Closing summaries: Patsy

Here are my reflections as a contribution to a closing summary for the
online course. We have kept the course 'open' for the promised extra week
to enable final reflections to be submitted despite the downtime of
Brookes Virtual. In fact I extended this though will be closing off the
interaction this coming weekend so it will be 'read only' thereafter
though still accessible if you want to retrieve any material or
discussions until 31 July.

Lou and I do appreciate all your contributions to the course processes and
products as well as to the final reflections. I am attaching a word cloud
of the final reflections as a visual summary of participant summaries.
'Time' /'demands' 'pressure' are there reflecting some of the difficulties
that were faced in the short course with the presentation of a range of
new tools as is 'group' to represent that aspect of the course activity
across time zones and regions. There too are 'learning', 'useful', 'like'
and 'thanks' which we hope reflect the value that you take forward into
your practice.

From a tutor's perspective this course also throws up some challenges. One
is that much of the activity and exploration takes place outside of
Brookes Virtual in the online social spaces of blogs, wikis, Twitter etc.
Thus one is at times uncertain if participants are busy 'out there' or may
have left the course altogether (!) Also sometimes negotiating a balance
between providing encouragement for climbing the learning curve vs. being
too intrusive for those who simply want to be left to get on in their own
style can be tricky ;-) However it was rewarding to see the enthusiasm
expressed despite some of the hurdles encountered.

It seems that there was agreement that for your own practice that you
would focus on fewer tools with clarification of purpose and
appropriateness for the task e.g. blogs for individual reflections, wikis
for collaborative or co-operative work, Twitter for quick access to links
and comments. Learning and managing so many new tools in this short course
certainly reminds us of the need and importance of careful design of
learning activities.

Using social software in the public domain comes with its own challenges
in terms of privacy and security issues. As a result some of you have
decided for the time being to keep with the social software tools
available within your institutions' preferred virtual learning environment
applications.

Then there is also the - often frustrating/time-consuming - need to
register for different applications and the resultant mushrooming of
passwords and having to remember them all.

I was excited to see some potential solutions of this aspect while
watching the (some parts quite 'techie' but nevertheless most interesting)
demo of the introduction of Google WAVE that will be released later this
year . This is a new tool for communication and collaboration on the web-
if you want to see the full 1 hour 20 mins demo it is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

What I appreciated of Google WAVE- apart from the concept - was that
everything takes place within the browser, with flexible and comprehensive
inclusion of different activities e.g. email, instant messages,
collaborative writing, photo sharing, instant ' as you type' translation
(40 languages) etc etc . With the whole more than the sum of its parts
plus it looks like ONE login - dare we hope? -
plus the capacity to change access rights on the fly as to who can see
what within a 'conversation'. Now THAT's smart technology and with
potential as a tool for use in learning and teaching scenarios.

Another issue with Web 2.0 technologies in that new applications are being
introduced on a regular basis making it quite a challenge to keep up with
what is out there. Think how much time we spent on only the few that we
incorporated within this course. It is one reason I like to follow certain
practitioners in the field of learning with new technology on e.g.
Twitter. They are keeping an eye on new developments and thus saving me
time by providing short links there that I can quickly access and check
out linked reviews, related blogs etc. All helps to lighten the load!

Quite a few of you referred to the value of experiencing the course in a
'student' role as a reminder of what your own students experience. Always
a useful reminder! I think for some of you this was not an easy role to
adopt as there was some reluctance to admit and share difficulties
encountered with some preferring to do that in emails outside of the
course. There was also very little activity in the Cafe discussion space
despite that this is usually quite a busy discussion area where
participants share interests and swap emails and other contact details for
post-course follow up and communication. I suspect that the course timing
in terms of your work commitments and scheduling deadlines made this type
of engagement more difficult in terms of available time.

Despite the time factor it is very rewarding to see that some of you are
keeping up with your blogging about learning issues. I look forward to
keeping up with your postings.

For those who would prefer to provide shorter and anonymous feedback on
the course there is a questionnaire about the course available from the
course 'Assessments' menu. All feedback is appreciated and helps us to
make adjustments to future course presentations.

Thank you all for your participation in the course. I wish you well in
your learning and teaching practice and hope we meet again in the future
either online or face to face.

kind regards
--p@ c

Closing summaries: Lou

http://beingnothingness.blogspot.com/2009/07/engaging-learning-with-social-software.html

Closing summaries: me

Hi all,

First of all, a big thanks to the course coordinators and all those that I shared my exploration of social learning with.

Looking at others' final reflections, I would agree about the time element. Sometimes it could take a while to get to grips with an application and then there is the reading and commenting on postings.

The organisation of 'dripfeed' learning modules worked well and the support materials for each application were useful. The tutor support was excellent, and keen and enthusiastic responses were always forthcoming.

In some ways I'm not sure how far we got, for example on pirvacy.

I would have liked a stronger emphasis on taking something from the course. I think the group project had the potential for this. Potentially a clear discussion at the start about participant's teaching and learning areas and how they would adopt certain applications for certain contexts. This could then include a really solid statement/resource (like the group project asked for) - in this way we might be able to leave the course with a bank of materials.

I'm not sure how effective distance learning is for this. It was made clear at the start that 6 hours was needed, but this was seemed difficult to coordinate in terms of group work. I had a recent institutional event on e-learning and through a talk and hands-on workshops I was able to comfortably get to grips with wikis and blogs in a short amount of time.

The same would probably have gone for the group project (having a conversation rather than dispersed bullet points). This may mean forgoing the international aspect, but I didn't get a strong sense of it anyway.

Overall, the beginning weeks were very exciting with a flurry of activity. This was a really interesting time and a lot of the discussion points, links, etc. will be I imagine very helpful in my future work.

Cheers and best wishes for the future

Dan

Idea to Develop:

Situating Social Software: An Induction Week Group Research Activity

Red Group

Introduction:

An
induction week groupwork research exercise for students that helps
orientate them to Higher Education in terms of social software
tools they may use during their studies.

The
groupwork element is part of the induction week 'getting to know you'
process.  Importantly, as this is an induction week activity it will be
'across disciplines'. Similarly, the research element also works to
introduce students to what they can expect over the course of their
studies. Mick Healey (University of Gloucestershire)
in his 'Mainstreaming research and enquiry through the Curriculum'
paper as pointed to the value that research exercises can have for
animating students during induction week. This induction week research
exercise will focus on the 'digital divide'.

Addressing
the 'digital divide' will present students with opportunities to
reflect on their own opportunities in relation to social software and
how this connects with global access (and non access) to ICT and
education. A key aim is to foster critical, reflective thinkers within
the HE context from the first week.

 

Target Group of Learners:

Undergraduate students across disciplines. 

This would be organised on an institutional basis.

Context of Use:

 Two sets of documentation will be needed. Firstly, on the use of blogs, and secondly, on the digital divide.

1. A blog is a web-based log and using existing suitable blog applications (blogger; word press), students will develop a blog in response to a specific question/theme.

The
blog will be set up by students within a group and group members will post
materials and ideas on the site. Blogs are often used as a way to
disseminate research and to maintain a discussion. In this respect,
students will use the blog as a research platform, as a hub during the
presentation if appropriate, and a post-presentation forum for other
groups to post comments. This is a crucial way to move beyond a 'final
output' approach and to encourage ongoing debate and peer review.

The peer review element is crucial. Jill Walker Retteberg in Blogging has suggested that "blogging is as much about reading other blogs as about writing your own" (2008: 1). This exercise is crucial for understanding blogs as a social and collaborative tool, and for carefully exploring the research findings of others and commenting.

2.In terms of the digital divide, the following points will underpin the discussion.

Students would look at OECD website (www.oecd.org) and look for countries with reduced access to ICT and lower participation in home computer ownership and broadband access.

The following questions are starting points:

Which countries are they?

Choose 1 country (not your own home country) from the lower end of the list and research the following:

Why is this country towards the bottom of the list?

What are the implications for:

• 
  

  the economic development

  
  
• 
  

  education of the people

  
  
• 
  

  employment opportunities for the people of the country?

Is the government trying to improve the situation? Either way, why?

If
the government is working towards improvement in this area what
measures are they taking and/or programs are they putting in place?

Intended Learning Outcomes:

1. Develop understanding of different social software tools and how these can be used within a collaborative research project.

2. Reflect on the implications of the digital divide.

3. Work blog materials/discussion into a 5-10 minute presentation.

4. Present presentation to other groups and use blog as means to extend the discussion beyond the presentation.

5. Work in groups to provide and receive peer review (via postings to other groups blogs)

6. Present a final 'report' including peer review comments.

 

Feedback and Assessment:

The blog offers a place for others to post feedback, (one
group feeding back to another group after viewing one another's
collaboratively created resource). Thus, peer feedback would replace
tutor feedback and be delivered via a blog.

 

Motivations and Expected Benefits:

1. Developing friendships during the induction week period

2. Familiarising oneself with specific skills within HE context (social software, groupwork, research, peer review)

3. Engagement with a contemporary global issue

 

Activity 4: Group project

I worked through ideas from the Red Group and came up with the following. Now subject to group editing:

Idea to Develop:

An induction week groupwork research exercise for students that helps orientate them to Higher Education in terms of social software toolsthey may use during their studies.

The groupwork element is part of the induction week 'getting to know you' process. Importantly, as this is an induction week activity it will be 'across disciplines'. Similarly, the research element also works to introduce students to what they can expect over the course of their studies. Mick Healey (University of Gloucestershire) in his 'Mainstreaming research and enquiry through the Curriculum' paper as pointed to the value that research exercises can have for animating students during induction week. This induction week research exercise will focus on the 'digital divide'.

Addressing the 'digital divide' will present students with opportunities to reflect on their own opportunities in relation to social software and how this connects with global access (and non access) to ICT and education. A key aim is to foster critical, reflective thinkers within the HE context from the first week.

Target Group of Learners:

Undergraduate students across disciplines.

This would be organised on an institutional basis.

Context of Use:

Two sets of documentation will be needed. Firstly, on the use of blogs, and secondly, on the digital divide.

The blog will be set up by students within a group and students will post materials and ideas on the site. Blogs are often used as a way to disseminate research and to maintain a discussion. In this respect, students will use the blog as a research platform, as a hub during the presentation if appropriate, and a post-presentation forum for other groups to post comments. This is a crucial way to move beyond a 'final output' approach and to encourage ongoing debate and peer review.

In terms of the digital divide, the following points will underpin the discussion.

Students look at OECD website (www.oecd.org) and look for countries with reduced access to ICT.

Students look at countries have a lower participation in home computer ownership and broadband access.

Which countries are they?

Choose 1 country (not your own home country) from the lower end of the list and research the following:

Why is this country towards the bottom of the list?

What are the implications for:

• the economic development

• education of the people

• employment opportunities for the people

of the country?

Is the government trying to improve the situation? Either way, why?

If the government is working towards improvement in this area what measures are they taking and/or programs are they putting in place?

Intended Learning Outcomes:

1. Develop understanding of different social software tools and how these can be used within a collaborative research project.

2. Reflect on the implications of the digital divide

3. Work blog materials/discussion into

4. Present presentation to other groups and use blog as means to extend the discussion beyond the presentation

5. Work in groups to provide and receive peer review (via postings to other groups blogs)

6. Present a final 'report' including peer review comments.

Feedback and Assessment:

The blog offers a place for others to post feedback, (one group feeding back to another group after viewing one another's collaboratively created resource). Thus, peer feedback would replace tutor feedback and be delivered via a blog.

Motivations and Expected Benefits:

1. Developing friendships during the induction week period

2. Familiarising oneself with specific skills within HE context (social software, groupwork, research, peer review)

3. Engagement with a contemporary global issue

Journal reflections: Group Work

Red Group discussions are going well and some really interesting suggestions are emerging.

Journal reflections: Group Work

The difficulties that Red Group have faced mirror the difficulties that students may face and report.

Activity 4 (week 3)

• Individually consider how you might support the digital and learning literacies of students in your own subject discipline or department. Factors to consider might be: how far you should provide extra curricular provision or embed it within your subject discipline, how could you support students' use of both social software and institutionally provided software, which literacies do you consider to be most important.
• Share your thoughts/ideas within your group using any of the collaborative tools listed above
• Agree to develop and present one of these ideas as a student learning activity to the other group, clearly highlighting the target group of learners and the context of use, the intended learning outcomes (consider knowledge/skills/values), issues around feedback and assessment, and the motivations and expected benefits of using the tools you have chosen to support this activity.

Discipline: Media Communications

A potentially distinctive element of Media Communications is that social networking tools are objects of analysis. Within my department (Media, Film and Cultural Studies), there are several courses that explicitly engage with social networking and its social, cultural, political (etc.) impact. Bringing social software in is as learning tools would involve carefully thinking through the reflections that would need to be explored by students.

In response to this activity and the JISC comments, I would highlight the need for specific training courses for students. Employability has been an area (through PDP, Professional and Academic Development, etc. course) that is increasingly mandatory within students’ overall degree programme in UK HE institutions (limiting my comments to areas I have experienced). Staking quite a claim for the significance of these tools, how about compulsory training around social software?

Induction weeks often provide tuition on using to an institution’s central files, e-mail and the Virtual Learning Environment. There could an opportunity to bring students to a common point and to not assume digital literacies and ‘nativeness’. Such a framework would allow tutors to ‘assume’ a level of proficiency and later on, when necessary, to direct students to specific resources and ‘refresher’ training, etc.

It seems that there are great opportunities for incorporating various social software applications, but as this ELSS course has potentially demonstrated there is a lot to work through. Providing this instructional role may be too much. Tutors often provide tailored, module specific guidance on essays and readings for example, but can ‘assume’ a degree of capability and comfort by students in these areas. Could we explore the same for social software?

Things to think about – how it sits with institution’s VLE; student social life ‘invasion’ questions; different cross-discipline literacies; the extent to which social software is linked to assessments and then must be introduced within modules (same as essay workshops, etc.); which social software tools would be selected, resource issues (who – time/finance).

In short, I guess the learning activity I’m suggesting (for now) is a generic training course. This is not particularly subject-specific; I felt that to be able to advance with the subject specific learning and exploration, a level of comfort and familiarity would be useful.

Activity 3C

Diigo set up:

http://www.diigo.com/profile/danielashton

Journal reflections: VLE and the university

Further to our debate on the Brookes VLE, the following is well worth a look: 'Why Universities Behave Like the Music Industry' by Mikes Molesworth (MeCCSA 2008 paper):

"By comparing interactive media ‘solutions’ created by universities (VLEs, LMSs, e-portfolios) with those available freely in cyberspace, we argue that the imposition of institutional media tools onto students might be seen as a way of managing and controlling student performance in such spaces, so that power is reinstated with the institution."

Journal reflections: Privacy!

Have a look at this site www.123people.co.uk/

Journal: reflections on Prensky

I was going to do this using sticky tags, but I may have to put on a hold on diigo for a few days.

I've previously mentioned David Buckingham's excellent Beyond Technology (2007) and his discussion of Presenky and Gee. Here are a few quotes:

"Like explorers returning from distant lands, both writers see their role as being to explain the activities of this exotic new species for the benefit of their confused and puzzled teachers and parents" (105)

"Prensky's argument is reinforced by what he regards as definitive evidence about the 'plasticity' of the human brain have not adapted sufficiently over thousands of years to enable all of them to read and write, it appears that, within the space of one generation, technology has brought about fundamental evolutionary changes that are making children unrecognizable event to their own parents" (105).

It can be awkward to extract quotes sometimes, but hopefully this provides a sense of the issues with Prensky's comments.

Journal: Notes from Rennie and Mason Ch 4 and surveying tools

Chapter 4: Mason, R and Rennie, F (2008). E-Learning and Social Networking Handbook - Resources for Higher Education. (Routledge).
( Begin to make a choice of what tool/s might be useful in your own work and how you migh integrate them - as preparation for the group work to come on this course.)

Reflections to follow

Activity 3B or 3C

I set up everything on delicious and then worked my way to diigo. I've been trying to work through the differences and found the Experiencing E-Learning blog helpful.

Instructive comment from there:
"You wouldn’t have to migrate to another system if you want to do more over time. I think migrating and learning “one more new tool” is a barrier for a lot of people".

I'm feeling very dispersed!
The potential for connecting aspects of our communications technologies are abundant (i phones, mobile me, etc.).

I'm seeing a large gulf in VLE and social networking (as discussed on Brookes VLE discussion board), but beyond this in terms of different social bookmarking for example.

Be interesting to see how everyone is getting on. For someone who is fairly familiar with this stuff, there is a lot to take in.

Activity 3B

Check out selected shared resources on Web 2.0 for teaching and learning from earlier courses that used the tags elss08, elss08_pac in the social bookmarking application del.icio.us.

Account set up and ready to go.
http://delicious.com/DanielAshton

I got into a bit of confusion bringing together my Firefox folders with tags. I have been used to working with folders for so long!

Posted five tags using elss0609.

I'm not entirely sure to what extent I've made by bookmarks public, but when I saw the 'tag cloud' I felt that I was displaying a lot. My tags are fairly functional (module titles; conference papers; hobbies).

Again, something that I imagine I could work into modules with tags being an interesting starting point. This connects with comments I took from Rennie and Mason (on wikis) about identifying existing practice and seeing how this could connect.

Activity 3A

Twitter is an online service that you can use on a mobile phone or on a computer with Internet access. It enables you to broadcast short messages (140 characters) to friends and "followers". You have control over who you want to follow. You can also direct messages to specific individuals only.

My twitter name is Daniel Ashton. This seems a very engaging and consuming activity and I'm not sure to what extent I'm going to contribute/follow it.

Activity 3A to 3C

I'm really excited about the potential applications of diigo to a common academic practice - quotes.
I'm going to explore this - potentially a critical discussion of some of Prensky's work.

I've used deli.ic.ous before but have forgotten my username/password (anywhere else finding this increasingly a problem?!). I think I'll return to.

Not to sure about twitter. Lots of coverage. There looks to be some novel uses (should be sharing this using deli.ic.ous hey?). A media literacy discussion of twitter from twitterhandbook.

Twitter storytelling very interesting. This site takes the user updates from Twitter and shuffles through random sentences that begin with specific phrases.

GET BACK TO CONNECTING THESE!

This posting has gone a bit 'look at all this' and I shall endeavour to work through some examples and applications (potentially a helpful thing to compile by each of us on the Brookes VLE in a discussion thread. A case study section of sorts).

Journal: functional title

I wish I'd gone for 'Dan's Engaging Learning with Social Software' as a title - a lot of generic titles here!

Journal: Notes from Rennie and Mason Ch 1 + 3

Some notes I took from Mason and Rennie's (2008) E-Learning and Social Networking Hanbook. These are not summary notes but points I found helpful/provocative.

Chapter One: Social Networking as an Educational Tool

p.5 "through appropriate course design, we can help learners to pursue their 'selfish interests' of passing the course, while at the same time adding value to the learning of other students"

p. 11 Book's wiki

p.12 Prensky is mentioned here. Noticed that we look at some of his articles next week. I'll flag up now that David Buckingham's 2007 Beyond Technology is very helpful for thinking through a lot of this.

p.13 Comments on cultural specificity of learning.

p.14+15 Collaborative elements and collective intelligence.
(How does this fit with p.5 and selfish interests?)

p. 17 Constructivism

p.19 Connectivism

p.20 Learning Design Tools

p.21 Assessment - positive contribution to the learning process (again, wondering about idea of selfish needs and 'market' education)

Chapter Three: Selecting the Media Palette

p.44 Commentary on 'the Net Generation', 'Millenials', and 'homo zappiens'.

p.48 Distributed media

p.50 "The introduction of distributed media resources needs to be a way of creating new opportunities for sharing and extending learning, rather than constraining learners into different forms of learning participation"

p.52 "In each of these examples [wiki], the educational process and the required output(s) come first, the wiki is just an alternative solution to face-to-face meetings, with the advantages that the wiki is asynchronous and builds a written record of interaction"

--
During course and module revalidation, an issue was raised about how time consuming working through individual student contributions to a wiki could be.

Activity 1 D: Discussion of Week 1 activities

The discussion for week 1: compare experiences we have had so far. In addition consider the following issues to bring to the discussion:

Social software file-sharing applications such as Flickr provide free storage and the opportunity of sharing e.g. photos and graphics,

• How might you incorporate use of the application you chose into your work/teaching/learning context?
• What value might it add?
• What issues around ownership, copyright, privacy and security might arise from use of such online spaces?

I'm going to respond to these questions both here and in the VLE discussion board.

The main thing for me to start off with and consider is that in my field (Media Communications) social networking sites are objects of studies. I'm reminded here of comments from Terry Bolas' Screen Education where he discusses film education and draws out the distinction in film as a visual aid and object (2009: 62).

How social networking sites might be incorporated then poses an interesting question around 'resource' and/or 'object of study'. For this activity, I'm going to focus on the use of 'blogger' as a resource in relation to my teaching.

One course in which blogger has an immediate connection is 'Journalism & Citizenship'. Blogs have been regarded as having a significant transformative influence of practices of 'newswork'. Using blogs, would allow students to get a sense of these mechanisms and transformatory elements. More broadly, this is a course dealing with contemporary issues and the blog would allow students to collaborate in identifying and sharing resources.

In terms of privacy, students could adopt a module persona (as I have done with this google profile). Questions of copyright are much more confusing and something I think I'll have to return to ;)

Activity 1 B: Presentation of your persona in Flickr or a social software application of your choice

In this activity we will individually present a picture(s)/photo(s)/illustration(s)/graphic(s) - your choice - to represent what we would like the class to know about us. Think of this as presenting an aspect of your persona.

For this activity I chose two images:

The first one is a profile picture. Fairly standard 'snap'; this one taken at Alderley Edge.

The second picture at the bottom on the right is a screengrab from the Wikipedia entry for 'social networking sites'. I thought this might be useful for gaining a sense of the diverse interests and motivations in setting up and joining such sites.

Activity 1A: Check your current online public profile

Check elements of your current online identity or profile by searching for yourself by name using the Google search engine.

Record in your learning journal the aspects of your findings that might help you decide on general levels of privacy or disclosure for your various future registrations on social networking sites.

Search date 08.06.09. Top five:

1. My own website from my PhD study at Lancaster University. It is hosted by the university and created using Macromedia Dreamweaver. Not updated for about a year.
2. My PhD student profile from Lancaster University. I have finished by PhD and left Lancaster, but this page is still live.
3. A flickr stream but not for me.
4. My current Bath Spa University profile (updated by me using uni system).
5. A website for another individual with same name. Very little on my website.

Others in the top twenty include Screen Research; BFI; and Intellect publishers.
Interestingly, my facebook page was not in the top fifty. In this respect, my 'google' disclosures were managed by me.

Journal: 'Digital Natives'

There are a number of accounts that speak of 'digital natives' and 'growing up digital' (Prensky; Tapscott). I'm fairly skeptical of some of the grand claims that can be made.

At the 'Challenge of New Media Forum' at The Watershed in December 2008 (ADM-HEA site), Will Merrin's paper 'Media Studies 2.0' (available here) provided a fascinating point of discussion. In this, Will Merrin suggests "My son’s world is also my student’s world". A number of participants were uncertain of how tech savvy their students were. Similarly, in a module I led last year (Media Power and the Everyday) I asked a group twenty about their blog usage and no students stated they maintained blogs.

This is something I would like to think about with others on this course.

Journal: My own use of social software

In starting this course exploring social software I thought it might be useful to inventory my own sites, etc.

Blogger
Personal blog (started March 2007, last posting July 2008)
Walking blog with partner (started July 207, last posting May 2009)

Facebook and MySpace
From around 2005.

YouTube
Since around 2004.

Wiki
I have a wikidot website called 'Media Education'.

Welcome to my blog for ELSS

This blog has been set up in relation to the Oxford Brookes University Engaging Learning with Social Software course June 2009.

It will contain journal entries, postings for activities, and other relevant links.