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Online critiques

Bill Genereux (Member)
Started 1 year ago  #         

I am interested in Web 2.0 technologies for having online critiques for creative work that my distance education students have made. For example, I have a photography course that we would like to share photos and offer comments and critiques on the work. For this purpose, I am thinking Flickr would work, but maybe not so well for other things.

Are there any other great ideas for holding online critiques? Eventually, students will be doing graphic design projects, multi-media projects, and so forth. I would like the experience to resemble what it would be like to stand up in front of the class with your work to answer questions and respond to suggestions.

What are your thoughts on each student keeping an individual electronic portfolio that can be referred to by the rest of the class? I would like to see these with RSS feeds that the instructor can subscribe to, keeping up to date with the progress of all students.

I am just having a hard time sorting all of this out.

Thanks.

Answers from fellow members and edublogs support

drmike (Volunteer Support Guru)
Posted 1 year ago  #         

I am thinking Flickr would work

You may want to hold off for a bit. The newest version of the software includes better support for image uploading as well as gallery support. It's a pain doing the upgrade though from the backend. I believe James is still mulling it over currently and is planning on rolling it out sometime in the next few weeks.

One thing that comes to mind is how you can have RSS feeds for each category. If you were to assign posts categories related to each individual student, you could keep track of the students.

Hope this helps,
-drmike

edit: I wonder is Sue would be willing to work out a post on this one.

Sue Waters (Sue Waters)
Posted 1 year ago  #         

Actually I'm still thinking that perhaps individual blogs for each students work might be the better way to go (that way they also each have their own personal online portfolio). They can still store the photos on Flickr if they prefer as well. That way it will be easier to embed a range of different types of media and you could even get them to create a video where they talk about their work which they then embed into their blog posts. Other students could then write comments or posts to respond back on their thoughts on the work.

In terms of management you could set up a Feed Reader that brings all the feed from the blogs into one location e.g. a NetVibes, PageFlakes or iGoogle. Or place all the feeds from the blogs in a folder in Google Reader, show each student how to use Google Reader and then give them the feeds for all the blogs.

The other issue have to consider is making it as simple to use since they are distance education students. Happy to work with you to trial a few different options to see which solution you like best than we can write it up as a post for the Edublogger.

Bill Genereux (Member)
Posted 1 year ago  #         

I've been thinking that individual blogs is the way to go as well. I like the idea of starting online portfolios as 1st year students, then having them keep it going their entire four years of college and beyond. (We are starting a new digital media curriculum this fall, and this idea would be perfect for those students.)

I had this discussion with a colleague last week, and her main concern was with intellectual property rights of the students. She said I shouldn't be requiring students to put their work on the internet for the world to see, but give them the option to do so or place the work in a password protected area that only the class can see. Her big thing is that they be given a choice.

I feel that with a potential global audience that might see your work, you might be more inclined to give it your best effort. This is how the world communicates, and I want my students to experience it.

I think she misses the point and power of Web 2.0, but she has also given me some things to think about that I had not considered. Safety and well-being of the students is one. It is very risky putting your ideas out there for everyone to see. It is even risky in a "safe" classroom environment, when you are still in a process of self discovery.

But what an exciting way to document personal growth. I can look at some of the things I posted to the Internet years ago (with the wayback machine since they are no longer online) and see how my own thinking has evolved. I think this permanence of things published to the 'net is what my colleague fears.

Anyway, sorry to turn this into a philosophical discussion. But it seems that the technology and philosophy are intertwined.

Sue Waters (Sue Waters)
Posted 1 year ago  #         

The debate on the issues is important. It is worth taking all the points you have raised in this post to the forum and turning it into a blog post where readers are asked for their input i.e. pros/cons and to provide examples of how they have seen other institutions use this with their students. By opening up these questions to a wider audience you will get greater feedback and get more ideas.

Bill Genereux (Member)
Posted 1 year ago  #         

I have done so here: http://billgx.edublogs.org/2008/04/24/risk-vs-reward-in-web-20-teaching/

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