Week 12

Activity 3
Read the article by Price et al. (2007), ‘Face-to-face versus online tutoring support in distance education’.
Make some notes in your blog on whether the evidence regarding online tuition in Price et al.’s paper fits your own experience of online communication in general and your own experience of online tuition on H800. With my own students I provide both telephone, email, conferencing and f2f tutorials. There is low participation in all of these but I would imagine if they had taken part in this study their responses would be the same. I think it may come down to personal expectations that students have about their tutor and how they feel tutorials should be carried out. For many their only experience is of years of traditional classroom learning whilst at school.
As a online student myself I prefer online tutoring to f2f and the discussion forums are a connection to my fellow students which is important for me.

Then check what other students in your tutor group have written.
Do you agree with Price et al. that online tuition is a pastoral activity and not a purely academic activity? I think it is both. Tutors facilitate the learning online by also supporting the student...they go hand in hand.
Do you agree that the absence of what the authors call ‘paralinguistic cues’ in an online environment can limit the effectiveness of online tuition? It can....I wonder what, if any, difference it would have made to the study if the online students were given a photo of their tutor at the start of the course? Perhaps they need to feel a visual connection to that tutor. My students will often say that its nice to put a face to the person on the end of the email or the telephone.