Well, there has been a more than two month gap since the last blog entry, but things haven't been standing still!

The major development was a trip to Kanazawa in late November, during which I was able to discuss the direction of the C.E.E programme, and check out some technical issues with the online learning part of the course. The stakeholders in KTC were keen to help get the students into some online learning prior to their arrival in Dunedin. Given that Japanese are often quick to buy new technology, but very conservative when it comes to applying that new technology to educational activities, I was pleased with their response.

I was able to confirm that elluminate was accessible and worked well from the KTC campus, and arranged to have further testing in January to familiarise KTC staff with the concept.

Thanks also to Marc Doesberg and Terry Marler for giving me some tips and a crash course in setting elluminate up. It is great to have such good support from colleagues.

While I was in Japan, I set the current KTC students studying C.E.E. in Otago the task of preparing a powerpoint presentation about two aspects of Dunedin - either a particular place or product that they had found in Dunedin that they liked, and one that they didn't. This is similar to what I hope to get the students to do on their own town before coming to Dunedin. I chose to set this as a task during my absence, as I thought this might help me see how these students work without direct supervision. On my return, I gave students another couple of hours during which I was available to help them with any aspect they were having trouble with. A summary of my assessment is as follows:

1. With the exception of one student, all of the students had gone at least some way towards completing their powerpoints before my return. Some of the students had basically finished and just needed a few linguistic pointers, some students needed more time to finish their powerpoints as well as work on their script. THis shows that, given some firm direction and deadlines, students are capable of a certain amount of independent research and study, provided they are sufficiently motivated.

2. The students had learnt basic skills for powerpoint, and although their ability varied somewhat, all of them were able to competently complete a powerpoint slide (although some of them needed some help during the actual presentation.)

3. The students were generally still quite unsure about public speaking. They were, however, able to give relevant feedback on the speakers when given a detailed form with points to look for. As a result of this, I subsequently showed the students a video on Public speaking, and gave them feedback based on my own observations and that of their classmates on what they need to work on and how they can best improve.

4. Over the Christmas holidays (three weeks) students have been asked to prepare a further presentation on one aspect of their holiday. They have been told to talk to people, do some research, and present their findings as a powerpoint after the classes resume. We will then look at their previous feedback and see how they have improved.

This exercise has been great in giving me some idea of what information I need to provide students with, and some idea of their technical abilities. I will use this information in setting up the online instructions and materials for the students before they depart Japan.

I hope this exercise will also help the students prepare to take some of their experiences back to present to students and staff in Kanazawa. Hopefully, we may be able to continue to have some online activity to link those students together.

I now have a good idea what needs to be done to prepare for the online aspects of the course, and how it may work. I will be trying this out in January, and hopefully have a test run in February and March with the new students who are due to arrive in April 2011. If all goes well, this will then be fine-tuned and incorporated as a full part of the course in early 2012.