Author: Keith Aquilina

Currently my professional role is that of Education Officer (Quality Assurance) within the Directorate for Quality & Standards in Education in the Ministry of Education, Malta. After eight years teaching Computing and ICT within a state secondary school, I moved to the Department of eLearning where my role focused on the organisation of national educational events of which the national eLearning awards and conference, Malta Robotics Olympiad and student competitions. In addition to the work within the Department of eLearning, as from 2011 I have taken the role of ICT coordinator within the Directorate for Lifelong Learning where for 5 years, I was involved in the development and organisation of ICT related courses within the directorate’s adult education centres and collaborating entities. In 2012, I completed my Masters studies in Online and Distance Education from the Open University. This blog started off as an online reflective diary for my studies in the Masters in Online and Distance Education with the Open Univeristy. As may be easily deduced, my main interest is in technology, learning and anything in between. Linkedin; mt.linkedin.com/in/keithaquilina/

Week 8 9 – A3b – Using CompendiumLD

Now start to map out this activity in CompendiumLD. Reflect on your experience as a student working through this activity as you map out the design. What isn’t represented? How much does the design match to your own experience of working through the activity? Is there a difference between representation of an activity as a […]

Week 8 9 – A4 – Finding and sharing resources

My choice for this activity is; ‘Large cohort introductory statistics course for students in a range of disciplines.’ Cloudworks It took me some time to realise what exactly this site is about. The introductory presentation helped a bit but still the site’s navigability was not so easy for me. The searching engine of this site […]

Week 8 9 – A5 – Mapping digital media to four facets of learning

Tools and a description of their use in a particular context For example: an individual blog being used as a reflective diary or a group-based blog being used to collect a set of class resources to support a particular course. Types of learning Thinking and reflection Experience and activity Conversation and interaction Evidence and demonstration […]

Week 8 9 – A3a – Analysing a learning design

The tutor creates the forum and posts a welcome message [Tutor] [Forum]. Students read the very brief introduction [Students] [H800 website]. Students read the linked paper while considering Questions 1 and 2 [Students] [2 websites]. Students post one or more forum messages re Questions 1 and 2[Students] [Forum]. Students look for helpful messages [Students] [Forum]. […]

Week 8 9 – A2: An overview of learning design

Read Beetham’s chapter, ‘An approach to learning activity design’, and make notes on the key concepts. Concentrate in particular on these sections: ‘Defining a learning activity’ and ‘Designing with digital resources and technologies’. Here’s a summary of the main points that I found most relevant in Beetham’s chapter: “A model of learning activity design is […]

Week 8, 9 – A1: Strategies for design

Consider the following questions about strategies for design. 1. How do you (or your teaching colleagues) currently design courses? The syllabus is first outlined by who is in ‘authority’ and then the courses are designed on the aims specified in the syllabus. Subsequently teachers build the content according to the time slots available at school. […]

Week 7b – A6 – Searching YouTube

View a selection of the items you find and take notes about what you see. You could use the following questions to inform your viewing: What kinds of information do you get from viewing rather than reading? What kinds of video clip have been made available? What issues do the video clips focus on? Can […]

Week 7 – Quiz

Multiple choice questioners. Mode of assessment which can easily be implemented on online sites. Validity depends on type of questions posed & feedback given. Questions posed in this quiz skim only parts of Block 1. Some questions are too superfluous, for example: The Evolution MegaLab project (there was an activity about it in Week 2) […]

Week5 – A6 – The way ideas are produced and spread using social networks

Wesch’s idea was to define Web 2.0. Through his video, The Machine is Us/ing Us, he’s trying to explain how differently from the original web, normal users are the producers in web 2.0 (example YouTube). This is a new type of platform where the normal user becomes the new star; ‘the cyber star’. Comparing the […]

Week5 – A5 – Comparing ways of finding out about Web 2.0

As argued by Salomon in his paper , through the use of different media the user might give a different interpretation of the information being viewed. In their work, O’Reilly and Wesch are delivering a similar message is being delivered but due to the different medium being used. Initially, I didn’t see this similarity. The message in […]