Hi Eloise,
This sounds like a very interesting and exciting project. It might be worth having a look back at the keynote presentation Paul Andrews made at this year's annual conference as he talked about doing exactly this type of thing using primarily free and simple to use technology. The presentation and link to Paul's e-Learning resource can be found (along with all the other fabulous presentations and post conference info) on the ALDinHE website at http://www.aldinhe.ac.uk/leeds12.htm?p=7_1_7
Also I wonder if you know that, for the first time, the ALDinHE has a student member on the Steering Group (yay!!) Fran Keirle is a recent graduate and will be studying postgrad in the coming academic year so may have some interesting perspectives on how to reach your students and target the different groups. She has also been instrumental in setting up and facilitating PASS at Newport so has experience of peer to peer learning (I'm sure she won't mind me blowing her trumpet a little bit).
I'm really looking forward to seeing how this moves forward. One word of caution though is, in my opinion, try to avoid adding to the student email "sushi train". They won't thank you for adding millions of emails to their inbox and just from my own experience of joining lists.... the old inbox struggles some days! Forums and discussion boards are much easier to catalogue, manage and follow.
Hope that helps :)
Kerry Bellamy
Student Advice & Mentor Manager/Rheolydd Cynghori a Mentora Myfyrwyr
01633 432017
University of Wales, Newport / Prifysgol Cymru, Casnewydd
Caerleon Campus / Campus Caerllion
Lodge Road / Heol y Porthdy
Caerleon / Caerllion
Newport / Casnewydd
NP18 3QT
www.newport.ac.uk
Association of Learning Development in Higher Education Vice Chair & Steering Group Member
www.aldinhe.ac.uk
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-----Original Message-----
From: learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eloise Sentito
Sent: 09 August 2012 17:27
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: 'Talking of learning...' a student Jiscmail?
Dear all,
I find our Jiscmail so valuable that I'd like to set one up for students. Having discussed it with my colleagues, read the Jiscmail smallprint and approached my institution's online and social media policy advisor, I would like to test out my ideas on you if I may.
I work for a central academic skills study support team (to use problematic language for the sake of ease, ironically). I would like to set up a Jiscmail list as an informal, safe-but-challenging(!) space for students to talk about learning and study in order to conscientise processes and feel part of a community in which they can exchange ideas and support. This apparently simple project could I think be fraught with pitfalls! I'm really interested in online peer support for writing, and would hope that this could play a part in facilitating that. A Jiscmail is just one of the media I'm considering for it, and is I think the simplest and easiest which I hope should allow for emergence and self-organisation (as well as potential chaos and complexity!). Key questions that arise thus far are:
1. What would its focus be? (I'm thinking if calling it either 'Talking of learning...' or 'Talking of writing...')
2. Who would the target group be? (I'm thinking all students at my institution as per our other face to face and online services and resources, to be invited ideally as soon as a place has been secured so as to aid transition by starting community-building straight away; there could of course be a case for doing this at programme, school or discipline level, and/or for spreading it nationally and further...)
3. As a discussion list especially for students, how appropriate/valuable would it be to open it to staff too? (All can benefit for their learning and teaching, and segregation might have more disadvantages than advantages.)
4. How would it get going? (Apart from inviting people to sign up, I expect I'd need to post to begin discussions until people got confident; perhaps I'd post study resources, guidelines, links, news, events, and/or 'teaser' questions, e.g. 'what's the difference between opinion and critical analysis in academic writing?')
5. How could this endeavour nurture existing good practice (e.g. students supporting each other, engagement with assessment criteria and feedback), inform best practice (e.g. by promoting development of writing by offering opportunities for people to explore and develop analytic, proofreading and other skills) and avoid supporting poor practice (e.g. collusion, plagiarism etc.)?
6. To what extent is the listowner/team/institution responsible for members' posts and their impacts on other subscribers, and what precautions should be taken? (Tailored guidelines can obviously be sent out to new subscribers, and perhaps posted as and when a need arises.)
7. How can students be supported to feel a sense of ownership and responsibility for, plus engagement in, such a staff initiative?
So the biggest tensions seem to be on the intervention/direction-caretaking-light touch continuum.
I realise that 'try it and see' might be the only answer to some of these for some people. I would welcome relevant and constructive thoughts, experiences and research pointers from you all. I know of projects like SWORD but could not find anything similar on Jisc's list of lists. Does anyone know anything else like it?
Thanks in advance.
Eloïse
Eloïse Sentito
Learning Development with Plymouth University
www.learningdevelopment.plymouth.ac.uk
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