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Combining social media platforms

The Week 3 group task involves looking at how I might support the digital and lernaing literacies of students on my course. There's a personal element and a group element.

For the personal element, I would like to consider how I could embed the use of Lindked in my MA professinal courses, to intiate and enhance students' social presence, particularly in the induction modules (ie the modules that students first do). Quite a few students have LinkedIn accounts already, but some don't, so I would need to put together a slide presentation (may be with voice-over) to explain:
  • what LinkedIn is
  • what the benefits are (and possible problems)
  • give some hints about how to use the software.

My prof comm students are usually very computer savvy, so an issue here could be that some will know more than I do!. Another issue is where to consider about the slide presentation: should it go within the 'walled garden' of the Blackboard environment supported by my university, or out there in the social media world of Slideshare?

Using Blackboard would be easiest, as instructions already exists, and I don't have to worry about students finding the slides. Also I wouldn't have to worry about copyright issues (though whether I or the university own the copyright over the materials I create is an issue that is never clearly addressed). By using Slideshare, I'd have to consider these issues actively, and look at the implications of using 'creative commons' (unsure at present about the connection between slideshare and creative commons). More positively, a Slideshare presentation could appear in my LinkedIn profile and/or in my blog (via a gadget).

This week, I have been very busy and then on sick leave because of dental treatment, I haven't been able to contribute to the groupwork, so it is unlikely that my idea will now be chosen. Never mind: that's the price for being out of sync (a fact of life in any e-learning course that can happen to any student). I've decided to explore it here nevertheless to see what issues would be flushed out by the combination of a request for using LinkedIn and a need to present support slides in another platform.
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