Pedatechnical Pilates

April 20 Discussion: Support

1. As I was reading Nutbeam’s article on health literacies I was thinking of literacies on a broad scale.  He focuses on health literacies, but I was correlating that to digital literacies—a topic of conversation we all talk about in our field. AS an assessment person, I am actually quite fond of his model, with a few general changes.  He ties different stages of literacy to levels of outcomes.

Functional literacy—communication of factual information

interactive literacy—improving independent capacity to act independently for individual benefit

critical literacy—supporting effective social and political action to benefit a population

Nutbeam’s model seems to frame a nice discussion on digital literacy—and the issues that it does not address, access. There is today a subset of the population that still have very little access to anything digital.  This fact means that there is a widening gap bewteen “literate” and “illiterate” at a far more worrisome level than ever before.  How do we prepare for  this and begin to address this concern?

2. The idea of mediation is support resources is one worth a discussion.  in the HutchWorld study there was no moderator—anyone could write whatever they wanted (although, I want to make it clear that was a PRIVATE network to begin with).  In contrast, the CHESS program was moderated by health professionsal that would “respond to or delete any medical information that is either incorrect or potentially harmful to participents.”  Will participation be limited if everything is monitored?  Which type forms a tighter “community?”  And how do we cope with an era of digitially literate ppl trying to ‘be theirr own doctor?

Social Presence Discussion

1. As I was reading through the articles for this week’s discussion, I kept asking myself a question: How is “social presence” (technological) different that “identity (technological)? And can a social presence, like a identity, be stolen? 2. In an organization, who (or what group) is responsible for creating a social presence? It begs to discuss—can there be a collaborative social presence?

March 30 discussion: Reputation and trust

1.   While I was reading David & Pinch’s Six Degrees of Reputation, I found I was critiquing the study. How did they define “prominent authors?” why did they just look at Amazon for duplicated text—the WWW is a big place and an editor could easily copy text from another site.  And then, their results said that 5% of reviews were not original. “So,” I ask myself, “five percent?  That isn’t alarming. After all, there is still far more reviews online than offline (and several are doubled up), so percentage wise, there is way more reviews available online—plus the affordance for accessibility is lower.  Then I realized that the bigger issue here is ethical behavior, including self-plagiarism.  While judging credibility, trustworthiness, and reputation is important in the information, what do we need to be aware of in the information users that are an ever growing concern?

2.   In all of the readings I read (Resnick et al.; Rieh & Danielson;  David& Pinch) there was a continual little voice in the back of my head: reputation, trust, credibility—-all based on the user’s evaluation of the online source. Each user brings with her her own context, her own experience. Can we just assume that the “digital natives” inherently have the ability to properly assess the value of a source?  All three of these readings make it very clear that that Is not the case.  So, whose job is it to teach this new literacy? Libriarians? Teachers? Self-taught?  Or is it something that needs be incorporated throughout entire K-16 curriculums?

March 23 discussion: participation

1)      Both Lee, Chen & Jiang and Efimova view lurkers in a different light than many traditional scholars.  Instead of seeing lurkers as passive learners, they view them as active.  Efimova defines lurking as “peripheral participation”—a form of informal learning.   Lee, Chen, & Jiang assert that because lurkers log in as much as non-lurkers that they are actively leaning.  While I agree with the premise that lurking can indeed be an active learning experience, I really have to disagree with the blanket assumptions these authors make.  First of all, if the posts that the lurkers are making, are mainly social or planning in nature, but RARELY content based, does it really matter if they are active or not?  They are not learning what they are meant to be learning!   Aren’t we, then, doing a disservice to our students if we overlook the content knowledge piece in favor of group cohesiveness?  Secondly, I cannot believe that a simple category of “lurkers” is sufficient.  While I believe some lurkers are indeed familiarizing themselves with the norms etc., certainly a fair percentage are free-riders.

2)      Is lurking online any different than lurking in class?  Lurkers exhibit high levels of anxiety, same as students that are not actively participating in class.  Lurkers tend to “summarize” as do classroom lurkers—they are more likely to report on the facts of a reading etc. than they are to produce raise an objection or vocally synthesize information.  I am struggling with the difference between non-participation in a face-to-face classroom and the behavior of “lurking.”  Does anyone have any ideas?

March 9 discussion: relationships in social computing

1) Cummings, Butler, and Kraut end their article with the statement: “using the Internet to build social relationships results in social interaction that is wanting, at least when it is explicitly compared to the standards of face-to-face and telephone communication, to social relationships that are primarily conducted offline, and to traditional small groups.” I cannot help but wonder what the implications of this is—especially in an increasingly global economy (which undoubtedly trickles down to education) when meeting face-to-face is simply not feasible.

2) Oh, what I could say about Sigman! My blood was boiling as I read this article because I cannot believe this every got published! He basically wants to say online interaction is bad—not let me loosely tie a bunch of other research in and call it an argument. I was scribbling in the margins wildly questioning his statements from the first paragraph. If I only had one sentence to refute this ridiculous excuse for an article I’d say, “correlation does not equal causation!” Am I over reaching or do others see this?

Technology Showcase: Micro-blogging

Overview of Micro-blogging

Micro-blogging is a recent social phenomena. Often likened to status update on other social media sites, micro-blogging consists of brief (usually limited to 140 characters or less) updates. While, ideally, these updates are meaningful, often updates are nothing more than short statements about one’s dealings.

Micro-blogging is a technology that is social for several reasons.  Updates are viewed, depending upon the tool, publically or by a group of “followers.”  Like larger social network sites (e.g. facebook, myspace) each user has a profile telling others generics about themselves.  Based on this profile, of a non-virtual knowledge of a person, people build their network around similar topics of interest.

Depending on the tool, updates can be produced and distributed in several ways.  The premise of micro-blogging is that the updates are received in a manner a user selects. All micro-blogging tools are web-based and some have  as additioanl site that is mobile readable.  However, many offer the functionality of being delivered via SMS text messaging, email, and various devices.

Most micro-blogs have APIs. For this reason, the users have the capability of building customized, stand alone tools.   Twitter, for example has an entire slew of such tools: TwitPic, iTweet, Tweetdeck, TwitIt, Twitteriffic, etc.

There are several other characteristic that classify a micro-blog. For example, micro-blogs tend to be less formal than their predecessor, the blog.  The tone is generally more familiar and less of an emphasis is put on grammatical undertakings.  In addition, micro-blogs tend to be susceptible to event-driven overload.   Since the updates are so short and concise, during major events (Obama’s inauguration for example), users tend to post a flurry of updates.  In fact, when you look at the Twitter stats, you see an enormous jump of usage during such events.  While other social tools are also affected by similar phenomena, often people will be more contemplative in writing a blog post than they may be in the “heat of the moment” while publishing comments during an historical event. A final characteristic is that the more follower (or subscribers) a micro-blogger has, the more “powerful” her network becomes.

Several micro-blogging tools exist and some of them are compared/contrasted later.  However, Twitter is the most pervasive micro-blogging tool today with projections of millions of users. In the recent past Twitter has become part of the mainstream and has been mentioned in newspapers, magazines, national radio programs, and even TV series. For this reason you will find that many of the examples and references below are twitter related. However, whenever possible, I try to stay at the broader level of Micro-blogging as a category of technology.

Some Advantages

In today’s fast-paced world, micro-blogging may have emerged as an alternative to the more lengthy and time consuming blogosphere. One of the reasons people chose to micro-blog is for the immediacy affect. Not only can one post an update in seconds flat, typically (depending on one’s network) response come rolling in almost instantly.   

Micro-blogging is technically classified as a social network.  However, this category of technologies is also very real in non-virtual ways as well.  For example, a common use of micro-blogging is meet-ups, or “tweet-ups.”  This activity encourages real-world meetings of people interested in similar topics.  These meetings can increase a professional network quite extensively in a world where often silos are in place. Further, because of the character limit, and thus the macro-level of discourse, often it becomes necessary for users to more directly engage is communication outside of the medium, thus requiring more interactivity.

Some Disadvantages

In general, micro-blogging is perceived in a positive light. However, as with anything, there are some negative aspects to consider. Many of these characteristics are actually dependent upon the micro-bloggers use of a tool, but most can be broadly applied to the category of technology overall.

One of the biggest drawbacks of micro-blogging is the distraction factor. If one is a loyal micro-blogger, the constant stream of updates can become just another thing warring for a user’s time.  In addition, the social aspect of the tools themselves tend to lend themselves a curiosity.  Depending on how the user has delivery set up, it is possible that even the simplest, most mundane task can turn into a multi-tasking exercise. 

Updated streams can become so overwhelming and distracting at times that a user may find it difficult to keep up. Additionally, if one is following hundreds of people, it may become difficult to follow conversations because most micro-blogging tools have no threaded discussion capability.  This phenomenon becomes more complex when multiple users are weighing in on a single topic; multi-user conversations are not a strength of micro-blogging. Finally, in any give update stream, there is often a large amount of “noise,” or irrelevant data. A user needs develop the ability to filter extraneous updates in order to assure they gather the most useful content.  

Another disadvantage is the public domain. While some tools allow you to “lock-down” your updates, few micro-bloggers do.   After all it is the public abilities to see your updates that gets one more followers.  However, since the updates are often public, there is an increased likelihood of auto follows and spam.  These can be controlled by blocking senders etc (on some tools), but can be very time consuming and frustrating.

The management of update streams can also be a negative characteristic of micro-blogging. None of the micro-blogging tools I examined for this project had any type of “policing.”  That means that it is very possible that inappropriate content be inserted into your stream.  In addition, there is no “proof of identity” in micro-blogging, as in many Web 2.0 technologies.  Therefore, credibility can be suspect and it is completely possible for someone to “masquerade” as someone else.

Purpose and Use of Micro-blogging (complete with examples from Twitter[1])

There are countless ways that micro-blogging can be incorporated into everyday life.  Below are some categories and examples of “the purpose” of micro-blogs.

Education

·         Critical thinking—easily taught because of the character limit.  A student must present a concise, yet comprehensive statement in a maximum number of characters. (@teach42)

·         Digital storytelling—posts can be integrated with a series of other technologies such as Flickr, podcast, video, and other digital media. Allowing students to take control of a situation and use their imagination can be the quintessential activity in active learning. (@Bryan Alexander)

·         Updates of Course Management System changes that will directly affect the classroom utilization (@Ucblackboard)

·         Making literacy fun—Heather Gemmen Wilson put a “word of the day” up each day and awards prizes to users who tweet using the word correctly (@Definethis)

Promotion

·         Announcements of conference, book publishing, etc.

·         Promotion of upcoming sales (@WholeFoods)

·         Samples of free items for customer feedback (@kashiwholefoods)

Communication

·         Breaking news stories (@CNNbrk, @Purdueweather, @WHTRcom, @Arstechnica, @davidgregory)

·         Communicating to customers regarding outages and changes in technology services (@TLTcares)

Customer Service

·         Finding customers who are frustrated with your product and then fixing it (@ComcastCares)

·         Answering customer questions (@SouthwestAir, @WholeFoods, @Starbucks)

·         Microsoft has adopted a similar plan to Comcast—they scour tweets daily for any mention of their producats and addresses them appropriatel (@Microsfot_cares)

Knowledge Sharing

·         Back-channeling at conferences, in lectures etc. (as evidenced in any #—hashtag conversation)

·         Frequently people in your network will share links to interesting blogs, websites, news stories, and more all in an effort to “pass the knowledge on.”

Business

·         Brief status checks on complex projects

·         Manage the location of employees that are dispersed (@GEElectric)

·         Marketing—for free! (@Woot, @DellOutlet, @FordDriveOne)

Political Stomping

·         To keep constituients abreast of thoughts, actions, and future events (@BarackObama, @Schwarznegger, @joebiden)

·         Latest political news, in detail (@nprpolotics, @polotics)

·         Creating real-time participatory action and commentary (@govgranholm, @petehoekstra)

Personal

·         Entertainment—celebrity tweeting is a way to keep up with your favorite celeb gossip (@Apluskr,  @MCHammer, @garyvee, @LanceArmstrong, @BrittneySpears,@iamdiddy,@THE_REAL_SHAQ)

·         Recipe exchanges—post recipes in 140 characters or less (@Cookbook)

Non-technical and Technical Aspects Explained

Following is a brief synopsis of 5 different micro-blogs.

Yammer (yammer.com)

Yammer was launched in September 2008.  It focuses on businesses, and only individuals with the same corporate email address can join a given network.  Yammer is a free service, but companies can claim their networks to get administrative rights and security features for one dollar, per user, per month. Yammer is equipped with security features such as SSL and OAuth.   A new function was recently added that allows an administrator to remove employees that are no longer employed by a company.  Yammer has several unique features including: the ability to restrict use to IP addresses, attach files and photos directly from the Web interface, logos and format can be controlled on a company levels, and the ability to build public and private groups within a network.

My take:  Yammer is geared for business use.  Allows for threaded conversations and has SSL (Secure Socket Layer) meaning that the content is protected. Businesses can pay to have some administrative rights to their “group,” but yammer is not available for local hosting.  It seems a little counterproductive to have a social network of only people you work with.

Plurk (plurk.com)

Plurk was launched in May 2008 and allows users to send updates (otherwise known as plurks) through short messages or links, which can be up to 140 text characters in length. The layout is horizontal and is formatted as a timeline (written in JavaScript and updated using AJAX).  Each post begins with an emotive word (i.e. feels, thinks, loves etc.) in order to represent a thought. Plurk does have some advanced functionality, including sending updates only to a subset of your friends, posting updates on events earlier in the day, and sharing images, videos, and other media.  Plurk does not have an API.  

My take: The horizontal format is incredibly annoying from an end user stand point.  This limits the ability to have a real mobile experience.  You can post but not look at updates  from a mobile device.  It requires your birthday and then DISPLAYS it publically for everyone (and you can’t hide it!).  Plurk also appears to have some built in grouping features which would be nice as an instructor—the ability to make a group comprised of your students and send updates to them specifically. 

Jaiku (jaiku.com)

Jaiku was launched in Feb 2006 and subsequently bought by Google in Oct 2007.  Unlike most micro-blogs, in order to get a Jaiku account, you must be invited by a current user.   Jaiku has a restriction (based on pre-existing code) that only works on  the Web interface and Nokia phones, so the update stream potential is a bit restrictive for most users.  In January, Google released a statement saying that they  would be open-sourcing the product but would:  ”no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase” leaving development to a “passionate volunteer team of Googlers (http://jaiku.com/help/google ).

My  take: While google may of purchased Jaiku it appears they are turning it loose.  It suffers from several issues 1) NO MOBILE access unless you use a Nokia S60 phone and 2) you can’t get an account unless someone invites you.  This is probably why it has not taken off very well. 

Utterli (utterly.com, formerly utterz.com)

Utterli was founded in Sept 2007. Utterli is very big “on the continent” and is, according to Crunchbase (http://www.crunchbase.com/company/utterz), “the easiest way to post multimedia onto any web page, from any mobile phone or computer. Users can post any combination of voice, video, pictures and text mashups with pinpoint control using Utterz Connections and widgets.” Utterli has the unique functionality of a “meet me” technology. That is, it allows for voice calls into a central number for conference type calls.  In addition, a user can place a phone call and a text version of an update will appear in their stream.

My take: Very little information is out there regarding this tool, it’s lack of wiki page seems to be the biggest WHAT?  There are some “unique” features that are not clearly defined in any documentation I can find (for example, the calling and posting an update).   

Twitter (twitter.com)

Twitter was founded in 2006 and is the most “mainstreamed” of all micro-blogs. One of  the earliest micro-blogs, Twitter .  Twitter is customizable and has extensive power over other micro-blogs as twitterers have truly created some creative applications (see the link in the resource section).  Twitter asks one question: what are you doing?   Perhaps because of the phrases familiarity to uses, it’s users are growing and it is estimated to be  the third largest social networking site after facebook and myspace (http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/09/facebook-myspace-twitter-social-network/ ). 

My take: the versatility offered by the hundreds of user designed applications for Twitter, makes it difficult to beat.  In addition, it has truly saturated a lot of markets so if you are truly looking to build out your network, this is the place to begin.  While twitter will not release official numbers, many have estimated the user count to be in the millions.

Scholarly References

Al-Khalifa, H. S. (2008). Twitter in academia: A case study from Saudi Arabia. E-Learn, 9, P. 2.

Boulos, K., Maged, N., and wheeler, S (2007). The emerging web 2.0 software: an enabling suite of social technologies in health and health care education. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 24 (1), p. 2-23.

Java, A., Finin, T., Song, X., and Tseng, B. (2007).  Why we Twitter: understanding microblogging usage and communities.  Accessed nline Feb 2008 http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/_file_directory_/papers/369.pdf .

Murphy, J. (2008). Micro-blogging for science and technology libraries. Science & Technology Libraries, 28 (4), p.p 375-378.

Salen, T. (2007). Weblogs and blogging: Constructivist pedagogy and active learning in higher education.  “MA thesis.,” The University of Bergen, Feb 2007.

Websites of Interest

Wikipedia’s article on micro-blogging: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-blogging

A link to a student created resource page for micro-blogging:  http://wiki.itap.purdue.edu/display/insite2

A Website demonstrating many auxiliary tools for Twitter: http://mashable.com/2007/09/29/twitter-toolbox/

A Scribd paper on micro-blogging and the facilitation of tacit knowledge: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3460679/Microblogging-as-a-Facilitator-for-Tacit-Knowledge

7 things you should know about…Twitter, an EDUCAUSE recourse: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7027.pdf

Fifty ways to use Twitter in a business setting: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business/

Fifty ways to use twitter in education: http://cooper-taylor.com/blog/2008/08/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-education/

[1] Twitter is used to give examples because of it’s saturation in the market and the ease of finding such users