Making connectionsUsing the web to support learning

Nigel Gibson – June, 2008SLN – eLT2 at the University of Brighton

What I’m going to do

• Give some background to set things in context• Describe part of the module and how it used

online components to scaffold learning– I’m not suggesting that this is anything other than

an example

• Show something of what the groups produced

Context

• London College of Communications• 3rd year undergraduates on a Media and

Communications degree• Mix of UK and international students• Plenty of web exposure but little, if any, critical

assessment of what it all means• The Facebook generation!

Module

• Objectives include group working, reflection, learning about the web (and web 2.0)

• 9 x 3 hrs face to face• IT room• Used free online tools for reflection and collaborative working

And

• Expectation that group work is done outside the session too

• A blog posting each week (minimum)

Outputs

• Reflective blog• Group wiki which details the result of research

into online identity and/or virtual communities

• All the above are publically available – this came as a shock to the participants

One activity

• I’m going to look at one activity we undertook and show how we linked: – An online blog piece– Through face to face discussion– To reflection on blogs

• Perhaps not radical but hopefully demonstrates one approach

The external resource

• Post by Martin Weller about disaggregated communication

• Discussion of the different communication modes used within a small team

• Reflection on how they decide which to use when and how it grows organically

• http://is.gd/ptk

Diagram showing modes

Briefing the group

http://lccspring.pbwiki.com/Week%204

Fahima

• http://fahima08.blogspot.com

Anna

• http://08isgr8.blogspot.com

Alice

• Part of a far longer posting at http://aliceandthecamel.blogspot.com/

What did it do?

• This (and other) activities introduced students to what’s out there

• It started to validate their own online presence

• It moved the group towards thinking about the web as an educational resource – they were surprised that a British professor blogged

At the end

• We build the group wiki week by week so we have a record of what we’ve covered (sort of)

• Each group member has a blog• Group wikis

Group work

So what have we got?

• It’s not like a book list because it’s dynamic• It engages learners in a landscape they think

they know• It promotes active learning• It contributes to the web• I think it might be transferable to other

subjects

Engagement

• Some of the group have attended presentations and mentioned it on blogs – they were amazed when the presenters commented on their blogs

• Others have exchanged mails and blog comments with authors and commentators

Feel free to investigate

• The work of the last two groups is available at:– http://lccmedia.pbwiki.com– http://lccspring.pbwiki.com

• The ideas for the next group (it’ll be first years) is based on psychogeography and is detailed at http://nogbad.wordpress.com/2008/05/24/socialearn/

Questions?

• Thank you