This introductory section consists of six different parts, which I suggest you read in sequence, but you can of course browse. There are some specific tasks that you need to do over the next week to get you started. They are:

1. Fill in the Doodle about meeting times
2. Introduce yourself on the Forum 
3. Begin some reading

Texts and tools

This is a large and dynamic area. Technologies for online learning are in constant change and development and are far ranging; research into this area is vibrant and expansive; each of us will also have different experiences and interests. To try to account for some of these dynamic elements, the course unit will both provide core reading and tasks, and give you scope to dig into areas in greater depth, sharing as you proceed. This sharing will be facilitated by the use of various tools that allow for both group negotiation and collaborative publishing.

Online texts and other content

The texts you find in each study unit will provide input and guidance for various tasks and activities as described below. The pages you read, such as this one, can be printed for offline reading, or imported as a pdf into a mobile for reading with apps like Adobe Reader, eBook reader, iBooks, and so on. As these input materials are now being offered in an open source wiki you will be able to access them even after you have completed the course unit.

We also advise thinking about organisation of materials locally as you will find yourselves reading and exploring vast amounts of content. We illustrate the potential of the shared social bookmarking with tools like http://www.diigo.com/ and http://www.mendeley.com/, which we're sure people will have views on. There is also the University's own Talis Aspire system for reading lists, which now works on a similar basis.

Activities

You will find various activity types in these materials.

You will be directed towards online texts either on the web, or through the library e-journal or e-book services, and these are often scaffolded by a specific task. You can also look at the Library reading list for this course unit. You may also find it useful to check the e-books services in general as various titles are available there and these may simply be added by the Library. A useful starting point might be the Education subject page, or the complete databases list where you will find e-book collections like Dawsonera or EBSCOHost.

Within each unit various tasks involve more individual reflection and note-taking, on reading texts, experiences or specific tools or tasks.

You may be directed towards online applications and tools, and this may also be an aspect of the course which is informed by the experiences you share together.

We hope that you will participate in the course discussions as much as possible as these are a central aspect to the learning approach. Specific tasks in the texts will give you a focus for contributions; you will also see opportunities to share information or resources along the way and we look forward to reading those. These contributions will themselves also give you scope to think about how we encourage and manage course discussions as online tutors.

<< Course overview | Part 2 >>