We're better connected

I recently presented at a conference with my Plymouth University colleagues Peter Yeomans and Oliver Quinlan. We had planned to present a version of this paper at the annual EDEN Conference held in June in Portugal, but for one reason or another, none of us were able to make it. This is probably the first time we have presented as a team, and I hope it is the first of many future conference appearances together. The result can be found as a 20 minute YouTube video - Connected: Supporting Student Blogging and Communities of Learning - complete with audio track and slides below:



Pete, Oliver and I spoke about the work we have been doing with undergraduate teacher students in Plymouth, using a variety of social media, including blogging and Twitter to support and encourage critical and reflective learning. The important concept we wanted to talk about was communities of learning, and how students can use social media tools to participate in them. Peter talked about the power of social media to create a Personal Learning Network (PLN) and also discussed the ways students manage their online presence. Oliver presented some case studies of how students have successfully harnessed the power of social media tools to gain a foothold in the teaching profession and promote learning. The final section of the presentation, which I presented, dealt with some of the pedagogical theory and implications. I talked about connectivism, paragogy, heutagogy and other emerging theories that seek to explain how we learn in new digitally rich environments. We hope you enjoy listening to the presentation and following the slides. We look forward to reading any comments you may have on the presentation.


We're better connected by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Blogstorm

Something extraordinary is happening to our student teacher population at Plymouth University. They are becoming excited at the prospect of sharing their ideas to a potential worldwide audience, and relish the idea of having dialogue with their readership. People are beginning to notice an increase in the quantity and quality of blog posts and tweets emerging from our group of learners in the School of Education. Someone tweeted last night during the Bolton Teachmeet that Plymouth seems to be the 'edudigital capital' of the UK. Even our own Vice Chancellor Professor Wendy Purcell (@WMPUPVC) this morning remarked on how productive our student body has become on social media platforms over the past few months. Here at Plymouth we are taking social media seriously, and are encouraging innovative uses. We are promoting the idea that any teacher can become a global educator through the appropriate use of Web 2.0 tools. We embed a lot of different tools - wikis, blogs, podcasts, lecture capture, interactive whiteboards - into the fabric of our teaching sessions, and this effort is clearly beginning to pay off.

My colleagues Peter Yeomans (@ethinking on Twitter) and Oliver Quinlan (@oliverquinlan) have between them generated an exciting culture of sharing on the web for our primary education students, and have created the plymuniprimary site to aggregate the B.Ed (Hons) student blogs. Earlier today another 20 or so students on my BA Education Studies programme also started out on their blogging journey, and there have been several outstanding blog posts already. Some of the earlier posts can be found on my Student Blogs Scoop.it site. A variety of topics is covered, including txting, personal learning environments, classroom technology, plagiarism and e-safety.

What do the students learn from blogging? Well, the list is endless, but for example, we have evidence to suggest that they improve their writing skills, and also their confidence in public writing and engagement in discourse. There are problem solving and communication skills required. They must consider how they present their ideas and arguments, and what images, videos, hypermedia and other tools they will use to attract people to read their blogs. They will also be able to crystallise their ideas, practice their academic writing and make themselves more aware of issues such as copyright, navigation and plagiarism of content on the web. To gain so much from such a simple tool must be a bonus for any teacher.

Please pay a visit to some of these student blogs if you have some time, and make a comment or two. It will certainly encourage the students to keep up their good work and push their ideas further.

Image by Adam Gimpert


Blogstorm by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.