Hi Rory and Clara,

 This is a momentus moment - my very first blog.

What are my personal expectations for this course? Well, it is really to get to grips with the pedagogy behind e-learning and developing e-learning courses.  Several years ago when I was hiring a venue for my courses in Boston, I started chatting with the guy who was helping me set up my computer room.  He was from MIT and he helped people design e-courses. The thing that struck me from our conversation was how a lot of professors just thought they could just put up their syllabus and lecture notes on the web and think that was an e-course. They had no idea that this was a different mode of delivery and that a different pedagogy was needed.  That conversation stuck in my mind because I had thought about offering my courses on-line but after talking to this guy I realised I needed to know a lot more. 

A little while after, a good friend of mine - Judy - who is a Professor of Education at UMass-Lowell - was required to start offering some of her courses on-line. Judy is an enthusiast for new things and she had some support from within her university.  But she has had a lot of hassles with her e-courses.  For one thing, it generates a lot more work than her non e-courses. She suddenly had to be available 24/7.  Then there were a whole range of technical issues - students didn't have high spec machines or were nervous about technology etc. Judy has also had to live with the fact that her university kept changing the VLE they used.

Anyway, I realised that I wanted to learn a lot more about how to design an e-course before offering one. Also because I am a sole trader, I don't have any institutional infrastructure. So I have to find alternatives that I can afford.  I also wanted to get connected with a group of people who are actively engaged in thinking about the pedagogy of e-learning.  I am so pleased with the diverse nature of the people who are taking the course and their different experiences.  It promises to be a rich learning environment.

Will post more later.

Hi Rory and Clara,

Actually Week 1 began on Week -1.  I guess I was not the only one excited about starting the course as quite a few others were doing Week 1 tasks before the official start of the course and I was happy to jump in on the discussion board when I saw a few others had already posted on it.

Someone mentioned about my giving sociological inputs and I hadn't thought about contributing to the course in that way before. But of course my reflections are coloured by my sociological eye - especially, as I am what is called a symbolic interactionist - so I am interested in identity, presentation of self, interactions with others etc. And these are issues all turned upside down in e-interaction.  Funny, I haven't read any sociological literature about that - but that is because I have over the years become more of a methodologist and specialist in software tools that support qualitative analysis.

However, I think it is important for me to start by reflecting on what it feels to be an on-line student and record that - so I will remember what it is initially like to be such a student when I design courses in the future. This is all new to me - well not all new - I have contributed to e-forums about my area of specialty - but I have always done that in the role of 'expert'.  Being in the student role is new to me. I wasn't sure whether to comment as everyone introduced themselves.  I found it easier in the beginning with just a few people but as the group grew I wasn't so sure. Of course, as course tutors both of you were commenting on everyone - which I saw as appropriate. I wasn't sure if I should.  But I kept reading all the posts which I found interesting. Then when I saw that some people were commenting on everyone as they came into the discussion, I became worried that I was being 'rude'.  Was it like walking into a room full of people and ignoring most of them? I didn't have a sense of what was expected.  Then I felt self conscious that I had left it too late.  Can you be too late in an asynchronous discussion? Well, you can see the order in which the messages were posted - so in a sense - yes. Then I started to respond to some people whom I found easier to respond - they asked a direct question of the group; there was something in common.

I am sure I will get the hang of it but it is something about not seeing people - well more not knowing them. I have no problems with emailing people I know and discuss all sorts of things. I like seeing people's photos on Facebook because I can start to get a sense of them.  I did a series of photos of myself for my Facebook profile - which I took myself - and tried to get an image that was my social, friendly self - not my professional self which I would have on my web-page.  So - with my sociological eye - it is very much about presentation of self and identity.

That's it for now.

Silvana

I started this blog but lost it when I tried to add a pdf to it. Not sure what happened.

I want to start by reflecting on the process of my work this week. Last week I was so excited by all the new (to me) online environments the course offered that I was neglecting to get on with my other work. In particular, I had an important tender that had to be in by the 30 Sept. Plus Saturday was taken over by my 17 year old daughter's birthday party and Sunday was recovering from it!

So Monday and most of Tuesday morning was taken up by finishing the quotation for the tender and getting it out. Plus I knew that Thurs and Fri I would be running one of my workshops - which run from 9-5 both days. So I knew I had to do the bulk of the course work on the latter half of Tues and Weds (today).

However, it is taking me a while to get used to asynchrosity because when I got on the discussion site, I felt 'late' because quite a few people had already posted responses. Of course, I was not really late because there was also quite a few people who had not posted yet. And then I wasn't sure whether I should just comment on other people's post or post my own comment as well. In the end, I followed your instructions and decided I should post three of my own responses.  But I wanted to see what I thought about the different scenarios without being influenced by the others. So I started with 'the Black Hole' and used MindManager to map out my thoughts. MindManager is a mapping software which I have been using this past year to a) map out my thoughts when writing (I started when I was writing my book to clarify complex ideas) and b) in conferences, to outline speaker's papers. It worked well with the Dark Side stories. There is an on-line collaborative version of this tool I think which could have some teaching applications - but my thinking is not there yet. Below is an image of the Black Hole one.

Black hole map.tif

I have been trying to copy and paste a picture of my MindManager map of the Black Hole without success. I did get a message saying do you want to copy the image of my clipboard to this web-page because then the webpage would have access to everything on my clipboard - so it might be restrictions on my computer. Anyway, I think I successfully upload a pdf of my MindManager maps of all the Dark Side stories. I think that is what - file 106 is below.

(note: I went back to edit it and I think it worked this time.)

Dark Side Stories.pdf

To get on with the process, what I did was to use MindManager to map out my thoughts about all six stories. Then starting with the Black Hole, I read through what people had said so far and tried to compose a post that added a new angle to the discussion at that post. And then I went through and commented on several people's comments. I did that as well for the Idler. I didn't think that the Invisible Student would be my third contribution but as I was reading through the posts, I got new ideas and posted them.

I have to go now and will be posting something more on the substance later - but it could be Saturday. It is frustrating not to have been able to post the image. I hope the pdf is there.

Week 2 Reflections on Process – End of Week

I am not alone

It was comforting to note that others had the same issues I mentioned in my first blog on this week about how to contribute to the discussion board.  The comments came on Friday and I didn’t see them until Saturday which is why I didn’t contribute.  But in the Black Hole discussion the following discussion thread appear (I am just taking extracts).

Jane: The chat does get confusing, especially if you miss a day of logging on (or even half a day). Cross referencing across threads does happen - I found it hard to know where to comment. You raised an interesting question - who gives up? When people feel they've lost the train of conversation. In a class, people repeat what one another has said, but on line, I get worried that people will think I've not read their post if I inadvertently repeat it.

Brendan: Within each scenario there are many comments saying many things that are worthy of reply but frequently the reply you might make has already been said by someone else or by yourself in a response to someone else.

Also what did you do at the start? I decided not to look at others' responses until I'd given my own view. Inside I kinda felt it was cheating to read others first yet I know thats wrong.

Jane: Yes, it could feel like cheating because we are giving a written answer to this, I know what you mean, but F2F it isn't cheating to listen to previous remarks. Perception is interesting here. I didn't think about cheating, I was more focused on making a useful contribution, not wasting people's time in reading it.

I shared Brendan’s confusion about how to start whether to look at others’ comments or not.  I didn’t feel so much as cheating as Jane mentions but wanted to get my own thoughts in order first. I felt I needed a basis from which to join the discussion. And I thought I might get easily swayed into one way of thinking about it if I started by reading others.  But I now realise that I could have kept that in the background – by just outlining privately my thoughts – as I did in MindManager - and then jump into the discussion. (See First Post – below).  Also I was getting confused initially by cross-referencing that Jane mentions. Where should I ‘hang’ my post?

Improving during the week

First Post

My first post was on the Black Hole. I have copied it below and the threaded discussion:

Silvana: Joanne reports that the tutors just told everyone to use the discussion board if they wanted to. If someone told me that, the message I would get is that the tutors themselves did not take the discussion board seriously. The design of the course was partly independent study, some face to face, and the discussion board seems just to have been thrown in. I would get the message that the independent study and face to face were the key components of the course.

Basically, the students who first started to use the discussion board set the tone - they just happened to be middle aged cat lovers. With no direction from the tutors, rather than becoming a learning environment the discussion board became a "cat chat". These students obviously interpreted the board as having a social function. It worked for them. Joanne instead wanted support in learning and interpreted that as the function of the discussion board. Alone, she tried to use it as a learning environment - with no response. Very humiliating for her - and probably very puzzling for the "cat chatters". The fault here is clearly with the tutors. (Although with adult learners, you could argue that they could also have taken some responsibility for their own learning and challenge the tutors about what they were suppose to use the discussion board for.)

What could be done at this point? I'd be inclined to say it is too late for this discussion board. But if I had to pick up the pieces and I decided that I wanted the discussion board to be a learning environment, I would a) respond privately to Joanne to reassure her b) post a message on the discussion board referring to Joanne's post and ask the others if they found problematic whatever topic Joanne had problems with c) start introducing some structure into the discussion - posing questions about key points in the course, and d) set up a social chat area for those who wanted it.

Having said the above - I have NO experience of working with discussion boards - so the above suggestions are just based on my "gut response".

Could the problem have been avoided? Absolutely. First of all, you should never include a teaching element if you are not going to take it seriously. Or think through what you are trying to achieve with that element. If you as a tutor don't take it seriously, why should the students? If in the course design, the discussion board was seen as an important component, you need to think through how it will interact with the other two components - the independent study and the face to face sessions. The tutors need to give a clear message to the students about its function and importance to the course. The tutors need to give some direction to the discussion - otherwise, people will just interpret how to use it for themselves or not use it at all - which happened in this scenario. Also the tutors need to monitor the discussion closely and intervene when necessary - so individuals don't feel excluded or rejected - as in this case.

Brendan: I'm with you all the way Silvana. If it serves no real purpose is shouldn't be part of the course. A bit more thought was required.

Eneas: I agree Silvana. The designers and moderators of the course did not give enough direction in how this discussion board should be used. Consequently members of the discussion board did not develop and share common learning objectives, which would have come out of good design. This obviously led to Joanne's frustration and feelings of alienation.

The teacher/moderator should have monitored and moderated regularly to make sure that learning was actually happening and not just being facilitated through the availability of this discussion Board. 

Clara: I concur too Silvana – some excellent ideas (and I say that as an “experienced”* online facilitator!)

And for this: “you should never include a teaching element if you are not going to take it seriously. Or think through what you are trying to achieve with that element.”

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. For me, the real problem here is a poorly thought out curriculum design – it’s like pushing over a domino, others fall afterwards. Though, that doesn’t help poor Joanne! Fortunately, you’ve all been coming up with excellent strategies for resolving the problem.

C.
*for a given value of “experienced – we’re all still learning :) 

OK – so I made some good points but the problem with that first post as I now see it, is that it was written as an answer to an essay question. I didn’t do anything in that post to open up a discussion. Also it is written in quite an authoritative style – which I realised in the middle of writing – which is why I added the caveat that I had no experience of working with discussion boards.  But I think that it is part of the transition of having a ‘written discussion’.  Because I was writing, I was thinking essay style – I had forgotten it was suppose to be a discussion. 

Starting to get comfortable

However, after posting the above, I went through and started to read and comment on other people’s thoughts.  I found (because we have such a great group) I could model how to engage in a ‘written discussion’ by how other people were responding.  I saw that discussions that seemed to flow had relatively short contributions.  Not too short – although sometimes you read something and you want to say “spot on” or “thanks for the reference”.  But I need to keep in mind that conversations flow – even if they are asynchronous.

The other thing that gets conversations flowing is to raise questions.  I found that I started to engage in what other people were saying and started to post questions. Below is an early example:

 

The numbers 2:1, 2:2 etc indicate the chronological order of the posts. This was a thread initiated by Youenn on the Black Hole. He made several points in his post but I raised a question about one of his points which was whether assessments would make a difference. This generated a discussion. Youenn responded but so did several others.Just putting on my qualitative analyst’s hat for a moment, I found it interesting to map out the responses to this thread and think about classifying the responses. (I used ATLAS.ti to do this which is one of the qualitative software packages I teach.) I am sure people have written about this but I found it helpful to see types of responses as:

Agrees with, discusses, expands, reflects on, and raises questions.

I’ve only done it with this one thread but ‘agrees with’ seems to stop the flow of the discussion – although it is obviously important in confirming and supporting one’s ideas.  You can see Clara coming in by raising questions and expanding on ideas but both Jennifer and I did that as well. Youenn is very good at responding whereas the rest of us responded only once – was that because Youenn initiated the thread?  Although in reading the other threads I know that there were many where conversations were developing between people who had not initiated the thread.  I haven’t look at those closely but I wonder whether they developed later in the week as people were getting more comfortable with each other and the discussion board - (This thread was earlier in the week.) - or whether this was initiated by people who are more use to the discussion board format.  

Strategies I started to adopt

The strategies I started to use engage people in conversation were:

To ask what others thought

To give examples of what I mean

To reveal personal experience 

Starting with revealing personal experience – the Invisible Student became my third (unexpected) topic.  (I was going to do the Saboteur.) By this time I was starting to understand about the conversation bit of the discussion board and it suddenly occurred to me to use my own personal experience of being initially invisible – and the cues people pick up from just written communication.  This post sounded more like my conversational self – yet at the same time I think it addressed some of the issues of the scenario.

I think it is surprising what pictures people can make about what we look like, our tone of voice, our personality from just our writing. I think we can't help it - we need to build a picture of the person with whom we are communicating.

I am talking from my own experience here. I run face to face workshops. I am freelance so people email me about what the course is about etc before they attend. And I have found that because of my name - Silvana di Gregorio - people are often surprised when they finally meet me. The most usual mistake is that during all our communication they thought I was a man. And they are shocked to hear my American accent. I had one man tell me that he expected to meet a middle aged Eastern European man with grey hair and a beard. (How did he build that picture from just email correspondence?) I was amused that he must have spent the first hour of the class readjusting to the real me.

And I have had the same experience imagining the students before I meet them. As I am not familiar with the Japanese or Chinese language, I often cannot tell if a student is male or female. So I am quite careful about not presuming what gender they are when I write to them. And I do make pictures of what students are like before I meet them. (Not intentionally, it just happens.) And sometimes I am quite surprised that my image was way off. I must be taking cues by how they express themselves in writing. And I think names (such as mine) have an impact.

I think our bodies are an important part of our identity. We express ourselves through our bodies. So we think of people having bodies. And people respond to how we express ourselves in our bodies. And if, as in this scenario, bodies are damaged in some way or are different, maybe we don't look at these people carefully enough to see the whole person. And in an online environment we are not distracted by the visual. Or as in the case of Second Life we can choose what we look like. I was reading Tim Guest's book - Second Lives - and was really struck by his description of how a group of people with severe cerebral palsy and mental retardation were liberated by their alter ego in Second Life where they could walk, dress themselves etc. – do things that they could not do in their first life. So yes, I can see it as liberating – being free of our real bodies. But I am not sure how much control we have over people making pictures and assumptions about us – whether in text, or even in Second Life. 

And then I realised that although I have not taught in an online environment, I had experience from my face to face work of teaching people with disabilities. And that I could extrapolate from that. Again from the Invisible student. 

If this had been an on-line course, none of the other students would have realised she was visually impaired. In fact, she was able to follow my digital handbook instructions better than some of the sighted students. I noticed that some of the students with perfect vision kept asking me for help because either their eyes had skipped a couple of lines in the handbook or they hadn't read far enough. Whereas you can't skip sentences accidently when they are read out to you. She also had an advantage as she had to become very expert at using computers. So the visually impaired student had an advantage over the sighted students in a digital environment. 

Summary so far on process

So although I was tied up most of the week with work commitments, I was able to learn how to participate and contribute in an on-line environment. I have been focussing on learning to take part in the conversation but I also see the value of lurking or as David A called being a ‘meditator’.  From just reading the posts I learned an awful lot. I intend to do another post on the substance of what was discussed – I hope I have time.

Reflections Week 3

Reading Feenberg I realised that he articulated a number of the issues I experienced getting used to the discussion board last week.  Community anxiety – the fact that there is an intense need for a response once you post something – that silence is a failure, a rejection – as illustrated in the black hole scenario.  The opposite side of that is the feeling of elation when someone replies to you.  I immediately warmed to people who responded to my posts.   The feeling was – wow, you responded to me – I like you!  I suppose you can say there is a virtuous cyclical reinforcement process going on – if you get a number of positive responses when participating in a discussion board, you feel good about yourself, good about those responding and you participate more. Whereas if you don’t get any response or if the response is delayed, you feel anxious, and if you try again without much response that anxiety is reinforced, you are less likely to continue.

However, I don’t think community anxiety is just restricted to asynchronous communication.  I just participated in the synchronous Connect session.  While I felt comfortable responding to people in the discussion board, suddenly seeing them made me realise that we didn’t really know each other. Eneas actually said that. It was partly technical issues – I had a really bad echo effect not only with my voice but with Clara’s which made it difficult for me to think clearly – and made it impossible to have a conversation which flowed easily. But our chat was stilted as well. 

I particularly liked Feenberg likening online conferencing to a game. Each comment has two goals – to communicate something and to evoke participation of others. The object of the game is to make moves to keep others playing.   As mentioned in my previous post, I didn’t realise that at first.  I was thinking only of communicating something – in essay-style mode.  During the week I saw that asking questions, opened up the discussion. I think I need to develop my skills in contributing this way.

However, what I don't like about the game analogy is a) it seems to trivialise what we are trying to do in a learning environment and b) it brings in a competitive element. I don't think competition with the idea that someone 'wins' the game is helpful in DBs. I think that would make many people feel insecure and less likely to contribute. I am coming to the view that discussion boards are extremely useful for experimenting with ideas, and have them develop, modified etc. through discussion. And that needs to be done is a safe environment.

I think the game analogy is limiting. I think probably exchange theory and symbolic interactionism are more relevant. I see that Goffman is quoted a bit in some of the literature I am reading, particularly around the presentation of self. But I also see relevance in the work of George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer. For example, people don’t just respond to others (a behaviourist approach), they interpret what others mean before they respond. And I think that is very relevant in DBs where it is harder to interpret because visual cues are missing. Although another argument could be that because visual cues are missing, you are not distracted by them and can get to the essence of the exchange. I don’t know but I felt the visual cues in the Connect room were distracting. It seems easier to discuss things on the bulletin board.

On another tack, I also realised that I felt a need to weave the scenarios last week. I just learned the term ‘weaving’ from Feenberg but that was what I wanted to do for the blog I didn’t have time to write last week. I see now that it should be integrated with the discussion board. And that in fact, that is what you and Clara have done.  But also I see that Feenberg says that the discussions get enhanced when members of the group do some meta-communication as well.

Sorry about the scattered thoughts here but it is due to a lack of time this week. I will ponder more later.

Communicating on-line: reflections on literature so far.I looked closely at Feenberg , and McInnerney and Roberts, skimmed Herring and Salmon’s Five Step Framework.  Just putting down my thoughts on these writers.

I think Feenberg identified very clearly the issues regarding CMC back in 1989. The issue of authenticity – is it linked to the physical presence? In referencing Plato – writing is an imitation of speech, speech is an imitation of thought  - so is Plato saying that the thought is the pure essence of idea, speech is one stepped removed and writing is two stepped removed.  I think there are two issues there – one is about authenticity – how do I know that the writing is from the individual it claims to be – the other is about representation – can speech or writing ever represent the thought?  Derrida’s quote – the fact that text can cross time and space means that it gains objectivity and permanence as it loses authenticity.  This clearly is about authenticity – but the objectified nature of text means that it can be revisited and reflected upon.  Going back to Plato, can speech or writing ever represent thought, I think Plato was wrong here. Objectifying thought in text allows one to reflect upon it and refine the thought. It is an iterative process between thinking, writing, reflecting, re-thinking, writing etc.  Anyone who has written a paper or book recognises this process.  And this is a strength of CMC.

However, I can see how this can be a strange environment for people who are not used to writing. Writing seems permanent. It can be seen to be exposing – especially if it is in public view.  Students may feel their views are not developed  – may become the object of ridicule etc. It is interesting although Feenberg talks about ‘managing identity’ online, he does not really address ‘exposure’ that the written communication entails. A student can make a silly comment in a F2F class but there is no written record of it and it could soon be forgotten or minimized because of subsequent interactions.  The silly comment is recorded in CMC and can be commented on while in F2F it can be shrugged off. ‘Flaming’ is related to this idea of exposure. However, Feenberg links ‘flaming’  to the desacralisation of the subject.  I agree with that – never having met or seen your online peers, they don’t seem so real – it is easier to get away with ‘flaming’.  But the other side of the coin, is from the point of view of an individual – exposing themselves in writing – well aware they could be an object of a flamer. In a F2F, there are the visual cues, to see if someone is impatient, arrogant – how others react to that person etc. Assessing those cues the student can decide to speak up or not. And if they decide not to speak up they can still engage with the discussion by nodding agreement, indicating dissent through facial expression.  They are participating in the group discussion albeit in a non-verbal way. They cannot see how this can be done through CMC. There are ways to minimize exposure in face to face yet be part of the group. I am not saying this cannot be done in CMC and Feenberg  goes on to describe how to manage CMC – but for someone new to CMC it can be a difficult,  and threatening environment – exposing themselves in writing.

McInnerney and Roberts talk about the development of a sense of community online – in order to minimize isolation and to develop trust.  They claim that in F2F classrooms this is not considered because social interaction happens outside of the classroom.  I think they must be thinking at university level. Good primary and secondary schools timetable activities that engender a sense of community. (My daughter’s secondary school which is a state school – take all their Year 7 and Year 9 students out of school for a week to their outdoor activities centre in Wales. And year round there are competitions between the houses - each student is assigned to one of 6 ‘houses’ upon entering - in drama, music, debating, sports etc. A lot of work goes into engendering a sense of community F2F.)  I don’t know that maybe lecturers/trainers in an adult environment do not see a sense of community as necessary. From my own experience, I designed the postgraduate research training programme at Cranfield, so that everyone FT and PT were required to attend the first week on-site and take part in a mini-research project – which had the multiple function of introducing them to the research process and for them to get to know each other as a group – as they had to do tasks in small groups and then come together. And there were social events such as a course meal during the week. In the short two day trainings I do now, we do build a sense of community – at the beginning of the first day – people introduce themselves and say a bit about their research etc. And there are times during the breaks and at lunch for them to socialise more.  I suppose McInnerney and Roberts are talking very specifically of the one hour classroom session where the focus is on the work.

Anyway, perhaps it is as they quote Wilson – the shift is not thinking of community as tied to a specific geographic space but as based on relationships. This is a new way of thinking for many people. (My examples above are based on bringing people together in the same geographic location.)  Their solution is to introduce a synchronous element to online courses. They suggest chat rooms as a place where students can get to know each other online and start to build up trust. They also mention that asynchronous discussion is also needed as they lead to more serious discussion.  The focus of their paper is on isolation and they claim that synchronous communication can avert feelings of isolation. However, I am not sure that a synchronous element is always needed to develop a sense of community.

Feenberg  places the emphasis on the role of the moderator in ensuring the success of CMC. The moderator has both a contextualising function – establishing the general area of topicality, and a monitoring function – verifying the accuracy of each participant’s judgement.  These functions are replacements for the tacit dimension in F2F interactions. Because of the lack of phatics online, the moderator needs to make very explicit statements about what they are doing on-line – this is a tutorial, a meeting, a seminar etc. And the moderator needs to lead the group into the appropriate communication style – through setting norms and the agenda and recognising contributions of participants as well as reassuring participants that they are contributing appropriately. In addition there are meta functions that the moderating needs to engage in – such as summarizing the discussion at key points – drawing out commonalities and differences – which can be the starting point for the next round of discussions.  I think Feenberg is arguing is that the moderator teaches the group by example how to operate in an online environment. The moderator reinforces those participants who start replicating the moderator’s behaviour as well as guiding those in private who need more reassurance or help.  If the role of the moderator is performed well, there may be no need for a synchronous element. McInnerney and Roberts recommendation of a warm-up period and a period for the group to form can be done asynchronously as well as synchronously. You have done it in this course – of course, we are a group of very committed people who are eager to learn about e-learning – so it would depend very much on the type of participant on a course.

 

Week 4 Reflections on Cousin – Learning from Cyberspace

Cousin’s argument that technologies work dynamically with pedagogies resonated with my experience of teaching and writing about the relationship between qualitative data analysis software and approaches to the analysis of qualitative data.  She describes very similar tendencies that people try to replicate how they did analysis with old technologies (such as index cards, multi-coloured pens, elaborate filing systems) in the new technology.  They use the new technology in very limited ways and do not explore the new possibilities the new technology offers.  A main difference is that qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) was developed within academia by academics, so those academics knew what they wanted the software to do.  A particular fruitful pairing has been between qualitative analysts and computer programmers – such as the husband and wife team Tom (computer scientist) and Lyn(sociologist) Richards who developed NUD*IST and then NVivo; another husband and wife team are the Kuckartz who developed MAXqda; ATLAS.ti was developed for a specific  research project with Thomas Muhr, the computer programmer, working with the research team to develop the software – which he subsequently continued to develop after that research project finished.  I have not read anything about the origins of VLEs, except the commercial ones do not seem to have been developed in tandem with academia. However, the open source ones seem to mirror this same collaboration between academics and developers.

Cousin’s reference to feelings of loss for the media that was part of identity formation mirrors feelings from experienced academics who have tried QDAS and talk about losing the feeling of being close to data – they refer to missing being able to feel and touch the data. The danger of this is that they want to replicate in the new technology the ways that worked for the old technology. They want to print out transcripts with coding stripes (which mimic the way transcripts were marked up on paper).  They do not realise that there are queries and other tools within the software that offer more efficient way of ‘seeing’ coding.  When NVivo 7 came out the developers deliberately left out the ability to print out the transcripts with codes – which had been available in earlier versions.  A very tiny but vociferous minority were publicly outraged by that – so much so that the developers put back that functionality in the next patch.  I see that as a transitional way of using simultaneously the old and new technology –which is the way that Cousins sees VLEs.

However, there is a small band of experienced users of QDAS who do experiment with the software and feedback their requirements to developers.  There is a dynamic between the technologies and qualitative research practice by analysts using, what I call, imaginative ‘work arounds’ to conduct the kind of analysis they need.  These ‘work arounds’ often appear as standard features in the next version of the packages. So analysis techniques shape the package and vice versa. What has not caught up yet are the methodology textbooks which are still written by people who do not use software. But my textbook, out this month, is the first which does discuss how the software allow new affordances as well as challenges to qualitative analysis.   Book cover.tif J .

One example of new technology adding a new way to analyse is the ‘node browser’ in NVivo.  (This invention did not come from qualitative researchers but from Tom Richards – a computer scientist – in talking with his wife Lyn about how she did analysis. Instead of just replicating what she did with old technology, he saw a new affordance that software could add.)  Traditional ways of coding a transcript is to mark up the transcript with codes.  Coding in this way directly on screen feels very different than coding on paper.   You have a different field of vision – you can only see part of a transcript and have to keep scrolling to see more of the transcript. Coding for all codes transcript by transcript is very tiring and difficult if you have to scroll. (So a lot of people code on paper and then transfer the codes on the screen – which doubles the work.)  But a more effective way to code on screen is to only code transcripts for broad codes initially (making for easier coding decisions) then opening the code (called ‘node’ in NVivo) for a broad code, read through it to get a sense of the types of things covered in that broad code, then in that broad code itself (called a ‘node browser’ in NVivo) code for those finer codes.  You are actually coding the documents because in the node is just a reference to which parts of documents are coded to that node, and it retrieves from the document database just those parts of the document.  So when you are fine coding in the node you are coding those documents.  There is no need to go back to the whole transcripts – although from the node, you can always access those documents if you need to see the coded text in context.  So this is a development which was not possible in the old technology but is possible in the new technology and enables a more effective way of coding (you are more likely to be consistent this way). At the same time it is still possible to code in a traditional way – and a lot of people do because they are not aware of this new possibility.  But as more people become aware of this possibility they are likely to change their coding practice.

Returning to Cousin’s discussion of VLEs, she says that there is an emphasis on uni-directional ‘broadcasting’ – putting up content. My only experience has been of this course using WebCT.  And you managed to emphasise the discussion board and have managed to encourage a very interactive exchange among course participants.  But it requires knowledge how to use that ‘tool’ and integrate that the use of that ‘tool’ in the course design. Note I use the word ‘tool’ which Cousin argues gives the wrong impression of the nature of technology. I agree with her – that there is dialectic between humans and technology - but I find it difficult to drop the word ‘tool’.  I don’t see technology ‘tools’ as inert (which she feels the term implies) but as very plastic – there is a range of possibilities that a tool offers and the user shapes the way it is used.  This course used the discussion board in two different ways – first, as an ice-breaker for course participants to get to know one another; secondly, as a way to develop thinking about a range of scenarios.

I seem to have been writing a lot about qualitative data analysis software rather than VLEs but it is just that the points Cousin makes about the relationship between VLE technology and pedagogy are very similar to my experience of QDAS technology and analysis.  You get the same arguments that the software should not influence the approach to analysis – but as I have just shown it is a dialectic between qualitative analysis approaches and the software – and methodology is constantly changing.  When I started as a researcher, tape recorders were bulky, expensive items and most qualitative researchers learned to take extensive notes. Now everyone not only uses digital audio recorders but more and more researchers are using video – as they become smaller and cheaper.  Cousin argues that pedagogy changes in the same way with technology.

The only part of Cousin’s paper I have an issue with, is her use of the rhyzome as a metaphor for the internet.  First of all, if you are going to use a metaphor you should use something that is instantly familiar – if you have to explain it, you should think of another metaphor.  The word ‘rhyzome’ meant nothing to me.  (Now, I think of a fresh piece of ginger – lol) Anyway, I think I understand the six principles and how she says they are related to the internet and a new pedagogy.  The first four principles are the strongest – connection and heterogeneity – it allows for any number of associations and connections between things. For pedagogy that means there can be many voices – the author/reader dichotomy is broken down – students can add comments, additions to the text.  As well as multiplicity – there is no one right answer. And I can see how signifying rupture works – a surfer can serendipitously find new links – go off in a different direction.  However, cartography and decalcomania I find difficult – I can understand that hypertext offers multiple exit and entrance points and I can see how that is related to a map.  But she says that a surfer can draw and redraw their map (of navigating the internet) – but cartography isn’t really about redrawing maps – isn’t the aim is to get the best representation of whatever you are mapping – so it is trying to get at an ultimate truth – whereas what a surfer is doing is much more fluid. (I don’t know.) And she does  not really explain decalcomania. I understand the word to mean transferring a design or image from one medium to another – but I am not sure how she sees how that is related to a new pedagogy.

I feel a bit uneasy about this post-modern element – I can see how it can lead to chaos.  But I agree with most of Cousin’s points. The medium is the message and VLEs are transitional objects.

 

Below are my immediate impressions of the e-portfolio examples.

http://www.richerpicture.com/dp/colleen/index.html

I found the Colleen portfolio (portfolio of a primary school pupil) disturbing but it graphically highlighted the ethical issues concerning privacy, permission and future implications of digital eportfolios. What is disturbing is that Colleen has no control over the portfolio about herself. It may be useful for teachers to track the development of pupils but that should be a private record – not something that anyone can access from anywhere in the world.

http://www.cfkeep.org/html/stitch.php?s=25054367282478&id=51020225091856

Cassie seems very comfortable in the e-portfolio environment. As a teenager, she has grown up with social networking software. I like the little map she has at the home page to help the reader navigate her e-portfolio. She has a good sense of how much text to put in and how to complement that with images and links. Cassie is unusual as her family featured in Newsweek’s the most wired family in the US. Both parents are computer scientists and she has been playing with computers since she was a baby. An extreme example of the net-gen. I like very much the way she structured her portfolio. This is my favourite one. She seems to generate specific blogs for specific things –e.g. her Maths blog.

http://www.education.uiowa.edu/eportfolio/phd/clinical/

Ren Stenson – was rather boring. Followed the format of a paper CV with just a few links – some audio added.

 http://eduspaces.net/csessums/weblog

 Christopher Sessums – interesting – sort of a combination blog and e-portfolio. I think the linear format of the blog does not work with e-portfolio purpose – need a way to catalogue entries.

http://www.johnwalexander3.com/index.htm

John Alexander – another CV type but more interesting than Stenson. Possibly because of the inclusion of the introductory video which embodied him – made him seem real. He is also has some more links to learning exercises and a personal space – talks about wife, and dog and has some personal photos.

http://www.couplands.net/mac/

David Coupland – good example of structured portfolio to fulfil requirements for a course. Again selected pieces – the reflections are very full but reflection seemed geared to fulfil reflection requirement. Don’t get the messy bits of reflection. In the link – Reflective writing tasks – there seems to have been a lot of scaffolding in place to structure reflective thinking around specific issues.

 http://portfolio.psu.edu/ann_c

Ann Chirdon – as an art education student she has used her talents in design to create a very visual portfolio. Makes me want to read it. Compared with Coupland above it is much more attractive. Although Coupland has a lot of very good content. The web is really a visual media – lots of text does not work. Cassie’s portfolio – above – is another example of framing content to what works on a web page.

http://www.multimediedesigner.ots.dk/users/Lise%20Agerbaek

Lise Agerbaek – Another good use of web space. I like how she has links to different aspects of herself – teacher, scholar, manager, graphic designer etc. Her web-page seems to be for business purposes – as far as I can tell as it is in Danish. However, there is no personal bits in her portfolio.

I am new to the whole world of VLEs, PLEs, and e-portfolios. I left academia over ten years ago so I have missed the introduction of these forms of learning environments in higher education. However, as I intend to offer some of my courses and support in an on-line environment, I am very interested to see what possibilities are available. I would not use something like WebCT as I am freelance and am not connected to any institution or organization. I have thought of using an open source VLE such as Moodle – but I have not got beyond the thought yet! However, I feel it is important for me to understand VLEs such as WebCT because the majority of participants on my courses are academics or doctoral students and it is useful for me to understand the online environments they are used to working in.

I commented previously on Cousin and VLEs and having now read the articles on personal learning environments and e-portfolios, I want to start with Kimball’s discussion of database e-portfolio systems. I start with Kimball because near the end of his article he makes two apparently contradictory statements which tie in with Cousin. He says that ‘technology can have a transformative effect, allowing us to explore new ways of meeting our goals and even changing our understanding of our goals...’ And then he says ‘Database technology should not run the pedagogy, the pedagogy should determine how we use the technology’. These two statements appear contradictory because on the one hand he seems to acknowledge the dialectic between pedagogy and technology – which Cousin emphasizes – yet he appears to come to a different conclusion to Cousin – that those who have been involved in developing portfolio pedagogy should get involved in developing consistent standards to help database portfolio developers. It seems that he sees this as a one way transfer of knowledge – but that may not be the case. It could be simply that he is frustrated that the ‘teachers of writing’ have been left out of the loop in influencing the development of e-portfolios. But it is not clear whether he envisages a two way dialogue between scholars and writers to allow for the transformative effect of technology. This is in contrast to Cousin who clearly states that the medium is the pedagogy.

However, Kimball’s account of the development of e-portfolios shows the various drivers that pushed e-portfolio development away from the goals of the portfolio movement – as a method of authentic assessment in opposition to the dominance of standardized assessments. Database e-portfolios offered institutions the answer to multiple needs – student record management, program accreditation, marketing professional competences etc. Corporations developing e-portfolios were guided by profitability – so the needs of administrators (a larger and more powerful market) would come before the needs of educationalists – as would a tool that would be relevant to multiple purposes. So I would argue that it is not so much the database technology itself that has led the development of e-portfolios away from their original purpose but the forces of the market that has shaped this tool.

Personal learning environments and e-portfolios both have a common problem in that there is no clear definition of what they are. However, PLEs seem to have been designed in response to VLEs. Lubensky highlights the following differences between them:

• PLEs are controlled by individuals; VLEs and LMSs are controlled by institutions
• PLEs offer a constructivist approach to learning; VLEs an instructivist model of learning
• PLEs are lifelong; VLE experience lost when studies are completed

Attwell also stresses the growth in lifelong and informal learning – given the speed of technological developments in the workplace, employees need to engage in learning activities to keep up. He cites a study which looks at how employees in SMEs learn. How such employees are isolated from communities of practice and rely on search engines such as Google to seek out forums for learning. He comments on the positive benefits of ‘lurking’ in order to get to grips with the culture of a new learning community before engaging more actively with it. PLEs can be a way such individuals can manage their learning. VLEs are currently tied to the educational institution and are not portable. E-portfolios could be another environment where such informal learning can be maintained but they too seem to be tied to educational institution or the workplace. (Although I think I saw on the discussion board that you can elect to buy your own license for the e-portfolio when your studies are completed.)

Reading this literature, it seems to me that the development of all these learning environments is in a state of flux. There are a number of different pressures that are influencing their development. There are bureaucratic pressures – there is a need to show evidence of reaching accreditation standards both at the individual student level and at the institutional level. There are pressures in the workplace to update skills and knowledge and needing a way both to document this lifelong learning and a place to practice learning. Educators are trying to encourage deeper and more meaningful learning and are revolting against the way some of their tools to do this (portfolio pedagogy) have been hijacked for promoting standardization of learning. Finally, corporations have seen a new market and are developing products that would maximise their profit. However, all these factors are affecting developments. VLEs which started out as simulating classrooms in a very instructivist mode are now including tools that can be used in a more constructivist way. There seems to be a variety of e-portfolio types – judging from the examples we were asked to look at. However, I am not sure that Barrett and Carney’s solution of a balanced e-portfolio system would work – integrating an archive of student work, with an assessment management system to document achievement of standards, and an area where students can be reflective and write their own digital learning stories. They claim it is unrealistic to separate out formative and summative assessments. However, integrating the two in one system has its problems. The summative side, by its nature, would be easier for students to set up and that could provide the template for the formative side unless - as Kimball suggests – carefully designed prompts for students are built in to guide student reflection. There is also the whole issue Kimball raises about ownership of the e-portfolio. Even if e-portfolios are designed so different versions can be displayed for different audiences, will students feel confident that their raw explorations of learning could be exposed by the institution to an unintended audience. Will they feel confident enough to put their real learning process in a permanent digital record of which they only have partial control?

In discussing PLEs, Atwell stresses that the interface needs to be easy to use and that there should be scaffolding to guide learners in planning and sequencing their learning. Kimball in discussing e-portfolios emphasises the danger of their being too structured and standardised on the one hand so that students become mere content providers and being too flexible on the other hand where learners’ e-portfolios become little more than personal web-sites. What they both seem to be saying is that learners need to be taught how to be reflective learners regardless of software first. They also need to understand how the software tools work. My knowledge of how researchers use qualitative data analysis software is that those who are experienced analysts and are confident with computers can see creative ways of using the tool for their purposes. However, those who are new to qualitative analysis and not computer savvy tend to use only parts of the software and do not have a vision how the analysis can proceed beyond what they perceive to be the boundaries of the software.

Experiments with WebCT and PebblePad

I have never created anything in a VLE or e-portfolio before, so these are the reflections of a complete novice in this area.

Even though I am used to working with a wide range of software packages, even beta testing some, I approached my experiments with WebCT and PebblePad with some hesitancy.  I am not sure why but I was a bit afraid to experiment – even though with WebCT I had some ideas about developing a course. It was like I was putting just a toe in the water, then maybe up to my ankles, then retreating because the water was too cold. Then going back again up to my knees maybe. I think I would have approached it differently if I had a deadline and I had to produce something real.  But I don’t understand why I couldn’t just relax and play with it.  It could have something to do with balancing work and life as well.

WebCT seems clunky but I put up some course content, a reading, linked the course to a number of discussion boards. I like the discussion boards a lot – this course has shown me how to use it effectively. So I was able to develop a number of learning activities combining readings and various discussion topic areas.  I like that part.

 

I like the look of PebblePad with the pebbles in the water and the calming sound of water. At first, I was playing around with the structured parts – building my profile, my abilities, my qualifications and created a CV.  At that point I wasn’t sure about it. It seemed very structured and dominated by form filling - especially as there is just part of an asset that asks for reflections. I thought - is that it? There didn’t seem to be a way to be creative with it. Eventually I discovered how to post thoughts and then I discovered the webfolio which I really like.  And I started to see how I could use this for creative reflections. And I saw how you can insert all kinds of links including a video link. So I am still feeling my way in this environment but am getting more confident.

 

Reflections on Web 2.0

Wow! There is so much out there. I had no idea.  First of all, Del.icio.us is Delicious!  I love it. Goodbye Google. It makes so much sense to tag your book marks.  Plus: the ability to search across other people’s tags.  I also found it useful to look at another user’s bookmarks. It gave me ideas on how to organize my bookmarks.

Michael  Wesch’s vlog on the anthropology of YouTube has persuaded me to look at it more seriously as a tool.  His research has identified some key issues about this media. I like the concept of ‘context collapse’ and the difficulties of creating an identity in the private space of your home that is open to the world.  I also like how he showed people’s first vlogs and how people find it strange and how they become hyper-self-aware. I experienced this a month ago when I did my first vlog – except I didn’t post it – I was experimenting with my webcam.  But the hyper-self-awareness came through when I suddenly commented about how I hate the way I look on the webcam.

A few days later....

I have been thinking a lot about Web 2.0 by exploring a whole range of applications but I haven’t been writing in the weblog a) initially, because I was overwhelmed with lots of thoughts flying around but not quite settling and not being sure what to choose for the wiki and b) Thursday night I flew over to the States where I am running some workshops over the next few weeks.  The good thing about the flight was I got to read carefully Paul Anderson’s What is Web 2.0: Ideas, technologies and implications for education which has helped me to put some order to my whirlwind of thoughts. But before I reflect on that, I want to comment on my use of Del.icio.us.

As I mentioned above I never used Del.icio.us before and I was quite excited by it at first glance. However, as I continued to use it I started to see some issues that are very similar to problems novices have when beginning to code in qualitative data analysis software (QDAS).  Tagging is the same as coding in qualitative analysis – except you are attaching tags or codes to whole web-sites as opposed to passages in a text.  Because it is so easy to code in QDAS people tend to generate lots of codes very quickly. And if they don’t quickly start to reflect on the codes they generated and refine them and organize them, they get lost, start duplicating, triplicating the same codes and can easily lose sight of what they are doing. I spend a lot of time discussing how one should approach coding in QDAS and the logic of organizing codes – and that logic of organizing codes is one aspect that many people find difficult to put into practice (except when I teach librarians who automatically know what I am talking about). I found that the same thing happened to me when I was tagging in Del.icio.us. I started to generate a lot of tags. I stopped and thought I would check out how others were tagging in Del.icio.us (not people on our course but in general) and I found that people were creating loads of tags. Many of these people’s bookmarks looked unmanageable. Then I noticed that you could create tag bundles – which is one way of managing and organizing the tags – but a lot of people were not using those.  Tag clouds help as well. But there is a lot of duplication. I liked the fact that the software suggests tags when you tag a site.  However, there was even duplications in what was suggested e.g. using plurals or the same word stem e.g. blog, blogs, blogging surely would all relate to the same category. But if you searched for one you would miss out the others.  In QDAS, you can merge similar codes or break down larger ones. There does not seem to be a merge option in Del.icio.us although you can rename and delete tags.

However,  Anderson’s report put another conceptual frame around what I was experiencing.  He introduced me to Vander Wal’s concept of a folksonomy i.e.  “people using their own vocabulary to add explicit meaning to the information or object they are consuming..”...”people are not so much categorizing as providing a means to connect items and to provide meaning in their own understanding” (Vander Wal, 2005).  Vander Wal identifies three key data elements of a folksonomy: the person tagging, the object being tagged, and the tag being attached to that object. As he says, from two of those elements, you can find the third. The key difference from how I was approaching Del.icio.us  is that it is not about using tags to ‘categorize’ web-sites (to create taxonomies) but as a way to find people or groups who share a similar vocabulary or interests. So the difference with QDAS is that qualitative researchers when experimenting with codes will be creating their own folksonomies  but because these packages are not yet Web 2.0 enhanced it is not a true folksonomy, there is no way they can click on a code to see what other team members are using for that code or other codes they are using – whether or not they’re viewing the data in similar or different ways.  And perhaps in true folksonomies  the organization of tags is not that important. Tag clouds are the way to navigate the system. It can be used to view your own use of tags it can be used to view an other’s use of tags – and Del.icio.us colour codes those tags that you have in common. So it is a way to find like-minded people.  And: also a way to develop new knowledge by exploring other people’s discoveries.

Anderson later talks about how some people are combining folksonomy with existing, formal ontologies (Al-Khalifa and Davis, 2006). He also mentions collabularies as a compromise solution where a group of users and experts work together to develop a shared vocabulary with the help of classification specialists. This sounds a bit like how a team of qualitative analysts should work together.

I find the whole way of working with folksonomies as fascinating. But would I have discovered that aspect of Del.icio.us if I started to use it without the knowledge I am gaining from this course? I am not sure that I would. My instinct was to organize the web-sites I was interested in with tags so I can later retrieve them. I wanted to create a taxonomy. I might not have noticed the social side of it for a while. I might have opted to keep my tags private. I wonder how most people use it – how aware are they of the ‘social’ side. Do people need to be trained in this? How much do people use the tag clouds, for instance?

How I will be applying Web 2.0

As I mentioned in my previous post, Web 2.0 is completely new to me. While I found this week a bit overwhelming with the amount of Web 2.0 offerings, it was very timely as I am about to embark on another collaborative writing project. Just two days ago, Norm Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln have asked my co-author Judy Davidson and myself to write the chapter on qualitative analysis and computing for the 4^th edition of the Handbook of Qualitative Research which they are currently negotiating with Sage.  I saw Judy today (face to face as I am in Boston at the moment) and we agreed that this time we will be using Web 2.0 tools to work collaboratively.  When we were writing our book we did look at Google documents but it did not support graphics and our book has lots of screenshots and mindmap figures – so we resorted to emailing versions back and forth. And at my end, I organized the various versions in NVivo.

I updated Judy about what I learned about Web 2.0 this week and this is the toolkit (yes, I am using the T word) I am proposing that we use. (But I welcome any feedback about this, Rory.)

·         Del.icio.us – I will add Judy to my network so we can share relevant web-sites – probably use a unique tag as we did for IDEL08

·         CiteULike – we are expected to create an extensive bibliography for the chapter so we need to develop this collaboratively. I joined CiteULike this week and see that I can create a group which would include Judy and I so we can develop a bibliography together.  I notice that there is also a blog option so Judy and I can write our reflections about the bibliography as we create them.  I also looked at Zotero which in a lot of ways I prefer because not only is it a place where you can store your references, but you can write up notes on them and for digital material, highlight relevant passages and add ‘sticky notes’ to them. It seems to have more tools for analyzing your references. However, it does not have a collaborative element to it yet and on balance, I think that is the key feature we need.

·         PBWiki – I think we should write the chapter in a wiki. We are mostly on opposite sides of the Atlantic and I think a wiki is a better way than emailing drafts back and forth.  We can share files and it supports graphics; we will be able to track back and reverse changes; we will automatically be notified when edits are made which will also let us know when the other is working on the document; also folders can be used to distinguish different sections of the chapter.

·         WordPress – I think possibly we could put up a blog where we start sharing our ideas with an invited group of readers – people we know who have written or worked in this area – so we can get feedback.

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I have seen a lot of connections in the literature on digital environments with similar issues with Qualitative Data Analysis Software.  I also see some Web 2.0 tools as supporting some aspects of qualitative data analysis – so I hope to reflect all this in this chapter. One idea I discussed with Judy was to get digital copies of the three previous chapters on qualitative analysis and computer from the three previous editions of the handbook so we can copy and paste each one in Wordle to generate word clouds. We could use that as a very visual starting point to discuss how the issues around QDAS have changed over the years.

Here is a word cloud of our chapter 4 on Research Design in Context: The e-project and communities of research practice:

I am sure I will be using some Web 2.0 tools when I design on-line teaching or support.  I need to think more carefully about that because what I currently do is to provide training and support for a range of QDAS. Because QDAS are quite complex tools, I think that any tool I use for training purposes should be easy to use – so I don’t introduce another technical hurdle.  As I now have a very real collaborative task, I will use this opportunity to get some practical experience of using some of these tools so I will get a better sense of how to use them in teaching.

 

The Challenges posed by Web 2.0

While I find web 2.0 fascinating, it is a volatile space and raises a number of challenges. I will use Paul Anderson’s ‘big ideas behind Web 2.0’ as a framework to address issues these ideas raise. The writing below is more in note form because of time pressures I have this week but I did not want to lose this thinking.

Paul Anderson’s big ideas behind Web 2.0

·         Individual production and user generated content

o   Positives: democratization of knowledge production, breaking down of elites

o   Negatives: concerns over accuracy, loss of authority and structure; intellectual property rights

·         Harness the power of the crowd

o   Positives: Wisdom of the crowd – aggregate of individual responses better than one highly intelligent individual; crowdsourcing – harnessing skills of people world-wide – benefits those who have retired; folksonomies – a way to find people with similar interests or a similar view of the world

o   Negatives: tyranny of the crowd – the crowd can get it wrong, difficult to be different, decisions based on crowd too easy – may stop reflective thinking; crowdsourcing negatives – could be exploitative of skills people have and could ruin the businesses of professionals in an area

·         Data on an epic scale

o   Positives: indirect data collection of data from users can inform businesses to customise targeted marketing or recommendations; mash-ups – combining applications can produce very powerful services

o   Negatives: Who owns the data? Privacy issues; information overload

·         Architecture of participation

o   Positives: Service improves as number of users increase – takes advantage of participation networks; content production available to anyone, content can be re-used and combined to generate new knowledge

o   Negatives: Who owns the data? Intellectual property rights. Plagiarism.

·         Network effects, power laws and the long tail

o   Positives: Network effect – the more people who use a service, the better it gets BUT depends on how much a new user will benefit existing users; the long tail – no barriers to niche markets – collectively the ‘end of the tail’ offers both business and intellectual opportunities; trend towards personalization of web

o   Negatives: Network effect – as an application becomes popular, people can get ‘locked into it’ – an inferior product can become dominant simply because it was marketed well early on

·         Openness

o   Positives:  Open standards, open source software, free data, re-using data, open access to research

o   Negatives: A lot of data is owned by commercial businesses; issues of access and portability between sites; Who controls access is an important issue – could find that data ‘giants’ such as Google could take control and this era of openness and free data etc will soon be closed down – could lead to a ‘surveillance society’; Intellectual property rights tension – particularly in academia where scholars’ reputation and promotion depends on producing original work; Role of copyright

The vast number of Web 2.0 sites

The perpetual beta status of many sites can make one insecure in trusting the long term viability of an application or service.  The vast number of sites leads to information overload. It is difficult to develop criteria on choosing a particular application. The current large number of choices inevitably will be narrowed down to a few which are viable but if you make the wrong choice, you may lose the work you invested in it. As Web 2.0 applications become more successful they will be vulnerable from attacks by successful platform-based applications. Just last week Thomson Reuters owners of Endnote have sued the Commonwealth of Virginia for the production of Zotero.

Implications for academia

Web 2.0 encourages a shift in the production of knowledge from the individual to the collective. While knowledge production has always been a collective process, academic reward systems are geared to individual publications. Academics may fear truly sharing their ideas on the net in case they get poached. Reward systems would need to be reoriented towards evidence of collective thinking.  As for students, the ease of accessing information on the net is both a strength and a weakness.  The strength is that students can have access to the latest data, articles etc for a particular topic. The weakness is that they could also experience information overload as well as not having the skills to sift through the wheat from the chaff. New information literacies need to be developed for academic searching on the web. In addition, the culture of re-using and re-mixing data and on openness on the internet may blur for students an understanding of plagiarism when they do their academic work.

Criteria for selecting a Web 2.0 application

Here is my first attempt at coming up with criteria for assessing a Web 2.0 application for the purpose of personal use. It is not in any particular order but I will have to refine this down into priorities. I would think commercially viable in the long run would have to be top of the list.

·         Ease of use

·         Attractive look

·         Fit for purpose

·         Interoperability

·         Good number of existing users

·         Privacy options

·         Commercially viable in the long run

·         Good reviews

·         Ability to export data in a variety of formats

·         Supports multiple types of data in a variety of formats

 

Reflections on Hypertext Examples

Electronic Zen

This piece was a delight to read. There was an overall coherence to the story regardless of which path you took. Normally, I get frustrated with hypertext – not being sure which way to choose usually makes me feel anxious. However, this piece was calming – truly Zen. The story was broken down into small chunks. It was not too difficult to take in and the cycling of lexia added meaning.  Landow says this is an example of a “mystory” – combining autobiography, public history, and popular myth and culture. In this case, Taro Ikai links his experience as a security guard in Tokyo, with work with a Zen master, and Japanese poetry.

Mystery web essay

Another delightful piece – very poetic, combining words, graphics, and video. I would classify this as art – a weaving together of words and images.

Of serendipity, free association and aimless browsing: do they lead to serendipitous learning?

This is a clever hypertext essay that uses hypertext to illustrate the topic of the essay – serendipitous learning. I liked the ways it gave the reader the choice of a linear or non-linear reading. However, the non-linear reading supports the subject of the essay. Particularly good was the map of the links from which you can choose how you would explore the essay. You could explore out of the essay to make your own serendipitous links to pursue your own interests.  I use mindmaps a lot to both map out other people’s ideas as well as my own. The use of the map in this essay gave me an insight into how I could construct my own hypertext essays from the mindmaps I construct.

The Internet, memory and medieval rhetoric

I like the way this essay combined images, text and audio.  The medieval analogy worked.  I think the textual side could have been more ‘hypertextual’ in the sense of giving the reader the option to read more or less. Having said this as it was an assignment for this course, it really sets the bar high so I don’t want to criticise it too much. ;)

'This is a test'

This piece looks at the implications of digital texts in academia. The first page would be very disorientating to anyone not familiar with hypertext. However, I found it interesting as it gave me a choice about what issues I wanted to pursue. I was not stuck with the linearity of a piece of text – I could just jump in a focus on the issues that I wanted to explore at that moment. It was well done but it must be difficult to construct in order to make sure that any path taken makes sense.

The essay and the websay

This example assignment with criteria for constructing a websay is very clear. I find it helpful for helping me think how to construct a websay. The assessment criteria is very good.

The general criteria for evaluation include

• incorporating the various levels of the assignment into your project;

• using visual to make arguments, rather than as background;

• organizing the website using a particular logic;

• achieving the standards the class established for successful public art;

• organizing the content of the websay so that all parts are clearly part of the same project;
• writing descriptively, colorfully, and grammatically correctly.

www.victorianweb.org

While I was reading the Landow readings I was exploring the Victorian Web. It is an extraordinarily rich archive of the Victorian period. I understand he compiled it over several years with his students and his students’ essays are included in it.  Exploring it there are contributions from academics around the world.  It is still being updated and there are instructions on contributing.  In addition, Landau gives monthly updates on what is happening with it. It is up to date – Nov. 2008.  This is an excellent example of how a research and teaching resource can be built up using hypertext.

http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/index.html

This is another Landow site – Cyberspace, Hypertext, and Critical Theory.  Again, this is another rich archive of information and examples of hypertext.

I noticed that in both Landow sites, there were broken links. Even though he is actively updating these sites when a site is so huge it must be hard to keep updating it. I also had a look at Landow’s biography and noticed that one of his other hypertext works(the Literary theorists section)  had been lost when Brown University changed servers. He has also had to move the Victorian web  - from Intermedia to StorySpace, then to HTML.  This raises questions of preservation of archives such as these.  While the technology is developing so quickly such preservation is not guaranteed.

Reflections on Landow and experiments with hypermedia

I combined reading Landow on hypermedia with exploring his Victorian Web and Cyberspace, Hypertext, and Critical Thinking sites.  It took me much longer to get through the article but I felt I benefited by seeing what he was talking about.  Of course, the downside of hyperlinks – which you mentioned Rory on the discussion board – is that you can get engrossed by the places they lead you so much so that you can go off task very quickly.  And I felt that was happening to me the past two weeks – both by exploring Web 2.0 possibilities and then hyper text possibilities.

However, I think Landow makes some very important points about the benefits of using a hypertext approach in education. The most important point is that it encourages critical thinking.  And I think the way Landow has structured the exercises with his students, it does.  But he is giving them assignments that are carefully crafted so that from their very first assignment, he is guiding them into making connections and suggests multiple ways a connection can be made between two passages of text – by theme, by technique, and by religious, historical etc. context.  He makes the point that instructors need to be clear about the role of hypertext and consciously teach with it. In addition, he says that instructors need to rethink evaluation – emphasizing conceptual skills such as making connections, the elegance of the approach, and multiplicity of answers.

An additional benefit is that a hypertext archive such as the Victorian Web can both reach non-traditional students who are outside educational institutions as well as drawing in academics and instructors world-wide into contributing their knowledge in the area. Students are not limited to the resources and instructors available at their institution and instructors are having their materials dispersed in an effective way.  The multiplicity of authors leads to a very rich resource. In addition, students also contribute and create what Landow calls a ‘course memory’ so future students can read, quote and argue with past students.

Landow also points out that the use of hypertext has impacted on writing style. He describes it as a kind of electronic collage characterised by appropriation and abrupt juxtaposition.  He claims that students combine academic and creative writing.

In relation to my work, I have used hyperlinks – rather than hypertext – in writing up qualitative analysis in NVivo.  Writing up an analysis is an exercise in critical thinking – you are linking your arguments to evidence in the data and evidence in the literature. Traditionally, this has been done in footnotes but in NVivo 8 you use hyperlinks to do this – and the links can be made to text, images, audio, and video but within and outside the NVivo 8 project.  The links are a kind of a hybrid of hypertext and footnotes – as you will see – but they are doing the same thing. (When printed out, they come out as endnotes.)  I have done a quick Camtasia video illustrating this (apologies – this was done very quickly).  However, this is a tool that students need to be guided to use.  They need help in developing the critical thinking tools to do so. (I notice that abrupt juxtaposition is a feature of my short piece.) The password to view this is – edinburgh. (Note: I had to put the link - it wouldn't let me add the video using the - Add External video button.)

http://www.screencast.com/users/SdGAssociates/folders/MSc%20E-Learning

I also experimented with writing a bit of hypertext myself using PowerPoint (as I don’t have any hypertext generating software – what is used, by the way).  I haven’t had time to finish this but it required me to think very hard about how to organize it – it is a different way of writing. (You need to view it as a slideshow.)

 000 What is Web 2.ppsx

 

First Second Life Experience

Wow.  What an experience!  I had never been to Second Life before so this was all very new to me.  I was concentrating on learning how to move around.  It was like being a newborn (except fully grown).  I was concentrating on myself so I could control my movements. I felt a bit wobbly.  I wasn’t interacting very much but I think that was because I needed to learn about me first.  In the end I think I got the hang of moving around although I still need to be able to coordinate moving and looking in the right direction – where the group is.  I accidently teleported myself out of Holyrood Island.  That was a very strange experience.  I don’t know where I landed but there were other avatars there.  I actually felt physically transported. It was really strange.

Here is a photo of myself:

I liked the way the meeting spaces are arranged in Holyrood Island.  I particularly liked the tent with the fire in the middle.  Here is a photo I took of it:

I went back to practice on Holyrood Island a few hours later.  I met Rosanna (Alison) while I was there.  She saw me first and said hello – but I didn’t see her at first – because although my avatar was staring at her, I was looking at the front of my avatar so I didn’t see her.  So I learned another possibility of being unintentionally rude in Second Life.  I need to get the hang better of seeing what and who is around me.

With Rosanna I got better at chatting – waiting while she finished typing before typing myself. It was strange, I have no problem discussing things with Alison or anyone on the discussion board but I felt nervous talking to her in SL.  I don’t know whether part of the unease I felt was due to the way we were standing still talking to each other and the fact that we were too far apart compared to how far apart we would be standing if we were talking to each other in real life.  Also it seems very limited in how we can use facial expressions.  I wonder whether this could be compensated for if we used the audio. At least from the tone of voice we could convey more.  It was also difficult to know when to end the conversation.  In the end I said I wanted to find Orientation Island (which I hadn’t been to) and just flew up and away.

I found Orientation Island by using the Search feature and went through the steps before crashing out of SL. 

Reflections on Taylor and Gee readings on Virtual Worlds and implications for education

Taylor and Gee both talk about three identities at play in virtual worlds.  (Taylor actually talks about bodies rather than identities but I think he is talking about a similar phenomenon as Gee.  However, Taylor’s emphasis is on ‘presence’ and an embodied presence at that, so need to think carefully how similar his view is to Gee’s.) They both agree that there is a virtual identity which the user has some choice in constructing but is constrained because the user has no control over the world they have to operate in.  They both talk of a real world identity (Taylor – physical body).  Gee talks of bringing in multiple identities which are filtered through their identity as a learner.  Any damaged learner identity needs to be repaired before learning can take place.  (Vis a vis Taylor – need to think through relationship of physical body to identity.) Gee brings in Erickson’s notion of a psychosocial moratorium where the learner can experiment with minimum real world risk.  Taylor also talks of people experimenting behaviours with their avatar and then decide whether or not to carry that behaviour into the real world.  Gee talks about the fact that a game (or virtual learning environment) is made compelling by bringing in some of the learner’s real identities.  Gee also talks about the “amplification of input” principle i.e for a little input, the learner gets a lot of output.

Taylor calls the third identity – the phenomenal body (citing Biocca) while Gee calls the third identity – the projective identity.  The phenomenal body refers to “the mental or internal representation” of one’s body. Taylor talks of the virtual and physical bodies competing with one’s mental idea of one’s self.  Gee talks about a projective identity and he is using the term projective in two senses:

·         Learners project their own values and desires onto their virtual identity as a scientist/writer/historian etc

·         Learner see their virtual identity as a project in making – they need to take ownership of their creation

 

According to Gee, if a learner takes on the projective identity they realise that they have the capacity to take on their virtual identity in real life.

 

While Taylor and Gee come to similar conclusions about the outcome of the phenomenal body/projective identity – that the impact of it can have real life consequences, I find Taylor’s phenomenal body more convincing.  It is the outcome of the competition between real and virtual bodies in one’s mind that can lead to real life changes.  I quote – W.I. Thomas – “What men define as real, has real consequences” (check quote)  How one defines situations, determines how one will behave.  The virtual body/identity experiments with new identities and receives new responses .  The virtual identity has to learn to live in a new environment and this learning is made very explicit.  Here Gee’s amplification principle kicks in – the results of experimenting either with how an avatar looks or behaves will have virtual world consequences in how others respond to one.  For a learner to see that an avatar could earn respect for their knowledge from other avatars could raise the self-esteem of the real identity.  Gee’s description of the projective identity seems to overlap with his description of the virtual identity.  The virtual identity is partly constructed by the learner and in constructing it, the learner must be projecting onto it their values and what they want the virtual identity to represent. I do agree that the virtual identity is a project in making.  And I believe it is in the competition or interaction between the real and virtual identities that both identities become defined.  Taylor talks about how it takes time to ‘get to me’ in constructing the virtual avatar.  In calling this phenomenon “getting to me” he seems to be talking about the joint construction of the virtual and real self.

 

In real life, we are constructing ourselves throughout our life – some people may do so more than others.  A sudden debilitating illness such as a stroke which limits mobility may bring this redefinition dramatically obvious.  Immigrating to a new country requires new learning of the new environment and how people respond to one and a consequential change in identity.  Going into a virtual world is a combination of immigration – going into a new environment – and a physical change in capabilities – such as a stroke.

 

For learning to take place in a virtual environment, the instructors need to create a setting and conditions which represent a place where they intend the learner to be able to inhabit in the real world.  As Gee says, the interplay of the three identities is a powerful tool to make learners aware that they have capacity to achieve whatever they are learning in the real world.  Also Taylor’s discussion about presence creating the foundation of immersion is an advantage in engaging learners in the learning process.

 

My own experience of being in Second Life (now just over a week) is that it is certainly immersive.  I found that I lost track of time while I was exploring Second Life.  While I did not create my avatar to look like me she does reflect my playful, creative side.  And interestingly enough, my husband said she looked a bit like our seventeen year old daughter.  So maybe her features do look a bit like a much younger version of me.  However, I am not sure about Second Life as being a safe place to experiment new behaviours – what Gee refers to as the psychosocial moratorium.  I find Second Life a bit scary and while I have been exploring quite a bit, I feel slightly anxious while I am doing so. I only feel safe in the Holyrood environment.  I suppose for educational purposes you would always have a safe restricted zone but to get started you need to go outside that restricted zone.

 

I have not been in Second Life long enough to experience what Gee calls the ‘tripartite play of identities’.  However, I can see that the more I craft my avatar – trying out different clothes, hair etc. the more attached I get to her.  I notice while I try different looks, there are certain ways of looking that are not right for ‘her’ (me?).  I can see the interplay between my values and what I project onto my avatar.  It could also be that as I am new to Second Life and find it a bit scary, I am wary of experimenting too much at the moment.  Perhaps if I become more experienced at Second Life, I will ‘let myself go’ with experimenting with her.  Algernon could very easily put on and take off his/her various permutations.  I have not saved her current form all in one place correctly, so I am still afraid of not getting her back in the way I want for the class.  That is more to do with technical competence.  Once I am confident to whip on and off different guises, I will feel freer to experiment.  Personally, I am used to having different guises. I am an actual immigrant from the US to the UK so I know about having to adapt to new worlds.  I also experienced it professionally when I moved from a social policy department to a management school – very different environments. (It was a result of a merger, so that was not a decision on my part, and I eventually left.)  When I moved to the management school, I had to get a new wardrobe as my social policy attire was not accepted as a serious look by the management school. (And vice versa, my management attire would not have gone down well with social policy students.) I felt I was the same ‘me’, but people responded very positively to me in the management school when I was dressed ‘correctly’.  And some were pleasantly surprised (as if I couldn’t figure out how to change my appearance). In addition, the school offered companies a course for women in management and one part was devoted on how to dress.  Women had to wear scarves around the neck (to protect their vulnerability), their pen was a sword, something else was a shield (I forget now – it might have been the pin on the lapel) but it was all worked out what the different parts of dress represented.  And women in management went on courses to learn all this.  But what struck me was that there were some people in the management school whose identity was completely tied up with that look – whereas I could change very easily from one look to another – it was a bit of a game, play acting for me.  But for those people who are very seriously tied to looking a certain way, crafting an avatar could be very threatening.

 

A final point here, is that it takes time to become competent in Second Life.  If used in education, you need to give people the time to learn how to operate in Second Life.  Constructing identities takes time and some people may find all this very weird – and possibly threatening (as mentioned above).  A close friend of mine and my husband think it is all very weird and they wonder how you can have a serious academic discussion with avatars who have wings, strange clothes, hair, and may even be in animal form.   In addition, Second Life is now discussed in the media – recently, someone murdered her avatar husband; another couple got divorced citing the husband’s infidelity with an avatar.  This media coverage confirms perceptions that SL is a weird place – running a course in SL could put many people off.

Reflections on Tutorial in Second Life

The chat transcripts from Second Life are in a format perfect for importing into qualitative data analysis software.  With a few modifications in WORD I was able to import the transcripts into NVivo 8 and automatically code for each participant’s talk. 

I was then able to link information regarding each participant e.g. gender, type of avatar, tutor/student. 

If I had recorded the tutorial with Camtasia, I would have been able to sync the video with chat transcript.

Because of time I only put in two transcripts – Algernon’s Monday and Tuesday sessions.  I was curious to compare my feelings as a participant in the Tuesday session with reviewing what was discussed in the transcripts.

Perceptions as a participant

I enjoyed taking part in the Second Life tutorial but I was not sure how effective it would be for discussion in a seminar format.  Frank had mentioned during one of the orientation sessions that the reason why we use chat rather than the audio in Second Life was because it was more immersive.  I am not sure about that but then I have not used the audio in Second Life. I could see, though, that it could create problems if everyone did not have a high spec computer and good bandwidth.  However, while I was a participant in the tutorial, I felt that we could have developed the discussion much more if we were talking instead of typing.  As a group we were all new and had not quite grasped the convention of watching if anyone was typing before typing our thoughts. So I felt there was a lot of cross talk.  It was different than typing in the discussion board because I have time there to reflect while I compose my thoughts.  Here I had to condense my thoughts quickly and I felt ineffective.  Several times I started to type something, then either changed my mind and started again or started again to type because of something someone posted while I was in the middle of typing.  While I enjoyed our conversation, it felt a bit rushed and I was not sure if we really discussed the issues Algernon posed.

Thoughts after reviewing the transcripts

Because of time, I have only started to analyse the transcripts.  I broadly coded them for ‘Meeting up in Second Life’ and ‘Tutorial’.  Within ‘Tutorial’ I coded for ‘Avatar Design’. 

Just looking at the conversation in ‘Meeting Up’ you get a real sense of socializing going on.  There are greetings, chitchat, comments on appearance, instructions on how to do certain things, and dividing into two groups for the tutorial session.  I think this is a very important part of preparation for the tutorial. It is a sort of warm-up session - people are seeing who will be coming to the tutorial and start to break the ice.

(I had arrived earlier than Algernon or Klara to the session – so I just want to comment on something that is not in the transcripts.  When I arrived I (Anavlis) immediately ‘recognized’ Leela (although at first I couldn’t remember who she was in RL) and started to chat to her.  I did not see Flick at first but then she came into view and was walking erratically.  Neither Leela nor Anavlis said anything to Flick and continued to chat.  Partly it was because I did not recognize her and was not sure if she was part of our group.  Suddenly Flick typed – “should I just go away then”.  Immediately both Leela and Anavlis said no, no and started to talk to her and found out she was part of the group.  So I experienced this weird sensation of ‘recognizing’ avatars and distinguishing who was in my group and not in my group.  I realised that I had been rude to Flick by not acknowledging her – but that is part of my anxiety about being in Second Life and being afraid to talk to someone I don’t know.)

Moving on to the tutorial session, I was quite surprised at how coherent it was.  Even when there was cross chat you could see how the discussion developed.  So I feel now that it is possible to discuss abstract ideas in a seminar format in Second Life.  I need to analyse this closer, but it seems the chitchat does perform an important socializing function during a seminar/tutorial – as long as it does not get out of hand – because as a participant I found it a bit distracting at times.  But it seems to be a way to connect with the other participants.  And it gives a sense of ‘real’ interactions.

As I said, I have hardly started to analyze the transcripts but we managed to have a conversation about the issues Algernon raised.  I can see with practice this can get better – things to be attentive to:

·         Placing your view so you can spot when a participant is typing and wait until they have finished

·         Moving the chat script to a place not obstructing the view but ‘in view’ so you can follow the discussion

·         Learning to express yourself in short spurts – these can be consecutive spurts using  ... to indicate you are continuing your thought but giving quicker feedback to your class participants so they can both see you have not finished and they can start to reflect on what you are saying

Examples of Educational Uses of Second Life

I have been browsing the internet and have come across some interesting examples of educational uses of Second Life.

Here is a link to the way Imperial College teaches hygiene protocol before entering the operating theatre.  Here the avatars are constructed to mimic real life as much as possible including the clothes that they would wear in theatre.  In addition, the operating theatre is replicated as near to a real world theatre as possible. The instructions are reinforced by an embedded video of a RL person demonstrating hygiene protocol.  They are also communicating with one another by audio.  Their use of the avatar differs from the discussion in Gee about identities – here the virtual identity is matched with the real identity.  The students are not given scope to play or experiment with their avatars.  They are trainee surgeons.  Of course, there could still be an interplay of practicing with the virtual surgeon which develops their identity and skills as a real life surgeon.  This seems to be a kind of interactive simulation.

This link is to a pdf produced by The Global Kids group in Teen SL about various ways you can use SL for educational purposes.  The different presentation possibilities they discuss are:

·         The Live Video stream

o   Good for bringing a real-world conference or lecture into SL but there is no interaction

·         The Live Radio show

o   Here the SL participants listen in and they can interact through a text-chat backchannel

·         The Virtual lecture

o   Similar to the live radio show except an avatar represents the speaker together with the avatar of an interviewer on a stage. The speaker does not have to control the avatar.

·         The Virtual Performance

o   Similar to the virtual lecture except the avatar does more than just stand on the stage. They can use PowerPoint, text, video, sound, animated objects.  They can also perform as in the real world, music, dance, theatre.

·         The Interactive experience

o   No stage or barriers between speaker and audience.  Play a game or engage your audience in an activity.

·         Physics free presentations

o   Don’t reproduce real settings but use affordances of a virtual world.  Difficult to produce. Can involve building things. Level of interaction is high.

 

Virtual MacBeth in Second Life is a very interesting example of an educational resource that on one level replicates the characters and setting of Shakespeare’s MacBeth but at the same time has aspects of the Physics free presentation.  This is a link to a guide that explains this resource.  Upon arrival you are greeted with an avatar kit – MacBeth, Lady MacBeth, the witches etc – so you take the role (or at least the appearance) of one of the characters.  One of the most intriguing spaces you can visit is MacBeth’s head.  This is literally a structure of MacBeth’s head as if it had been chopped off and is lying on the ground.  You can explore inside this head, literally explore MacBeth’s motivations and choices – and you can choose yourself which path to take.  The Chamber of Blood is another surreal space with no right angles and apparently you ‘feel’ as though gravity is pulling you down.  Here agency is taken away from you and you are forced to engage in mechanical killing – symbolizing MacBeth’s lack of emotional control.  There is also a maze you can enter that represents MacBeth’s confusion.  There are three teaching studios and it seems you can design your own teaching projects using this resource.  The Virtual MacBeth wiki has teaching resources suggesting how instructors can use Virtual MacBeth.

I also found a link to the New Media Consortium in Second Life which holds an annual conference showcasing various educational projects within Second Life.

If I were serious about developing any learning space in SL, I would explore examples of its use.  I am particularly interested in understanding the new affordances that SL offers and what kind of learning it enhances. I can see that it could be useful in teaching observation and interviewing skills.  This is a link to a course on Field Research in SL.  I am toying about how it could be useful to bring together geographically dispersed people together to discuss how a research project was analysed within a qualitative data analysis package.  It would be as sort of ‘virtual performance’ with a screen showing the desktop of someone who is demonstrating their project and the rest of the participants sitting on cushions in a semi-circle in front.  They would be asking questions and commenting. But I don’t know if it is possible to show a desktop with another application open and also Second Life (and it may require a very high spec machine if it is possible).  And I need to think through what added extra would conducting this in Second Life have over a Webinair.  (My feeling is that the Webinair is a more familiar environment and one in which viewing a screen is possible.  However, just viewing the screen gives you a different field of vision than viewing a SL seminar.  The SL seminar will remind you that there are others present and would encourage interaction.  It would also remind you that it is a seminar –as opposed to just  you and the screen.)

Reflections on Dreyfus, embodiment and cyborgs

I read Dreyfus' On the Internet before the start of the course and it made me reflect quite a bit about the nature of the internet.  He poses the question "What if the Net became central in our lives?" And his argument is that "if our body goes, so does relevance, skill, reality and meaning".

While I feel Dreyfus makes important arguments about the relationship of embodiment to emotional involvement in learning, to having a "grip on the world" to get a sense of what is real etc., he is taking an extreme view that the internet is a totally disembodied state.  Dwight in his review of On the Internet illustrates that Dreyfus is taking a phenomenological perspective on the internet and sees "disembodiment as the very essence of the internet".  From a phenomenological perspective, "essences" are essential and unchanging.  Dwight, as a poststructuralist, believes that "essences" can change over time and are flexible, depending on use.  Burboles also notes that Dreyfus is guilty of focusing on just debunking the hyperboles of advocates of technology. He claims that Dreyfus posits an exaggerated dichotomy between full bodied presence and disembodied telepresence.  He goes on to say that the virtual is not the opposite of real (which Dreyfus' arguments suggest); that the virtual is just a different context.  Burboles argues that we do not leave our bodies behind when we are online.  The body continues to affect us but in different ways.

My own experience of this online course supports the arguments put forward by Dwight and Burboles that one does not lose one's sense of embodiment when online.  I agree with Dreyfus that being embodied we have emotions when we succeed or fail when learning - which is important to motivate students to learn.  However, I totally disagree that online education is completely disembodied and therefore disembodied students have no emotions.  One still feels embarrassment when an off-the-wall suggestion is exposed as irrelevant or sick in the stomach if one is flamed or attacked online.  We may not see one another's bodies but we know they are there - we can imagine them; which is the point Blake makes.  Blake says that "imagination makes possible risk, not just the bare body".  So when responding to someone's point on a discussion board, one can imagine how that person could respond to your response and that frames how one responds.  Over time in a course, one gets to know one's peers on the course in the kinds of arguments they bring to the discussion which is different from when one first joins a course with new people.  In our discussions on asynchronous conversations and discussion boards, we discussed the value of "lurking" which can be seen as a positive in terms of getting to know a group and its culture before participating more actively.

Blake also makes the point that Dreyfus is considering only two versions of Distance Education - electronic correspondence courses and videoconferencing.  Again, Dreyfus is accused at looking at extreme examples - of correspondence courses where students are very passive, there is little interaction with tutors, the course is text based and geared to the mass market.  Blake rightly accused Dreyfus of ignoring developments in these kinds of courses, not least the developments the Open University (Blake's institution) has made in this area.  Likewise with videoconferencing – Dreyfus sees this as a one way interaction, with students being passive.  He ignores the question of how much interaction can you have with each individual in a large lecture hall.  And he ignores developments in asynchronous computer conferencing where students are not anonymous and there can be online collaboration.  While some of these criticisms can be offset by noting that On the Internet was published in 2001, Blake quite rightly note that the Open University (as just one example) had been innovative back in the 1980s in developing distance education which went way beyond Dreyfus’ stereotype view of such courses. (Dreyfus himself has more recently commented that his book is out of date; his family uses Skype to keep in touch and acknowledges the body is creeping into the internet.  However, his core argument remains the same – the difference he acknowledges is that the internet has developed so that some aspects of the body can now be represented in it.)

McWilliams and Taylor have a different take on the importance of bodies.  They are concerned about the disappearance of the teacher’s body in the move towards online courses in higher education.  They are particularly concerned that driven by concerns towards increased access to mass markets and lower costs, universities may become more and more virtual, marginalizing face to face teaching.  They claim that teaching and learning has been displaced by design and delivery.  They criticise Western culture’s mind/body dichotomy which privileges the mind. They discuss how teachers’ physical performance can be extremely engaging and inspiring for students.  Utterances themselves can be delightful (or not!).  And it is important for marginalized groups to see scholars from their group represented in the teaching body.  They argue against the either-or logic about digitality or corporality and ask the question “what difference does a teacher’s body makes”?  So while similar to Dreyfus in that they are making the case about the importance of the body for education, they are not taking Dreyfus’ extreme view that education can only be successful (in the higher orders of learning) by physical presence.  They are keen to reintroduce the importance of the teacher in instructional design.

Dwight proposes that the term “cyborg” describes best the online learner.  He uses Haraway’s  concept of cyborg – “...a hybrid species of functional unity, not essential duality, a union of a biological organism with cybernetic mechanism”.   Dwight sees “computers as tools transacting with human actants... and of e-learning environments as loci where humans and computers transact in a collaborative social enterprise”.  Clark claims that we are naturally born cyborgs.  He points out that every day we work with old technologies.  We take notes about articles and books we have read, we file them away so we can access them when we need to.  For this course, I have used MindManager to map out the key points of the articles I have read and have used those maps to refer to when I write up my reflective blog.  I have written about e-projects – qualitative analysis conducted in a qualitative data analysis software package – and advocated how they can be used as a place to store everything that is relevant about a piece of research – not only the raw data and products of analysis such as codings and memos but also the protocol, consent forms, notes on literature can all be stored in one place in the e-project.  Analysis is an interaction between the “wet-ware” of the brain and the electronic container which facilitates retrieving and reviewing data and experimenting with patterns and linking arguments to evidence from the data. So the notion of the cyborg seems very evident to me from my own practice.  Likewise, in online learning environments, we do not leave the body behind – the body is interacting with the online tools.  I see that different tools enable different ‘layers’ of engagement with the body.  As we have seen asynchronous discussion boards can provoke emotional responses – flaming is an extreme example of that.  With the addition, of voice (e.g. Skype) we can also pick up immediately the tone of how something is said; whether a voice is warm or cold or distracted.  Another layer was added when we experimented with Adobe Connect which enabled both seeing and hearing others. Plus it added another layer which we never see in everyday life – how one’s self looks when interacting – which personally I found disturbing.  Second Life added another layer – by actually seeing bodies milling about – even though they were avatars – highlighted the social aspect more of engaging in learning.  So I would disagree with Dreyfus that the essence of the internet is disembodiment.  I would argue that there are different degrees to which the body can be engaged in the internet but it is never completely non-existent.

However, as a teacher, I am aware that teaching is a performance (something which McWilliam and Taylor allude too).  And performance is an interaction with the audience – or group you are teaching.  In real life, the teacher (or performer) gets a physical response to how the group is responding to you.  A group can leave me feeling drained or energised.  Somehow people can send out physical “vibes” (for want of a better word) which physically impacts on the teacher (and, of course, vice versa).  I wonder whether a teacher still feels that in an online environment and if they do, is it related to the different levels of bodily engagement different online tools allow?

Reflections on Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants

The terms “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” are examples of buzz words that upon first hearing appear to be attractive and sum up people’s experiences of the growth of the internet but in reality are based on unexamined assumptions and little evidence.  It seems all too obvious.  In talking to a professor who was complaining about a student using mainly Wikipedia as a reference in essays and who could not be bothered to go to the library right next to his dorm, I mentioned the term “digital native”.  This professor’s face instantly lit up as though that explained everything and he made the leap without any prompting from me that he, therefore, must be a “digital immigrant”. He had never heard the terms before but he immediately latched on to them – they provided a way for understanding some of his troublesome students.  (I did move the conversation on to how Wikipedia might not be that bad a source of information and explained how wiki’s work.)

Prensky’s article on Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants is strong on hype but weak on evidence.  He has a way with words.  What is troubling is he implies that it is “likely” that students’ brains have physically changed through being brought up using computers, digital games and the internet.  He provides no evidence for this.  I found shocking his very negative connotations of immigrants. Bayne and Ross rightly critique his racialized discourse.  Prensky’s piece seems to be more of a puff piece to promote his own business. He invents games for learning and part of his piece describes his work with a group of academics to develop Monkey Wrench – a game to teach CAD software.  He puts himself in the role of “translator” – to help academics translate their teaching into the language of the digital natives.  But there is a contradiction here – Prensky himself by his own definition must be a “digital immigrant” – so how can he translate?

Prensky’s piece is all over-simplification and generalizations.  Where is the evidence that learners are not accepting current teaching styles?  And where learners are not happy with current academic teaching – what kind of teaching are they not happy with; do they see digital games as the alternative?  My guess is that a lot of what Prensky is describing is due to the move towards huge classes in some US universities.  Wesch describes how his Introduction to cultural anthropology class at the University of Kansas has 400 students.  No wonder he describes students as struggling to find meaning and significance in education.  It is a “bums on seats”, mass education, cost benefit approach to education.  Students are treated as cattle – herded into large lecture theatres.  The digital native, digital immigrant discourse hides the fact that student disaffection may be due to this MacDonaldization of education. Wesch himself is an extraordinarily creative teacher.  He has to live within the constraints of the University of Kansas system. While he describes his style as “anti-teaching”, I think it is more about “anti-talking at” students.  He says his focus is on inspiring students to ask good questions.  His World Simulation is a wonderful way to engage 400 students – a real tour de force to pull off in a semester.  Wesch is very familiar with digital media and knows how to use the affordances different digital media and Web 2.0 offer.  He is not arguing that his success is due to the use of these new tools – rather it is due to finding a meaningful narrative for students to engage them in learning.  He just uses the tools that are relevant to the task – and the task involves engaging 400 students.

Bayne and Ross provide an extensive critique of the digital native, digital immigrant discourse.  They show that this discourse feeds into the view of higher education as a commodity (as mentioned above) and would appeal to a managerialist agenda.  It also marginalizes the role of the teacher – putting the teacher, as a digital immigrant, as subordinate and passive in relation to digital natives – leading to an unequal power relationship between developers and academics.  They also identify a paradox in the discourse; the teachers, because of generational determinism, are situated as immigrants and unable to change.  Yet at the same time they are told that they must change in order to be able to teach the new digital natives. They also remark that there is a sense of inevitability and powerlessness in the metaphor which can explain both the uncritical adoption of e-learning by some as well as the violent rejection of e-learning by others.  They conclude “...the discussions that mediate online learning and teaching do not spring up from nowhere, and to abandon the possibility (responsibility?), as learners and teachers, of shaping the technologies we use (which will inevitably shape us in turn) is to leave ourselves at the mercy of those whose interests may be quite different from ours...”.  As I tried to show at the beginning of this reflection, the metaphor is quite powerful; it seems to offer an explanation in the same way the term “generation gap” was used in the 1960s – another time of social change. But, as Bayne and Ross point out, framing the situation in this way leads to powerlessness.  Monero argues that digital migrants are, in fact,  ideally placed to teach the new generation because a) current digital tools are still hybrid tools – they have been developed mimicking some aspects of older tools – he cites the transition from typewriter to word processor and b) the vast majority of material on the web is still text based and those “who grew up in the printed culture have a wide repertoire for managing, composing and decoding texts and these skills continue to be essential for efficient browsing”.

My own experience including my experience with qualitative data analysis software supports what Monero argues.  I would be a “digital immigrant”, according to Prensky.  But I would consider myself a “digital adapter” and an “early adapter” of qualitative data analysis software. I wrote up my PhD in long hand which I then typed up (and then sent to a professional typist to type up properly). I remember thinking that writing was a very physical activity – bound up in the relationship between my pen, my hand and my brain. (I didn’t realise back then that I was a cyborg!) I would take extra care in choosing the “right” pen (old technology).  When word processors started to become popular, I could not conceive writing straight onto the computer screen.  I thought it would be impossible; that the quality of the writing would be affected in a negative way. When I had my first desk top, I would write first in long hand and then transfer the writing on the screen. However, little by little, I learned to type directly on the screen.  It was a long while before I experimented with cut and paste – moving text around. I knew how to do it long before it became something I did and did not think about. It took me even longer to use track changes.  But with practice and continual use, word processing and writing directly on the screen has become natural.  I see that in adopting new technology, people go through a transition stage.  But if they have the need to use the new technology they will adapt to it and some people find innovative ways to use it. Those who do not adapt either do not have a need for the new technology or do not see the need for the new technology. A good friend of mine does not know how to turn on a computer – but in her job as a physiotherapist, she does not need to use one. (But where she works has just now insisted that case notes have to be written on a shared drive so now she needs to learn how to use one, and she is scared. But up to now, she has never had the need to use one.)  It is the same with qualitative data analysis software. I would not say that it is the younger generation of researchers who are attracted to it.  It is those who are new to qualitative research who are attracted to it – and these people can be in their 50s as well as in their 20s.  The group who are most resistant to using it are those people who are experienced qualitative analysts – who have their tried and tested ways of doing analysis.  They will only adopt a qualitative data analysis tool if they are convinced of the benefits.  Why should they take the time to learn a new tool when their own tools do the job well? However, if they have to supervise students who are using these new tools then they need to understand them. And more and more supervisors are taking the time to learn these tools.

At the same time, it is wrong to characterise all young people as digital natives.  There are certainly socio-economic differences in terms of getting access to computers in the first place. In addition, the JISC report shows that 16-18 year olds do not have a clear set of expectations of how they will be taught at university.  Most may be familiar with social networking tools but they still see “face-to-face interaction as the backbone of their learning”.

 

Reflections on my personal journey exploring digital environments for learning

I have reviewed my blogs during this course and have pulled out the key features of my personal journey exploring digital environments for learning.  First of all, I have found the blog itself a very useful contemplative space.  I have used it to record my first impressions of the digital environments I have explored as well as my experience of being part of an online course.  I have also found it a very useful space to think about the literature that has been assigned.  I have used the blog as a “scratch board” to reflect on the literature as opposed to a place where I craft a carefully honed essay.  All the literature was new to me, so I needed a way to start to consolidate it before moving on to the next topic area and I feel the blog was useful in helping me to read more deeply and think more reflectively, than if I just read and got involved in the discussion board.  Having both the blog and the discussion board were very useful devices – the blog was a quiet place for me to reflect and put my developing ideas together and the discussion board was a place to talk to the others on the course and see their different responses to the same literature.

Starting from the beginning, in my first blog (which was the very first blog I ever created), I wrote that I had the following three goals for the MSc as a whole:

·         To learn how to design an e-course

·         To find alternative platforms to run an e-course - as I am a sole trader and do not have an institutional infrastructure – (which I now see as an advantage maybe)

·         To connect with a group of people who are actively engaged in thinking about the pedagogy of e-learning

I feel I have a lot of learning still to do before designing my own e-course but I feel by just being a part of this module I have learned a lot a) by looking at how this course was designed and b) by the literature and environments we explored during this course.  I have a much wider vision now of what is possible in an e-course – as well as pitfalls to avoid.  As for alternative platforms to run an e-course, I think the course did an excellent job of going through the whole gamut from structured to new environments.  I have already designed my own Web 2.0 toolkit to write a chapter collaboratively with a colleague in the States (see my blog entry on that) and I can see how I could put together a toolkit for teaching purposes.  Finally, this module has been very successful in connecting with a group of people actively engaged in thinking about the pedagogy of e-learning.  When I wrote that I was thinking more about the academic staff who run the course and Rory and Clara have been great.  But what surprised me was how much I got out of reading and discussing the thoughts of the other participants of the course.  So I feel I have joined a much wider network of people that are interested in the pedagogy of e-learning. I guess that reveals my own preconceptions of what an e-course can offer – I was not aware of how it can create a social context for learning.

Moving on from my goals, some of the key learning points for me have been:

·         Getting used to asynchronicity and recognising its value in creating an online social environment

o   Initially, because the discussion board was a textual environment, I responded as though I was writing an essay. I quickly learned that it is a conversation – albeit a written conversation.

o   I developed strategies (from both looking at how others contributed and the literature – Feenberg: 2 goals for each comment, to communicate something and to engage others to respond) to allow the discussion board conversation to flow

§  Keeping my inputs short

§  Posing questions

§  Revealing personal details about myself

§  Humour

o   Realising needing to “pop in” everyday to “see what was going on”.  Popping in regularly enabled me to keep up with the posts and to respond when there was something I wanted to say.

o   Realising that a written asynchronous conversation allows for quite deep conversations over a wide range of issues that it would not be possible to cover face to face.

o   Realising the work a moderator needs to put into the design of discussion boards:

§  Having a clear agenda that is time limited

§  Recognising contributions and reassuring participants

§  Weaving – summarising key points; pointing out areas of commonalities and differences

§  Monitoring the group – being attuned to those not participating or not being answered; clarifying possible misunderstandings

·         Technologies working dynamically with pedagogies (Cousin)

o   Tendency that people try to replicate the way they work in old technologies in new technologies e.g putting up content only on VLEs

§  This is an area I was very attuned to because of my work with qualitative data analysis software

o   VLEs as transitional tools from old to new technologies

o   PLEs and e-portfolios as other alternatives to support life long learning

·         Folksonomies and the whole concept of Web 2.0 and social networking and learning

o   Thinking through the difference between quantitative and qualitative coding, indexing text and social tagging.

o   New insight that I can learn from the social tagging others have done on the Net e.g. Del.icio.us, CiteULike, YouTube, Flickr etc

o   Folksonomies and Del.icio.us are the subject of my assignment as I want to explore this area more

o   Being made aware of the number and range of social networking sites on the Web.

o   Discovering the work of Michael Wesch and how he uses YouTube.

o   This area had an immediate practical benefit because I am involved in a collaborative writing project. Have set up a wiki to work with my colleague in the States.

·         Hypertext and critical thinking (Landau) and the concept of creating hypertext resources such as the Victorian Web

o   The use Landau made of hypertext to encourage critical thinking. The multiplicity of possible answers.

o   I was amazed by the poetry that could be created using hypertext.

·         Second Life and virtual worlds as adding an embodied layer to online interaction; creating virtual world resources such as Virtual MacBeth  to add another dimension to learning by experiencing.

o   Experimenting with identities in virtual worlds which could have an impact on real life.

o   The use of Second Life to consolidate group identity which had been established by the discussion board.  Brings socializing element to the foreground.

·         The concept of “natural born cyborgs” (Dwight) – the body interacts with tools whether it is the old technology such as pens, paper, typewriters or the new technology of online environments.

o   The implication that different tools allow for different layers of engagement.

·         Digital natives/digital immigrants as a dangerously simple binary distinction that obscures individuals’ proclivities to engage online.  I see myself as a digital explorer.