Build it and they will
come. Really? Will they really?
We have built a new website for students at our University – the Study
Hub – it has sections on Studying at University; FAQs; Cool Stuff [yes I know –
it was a working title and just stuck]; Courses, workshops & drop-ins; and Study
Worries: http://www.facebook.com/StudyWorries .
Study Worries is a Face Book
page that we are trying to run as a crowd sourced supportive space for
students. We have the hope that students will go in there to post advice, ask
and answer each other’s questions… and generally start organically to build a
supportive online community.
But, how do we get
students – or anybody – to start to engage in these online spaces?
I suppose I first noticed that there might be issues with this during our
student conference – Get Ahead 2012. This Conference is for students, organized
by students – and with some sessions run by students. We wanted the participants
to tweet about the sessions they were going to, to share their thoughts, to get
a bit of interest going … Well – I think there were about three student tweets
– and the rest were posted by a friend and me tweeting away furiously - and
mainly to ourselves.
It was useful though, for it offered us that insight; just calling
something a community does not mean that it will be owned by the people you would
want to own it.
Of course the traditional thing in HE these days is to assess what you want students to do…
If it ain’t assessed – they have no incentive to do it. But I wanted students
to engage without using the leverage of assessment – I wanted engagement seeded
by the meaningfulness or usefulness or quirkiness of the thing itself.
So – we built the Hub – with its Study Worries space and over the summer
I started populating it with small academic stories that I found interesting,
so that when students returned to us in September/October – there would not
just be an empty space to join.
Here are some of the
most recent posts that I put up:
How do we promote active learning - including from tutorials? Join in
the online debate today, Friday: http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/nov/02/university-tutorials-students-independent-learning?CMP=twt_gu
1.
We've been talking
about memory with a lot of different people today: even if you are on a course
without exams - you will still want to remember stuff that you are learning -
you want to take it away with you at the end of your degree. This Psyblog post
makes some really useful points about memory - check it out: http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/10/how-memory-works-10-things-most-people-get-wrong.php
2.
If you think you
would learn more if you were more CREATIVE - check out this site: http://k12onlineconference.org/ Good luck, Study worries.
o
Study Worries I REALLY liked the presentation: How technology helped me paint
with mud: http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=1131
k12onlineconference.org
Talking about DISSERTATIONS - have you noticed
that our Master Classes this week are all about getting your dissertation
started? Mondays 1-2.30, LCM-19. Weds 1-2.30 at Calcutta House, CM213 and Weds
evening back in the Learning Centre, in LCM19, 6-7.30.
For those of you *finishing off* your
Dissertation - or even that PhD... http://thesiswhisperer.com/2012/10/24/screw-you-thesis/Some good 'transition' advice. Good luck from Study Worries!
Academic writing month? A blog post from the 'Thesis Whisperer' on
getting that Dissertation written. What do you think?http://thesiswhisperer.com/2012/10/23/why-i-changed-my-mind-about-acwrimo/
We
built it… Where are they?
As you can see, the page consists of a mix of the
hopefully interesting alongside basic but useful information about the classes that we are
running. Engagement is tentative – and whilst I do get heartened when I see
that perhaps twenty people have seen a post after only half an hour or so, there
are very, very few posts initiated by students themselves.
Build
bigger?
I was talking about this recently with
Eloise Sentito from Plymouth
University
In a burst of hope, she is launching a
jiscmail site for students: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/ldtalk
- it is built – we want them to come. If you are also interested in promoting
student discussion about study and learning issues – please get them to look at
- and get them to join.
What
have you done?
If you have your own success stories – of
how you have got students to engage with each other online – and to build
online communities – even communities of practice – I’d be really interested in
hearing your stories…
Sandra Sinfield 
Georgia Power 
Rachel Wenstone