The University of Westminster has used a virtual learning environment (VLE) for many years. The nature of VLEs is such that their use often reinforces a pedagogic model which does little to engage students in active learning (Sharpe 2006). The last academic year saw the introduction of 3 student-centred tools within the VLE (e-portfolio production tool, blog and wiki functionality). To date approximately 4,000 students and 50 staff have made use of these tools indicating some interest amongst staff in exploiting these more active Web 2.0 technologies with their students. With this interest in mind and with the realisation that the majority of Westminster staff, in common with those at other Universities, have only a limited experience of Web 2.0 technologies, a decision was taken to provide a Westminster-only social networking system so that staff and students could experiment with the utility of such an online resource for both learning and support.The Connect system (powered by Elgg) was therefore made available to all staff and students and provided a range of features typically associated with Web 2.0 systems including personal and community blogs, tagging, private and public communities, personal and community file storage and social networking capability including full syndication support. The system has been used with pre-arrival students to help with their transition to university life and also by the student union who saw the opportunity to create dedicated communities for clubs and societies. Elgg was chosen due to its open source nature based on the popular LAMP software, its thorough privacy controls and the possibility of import/export of FOAF. It was decided that Connect should be hosted internally for a number of reasons, these include; issues of content ownership, branding and avoidance of adverts. For the purposes of this study, our specific research questions were:
Would students who already use social networking tools want to use and benefit from a closed, university-only social networking system?
To what extent would students use such a system for socialising versus informal academic learning?
Would academic staff unfamiliar with Web 2.0 explore the new technology to any significant degree?
Research Approach
The study covered all staff and students who accessed the system between 10th September 2007 and 24th October 2008. The evaluation methodology included detailed questionnaires sent to all users of the system coupled with an anonymous analysis of the blog posts made on the system. In additional some statistical data (number of blog posts made by 1st year students versus second or third years) was mined from the system database. Quantitative data was collected via questionnaires in early October 2007 and in early January 2008 and then again in October 2008. The qualitative data, comprising personal blog posts and community forum posts were read and then categorised into types with the number of types being created spontaneously as successive blog posts were read. Once all blog posts were categorised, a summary of the different categories was written and related to the research questions posed.
Results
The Connect system was launched in September 2007. By 8th January 2008, there were 3,048 (approximately 2,300 students and the rest staff) registered users of the system. A total of 107 communities had been established and 508 blog posts made. The majority of students who accessed Connect were from the Business School, Computer Science and Social Sciences/languages. A much smaller proportion came from Biosciences/Health Sciences, Law and Architecture/Built Environment.
Amongst the undergraduates, more first-year students tended to access and use Connect than second or third years (first-year students comprised 34% of the total number of student users). More postgraduate students accessed and used Connect than either second or third year undergraduate students. Amongst students who accessed Connect, 44% had logged in regularly (defined as an average of 2-3 times per week). 80% said the main reason that they used Connect was to look for people with common interests and arrange meetings.
A high proportion of students, 49%, logged in only once. The most common reason for not accessing Connect more was that they preferred using other social networking sites, such as Facebook. Others mentioned that they used the VLE to communicate with their fellow students or stated that they simply did not have the time. An appreciable number of students surveyed (about half) didn’t feel the need or see the point in Connect as they attend the University everyday and can talk to their course mates face-to-face.
Personal Blogs
Personal blog posts could be broadly divided into reflective contributions or contributions that were in some way providing or seeking practical information, help or support. The former type, which comprised 55% of the total, could in turn be split into reflections linked directly to the University and those which were focused more generally on life, personal problems or external news/events. Overall about 2.3% of users kept a blog with each user writing an average of 3 blog posts. Although more students than staff started a blog, students wrote an average of 2 blog posts, compared to 5 blog posts each by staff. Students mainly blogged to look for people with similar interests Staff mainly blogged about their work or the subject they teach or to give their opinion on something related to University life.
Connect Communities
The communities established by individuals and groups within the Connect system could be classified into 3 broad types. Type I were typically staff-led and were established to discuss or exchange ideas on an issue associated with the functioning or business of a staff department or sub-section of a department. Type II communities were based around hobbies and interests. Type III communities were those set up for the support of academic study, with about half being set up by students (and generally excluding staff), whilst the rest were staff-led or facilitated.
Staff and student feedback
Student feedback Students were very evenly split about whether the Connect system was useful. Students commonly commented that Connect could be invaluable for making friends and supporting each other, especially within the first few weeks after arriving at the University. A frequently-held view by those in favour of Connect was that the closed community that Connect provided was better than the more diverse groups presented by systems like Facebook or MySpace. Even in circumstances where external systems provide a group function - there is a Westminster Facebook community, for example - it was often felt that the local nature and feel of Connect provided a personal and collegiate environment. Others felt it was helpful to keep online social activities that are linked directly to university life separate from wider online social activity outside of University.
In the survey, some students considered that a University-owned social networking system would be a good source of educational help, although they pointed out that the institutional VLE (Blackboard) was the best place for that. Linked to this view was the perceived need to better integrate Connect and Blackboard in order to provide a seamless transition between the more formal learning activities and a space where students had greater control and autonomy. Although Connect was considered to be a space where students had greater freedom to do what they wished, there was very strong support from students for their tutors to use the Connect system as well, and for them to be part of at least some of the communities together with students. Amongst students who thought that there was no point in having Connect, most cited either not having enough time or there being too many systems for them to interact with or, most commonly, they already used Facebook and Connect duplicated what they could already do on that system. Staff feedback
While most staff reported that they had very little time to use Connect, 84% said that Connect has a role to play in helping students to build a community either prior to or after arrival at the University. Concerns were mostly about the fact students would have to duplicate efforts to maintain two sites and questions regarding access to Connect after completing their studies.
Conclusions and discussion
The results presented indicate that students can benefit in a variety of ways from the availability of a closed ‘university-only’ social networking system. However, it is also clear that one size does not fit all; whilst half of the students surveyed could see reasons to have something distinct from say Facebook, the other half could not. Selwyn (2007) describes how Facebook can function ‘in different ways depending on the preference of the user’. This degree of personalization seems to be fundamental to its popularity and is an important factor to consider when seeking to offer students a competing technology.
Whilst a significant number of students have engaged with Connect in this first phase of development, only a small minority of those have tried to use Connect for overtly academic-related activities. In addition, groups of students that did start communities with an academic focus were not able to maintain them successfully. Panckhurst (2008) suggests the value of ‘specific, focused tasks’ when trying to effectively use a social network for direct educational benefit. It is generally felt that the future of learning lies in a carefully planned and integrated network designed to give autonomy to learners, whilst involving tutors in a facilitating role, stressing the importance of guidance rather than management in forming “communities of practice” (Lave and Wenger, 1991 taken from Panckhurst, 2008). Data derived from the questionnaire suggests that students were keen to see tutors active in the Connect system and this could explain why students did not use Connect that much for academic purposes. It is worth noting that where academics have encouraged and worked with students to engage with Connect for academic purposes (e.g. the visual culture group), more significant contributions have been made by the students.
References
Panckhurst, R and Marsh, D. (2008) Communities of Practice. Using the Open web as a collaborative Learning platform, iLearn Fourm, Paris, France
Selwyn, N. (2007) The use of computer technology in university teaching and learning: a critical perspective. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 23: (2) 83-94.
Two days ago I attended one of the LMN’s meeting about web 2.0. One of the interesting highlights of the evet was Malcolm Raggett’s presentation on the evaluation of Google applications at SOAS. They have decided to offer Google services to their students…well Email and Calendar services to start with in Sept 2008. Then Google Docs and Chat later, this is to allow them to cope better with training and support.
Malcolm also mentioned that JISC has awarded £200k for a project involving all Bloomsbury Colleges. The Appropriate and Practical Technologies for Students, Teachers, Administrators & Researchers (APT STAIRS) project will explore the application of innovative technologies to enhance collaborative teaching and learning practices. They will be working with Google to evaluate the potential of Google Docs within the UK Higher Education sector.
It was very interesting meeting Andy Syson from the University of Coventry, who talked about Elgg integration with WebCT. I also really enjoyed Richard Millwood's presentation.
During the academic year 2006/7 Blackboard's e-portfolio tool was introduced on 13 study skills-based modules. The modules spanned all undergraduate levels and a range of subject areas. 25 academic staff and over 2000 students were involved, with most experiencing the use of e-portfolios for the first time. All portfolios were assessed, and contributed to between 15 and 100% of the overall module mark. The case study was presented at the International ePortfolio conference in Maastricht. The full article is available here.
Paper based portfolios have been used as a means to showcase certain types of student work in universities for some time now, offering a range of potential uses and advantages over other forms of assessment. For example portfolios are ideal for monitoring changes in knowledge, skills and development over time and to identify strengths and weaknesses. They are also invaluable in recording achievement towards the attainment of standards and to showcase student work in order to enhance employment prospects. E-portfolios enable greater flexibility with respect to the nature and currency of content and there is greater scope to share content with peers and tutors alike.
I met Dave Tosh last year at the International ePortfolio Conference in Oxford and since then I have been pestering my department to give Elgg a go, so this is a very exciting period for me. And I think our ELGG implementation is going well. We officially launched it last week beginning with two presentations to our International Students.
We have called it Connect and it is a collaborative effort between my department (Online Learning Development), the Students Union, IT services and the Marketing department; a small group of enthusiastic and dedicated people.
Connect is available to ALL staff and students, about 23,000. However initially we wanted to have a promotional focus only on students involved with the Student Union clubs & societies, first year and International students. This week a colleague and I are running a Connect stall at the ‘Freshers Fair’.
Students ‘reaction has been positive so far, with many already having had experience of other social networking sites. All the main University support services have (or are planning to) set up a community in Connect and try to keep in touch with the students this way as well.
Blogging to me is exchanging of ideas and opinions with others (bloggers), so a blog , if used correctly, shouldnt be a monolouge but rather a dialogue....
The following is from Will Richardson's blog:
"Blogging starts with reading. It’s easy (at least for me) to forget that sometimes. I know that I’ve articulated the blogging process in that way many times before, but it still does seem very writing centered to me. But as Ken accurately points out, “blogging, at base, is writing down what you think when you read others.” And maybe that explains the disconnect I’ve been feeling between the act and the tool of late. The tool requires writing. (There is no blog without writing.) The act requires reading. (There is no blogging without reading.) Without reading, you’re just writing, not blogging, and that’s a pretty heady distinction (at least in this head.) And that really does change the expectations we have of our students, I think. They can use a Weblog to write, but in a different way they can also use it to blog, and in doing so they can develop an important skill that is not as easily taught with pen and paper or even the Internet and a word processor. Writing stops, blogging continues. Writing is inside, blogging is outside. Writing is monologue, blogging is conversation. Writing is thesis, blogging is synthesis…none of which minimizes the importance of writing. But it’s becoming more clear just what the importance of blogging might be."
Ken Smith in his blog says: "And maybe that means that links are vital for new bloggers for a completely non-constructive reason. Instead of assigning students to go write, we should assign them to go read and then link to what interests them and write about why it does and what it means, not in order to make a connection or build social capital but because it is through quality linking (not the flaccid A-list stuff I spoofed above) that one first comes in contact with the essential acts of blogging: close reading and interpretation. Blogging, at base, is writing down what you think when you read others. If you keep at it, others will eventually write down what they think when they read you, and you’ll enter a new realm of blogging, a new realm of human connection."
Here is a very good example. I followed the conversation between Ken Smith and Will Richardson
The conversation started in Ken's blog on the 27th of March His blog entry was mentioned in Will's blog on the 29th of March Ken carried on the conversation in his blog on the 30th of March Of course Will replied on the 31st of March And finally Ken posted what seems to be the last message later on that day
During my MA I had to use a blog (MovableType). At the beginning I was very confused. Half way through the course on First Class conference I posted this message "I am concerned about the potential for repitition or missing good points, the thread of our discussions as a group may become much more fractured as we use the blog instead of first class". Also, the task of commenting on fellow students'blogs was very had not having known about Google Reader. Thanks again Sarah.
On relfection I realised that I was trying to use the blogs as purely an extension of the conferencing system. I suppose they should be a public area under private control where a person can express themselves on a chosen subject. That was new to me and perhaps my concerns reflect my lack of experience with using reflective writing. I imagine those who have keep a reflective diary for many years would find it much easier.
Looking at the course community, Sarah, Louise and John's blogs, you come to see that blogs are dynamic and interactive, almost resembling a discussion board. However a weblog is a unique entity. It has its own autonomous space online; it is personal reflective micropublishing that requires audience participation. (Ward, 2004).
Blogging has reading and evaluating multiple perspectives at its heart and this helps students to formulate their own ideas and start to express them.
As Will Richardson says blogging can improve writing ability as one writes consistently for real audiences whilst improving reading and critical thinking skills becoming more information literate in the process. Blogs ‘allow students to be active participants in the process, not just readers and writers without reach’.
Will again again says that 'blog' writing should build on previous posts, links and comments, always written with an awareness of audience. Therefore a daily diary or journal would not be considered blogging; it may be reflective but is not ‘connective writing’ which is essential to blogging.
‘I’m not journaling, I’m not just linking, I’m attempting to synthesis a lot of disparate ideas from a variety of sources into a few coherent sentences that I can publish for an audience and wait (hope?) for its response to push my thinking further. I have never in my life written the way I write in this blog.’ (Richardson, 2005)
The blogging voice is getting much more distinctive, it is first person, informal and opinionated, but also requires a variety of higher order skills!!
Some of my favourite blog posts were of Sarah's rants :-) ( I didnt know this word). Sarah and John set up the community of the ranters. I need to look for these posts....
My initial gut feeling is that students would do well when these tools are incorporated into teaching and learning, I believe the tools help organise students learning and collaboration along with engagement. The problem as I see it is getting all academics to incorporate and recognise these tools as valuable.
Having experienced the use of blogs, wikis, delicious, eportfolios, podcasting during my MA, I am confident that these tools can be used effectively to support learning. They supported/facilitated my learning when I used them.
OK so having said that, does an HE institution have to package these tools discretely and then give them to the students or not? These tools are already freely available on the net and students are often already using them. There seem to be several reasons why the university establishment feel this is necessary.
One possible reason is that unless new things are packaged and controllable within a familiar environment people (tutors) are less likely to take them on board.
Also I understand the point that if these tools are going to be used for assessed work, they need to be reliable e.g. the coursework needs to be accessible to be marked or else. So the institution should have control over them e.g. be able to do back ups.
Is it really the best thing to use HE run/owned VLEs tools and keep adding new tools to it? Compared to the tools students use, the VLEs' are often not up to the job.
With regard to VLE-based ePortfolio experience, I have learnt that students feel that this is a good starting point but what keeps them going is the prospect that by the time they'll leave University they will have developed a personal and fully functional web/online portfolio/site.
I feel that the only solution can be finding a middle ground, I see this as universities utilising opensource architecture and investing in people with the skills to integrate tools and stay in touch with worldwide developments.
