Module Option Talk Video

Cheap and cheerful video capture of the option talk that I gave yesterday to the second year Economics students. They were sitting through a series of presentations to help them choose their optional modules for next year. I was a bit under the weather and forgot a couple of tricks/props I was intending to use but it seemed to go okay anyway...

I've also posted this on the actual module blog but am copying it here too as an example of the kind of thing you can do with little in the way of equipment. It isn't snazzy but it does the job... which you can see here:

Data Protection Protection?

Do we need protection from the Data Protection act?
Or from how universities interpret the implementation of it?

The Times Higher Education (15 May 2008) reports the case of an academic (an Economist) who got into trouble for confirming the details of a student's timetable to the student's mother. This seems a bit harsh especially as the general pattern of attendance for first year students (who rarely take optional modules) can often be inferred from publicly available information on web sites, which advertise the core and optional modules available for each year of study. Would the university had rather he was economical with the truth? At what point does all the private data (individual marks, attendance and other relevant information) leap into the public arena when students obtain final degree classifications, seek references and so forth and that data must to some extent be verifiable if it is to have value?


http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/

Another Long Break!

Okay it's been another long break since I last posted to this blog.

I tend to concentrate my efforts on my third year module blog for Economists.

ITEC30011 The Internet, Computers & Society module.

You can see it on Blogger at www.phil-wane-ics.blogspot.com

But I've not forgotten this blog... in fact there are so many things that I have wanted to comment on over the last few months that I hardly know where to begin.

Blogger/YouTube Worksheet

Following my success in the Economics Network Annual Learning and Teaching Awards 2007 I will be publishing a guide to just how I embedded the videos into my blog account.

Whilst the more technically inclined amongst you may be thinking it is easy I bear in mind that not everyone is technically minded. It is also important to think about the WHAT and WHY and not just the HOW.

Award Winning Teaching Blog

Economics Subject Network eLearning Winner

This morning I learnt that I'm the joint winner of this year's eLearning Award from the Economics Subject Network.

http://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/

For several years now I have delivered a Level 3 module for Economics at NTU called

The Internet, Computers & Society

I only entered the competition following the overwhelmingly positive feedback from students who took the module this year. It has a history of very good feedback but there was particular emphasis on some of the blended learning innovations I had introduced this year.

What especially motivated me was the positive response to my use of free Web 2.0 services like Blogger and YouTube in combination to provide low tech but effective revision aids. These were simply topic based revision videos that were no more than 10 minutes in length. Module feedback showed that these were both popular and seemingly effective.

Difficult to measure how effective but what they certainly did do was encourage some of the students to then seek out further materials from other sources. Great stuff!

Examples of the use of YouTube clips embedded into Blogger for teaching can be seen on the module blog itself at

http://phil-wane-ics.blogspot.com/

PGCHE versus Economics Course Committee

And this week my principal clash on Wednesday afternoon is between Trevor’s PGCHE session (on something I can probably manage but I simply like Trevor’s sessions) and the Economics Course Committee, which will be worthy but - well I won’t say dull – but course committees are often heavy on materials and light on interaction, especially if you are not part of the core teaching team. And I’m certainly not singling out the Economics Course Committee, which is no better or worse than others, and I happen to know of a couple of staff who periodically check this blog.

Just a pity there is so much overload on Wednesday afternoons...