Here we are again – hello blog! What an unfaithful friend I’ve been over the last weeks. I’ve neglected you completely as work for various projects and my OU studies kept piling up. I think blogging takes time, working on a good text takes time – and I simply haven’t put aside enough of it.

I doubt there’ll be much of a change before the summer, but at least I’ve returned for a quick stop-by to say hello and make sure you know I haven’t forgotten you. I must admit that I don’t only stop by out of pure self-interest. This week’s assignments for the OU require to post one’s thoughts in a blog.

I must admit, I’m not completely convinced by that concept; hence the doubtful title. I think when following a course with a fixed group, with regular activities and some progression over the weeks, one should try to keep the group as neatly together as possible – i.e. use a learning platform or a discussion forum. My experience is that attending an online course next to a full-time job requires a lot of discipline and self-motivation, so we should try to set up the technical side of the course as easily accessible and smoothly as possible. This enables participants to concentrate on the discussions and the content, as they know they can rely on a regular procedure,

The OU uses the FirstClass mailing system for collaborative activities which accompany the self-study parts. I’ve grown to like it after having felt some disappointment in the beginning. I simply had been spoilt by excessive moodle use – I do favour moodle or a dedicated learning system over a pure mailing tool, but that’s another story. ;) Anyway, this week – as I suggested – asks us to comment on the literature to read in our weblogs and also recommends to visit  our colleagues’ journals and comment there.

On the one hand, it is of course absolutely essential to present a variety of eLearning tools and also give people the opportunity to try them out themselves. On the other hand, however, I don’t agree this should be part of the compulsory activities – even during preparation to our next tutor marked assignment (TMA) when confronted with rather complex literature to read. I fear that discussions become very torn this week as it means more work to visit each other’s blogs and keep track of the discussions on top of the actual analysis of the materials.

Of course I’ll take part in this week’s activities and I must admit I’m glad that I was sent to you due to this week’s requirements. :) But I definitely learn from this experience that when organising an online course on my own, I’ll try to keep the participants together as closely as possible.