Fin de la nuit

There's an interesting video on YouTube about using Twitter in lectures. What I found here is Monica Rankin's (the lecturer's) views on her webpage. This provides useful background and insight into her expierence and that of her students. Some interesting points: not all students knew about Twitter and needed help setting up not all students had PCs, so they used their mobiles; some used paper to jot down ntoes which were then collated by the classroom assistant (US lecturers are very lucky!) there's a quick overview on how to set things up in Twitter to keep exchanges organised Tweetdeck was used as a 'board' to show interactions responses overlapped, which made is difficult to follow discussion streams most students participated! I need to mull this over, and see how I could adapt this for my elearners. There's a wide range of ages, though most are computer savvy. I'll have to pilot with the ones who are dead keen first, so that I get a better understa...

Recording thoughts about the first steps of a socia media journey is a bit like conducting a virtual reflexive ethnography. An ethnographer is always connected to the object of their research, which is why reflexivity is important. But let's not get all 'postmodern'... I am just thinking about Hine's book on Virtual Ethnography . In the ELSS course, we're asked to reflect on learning, with some of the learning also achieved 'by doing' (using SM) as well as by the traditional reading and online discussions. The course isn't about research, but having to maintain a blog reminds me strongly of my MEd project where I did something similar (but without public access). The 'field site' is the distributed environment (to use R&M's phrase) offering a rich social media ecology (Blogger, Flickr, Blackboard, Twitter and probably other platforms in future). Instead of going to a specific field site (eg Bb), I also followed field connections, eg links...