What is social media?

Social media refers to websites and applications where users create and share content, networking across like-minded communities. The most popular in the UK are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Why should my students use it?

Networking is crucial when you’re searching for work. Most companies advertise vacancies online and your networks can inform you about positions as soon as they appear, as well as keep you up to date with the latest industry news. They can be used to find out about a particular career, what it’s really like to work for a company or to find inspiration from someone’s career progression route. Alternatively, students might be interested in working for themselves…

Social media provides a platform for students to showcase their talents to a worldwide audience, often for no money. They can get feedback on ideas, develop skills and even sell work. Employers increasingly ‘google’ candidates to find out more about them. It is therefore advantageous to create a positive ‘digital identity’, promoting work, hobbies and other experiences.

Finally, being confident in using social media is a skill in itself, essential for self-employment and valued by employers.

LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook

LinkedIn describes itself as the “World’s Largest Professional Network” with over 200 million users. It includes job-searching and recruitment tools, and you can join groups to share news and network. LinkedIn works through users creating connections with others, sharing news and projects through ‘status updates’. Your profile page can include recommendations from people you’ve worked with, as well as links to other social media sites, letting you demonstrate a range of skills.

Twitter is a quick ‘chat’ service, organising subjects through ‘hashtags’, often used for TV programmes, eg. #bbcqt. You ‘follow’ people who share your interests, who might follow you back – it’s not compulsory! Messages are limited to 140 characters but can include links and photos. Twitter is great for breaking news and discussions …and being alerted to vacancies!

Facebook is primarily designed for sharing news with friends through ‘status updates’, photos, videos and links. Because of this, employers check Facebook Profiles the most so it is essential that students manage their privacy settings to ensure they are not sharing anything that might cause a problem!

The Facebook Timeline could be used as an effective ‘living’ online CV – sharing life events such as passing a driving test, links that promote work and updates about experiences such as travel or voluntary work.

How can I find out more?

For more details please see ‘eGo: make the web work for You!’, a presentation, created in collaboration with Careers Advisers. You can also contact your local Careers Adviser and/ or Learning Technologist.

• www.linkedin.com
• www.facebook.com
• www.twitter.com

* Adapted from an article which originally appeared in the University’s ‘Graduate’ newsletter

Podcasts are bite-sized chunks of audio and/or video content that are designed to be played on computers or mobile devices.

Come along to the 2 hour University staff session to learn about:

• Scenarios where you can use podcasting
• Equipment & software you need to record a podcast
• Planning and recording a podcast
• Distributing your podcasts to students
• Copyright, good practice and hints & tips

Sessions available on 15 May, 12 June, 24 July and 21 August.

For further details on the session and how to book a place see University Staff training course page.

There has been much debate about the functionality of a tablet and if it is appropriate for work life. The main issue with tablet devices is being able to access and edit documents particularly when later accessing the same document on your desktop. This is important when a user is away from their desktop, typically at a meeting or traveling. A way of getting around this was to email the documents to yourself, edit it on the tablet and email the edited version back. This usually results in time wasted managing versions and clearing one’s inbox. Utilsation of cloud services would provide users’ access to their documents regardless of their location and device.  There is still a lot of development regarding connecting these cloud services with mobile editing applications.

Dropbox appeared to provide part of the solution by keeping a copy of the most up to date version of a document on all devices, but due to licensing there is no ability to edit the document, only to view it.  Editing would require that the document be opened in another application, invariably creating more duplicates of the same document.

Google Drive appears to be a step closer to integrating documents, the cloud and mobile devices. With the Google Drive app, available on both iOS and Android, users can edit documents on the go knowing that they always have the most up to date version.

What are the benefits?

• Live online collaboration: Documents can be shared with others thereby allowing multiple editors to shape a document providing an effective means of collaboration. This video demonstrates a time-lapse example of live collaboration. Not only is there live collaboration but this works cross platform; users can be editing simultaneously from their iPads, smart phones, android devices and desktop computers, all being able to edit and see the edits of others in real time.
• Stores version history enabling documents to be reverted if accidental deletes are made.
• Ease of sharing:  Google drive is designed to add collaborators, anyone with a Google account can be added. View only links can be sent out or it can be made public on the web.
• No matter who is editing and where it is being edited from there is only ever one copy of the document. (Copies can be made and a version history is kept.)
• Collaborative discussion amongst editors, across platforms.

What are the constraints?

• This software does require a constant Internet connection to edit files, not necessarily a problem in a meeting but potential problems can occur when traveling on a train where mobile Internet comes and goes. Having tested this personally it does not require much of a connection to work. Google Drive employs live saving so if the Internet connection does go down then you know that the document is safe.
• Limited editor in the mobile version; the text editor is simplified in comparison to Microsoft Word, so don’t expect to create wizzy graphics, but for most simple documents it has good functionality (these include; fonts, bold, italic, underline, alignment, bullet points and indentation). The web based interface does have significantly enhanced functionality.
• Mobile versions only allows the creation of text documents and spreadsheets (presentations can be played).

Other points

• Google use their own file format, when downloading the file users will be given the options to convert it into PDF, Microsoft Office or Openoffice documents.

Google Drive in Higher Education

Having discussed this technology with the academic community, there are a number of ways they are using it. Supporting meeting documentation. For all those who do not have a tablet device and still rely on paper in meetings/lectures/seminars, a good way of giving access to Google Drive documents is to put a “bit.ly” (shortened web link) at the top of the printed off document.  This will then provide a student or staff member the ability to access the document and see any updates that have subsequently been made as a result of the meeting/lecture/seminar.

Promoting continual engagement among students, especially useful for continuing a seminar. For example giving students access to a document that they can contribute to collaboratively in the seminar as part of completing a task (assuming each student has access to the internet). Each student then has access to that document after the seminar has finished and may continue to collaborate and update it.

Data privacy: A cautionary note that applies when using cloud software

The majority of companies that provide cloud storage have their main offices in the United States.  This means that when you save your data to the “cloud”  it is probably being sent to a data storage centre in the United States.  The United States less stringent regulations on how personal data is stored that the EU, therefore subject to more abuse.  On top of this all data stored in the United States is subject to the USA PATRIOT Act  meaning that their government can scrutinise the data without court order or warrant.

So what about data stored within the EU?  If you were instead where to use the services of Google UK or Mircorsoft UK this would mean that data would be stored within the EU.  To deal with data privacy issues the  EU and US have come to an agreement when data needs to be sent back to the main office (in the US), it is protected to the EU minimum standard (Safe Harbo(u)r).  Unfortunately once the data enters the US it is still subject to the USA PATRIOT Act.

It is my opinion that these risks are almost unavoidable when using cloud solutions, and for me the benefits outweigh the risks. My personal advice is to ensure that you do not breach any of the EU’s data privacy legislation is to not store any personal information of others on any cloud service.

Further Reading:

Safe Harbor: Why EU data needs ‘protecting’ from US law

Patriot Act can “obtain” data in Europe, researchers say

Massively Open Online Courses, or MOOCs as they are better known as, are becoming ever more popular.  Academic institutions offer course materials at no cost to the students over the Internet.  This has lowered the threshold for attendance, bringing education to the masses resulting in tens of thousands of students registering and attending these online courses.

Will this be the future of education for the masses or it is just a means for which institutions can provide tasters for potential paying students?

The Concept

• Massively: To give an understanding of how massive these courses are, one course can have 40,000+ students worldwide; this is more than every student on every course that Plymouth University currently offers.  Due to the vast number of students that sign up for these courses a number of institutions have opted to host their materials via a dedicated MOOC provider to minimise the impact on their university’s infrastructure. The 3 main providers are Cousera, Udacity and EdX.
• Open: it is free for the participants to take the course and the work created by the students is shared.  Some institutions will, however, charge for any accreditation associated with the course.
• Online: Internet connection is vital, as the entire course exists online, there is no physical space that the students are expected to attend. All of the content has to be pre-prepared, including help guides and explicit learning outcomes, as to minimise student support needs. Thorough planning is essential.
• Course: MOOCs are short, typically around 6 weeks duration. Rather than simply accessing content on the web, the content is divided up into weekly tasks. This guides the students as to what they will be expected to cover/produce as part of attending.  Apart from having set weeks the students are not expected to engage with the content at specific times.  Students are required to submit for the final assignment.  One means of dealing with a large number of assignments is to use peer review.

This is by no means a new concept, the term was coined in 2008 and many universities already offer a range of these open courses most notably Stanford University and MIT.

Want to know more?

Videos

• What is a MOOC?  by Dave Cormier (YouTube)
• Success in a MOOC by Dave Cormier (YouTube)
• Daphne Koller: What we’re learning from online education  (TED.com)

Websites

• Me and my MOOC (the one that failed) By Flea Palmer (Blog)
• What is a MOOC? JISC (webinar)

Edward Bolton’s experience as an end user

I found the MOOC a most invaluable experience. The topic was “E-Learning and Digital Culture” and being an e-learning professional I thought that this would be a good place to start my first MOOC. I thought that the content would be familiar to me and I could find out how these MOOC things work. The content was nothing what I expected and this opened my eyes to a vast range of different sources and perspectives that I had not previously considered.

This is one I found particularly interesting:

• Johnston, R (2009) Salvation or destruction: metaphors of the internet

Even though I knew about MOOCs the actual experience was a lot different to what I was expecting.  I thought it would be more directed with pre-recorded lectures and tasks for each week (although some MOOCs do work like this) the course I attended consisted of collaged videos and reading materials with suggested activities. Students were prompted to contribute via Twitter, blogging and discussion forums. These activities were not compulsory and gave the students opportunities to reflect, collaborate and discuss in a medium that best suited them.

I found this YouTube video (Amy Woodgate) describing what it felt like to be part of a MOOC.  I have taken two quotes from this video that resonated with my experiences of the MOOC:

“Like shouting out in a crowded railway station trying to make myself heard over 40,00 others.” Celia Popovic

“This course feels like an ocean so I’m making myself post this comment as a way of dipping one toe in the water.” Ellie Kennedy

One thing that the course should have facilitated or at least suggested that students should do; is to put themselves into groups. The reason being was that all of the discussion forums had pages and pages of entries with only the first few being responded to. As a result if you weren’t the first to contribute to a certain discussion you did not feel that you could be part of the conversation as your post was sent off into the ether never to be seen again (even by you!).

As a result I found that I was engaging with the material but I saw little or no point contributing to the site, which has probably had an effect on my learning experience.   This does not however mean that I will never engage in a MOOC again, it just means that I now know how to act when I next attend one.

If you are a student in this situation, please view Plymouth University’s ‘how-to’ guide on setting up e-mail on your iPhone, iPod & iPad.

Take a look at this lovely presentation for step by step instructions on how to privately share your videos using You Tube.

If you have any questions or need any help with this feel free to contact Technology Enhanced Learning & Assessment at tel@plymouth.ac.uk.

I’m not saying I have the ultimate answer to this, but  have been demonstrating software to groups within the university to enable collaboration, and the possibility of using social media for this has been a discussion point in the learning technology office for some weeks.

So on this topic I ask the question – What do we want collaborative software to do?

Is it simply a place to put information? or to communicate? to demonstrate, or to search for information? or all of these?

Whatever your needs, currently we are trialling using google + and google drive for collaboration and I have put together the following presentation as a handy help guide for sharing documents and video conferencing.

If you are using google + and would like help or if you have questions about anything in the presentation, please contact Theresa Compton, Learning Technologist.

image 1. TurningPoint 5 interface

Those that have used this system before will notice that the new interface is different to the previous version and now incorporates a three in one software package. ‘PowerPoint Polling’ is the most commonly used ‘TurningPoint’ application, but I would urge users to check out ‘Anywhere Polling’, which can be used with any software or interface and will give you more flexibility when using this system. Finally, one of the strengths of this particular system is the user ability to test the software and presentation locally by using a simulation mode (image 2) and without the use of the Personal Response System (PRS) equipment (the clickers – image 3)

image 2. Simulation mode dropdown

image 3. Clicker & Dongle (receiver)

Here are a few links which you may find useful when using these devices:

• You can download the latest software (TPv5) from here: http://www.turningtechnologies.com/responsesystemsupport/downloads
• You can find ‘TurningPoint’ support pages here (tutorials etc): http://www.turningtechnologies.com/responsesystemsupport/producttraining/new_tutorials.cfm

Here are a few YouTube videos I found interesting, but there are many more if you search online for them:

• Getting started with TurningPoint – An instructors view (duration 2m 34s)  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcy4_DlkbOY&feature=relmfu
• Dr Eric Mazur – Turning lectures into learning – Keynote… (duration 1hr 7m – this is long I know, but he does raise some valid points) Dr Mazur makes use of TurningPoint ‘Anywhere Polling’ in his keynote http://www.pearltrees.com/#/N-s=1_3638920&N-fa=3577358&N-u=1_411048&N-p=56623531&N-play=1&N-f=1_3638920

If you would like to tryout TurningPoint, or use it with your own students, then contact the Learning Technology team who have 80 clickers for testing purposes.

Contact details:

The Learning Technology team
Room 105,
3, Endsleigh Place.
Phone: 01752 587600
E-mail: TEL@Plymouth.ac.uk

What I discovered was that it is actually very simple to set up.  You create the quiz using a form template.  You can create multiple choice, multiple response, drop down list questions, along with a couple of others.  There are some limitations, one of the main ones being that you can’t add images, but this may be possible soon as Google is continually updating.

The biggest benefit of creating a quiz with Google docs is that you can record students’ marks (which you can’t do with a lot of other free e-assessment software).  There are a couple of ways of doing this which involve having to create formulas in the spreadsheet, but there is another free tool accessible through Google Docs called Flubaroo, which automates the marking process.

One of the things that the Google forms allows you to do is to embed your quiz into a web page, which makes it easy for your students to access.  you could embed the quiz into one of your module pages in the student portal, or you could embed it into a reusable learning object (RLO) such as Xerte.

I was keen to pursue this avenue as I can see a lot of potential here.  Xerte is easy to use and it is possible to create a neat little teaching resource and you can embed your Google quiz at the end.  I have put an example together and the link can be found below.

https://xerte.plymouth.ac.uk/play.php?template_id=758

I also intend to create training material detailing how to create the quizzes and how to generate reports.  This will be available as a downloadable document and a video.

In the meantime, if anyone is interested in finding out more about this, contact the LT team. tel@plymouth.ac.uk

Note: Presentation updated Feb. 2013 to reflect LinkedIn Profile changes and include Pinterest as a portfolio tool..

This new presentation was created in response to a graduate workshop I ran in collaboration with the Careers Department as part of their ‘Boost Your Confidence’ series of workshops. What attendees, who came from a range of disciplines, wanted to know was: