Frances Bell’s Blog

When I was a systems developer, it was fashionable to loathe the task of documentation, yet when making system changes we were grateful for any that had been provided.  With student project work, we demand documentation of products and require some record of the process, often to support the valuable reflection that can maximise student learning.  In a dissertation, one of the most illuminative questions can be What would you have done differently?

This weekend I was busy with a craft project - making 2 Ixus camera cases for loved ones with birthdays this week. It occurred to me that I could also experiment with recording the process on my Flickr.com site. 2 colleagues and I are starting a new ‘Digital Literacy’ style Year 1 undergraduate module, and I have become a bit obsessed with collecting tools, resources and activities for them, see http://delicious.com/francesbell/sbsemtech.

So here are the results of my labours - you can see the finished products,

and the visual project notebook covering  design and process. You can view this is a slideshow (best to click Show Info option) at http://www.flickr.com/photos/francesbell/sets/72157616064980620/show/
or visit the set and view the images one by one.

Digital media (particularly once every student has an image/video/audio/internet device in their pocket) should make the capturing of work as it happens very easy.  Blogs (as time-stamped streams of messages) are already used as project diaries, but for work with a visual element, flickr.com is an alternative.  An image of a whiteboard is a much quicker and less formal way of recording decisions and designs agreed in a meeting.  Flickr.com offers images and associated text, with a slideshow for ‘book’ format.  Social network sites offer easy to use methods of combining different media that can be presented streams or feeds.

I am definitely going to experiment with these forms  for my own use and with students.