JISC report on student expectations of ICT

The recent report 'Great Expectations of ICT' published by JISC makes for interesting reading. Of particular note were the comments about social networking sites. Apparently 73% of first year students in UK HEIs use social networking sites, but 'struggle to see how it could be used in learning'. What they do use it for, is talking about their coursework, their classes, their tutors - it seems to operate as a kind of socially oriented support, not a content driven support.

In the school of English at Birmingham City University, we are thinking of using Facebook to support student induction. My experience of using the wiki as part of a workshop at the Narrative & Multimodality symposium showed that one of the key benefits of the 'biography' page was priming the level of discussion through improved social cohesion. Given that so many of our freshers will already be using Facebook, how great would it be that they could meet each other online before coming to the campus in September.