Photo of John Jennings and James Corbett, two virtual education advocates.
I DON'T BELIEVE a listing of core technologies exists that helps enhance the academic engagement of third level students. I am creating one of my own and it will borrow thoughts from my instructor pilot days.
It occurs to me that my most aspirational students seek to complete assignments and upload them with a flourish on Moodle, our virtual learning environment. For task accomplishment to be most rewarding, my awarding of marks needs to be faster. This occurs when I set a reminder on my calendar to review Moodle "assignments that need grading" and I also want to push that trigger all the way out to my mobile phone screen. In an ideal world, I would see the Moodle logo on my phone's home screen along with a number representing the unmarked assignments awaiting my attention.
I get a lot out of spotlighting the best work of students for a public audience. The "publics" most interesting for students sit inside Facebook. Students get "likes" and "comments" and academic colleagues get to see more of what is being taught on complementary modules. Some of the best work deserves to surface on an internal portal, on a technical blog, as short pieces for local news channels and in an end-of-year exhibition.
As I write this short analysis on my Lumia 1520, I realize I should create an embedded list that can be reviewed by peers at an institute-wide staff training session. So I will stop on that thought and embed the list below.
[Bernie Goldbach is the only Senior Pilot Creative Multimedia Lecturer in the Limerick Institute of Technology.]
