social networking for student and staff learning
Post on 21-Oct-2014
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This slideshow describes a project aimed at working out practical teaching and learning scenarios for social bookmarking and RSS feeds in order to get OU teachers to use these tools in their courses and student support Funded by The Open University Practice Based Professional Learning Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning: http://www.open.ac.uk/pbplTRANSCRIPT
Social Networking for Student and Staff Learning
This slideshow is informed by a project funded by the Open University Practice Based Professional Learning Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (PBPLCETL)
Mary Thorpe & Andrew Brasherwith thanks to Phil Greaney, Stuart Brown, Mick Jones, Keith Honnor, Sharon Slade, Chetz Colwell and Non Scantlebury
and it’s own community site
But it hasn’t always been like that…and
Old habits die hard – new ones can take time and energy to introduce
…and share them with our network
Social Networking for Practice Learning A project aimed at working out practical teaching
and learning scenarios for social bookmarking and RSS feeds
In order to… Get OU teachers to use these tools in their
courses and student support Funded by The Open University Practice Based Professional
Learning Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning: http://www.open.ac.uk/pbpl
4 faculties: Education & Language Studies, Health & Social Care, Business and Educational Technology
A story of practical usage by practising teachers
Primarily using Delicious, Google Reader – Robust tools that offer ‘time well spent’
benefits But still not yet in common usage for
teaching & learning How we set about to change that What happened and where to next
Social Networking for Practice Learning
Delicious - Why use it?
Bookmarks accessible via Web not just own machine, so access anywhere, anytime
Using your own tags (or keywords) helps organise your resources according to your needs
Harvest the efforts of other users Set up a network of users whom you follow,
targeting people who have shared interests Build up a shared repository with colleagues
using shared tags
Tagging – who uses it?
A survey posted to weblogs, BBs, newsletters - drew 244 usable responses – ‘tagging experts’ – 48% use tagging at least once a day
Most frequent usage was tagging for personal resource retrieval, not sharing with a network or searching the collective
40% admitted not retrieving saved resources The ‘for’ tag hardly ever used – 22% not aware
you can send a bookmark to another user in this way
Most use because they mainly work online plus use a service that uses tagging e.g. Delicious
Stefanie Panke and Birgit Gaiser (2009) Social Tagging in Knowledge Organisation: Online Survey on the Users’ Perspective
Panke & Gaiser: Social Tagging in Knowledge
Organisation – Online survey on the users’ perspective
For the majority of respondents the personal knowledge management is more important than making content accessible for a broader community.. …Social tagging is rather used as a data-recallfacility or customizable filing system and not as a display for a virtual calling card. It appears that knowledge organization stands in the foreground, whereas the communicative qualities of social tagging appear to be rather an additional value than an end in itself.
What were the key features for a teaching and learning context? The social and communicative possibilities
For Delicious it was◦ Agreeing to use shared tags◦ Agreeing to add notes to identify key points about
each bookmark◦ Setting up a network of the student & tutor group
So that ◦ resources found by students on the same course
would be tagged the same way◦ finding what others have found would be quick and
easy◦ Notes would make clear why a resource was relevant◦ Resources could be sent to specific users using ‘for:’
tag
The very different context of teaching and learning
Students and staff are time poor and task oriented
Where is the cost-benefit trade off for time spent using a new practice-tool?
How does it relate to the core purpose of what a teacher is already doing – e.g. does it contribute to delivering the learning outcomes of courses ?
What does it take to get teachers to use a new technology? We can
Any/all of these tactics alone often do not generate action by teachers – we also need to…….
List the affordances of the technology
Provide short demonstrations of how it works, what its advantages are, etc
Develop case studies about how others have used it
… use it ourselves
first consider how you could use it to support your learning. Think about the advantages as well as the challenges it would pose for you, and how it would fit in with your existing practices. Then think how these issues would apply to your students.
Make a conscious effort to use the new tool as a habit.
Observe the changes that occur in your learning processes
http://patternlanguagenetwork.myxwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/
The ‘eat your own dog food’ principle
Structured activities designed for tutors to use, enabled them to get to know each tool and use it to achieve a goal for the project. E.g.…….
◦ Each tutor designed an activity for students to use Delicious on a course they knew well
◦ Tutors worked in their faculty group to agree on priority RSS feeds for keeping up to date in their area
Tutors used the project wiki to document their experiences and upload their response to tasks
Use of Delicious, RSS and Twitter now designed into a module in the MA in Online and Distance Education H800 Technology Enhanced Learning: practices and debates
Delicious, RSS & Twitter now used on OU Masters in Online and Distance Education H800 Module: Technology-enhanced Learning: practices and debates
Tutors & students set up own accounts using ‘how to’ guides
Course study activities include setting up your tutor group as a network on your Delicious account
Students, tutors and course team save relevant resources using shared tags:◦ H800_2009 ◦ H800_block1_2009 ◦ H800_block2_2009 ◦ H800_block3_2009 ◦ H800_block4_2009
Students use Delicious and RSS to search for resources addressing key issues in the course
2hrs
1hr
2hrs
1hr
6hrs
Visual representation of the course created using CompendiumLDhttp://compendiumld.open.ac.uk
Delicious/Google Reader & ALs Evaluation of our online course with tutor
moderators suggested that up to 6 hours (per tool) would be sufficient for most ALs to set up accounts and start using each tool effectively
Q3: Estimate how much time you spent on setting up a Google Reader account, finding and adding RSS feeds & sharing feeds by setting up a network (activities 7, 8 & 9)?
0
1
2
3
Already hadaccount/Did not
do
less than anhour
1-2 hours 3-4 hours 5-8 hours
No
. o
f p
arti
cip
ants
Delicious/Google Reader & ALs
Q3: Estimate how much time you spent on setting up a Google Reader account, finding and adding RSS feeds & sharing feeds by setting up a network (activities 7, 8 & 9)?
0
1
2
3
Already hadaccount/Did not
do
less than anhour
1-2 hours 3-4 hours 5-8 hours
No
. o
f p
arti
cip
ants
Once I began using Google Reader the course brought the whole process to life for Me. Again the instructions in the Word document and the videos were extremely easy to follow. Being able to add feeds which keep one up to date with new additions to each subscription makes an enormous difference…Although I use a computer during a very large proportion of my professional and off duty life, I am far from being an expert
Faculty ‘hands on’
Demonstrating independence in learning - going beyond course resources by searching and describing found resources from the Web
Skills in information literacy - Active processing through tagging and description of resources
Collaborative learning - The network makes one student’s work available to all – increases likelihood of finding good material, promotes idea of learning from each other, builds resources from year to year
Link to learning outcomes – important if you’re going to get take up by teachers and learners
Tutors had no difficulty designing activities to deliver learning outcomes such as:
For Health and Social Care ◦ Locate Information relevant to health and social care
issues through reference to a range of sources ◦ Evaluate the reliability of different sources of evidence ◦ Use a wide range of study skills appropriate to degree
level
For OU Business School◦ You should be able to reflect and critically appraise the
human and technological dimensions of developing and implementing strategies for managing knowledge in practice
Using new technologies involves learning new
practices not just picking up a tool
The tool is waiting for you to pick it up and just use it
You’ll find out how to use it for teaching and learning by being told its functionality
Tools that are easy to use can be easily explored - exploration/play are the approach that teachers will use ‘naturally’ – because you COULD just use it without support, you will do and you’ll then see how it can be used for teaching
Think practices/practiceswith tools
This approach usually doesn
’t work
reflections
To use a technology is to make a change to your own practices
Practices with technology take time and Require a positive trade off between time &
benefit The value-added potential of Delicious and
RSS for T&L was identified in advance and made the focus for practical activities
Structured activities based on selecting and using key features of social networking tools enabled teachers to see the possibilities for teaching and learning and commit to using them
http://delicious.com/marythorpe/SNPLMy bookmarks for SNPL project on delicious
http://www.open.ac.uk/pbpl/activities/details/detail.php?itemId=499992885667b&themeId=49887a1373845
Or http://tinyurl.com/ou-sn-pbplWebsite for SNPL project on PBPLCETL websiteSocial networking Learn About Guidehttp://epd.open.ac.uk/browseLAG.cfm?lagID=58&method=displayLAGDetailsSocial networking in plain English videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_KF7TYKVc&eurl=http:/facebooklife.net/blog/facebook-tutorials/
understand-what-is-social-networking/What is social networking?http://www.whatissocialnetworking.com/Map of Web 2.0 apps HQshttp://www.platial.com/map/Web-2-0-HQ-Map/1768List of social networking siteshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites‘Social network services’ definition from Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_servicesSocial networking bloghttp://www.socialnetworking-weblog.com/