettes with carefully designed peer-2-peer reflections will be more effective.
 * Regarding scalability of social platforms and dividing learners into groups -- this is not a infrastructure limitation. Platforms like Mahara can accommodate thousands of learners. The challenge is the administrative load for an AVI to allocate groups and the practical limitations from the learners perspective to read thousands of posts.

A few more things for us to think about ;-). Also we will have the advantage of limited scale prototypes to help us gauge the ration of AVIs needed for different pedagogical designs.