JISC

DEL regional stories

Using social networking tools for educational purposes

MANSLE Project
University of Bolton Cheadle and Marple Sixth Form
Contact	Bill Pollard
Software used	del.icio.us, blogs and Ning social networking software

Sixth form students at Cheadle & Marple Sixth Form College have been clubbing together to find out about courses and life at university - and it's even led to one student having a complete change of heart, and deciding that university life could be for him after all!

Tutor Bill Pollard wanted to see whether social networking software, more usually used to communicate and share personal information, could be adapted to help sixth form students to work out how to tackle the potential move to university.

Some of the learners in his class didn't come from 'traditional' backgrounds in terms of their education aspirations. He was interested in whether their mindsets might change if they shared research findings and discussed the issues with their peers - and whether it would help them to make more informed decisions about the right direction and course they should apply for. Research, organisational and peer review skills all improved

Bill says 'Probably the most exciting result was when a student who was the first in his family to continue education to level 3 started to use the results of the others' research and decided to apply to HE. It was the realisation that he could continue in a field he was desperately interested in, but at a local university, that made a difference. It meant that he could live at home, which was much more acceptable to him and his family. The fact that it was two months after the UCAS clos ing date was a minor obstacle easily overcome!'

It was no longer just the 'Usual Suspects' who joined in group debate

In the classroom the same 'Usual Suspects' continued to be the main contributors, but online, what Bill found was that ALL the students gradually started to take part in the debate. He thought it likely that this had something to do with the relative anonymity involved only the tutor knew who was contributing what to the discussion.

Using web-based software (del.icio.us) gave students the opportunity to learn new concepts such as 'tagging' items they found (otherwise known as bookmarks), and which they wanted to be able to access from other computers. It also introduced them to the idea of 'sharing' these tagged items with others in the group, so that they could browse each others' findings as well as their own.

'No longer do we have the panic as a deadline approaches!'

Bill showed them how to establish a code based on very specific keywords to tag their entries, so that information sharing was limited to their group, rather than being something that was openly accessible to the wider world.

Looking for information around courses and opportunities helped them all to improve their research skills, and combining their results meant that they quickly developed a variety of tagged web pages that quickly became a more valuable resource than if each student had kept their findings separate.

As part of the BTEC course they were taking, Bill's students also needed to learn how to organise themselves to achieve tasks over about 30-40 hours of work time. Again, Bill wanted to see whether online software could help them to hone their skills in this area.

They started using online diaries (blogs) to record what they had done during a session, including websites, books and periodicals they had browsed, and documented the skills they were developing. Bill says that this not only helped them to 'remember' things that they had done earlier, it also improved the accuracy of their bibliographies.

The online 'classroom is as large as they want it to be'

From there, students became more realistic in the targets they set for their sessions, based on two premises - 'What I am going to do today' and 'What I'm looking for'. Having documented what they'd achieved in previous sessions helped them to organise their thoughts before the next one, and this in turn led to better forward planning - 'No longer do we have the same panic as a deadline approaches!' says Bill.

An interesting product of these records and findings being shared online is that students are developing the skills to evaluate and comment on each others' work, and peer review is starting to become the norm.

Bill is now moving the learners on to using Ning software, which is more usually used for social networking. He set them up as a group, and encouraged them to upload their work and comment constructively on the work of other students. The security of the group lies in the fact that people can only join by invitation from him.

Bill says that although students still mostly prefer the classroom environment, they can see how software tools can help. He feels 'they are beginning to appreciate that their classroom is as large as they want it to be, as we are starting to involve students from other groups in our online group'.

 Listen to Sara Caselton-Bone interview Bill Pollard about the MANSLE Project

Download the interview

Back to contents 

These stories were written by Paula Taylor and Sara Caselton-Bone