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Facebook has the potential to be used as an educational tool that supports the formation of a cohort identity, improving engagement which can potentially positively impact on retention and performance. An in-house initiative created staff-maintained Facebook groups for each cohort within the Psychology suite of programmes, utilising staff engagement to add an additional learning resource for students during the duration of their course. The groups were positively received by 99% of students, showing that students immensely valued the additional learning resource available to them. Thematic analysis revealed key positive themes sense of community and support, ease of communication and the breaking down of barriers between staff and students; key negative themes involved concern around the potential for students to miss out on a valuable resource. The staff-maintained Facebook groups achieved their aim of creating a socially-oriented learning space that fostered a sense of community and cohort identity; the groups have been integrated into the permanent provision within the School of Psychology. This type of initiative has the potential to improve engagement, performance and retention in a world where blended learning is increasingly utilised., The Journal of Social Media for Learning, Vol 2 No 1 (2021): The Journal of Social Media for Learning

Facebook has the potential to be used as an educational tool that supports the formation of a cohort\ud identity, improving engagement which can potentially positively impact on retention and\ud performance. An in-house initiative created staff-maintained Facebook groups for each cohort within\ud the Psychology suite of programmes, utilising staff engagement to add an additional learning resource\ud for students during the duration of their course. The groups were positively received by 99% of\ud students, showing that students immensely valued the additional learning resource available to them.\ud Thematic analysis revealed key positive themes sense of community and support, ease of\ud communication and the breaking down of barriers between staff and students; key negative themes\ud involved concern around the potential for students to miss out on a valuable resource. The staffmaintained Facebook groups achieved their aim of creating a socially-oriented learning space that\ud fostered a sense of community and cohort identity; the groups have been integrated into the permanent\ud provision within the School of Psychology. This type of initiative has the potential to improve\ud engagement, performance and retention in a world where blended learning is increasingly utilised

Attention defines our mental ability to select and respond to stimuli, internal or external, on the basis of behavioural goals in the presence of competing, behaviourally irrelevant, stimuli. The frontal and parietal cortices are generally agreed to be involved with attentional processing, in what is termed the 'fronto-parietal' network. The left parietal cortex has been seen as the site for temporal attentional processing, whereas the right parietal cortex has been seen as the site for spatial attentional processing. There is much debate about when the modulation of the primary visual cortex occurs, whether it is modulated in the feedforward sweep of processing or modulated by feedback projections from extrastriate and higher cortical areas. MEG and psychophysical measurements were used to look at spatially selective covert attention. Dual-task and cue-based paradigms were used. It was found that the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), in particular the SPL and IPL, was the main site of activation during these experiments, and that the left parietal lobe was activated more strongly than the right parietal lobe throughout. The levels of activation in both parietal and occipital areas were modulated in accordance with attentional demands. It is likely that spatially selective covert attention is dominated by the left parietal lobe, and that this takes the form of the proposed sensory-perceptual lateralization within the parietal lobes. Another form of lateralization is proposed, termed the motor-processing lateralization, the side of dominance being determined by handedness, being reversed in left- relative to right-handers. In terms of the modulation of the primary visual cortex, it was found that it is unlikely that V1 is modulated initially; rather the modulation takes the form of feedback from higher extrastriate and parietal areas. This fits with the idea of preattentive visual processing, a commonly accepted idea which, in itself, prevents the concept of initial modulation of V1.