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"In this paper, we explore the benefits of using social media in an online educational setting, with a particular focus on the use of Facebook and Twitter by participants in a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) developed to enable educators to learn about the Carpe Diem learning design process. We define social media as digital social tools and environments located outside of the provision of a formal university-provided Learning Management System. We use data collected via interviews and surveys with the MOOC participants as well as social media postings made by the participants throughout the MOOC to offer insights into how participants' usage and perception of social media in their online learning experiences differed and why. We identified that, although some participants benefitted from social media by crediting it, for example, with networking and knowledge-sharing opportunities, others objected or refused to engage with social media, perceiving it as a waste of their time. We make recommendations for the usage of social media for educational purposes within MOOCs and formal digital learning environments."

Shows an enviable commitment to a well thought through strategy that Swansea could learn a lot from!

"Thirty years ago I attended Prescott College, a small liberal arts college deeply rooted in experiential learning. All of the courses involved writing, and the "journal" was not only a part of the demonstration of competence, but it was used like a physical space for our thinking. It provided us with visible and tangible space to think on. I know "think on" sounds funny, but that is what writing can be. A visible process of thinking."

Resources & information related to learning spaces (physical and virtual).

"SCALE UP stands for Student-Centred Active Learning Environment for Upside-Down Pedagogy"

Tape measures. Rulers. Graphs. The gas gauge in your car, and the icon on your favorite digital device showing battery power. The number line and its cousins -- notations that map numbers onto space and often represent magnitude -- are everywhere. Most adults in industrialized societies are so fluent at using the concept, we hardly think about it. We don't stop to wonder: Is it "natural"? Is it cultural?

A study in which participants are asked to send Twitter messages instead of recording the information in a diary

"he MOOC space essentially doubled this year. More people signed up for MOOCs in 2015 than they did in the first three years of the "modern" MOOC movement (which started in late 2011-when the first Stanford MOOCs took off). According to data collected by Class Central, the total number of students who signed up for at least one course has crossed 35 million-up from an estimated 16-18 million last year."

Edward Edgerton finds it deeply ironic that universities, as cradles of research, know so little about the impact their own buildings have on staff and students.