Archive for the ‘Social media’ Category
If you’ve been using the SAP Twitter tools for Powerpoint, about which I blogged back in the autumn, you’ll be disappointed to here that because of a change to the Twitter service itself, they will soon stop working correctly, according to a newsflash on Timo Elliott’s website.
There are some alternatives you might like to consider. Of course, if you’re using the the tools together with Twitter as a way of getting students to ‘vote’ / answer questions in the classroom, you could use the Turning Point dedicated voting system instead.
Or if you were using Twitter to get informal, unstructured feedback from students, you could use a Twitter ‘visualisation’ service such as Twitterfontana. Here’s how one Loughborough colleague has been using Twitterfontana.
If you’re a Twitter user, you’re probably aware of various high-profile cases where tweets have got their authors into serious trouble. Here’s a useful guide, published today on the BBC News website, to staying on the right side of the law. It also points to areas where the law (or intepretation of the law) is changing.
Historian Dr Marcus Collins is another ‘early adopter’ of the BoB (Box of Broadcasts) service and, as with his colleague Prof Chris Szejnmann, he has been combining it with Twitter in the classroom. He comments:
I’m also a great fan of both BoB and Twitter. So far, I’ve been using both in just one module: a third-year seminar on the Beatles and the 1960s. I’ve used Twitter as a way of encouraging directed small-group discussions at various stages in the class, then using their Tweets in discussion within the whole group of 37 students. The students are initially bemused by the idea that Twitter has educational uses, but soon get into the swing of things and end up talking more in the seminars than they’d otherwise do. The only problem I’ve found is that not every small group tweets every time. [...]
As for BoB, I’m using it in a slightly different way from Chris. The first thing I’ve done is to show the Beatles’ students its riches as a research tool. They’re all writing papers comparing the Beatles and another musical act, and I’ve created playlists of documentaries and performances of the Beatles and their contemporaries for this purpose. Next semester, I’m considering asking each student in my class on twentieth-century Britain to pick a documentary and write an essay suggesting revisions on the basis of their reading of written secondary sources. I am open-mouthed at the extent of the archive and its ease of use.
If you’re a member of staff at Loughborough, trying logging in to http://bobnational.net and searching for ‘Beatles’ and you’ll see what Marcus means. Remember that all the programmes and playlists that are displayed in the search results are material that can legitimately be shown in the classroom.
Having recently conducted an audit of all modules on Learn, we are aware that some modules really do push the boat out and try out new things. If you are one of those who specifically make use of social software for instance wikis or Facebook within your module then a new JISC-funded project is looking to develop a handbook to disseminate the effectiveness of social software initiatives.
If you would like to share your findings and contribute to the project, please contact Dr. Shailey Minocha, s.minocha@open.ac.uk
[News release from JISC Announce 16.8.2012]
Celebrating 10,000 followers… and our resources to help engage students through social media
To celebrate our ten thousandth Twitter follower, we showcase some resources that can help you blog, tweet and interact your way to better student retention, marketing and teaching online.
1. Listen to a podcast on developing your social media strategy with Steph Gray of Helpful Technology
<http://www.jisc.ac.uk/inform/inform33/pageBLG/podcast_icon.png>
2. Read JISC CETIS’ ideas about using Twitter in the classroom
<http://mashe.hawksey.info/2010/09/twitter-utility/>
3. Learn how Cardiff (@cardiffio), Northumbria (@NUSSW) and Bristol (@UoBristol_Intl) universities use Twitter to support international students
4. Reflect on how your PhD students are using social media and other new technologies to collaborate and stay up to date using the biggest ever survey of PhD students
<http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/reports/2012/researchers-of-tomorrow.aspx>
5. Read the London School of Economics’ guide to Tweeting for academics
<http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2011/10/twitter_guide.aspx?CMP=>
6. Compare your university to other universities.
Find out which social media networks others are using on the UK Web Focus blog post <http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/guest-post-further-evidence-of-use-of-social-networks-in-the-uk-higher-education-sector/>
7. Read a case study on engaging students through blogging
<http://www.jisc.ac.uk/blog/engage-students-through-blogging/>
While you’re keeping up to date online, don’t forget to follow us @JISC on Twitter.
What’s this? Google+ is Google’s new approach to social networking. It builds on top of many other Google services, and Google intend for it to become a key feature of most of their products.
Why am I writing about it here on the E-Learning Blog? Well, Google+ has a number of features that may be interesting for educational institutions. I introduced a few of these in a recent UCISA presentation with Google’s William Florance. We recorded the session, and a copy of this is embedded below:
Read on to find out more about Google+ and its potential in Teaching and Learning…