What engaged me and my fellow online students And what didn’t Eli Appleby-Donald

Tinted view of the world

So what did I do? I sent out a questionnaire to all students in my cohort of MSC Digital Education (have completed 3 courses or more) Asking Which course did you find the most engaging and why? Has there been anything which has been disengaging? What advice would you have for any teacher considering creating an online course?

What was engaging? And why?

IDEL – 42% CDDE – 25% IGBL – 16% ULOE – 9% EDC – 8% “It was the amount of tutor interaction and the blogs. The blogs were the glue which kept the whole thing together, lots of feedback lots of reflection but most importantly – structure. I had things to do at certain points.”

weekly videos as a community thing and the blogs as a technology (but it was the structure the blogs provided that engaged me most) the weekly videos were amazing, I felt so connected to the tutors tutor comments on my blog kept me focused week after week it was great to learn by doing it really helped to embed information.

What wasn’t so engaging? And why?

Discussion boards. It was distracting and time wasteful I've found it a bit lonely and the lack of structure – Wider themes lack of communication, felt lost and unsure what was actually expected tutors felt absent, I wasn’t sure what I was meant to be doing and when

Any advice?

set the expectations, provide some monitoring and encouragement to help maximise student engagement. don't just rely on discussion forums, there needs to be tutor presence Have a weekly structure with a variety of activities STRUCTURE and set tasks create the feeling of being on a university course, online can be like floating in space with no sign posts or people to connect to.

For me personally? I LOVED: Blogging Weekly tutor videos There were times I felt alone and lost and if I hadn’t made my own community external to the VLE, it would have been hard. For me personally?