social learning « Mind Bursts

Some online tutor sessions work, some do not. Some social platforms work, others do not. Why?

October 10, 2012 7:07 am / Leave a comment

Fig. 1. Robert Gagne – a must have for anyone interested in learning

Gagne (1970 pp29-30) suggests that instruction in an organized group discussion develops the use and generalization of knowledge – or knowledge transfer. Oxbridge tutors contend that the ‘Oxbridge Tutorial’ – a weekly, structured micro-meeting of two or three people, achieves this. One student reads out a short essay that the tutor and students discuss.

‘When properly led’, Gagne continues, ‘such discussions, where the knowledge itself has been initially mastered’, not only stimulates the production of new extensions of knowledge by students but also provides a convenient means of critical evaluation and discrimination of these ideas. Gagne (ibid).

Forty years on from when Gagne wrote this there are what are meant to be or hoped to be learning contexts where this kind of knowledge transfer through group discussion can still work – or may fail to work – either because the degree of subject mastery between students is too broad or there are too many students, or the wrong mix of students.

For example, in the Open University’s Masters of Open and Distance Education (MAODE) between 12 and 16 postgraduate students meet online in a series of structured online tutor forums – some of these work, some do not. As these meetings are largely not compulsory and as they are asynchronous and online, it is rare to have people in them together – the discussions are threaded. What is more, in any tutor group there will typically be a mixture of students who are on their first, their second, third, fourth or even fifth module of the Master’s – some of whom, given the parameters offered by flexible and distance learning, may have spread these modules over five years. Then there is the task and how it is set, whether the participants are meant to work alone or collaboratively – the simplest and most frequent model online is an expectation to read resources and share notes and thoughts. However, personal experience over five such modules suggests that the committed engagement of say six people, working collaboratively on a clear set of tasks and activities with a time limit and climactic conclusion of delivering a joint project, works best.

Too many of these online tutorials drift, or fizzle out: too few posts, posts that are two long, fragmented posts linking to pages elsewhere, the indifference of participants, the lack of, or nature of the tutor involvement, excessive and misplaced social chat, or discussing subjects that are off topic … It depends very much on the mix, inclinations, availability and level of ‘knowledge mastery’ as to how such online tutorials work out. As well as the eclectic combination of students the role, availability, online and other teaching skills, even the personality of the tutor and of course THEIR knowledge experience and mastery matters.

Just reflect on how such workshops or seminars may work or fail face–to–face – the hunger for knowledge on the topic under discussion, the mix of personalities and the degree to which their experience or level of understanding is the same, at slight or considerable variance, let alone any differences of culture, background, gender or in a business setting – position and the department they have come from.

Ideally the workshop convener, or what the French call an ‘animateur’ should, assemble or construct such groups with great care, like a director casting actors to perform a piece of improvisation. Different contexts offer different opportunities. As a graduate trainee in an advertising agency six of us were repeatedly assembled, the various departmental specialists and directors playing roles at specific times – bit players in these scenarios. On reflection, stage management by a team in the HR department had been vital. It is therefore ‘stage management’ that I consider of significant importance when trying to construct such collective learning experiences online in a corporate setting.

CONCLUSION

Know your players, cast with care, give direction, record what goes on and step in to nudge, re–kindle, stop or start conversations or activities.

REFERENCE

Gagne, R (1970) The Conditions of Learning

ADDITIONAL LINKS

Robert Gagne Wikispaces

Theories of Learning

Cognitive Design Principles

The Nine Events – from Kevin the Librarian

Various Models of learning – Illustrated

How to visualise learning – think Lava Lamps! (mymindbursts.com)
Tutors International Partner with Leading Family Doctor to Provide… (prweb.com)
University of Wisconsin System draws attention for competency based online degrees (jsonline.com)

There can be no better recommendation to read a book than when its author spots you as a like-mind and invites you to read.

October 7, 2012 11:02 am / Leave a comment

Find it here: Smashwords

I am halfway through Julian Stodd’s ‘Exploring the World of Social Learning’ and am keen to spread the word to those like me who are studying for a Masters in Open and Distance Education (MAODE) – particularly in H807, H808 and H800 we are asked to learn collaboratively and go understand the dynamics of shared learning spaces online from this blog-cum-bulletin board platform, to student tutors groups and break-out cafes. You may even have made it over to the Open University LinkedIn group (go see).

I not only find myself nodding in agreement but better still in Web 2.0 terms I find I keep wanting to pause to explore a thought or theme further, the subject matter embracing learning, social learning and e-learning – while drawing on a professional corporate learning and development background, which makes a valuable change from an academic perspective on social learning in tertiary education.

To do this I return to this my open to all e-portfolio-cum-blog to search for what I have thus far picked up on social learning, learning theories, forums and so on. And to do the same in other people’s blogs as hearing these familiar voices helps make better sense of it all.

I should add a grab here of the couple of dozen books I have read in, on and around ‘social learning’ – I put ‘Exploring the World of Social Learning’ alongside:

‘The Digital Scholar’ Martin Weller

‘A New Culture of Learning’ Douglas Thomson and John Seely Brown

‘From Teams to Knots’ Yrjö Engeström

‘The Now Revolution’ Jay Baer and Amber Naslund

via a solid grounding in educational theory that you’d get from Vygotsky’s ‘Educational Psycology’.

An alternative to, or addition to reading about social learning in an academic papers, that are by definition are several years out of date, rate MySpace above Facebook and fail to mention iPads or Smartphones in the mix.

Here’s a way to explore the world of social learning – this should be your first read

October 6, 2012 5:54 pm / 1 Comment on Here’s a way to explore the world of social learning – this should be your first read

Find it here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/204432

There can be no better recommendation to read a book than when its author spots you as a like mind and invites you to read. I am halfway through Julian Stodd’s ‘Exploring the World of Social Learning’ and am keen to spread the word now so that a community of us have something to discuss and share.

Dare I say ‘I wish I’d written this book?’

I not only find myself nodding in agreement but better still in Web 2.0 terms I find I keep wanting to pause to explore a thought or theme further, the subject matter embracing learning, social learning and e-learning – while drawing on a professional corporate learning and development background, which makes a valuable change from an academic perspective on social learning in tertiary education.

I should add a grab here of the couple of dozen books I have read in, on and around ‘social learning’ as I put ‘Exploring the World of Social Learning’ alongside Martin Weller’s ‘The Digital Scholar’, ‘A New Culture of Learning’ Douglas Thomson and John Seely Brown, ‘From Teams to Knots’ Yrjö Engeström and ‘The Now Revolution’ Jay Baer and Amber Naslund via a solid grounding in educational theory that you’d get from Vygotsky’s ‘Educational Psycology’. An intelligent, engaging and practical read that though linear in format – it’s a book afterall – has built into it moments to reflect, explore or do.

I should draw a Venn Diagram made up of three fields: Corporate L&D, Contemporary Theories of Learning and Web 2.0 Social Spaces as ‘Exploring the World of Social Learning’ touched on all three. There is more, which makes it so readable, there are stories that draw you in that intrigue – while you get a sense of who the author is too, just as you get when reading Bill Bryson.

Better than a set of academic papers, that by definition are several years out of date and sometimes a heavy read encumberred by references – and better than the inevitable Dummies Guide to Social Learning, which is certain to appear momentarily because ‘Exploring the World of Social Learning’ has a narrative flow – it is readable, the Dummy guides are not.

How do we perceive and share knowledge? What matters most in this equation

August 20, 2012 6:12 pm / 2 Comments on How do we perceive and share knowledge? What matters most in this equation

How do we perceive and share knowledge? What matters most in this equation?

Society, the institution, department or the individual educator?

Learning occurs at the interface between individuals, between the teacher and pupil, between pupils and of course between the thinkers, the educators, researchers and academics.

This interface is expressed as an artefact: a lecture, a book, a TV appearance, a podcast, a chapter in a book or a paper – as an expression of a set of ideas. This interface is also a conversation, in a tutorial, at a conference or less formally in passing over a meal, or drink (in the Oxbridge experience at the High Table, in the senior, middle or junior common rooms, in halls and rooms where societies and loose groupings of people meet, as well as in studies and rooms). Recreation of this online as minds meet, discuss and share. Informal or proactive groups or societies coming together. People with people.

On the one hand we like to put the institution above the person, whether in academia or the commercial world we rank and recognise Oxbridge and the Russell Group ‘above’ other universities while, for example, in Law we put Freshfields, Clifford Chance and Herbert Smith in the top ten of 125 or 500 legal practices.

However, it is an the individual level, at the interface between one person and another, one mind and another, where the learning occurs, where the knowledge is applied and changed, and in various forms written up or written out to cause or record effect.

It is at this interface, where minds meet, where ideas are catalysed and formed.

Towards my own theory of learning ?

Or trying to get my head around Engestrom’s Activity Theory that fits the bill for me?

An exciting way to learn with others online

May 17, 2012 6:11 am / Leave a comment

This is just me mashing it all up, but at times I’ve moaned about wanting to read a relevant book from cover to cover, taking and sharing notes, following references, having a chin-wag and learning by default, on the fly ‘vicariously’.

This I’ve discovered is possible by doing the following:

Buy an eBook, I’m currently doing this to Prof Martin Weller’s ‘The Digital Scholar’ (One of Open University’s, from the Knowledge Media Institute, you’ll come across his name as often as those of Grainne Conole, Denise Kirkpartrick, Chris Pegler, Diane Laurillard et al on any of the Masters in Open & Distance Education modules. H807, H808, H809, H800 and H810).

As you read through Kindle (which can be on your desktop, laptop, Kindle, iPad, iPhone etc:) when you ‘highlight’ something interesting click SHARE and send it to Twitter (my prefered, though it can also go to Facebook).

In this way you indicate what interests you (and where you are up to). Step away from reading mode to chat a bit, then press on or go back.

I like it.

Already done this with:

Steve Jobs: the exclusive biography. Walter Isaacson
The Blind Giant.Being Human in a Digital World. Nick Harkaway

Currently doing this with:

The Digital Scholar: How technology is transforming Scholarly Practice. Martin Weller.
All Quiet on the Western Front. Erich Maria Remarque
Rethinking Pedagogy in a Digital Age. Rhona Sharpe

I’m thinking of doing the same with:

Educational Psychology. Vygotsky
Mindstorms. Piaget.
Flow. The classic book on how to achieve happiness. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

P.S. Follow me ‘jj27vv’ on Twitter

27 persuasive reasons to blog today

September 9, 2011 1:25 pm / Leave a comment

Please add your own reasons to blog.
Please add or remove weightings to adjust the rankings.
These will differ by person, by blog and subject matter.

Talking about social media learning

August 14, 2011 2:28 pm / Leave a comment

A call from a colleague with a major corporate and we talk social media learning for nearly three hours.

During this time I repeatedly search this blog, using the e-portfolio that it has become, sending charts and grabs from Picasa and from the iPad, creating a mind-map in Bubbl.us and balancing how the MA in Open and Distance Learning compares to the OU MBA he completed last year and the MRes he is doing now.

Just a phone call. We could have gone to Skype, Elluminate or even Google+. The phone freed up the laptop. Several photos picked up from workshops, as well as screen grabs, were emailed from the iPad which was also running.

Fig.1. Social Media Learning Mind Map

Timely as I am procrastinating over the ECA which will be on the use of Forums and Mobile devices in e-learning.

A reminder of how a synchronous conversation can achieve so much, especially when there were items set before our eyes to discuss.

We also discussed (I hadn’t the energy to take many notes. In retrospect I wish I’d recorded it):

Belbin Team Roles
Activity Theory
Management Mindsets
Silos
Web 2.0
Learning on the periphery
Vicarious Learning
Medical Market Research
TV Production
The role of an Alumni Board
Narrative
Research
Assessment
Blogs as ‘electronic paper’

It was invaluable to have the external point of view, someone from a global comany of thousands talking about social media learning. Looking at the devices we now have, such as smartphones and tablets, it was particularly interesting to be reminded of human nature, how devices may be used for things and in ways that they were not designed.

Whilst the iPad permits mobility, we often use it when static: in our favourite chair, recumbant on the sofa, even in bed or in the bath. Is this mobile learning? It’s hardly getting out of the house, drawing down data on the run using augmented technology to enhance the environment your in. And simply having content on an iPad so that you can using the touch screen to open and close the text, enlarging text, flipping the screen size between portrait and landscape all the time – the joy of its tactile nature. Unable to sleep I use the light from the iPad as a torch to sneak away from the marital bed and passed the children’s bedrooms and to find my way downstairs withouth having to put the landing light on.

It also was clear how both devices and approaches to learning cannot be isolated, we got our joint heads around Engestrom’s ‘Activity Systems’. The technology is complementary, the move to personalise everything through device and software choices.

I’d played Devil’s Adocat a couple of times suggesting that ‘nothing had changed’ only to come away agreeing that many of my behaviours were/are different as a direct result of Web 2.0. I have gone from learning in private, hunched over my books never showing it to anyone to a situations where, more like someone tending a public garden, or at least one seen from the street, people can see my thinking. Ironically, it is the end result that often fails to appear because I’m not about to post TMAs and ECAs online.

Some authors I quoted/cited during the conversation:

Vygotsky
Engestrom
Richardson
Moon
Cox
John Seely Brown
Jonathan Swift

To which I subsequently add as a result of browsing the blog and so re-engaging with my own experience within the chronology of the module; it is this, after all, that is to be examined, rather than my knowledge from this and the preceding modules. A learning design fault?

H807 You diddle about with every instrument in the orchestra and several that have just been invented.
H808 You learn to conduct, or at least why a conductor is important (even if you can’t play an instrument or read music).
H800 You learn to play an electronic keyboard

I quoted Swift as saying (paraphrasing) ‘I don’t know what I mean until I hear myself speak’. If anyone has any idea how to cite this please do offer your thoughts.

More authors to consider in this context (mobile learning, forums, e-learning, web 2.0):

Haythornthwaite
O’Reilly
Weller
Traxler
Gregory
Mason
Sharpe
Beetham
Belshaw
Hinchcliffe
Bacon and Dillon
Siemens
Boyer
Wenger
Bruner

Other topics that we should have discussed:

User Generated Content
Collective Intelligence
Apprenticeships
Problem based learning
Participation
Demand Pull

BEING DEVELOPED FURTHER HERE

http://socialmedia4education.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/social-learning-for-corporates/

With subsequent notes:

We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover for ourselves than by those given to us by others’. Lec

‘The surest way to corrupt a young man is to teach him to esteem more highly those who think alike than those who think differently’. Nietzsche

‘Analogy is the only language understood by the subconscious mind’. Jung

+

Time (parameters, deadlines, borrowing it from elsewhere)
Assessment
Human nature to do things in unexpected ways
Cultural differences: think US, UK, Germany, Far East + Japan

“For two personalities to meet is like mixing two chemical substances: if there is any combination at all, both are transformed.”

C.G. Jung (Psychological Reflections: A New Anthology of His Writings 1905-61)

Day two we gave this another hour. This impressed on me the need to follow up initial discussions, indeed, it is only as you press on, dig deeper, that you literally get to the bottom of something. Keep asking questions without loosing sight of the main points. I was remind how an enlightened tutor put a PHD student into a wiki to get things going. What they found is that filling the wiki with DELIBERATE mistakes got the students engaged as ONE would crack eager to correct spelling, another would come in to alter punctuation and before you know it someone has enough confidence to add facts, delete spurious evidence, qualify and reference.

We spoke at some length on what binds an alumni group? People who have paid good money and now altruistically want to ‘give something back’. We concluded that it was the common experience, the ups and downs, the struggle and rewards … And making it to the end.

Learning must be experiential

Conole and Dyke 2004
Gibson 2979

Narrative
Words, expression, meaning and communication. Conole (2011)
Electronic literacy. Weller

Design for learning VS. Serendipity (though it has a role to play)
Apprenticeship or trainee status VS. Learning by osmosis
In both cases learning by doing (Conole, 2010)

To add references to:

Grainne Conole
Gregor Kennedy
Wenger
Bruns and ‘produsers’

All searchable in this blog

And:

Oliver

(maybe I should include and list all faculty members of the Institute of Educational Technology)

Include:

Denise Kirkpatrick
Blended Learning
Practice-based Learning

Important to have the latest stats on this. Things coming into the academic year 2011-2012 have moved on from Research in Australia in 2008 or though the OU in 2009.

‘The researchers found that only a minority of the students (around 21%) were engaged in creating their own content and multimedia for the Web, and that a significant proportion of students had lower level skills than might be expected of digital natives.’ (Bennett 2008:02)

Kennedy’s research in Australia says it all.
Emerging technologies are NOT the lifeblood of a generation, far from it. Research amongst students in three Australian universities showed that:
21% blog
24% used social networking
21.5% used podcasts

(from this blog)

Simms
Wenger
Wagner
Langer
Jonassen
Dewey
Holmberg
Laurillard

‘Ubiquitous learning.’ Haythornthwaite

Cost savings!
Not requiring facilitators on site or flying people in to a regional or central training office.
Savings on books, workbooks and DVDs.

Social Learn (like Open Learn but networked)

July 6, 2011 11:40 pm / 1 Comment on Social Learn (like Open Learn but networked)

Isn’t ‘re-invention’ the word? (Rogers, P114 & P115, 2002)

Not wholesale repurposing, but as Rogers puts it ‘It should be acknowledged that rejection, discontinuance and re-invention frequently occur during the diffusion of an innovation and that such behaviour may be rational and appropriate from the individual’s point of view.’ (Rogers, p114 2002)

I wonder how my experience might have been with a group of colleagues or friends, signing up together … but might this too ‘spoil the party.’ And how over a longer period fellow students would be emailing and messaging and getting on the phone … let alone meeting up.

This fascinates me primarily because I am convinced that collaboration, sharing, discussion and so on is crucial to a deeper learning outcome. But does this not have to be down to the drive of the individual and permitted by the institution they belong to?

How much motivation can others really offer or be expected to offer?

If neither a carrot or stick will work with adult learners, especially in a online environment, then what do you do? ‘You can take a horse to the trough, but you can’t make it drink.’ As I’m about to take a course on the Psychology of Sport as a Senior Swimming Coach I may gain some further insights into waht motivates people to do something and how outsiders can influence this in a positive way.

And just because we’re invited to drink from this trough once, dos not mean we will do it again, or often or with enthusiasm. Our moods will wax and wane, or commitments beyond the course will impinge.

Deep learning, as I’ve learnt, benefits from, even requires a rapport with one or several others at various levels of understanding – a Subject Matter Expert (SME) or experts, a tutor, a couple of fellow students on the course, and perhaps someone more junior who can be in turn mentored or tutored by us (first years being buddied by a second year, a post-grad student supervising a fresher).

How much this mix can be set by what little the OU or other Distance Learning Provider knows about an individual is quite another matter.

Do you run a call-centre like team of facilitators/moderators … or aspire to the one-to-one relationship of tutor or governess to student mimicking some land-owning/aristocratic model of the distant past? Where is or how can that rapport that can work between student and tutor be recreated here? Or is this something for a DPhil?

A free-for-all would create imbalances, inevitably … for the institution. But whose experience are we prioritising here?

Whilst a balance must be found, if the best outcomes are to give tutors and SMEs much more time online to forge relationships then this should be – a good coach attracts the best athletes and attracts the interest of other coaches. How does she do that? (Expertise, training and personality … enthusiasm, putting the athlete at the centre of things)

Perhaps by pursuing ‘educational social networking’ institutions are shooting themselves in the financial foot?

The time put in to make a freer networking between students, tutors and SMEs, with students in different time zones and different priorities would be prohibitive. Undergraduates studying on campus, in a homophilous cohort, with fewer worries (other than debt) don’t know how fortunate they are to have this opportunity to study, probably for the only time, before the life of the wider world impinges.

Are Personal Learning Environment (PLE) a way or the way forward?

If I have this concept right, i.e. with the formal relationships and tutor relationship given equal potential, the tools in one place on the same homepage is a suitable progression from the VLE) Perhaps OU students are doing this anyway by starting at their own Blog or Home Page and simply anchoring the pages from the OU that matter most to them?

The New Scientist is running an interesting essay in its current edition which touches on all of this.

New Scientist (week 10th July 2010) has a piece called ‘Generation F’ by Richard Fisher (2010).

* 400 million worldwide … on social networking sites.
* The importance of weak ties as well as close ones.
* The time it takes to forge ‘reliable and trustworthy’ ties.
* The value of ‘acquaintances’ to provide relevant and trustworthy news/information.

The article is prone to the some hyperbole:

Social networking sites (Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace) the ‘harbingers of a sea change in our social evolution, in the same way that the arrival of language informed our ancestors.’ (Donarth, 2009)

Danah Boyd (2009) describes Facebook as ‘an essential utility like water or electricity.’

Academics are just as guilty of this kind of thing, there’s been plenty of it in the reading for H807 the democratising of education, ‘starting the world anew’ ala Tom Paine etc: and claims made in the last ten/twenty years regarding ICT and education, what it could do, will do … but hasn’t.

The essay is of value though for how, and if, social networking can be used short-term purposes:

‘Online social networking appears to be ‘very good for servicing relationships, but not for building them de novo.’ (Dunbar, 2010)

H807 tries to use an ‘educational social networking’ approach, or does it. Perhaps it is deliberately more self-contained than this. Though with emphasis on authors such as Salmon (2002) and her model for e-tivities, undue emphasis is put on getting people talking and working together? Is that so necessary.

Isn’t experience showing that this is wishful thinking?

The OU must have research on this. Why do more people quit a an online distance learning course (20-50%) compared to a traditional distance learning course? What are the views on conversations, synchronous or asynchronous between fellow students and students in the wide OU community and tutors?

At various times, the ‘weakest links’ to fellow OU students through the OU blog has produced some useful support and insights for H807, yet engagement through our own Cafe/General Forum can surely only be described as minimal?

Whilst deeper learning experiences do come from sharing (like this), it isn’t happening to the degree the OU would like?

Collaboration between some random people I may meet at the bus stop when the service is delayed is not the same as forging an academic bond with some one or some many who are equally engaged with the material, whether their opinions are the antithesis of mine would be immaterial – indeed, disagreement would be better, it feeds discussion. This is NOT a criticism of H807, we have a common purpose, we have elected to do H807, there is a common profile intellectually and absolutely the variety of life experiences enriches the experience. But clearly, as individuals, our approaches to learning, IT skills, time allocated to the task and for many other reasons will and does negate against certain ways of learning. Such as this.

If on the one hand the wishes of some students, maybe most, to stay at arms length aren’t the wishes or hopes of others who would like to engage with a wider circle being denied?

The sought of relationships between students that the OU is hoping for can surely only developed over a few years rather than a few months.

Jeff Hancock (2008) of Cornell University ‘… found that those with Facebook access asked questions to which they already knew the answers or raised things they had in common, and as a result were much more successful at winning people over.’ (New Scientist, 10July2010).

We experienced the ease with which we could share personal information, there was no drilling or phfishing for information, but clearly I will know more about some people than others. It relevance is another matter, the buy-in to these people could eventually result in a bond of sorts, at least as working on this platform is concerned. I would have to look back through the way we respond to each other to see if the above occurred … deliberately asking certain people certain things even though we knew the answer, as a catalyst to conversation. This does not work discussing trivia such as pets and the weather (though I’ve indulged in plenty of that too … it doesn’t lead to conversations on costing programming, what Vygotsky means about scaffolding or whether we are fed up with e-tivities, e-granaries, e-moderators … and e-jobs.

Mid-way through the unit we read Elliot (2008) and I took an interest in the way ‘lifelong learning’ functions.

I was looking at this as an adult learner environment, the merging of social, family and work through social networking sites and the communication habits and styles of all three merging into and becoming a messed up single entity. Historically it wasn’t long ago that work, family and social words were one … fifty years ago, seventy or a hundred years? No more.

Both of these points, revealing more and the merging, or coalescent, or the dropping of barriers between these spheres is changing behaviours.

‘Increased visibility also means our various social spheres – family, work and friends- are merging and so we will have to prepare for new societal norms. ‘Well have to learn how to live a more transparent life.’ (Holtzman, 2009)

The idea of ‘Exposure’ was used be Ellen Levy in 1999 (Levy, 1999) after she had spent a year keeping a blog and photojournal, then a novel activity. (Washington Post, 24th September, 1999).

What an employer, parent, friends or colleagues make of this is another matter, but then again, one day we’ll all be walking around with our DNA profile on a dog-tag (or embedded under our skin on a microchip).

The relevance of all of this?

How far can the individual be indulged within the parameters of an online course, that must retain students and prove its worth to the institution (financial, academic, members), the students (worth it financially, academically, career wise … and personally) … and the wider community (grants, knowledgeable workforce, content and informed citizens)

Je suis comme je suis
Je suis faite comme ça

(Jacques Prevert, 1946)

I am what I am, I was made this way.
….

REFERENCE

Donath, J. New Scientist. 10 July 2010. Volume 207 N0 2768. http://www.newscientist.com, p40. From Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol.13, p 231)

Dunbar, R. (2009) How many friends does one person need? Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Oxford. Quoted in New Scientist. 10 July 2010. Volume 207 N0 2768. http://www.newscientist.com.

Elliott, B. (2008) Assessment 2.0: Modernising Assessment in the Age of Web 2.0 [online], Scottish Qualifications Authority; available from http://www.scribd.com/doc/461041/Assessment-20 (Accessed 1 February 2010).

Ellison, N (2007) The Benefits of Facebook “Friends:” Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
Volume 12, Issue 4, Date: July 2007, Pages: 1143-1168
Nicole B. Ellison, Charles Steinfield, Cliff Lampe. (Accessed 11 July 2010) Quoted in New Scientist. 10 July 2010. Volume 207 N0 2768. http://www.newscientist.com.

Fisher, R (2010) New Scientist. 10 July 2010. Volume 207 N0 2768. http://www.newscientist.com

Granoveter, M, S. (1973) The Strength of Weak Ties. The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78, No. 6 (May, 1973), pp. 1360-1380 http://www.jstor.org.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/action/exportSingleCitation?singleCitation=true&suffix=2776392
(Accessed 11 July 2010)
Quoted in New Scientist. 10 July 2010. Volume 207 N0 2768. http://www.newscientist.com. The University of Chicago Press.

Golbeck, J (2010) Quoted in New Scientist. 10 July 2010. Volume 207 N0 2768. http://www.newscientist.com.

Hancock, J. (2008) I know something you don’t: the use of asymmetric personal information for interpersonal advantage
Jeffrey T. Hancock, Catalina L. Toma, Kate Fenner. Quoted in New Scientist. 10 July 2010. Volume 207 N0 2768. http://www.newscientist.com. (Accessed 11 July 2010)

Holtzman, H (2010) Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Quoted in New Scientist. 10 July 2010. Volume 207 N0 2768. http://www.newscientist.com

Kearns, M. (2009) Behavioral experiments on biased voting in networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 106, p1347) http://www.pnas.org.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/content/106/5/1347.full.pdf+html (Accessed 11 July 2010) Quoted in New Scientist. 10 July 2010. Volume 207 N0 2768. http://www.newscientist.com.

Levy, E. (1999) Featured in article in the Washinton Post, 24 September 2010. See more at http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/ellen-levy
(accessed 11 July 2010)

Prevert, J, (146) Paroles.

Pentland, S (2010) Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Quoted in New Scientist. 10 July 2010. Volume 207 N0 2768. http://www.newscientist.com

Rogers, E.M. (2003) Diffusion of Innovations (5th edn), New York, Simon and Schuster.

Salmon, E (2002) E-tivities the key to online learning. Kogan Page.

Tom Tong, S (2008) Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, vol13 p531-549)

Social media platforms are becoming like drops of ink in a digital ocean

October 26, 2010 8:47 am / Leave a comment

Take a Pyrex bowl and fill it with water; this is the digital ocean.

Put in a drop of ink and call this a blog or learning journal.

Put in a second drop of ink and call it an e-portfolio.

Tell me where one ends and one begins.

Either way they are just a click apart.

How seamless this is is down to the intentions of the institution that may be providing both, or the user.

What’s wrong with Educational Social Networking? (EDU)

July 11, 2010 7:31 pm / 1 Comment on What’s wrong with Educational Social Networking? (EDU)

Isn’t ‘re-invention’ the word? (Rogers, P114 & P115, 2002)

Not wholesale repurposing, but as Rogers puts it ‘It should be acknowledged that rejection, discontinuance and re-invention frequently occur during the diffusion of an innovation and that such behaviour may be rational and appropriate from the individual’s point of view.’ (Rogers, p114 2002)

I wonder how my experience might have been with a group of colleagues or friends, signing up together … but might this too ‘spoil the party.’ And how over a longer period fellow students would be emailing and messaging and getting on the phone … let alone meeting up.

This fascinates me primarily because I am convinced that collaboration, sharing, discussion and so on is crucial to a deeper learning outcome. But does this not have to be down to the drive of the individual and permitted by the institution they belong to?

How much motivation can others really offer or be expected to offer?

If neither a carrot or stick will work with adult learners, especially in a online environment, then what do you do? ‘You can take a horse to the trough, but you can’t make it drink.’ As I’m about to take a course on the Psychology of Sport as a Senior Swimming Coach I may gain some further insights into what motivates people to do something and how outsiders can influence this in a positive way.