Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

The learning environment

The Moodle site of the IDEL course is very well structured. I was able to orientate myself well on the site. I have been working with Moodle for many years now and so I know the LMS quite well. What was new, as in any course, is the structure of the course and the participants and all the other people involved from the Digital education programme. Who were my fellow students, who were our two tutors, James and Huw, and who were the subject experts who would guide us through the whole course?

My fellow students

As the course progressed, I felt that I met a few of my fellow students. Two or three of them were regularly in the forums and posted a lot, or replied to my posts, so that a dialogue or even a discussion was initiated. So I was able to get an idea who these people might be. I was also able to get an impression of two or three other students. As the course progressed, there were a few students who seemed to ‚disappear‘ from my perception, I couldn’t see them anymore, what does not mean of course that they were actually absent. Perhaps they simply took less part in the discussions. Then, of course, there was my own, corona-related reduced presence or absence in the weeks 9-11. But all in all, I don’t have the impression that I really got to know anybody. The discussions in the forums were not continuous, we only addressed topics, not really discussed them. Sometimes interesting threads suddenly stopped. Maybe the chronological and thematic structure in the course contributed to this. As soon as the topic was over, all contributions stopped as well. This speaks for the topics that were presented in an exciting and appealing way. The general course forum was almost not used or used very late. Was it discovered too late in general, or was I late?

The tutors

Our tutors have taken very good care of us. My tutor James gave me important input in the regular comments. I got good and interesting suggestions for my studies. I perceived him as very present. I also liked the fact that he was also able to appear as a subject expert in our discussions and the synchronous online meetings. Thank you James, for your helpful support! I noticed that it was a lot of work!

The experts

Overall, the expert inputs were excellent and interesting. The expertise of the speakers is impressive and I understood that there is a lot to learn. I particularly like the critical attitude and the approach to see the topics in a social, political and economic context and to discuss them critically! By the way, this also applies to the tutors as well, who I also perceived as experts in their field. The literature and the articles we have read offered me new approaches and inspiration for my personal development in the realm of digital education. There were some surpises, like the insight that data analytics often only measures behaviour. This insight alone inspires me to learn more about it and to delve deeper into this matter.

My personal perception as a student in the IDEL course

This has radiated a positive power for me, from which I still benefit, and I am very much looking forward to continuing my studies. As for the workload I realised that my personal working schedule for IDEL is on the upper boundary of the 12 to 15 hrs a week for part time students. I easily spent more time than 15 hours sometimes, which is not a problem to me. It means that there is very much to do or me, lots of content and problems to tackle, which is excellent and inspiring!  All in all, it is a demanding environment that has been built up with IDEL, but in a good and positively challenging way. I think I am especially challenged as I am not a native English speaker and therefore probably read more slowly than others, I think.

All the harder it hit me personally and affected me that I had to interrupt my engagement at short notice because of the COVID-19 crisis.

The one tiny thing I missed a little, is the connection with my fellow students. I connected with some of them on Twitter, but also it was not a continuing thread. Of course I could have done more and reach out more, I don’t want to blame anyone. I obviously was too busy for the reasons I mentioned, I guess. Sometimes I wondered where all those people were. Probably lost in their blogs?