Managing Online Identity
This is a topic that is gaining a lot of coverage, and is extremely important in an academic setting. I’ll be facilitating a workshop next week at the Next Generation Environments event at Aston University with James Farnhill and trying to elicit some issues from both teaching and research practitioners.
We’ll be running a couple of exercises during the session, asking delegates to look at their online identity and asking them to reconcile their ‘results’ with their actual identity.
If you’d had any experience with identity issues then post a comment and I’ll use the example in the session, if you’re interested in listening in on the day, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
The slides will be posted on this blog after the session along with feedback from the delegates and pointers to further resources and ongoing work.
Eliciting Answers using web 2.0 tools.
Linked-In is a tool for maintaining and developing contacts – one of the features is the ability to ask questions of your network of contacts and the ‘public visibility’ of these questions.
I thought it might be interesting to pose a question around web 2.0 and then see what sort of answers we got back.
The Question: Does Web 2.0 facilitate connectivism, circumvent constructivism, or just pollute the knowledge stream with contradictory chatter?
In one week I received 8 ‘public’ responses and 2 private responses. The private ones were from contacts that aren’t involved in this sector, and know me from separate routes - both of them questioned my sobriety at the time of posting the question!
The answers to the question are all below, so now it’s over to you, do they answer usefully? Is it a tool, when used with trusted colleagues, that could help us in our practice?
Jose Roig
Web 2.0 does all of the above… which is kind of a cop-out for an answer. I blogged last week (http://tech-consulting.blogspot.com/) about how some of its functionality has great potential for corporate use. Wiki’s and Blogs are great tools for collaboration and for the publishing/sharing of documentation. Coupled with instant messaging, such tools are transforming the way that geographically dispersed teams work together.
In the public arena, Blogs give everyone a forum for free expression, which carries with it the risk that only the most shocking and confrontational viewpoints get noticed. It also carries the risk of doing nothing but turning up the volume on the noise and clutter. But I believe the potential reward of knowledge sharing is worth the risk.
Marc Aniballi
Web 2.0 connects databases to web interfaces so that you can do custom content generation and personalisation. This includes (obviously) user generated content.
Put any group of 10 people in a room and you’ll get all of your situations above. Online just happens bigger and faster.
David Kernohan
Web 2.0 is a resource like any other, and can be used to facilitate learning based on any theory of pedagogy you fancy. It’s like asking whether a textbook facilitates connectivism, circumvents constructivism…
Just because it is interactive doesn’t mean it is not a learning resource. It’s what you do with it that counts…
Malcolm Murray
I agree with the concept that there isn’t a one to one mapping between any technology and pedagogy - i.e. using Web 2.0 doesn’t make, nor require you to be connectivist.
That said, I think some of the tools really help, if we take connectivism to mean the ability to stay in touch with and lever the collective intelligence of a network of contacts and indeed their network of contacts.
The key issue for me is one of credibility/quality. How does a user know that the information they find is any good. Some of the newer web 2.0 tools (such as this discussion) help by providing information and context about the posters. For other older tools (e.g. wikipedia) although content may be subject to peer review, much of it is not directly (read easily) attributable.
Does this matter? Yes I think it does! Whilst “pollution” may be too strong a term - and I can see the massed ranks of social scientists just waiting to analyse the cultural loading this term implies) the problem for many today can be summed up as “there a shit load of material out there, but loads of it is shit”. To succeed we still need to be selective. That’s where the networking aspect comes in - it gives us help filtering out the dross.
Bruce Mason
I would say that this question veers towards technological determinism. I suspect that a couple of thousand years ago there may have been similar questions about this new-fangled writing business. That’s a somewhat flip response but it gets at the point that these new resources are useful in as much as we make use of them.
I do think that we’re having to acquire competence in web2.0 usage and that also includes those who design SNS sites. For example, I was on the verge of quitting Facebook until, one day, I noticed a little “block this application” link beneath all my notifcations. Now Facebook is positive for me again. Those who run Facebook responded to an emergent phenomenon and the site has been improved.
So, I think what is happening is that we’re acquiring competence in the emergent, communicational affordances of web2.0. Give it a few years and we’ll wonder what all the fuss was about…
James Farnhill
I think my natural first response was that you’ve got to understand the terms before you can couch an answer to this at all. Web 2.0 means very different things to very different people and can be more confusing than it is helpful. Having said that, I’d agree with the other posters that if you’re using social networking tools like Facebook and LinkedIn (and even stuff like Flickr, that might not seem like an obvious choice) and other Web 2.0 ‘most wanted’ apps such as blogs and wikis sensibly then there is a considerable amount of benefit from them. It’s just that some people are using Web 2.0 because it’s there and because it’s a bandwagon, meaning a large volume of rubbish gets generated that doesn’t help connect people or do anything else; for example, I’m getting to the stage where Twitter and tweets are really annoying me as they’re used as buzz words by Nathan Barley noo media types who only use it because it’s ‘cool’! So, I think for the future we need to have Web 2.0 to generate content but we also need Web 2.0 tools and technologies such as some of the stuff being done with Google maps and AJAX to bring the content together in a meaningful way. We can also use text mining tools and some of the more sophisticated tagging to start getting data about data and get some provenance in there. All that’s doing is what any arts and social sciences student could tell you they’ve been doing for ages, which is quality assuring the data they trust by review, meaning large amounts of seemingly contradictory opinions can be distilled into material that makes sense for you. Hope that hasn’t turned into too much of a ramble…
Tony Linde
To me (and I agree that it means different things to different people) Web 2.0 means three things: 1) the ability for users to add content to a website; 2) the use of AJAX to make pages more dynamic; and 3) the exposure of a site’s content via one or more APIs. All of these things existed before the Web 2.0 term but the explosion of websites with all three features did mark a significant shift in the web experience.
It is primarily #3 above which helps ‘facilitate connectivism’: our own experiences, exposed via #1 above are connected by #3 and by the internal workings of the website. Seeing these connections would, I would have thought, aid constructivism rather than circumvent it, in that only simple connections will be forged by data and software: the user of the sites ought to be able to construct knowledge upon a wider base using the connections supplied (needs research though).
The knowledge stream will only ’seem’ polluted by those students who are not able to critically assess what they see. Critical reasoning ought to be the first skill any student is imbued with, from primary school onwards.
Mark Childs
I’m currently conducting a research project (funded by the wonderful people at JISC actually - http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_pedagogy/elp_blups.aspx) looking at how students use web 2 technologies and whether this has any effect on their learning. The answer is that, yes it does. Because students are more connected now, this gives them more opportunities to share ideas, help each other with their learning and (often underestimated in its importance) exchange information about the course and university procedures. This is sometimes due to them setting up specific groups within Facebook, for example, but it’s mainly because they are communicating so much using web 2.0 tools for social reasons, and it’s natural for them to segue from talking about meeting up to go down the pub to talking about the latest assignment.
Web 2.0 Briefing Paper
For the Association for Learning Technology conference 2007 I was asked to prepare a short Web 2.0 briefing paper. Limited to 2 pages this has not been an easy task, the paper can be found at http://www.jisc.org.uk/publications/publications/web2socialsoftwarev1.aspx. However below is a longer version with live links.
The terms Web 2.0 and social software are now used widely in the education sector. While often difficult to determine an exact definition, with
many new tools and applications released on a regular basis, most commentators agree that these terms apply to a set of characteristics in the context of the internet and applications served over it.
Web 2.0 and social software in education
As broadband becomes more affordable and widely available, and the relative price of hardware calls, many more people are finding it easier
to access rich content and interaction on the internet. Whilst there is currently limited research into the level of use by students and potential
students, anecdotal evidence suggests that not only is it being used widely, but the perception of it is also shifting. Many students seem to see
the use of the tools in their workflow not as an additional overhead, but as an integral part of ‘their world’.
Case studies indicate that whilst content is accessed on virtual learning environments (VLE), courses and modules are also discussed in a
variety of other media, such as instant messaging tools (MSN and Skype) and social networks (Facebook). In addition there is also a growth
in the use of these tools to support distributed research groups, including online research
groups in biomedical, cancer, physics and many other disciplines.
Many of these tools can bring benefits in a range of ways:
- Using instant messaging to conduct tutorials at a distance with a distributed group
- Providing easier opportunities for students to collaborate, and make word of mouth recommendations about sites including, or
related to, course content - Allowing students to create their own interest groups allied to their studies
- Allowing students to interact with students from different universities and countries
- Providing researchers with ways to share results faster and with opportunities for instant
feedback - Allowing the formation of ad hoc research groups
- Providing a way of having material peer reviewed by a broad audience before publication
There’s always a but…
However, when using these types of tools for their practice, staff should be aware and beware of some of the key issues.
Intellectual property rights and copyright
Intellectual property rights (IPR) are core to many of the issues around content.
- Material that is placed on most sites will be accessible to a wide audience: are you happy that everyone can see it, access it and potentially use it without your permission?
Make sure you are entitled to place the material on the site: for example do you own the copyright? Do you have a licence to use the
content and place it on a public website? - Check the terms and conditions; one popular application states:
‘All content on the Site and available through the Service, including but not limited to designs, text, graphics, pictures, video, information, applications, software, music, sound and other files, and their selection and arrangement (the ‘Site Content’), are the proprietary property of the Company, its users or its licensors with all rights reserved.’
System stability
With literally hundreds of sites and applications being released it is difficult to know which to use and what will persist; consider:
- How reliable is the service?
- How often has the site been unavailable?
- What happens to your material if the site ceases to exist?
- Can all students gain access, or does the site require high specification machines or have a cost associated with it?
Branding
Design, look and feel play a big part of the Web 2.0 movement. Consider:
- Some sites, such as Flickr and YouTube, allow you to embed images and videos into your own pages as long as they link back to the host site,
meaning that students clicking on the video will be taken to the host site - The use of some of the tools allows users to create their own look and feel; if the site is being used as a teaching enhancement or
supplement, the person who has developed the site may deviate from guidance given at an institutional level, diluting the corporate brand - Some sites are prone to extreme views or may attract inappropriate attention; users should monitor the site carefully, especially where comments can be left, such as blogs (these can be used for spam postings to various sites including those of an adult nature)
Interoperability
What if you have content in YouTube, Slideshare and Facebook? Can you cross-search it, use it in various ways coherently to support whatever task you’re engaged in, or build it into managed activities?
Preservation
If you want to keep this material, Web 2.0 services may not be the best option. Data backup is
important, but it needs to go deeper than this: if this content is to be managed and retained over time, then serious planning needs to go into the
environment in which that happens.
You, Web 2.0 and students
We are most often alerted to the tools and sites associated with Web 2.0 by students themselves. However, that doesn’t mean they are ubiquitous in student circles. Before using such tools consider:
- Can the tools you are using be accessed by all students, for example can a blind, deaf or dyslexic student access content appropriately?
- Is it appropriate for a member of staff to have access to the site, or is it a site that is aimed at ‘students only’?
- Do the students want you there? Would you follow them to the student’s union and listen to their conversations?
You and Web 2.0: next steps
Before applying a Web 2.0 or social software solution to your practice you should ask yourself the following questions:
- Does my institution already have a solution for what I want to do? It’s worth not only talking to IT support or staff and educational development units, but also asking your colleagues whether they have needed the same facility. A supported, resourced internal
solution will probably serve you better than an unresourced, unsupported, beta version of something in the Web 2.0 community. - Are there solutions at other institutions? JISC have funded many innovative technologies and approaches that have been deployed across
the education sector - would one of these technologies fit your need? - What are the risks? Do these risks put you, your work or your students in difficult situations? Take each of the situations and write down a risk assessment. Think about privacy, data protection and copyright conditions, and provide students with advice also.
Finally, if you decide to use a Web 2.0 technology make sure that you back up all of your data in a safe place.
Further Information and Resources
JISC Users and Innovations programme Looking at a range of new and emerging technologies and the issues that surround them, including IPR, accessibility and good practice models.
TechWatch Social Software briefing paper
Web 2.0 for Content for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education report
Secure personal institutional and inter-institutional repository environment (SPIRE)
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Lawrie is available through Skype
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