Pt. 6: General Progression and Feedback (Sprints)

Pt. 6. General Progression and Feedback (Sprints).

This blog post forms a prospective reflection on the creation of digital technologies used in teaching. It is a prospective reflection, in most cases an oxymoron, because the design and creation of the materials is partially complete, but materials have not yet been delivered to students.  

The first few iterations of design have been carried out using a combination of development methodologies, picked and spliced due to the nature of the project itself.  With two analysts assigned to the project (myself and one other) and a single development officer, it was important to structure the first stages of the project using agile methodologies; this allowed for time-boxing that fit around increased workloads during the analysis and design stages.  With limited development time available for actual construction of the materials, it was/is vital that the intitial design be perfect before recording take place.

With both analysts having both delivered, and been on the end of delivery of this particular subject (and material) both have an idea of how the material will be recieved by students this coming semester.  However, no in situ testing can take place before the end of this reflection, so it was important to me to obtain further feedback from students.

To do so i approached several students that i know have recieved tuition recently, ranging from one to three years previous.  During discussion of the current, text-based ststem, all students agreed that material was dry and unimaginative; a particularly rending statement as it was myself that designed a number of the recent additions.  When proposed that some of the materials be replaces with vocal podcasts, students suggested that it would be useful to have this in addition to written transcripts, and that jolification of the materials would be a sensible way to get more involved.  Some, expectidy, enquired about whether it would be a poor attempt at comedy.

A number of the students that were questioned about the concept, were asked to read over this blog (posts 1-5), as part of the discussion.  Several of these students suggested that the blog itself form part of the teaching materials for the module in question.  This was particularly pleasing, as this was, by subterfuge, an idea that i had during the design of the blogs themselves; with the design and blogs following project management conventions itself. 

There has been great fun had designing this project, and i can see a great benefit to delivering materials in this manner.  It will allow student to have uadio description of a seminar task in advance, with, hopefully, more students approaching the materials before the discussion begins.  This is a particular problem that this module has had historically, as the delivery method has been textural, and drab.  

The project has helped me to think about delivery methods for low-level discussion, and has played upon what i see as one of my current strengths, in joining together tasks on multiple topics, in multiple formats.  These have previously been classic Lecture/Lab/Seminar links, with podcasts and blogs being an extension to this.

However i approach further projects with trepidation.  Students in the school of computing already have a range of digital technologies to navigate on the route through their degrees, and i have minor concern on adding new delivery methods to this catalog. Whilst blackboard hosted podcasts may be a suitible way to deliver official materials, the addition of official teaching through blog posts adds another channel students may be required to use, and could cause confusion about where materials are hosted.