With so many ideas to consider, I am trying to be reasonable! Podcasting might have to wait. If I could just stumble upon those secret extra hours in the day….
In my Gateway course, students are required to keep journals. They are required to write entries at least after each video but are encouraged to journal about course readings, discussions and current/life events related to course material. Students are asked to share subjective reactions, feelings, questions or insights. The task is not to “prove” that they were paying attention to the film. Previously, journals were to be kept either within one Word document or a spiral notebook. In the coming semester, I will require them to create a blog to capture their thoughts and require that they use RSS feeds to keep up with the blogs of other class members. The blogs will be worth 100 points (out of 800). Students will be graded on whether they created a blog and post after each video (at least 7 posts). Extra posts and commenting on classmates’ blogs will enhance participation grades.
In addition to the blogs, I want to pilot using Facebook as a discussion tool for class. I’ve joined and become addicted and already have had students “befriend” me. With the amount of time students report spending on Facebook, I think it would be great to harness some of that energy for the course. I propose creating a group that will be by permission only and will be accessible only to students in the class as a place to chat about course topics. I will encourage students to write on the wall of the group rather than writing wall-to-wall. However, the group interactions will most likely foster camaraderie among the students- a welcome byproduct.
Those are my thoughts. I am open to suggestions!
2 comments:
I'm really interested in the Facebook angle and would love to participate in this as the library liaison (let's talk). I'm newly addicted as well (I can even update my status, friend people, poke people, send Fb messages from my cell phone, which makes it all too easy). I plan to friend my first-year advisees in the fall and our student workers. We've been talking in the library about how to push our resources to students through Facebook, as the UIUC Library has done, as Meebo has done, etc. There's a public library up north that has added a way for users to search their digital collections and add an image from the collection to their profile through Facebook. There's so much potential for reaching many, many of our students very easily. I'm also loving the applications you can add to share information about movies, books, blogs, videos, etc with your friends. I've connected with friends from college, grad school and previous jobs that I haven't talked to in awhile, I've posted my blog link, photos of Xavier - all of which my friends can see. In short, I love Facebook and am an avid, everyday user.
That all being said, there's a lot of discussion out there about the privacy and freedom of speech for students of Facebook, and how universities deal with 'questionable content' that students post on Facebook (photos being the best example of this), and how universities communicate their expectations of student conduct on Facebook. There's definitely some tension and blurring of the lines between the two. I'd hate to see the social aspect of Facebook being constrained by policy - but at the same time, having language or a statement that holds students to a standard of conduct would be a good way for students to realize that what they communicate about themselves and how they communicate that is important. Two examples I can think of - a student loses a job offer after the company sees his MySpace page, which talks about smoking pot and other illicit activities; and three students at Syracuse are censured after creating a Facebook group about an instructor they dislike and adding comments deemed 'abusive' by the university administration. On the other hand, I've also heard of really cool uses of the tool - like a professor who took a group of 30 students overseas, and Facebook was a major communication tool for the students in the group, i.e., "you've got to check out this museum." kind of messages.
It's such a great tool, but with that greatness come great responsibility, as they say. I'm really interested in how this goes and if others are will be experimenting with Facebook as well!
Yeah, I use facebook for its integration of existing sites I already use. I have added a bunch of facebook applications including the "books" app from goodreads.com and the music tracker from last.fm. I kind of think Twitter is a trivial app but I update it since it is integrated into facebook.
In a note a bit closer to home, the MyIWU portal will be adding a lot more content once the next upgrade happens. It won't be as slick and wide-reaching as facebook but I think you'll all be pleasantly surprised.
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