Engagement and learning through social software in finance: a retrospective on the Trading Room experience

The introduction of a social software blog space called the\ud Trading Room\ud in an\ud undergraduate finance unit generated a great deal of activity to support student\ud learning. A subsequent evaluation of this innovation, viewed through the lens of\ud Activity Theory, demonstrated that students perceived high value in the\ud opportunity it provided for them to reaffirm theories, obtain individualised\ud feedback and benchmark their work against others. While assessment is generally\ud seen as the carrot and the stick of learning; students in the study reported that they\ud would still participate in reading and posting to the\ud Trading Room\ud even if there was\ud no assessment requirement. Students did not see any value in the environment as\ud a purely social space, reporting that they saw it primarily as a professional\ud educational community. It would appear that just as there are different communities\ud in the real world social space, there are also different types of communities in the\ud online space