Web 2.0 and Assessment in Diplomatic Studies

Steven Curtis, Discipline Lead for Politics

Blogs

Twitter

Wikis

YouTube

Google Bookmarks

Web 2.0 tools in my teaching

2

Motivation: ‘It makes you want to do more’

Encourages reflection and participation

Discourages plagiarism? (cf. Tekinarslan 2008)

Unleashing creativity and ‘giving students the chance to excel’: ‘student as producer’ (Neary and Winn 2009)

‘Student inherited research and horizontal learning’ (www.essl.leeds.ac.uk/roundhouse/)

Peer, tutor and expert formative feedback (or ‘feedforward’) (Dippold 2009)

3

Blogs: benefits of writing in public

http://publicandculturaldiplomacye.blogspot.com/2011/03/qatar-shining-star-on-stage-of-public.html

A pedagogy for politics generally: writing about change and developments in current affairs (Craig 2012; Lawrence and Dion 2010)

Proliferating online materials

Not the most contentious subject, relatively speaking

Communication and representation as subject matter

Public diplomacy 2.0: tools used by practitioners; practical skills and employability

5

A pedagogy for diplomatic studies

Across all three levels with reductions in scaffolding: within VLE with questions (first year); public blogging with themes (second year); public research-based blogging (final year)

Group blogs of 8-10 students

At least five posts and six comments over the year

Entries selected, revised and submitted in portfolio for marking (students become their own editors)

Penalties for late and/or insufficient posts/comments

6

Blogging, assessment and feedback

There is always one: some coercion required

An instrumental approach to online exchanges (penalties for not commenting)?

Some training of students necessary

Making time for the additional burden of commenting

Overcoming qualms about public criticism of students’ work

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Some issues