Fin de la nuit

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 ther...

The Oxford Brookes course I am doing now started mid-week with a 'Week 0' which is really a time for meeting other students and exploring the Blackboard site. This is a really nice idea: as a student I can get familiar with the course without any pressure to do 'important' things. That is something to remember for my own Communication modules: it's easy enough to give access a few days before the official start and let students explore the module. I wish I had thought of this! I may be changing my mind about the idea of 'drip-feed' which the Oxford Brookes course. This involves giving students details of tasks before they are to take place. I has wondered about this in my teaching but thought it would be better to prepare students properly about the boundaries of what needs to be done. There is probably a half-way house to explore here too, which would work well with what I call 'flexible frameworks' (ie tasks and readings chosen to support learning ...