Week 11 : Knowledge Management and the Student (pffft! no seriously!)

Knowledge Management or Too Much Information?

As mentioned by the Right Hon. Maurice Gledhil Esq, students do need access to siginificant amounts of knowledge, but are we giving them access to too much knowledge? and how can we help them organise it all....

Any form of 'management' need to have structure and order, otherwise it will be a mess....Knowledge Management needs to have structure and order or the 'knowledge' will become disorientating and lead to information overload.

One tool in the students armory is the VLE, for the duration of this posting I shall be referring to the unviersities VLE which is Blackboard.

If a student had a central repository for their knowledge, for example on Blackboard, they would be in control of what knowledge they can store, keep and digest any bits of information required. they could also store links and articles that may also be relevant to each subject that they find on their curriculum or timetable.

There are products available, such as Campus Pack for Blackboard. They have a product called Personal Learning Space which allow students to have their own knowledge management space.

One of the ways to view the organisation of knowledge management for a student is to look at their student lifecycle as a book. This book is not only a story of their progress through their degree but also shows how they have learnt new ideas and gained knowledge and while they have carried on with their studies. These ideas and knowledge are built upon over the course of there degree.

The book would start out, with such sections as a wiki, one central blog to cover what has been covered outside of the classroom and further individual blogs to help reflect upon what has happened inside the classroom. This would allow the student to build up their own knowledge base over their student lifetime.

Blackboard, if used correctly by the students lecturers, should hold key dates and information such as the modules the students are currently enrolled on, inside these moduls should be information regarding dates for assignment submissions.

The student can be enrolled into organisatiosn which are independent of their modular enrolments, such organisations as the Learning Development Unit can offer advice on how to user correct grammar, how to reference properly and other such invaluabel techniques which the student will need to know if they plan to graduate with the highest award possible.

Blackboard can become the centre of the students teaching and learning experience if utilised correctly, if any university can do this correctly then the studnets experience at university will be considerably less stressful.