Hi everyone
At the National Extension College we too were concerned at the lack of
collaborative tools within most of the commercial VLEs. We differ from most
UK organisations using or intending to use a VLE, in that all our learners
are distance learners (and there are more than 10,000 of them). Therefore
we decided to develop our own VLE to support our learners and tutors. The
primary goal was to try and create a sense of community among our learners
and tutors, and to enable them to communicate and collaborate online. We
therefore based the design on the wealth of literature about online
communities rather than elearning. That is not to say that elearning is not
important to us: we fully intend to deliver online learning to the home,
classroom and workplace where appropriate. We’d be silly not to, as we’re
the leading UK publisher of high quality open and distance materials for
the post-16 curriculum. However our aim was to provide a virtual support
environment first and a virtual delivery environment second (VSE + VDE
=VLE, just in case education needs some more acronyms).
Therefore the tools we included are messaging, the ability to share files,
the ability to store personal files, the ability to share bookmarks, the
ability to submit assignments, assignment tracking, progress reports, the
ability the download additional course material, conferencing, and chat.
Fairly standard fare, except that we tried to go beyond the normal
expectations. So, for example, learners can submit assignments
electronically, but more importantly, they can submit drafts of as many
documents as they like to their tutor for comment before they finally
submit the assignment. Learners can collaborate on projects by sharing
files, but only the ‘owner’ can modify or delete the original file. However
the collaborators can amend and share a copy. We can allow mentors and team
leaders to participate in the collaboration process, as many of our
learners are work-based.
Of course collaborating online isn’t just about the tools. It’s also about
the ability to keep the learners engaged and to help them make the best use
of the environment. That’s much harder than just paying your money and
installing a VLE. We developed our own Tutoring Online course to help
develop the essential new skills needed by our tutors. Very Luddite it is
too: paper-based material! However unlike most similar offering, the
learner-tutors have to use the environment and collaborate on line. Read
off-line and work online. There’s a novel idea.
Lots of grey hairs, but we got there. There’s still more work to be done,
but we’re glad we didn’t take the standard route.
BTW this isn’t a sales pitch, as our environment isn’t for sale, although
we do provide a customisation and hosting service for other organisations
and we do offer the Tutoring Online course to individuals and
organisations. So if anyone wants further information about what we did and
how we did it, just get in contact with me here at the NEC.
Best wishes
Sid Verber
eLearning Developments Manager
National Extension College
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