Just out of the first plenary session of the day and have come up to the main computer area on campus - how I wish we all had such fast computers.

Very interesting talk from Richard Hall from De Montfort University.  He mentioned a number of reports and I've tracked down links for some of them:

• DEMOS Edgeless University
• Digital Britain
• JISC: Thriving in the 21st Century
• Independent committee report (JISC): 'Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World'
• Revised HEFCE strategy (March 2009)
• Higher Ambitions
• JCAL (for free issue)

Richard had a lot of interesting topics and it's good to be able to follow some of them up through the report above.  The idea of a disconnect between the technology expectations of students and staff is not new - but clearly as technology moves on so that relationship continues to change.  Is it important for all staff/educators to constantly attempt to keep up with the latest in Web 2.0 and social media...?  I think not, and I don't imagine students would expect this - they're all going to be using a different mix of social media anyway.

A topic of conversation following Richard's talk was that students often appreciate the divide between what the university is offering and what they experience between friends.  There is a strong case for maintaining the divide, it is not the university's place to encroach into every aspect of their lives, so Facebook for friends and WebCT for uni is just fine for many.

This point also came to mind when hearing from Stephen Bruce on Edinburgh Napier's MLE evaluation.  The word clouds that illustrated how staff and students feel about WebCT were instructive - while the staff found WebCT could be frustrating, students liked it.  Perhaps we overestimate what students want to get out of WebCT - they don't need bells and whistles most of the time, just a regularly updated and efficient service.

David.