Earlier this year I attended a workshop on Wimba’s Collaboration Suite, a synchronous online classroom system. Wimba Classroom includes audio, video, application sharing and content display. Students can communicate with each other and the lecturer using voice and chat (IM). I have some doubts about the value of such virtual classrooms in a campus-based university such as UCD.
Perhaps I will be convinced by the forthcoming Wimba online seminar (on asynchronous communication!) Developing The E-flective Practitioner: Using Blogs to enhance Reflective Practice at Postgraduate level – presented by: Paul Lowe, Course Director, MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography, London College of Communication on September 24th.
Asynchronous technologies such as blogs and discussion boards allow time for reflection before posting and may encourage shyer students and less fluent English speakers to contribute. This does not seem to me to be the case for synchronous virtual classrooms, which can be valuable in fostering collaboration and communication in distance learning but less so in a campus-based university… why not just meet in a seminar room?
The EdTech 2008 conference presentations have been published on the ILTA web site. They are divided into three strands practitioner, research and postgraduate with the bulk of the presentations (29 out of 45) being practitioner papers. Being one of the organisers I did not have time to blog at the conference but I can recall the highlights – the best probably being Larry McNutt’s keynote presentation An exploration of the habitus of educational technologists: What does the research tell us? where he explored the beliefs and values of educational technologists.
Practitioner presentations covered topics ranging from podcasting to screencasting, reflection to assessment, communities of practice to e-twinning and learning organisations to learning objects.
Gorka Palazio, a participant from the Basque region of Spain, recorded his experiences on video…
Nearly 100 second stage students studying in the UCD School of Library and Information Studies (SILS) created their own ‘Blogger’ blog to record their observations on their information seeking experiences. None of the students had created a blog before. The blogs were used in module, called “Finding Information in Everyday Contexts” (IS20010), in which students explore ways of finding and evaluating information relevant to their lives in and beyond college and increase their level information literacy. Dr Crystal Fulton, SILS, who teaches the module, considers the use of blogs a success, noting that “the blogs added an important reflective element to the students’ Information Hunt assessment.” She plans to incorporate the blogs in assessment for this module again next autumn. In the meantime, Dr. Fulton’s postgraduate students will be using blogs in Qualitative Research Methods (IS40060) in the new year.