Details of forthcoming workshops and links to LTI workshop resources and presentations.
Academic Blogs
A number of academic blogs were mentioned in a recent THES article*. I’m recording them here as they may be of use in planning the new blogging etc workshop:
- http://www.danieldrezner.com/blog/ (International Politics Associate Prof.)
- http://globblog.blogspot.com/ (Anonymous Economist – not posted recently but links to several Economics Blogs)
- http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/ (Economics Associate Prof.)
- http://margaretsoltan.phenominet.com/ (University Diaries of an American English Professor)
- http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/ (Berkeley Economics Professor)
Must start looking for some UK ones. This law firm blog was also sent to me recently:
http://impact.freethcartwright.com/ (IP & IT law)
*There’s no link to the THES article “Curse.com or blessing.net? Or be silent and take up stamp collecting” as although I eventually managed to find it online (via Lexis-Nexis & athens login) I couldn’t figure out how to do a link… please feel free to add one! The article if you didn’t see it was about the potential pitfalls of academic blogging with regard to career progression…
Report on the 2006 WebCT Reviews
The Reviews took place on 6 and 13 June 2006 and were attended by 45 people in total, mostly academic and administrative staff. The Reviews serve two purposes: to allow WebCT users to meet and exchange ideas, and to allow CLT staff to report on the use of WebCT over the past year, and look forward to next year.
Participants convened in groups and discussed issues arising from their use of WebCT over the past year. Detailed feedback from these groups is available in the Full Report, but the key points arising were as follows:
- What worked well: support for e-packs, self-registration system, use of discussions to share work and to link up with overseas students
- What worked less well: the failure of WebCT in first week of Michaelmas term, technical limitations of the discussions tool
- Ways to encourage student use of WebCT: use of compulsory assignments, introduction to WebCT in a computer classroom, giving students ‘ownership’ of the discussion forums, discussing in class what is happening online.
- Other topics: the feeling that teaching staff need to become more involved in using WebCT; suggestion that demonstrations by existing users would help generate interest; concerns about time limitations and how students could be used to do more of the work; suggestion that student seminar presentations could be filmed.
After the review, all participants were asked to complete an evaluation survey about the review. The results of the survey, completed by 88% of attendees, were extremely positive, with all participants rating the reviews as either ‘Excellent’ or ‘Good’. Furthermore, all participants agreed that they had learned something from the review and that it was pitched at the right level.
Respondents identified the key benefits of the review as being the chance to exchange ideas with other WebCT users and getting updates on new developments in learning technology.
Suggestions for improvements to the reviews included: allowing more time for demonstrations of new tools, getting a greater number of academics to attend, and demonstrations of good practice by other WebCT users.
These results are greatly encouraging and indicate that the reviews are worthwhile exercise. We will consider implementing the suggestions for improvement in next year’s reviews.
Please see the full report for further details.
Online Collaboration Using Weblogs and Wikis
Here’s the presentation from our lunchtime workshop (19 June 2006).
Session outline: Recent technologies, such as weblogs and wikis offer new possibilities for online collaboration and communication. A weblog is a webpage containing entries on a topic provided by an individual or group of writers. Weblog readers are then able to comment on these entries. A Wiki is a website of editable web pages, enabling users to collectively write documents and link them together. Weblogs and Wikis are quick and easy to use and don’t require technical knowledge. This session will explore the potential of these tools in teaching and learning. It will look at examples of weblogs and wikis in use and provide opportunities for hands-on activities and discussion.
The LSE Teaching and Learning Conference 2006
This is my initial contribution to the LSE T&L conference 2006 discussion blog. One thing we didn’t discuss is what we are actually going to call this event now that we have more or less decided that it should be an event primarily targetted at teaching and and learning support staff rather than at teaching staff/academics.
Any ideas?
Also, this is just a starting post to get the ball rolling… Just post any thoughts, ideas and links to interesting people in the ‘T&L Conference’ category.
Kris.
