Conversations in the Cloud: Strategies for Implementing Open Reflective Writing Experiences

Editor's Notes

• #3: Our goal is to explore ways in which we can enable open reflective writing and debate with our students I am really interested in focusing on supporting communication and student led representations of their work There are tools within VIULearn which also support discussion, but this session is really about students taking ownership of their work and representing it as they see fit Relations to experiential education - how can students in the field represent their work and practice in a digital journal, opening up spaces for commentary, formative evaluation, and further reflection We will plan a learning activity which makes use of this technique We will also take part in a collaborative reflective writing community We will then share our experiences implementing this within our discipline   Discussion: Where we come from and what our goals are?
• #4: First I just want to share what has prompted these sessions September 2015 I took a course at UVic which took advantage of open communication platforms We were tasked with blogging on a weekly basis a reflection and synthesis of our readings In turn we then had to comment on 5 reflections made by our peers In the end we produced 364 reflective blogs posts and 1020 comments We essentially had a conversation outside of the class Personally I had the opportunity to converse with people who I never had a chance to speak with in class   The activity was motivated by a 35% grade associated with the weekly reflections While the instructor did have to review all of this weekly activity, much of the grading could be done on a pass/fail criteria - either they did it or they didn’t. There are rubrics available for marking blogs included later in this presentation   As a side note, we also used a private instant messaging system in this course so that we could have conversations via text during lectures, seminars and presentations as well as for coordinating group projects. 16000+ messages were created using he instant messaging system.
• #5: The Disposable Assignment Assignments that students complain about doing and faculty complain about grading. They’re assignments that add no value to the world – after a student spends three hours creating it, a teacher spends 30 minutes grading it, and then the student throws it away.   What if we changed these “disposable assignments” into activities which actually added value to the world? Then students and faculty might feel different about the time and effort they invested in them. I have seen time and again that they do feel different about the efforts they make under these circumstances.   In the case of the CSCW course I shared earlier, I have made reference to and use of the work I did on the shared blog.
• #6: Questions to consider? • How do we currently access student writing? • How do we currently facilitate student discussions? ○ Avoiding the disposable assignment - http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/2975 Specifically for experiential learning • How do students demonstrate their learning during their placement? • How can open reflection be used to demonstrate their learning? --> AM I right to assume that we can't be out visiting students in the field - need to do this digitally to support students
• #19: I believe there is value in openly shared reflection.   While self reflection is a constant ongoing process it is internalized and thus not available for discussion or feedback.  One to one reflection provides and opportunity to share and gather feedback in a controlled one to one interaction.  This may be done synchronously through discussion or asynchronous through text.   Group reflections provide controlled access to a larger group and can again be synchronous or asynchronous.   Open reflection involves making your refection available on the open web.  In doing so you provide a searchable resources for other learners to discover.  You may even form a network by receiving a comment or discussion going around your reflection.  Your reflection may also become a valuable resource for a learner going through a similar process. Or for students looking for ideas and projects to build upon.
• #20: Open to the world – can adjust search indexing of site Also available are post and page level privacy, via the drafts feature and password protected pages
• #24: What sort of projects might we pilot together? I am committed to working with you to deploy this in your context throughout the next three sessions Feb 17 + Feb 24   What configuration for using VIUBlogs might work best for you? How can open student reelections be incorporated into your current learning designs? Can we start drafting the components of a reflective entry compilation of entries (for experiential learning) or a significant online discussion (for MBA) Can we move Feb 17 + Feb 24 to 2:30pm as well?
• #25: Thank you!