One of the observations about students is that they’d rather use the systems that they’re familiar with, than move onto university controlled systems. And, part of that is because the likes of Moodle and Mahara can never really complete, in terms of speed and features, with the larger networks.

That’s one reason that that there’s been a push for Facebook and Moodle integration (although I don’t know what the current status of that push is).

Personally, I much prefer Twitter for those kind of discussions than Facebook. It’s easier to monitor and doesn’t open up the same big privacy issues as often observed with Facebook. And, the nature of the Twitter character limit means that Tweets have to kept short.

On the workshop where I included the screen grabs from above (more on the findings from that workshop likely to follow in a future post), I used my phone to Tweet and monitor the discussions and it was easy enough to do (and without the distractions of a whole laptop).

Personally, I’d like to see everyone have tablets, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. 🙂

Thomas

I also know of academics who use a similar approach in class, encouraging students to take and share notes using social media – something which I may well try myself over the coming year.

You know better than I of the Social Media capabilities of Moodle (and Mahara) but I’m guessing you mean Facebook & Twitter?

It surprised me how few CompSci students actually had/used laptops for lectures/labs. I was the only one for the first several weeks (in my groups) but a couple of others brought them in on occassion as the year progressed.

Of course a smartphone with a decently large screen (IE not the 480×320 of yesteryear) are fine on WiFi – are you assuming 100% penetration of large screen smartphones?

Alternatively you can get the Faculty to spring for a tablet for everyone 😉