Sharing spaces

When Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) began to take hold in teaching circles in the 1980s, personal computers were still largely stand-alone, and the World Wide Web was little more than a twinkle in Sir Tim's eyes. Vygotsky was educated in the Stalinist USSR so his ideas of cognitive gain were inevitably tinged with communal ideals, resulting in a theory rooted in social contruction of learning. But how could teachers translate these ideas into authentic learning contexts? A seminal conference paper entitled PC is to Piaget and WWW is to Vygotsky revealed a glimmer of light. The paper was quite prescient, but also wide of the mark, because it was written in 1995. That was of course the year many consider to have marked the emergence of the Web into the mainstream of our consciousness. Yet it wasn't until the social dimensions of the Web began to emerge into mainstream use around 6-7 years ago that Vygotsky's social constructivism approaches began to be realised.

Now we see learners collaborating, corresponding, voting, networking and connecting using a bewildering array of social tools such as wikis, blogs, social networking sites, photosharing and videosharing services and mobile telephony. It has to be documented, and all of us are the ones who will do it.

Below, as I promised in an earlier blog, is my own small contribution - the first in a series of 60 second videos which will illustrate how students are using the social web to create shared learning spaces. In this video you will see that they are not only sharing spaces, but also tools and technologies (a sort of technological multi-tasking) which provides them with their desired and possibly optimised learning spaces. Learning is the same as it ever was, but thanks to the new tools I believe it is also subtly changing.

Click to play

Pass, friend and enter

Remembering passwords is not easy for many of us. The same goes for usernames sometimes. I don't know how many you have, but my collection of usernames and passwords for all my social networking sites, e-mail accounts, banking and online shopping services drives me crazy. I often have to resort to sending a help message and then waiting and waiting, sometimes for hours to get an e-mail reminder. It doesn't help my blood pressure, believe me. Having trouble remembering yours too? Roboform might just change all that, but we shall see.... Here's how it works. You use its onboard password manager to enter all your passwords for all the sites you visit on a regular basis. Once all the date is saved, you can even port the details between computers using the synchronize feature.

Oh, and it claims you can also defeat those nasty keyloggers - by entering all your personal data just once into Roboform, you will be able to complete any future online forms you encounter with a single click of the mouse. Sounds like a good deal so I'm going to try to break it right now....

Internet memes - chains you can believe in

So what's all the hype about internet memes? For those who are not in the loop, the term 'internet memes' is 'used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet, much like an inside joke' (Wikipedia). It's a little like a chain letter or a series of links between friends, but it usually happens without any effort. For bloggers, we have already experienced the Passion Quilt Meme, the 7 Random Things Meme, and way back in time, we witnessed some of the video/visual memes that have since become infamous, including the Star Wars Kid video (with all its many variants) and several Numa Numa song versions on YouTube. They are simply ideas that spread, usually virally, due to their quirkiness, timing in relation to an event, or more often than not, a phrase that sticks and becomes a 'catch phrase'.

There are also the damn awful self publicity memes and the blatent advertising and marketing memes, which to all intents and purposes are merely shameless spam dressed up in a thin layer of acceptability. And yet these are fascinating ideas that teachers might be wise to pay some attention to. There are some questions that certainly spring to my mind when I think about internet memes. They are: how do these memes catch on in the first place? What is it that causes some to survive and thrive whilst others wither and die? How can we harness the power of the social web to exploit this information transmission for the benefit of students? Or for the benefit of our communities of practice?

Reflecting on the recent election victory and inauguration of President Barack Obama, several ideas come to mind. Several iconic images, slogans and phrases that emerged to capture the essence of these unprecendented and historic events. 'Yes we can!', 'Change we can believe in', and the stylised 'yin and yang' type icon - (including all the ongoing rhetoric about who got there first, Pepsi or Obama) are just a few. Either way, these are memes, because they carry information and they are culturally transmitted. The same thing happened for a very different reason when the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were attacked on 9/11. Psychologists call this a 'flashbulb memory' effect - when an indelible image or impression is forged in the mind due to the emotional effects - the shock and awe of a significant event. Perhaps this is happening with internet memes, but with a longer exposure time, and through a smaller aperture. These images and ideas are powerful because they stick in the mind and are easily remembered. If you are reading this and are a teacher, you should recognise the potential for using memes in teaching and learning, regardless of the sector within which you work.

Internet memes, like many artefacts on the social web, are capable of transmitting information that students can transform into knowledge. How teachers do this is down to the ingenuity of each teacher and their skills in manipulating internet tools, images, sounds, text and so on. Unfortunately, many teachers are still paddling around on the shoreline of the social web, and need to wade in a little deeper to be able to exploit its power for the benefit of their students. We all need to contribute to make the Web a better place for learning. As a part of my personal contribution I'm in the process of creating a series of 60 second videos which show how my own students are using web 2.0 tools to learn. They will appear as links on this blog in the coming months. Keep the faith - and don't break the chain! Can we all contribute something interesting and useful? Yes we can!

Remixing culture - a 'C' change?

For those of us who are still getting our heads around the concept of 'Creative Commons' and the idea of 'free culture' on the Web, an interesting and illuminating video entitled 'Reticulum Rex' comes highly recommended. The title Reticulum Rex you will discover, is a clever anagram of a phrase that is relevant to the ethos of creative commons! When you watch the video you will understand. Creative Commons, orginally the brainchild of American academic Lawrence Lessig, is a non-profit organisation that aims to bring sense to copyright on the Internet, to clarify the rules of ownership, creativity and legal use of all digital artefacts - 'helping authors and artists to build a body of free culture created in real time' - runs the video commentary.

In their own words, the good people at CC aim to help us all to knock down the walls between writer and reader, composer and listener, culture and creator and change the rules over copyright within social media and technology. Founder's copyright - the rule that after 14 years material can be made available for free use by anyone - is a direct byproduct of the CC project. Sampling licences are another CC outcome - new tools to enable people to use the work of others in part (sampling) to remix and repurpose, thereby creating new content that previously did not exist. And all this without any legal worries or friction. This is a philosophy that goes beyond most people's received wisdom, and yet makes complete sense in our read/write web culture where digital content of all kinds is constantly shifting, changing and merging. Watch the video if you want to get to grips with Creative Commons. (Image from Masternewmedia.org)

A useful site related to this topic is the JISC funded Web2Rights project.

Twittering about - part 2

Here's the continuation of the report on my recent survey on about Twitter uses. I asked people what their top three reasons were for using Twitter. Yesterday's post carried some of the responses, and here are the rest. If you use Twitter yourself you may follow some of these notorious microbloggers....

@cristinacost (Cristina Costa, England) uses Twitter because she gets useful links and connections, meets great people and indulges in a 'bit of chatter.' She says it is also important to have fun when using Twitter. @vaughany (Paul Vaughan, England) says it's all about the networking, conversation and distraction. @Pettsvaldo (Kristian Petterson, England) uses Twitter to get help from his peers, for amusement and to gain access to 'the most contemporaneous news one can get'. @karynromeis (Karyn Romeis, England) locks into a network of likeminded individuals, gets links to interesting things she might otherwise have missed and uses Twitter to make up for the loss of office chatter since she 'went solo'. @andypiper (Andy Piper, England) likes keeping up with news, enjoys the ambient intimacy and says that Twitter gives him awareness of his friends, and helps him extend his network.

Downunder, @suewaters (Sue Waters, Australia) says she enjoys near instantaneous connections with extremely diverse groups of people who willingly help and share, and likes the ability of Twitter to provide quick help and assistance to others and similarly receive, increased ability to achieve deeper personal connection to people in your PLN compared to normal blogging. @ljloeffler (Louis Loeffler, USA) says it is easy to discover new Web 2.0 ideas, network and meet, improve and learn. And there's more...

@SarahStewart (Sarah Stewart, New Zealand) says access to broad range of info and people is important as is access to synchronous and serendipitous events. She says that Twitter gives her more of a personal insight into the people she follow through blogs. @ctscho (Carmen Tschofen, USA) says she appreciates Twitter's constant flow of excellent links, a sense of the exchange of dynamics among like thinkers and thinks that it is an excellent place for interaction for introverts. @Quinnovator (Clark Quinn, USA) likes to track what is going on, obtains responses to questions and issues he poses and finds Twitter useful to interact with his colleagues.

@MtnLaurel (Laura Little, USA) finds Twitter useful to connect with her colleagues too, discovers local information, and can share her knowledge and experience within a community of interest. Finally, @torresk (Ricardo Torres Compen, Spain) uses Twitter as a pedagogical tool to support his students and promote discussion. He uses it to keep up-to-date and for networking with colleagues.

Bearing in mind that only 22 people responded to the survey, it would be foolish to make generalisations from such a small sample and this is merely a snapshot of current uses. However, I hope that you can appreciate that trends are indicated here, even in such a superficial study. Statistics are calculated on the basis that each respondent had 3 reasons to give and that each reason was placed into categories as follows: Social interaction/maintaining network, Sharing own knowledge, Entertainment and fun, Getting responses to questions, Finding new links and information, Immediacy, and 'Other'. Percentages were calculated from each column based on the sum divided by 22. I didn't perform any inferential statistics due to the small sample, but there is scope for a larger study.

By far the most important reason for using Twitter was to maintain social and professional network of contacts (82%). This was followed closely by the desire to keep up to date with new trends and technologies (72%). 32% used Twitter as a means of entertainment and fun. It's obvious that Twitter is being used to connect and engage, but interestingly, only 2 respondents (9%) used it to 'share their own knowledge'. I suspect more actually do this, but didn't report it (I follow them all and often learn from their twittering). All in some way or another wanted to keep in contact with their colleagues and peers, and wanted contact with those working in the same area of interest, and to maintain their networks. Twitter then, is seen by users as a multi-purpose social networking tool which has possibilities at several levels. No wonder it is growing exponentially, possibly at the expense of other Web 2.0 tools. As always, any comments are welcome. (Image source: Cyndygreen.wordpress.com)

Twittering about - part 1

So there are all these people on Twitter, but what do they use it for? It's a hugely successful microblogging tool with many hundreds of new users joining in every day. I have been 'doing it' (tweeting that is) for about a year, and I'm not tired of it yet. Some of the elite Twits have as many as 20 or 30 thousand 'followers' (those who subscribe to their feed) and Twitter shows no signs of slowing down in its surge in popularity. I put up a quick question on Twitter last week, just to see what response I would get (bearing in mind that I am only a moderate Twit with just under 700 followers and 2500 tweets to my name (The name's buckteeth... @timbuckteeth). The question was: 'What are your top three reasons for using Twitter?' I received 22 responses in a few hours from around the globe. Here's a brief analysis of what I found...

First our of the blocks was @tswinke (Tillman Swinke, Germany) He likes to read about current technical developments, new techniques and web findings and also read about current eLearning research and conferences. He said he is interested in using Twitter to post current activities and read about the current activities of others to check for possible synergies.

@maryn (Mary Nunaly, USA) uses Twitter to stay in touch with colleagues, to access current technology information and for access to new ideas and opportunities. @joecar (Joe Wilson, Scotland) sent a link to his blog post on the reasons he uses Twitter and why he follows certain people. Juliana (@julianna07) from Romania was more concise... links, friends, fun. @TheGriffinster (Monty Paul, England) responded similarly: community/networking, information/sharing, recreation/fun. Over in Poland @tomaszwalasek (Tomasz Walasek, Poland) sent three tweets to tell me he uses Twitter to see what the gurus are doing, following trends, news and good stuff. He says he gets faster and more accurate sources of valuable (revised) knowledge, quicker responses to small questions and problems, answers from professionals and communication without a time effort.

@loumcgill (Lou McGill, Scotland) said Twitter facilitates multi-tasking, supporting several networks at once including elearning, home education, autism, friends and photography. @jamesclay (James Clay, England) said Twitters is a community of practice, it's fun and it's about the coffee. He sent a link to a blog post on the subject too entitled 'It's all about the coffee' -all to be expected if you know James.

@emmadw (Emma Duke-Williams, England) liked the quickness of Twitter and the ability to integrate it with iGoogle home page, but warned it was bizarrely addictive. @mattlingard (Matt Lingard, England) said that Twitter helps him create links, contacts/relationships (making new ones, getting to know existing ones better), and that it is easy to dip in and out of.

I have more responses to post up tomorrow in part 2, along with a statistical analysis of the top reasons why these bloggers and micro-bloggers use this wonderful tool we all know as Twitter. (Picture source: eduweb.hu)

Being myself

As a psychologist, I'm very interested in the concept of identity. I have studied it, written about it, and introspected (self questioned) on it and in particular, asked how identity can be manipulated in 'cyberspace'. This particular blog post is rooted in several others I posted in December, but notably two: 'It's only me' (which was about my Twitter and Flickr avatar @timbuckteeth) and 'The new Mii' which focused on 3D avatars such as those we create to represent ourselves when we play on the Nintendo Wii.

It all came to a head earlier this week when I mischieviously posted up on Ning that it was my birthday on 12 January (the same day the Digifolios and Personal learning Spaces online workshop kicked off). It wasn't my birthday though... mine is actually on June 16. As far as I know, only dear old Queen Elizabeth II has two birthdays (and presumably if there is a Queen Elizabeth III she will have 3 birthdays!). But I wasn't lying though. You see, January 12 is actually the day I created Timbuckteeth. And he is now two years old. So was it my birthday really? During his short little life, he has become a part of my online identity, and it has now got to the stage where not only do people address me as 'Mr T-B-T' online, I am also occasionally called 'Tim' by my f2f students. More than a dozen online friends wished 'me' a happy birthday on 12 January. I passed on the greetings to Tim of course.

The next day, when I came clean on Twitter about the birthday, Alexandra Grant-Paul (over in Canada - @AlexnWonderland) came up with a really interesting social question when she asked: How much ARE we our avatars?

Got me thinking it did. So I challenged her to write about it. She did, and her latest blog post 'Me and my avatar' is evidence of her thoughts. Alex poses some interesting questions and makes some amusing yet challenging comments about how we choose to represent ourselves to others, and how we are so good at changing our personae. It's well worth a read, and it'll get you thinking, I promise you.

So here's my closing comment: The social philosopher Erving Goffman (another Canadian!) proposed a theory of 'being' in which he likened us to actors on a stage (known popularly as the Dramaturgical model'). We manage our impressions most carefully, he claimed, when we are in our 'front stage' roles - that is, when we have an audience. This is in stark contrast to our behaviour when we are 'back stage', that is relaxed and with people we feel more comfortable with. Then we can be our true selves. In our front stage roles, we are subject to costumes, scripts, props, etc., but in our back stage roles, we can truly be ourselves.

But are we not also ourselves when we are front stage? Just a different version of the self? And when I create an avatar to 'represent' me, does the avatar change me? Or diminish me? Or enhance me.... when I am online? How much of 'me' is actually invested in the avatar? And finally, how much is my impression actually able to be managed by my avatar, when other people encounter 'him' in cyberspace. Your comments in the comments box below please (Open ID of course!)

(Image source: Rosemountgroup.com)

Time will tell

As a part of my participation in the online social networking workshop Digifolios and Personal Learning Spaces, I have been tasked to do some online story telling, so I have chosen to tell my story here. Here's the task:

Tell us about about your first approach towards learning technologies or that first experience that comes to mind. In other words, tell us your story on how it all started. It doesn't matter whether you are beginners or experienced users of web 2.0 tools, once we start working online, we automatically start developing an online identity. Here are some questions you may use to guide you on your story:

1. How did it all start?
2. What were you thinking?
3. What did you want to achieve?
4. Did you succeed?
5. Where did it take you?
6. How has your perspective changed throughout the years, months, or days?

I can trace my love affair with technology way back to 1970, when I was still at school and living on a military base in Holland. For a school trip, my class went to Eindhoven, to visit the Philips science and technology museum (now a conference centre) called the 'Evoluon'. More commonly referred to as the 'Philips Flying Saucer' because of its outlandish design, it traced the history of technology from the dawn of man. One exhibition particularly intrigued me. There were two rooms, each connected to the other via a microphone, camera and television. We had great fun running from room to room, seeing and hearing each other remotely on the screens. Little did I know at the time that I was seeing one of the first videoconferencing suites. Star Trek had just started showing on Dutch television and they did a similar thing between spaceships. This was the future! I thought, and believed that one day every house would have one.

I first became involved professionally with learning technologies when they were still called Educational Technology. I joined the Audio Visual department of the College of St Mark and St John (Marjons - a teacher training college in Plymouth) in January 1976, as an AV technician. I had no qualifications but had an interest in photography and graphic design and there were elements of these in the job. My main tasks were to ensure that all the classrooms were equipped and functioning so the sessions would run smoothly. In each classroom there was an overhead projector, and a chalkboard. There were also slide projectors (Kodak Carousels) and Tandberg reel-to-reel tape recorders, which reguarly jammed and had to be released by judicious application of a screwdriver. We also had some of the first Philips 1500 video cassette recording (VCR) machines. They were bulky things and we had to lug them (and the even bigger Televisions) around to the classroom they were booked into. I certainly developed larger biceps and upper body strength during this time! If I had to do it now, I would probably have a double rupture and a nice collection of hernias to show for my trouble. At Marjons we also had a small Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) studio with a lighting rig and boom mics, and the videos were 'black and white' and very ghostly. We all took turns as cameramen, sound engineers and vision mixers and it was fun.

We also had a 'mobile' video camera and separate VCR - it was very heavy, and the recording limit was about 30 minutes. We also had to wear a very heavy battery belt to power the camera and VCR.

In 1977, I helped to build one of the first personal computers for a research project. It had a large, bulky base unit, with about 64 k of memory and a small 'green screen' monochrome monitor. These were early, pioneering days, and I didn't know at the time that learning technology would become my entire working career.

Looking back at the 'state of the art' technologies of the time, they pale into insignificance in comparison to the handheld, wireless, mobile technologies and interactive media we now use and are so familiar with. Even ten years ago, it would have been difficult to envisage the richly graphical wikis, blogs, podcasts, and social networking services we now take for granted. Sharing videos over the internet? YouTube would have been considered futuristic. The mobile and handheld technologies and the multi-touch pinch-gesturing devices, and the touch surfaces that are emerging were the stuff of science fiction.

My school visit started it all off, but even now, in 2009, we are still a distance away from everyone being ubiquitously linked via video as I once envisioned. But it will come. We will reach a time when everything we say and do will be recorded - a scary thought if we are not controlling it ourselves. Where do I want to go with learning technology now? I'm really not sure, but I know this... technology is now embedded into most professional teaching and learning situations and is not going away. It will become more ubiquitous and pervasive as we connect better, wirelessly. It will also become less visible as it becomes more integrated into every day living. I have come a long way since my schoolboy days, but I remain just as excited as ever about learning technology. And I think I always will be.

Slugs and snails and social enzymes

Learning has rarely been a solo activity. I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I have learnt something significant without the help or influence of others (and counting on my fingers wasn't learnt without help, believe me). No, we are not isolated learners, but learn our most important lessons whilst in conversation with others. Conversation is of course often technologically mediated in this digital age. You and I no longer need to occupy the same location to converse. We can use text, audio or video in a number of modes and through a mind dazzling range of technologies. And there is a record - an archive - of our conversation if we want one.

This is how the current tools and services found on the Web are being used in so many new ways to connect, share and converse. Wikis, blogs, podcasts, social bookmarking, RSS feeds, microblogs, social networking... all are very powerful tools for people to use to make connections with each other... and to learn.

Formal learning is not the only type of learning possible, you see. More often, we are learning informally, while playing a massively multi-player online role playing game for example, or listening to a podcast about a news item. You are learning something new now by reading this blog post, and I learnt something new while I was writing it. We are aware of each other. When we search for an item on the web and get sidetracked down one or more other routes because they look more interesting... we are informally learning something new. When we eavesdrop on Twitter conversations, and simply 'lurk', we are learning informally. When we watch a YouTube video because several thousand people have already given it 5 stars .... we are learning informally. You may see this as serendipity - a kind of happy accident - and you may be right. Informal learning, more often than not, is unplanned. But that does not make it less worthwhile than formalised methods of learning.

The rhizomatic nature of Web 2.0 is making it easier for all of us to connect together, and to learn informally within a socially rich environment which is strewn liberally with the digital footprints of those who have gone before us. We are in effect, constructing our own informal learning pathways simply by following what others have done before - and here is the neatest trick. When we take what others have created (thanks to creative commons and a loosening of the grip or ownership and copyright) and we repurpose them for our own use, our own informal learning... we are creating new footprints for the next informal learner to follow. And on it goes. Informal learning and Web 2.0 need each other. They have synergy and we should not forget the social dimensions each relies upon for their success.

Andy Clark provides a very evocative metaphor when he talks about snail trails in his book 'Natural Born Cyborgs'. Clark shows that snails and slugs lay down slime trails that are rich in enzymes as they seek food sources. The second gastropod that follows the trail expends less energy and enzymes to reach the food, and so on until by the time the tenth snail slides down the pathway, the journey is almost effortless. In the same way, as we travel down digital pathways we leave a trail - perhaps a social bookmark, a Delicious tag, a Stumbled Upon note - which points the way for others to find your nugget of information. WE are in Michael Wesch's terms 'teaching the machine'. But we are also teaching each other. The more we lay down these pathways, the more we are building the community of practice that is Web 2.0.

Right. That's this blog post finished. I'm off now to lay down some social enzymes.

Timbuckteeth by numbers

A very useful new stats tool has been lauded on Twitter in the past couple of days. TwitterFriends looks like a really useful service for serious twits - if you want to find out how much impact and influence your own tweeting is having on the Twitter community. TwitterFriends provides some quite impressive statistical results, including breakdowns of the 'size of your relevant net' - the number of people you have replied to in the last 30 days, and how many have replied to your tweets. TwitterFriends will also provide you with mean scores (averages) of the number of tweets you send every day, the replies you have sent, how many links you have posted, and how many re-tweets you have sent. There is even a 'green' feature, measuring in 'milliscobles' the cost of your tweeting and following. One of the best features for me though, is the ability to follow individual conversations by isolating them from the main stream and showing every tweet right back to the first one.

Finally, for the visual learners among us, there is a Twitgraph representing data mapped across a spiderweb graph to show your overall activities (CQ=conversation quotient, RQ=Retweet quotient and LQ=Link quotient) including your Twitter ranking. You can even compare your own stats to a friends through graphic overlay. Now those of us in education and training need to work out how these features can be harnessed to enhance learning.... Give it a go - I think you'll like it! (Image source: digital-photography-school.com)

Changing the architecture?

I couldn't help cringing as I read an article on Fortune Magazine online today by Jessi Hempel. Entitled 'Web 2.0 is so over. Welcome to Web 3.0', Hempel stalks the concept of Web 2.0, pounces from behind and then narrowly misses before crashing painfully to the ground. The tagline says it all: Facebook and Twitter may be more popular than ever among users, but what are they worth?

It's not about the use and popularity of social networking and blogging that is so important to Hempel, as ... wait for it.... how much money they can make. In this respect, s/he suggests, Web 2.0 has been an abject failure. Well, perhaps Web 2.0 is a failure financially, but Hempel is clearly missing the point about Web 2.0 tools and services. This is an argument reminiscent to the banal ramblings of the likes of Andrew Keen, tinged with a smidgeon of bitterness that he failed to become an ultra-rich member of the Silicon Valley Set. Hempel suggests that while we are Facebooking each other, we are ignoring all the pay-per-click ads that are loitering on the sidebars of our screens. Shame. Ironically, the Fortune page on which the post appears is positively teeming with strong-arm ads such as '1 Rule to a Flat Stomach', 'End Back Pain in 2009' and a link to seduce readers to 'try Fortune for free for 2 issues!' (Personally I found it hard to ignore them).

Well, I have some news. The whole point of Web 2.0, is that it's not about making profit or screwing over the opposition. It is not about creating killer applications either. That's because Web 2.0 is not and has never been about tools or services, many of which have been around almost as long as the Web itself. No, Web 2.0 is more about how people are connecting, sharing and communicating using the tools and services. There never was a revolution on the Web. It was always an evolution - a gradual transition across the web from a 'quagmire of stickiness' to an 'architecture of participation'. Web 2.0 is about user-generated content and community. Web 2.0 is rich and exciting because anyone can participate and contribute. If and when Web 3.0 comes along (and some would argue it is already here) it will still be about making connections, sharing and contributing. This will be done in a more intelligent and economic manner we hope, but it won't make any more money than any of the social networking tools have done. Let's leave that for the likes of Google, eBay and Amazon.

Web 2.0 services that have survived whilst others have fallen do so because they are popular and supported by their users (Wikipedia is a classic example of users funding the resource). Those that fail are subject to a virtual natural selection process - the survival of the most relevant. If it's good, it will survive somehow. Let's keep Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 (yes, and Web x.0 too) as a means of creating and maintaining our communities of interest and practice, and stop worrying about whether we can make money out of them, shall we?

Through a glass... darkly

Just read a superb blog post from Stephen Downes who I reckon has been polishing his crystal ball. He usually has his finger on the pulse where technology trends are concerned. Called 'What not to build' and hosted by his Half an Hour blog site, this post is likely to be a strong contender for 'Most Influential Blog Post' in the 2009 Edublog Awards and we're still only in the first week of January. Although it's a lengthy blog, and takes some ploughing through, 'What not to build' is well worth the effort, because Downes has successfully identified all the stuff you would waste your time building, because it's either been done to death, or us financially unviable. He then takes on to some of the current technological 'fads' (he includes the iPhone here!!), before moving on to the really edgy stuff that is 'out there' that will make someone a millionaire if they can pull it off.

Context aware systems, location dependent devices, surface technologies, personal health systems, distributed systems and cloud computing are all in there, and all expounded upon with insight and seasoned with common sense. Probably the best bit for me is Stephen's last section which identifies the 'dead' technologies. Although these (paper, transport, telephones, TV and radio) are fairly controversial, he ends by qualifying his choices in his commentary on what the world may look like in the next decade or so. Well ... through a glass darkly ... we shall see whether he's right.

(As a side note, Stephen is courageous. He is obviously not screening his reader comments, because it looks like the blog has already been spammed).

This time it's personal

Today turned out to be a Personal Learning Environments sort of day for me. Firstly, I read a cracking blog by D'Arcy Norman on PLEs which showed some nice diagrams and conceptual maps of his take on PLEs accompanied by some neat explanations. D'Arcy refreshingly takes a connectionist view that the connections to people are more important than the technologies that connect.

Secondly, I joined a new site which has been set up by Cristina Costa over at Learning Journey. It's a Ning site focused on Personal Learning Environments and Digifolios (read e-Portfolios) which as I write this post, already has 48 members. It looks very exciting and seems well worth joining in. The site hosts a workshop which will be delivered on 12 January. The blurb reads:

We live in an era of individual “personalization and customization”. The read and write web has helped develop a new concept - “do it yourself and your own way” . The phenomenon has had implications in our society at different levels - from the way people learn to the new, emerging jobs and employment needs. The workshop aims to help members become aware of the way the web can empower the individual not only to learn, but also to present what, how and with whom he/she learns.

The target audience for the workshop (which spans 6 weeks) is teachers and trainers who know a little about Web 2.0 tools and maybe are using them in real teaching situations. Join up here if you would like to take part.

Dialectical innit?

Well let's have a little New Year's fun shall we....? There is an absolutely hilarious app available called The Dialectizer which turns any web site text content into.... Elmer Fudd, Swedish Chef (remember the Muppets?), Jive talk, Redneck or... yeah Cockney, innit? Below is a blog post of mine from New Year's day which has been dialectized into Cockney... It's particularly nice to 'ave anuvver pop' at the pomposity of some Post Modernist writers.... :-)

Have yer ever tried ter read a post-modernist paper by say, Lyotard, right, Derrida, or Foucault, and fought 'wot the chuffin' hell were that all about', isit?

Characteristically, post-modernist essays are verbose and full of dense vocabulary, but tend ter say right wee. I keep a copy of Foucault's 'Archaeology of Knowledge' on me shelf for one reason only - ter show me students 'ow not ter write if they want their reader ter understand. Below is an extract from a post-modernist essay. Right. Spot if yer can understand it:

"If yer examines the bloody capitalist paradigm of context, yer is faced wiv a choice: eever reject surrealism or conclude that consciousness is capable of intent. If prematerial sublimation 'olds, we 'ave ter choose between semantic theory and Derridaist readin'. In a sense, Debord uses the term ‘capitalist capitalism’ ter denote the dialectic, and therefore the failure, of postconstructive sexual identity. “Society is intrinsically dead,” says Lacan; 'owever, right, accordin' ter Hanfkopf, it ain't so much society wot is intrinsically dead, but ravver the stasis, right, and subsequent absurdity, of society. Lyotard’s analysis of semantic theory states that government is part of the bloomin' definin' characteristic of sexuality. It could be said that Sartre promotes the use of the bloomin' neocapitalist paradigm of discourse ter analyse and modify consciousness. If one examines semantic theory, one is faced wiv a choice: eever accept the neocapitalist paradigm of discourse or conclude that society, peraps surprisingly, 'as objective value, right, but only if reality is interchangeable wiv 'am sandwich; uvverwise, right, Lacan’s model of the materialist paradigm of narrative is one of “Debordist situation”, and so fundamentally used in the service of maintainin' the bloomin' status quo. The main theme of the works of Burroughs is the bloomin' bridge between class and sexuality. However, the bleedin' subject is contextualised involvin' reality as a paradox.

The bloomin' primary theme of McElwaine’s critique of Lyotardist narrative is not, right, in fact, right, discourse, right, but subdiscourse. In a sense, Foucault suggests the chuffin' use of the neocapitalist paradigm of discourse ter deconstruct 'ierarchy. The main theme of the bloody works of Burroughs is a self-supportin' totality, do wot guvnor! Therefore, right, the bloomin' subject is interpolated into a means ter include 'am sandwich as a reality.

The premise of structuralist deconstruction implies that the purpose of the observer is social comment. In a sense, the chuffin' subject is contextualised in that it includes consciousness as a totality. Well, did yer understand any of that, isit? If yer did, yor (in the words of the bloomin' post-modernist) 'dissemblin''.

Yer see, right, the bleedin' abstract above is completely meaningless and were generated by a French Tutor program called the chuffin' Post Modernism Generator. The program takes stock phrases and sentences at random and simply Emperor Mings them togeffer. Have a go yorself at generatin' yor own nonsense post-modernist essay. I guarantee yer won't be able ter tell it apart from the real fin'! Honest guv!

Teaching with Twitter

Most would agree that Twitter was one of the social networking phenomena of 2008, and has enjoyed exponential growth in popularity. The microblogging tool has obvious potential to be used in formal learning, both in traditional online classroom settings and - through mobile technologies - for mobile learners.

Ever since I first began to use Twitter I have been thinking about how to harness the potential of microblogging for the benefits of my own students, and have tried out several ideas to exploit it already. Below are my 10 top uses of Twitter for education:

1. ‘Twit Board’ Notify students of changes to course content, schedules, venues or other important information.

2. ‘Summing Up’ Ask students to read an article or chapter and then post their brief summary or précis of the key point(s). A limit of 140 characters demands a lot of academic discipline.

3. ‘Twit Links’ Share a hyperlink – a directed task for students – each is required to regularly share one new hyperlink to a useful site they have found.

4. ‘Twitter Stalking’ Follow a famous person and document their progress. Better still if this can be linked to an event (During the recent U.S. Presidential elections, many people followed @BarackObama and kept up to date with his speeches, etc).

5. ‘Time Tweet’ Choose a famous person from the past and create a twitter account for them – choose an image which represents the historical figure and over a period of time write regular tweets in the role of that character, in a style and using the vocabulary you think they would have used (e.g. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar).

6. ‘Micro Meet’ Hold discussions involving all the subscribing students. As long as everyone is following the whole group, no-one should miss out on the Twitter stream. All students participate because a sequence of contributors is agreed beforehand.

7. ‘Micro Write’ Progressive collaborative writing on Twitter. Students agree to take it in turns to contribute to an account or ‘story’ over a period of time.

8. ‘Lingua Tweeta’ Good for modern language learning. Send tweets in foreign languages and ask students to respond in the same language or to translate the tweet into their native language.

9. ‘Tweming’ Start off a meme – agree on a common hash-tag so that all the created content is automatically captured by Twemes or another aggregator.

10. ‘Twitter Pals’ Encourage students to find a Twitter ‘penpal’ and regularly converse with them over a period of time to find out about their culture, hobbies, friends, family etc. Ideal for learning about people from other cultures.

Here are some useful links to others who have used Twitter in formal learning:

David Parry: Teaching with Twitter (Video)
Alan Lew: Twitter Tweets for Higher Education
Melanie McBride: Classroom 2.0
Judy O'Connell: Twitter - a Teaching and Learning Tool
Gabriela Grosseck and Carmen Holotescu: Twitter for Educational Activities
Carmen Holotescu and Gabriela Grosseck: Using Microblogging in Education
Nicole Melander: 14 Days of Twitter

If you have any other tips or applications for Twitter or any useful links to share, please feel free to do so.

Cartoon source


Learning with 'e's by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

About time

If I was a politician or a head of state I would have made a New Year's speech by now. (How can you tell if a politician is lying? You can see their lips moving). Thankfully I'm not a politician or a head of state, but that won't stop me. Here's my New Year speech:

On the first day of a new year, my thoughts are already turning to a very busy term of teaching which starts next week. We are now in the 10th year of this new century, and soon the 'noughties' will be gone for ever. As I think back over the changes that I and others have made in our teaching practice during the last decade, I marvel at how far we have progressed as teachers, and how much our students have changed.

One significant change for me in these last 10 years has been the shifting of control from teacher centredness to a form of self-organised learning. Not only are they more knowledgeable about technologies. Students are increasingly taking control of their own learning, and this is due to a large degree to new learning technologies and social web tools that have emerged. Yes, I know other factors have driven changes too, but new technologies and the rapid evolution of the Web can claim a large part of the influence.

What of the new technologies and tools? A few years ago a wiki would have been a Star Wars character. A blog was completely unknown - or perhaps a misspelling of a designer label for clothing. Podcasts were also unknown, because there were no iPods to neoligise. Mobile telephones were not so much items you could put in your pocket or handbag, but instead resembled housebricks with aeriels attached. They were extremely limited in functionality and prohibitively expensive. In 1999, e-mail was already a well used method of communication, but in the university, Pegasus reigned as the dominant tool. Virtual Learning Environments were slowly beginning to emerge, but were confined to the very basic FirstClass type systems used by the likes of the Open University - essentially glorified e-mail systems. Videoconferencing was just emerging as a visual medium for teaching, and the common connection was through ISDN2 - two digital telephone lines which were expensive to run and with only one provider to call upon to install it. Interactive whiteboards were all but unheard of, and digital projectors were large and cumbersome, many with three lenses - green, blue and red, that had to be manually converged to get a decent picture. Most people still relied on Kodak and other processing specialists for their photographic needs, because digital cameras were still expensive and not widely available. The only places you could store your pictures were on the hard disk of your computer, or more likely, in a photo album. And who among us can now do without memory sticks? 10 years ago I was still reliant on bulky, small capacity 'floppy disks'.

I could go on but I won't. I think I have made my point that in the last 10 years, technology has progressed very quickly. It is both worrying and exciting to think that many of the tools and technologies above will be improved, surpassed or made redundant in the next few years. It's no wonder then that many teachers are running hard and fast to try to keep pace with the changes, and many fear they are falling behind. Most are desperate just to keep their heads above water, and struggle to integrate these new technologies into the curriculum. And yet the new technologies and services enable sharing and collaboration beyond the wildest dreams of the early constructivist theorists.

The web has opened up so many new possibilities and opportunities it has all but blinded us as to how far we have come in 10 short years. What we now call e-learning is the future of education. More teachers need to grasp the opportunities afforded by mobile technologies, social web tools and digital technologies. Those of us who are at the vanguard of new learning technology use need to become better at being change agents. Change scares people. But time and technology wait for no-one. There is no respite, no temporal layby. Teachers need to see the benefits if they are going to be persuaded to adopt and embed technologies into every day teaching. If we get it right then we seal the future success of learning for a generation. If we get it wrong, we will have to spend a long time putting it right again.