research

Contradictions in research into the experiences of learners online

Posted Mon, 01/02/2010 - 16:06 by Helen

I was intrigued to see that in Canada they are reporting that the use of social networking and other web tools such as Twitter and Facebook is damaging the quality of students' English skills. Apparently academics at Waterloo University, Ontario and Simon Fraser University, British Columbia are finding that many students (a third and a tenth, respectively) are failing at English, i.e. not up to the standard required for academic writing. And they are blaming young people's use of these social networking tools for this problem.

"Emoticons, happy faces, sad faces, cuz, are just some of the writing horrors being handed in, say professors and administrators at Simon Fraser."

At Coventry University in the UK, however, researchers have found the exact opposite, as reported by the BBC a few days ago. In their study of 8-12 year olds they found that children who regularly use the abbreviated language of text messages are actually improving their ability to spell correctly.

Are we distracted by the multitude of applications open on our computers?

Posted Thu, 03/12/2009 - 07:09 by Helen

A study at the University of Plymouth once looked at graduate students' use of Web 2.0 technologies when they were studying in their daily working environment. The study found that at least 50% of the applications students had open at any one time were actually leisure applications.

The kind of websites that students were accessing were 4:1 in favour of non-work type over websites relevant to their study. Typically, they spent 3–4 min at one thing before they surfed on to something else.

This has implications for distraction because in effect the students were CHOOSING to be distracted.  There were a variety of reasons given for this.  Some students said it was essential to have access to social or leisure applications in order to sustain them through long periods of studying. So on their computer, as well as obviously work-related programs such as Office applications, the academic library, and reference citation and data analysis applications, they would typically have email, Google, Instant Messenger, social networks, Twitter and similar open at the same time.

Is it more difficult to study when there is a lot of distraction - or does doing a variety of tasks make it easier?  Just because traditionally concentration and focus have been thought to be the ideal way to study doesn't mean that it is the only or even the main way nowadays. I'm on the lookout for any other research which shows the benefit or not of multi-tasking while studying - or indeed, while working.

Online community roles: 2. the community facilitator

Posted Mon, 16/11/2009 - 16:29 by Helen

The core principle of The Cohesion Model for Sustainable Online Communities and Social Networks (as described in my previous post on 13th November) is that there are effectively three levels within a community - the Public, the Community or Collaborative, and the Private or Individual level.  There is a role associated with each of these and we have defined the tasks associated with each role.  In the first post in this series I described the role of the Community Editor.

The model is necessarily refined and improved with each community that we run, and nowhere is that more relevant than in the second of the key roles, that of the Community Facilitator.  This role has many names, and indeed may vary depending on the context: it may be called the Community Manager, the Community Moderator, the E-moderator or the Community Lead. For example, there may be organisational reasons why the title Manager is not appropriate, or in FE Colleges the word Moderator is not used because it has a completely different meaning. Whichever job title you use, the Community Facilitator is a key role, and I could not begin to describe all the tasks involved in a single blog post (I teach full courses on how to undertake the role).

Often those who set up communities with little experience underestimate the time and resources that this role requires. Yet without it, a community is doomed to failure.

Some of the tasks of this role are:

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