Arrive UK

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• Arrive UK
• Julie Watson
• University of Southampton
• jw17_at_soton.ac.uk
• http//www.elanguages.ac.uk

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• Online encounters across the globe providing
  pre-arrival support and induction for
  international students preparing for EAP and
  further study in the UK

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eLanguages what do we do?

• Reusable Learning Object (RLO) production
• Deliver e-tutored online courses across campus
  and across the world
• Licence various study skills toolkits to other
  institutions
• Collaborate on development of discipline-specific
  toolkits
• Research projects
• template development sharing/re-using/re-purposin
  g LOs contextual metadata

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Arrive UK

• A pre-arrival course
• Prepares international students for living and
  studying in the UK
• Languagehouse (customised Moodle)
• Uses various new technologies and e-tutored
• Piloted 2004 (blended mode)
• Summer 2005 and 2006 courses delivered to
  pre-sessional students and others

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Structure and components

• Weekly themes
• 4-5 Learning Objects (LOs) per week
• The Meeting Place (asynchronous D/B)
• The Chat Room (tutor-facilitated, synchronous,
  weekly meetings)
• A weekly podcast to download

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Design features of LOs

• Self-contained and separable from individual
  context of use
• Building blocks for designing online courses or
  resource sets
• Interoperable
• Consistently styled and sized
• Allow re-use or repurposing

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Pedagogic features of LOs

• Learning point, topic or theme-based
• Activity-led and interactive
• Engage student in reflection and active
  involvement
• Enhanced with significant amounts of feedback
• Accommodate different learning approaches
• Use multiple media text, audio, video, web
  links, images etc

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The Meeting Place

• Uses
• Initial student contact,orientation and first
  week ice-breaker
• Tutor-facilitated course progression
• Discussions triggered by themes of LOs and
  podcasts
• - Social networking

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Podcasts

• Downloadable MP3 audios
• 3-5 minutes in length
• Informal radio style unedited natural speed
• Talk / interview format
• Topics travel stories a pre-sessional course
  directors view common academic problems

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Changes in course design

• 2005
• discussion forums in each unit
• layered structure by unit/sessions
• fixed size student groups
• 2006
• one discussion forum
• linear structure by week
• podcasts added weekly

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Comparing 2005 and 2006
No. of registered students participating Hits on Meeting Place Postings by students in Meeting Place Hits on Learning Objects Hits on Podcasts
Summer 2005 37 (71/190) 4078 116 969 N/A
Summer 2006 69 (93/134) 8434 432 1438 (117) 567 (25)
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Student course evaluation

• Overall course rating 85 excellent/good
• E-tutor rating 82 excellent/good
• Podcasts 70 excellent/good
• Interesting activities 80 strongly
  agree/agree
• Helped confidence 67 strongly agree/agree

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Student comments

• This course made me familiar with the
  (pre-sessional) course, the people and the School
  which I have chosen. I appreciate this course.
• The main benefits are to know someone else
  before coming to UK and its very good for making
  friends. It was really beneficial to me. By means
  of POPC I learned many things about British
  culture, cost of living, studying in the UK, and
  many, many useful other things.
• When I arrived in Southampton everything was
  familiar to me and I didnt feel alone. I could
  find much information about the University and
  Southampton through this and it was so fun.

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The way forward

• Continue to offer Arrive UK to pre-sessional
  students
• Develop use of Podcasts
• Introduce Vidcasts - blended mode with D/B
• Add student mentoring
• Roll out to other student groups/ explore
  recruitment potential?
• Customise course/ training for e-tutors

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For more information

• Go to http//www.elanguages.ac.uk
• Follow the link to Arrive UK