The advantages of Praze certainly outweigh the problems that I have been encountering getting it set up.
For my purposes one of the elements that I really appreciate is the automatic distribution of work for students to review that means that I do not have to keep in mind all that variables of students in the same group not marking their partners work and the fact that I want all students to have a go at supplying feedback to two other projects - it distributes or simulates and then you check and try again.
However in the process of trying this out I thought you needed students to have submitted work. This may not be the case. However in my ignorance I got the class to do a test submission last week of any old file that they had lying around.
This was a great thing for me as I got to see what happened and got a general idea of the issues that the students faced. One of the good things was that I did the test upload for students online while we were all in the virtual classroom environment Elluminate and I even got one of the students to share their own application and view of what they saw in Praze so I got a pretty good idea of what the students perspective was when they went into Praze.
Now clearly that studnet perspective is possible withe the student log on that Lyn and I have to access the LMS. This however has its own issues. What we found was that we had to upload something ourselves before we got into the other areas of Praze including the review of other peoples work. This works to some extent but it is so much better when you have the whole class and you can do a real distribution rather than one between two.
Now the other issue that arose after Lyn and I submitted work was that in that assignment in Praze we could not then be eliminated from the distribution and so we kept appearing as reviewers and reviewees even though I tried to sxclude out work so that it was jsut the students review ing the students.
To get around this i closed off that assignment and started a new one without Lyn and I in the class at all.
That seemed to work (thought there mighet be another way to do this but did not have time before the submission deadline) as it was so close to the deadline i think I confused some of the students because I had to get them all to resubmit and although some were aware that the original submission was a test some had subsequently resubmitted there real draft. This spooked them a bit and made them feel the submission process was perhaps unstable and that even if they submitted again "could I give a guarantee that there would be no need to submit a 3rd time".
I felt quite confident giving that guarantee because again perhaps through ignorance I could not fully delete or delete at all the assignment files that had been uploaded inthe original test. SO because I had that difficulty I knew that I could guarantee no work would be lost and no furhter uploading the same stuff would be required.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
The Praze Learning Curve
Still a little unsure about names of things for example students can sign up for a topic at the moment by just putting any title they want in. I was hoping that by putting them in a group that the only topic they were in was the one there group was working on - not sure if you can see what I mean here. The topics and the groups are the same and have been allocated so digning up is not needed which was what I had it set it up for earlier but the submit work link was greyed out so there was not a way to submit until I changed that attribute and then it was available.
The reality is perhaps not really what Praze is designed for there are a number of group projects some have only one person some have two in any case each group only submits one piece and the members of that group cannot review their own groups work.
Not sure that allowing them to sign up for a topic that they supplied the title of is the way to go here but it did allow for the submission of some work.
Do you understand what I need to do to allow them to be able to submit work on behalf of their group and not worry about the topic and then only review other group submission other than their own group's
The reality is perhaps not really what Praze is designed for there are a number of group projects some have only one person some have two in any case each group only submits one piece and the members of that group cannot review their own groups work.
Not sure that allowing them to sign up for a topic that they supplied the title of is the way to go here but it did allow for the submission of some work.
Do you understand what I need to do to allow them to be able to submit work on behalf of their group and not worry about the topic and then only review other group submission other than their own group's
Friday, September 14, 2007
Explaining assessments
There are a number of ways to confuse students a really good one is to attempt to find out what they think should be the criteria for assessment. This is confusing because it is not something that normally is allowable under the traditional expectations of what is the purpose role and responsibility of the lecturer or the institution.
It was clear last week that asking student even those who are teachers - to comment on or evaluate other students work is s process that requires a great deal of care
It was clear last week that asking student even those who are teachers - to comment on or evaluate other students work is s process that requires a great deal of care
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Since the previous post I found out that clicking does work and I have thought some more about sinking into social software
Strangely despite a couple of students seeming to have problems with web addresses not being accessible by clicking in the chat and virtual classroom java windows - I just tested this and it seems to work perfectly well for me in a Firefox browser. I hopw it is not one of these browser specific problems - what i think though is the window that opens is hidden from the users this week who could not see the site opwn up after they clicked the link to it in their chat and virtual environments.
On the more recent versions of Firefox the new window opens as a tab in the same instance of the browser as the java displaying the chat or VC it is therefore resized smaller and does not have a location bar which is a problem and also if you keep pressing the cursor down in the chat or VC environment you stay there and unless you saw the tab pop up you would not know it was there.
Another thing worth thinking about is this notion of dropping the whole LMS environment as the basis for our sessions and moving to Skype chat and other environments and only move to the LMS to demonstrate how an LMS works and what restrictions it imposes ( also what advanteages it has for automatic record keeping enrollment updating and centralising control)
On the more recent versions of Firefox the new window opens as a tab in the same instance of the browser as the java displaying the chat or VC it is therefore resized smaller and does not have a location bar which is a problem and also if you keep pressing the cursor down in the chat or VC environment you stay there and unless you saw the tab pop up you would not know it was there.
Another thing worth thinking about is this notion of dropping the whole LMS environment as the basis for our sessions and moving to Skype chat and other environments and only move to the LMS to demonstrate how an LMS works and what restrictions it imposes ( also what advanteages it has for automatic record keeping enrollment updating and centralising control)
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
What a mess is this LMS
Last night I tried a few more things out - really I should always prewarn students that that is what I am doing and yes I know there were problems with the java plugin that had been reported earlier by students =- but my feeling is that you can learn by trying things out.
Clearly it is still a mistake to start in chat and then ask the class to shift to the virtual classroom.
The first thing that happens is that students lose their chat window and cannot easily tell me if they have problems with the VC.
So number one rule never tell them to do this. What is possible or at least the way that I did it and maybe assumed that other might open the VC was to open a new instance of their browser and then go through the whole process of logging in and then open the VC keeping the Chat open.
It was a misunderstanding on my part that opening both was possible from the same window(or even as proved incorrect that one was linked to the other so that the chat in the VC was the same as the chat in the chat).
The reality is far more complex however than just going through a lengthy explanation that a new instance of the browser needs to be open and the other instance might be concealed behind it but still accessible and still have a java window open with the chat they left open so that they can get back there using alt tab to see the other windows if they hit a snag.
The complexity lies in the variations in what happened last night with different students. Some had their computer crash. Some could see the VC and the whitboard but not the browser sharing I was doing to display the tutorial or how to get to the tutorial. Some had just the chat from the VC and no whitboard. I do not hink anyone was abe to see the content of the browser sharing when I began to play the video. There was no sound on the browser sharing even though a way of browser sharing is just to send the VC on all student to an actual browser and the actual web address that is being shared.
This understanding of mine is naieve however it would have been less technically difficult than what i think the VC actually tries to do and that is send an actual rescanned image of the whole web page to all participants from my machine rather than just point all of their VCs to the same site i am viewing (so they could hear and see direct from the internet and not via my machine using heavy processing of image and communication to re present the webpage.
Anyway what was even more amazing (but disappointing too) was the web address that I put into the chat area of the VC was not active and did not take students to that address when they clicked it. They physically had to copy and paste it into their own browser location bar.( not happy with this at all)
On top of all this the student that may have had the most difficulty with blogs and what they were about had to leave and did not get to even see that there was some instruction available on starting their own blog if they used alternative means to access the instructions. That student I hope will not be so put off that they do not get to follow the instructions and build a blog themselves.
The most disppointing thing about all this is that there are a couple of students in the class who are aware that last semester we did all the things we tried last evening but in alternative software environment that were not available through the LMS and i think they are probably getting impatient that I do not skip all this mucking about and just avoid the University's very expensive LMS and go and use what we used extensively last semester - Skype and Elluminate.
It would be easier and possibly even more aesthetically pleasing to use these again and maybe just refer to the LMS as Web1.0 and therefore passe.
I think Joanne who did the last semester class would like us to move that way. I am just concerned we are skipping whole technologies that need to be investigated and experimented with and experienced so we can speak with authority - even if it is to reject them as clunky.
Clearly it is still a mistake to start in chat and then ask the class to shift to the virtual classroom.
The first thing that happens is that students lose their chat window and cannot easily tell me if they have problems with the VC.
So number one rule never tell them to do this. What is possible or at least the way that I did it and maybe assumed that other might open the VC was to open a new instance of their browser and then go through the whole process of logging in and then open the VC keeping the Chat open.
It was a misunderstanding on my part that opening both was possible from the same window(or even as proved incorrect that one was linked to the other so that the chat in the VC was the same as the chat in the chat).
The reality is far more complex however than just going through a lengthy explanation that a new instance of the browser needs to be open and the other instance might be concealed behind it but still accessible and still have a java window open with the chat they left open so that they can get back there using alt tab to see the other windows if they hit a snag.
The complexity lies in the variations in what happened last night with different students. Some had their computer crash. Some could see the VC and the whitboard but not the browser sharing I was doing to display the tutorial or how to get to the tutorial. Some had just the chat from the VC and no whitboard. I do not hink anyone was abe to see the content of the browser sharing when I began to play the video. There was no sound on the browser sharing even though a way of browser sharing is just to send the VC on all student to an actual browser and the actual web address that is being shared.
This understanding of mine is naieve however it would have been less technically difficult than what i think the VC actually tries to do and that is send an actual rescanned image of the whole web page to all participants from my machine rather than just point all of their VCs to the same site i am viewing (so they could hear and see direct from the internet and not via my machine using heavy processing of image and communication to re present the webpage.
Anyway what was even more amazing (but disappointing too) was the web address that I put into the chat area of the VC was not active and did not take students to that address when they clicked it. They physically had to copy and paste it into their own browser location bar.( not happy with this at all)
On top of all this the student that may have had the most difficulty with blogs and what they were about had to leave and did not get to even see that there was some instruction available on starting their own blog if they used alternative means to access the instructions. That student I hope will not be so put off that they do not get to follow the instructions and build a blog themselves.
The most disppointing thing about all this is that there are a couple of students in the class who are aware that last semester we did all the things we tried last evening but in alternative software environment that were not available through the LMS and i think they are probably getting impatient that I do not skip all this mucking about and just avoid the University's very expensive LMS and go and use what we used extensively last semester - Skype and Elluminate.
It would be easier and possibly even more aesthetically pleasing to use these again and maybe just refer to the LMS as Web1.0 and therefore passe.
I think Joanne who did the last semester class would like us to move that way. I am just concerned we are skipping whole technologies that need to be investigated and experimented with and experienced so we can speak with authority - even if it is to reject them as clunky.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Tutor access
It is a nice neat introduction to the area of research that the researcher's access was blocked by being granted access as a tutor.
I hope as the researcher requested that switching to co ordinator - will solve the problem - this is a good thing to find out - certainly not an intuitive expectation - that is why are tutors not able to access the subject?
Clearly coordinatior's need to access the subject and that would be expected to be a grander set of privileges than a tutors access.
But a tutors access should be straight forward as they are unlikely to be as familiar with an environment as a coordinator would be expected to be (even though my familiarity with it as coordinator is clearly lacking as i did not know you had to be a co ordinator to access the subject - just joking here - i still think it is either a design or implementation fault with the LMS and not a fault with the coordinator's lack of understanding of the subtleties of setting permissions in this LMS - which are by the way very opaque, idiosyncratic and obscurely places in relation to managing the subject.
That is without being told there is really no way of knowing these things - I love that.
I hope as the researcher requested that switching to co ordinator - will solve the problem - this is a good thing to find out - certainly not an intuitive expectation - that is why are tutors not able to access the subject?
Clearly coordinatior's need to access the subject and that would be expected to be a grander set of privileges than a tutors access.
But a tutors access should be straight forward as they are unlikely to be as familiar with an environment as a coordinator would be expected to be (even though my familiarity with it as coordinator is clearly lacking as i did not know you had to be a co ordinator to access the subject - just joking here - i still think it is either a design or implementation fault with the LMS and not a fault with the coordinator's lack of understanding of the subtleties of setting permissions in this LMS - which are by the way very opaque, idiosyncratic and obscurely places in relation to managing the subject.
That is without being told there is really no way of knowing these things - I love that.
Friday, August 3, 2007
The problems with the chat and virtual classroom so far
This is the post I would have made after my first online class on August 1 st
It relates to the face to face session that ran earlier on that day as well.
The implementation of online chat and the virtual classroom in the new instillation of the Blackboard LMS at the uni are clunky
Who would have expected anything else - well me I suppose- I even told the students who turned up to the intro face to face session on how to access the subject that the reason we were using chat was that it was old technology and fairly well proven and would be a good fall back or starting point when we tried newer environments and had issues.
I did try loading the chat in the MAC lab before the class started and I thought there were some issues especially with the virtual classroom side of things.
So I went down to the PC lab to try it - thought we might move there if the thing did not work properly in the MAC lab - it worked on my PC OK.
But nope similar problems seem to exist in the PC lab too. Decided it was a browser issue. It would be best to stay in the MAC lab therefore and run the show and tell session through thee Safari browser rather than Firefox because Safari is developed by MAC and may have all the features and plugins required by the LMS and the java Player for the chat and virtual class environments.
As it turned out that was not a good idea - but I did not have time to find that out before the students started arriving and as could be expected the the whole networked slowed as the students started to log on to the computers at 5.15 and they then also had their own problems logging on as I have found with other classes l - it is always ok for them at home - the network at the university requires a set of passwords that are updated in the labs somehow so they are not set to the correct ones for some students especially those students who often have been enrolled for many years will inevitably have to reset their passwords to access the lab computers even though their log on works at their home perfectly and as they are not going to be using the labs in the future it is a complete distraction and a waste of intellectual energy even talking about different log ons - the students do not need this explained it is not part of the subject but is always the first thing they encounter and I expect it it has at least a peripheral impact on the environments of online and the uni's practices or lack of consideration - whatever
The big issues did not emerge though untill the students went home and tried to access the chat at the designated time of 8.30 pm using a variety of browsers.
One person Christine could not get in at all. She was using a MAC. The MAC environment says on trying to access the chat ( it told me this too ) that the operation system must OSX not 8 or 9 and t go and buy an upgrade ( approximately $300- 400) even though she and I both were using OSx
As I had told her in the face to face class there were some issues with MAC and to use Safari she might have been prepared but I had to send her a message in the online discussion that maybe installing the latest version of Firefox for MAC might be the solution - we will wait and see.
Other people - namely Debbie were having the problems I had down in the PC room - she was on a PC using Internet explorer I think ( I did not ask ) and in the virtual class she could only see the chat window - again I think the problem will be solved if she uses Firefox. But unlike for MAC the latest version of Firefox for PC does not work with the latest version of the Sun Java plugin and I hope she has the old version installed which seems to be OK
I know that it is important to check everything out before you use it in a class but who has the time to check every browser - isnt that the company Blackboard's job how much are we paying for this LMS.
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