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.
Mendeley
One of the big challenges in stepping up from A-level to degree to post graduate is in academic writing and the need for accurate referencing. Many students use what they have always done and stitch a list of references together, hoping that their take on Harvard or AMA is correct. I’ve led on some training with my Secondary PGCE cohort introducing software called Mendeley. Now, for the uninitiated, Mendeley is a set of services (an account where your references are saved) which is accessed on multiple platforms and browsers and it has a plugin that pulls all this information into MS Word. This allows an accurate reference list to be created in a few seconds. The huge benefit is that most times you find a suitable journal it’s possible to take the reference details and pull it into your online account along with a copy of the pdf document (where available). Not only that but from Mendeley it’s possible to search their database of other references to ensure that you have all the details accurately recorded and stored.
All of this is stored online (up to 2 gig of space for free) with the ability to access it from anywhere in the world. Being able to annotate your files with colours and keywords means that “key word searching” is straightforward as it searches all your entries and annotations. This is ideal if you are trying to search quickly for that file where there was a reference to Malawi University, for example, without having to search all your files laboriously. It is possible to set up a group of like-minded individuals, for example Computer Science PGCE trainees, where references are shared with peers - good academic practice.
Looking forward, Mendeley allows the academic to establish their presence online - which can start to give you stats on how your academic “reach” is increasing. Furthermore, it identifies authors and journals which are potentially relevant to your research interests, ideal in expanding your knowledge, in depth and breadth of research.
To quote two of my trainees this year:
“I have found Mendeley brilliant! It has organised all my reading into one safe and portable space, so I can continue my research anywhere with Internet access. It has also helped me with my referencing, as this was one of my original worries about essay writing. I feel confident with Mendeley.“
And
“I would have spent the guts of an entire extra day focusing solely on referencing after I had written an essay. Mendeley has provided me with the actual ability to do this as I go, simply by clicking a few buttons and nothing more. Life-saver!”
Not only is it good academic practice to develop your skillset but I hope this has persuaded you to investigate Mendeley and go further.
Web links:
Mendeley: https://mendeley.com/Link opens in a new window
TWENTE University Help: https://library.itc.utwente.nl/papers/mendeley.pdfLink 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.