Post on 28-Jun-2015
VIRTUAL LEARNING SPACES AT NEWPORT
SCHoMS
Michael Webb
Head of IT and Media Services
Overview
MyCommunity (blogging, forums, photo galleries)
MyNewport(Facebook access to MyLearning
Essentials)
Mylearning Essential SMS
(Making Texting as easy as email)
About Newport
Around 9000 students
A fairly even split of full-time, part-time and franchise students
Widening participation agenda
Many students not traditional 18 – 21 year old undergraduates
Our approach to eLearning
No ‘traditional’ VLE MyLearning Essentials
is a portal to tools to match learners needs.
MyCommunity, MyNewport and SMS are part of MyLearning Essentials Tools to make use of
‘Web 2.0’ and mobile devices.
These tool are all to aid communication.
1. MyCommunity
Blogging/Forum/Photo galleries for all staff and students
Beta Launch May 2006 – Full Launch Sept 2006
No signup procedure, ‘click and go’ Publically visible at
http://mycommunity.newport.ac.uk Some blogs (e.g. reflective practice) are
private
Why?
Part of a strategy started three years ago to engage with Web 2.0 technologies To create a tools set for learning and teaching To create tools and places for social purposes To find out what works
Services also created at the same time including: Institutional Wiki (http://wiki.newport.ac.uk) Internal Instant Messaging Service Both partial successes
Forums
How are they used? Most aren’t connected to courses. Used more by students than blogs Finding people/accommodation/selling
things Comment on the University
Not frequent, but how does the institution deal with valid comment?
Obvious questions
How has it been used? Most staff/students don’t blog for fun!
A few ‘traditional’ staff/student blogs Used for direct communication (eg events,
finding people) Reflective practice (private) Informal communication from schools
How do you monitor it/has it been abused? Very ‘light-touch’ moderation Virtually no abuse
Hosting
Is it still relevant to host our own service? Blogger, WordPress, Facebook etc all free and now
widely adopted Reasons to host
Varying student skills (widening participation agenda) – we can probably provide better support for our own services
Need to carry out very robust due diligence process before handing confidential data to someone else.
Reasons not to host Cost/someone else can do it better for nothing. Student preference?
2. MyNewport@Facebook Access to myLearning
Essentials through Facebook Launched Sept 2007 Essentially an experiment Would students prefer to
create their own learning space?
Many (most?) use Facebook anyway.
Very ‘lightweight’ development (about 2 days work)
My ‘Learning’ Space
Has it worked?
376 users (from yesterday) So hasn’t replaced our own portal! User installed it very quickly with little
publicity from us Far fewer daily active users (a handful) Positive feedback from those that do use
it Contributed to debate on personal
learning
3. Text Messages
Why? Email is increasing
become a ‘retro’ technology (discuss!)
We’ve tried to make it as easy to send a text to students as an email Link from MyLearning
Essentials for staff…
Sending a message
Step1… Choose a course from a list of your courses or modules
Step 2… Type the message and click send
Why not?
Cost
Closing Thoughts
This is an incredibly fast moving area! Twitter, Google Friends, Ning….all new in
the last few months or so Matching pedagogy and technology is
obviously crucial Key areas of development for us at the
moment – Peer Evaluation (WebPA), PDPs (?), group working space (Elgg)
But…we can also use technology to help with the overall learning environment
Questions and Contact Details
Email: michael.webb@newport.ac.uk Twitter: michaeldwebb Blog:
http://mycommunity.newport.ac.uk/blogs/michael