Saturday 19 January 2013

#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.

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