Evaluation

1) How well does this course meet your expectations / learning objectives?

The course design, content and methods matched my objectives precisely.

2) What are the difficulties encountered in accessing the course materials on the Internet at your workplace which have NOT been reported before?

I have reported most of these as they arose.  However, they bear systematic repetition.  Before the course began, armed with the Course Specification I requested (a) permission to follow the course; (b) that all the course sites be unlocked and (c) a check that the hardware, software and bandwidth available on my desk was adequate for the course requirements.  As messages were passed between Siemens and the Trust’s IT Department, I heard that (a) had been granted, but saw no evidence that parts (b) and (c) of the request were addressed.  In practice this meant that no individual sites identified in the Course Spec were unlocked in advance, so I still had to file a formal request for each site to be unlocked on a case by case basis.  Such a request might go to an operator who had heard of the earlier permission or to someone who queried why I needed it.Despite this agreement in principle, the following areas remained barred: all pocasts and displaying the links for social bookmarking.  In the case of the latter my repeated requests for this refusal to be communicated in writing, rather than verbally, led to this decision being reversed at the end of Week 5, so the social bookmarking functions were granted to me for the latter stages of the course schedule.These combined factors led to delays in accessing and exploiting sites as the course progressed and contributed to my falling behind in the early weeks.  I did not properly engage with the curriculum of this 9 week course until week 5, leaving me with several assignment deadlines already missed and a significant catch up task.  It also led to my being uncertain whether the individual difficulties I encountered were because the function was refused or other factors.The failure to address whether the PC on my desk was adequate to the course demands was also significant.  The course demanded signifcantly faster response times than my PC could deliver making creative use of the Web 2.0 difficult.  This was not entirely an internal Dudley fault.  I consider that the Course Specification should spell out more about hardware recommendations. They should also include minimum standards for memory space and processor speed.  My 5 year old PC was not up to easily switching between Web sites, leaving windows open, or running more than one browser at a time.

3) Did you need to seek the permission of your trust IT before you accessed certain course materials on the Internet?

Yes. There was also a complication in the communication channels due to a separation of the Trust’s I.T. department, which acts as the ICT commissioner and the PFI partners, Siemens, which acts as the provider.  Communications between the two did not easily lend themselves to resolving the issues thrown up by this course.

4) Do the readings meet the learning objectives of each topic?

Yes.

5) What is the average amount of time you spent on the course each day?

Weeks 1-5 15 mins; Weeks 6-9 2 hours.This reflects the fact that I only fully engaged with the course at the end of week 5, rather than the course structure itself.

6) How do you find the interaction among participants of the course?

Excellent

7) Will you continue blogging and/or reading RSS after the course?

If the Trust allows, yes.  However, this has already been refused in principle, since the permssion to access RSS was granted for the duration of the course alone and should shortly be revoked.Action planning for the next 3 months: