An eye-opening T&L seminar, presented by Dr Neil Morris (University of Leeds) outlined how terribly, terribly easy the majority of our undergraduates find using technology…of all kinds!
Having seen his short video clip about how one of his students used his tablet to video record a lecture, whilst simultaneously annotate lecture slides provided on the University’s VLE, and instantly share his thoughts and indeed the whole videocast of the lecture with his Facebook friends, made me consider how much technology my own students use. As if by magic this week, it has been as if the students knew I was looking for such evidence, as the majority of the Therapeutics Problem Based Learning sessions I have been working in, demonstrated use of tablets, laptops, netbooks and mobile phones in numbers I had barely registered present in the room previously! One group even asked me to check through their Power Point presentation and promptly handed over an extremely professionally finished product….. on a mobile phone!
Anecdotal chatting with other students, introduced the concept of social media working groups. Many of them have set up Facebook Groups to share their PBL materials instantly with each other, and the issue of copyright and confidentiality was raised by Dr Morris in his talk. Having had such a clear demonstration from both Neil and the incredibly technologically-savvy University of Reading student population, I think it is essential now for staff to raise their game to meet student expectations, and begin to engage them in their electronic universe as well as face-to-face.