Slide 1: EDMEDIA 2009 Social Networking for Student and Staff Learning
A pro ject fund ed b y the Open University Practice Based Pro fess io nal Learning C entre fo r Excellence in T eaching and Learning (PBPLCE TL) Mary Tho rpe, A ndrew Brasher and Philip Greaney Institute o f Ed ucatio nal T echno lo gy The Open U niversity, UK
Thanks to Chetz Colwell, Stuart Brown, Keith Honnor, Mick Jones, Sharan Slade, Non Scantlebury and tutors involved in the project Social Networking for Practice Learning (SNPL)
Slide 3: But it hasn’t always been like that… and
Old habits die hard – new ones can take time and energy to introduce
Slide 7: …and share them with our network
Slide 8: 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… Funded by
Get OU teachers to use these tools in their courses and student support The Open University Practice Based Professional Learning Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning: http://www.open.ac.uk/pbpl
Slide 9: 4 faculties: Education & Language Studies, Health & Social Care, Business and Educational Technology
Slide 10: Social Networking for Practice Learning
A story of practical usage by practising teachers 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
Slide 13: 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 You can harvest the efforts of other users – the more users, the more the benefits You can set up a network of users whom you follow so targeting people who have shared interests You can use it to communicate with others you’re working with – sending them resources, building up a shared repository using shared tags
Slide 14: Tagging – who uses it?
Stefanie Panke and Birgit Gaiser (2009) Social Tagging in Knowledge Organisation: Online Survey on the Users’ Perspective
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
Slide 15: Pank e & Gaiser: So cial T agging in Knowledge Organisation – Online survey o n 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-recall facility 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.
Slide 16: What were the key features for a teaching and learning contex t? The social and communicative possibilities
For Delicious it was
So that
◦ 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 ◦ 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
Slide 17: The very dif f erent 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 ?
Slide 18: What does it take to get teachers to use a new technology? We can
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
Any/all of these tactics alone often do not generate action by teachers – we also need to..
Slide 19: … 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 h ttp ://p atternl angu agen etwork.myxw iki.org/xwiki/bin /view/Ma in /
The ‘eat your own dog food’ principle
Slide 20:
Advisory Group involves representatives from faculties – vital bridge to tutors and course teams Tutors from Business and Health and Social Care worked as a distributed group with video and how to guides to enable them to set up and use SN tools Each set up a personal account on Delicious, Google Reader and Facebook Communication via ◦ A private Facebook group to discuss experiences ◦ Flashmeeting - audio-visual conferencing tool ◦ A group wiki to document how they used the
Slide 22:
S tructured ac tivities designed for tuto rs to use, enabled them to get to k now eac h to o l and use it to achieve a go al fo r the pro jec t. 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
T uto rs used the pro ject wik i to do c ument their experiences and uplo ad their respo nse to task s U se of Delic io us, RSS and Twitter no w d esigned into a mo dule in the MA in Online and Distanc e E ducatio n H 8 00 Tec hnolo gy E nhanc ed Learning: practices and deb ates
Slide 23:
Delicious, RSS & Twitter now used on O U Masters in O nline 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
Slide 24: 2hrs 1hr
2hrs
1hr 6hrs
Slide 25: Faculty ‘hands on’
Slide 26: Link to learning outcomes – important if you’re going to get take up by teachers and learners
Demonstrating independence in learning going beyond course resources by searching and describing found resources from the Web S kills in inf ormation literacy - Active processing through tagging and description of resources Collaborativ e 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
Slide 27: Tutors had no difficulty designing activities to deliver learning outcomes such as:
For Health and Social Care
◦ Loc ate Info rm atio n relevant to health and so cial care issues through referenc e to a range o f so urces ◦ Evaluate the reliability o f different so urces of evidence ◦ Use a wide range o f study s kills ap prop riate to degree level
For OU Business School
◦ Yo u sho uld be ab le to reflect and c ritically app raise the human and techno lo gic al dimensio ns o f develop ing and implementing strategies fo r
Slide 28: Using new technologies involves learning new practices not just picking up a tool
t w use it The tool is waiting for you to pick it up n’ just s and You’ll find out how to use it for teaching and learning oe d by being told its functionality lly Tools that are easy to use sua be easily explored can exploration/play are the u h approach that teachers will use ‘naturally’ – because you COULD just use it ac o without support, r you will do and you’ll then see how pp teaching it can be used for sa hi T
Think practices/practices with tools
rk o
Slide 29: reflec tio ns
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
Slide 30: http://delicious.com/marythorpe/SNPL
My bookmarks for SNPL project on delicious
http://www.open.ac.uk/pbpl/activities/details/detail.php?itemId=49999288 Or http://tinyurl.com/ou-sn-pbpl Website for SNPL project on PBPLCETL website
Social networking Learn About Guide http://kn.open.ac.uk/workspace.cfm?wpid=8738
Social networking in plain English video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_KF7TYKVc&eurl=http:/facebooklife.net/blog/facebook-tutorials/understand What is social networking? http://www.whatissocialnetworking.com/ Map of Web 2.0 apps HQs http://www.platial.com/map/Web-2-0-HQ-Map/1768 List of social networking sites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites ‘Social network services’ definition from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_services Social networking blog http://www.socialnetworking-weblog.com/
Slide 31: Video of the explanation
Slide 32: A tutor designed activity for a Business School Course: B823 Managing Knowledge
T he c o urs e team s ets up defined tags that tuto rs and students will use for bo o k mark ing o n the c o urs e e.g.B82 3_Tec hnolo gies, B823 _Co m municatio n B823 tuto rs s et up their o wn D elicio us ac co unt, s earch and tag reso urces using the defined tags s o these already on Delicio us befo re s tudents start S tudent welc om ing letter inc lud es tuto r’s Delicio us name and link s to guide & video on s etting up D elicio us acco unt S tudents set up their o wn D elicio us acco unt and c reate a netwo rk o f their tuto r gro up D uring the co urse they searc h fo r and tag at least 1 0 websites us ing the D elicio us no tes field to explain what their res ourc e co ntributes to c o urs e
Slide 33: SNPL: A learner generated context
E mail, wik i, explanato ry video s, video co nferencing s oftware and clo sed Facebo o k site used to wo rk to gether as a gro up, T uto rs wo rked o n a series o f task s clearly s pec ified in ad vance, so they built up c onfidence and sk ills s tage b y stage Key features o f the to o ls that pro ved their po tential:
◦ Shared tags, tag subscription and setting up a network across group members on Delicious ◦ Management of RSS feeds via Google Reader
◦ Wo rk ing to gether to es tablish an agreed set of feeds fo r tutors in eac h fac ulty
C o urs e teams now getting invo lved
