The Bebo kids are back in town
Last year I posted views on using Bebo to encourage more frequent conversations with my students. It worked really well but I mistakenly used it towards the end of the course.
This year, I used the Bebo group format again but this time from the start of the course (Bebo was selected because Facebook and MySpace got no action!). The response has been pleasing as the membership currently sits at 121 members in which 13 have shared some luv (always nice to get positive feedback particularly as Lecturers have fragile egos that require constant nurturing).
I make use of the blog primarily to document what’s going on, pose questions, provide updates, etc. As some students don’t want to join Bebo, I automatically resyndicate the blog feed to a tumblelog, which is open to the world.
The polls are also used to garner feedback about course stuff. The first (and only so far) ask students their opinion about how we present information in the labs. The results of the poll will ultimately determine what we do. The cool thing is that students have a direct say in how the course is run (depending what we can actually do) with a visible and immediate response.
I forgot to say that one of the reasons we use a social network site (SNS) like Bebo is that the University (like many others) uses Blackboard as it’s Web interface between faculty and students. For anyone that has used Blackboard for anything other than distributing content, knows that you might as well try communicating from inside a doorless vault.
I’m enjoying Bebo probably for many of the same reasons that students do (but not all). Mainly, it is quick and fun and configurable without overloading users with options. However, where students use Bebo to primarily maintain their social networks, I simply want to communicate with them from time to time about a common thing, which in this case is the course.
A friend of mine at the University of Otago is teaching a great sounding Communications course called ‘Cybersocieties’ using Blogger to coordinate a collection of student blogs. Go to the blogging hub to find out more.
