Telling your story

Blogs are not simply about text. They can also encompass hyperlinks, sounds, videos, and images. Blogging is also about telling your story. Today I was involved in teaching a session for a BA group on the use of digital photography and communication. Specifically, the session focused on images as narrative, and all of the group managed to create some impressive and in some cases stunning image sequences. I used images from a trip with my students to the Gambia in 2009 to present my own example of a narrative at the beginning of the session. I thought I would share it with you here on my blog. I hope you find it interesting.

This image is of a man looking out over the sea, in a coastal village in the Gambia. Poverty is commonplace here, given that the Gambia is one of the poorest countries in Africa. One of the few jobs most young Gambian boys can do is fishing. It's a dangerous, low paid job, and this image depicts some of the boats they use to launch themselves out to sea.

This image is of children collecting firewood for the compound cooking fires. There is no electricity or gas in most parts of the Gambia, so open fires are the most common means of cooking. Children also fetch water, sometimes from several kilometers away from their villages, and because of the necessity for this work, they often miss school. As a visiting group, my colleagues and I, along with our students, saw the need and raised money for a new well to be sunk in the village. The children don't have to walk 4 kilometers each time they needed to fetch a pail of water anymore. Now they can go to school.

I took this image of a young girl sat in a village compound. I couldn't resist capturing the photo, because it was so iconic and representative of the children in this part of the world, and it conveyed innocence and hope. I showed her the image on my digital camera, and she was shocked but delighted. She clearly recognised herself, but I don't think she had seen a camera before, and probably not an image of herself anywhere else other than in her reflection.

I decided to use a reworked version of the picture of the young girl in a blog post called 'What Price Education?' to hammer home the message that every child deserves a good education. In the Gambia, children can only go to school until they are 11 years old, because the state only funds primary education, and it's very basic. There are few secondary schools, and children can only attend them if their parents can afford the fees. Very few can. As a result, Gambian children are some of the most disadvantaged children in the world. I couldn't think of a better was to use the image than in a manipulated front cover of the National Geographic magazine. It was very easy to do. Using PowerPoint, I created a yellow background, and a smaller blue background for the frame, and then placed the image above. Finally, I chose appropriate coloured font styles to mimic the familiar National Geographic livery. I saved the image as a .jpeg file and then uploaded it to the blog like any other image. I hope you like the images and that in some way, they speak to you.

 Photos by Steve Wheeler


Telling your story by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

We need a rethink

There's a very useful and refreshing article by Tom Barrett in this week's TES Magazine entitled 'Education needs to plug into Web 2.0'. Never before have I read an article that I agree with so completely. Those of us who are immersed in a world where the use of social media is so sustained, embedded and familiar, forget that many schools still ban the use of Web 2.0 type tools in their classrooms. Tom has some advice for schools who are in this category, and I quote:

"Perhaps one of the biggest barriers to engaging with the social web in schools is the perceived issue of safety: many teachers say they are left feeling helpless when pupils' work is available on the World Wide Web. I have been blogging with classes for eight years and these common-sense guidelines always work:

1) Be open to parents and allow them to share any concerns.
2) Moderate all comments before they are posted online.
3) Have a clear and robust e-safety policy.
4) Work within the school policy on images of children on blogs.
5) Publish a set of blogging guidelines on your site and share them with parents.
6) Make sure the whole school community is aware of your work."

Common sense indeed, but I would also add that schools should encourage and permit children to help teachers co-create the e-safety and school policies on social media use. They use these tools outside of the school on a daily basis and often have a sophisticated grasp on how social media work. Who better to inform schools than the users themselves?

I once spoke at an event where a school leader remarked that his school had banned access to blogging, YouTube and all other social media because 'they are dangerous'. I countered by asking him whether we should also stop teaching children how to cross the road, because traffic is dangerous too? I think he got the message. Where better to teach children about the dangers and risks of using the Internet, than in school? I think a rethink is very much overdue.

Whether this blog post, or Tom's article, or any number of other good pieces of advice will have an impact on the impasse many schools find themselves in with relation to social media use in schools, remains to be seen. But just a few moments thinking about the risks (and balancing those up against the clear benefits social media have in schools who do allow them) should convince most school leaders that adopting social media in the classroom really is the best way forward.

Image source


We need a rethink by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Embrace the medium

One of the perennial problems teachers face, especially in early years education, is trying to get children to write. The main problem is that children are expected to write in a vacuum, for an audience of one (the teacher). There is often very little incentive in this exercise for kids, who would probably rather be doing other things with their time like playing on their Nintendo. But several schools are beginning to address this 'won't write' problem by making it entertaining and productive through the use of social media. In an article entitled Could blogging be the key to raising a generation of great writers? Liz Dwyer argues for creating audiences online for children to write for:

'"I don't like to write." That's the refrain teachers have heard for a generation when they ask students why they're struggling to complete a short, three-paragraph essay. Thankfully, more and more educators are using two things kids love, technology and social media, to change that. By encouraging students to write on their own blogs, savvy teachers are helping kids take their writing out of the classroom vacuum, and cultivate a broader audience.'

Liz is right of course. Children raise their game when they know they are being watched, so why should it be any different with writing? David Mitchell, Acting Head Teacher at Bolton's Heathfield Primary School is a great advocate of blogging as a means to develop children's writing skills. He reveals that some children are proactive in setting up their own blogs when they realise they can write for a large audience and actually receive feedback. Many of the children at Heathfield have become avid bloggers, and the results of this are clear for all to see. According to David, some children within the school have raised their literacy attainment scores by two full levels. Blogging is gaining ground, and it's not that hard to set up for a group of children in your own school. Some teachers reading this might ask the question: What about internet safety and child protection? Well, I could answer here and now, but I won't. Instead, I'll let Liz Dwyer answer:

'Concerns about online privacy have historically made teachers wary of allowing students to blog, but the rise of platforms built specifically for students has made blogging safer for kids of all ages. Plus, in our networked 21st century world, more teachers are already taking precautions by talking about internet safety, telling kids not to reveal their home addresses or engage in online bullying. Let's hope more teachers embrace the medium and let their students get some real-world writing experience.'


This post as first published on August 4, 2011.

Image by WallMic


Getting the bloggers to write by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Sorting the wheat from the chaff

There has been discussion recently about whether or not blog comments should be moderated. Some maintain an 'open for all' policy, and allow any comments to be posted on their blog. They do so for a number of reasons. Some wish to make posting comments as easy as possible, and want their blog to be as welcoming as it can be. Others do not have the time to moderate all the comments that are posted to their site. It's a very democratic approach.

Several years ago, I took the decision to moderate comments on my own blog, not because I'm undemocratic, but because there are two kinds of comment I will not allow to be published. The first kind are comments that come from people who will be politely referred to as 'trolls'. Trolls post hateful, destructive, off-topic and inflammatory comments, because they enjoy provoking emotional responses and upsetting others. You can imagine how heart breaking that kind of comment could be for children who are blogging. In the UK, under the Communications Act of 2003 it is an offence to send messages that are of grossly offensive, obscene, indecent or menacing character. Two recent court cases have resulted in internet trolls being successfully prosecuted and sentenced to prison. For whatever reasons these individuals post such comments, I don't want that kind of content on my blog, so I usually screen for them, and delete them if I receive them. I dealt with one of my own personal trolls several years ago by openly writing about them here in Dear eLearning 101.

The second reason I moderate my blog comments is due to the increase in spam comments that are coming through, sometimes several each day. This blog currently has an average of 125,000 visitors each month, so the spam messages can be frequent. You can easily recognise most spam messages because they are sychophantic and painfully complimentary, sometimes very bland, and often written in appallingly bad English. They always contain at least one hyperlink. The example (above) is a fairly clear cut case of some sad person desperately trying to get people to click on their links. Who knows what the links contain? They could take you to dodgy sites or open you up for a virus attack.

I don't want these comments on my blog for a number of reasons. I don't want my readers exposed to dangerous links that may infect their computers with a virus or subject them to hacking. Secondly, I only want relevant and useful comments to appear on my blog. Anyone who wishes to comment constructively on my blog is very welcome to do so, but I won't accept spurious or irrelevant contributions. Finally, look at the example below - probably one of the most subtle spam comments I have received recently. Note that there are two hyperlinks, almost invisible in the post. Can you spot them?

Now you know why I screen all the comments submitted to this blog. I want to promote great discussions here, but to do so, I occasionally have to sort the wheat from the chaff. Do you moderate your blog comments, and if so why?



Sorting the wheat from the chaff by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

We're better connected

I recently presented at a conference with my Plymouth University colleagues Peter Yeomans and Oliver Quinlan. We had planned to present a version of this paper at the annual EDEN Conference held in June in Portugal, but for one reason or another, none of us were able to make it. This is probably the first time we have presented as a team, and I hope it is the first of many future conference appearances together. The result can be found as a 20 minute YouTube video - Connected: Supporting Student Blogging and Communities of Learning - complete with audio track and slides below:



Pete, Oliver and I spoke about the work we have been doing with undergraduate teacher students in Plymouth, using a variety of social media, including blogging and Twitter to support and encourage critical and reflective learning. The important concept we wanted to talk about was communities of learning, and how students can use social media tools to participate in them. Peter talked about the power of social media to create a Personal Learning Network (PLN) and also discussed the ways students manage their online presence. Oliver presented some case studies of how students have successfully harnessed the power of social media tools to gain a foothold in the teaching profession and promote learning. The final section of the presentation, which I presented, dealt with some of the pedagogical theory and implications. I talked about connectivism, paragogy, heutagogy and other emerging theories that seek to explain how we learn in new digitally rich environments. We hope you enjoy listening to the presentation and following the slides. We look forward to reading any comments you may have on the presentation.


We're better connected by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Blogging as literacy

The advent of the social web has given people everywhere a virtually limitless new territory to discover and explore. Many millions of people worldwide are enjoying sustained connections with their peers, family, colleagues and friends which they would never otherwise have experienced. Content too is being prodigiously generated, remixed, organised and shared on an unprecedented scale. Current figures suggest for example, that between 40 to 60 hours of video is being uploaded to YouTube every minute. Facebook is already the world's largest photo repository, and with almost 850 million accounts and over 100 billion connections, has to be one of the most influential communications devices ever created to bring people together.

My view is that in the social media universe, blogging is potentially the most powerful tool. Time and again, blogging is proving its worth in education and training, with countless learners discovering that sharing their ideas, sharing content and discussion ideas worldwide has a whole range of benefits. Blogging requires a particular set of literacies to ensure that its potential is realised. Dughall McCormick argues that in online learning environments, learners need to develop literacies that are similar to those required for letter writing or giving an explanation. I concur with these views, but would add that digital literacies are not simply extensions of more traditional literacies. They are new and agile forms of learning, because the environments are new, and constantly changing.

For me, one of the new digital literacies bloggers need is the ability to encapsulate ideas succinctly and in a form that is accessible and engaging. Another literacy is the ability to be able to devise posts that draw an audience and provoke responses. One of the most powerful aspects of blogging is its social dimension which includes open discussion. Still another is the skill of managing those responses and replying in a way that promotes further discussion and sustains the discourse. Knowledge about tagging, RSS feeds, trackback and other blogging features will enhance the presence of the blogger online.

I have previously written about some of the literary and visual devices that can be used to draw a blog readership. These include images and video that evoke or underline a message; catchy and memorable titles for blog posts; and useful/relevant hyperlinks that enable readers to drill down further into the topic if they so desire. Blogging encompasses an entire new range of literacies, and as learners get to grips with it, we can expect to see some new and powerful pedagogical practices emerging.

Image by Ed Yourdon


Blogging as literacy by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

You can't ban the blog

One Scottish local authority has tonight been left with egg all over its face. Argyll and Bute's attempts to censor a 9 year old blogging about her school dinners backfired spectacularly when they were forced to very publicly retract their original decision. The gagging order was imposed on Martha Payne, a primary school girl who attends Lochgilphead Primary School, because she took pictures of her school dinners and then rated them out of 10 on her blog. Although Martha was writing the blog to raise money for charity, and was glowing with praise about some of her dinners, the council decided that not all publicity was good publicity and instructed her head teacher to order her not to take any more photographs of her lunches. The Argyll and Bute council officials thought that newspaper coverage of the 9 year old's blog was causing catering staff to fear for their jobs. But the council backed down due to pressure from the public, ith support from celebrity TV chefs Nick Nairn and Jamie Oliver on Twitter and over the traditional media. The council admitted its mistake and through gritted teeth, a spokesman gave several TV and radio interviews to clarify their position.

Needless to say, the adverse publicity attracted by the council over their reactionary initial decision has reflected positively on Martha's blog, NeverSeconds, which is now receiving thousands of views and dozens of comments each hour. The blog has already amassed over 3 million hits.

The wider issue here is that free speech has many forms, and even children are able to speak out. Primary children such as Martha Payne are able to voice their opinions and gain huge audiences for their writing over the web. They are armed with cameras and mobile phones and they know exactly how to use them. Anyone who underestimates the power of blogging and other forms of social media therefore does so at their peril. And as Argyll and Bute council discovered the hard way yesterday, it is foolish to try to stop children from expressing their ideas publicly. Their decision blew up in their faces, and their only comfort is that Martha's blog has grown in the light of their inadvertent publicity of her work, and is earning even more money for her chosen charity. Go Martha!

Image by Freefoto


You can't ban the blog by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Everyone's a critic (again)

I recently blogged about the hidden audience effect, and cited Westfields Junior School's S'cool Internet Radio and David Mitchell's Quadblogging projects as examples of how students can become better engaged with learning when they perform their work for an audience. Social media and the internet have largely been responsible for this change. Before social media, the school play or the end of term concert was a good way to allow children to perform to an audience, as was the art display and the school sports day. But not every child excels at art, or is good at music or sport. What about those who are good mathematicians, or the scientists or linguists? Prior to social media, how did they perform their skills for an audience? Social media now provides a way. A recent blogpost by Katherine McKnight listed 12 ways technology has changed learning, and includes 'expanding audiences' near the top of the list:

Students' sense of audience is completely different. When I was in high school in the 1980's, the audience was the teacher. When I started teaching high school in 1988, the audience was the teacher and peers.  In the 21st century, it's the WORLD. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and other online platforms changed our notion of audience.

I think the statement requires some unpacking. Yes, social media is changing our concept of audience, because the tools we use are naturally participatory. Students blog their ideas and in doing so, they perform to a potential worldwide audience. They receive feedback from their peers in the form of comments, and gain a sense of pride in their work. When they record themselves on camera, they can release it as a YouTube video and gain feedback from their peers. It can be very motivational: watching a growing number of views, comments, shares and favourites can be a huge incentive for students. But there are also risks. The danger of playing to this gallery is the exposure to a potentially harsh and unforgiving environment. YouTube is particularly notorious for trolling (individuals who patrol social media sites to make mischief) and can be a breeding ground for unneccesarily harsh, or deliberately hurtful comments. Receiving such responses, no matter how ill informed or illiterate they often may be, can seriously damage the delicate self esteem of vulnerable young learners.

Teachers should therefore promote the use of YouTube as a performance channel with due consideration to such a risks. The same safeguards should apply to blogging, where teachers are advised to act as moderators of the comments that are received, filtering each one before allowing it to be posted on the blog for students to read. There is also the danger of cyberbullying from within the peer group, and such malicious activities also need to be obviated by the appropriate management of social media tools in formal learning settings. A fine line needs to be drawn between deliberately destructive behaviour, and critial review of a learner's work. Whilst the former knocks down, the latter can build up, challenging the student to refine their skills and learn more about their subject.

Arguably, the benefits outweigh the risks, and performing your learning online using social media is a game changer. Never before have students enjoyed the opportunity to shine on such a global stage. The audience has indeed expanded, and where once a student was writing their assignment to be read by an audience of one (the teacher or examiner), now there is potential to demonstrate new learning through a huge range of globally accessible media.

Assessment should no longer be confined to the written tests or essays that were so prevalent in the last century, but might be extended to podcasts, blogs, wikis, videos, image collections and combinations of these in other media. What teachers now need to avoid is replicating old practices within new media. The opportunities to create new ways of assessment are there to be exploited. The only real limitation is imagination.

Image source


Everyone's a critic by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Blogging with Freire

Well .... not exactly. Paulo Freire - that great Brazilian educational thinker - died in 1997, just as the World Wide Web was emerging in the Western world. So Freire didn't actually live to see the power and potential of social media, or the impact blogging would have on education. But what would he have said about blogs if he had been witness to the participatory web in all its present glory? Here is my interpretation of some of his ideas, drawn from his most celebrated book 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed', and presented in six key points as they might apply to the art of educational blogging.

1) Respond to reader comments with humility. Freire wrote: "...dialogue cannot exist without humility. Dialogue, as the encounter of those addressed to the common task of learning... is broken if the parties (or one of them) lack humility. How can I dialogue if I always project ignorance onto others and never perceive my own?" (p. 71). This is not just a message for educational bloggers. It is a message for teachers everywhere. How can we stand there in a self proclaimed position of enlightenment, and view our students (or audience) as being in a state of ignorance? This is hubris of the first order. And yet that is what happens in many classrooms across the world every day, because that is often how teachers are trained. It is also acknowledged that many teachers teach in the same way they themselves were taught. In a blogging context, it is easy to be offended when an adverse comment is received on your blog. You may be tempted to respond aggressively, to 'put the other person right'. Often though, good learning occurs when we consider the views of others. Even if we don't agree with the views of other people, it is good to consider them, to evaluate their meaning and contemplate alternative perspectives. Dialogue is what blogging is really about.

2) Don't be afraid to speak out. Freire counsels: "Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." It's clear that there is a lot of inequality in the world, and some of this exists within the world of education. Schools are not perfect, and there is no education system in the world that has it completely correct. There is no better place for speaking out against injustice, or exposing inequalities than a popular blog site. It's better than owning a newspaper. People will read what you have to say if you have something interesting to speak about. So use your blog to speak out on behalf of those who can't speak out for themselves.

3) Use blogs to circumvent regulated learning. Students who blog quickly realise that they can explore knowledge for themselves. They can become independent learners. Freire was critical of the banking approach to education, where teachers regulate learning: "The teacher's task is to organise a process which already occurs spontaneously, to 'fill' the students by making deposits of information which he or she considers constitutes true knowledge" (p. 57). When a learner starts to blog, they start to think for themselves. They have to consider an audience of more than one (teacher and essay writing) and they are required to be masters of their own journey. In another sense, blogging can subvert traditional education in another way. The dialogue that can ensue from blogging is often more valuable than the act of writing on the blog. Quadblogging and the 100 Word Challenge are just two of the school based blogging projects that are making a real difference for learners by providing them with a guaranteed audience every time they blog.

4) Read other people's blogs and make comments. The act of seeking out alternative perspectives and views in itself will sharpen the reader's thinking and cause them to question received knowledge. Freire says: "... it is indispensable to analyse the contents of newspaper editorials following any given event. 'Why do different newspapers have such different interpretations of the same fact?' This practice helps develop a sense of criticism, so that people will react to newspapers or new broadcasts not as passive objects of the 'communiques' directed at them, but rather as consciousnesses seeking to be free" (p. 103). Alongside newspapers and news broadcasts we can add blog commentaries. Blogs are places where people can express their opinions and offer their interpretations, and these are the new street corners where individuals have their conversations. Engaging with knowledge in this way will liberate the mind and help develop critical thought.

5) Use blogging to support thinking. Often, abstract thoughts remain abstract unless they are externalised in some concrete form. Traditionally, writing has been used as a means to crystallise thinking, because as Daniel Chandler says "In the act of writing, we are written." Freire writes that "In all the stages of decoding, people exteriorise their view of the world" (p 87) which implies that in order to understand our personal reality, we need to first bring our thoughts out into the open. Blogs are public facing tools that enable their owners to externalise their thinking in a way that is open for scrutiny. In the act of public writing, we expose our ideas and begin to understand our own thoughts more clearly.

6) Use blogging as reflection. Reflection is an important part of learning, and is a skill that must be developed if it is to lead to successful outcomes. Reflection is also the key to personal liberation. Friere argues that: "Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects which must be saved from a burning building" (p 47). Reflection means active participation in learning, and blogging is a very powerful tool to support this process.

Reference
Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin.

Photo by Steve Wheeler


Blogging with Freire by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Cultural hegemony and disruption

The Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci is best known for his theory of cultural hegemony. In a Gramscian sense, hegemony describes the power exercised by the ruling class over the population in order to maintain control of the means of production. Cultural hegemony is imposed as political doctrine largely through the state education system, but also via other means including print media and broadcasting. Sometimes referred to as 'brainwashing' hegemony is actually more complex and is an insidious way to indoctrinate the masses into a 'false consciousness' where each person believes they have ultimate control of their own destiny. In doing this, the elite impose a view that 'that's just the way it is', but as musician Bruce Hornsby once exhorted, 'Don't you believe it.'

Whilst Gramsci used hegemony to refer specifically to the inculcation of political doctrine into society, I believe the theory can be applied in a much wider sense, and that we are witnessing a challenge to the dominant societal discourses through disruptive technology. I emphasise here the power of participatory media to promote democracy and to a strengthening of the influence of the voice of the people. The current exponential adoption of social media has huge implications for the system of education, itself a key component of cultural hegemony.

How does social media disrupt cultural hegemony? Across the connected world we are witnessing a tangible subversion of long standing dominance. Social media for example has achieved a remarkable success in eroding the power of previously elite media channels. One example is the encyclopaedia, long cherished as one of society's most important knowledge repositories. For years the multiple volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica have graced the shelves of libraries worldwide. They are expensive, regularly in need of updating and replacing, and take up a great deal of physical space.

Enter Wikipedia - the online social encyclopedia to which everyone has a stake in. In an extraordinarily short period of time, Wikipedia has taken up pole position as the world's knowledge repository. It is now the first port of call for many, supplanting Britannica and other previously popular reference books. And when all factors are analysed, this should be no surprise. Wikipedia is popular because it can be accessed from anywhere using a web enabled mobile phone.

More importantly it is also popular because it is democratic, and breaks the hegemony imposed by commercial publishers. Anyone can start off a new page, or quickly add content to more than 14 million existing pages (and that is just the English language pages). In response, Britannica has recently announced that it will no longer publish in paper format, but will now be exclusively digital. It's probably already too late. Wikipedia has challenged the hegemony and is now the new killer application. Other killer apps are also challenging the hegemony imposed by previously dominant channels.

Other commercial companies are also falling foul of disruptive technology. Previously dominant multi-national corporations such as the photography giant Kodak have discovered that failing to respond quickly enough to societal changes can be very costly. The market position of Kodak was once thought to be unassailable. Not anymore. Kodak failed to adapt quickly enough to the rise in popularity of digital photography, filed for bankruptcy and now finds itself in a very unstable financial position from which it may fail to recover. Mail companies are also discovering that e-mail and the cloud (and the capability to send large documents and images instantaneously for very little cost) have undermined what had previously been a very secure monopoly in the physical delivery of letters and parcels. What was the Royal Mail's response to the drop in physical delivery? They raised their prices. Nicolas Negroponte's prediction of a transition from atoms to bits has been realised, is disruptive in the extreme, and it is only just beginning.

Blogging and open access journals are becoming the first choice of publishing for many academics and scholars. Many are turning away from the closed journals regardless of the status they currently enjoy, because open access journals and blogs gain a larger audience for their writing, and publishing is quicker. How long will it be before these media disrupt the hegemony the large publishing houses such as Elsevier, Springer and Wiley currently impose upon the academic world?

Blogging is not yet considered a real threat to the closed publishing world, but this may change as it gains more momentum and as respected academics begin to exploit its power of reach. Blogging is not generally subject to editorial control, so individuals are at liberty to write what they choose. The peer review process occurs when readers comment and enter into dialogue with the author. Then learning happens as ideas are challenged, arguments ensue and synthesis is achieved. Blogging is a new form of educational democracy. 

Newspapers too are struggling to survive as they cope with competition from the online journals and magazines that are gradually usurping their readership. It doesn't stop there. YouTube and other video sharing sites have gained a significant purchase in the broadcasting world, and are in the process of displacing some of the previously prominent media channels. All mainstream TV channels have now adopted Facebook and Twitter to capture views and news from citizen journalists from news hot spots around the world, just to keep ahead of the opposition. The dominant movie and music industries are also threatened by the likes of YouTube and Vimeo, and there have been several recent high profile law suits over breaches of copyright. Copyright law itself is also under scrutiny as a result of the influence social media have gained. The copyleft movement (which includes Creative Commons licencing) is challenging the dominant discourse of copyright and the contentious notion of ownership.

Civil liberty is under threat in any society where there is excessive surveillance. But even here, ordinary people are being empowered through the use of personal technology. The internet meme featuring the cop who in an unprovoked act, casually pepper-sprayed peaceful Occupy protesters is an example of surveillance being used against the dominant class. The police in this sense are a state apparatus. They are traditionally the owners of surveillance technology. Yet on this occasion, the cop - one Lieutenant John Pike (pictured) - was captured forever in an act of brutality by cameras owned by ordinary people, and subsequently suffered the consequence of becoming an infamous and universally parodied figure on the internet. Numerous versions of his act, some very humorous, can be found under the Lt Pike meme. Some would argue that this was the best form of retribution. Once again, democratic use of social media and personal devices exposed what was really happening during the Occupy movement.

Governments can also be disrupted. One of the most remarkable series of events to date this century has been the political activism that has occurred as a result of widespread social media use. Videos and blogs emerging from Tunisia alerted the world to what was happening, whilst the use of social networking mobilised the entire country to rise up against its oppressive government. Ultimately, the government fell and the people regained their lost democracy. Similar events caught on across the Arab world, in Egypt and Libya and elsewhere as ordinary people began to challenge their dictatorial governments. At the time of writing, this struggle against the dominant class continues.

Social media, the participatory web, and mobile communications have already radically changed the face of the connected world. Cultural hegemony has been disrupted as a result of the democratic use of technology, but we must be careful not to assume that the hegemony imposed by the dominant classes will disappear. It will not. New killer applications merely disrupt older previously dominant applications. The elite class then move in and gain control of the new tools, ultimately exploiting them, and imposing their power through these new channels of influence. In this sense Marx was correct. This is an ongoing cycle - a class struggle between the ruling elite and the rest of society to gain control of the tools that will ultimately influence our entire culture. Cultural hegemony and the killer application are locked together forever in a dance of death. To survive we will need to avoid complacency.

Hyperhabitat image source
Britannica image by Fotopedia
Lt Pike image by Louise Macabitus


Cultural hegemony and disruption by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Yesterday in Parliament

Yesterday I spent a fascinating few hours in Parliament (which currently on its website for some reason has a picture of Russell Brand). I got to see quite a lot of the Palace of Westminster, including some place most people never get to see, all courtesy of Denise Hudson-Lawson, who just happens to be a big wheel at Westminster. Of which more later. I had been invited to give the inaugural presentation at Parliament's Innovation Forum, and after lunch I spoke to a group of around 80 civil servants on the subject of 'Harnessing the power of social media'. I will blog later about the content of my talk and will share my slideshow in due course. It was interesting to talk over lunch with ICT Strategy Change Manager Joanna Jones and her colleague James about digital technology and to learn more about how the Houses of Commons and House of Lords are using social media in their political and governmental work. One of the best things I have seen so far this week is a group blog set up by a few of the peers called Lords of the Blog. Check it out and you will find it witty, bold and informative, and not something most people would expect from a group of people who have the reputation for being 'stuffy' and a bit 'past it'.  Twitter too is being used by a number of Members in both Houses, most notably Tom Watson MP (75,00 followers) and Lord John Prescott (128,000 followers), Foreign Secretary William Hague MP (80,000 followers) and perhaps infamously Diane Abbott MP (37,000 followers) who made an unfortunate comment on Twitter that provoked disciplinary action from her leader. Another MP to fall foul of Twitter errors was recently re-elected member George Galloway MP (71,000 followers) who confused his own new constituency Bradford with another completely different northern town Blackburn.

Just about every member of Parliament and many of the Peers have a personal/professional website, probably maintained by their staff, but never the less, affording them with a digital presence on the web. Although many realise the power of social media to broadcast and amplify their messages and views, it is evident that along with Abbott and Galloway, some are occasionally a little naive and unguarded in their off the cuff tweets. It gets them into trouble, because there is always someone watching the Tweet stream. It is a very real issue, and one I addressed in my Innovation Forum presentation. Another burning digital issue is the validity of the online petitions the government has instigated - another project that is managed by the team that invited me to speak at the innovation forum. The rules state that anyone can start an e-petition on any subject, and if and when that e-petition receives support from 100,000 or more unique signatures, it is passed to the Backbench Business Committee for further consideration, with the possibility to be debated in the Commons. Just how many get to the stage of being publicly debated by our lawmakers is still to be discovered, but every e-petition that receives 100,000 signature receives an official response. Democracy in action? We will need to wait to see just how effective e-petitions are in giving ordinary people a voice.

My day at Parliament was concluded by a personal tour around the Palace of Westminster, including a visit to Westminster Hall, a place steeped in history and over 900 years old. This grand hall is the very place where King Charles I was tried and convicted for treason and sentenced to death, and also the place where deceased British monarchs are laid in state. It is also famous for recently hosting a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama. I also got to see the Members' lobby and St Stephen's Hall, and a brief visit to the famous terrace restaurant where views over the river Thames, and the London Eye can be had under the shadow of St Stephens Tower, which houses Big Ben. It was a memorable day, and well worth the hours of train travel there and back.

Images by Steve Wheeler


Yesterday in Parliament by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Creative learning spaces

For me, one of the highlights of the Estonian Elearning Conference in Tallinn was listening to Stephen Harris, principal of the Sydney Centre for Innovations in Learning. SCIL is an Australian secondary school that practices teaching and learning within open spaces, where student autonomy and personalisation of learning are top priorities. Under Stephen's leadership, the school enables BYOMD - bring your own multiple devices, which means that students can learn in a number of different spaces and places around the school, using their own familiar tools. Stephen spoke about the metaphors for creative space that are used to contextualise learning:

The Camp Fire: This is a social learning space where students face each other, and in doing so gain an expectation that each should contribute something to the discussion and activities.

The Cave: This is a personal learning space where students can be on their own. Personal learning spaces enable them to reflect on their learning, and create their own learning pathways.

The Sandpit: Sandpits are places where young people can try out new ideas and experiment without fear of failure. They can take risks and ask the 'what if' questions, in a psychologically safe environment.

The Watering Hole: Informal spaces where students can gather spontaneously, either inside or outside the school. Children can meet at the foot of a stairwell or under a tree to discuss anything, whether it is school related or not.

The Mountain Top: Here young people can share their work and ideas. They can publish or broadcast them in a public performance space, or use blogs, podcasts, videos and other technology tools to share their content with their peers and the world. 

Stephen reported that enabling these kinds of activities inside the school, children gained a sense of autonomy they would otherwise not have, and as a result, they also gained ownership over their learning and a new sense of responsibility. The incidences of behaviour problems deminished to manageable proportions. 

Image by Steve Wheeler

Creative learning spaces by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Classroom without walls

I've written before about the idea of the classroom without walls. Today, with the sun shining down on the UK's warmest March in recorded history, my students and I sat in a classroom without walls - literally. We went outside and held our final teaching session of the term in the warm sun. The students enjoyed it, and frankly, so did I. It has been a very long time since I last conducted a lesson outside in the open air. I know this is not what I normally mean when I talk about classrooms without walls. Normally I'm alluding to the idea that with technology to mediate our communication, we can extend our traditional classroom boundaries to encompass learners across the globe. Through the use of webinars, videoconferencing, podcasting and even blogging, we can become global educators, and the tyranny of distance is overcome.

But today was the real deal. It was refreshing to just step away from all the artificial lighting, technology and classroom furniture and simply sit out on the grass, in the open air, learning from each other. It got me wondering what we actually do when we sit in a classroom, enclosed by four walls and with the door firmly closed. It tends to shut down learning, so that the world outside cannot witness what is happening in the room. Why do we shut the doors when we teach? Possibly to eliminate distractions, but there are so many distractions still in the room.

Today, in the warm sunshine, with nothing but blue sky above us, and with no power sockets, interactive whiteboards or computers in sight, the group listened intently, engaged completely, and spent two full hours focused on the task of putting together a research report. Often they are hunched over their computers, tapping away trying to make notes, or passing messages to each other on Facebook or Twitter. Today, all they had was a pad and pen to scribble their notes. Makes me wonder how learning could be transformed if we had warmer weather, and the outdoor learning movement had more influence than it currently enjoys.



Classrooms without walls by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

On Aer

I spent two great days in Ireland this weekend, and would like to thank my hosts at the Computer Education Society of Ireland for inviting me. It's a beautiful country, the culture is rich and the people are all so friendly. Ahead of my keynote speech at the CESI 2012 conference in Portlaiose, I managed to do an interview for Dublin City FM 103.2. The programme Inside Education, presented by Seán Delaney, is a regular radio and podcast Irish perspective on news and stories from the world of education. We sat outside in the early spring sunshine of Portlaiose and discussed blogging, social media, the state of education, ideal schools of the future, innovation and technology, and a whole host of related topics.

I emphasised the importance of blogging as a means of teacher professional development and best uses of technology in education (social media, interactive whiteboards, VLEs, videoconferencing, iPads), and we discussed choice and adoption of new technologies in education. It was a wide ranging interview in which we also explored the use of Twitter as a rich communication backchannel and social networking media, discussed personal learning networks and communities of practice, and talked at length about the idea of classrooms without walls, BYOD and open educational resources. We also touched on youth culture, txt speak and digital literacies. The most important thing, I emphasised, is for teachers to consider the pedagogy, the potential learning gain and the student experience before they decide on the purchase of any technology.

Seán was a very good interviewer because he listened to what I had to say and then followed up my statements with useful questions that delved deeper into my ideas. The programme was broadcast on Sunday evening, and the podcast featuring the first part of the interview can be found here. The interview lasts approximately 20 minutes - listen carefully and you can actually hear the crows in the background! - do have a listen.

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On Aer by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Those who are about to blog...

If you are considering taking up blogging this year, and wondering what it might involve, I would be happy to offer you a few tips from my own experience. I have been blogging for just over 5 years and during that time have learnt a few things. Blogging can be a thoroughly absorbing activity, which ultimately will pay you back as much as you invest in it, and also some interest. It can also be a very creative pastime, enabling you to develop your ideas, and sound them out in public. I have already written extensively about the benefits of blogging for professionals in several previous posts including Seven reasons teachers should blog, so I won't elaborate here. What I will do though in the space I have on this post, is offer you some caveats, and a few words of advice...

Firstly, blogging can be time consuming. It's not quite the 'time sink' that Patricia Wallace (1999) warned about, but it can take up a lot of your time, especially if you are a bit of a perfectionist. You may also struggle at first to think up ideas for your blog. However, the more you involve yourself in your own sphere of professional practice, the more you will find to write about. Social media such as Twitter provide a lot of inspiration. Get networking and you'll have a lot to write about. Before long, if you persist with your writing and don't give up, you will have a growing archive of blog posts to look back on.

Secondly, you may not receive a lot of interest at first for your blogging. There are probably many other blogs already that represent your field (unless you are extremely specialised), so there is a lot of competition for people's attention. But don't let that put you off - join in. Some of your posts may go unread, and even if people do read them, you may not receive any comments. Persevere. The more you blog, you more likely you are to receive comments, especially if your content is useful, controversial or laced with humour. Some people blog simply to get their ideas down in some concrete form. This is valuable in itself, because sometimes you don't know what you are thinking until you externalise it in some tangible way.

Thirdly, if your site becomes popular, and you gain a large audience, you may begin to receive spam messages and comments on your blog. You can detect them easily, because they normally arrive as a bland message along the lines of 'I enjoy reading your blog because it is very interesting to me', often in bad English, and then accompanied by the tell-tale hyperlink. I learned very early on to moderate comments to my blog, and these kind of comments are deleted very quickly in the filtering stage. Moderating comments can be a little more time consuming than open comments, but it's worth the extra effort to filter out the dross and maintain some sort of quality control over your content.

Some people may approach you with ideas or contributions for a guest blog. Again, treat these offers with caution. A few are quite genuine, but many are opportunists who wish to gain some exposure on your site, but don't actually have a lot to offer. If you are interested, ask for a sample of their writing before you go any further. Often the question is, do these would-be bloggers not have a blog of their own? And if they do, why are they bothering you? I wrote about this problem in a post a year ago.

Finally, you will need to develop a thick skin. If your site becomes popular, you will present a target that is there to be shot at. Not everyone will agree with what you say, which is usually very healthy. Those who disagree with you will say so, and some will not be particularly kind in their comments. Some may even make quite personal comments, but this often reveals more about them than about the topic under discussion. Ultimately, all comments that engage with the topic you have blogged should be welcomed, because they lead to dialogue that makes people think. There are some though, who have an agenda of their own, whether it is self-promotion, or just trouble making. Occasionally you may receive a comment that is abusive. It is up to you to decide whether you allow such comments to appear. Some argue that 'feeding the trolls' is a bad idea, and simply delete such messages. Others welcome them and respond appropriately to them.

So if you are embarking on blogging, remember - it is a public space. What you write becomes a part of your digital identity. Some of your writing will be misunderstood, some will be much appreciated by those who read it. Sometimes it's a walk in the park, but occasionally it can be an arena in which a form of gladiatorial combat can take place. So speak softly, but carry a big stick.

Reference
Wallace, P. (1999) The Psychology of the Internet. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Image by Benjamin Cooper


Those who are about to blog... by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

10Q: David Mitchell

I ended 2011 with a post called Four game changers which featured four key innovators who are radically transforming education. Throughout 2012 I plan to feature more educators who are doing significant work in schools, colleges and universities, and who in their own ways are changing teaching and learning. Each will answer ten questions about their life, their opinions and their professional practice in education. In this first of my 10Q posts, I interview David Mitchell, Deputy Head Teacher of Heathfield Community Primary School in Bolton, who talks about his hopes and aspirations for schools in the future, and how social media tools such as blogs, and his concept of QuadBlogging are having a positive impact on primary education at an international level.

Who are you?
My name is David Mitchell (aka @DeputyMitchell) I am the Deputy Headteacher at Heathfield Community Primary School in Bolton. I have been the Acting Headteacher since the summer of 2011 but now look forward to handing over the reigns to our new Headteacher from January 1st 2012. In addition to my official role, I am also a Google Certified Teacher from the first Google Teacher Academy outside of the USA. I am also a Toshiba Education Ambassador and have been fortunate enough to have been on the receiving end of some awards in 2010 and 2011.

What first attracted you to teaching?
My father (@gog40) was a teacher so I have always had teaching in my blood. However, that isn't the reason I wanted to become a teacher. I didn't do very well at school due to many factors, the biggest being that I wasn't challenged or engaged. I left school with only 2 GCSEs after my first attempt with an additional 3 after my second attempt. Although I tried many other paths to employment, my learning journey only began the moment I started my teaching degree in 1993. I truly thought that I could make learning more engaging than my teachers did for me. I wanted to prove to Mr. Clegg (Maths teacher from my school) that I wasn't the class clown.

What excites you now about teaching?
The tools at my disposal excite me! I have seen the most powerful learning moments come when my pupils learn with me and learning isn't done 'to them' but 'with them'. As I have said above, my learning journey began the moment I started my teaching degree, I'm still on that journey and so long as I keep excited about learning then my learners will too. I'm so excited about the unknown future that we are preparing our learners for. There isn't a checklist of things we need to tick off. So long as my learners LOVE learning they will be able to tackle the unknown the future will undoubtedly throw at them.

What would you change in education if you had the opportunity?
If I had the chance to change things in education, I would take education out of the hands of politicians. Education needs protecting from the games of politics. I think the profession isn't used enough in the governance of education, how come one man or one woman's vision for education can become policy? There are teachers, school leaders and Governors out there who have decades of experience who should be able to guide progress in education with much more impact than the current system. I don't have the answers but if the politicians asked the profession how education could improve I have 100% faith that we'd get it absolutely right!

Why is blogging so important in education?
Blogging suffers from a very narrow definition! I know this as I'm that blogging bloke who was on the telly. What many people don't know is the pedagogy behind the good practice that goes into the learning behind a great blog.

Firstly, a blog is an outcome, this outcome has seen many stages before it is made public. And in the public nature of the outcome lies the magic of the engagement that so many teachers that use blogging preach about.

"The child's tray is a hospice for their writing, where their writing goes to die." (Bill Lord, 2011) This concept is so easy for me to understand as this is what my own education lacked. We ask our learners to consider their audience daily or weekly. What's the point when they are writing for their teacher alone? From my experience the learner also knows what we will be writing in their books for developmental points too. Give a learner a global platform to publish their learning and you'll see these learners apply 100% effort because if they don't, their audience will tell them!

At another level blogging is so important in education because of the community that surrounds it - a generous group of sharing learners all at different levels of their learning journeys. Comments from other learners are more powerful than any other comments. Over the last 12 months, my learners have received over 8,000 comments. These 8,000 comments are sometimes 300-400 words long with links to examples and suggestions too. How powerful is that? More powerful than my 3 stars and a wish? My learners think so!

What do teachers need to know about social media in schools?
Teachers need to know that social media doesn't need to hurt. From Facebook to Twitter, from YouTube to Blogging, put these tools in the hands of an educator who has a sensible outlook about how these tools can be used and you'll see the benefit from the learning that is taking place at the hands of that educator. Collaboration, teamwork and peer support are all offspring of effective use of social media in my classroom. Once you embrace a tool like Twitter you'll have access to many people that have already used social media within schools and they will be more than happy to share the experiences.

What is QuadBlogging?
QuadBlogging was born out of a tiny idea to help out a school that was doing some fantastic blogging but not getting the audience that they deserved. There was a danger that the pupils and teachers might lose interest. This would have been a travesty as the learning being showcased on their class blogs was wonderful. Heathfield is blessed with a very healthy audience and I also knew a couple of other people who also had a healthy audience. I saw an opportunity where 3 schools could help one school. This is where the number 4 and the term Quad came from. Each week one of the 4 classes or schools would be the focus where the other 3 classes or schools would visit during that week and leave comments for the learners. Each week would see a new school out of the 4 being the focus school/class and this would be repeated for the 4 weeks. While setting up this Quad, I publicised it on Twitter and within a few days about 10 other teachers asked if they could be a part of this QuadBlogging.

The concept has remained the same, however, the organisation be behind the scenes hasn't. Going from 4 classes to approximately 1000 from 25 countries has been a tricky project to manage. Each quad now has a volunteer from within that quad to be the Quad Coordinator, responsible for communication between the adults in the quad resulting in a smooth cycle where each class knows which is the focus class. The tools behind the scenes have also evolved. A Google Form linked to a spreadsheet embedded within the Quadblogging blog makes organising each quad quite easy. Up to now, QuadBlogging has directly impacted around 40,000 pupils from all over the globe.

What positive outcomes of quadblogging have you personally seen in schools?
Gathering evidence of impact from Quadblogging classes has proved fairly hard. It has been obvious from tweets from Quadblogging teachers that the impact is there in engaging the pupils and springing life into class blogs that might have been slipping down slope. It has also been evident that Quadblogging has added a global dimension that had previously been missing. There are more and more comments each month on the Quadblogging site: QuadBlogging Highlights. There is also a very nice tool called Scoop.It that collects Quadblogging posts on this site:

I am still working on gathering more evidence of the impact that Quadblogging has had on pupils, classes and teachers. If anyone has any suggestions, please add them to your comments!

What is your vision for the future of education?
My vision for education is one of 'For learners by learners'. I want to see developments and progress in education directly influenced by the profession. It's OK that we don't know what our learners will doing in 20 years time. Have teachers ever had crystal balls? The future of education will need to produce learners who have simply 3 things:

1. Experience of successful collaboration
2. How to quickly find out things they don't know
3. A love of learning

What links do you wish to share?
My Blog
QuadBlogging
Heathfield School Website

David Mitchell is one of the invited Spotlight speakers at Pelecon 2012.

Image courtesy of David Mitchell


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Blogstorm

Something extraordinary is happening to our student teacher population at Plymouth University. They are becoming excited at the prospect of sharing their ideas to a potential worldwide audience, and relish the idea of having dialogue with their readership. People are beginning to notice an increase in the quantity and quality of blog posts and tweets emerging from our group of learners in the School of Education. Someone tweeted last night during the Bolton Teachmeet that Plymouth seems to be the 'edudigital capital' of the UK. Even our own Vice Chancellor Professor Wendy Purcell (@WMPUPVC) this morning remarked on how productive our student body has become on social media platforms over the past few months. Here at Plymouth we are taking social media seriously, and are encouraging innovative uses. We are promoting the idea that any teacher can become a global educator through the appropriate use of Web 2.0 tools. We embed a lot of different tools - wikis, blogs, podcasts, lecture capture, interactive whiteboards - into the fabric of our teaching sessions, and this effort is clearly beginning to pay off.

My colleagues Peter Yeomans (@ethinking on Twitter) and Oliver Quinlan (@oliverquinlan) have between them generated an exciting culture of sharing on the web for our primary education students, and have created the plymuniprimary site to aggregate the B.Ed (Hons) student blogs. Earlier today another 20 or so students on my BA Education Studies programme also started out on their blogging journey, and there have been several outstanding blog posts already. Some of the earlier posts can be found on my Student Blogs Scoop.it site. A variety of topics is covered, including txting, personal learning environments, classroom technology, plagiarism and e-safety.

What do the students learn from blogging? Well, the list is endless, but for example, we have evidence to suggest that they improve their writing skills, and also their confidence in public writing and engagement in discourse. There are problem solving and communication skills required. They must consider how they present their ideas and arguments, and what images, videos, hypermedia and other tools they will use to attract people to read their blogs. They will also be able to crystallise their ideas, practice their academic writing and make themselves more aware of issues such as copyright, navigation and plagiarism of content on the web. To gain so much from such a simple tool must be a bonus for any teacher.

Please pay a visit to some of these student blogs if you have some time, and make a comment or two. It will certainly encourage the students to keep up their good work and push their ideas further.

Image by Adam Gimpert


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Do it yourself education

Reading Edupunks, Edupreneurs and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education by Anya Kamenetz has been fascinating. It's a book that has been recommended to me several times over, so it was long overdue that I laid my hands on a copy. With its lurid red cover and aggressive image of a fist gripping a pencil (I would have suggested an iPod Touch or iPhone instead) while wearing a wrist band that proclaims DIY U, the books holds a lot of promise. But we all know you don't judge a book by its cover. Anya Kamenetz is no edupunk, and doesn't pretend to be. Turns out she's a journalist, working the scene, trying to make sense of the open access and bricollage movements that are gripping the imagination of teachers in schools, colleges and universities across the globe. Yet she does express opinions that are sympathetic to the Edupunk philosophy of 'do it yourself', rage against the system, undermine the edubusinesses and give it all away for free (with the exception of her book, which is reasonably priced .... and she does earn her living as a writer). You can visit her DIY U website for a deeper insight into her views.

In a fast moving writing style that reminded me of a squash ball, she ricochets off subject after seemingly unrelated subject, weaving her way swiftly through a history of education, philosophy, science, music, popular culture and sociology in an attempt to paint the broadest of brushstroke backdrops to the book. Her key message is simple - that education needs to change to make it more accessible to those who want to, but cannot afford to enter into full time higher education. Like some seasoned livestock farmer, she herds her illustrations, examples and 'key player' profiles together, to reiterate this theme throughout. Some of our favourite Twitter buddies pop up to make cameo appearances, including Jim Groom (inevitably included, but described in gritty terms as chain-smoking and unshaven), David Wiley, Alec Couros, George Siemens, Lawrence Lessig and Stephen Downes. Notably, the book is disappointingly parochial and inward looking however, focusing largely on North American activism, with scant interest to the rest of the world, as if nothing much is happening outside the borders of the USA and Canada. There is no mention for example of the New Zealand based OER University (or its founder Wayne McIntosh) and the ground breaking work they are doing to transform open educational practices in higher education. This criticism apart, the book still manages to provide some useful observations about the DIY and Open Ed movements and explores their crossover points.

One of the best ideas in the book is where Kamenetz suggests that ideas travel faster over informal networks than they ever could within the closed silo of an organisation or department. Those of us who are residents in the land of social media already know the truth of this, but it's nice to see it opined on the pages of a mainstream publication. Kamenetz eulogises over blogs which she describes as nodes in a vast, informal network of learning and opportunity. If there is a need for your ideas to escape the walls of your organisation, blogging is an excellent way to set them loose, she says. This is all good stuff, but although it may have been considered Edupunk a decade ago, it's a little passe now. What Kamenetz does do well however, is to highlight the significance of Massively Online Open Courses (MOOCs), suggesting that they may yet play a part in breaking the hold of the traditional, ivy league universities on mass higher education. What she misses the opportunity to explore is the informal nature of MOOCs, the amplifying power of connections created by such endeavours, and the resultant myriad of artefacts, activities and achievements that result from direct engagement with these learning movements.

Although it leaves much unsaid, Anya Kamenetz's book is useful to read if you are new to these ideas. The challenge, she says, is to capture the potential of technology to both lower costs and improve learning for all. High ideals indeed. Higher education is changing slowly, and it is good to know that the ideas of the Edupunk and OER movements are being written about formally, and that the ideals of these approaches is entering into the mainstream of people's consciousness.


Tomorrow: Me and Malcolm McLaren: The story of that photograph.

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