.... when they do not yet exist!
I am really disappointed that the process of approving the job descriptions for the student mentors is taking so long. Effectively this means that they will not be joining the group on Day 1 and I think we will miss out on gathering some important data about students' initial digital literacy needs. It may be possible for the tutors involved to do some of the observing/reporting and we can at least blog about it, but don't hold your breath - I think the initial weeks will be busy as we orientate ourselves too.
Another huge spanner in the works is that we have recruited well over 108 students on the first year of course and so will have to split the group after all. This is likely to mean one group of about 90 and another of around 30. I don't exactly know how timetabling will sort this. What I do know is that there will be no tutors available for the overspill session (except for me most probably) so overnight this has doubled my workload on the module. This will though give me an opportunity to test out the room with a smaller group and compare the two learning environments. (see - I always try and look on the bright side...)
A real positive so far is that, having met the first year students today in our official course induction, I can report that the vast majority are already fairly savvy with NOW, their timetables and email.
The pre course survey we conducted also reveals a good level of confidence in using the internet. So the nuts and bolts of digital literacies/skills that we used to have to focus on in the first couple of weeks are not now as necessary for quite so many students and I am hoping we can really hit the ground running.
More information on the critical digital literacies can be found here (these informed the design of the first year module).
Doug Belshaw's introduction to Digital Literacy is summarised in this Slideshare presentation
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