Social Media & Education - Reasons to be Fearful by Neil Selwyn (CCK11 live chat)

Social media and technology in education is exciting to be passionate about, but we need to also be caution and critical of some of the elements that this can bring the the teaching world.

Paper by Neil
Neil's publication page
4 areas to be concerned about (talking points that are being considered "out there")

Jonas Backelin: Fearful vs. excited

1 - Acknowledging the ideological nature of social media and education

• nothing is cut and dry
• there are not just technical issues to consider
• there are ethical issues too
• Michael Apple - Whose interest do technology in education serve.  Whose agenda is met.
• Various agendas:
• technophiles, '
• counter-cultural communitarians (hippy new age - making the work a better place),
• social pedagogues (redefine what users/learners are doing) ,
• radical individualist (individual should pursue their own interests)
• anti-statists (removal of the state from education)
• free-marketeers (can lead to the enhanced efficiency of education)
• Landgon Winner (1997) - cyberlibertarianism - a collection of ideas that links ecstatic enthusiasm for electronically mediated forms of living with radical libertarian ideas about the proper definition of freedom, social life, economics, and politics in the years to come.
• Where are things not changing, what is not changing for the better, where are problems sticking, what are new problems, who wins or loses using these tools, who gains from the use of the tools

Moderator (Stephen Downes): I'm actually in favour of using technology for stealth socialism
dustproduction: Immersve virtual worlds are also social media, and students are spending the same time, 10,000 hours gaming. This equals the hours spent in school.

NinaF: Definitely see that education is becoming more commodified.
FrancesBell: Agree - use of social media is not neutral - particularly when Facebook treats members as product not customers
the digital conservatoire: I think nothing can ever be neutral - of course our views are skewed by whatever our ideological stance is. I just find that people have not quite got the hang of technology - in terms of how to exploit its potential
Jennie Scott-McKenzie (jennieteacher): I am equally committed to getting schools outside - physically and in the community as well as using social media to apply our humanity in those local/global actions. I don't see it as all or nothing...
BrainySmurf: it seems that 'control' of education is more obviously in hands of users/learners in the past, which seems inevitable now that knowledge is easily accessible outside of classroom fredgarnett: Technology not neutral, but new media is adopted according to the degree that it patterns to conversation (Digital McLuhan)
 
2. The over-valorisation of the informal and the institutionalised

• the rush to reject the institution

Wanda Simpson: needs to be a blending of informal/institutional learning & technologies
dustproduction: so remove the technology and the social media is  still "emergent"

• Geeking out on social media tools,
• people who are good at learning find all sorts of ways to learn
• We under appreciate formal education (not popular to say, but it is true and we may miss out on true value)

Moderator (Stephen Downes): The best predictor of learning outcomes in general (and not just informal) is social-economic status
Moderator (George Siemens): interesting: formal learning as "equality of opportunity to access learning opportunity" johngriffin0928: I learn certainly things autonomously. I need help with other areas.
Jennie Scott-McKenzie (jennieteacher): the problem isn't expertise - it's the way it is delivered by the "classic learner" that has floated to the top of a "classic system" to teach in a "classic way"

• Remember we don't know what we don't know, and sometimes we need to be told what that is.

Stu Harris 1: balance is the key word
Moderator (Stephen Downes): the difference isn't between 'learn in a formal classroom' and 'learn by yourself / learn by discovery'

• People arguing to get rid of schools tend to be those that did well not in formal school

Cris2B: "end of school" is much like "end of newspapers" as Shirky argues we're lamenting the institutions as we know them and not as they need to evolve
BrainySmurf: @George, yes online is presenting new roles for formal institutions if they choose to embrace it
Stu Harris 1: all learning institutions should be constantly working to improve the learning environment.
Jennifer Dalby: I think we've come to this position because we started with the agenda of achieving recognition for informal learning.
BrainySmurf: @George, yes online is presenting new roles for formal institutions if they choose to embrace it
Mike Johnson: many learning technologists are so immersed in technology they forget those who could care less about it - the Selwyn critique has massive resonance with me and my students
Simon Fowler: @neil, I totally agree ... it does seem rooted in a post-modern suspicion of 'authority' and 'power' - as though we the free people don't seek, exercise and need authority and power (i.e. we want 'empowerment')

• should everyone know some sort of "programming", some sort of technology as this is the way information does seem to be moving and transferring around?
• Critical literacy vs. technical literacy (formal seems to promote this more) - critical digital literacy (better)

Jennifer Dalby: If new people don't learn programming, we'll only have technologies designed to influence consumer behaviour
Moderator (Stephen Downes):Those keen on formal, you do not "hear" say that you can't learn socially.  That you can only learn formally as well.
carol yeager: @Stephen ... solo learning is possible but is it preferable? and to what extent can one learn as a solo silo?

Value of formal education, gives those that are migeralized that can't access informal learning modes, gives more equality in education.

Moderator (Stephen Downes):It's not just "individual vs collective" but rather "individual vs Collect model A" and "individual vs collective model B" etc

3. Social media are not necessarily fair media

• not everyone has access to the same tools let alone computers or technology
• difference even in the nature of the use of the media
• more are okay with just consuming, but not as many produce and this is the opposite to "the purpose" of social media (perhaps)

Jennifer Dalby: There's a kind of digital charisma that comes into play, that is rarely acknowledged.
JGChesney: but the 1% who blog, 9% who comment and 90% who read are a far bit better than the passive culture taught by TV consumption by the previous generation
LeahGrrl: @Stu: Here, those percentages are reversed. Most kids don't get through high school in urban Columbus, Ohio.

• You learn more from doing (ie adding to wikipedia you learn about wikipedia, than just reading)
• learning in groups is a fair way to learn (perhaps not a good way)

Moderator (Stephen Downes): I think eventually everyone will have their own server (much the way everyone has their own telephone)
Stu Harris 1: @jonas    I think technology should not be as defined in schools.  It should be available and used for the purpose that presents itself at the time and in the context
DUMACORNELLUCIANro @web20education: I think that web 2.0 and social media can bring a new dimension and redorm education worldwide http://www.scoop.it/t/web20andsocialmediaesafetyinxxicenturyeducation/

BrainySmurf: in social media circles it seems a bit easier to reject those with whom we don't jive and find others with whom we do - seems a bit hard in person to do that
Abdullah: social media from my point of view provides more fairness for handicapped people who might find it difficult to "get out" to socialize. Of course there is this condition that they need to have internet connection.
fredgarnett: @Neil, when the LGC group developed the Open Context Model of Learning, based on what we learnt about learning from using new technology we deliberately left out any technology descriptors so people could think about learning; see http://www.slideshare.net/fredgarnett/the-craft-of-teaching-2011


4.  Social media and commodification of learning

• principles of social media are going main stream
• often about politics

Look to the recording of this talk.  My notes here are very minimal to what was discussed by the presenter and even less so of the classmates chat discussion. http://cck11.mooc.ca/recordings.htm

Proud Connections to the Blue Cloud People

"Looking at Your Connection Network with New Eyes"

So last week when I saw that you make a visualized map of your connections on Linkedin I thought excellent, I want to see how mine compares to the example they show.  And voila here it is.

Compared with examples I was kind of embarrassed on how small mine was.  It didn't look very dynamic or exciting at all.  How was I to share this with #CCK11?  Look how few connections I have.  I need more peers!!!

So I decided to keep it to myself.  Don't let anyone see how "unconnected" I am.  Then I re-looked at it today with a new set of eyes.

Let's give some context  here.  I'm in the middle of the network.  The green dots represent some of my organizational development contacts.  The orange dots are some colleagues from an improv troupe I once belonged to.  The pink dots are some of my colleagues from work (I'm adding to that).  The red dots either don't have a category or fall somewhere into the ones represented.  Then there is the large blue cloud of dots. That represents my elearning network of peers.  Some of these people I've met in person once or twice, but very few of them have I every laid eyes on.  These are my connections I have made purely through social networking.

Now that is a powerful statement.  I'm more connected to people I've never met face to face then I am to co-workers in my on organization and there are 2800 of them (there's about 15 dots represented by organization staff).

So several things come to me from this diagram.  Thinking from a career and work perspective I have more in common with the Blue Cloud people then with the people I interact with daily at my place of employment.  In fact to be honest I believe I interact with the Blue Cloud people more on a daily basis.  (face to face is over rated ;) - I jest).

The connections within the Blue Cloud are astounding.  There are so many interconnections within that network.  Truly a group of peers that connect and related to one another on many levels.  The links between the people are so great that they are almost solid.  I know many of these people here have a great number of further connections to other Blue Cloud people so the network I have represented is probably 1/10th the number of people that are actually in that cloud if with expanded it further and further to second connections.  Most probably my connections are 1/1000th of the secondary connections of those people, maybe more as I am only guessing.

Another very striking observation for me, and this is in light of some of the controversy at our organization about social networking and social learning, is that I am a bridge between those that I know are using and getting the significance of social networking and those that do not.  The people in the Blue Cloud my not understand it (and many might as they are a part of CCK11 or past CCK's), but they are all apart of my connected knowledge.  These are the very people that I connect with daily.  These are the people that are finding information, reworking it, retooling it, re-purposing it, sharing it back into the network for more of the Blue Cloud people to find, rework, retool, re-purpose and share back into the network.

This extremely tight network, and I say that because I have observed over the past several years that anyone with in this network can ask a question or look for feedback and some part (people) of the network always responds immediately.  Not an hour from posting the question and not a day, almost instantly someone answers back.

If I could post my Twitter network in a visual display such as the Linkedin one my Blue Cloud people would be more accurately represented.  The image above does not show the 900+ people in my Blue Cloud (elearning peers) network.  That is my place for connecting my knowledge to them and they to me.  That is where we share and learn together.

Small representation of twitter network - not great.

So the diagram above that bridges me between those that get it and those that are trying to understand, I believe will be a very powerful tool as I move forward in my organization being a champion for social learning and reasoning behind the need for connective knowledge.

How do you read through it all and keep up with everything? #cck11

I was a little scared when I read that the first CCK had 2200 participants and the second 700.  If the course/theory about learning through your connections means I have to connect to that many people, how am I ever to manage.

Even with my Twitter account I'm approaching if not over the 1000 mark and it's becoming more more difficult to look at it all.  I think many people that hear about learning through a network or networks have that panic feeling initially about "How can I possibly read/view/follow it all?"

And then I breathed......

I though about my own advice that I often give people that I'm trying to explain the benefits of Twitter to and I watched Success in a MOOC.

And then I breathed again.......

You don't have to follow it all.  You don't have to read it all.  You read what interests you.  You connect with smaller groups or communities within the larger network of all the people in the class, or all the people you follow  on Twitter.

What is good about this practice and makes it all more manageable is that if you connect with a few great people that you know share great information....where do you suppose they are collecting some of it from....other connections within the greater network.

Consider this picture below.  If you connect to A & D  and they connect to B & C, you most likely will end up getting some of the best information from B & C even though you never truly connect to their RSS feeds, Twitter posts, bookmarks, blogs, pics, etc.  In turn Person C is going to get some of your best information as well.  Not from you, but from Person D or A as they are the people that follow you and share out your information to the network.

We can't possibly follow every person that is out there sharing information on specific topics.  However, if you can build up some really strong connections with others interested in the same "topic".  Develop some "trust in sharing" and "learning relationships" with them.  Create a network.  Then these people become your community.  We each in turn become gathers for one another.  Gathers of information.  Distributors of information.  All learning together.

Starting the Year off with #CCK11 - 'Connectivism' and Connective Knowledge

I walked into work yesterday and my co-worker told me how she had just signed up for 2 final courses she had been hoping to complete for the past year in order to complete her certificate.  I'm not sure which bulb went off in my head, or maybe the term should be which one went on, but I had the feeling come over me that I wish I was taking another course.

Then less then half and hour later I see on my Twitter feed from George Siemens:

We (@downes and I) start CCK11 on Monday http://bit.ly/hJwXEKbiggest change-no LMS (moodle). Sign up here: http://bit.ly/fNR8KF

As soon as I saw the #CCK11 I knew exactly the course before even following the links.  This would be the Connectivism course facilitated by George and Stephen Downes.  I've looked into the course in past, but didn't think I had the time to commit to joining the extensive "conversation "this course will create.  So a little more digging and I think I've found what I might academically be looking for right now.

I suppose it felt like to many "signs" all appearing at once that I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to tap into a new learning opportunity.  Some of the faces in the class are ones that I have been communicating and learning from for quite some time.  So that feeling of first day of school and I don't know anyone is still there, but not nearly as bad as day 1 Grade 1.

My only challenge at the moment is getting registered.  It's amazing that this is a free MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), and I have registered online for the course.  However, if I can get a credit for it from University of Manitoba I'm going to and  there is the place that I'm currently having trouble registering.  It's my own fault leaving this to the last minute, but I did only find out about it yesterday.

So, here's to an exciting new learning adventure.  What a great way to start off a new year.