Facebook, Twitter and Mobile phones

Social networking sites such as facebook and twitter could be used to enhance one’s learning experience. These sites are accessible from anywhere in the world, as long as one has internet access, which can allow the teacher to reach out to students outside the boundary of just the lecture hall. If a student is on holiday, or is unwell to physically attend university, they may still be able to access these sites from home or elsewhere. These sites are also accessible on mobile phone, which means students could check for any new announcements or last minute messages on the go.

Features such as the status allow tutors to receive formative feedback on lessons. Statuses such as “This lecture is very boring” are an indication for the lecturer to bring some change into their teaching strategy, as their current method is not working for students.

The uploading feature may allow teachers and lecturers to upload class work and lecture slides quite like how it is done on oasisplus. Lecturers can record and upload videos of tutorials, which would allow students to view them, not just during the lecture, but even after that, and may be used to aid revision. Devices like Dictaphones and Mobile phones can be used to record lectures, whereas the videos would provide an audio and visual combined learning experience.

During classes, a teacher can only ask a certain number of students to express their views or ask questions due to time restrictions, if commenting on each lecture video is made mandatory for all students, the lecturer will be able to monitor each student’s individual progress and help indicate their strengths and weaknesses.

Question & Answer sessions may be also be scheduled online, after a “virtual lecture” to allow students to clarify anything that the videos may not have explained well, making the “virtual lecture” more interactive. Logs of these sessions may be kept on the site to allow students who missed the Q & A to view and learn from it.

Features such as the wall can allow students to post messages or queries, which may be viewed by other students and lecturers, who may have a better understanding, and allow them to respond before the lecturer that the message was intended for, which would then quicken the response the student gets and allows the lecturer to monitor progress of the student asking and student answering.

Mobile phones can be used as a means of instant communication between the students and lecturers. If a student has not been participating in any of the learning, the lecturer may call them up to ask why. Mobile phones are generally accessible to a person throughout the day, which allows messages like last minute lesson cancellations to be reached at any point, as a student may not check oasisplus 7am in the morning for a cancellation of a lecture that is taking place at 9am.

Other than lesson cancellations, reminder of assignment deadlines may also be texted from the lecturers to students. Most mobiles come with an organiser or calendar that may allow both teachers and lectures to view their schedule for the day. I personally use it to remind me the time and venue for my lectures.