Development of use of Blogs in Fine Art LJMU of 3 years
Students:
Year 1 - 2 of project - approx 250 level 5 Art and Design Students
Year 3 of project - 60+ Art and Design Students{fine art}
Aims:
· Encourage independence in writing and reflection – take control and ownership
· Connect holistic view of the course for students
· Create area for sharing between staff and students
· Connect students with external audience/real world
Technology:
Year 1 - 2 – use of internal VLE based individual blogs, both private and public
Year 3 – students choice of internal or external blog sites
Results for blogs in year 3 of the project
Number of posting on each blog 0ct 2010 - Jan 2011
Some of the students towards the lower end of this spectrum made sumissions in alternative ways, which was acceptable within the module design. However a significant majority made over and above contributions.
Image 1 is the whole community
Image 2-3 is community in blogger.com and posterous.com
Themes discussed on the particular blogs over time
quote from student 2009-10
“Well the end of another year and I must say I have thoroughly enjoyed writing this blog. It has become a place for my thoughts, reflections and a good source of research. I will continue to write my own blog and look forward to carrying on with it! This year has been a tough one but it has worked out well in the end. Again, I have my blog to thank for that because it has been so useful to my practice and I can't imagine not having one now!!”
Link to RSS feeds for all student sites, using Yahoo Pipes, which was also used to support students' community
http://abstractrabbit.blogspot.com/2011/06/blog.html
Transformation for staff
Although initally very skepical, the newly designed programme make extensive use of social media to organise and connect all students both internally and externally.
