Over the last two weeks The TEL Team have been reading about MOOCs, student perspectives on Higher Education and teaching the effective use of social media. We have also been learning new skills online!
Clay Shirky’s piece, Napster, Udacity, and the Academy, is one of the best I’ve read on MOOCs and OERs. He talks about how technology seems poised to change academia, and argues that these changes will be on the same scale as those already seen in publishing, music and television (“They just couldn’t imagine—and I mean this in the most ordinarily descriptive way possible—could not imagine that the old way of doing things might fail.”). Despite that quote, the tone is very balanced and unsensationalist. (Suzi)
An interesting aspect of digital literacy which is often overlooked: how to use social media and your ‘digital footprint’ to your advantage in the academic world and job market. This article looks at the key things to teach students about their online image and effective use of social media. (Jjlly)
This article, ‘Graduate view: ‘we are not customers”, written by two recent graduates of Hertfordshire University echoes the comments I have heard informally from many students – that we come to learn and don’t want to be treated as consumers by our Universities. (Jilly)
System Upgrade: Realising the Vision for UK Education – this report pulls out the key themes from a major research project into technology enhanced learning in UK education. (Roger)
A couple of members of the team have been using Memrise to learn new skills and facts – learners are able to create ‘mems’ to help remember each new piece of information, or use mems created by other learners. Memrise says good mems are “concise and vigorous. They evoke an emotion. They amuse, inspire or enlighten. ” (Joe (and Roger!))
