http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2007/12/07/user-centric-

Several people have been talking about Ning recently - it’s come up in discussion with my students - “egrommet” has used it with his students, Josie noted that several of the nominations for this years Eddies were Ning based communities.

I’m just not sure about Ning. I find it irritating that I have to login to each community, as well as in general. If I look at “My Page” in each community, while some things are core to all (e.g. the photo), others seem to need to be set in each community. While this can be useful in some ways; it’s also annoying to have to enter the same details again and again. The ideal would be the ability to enter general info on my “Ning Profile” page - and then to alter particular bits for particular communities.

The “My Page” also seems to have a blog - again, one per community - and the summary of posts that apply to that community.

It strikes me that Ning is very much community centric. So, while you can have several groups in a community; you can’t easily have an overview of your activity in several different communities. It reminds me of WebCT - having discussion boards/ blogs per unit - without an easy way of seeing all of your work at the same time.

Eduspaces (Elgg powered) and Facebook, on the other hand, seem to be far more user centric. I can see on my Blog page (Eduspaces), or my Profile page (Facebook) everything that I & my friends have done.

From an Educational point of view, I think that it’s important to have that easy access to the personal overview. Because of the unitisation of the curriculum, many students find it quite difficult to see how one unit relates to another. WebCT doesn’t enable an easy overview - whereas something that’s more User Centric can.

While it can be useful to have that separation between aspects of ones life - integration is also important.

I guess that the ideal Social Networking site would allow the ability to have a (private) view of your personal activity in all areas - while a public view that could, if wished be customised for particular communities.

I think all three have their strengths in the way that they work - but all three have limitations.

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2007/12/07/edublog-award

The 2007 eddies are just round the corner … this time they’re happening in Second Life - though there are some alternatives. The latest news, as well as the locations are listed on the Edublog Awards Blog.

There are quite a few more categories than last year - some nominees are the same as last year, some are new. Ning seems to be very popular this year.

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2007/12/11/reconsidering

Henry Jenkins looks again at the “Digital Immigrants/ Digital Natives” debate. Jenkins points out:

Talking about youth as digital natives implies that there is a world which these young people all share and a body of knowledge they have all mastered, rather than seeing the online world as unfamiliar and uncertain for all of us.

while acknowledging that part of the ongoing use of the phrases is simply because no-one’s managed to develop a better one. He goes on to discuss some of the (negative) implications of the use of the word “Immigrants” - that it could potentially be seen as inferior/ that digital immigrants aren’t really needed. He comments:

Yet, I worry that the metaphor may be having the opposite effect now — implying that young people are better off without us and thus justifying decisions not to adjust educational practices to create a space where young and old might be able to learn from each other.

… and starts to wonder about “digital multi-culturalism”.

The (current set) of comments are worth reading too; supporting Jenkins discussion of the use of the terms, while recognising that they make a good starting point.

For me, I guess if I am a digital immigrant; having started with a ZX81 and gone via several other systems, to be now using a range of Web2.0 tools (though not yet got Vista on my PC) - well, I must have been on the digital “first fleet” !

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2007/12/12/funded-facebo

Tony Hirst looks at some tools that allow integration between Facebook and courses. While he comments

One thing we are wary of doing with the app is intruding on the student’s social space; so finding useful things for users to do in the app without making it seem like we are forcing VLE functionality into Facebook is one of the thing’s we’re thinking around…

I’m still not convinced. I know that several universities are starting to look at Applications to allow users to view some University material, but the more I think about it, the less I think it’s a good idea.

I can see Facebook as being useful for groups of students to informally talk about work, as they might in the coffee shop, but do they also want their timetable on the notice board in there…

I’m going more and more down the theory that it’s good for informal discussions, but then to get students to transfer the skills they have developed into a more work centred setting.

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2008/01/14/mit-press-jou

MIT Press Journals - The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. I’ve just found these, thanks to a link from Mark Oelhert’s blog. This particular section is the John & Catherine MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. I’m not sure if they have other sections that are also fully available online, however, for what I’m interested in, the books in the current list look well worth having a look at.

The only drawback that I can see is that you seem to have to download them a section at a time. (I’m also can’t see any difference between “.pdf” and “.pdf plus”).

The foundation website has more information about the foundation.

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2008/01/15/olpc-educatio

Wayan Vota makes some comments on a Wall Street Journal article about the OLPC. He comments, as I’ve said before, that it’s not just the hardware. It’s the software that’s worth looking at. He also comments:

We aren’t shipping Windows. If countries want to use “the standard”,

What’s interesting to me is firstly that children can adapt. Many UK computer users have moved from BBC-B / Acorn Archimedes in school, perhaps a Sinclair or Vic 20 at home, have used Windows 3.1 - and are now using XP or Vista. WE’ve managed the change quite easily. Are they really thinking that Windows won’t change between now and the time that a 7 year old is ready to go to work? Or, perhaps, they’re suggesting that while Western Kids can cope with those changes, kids in the majority world can’t.

In the UK, more and more schools are moving to Linux based systems. It’s cheaper. That may well take off even more with the Asus EEE, which is similarly priced to the OLPC.

I can see that officials in some countries might think that Windows is the way that they ought to be going, but I’m sure that’s as much lack of knowledge about the alternatives, (most likely due to M/S’s dominance of the market place), than a particular reason for wanting to have Windows.

It’s worth noting that this article was first posted on November 26th, before the “Give one Get one” project started shipping; so few people had had access to them. (Still waiting for mine..).

Via: Stephen Downes

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2008/01/15/with-friends-

Tom Hodgkinson

gives a fairly scathing view of Facebook. While I can see where he’s coming from, and I agree, privacy policies are infrequently read; I’m sure that I’m not the only person who puts the minimum of information in & who doesn’t think that having 3 bazillion friends is necessary (though I’ve recently read in the discussion around Robert Scoble’s ban [from Facebook] that there’s a limit of 5,000 friends. Surely that’s enough. Isn’t it?)

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2008/01/15/social-networ

Social Networking. Stephen Fry (or perhaps his agent) has been keeping a blog with all of his “Dork Talk” articles from the Guardian.

This week, he was looking at social networking; he commented:

MySpace is already as seriously uncool (and as hideously girlie, pink and spangly) as My Little Pony;

Interestingly, at Poke 1.0, the presenters from Neilsen Netrating had that Men aged 35-49 were the biggest users of MySpace (slide 18), despite the comments by Sonia Livingstone that teens seemed to be following the pattern that Fry suggests, they “grow out” of MySpace. (Of course, as Neilsen base their surveys on automated data collection on home PCs, it’s possible that a lot of (younger) teenagers hijack their fathers computers & use MySpace!)

Fry however, goes on to compare the old closed networks of the late 80s/early 90s to Social Networking - and to find quite a few parallels.

The comments are worth reading; not sure if there’s a good editor, or he only attracts those who’ve got something worth saying!

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2008/01/15/why-blog-whos

Lucy Gray has posed this question in advance of a workshop she’s doing at MacWorld. The first caused me to stop and think and do a bit of research - just when did I write my first blog post? And why. (You’ll have to read the comments in her post if you want to know the answers). However, looking at several of the answers that people have given, most edubloggers seem to have started blogs with, like me, a small audience in mind. Initially it was just me, and my students. I’ve been surprised when I realised how many readers I have - often I’ve found out via other means (such as when I had to move servers & people commented to colleagues that they followed my blog).

Like some of the commenters to Steven’s “Not the Edublog Award winners” post, I’d agree that I’m somewhat sceptical of a list of blogs that’s been voted for. It’s quite easy to influence online voting. While I think that the Eddies are good, and will continue to follow & support them, other lists, such as Stevens or Janet’s list of Women Edubloggers, are useful.

We’ve even got a list up of bloggers in the University, though so far it’s quite short. I’m sure that it will be added to over time.

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2008/01/15/exploiting-th

UKOLN . This was held in November; there are several useful presentations; though, as always, the slides aren’t really a replacement for being there. There was a good range though, from using an institutional VLE, through to using much more informal methods of blogging. (I didn’t attend)

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2008/01/16/the-economist

apophenia makes some interesting points re. the current Economist debate about SNSs in Education.

She comments:

SNSs do not make youth engage educationally; they allow educationally-motivated youth with a structure to engage educationally.

and goes on to discuss youths that see each other regularly. I’d agree with her on that point, it’s very hard to get students to engage in computer mediated communication (of whatever form), for course related matters, when they see each other.

However, I think that her argument doesn’t fit for part time/ distance learning students. Granted, most of them probably wouldn’t fall under the heading “youth”, but education isn’t just for the youth.

While I’d agree that it’s probably quite difficult to set up a formal educational group in, say Facebook (I’d not expect a lecturer to appear in the bar and start to talk work), however, students may informally use Facebook for such matters (as they may, on occasion, discuss programming between sips of beer). The skills they’re learning in Facebook, however, can, I feel, be used in other environments (such as Elgg), to enable them to form communities with other students with similar interests, for group work, and so on.

As an educator, I’ve found the ability to set up communities etc,. in Elgg, via the Eduspaces network, invaluable for making contact with others. I’m just hoping that the current changes in ownership of Eduspaces doesn’t cause long term difficulties.

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2008/01/23/guardian-inte

The Education Guardian has an interview with Tara Brabazon. While I think that she has some good ideas, such as giving her first year students a list of 200 or so extracts of papers, to use as references for their essays (I do hope, however, that either they’re available online or in sufficient quantities that students can get hold of them). 200 or so does, of course give plenty of scope for students to read several, select those with contrasting view points to discuss, but not so few as to be seen to be “spoon feeding” them.

However, she also says:

Students must not be allowed to accept as truth anything they can find through Google, including “facts” given credence by Wikipedia. User-generated content, she maintains, is creating an age of banality and mediocrity, and stifling debate.

I’m assuming that she would allow them to use Google to locate other academics websites, to use Google Scholar to find new references, to use Wikipedia quoted sources (especially those that are academic sites etc) to create their own reviews - and/ or to improve the Wikipedia site, as Martha Groom has done.

And bloggers? “People I didn’t want to talk to at high school are trying to force me to listen to them again,” she says. “Yet so many wonderful books are published every day, providing the best research material in the world.”

Again, some blogs may well be the starting points for academic research; may contain reviews of books, may contain current research - in that gap between having the idea, and actually getting the book published. Alternatively, it may just be a student reflecting on their learning. Not all blogs are the same…

Looking at published material; most people would intrinsically trust a report about a new cure for Influenza more if they read it in, say, The British Medical Journal than they would if they read it in The Sun. That’s not to say that Sun is wrong, any more than the BMJ is right. It’s just the level of cross referencing you’d be likely to do to check up.

Today’s students need to learn that ability to cross check for websites, as well as for paper based resources.

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2008/01/23/2020-your-vis

Pew Internet have launched their third Future of the Internet Survey. Unlike most Pew Reports, it’s open to anyone (who has computer access), rather than other Pew surveys which generally cover Americans (with phones).

Some interesting scenarios, and what I like is that it’s possible to comment on all the answers that you give (allow yourself a bit longer to complete it than I did!), allowing for clarification. You can be anonymous if you wish, or add your name. It’s up to you.

Via: Rowin’s blog - where there are also links to some previous surveys, which make for interesting reading.

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2008/01/24/blogging-a-po

I really ought to be getting on with my marking, but I've just been skim reading

this post by Jenny Hughes on Graham Attwell's blog, , and

Which, of course is in total opposition to the cultural myth called ‘education and learning’. How many parents (and the Daily Telegraph and Chris Woodward) be-moan the fact that ‘can’t get their children to pick up a book’ or ‘they never read nowdays’ or restrict access times to computers ‘because it’s bad for them’ and they ‘should be doing their homework’ and ‘you can’t tear them away from their screens’? Hmmm! When I was a kid it was ‘ Could you get out head out of that book and do something useful.’

How true!

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2008/01/25/facebook-and-

I’ve not been into Facebook for some time, and so have only just found the Friends list; which I know has been discussed for some time.

It’s easy to add people to, potentially easier than Elgg; and, like Elgg, the same person can be in more than one list. I’m not quite sure what a list does, other than the fact you can message a list, rather than selecting friends individually; and you can invite lists to particular events. I’m not sure if other things - such as news items - can be filtered just to particular lists.

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/2008/01/29/horizon-repor

The annual Horizon Report (pdf) has been published. They’ve produced a rather nice “Megatrends” diagram - looking at the main predictions from all the earlier reports (2004 - 2008).ng

I’ve skim read the current report - I think that the idea of “Social Operating Systems” will be worth watching; it seems to me to be a logical extension of where we currently are with things like Facebook; but data will be portable between systems, rather than tied to a system. They suggest that more professional information will come in, though I’d like to think that it will be possible to separate the two! I’d not really like it all tied together. I wonder how Sugar will tie into this…

Jude O’Connell has a link to a rather neat depiction of the technologies involved (and some of the people) created by Information Architects of Japan.