Danah Boyd recently wrote asking why the “tech industry fetishizes Facebook” and I can certainly see her point but having recently started playing around with it more I can see it’s potential for becoming a personal learning space for students and even staff. I’m just not sure it would be my tool of choice for my PLE given all the privacy issues. The biggest bugear is that you can’t sepearte differnt parts of your life with the one account. My real world friends (what friends you ask!) often don’t know each other and are not often aware of each other. I have different friends for differnt reasons and never the twain shall meet. Why oh why can’t I replicate this online?
And while I get up a head of steam for ranting, I think to the OMG isn’t facebook great this goes double or second life. How can a tool that is so difficult to use and requires a great deal of insider knowledge to use successfully ever me of anything other than a niche product. From some tech people here in the UK, you would think it was about to revolutionise the way we deliver education. Tosh I say!! Bah Humbug!!
Facebook / Second life hype
September 14th, 2007 by ncurrant · No Comments · Uncategorized
Catching up on ALT-C 2007
September 14th, 2007 by ncurrant · No Comments · alt-c2007, web 2.0
As it has been over a week since alt-c 2007, I think it is about time I put some reflections down.
First off, I was very impressed by the 2nd keynote from Dylan Williams about technology for formative assessment. If I had heard him speak 10 years ago I might have been pursuaded to stay in secondary education. I often sense a big gap between the tertiary and secondary sectors. I think we have much to learn from each other but often don’t.
Anyway, getting back to web2 stuff. IT was reassuring to note that others were struggling with the same issues related to wikis. Technology just mediates human interaction and as long as it is not too difficult to use then the same issues about people working together come across.
I did not see anything particularly new and innovative at the conference but I think that can be a good thing. Being too ‘out there’ will only serve to put the majority of staff off.
Other interesting points made during the conference:
Subscription versus downloading of things such as podcasts, video etc. We (including students) still seem to be strongly wedded to the download model and have not embraced subscription services. I think this partly comes from organisational skills. I don’t think the majority are not that organised in their online activity, I know I am not.
Digital natives seem to be a myth – or at least are not as au fait with the technology as we are led to believe. They often do not see the technology in the same way as the digital immigrants but thy still often have the same difficulties and are no more knowledgable about web2.
Using web2 in institutions – The speakers from Sheffiled Hallam seemed pretty upbeat about using freely avaialable web2 tools in institutions. I wish I could be so upbeat about mine. It always comes down to IT saying they can’t support it. However, the argument is why should we support it? These tools come with their own help, they are usually simple and easy to use as they serve a specific purpose rather than being the catch-all behemoths of VLEs. Can’t we try it without IT support and see how it goes. If it fails then it fails but at least we know rather than endlessly speculating.
RSS feeds / netvibes etc.
March 22nd, 2007 by ncurrant · No Comments · web 2.0
Have been looking at the possibility of online feed aggregators (or more correctly web services with feed readers build in) as a delivery method. Netvibes is definitely my favourite. it was intuitive to use, personalisable, looks good and works quickly. MyYahoo and Google reader look clunky and Neanderthal by comparison.
One problem I have encountered though is getting feeds from private google groups. I think because the group is private the feed can’t be read. This of course raises the issue of whether the group should be private. Is the functionality of the feed worth changing the settings?
Think Big
March 19th, 2007 by ncurrant · No Comments · Uncategorized
I don’t think the smaller pilots are going to work. They are not web 2.0. They just don’t have a large enough group to get any momentum or else they are too restricted in nature and don’t fit into using such technologies.
We need to think bigger, ecoversity portal, whole education authority use of ILP’s. This sounds like they might work.
What is web 2.0…and can we even do web 2.0 in the way we are.
March 19th, 2007 by ncurrant · No Comments · web 2.0
One of the key ingredients of O’Reilly’s definition of web 2.0 is ” Harnessing network effects to build applications that get better the more people use them“. Given small cohorts of learners how do we even begin to harness this effect.
One solution of course is to harness the wider web and knwoledge and links that exist on the Internet. Unfortunately, what about the under 18′s issue? Can we introduce these students without being somehow liable if ‘something bad’ happens. I personally don’t share this rampant paranoia that exists in the media and schools about letting children have access to teh net, but it is the world we llive in.
Direction and using web 2.0
March 19th, 2007 by ncurrant · No Comments · web 2.0
I am experiencing great frustration at the moment about thinking of really innovative and effective ways of using web 2.0 on projects. So far I don’t think what we are doing is really harnessing the potential of web 2.0. For example, using google groups is great but how is it any different to using a VLE or anything else we have already been doing.
One of the big problems is our cohort of potential learners. It is all very well for those of us who sit at a desk all day with unfeterred access to the web and our own computers but for the majority this is not the case. They either do not have access to computers at times when they need to have it or they have restricted access to the internet (e.g. in schools).
Increasingly web 2.0 tools are small apps that you download. Again, fine if you use your own computer with admin rights but what about out and about in public areas. Tools such as Stumble Upon put a toolbar on your browser. Others such as Trailfire let you tag websites but again it works best if you download the app.
Password confusion
March 19th, 2007 by ncurrant · No Comments · Uncategorized
Having signed up for various web based tools, wikispaces, google groups, blogging tools, social bookmarking and you get the idea, I am now in serious risk of suffering password and username meltdown.
How can we expect learners / students to cope especially if we want to introduce them to new tools. The obvious solution seems to be to use what learners already use and tie it all together with RSS feeds but darned if I can figure out how this would ork in practice with a group of students.
Welcome!
March 19th, 2007 by ncurrant · No Comments · Uncategorized
As the title suggests, this blog plans to set out my own personal learning journey and provide my own insights into using web 2.0 for learning and educational uses as part of a funded project in Higher Education.
This is more for musings and thoughts in a more informal setting than any specific work stuff.
