Because knowledge networking learning, utilising Web 2.0 applications, is probably not something which students are familiar with, or expect at university, there will in many cases be a requirement to motivate and encourage students. Student uptake doesn’t happen just because you are using a great tool: in fact, you might need to do more to ensure student commitment if you are using a knowledge networking approach. It is commonplace for students to have very traditional ideas about learning!
Six simple ways of achieving good student uptake are as follows.
- Be enthusiastic about the tool and task yourself, as I discuss elsewhere here.
- Link the use of the application to a specific task, and make sure that task is either assessed directly or contributes materially to work that is assessment. While assessment is not a perfect motivator, it is very important.
- Make the tasks and tools used coherent with the subject matter, relevant to what students are ostensibly learning: journalism students should be using twitter because journalists use it – it’s realistic and required, even if students might not at first ‘get it’.
- Create a realistic scenario within which you are getting students to conduct their public knowledge networking – it is not just authentic assessment but a fully formed authentic learning experience that works best. In this way the motivation for student activity is formed at the intersection of formal education, informal learning and the desires and expectations of students about their consequences of their learning.
- Build in the social media affordances through the design of the task: don’t assume ‘collaborative software’ makes people collaborate. Only design of tasks which promotes collaboration will do that (see the example for NET205)
- Don’t over complicate the instructions and explanations, thereby creating a dependency relationship between yourself and students. Failures in student uptake are not in most cases from lack of ‘how to’ information: it is because students get so much information they don’t feel able to play with, explore and own the task and tool.
Some useful reading
Watch the following COFA, Learning to Teach Online video about motivating students:
Also read:
Magolda, P. and Platt, G. 2009. Untangling Web 2.0′s influences on student learning. About Campus, 14.3: 10–16.
Newby, T et al. 2010. The INSITE Project: Engaging Students in International Team Collaborations to Create a Web 2.0 Tool Repository. International Journal of Designs for Learning, 1.1: 21-39.
Torres Kompen, R. et al. 2009. Using Web 2.0 Applications as Supporting Tools for Personal Learning Environments. Communications in Computer and Information Science, 49.1: 33-40.
