Conclusion

[TEXT ON SCREEN: FOUR MONTHS LATER]

Hello again. It has been several months since I saw you –- I hope you’re doing ok.

So, after I created the first draft of my online course I got some useful feedback from my colleagues. I made some changes to my materials as a result of their comments, and the accessibility specialists gave me all sorts of resources and tips for making my course accessible, which was a fantastic help. Finally, I was ready to use it with a cohort of learners. The learners very much appreciated not having to come to class, and they found the ‘Flipped Learning’ approach quite refreshing. Comments about my materials were mixed, but generally positive. Because this was my first attempt, I asked the learners to give me general feedback in a questionnaire, and then I asked eight of them to help me by doing a short interview with me. I ranked the questionnaire responses in terms of who was the most positive overall, and interviewed two at the top of the ranking, two at the bottom, and four more at stages in between. The interviews were only ten minutes each because the learners were giving me their time and I didn’t want to burden them with a long interview. They gave me some very useful feedback about what they liked, what they didn’t like, and even what they would like me to include for future learners. One student, whom I think may be dyslexic, gave me some very interesting insights into how he perceived my learning materials. Although he struggled with a few items, overall he found the online nature of the course far more useful to him than the classroom environment and he said it ‘brought out the best in him and made him want to try to succeed’. I had to try not to cry!

Thanks to the feedback from my learners, I know how to improve the course for next time, and I will also look for more OERs that I could incorporate.

I am so pleased I took the OpenLearn course. It certainly was not easy, but I learned so much and it really gave me the confidence to move into online teaching. I am still a long way from being an expert, but I have started on my journey. In fact, I am looking into options for further study with The Open University on the subject of online learning – this might give me the opportunity to work with expert tutors and join a community of educators, all learning together how to improve our online teaching practice. I think it might help me continue my development as an online teacher and perhaps enable me to move fully into online teaching.

Thank you for working alongside me through this course. I hope it has helped you as much as it has helped me. My best wishes for whatever you do next - maybe I will get to talk to some of you online – we could be study buddies! But for now it is a fond farewell from me. Goodbye!