Electronic-learning Exercise Not Taken Seriously by Students
Text: Kwok Jia-Xin
“Is it only me who thinks this ‘e-learning week’ is a stupid idea?” read a post on “NUS Confessions,” a Facebook page that allows students from the National University of Singapore to share their thoughts anonymously.
The post was written before the commencement of the school’s recent electronic-learning exercise, dubbed “eLearning Week.” The exercise, which took place from Sept. 9 to 13, involved students accessing course materials online instead of physically turning up for class. Its objective was to prepare students and faculty members for situations that require campus closure, such as a pandemic – a real possibility given the severe haze earlier in the year that forced schools to cancel activities, as well as the H1N1 outbreak in 2009.
But students seemed unconcerned about eLearning Week and its objective. Preparing for a potential campus closure seemed a distant priority to students, with many still coming to school to work on assignments and projects.
Differing priorities
Some students appeared to be unconcerned about the objective of eLearning Week because they felt that schoolwork was more important than preparing for a campus closure.
“Since there is no actual school closure, I might as well go back to school because it benefits me more,” said Daphne Tan, a second-year statistics undergraduate who prefers studying in what she also said is a more conducive environment. “The imminent problem of midterms is more important to me.”
In addition, certain modules that require interaction between students left them with no choice but to come to school.
Vincent Wang, a final-year communications and new media undergraduate, said he felt frustrated about coming to school during eLearning Week. “If the school wants us to prepare for a school closure, they should shut down the library,” he said. “They should not make us do group projects that require us to meet up physically.”
For the entire duration of eLearning Week, all eight discussion rooms of the Central Library were almost fully booked for group study sessions and meetings.
Still effective
Although students might be unconcerned with the objective of eLearning Week, staff said they felt that it was still effective in helping them deliver course content. Sabine Tan, a research associate who lectures in the Department of English Language and Literature, said she thought that the eLearning Week was a good teaching tool.
“It was quite easy to set up a chat room for an online discussion,” she said. “Judging from the way the chat unfolded, it was actually quite effective.”
“It is a different experience from teaching in the classroom. I feel that the two platforms are complementary, and can be used effectively for different learning activities and purposes,” she continued.
Past efforts
The recent exercise was not the university’s first. It first started as a trial by the Communications and New Media department in 2008, involving approximately 30 staff and 1,400 students. It was organised in conjunction with the Centre for Instructional Technology and the Office of Safety, Health and Environment.
After incorporating feedback from the trial, such as the implementation of a student feedback mechanism, CIT started planning another exercise, this time on a larger scale.
The next eLearning Week in October 2009 involved the whole campus, but only included lectures, with tutorials being an option. According to a report by CIT’s director Ravi Chandran, the rationale was that lectures were “less resource-intensive compared to more interactive modes of teaching like tutorials and seminars.”
The exercise continued to grow in scale. After the first campus-wide exercise, eLearning Week started to involve both lectures and tutorials on a faculty level. This year’s exercise was the first time both lectures and tutorials were conducted online and involving the entire university.
Following the spirit of the exercise
Despite the amount of resources invested in eLearning Week, students appeared to remain unprepared for a campus closure as they continued coming to school during the exercise. “It is a community-based exercise, like doing fire drills, so we know what to do in case any real emergency strikes us,” assistant professor Lakshminarayanan Samavedham, director of the university’s Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning and one of the organisers of eLearning Week, said. “Like a fire drill, it may not be a perfect simulation, but it is still a fairly good one.”
Lakshminarayanan also said that the onus lies on students themselves to understand the objective of eLearning Week. “As much as possible, all of us should participate in the spirit of eLearning Week. If it means having to go for online discussions, we should do it that way.”
Tags: feature
“Is it only me who thinks this ‘e-learning week’ is a stupid idea?” read a post on “NUS Confessions,” a Facebook page that allows students from the National University of Singapore to share their thoughts anonymously.
The post was written before the commencement of the school’s recent electronic-learning exercise, dubbed “eLearning Week.” The exercise, which took place from Sept. 9 to 13, involved students accessing course materials online instead of physically turning up for class. Its objective was to prepare students and faculty members for situations that require campus closure, such as a pandemic – a real possibility given the severe haze earlier in the year that forced schools to cancel activities, as well as the H1N1 outbreak in 2009.
But students seemed unconcerned about eLearning Week and its objective. Preparing for a potential campus closure seemed a distant priority to students, with many still coming to school to work on assignments and projects.
Differing priorities
Some students appeared to be unconcerned about the objective of eLearning Week because they felt that schoolwork was more important than preparing for a campus closure.
“Since there is no actual school closure, I might as well go back to school because it benefits me more,” said Daphne Tan, a second-year statistics undergraduate who prefers studying in what she also said is a more conducive environment. “The imminent problem of midterms is more important to me.”
In addition, certain modules that require interaction between students left them with no choice but to come to school.
Vincent Wang, a final-year communications and new media undergraduate, said he felt frustrated about coming to school during eLearning Week. “If the school wants us to prepare for a school closure, they should shut down the library,” he said. “They should not make us do group projects that require us to meet up physically.”
For the entire duration of eLearning Week, all eight discussion rooms of the Central Library were almost fully booked for group study sessions and meetings.
Still effective
Although students might be unconcerned with the objective of eLearning Week, staff said they felt that it was still effective in helping them deliver course content. Sabine Tan, a research associate who lectures in the Department of English Language and Literature, said she thought that the eLearning Week was a good teaching tool.
“It was quite easy to set up a chat room for an online discussion,” she said. “Judging from the way the chat unfolded, it was actually quite effective.”
“It is a different experience from teaching in the classroom. I feel that the two platforms are complementary, and can be used effectively for different learning activities and purposes,” she continued.
Past efforts
The recent exercise was not the university’s first. It first started as a trial by the Communications and New Media department in 2008, involving approximately 30 staff and 1,400 students. It was organised in conjunction with the Centre for Instructional Technology and the Office of Safety, Health and Environment.
After incorporating feedback from the trial, such as the implementation of a student feedback mechanism, CIT started planning another exercise, this time on a larger scale.
The next eLearning Week in October 2009 involved the whole campus, but only included lectures, with tutorials being an option. According to a report by CIT’s director Ravi Chandran, the rationale was that lectures were “less resource-intensive compared to more interactive modes of teaching like tutorials and seminars.”
The exercise continued to grow in scale. After the first campus-wide exercise, eLearning Week started to involve both lectures and tutorials on a faculty level. This year’s exercise was the first time both lectures and tutorials were conducted online and involving the entire university.
Following the spirit of the exercise
Despite the amount of resources invested in eLearning Week, students appeared to remain unprepared for a campus closure as they continued coming to school during the exercise. “It is a community-based exercise, like doing fire drills, so we know what to do in case any real emergency strikes us,” assistant professor Lakshminarayanan Samavedham, director of the university’s Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning and one of the organisers of eLearning Week, said. “Like a fire drill, it may not be a perfect simulation, but it is still a fairly good one.”
Lakshminarayanan also said that the onus lies on students themselves to understand the objective of eLearning Week. “As much as possible, all of us should participate in the spirit of eLearning Week. If it means having to go for online discussions, we should do it that way.”
Tags: feature