Angels in the architecture

There was an interesting question from the floor during the Plymouth e-Learning Conference 2010 final plenary session. I think it took all those of us on the panel by surprise, but it was nevertheless a question well worth asking. The question went something like this: Will the panel give us their views on whether the internet constrains or liberates spirituality?

The panel gave several different answers, because let's face it, this kind of question is best answered subjectively. Everyone has a personal view on faith and spirituality. I was last to answer, and was searching for a phrase to use. It came quickly to mind in the lyrics of a song by Paul Simon. In the song 'Call me Al' he sings:

He looks around around,
He sees angels in the architecture,
Spinning in infinity,
He says Amen and Hallelujah...

The term 'angels in the architecture' apparently derives from some architectural speak: "This maintains wiggle room as projects advance toward completion, often creating 'an angel in the architecture' to serve as a countermeasure for situations in which 'the devil is in the details.'" From this I was able to form another argument... Flexibility is the designer's best friend and Web 2.0 is surely a flexible, open architecture with a lot of latitude for self-expression and creativity.

I didn't quite know at first where I was going with my angels reference, and wasn't completely aware of the above source at the time, but it seemed appropriate as a response to a question on spirituality, and it crystallised as I spoke, so it must have been subliminal. The angels are not feathered beings of light in this context - they are the affordances of the technology - the interpretations of flexiblility imagined by the user. I developed by answer by quoting from Richard Clark, who argued that all technology is essentially neutral - 'mere vehicles' - in his own words, which simply deliver learning resources to the student, wherever they are. I agree with Clark that all technologies are mere tools, which can be wielded for positively or negatively - that is, for 'good or evil'. My answer to the plenary question was therefore that any person can harness any technology for good or bad, and that includes either the promotion of good spiritually and the building of faith, or as a destructive force to undermine spirituality. A lot of content on the web does appear to be particularly soul-less, and this can be harmful to one's spirit. The angels in the architecture for me are the perceptual expectations each users approaches the tool with. These affordances are the attributes of the tool the user thinks s/he can use for his own purposes. Affordances are an important concept to grasp if we are to better understand how our students use tools such as social networks, blogs and wikis to connect, create and learn. The architecture of Web 2.0 tools is open, the devil's in the detail, but the angels are still flying around...

Image source by Thomas Hawk

Photos of the Conference can be found here and here is James Clay's podcast Don't Feed the Pelicans



'Angels in the architecture' by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Pushing the buttons

The 5th Plymouth e-Learning Conference has drawn to a close, and it's time to reflect on what I think has been another great conference success. So many new friends have been made and so much discussed over the two days it is difficult to know where to start. I have been following the very busy Twitter stream of the event, and have been impressed by the amount of traffic, and the varied commentaries flowing out of, and back into the conference venue. This conference really was participatory I think, not only because of Twitter and the blog posts that have resulted, but also because of other technology support such as the streaming video we used to cover both keynotes, and several of the breakout sessions and discussions. BECTA even picked up on #pelc10 and called it the hashtag of the day.




Dave White's keynote this morning pressed so many buttons, it's hard to summarise what was said and discussed. I will leave it to the video capture (we will post both Dave's and Josie Fraser's keynotes as soon as we can to the conference website and link to them via this blog). There have been some great images posted from the event too, which will help us all to recall a memorable gathering of learning technologists, teachers and academics in the months to come. I will ensure that the official photographs from our two photographers will also be posted up and shared through the conference website soon.


We enjoyed an excellent and hard-fought debate today in the Jill Craigie Cinema (yes, a real Cinema on campus) where Tara Alexander, Dave White and I argued the toss over Prensky's Digital Natives/Immigrants theory, against Dave's Residents and Visitors model. Many of the audience engaged with us in a very useful exploration of the ideas, and we all went away with more questions than answers, which was exactly the required outcome. I was also very proude of all my own students who presented their research in four separate papers at the conference. They were met with glowing praise, great questions, and useful feedback from delegates.


Next year we are doing it all again, and the publicity is already there, on the back of the abstract book. The date for the 6th Plymouth e-Learning Conference is 7-8 April, 2011. We hope you will be able to join us as we continue this increasingly popular and exciting conference series. I'm off now to put my feet up for a few days... Thanks to everyone who took part!


Image source (courtesy of Daniel Kennedy)



'Pushing the buttons' Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Community, privacy and identity

Day one of the 5th Plymouth e-Learning Conference was very successful, and as usual, a very very long day. Our keynote speaker Josie Fraser did not disappoint with an eloquent account of communities, privacy and identity on the web. Josie talked about a number of potent issues around engagement with social media, and cited a number of key contributions to our understanding from the likes of danah boyd, Scott Wilson and Nicola Whitton. The ensuing question time lasted a full 30 minutes, during which we explored these issues thoroughly. Time does not permit me here to go into details, but a fuller report will follow, and there are of course, other, much more erudite commentators than me blogging as we speak. I will try to find their links and join them to this post.

Numbers of attendance at this year's event are slightly down on last year, with around 140 delegates present. Highlights so far have included two visits to the Vision Immersion Theatre, and excellent sessions, from amongst others, Simon Finch (Northern Grid for Learning), Dan Roberts (Saltash.net) and Tony McNeill (Kingston University). It's unfair perhaps to single these out, because the standard of papers and presentations at this year's event have been particularly good, but for me, trying to get around to all the papers, these three stood out as exceptional in both content and impact. More on this also when I have more time...

Today, Day 2, is dawning bright and clear, and the weather will hold. We are all looking forward to our second keynote speech, from Dave White, and various discussions and papers from delegates. We will close off today with a streamed plenary session where Josie Fraser, Dave White, Thomas Fischer (Erlangen-Nuremburg University, Germany) and I will tackle questions from all-comers. Should be fun.

Simulacra and stimulating conversation

I enjoyed some really interesting and stimulating informal conversations tonight in a variety of watering holes around the Plymouth Barbican area. It was a pre-conference Tweetup, and several old friends and new were there, holding forth on their views about just about everything under the sun. Tomorrow, we all meet more formally for the 5th Plymouth e-Learning Conference, but tonight it was a chance to let our hair down a little.

Quote of the evening must go to Simon Finch (@simfin) who said something along the lines of: 'On Twitter people I don't know let me know about stuff that really interests me. On Facebook people I do know tell me stuff I don't want to know about'. OK, it was a signature piece of hilarious wordplay from Simon, and it made us all laugh out loud. But it also shows up what some people see as a contrast between the frivolous nature of Facebook, and the way Twitter is becoming a serious professional networking tool.

There were other conversations about our personal experiences with institutional VLEs. Cath Ellis (cathellis13), James Clay and I all related our views and others joined in the conversation. We also reminisced over the early days of educational computing and whether there should be an 'e' in front of e-learning. One of the most interesting conversations for me though was later on, in the oldest pub in Plymouth - the Minerva Inn, which dates back to 16th Century times.

I was sat with Mark Power, James Clay and Rob Stillwell (@theboywhodrums) and we were discussing user generated content. We discussed how surreal it was that we could meet up face to face for the first time after tweeting to each other for long, and actually know so much about each other. An phenomenon that still needs some exploration perhaps.

Someone remarked how a lot of video clips on YouTube didn't look very user generated these days. I shared my theory that many of the well known clips, such as Charlie bit me and the Star Wars Kid appeared quite polished and produced, because perhaps they had become so iconic and archetypal and etched in our minds that we have forgotten the first time we actually saw them. They are also so emulated and repurposed that they tend to become parodies of themselves. Rob and I talked about Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation, which seems to frame this idea, and the notion that people tend to over-analyse content too - with the interesting result that much content tends to mean more to the viewer than to its original creator. I told the story of my art college days, when I became disallusioned with my tutors' negative comments about my work. I eventually took to throwing paint at a large canvas just to make a point. It was absolute trash but the fools liked it and even displayed it as an 'innovative piece' on the college gallery wall. I guess they must have been into Kitsch or some such art appreciation. I walked out of the college the same week and never returned. Does our interpretation of a digital artefact become more than what was actually intended by its creator? Perhaps this is an effect we should consider a little more when we come to evaluate the relevance, reliability and puspose of user generated content:

'The simulacrum is never what hides the truth - it is the truth that hides the fact that there is none. The simulacru is true.'

Image source

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.

This article was first posted 11 January 2009

Image source



'Social enzymes' by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Why Twitter is so powerful

There are two types of people in the world. Those who get Twitter and those who don't.

OK, I'm joking, but Twitter does seem to divide people. What can you say that's worthwhile in 140 characters? some people ask. Others claim that much of the Twitterverse is vacuous rubbish that isn't worth reading.

Well, anyone who uses Twitter on a regular basis will tell you that the power of the tool is not so much in its content, but in its ability to connect you to other people. The same applies of course to any other social networking tool, but unlike Facebook for example, Twitter contains very few distractions. It's stripped down and very simple. There are no frivolous food fights, 'poking' or third party games such as Farmville contained within its wrapper. Twitter quite simply connects you with people who are interesting, informative or humorous.

And here's the real power: The more you connect on Twitter, the more connections you get. For me, the value of Twitter is in tapping into its social critical mass. I think that most people who try Twitter and fail to see its value don't give it enough time. If they persisted and put some time into developing their contacts and connections on Twitter, they may discover that it pays them back for the time they have invested. To do this they can use lists, following those who are good value and produce useful content, while at the same time tweeting content that others may find useful.

No, Twitter is not so much about the information and useful links you can gain access to. Twitter is powerful because it allows people to share their emotions - you can gain a window on their everyday experiences, and that often helps you in your own daily struggles. I am often encouraged by people who share snapshots of what is happening in their lives right now. It's an important dimension - I have made many friends on Twitter whom I have later met and strengthened my friendships with. Self disclosure is a risky thing, but others often reciprocate. It can all be summed up by a quote from one of my favourite authors:

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one." - C. S. Lewis

Image source



'Why Twitter is so powerful' by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Txt in the city

I'm giving a keynote at an event being held at the University of Bath on May 19. It will be nice to go back to the city of Bath again so soon after my last keynote there on November 11. I enjoyed meeting the HEA podcasting special interest group and was well looked after. This conference will be the sixth in the series entitled 'Let's talk about txt', and apparently over 60 people have already signed up for the one day event. I wrote my title and abstract yesterday and sent it in to the organisers, Txttools. I hope it hits the mark:

Everything you always wanted to know about Txt but were afraid to ask

In this keynote presentation I will trace the history of written communication, and the emergence of communication technologies that have been used to convey our words. Taking a journey from cave wall paintings through the Gutenberg Printing Press to current handheld devices, I will argue that language is the first and most powerful human technology, and that all other technologies are merely extensions - vehicles to convey meaning from person to person.

In consideration of this position, txting can be seen as an evolving facet of interpersonal communication, and in its various forms (e.g. vernacular orthography, squeeze text, homophones, acronyms, respellings and rebuses) it has become the technological equivalent of spoken slang, and can therefore include or exclude. Through an examination of technology enhanced learning contexts and exploration of some examples of txt pedagogy, I will argue that if used appropriately, txt has powerful educational potential. Txt can motivate students to learn, and encourage creativity, and must therefore assume an ever increasing importance across all sectors of education.