Attendance, VLE messages and Learning Journal
On a typical Monday, I check attendance in online modules and send the records to an administrator. That sounds straightforward - and it is when students have signed the online register, BUT...
- setting up the register is a technical twiddle - create a new register from a template, edit permissions so that students can use the register (checking that all the students are in the module list), remove the previous register from the navigation, cross fingers for luck.
- the register is not attendance - the course requirement is for students to contribute about 150 words of relevant discussion. However, the data from the register is an indicator.
- manually updating the register from the Site Usage Report is another task on the technical side as this involves knowing that there is such a report and where to find it (in Modify All Site Settings). Some students who have not signed the register have accessed the site, and although usage is not attendance, it is another indicator. It would be possible to compile the weekly register from the Site Usage report, but that gives monthly or daily figures.
- where students have not accessed the site for a week, a reminder is sent by email.
- there remains the issue of attendance - whether students have contributed to module discussions.
A frequent concern for new students is what to post in the VLE. Some students are reasonably comfortable when they see the discussion boards. They seem more comfortable in social media than in the VLE; Google+ has been popular with some, many continue to send messages using Posterous, surprisingly few appear to use FaceBook and more than I expected use Twitter. All are familiar with email (a course requirement) and I think that automation of social media with email alerts is likely to be a factor in improving use of the VLE. That requires another technical touch, as few students set up their own VLE alerts and setting up alerts for them involves setting up a new alert for myself, then adding students manually (followed by resetting my own alerts each time).
Students are asked to keep a Learning Journal in a medium of their own choice - this could be more traditional study notes but as it is a Technology course students should experiment with web logs (blogs). Learning Journals can be private, shared with tutors or a limited list of people, or public. Some students make very good use of copying their own VLE messages to their journals (or vice versa) to create a useful personal record and fulfill the attendance requirements.
Wish List:
- Site Usage weekly reports (7 days)
- Administration to collect registers direct from (weekly) Site Usage Report
- A Discussion Board Usage Report for users might be useful.
- An easier navigation link for Site Usage (I might be able to set this one up for myself but that solves an individual rather than a team problem).
- Students to have default daily summary email alerts for discussions that they can modify to instant or weekly alerts.
- A VLE that looks more like good social media - the functionality is there but it is too complicated to set up for many academics.
