Learning about Endnote

I am sat in a computer aided learning (CAL) session which is designed to teach RVC 4th year students how to use Endnote software. The session so far has been informative and a good refresher on just how fabulous Endnote is when you are writing academic reports or essays. However, the delivery was a little muddled and on more than one occasion I found my mind wandering to other things. To be perfectly honest, I think this is more of a failing on my part than it is on part of the instructor who has tried very hard to get the key points across.

Lots of the yeargroup haven't bothered to come to any of these self-help research sessions. When they reach their research rotations block there will be much wailing, moaning and ganshing of teeth about how little help has been provided to them with their project. Once again this will be a case of the help being there and the students failing to take advantage of it, but perhaps that is just the view of a jaded graduate student who doesn't turn down free help with anything anymore. That was a valuable lesson learned on the last degree.

Whether the failing is on the part of the student for not attending, or on the part of the college for not pitching these sessions quite right (too slow and boring or too quick and impossible to follow... it needs to be just right like baby bear's porridge) there is a tangible improvement from the first sessions of these sort I attended. Improvement is not to be sniffed at and I hope that the RVC continues to listen to student feedback and make more positive changes. I feel like this is leading me onto a fairly serious rant about increasing student numbers, class sizes and the detrimental effects this has on small group learning, but I will save that for another time.

The great Moodle migration.

The college is making the move from the Blackboard learning environment to Moodle this year. The whole process is pretty arduous because resistance to change is always rife amongst the staff and students; it is easier for most people to follow the path of least resistance and a migration to Moodle doesn't fall under that category. 

The RVC is right at the forefront when it comes to developing online learning materials. Most of our lectures are recorded with Echo 360 software which allows students to review both the accompanying power point and audio lecture at home. In addition to this there are online multiple choice questions to test yourself and numerous computer aided learning (CAL) programs to accompany specific material. These are designed to encourage students to go hunting around a subject and increase their breadth of knowledge. These have evolved over my six years at the RVC and get better and better as more students feed back to the staff; the CAL materials aren't universally loved though and many students would prefer all the material to be lectured in a more spoon-fed format. Whatever course you are interested in, I can't emphasise enough the importance of considering the programme structure and methods of teaching when you are choosing your university. If the teaching methods don't suit your individual needs you're fighting an uphill battle from the start.

Anyhow, I digress. The task of migrating the material has already begun and I am joining the effort. I need to start wrangling with Respondus to get the job done; I'd rather wrangle with Dreamweaver any day and that's really saying something. 

This just about sums today up.