2. 10-credit unit open to all undergraduates on
the intersections of ‘digital’ and ‘society’.
Interdisciplinary approach and cohort.
Develop: being critical; collaboration;
communicating online; ethical awareness.
medium.com/digital-society
3. 15-credit taught option for staff on the
Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education.
Open, flexible approach; broad cohort.
Develop: critical view of open practice in HE,
public and online communication, network
medium.com/open-knowledge-in-he
5. ‘Medium for learning’
Using a publishing platform to share and build on ideas;
to lower the boundaries between students and staff, and
between the course and real-world discussions on the topic.
OUR APPROACH
6. Materials
Take the form of open
online publications
Mostly participant-written
If you wrote it, you own it
Mix of topic exploration,
skills development and
course unit practicalities
Authentic assessment:
research and publish
something of real value
Spaced, increasing weight
(summative+formative)
Many opportunities for
formative development
Experience/development
Critical reading, thinking
and writing; self-reflection
Collaboration, community
of practice, peer learning
Communicating online,
licensing, publishing
Engaging with others online
Assessment
SHARED ELEMENTS
7. Using an open platform
‘Good things that could happen’ versus
‘Important considerations/risks’
ACTIVITY
9. Public content
Medium gives us…
Learners get ‘open practice’, add
to something ‘real’
We practice openness and ‘do good’,
may build reputation
Should consider
candour/confidence
Must cover
ownership/licensing
Must consider
pseudonyms/verification
Must consider risks
e.g. reputation
10. ‘Real’ (=public) blog content
Medium gives us…
Genuine, valuable
experience for learners
Exists alongside other
‘real world’ content
Can connect with
the ‘real world’
Can/should cover
online identity
Must clarify referencing/tone
expectations
11. Highly learner-owned course content
Medium gives us…
Built-in feedback
and improvement
Community of practice
feel, all contributions
valued
Content not just ‘for
assessment’
Assessment copies must be
carefully captured
12. Shiny new things
Medium gives us…
‘Nice’ experience may
motivate learners
Must remember role of central systems – easy
to find, familiar, assessment, enrolment,
communications, grades/feedback, contact
details, session details…
Greater in-house support
requirement (learners and self)
13. VLE versus Medium
What are the different permissions?
What boundaries do they create?
When do these help/hinder us?
A COMPARISON
14. Materials
Students see materials
but often can’t contribute.
If they can, it’s fenced-off,
e.g. wiki, discussion board
Staff can contribute at
the top level. This looks
different. No visible author,
date, license, comments.
Public have no access.
Students usually see
only their own submissions.
They may not see past or
current cohorts’ work.
Students are asked to
follow certain rules!
Public have no access
Experience/development
Students can read but
usually can’t respond. If
they can contribute, likely
have little/no control over
their work afterwards, and
few if any others will see it.
Public cannot take part
Assessment
PERMISSIONS IN A VLE
15. Boundaries in VLEs
The cohort
and the world
The course
and the public Other students’
assessed work
Student and
staff content
16. Materials
Everyone can discover,
view, like, share, respond
to all materials
Students, graduates and
staff can submit materials
Everyone can post to the
unit tags (wider discussion)
Posts have author, date,
license, maybe comments
Assessed posts
are the same as materials –
same permissions, but also:
Students are asked to
follow certain rules!
Experience/development
Everyone can contribute
in a way (tags, comments)
Students’ work forms
part of the materials, but
remains theirs indefinitely
Graduates/guests
remain writers for the
publication; can submit
anything any time!
Assessment
PERMISSIONS IN MEDIUM
To discuss the motivation for using Medium to support the unit
Explore the reach of alignment of assessment
To evaluate Medium and Blackboard as a platform to support teaching
Some stats…
COHORT SIZE: Last four years through redevelopment and stronger marketing, we have gone from 12 students to 24 (after marketing increase), 43 (after redevelopment), 50 (current cap)
POST OWNERSHIP: 71% of posts (112 of 158) are by students/graduates of the unit and have been since year 1 post-relaunch
ONLINE DISCUSSION: 194 responses across all posts (1.23 mean per post)
COMMUNITY: Students required to reference each other in one assessment, many chose to do so in the final one
WRITERS: 95% of writers (91 of 96) are students/graduates
Some notes:
Authentic assessment – the blogs are owned by the students more significantly than an essay. They are free to edit/delete them at any time (outside of the marking window). They choose how they are licensed and they will remain online and attached to their profile beyond the end of the unit. Thus the students feel and can exercise the ownership of what they write more so than a Word doc in a VLE. Formative opportunities for blogging exist through mini missions. Pecha Kucha presentation develops presentation skills and (formative only) gives experience of performance (optional).
Some stats…
COHORT SIZE: 15-20 each year (although all staff on PGCert can attend all units, and choose which they are assessed on flexibly; we expect around 20 to be assessed this year)
POST OWNERSHIP: Most posts are by students/graduates of the unit and have been since year 1
COMMUNITY: Students required to reference each other in final assessment
WRITERS: Most writers are students/graduates, with a growing number of external contributors.
Some notes:
Authentic assessment – the blogs are owned by the participants more significantly than an essay. They are free to edit/delete them at any time (outside of the marking window). They choose how they are licensed and they will remain online and attached to their profile beyond the end of the unit. Thus the students feel and can exercise the ownership of what they write more so than a Word doc in a VLE. Formative opportunities for blogging exist through mini missions. Pecha Kucha presentation develops presentation skills and (formative only) gives experience of performance (optional).
So the development of the assessment was an integral part of the unit development. We were very fortunate to be in this position with developing a new unit.
Around about the same time we started exploring this approach for OKHE, we did some background reading and saw that others were doing likewise in the US – see our references. Medium has been described as a critical thinking platform (by Ervin[a], Stommel[a,b]), and an ideas platform (by Faghmous[d]). There are a few examples of others working in this area [b,c]. While it appears to be a blogging tool on the surface, it is not exactly the same as a traditional blogging tool. It is a single social network site of writers and posts, whereas most blogging platforms are arguably a vast number of separate websites, each with their own writers and posts – but in most cases each having one or very few writers, and existing more as islands. Medium is more like Twitter without the character limit, or YouTube for text. While this sounds pretentious, it does highlight a key difference – the social nature of the platform. Medium is not the only such platform – arguably any public social network can support this. Notably, Tumblr is a blog/social hybrid although is more focussed on images, short posts and short replies/reshares. Other blogging platforms support social networking to some extent, but crucially Medium doesn’t really give you a ‘blog’, more so just a user and associated posts. Also it’s very low-tech and focussed on writing, so it’s easy to get into regardless of your experience/confidence.
In some respect we are using medium to fulfil many of the roles traditionally served by a VLE. However some of these roles are still filled by the VLE and that’s worth remembering. We have not cut out Blackboard, simply cut down our reliance on it. Equally Medium does many things which were of interest to us, better than Bb, or more likely where Bb simply does not do it. Blackboard comes with a number of deliberately imposed boundaries. In general this is for good reason and it means that Bb is very safe to use ‘out of the box’. However we wish students to learn in an environment which is – by OotB Bb standards – less safe.
[a] https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-06-03-how-students-and-faculty-think-critically-with-medium
[b] https://dgst101.com/
[c] https://medium.com/cinema-studies
[d] https://medium.com/@nomadic_mind/how-to-make-medium-the-worlds-greatest-collaborative-idea-generation-and-distribution-platform-c666fcdc91a0
Some notes:
Authentic assessment – the blogs are owned by the students more significantly than an essay. They are free to edit/delete them at any time (outside of the marking window). They choose how they are licensed and they will remain online and attached to their profile beyond the end of the unit. Thus the students feel and can exercise the ownership of what they write more so than a Word doc in a VLE. Formative opportunities for blogging exist through mini missions. Pecha Kucha presentation develops presentation skills and (formative only) gives experience of performance (optional).
What’s the alternative? Bb blog/wiki/forum – none of the pros, none of the risks. Very different set of aims.
What’s common ground? Both support peer-to-peer discussion and learning. Don’t fixate on this when looking at Medium!
https://medium.com/open-knowledge-in-he/advantages-disadvantages-of-openness-bb9790c06c1b#.e273bwafb
What’s the alternative? Simulated blog content in Blackboard.
What’s the alternative? LOC is possible in Blackboard, but it is always fenced-off to some extent. Medium allows this fence to be lowered or removed
What’s the alternative? We do not advocate shunning Bb, so the amount to which you use external tools can vary as you like. This is just an example of an extreme within a sensible range.