Welcome to the WJETT blog
What is WJETT?
The WJETT blog or Warwick Journal of Education - Transforming Teaching blog is designed to encourage staff and students to disseminate good practice and to engage with their peers on academic cultural critique or areas of research that they find interesting. With the increased focus on ‘teachers as researchers’ in the sector, many qualified teachers are expected to publish the outcomes of any action research projects they undertake. The WJETT blog can be the first step on your journey towards publishing and enables you to experience publishing and reviewing in a friendly and supportive environment.
You will need to scroll down the page below the tags to see the posts.
Including Esports in the curriculum to prepare for the Metaverse(s)
Following the launch of our Warwick Esports centre, in collaboration with the Esports team Jack Fenton and Elenore Jiawen Li, we included Esports in four WBS modules (Digital Transformation, Design Thinking for Digital Innovation, Digital Marketing Technology and Management, and Developing Consulting Expertise). This allowed management students to experiment with and to reflect on digital innovations and to find solutions to problems. Specifically, we wanted to encourage students to develop tangible ideas for the future metaverse ecosystem.
While learning about technologies and business models related to Esports and the Metaverse, the topic also allowed students to reflect on the convergence of technology, ethics, science, psychology and digital wellbeing, as well as on the impact on environmental and social sustainability. Teaching delivery was accompanied by authentic assessments, with students able to choose their topic. These novel assessments (vlogs, blogs, board papers) were introduced in the previous year which allowed for comparisons.
We found on the one hand that the quality of submitted assignments improved, with students seemingly much more creative and also technological ‘savvy’, both for their choice of topics and content as well as for the delivery formats. On the other hand, module evaluation showed that the inclusion of the Metaverse and Esports early on in the module ‘hyped’ students and wet their appetite to ‘fully’ understand the potential applications of the Metaverse despite the Metaverse(s) still being conceptualised. While previous students were happy with carton-based headsets using their own mobile phones, some of this year’s students would have appreciated working with sophisticated VR headsets, possibly because our teaching delivery was further hyped up as it coincided with Microsoft’s $68.7bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard, clearly showing the current potential of the gaming industry.
Finally, here are some testimonials from students new to Esports, provided after the initial seminar on Esports:
- I am doing the Design Thinking module where we had a chance to join the esports world. This enables us to think creatively! I love our Warwick Esports Centre.
- Thank you for letting us use the Esports Centre - it was really fun and easy to learn.
- First time and it was a very enjoyable experience. Very well organized and easy for beginners.
- Really enjoyable experience, great equipment.
- The game is really fun to play. It’s quite unexpecting and fun which the seminar works. I enjoyed it a lot. Thank you for the experience.
- Thank you for giving students such a good opportunity on campus. It really is a good way to bring people from different backgrounds together.
For further information on this initiative you might want to listen to this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ldcuwarwick/episodes/Blogging--AI-Marking--Online-Learning--Communication--Metaverse--Esports-e1d8efuLink opens in a new window
Writing guidance
Can I write about anything in my blog post?
Yes pretty much. Academic cultural critique (Thomson and Mewburn, 2013) is always a good source of content for academic blogs. This can include (but is not limited to) comments and reflections on funding; higher education policy or academic life. You might also want to consider blogging about:
- Academic practice (Saper, 2006)
- Information and/or self-help advice
- Technical, teaching and careers advice
- Your research or practice
- How you’ve undertaken research
- The impact of research on your practice
- An area of research/practice that interests you
- Your teaching experiences/reflections
How long can my blog post be?
Each individual blog post should be no longer than 500 words. Long blocks of text are sometimes hard for readers to digest. Break up your content into shorter paragraphs, bullet points and lists whenever possible. Also include a list of keywords or tags as this makes it easier for Google to find your work.
Do I need to use citations?
No, this is a reflective piece so it does not need to include citations (but you obviously can include them if they are relevant).
Can I include links or images?
We would encourage you to include links to any articles that you have considered whilst writing your blog post. We also welcome the use of images (as long as you have permission to use them) as they can often help to illustrate a point and obviously will not be included in the word limit. Please remember this is a public site so if you want to include images of your students in your classes then you will need permission to do this.
What is the process for submitting a piece of work?
Your blog post should be emailed to A.Ball.1@warwick.ac.uk. Once the submission has been reviewed it will either be uploaded at the beginning of the next available week or sent back to you for editing if it requires amendments. You should then send the amended work to me once again and I will then upload it.