Breaking eggs

One of my recent book chapters starts with the statement 'You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.' It's my opening gambit in a chapter called 'Destructive Creativity on the Social Web' in which I discuss the volatile and contentious nature of wiki content generation. I argue that wiki content generation is both creative and destructive, and you need both to ensure quality. My chapter appears in an edited volume by Stylianos Hatzipanagos and Steven Warburton on Social Software and Developing Community Ontologies. The book is a weighty tome of almost 600 pages, and contains 32 chapters by some of the leading thinkers of educational Web 2.0: Terry Anderson, Grainne Conole, Jon Dron, Marc Eisenstadt, Mark Lee, Andrew Ravenscroft, Martin Weller, Scott Wilson, the list goes on to more than 80 contributors. The list of reviewers is also a 'Who's Who' of the e-learning luminati. Stylianos and Steve really are to be congratulated for putting together such an impressive line-up of chapters, reviewers and editors.

The book covers a lot of ground including the use of blogs and wikis in education, social structures, knowledge media, information literacies, ambient pedagogies, social presence and interactivity. It is a solid reference manual for best practice of social software tools in teaching and learning. There are some good reads within it, but you probably wouldn't want to purchase a copy at £183.95. As is the case with all IGI Reference books it is very overpriced. Now I know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but if the price doesn't put you off in this credit crunch economy, you may be unimpressed by the bland and somewhat dour jacket. I received my copy free as a thankyou for sitting on the Editorial Advisory Board, so I am priviledged to get full access. I note with interest that within a few short days of the book being released, it was already available in part on Google Books, so you can at least sample some of the contents. Here's the abstract for my chapter, which discusses wiki cultures and Darwikianism (the survival of the fittest - or most accurate - wiki pages):

The use of group oriented software, or groupware, encourages students to generate their own content and can foster supportive and dynamic communties of learning. One form of open architecture groupware known as the Wiki is freely available online in several versions, and enables tutors to quickly set up online spaces which can be edited by students, at any time and from any location. Online social spaces of this nature can be used to encourage creative writing and to engage students in critical discourse through focused discussion, but Wikis also have disruptive potential and can cause dissent and disharmony within the group. This chapter aims to highlight some uses of the wiki as a social writing tool, reporting on student perceptions of the limitations and benefits. The chapter also focuses on the tension between creative and destructive uses of wikis in mainstream higher education. The use of interview data gathered from a study conducted with a group of student teachers in 2007 is included to support the key messages of this chapter.

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Learning futures festival

I'm a guest speaker at the University of Leicester Learning Futures Festival which kicks off on 11th November. I will be sharing a session with Steven Warburton (Kings College London) and Ricardo Torres Kompen, (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain) where together we will be addressing the topic of the 'Social Web for Formal and Informal Learning'. I am still debating whether to wear formal or informal attire for the presentation, but in the final analysis it probably won't matter to anyone but me. Y'see the sessions will be delivered synchronously online through Elluminate, so I can dress how I want on this occasion.

Here's the blurb on the session: The Social web, also known as Web 2.0 technologies and services that enables the lay-person to be actively and collaboratively participate on the Internet has received much attention in the recent years. Educators, researchers, practitioners and technologists are keen to harness the potential of social web for learning. This two hour seminar and discussion forum will explore the potential of social web for both formal and informal learning.

The session is on 19th November 2008 between 14:00 - 16:00 (GMT) and will be live on Elluminate. Here's hoping you can join us!

Published and unjammed

I was very pleased to see that my article 'The Good, the Bad and the Wiki: Evaluating student-generated content for collaborative learning' was finally published in paper format this morning (Yay! -paper ain't dead - it's just feeling a little off colour). Co-written with the help of Peter Yeomans and Dawn Wheeler (no relation - she's my Mrs), it focuses as the title indicates, on how wikis can be used to promote collaborative learning - for undergraduate trainee teachers. To be fair to the British Journal of Educational Technology, and editor Nick Rushby - who is a jolly decent bloke and a superb editor (that's enough of that - Ed) it has been available on Online Early for the past 9 months or so, about the same amount of time it takes to produce a baby, ironically. I wrote back in January 2007 on this blog moaning about the length of time it takes to get something 'out there' and published, so I welcome Online Early schemes even if the DOI (Digital Object Index) numbers confuse the hell out of a lot of people.

This is the first of a series of publications I am publishing soon on the work we have done studying the use of wikis and other open content software over the past two years down here in the University of Plymouth. Another article has just been accepted for publication in the Journal 'Learning, Media and Technology - this one will focus on using wikis to encourage better academic writing skills, and examines writing as a social practice. There are also a welter of book chapters on Web 2.0 tools coming out by yours truly (that means me) over the next 6 months, including one in the book edited by Stylianos Hatzipanagos and Steven Warburton, on Web 2.0 Ontologies which I have just been informed will be published by IGI Global in February 2009. I've been busy, see.

5 get a MUVE on

Well we did it. And it worked. Last time I was that nervous was when my (first) wife kept me waiting at the altar for 20 minutes over the odds, while her chauffer searched for a place to park. We are still married 22 years later, don't worry. Today was a technological success, where we linked 5 people together using Elluminate and managed a slightly flakey audio system in a very large and echoey hotel ballroom in Kuala Lumpur. I also did a successful in-world demonstration of Second Life for the LYICT Conference delegates here in Malaysia.

Graham Attwell (Pontydysgu) moderated the panel session from his eyrie in Bremen, Germany, whilst David White came in from Oxford to talk about design issues in SL, Helen Keegan spoke from Salford about augmented reality and mixing SL and real life, and Steven Warburton, who was in London, gave a presentation on the barriers to collaboration and participation in MUVEs. They all got up at a sickeningly early hour to participate due to the time zone difference. And it couldn't have gone any better, thanks to stirling support from the local technical team here in Kuala Lumpur.

Thanks to all concerned, for making this a memorable and enjoyable experience. A lot could have gone wrong, and I was a little worried about it, I admit. But is shows that you can take risks and it sometimes pays off. Next time, perhaps we will use Second Life as the presentation platform. When we have plucked up enough courage....

SL in KL

This is going to be quite a challenge, but we don't back down from them do we? I will be chairing a live demonstration and panel of Second Life in Second Life at the IFIP ICT and Learning for the Network Generation Conference in Kuala Lumpur on Monday (7 am GMT). The panel session will feature several friends from our previous bash at Online Educa Berlin last November. Steven Warburton (Kings College London), Graham Attwell (Pontydysgu), Helen Keegan (University of Salford) and David White (University of Oxford) will all be presenting as their avatars - and very colourful they all are too - and we will be using the JISC Emerge Island as our venue. I will appear as my new and improved avatar also - and although there are many technical issues to contend with and several things that could go disasterously wrong, we are going to take the risk and push the technology to see what it can do...

You are welcome to join us in world to take part and quz the panel as we explore some of the pedagogical, social and psychological issues that arise when Multi-User Virtual Environments are used for formal and informal learning activities.

Magnificent seven?

It was good to read the Josie Fraser interview today featured on the blog Information World Review. With the strapline "Information professionals guiding you to the best bits of the blogosphere", it's one not to miss for all those who want to know the latest on the practice and art of blogging. Josie is well known for her work in learning technology, and has also run the influential EduBlog Awards for the last three years. It's an annual bash that celebrates best blogs, most influential blog posting, coolest educational wiki, etc, you get the drift....

Best of all, I have been mentioned in dispatches..... Josie lists my blog as one of her top seven favourites, and I find myself in the elevated company of Graham Attwell, Helen Keegan, Steven Warburton, Scott Wilson, Frances Bell and Brian Kelly. Wow - are we the magnificent seven already? If so, I'll be the one who gets shot dead whilst being distracted by a small and demanding child.

Seriously, I'm deeply honoured to be included in such distinguished company. Keep up the good work Josie, and when this year's Edublog Awards come around, I hope there's a new category for the blog containing the most dots ...............

Sounds bazaar

I am featured on a podcast this month which is hosted by one of the busiest men in e-learning: Graham Attwell. It's called Sounds of the Bazaar and it looks like it's been going for a while, because this is edition number 14. The podcast lasts approximately one hour and is reminiscent of a vox pop radio show. My interview is about 7 minutes long, and is one I did with Graham about the University of Plymouth's Sexual Health SIM in Second Life while we were at the ICL conference in Austria last month. You can even hear the coffee machines in the background...

There are some interesting features from other speakers on this podcast, including interviews with Stephen Downes and Ruth Rominger and reports from conferences. Graham does a good job as host of the show, and draws you into the content with his easy going, westcountry burr. Have a listen - the entire contents are also featured on the British Institute BILD site. Graham and I will also be speaking on a specialist panel called 'No Life in Second Life?' at Online Educa Berlin next month. With us will be Dai Griffiths, David White, Helen Keegan and Steven Warburton. Hope you can make it...

Reporting research

Last year I was asked to convene a research network for the Faculty of Education here at the University of Plymouth. I was given a small amount of money to promote a culture of research within the field of e-learning. Tomorrow I will be reporting on progress to the 'top brass' during our Faculty research day, and will tell them that we now have 30 members (mainly academics and researchers from education, but also from 3 other faculties, and several learning technologists and computer professionals). We are planning our e-learning conference for April next year, and I have booked Professor Mark Stiles (Staffordshire University) as our keynote speaker, after we met up at ALT-C 2007. The group has produced an impressive output of papers, book chapters, journal articles and a book, and I have arranged a series of research seminars featuring internationally recognised speakers including Mike Sharples, John Traxler, Steven Warburton, Avril Loveless, Palitha Edirisignha, Jane Seale and Steven Furnell.

I'm also going to talk about the six research projects we have started since the group formed, including our Second Life project for which we recently received a free one year land grant. The details of all of these activities and outputs can be found on the group's wiki space. This coming year is going to be very busy (but I guess it keeps me off the streets...)