On 31 March I'm running a workshop at the Association for Learning Development in Higher Education conference in Nottingham with Becka Currant from the University of Bradford. The title is Engaging without invading: using social networking tools to connect with students.
The abstract that we submitted a while back says the following.
Use of social networking tools has exploded over the last few years with staff and students making more use of tools to stay in touch with each other. Both the University of Bradford and University of Leicester have used tools such as twitter, facebook and other social networks e.g. the Develop Me! ning site to keep students in touch with each other and also to promote University activities and support services.And we've said this session will:
- provide an overview of some of these tools and how they have been used at Bradford and Leicester
- give participants an opportunity to explore how they could use the tools to support the learning of students and staff
- stimulate debate and discussion about whether or not these tools are useful in supporting the development of skills in staff and students
However, these slides are just introductory - covering the what-we're-doing-at-Leicester bit. Becka will also give an overview of her work in developing http://developme.ning.com/ at Bradford. But we have the workshop punters for 90 minutes in an IT lab so the big question for me is what do we with them for the rest of the time? Any suggestions? In my experience it's very difficult to introduce people to web 2.0 tools, in particular social networking tools, in a workshop environment. So what do you suggest?
Nice. I see that graphic design course is paying off :-)
ReplyDeleteGreat slides Stu. As to what to do in the rest of your session, I guess you may need to try and find out what experience your punters have. If they are all twitter newbies, then getting them accounts and showing them how hootsuite can be used to monitor keywords or work collaboratively would be really useful. I think that you really need to emphasise the student voice that you use to communicate with the students, for me, this is a key part of your success (btw those website traffic stats are really impressive!). Why not try to get them to write some 140 chr tweets with a tag advertising a list of workshops and have them come up on a twitterfall main screen? This is a lot harder than it looks and will make people think about how they can do this in practice back at base.
ReplyDeleteHow about a group task with no talking, e.g. this LOST-type exercise.
ReplyDeleteAt first the participants try to complete it using email only then, after a certain time, they are allowed to use a more collaborative tool, e.g. http://typewith.me or googledocs or twitter or facebook if they have accounts for these. Hopefully this will show the benefits of working with web 2.0 tools.
Stu, great stuff. I'd have another look at that Facebook as a country slide. Adding a column for the USA population will drive home the size of the network, otherwise it just looks smaller as a population than China and India.
ReplyDeleteAs it's a non-techie audience you might need to think about doing 5 mins on a simple explanation of RSS. I wouldn't bother with other tools.
Then, how about exploring with the audience a couple of issues in an old fashioned workshop style. Some topics might include: what is meaningful content, what conversations are appropriate to have in a public space, what conversations need to be private, what do people think that they need to do in order to make the transition to working in this way (e.g. student voice, staff training, policies, etc.)
Good idea re adding USA to the graph - I'll do that. When you say you wouldn't bother with the other tools - what do you mean? Do you mean the other tools don't need additional explanation but RSS does? Re old fashioned workshop suggestions - good idea!
ReplyDeleteThanks
This is a problem we (netskills) often face in our workshops too. It's difficult to fake tasks on using social networks as they tend not to be that realistic or useful until people have built their own genuine network. That takes more time than you have in a workshop! For the same reason, the experience is also different for everybody.
ReplyDeleteSo for most practical sessions with these tools, we tend to focus on issues and discussion about how they could enhance their practice, rather than what buttons to press. We often use scenarios/PBL type approaches as a device to start discussions. They're not usually anything to elaborate, just something to frame the task.
Similarly, with the web2practice stuff, we tried to explain the concepts, then give them a structured set of tasks to explore in their own time.
That said, I'm running 2 x 1.5 workshop sessions at a conference tomorrow where we've been asked to 'use computers', so are taking a more hands-on approach. Will let you know what does/doesn't work!
That's an interesting idea. The type with me is a natty little tool - not seen that before. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAgree re student voice - thanks for the reminder. Re getting them to create twitter accounts I'm a little nervous about that - it didn't really work at the HEA bioscience centre thing. I think it's because as newbies they have no networks. Plus the caution associated with writing so publicly. If we could get over that twitterfall would be a good idea tho. Lots to think about...
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ReplyDeleteUseful thoughts. Thank you. So for most sessions about such tools are you not usually in an IT room at all? Will be interested to hear how tomorrow goes!
ReplyDeleteWe often are in an IT suite, but that's mainly for historical reasons. We've used those venues since the days when we did a lot more push-button type training. We do still do that where appropriate, but much of the stuff we do on web2.0 and social media is away from computers. Where we do use them, it tends to be more based on experiential learning than structured, procedural tasks.
ReplyDeleteThat's been partly driven by the huge number of web tools that are now so readily available to people. Rather than 'training' in how to use systems, we do more awareness raising of what's out there and what it can offer, so that people can make their own choices about what they use and how they use it.
Very useful. Thanks for your help
ReplyDeleteStu, I simply meant to agree with you that teaching twitter, ning, buzz, facebook, insert other network might not be a good use of time. In terms of RSS, as it is likely a non-technical audience, you need to explain it to enough depth to ensure that people don't think you are constantly creating the same content in different places. However, you may well do this as part of your presentation in any case.
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ReplyDeleteI see. Excellent point. Thanks for your comments, they've been really useful. I've updated that graph with a USA bar but for some reason replacing it on slideshare hasn't updated the embedded version. It does make more sense with the 4th bar tho
ReplyDeleteHi Stu
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting post. I've not come across the University of Bradford DevelopMe site so have passed that on to some colleagues who'll be interested.
Great slides too!
:)
So for most practical sessions with these tools, we tend to focus on issues and discussion about how they could enhance their practice, rather than what buttons to press. We often use scenarios/PBL type approaches as a device to start discussions. They’re not usually anything to elaborate, just something to frame the task.
ReplyDeleteThanks Adam. Only just noticed this was in the spam box. No idea why! Sorry
ReplyDelete[...] versus new networks by Stuart Johnson on 25/03/2010 Since the helpful comments I had on my Same talk different conference post I’ve updated my slides for the Association for Learning Development in Higher Education [...]
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