Conclusion

As in the previous modules, having the chance to actually get my hands dirty and do some real blended and online education has been excellent. It was of course unfortunate that the timing of this module meant I couldn't teach my own students but the webinar and mentoring were great learning experiences for me nonetheless. I feel that through the webinar, mentoring and my continuing exposure to mobile learning I have learnt a lot which will be of use to me in my future teaching.

At the moment I am not involved in any purely online courses but I can see how a webinar could also be useful for students taking part in a normal fulltime degree programme. A webinar could take place at the end of the semester as a revision tool or a normal lecture could be recorded and presented as a webinar for consumption anytime, anywhere. As more and more students are now only studying part-time or take part in a dual degree with work and studying, the flexibility offered by webinars is something that will become more and more important in the future. That is reason enough for me to look forward to presenting my next webinar.

I found my experience mentoring Nicky equally rewarding. At present I don't teach any virtual students but as this was my first contact with mentoring I feel I have learnt skills and techniques which will be useful in normal presence mentoring just as much as in e-mentoring. As part of my normal duties I often supervise project papers and also Bachelor theses. The mentoring practice that I had with Nicky could be just as well applied to these students and as my supervision of such students has been quite unstructured until now I am keen to bring a more formal basis into place. I am therefore going to develop a contract template to complete with each student who wants me to be their supervisor. This will ensure that all of the critical decisions about the project are taken and noted somewhere, preventing possible disagreements or false expectations later. The GROW model also seemed a simple but effective tool for guiding mentoring sessions. I shall therefore also be using that with my students when discussing their work.

Despite not everything quite working out the way it might have, I feel like the APBOT module has been a success and taught me a lot. I am therefore looking forward to implementing the measures listed above over the next one or two semesters.

Neil Davie, 5th May 2012 - Meschede, Germany.