The Trial – Week Two Report - Introductions/interactions

The initial weeks of the trial have focused on testing the use of micro-blogging and social bookmarking as tools to facilitate student introductions and prior assessment and to encourage dialogue and interaction between students in relation to their work and ideas.

Students were asked to use Twitter to introduce themselves, to offer three key words that represent creative technologies and to state the biggest challenge they face in relation to their work/learning in the area of creative technologies. 6 out of 10 members of the group responded offering diverse and insightful information.

The main trial activity in week two has involved participants contributing to the Creative Technologies Diigo group. Participants were invited to bookmark websites featuring their own work along with projects that they have been involved in. Members of the group were also invited to bookmark websites that illustrated their own interests in the area of creative technologies.

31 items have been bookmarked in the Creative Technologies group, bringing together the creative work and interests of IOCT Masters students, across cohorts and disciplines. These contributions have been made by 5 of 10 participants. The group was asked to comment on each others content in the Diigo group resulting in a reasonable rate of response and good levels of positive engagement, with 6 of 10 participants posting comments.
Reflecting on feedback, linking levels of motivation to having enough time to participate in activities, additional planned tasks were discarded to allow more time for bookmarking and engagement through Diigo. This proved to be a beneficial amendment.

This is the tag cloud at week two of social bookmarking in the Creative Technologies Diigo group.


Best content in the Diigo Creative Technologies group now features as a list of links and RSS feed in the right hand column on this blog. To access or join the group go to http://groups.diigo.com/group/creative-technologies

Reflecting on participant feedback linking levels of participation with the relevance of the activity, plans were revised and an impromptu Twitter activity was set to explore the unique opportunity of networking between alumni students and students about to embark on the Masters course. Participants we asked to share course information and experiences, ask questions to students who have already undertaken the course and to offer supportive advice and encouragement to new students. 3 of 10 participants took part in this activity. The potential of this forum can been realised from the tweets posted
by tweeter1.

@IOCT_DMUMasters #ioctx Choose modules outside your comfort zone! It’s hard but it’s worth it.

@IOCT_DMUMasters #ioctx You do this course for yourself more than anybody else. Don’t think that you “should” take module X when you want Y.

Setting up a private group on Twitter using a tool available from www.grouptweet.com may have helped individuals to feel more comfortable and open to asking and answering course related questions. Opinion on this will be collected through the post pilot questionnaire.

Activities scheduled for next week look at the potential of the tools to facilitate intersession learning.