Kiribati Campus Visit

The first session that we sat in for was for the course CSF21: 9-10am. Jenny and I as part of our research together with Ash and Robert are evaluating the use of audiograhics for audio tutorials. There are 28 students enrolled for this course in Kiribati campus.

There are some students doing this course on a full-time basis (mainly recent school leavers) and some part-time (working full-time of course!). 5 students were present for this session. There was a bit of delay in the beginning, with the tutor arriving 5 mins late and waiting around for more students to be tuned in. 3 campuses were tuned in at the beginning; Kiribati, Tonga and Vanuatu. 15 minutes into the session, Lautoka Campus came in followed by Labasa then towards the end Solomon Campus. Lautoka and Labasa campus did not have the tutorial topic file on their system and this was exchanged over email during the session through communication with the use of the Click to Meet chat facility. Kiribati Campus lost connection to the Click to Meet facility 30 minutes into the session and the audio was the only means of communication till the end of the session.

Large part of the session was devoted to providing answers to a multiple choice tutorial exercise (about 80 questions) and only about 3 minutes was devoted to question and answer towards the end of the session. There were no questions from students from the other campuses. Jenny attempted to ask a question over the system but this was not possible because they can't seem to hear us from the other side. Couldn't use the Click to Meet chat facility either because we lost our connection to that as well.

Had a bit of a chat with the 5 students after the session and here was what we found:
CSF21 delivers lectures through the videobroadcast mode
It has print components; I&A, Study Guide and Lab Manual and Textbook
There is a scheduled audio tutorial
Kiribati Campus has a local tutor who conducts the lab sessions every week.
It uses Class Share to access lecture notes and tutorial exercises
It uses WebCT so students are able to submit their assignments and participate in the discussion forum. The students here mentioned that they don't actively participate in the discussion forum.
They did not get any face to face orientation in WebCT except by referring to the guide in
the I&A. They would very much prefer to have a proper orientation in the use of WebCT.
They did not indicate any suggestions to improve the way audio tutorials are delivered. They did mention however that they find the videobroadcast lectures more useful than the audio tutorial sessions.