Altilab2005 - Distance Education Blog

Writing is a crucial step without which the process of study is incomplete. It is more so in distance education. But unfortunately IGNOU students do not complete their assignments on their own. To say so, I have a reason. Go to Google and type IGNOU assignments, you will find many sites claim to offer solved assignments to students.

Why is there huge population of sites offering solutions of the coursework? Answer goes to incapability of student to complete the assignments on their own. Inability of students to complete work on their own shows a poor attitude toward life. Students are keen on doing efforts to find the material on line, or through friends, but can’t do hard work to solve the questions on their own. It’s like forcing your energy towards negative direction rather than on positive path. Hence this results in poor preparation for their term-end exams.

Maximum students depend on others for their assignments. This may not benefit student’s characteristics in the long run. As IGNOU is correspondence education, students are expected to be independent learner, develop positive attitude, setting goals and most importantly managing their own time.

According to IGNOU handbook, submission of assignment-responses in distance education system is made compulsory, more often than not, to serve two purposes. They are:

·        to initiate academic communication between the teacher/institution and the student and thereby establish a useful dialogue between them, and

·        to be used for continuous evaluation.

So it would be very helpful for students, if they would complete their assignments independently. This will also help them in preparing for their Term-end exams, as assignments give an opportunity to revise what you have learnt about the courses till now.

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I've been busy the last few weeks -- around the Melk household, it seems as if April is not just the cruelest month, but the busiest.

Something's been frustrating me.  You know how you read those stories of the nineteen-year-old college professor who went to college at age ten?  Yeah, what I want to know is how the heck that happened.  I really do.  Seriously.  How were her parents able to find schools which accommodated this woman's prodigious intelligence? 

This woman learned to read at eight months and was done with elementary school by age five.  Our problem isn't even as extreme as the one her parents faced.  Normally, our child would be going to first grade right about now, and the fact that s/he isn't merrily tripping down the street to attend Local Neighborhood School is partly due to a phone conversation between me and Mr. Administrator that took place some five years ago. 

About five years ago or so, I went in to our child's bedroom to do the tuck-in thing.  S/he was lying in bed with a flashlight propped up between shoulder and cheek, reading.  "Hey," s/he said.  "Would you mind reading this part to me?" 

"Okay," I said, "but why do you want me to do that?  I know you can read it to yourself." 

"Would you anyway?" s/he smiled. 

I looked at the part s/he was pointing out.  It was a little blurb on back of the book that I'd never really noticed.  "For parents to read to their children," I read.  Child chuckled softly. 

The thing was, the book was for second graders and Child was about two or two and a half at the time.  Projecting into the future -- I'm psychic that way, don'tcha know? -- I foresaw that there might be a problem.  Even if s/he made no progress in reading during the three or four years until kindergarten, s/he'd still enter school reading two grades ahead.  Further psychic consultations revealed that s/he might make more progress in three or four years and thus be even further ahead when s/he started than that.

Hmm.

I called Local Neighborhood School the next day and asked to speak to someone -- the Special Ed person, perhaps.  "Hey, I had a question," I said.  "What do you do if your child enters kindergarten and is a little bit ahead in reading -- like, three years or so?"

There was a long pause.  "We've never really had one of those before," Special Ed Teacher told me.

One of those?

She then put me on the phone with Mr. Administrator.  I posed the same question to him. 

Did you ever speak with someone who clearly thinks you're full of crap?  "Well," he said, with that too-jovial, backslappin' tone of voice that lets you know just how seriously he's taking you, "If they enter readin' three grades ahead, we'll just get 'em books from the third grade." 

I then pointed out that their school only went up to fifth grade and that this option could only last for so long.  "What will you do when s/he's in the third grade and is reading sixth-grade books?  What about fourth grade?"

"We'll work that out then," Mr. Administrator cheerily reassured me.

Yeah, I thought.  Sure you will.  That's basically the moment when we realized that homeschooling was about the only viable option.

Recently, Child went with me to school for Take Your Child to Work Day.  I asked Child if s/he'd rather bring along a book to read or do some homeschooly stuff, but Child said that s/he far preferred participating in class discussion, so I passed out a copy of the texts I was teaching, including Annie Dillard's transcendently beautiful essay, "Death of a Moth."

She burned for two hours without changing, without swaying or kneeling---only glowing within, like a boiling fire glimpsed through silhouetted walls, like a hollow saint, like a flame-faced virgin gone to God, while I read by her light, kindled while Rimbaud in Paris burnt out his brain in a thousand poems, while night pooled wetly at my feet.

I read the text aloud while the class, including Child, who was sitting at the Nice Girls' table, annotated it for allusion, alliteration, and all the other poet's tools a writer uses to communicate her point.  I usually begin by dealing with the lower-level business in a text -- unfamiliar terms, authorial tools of language -- so that we then can turn our attention to the real meat of the matter, the author's point. 

"Okay, let's start with allusion," I said. 

"What does that mean, again?" one of my students asked.  Child raised a hand. 

"Isn't that...like, when you talk about something famous, like a famous book or a famous event?" s/he said.

The class started to pay more attention. 

"What allusions are there in this text -- even ones you don't understand for right now, but which you know must be allusions to something?"  I asked. 

"Well," said Student, "I think there's something with that 'flame-faced virgin gone to God.'  Is that the Virgin Mary?"

"Possibly," I said, "but why 'flame-faced'?" 

Child's hand shot up.  "Joan of Arc!  I think it's Joan of Arc!"

"Why?"  I asked.

"Because she was burned at the stake."

"Was she a virgin?" one of my students asked Child.

"I think so," Child nodded.  "She was never married."

After class, the student who reminds me of Oscar Wilde, whom I've written about before, said, "Seriously, Mr/s. Melk, s/he said more intelligent things than most of the class." 

I cringed inwardly because he said this comment rather audibly.  Oscar is not a master of tact.

There were things Child didn't understand and my other students did, like Dillard's allusion to the immolating monk (which they'd all learned about in U.S. history that year with the inestimable Mrs. Y, who suffers no fools gladly), and they were all, including Child, stumped on the issue of Dillard's point, which I admit is not particularly easy to discern because, like many focused writers of laser intensity, she shows much and tells hardly at all.

In Local Neighborhood School, Child would be learning to read words with long vowels. 

There's nothing wrong with Local Neighborhood School's curriculum.  Though they're crazily focused on meeting NCLB goals, that's true of basically every public school in this country.  The teachers I've met from Local Neighborhood School have genuinely cared about their students to an impressive degree, and I suspect that most of that school's successes are due to those teachers and not to their patronizing administrator. 

Sometimes, it isn't the shoe, it isn't the foot -- it's just the fit, as A Bundle of Contradictions wrote about.

So what are we supposed to do?  I truly don't believe I'm being One Of Those Parents in thinking that Child could handle freshman English.  S/He's taking middle school English through Other State University's distance education program and is finding it a cinch for the most part -- the biggest hurdle has actually been responding to journal prompts that ask the writer to focus on life experiences that s/he basically hasn't had time to have yet, like leaving behind a favorite toy.  Nope, s/he's still all about the toy, and the idea of leaving it behind is more painful than pulling a baby tooth before it's ready to drop out on its own.

But the other stuff?  Understanding the literature, seeing the author's tools, understanding how those tools work together to create the author's point?  Being able to write about those elements and insights with fluidity, focus, and organization?

No problem.

Any ideas?

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Earlier this week I showed VoiceThread to an Art 20 class.  Their assignment is to add comments about art work that they created...VoiceThread would work fantastic for this!  However, part of the assignment was to share the music lyrics that influenced the art work - suddenly VoiceThread isn't the best option.  I recommended iMovie (they can add what ever they want on two separate audio tracks to combine with the pictures.)  Worked great!  The only snag we ran into was getting iTunes to recognize iPods that were formatted for a PC not a Mac - still working on this one.  I know we have done it in the past, but baby brain hit again and I can't remember how!

In other news, our library has been incredibly busy lately with students working on multi-media productions.  Two French 9 groups are finishing movies created, of course, in French.  (They also made movie posters for their movies using Flickr Toys.)  this project has been going on (not every day) since the week before Easter, and the students are doing great work.  We also have my Drama 9 class and a Social Studies 9 class creating commercials/videos that examine virtues of respect.  Some of these projects are brilliant - one has already been entered into the North Battleford Flick Fest.  (Thanks to the North Battleford Library for accepting a late entry :)  We also have English 30 classes and Music classes working in GarageBand (the English class is podcasting.)  Add to that individual projects being completed for teachers, and our four editing rooms (and one MacBook) are very busy!  We had a few this week with students forgetting to book editing rooms, as well as some double bookings.  We have become a victim of our success!

Yesterday our school representatives met with Randy Fox and Donna DesRoches to talk about the laptop project.  We thought that perhaps with the success of our multimedia productions, MacBooks would be the best option for us at this time.  We didn't get a "yes" but we also didn't get a "no," so I remain hopeful.

Until next time...

This project needs to realise tangible benefits in a reasonable time-frame. It's therefore worth avoiding being too grandiose in our plans, as emphasised in this comment recorded from JISC '08.

Every morning I have a wonderful time looking through all the blogs and sites that I have rss'd (they get sent to me without me having to seek them out all the time). And for the techies in the audience - download Sage for free and it aggregates all your RSS feeds visually. I love it.

Anyway (yeh - I can see the non IT nerds yawning out there) - I get a buddhist saying every day and todays was kind of apt.

There are two mistakes one can make along the way - not going all the  way and not starting. Buddha

That's what I feel about core dreams and ideas.

Having dreams and playing with ideas is fantastic. The more the merrier.

Somewhere along the line it is worth deciding which ones you want to make a reality.

So start.

As to going all the way - well- I have a more fluid approach. Keep the dream/idea/goal in sight - do your very best to make it real - and - if for whatever reason it doesn't seem to be working - let it go.

Many, many years ago I came across something called the Four Path Way. I can't remember what spiritual tradition it came from and I'm an eclectic magpie when it comes to spiritual purpose - dogma just doesn't do it for me.

The Four Path Way is something I talk to groups about when I'm working with them over a period of time. I use it as a kind of code of behaviour in the group.

Here it is:

Turn Up

Be Present

Tell the Truth

Let go of the Outcome

Simple & effective.

Letting go of the outcome does not mean don't have a goal. It means that, paradoxically, have a dream, work towards it - and then - let go - of the perceived success and failure.

Learn from it certainly - just don't define yourself by it.

That's my wee thought for the day.

Have a great week folks.

Liz

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I wrote here recently about SKIL2 - the mad challenge I seem to have manifested/attracted/created for myself.

My lolling self is horrified.

My curious, passionate & low boredom threshold self is delighted.

I spent some time over the last few days working on both the design and content of the SKIL2 social network. It's looking good and I'm finding it a very useful place to note all the work I'm doing on the project.

Because it's a social network I can make it interactive and collaborative. I started a few forum discussions on topics I'm researching. At the moment it's more like a monologue than a dialogue - but that's fine. It's helping me think through stuff.

I also have my first 2 members - Pat and Ronnie. Nice to have some company.

Today, on the social network, I posted a skil2-info-pack I've created for SKIL2.

Someone asked me if I felt that maybe I was sharing too much and that someone could 'steal' my idea.

Good question. My response?

Good luck to them. SKIL2 is just a map of an idea at the moment and will take many many months - if not years - to develop.

It's a massively complex project that I have to communicate simply to a lot of people who couldn't care less - or know a lot - about technology and social media.

And my dear reader - I don't pretend to be the world's expert on these areas. But I know more than I did a month ago - and in another month I'll know more ... I'm also not working alone on SKIL2 and will be inviting all sorts of organisations to be partners.

I'm a great believer in the power that comes from sharing information.

Have a wander over to the SKIL2 network. You're welcome to become a member and just get an rss feed (click on the rss button near the bottom of the network screen) that will let you know when any new content is added.

Wish me luck.

Liz

Award programs at undergraduate and postgraduate level through on-campus study.

Award programs at undergraduate and postgraduate level through on-campus study.