Setting up your personal learning environment

You will need to use a blog (ie web log or diary) to keep all your notes, thoughts, communications, references and links for this subject all together in one place. The weekly tasks will often ask you to write and reflect on some aspect of the course. You will do this in the blog, and then you will share your thoughts with the class by tweeting your blog posts out to your fellow students. So in short - you need a blog and a twitter account and you need to link them together.

The MUN course requires you to have this setup by the end of Week 1. However, we recommend that you get started earlier on this, and set it up before the course even starts.



Activity 1

Create a blog, or refresh an existing blog is you already have one

If you need help getting started here are some resources to help.








Activity 2

Create a Twitter or WikiEducator account

This is vitally important to this subject which strongly integrates technology. Twitter is our preferred platform for a number of reasons. As the subject progresses you will be able to converse with the teaching team and your peers by using the hashtag #UOWMUN. The hashtag allows to you filter and find tweets on a similar topic. Modern diplomats and UN and other organisational officials use twitter actively to promote their activities and link to key documents.

  • Firstly, got to twitter.com and set yourself up an account.
  • When choosing a Twitter handle (your name), try to chose something short and sharp, because you are only allowed to used 140 character when tweeting.
  • If you are worried about anonymity, use your student login, and delete it after the class.
  • Need help setting up your Twitter account? Here is the Twitter Help/Support homepage. Check out the Getting Started section
  • Note: Should you not wish to obtain a twitter account, you can use 'WEnotes' which is a similar tool inside WikiEducator, and this will allow you to see the tweets made for this class as it will aggregate the tweets made with the #UOWMUN hashtag. It also lets you contribute to the online debate. Link to info on getting a WikiEducator account, and using WENotes.




Below are 3 video tutorials aimed at using twitter for learning, Video one gets you started, the second shows you how to find and follow experts. The last video looks and combining Blogging and Tweeting for learning.



Activity 3

Review the tweets of well known diplomats

Take a look at these twitter accounts and pick at least 2 people to follow:

  • @foreignoffice (British Foreign Ministry)
  • @JulieBishopMP (Australian Foreign Minister)
  • @EUHvR (The President of the European Commission)
  • Use the search function in twitter to find accounts for UN committees and campaigns as well as academics and NGOs, and follow the ones that interest you
  • Get into the habit of visiting your twitter "feed" every day and follow links through to interesting material
  • Write up notes on anything of interest as a post in your blog