Show ‘n TellKaye BachelardMark O’Connor

Discussion forums/wikis

User generated content • Biosciences BI517• Computing CO643Used for clarification -with assignments• Pharmacy: Calculations without tears

Classification of Living Organisms BI517

Aim: to find and share online resources that help to understand classification and taxonomy. Please contribute to this forum by i) finding suitable online resources (e.g. YouTube, Wikipedia, etc) ii) critically review these resources with respect to suitability (e.g. this video is good, because it shows, how to use DNA homology for classification, etc) and iii) make suggestions, how this resource could be improved (e.g. more on phylogeny of plants, please).

Assessed Activity• Every student has to post at least 1 link to a

resource and make 3 comments. This is part of the BI517 assessment.

• Let’s take a look

Engagement in Forum

Student posts – part 1• “I like the way the writers explained everything in

a funny way, I would totally remember some of this things now. Thanks! Fun read!”

• “Great Read, really enjoyed it, broke up the basic revision nicely.”

Student posts part 1“I love how they've written it and the pictures they have used. A great starting point for researching stuff. I looked up the Glyptapanteles (Zombie-Catapillar-Creating Wasps) and it's fascinating! It really does ‘freak' out when something touches it and is a really effective way to protect and ensure majority of the larvae hatches successfully. (Even though I hate wasps).”

Engagement in Forum

Student posts - part 2 “Thanks, this is really informative, definitely helping with learning the top 40. However, I think it could do with more example images.”“Really helpful tool, wish there were a few more pictures to add that something extra”“Thanks, Chloe, very helpful and informative about how plants are classified by morphology. I agree that a few more example would not go amiss, such as image to re-enforce the description, but apart from that, very good”

Part 2 of the assessment- critical review of website for teaching and learning

Creating content in wikis

Computing Law & Professional Responsibility CO643

• requires students to consider complex issues relating to computing law and ethics

• requires students to develop an understanding of the professional responsibilities of practitioners in the industry

The wikis are used in conjunction with face to face seminars and discussion forums on Moodle.

Creating content in wikis

CO643 Computing Law and Professional Responsibility• The tutor’s aim was to engage the students in

considering and developing an understanding of complex ethical issues.

• The wiki, in collaboration with other collaborative tools, was selected as a means of achieving the module aims.

Wiki• A wiki is an editable website that allows users “an equable

right to edit and develop content in a common space. Thus it is well suited to the collaborative building of specialist knowledge.” (Crook, 2008)

• The use of the wiki allowed students to experience and be active participants in the co-authoring and building of specialist knowledge required of practitioners in the industry.

• Individual and Group wikis – let’s take a look

Group wikis

Learning through collaboration

CollaborationStudents were divided into teams and required to write and edit wiki pages collaboratively in a shared online workspace.

Creating and contributing to wikisBy contributing to the wiki and commenting on the work of their peers, the students were able to develop their understanding of the complex issues surrounding the topic.

Individual wikis

ImpactIncreased understanding was a recurrent theme in feedback from students:• “….reading the wiki pages before the seminar…

allowed us to get a better understanding of the topic and to know what we should write on.”

• “It made me think about how many laws there are in the computing industry and what kind of issues everyone faces. I felt myself improving…”

• “To guarantee the deeper understanding of this topic, I prepared several questions about hacking. .

• “Computer law is a mundane topic and this way of teaching makes it really interesting.”

Pham Calcs without tears

• The tutor’s aim was to support students by providing a safe environment where they could practice, and receive feedback on, the type of authentic pharmaceutical calculations required in the workplace.

• A major consideration was the different levels of ability and confidence of the students in mathematical calculations.

Pham Calcs without tears

Discussion forums used for consolidation and discussion in conjunction with assignments• The assignments were completed individually

with feedback from tutor• The forum gave a full explanation of problem

showing working out • Forum allowed further discussion of calculations

amongst participants.

Assignments“You are a pre-registration trainee and the pharmacist wants you to prepare 5L of double strength chloroform water from concentrated chloroform water. How much concentrated chloroform water would you need?”

Note to studentsFor each of the questions above, in addition to giving the correct lettered option you need to show how you arrived at the answer. Try working on your speed at answering questions. Note down the time it took you to answer the 5 questions and then try each week to better your timing. Remember don't use a calculator. I am watching you!

Forum“This forum is being used to give you :• the answers to the fun calculations, step by step• a place to discuss your answers and ask

questions if you don't understand how the answer was arrived at.” Let’s take a look.

Clarification

Impact• Thank you very much for showing and explaining

the error made as I understand in exams I would have lost marks for this.” (Patel,N. Nov18, 2011, discussion forum)

• Although time consuming, the tutor sees the rewards of her effort in the positive feedback from students.

Thank you