As President of EXMSS I am always interested in what services and benefits EXMSS can provide for you that will improve your overall learning experience.
One of the purposes of this blog is to allow our members to make suggestions and offer perspectives on their learning experience. All comments made on this blog-line will be considered and will have some impact on the suite of services we offer in the future.
As the website has had a facelift I am particularly interested in what you may want from the EXMSS site. Are the news feeds useful? What sort of questions would you like to see on our poll? Would you consider making the EXMSS site your homepage?
These questions are only the tip of the iceberg. Over time I intend to use web discussions and polls to inform EXMSS of the students needs so EXMSS can provide the services and benefits that you most value. I will also be able to present your views to the Massey Council and the many committees that I am involved in, with a view to improving your learning environment.
So please provide me with your views and I will do my best to provide you with representation, services and benefits of membership that you really value.
It would be enormously beneficial to extramural
learning to have lectures recorded and available
for viewing.
It would also be a massive improvement if we
could email our assignments, rather than post
or fax. I have often found Massey faxes busy
and it can take the whole day to get it through.
Apart from that I can’t see much value in EXMSS.
It would be good if this was an optional rather
than compulsory charge.
Thanks.
Good to get some feedback.
The roll-out of electronic assignment submission will begin this year through Massey’s new web environment ‘Stream’. Getting lecture video available on demand is more difficult but I will keep up the pressure on this issue.
Tthe compulsory nature of EXMSS was determined by the membership who voted to keep compulsary membership. It is possible to waive your membership but the Education Act requires you to then forward your membership fee to a charity. Please do read the Presidents column in the March issue of Off Campus to gain an understanding of the benefits of membership. I hope that in the coming year you can access some of the benefits that don’t revolve around advocacy or hardship.
Why does it have to be difficult to get lectures? There’s a lecturer in Christchurch who has been doing podcasts for his students for a couple of years now and they don’t even have to attend the lecture…surely in this day of modern technology universities would be wanting to use the most up-to-date technology available. Massey has had extramural education available for years and they’re lagging in this very simple method of delivery.
Any news on video clips of lectures for extra murals? I emailed Anne Moretti about this & waiting for reply. Any news on Dave McNab’s petition ? Annette Moffat.
I feel we must be wary of changes to education delivery that may not be pedagogically sound: video lecture is an example. The lecturer may not see the need to update an extramural study guide because they have recorded all their lessons and dropped them online. Over time the written resources disappear. I do agree that they are late starters but Massey is in the process of developing policy that will help prevent any erosion of quality as they move into the web2 world. Grant Wiggins (Director of Open Learning) says that Massey is looking to develop mini lectures using a combination of image and audio which would be able to be embedded in the ‘Stream’ environment, some staff have already participated in a pilot project.
I am studying Sociology in Education paper 187.203 and this is my first paper done through Massey. I have not studied in this country before and I need to find other students who are doing the same paper in order to share thoughts and ideas. While reading my readings and text books and trying to understand my assignment I am working full time and I am struggling to get through understanding the helpful sites that is available.It would be helpful to get easy access to someone who can help with immediate questions as one goes through ones readings. I have emailed my lecturer and it has been 5 days and no reply.
Please contact Anne@EXMSS.org.nz and request a class email list. All the best for your study.