Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Checklist to be used when planning a new use of social media in HE

Next week, I'll be giving a presentation as part of the Guardian's Professional Seminar Series.  I want to help others think through the planning entailed in using social media to enhance the student experience, and so I've created a check list of questions.  Is there anything I've left out?

Resource gathering
• Has anyone else implemented the kinds of change you are planning? What can you learn from their experience?
• Are there any open resources that would be helpful?
• What equipment or software will be needed? Who will maintain/store it?

Training
• How many staff and students will be involved? What are their training needs?
• What help guides might be needed?
• When will you (or someone else) provide training/induction, coaching and practice sessions?

Departmental/Institutional issues
• How does your innovation fit within institutional /departmental policy and practices?
• Which other staff in your department might need to know about your innovation? What mechanisms are there for sharing good practice?
• If your innovation is based at a module level, what are the implications for other modules the students will undertake?
• Will the student work be archived? Available for other students (and others) to see in later years?
• Does your innovation have benefits for other students beyond your course? Are there links to be made with the library/study skills/employability provision?
• Will your use of social media duplicate existing modes of communication (e.g. email, VLE announcements)?
• Will your use of social media be public?

Role of the Tutor
• What will the role of the tutor entail? Providing content? Technical support? Trouble shooting? Moderation?
• Will tutors provide feedback to students? How often? When? How? How long will this take?
• How does the use of social media relate to what is taught in class contact time?
• Is the use of social media assessed? What criteria will be used?
• How will you ensure that students take part?
• How will you help students develop a public profile/voice through your intervention?

General
• What are your measures of success?
• What risks are entailed?
• Does your innovation create any digital divides, and if so, what can you do about it?

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is a really helpful and concise checklist, thanks! It is all too easy to launch into introducing new tools to students without considering all the issues around doing this. How visible the technology is, in the learning that takes place, needs to be an informed choice. Having been involved in re-validation processes it is problematic when the use of technologies appear in course programmes without any consideration into how the skills to use the technologies/tools will be factored in - from a technical skill level as well as resources one. One of the biggest issues I have encountered is assessment and students having choice over methods/tools. Choice works in the teaching/learning process giving students more ownership etc. but often falls down at the assessment stage. I try and use social media for research with my students but my additional interest is from studying with the Open University - MA Online and Distance Education (a research task that led me to your blog)

1:27 PM  

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