Twitter ye now

What is Twitter?




Twitter can be described as a hybrid of blogging and SMS messaging, or a severely cut-down version of Facebook.

Twitter asks its users – Twitterers - “What are you doing?” and provides a limit of 140 characters in which to answer, with what is known as a ‘Tweet’. Users can reply to this question and to the posts of others either by visiting the site or by SMS text. Updates can be received this way too and by RSS (Really Simple Syndication). This is similar to the Facebook status updates but with the ability to reply directly to the user, a feature Facebook has recently added to its interface.

Twitter offers many benefits:

• it’s a very simple way to keep in touch with friends, colleagues, cohorts, customers and users
• it’s a very direct, open and efficient way of reporting on conferences or projects
• it offers powerful privacy settings; users can open their ‘tweets’ to ‘twitterers’ of their choosing
• it can support communities of practice
• it supports ‘metacognition’ – the practice of thinking and reflecting upon learning
• because of the SMS-like limitations on length but a very public display, it forces twitterers to be brief and to the point - an important skill in thinking and communicating clearly.

Prominent users include:

• The BBC which has started using Twitter to disseminate breaking news
• Stephen Fry keeps in touch with over 116 000 fellow twitterers
• Barack Obama, who used Twitter as a publicity mechanism on his way to winning the US Presidential election
• The University of Texas at San Antonio College of Engineering, which is using Twitter to relay information to students.


Further reading

This message summarises the information bookmarked at the following link:

http://delicious.com/Martin_King/twitter

Clickers - updated webpage and case study

Please find updated information on clickers / Audience Response Systems here:
http://www.rhul.ac.uk/registry/educational-development/e-learning/technologies/clickers/clickers-overview.html

A case study of the use of clickers in Psychology lectures has also been published online:
http://www.rhul.ac.uk/registry/educational-development/e-learning/case-studies/case-study-clickers.pdf

Credits
Martin King
David Thurlby
Polly Dalton

Interactive Lecturing Tool - Clickers

Nowadays the PowerPoint presentation has, at long last, completely replaced the overhead projector in the role of communicating text and images to a large group of students in support of a lecture. PowerPoint allows us to draw upon and incorporate endless media types. Showing websites, video clips and animations to support and enhance our teaching is common place. However involving each and every student in a way that allows the tutor to test their learning and draw on student experiences is still challenging. It is in this area that clickers, or more precisely, Audience Response Systems (ARS) can revolutionise the way we communicate with students in this setting.

Lecturers can test understanding by asking students questions. This may be to a single student or via a show of hands to gain a consensus of opinion. With clickers each student is issued with a radio transmitting keypad before the lecture and each and every student can use it to respond to questions from the lecturer by selecting their answers from a range of prepared answers created within PowerPoint via the pad. These responses could be a simple yes/No, agree/disagree, or offer multiple choice style answers. A read out is displayed during voting so the lecturer can make sure every student has responded and can then close the voting. Results are displayed in the PowerPoint slide. The results are shown instantly, via a choice of graph layouts and show an exact set of results that the lecturer can use to gauge understanding or opinion, and can then redirect, review, or carry on the direction of the lecture based on this. The crucial difference here is that all students are interacting and feel more engaged with the lecture.

It doesn’t end there, if used to gain information from the students about their opinions and experiences this data can then be made available via Moodle afterwards, for further research and study following the lecture. From case studies I have seen, some universities have required students to purchase their own response pad before they commence their study. This allows the pad to be registered to a particular student so a name list could be viewed with each response. It has also been used to register attendance.

More information is available from the manufacturers of the response system via these links
http://turningpointuniversities.co.uk/index.html
http://www.turningtechnologies.com/highereducationinteractivelearning.cfm

We’re interested in hearing from you via this blog if you
- Have seen or used an audience response system used in an interesting and innovative way
- Wish to use an ARS in the future and want to find out more.
- Links or documents you have found helpful relating to this topic.
- Any comments

Global Positioning in Moodle Database Activity

The database activity, I think is fair to say, is not the easiest activity to get started with, but perseverance can reveal some hidden gems that can create a useful and insightful body of data that can be collected and analysed by you and your students.

One that stands out is the latitude/longitude data type that can form part of each record entered. Far from just adding two input boxes to fill in, it also automatically creates links to view the location in a new window, using one of the following geographical websites
- Google Maps
- Google Earth
- Geabios
- OpenStreetMap
- Multimap

One of the most exciting geographical maps, is the Google Earth Application. Rather than just looking from above, Google earth allows you to explore in 3D; rather than just zooming in and out you can view a different angle and start to get sense of the terrain and altitudes of the recorded locations. If it is your first visit I recommend taking a tour of London or New York where they have modelled many of the well known landmarks, and you can walk down the street and take a look around.
http://earth.google.com/
I have had some problems getting Google Earth to run reliably so would appreciate feedback from you as to how you got on with it. Please state which version you have downloaded in any replies.

So what sort of records could be stored in a database using this data type?
Well I see field work being particularly suited to this. Take for example a study of a type of architecture or urban profile being investigated in History or Geography. An image of the location could be added along with its location, allowing geographical trends and features to be analysed from satellite and terrain views. Perhaps in Biological sciences a study of a particular species could be recorded. Other significant data that could be added may include altitude and the bearing of the image.

So how can we collect the Latitude and Longitude data from a location?
Moblie phones – If you are lucky enough to have a mobile phone with GPS and are within a reception area
Standalone devices - http://www.gpsw.co.uk/cats/cl3_23.html
Digital Camera – GPS facility beginning to come to the market. http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=18&entryid=2104

We would like to hear any further ideas from tutors as to how this could be used and would be happy to support any early adopters to get started and see how effective this could be as a learning tool.

Update 04/02/2009

Google have recently launched Google Latitude a new social networking application that allows you to constantly track your friends, family and students if they sign up and own a compatible devise. The device sends regular GPS coordinates to the site, building a picture of where you have been and where you are now.

Follow these links to news items http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2235725/google-latitude-allows-friends

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/02/new_google_serv.html

An interesting and scary (from a privacy point of view) development in this area.
Does anyone have any thoughts on how this could be unutilised in our teaching or study activities?

Definition of e-learning

This week's post requires a little more participation than usual......

Can you navigate to the blog and use the comments feature for this post to share your own definition of e-learning; What is e-learning? what does it require? what does it deliver?

At the risk of skewing this activity I will provide my own off-the-cuff general definition of e-learning.

A broad range of activities and interactions, underpinned by information and/or audio visual technologies, which facilitate, support and enhance the learning processes and experiences of the participants.

Using del.icio.us to capture, organise, share and retrieve web-based resources

Del.icio.us is a free, web-based service allowing users to bookmark sites and, rather than keep them in a particular pc and browser, share them online with friends, colleagues, and people with similar or overlapping interests.

my del.icio.us bookmarks

Annotated Screenshot



Captions

1. Title of webpage/website: This is by default defined by the page creator. Most websites are helpfully titled (the BBC, Times Higher Education and the Guardian are good examples). Some academic/personal pages may not be so usefully titled, but this can be changed when saving the page to your del.icio.us files.

2. When saved: Useful to know when you originally found the webpage, especially if you save and then read later.

3. User-defined tags: When saving a page, the user can add ‘tags’ to it which will make it easier to organise, retrieve and share pages between browsers, pcs, colleagues and the del.icio.us community. Rather than bookmarking in a browser you can bookmark on line and send your reading lists, resources and (small r) research to those who are intersted.

4. How many others have saved page: This provides an insight into how the webpage is perceived by others…how many people also thought it was useful? Who exactly has saved it? Clicking on the link shows who else has saved it and any comments they added to their tags. This is useful in adding ‘authority’ to a webpage.

Getting started

This is a good place to begin, my own bookmarked resource on using del.icio.us! - http://del.icio.us/edc_rhul/getting-started-with-del.icio.us

Baseline presence, some possible definitions and considerations

‘Addressing variability in the student experience by agreeing a baseline presence in the VLE for all courses'.

• Basic course information BCI 1
• Handbook
• Timetables
• Tutor contact details

There is the possibility that of achieving this through a combination of increased integration with Banner and some sort of Tutor database (no such thing as Banner for staff)

Presently, Tutors are added manually by E-Learning Team / DAs / Existing tutors

• Basic course information 2
• As BCI 1
• A news forum to which all students are automatically subscribed
• Automated link to electronic resources as held by the library
• Reading lists
• Exam papers
• Electronic bookshelves
  

A subscribed news forum, which acts as a notice board and replaces the need for group e-mails, lost information, non-trackable communication can be added to the basic course build.

The Library has created electronic reading lists, based on course book requests, which are by default linked into Moodle courses. This is a labour intensive process and not all courses have these, or up-to-date versions.

There is the prospect of Moodle being integrated with a Learning Object Repository in the near future. As well as creating a number of support issues this may well deliver the ability to embed course materials more effectively.

• Basic course information 3
• As BCI 2
• Lecture notes in standard format for each week

This requires more tutor input and therefore training and support than the previous definitions.

This is where Administrative staff, PhD Students (Imperial) or Student Helpers (LSE) could support tutors.

A virtual team of well trained support staff could deliver agreed standard structure / presentation / formats.

Such standards such as all materials offered in Wimba Create or PDF would enhance the student experience.

This assumes the content model of e-learning which does not necessarily improve learning. Simply repurposing printed media for online use does not meet the needs of the online learner and is simply a driver of what we call p-learning.

Training staff to ‘write for the web’ may not be welcomed or be feasible. Time better spent developing activities?

Feedback & Questionnaire Modules coming soon

Since our recent evaluation of the Moodle feedback and questionnaire modules I have begun designing a 1hr training session for staff interested in integrating these activities into their courses.

These resources will deliver a much improved platform for retrieving feedback and profile data from all our Moodle users and will be invaluable addition for our research activities in the future.

The development team will add these resources to our main Moodle install in the very near future with training starting shortly after (subject to Roll over process in July).

Moodle’s info is available via these links;

Feedback - http://docs.moodle.org/en/Feedback

Questionnaire - http://docs.moodle.org/en/Questionnaire

Moodle resource for SWAN

A Moodle-based resource for those RHUL staff interested in SWAN and its associated technologies has been created. This can be accessed here:

http://moodle.rhul.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=4849

The 'enrolment key' is swan2008

SWAN Innovation & Learning Event

Royal Holloway
10th June 08
10am-4pm
Martin King and Dave Rayner

This event aims to introduce staff at Royal Holloway to additional elearning tools and how they can be used to enhance the students’ learning experience. It aims to foster creativity and innovation in elearning. Specifically it will introduce staff to the Wimba Collaboration Suite and the ThinkTank tool.

The Wimba Collaboration suite will enhance eLearning capabilities by adding functionality to Moodle through asynchronous voice tools and synchronous web conferencing. The voice tools allow audio to be used to complement text and make it easy to use podcasting. The web conferencing tool called Wimba Classroom allows staff and students to meet for online teaching and learning sessions. In addition, Wimba Create enhances Microsoft Word to make it easy to create eLearning content for Moodle by simply using Word. Finally, Wimba will present a new instant messaging tool called Pronto.

The ThinkTank tool supports brain-storming online, recording the ideas contributed by any size of group of staff or students, and making it easy to classify and prioritise those ideas.

Further information is available at RHUL staff at http://www.rhul.ac.uk/Restricted/Intranet/message.asp?ref_no=4079