Curation, connections and creativity : reflections on using Twitter to teach digital activism

Twitter’s integration into Higher Education learning environments has created both challenges and opportunities for teachers. The microblogging site can facilitate backchannels enhancing the active learning of students and enabling them to ask their lecturers and peers questions. Yet, there remain concerns about context collapse, the perceived negative impact on classroom engagement, and the limitations of trying to convey complex ideas using 280 characters. There has also been relatively little empirical evidence about the impact of Twitter use on student learning outcomes, especially within Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences. In this paper, I will add to this literature by exploring the three ‘C’s of using Twitter, curation, connectivity and creativity, with reference to my own experience of teaching digital activism over the past decade. First, the microblogging site provides unprecedented opportunities for teachers to curate resources throughout the module, ranging from peer-reviewed journal articles to blogs and videos. Second, new horizontal and vertical connections can be made within the class, as students follow not only each other but also scholars in fields such as digital activism. Third, Twitter helps promote and highlight the creativity of students during in-class exercises such as subvertisements created to critique consumer brands. Finally, I reflect on the challenges of measuring the effectiveness of using Twitter as a ‘backchannel’ for Higher Education teaching. I argue that ‘watching’ may be an underappreciated response to the use of a class hashtag in light of the privacy concerns raised by the use of corporate social media as learning environments

Book Review: Communication Ethics Now

Book Review: Communication Ethics No

The right blend? The use of Blackboard to support international dissertation students

Weller (2011) proposes that it is the responsibility of educators to identify which technologies are likely to be significant to their students in their future careers and integrate them into their teaching practices. For some scholars, this will involve a range of activities including blogging, the cultivation of peer and student networks on social media sites such as Twitter, and the creation of Open Educational Resource (OERs) such as podcasts (Pearce et al, 2010; Veletsianos and Kimmons, 2012). Despite the reluctance of many academics to engage in these forms of ‘digital scholarship’ (Procter et al, 2010; Weller, 2011), there has been an increasing interest in how information and communication technologies (ICTs) might be used by teachers to facilitate student learning. There have been two major conceptual frameworks that have emerged from the widespread adoption of technology by HE institutions in the past decade. First, there is the concept of e‐learning, which has focused predominantly on the use of ICTs and institutional Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) in the teaching of distance learning students (Sangra et al, 2012, Conole, 2010). Second, the ‘blending’ of online and face‐to‐face pedagogic approaches has been conceptualised as an appropriate response to the varying learning styles of an increasingly cosmopolitan student body (see Sharpe et al, 2006 for an overview). A critique of this ‘blended learning’ approach has emerged that suggests that it is ‘ill‐defined,’ focusing on the resources made available to students rather than their actual learning experiences (Oliver and Trigwell, 2005). Nevertheless, there has been some evidence to suggest that online resources have high pedagogic value for both campus‐based and distance learning students. Recent research has indicated that the use of e‐tivities for the purposes of formative assessment can help students develop more effective learning strategies (Armellini and Aiyegbayo, 2009). Podcasts have also been found to be effective in supporting students during the preparation of their assessed work and reducing the number of non‐academic enquiries sent to academic members of staff (Fothergill, 2008; Nie et al, 2010; Sutton‐Brady et al, JOURNAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING AND LEARNING 2 2009). This paper sets out to provide further empirical data on ‘blended’ pedagogic approaches through a focus group and questionnaire‐based study of students who had received support for their PGT dissertations via a combination of face‐to‐face meetings with their supervisor and a series of resources uploaded to the institutional VLE at appropriate milestones during their projects. It does so by reviewing the issues raised by staff and students in relation to learning materials in 2010/11, outlining the resources created for the revamped MS7012 Dissertation Blackboard site, and presenting the results from the questionnaire and focus groups conducted between June and July 2012

Screencasts in Media Studies

This paper will focus on whether screencasts, loosely defined as the “audio-visual presentation of lecture notes” (Seery, 2013: 82), might provide a viable alternative to full lecture capture that enhances the learning and teaching experiences of both lecturers and students. Seery (2013) argues that there are two types of screencast created by lecturers for their students: substitutional and supplemental. The former refers to a form of lecture capture where the content from the lecture is shared online. The latter refers to bespoke video content that focuses on topics that students find particular difficult Recent studies have suggested that screencasts may be effectively deployed by academics to facilitate ‘lecture flipping’, when students watch recorded lectures online and engage in problem-solving exercises and discussion during class time, and which provides more personalised forms of feedback on assignments (Lancaster and Read, 2013; O’Malley 2011; Stannard, 2007). However, like lecture capture, students also reported that they missed the opportunity to interact with their tutors while viewing such content (Winterbottom, 2007). Nevertheless, early indications are that the use of such resources is positively correlated with course performance (see Pinder- Grove et al, 2011 for example) albeit that it may be difficult to generalise based on such studies. Furthermore, very little is known about lecturer perspectives on whether the regular use of screencasts has enhanced their own teaching practices (or not)

Problematising the use of Snapchat in higher education teaching and learning

There has been relatively little research exploring how Snapchat can be used within Higher Education teaching to date. In this viewpoint, we draw on extant empirical data to explore the strengths and weaknesses of using the Instant Messaging (IM) app to support student learning and teaching within universities. We conclude by considering whether it is appropriate to fully integrate apps like Snapchat into Higher Education in light of the revelations of data misuse by these platforms. The growth of ‘surveillance realism’, whereby citizens feel increasingly powerless at their personal data being repurposed by these companies for financial gain, arguably supersedes any supposed pedagogical benefits for student learners

Social Media, Parades and Protest

No abstract available

Mutation of a single residue, β-glutamate-20, alters protein–lipid interactions of light harvesting complex II

It is well established that assembly of the peripheral antenna complex, LH2, is required for proper photosynthetic membrane biogenesis in the purple bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides. The underlying interactions are, as yet, not understood. Here we examined the relationship between the morphology of the photosynthetic membrane and the lipid–protein interactions at the LH2–lipid interface. The non-bilayer lipid, phosphatidylethanolamine, is shown to be highly enriched in the boundary lipid phase of LH2. Sequence alignments indicate a putative lipid binding site, which includes β-glutamate-20 and the adjacent carotenoid end group. Replacement of β-glutamate-20 with alanine results in significant reduction of phosphatidylethanolamine and concomitant raise in phosphatidylcholine in the boundary lipid phase of LH2 without altering the lipid composition of the bulk phase. The morphology of the LH2 housing membrane is, however, unaffected by the amino acid replacement. In contrast, simultaneous modification of glutamate-20 and exchange of the carotenoid sphaeroidenone with neurosporene results in significant enlargement of the vesicular membrane invaginations. These findings suggest that the LH2 complex, specifically β-glutamate-20 and the carotenoids' polar head group, contribute to the shaping of the photosynthetic membrane by specific interactions with surrounding lipid molecules

Using developmental trajectories to examine verbal and visuospatial short-term memory development in children and adolescents with Williams and Down syndromes

Williams (WS) and Down (DS) syndromes have been associated with specifically compromised short-term memory (STM) subsystems. Individuals with WS have shown impairments in visuospatial STM, while individuals with DS have often shown problems with the recall of verbal material. However, studies have not usually compared the development of STM skills in these domains, in these populations. The present study employed a cross sectional developmental trajectories approach, plotting verbal and visuospatial STM performance against more general cognitive and chronological development, to investigate how the domain-specific skills of individuals with WS and DS may change as development progresses, as well as whether the difference between STM skill domains increases, in either group, as development progresses. Typically developing children, of broadly similar cognitive ability to the clinical groups, were also included. Planned between- and within group comparisons were carried out. Individuals with WS and DS both showed the domain specific STM weaknesses in overall performance that were expected based on the respective cognitive profiles. However, skills in both groups developed, according to general cognitive development, at similar rates to those of the TD group. In addition, no significant developmental divergence between STM domains was observed in either clinical group according to mental age or chronological age, although the general pattern of findings indicated that the influence of the latter variable across STM domains, particularly in WS, might merit further investigation

Detector Description and Performance for the First Coincidence Observations between LIGO and GEO

For 17 days in August and September 2002, the LIGO and GEO interferometer gravitational wave detectors were operated in coincidence to produce their first data for scientific analysis. Although the detectors were still far from their design sensitivity levels, the data can be used to place better upper limits on the flux of gravitational waves incident on the earth than previous direct measurements. This paper describes the instruments and the data in some detail, as a companion to analysis papers based on the first data.Comment: 41 pages, 9 figures 17 Sept 03: author list amended, minor editorial change