Extending your online course

I am developing a new online course on "Extending your online course" (how meta is that). We go live with it on 2 November 2011. This four-week short course focuses on enhancing teaching and learning by using new technology and tools - social media - for interactivity and engagement. What does that mean? We are … Continue reading Extending your online course

Digital Humanities and the #alt-ac track – but why need it be centered around the “academy”

the #alt-ac label speaks to to a broad set of hybrid, humanities-oriented professions centered in and around the academy, in which there are rich opportunities to put deep — often doctoral-level — training in scholarly disciplines to use. Recent #alt-ac conversation online additionally tends to focus on the digital humanities, a community of practice marrying … Continue reading Digital Humanities and the #alt-ac track – but why need it be centered around the “academy”

First thoughts on the final (?) draft Strategy for Enhancing the Student Experience

Oxford Brookes Academic Enhancement and Standards Committee has made its final (?) modifications to the draft Strategy for Enhancing the Student Experience (SESE). The two objectives of this strategy are to: [implement] approaches centred on critical reflection, impact evaluation and continuous enhancement of the student experience. [maximise] student involvement in the development of policies and practices for … Continue reading First thoughts on the final (?) draft Strategy for Enhancing the Student Experience

The first day of the PCTHE

We must have been given the worst teaching room in the University (Gibbs 2.15). It was on the edge of a building site with fork lifts reversing all morning. The room was the only unrefurbished one on this floor of the building. The seating was really poor quality: ripped seats, gum on the floor. There … Continue reading The first day of the PCTHE

Course Leader’s Blog

As we get ready for the academic year 2010-11, I am preparing our Post Graduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education. This involves: updating the Handbook for this instance of the course for the last time. We will be revalidating a new PCTHE for 2011-12; updating the VLE (Brookes Virtual/Blackboard) and Wiki (Confluence). There are … Continue reading Course Leader’s Blog

Curriculum design for new social media – a great illustration of incorporating digital literacy into the curriculum #pcthe

In “Introduction to Mass Communication,” I’d like to see more discussions about how personal communications can easily become mass communication because the Web has hyperlinked everything. Students should explore the changing models of mass communications – how int he past, content used to be broadcast to the masses, and would then be shared person-to-person. Today, … Continue reading Curriculum design for new social media – a great illustration of incorporating digital literacy into the curriculum #pcthe

Horizon 5-year meta trends in emerging technologies for learning #shock09

Seven metatrends in emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression within learning-focused organizations include: the evolving approaches to communication between humans and machines the collective sharing and generation of knowledge computing in three dimensions connecting people via the network; games as pedagogical platforms the shifting of content production … Continue reading Horizon 5-year meta trends in emerging technologies for learning #shock09

4 dimensions of digital literacy #shock09

I was discussing an unpublished draft of a working paper on digital literacy at Oxford Brookes. It struck me that a communication theory model might be useful when looking at the tools we might use. The four dimensions I recognised in the paper were: n-0: solitary reflection 1-n: broadcasting ones self: blogging, writing for publication … Continue reading 4 dimensions of digital literacy #shock09

Is there evidence of the use of Web2.0 to do deep learning?

It is sometimes asserted that while students are using web 2 tools extensively there is no evidence that they are using them to do deep learning. I believe this assertion should be questioned. There is some evidence to suggest that contemporary undergraduates in the normal age cohort (not mature learners) are not particularly critical or … Continue reading Is there evidence of the use of Web2.0 to do deep learning?

Digital natives? Analogue colonists

Graham Attwell makes an important point here, which resonates with work done on university students' use of the Internet for learning by colleagues at Brookes. The locus of work or study: the context in which the person engages in online activity is far more important than other more accidental attributes of the individual such as … Continue reading Digital natives? Analogue colonists