A 'mock' virtual open evening

Today we ran a 'mock' session for a virtual open evening ahead of next week's PG Open Evening. We had about seven or eight people log on to a Blackboard (Bb) Collaborate session (including our PG Marketing Manager!) and all seemed to go well! The PGMM was impressed and I think we have turned her around to the idea now :-)

Lots of support from our Open4Learning team, and a commitment from them to support the real session next week. Looking forward to it. I'm wondering if there would be a way of obtaining some feedback from those who take part. I'm sure that should be fairly easy.... for example, in the session I could seek some basic feedback. And then a follow-up email? Or perhaps something on SurveyMonkey?

Alongside the more 'formal' Bb Collaborate session, we even had a play with Periscope, an app from Twitter that allows live 'broadcasting' over the web. As I read a little more about Periscope (e.g., there is an official blog here), I discover how new the app is. It was only launched in March of this year! It was fun to play with, and I think we will try to do something as part of the PG Open Evening. I haven't figured out a way to 'post' recordings from Periscope on here, but if you dowload the app and follow @BucksMAPP you can view live or recorded broadcasts (recordings are only available for a short time after). While you're at it, you can also follow @BucksMAPP on Twitter!

Up Periscope!

I have recently been introduced to Periscope, an app that I think is owned by Twitter, and 'allows you to see the world through another's eyes'. It is effectively a video version of Twitter in that it allows the user to 'broadcast' live to followers over the web. I like it and I'm beginning to have a play with it, wondering how it might be used in a learning context. I have set up a @BucksMAPP account (to represent the MSc Applied Positive Psychology) as well as a personal account (@dr_matthewsmith). Both easy as they are Twitter accounts and you can log on using Twitter.

One of my first thoughts, as we think about running a 'virtual' open evening session, is whether we could be broadcasting via Periscope at the same time? Worth thinking about?

Thinking more long-term, Periscope may be another tool to help build and support community among learners? For example, research has shown that 'social presence' (characterised as 'being together' with learners) can be influenced positively through online communication that is expressive, emotional, immediate and stimulating (Tu & McIsaac, 2002). Real-time informal broadcasts via Periscope, that do allow two-way interaction as viewers can type in comments an questions that appear on the broadcast, could meet such criteria.

Reference
Tu, C., & McIsaac, M. (2002). The relationship of social presence and interaction in online classes. American Journal of Distance Education, 16, 131-150.

Using Twitter to support learners

I originally set up a @BucksMAPP Twitter account a couple of years ago (August 2013) aimed at students on the MSc Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) as a way of quickly sharing links and web resources in a way that other methods didn't allow quite so easily.

Email would have been the obvious other choice, but it wasn't so easy to send a link to a group email from my phone with just a couple of taps. Similarly, Blackboard (Bb) didn't allow a quick way to share in this way. Twitter did, so I set up an account for the MAPP (already having one myself), and then embedded the Twitter feed in the Bb module shells for each of the modules on the MAPP. This meant that even students who were not users of Twitter could access the tweets via Bb.

The aim was to encourage sharing between students on the course as part of the emerging MAPP community. Some students occasionally would send an email to the student group, or post a link on one of the Bb discussion boards. The use of Twitter in this way helped to show other ways of sharing resources and gave me a quick way of sharing things that I thought may be of interest to students.

Since then, the number of followers has increased modestly to show that the Twitter feed is of interest to people outside of the course and tweets have acknowledged that through more 'promotional' tweets, such as those promoting the PG Open Evenings. However, the underlying aim is still to support and develop the broader MAPP community.

I am just beginning to explore other ways of using Twitter to support learning, such as those discussed here. Even something as basic as using hashtags! It's a brave new world ;-)