An academic here at Goldsmiths started a really interesting online discussion (on Moodle, incidentally) with her students about whether to use Facebook or the VLE as the online place for the course.
The students brought up many ethical issues, including commercialisation and the appropriateness of demanding that students set up accounts there, privacy, ownership, and intellectual property.
Even though nobody said they were particularly enamoured of the VLE, they weren't prepared to make Facebook a central part of their course.
My more recent interviews with students have borne this out. Many use it socially, but would not want to be required to use it since they are aware that some of their fellow students avoid it because they consider it too commercial, a purely social space, or too tempting a diversion.
An academic here at Goldsmiths started a really interesting online discussion (on Moodle, incidentally) with her students about whether to use Facebook or the VLE as the online place for the course.
ReplyDeleteThe students brought up many ethical issues, including commercialisation and the appropriateness of demanding that students set up accounts there, privacy, ownership, and intellectual property.
Even though nobody said they were particularly enamoured of the VLE, they weren't prepared to make Facebook a central part of their course.
My more recent interviews with students have borne this out. Many use it socially, but would not want to be required to use it since they are aware that some of their fellow students avoid it because they consider it too commercial, a purely social space, or too tempting a diversion.