First online meeting for e-Learning and Pedagogy Experts Group

In a first for the Programme, an online meeting complemented the face-to-face version on 5 October. This ran over a week with discussion taking place whenever members could find time to have their say, including at the weekend.  

This proved a very effective medium for members who could not attend the face-to-face meeting but who nonetheless value participating in the consultation that underpins the work of the two strands. Presentations, papers and supporting materials, including video clips from the recently released publication from the Innovation strand ‘Innovative Practice with e-Learning’, were available to download before the online and face-to-face meetings commenced, and helped to provoke rich debate under the three themes: Designing for learning, Understanding my learning, and e-Learning and innovation.  

One member commented: “I think this is a great way to share views based on themes and workshop materials prior to a meeting. As well as allowing people to contribute who can't make the face-to-face event, it also focuses the mind on the issues in hand and will make the event that much more productive.”  

The statistics reveal the true value of the experiment. The face-to-face meeting on 5 October in Birmingham attracted 33% of the Group’s membership. The online conference showed a much wider reach. Sixty six per cent of members logged in to the online meeting and 35% of these logged in more than five times to check on developments, with nearly 9500 page views over the seven days. The main concern for members was finding enough time to read papers and participate effectively in what was a richly stimulating event.  

The online Experts Group meeting also acted as a successful trial run for the Jisc Online Conference on Pedagogy and e-Learning which will take place in March 2006.