New Media Literacy

I've added some information into the: Discussion area

I. INFORMATION TO BE RECORDED BEFORE THE PILOT BEGINS

A. Basic information

Title of pilot New Media Literacy
Brief description
In terms of user owned technologies and familiaritiy with what might be termed web 2.0 tools, our students as a group tend to engage less with these than the “student” envisioned by the initial JISC call. We have also identified our students have a strong mediating approach to the internet defined by what they perceive to be useful. It is clear that many web 2.0/user owned tools are inherently very useful – it is largely this (among other factors) that has made the market leaders survive whilst many tools in this space have vanished.

• How can we allow students to understand enough about these tools for them to identify whether they do actually fulfill a need they may have?
• How can we help students to get started with these tools?
• What are the tools we want to draw their attention to?

Purpose of pilot
To enable our students to benefit from web 2.0 tools which might improve their learning. This has now been supplemented with additional information on information literacy skills which should support this use.

Tool(s)and skills being piloted

The initial list of tools considered for inclusion was:

• rss
• wikipedia
• wikis (generally)
• own blog - how they can rss it into moodle
• delicious
• flikr
• twitter
• social networking
• podcasts
• citation tools (zotero)
• content finding portals? Google basic, google scholar. OER portals others
• online office tools (eg google docs)
• online homepage tools
• Google groups/yahoo groups
• Google Microsoft maps/ earth
• online calendar
• Google toolbar?

It was decided to pilot only a small subset of the possible tools for inclusion in the first instance to avoid information overload for our students. to prioritise the list it was sent to tutors and course development staff and they were to judge which tools would be most useful to the students and make any additional suggestions. This consultation enabled us to narrow the list to the

The final list of pages are:

• Assessing information (available in course)
•  Bookmarking tools
•  Citation tools
•  Information sources
•  Searching online
•  More tools: including RSS, homepage sites, mapping tools, online office tools

Course in which the pilot is taking place:

We are piloting this across all PP courses launching in Michaelmas 2008 - which currently represents over 700 students.

B. Detailed description

The New Media Literacy pilot launches this autumn as additional contextualised guidance to help the students take advantage of useful online services as well as more generalised skills guidance in areas such as analysing information sources etc to help them utilise these in an effective manner. The challenge for this pilot will be assessing its impact. In response to data from our earlier surveys and interviews we have taken a light touch approach, focussing the information on how it can help students in what they want to do. In addition, where possible we have linked to existing materials rather than generating additional materials. As well as describing tools, where possible we have tried to show them in use. The best example of this is through the process of delicious tagging the course links providing a library of subject tagged links used on the courses here  http://delicious.com/oxfordonlineshortcourses.

C. Rationale and expectations

What existing shortcoming/potential "added value" is the pilot addressing? (i.e. does it aim to solve a specific problem or explore a new direction?)
What questions do we want to answer? (i.e. in relation to the problem/opportunity that we are addressing)

what actions can we take to help our students benefit from the user owned technology and tools and technologies that could prove useful for their learning but which they are not currently aware of.

What would we describe as a good (i.e. desirable) or acceptable (i.e. bottom-line) result in terms of

• Uptake by students
• Feedback from students re its usefulness and usability

D. Envisaged risks & problems

What risks or problems do we foresee?

The main envisaged risk is to that the students will perceive this as overwhelming, unwelcome and unnecessary . The approach taken to this pilot has been very light touch to avert this as much as possible.

There should not be any risks in Pedagogical, Management, Technical or legal terms.

Do we have a plan for averting/dealing with them within the pilot?
In out attempt to be lightweight the main worry is that students will ignore this all together.

E. Intended approach (can be updated later – but variations from the original approach should be noted)

What are the details (incl. timings) of our approach in relation to the following 5 key factors?

• Pedagogical - placed in the induction so no overt pedagogical implications for the course designs
• Management - all the sites linked to have been run by all significant stakeholders
• Technical - using entirely external sites, so if these fail they fail our students. This should hopefully not be an issue as we have used high profile services
• Legal - no impact
• Human - see above section, materials have been carefully authored for our audience.

F. Evaluation plan (can be updated later):

What kind of evaluation: formative and/or summative?
How & when will we gather evidence to answer our questions?
How will we measure success (i.e. quantify the good/acceptable outcomes specified in section B)?

II. INFORMATION TO BE RECORDED DURING THE PILOT

G. Narrative (record significant moments as they happen, if possible – but aim to synthesise the material into a succinct story of 500 words max.)

What actually happened? (include screenshots, transcripts, audio, survey data etc)
Any unexpected happenings?

III. INFORMATION TO BE RECORDED AFTER THE PILOT

H. Analysis

Has a good or acceptable result been obtained?
Why did it run in the way it did?

• Enabling/impeding factors (specific instances of the 5 key factors + any others)

Any unexpected results/outcomes (+ve and –ve)?
Comparison with expectations
Comparison with “control” course

I. Reflections, implications & recommendations

Overall, what went well (in terms of the 5 key factors)?

• What can be built on in order to take the pilot further?

Overall, what didn’t go so well (in terms of the 5 key factors)?

• What needs to be changed?

What does the pilot mean?

• For TALL’s courses?
• In a wider context?

Next steps:

• Within TALL:
  • How will we take the pilot forward?
  • Will we roll this out across courses?
• Within the wider community:
  • What is our message to the world?
  • How are we going to disseminate it?