Monday 8 June 2009

Web 2.0 in Teaching

In a quiet post-marking moment I have set up the course blog for next year's FREDA module. I have built the year into the title, as there will be a new blog with every iteration of the module, and it's always easier to do if you plan that right from the start.

In the initial post I have outlined my plans for teaching the module. Any feedback welcome!

4 comments:

  1. This all looks highly impressive (not that I would have expected otherwise!). But how will you manage the numbers? What numbers do you get on FREDA, anyway? I am assuming (rightly? wrongly?) that there are other members of staff and/or TAs teaching on the module. Will they be expected or encouraged to blog too, or is this just for convenor-student interaction?

    Also, will you be able to blog about how the Web 2.0 experiment is turning out? Will you, perhaps, do so on the course blog itself?

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  2. Thank you for the compliment! No, I'm teaching it all by myself, and I have about three seminar groups/roughly 40 people. I assume numbers won't be that much different this year, though my promise of podcasts apparently drove up the number of people choosing it (rather than being rejected from DAVE into FREDA).

    I will comment on this blog about my experience; the course blog might not be the right place. But I'll see... I will definitely keep notes!

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  3. This does look fantastic -- I'll also be watching how it goes. I'm also wanting to get a bit more 2.0 with one of my modules this year -- but I've made the (daring? stupid?) decision to try to stick to WebCT to do it. However, I've done nothing at all yet, and while I have a manuscript deadline of 31 July won't be doing so for a while. However, something this good gives me confidence (and, of course, makes me feel a little inadequate).

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  4. I just thought of this blog's URL... students were so anti-WebCT recently that I think by not using it I might make it easier for them. And also easier for me: posting things will be a lot quicker, and easier. So I hope this will make student participation more likely.

    Another important consideration is 'transferable skills': some students might be interested in blogging themselves, and thus they will be motivated. How many students will ever use WebCT after they have left university? Now that I think of it, this is probably the one killer argument in favour of Web 2.0 as opposed to WebCT. I will write a separate post because it seems so important!

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