General Questions
(Reposting these questions from an email as requested)
Hi Leigh,
I have a couple of questions I wanted to ask you.
First off regarding the blog posts, you mentioned that it's ok if we use our existing blogs for the course so long as the course-related posts are clearly defined. I was thinking of implementing a new category and/or tagging convention and thought a course code would work the best - however I don't think I've seen one. How would you like me to categorise things? I'll also mention the course at the beginning of each post.
Also, given the fact there is a fair amount of overlap between what we're covering in the course and what I write about normally I'm not sure where to draw the line with what posts I tag and what I don't. I don't want to inundate the other learners with material that hasn't been requested. Should I keep it to specific exercises and activities?
Secondly, the programme website indicates that "Most of these activities will also incorporate participation in online discussions." This is a combination of synchronous and asynchronous discussion I assume, right? Do you have any idea what a rough percentage will be? The reason I ask is I've got a huge commute to and from UNSW everyday (2 hours + each way) and had anticipated doing much of the reading and blog-writing during this period - with postings to discussion forums (etc) you peppered throughout the day.
If it's largely synchronous discussion I can find a way to work it :)
Cheers,
Mike
[NB: Leigh, I'm not sure if you want your response reposted so I might leave that to you to decide ;)]
(Hi Mike, thanks. I thought our email contained questions and suggestions that others may find useful...)
Regarding the blogging.. I think a tag or category would be fine, especially if you can generate a feed from it. That way people could simply subscribe to that feed instead of the main one.. I will subscribe to both :) Your main one for general interest, and your course feed for, well, the course :) as for where to draw the line, I think anything that is relevant to the course should be included in the course feed... I can handle it, so I'll leave it to your discretion.
As for communications.. from time to time we will be web conferencing. At the moment the two platforms pegged for that will be Elluminate and Second Life... maybe Skype as well. Any planned meetings of this nature are written in the schedule on the week they are to occur. Depending on the group preferences of course, but I'm thinking 10am NZ time (8am your time) will be the likely meeting time (as it is good for Australia, most of America as well as Western Europe). All meetings will be audio recorded of course, so if connectivity is an issue on your commute (I know that commute well) you'll be able to access the recordings. I had heard that the Blue Mountains train line is all WiFi now? I like to think I planted that seed if its true :)
Hope that covers it.. I think it would be good to have this on the wiki discussion page.. can you restart the thread there? Maybe a new thread called General questions?
