Is a little nostalgia appropriate?

I've been visiting several blogs and starting to feel a little sad about the course drawing to an end. while I am as tired as the next person with the usual end of course crunch, I will miss the interaction and Dr. D's "tool of the week" roll-out. Like so many have commented in their blogs, I have come unbelievably far over the last 12 weeks. I no longer feel like "technically impaired" as my family fondly daubed me prior to this class. In all honesty, I don't know how many of the tools I will use in the future. What matters is that I now know they are out there with a whole lot more. If I'm working on a paper, a lesson or whatever and think, "It would be great if there were a tool that could....[fill in the blank]" I know chances are there probably is and I Google it. Before I would never have thought of such a thing. At times it was truly challenging and even frustrating but I'm glad I stuck with it and thank you, Dr. Dennen, for your limitless patience and encouragement.

"Instructional Designer wanted: No experience necessary"

That's the title of Alan Reid's 2012 article which was published in Inside Higher Ed, Both the article itself and the responses it evoked were very honest, passionate and thought-provoking. I quote: "Interactive, customized and adaptive text should be the next educational technological milestone but not like this........we continue to build an increasingly accessible virtual world where we can act as professional instructional designers, physicians and stock traders; with no experience necessary.....Technology doesn't make us experts (Reid, 2012). He makes a good point about technology being so ubiquitous and how anyone can acquire information on pretty much any topic which, therefore, makes them an expert...not really. In the article Reid expresses concern over Apple's iBooks Author which invites every Tom, Dick and Harry to publish textbooks on any subject of their choosing. While he received some responses expressing sympathetic support, the majority of respondents basically communicated a sentiment that went something like: Get out of the way, buddy, or the Mack Truck of Technology will roll right over you and crush you. Reid believes education should be utilizing newer technologies to enhance and benefit faculty and students alike and I think we all pretty much agree on that in this class. If I were to undergo any kind of surgery or treatment, I would want the best surgeon using the latest technology available. The point is that the latest and greatest advancements of our time are only as good as the abilities and skills of the person utilizing them. The wide-spread availability of new tech tools and toys will, no doubt, result in some unfortunate casualties. It will also encourage us to more carefully investigate what and how we eventually choose. However, it will also allow for innovative, "non-expert" ideas and approaches to be easily introduced which, in turn, can be streamlined or redesigned by others with more formal training in the field to the benefit of all concerned. As Reid himself notes, current technology is encouraging everyone to become experts on everything but that does not actually make us experts. It just makes us more knowledgeable on any subject we choose to research. So despite the "pantheon of tools available out there", I believe trained experts will always be necessary to ensure that a quality product or service is delivered. http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/02/13/essay-do-apples-design-tools-make-it-too-easy-create-textbooks-and-courses#.TzmQB3r2zRM.mailto

Flourishing Teams

Please take a few minutes to visit my wiki on creating successful teams. http://teamworksuccess.wikispaces.com/

YouTube Video by successful international IDer

"Cognition and Technology: Mutual drivers in a symbiotic relationship" Yep! That's the title of my almost final paper in my other online course. There's still another one due next week in that course as well plus an end of term quiz Total of four (yes, 4) papers and a quiz in two weeks. Sleep anyone? I'm trying to quit(hardly). If it were just school work, I think it would be alright but since the middle of last week, life has gotten very complicated due to a series of poorly-timed events. Each event individually would rate an "OK" to "Excellent" but string them all together and it is beyond stressful since I haven't quite figured out how to be in two counties at one time while trying to oversee construction in our new townhouse and pack and move by next Tuesday/Wednesday. Thank you Dr. Dennen for the extension and reprieve from articles! Maybe one day we'll all publish something astonishing that reshapes mankind for the better. In the meantime, I'm extending an invitation to anyone who visits my blog to take a look at my sister-in-law, Diane's YouTube video (link below). She owns her own ISD company in Milan, Italy and works all over Europe. Talk about networking. She's got her finger in so many pies, it's fattening just to think about it. She asked me to share it with some people before she posts it to LinkedIn. You're people. So if you have comments for her, post them here and I'll pass them on. Thanks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82XPCZd3FYU&feature=em-uploademail

Are online relationships easier?

In my culture, food has always been of tantamount importance. Some of my best memories growing up were of my grandmother, aunt and mom working into the wee hours preparing mountains of food for someone's wedding, birthday or a special holiday. Our house was fairly centrally-located and since my mom was the eldest of 7 siblings and my grandmother lived with us, aunts, uncles and cousins stopped by every evening and on Sundays to visit or share a meal with us. Even family outings to the beach never involved sandwiches. There was always delicious and abundant food. When I got married, I carried on the tradition. We've moved several times within the state of Florida and wherever we've moved, I've tried to make our home a center of hospitality. I enjoy cooking and feeding people....until recently. We moved to Tallahassee three years ago and I immediately had neighbors and church friends over for dinner...almost every weekend for the first several months and then on a more intermittent basis but still fairly regularly. At work, if I knew of a co-worker who did not have family or anywhere to go for Christmas or Thanksgiving, I would invite them over. My husband did the same for people on his bowling league. For the first time in my life, I experienced people who would either refuse the invitation to be alone during the holidays or who accepted the invitation but did not call and did not show for dinner. Aside from being inconsiderate and just plain rude, I found this unexplainable lack of social grace, discouraging. Gradually, my entertaining tapered and once I started grad school, it came to a screeching halt due to lack of time and disposable energy. I saw one of my neighbors tonight and she said, "I miss your cooking". I told her I was trying to quit. Maybe its just Tallahassee or that people are becoming more withdrawn and less social in general for whatever reason. Personally, I no longer feel the need to connect as much in a face-to-face environment. My coursework, husband, kids, occasional neighborly exchange and online interaction seem satisfying enough. I was emailing someone this weekend and wrote, "Online interaction is so much easier and requires so little energy". Especially when it's casual and NOT required for working on a graded project! Kind of sad though, don't you think?

Supporting Performance and Learning

Since so many bloggers in our class do not visit the DB much, I'm going to solicit help via my blog as well as the DB. From the past semester of online classes which required we work in groups or teams of 4, I realized that there should be a course offered to students to help us acquire the skills and abilities necessary to work successfully in groups. Since most online students do not know each other, trust (or lack of)is a major problem. After working on everything individually in a competitive arena, the gears have switched and now we've discovered the sum is better than the individual parts. It takes some getting used to. Conflict resolution, communication, distribution of roles and responsibilities, facilitation and tactful, sensitive leadership are all requirements in addition to humility (there's a word we don't hear often anymore, knowledge on some aspect of project and appreciation of what others are contributing to the team. In articles I've read, many companies are asking universities to focus more on preparing students to work effectively in teams when they hit the "real working world". Hence, I would like to set up a wiki (??), generate a Twitter thread (??) or use some other tool to provide support for the learning of the much sought-after skill or ability of group work and solicit others to share their ideas on how to facilitate the process, their success stories, nightmare team, etc. What do you think about the topic? Do you think it would draw interest and be helpful? Especially, do you have any platform(s)or tools you think would be particularly to use? My creativity is at a super low point and I crave your input!!!! Thanks.

Trivia

I've granted myself permission to occasionally post something of a trivial nature. Since the past couple of weeks have been rather draining due to a series of unforeseeable events and the next two weeks don't hold much promise of a change in tone, tonight's the "occasional" night. Have you noticed that the CAPTCHAS have changed? Every time I post a comment to a blog, I'm prompted to interpret a CAPTCHA, which is supposedly dual-purposed: 1) It proves I'm not a robot/spammer 2)It aides in the task of translating old, almost illegible manuscripts into readable text (sounds like a small packet of bologna to me but, who knows?) They used to irritate me no end. Then I almost began to enjoy them. And then they changed. Instead of challenging, barely legible squiggles, I am now seeing 3 or 4 numbers. What happened? Did the bots get smarter or did we run out of old manuscripts?

"When one professor can teach 50,000 people it alters the economics of education" - Andrew Ng, Stanford University

Recently, I came across one of the most exciting articles I have read to date about the impact of technology on education. It dealt with MOOCS and a few professors from Stanford who helped get the ball rolling. Their motive? To make quality education available FOC to all interested parties with Internet access. The number of responses to MOOCS has been staggering. Granted, there is a very high attrition rate. In one case cited in the article, 160,000 people from 197 countries signed up for an online course offering on artificial intelligence but only 23,000 completed it…..Only 23,000?!! That is amazing!!! The article entitled "Campus 2.0" is only about three pages long and full of information that contributed to my excitement regarding the future of education and learning and has renewed my belief in the altruism of my fellow human beings. Perhaps there will be financial reward somewhere down the road for them but, for the present, these individuals have dedicated their time, energy and heart to researching, designing and providing quality online educational opportunities to thousands for free. If you’re interested just enter "Campus 2.0" in Google Scholar. It appears in the March 13, 2013 edition of Nature, the International Weekly Journal of Science and is written by M. Mitchell Waldrup. I tried linking it several times to this blog post for convenience and although it appears in "edit/draft" mode every time, as soon as I hit the "publish" button, it vanishes. Poof!!

Taking it outside our borders

As one might expect, the use of social media tools (SMT’s)or SNT's (social network tools)as they are called in the article on Ghana, is not as ubiquitous outside of the U.S. and other “first world” countries as one might like to think. Despite the fact that technology could potentially lend much needed support to the educational systems in poorer countries with low literacy rates there are several barriers to the widespread implementation and use of SMT’s and technology in general. One of the more obvious barriers is the initial cost and resources required to establish an acceptable technological infrastructure in less developed and developing countries. Another resembles one we experience within U.S. borders as well: Resistance from champions of more traditional forms of instruction which oftentimes results from their unfamiliarity with, fear of or unwillingness to learn to use the new technologies. In some countries, such as China, SMT’s are banned entirely. Why? They are perceived as a threat to and by the government. Particularly in those countries where the governing authorities discourage freedom of speech. They fear that SMT’s might allow for people to self-organize rapidly and band together in protest of perceived or real injustices. This fear is justifiable. In his book, “Here comes Everybody”, Shirky (2008) references the unrest the Belarusian Government was unable to quieten, the challenges the Catholic church was unable to ignore because of the self-organizing power of the people via the web (pg.23). Social media provides a platform for opinions and allows these opinions and related stories to spread at astonishing or “viral” rates. We are truly blessed to live in a country that allows and encourages free exchange of opinions and ideas across any platform; even when they are neither complimentary towards government officials currently in office nor their policies.

A Possible Aide to Unifying Society

Know one of the things I like about interacting via social media? I am exposed to viewpoints other than my own which make me think twice about any given subject in which I am interested. Also the exposure occurs in a nicely-controlled environment. No one is going to pull a gun and shoot me over the Internet or start stalking me at home because we happen to disagree (especially since I use a pseudonym for any posts of consequence). Supposedly, when we surround ourselves with only like-minded people, we tend to grow closed and intolerant of those outside our "club". Therefore, wide exposure to varying points of view helps contribute to a “less-fragmented and polarized society” (Cited by Kim et al, 2013 referencing Mutz, 2002; Stroud, 2010 and Sunstein, 2001). What are your thoughts?

Pre-engagement with social media

In my last post, I addressed the age factor as a possible hindrance to the adoption of Web 2.0 tools for pedagogy. After just reading Goodyear’s article, I felt compelled to add as a possible facilitator the love of social media as leverage…a much more positive approach or fix to the issue at hand. People, including teachers, use Facebook and Twitter all the time for personal, social interaction. If someone already loves and uses a tool, it should be relatively simple to help them make the jump to also using it for professional reasons, no?

Revolution

I read a classmate’s blog in which she shared the general consensus seems to be that, while all acknowledge the tremendous opportunities Web 2.0 affords their field, few educators and educational institutions seem to be actually utilizing it - let alone to its fullest potential. I too have noticed this recurring theme in much of the literature I have read on Web 2.0 and learning. The question is “Why not?” It occurred to me that it could be as simple an issue as the changing of the guard. According to CNN Money Online from 6/17/2013, it appears that many college professors have delayed retirement due to the recent economic crisis (“Professors teach into their golden years” by Melanie Hicken). This means that younger professors are experiencing more difficulty in obtaining tenure track positions. Today’s online version of The Chronicle of Higher Education, states: “The American professoriate is aging. Six years ago, the last time the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty was completed by the Education Department, the average age for full-time professors was 49.6 (54 for tenured faculty members). In 1993, the average age was 48 (51.9 for tenured professors). Today it's not unusual for colleges to have faculty members teaching and working in their 70s, or even 80s”. Clearly then, the majority of our higher ed teachers are pre-digital Natives and later. That implies the incumbent educators would have to learn new tricks, new teaching strategies and modify curriculum to be effective in an online environment. As a student in this class it is obvious that several classmates spend much of their time online and working with different Web 2.0 tools. They are completely comfortable in this arena. Some of us, on the other hand, must grapple with learning new material, in new ways, in unfamiliar territory. That means those of us who are less tech savy, have a steeper learning curve. Maybe, when the entire “Golden Generation” has disappeared from the world of academia, we will witness the educational revolution that has been predicted for over the past two decades. Opinions?

Just how Social are Social Media Tools within the Learning Environment?

The Thompson article in our assigned readings this week provided some refreshing insight on the topic of SMT's in learning environments. The study focused on the students' use of first person singular and plural pronouns and verb types used when describing their learning experiences with SMT's. As a result of the study, the authors concluded that, while a small measure of "collective intelligence" was achieved (a main goal of the use of SMT's in education)and "group-oriented and self-oriented utterances were evident", the use of both verbs and first person singular pronouns when describing their activities pointed to a more traditional, autonomous mode of operating. Having now ingested several articles which clearly point to SMT's being the wave of the future in business and education, I have also come to recognize that, like face-to-face relationships, it takes time to create truly effective ones....even in the fast-paced world of Web 2.0. We are accustomed to asking Google for a definition and receiving a reply in 0.29 seconds or similar. We are not accustomed to the idea that anything (learning, relationships, information-seeking, yes, ANYTHING) should still require time. Has technology made our lives easier? That's definitely a loaded question. Of course, it's easier to jump in a car and drive to the store than walk or bike to it. It's way easier/faster to stick a frozen dinner in the micro and "nuke" it for a few minutes than to light a fire (or turn the stove on) and cook a meal in a pot for an hour. But what are we doing with all the extra time that technology is affording us? How are we handling being so much faster and more efficient? Less stress? More quality time for relaxing with family and friends or just more time to do...what? For all our progress, it still takes time to build a relationship and it still takes 10 months (yes, 40 weeks) to grow a baby in utero.

And so on....

Yesterday and today I started looking at media tools for creating timelines. The first one I looked at was Dipity but didn't really like the format. In my opinion it is not visually appealing or free-flowing. So I moved on to Capzles. At first glance Capzles seemed to fit the bill: Nice flow, allows for audio and image uploading, sharing and so on. However, it is nowhere as simple as I was first led to think. It's got some peculiarities that you've got to figure out how to work around. Next I looked at the new tools for this week and watched the tutorials on Yahoo pipes, MeeMoo and Popcorn Maker. And I asked myself, "Self, why do we need these? What makes them different from some of the curating tools we investigated earlier?" Maybe they offer some hidden benefit I haven't discovered yet but nothing I saw was appealing enough to encourage further exploration. It's also possible that people just want their 15 minutes of fame and so keep creating and adding to the already HUGE stack of tools that exist out there on the Web. However, the triumph here for me is that I waded out into the water on my own with the timeline tools. Before this class, I would never have thought to go looking for some media tool, independently (i.e. of my own volition). Progress is being made. Maybe Dr. Dennen will make good on her threat to turn me into a techie after all. I hope every one has a a safe and wonderful July 4th. Independence is a wonderful thing.

Our Brains and Technology

I have been reading several articles on the interaction between humans and technology and how they affect and drive each other. Super interesting stuff! One article uses the term technostress which encompasses everything from technophobia to technoaddiction and everything in between. I even delved into a research paper on robotic systems in which a robot arm was connected to a pc and webcam (very simplified version). Robotic systems with sensory and motor skills are being currently being developed. They are capable of “learning” how to interact from observation during very basic experiments in order to help or cooperate with human partners. While research is still in the embryonic stages, those sci-fi movies with house robots and C3P’s might not be that far off. Already computers have removed much of the burden of performing everyday calculations and other mundane tasks. Information is much more readily available (I love when I pose a question in Google and it supplies how many seconds it took to answer me, as though it’s having a race against itself). I also read an interesting article by Matt Ritchel who covers Technology and Telecommunications for the New York Times and who was awarded the Pulitzer prize in 2010 for a series he wrote on driving and multi-tasking. Somehow he inveigled 5 neuroscientists into agreeing to accompany him for several days on a wilderness experience in Utah, disconnected from all technology. Their reactions were interesting even for the skeptics. I can’t wait for the day when my personal robot, does all the cleaning and cooking and homework for me! How about you?

New tools

Spent some time checking out this week's tools. I really liked Webquest and Edmodo and think that kids would really respond to it positively. Apparently, my daughter had been exposed to it 4 years ago in one of her high school class setting. Symbaloo, Google Maps and Fakebook were OK. Didn't much get into them although I can appreciate their applicability. There truly is an endless sea of tools out there to explore.

To be proficient or not to be proficient?

Tonight Dr. Dennen shared some insight on how she became so adept at social media and networking. Although that's not what she would say. First, she signed up to follow some interesting people and topics. She also subscribed to some professional journals and visited blogs of interest. Some tools were dedicated to personal communiques while others were more professionally focused. Soon she was learning tidbits from all kinds of sources and the separating lines became somewhat blurred. Finally, it took time. Growing a successful personal learning network cannot be artificially induced. It is a gradual process. That became evident when I tried to inject myself into the gardening community of practice I was observing. You have to be genuinely interested in a topic and committed to following along regardless of all the twists and turns. And you have to be willing to give it time.

Who Knew? Savoir Faire and other mini triumphs

This is probably going to sound retarded since it's such a basic thing for most of my classmates but I feel as though I just struck GOLD!!!! For the past several weeks (and prior) I've wanted to learn how to embed a link in a word. It seemed so cool, like something only someone who was really "pro" would casually do without thinking twice. Last night (seems like a week ago) at What Cafe, I asked Ji Yae if she would email me instructions on how to do it. However, tonight, as I was writing my previous post, I happened to notice the word "Link" on the dashboard. I clicked on it and a new world opened up to me!!! It took me a few tries but it finally worked. Ever see the excitement in a toddler's eyes when he takes his first steps on his own? This mini-triumph has led me to reflect on a much deeper truth. In the past, I have experienced a strong aversion to clicking on buttons I knew nothing about. I have even disliked watching other people click on buttons by way of experimentation. Tonight I learned that sometimes it's the best way to learn.

More Exploration and Discovery

Somewhere in the recesses of my memory, I have the image of a very young child surrounded by mountains of presents at Christmas. Instead of ripping them open and playing with them one at a time, the little girl just sat there, dumbfounded, mouth agape,in a state of confusion. Despite having to fight with feelings of being overwhelmed by the deluge of new tools we are introduced to each week, some of them surface as real gems. Today, I spent some time exploring WebQuest and found it impressive. I think it would be a great vehicle through which to present our next assignment. Now all I have to do is decide on the topic of instruction. In this class probably the hardest thing for me is wrapping my head around what any given tool is supposed to do and how it does it. Until I'm actually doing it, the concept is almost impossible to grasp. For example, when I first heard about Baked Alaska I couldn't conceptualize it. How on earth could you stick ice cream in a hot oven and it not melt? Then I tried it and witnessed it for myself. Then I looked up the science behind it and, although I couldn't relate to much of the terminology, I could accept and understand the concept. It's much the same with trying new tools in this class.

It's not for everyone

AS we draw to the close of week 6, I have come to some conclusions. Social Media is not for everyone. While I share in the excitement of all the tools that are available to us today with new ones developing all the time, I'm pretty sure it's not for me. Perhaps I'll feel differently after the class is over and the pace slows down. I'm definitely grateful for the exposure and knowledge I've gained. Certainly without Dr. D's prompting, I'd never be this far along. I was really excited about creating my first word cloud (lop-sided as it may be). I never thought of myself as a private person. Family, friends and even co-workers describe me as rather open with my life. Sometimes, I think, too much so. However, when it comes to putting myself "out there" for any and everyone to see, I am truly uncomfortable. Perhaps it's because of the lack of reciprocity. "They" are viewing me but I know nothing about "them". My pseudonym has worked very well for me. And, contrary to one of our classmates observations, I wouldn't dream of doing, saying, posting anything under a pseudonym that I would feel uncomfortable doing under my real name. For me it's just an added layer of protection. Of course, if anyone wanted to spend a little time, they could easily peel back the layer and trace the footprints back to me. However, I banking on no one caring enough to take the time. For a vacation week, this has been pretty stressful. I'm looking forward to a measure of normalcy returning now that we're not running all over the place and trying to keep up with school as well.

What Do Students Want?

Recently I read an article written by Lash Keith Vance and published in the Journal of Educational Computing. It was entitled,"Do students want Web 2.0? An Investigation into student instructional preferences". Needless to say, since I'm currently enrolled in a class on Web 2.0 and have been experiencing first hand all the wonders of this new phenomenon, the title caught my attention. The results were surprising. A survey of over 1800 students, ages 18-33 (the so-called millenials), revealed a strong preference for blended instruction utilizing both Web 2.0 or interactive, collaborative tools and Web 1.0, which encompasses the more traditional, instructor-generated material. In higher education, there was a strong preference indicated for using blogs as a learning management system and discussion boards for peer interaction. Although the article acknowledged the fact that the use of Web 2.0 for instruction is increasing, the author asked the question if this increase were possibly due to “well-intended” educators pushing in that direction rather than the students enrolled in their classes wanting it. Opinions, please?

Communication, reciprocity and the like

It's rather ironic that we're enrolled in a Web 2.0 class. Much of the excitement about Web 2.0, is connectivity and facilitation of collaboration. We just completed papers on communities of practice which required we observe, attempt to participate in and comment on the types of interaction we noted online. How many papers have we read marveling on how the web has bridged gaps between continents, cultures, language and time zones? We are as connected as we want or do not want to be. In this class, however, it seems as though we are experiencing "failure to launch". Perhaps, I'm out of the loop since so far, my attempts to tweet to the class hashtag has not met with much success. I've been told that Twitter can be frustrating that way and that I should continue to tweet until the post shows up. I have floated around and visited many of my classmates blogs and left posts on several. Other than our instructor, who's been dedicated to encouraging us all by leaving comments on almost every post, I've had two classmates view and comment on posts of mine over the past five weeks. Doesn't reciprocity count? Dr. Dennen has even addressed this in the class blog, yet very little "comment kindness" has resulted. Why not? At one point, I theorized that the learning curve for many of us has been rather steep which has left some of us with little brain power and time to spend online for simple social "interacting". Unless it's absolutely required for grades, it ain't happenin'! But I notice that everyone seems to be doing very well, tweeting a bunch (although I don't consider tweeting the ideal mode of interaction) and even going above and beyond the expected on their individual blogs. Some of my classmates have demonstrated amazing prowess technologically. Whatever happened to practicing what we preach or, in this case, what we're learning? Guess when all tech fails, we resort to meeting for coffee face-to-face. Looking forward to it for those who live in the 850.

Medical Marijuana - For or Against?

Hot Topic

 Hi Everyone,

I tried Storify tonight as my curating tool and really got into it.  I found Storify super easy to use and loved being able to drop and drag content to my story.  Even though my efforts are  somewhat rudimentary, I am pretty happy with both the outcome and what I learned.

Since I grew up in Jamaica, I was thinking about constructing my story around one of my all-time favorite philosophers and song-writers, Bob Marley.  But since the 2014 Florida Legislature recently made a decision regarding the use of medical marijuana, I decided to construct my story around MM instead.  I feel Bob would have approved.

Please visit and share your thoughts with me.  Don't miss the fun song at the end.  It's really funny and, if unnu need elp, mi wil translate fi yu!:)

https://storify.com/juvibug/how-about-that-medical-marijuana#publicize

Copyrights

I have often wondered about people sharing content on the internet.  So many great ideas are, seemingly, given away for free.   In his book, Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky writes, "Life teaches us that motivations other than getting paid aren't enough to add up to serious work.  And now we have to unlearn that lesson, because it is less true with each passing year.  People now have access to myriad tools that let them share writing, images, video - any form of expressive content, in fact - and use that sharing as an anchor for community and cooperation." (Shirky, 2008, pg. 105).
Take Wikipedia, for example, what a noble, selfless and useful endeavor.  (Of course, Wikipedia is a breed onto itself).

As I read Alm's and Edwards et al. articles on the conflict and contradiction that have been born and bred between copyrighting claims and social media tools that, for all intents and purposes, encourage participants to violate copyright laws. Pinterest, identified by Alm as a second generation platform, actually caters to user-copied content as opposed to user-generated content.  So does Twitter with retweeting.  Of course the point is that legislation has not kept up with technology.  Certainly the examples of judicial ruling on the cases Alm includes in the article seem arbitrary and confusing.

An interesting point cited in the Edwards et al. article indicates that "the growth in illegal downloading has been accompanied by a rise in legal sales of digital content (Andersen and Frenz, 2010).  The article also cites many content producers who actually want their content copied and circulated.... to some extent.  They view it as an additional promotional benefit.  But what about those who depend on copyright royalties for their support?  This issues are complex to say the least.


The dilemma springs from the fact that social media supplies us with the primary, cheapest (free is very cheap) and most effective ways for anyone who wants the content they create to "get out there" and be seen and heard.  However, it is a double-edged sword since the means they use to arrive at the ends they want also violates their very ownership of the content because no truly enforceable copyright control currently exists nor can the extent of the duplicating of copyrighted content itself be controlled .

Guess I'll hold back on posting my million-dollar idea on the web until the dust settles on the copyrighting and litigation issues.

Online versus face-to-face relationships

Participation in the butterfly gardening communities of practice left me with mixed feelings and thoughts.

Primarily due to the short period of time assigned to observing the COP's and the accepted newbie behavior, I was unsuccessful in becoming an active member of the community with which I tried to interact.  Yet in both COP's, whenever someone allowed themselves to become vulnerable and share their struggles and their humanity, I felt instantly closer to them and wanted to reach out instinctively.  This was a new experience for me since I did not know these individuals.  Also, since the sharing was done online I didn't even know what they looked like.

Typically, for me to be vulnerable with someone, I at least have to have gotten beyond the handshake phase of the relationship.  Yet in my work environment, in our neighborhood, even in the church we belong to since we moved to Tallahassee just under three years ago, it has become increasingly difficult to truly "connect" with other human beings.  Much of this I attributed to growing older and to having moved around so much in my life.  These were, undoubtedly, contributing factors but from what I hear other people saying, the way our society is interacting has changed in the last 15 to 20 years.

I used to love listening to one of my best friends, Jane, who celebrated her 94 this year, talk about when her kids were growing up.  All the moms in the neighborhood would meet each day for coffee and to socialize while the kids played together.  "Moms" became "stay-at-home-moms" to differentiate them from the majority of women  who no longer stayed at home with their kids.  Coffee and "visiting" in each other's homes has become a tradition of an age long gone.  People meet at Starbucks or Panera to chat.

When we first moved into this neighborhood, I made a point to meet as many of the neighbors as I could and had several over for dinner.  In two years, all but a few have moved away.  While I will admit that I currently work in one of the most hostile environments I have experienced in my life, it is still disappointing to see how guarded my co-workers are about their families and lives away from work.

What if this change in society that I perceive is one of the reasons why social media has met with the success it has?  What if it's easier and safer to share who I am with people I don't really know; people who live far away.  They (unlike co-workers and neighbors) are only allowed to see the very best side of me....the parts I choose to reveal.

That I should feel such empathy for people I only "knew" briefly online and who never knew I existed.  They allowed any and everyone who cared to read their reflections to see a vulnerable part of themselves that face-to-face people seldom do anymore. 

I wonder if anyone else experienced what I did?

But do you have something to say?

Blogging is becoming a national pass-time.  Everyone seems to be blogging about anything, everything and nothing. Today, I read an article on a survey of over 1,800 students.  Blogging was their "Numero Uno" choice as an LMS.  Simultaneously, many of these same students shared that they attached little value to the blogs originating with their peers.  INSERT REF (If Wikipedia can do it, why can't I?)

Yesterday, the participants in our class blogosphere (present company included)  received a shout-out from our Blog Coordinator, urging us to get out there and spread some blogging kindness by posting comments on each others blogs.  It made me wonder why we're not all jumping over each other with blog comments.  I have a few theories:

1)  The class is composed of either very tech savy students who create visually appealing and/or information-packed blogs with sophisticated set-ups or of students (like myself) who have lagged behind the techno-wave and are hoping this class will bring us up to speed.  In the first instance, visiting these blogs makes me feel like the poor country mouse or overwhelms me with links, graphics and expertise in general.  After spending time clicking on a few buttons and links, I'm too tired to bother comment.

2)  Keeping up with our own workload and blog requirements keeps us too busy to visit and chat with others about theirs.

3)  We don't truly value what our classmates have to say (surely not!).

I've always been of the opinion that unless you have something worthwhile to say, it's better to keep silent.  How many inconsequential, chattering idiots do you like hanging around?

P.S.  If by chance you wonder onto this blog by accident, the blazing honesty was just me thinking out loud.

P.P.S.  Check out this delightful TED talk INSERT LINK

Clumping Rice

All these articles, blogging, jumping from one social media tool to another in rapid succession and late nights at the computer is starting feel like soggy rice clumping to a spoon.  You just can't shake it off.  Clumping rice is not necessarily a bad thing, though.  Works great with chopsticks.

Take for instance the concept of the Pro Am.  "Pro-Am leisure is a very serious activity involving training, rehearsal, competition, and grading and so also frustration, sacrifice, anxiety and tenacity.  Pro-Ams report being absorbed in their activities, which yield intense experiences of creativity an self-expression.  Pro-Am activities seem to provide people with psychic recuperation from - and an alternative to - work that is often seen as drudgery.  Leisure is often regarded as a zone of freedom and spontaneity, which contrasts with the necessity of work.  Yet much Pro-Am activity is also characterized by a sense of obligation and necessity.  Pro-Ams talk of their activities as compulsions."  (Leadbeater and Miller, 2004:21 cited by Bruns, 2010).

Previously, I would have read this quote and thought Pro Ams a little crazy....as in "get a life".  Who chooses leisure activities fraught with frustration, sacrifice and anxiety?  Yet in many ways, my choosing to go back to grad school at this stage of my life is much the same thing.  I find myself in a job that is personally unfulfilling, at a time when my brain needs something constructive and creative on which to focus.  While I hate "crunch times" like this week as much as the next person, I'm addicted to the learning experience...to the becoming.  Life long learner - what a beautiful concept.

Then that clump of rice sticks to this one about Pro Ams and their possible exploitation by unscrupulous for-profit companies?  Of course, it's just like human nature to take advantage of someone else's generosity.  But then the latter is also human nature.

Changes to the fabric of our world are taking place so fast, who is controlling it all (is anyone?)  What can we or should we do to protect the intellectual contributions of so many who give so freely?  Is that what they want or do they not care beyond the act of creating?

Crowdsourcing

No longer surprised, I discovered yet another new term this week, thanks to our latest course topic:  Crowdsourcing.  According to Mason and Suri in their article, "Conducting Behavioral Research on Amazon's Mechanical Turk", the term originated with Howe (2006), "who defined it as a job outsourced to an undefined group of people in the form of an open call".  I guess, loosely speaking, much of what is being accomplished online these days is due to crowdsourcing.  Although the contributors to Wikipedia are not compensated financially, every time someone posts a stub, it is definitely an invitation or call to an undefined group of people.

The discovery of Amazon's Mechanical Turk was also amazing.  I am torn between feeling like an ostrich whose head has been buried in the sand for over two decades and the other extreme:  That of a kid at Christmas opening one gift after another!  How do people come up with all these ideas? What Amazon has created is the equivalent of an employment agency (a very efficient employment agency) x's 1,000 and then some.  With the initial capital investment for set-up complete, their operating cost (site maintenance, administration of payments received and made) must be quite low.  Amazon has managed to create a link between companies and research facilities seeking low cost labor and vast numbers of individuals who are seeking either employment from the comfort of their computer (did I just use the word comfort and computer in the same sentence?) or entertainment or both.  Sure there are hurdles, such as the lack of quality, committed participants who sign-up for the "job" but since the cost is negligible and the supply open-ended, it really doesn't matter that much.  The Mechanical Turk is the silent platform where numbers of employers advertise their jobs and potential employees shop for the one that best suits their fancy.  It's one-stop advertising, application, interview and hiring all bundled together.

American ingenuity at it's best!

As promised - It was a wild ride

Tonight I ventured into #lrnchat on Twitter.  At first it was slow to begin but, as forewarned, it got pretty wild.  It definitely was a learning experience and stirred more questions than it provided answers.  The topic tonight was, "Keeping Ahead of the Curve".  After people introduce themselves and share what they learned today/this week, various questions are posed and everyone answers at the same time!

From a technical standpoint, it takes some figuring to bring up the ongoing tweets which can jump to 28 in a minute or so.  Scrolling up and down the thread of conversation was "jumpy" and I didn't know if that was normal or unusual or whether it was a problem on my end or theirs.  I finally figured out what to click on to "refresh" the conversation.

Being new to Twitter, some of my questions are: 

1)  Does each user have to manually retype the hashtag "#lrnchat" in the body of their tweet or is there an easier way to add it in?

2)  From time to time, I noticed a few of the questions posed were repeated several times by the participants.  Did they click on "retweet" by accident or....?

What was interesting was the thread that was woven.  Some comments seemed random and I couldn't figure out what the person was saying or responding to.  Sometimes the person's entire tweet was a series of hashtags  and URL's.  Other times, I noticed people responded directly to another person's comment in a brief side conversation and then got back into the mainstream.  Some people commented constantly; others very occasionally or not at all (like me).  Many of the tweeters' personalities definitely emerged (funny, intense, more easy going, etc).  I actually started "following" a few of the tweeters.

I heard about more media tools with which I am unfamiliar (big surprise, ha)  such as Evernote, Pocket, Dolphin, Drive and Flipboard and had no idea what the references to angry birds meant.  Would also be interested to know what are considered "fringe topics".

Definitely an interesting hour.

Does it bother anybody?

Today I read Lingel and Naam's paper on the so-called phenomenon of taking and sharing videos of live music events.  The authors list the purpose of the paper is to explore the following:

• What are the motivations for recording videos at concerts and sharing them online?
• What are the practices used to take and share videos from live music events on YouTube?
• What roles do these videos and the people who produce them play in online communities?

-  Lingel, J., & Naaman, M. (2011). You should have been there, man: Live music, DIY content and online communities. New Media & Society, 14(2).

Okay, so the word phenomenon may be applied to any observed or observable fact, occurrence or circumstance (dictionary.reference.com) but it used to also imply that the fact, occurrence or circumstance which was being observed or studied had some extraordinary or awesome quality to it.

While I follow the thread developed in the paper and found a few noteworthy factoids (in passing) , I respectfully ask, who really cares?  What difference does it make if some people attend a live concert, use their phone to video it and later share it on YouTube?  Has a substantial contribution been made to the world either by posting the video(s) or by the paper that studies the reasons and implications behind the posting?  Maybe I'm just narrow-minded or too old fashioned but what real purpose does this type of discussion/exploration serve?  Can't we simply call it a hobby?  That's what any pass-time not involving social media is called.  Imagine a mother taking pictures of her kids performing different activities, lovingly spending hours placing the photos in an album, annotating them with dates and comments and decorative stickers then sharing them with everyone who comes to visit.  Is this a phenomenon?  Should someone study it and write a paper on the implications of this behavior?  Or is it simply a proud mom who enjoys scrapbooking?

It is the relative newness of social media and sharing that prompts research from every possible angle?  This is not a rhetorical question.  I would love someone to point out what I am missing here.

Hashtags Revisited

It occurred to me that not only has technology changed the world by its impact on professions, businesses, relationships, education, information dissemination and on and on  but it has also changed Language - both written and spoken.  Words exist today that did not exist a few years ago.  We speak differently today that we did 10 years ago.  While it has not as yet reached the grandesse of the disparity between the days of "thee" and "thou" and modern English, we are heading in that direction. Language, is becoming (or so it seems to me) more informal.  Maybe it all began somewhere around the time when the dot.comers began making it big. Texting brought us a deluge of commonly-accepted acronyms (lol, rofl, yolo, btw, ttyl, brb) which are now used in speech.  Google officially became a verb.  Birds no longer have proprietary claim to tweeting and wikis mean something other than a new, tropical drink.  Learning where the @ and # keys are on the keyboard is no longer optional.

When we began this class, I was introduced to terms like hashtags, RSS Feeds, @replies, @mentions, and tagging to name but a few (not the tagging used in games nor hanging from a dress in a store). Oftentimes the meaning of these words cannot be divined from the context in which they are used but required a specific explanation or definition to convey their meaning.  Take, for example, the term "hashtags".  I can't count the number of times I've seen or heard it over the past two weeks.  Although I visited Twitter  (native home of hashtags)  and beheld hashtags in all their glory and abundance I still only had a vague idea of what they were and how they should be used.  All that changed today when I read Dr. Dennen's and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach's papers on....Hashtags!!  TA DAH!

P.S.  I still haven't incorporated or tried to actually use a hashtag but will in the very near future.

This week sped by in a blur of work, family and social media tools.  A few realizations have dawned:  The Web has the propensity for extreme good or evil.  It is the human behind the machine who decides for which it will be used.  As a research tool, it is unsurpassable in speed and accuracy but one must be guided by discernment to evaluate the validity of the sources. It is an awesome tool for connecting people over time and space but, if unchecked, can serve to isolate us from those in our immediate vicinity who should be the closest. 

As usual, I enjoyed Sharky.  His discussion of the philosophy and success of Wikipedia was fascinating for me.  His allusion to Richard Gabriel's  "Worse is better" philosophy (pg 122) described a phenomena that is initially counter-intuitive yet upon deeper analysis makes perfect sense as to why it would be successful.  Most people will usually choose a the simpler version  of something even though it is not as attractive or appealing an invest time in improving the object rather than with something they perceive to be overly complex (a good lesson to remember when writing or posting in grad school).  This was certainly applicable to me when I choose Google Blogger over WordPress despite the latter's enhanced versatility. 

Another fascinating comment on human behavior was the protectiveness displayed by contributors to Wikipedia topics.  In instances of page vandalism, the damage was erased almost as soon as it was created a la "Hovering, protective Mother" style.  Hard to believe but it's documented. 

Crack's research paper on teenagers in the U.K.  revealed access to the web in schools as potentially positive but noted that, if left unstructured or unguided, most users at that level, would succomb to surfing for fun and social interaction rather than for scholastic purposes. This I have found to be generally true with my teenagers.  The one in college will start out with great intentions of doing coursework and end up Skyping with friends, playing games and almost everything other than work.
However, I find it strange that she and her friends often Skype to do homework together while they are working on their individual assignments.  They will sporadically make comments to each other about what they are working on or ask a question that they hope one of their friends can answer (they're in different classes).  The rest of the time they work "together" in silence almost as though they were in a library with others around them.  I'd like to explore this concept more at a later date.

Personally, I spent a large amount of time exploring social media tools I've never before visited and while illuminating in many ways, I felt cheated by the return earned on my investment of time.  I attribute this in part to my lack of expertise and focus (it's easy to get side-tracked) and believe I will become more efficient with experience.  However, as a famous person once said:  There's a lotta junk out there (or something similar). My conclusion:  With social media tools, as with junk food, the trick is recognizing how to circumvent the bad while feasting on the good.

I'm truly enjoying this class.  Coupling this course with the Theories of Learning and Cognition (heavy thinking and delving) was a good choice since this course is teaching challenging but fun stuff.  It really is like a kid's sandbox full of different tools for digging, shaping and creating.

Builder or Destroyer of community?

While I'm all excited about the new skills I'm acquiring and the new tools I'm discovering, I see and read things that sadden me. 

There is this dichotomy between the tremendous benefits and advantages the web has to offer and ways that it is stealing our humanity from us.  "Look Up", the video poem Katie posted on her blog is such a plea to put down the phones and turn off the computers and enjoy each other and our world before it's too late and the opportunity vanishes.

Charles Crook's paper reveals that, while Web 2.0 creates incredible opportunities within the sphere of education, few teens avail themselves of these.  The so-called "digital natives", who claim to be so adept at multitasking, when honestly commenting on their use of the web while doing homework admitted that they are distracted by other more appealing online pursuits and get very little or nothing done on their school work...."In the end you've added five photos and done no work".

The more I read around the more conflicting the information becomes.  Some claim that time spent on the web improves literacy, spelling, communication, etc.  Others claim that as a result of surfing the web, students' GPA's drop.  Surfing is an exciting but dangerous sport.  The better one becomes at it, the greater the illusion of control until, suddenly one day, nature laughs and the illusion is swept away.

Even before this class started, one day I walked into our breakroom at work.  Five of my co-workers were eating lunch around the table and each one was peering into his or her phone.  No doubt they were communicating or having something communicated to them by someone or thing somewhere but it certainly wasn't happening between the people with whom they were sharing the table.  Yes, it's amazing that a dad can see and speak with his wife and son via Skype or Facetime half way around the world but what about his neighbor right next door?  Communities of Practice are a wonderful, new phenomenon but how about the breakdown of community within the family?  Kids come home, go to their rooms and get on their computers or iphones.  Conceivably (and I'm sure some do) kids can go days or weeks without any real communication taking place between them and their parents or siblings. 

It is unfair to try to pin the blame on technology.  We created it and should be able to control it and not the other way around.  Like people who become addicted to alcohol or drugs, when technology masters us, it is simply another manifestation of a deeper ill.

I watched this great video on YouTube and highly recommend it. I found it from a reference a few weeks ago in one of our required readings, "Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond. From Production to Produsage", Axel Bruns (2008). The video is called, "Community Trumps Content" and is presented by Jeff Utech.  He currently teaches at a highschool in China (I think) and discusses how traditional schools block kids (or try to at least) from using social media and how we are really doing them a disservice since more and more the world/companies are demanding tech-proficient employees. 

He goes on to talk about the coming revolution in education and jokingly mentions that he has a FaceBook account for one reason:  So he will know when he's lost his job as a teacher because one day kids are going to realize that they can get so much more from the Internet than they can in school. 


Find it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8djV8slDN0

A Journey of a Thousand Miles begins with One Step

After spending an age trying to figure out how to set up a blog on WordPress, I finally gave up and switched to Google Blogger.  The advice was right.  This is so much more user friendly.  It is so late, it's tomorrow and I'm beat.

I'm excited about learning to use these tools even though the learning curve will be challenging.