Social media and self-curatorship : Reflections on identity and pedagogy through blogging on a masters module

El uso de los medios sociales se ha extendido notablemente y se considera ya como una oportunidad única para el diseño de entornos innovadores de aprendizaje, donde los estudiantes se conviertan en protagonistas de experiencias de multialfabetización participativas y entre iguales. El trabajo cuestiona la conexión entre los usos sociales de los nuevos medios y las prácticas educativas relevantes, y propone marcos teóricos más rigurosos que puedan orientar en futuras investigaciones sobre el papel de los medios sociales en la educación. El trabajo reflexiona sobre el estudio de caso llevado a cabo en un grupo de alumnos en un módulo on-line como parte de un programa de máster sobre medios de comunicación, cultura y comunicación. Se invitó a los estudiantes a desenvolverse en estrategias de evaluación más allá de las convencionales, con el fin de teorizar y reflexionar sobre sus experiencias con los medios sociales como soporte y materia del curso. El artículo analiza la experiencia de los estudiantes evaluados en el conjunto del proyecto. Durante la exposición de resultados, los autores situaron los argumentos en el contexto del debate sobre las nuevas alfabetizaciones, la pedagogía y los medios sociales, así como en el marco de la teoría emergente de la autogestión del individuo en estos contextos, como marco metafórico para comprender la producción y la representación de la identidad en los medios digitales.The widespread uses of social media have been celebrated as a unique opportunity to redesign innovative learning environments that position students at the center of a participatory, multiliteracy and peer learning experience. This article problemitizes the connection between the social uses of new media and relevant educational practices and proposes more rigorous theoretical frames that can be used to guide future research into the role of social media in education. This article reports on a case study of a small group of students who use an online module to study media, culture and communication as part of a wider master’s programme. The students were invited to reflect in a more reflexive and theoretical manner than is commonly used in a standard course evaluation about their experiences of engaging with social media as both the medium and the subject of the course. The article discusses the student experience as it unfolded in the context of an assessed piece of project work. In discussing the findings the authors locate the arguments in the context of debates about new literacies, pedagogy and social media as well as in an emergent theory of self-curatorship as a metaphorical frame for understanding the production and representation of identity in digital media

CompendiumLD – a tool for effective, efficient and creative learning design

Developers and teachers go through a complex decision making process when designing new learning activities – working towards an effective pedagogical mix, combining resources, tools, student and tutor support. This paper describes CompendiumLD, a prototype tool we have built to support practitioners through the process of designing learning activities. We describe how the tool fits into our vision of a dynamic, interactive set of resources and system tools to support effective, efficient and creative learning design. It describes CompendiumLD's features and explains the rationale behind their development. It shows how the tool is intended to aid designers make choices, and plan developments, facilitating creativity and efficiency in the design process. In our conclusions we consider how such a system can support the design of effective learning activities

Intersectionality in Finnish adult education research: insights from the journal Aikuiskasvatus 2010 - 2016

The article studies intersectionality in Finnish research on adult education. Specifically, we investigate the kinds of discussions on differences and their relations that are going on in such research. To this end we seek to identify intersectional approaches in the articles published in the journal Aikuiskasvatus between 2010 and 2016, a period marked by an increase in multiculturalism and social division as well as in gendered and sexual diversity in Finnish society. We understand intersectional differences as performative processes, not stable essences. Our study indicates that only few articles analysed intersectional differences explicitly. Implicitly recognised differences were mostly seen as givens. Categories such as ethnicity and race were found to be lacking in the data, but age, gender, social class, education, occupation and learning difficulties were discussed. (DIPF/Orig.

Facilitating the process of knowledge construction among preservice teachers through computer -mediated communications

This study was concerned with the potential for asynchronous computer-mediated communications (CMC) to facilitate the process of knowledge construction among preservice teachers. Using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, this study examined the extent to which the CMC among six groups of preservice teachers was influenced by (a) the structure and focus of CMC, and (b) the interactions among peers. Of particular interest was (a) how these factors influenced the depth in cognitive processing that was displayed throughout the course of the semester, and (b) the patterns of social dialogue and interactions that were involved with the displayed levels in cognitive processing. The findings from this study indicated that the structure and focus of CMC did influence the overall learning that occurred. These factors, however, did not influence the levels in cognitive processing that developed throughout the course of the semester. Playing a central role in this process were the interactions among peers that facilitated and prompted cognitively in-depth levels of CMC

Digital capability and teaching excellence: an integrative review exploring what infrastructure and strategies are necessary to support effective use of technology enabled learning (TEL)

This report is set within the evolving landscape of UK Higher Education (HE) in which an increasingly marketised HE economy has led to a changing relationship with students and wider stakeholders. The proposed introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2016) aims to recognise and reward excellent learning and teaching. This integrative review provides timely evidence concerning the relationship of digital capability and teaching excellence. Keywords: teaching excellence, digital capabilit

Chapter 6: Culture and Ethics

The OTiS (Online Teaching in Scotland) programme, run by the now defunct Scotcit programme, ran an International e-Workshop on Developing Online Tutoring Skills which was held between 8–12 May 2000. It was organised by Heriot–Watt University, Edinburgh and The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK. Out of this workshop came the seminal Online Tutoring E-Book, a generic primer on e-learning pedagogy and methodology, full of practical implementation guidelines. Although the Scotcit programme ended some years ago, the E-Book has been copied to the SONET site as a series of PDF files, which are now available via the ALT Open Access Repository. The editor, Carol Higgison, is currently working in e-learning at the University of Bradford (see her staff profile) and is the Chair of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT)

Listening in on the Conversations: An Overview of Digital Humanities Pedagogy

Publisher allows immediate open acces

Quality in MOOCs: Surveying the Terrain

The purpose of this review is to identify quality measures and to highlight some of the tensions surrounding notions of quality, as well as the need for new ways of thinking about and approaching quality in MOOCs. It draws on the literature on both MOOCs and quality in education more generally in order to provide a framework for thinking about quality and the different variables and questions that must be considered when conceptualising quality in MOOCs. The review adopts a relativist approach, positioning quality as a measure for a specific purpose. The review draws upon Biggs’s (1993) 3P model to explore notions and dimensions of quality in relation to MOOCs — presage, process and product variables — which correspond to an input–environment–output model. The review brings together literature examining how quality should be interpreted and assessed in MOOCs at a more general and theoretical level, as well as empirical research studies that explore how these ideas about quality can be operationalised, including the measures and instruments that can be employed. What emerges from the literature are the complexities involved in interpreting and measuring quality in MOOCs and the importance of both context and perspective to discussions of quality