Week 9: I’m not going to class tomorrow, and I’m the teacher…
I’m in Scotland at the moment for other-work-related things. Which means I can’t be in class for teaching commitments tomorrow. But taking a page out of the Jon Hickman school of teaching, I am not going to be around either. Which should be bad, I should arrange something for the 2nd years in the same way I am for the 1st years, who are getting one of those online classroom discussions via our VLE, moodle. All the technological sophistication of a chatroom in the early 1990s. But that’s e-learning for you. But it’s 10.50pm on a Monday night (at the …
Project: Stories and Streams, week 8: #media2012 as an assignment brief revisited
After the classroom restructuring in the previous session, this week was used to define the #media2012 west midlands brief for the remaining alternative media and web production (AM and WP) students to take them through the processes to complete their final 100 percent portfolio task due in May. The brief The AM&WP cohort will now be working together as a group (rather than part of an online journalism investigation) and will form the basis of the #media2012 west midlands hub for during the Olympics and Paralympic Games. In this task, each member of the group is given a title and …
Project: Stories and Streams, Week 7: Events-based learning: the west midlands #media2012 hub
When I started working on the Alternative Media and Web Production (AM&WP) module late-2010, it was with the intention of working towards embedding citizen journalism and the Olympic Games as a priority topic and theme for the module. It begin with #mc539, which then evolved into #MED5008, a course within another – online journalism. The first 6 weeks, my AM&WP students worked within groups of online journalists as multimedia producers that supported the ongoing investigations around the Olympics or Education areas. The first investigations were as follows: Are West Midland Universities really doing enough to prevent student’s dropping out? Student …
Project: Stories and Streams, week 5. “The module is not what I expected.”
A couple of days ago, I reflected on the move towards a student -led curriculum on the alternative media and web production course that I am running at BCU. Since the change of class structure this year to a ‘stories and streams’ format, some of the common issues that I have faced has been questions relating to the expectations of what the module might look like – and importantly, what it might cover. I’ve skirted around the issues in a few of the previous posts, but I think today was a real break through in terms of how I take …
Project: Stories and Streams, week 4, handing over curriculum control to the students.
As there are only two weeks left of the first level of investigations for the online journalism, alternative media and web production students, we are now starting to prepare them for the directed study week (week 6) assignment, a tool used by the institution as a check point snap shot of the module, filing in the gaps and the student’s individuals outputs so far. Assignment Context. Initially we wanted to only have one assignment, 100% of the coursework, to be handed in at the end of the course in May -acting as an individual portfolio of work reflecting the student’s …
Project: Help Me Investigate the Olympics #media2012
Through the work that I have been doing at Birmingham City University and collaboration with Paul Bradshaw on the Online Journalism and Alternative Media module, we have launched a new Help Me Investigate site focusing on the Olympic Games, to provide support, help and resources for people exploring critical aspects of the mega events. Along with Paul, I’ll be curating submissions and adding posts relating to documents, data, links, questions and other information relating to all aspects of the Olympic Games, beyond the remit of sport. More details about Help Me Investigate is available on Paul’s website, the online journalism …
Project: Stories and Streams, Week 3 – Incorporating Feedback, (27-4) Support & Learning Outcomes.
For more context and posts on the Stories and Streamsproject, check out the website. Today’s class was the first week that it felt that the majority of the students had a clear understanding of their role in the group and how they are working as a class as a whole, with most of them having already published aspects of their investigation online, using a content management system and linking to distribution social media accounts (albeit a personal or investigation specific twitter or Facebook account) There are three points of interest that have emerged on reflection of today: Feedback and Evolving …