Face to Face(book)

So term has started and the Facebook page is launched and active. Since it launched early in August, in anticipation of Welcome Week, 67 of our students have "liked" the page. That represents 70% of the enrolled student body. Furthermore - due the magic of Facebook "insights"  - since we reached 30 "likes", it has been possible to get data on how many people specific posts have reached and the demographics of our audience.

One of the things you will notice from the demographics is that on our course we have a percentage of students who are outside the normal age range for a "digital native". Some of these mature students have ventured onto FB for the first time in order to be able to access this page and the student led group. In answer to a survey of new students, 92% said they had a Facebook account, so this is definitely a good place to go and meet them.

However, in all the time the page has been available, only two students have posted any message on the wall, and one of those was as a comment on a post of mine. One further student has "liked" a post and a poll asking for votes on the adoption of a new logo received another 3 "likes".

As part of Welcome Week we ran a  treasure hunt with prizes promised for pictures posted. Nada. When questioned, students said they had posted pictures by mistake to "the other FB group" i.e the closed group run by students, for students.

This is all very interesting and supports completely the new report published by Educause last week.

To quote:

"Students want multiple communication options, and they prefer different modes for different purposes and audiences.
1. Students want to connect with one another through social networks but are cautious of mixing academic and social lives. Provide students with networking opportunities that support their academic work but that are one step removed from faculty oversight or involvement."


To be honest, if I were a student, I'd feel the same.

Am I down hearted? No. It was never my intention to create a space where student and "faculty" buddied up. This was mainly intended as a vehicle for transmitting information in a way that is more appealing than is possible on the VLE, has more chance of reaching a wider audience than the VLE (because it tends to be "always on") and because it leads nicely into the assessment task for the module which is to explore how social media can be used as an educational vehicle. I guess I did hope that students might post questions here or that we could use it for some module activities that required a discussion forum but reflecting on this now, I imagine an open page is unlikely to be used in that way.

(This week I have managed to get over 30 replies so far on a Discussion Board activity on our VLE, so at least I know it's not that they don't want to talk to me!!)

The other unsurprising "insight" is that other staff members continue to stay away in droves, despite encouragement, training sessions, promises or pleading. It's basically just me and the Librarian (I DO love librarians!!)

to quote from Educause again:


Technology is important to students in terms of how they access course materials
and how instructors use technology to engage them in the learning process. Students
prefer courses with some online components, and they expect their instructors to
seamlessly integrate technology in their pedagogical practices. It is important to
students that their instructors know how to use technology to facilitate and support
learning


The report goes on to say that most students felt their instructors did use technology effectively but as   a different source asserts:

"Overall, the higher education system is failing to prepare students with the needed digital and social skill set in any meaningful way"

It really is time to get with the programme guys!! Social networking is widely used in business (and that includes the "business" of improving health and well being) to communicate brand, to educate and to shape opinion and it can only be helpful if we ensure that our students graduate knowing how to use it responsibly and effectively.

Having said all that, students appear still to prefer face to face communication with tutors (again, according to the Educause report), closely followed by email. Phew! Good to know I won't be replaced by a chatterbot anytime soon.

Adventures in social networking

Once again I will be leading the "study skills" module for new students this year and I have decided to try a new tack with student communication this time - beginning prior to Welcome Week-  with a Facebook page set up expressly to provide academic support.

In previous years I have avoided Facebook as a platform for teaching and learning, seeing it as the domain of the "social" network, but Facebook's role in the learning network, particularly in HE is becoming more and more commonplace.

Last year I asked the Year Two students to set up a Facebook group for the new intake but kept away from it (at least "officially" - it remained an open group so I could look in from time to time and address any issues that seemed to be prevalent). The theme of the assignment in my first year study skills module was social networking and HE, and some students felt pretty clear the two didn't and shouldn't mix! (For more on this theme see my earlier post on the Diigo project and on the students' feedback).

Over the last year though I have heard from colleagues about various experiments blending social networking and learning and I have decided to take the plunge. (See for example Sarah Cousins or Dr Maria Kontogianni)

First of all, I set up a new "academic" identity on Facebook to keep it separate from the "real" me. Secondly, after some discussion with one of the student mentors and advice from other educators who have a lot more experience in this area, (such as Alan Cann, below, via Google+) I decided on a Page as opposed to a Group on Facebook.

A Page provides a platform for communication without the students having to become my or each others' friends. (Once again though, the student mentors have also set up and will initially manage a Students only Facebook Group which will be closed to staff).

For those of you unfamiliar with Facebook - a Page is really more like a website or blog than a social space: it can be a platform for transmitting information but can also allow interaction - like comments or messages. The plan is to use this as an adjunct to the official VLE "Learning Room" to encourage students to raise questions and keep in touch with tutors in a place that is perhaps more familiar to them. Discussion Boards on the VLE never, for me, really seem to work in this semi-formal way and tend to restrict the flow of communication.

What I hope for as an outcome is that students will feel more comfortable with approaching teaching staff on the module for help with various issues as a result of this slightly less formal interaction; that they will find here resources and support in a more accessible form than the VLE can provide (although this will also be available on the VLE) and that those students who are less familiar with social networking and the internet (we have a lot of "mature" students on our course) will also develop skills in this area which will help them in other areas of study and in future employment. (see Digital Literacies).

On this last note, a key issue in the use of the platform is the familiarity of the staff team with Facebook in general and the operation of Pages in particular. I teach this module with the help two colleagues - both like myself "ladies of a certain age" but both totally new to Facebook. One colleague does run a blog and a Twitter account so she is well on the way to feeling confident in the medium but the other has needed a lot of support to get started.

It is going to be a learning adventure for all three of us in different ways!

Fusion 2012 - a week on

The Fusion conference was probably one of the best organised and most enjoyable I have been to and the opportunity to get to know other "e-champions" across the university was incredibly valuable.

The key note speakers were inspirational, the delegates were good humoured, polite and interesting, some of the break out sessions I attended were genuinely educational and the product itself - the learner management system used by my university - looks shiny and engaging. But I have returned to reality and specifically the reality that OUR version of the shiny stuff is a couple of iterations behind and as such still has the clunky awkwardness and grey institutional unattractiveness that makes it difficult to get excited about.


I have spent some time this week trying to discover if and when some of the tools I have seen will be available to use (rubrics! please!) and today I am back to looking at tricky workarounds to be able to teach and assess in a way that is most appropriate for me and my students.


It isn't that I am against VLEs per se - indeed I think the new version of ours will deliver much of what I need - it is just that what I need is constantly moving and changing to keep up with innovations in teaching and learning and the VLE lags a fair distance behind.


So what do I want in an LMS?


1.  The basics: a classlist that links effortlessly to grading information and assessment drop box


2. A place to store or link to resources of various types


3. A "news headlines" feature that automatically notifies students of updates


4. A Discussion Board that does the same


5. An attractive, intuitive interface that makes it as easy as, say, Facebook to log on, find stuff, add stuff, create a personal page or profile (or "portfolio") and submit stuff for assessment


6. A simple way of assessing online OR if files must be downloaded & uploaded, that this can be done in zipped batches and not painstakingly one at a time


7. A way to group topics into folders or sub pages that keeps things tidy and navigable


8. A place where students can easily create and collaborate on content


9. A place where students can easily give feedback - to me, to one another


10. and finally - for added *sparkly*, *shiny* attractiveness - a way of changing the appearance or backgrounds to home pages and a navigation box that is a bit more blog/wiki/ (just - you know - web 2.0) -like. 


Some of this I have seen before in other systems; some I know is to come in the next release of our own. In the meantime, I face the next academic year with my usual battery of work arounds and off-VLE platforms.


And of course, any VLE has limitations - if only in terms of portability. So maybe, I try to convince myself, taking the students out on a virtual field trip is not such a bad idea as it does at least introduce them to tools that they will be able to use after University. Knowing about Google docs, blogs, wikis, survey monkey, twitter, diigo, google+, slideshare, facebook and all the other tools I regularly use is not in itself a BAD thing and judging by the number of my peers to whom these fairly mainstream web tools are a closed book (to use a non-digital metaphor!) it is probably a very good thing.


My students are very unlikely to ever again live their lives within the metaphorical confines of a VLE-like system (unless they continue in academia). It is highly likely that they will go on to work in jobs where an understanding of social media and web 2.0 tools will be essential, for marketing, planning, working on projects, reaching service users and for just keeping in touch with colleagues. 


So although I was very nearly convinced in San Diego that the promised land of "version 10" will provide me with everything I need in one place, maybe I'll also continue to steer my students on their own course through slightly more uncharted waters.....

E-Portfolios: an e-piphany

Amy Mangrich explaining the narrative arc of her students' reflections

I am really interested in using e-portfolios with students - for reflection, for employability, for collaboration, on line formative assessment - a whole host of stuff that could be really useful, fun and creative. Unfortunately the eportfolio that comes with our VLE is almost universally loathed for its clunky functionality and lack of intuitive interface.

There are about to be changes to the whole system - eportfolios included - which we are being promised will smooth out the wrinkles and make them both more engaging and more portable. I really hope so because I was part of some sessions today which really made a convincing case for wider use of this tool.

Amy Mangrich from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee showcased a module which had been completely restructured to integrate reflective activities which led the student through the development of the "story" of their own intellectual development. This they then translated into a series of found or created images and finally dropped the collection into Voicethread to narrate an audio commentary.

Amy's belief that the multi media immersion was both emotionally and intellectually engaging (as well as developing media skills) was very convincing and inspiring. My own personal action points are to think about the seamless alignment of module structure, formative tasks and summative assessment on the one hand, and greater creativity and courage in the use of the eportfolio as a platform.

Amy and the instructors in the next session on eportfolios (yes there was a theme to my day) stressed over and over the need for a) templates created for the students to follow b) examples for them to look at and c) training in the technicalities of eportfolio assemblage.

By scaffolding the tasks the students gain confidence and by limiting their choice of presentation platforms, it levels the playing field to some extent. My own preferred policy of giving students some freedom of choice can result in some of them spending too long agonising over the "right" tool.

Some students I suspect would find the eportfolio tool in the VLE a bit limiting but the fact that it is institutionally supported, requires the same log in as the VLE, and generally does not terrify students in quite the same way that the weird and wonderful world of wikis and facebook can do, means that is potentially easier to access.

In the second session I had a further epiphany about the value of the eportfolio for assessment - tutors can access students work at various stages of development to give feedback - and why not summative? This could mean feedback/comments and even grades given "live" in the work without the download/upload faffing about experienced when marking assignments via normal dropbox submission.

The Virtual School of Georgia presentation focussed on the use of eportfolios for staff development - and that's crucial too: you really can't insist on student using this tool until you feel confident to do so yourself. More food for thought...........

In a brief lunchtime conversation with an instructional designer from Nashville Tennessee, I heard again a message which many presenters echo: there needs to be more than just a minimum requirement for VLE learning rooms. Courses need to be designed around the VLE and modules within them need to follow consistent patterns - the naming of "units", the sequencing of tasks, the alignment of learning outcomes - these all need to be far more prescribed, monitored and enforced if the VLE is going to engage students. The current policy of "let a thousand flowers bloom" is great in terms of academic and professional freedom for STAFF, but disorientating, and a bit shabby in terms of the student experience.

Now, whether you really want or need such a tightly controlled learning environment is another question, but if you ARE going to have an institutional VLE, it really ought to give the same high quality experience no matter what module is being studied.

Creating Accessible E Learning

Just back from a really practical session on the do's and don'ts of making learning accessible.

Lots of simple things I can see I do so wrong. Using headings is a great start to allow users of text readers to find their way around a lot of text.

High contrast text and using HTML or word documents instead of pdf is important. Also the importance of creating meaningful text for hyperlinks (which should also be underlined) and not just putting "click here" repeatedly.

Alternative text for illustrations is something I confess to being too lazy to do consistently. Having a presenter with a visual impairment to explain the implications of NOT thinking about accessibility was really helpful and illuminating in a way that just reading the manuals isn't, and she did this with such humour and good grace that noone was made to feel bad for all their previous errors (OK I mean me...)