I always enjoy talking to Steve, and this is another great presentation – beautifully laid out, some provocative thinking for our teaching practices in the future.

Assignment Title: Developing a Community of Practice in Blended Learning at the University of Winchester: Theory, Practice & Reflection

Read the assignment on Scribd.

MARKER:

This report shows just how much effort you have put into the BL Fellow post over the last year.  There have been all kinds of activities both of the social and technical kind.  I can see that you have met many people across the university on many occasions and that you have made a great number of attempts to spread the word by electronic means, going far beyond the BL pages in the LN with which you started.  This all comes through in the report.  It is evidenced by the large number of references you have included, many of which are to postings of your own on various sites.

The report starts by setting the background at a mature level, recognising the issues that confront both the institution at the level of policy and individual academics who are faced with a rapidly changing environment in which to deliver their teaching.  It then goes on to detail how you set about building a BL COP within the university, drawing upon the various approaches that have been described within the literature.  There is a good account of some of the barriers that hinder the take-up of this kind of technology in the ‘Staff attitudes to IT change’ section.

I think a comment I made on the draft you sent me has lead you to remove ‘I’ from the document and referring to yourself always by name.  That reads a bit oddly.  But more importantly, at a deeper level, it may reflect an uncertainty about the methodology that you (and in the past I) have employed and how this relates to the report.  This is not I think a conventional investigation in which, say, a particular technique or technology is tried out and the results are assessed, perhaps by interview or perhaps by change in student performance.  It’s more an account of action research, in which the use of ‘I’ would have been acceptable.  So what I am saying is that, perhaps inevitably, you haven’t included an account of a methodology.  At the end you have attempted to assess the effectiveness of what has been done.  There is some recognition that this is difficult to and  you do give some evidence that there has been an impact from your efforts.  But I think it would have been helpful to sketch out how a more detailed evaluation might have been completed if there had been the resources for it.

A minor point about presentation: I think a Table of Contents for a document like this is very helpful and worth including, especially as it is so easy to do.

Finally I want to reiterate what an enormous amount of work you have put into the BL Fellowship and how it seems, as far as one can tell, that this has been very successful.  I think you have achieved as much as could possibly have been achieved, given the limited resources available to you.  So all in all you can feel very pleased with the report

MODERATOR:

This  is a very good report, well written and very well referenced. In a sense its academic contribution is to show the development of Blended learning at the University of Winchester within the context of academic and real world changes, which is an important report to make. I think your own voice and opinions could have come through more strongly, especially in the conclusion, which I thought could have been more like a synthesis and an overview, followed by your own ideas and projections for the future. If you had done that then I think your marks would have gone much higher

Yesterday, it was 1 year to the day since I started as Blended Learning Fellow at the University of Winchester, and rather than looking at my rather terrifying “to do” list, I thought I’d celebrate what I have done. My contract was 0.2 (1 day per week), until 2 months ago, where I have 12 months at 0.4!

• Building up an extensive set of material on the internal ‘Learning Network Blended Learning Pages’ (Moodle-based, which I have had to learn), which 152 people are now following (out of 200 academics).
• Learning the various Wimba products, writing strategy, promoting them (to staff & students) & training people in using them. Member of the Wimba Working Group, including chairing some sessions. Providing feedback to ITS and to our Wimba contact.
• On the Senate Learning and Teaching Committee, and the Learning Network Working Group.
• Learnt how to use Sharepoint for the new University website.
• Set up a timetable of Workshops, promoted, written & taught
• Presentations to all four Faculties re: Blended Learning, plus lots of smaller meetings & training sessions.
• Attended CET Lunches, and L&T Development Days, including presenting material on SkillsNet (a separate project for which I was funded).
• Set up Facebook Group and Twitter feeds, both of which need more work!
• Dealing with many many emails…
• Spent time in Second Life, and met with JISC people, in-life and IRL.
• Learning how to use ‘Clickers’, ‘Personal Response Systems’
• Followed FOTE09 online (October 2009)
• JISC E-Learning Fair (November 2009)
• JISC Innovating E-Learning Online (November 2009)
• Followed Ascilite online (December 2009)
• LLAS E-Learning Event (January 2010)
• Presented JISC Webinar on Twitter (March 2010)
• ‘Collaborative Enhancement in Teaching’ Lunch on ‘The 21st Century Learner‘ at short notice (March 2010)
• JISC Event (April 2010)
• Plymouth E-Learning Conference (April 2010), including presenting ‘Snow, Floods, Swine Flu, Terrorist Threats: Keep Calm and Carry On‘
• Undertaken surveys with staff & students re: their attitudes to Blended Learning/Twitter
• Live Blogging from International Blended Learning Conference (June 2010), including presenting ‘Twitter for Communities of Practice‘
• Set up blog ‘Blended Learning at the University of Winchester‘ (July 2010)
• Learning Literacies in a Digital Age event (September 2010)
• Working on the JISC-funded EMBED-IT Project (July 2010 onwards), with some extra funding/hours.
• Attending a few other events, e.g. Faculty BLS, Rosie Miles.
• Keeping an eye on digital stories in THE.
• Completing 2 out of 3 assignments for PGCLTHE, including the steps I’ve taken to develop a Blended Learning Community of Practice
• 980 followers on my Social Media in Education, Life & the Christian space Twitter account @digitalfprint, made some great connections through there.

No wonder I feel tired, but it looks good to see a list in black & white!

What Next?

• Continue training, talking, promoting, sessions, etc. and plan out my conferences for 2010/11
• Will be setting up a Wiki on Monday 4th October, in which staff can put forward case studies, tips & tricks, and be honest (internal viewing only), and identify material suitable for the external blog.
• Asked to be a “Super-Delegate” for JISC Online Conference Innovating e-Learning 2010 (October 2010)
• Arranged a couple of external speakers to visit the University, and will be running a ‘Drop-In-Day’ (November 2010) to allow people to come and have a go with various tech-tools.
• Turn ‘Twitter for Communities of Practice‘ into a journal article, with my co-author David Rush
• Assuming that I’ve passed my ‘Blended Learning’ module on the PGCLTHE, I’ll be teaching it next semester (that’s extra hours though!)
• Learn to film/produce “OK” videos to demonstrate a number of aspects of Blended Learning
• Identify appropriate funding streams from e.g. JISC.

Now I just need some time to actually read some of the many papers that I’ve identified would be useful to read.

Developing a Community of Practice at the University of Winch Ester 14-9-10 Footnotes

Research from the US Department of Education suggests that students studying online tend to outperform those receiving face-to-face tuition; The Open University in the UK has topped 20 million downloads on iTunes U; and, worldwide, social media has overtaken pornography as the number one activity on the web.

However, recent statistics from the US show that the academy may be failing to capitalise on the potential offered by new technology.

The Faculty Survey of Student Engagement, conducted annually by academics at Indiana University, Bloomington, last year included questions on the use of technology by lecturers for the first time.

The results show that while 72 per cent of respondents used course- management systems such as Blackboard, many did not use any other technology in their academic lives.

Some 70 per cent did not use plagiarism-detection software and 84 per cent did not use blogs. In each case, a small percentage claimed not to know that such things existed.

Read full story in Times Higher Ed.

Barbara Lee & David Moxon

Creating a Community of Practice in Blended Learning using the talents of all?

How far does your CoP exist?

• Likelihood that Universities are at different stages with their community
• Certain things evolve
• May have a mix of lecturers that wish to see student uptake and those that wish to use as research
• Is tech there for ‘student support’ or is a ‘Community of Inquiry’ being created? Different technologies depending on what the answer is…

In this conference interchanged ‘Community of Inquiry’ and ‘Community of Practice’.

CoP are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. (Wenger 2006) – do we have lots of small CoPs or what?

• A shared domain of interest
• A community that interacts with each other
• A share repertoire of resources leading to shared practice.

What is a community? How big should it be? Should say that there are lots of small communities of practice that fade in/out of existence and it’s more important that we’re here and aware of the skills we have.

What is Blended Learning?

• Use of appropriate tech
• Informed by pedagogy
• Enhancing student experience
• MANY – however, see it only in relation to certain activities
  • Supporting the full time curriculum to provide a more flexible support to student learning
  • Building it into the curriculum with p/t students receiving a mix of online & f2f
  • Using new technologies to drive pedagogical change?

QUESTION 1: Is there a recognised definition in your university? If so what activity do staff associate it with?

Hertfordshire does – may depend upon faculties, Solent’s is above, most don’t – those that don’t tend to have good bottom-up stuff going on, but if there’s a recognition that there’s over-arching strategy (not imposed), but bringing together the best practice. WebPet (web presence in every topic) – Flinder Uni, S. Aus. Now trying to move beyond that – easy in some, not others! Discussion tool, link to library page, link to help & support button.

SLIDE (http://tweetphoto.com/27641738) – everyone needs to sign up to Level 1 (equal provision) – how get it embedded? Is it a brain thing or is it social? Level 3 – more Community of Inquiry – more transformative/learn together. Can be hard to get to level 3? Does it come back to knowing your students? Depends on your subject – e.g. Computer Science = not a very discursive study. Level 2, not too many variables. Is it more difficult to get to the higher levels of interactivity with larger numbers or early on in the course? Nature of students, nature of disciplines. Wikis = great for problem based learning/interaction.

QUESTION 2: Is there a common focus or sharing of practice around (all sites on VLE fully stocked, using tools to support students as an individual, fostering online community where students work together on tasks? People work independently using support from central services?

VERY different practices in the same institution dependent upon the discipline. To some people, it’s about “that’s what we do”. Get a sense of evangelizing (there are more progressive uses of the VLE & we should be nudged?) – some of this information is helpful, but it can be dangerous. MUST be about your students. Where are your problems (e.g. getting students to read more) – start to look for solutions… Talk about learning aims, rather than systems & uses.

Even e.g. blogs – can be used differently – can get people speaking to each other naturally, or can push specific answers. Get more interaction if leave more open (less fear of having to get the question ‘right’).

Level 5, not a reading list, but offer 2 core texts they might want to buy, go out to read other materials, but we don’t put it there fore them – they have to be active. Social comes in – as can draw on each other’s material if it’s in a Wiki.

Need acquisition & participation.

To reach 3 – have to DO SOEMTHING different!

Can you stop/start things? Is it really a constellation of practice? Is there a definite group?

Is it a false environment? Do we need a clear purpose/are people getting together?

QUESTION 3: Are there interest groups that work together? (individuals, starting to move towards group work; definite communities)

What are the incentives for people to be involved. “You want me to give more of my time that I have very little of anyway.”

Quite circular – those who were new – in the centre, supported by others, those with more experience moving away to form interest groups as a result. Whose responsibility is it to support the use of new users (Faculties, central, or…?) Is there a community that works as mentoring? Is that not socialisation rather than mentoring? Natural formation? Different levels of granularity – a lot of it is to do with personality.

Can you belong to a community without knowing that you belong to it? Do we over-intellectualise this?

Constellations? Networks? Connect new staff to networks… Induction – specifically re: linking to new people, rather than introduce them to the technologies. CoP relates to projects, whereas networks go off and do another project.

Healthy organisation – how to break down barriers between these networks.

QUESTION 5: How to healthy networks interact (see above)

QUESTION 6: Is it an issue for you to use the ‘community’ to encourage more research into the pedagogy of blended learning? (Encouraging uptake, are there those actively looking for projects in the university, looking for projects outside the university, working partnerships & e-Champions leading the way for others into publication)

Hertfordshire – encouraged to write up & make something permanent – mostly about capturing and sharing practice & not reinventing the wheel.

Winchester – looking to blog or wiki for good or bad practice – but people don’t want to say what’s gone “wrong” in public – the idea of “the publication” limits things.

Are we writing it up as research or are we essentially reporting practice?

JISC projects are – how to do (rather than how not to) projects.

What is the community there for? Networked/sharing practice – not necessarily a communal thing – can be both, but not necessarily! For most it’s an idea of INDIVIDUAL research – rather come up with idea and then might COLLABORATE on it, but it’s not the driver for doing research. Are there projects where the community decides the research…

Hertfordshire, a great community – so e.g. Peter Bullen may give a paper, but 80% of his slides may have come from other members of the team. Communities come & go – e.g. CABLE core team = close knit, but not necessarily the entire…

WHO ACTUALLY HOLDS THE RESOURCES? How are they shared, is the holder also part of the community of practice?

USING THE TALENTS OF ALL TO CREATE A COMMUNITY IN BLENDED LEARNING (Staff,academic/support, Staff)

• What has worked?
  • Lots of relationships with many individuals – not very efficient, but people like it, but now need to build a repository of resources. Short videos of people talking ad-hoc about their practice. (Takes about 15 mins to get a 3 min video) – not v. academic, but gets engagement (they may talk with couple of PPT slides). E-Library of people doing anything interesting.
  • CABLE, v. successful, but need about £60k per year. 4 depts £10k each, and £20k to arrange social events to bring people together. Works like a dream.
  • Emerging Technology User Group meet once a ¼, meet to share practice in what people have been doing – but tend to be preaching to the converted. Still supporting those who are trying to push things forward.
• New ideas?
• Pitfalls?
• Targeted support (cognitive v social – where do you see the next course of action?)

Martin Oliver

London Knowledge Lab

Setting Expectations for the Talk: Talk about ideas, not about how to do something specific – think differently about what you’re doing anyway.

Roland Barthes Mythologies. Things presented as ‘common sense’/'natural’ and taken for granted… when they should be problematised more. The importance of myth.

Norm Friesman – Not about destructing ideas, but about clearing the ground in order to be able to have different conversations.

Can ‘Blended Learning’ be Redeemed? (Martin Oliver & Keith Trigwell) – talking about blended learning being more about a bringing together of modes rather than rethinking learning.

E-Learning often defined by anything using technology…

Face-to-face learning – tutors also have differing views about what their teaching consisted of – e.g. lectures = disseminating information or interactivity for students? Tutorials, also… Broad consistency, but the details were different – same terms, but different…

So Blended Learning is a mix of 2 kinds of teaching that don’t really exist…

Like Frankenstein’s Monster – has no place in the world – was created because it could be DONE.

Cloudworks pre-conference discussion – bringing specific uses of technology together – not just a random collection of technology. Blended education rather than blended learning? Purposeful integration, formal & informal contexts..

It’s about good, thoughtful design, not abou tmixing archetypal forms.

Jon Alltree – continuity across contexts, making the ‘backchat’ public. Has promise, but is Blended Learning the best term to use?

The myth of the categorically knowable student: The idea that students are different from us “otherness” – grand claims made about generational change, and the need for educational reform. Rather than being empirically & theoretically informed, it’s a form of academic ‘moral panic’.

For students who struggled (e.g. money to access computers) – online can privilege those voices that already strong – privilege’s those already privileged.

Etienne Wenger – corporeal fallacy – idea that we lose sense of the rest of the person and forget that the body needs to carry on moving, eating.. etc Why is this such a strong myth?

Mark Buckingham – the idea of the ‘digital generation’ – is a new case of an old problem. ‘Generation Gap’ always adult fears about the escalating pace of social change (e.g. Victorians fears of children reading novels).

Media Industries keep redefining sections of society – in order to sell more products – historically can see this development…

Not all one-way – people use these categories to position themselves, too. Age, gender, interests/friendship groups, and – of course – what people say isn’t always the same as what they do…Encourages us to think about people in neat boxes/categories!

Blackboard – marketing themselves “close the gap between the way students live and the way they learn”. Expectation within institutions that they can buy a product in a box and solve a problem that’s essentially intractable.

Wimba – excludes real lives of students (shyness, problems at home, etc. supported & overcome by the product in the box).

Remember ‘the cake is a lie’ – the enticements – need to be more suspicious about the descriptions.

KNOW our learners – don’t lump them into neat boxes and think we can ‘solve’ them.

Community of Inquiry – an educational community of inquiry is a group of individuals who collaboratively engage in purposeful critical discourse and reflection to construct personal meaning and confirm mutual understanding.” This is a descriptor – it doesn’t tell you how to generate it.

Community of Practice

Mutual engagement, joint enterprise, shared repertoire, accountability.

Trajectories can be inward-bound, outward-bound or peripheral.

Constellations of practice, nexus of multi-membership and identity as reconciliation.

Identity informed by the fact that they don’t understand the process – insurance claims assessors.

Swimmers, Wavers & Drowners: High drop-out on online courses – many can’t log in & others can’t cope with high numbers of previously posted members. Up the stakes on exclusion.

World of Warcraft – can’t do some elements of the games except through collaboration. (Playing as a couple – need to negotiate their home life/online life). Which relationships were more important – the game or the marriage?!

Online courses – synchronous – scheduled sessions – need computers capable of running specific environments. Elements of their identity which have to be managed…

Learning community – can’t be cosy/jargon for a group of students. We tend to ignore negative aspects – control, exclusion, policing, hostility.

Learning communities are not entertainment services – lack of challenge is not helpful..

Is it desirable to have one dominant course community – already lots of demands on their time through other communities (e.g. family, interests, etc.) – if you have one dominating community which they MUST engage with then this is problematic.

Think about learners first, purposes second & forms 3^rd. Can’t just reuse other’s material because if it’s any good, it’s been designed for specific students. Design for the students we KNOW – work with them, not just for them. Listen & learn, don’t just assume.

Be tolerant of difference & dissonance – plural communities, hegemony/inclusivity not necessarily compatible. When they’ve served their purpose, let them die.

QUESTIONS

• So much emphasis on communities – is it about ‘all being the same’ is this problematic? Why need to recognise that there are multiple communities. Original idea was that in CoP’s – would integrate materials from different disciplines.
• In massification – how do you get to know your students? Need to get balance between treating them as a homogenous mass & identifying those that can be helped. It is a problem – we have more students than we can maintain a relationship with.
• With so many technologies – the relationship between tutor/student moves into the public arena. Computers are stupid – have to tell them exactly what to do – so we have to be more explicit about how we teach. The trojan mouse – the technology comes in and makes us think about things we should have thought about before. These issues are old, fact there’s now a record of it that they weren’t before. So many academics find it hard to turn off at the end of the day and become someone else. Facebook – that’s just you, whereas others may have split identities in having a private/work persona. Do we need to learn from them through using seperate technologies?

Norm Vaughan

Not about add-on technology, but fundamental rethinking of approaches to learning – we’re really just adding tools on top of courses that are deficient and ending up with 1.5 courses, rather than a good course…

Late 1990s was where the idea of campus-based online learning came from.

Marti Cleveland-Innes
Stuggled a bit with the denseness of this presentation – wasn’t just about the text size, found the debate a bit hard to follow..

• Detail Slide 1
• Detail Slide 2

7 Principles of Blended Learning

• Design for open communication & trust
• Design for critical reflection & discourse
• Create & sustain a sense of community
• Support purposeful inquiry
• Ensure studetns sustain collaboration
• Ensure that inquiry moves to resolution
• Ensure assessment is congruent with intended learning outcomes

Case Study: Mount Royal University, Alberta (Norm Vaughan)

Really focused on the first year courses – sets the tone for the rest of their time throughout the course. Undertook online surveys (annual surveys staff & students – their use), student focus group lunches, use of Blackboard, etc…

Those students who had the highest interactive/engagement in collaborative work – had higher marks (may have has a higher start mark, but still..)

Best Teaching Presence

• Provide frequent opportunities for both public and private interactions with students.
• Provide students with timely and supportive feedback.
• Restraing from being overly ‘present’ in online discussions, rather facilitate student interaction
• Apply collaborative learning principles to support small group discussion and collaborative projects.
• Design diverse, graded activities to be completed every week.

QUESTIONS

• Students have experienced a role adjustment as they move from offline to online – the instructor is explicitly away that they understand that they need to think differently and to expect some confusion, etc.
• Students start to think about the extra responsibility they take on. Really have to provide a lot of scaffolding & a sense of trust.
• Don’t dismiss any ‘weak blends’ if they are spaces in which they are providing an appropriate service – and can be developed…

Talking about ‘The Nudge Factor’

Canterbury Christ Church: DEBUT

1 technologist available per 5 Faculties.

Every new piece of software, staff needed training – wanted a new system where staff were CONFIDENT to experiment with new types of software.

Allan Martin, DigEULit Project

What is digital literacy? Not about the technology, about the culture – socially situated (what do you NEED? Different for different people).

Ask staff to evaluate themselves:

Awareness

Confidence

Evaluation

Reflection

Adaptability

Initial year – HEA funded, only academic staff. Offer 20-25 digital tools – participants are asked to choose 6 to learn which are appropriate to them! Their needs, their context.

Dealing with ‘unknown unknowns’. 2 launch events at beginning of the year, each participant must come to one. Explain what debut is, participants meet the developers (Each 5 minutes to ‘sell’ their tool).

Staff Development workshops are offered, depending on popularity of the tool, offer number of times on PRE-SET programme days. Build opportunity to share what they do with other participants & colleagues. Ongoing attendance to DEBUT (now taking in year 4). Initial HEA funding, crucial – blended learning researcher works in the system to evaluate (use evaluation from participants (& tools?)).

Internal marketing & senior staff buy in are crucial – now Heads of School build it into appraisals, etc. Offer programme of tools over the year – some nothing to do with the university, find gets people engaged. Essentially offer consultancy on what is needed, then the IT Trainers offer the training. (Other feedback, most using for T&L, but if linked to appraisal gets the staff into it.)

Participants have close working relationships with their learning technologists & carry on working with them after specific project. Range of approaches favoured, most efficient with group workshop. Participants wanted training grouped together as ‘debut days’ for all workshops, rather than individual workshops – at preferable times of year (start/end of term) & WHOLE days – more intense but more time efficient!

Did people see their digital literacy rise as a part of their input… Marked increase in digital literacy levels, very significant progress, but also more CONFIDENT in any digital tools…. Many have immediately integrated the use of their chosen tools into their practice.

Evaluate the tools – overall experience of DEBUT, but also the SPECIFIC tools… and then re-rank their perception of their digital literacy. Average score in 15.9, out 19.3 (out of 25). Later scores = lower entry levels – and they showed even more marked improvement – much better for them rather than tech whizzes!

Key success factors – awareness raising events at the outset of the programme, contextualised staff development… (can use it even if so no applicability, just have a go with it). Opportunity to range digital tools, explore intensely in short time frame. The support provided – get more support that others… are ‘debutantes’.

Main issue – TIME to spend (difficult to just spend time ‘playing’); mixed ability groups (more proficient = intimidating & time-hogging); relationships built on expertise and trust!

Have more understanding, more confident, can see how can add value and integrate, and see how their skills have developed.

Continue to run, evaluation changes with each cohort – now starting to assess IMPACT.

Now a recognition that digital literacy is really important, but the focus is on students, whereas if the staff are confident, then they are able to enable the students!

Su Westerman

http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/lteu

QUESTIONS

• Tried to manage expectations more now, and say it’s better for whizz-kids, if you’re good, come and work 1-2-1 on a consultancy basis.
• Workshops of around 8-10 participants. The day, book out 3 rooms, mix of workshops. In sessions primarily using the tools, whereas rest of work is consultancy. Most work is not standard staff development…
• Now conducting research on impact to close the loop.
• Have around 2000 staff, doing about 30 a year.
• Assimilated into the work of the central unit.
• What about if staff let you know of new software? Will then evaluate it – e.g. currently Prezi
• These courses are very much about digital literacy – core training provided by IT.

Facebook: Social or Learning Communities

Steve Woodward, Haydyn Blackey & Simon Jones

CELT (Centre for Excellence in Learning & Teaching) – a central unit

• Existing literature (narrow, but growing interest, because students use it so much)
  • Most relatively negative – we don’t want tutors poking their noses into our social space. (Jones, Blackey et al, 2009, p776)
  • Few use it for educational tasks, so do we need to respect that student want a separate work/social space (Ophus & Abbitt, 2009, p645)
  • Some institutions – tried to come up with bespoke versions – creating own student-social networks… (recognisably institutional and therefore controllable) e.g. Elgg or Ning – many log on once and decided that Facebook does it better. (Orandini & Saunders, 2007)
  • Learning – changing to be more of a community based activity, importance of informal learning (cop, personal networks) (Siemens, 2004)
  • Combinations work better… (Garrison & Vaughan + 2 other authors)
• Outline methodology
  • Ethnography – 360 learners, formal/informal FB mediated interactions to see how impacts on student learning experience. Anthropology & Human Geography.
  • Steve Jones Facebook page – 2006, still has alumni engaging with him. Able to give temporary access to prospective students. Personal account, but also a closed ‘Geography at the University of Glamorgan’ group. Share thoughts, photographs & advice on the course. Won’t apply a heavy hand to moderation (is spelt out on the site).
  • Group used for
    • Guest Lectures – set up events, invite students – events outside the normal university timetable. Student support – office hours? Make it easier to get hold of them…
    • Putting up video clips/photos, popular! Using tagging facility, not only names, but tagging e.g. flora & fauna, etc. Becomes a learning resource.
    • Messages & Chat = are particularly useful. Students rarely use formal university email system. Chat = quick Q&A sessions with the tutor. 2 way thing – he may initiate chat as well as them. Sent messages useful for more indepth… can reply directly through Facebook or ‘use more appropriate means’.
• Discoveries
  • Very important that no student comment was banned – useful for uni to know what students are thinking (what they don’t like, etc.) – far too many are afraid to hear it.
  • Keep the momentum going by giving titbits of information. Students know to use chat rather than emails… but being part of that community – not a gatekeeper of information, but a provider of information.
  • The moderating role… Immediacy of information – e.g. the volcano ash – can steer students to MORE effective websites. Using site where they are anyway… Great use for marketing – prospective students – can chat with current students, see the photos of field trips – that confidence = pays well. Pastoral care – no formal tutorial system.. discreet method of communication – get to hear some of the issues – are a gatekeeper to the solution.
  • Downsides – ?
  • Students liked immediacy of communication, especially when not on campus
  • Possible to chat re coursework that’s been given out, keep up to date with events, and view pics from field trips.
    • Students – wanted to keep separate, didn’t want tutors to know what they’d been doing, didn’t see what couldn’t be done via email. Worried tutors would be passing judgement on non-learning activities. “Delicate Balance”
    • Encourage stronger relationships & trust. Easiest way to communicate, especially out of hours, embarrassing photos or negative comments = a tension, but not the lecturer’s fault. If overhear ‘bad’ = like hearing conversation in student union, unless urgent…
• Future directions
  • Can’t develop an overarching pedagogical model, but individual academics, need to make informed judgements in consultant with their students.
  • Important to show that despite all the negative literature, here’s a clear example of what has worked…
  • http://celt.glam.ac.uk
• QUESTIONS
  • Can be in a group without being friends – removes many of those worries?
  • What about the worries about available 24-7?! This is an outstanding case – not many actually using it – available through FB in normal working hours… Need to set up expectations at the beginning of the course.
  • Tutor is not a great fan of the VLE, just uses for uploading resources.
  • 360 active users & growing. 85% alumni. Define participation… (talk to Simon)
  • What would he do retrospectively? Problems of being field trips (what occurs on tour stay on Facebook!). Needs to be sense of trust between students & tutors.
  • Another delegate, set up group 6 months ago, would concur with what has happened. Has set up a separate login as a tutor, separate from personal!
  • TO SUM UP: You can do it. Evidence here is it is possible to use it…