Trust

https://www.flickr.com/photos/marilynjane/5877663279 

Some thinking I have been doing in advance of the APT conference in July "Connected Learning in an Open World".......


What makes a classroom connected and open and how do these factors change the behaviours of both teacher AND student?

For me openness has many facets. It's about being open to change, open to student centred strategies, open to students taking over the content and design, going beyond the closed environment of the traditional classroom to encompass the wider world and even encroaching on the students' and the teachers' private space and time.

Connected can mean a classroom that is connected to the internet, but also means students being connected to one another - working together to solve a problem, both in the classroom and beyond it. Connected too to the teacher in new ways - through social networks as well as email or face to face in classroom time and tutorials.

Once you start to change the teaching environment you change the way learning happens. Until very recently the traditional classroom had not changed its appearance in over a century and our traditional expectations of student behaviours match this environment - students who are attentive, facing forward, sitting in rows and following instructions. Teachers who are standing, speaking and directing. In the connected and open classroom, these boundaries, like the boundaries between classroom time and personal time, teaching space and social space, start to be eroded.

Clearly things are changing and the typical classroom is being disrupted technology. This is a visualisation submitted by a masters student at the University of the Balearic Islands in Ibiza on the impact of ITC in the classroom. This is a great video, exemplifying the notion of connectedness and openness on so many levels: the student uses You Tube to submit his assignment and he adopts a meme - the Harlem Shake - which itself symbolises both collaboration and disruption.





So yes, we think of BOYD, wifi,  technology in the classroom, the internet, flipped approaches etc, as being the disruptive elements that bring about connectedness and openness, but there's something else that makes a difference - and again we saw it in the video: seating arrangements.

In the US there has been developing a movement? known as Scale Up which is changing the shape of classrooms. There are some variations but essentially the space is dominated by large round tables seating 9 students in 3 groups of 3. Round tables are especially important because they enable the student to look at other students and not at the teacher, symbolising a less teacher dependent and more collaborative way of working.

This has an impact on how we structure teaching sessions: to make full use of this new type of space, it is necessary to rethink the curriculum and the pedagogy. As an example - when I first started to teach this module it was known as Study Skills. Students completed their main assignment by visiting the library and finding and photocopying three journal articles about a particular group of users of health or social care services, they wrote a short precis of the three articles and submitted an individual hard copy (this is just 4 years ago). Now the module is known as Research and Professional Practice: students work collaboratively in groups to research a particular group of users of services, but this time using electornic databases, websites and social media as their sources. They submit their final projects using an internet based platform such as Pinterest or Tumblr. The curriculum focus on digital citizenship and skills and instead of lectures and seminars, there are active workshops where over 100 students come together to learn, work and create.

I'd love to be able to tell you that this module is a big success and that all the students are over the moon about the new classroom . They are not. They sometimes find it hard to see the relevance of what they are doing to a career in health and social care. They find the classroom noisy and unfocussed. They find the tasks too demanding - or not demanding enough. Attendance has not improved. Grades have not improved. The workshops and the planning that goes in to them are exhausting for the teaching staff too. But we are doing something difficult here, running just one module in this way - sowing the seeds of change - in a first year that is delivered 80% traditionally - 1 lecture/1 seminar. I like what Dewey said about the familiar....

Familiarity breeds contempt, but it also breeds something like affection. We get used to the chains we wear, and we miss them when removed. ~ John Dewey, The Child and the Curriculum (1902)

First year students in particular like and expect the traditional lecture and seminar format - they feel this is where and how they actually learn something. Freeing them from their familiar chains is going to take time.

SCALE UP stands for Student Centred Active Learning Environment with Upside down Pedagogies - essentially the flipped classroom approach is used with students studying learning materials at home and coming to class to participate in activities which demonstrate the theory.

In Scale UP US style - which actually originally focussed on Undergraduate Physics - students are tested, ranked and then assigned to mixed ability groups for the activities and group assignments. Each student in the three-member group also has a secific role - which alternates each week. These are generally the recorder or note taker, the investigator/experimenter and the sceptic or questioner who challenges the group's assumptions.

My institution in the past 12 months have adopted the Scale Up methodoloy and I volunteered to be one of the "early adopters" for my first year module in Study Skills.

My own classroom looks superficially like the MIT set up, but with considerably less space, which does cause some problems of noise and restricted movement. I also don't test students and place them in mixed ability groups. However, my students are provided with Mac Books. This is also a feature of more recent iterations of Scale Up, the group of three students share one lap top so that the emphasis is on shared learning and collaboration.

This contrasts with the way I used to teach the "techie" bits of my module - that is, as distinct topics, in one off sessions in a computer lab, where each student had their own pc and where their focus was still predominantly on following what the teacher was doing.

So in the Scale Up classroom, round tables are helping to provide more connectedness. Another important aspect is the wifi - which in this classroom is generally reliable and fast. This allows the students to turn their faces even further away from the teacher, and makes the classroom walls even more permeable or open to the outside world.

In my module I see this having an impact on two levels: firstly by enhancing the independent learning of the students - i.e by encouraging them to find their own answers ("Google It!!"). Secondly by supporting them to develop "digital competencies" - using effective search strategies, evaluating what they find on line, bookmarking and storing information safely, presenting information in innovative ways, using social media appropriately and developing an online identity that is congruent with their future roles as health and social care professionals.

Having a connected and open classroom has changed the form of the assessment. Last year it was classroom tests and essays about the value of social media in education. This year its a presentation of their research using social media - both as the source of information and as a presentation platform (e.g a Pinterest board about homelessness; a Tumblr blog about fostering and adoption).

So now, a funny story that almost completely undermines everything I have been saying about classroom design. In April I went to the University of Murcia on an Erasmus exchange to witness for myself some really advanced work in the use of TEL. My hosts in the Faculty of Education have an international reputation in this field.

Due to some losses in translation, I was expecting an open and connected classroom not unlike my own. I had been asked to conduct an interactive workshop on using social media for research (Pinterest) for a group of teachers in training on a module which focuses on the use of ITC in the classroom. What I found was a traditional raked lecture theatre, students who brought in a variety of devices of their own and, on that particular day - no wifi. After an initial panic, the students simply downloaded the phone app and did the exercise that way, sharing information with one another until each group was able to get on line and start on their pinboards. The teachers didn't intervene or help in any way (to be honest I had forgotten 3G and phone apps in my panic and dismay at everything going wrong). This is part of the ethos in the team that runs this programme. They told me that they used to give quite a lot of instruction to students about platforms and tools they could use; now that support is minimal. The students complain and get distressed that they can't manage these new ways of working without teacher input, but gradually they go away and get on with it. And they are proud of their achievements.

At the end of the day this is not really about technology, it is about decreasing students' dependence on the teacher as the fount of all wisdom and coming to view themselves as thinkers, creators and teachers.

So, the moral of the story is that what really makes for a great pedagogy in the open and connected classroom is not the technology, not the tables, not the wifi, not even the flipped classroom. What is most important here is TRUST - of the teacher in the student and of the student in himself.

As I reflect on my experiences home and abroad over the last year, and look forward to the reshaping of the curriculum for the next one, it is this notion of trust that I am going to try and embed into my plans. Trust isn't the same as blind faith. I know things will go wrong, but I also know that there will be something to learn. So I guess I'm going to have to trust myself on that too.

All I want for Xmas is ..... more statistics!

I have now done a comparison of "digital skills" survey responses between July (pre-course) and December (end of term 1).

The number responding in December was smaller and the age range was slightly different in that a higher proportion of those responding were mature students.

Nonetheless, the responses reveal that - at the very least -  students' familiarity with certain specific online tools has increased (although they may not value or use this knowledge at this stage, at least they have been introduced to the tools). Their level of confidence in searching for and finding information has also increased as has their ability to do useful things like manage emails, synch their calendars to their phones and submit work on line.

Survey questions	Dec 2013 N=52 23% >35yrs	July 2013 N=91 10% > 35yrs	Specifically taught or used in module?
Confidence with:	%	%
Finding books in Library	73 (+5)	68	n
Finding sources on Internet	94 (+4)	90	y
Referencing	58 (+4)	54	y
Using search terms	92 (+7)	85	y
Understanding plagiarism	91 (+7)	84	y
Access to technology	57 (+1)	56	-
Posting on a blog	48 (+5)	43	n
Creating a website	23 (+3)	20	n
Posting on a discussion forum	59 (+8)	51	y
Synching email and calendar to phone	85 (+12)	73	n
Organising and using email	96 (+3)	93	n
Creating documents on Word	100 (+2)	98	n
Creating PowerPoint presentation	87 (-12)	99	n
Submitting work online	77 (+12)	65	y
Familiarity with:
Wikipedia	77 (+13)	64	n
Social Bookmarking	43 (+37)	6	y
Google Scholar	59 (+37)	22	y
Mobile Bookmarks	60 (+19)	41	y
Cloud Storage	55 (+25)	30	y
Evernote	54 (+35)	19	y
Facebook	92 (+3)	89	y
Twitter	65 (+17)	48	y
Linked in	21 (+17)	4	y

Resources to aid engagement #digilit

I created a Prezi with some suggestions for using web based resources in and outside of the classroom: http://prezi.com/5nqhwsfqw0qi/ten-resources-to-easily-engage-students/


 

A pedagogy for the millenials? #digilit

This week, in the course of some Twitter-based research for my next leadership workshop,  I came across this nice little video about leadership and motivation as it relates to the Millenial generation.

For me it had resonance with teaching and learning in this new age. True I have many students who are Gen X or even Baby Boomers. True, not all Millenial babies are genuinely digitally native in their behaviours, but it is important I think to recognise that we (Baby Boomer staff) are dealing with a new generation and need a pedagogy (or maybe more appropriately an androgogy) that suits the times.

Androgogy is perhaps the term we should apply to adult learners in HE - certainly we anticipate the sort of transitions indicated in Knowles' (1984) definition as students progress through a University education:

1. Self-concept: As a person matures his self concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directed human being

2. Experience: As a person matures he accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning.

3. Readiness to learn. As a person matures his readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his social roles.

4. Orientation to learning. As a person matures his time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly his orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject-centeredness to one of problem centredness.

5. Motivation to learn: As a person matures the motivation to learn is internal(Knowles 1984:12). (from Infed)

but I wonder how much our attitudes towards teaching and learning get in the way of aiding this transition? The chart above (from: http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/05/awesome-chart-on-pedagogy-vs-andragogy.html) illustrates some of the key differences between androgogical and pedagogical approaches.

In a conversation with students earlier this week as part of the Changing the Learning Landscape project we heard of practices in classrooms that still assume a much more passive role on the part of learners, with the "lecturer" still expert and dominating the classroom activity as they did in the Victorian schoolroom.

Trying as I do to teach with technology, to support the development of digital skills and the responsible use of the Internet for research, I can't see how I can achieve my aims without harnessing the students' native abilities and attitudes - making space for them to learn collaboratively, allowing noise - allowing mobile devices - in the classroom, building on their well developed social networking skills to show how these can be used to support research and learning. I was trying to explain how my workshops go to colleagues this week and their response was "yes, but where's the academic rigour, where's the voice of the expert? This might work in something like study skills but would it work in, say, a history degree?"  I wonder why it wouldn't?

A problem based, technology enhanced, collaborative approach makes for a messy and complicated classroom verging on the chaotic at times. It's not always comfortable for me or the learners but I am starting to see some "green shoots" of independent learning and great engagement in the classroom and interestingly it is some of the older "non-traditional" students who seem to be enjoying and benefiting from this approach. Whilst the Millenials may be feeling more  "so what?" about my classes, the older students have been feeding back to me their excitement about their developing digital competence. One student wrote to me this week that my module was "possibly the most interesting and also the most complicated" of all those he was studying. In my book, that's not a bad thing :)

#digilit #digitalidentity Week 2 - they came back for more!

....so this week I planned things better and simplified the task.

I discovered with the smaller seminar group on Friday that the students really like Twitterfall so I used that to gather responses to the task alongside the Discussion Board. I also managed to get Apple TV working and one or two started to ask me to display their work.

I still need to go slower.... what looks like a really simple and straightforward task to me took a bit of explaining, but once they got the hang of it, they were off. I am so grateful for the wireless mic when I need to stop the chatter and give a bit of information/instruction.

I really like that I am not tied to the lectern and can circulate around the class. Everyone seems to be pretty much on task most of the time - and generally having fun doing it.

The technological problems are there - we had at least 10 Macs that had not been logged off so had to be hard-rebooted (switch it off and then on again, basically). One of the screens had shorted and the sound was consequently too low when I showed a video - but IS were round in a flash (no pun intended) and set it all up again for me.

So today was an exercise in reviewing and protecting our digital identity. I used this great resource on Digital Identity for Health Professionals  which I can really recommend. Students took individual case studies and worksheets and concluded by presenting three action points they would recommend to others. They seemed engaged and interested in the topic and curious to Google themselves or check their Facebook privacy etc. I think it was a far more engaging session than would have been possible had I simply stood up at the front and lectured them about the perils of social media.

I have also been really impressed by the way students have engaged beyond the classroom, posting their presentations and discussion threads, Tweeting their thoughts. In order not to exclude students who are not on Twitter, I have collected Tweets into a Storify page and posted this on the Learning Room.

New pencil case

Image: Paula Silva on Flickr

Ah! It's that time of year - a whiff of autumn in the air mingled with late summer sunshine, hungover students arriving for their induction session.... a new pencil case used to be the order of the day, now it's a re-organised virtual learning room.

Over the summer I have had to sharpen up some of my own digital skills as I got to grips with the upgraded VLE (Desire2Learn vn 10). I have to admit to liking what I am seeing - a more intuitive user interface, better overall layout and appearance, some handy new features which allow me to highlight the essentials of each session.

The new VLE layout also complements beautifully the Scale Up or flipped classroom approach that my modules are taking this year as I can create or curate interesting content that is accessible out of class as well as plan, design and publish group learning activities that we will do in the workshops.

For my first year module, the aim is to develop digital information literacy. Where in past years I have had to start with fundamentals like "how to switch on the computer" (I kid ye not...) this time we hope to hit the ground running with an exploration of digital citizenship.

To illustrate the layout of the VLE - and as an example of a session from the module- here is a screen print of one of my new sessions on Social Media and Research:

A key element which is informing the evolving design of the module is students' response to a "Digital Skills" survey which I conducted with them as a pre-Induction activity. You can download the survey here if you are interested.

The responses tell us the sort of things students are worried about and where they already feel confident. A similar module last year attracted some criticism because students felt we were going over ground they were already familiar with. This year we have a better idea of students' capabilities and knowledge before we meet them and so have been able to tailor the module accordingly.

For example, recognising that a lot of them are already familiar with blogging and Twitter, we can now spend more time looking at online identity and using social media for research than we do in teaching them how to use email and submit assignments.

Having today met the first year students face to face for the first time, I am feeling excited about beginning the module next week despite needing to get to grips with the unfamiliar physical teaching environment and wondering how to manage sessions with such large numbers (see earlier posts about this: Enhancement and Risk Management). Designing the virtual  learning room is, by comparison, a quiet, contemplative and creative process which I have actually enjoyed over the summer. Whether the reality matches up to the dream is another matter. I'll be keeping you posted.

Finally, I have to report that the pre-induction Facebook group has been a great success this year. Over 50% of students are already members (and more have joined today since the induction workshop). Students have raised questions about everything from reading lists to bus stops, queried timetables and asked about the difference between seminars and lectures (I forget how many assumptions we make about this kind of thing) and have been holding private chats with one another about their hopes and fears.

Social networking's ability to initiate genuine - and genuinely helpful -  relationships should not to be underestimated - nor allowed to be cheapened by the horror stories about grooming and bullying we hear on the news. The success of the Facebook group really came home to me today when I realised how many faces I already knew and how friendly and at ease the group seemed with me - and perhaps more importantly with one another  - having already made those vital, virtual connections. A great start to the term - and I didn't even need a new pencil case!

#digilit Connecting for learning

Image c/o Mark Hawksey

I am currently wrestling with the planning for my first year module on Digital Literacy (as it is fast becoming) and I am stuck with a dilemma about blogging.

I want to convince students that blogging is A GOOD THING in and of itself - to help them reflect on their learning. But without an incentive (i.e. grades, or at least sweeties) it feels to me unlikely that they will buy this.

I am also suggesting that blogs can be a rich source of service user experience (I teach on a health and social care course) alongside more academic texts, and this I think will be of use to them.

So if I ask them to blog but never read their blogs or offer feedback they will rightly ask "why should I?". And if I do start down that road with 100+ students, have I realistically got the time to invest in such an activity? (er, "NO" is the correct answer to that)

Then this morning I happened on a Tweet from @NikPeachey sharing a link to this MindShift blog piece on the importance of connection:

One common wrinkle with the Donate step in Schneiderman’s framework is that many teachers and students simply launch their products onto the Internet, and most of the time they land like a tree falling in an empty forest. In the best learning environments, sharing work doesn’t just mean posting on the Internet; it means building connections with a wider community, so that sharing becomes part of a set of relationships and patterns of exchange. Mobile computing devices let students take those connections with them wherever they go.

(How Tablets Can Enable Meaningful Connections for Students and Teachers By Justin Reich and Beth Holland)

I don't have the perfect solution as yet, but I do think that the connecting and developing a network bit is what I am really after rather than getting students to write a blog solely with the aim of earning brownie points.

Reich and Holland recommend Twitter as a means of connection:

 a collaboratively produced stream of tweets from students can become a running record of classroom life through pictures, text, questions, and conversations. It also provides a mechanism for modeling the connections that we hope young students will make as they progress in their education.

This fits better with the idea I have already had of encouraging students to work in groups and post outcomes using tweets and hashtags. If I add to this an encouragement to microblog using Twitter (or tweet links to longer published blog posts) AND develop a PLN (personal learning network) on the same platform, this could start to look like a plan.....

The serendipity element of Twitter which brought this tweet into my consciousness this morning is the very thing I want to convince students about. The stuff people share has a direct impact on my practice, practically every time I open up Twitter. And I know from retweets, replies and post views that sharing my own struggles and discoveries has some impact on others. This feedback loop is what keeps me motivated to go on learning, developing, sharing.

#oldsmooc #digilit Prototyping and observation

Prototyping:
I have created a simple prototype using screen shots. The VLE I use allows for prototyping on the go - you can move widgets around the home page, change colour schemes etc so this is not difficult.

I have contrasted here two main types of learning room - type 1 uses only the minimum standard - a news column to relay key information (in this example, lectures cancelled); the resource list (or link to library catalogue/reading list). Content is invisible - hidden behind the Learning Room Home Page and accessible only via the "Content" tab. There is no scope for interaction.

Type 2 (two versions) has additional "widgets" to help preview and navigate module content, links to social media, provides interaction in the form of group areas and discussion boards, and clearly makes use of e-submission and computer aided assessment. Colour and images enhance the overall attractiveness and welcome feel of the Home Page. But which do students prefer? And how would staff feel about creating a Type 2 Home page?

My cloud is here.

Observation:
My plan for the observation task is to ask a typical first year undergraduate student to find a resource on line and bookmark it. In my module I want  first year undergraduates to be able to find reputable sources to aid their research and make sure they keep a note of references so that sources are correctly cited.

Step 1: find a scholarly article published in the last year which looks at students' attitude to sport

Step 2: bookmark the web page so you will be able to find it again. [will this be accessible from any PC, or just this one?]

Step 3: Make a note of the Author, date, title and publication details [where will the student record this so that they can find it when they come to write their assignment]


Outcome:

I captured the session (with the permission of my guinea pig) using CamStudio free screen capture software :



The beauty of doing this was that I was able to observe the difficulties a student has when they have never before been taught how to search, bookmark or reference academic or scholarly articles. The video has been heavily edited but in reality the student needed a lot of coaching.  From this I can see the value of teaching students about effective bookmarking habits and how to use Google Scholar (which we already do) but it has also shown me the need to give students a "map" or crib sheet to help them "read" a web page like this. So I created one as a document (here on Google Docs) but this could be turned into a screen capture video to talk the student through the whole process.

So - all in all a very enjoyable and productive week on #oldsmooc :)

#oldsmooc #digilit the skies are clearing

image: jane challinor (Sky over the Trent)

Decided to organise myself a bit and put links to those clouds (or pages) that I NEED altogether on my learning journal page - creating my own PLE within the MOOC!

Some interesting ideas for developing a design through exploring context, using scenarios and personas. Today onto mapping tools. I think this is a useful way to articulate what I have had in my head for a few years now and should hopefully help me to design something that could work instead of my usual "suck it and see" method.

Having a buddy really helps. Helen C developed a scenario for a mature student and I did one for a "traditional one". Despite never having met or even really discussed my course, her scenario was uncannily accurate. The mature student she described is definitely one I recognise from my current cohort!

Some other thoughts about context - the staff side of things. Within the course team I think I am one of only three members of staff who have a FB account. Two of us are on Twitter. None of these uses these sm platforms for anything other than social contact. One other besides me uses wikis with her students but confesses to never having used a wiki herself. None do social bookmarking or have what could be described as a (virtual) PLN.

Use of the VLE varies and the quality of design of those learning rooms which are well used  is highly inconsistent. The preferred way of organising teaching and learning is:

Lecture - notes/PPT on the VLE - seminar group discussion - individual assignment handed into school office - feedback sheet with grade and brief comments. Occasionally, group work involving Power point or an A3 poster. Rarely, VLE Discussion Board activity which is mainly student to teacher oriented with little student to student interaction.

Having discussions in the team about e-submission of assignments causes anxiety; mention of Twitter,FB or wikis for learning evokes a) terror b) moral panic c) derision d) awe

I think therefore that I need to add some new personas into my scenario because I need to recognise that without wider acceptance within the team of the need for digital information literacy, this module is not going to change things at the rate and to the extent needed to be really effective.

Working in favour of change is the team's recognition that research skills among our students are poor and levels of independent learning low. Poor academic practice is also rife and student engagement could definitely be better.

Ultimately, my dream is that a  well designed digital information literacy module should  provide support for the course as a whole.

Student engagement - differences between the VLE and facebook

Pink Floyd: The Wall

A colleague and I are currently thinking about a conference paper on student engagement and the amazing success we have had in using the Discussion Boards on the VLE.

In sharp contrast to our "official" module Facebook Page, two recent exercises involving use of the Discussion Board have attracted a large number of posts.

In the first week, a discussion about reading logs had responses from 73 unique respondents. Very few though added any comments in response to other students.

The second discussion forum, on the subject of finding journal articles had 33 unique respondents with again only one or two responding to another student's post.

Over on my colleague's Module Learning Room, a mandatory discussion board activity set in lieu of a cancelled seminar provoked around 100 responses. (This was the same cohort of students as those completing my module). Student interaction was at much the same level as in my Learning Room - i.e.  just one or two examples of communication between students.

From this brief look at the current Level 1 Discussion Boards it seems that students seem to be regarding the "Discussion" Forum as in fact a place to post your homework. As such it is nonetheless very valuable for developing a collaborative (or at least shared) learning space. However passively, students are at least ABLE to learn from one another's' posts. And here, tutors can comment, encourage, correct, model and facilitate through their responses.

[One thought that strikes me is that it might be really useful to incorporate discussion board activities into tutorial groups - to maintain contact, reinforce some of the main learning and teaching activities as well as maintaining contact with students whose attendance is more patchy.]

Student to student contact seems very sparse using the official VLE platform, just as student to tutor contact seems rare on the public  Facebook Study Support Page. By contrast, students report that they do use the Facebook Student Only Group to comment, ask and answer questions and catch up socially with one another.

I don't have access to the student only group on Facebook for this year's level 1 cohort - a decision I reached after discussion with the student reps - but last year's student group has always been an open space and I am able to view their interactions. I am guessing that the interactions this year are pretty similar.

The class of 2011 has 91 members of which 50 have contributed at least once in the last 6 months.
An analysis of the main posts (that is, the original wall post and not the succeeding comments) shows that by far the biggest proportion of posts are concerned with asking straightforward fact based questions - where is x? how do I email y? what time is z? etc

The next biggest category is support based - what have I missed? how do I revise for this? what should I write? anybody got any good theories I can use (!); how do I reference this? Students respond generously to these types of request - outlining missed lectures, explaining how to find lecture notes on the VLE, sharing their own essay titles or useful texts, posting links etc. Interestingly there were a couple of instances here of  students from the year above offering advice.

Students also offer unsolicited information and advice - to watch a TV programme on a module related theme, reminders to check their timetables or results, offering text books for sale (final year students again), letting people know when lectures have been cancelled etc

Next comes emotional support and expressing emotion - this ranged from child care problems to lack of confidence in writing and fear of failure in exams. This was one of my favourites:

"can someone make me feel better by saying that they too have left it last minute like me!! :s *she says while watching Britains got talent* lol"

I found only two examples of students arranging social events using this page and only three occasions when personal criticism of a tutor was posted (on two occasions this related to not answering emails, whilst the third related to the quality and comprehensiveness of lecture notes). There was also a flurry of complaints about timetabling at the start of term which mainly focused on the late publication of timetables, inconvenient times of seminars and lectures and the lack of a "reading week".

In the main, the Facebook page, which is run by and for the students without tutor involvement, is centred on support for learning and skills development and in every case I saw, answers to problems that emerged from discussions were factually correct. In addition, the students offer one another impressive levels of support and encouragement. From the evidence of their own Facebook group, then, students are not unwilling to work and learn collaboratively.

I am left wondering therefore if there is an  unspoken etiquette at play here - a set of norms which, in attempting to use social networks for tutor:cohort interaction, we as educators are somehow transgressing?

One hypothesis about this etiquette might be that to talk to tutors on a public social network is desperately uncool for many and too much of a step into the unknown for others unused to or afraid of online socialising.

Another is that the VLE is seen as the place to give and receive WORK and that interaction with anyone other than the tutor is unnecessary - possibly even threatening. Because tutor's comments/replies to posts tend to be of the evaluative type, maybe students are nervous about offering anything which might be construed as a judgement on a peer's work. (Of course there are many excellent examples of peer assessment using Discussion Boards where this is happening - I just feel it is unlikely to emerge spontaneously in a relatively new group at least). 

Interaction on the Facebook Group site is NEVER evaluative of another's work. Indeed students are at pains to be particularly self deprecating when offering advice or support ("I'm rubbish at this, but hey, here are my thoughts for what they're worth").

I think for tutor:student and peer:peer evaluative interactions to happen, the students would need

a) a walled garden (VLE Discussion Board)

b) specific direction as to what they need to do

c) a link between this activity and assessment/grades to encourage participation

d) a clear pedagogical purpose to the activity 

I think in such instances we could get students to comply.

But if what we want is genuine peer to peer engagement and collaboration, I think maybe we had best leave them to it.The observations I have made in a year of Facebook Student group interactions suggests that they are quite capable of supporting one another's learning.

So, set up the Face Book group by all means so they can find one another and then Hey! Teacher - leave them kids alone.....

the VLE vs Facebook - what do students think?

As the first term progresses it is interesting to see how students are coping with the Virtual Learning Environment. We do a lot of handwringing here about whether or not our VLE is fit for purpose - often mainly focusing on how easy (or not) it is for academics to use.

So two weeks in to the course, what do our students think? (response rate: 62 students or 60% of those enrolled)

86% are staisfied/very satisfied with the ease with which they can find module and  assessment information
85% are saistfied/very satisfied with the way learning materials are organised
90% are satisfied/very satisfied with the module news and messages from tutors
87% are satisfied/very satisfied with the range of links to other web based resources or links to other resources within the University.

Some comments:

• I think its a great way of using technology and effective communication - its a quick and easy way of finding the modules.
• very easy to understand and really liked the layout
• I particularly like how the sessions are set out in weeks and terms as it makes it easier for me to access the specific session I am after. [NB not all Learning Rooms are set out this way]
• I like the fact that not only for this module but for every module it has the hand book, that is useful for me to keep looking at and getting my head around it
• the layout of information was a bit confusing but I'm becoming more confident the more I use it.

Difficulties include: syncing the timetable to their mobile phone using ical (most manage it OK); accessing from home; difficulty downloading some documents and some issues about navigation, given that every module is laid out in a slightly different way.

As part of my investigation into the use of Facebook in my module, I have also been getting their feedback on that too. They have completed an online survey and also responded to a blog post about Facebook in a learning context, via a short essay.

93% of those responding had a Facebook account before coming to university and they use it predominantly for keeping in touch with friends and family (85% rated this as important or very important). However, 65% felt it was also important/very important  to join the Facebook group to interact with other students on their course and over 70% felt it was important/very important to access the Facebook Study Support page run by their tutors.

85% of students responding to the survey had visited the Study Support Facebook page and of these, they expressed 85-90% satisfaction with the links, posts and resources it contains. Suggestions for improvement included posts by course reps and more interaction with other students.

In the short essays, students predominantly come down AGAINST using Facebook for learning, replicating pretty much the dominant conclusion from last year's assignment on this theme. The main reasons cited are:

1) worries about privacy and cyber bullying (reason not to have FB at all)
2) worries about getting distracted from the real work of studying
3) lack of tools to support learning
4) the fact that not everyone has or wants a FB account

On the positive side there is this quote:

"Bringing education in to something that we use day to day, I believe, encourages education."

and another 

 "Since starting university, facebook has become a learning method for me as I was introduced to the Health and Social Care study support group. This I have found very helpful as everyone from the course can comment and help each other out from something as small as the room for our next lecture to advice on our latest essay." ( I think this student is referring here to the students-only group, rather than the tutor-led Page, which singulalry lacks any student comments or posts) 

So whilst not conclusive this again provides some evidence to add to the debate about using social networking in education. Early thoughts: social media definitely add to the experience of coming to University and maybe help with early engagement, but the VLE ain't dead yet......