Distributed digital essay: academia connects with social media

Fiona Nicolson*, Sherrie Love, Mitch Parsell

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference proceeding contributionpeer-review

    Abstract

    A key challenge faced by higher education is the evolution of assessment tasks to better suit the participatory and collaborative way in which our students use the web. This paper provides a model for a distributed digital essay that incorporates academic rigour with the peer discourse that has become the norm for digitally literate scholars active in social media. Our model is derived from a community of inquiry approach and prioritises students’ engagement with the academic literature in their discipline. The model empowers the students to extend their learning community beyond the boundaries of their particular student cohort into a professional network. Students produce a digital artefact in which they expound their evidence-based knowledge and also demonstrate how they have used social media to test and consolidate their understanding. We provide an example that demonstrates how the distributed digital essay task was integrated into an online, postgraduate unit with an inquiry-based approach to learning.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationElectric Dreams
    Subtitle of host publication30th Ascilite Conference 2013 Proceedings
    EditorsH. Carter, M. Gosper, J. Hedberg
    Place of PublicationNorth Ryde, NSW
    PublisherMacquarie University
    Pages627-632
    Number of pages6
    ISBN (Electronic)9781741384031
    Publication statusPublished - 2013
    Event30th Annual conference on Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education, ASCILITE 2013 - Sydney, Australia
    Duration: 1 Dec 20134 Dec 2013

    Other

    Other30th Annual conference on Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education, ASCILITE 2013
    Country/TerritoryAustralia
    CitySydney
    Period1/12/134/12/13

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