Some background... Being a little time-poor, I decided to choose something that I also had to learn in my professional role. I have been using Blackboard Collaborate for quite some time now to provide online workshops for undergraduate and postgraduate students. The workshops cover topics such as academic literacy, research skills, referencing and study skills. Collaborate is not perfect by any means, but I do enjoy facilitating online learning experiences; and Collaborate has features that I use regularly, such as being able to upload a powerpoint and functions that enable participation. One of the reasons I am completing this program is because while I provide and manage opportunities to collaborate and interact in the on-campus classroom, I feel I'm not achieving this in the online classroom. I often jump in and fill gaps in online sessions, rather than facilitate others to do "the filling". Also, my sessions comprise mostly teacher-to-student interaction, rather than a balance of both teacher-to-student and student-to-student interactions. So, at the beginning of this Term, the University I work for decided to trial the new version of Collaborate - Collaborate Ultra. Right! This was the perfect opportunity to sharpen my skills by mastering the new version; and hopefully, up-skill in new features that could facilitate collaboration and interaction. Expressions of interest were sent out by the Learning Technology Unit to participate in the trail. I sent back a reply, and also asked colleagues in my area if they would be interested in trialling this new version together as a professional development activity. Three colleagues from Rockhampton campus were very enthusiastic about the prospect. First step... Our team of four met in the trial Collaborate Ultra virtual classroom and discussed:
In hindsight, I regret not establishing a criteria for reviewing Collaborate Ultra. I don't think we achieved as much as we could have achieved because the session lacked focus. The TEST Framework - Task, Environment, Skills, Technology - would have been ideal for this context, had I been aware of it. The session was somewhat disorganised; each participant had a different level of skill with this type of tool, and the lack of focus meant that the notes I took weren't fully reflective of what we had discussed. The next step of the process is to post our findings into a forum for trial participants to give and gain feedback about other participant's experiences. References
CQUniversity. (2016). Web Collaboration Tools. [Moodle discussion forum]. Retrieved from Socal, I. D. (2009). The Toolbelt and Universal Design - Education For Everyone. [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://speedchange.blogspot.com.au/p/blog- page_2046.html
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