A belated contribution. Our site has been developed collaboratively with
colleagues from other HEIs (UHI, Salford, De Montfort). It has taken time
and money and still has much to be added. Keeping it maintained is also time
intensive.

The site is designed to accompany workshops as well as being browsable. It
also has a checklist associated with it to help staff focus on particular
needs. I think the model followed is quite good - but do please comment on
that. As for take up, there is a feedback form still to be activated to
capture info about use but I'm well aware how hard it can be for staff to
find the time to use these resources. I do know of particular course teams
who have had the need and motivation to use the resource - face to face
workshops were need to get the ball rolling.

The Online Learning Knowledge Garden is at
http://ollkg.rmcs.cranfield.ac.uk/. (NB, we're just doing a tweak to the
left side navigation bar and the 'how to use this site' link still refers to
the old 'roll over' version - the new '-', '+', '.' form is
self-explanatory).

Colleagues and I are very happy to share ideas, resources etc.

Regards,

Bernard Scott

Dr Bernard Scott
SL in Electronically-Enhanced Learning
Cranfield University
Royal Military College of Science
Shrivenham
Wilts SN6 8LA
Fax +44 (0) 1793 782753
Tel +44 (0) 1793 785120
[log in to unmask]
http://cdol.rmcs.cranfield.ac.uk/bcescott



-----Original Message-----
From: Zoe Toft [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 05 January 2004 15:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Elearning and Staff Development Web Sites


Hello all,

Like John Roscoe, I too would be very keen to see 'wonderful
examples of elearning and staff development websites' -   if list members
would like to send me their various recommendations, I'd be happy to produce
a single meta list of sites for all list members. Arthur, Kate, what about
getting the ball rolling?

Zoe Toft
School of Oriental and African Studies, and University College Dublin.

-----Original Message-----
From: John Roscoe <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 14:42:16 -0000
Subject: Re: Elearning and Staff Development Web Sites

Hi

In reply to Arthur Loughran's views I have two points to make.

The first is that I would like to have access to some of the 'wonderful
examples of elearning and staff development websites' he refers to but I do
not know where they are and how to get access.

Second is that my experience with encouraging colleagues to access
Blackboard resources is that they just do not do it however good they are.
It seems to me that we academics have certain freedom of choice over what we
do and when we do it and lots of things that we could do get pushed back by
things like preparing for and attending sessions with students, marking
student work and fulfilling our institutional obligations. Things we might
intend to do keep getting shuffled down the priorities list and do not get
done.

So a solution for my first point is that I would be very grateful for some
pointers to some, but not too many, excellent resources. For the second
point we need to build in some prioritisation and rewards to get staff to
engage with the resources and go back to them again to enable them to gain
benefit.

Exhortation and references to professional responsibilities and balanced
workloads do not get colleagues to engage.

Perhaps I am being too pessimistic so early in the New Year?

Regards

John Roscoe
Thames Valley University

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