Categories: uncategorized
Date: 25 October 2008 16:23:14
The college I am part of organises regular, student-run and student-led, interdisciplinary seminars and today they had one on the use of virtual technologies.
The first presentation was by Esther Dingley who has been involved in setting up Graduate Junction which is an accademic networking site, specifically intended for use by people doing Masters, doctoral or post-doctoral research. She explained the basic values of the site are that is intended to be "simple, uncluttered and necessary". The basic idea is that it is an international, interdisciplinary site where people academically network, getting in touch with others doing similar research; giving each other support and advice and basically suppporting each other as they do post-grad research. It's free to register and as a fairly new site,(only started towards the end of the last academic year), is growing. The site already has about 11,000 members in 70 countries, and is endorsed by several universities, including Durham. Yes, I know that was an obvious plug, but it sounds like what has been going on in a very limited way recently on this site, with posts like Jacks' advice for new PhD students, is something going on on a much wider scale on the Graduate Junction. Therefore, I'd encourage any readers who are post-grads or working with post-grads to go explore and then spread the word about the site, if you like what you see.
One of the other presentations was about the use of Web 2.0 technologies and specifically addressed the differences between Blackboard and Facebook and why teachers may prefer blackboard (or similar VLE type tool) but students often prefer the less regulated world of Facebook. It was an interesting presentation which looked at how social networking is being used by people and how teaching is having to adapt accordingly. The point was made that there is probably a place for both types of network and whilst the teacher will be passive on Facebook they can use what they read there to formally address issues. What is becoming increasingly obvious, through presentations such as this, is that there is a new ethical minefield opening up but that as teachers we must be ready to adapt to the world our students live in. Within all this, from my experience as a teacher and as a general user of networking sites I think the key things to bear in mind are (i) these are best viewed as an addition to the existing tool box, rather than a replacement and (ii) use your common sense, these are public spaces and professionals in these areas, as in any spaces they inhabit with their students, have to think of the possible consequence of everything they say and do. The seminar did give the basic groundrule for the use of sites like Facebook, within them the teacher should remain as passive as possible. There are also a whole range of other issues related to what access to your profile information you allow people to have if you are using Facebook as a professional aswell as a social tool which weren't explored. Yet, these questions are important on both a practical and ethical level.
The other encouraging thing coming out of the presentation was about how the growth of these new spaces is giving growth to DIY and Edupunk approaches to teaching and learning. This, in English, means that the growth of using informal spaces for learning is letting teachers get creative again.
The final presentation was about using Second Life for educational purposes. Have to say whilst I could see the potential use in some practical based subjects, I was somewhat skeptical about using this type of technology in a humanities classroom. The issues relating to intellectual property and ethical issues relating to the psychological effect of immersing oneself in such sites (where differentiation between the "real" and "virtual" world becomes difficult) were raised. The second issue is one which particularly worried me. Using community space gives issues linked to benchmarking, assessing and control, as the speaker made clear and it is these very issues which would make it hard to assess the psychological affect of the use of such areas on students. However, what the presentation did illustrate is how the resource toolbox is changing and as it does so are the issues which we, as teachers, need to think about.
So all in all an interesting morning, which made me think about the world we now inhabit and the teaching environment which is yet to come. There is obviously far more grey in the world now - for example as our social networks start to link with our professional and academic networks. There are times when the cross over is useful, but equally there are many times when being able to differentiate between the two is equally important. This is why I think Graduate Junction has it's place. It enables you to network professionally with other researchers in a way that Facebook doesn't, maintaining the professional role more easily.