After 12 weeks and 21 blog posts, I’ve reached the end of (the first component of) IDEL. Just one more (massive) hurdle to overcome. I thought I’d take this chance to reflect on my experience and what I’ve learnt along the way. I’ll organize this post according to the blocks. But before I begin, I’d […]

As seen in table 1, the time I (approximately) spent on the various activities over four days was: 1 hour on Moodle; 5 hours on MyEd; 75 hours on sites that were not specifically academic (e.g. Google, Youtube); 4 hours on Open Notes (PDF reader); and 75 hours on WordPress (blog). The data provides a […]

Unfortunately, I was unable to take part in the twitter activity because admittedly I was behind in the course. I had to deal with a lot of administrative matters because it was end of the semester at work and I was unwell for a fairly lengthy period. I was able to attempt the ‘create a […]

One point in the Wilson, Watson, Thompson, Drew and Doyle (2017) article that stood out for me was: “We do not observe learning online; we do not even observe students online. We observe indications of electronic or optical interactions that create ephemeral assemblages of student/device/network/LMS-server/digital-resource (p. 999)”. It is possible for a student to have […]

Upon completing Knox, Williamson and Bayne (2020), I did a Marty McFly (see image 1) and went, “Whoa, this is heavy.” It was heavy firstly because it again felt like I’m a mechanic reading about rocket science. Nevertheless, this is one reason why I signed up – to learn about things I don’t know. The […]

  Knox, Williamson and Bayne (2020) note how governments and other institutions (e.g. schools) can use programmes to “persuade people to make better choices” for themselves. I have had first-hand experience in watching how a school and teachers have exploited behavioral science in the name of “the good of the child”. When I was teaching […]

Week 9: Review of MOOC Here is my review of the University of Amsterdam’s Methods and Statistics in Social Sciences Specialization (MSSS) course on Coursera. I decided to join this course mainly for professional reasons. As a lecturer teaching communications courses across my university, I thought it would be useful to refresh myself on key […]

Knowledge is cumulative and synergistic. And, in my opinion, is one key obstacle to badges gaining societal recognition as recognised credentials. Ahn, Pellicone & Butler (2014) provide a very useful table (see table 1 below) of questions and tensions that arise from their framework that combines three characteristics of badges (motivation, pedagogy and credential) and […]

Huw, after finishing the rest of week 8’s core readings, I have a few questions that are related to the previous blocks. I hope you could share your insights and point me in the right direction. Bayne, Knox and Ross (2015) suggest that the open education movement is “worryingly amenable to the forces of neoliberalism […]

  Singaporeans carry a label unique to them for life: their Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) T-scores. Singapore has one of the most competitive education systems in the world. Students are scored, ranked, and sorted from an early age and at various points of their educational journey. Due to the high stakes nature of the […]