Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Glasgow Uni launches SoTL website October 25, 2008
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : Academic, HE, SoTL, educational development , add a commentIs this a first for a UK university? Glasgow has launched a website dedicated to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), punningly called BeSoTLed — and it’s more than just a page with links to some of the (much more plentiful) sites in North America.
This initiative has grown out of a learning community of teaching staff at Glasgow University, particularly Lorna Morrow (psychology), Rob McKerlie (dentistry) and Jane MacKenzie (Learning and Teaching Centre). Congrats to them. These three seem to have an open and encouraging way of describing their involvement with SoTL — for example, I like the way they
do not see themselves as SoTL experts but as SoTL enthusiasts.
Glasgow University seems to have been encouraging SoTL more actively in recent years. It became the only European member of the Building SoTL Communities project, supported by the Carnegie Academy. The six others are all in the USA or Canada. Glasgow also set up a SoTL journal a few years ago — the Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.
The BeSoTLed website points to other activities, too — indeed, there’s an accompanying Moodle site, which sadly is accessible only to Glasgow staff.
Good stuff. Which also it makes me wonder why the HEA hasn’t created something like this, as far as I’m aware, as a central resource to encourage SoTL in UK higher education. Of course the HEA has supported initiatives such as this one at City, where we do our bit for SoTL, too, with an international conference almost annually, and schemes for SoTL research and recognition. Among other things.
New image search tutorial from Intute and TASI October 15, 2008
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentWorth a look. I find the interface clunky but it's a useful resource to which to point people who might not know their way around this area (from the Intute blog):
"Internet for Image Searching is a new, free online tutorial to help staff and students in universities and colleges to find digital images for their learning and teaching:
http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/tutorial/imagesearching/
[…]
The emphasis of the tutorial is on finding copyright cleared images which are available free; facilitating quick, hassle-free access to a vast range of online photographs and other visual resources."
Donald Clark Plan B: txtng (the gr8 db8) October 6, 2008
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentA review of David Crystal's study of texting: "It’s good to see some sound, academic sense in a field that’s dominated by amateur newspaper hacks like John Humphries (in the Daily Mail), John Sutherland (in the Guardian) and Lynn Truss, who see texting as some sort of illegitimate attack on language. Disgruntled Boomers, who know little or nothing about either texting or liguistics love to crow on about how it’s debasing the language and producing generation of illiterate idiots. A widely distributed newspaper story in 2003 stated that a student had written an entire essay in textspeak. Turns out this was made up and the essay has never been found. […] But the true worth of the book is in tearing down popular misconceptions. Texting, according to Crystal is:
Not new
Not restricted to the young
Doesn’t abbreviate as much as you think it does
Helps rather than hinders literacy
Produces wonderful forms of language"
Time for journalism academics to get real (Tim Luckhurst) | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk September 30, 2008
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentMight reflect lack of funding for such debates/research; low level of cross-over between business and journalism within universities; and the focus primarily on teaching journalism and, for most research, on other aspects of journalism more likely to attract funding (for research). Perhaps Luckhurst will be asking Kent Messenger group to fund it…
"There is a real opportunity here for journalism academics to step beyond the stale and abstract and engage with harsh reality. Can we stimulate a plausible, productive debate about the media economics of the internet era? Can we devise a model in which good reporters can be employed and good journalism can thrive? It would be the best possible response to those who doubt whether journalism has a place in universities."
What journalism schools should be doing? September 27, 2008
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentThe Future of Journalism - What Does it Look Like? USC II - David Cohn (digidave) on what J-schools should be doing:
- How individual journalists can continue to make a living despite the fall of newspapers.
- Re-define acts of journalism: change the culture of journalism to be more participatory.
- Re-define journalism’s mission: bring us back to our roots as professionals who, through services and products, serve a democratic society.
- Invigorate the culture and industry of journalism: bring back the passion. No more clasping our hands over our face like the kid in that Home Alone movie. It’s time to take charge!