After the dust has settled...

Looking back on our second DL programme, I can see that some of the improvements I introduced following H808 had a positive impact in what I could see of the learning.

Getting the learners to keep their own 'blog' journal had some success - a couple did make several blog posts on their own site. But what did work was that I gave all participants permission to begin their own blog posts on our programme group blog. This was very useful, and was used by all participants, and certainly kept me focused on what was being learned, and what wasn't.

The experience of using Elluminate platform was mostly very good. It certainly has great technology features,which we made good use of; the chance to run an audio presentation and discussion, being able to show video clips, the whiteboard, and the instant message/chat function. Being able to record the whole presentation was also a great asset, as on a couple of occasions, participants were not able to attend in person.

Two observations on Ellluminate; one on the audio capability and another on the file sizes.
The audio capability can be problematic if people don't set up their computers so that the internal microphones are turned off. Even though we had an audio set up session ahead of the programme start, it seemed that some people's computers reverted to default settings, and they forgot how to reset them. Others joined in on each session from different computers, and were not aware of how to change settings on unfamiliar computers. Even quite experienced colleagues struggled to be able to make audio inputs on occasions.
Another problem occurred when we invited participants the option of sending in slides for a discussion session. A couple sent (what I discovered later were) very large files, and completely disrupted the smooth running of our session!!

Both of these situations can be planned for, and next time around, we'll be aware of good housekeeping in both areas.

The scripts from the first DL Programme were incredibly useful, and gave us a brilliant base from which to create new scripts for version 2. We continued the discipline of making new scripts, and were able to add the audio recordings of sessions to the record we kept of activities.

I will be incorporating further changes to DL Programme 3, which I hope to start before the end of March 2011. The main innovation I plan to introduce is to make use of the Blackboard learn coursesites, which will allow me to keep all of the resources, discussions and journaling in one place.

One final point of disappointment. Although I feel we did a better educational job on DL Programme No 2 than on No 1, our conversion of learners into active users of our audit product, was no better. Only one of the 7 participants has gone on to conduct their first audit with clients of their own. What I am not sure about is whether the issue our participants are dealing with is a market in which their customers are very reluctant to commit to the cost of the audit. I was also rather disappointed with the extent to which the one that did use the audit was able to articulate her learning in analysing her audit results - albeit there was a gap of over three months between the course finishing  and her looking at her results.

The disappointing outcome is definitely on my H807 agenda. The way I see it at the moment is that I will use the 'articulating the model' module as the subject of my H807 Examinable component. But I am sure the whole of H807 will give me food for thought on how to improve the impact of this DL Programme.