20/20 - Who will the communities be and what place will blogs have in sustaining them?

1. in B 20/20 - Who will the communities be and what place will blogs have in sustaining them?

2. UniSA and Learning Connection • 33,000 students, four metropolitan and two regional campuses • Emphasis on Flexible learning environments • Learning Connection is part of the LTU and is a collection of service providers – academic and professional including: • Learning advisers • Professional developers • Disability advisers • Counsellors • International student advisers • Research advisers • Online advisers

3. The School of Computer and Information Science – UniSA Mawson Lakes • Mawson Lakes is geographically isolated. • Student profile: 85% male, young, predominantly local computer science and engineering students. • Retention and success are issues • Learning Connection data shows low use of face-to-face help • FYE Experience Report: many students not assertive about self-help • So there is a need for alternative pathways to our resources and face to face services

4. Student characteristics • Cyberspace natives (Jones, Kavalier and Flannigan 2006) • In Australia less time is spent on campus as students are torn between work, life and other issues (Hartley, McInnes and James, 2002) • Use the internet as just one mediator in a repertoire of social networking tools (Oblinger, 2005)

5. Toward 20/20…Where are the communities?

7. Where are the communities 20/20?

8. CISQuest

9. CISQuest - aims • Connections with other students • First social links • Program groups • Group activities • Student mentors • Movement from transmission to involvement • Group blogging • Moving from the passive to the active • Problem based learning (the Quest) • Competition • Beginnings with endings – career and research relevance • Career discussion – future beyond the university • Introduction to the research areas of CIS Duff, Quinn, Johnston and Lock, 2007

10. The cogs of student engagement Duff, Quinn, Johnston & Lock, 2007

14. The results • 99% of respondents (n=53) agreed that ‘the CIS Quest gave me the opportunity to meet other students and staff members’ • 66% indicated that the CISQuest gave them the opportunity to ‘learn what University-style learning is about’ (30% were neutral about this) • 100% of attending students blogged Duff, Quinn, Lock and Johnston, 2007

15. The results • Of the Questers 97% were still active at Census Date (March 31, 2007) • All first year engineers are now required to blog as part of their assessment. • There has been a need to develop new resources to foster blog and wiki competency. Duff, Quinn, Lock and Johnston, 2007

16. How will blogs sustain university communities?

17. The new digital (Web 2.0) technologies will be a conduit to greater creativity where graduates will work at ‘unprecedented speeds’ where editing, images sounds and symbols will take greater precedence than written text both in society and in education(McWilliam, 2007).

18. Bogs offer new modes of participation that are characteristic of the shifts that we see going on in the media environment now; the age of audiences as passive receivers of content is a past age. Audiences are producers, audience are participants, much more so than the older forms of media…allow them to be. So blogs are a prime platform for participation’(Funnell, 2007).

21. Tenets for 20/20 • It is what the student does that is important • Collaboration is a global quality and social software makes it easier in some contexts • Greater visual literacy – the use of images, displays, hypertextuality • Works-in-progress (Google docs; Wikis) Duff and Quinn, 2008

22. Tenets for 20/20 • Curriculum skills for managing and evaluating vast information • Identity will be important – students are individuals not numbers • The learning and life journey tracked and documented through reflection and personal growth - Blogs • Digital competencies for life and learning can not be assumed Duff and Quinn 2008