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educational technology, eLearning & emerging technology

One of the really significant opportunities in blogs is the multi-directional flow of communication they facilitate. Blogs aren’t just a way to deliver content in the way websites are. They’re mechanisms through which interaction can occur between readers and bloggers – and importantly between readers as well - to the point where a vibrant interactive community develops around the topics covered in the posts.

In this sense the ability for a blogger to present their initial thoughts is important, but the conversations that emerge from this information is arguably as important, if not more so.

The blog post frames the resulting discussion. From there the conversation has the potential to go a multitude of different directions – from clarification and peer support, to disagreement and debate; and from anecdotal thoughts and points to relevant tangents or even transitions into related topics.

Cross talk – In a traditional classroom setting cross-talk is often discouraged because it is viewed as disruptive to the primary discussion or lecture. In blogs, having multiple perspectives and concurrent sub-conversations is a valuable thing because it adds to the context of the discussion and can inspire further exploration into the subject matter by both readers and blogger alike.

Debate – Given a healthy and safe environment, debate can be a very effective means of reinforcing concepts because it requires debaters to argue their point and provide evidence to support it; both of which require a thorough understanding of the intricacies and complexities of the subject matter.

Peer support – In the same vein as study sessions, blogs are a valuable forum where students can work through complex issues together, pose questions to one another, and where students who are having difficulty grappling with a topic can seek assistance or clarification from those who understand it clearly.

As an example, in the case of my “Blogs in Education” post, Rohesia asked me to explain why I thought blogs could reinforce or facilitate student comprehension of subject matter. Instead of providing a rather superficial one-line response, her comment has inspired this entire post, which has forced me to consider and present my thoughts and arguments in a coherent manner. As a result I have developed a better understanding of the subject matter – hopefully she has benefited from the response as well.

Instructors as facilitators of healthy discussion

As the occasional news stories on online bullying, flame wars, and harassment exemplify, the prospect of encouraging student discussions on blogs is not without its challenges. This introduces one of the really critical roles of course instructors in the age of social software and Web 2.0 technology, and that’s as the facilitator.

From an educational perspective, inspiring a culture of well-considered commenting and discussion is really important. So even before the blogs are created, instructors need to emphasise their guidelines and expectations on what is best practice, what is acceptable and appropriate, and what is not.

It’s critical to establish a safe and encouraging environment that nurtures healthy discussion, debate and peer support – and importantly, a means of monitoring, and if need be, policing the discussions that are taking place.

Additionally, on a much more positive note, instructors have an extremely influential role which can be used to inspire discussion where none is occurring; contribute to an existing discussion through injection of a different perspective, related piece of information, online resource, or news article; or provide clarity where there is confusion.

As I’ve touched on recently, I’m very interested in exploring the capacity of blogs to enhance and support the educational process, both from the standpoint of independent learning and exploration, and adaptation to more traditional classroom activities. However while the former is easily implemented, the latter requires much more consideration and there have historically been some holes in my vision that needed fleshing out.

With Monday’s launch of Prologue, a new possibility has been injected into the mix that I’d like to explore here for a moment.

Pedagogy and learning objectives aside, the main challenge for educators using blogs in their courses is how to keep track of them all. By nature blogs function completely independently of one another, so the prospect of monitoring the individual blogging activities of several dozen or more people presents a substantial time investment for instructors and students alike.

So much so that this could impact upon the effectiveness and sustainability of the exercise. Thus the need for a central blog portal is introduced.

Instructors could of course create a static web page with a full list of student names, blogs and links - but this would only act as an index. It would do nothing to aggregate the information contained in the blogs, nor establish or reinforce the feeling of a dynamic, interactive student network.

Using RSS would be another option, and is a far better one than a static blog list. However this too represents a perhaps unnecessary task, because students would be required to add the feeds of every single one of their classmates into a feed reader. Furthermore, every student would have to repeat the same process; it couldn’t be done just once.

The third, and arguably the best, option would be the creation of a Prologue blog to act as a central hub or portal. In this case the instructor would act as editor with all students added as approved contributors. This would enable several important activities:

First and most significantly, notification of student activities could be centralised. Students would be able to post and locate updates on anything from announcements of new blog posts or study sessions, questions, general anecdotes, useful links, or news stories. Instructors could also use this as a dissemination point for assignments, or a way to start discussions and answer questions.

Additionally, unlike the RSS option, the establishing of the portal would only have to be done once because it’s a shared space.

Second, Prologue features several different filtering options for locating specific subjects. For example clicking on the name of a post author will bring up all their posts, which means instructors could easily track the activities of each individual student.

Third, and in the same vein as the second point, Prologue’s tagging option enables further organization. Using this feature instructor’s could establish a naming convention for categorising posts on specific assignments, student groups, course sessions, or academic years.

Importantly, each tag is assigned a unique URL that will bring up all posts tagged with the same term. Tags are also allocated their own unique RSS feed that can be added to any feed aggregator. Students and instructors then have the choice between a single aggregated feed for the whole portal, and a narrowed feed filtered by a specific tag.

Fourth and significantly, the organisational opportunities present in Prologue have powerful implications. They highlight the fact that instructors need not create a different hub for every class, but could in fact have a single portal for all their courses. This is extremely significant from a student perspective, because it would substantially expand their potential support network and access to information by pointing them to work of their predecessors.

Over time this could be developed into a massive knowledge base of information on related subject matter.

Wordpress launched Prologue today, in a move that many technophiles and bloggers have immediately heralded as the death of Twitter. Personally, I think the hype has gotten the better of far too many people.

Twitter and Prologue are both very solid applications that offer a tremendous amount of value to users, however they serve distinctly different purposes and have few real similarities. As a result, Prologue is likely to appeal to a completely different user niche than Twitter, and won’t pose any major threat to its market share.

Before I go any further though, a background is warranted. Prologue is a new Wordpress theme that can be applied to their traditional blogs. As Wordpress explains:

“…when someone has the ability to post to a blog they see a short form at the top of the home page with a post box and tags. There they can post short messages about what they’re doing.”

The end result, such as the one I’ve created here, is a collaborative blog designed to house the rapid-fire posts and resulting discussions of a select group of people. There can be as many or as few editors as desired, and posts can be either restricted to the group or publicly available to the entire web.

As with normal blog posts, Prologue posts can be tagged with key identifiers. Tags are then allocated a unique URL, where all posts tagged with the same term will appear. Importantly, tags are also allocated a unique RSS feed, thus enabling readers to narrow their feed subscriptions to a specific topic or thread.

Now to compare and contrast. First with the similarities.

Like Twitter, Prologue is designed to house short, fast, raw posts covering thoughts, announcements, resources, brainstorming sessions, dialogue, or just about anything else that gets fired off the top of the head.

In keeping with the standard blogging convention, posts appear in chronological order, with the most recent content appearing at the top and the oldest content situated at the bottom.

That’s really all there is in terms of similarities. Now for the differences, and there are quite a few of those.

First and foremost, Prologue is designed as a group space. Twitter is unabashedly individualistic. Group collaboration does take place in the Twitterverse, but posts are ultimately divided into user-created and non-user-created categories and therefore appear on different pages under different users. As a result it’s far more difficult to track a discussion in Twitter than it is in Prologue.

With Prologue, user discussions can develop through use of the commenting tool and are consequently tied to the original post, which results in far more continuity and easy-reading.

Secondly, Twitter is designed to be mobile. Prologue is not. Twitter users have the ability to connect with one another via instant messaging clients, SMS, RSS, web interface, direct messages sent to their email addresses, and via countless user-created add-ons and third party applications. Prologue is restricted to the blog and RSS feeds exclusively.

Third and perhaps most significantly, Twitter carries with it - and has evolved into - an absolutely massive and passionate user community, many of whom actively interact with one another in real time - like a chat room. The speed of interaction is only possible through Twitter’s various connectivity options mentioned above.

Prologue’s purpose is inherently different than this, as was summed up in its unveiling on the Wordpress.com blog:

“We’re fans of Twitter around here, in fact many Automatticians have accounts, but while the format appealed to us it really just whetted our appetite for something more, like a way for each of us to share short messages about what we’re doing or working on internally, or private messages between groups of folks”

Prologue is designed with the needs of small to medium sized groups in mind. It stands no chance of keeping up with the speed of background banter you see in Twitter, but ultimately it doesn’t need to. Twitter serves that purpose just fine.
That said, Twitter is no match for Prologue’s organisational structure, where entire conversations are neatly packed into a single post and corresponding comments, and tag-specific RSS feeds and URLs further facilitate the location of previous discussions.

Twitter favours immediate anarchic communication; Prologue, the long term storing and call-back of targeted information - and it’s hardly the harbinger of Twitter’s demise.

I’m extremely interested in the idea of using blogs in higher education and believe the opportunity to create, organise and maintain their own blogs could provide students with a tremendous opportunity for deeper exploration in subjects of interest. My theory is that the creation of their own unique virtual space would inspire a greater sense of ownership in not just the course, but the subject matter as well; and this could in turn lead to a greater synthesis, appreciation, and retention of information.

In reality however I am currently unfamiliar with any examples in which blogs have been used in this manner. A proper research mind dictates objectivity, therefore one of the many investigative tasks I’ve set for myself is to locate real world examples in which blogs are being used to support learning and teaching, either as a tool for documenting student progress, a research journal, presentation page, collaborative portal, or other activity.

I will post synopses of anything I find here.

One such course, ENGL 112, run by Elizabeth Clark, is scheduled to commence this semester at Mesa State College in Colorado. Elizabeth described the first assignment in her blog, 4RxT (”Using Blogs As Research Journals“).

Students will be asked to review a series of websites and video clips covering blog use, history and basics, and then complete a series of activities - not unlike those you’d find in offline assignments.

• “Brainstorm a list of topics you’re interested in using for your research project this semester….

• Write three paragraphs about the topic you’ve selected: (1) identify your topic and explain why you chose it, (2) discuss what you already know about your topic, and (3) discuss what you don’t know and want to learn about the topic….

I would be very interested to see what emerges from this experience and have submitted a comment on her blog requesting/encouraging her to post a summary when the semester is complete - or better yet, an ongoing account of the discoveries and hurdles that arise.

The prospect of a public discussion on classroom experiences may be a bit too much to ask however, so it remains to be seen whether we’ll hear anything further from this.

Update: Just to clarify, because I didn’t write this post nearly as well as I had in my head - it is the integration of blogs into coursework and/or research activities that I’d really like to delve into.

This is the most significant aspect of an integration, because in order to be truly effective from an educational standpoint, use of blogs can’t just be thrown into the mix on a superficial level. Careful consideration and planning must be given to educational aims and outcomes, ways of measuring and/or assessing these outcomes, methods of tying the online aspects back into traditional face-to-face settings, and the more esoteric vagueries of how to inspire the growth of an online community that focuses on (or includes) a dozen or more student blogs.

The theory of blogs in education is an inspiring thought; the reality is undoubtedly much more complicated.

ZDNet.com is currently running a series of posts on a book called “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything“; and if the descriptions in their posts are any indication, it’s a phenomenal work.

The case studies presented are absolutely extraordinary and encapsulate the power and speed inherent in the new web. Ordinary users, previously relegated to the role of information consumer only 10 years ago, are now being afforded the right of information provider, interpreter, critic and commentator - and they are doing it en masse.

A case in point from the ZDNet.com article is the period immediately following the London Bombing in 2005, when a new entry was created in Wikipedia:

“On July 7th, 2005, minutes after the bombs went off in London, an entry describing what was known at that moment (not much, admittedly) appeared in the Wikipedia. Within an hour, several hundred people had contributed content, research, or editing skills. 24 hours later, 2,500 (that’s twenty-five hundred) people had produced a 14-page article more comprehensive than any single newscast or newspaper had been able to provide. (Indeed, the news outlets themselves began using the article for background.)”

The level, complexity, and speed of collaboration on this post is staggering. This 14 page article emerged in 24-hours and featured the contributions of 2,500 people; none of whom were paid a cent. Yet somehow, they all converged on the same virtual location to successfully write, edit, research and discuss a single article without the whole affair descending into chaos.

How is un-orchestrated collaboration on such a massive scale even possible?

What is equally incredible is that, with 2.2 million articles in their English version alone (as of this post), Wikipedia has maintained similar levels of voluntary participation for years.

In doing this, the Wikipedia community has singularly shown not only that mass collaboration is possible, but that it can take place on an ongoing basis for an extensive period of time.

However while this provides 2.2 million examples to illustrate such collaboration is possible, what it doesn’t provide is an explanation of how. After all, Wikipedia is not the only website on the Internet that is driven by the contributions of a voluntary user base. Unfortunately countless wiki’s of similar beginnings have not fared so well.

As ZDNet.com indicates, the true numbers are difficult to measure:

“The problem with the public wiki phenomenon is that you only hear about the winners. The losers–the empty wikis that will never be filled–seldom make the news. It’s hard to judge how many failures there are, though the open source movement may provide a clue: For every screaming success (like Linux), there are numerous open source projects that languish, forgotten.”

The range of potential outcomes on a collaborative wiki project is vast. So how then do you set about inspiring a framework that nurtures a community spirit such as the one present in Wikipedia - or can you? How much of a project’s success or failure is due to planning, implementation and work, and how much is blind luck or coincidence?

Is it possible that in seeking to pinpoint the essence of user generated content and mass collaboration, we are destined to miss it; and that the reality is much more intangible, esoteric and fragile? Or is there a quantifiable mixture that, when concocted, produces desirable and predictable results which can be replicated?

This is one of the many questions I have which I will continue to research and document throughout the lifespan of this blog. Experiences and comments are encouraged.

References:

• “Wikinomics and mass collaboration“, ZDNet.com, 22 November 2007
• “Wikinomics 2: peer production“, ZDNet.com, 25 January 2008
• “7 July 2005 London bombing“, Wikipedia
• Wikinomics Website

This blog is as much a research tool for documenting my own discoveries and developing thought processes as it is a vehicle for presenting my established and well-considered opinions. Therefore you will at times see posts covering subject matter I am not familiar with but am seeking to learn more about

Net neutrality is one such topic. In this emerging discussion there are vocal parties on both sides of the fence, and arguably a tremendous amount of spin doctoring. So much so that I’m currently having a great deal of trouble distinguishing fact from fiction.

Therefore what I intend to do is research this topic from an objective academic perspective, assessing both sides of the argument, thereby gaining a holistic perspective on the discussion. In the end I will undoubtedly arrive at a conclusion and opinion on where I sit in the scheme of things; but in order to have an informed opinion you must first be informed.

In the first paragraph of its article, Wikipedia discusses net neutrality:

“Network neutrality (equivalently “net neutrality”, “Internet neutrality” or “NN”) refers to a principle that is applied to residential broadband networks, and potentially to all networks. Precise definitions vary, but a broadband network free of restrictions on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, on the applications that may use it, the modes of communication allowed, and where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams would be considered neutral by most observers.”

My research into this matter will expand and evolve over time, and I will be listing future categories in a specific Net Neutrality category.

It’s days like this that you realise how data-hungry today’s web has become.

Stupidly, I overshot my download cap for this month - way overshot it - and have been relegated to the lowest of low dial-up connection speeds until the first of February. The result has been painfully slow internet navigation. This has driven me largely offline out of frustration.

At the same time though it’s provide a unique insight into the realities of dial-up, and the limitations of low-speed internet connectivity. This in turn has lead me to thinking about the digital divide.

When people talk about the digital divide they refer to the growing issue of technology haves and have-not’s. In this world, users who have access to computers and internet - and importantly, have the skills to effectively use them - have begun to excel in the digital age, whereas the portion of the population without access is being increasingly isolated and left behind.

As Wikipedia describes:

“The term digital divide refers to the gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology, and those without access to it. It includes the imbalances in physical access to technology, as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen.”

In the most extreme cases, households have no computer, no internet, and lack the skills in use of the technology. However the digital divide arguably contains shades of gray, in which certain aspects are present, yet others are not.

In the case of internet connection speed, my experiences have highlighted the realities of high-speed versus low-speed data connectivity. Typically I have a 1.5 mbps download rate. When I initially upgraded to this it was amazingly fast; but equally amazing was how fast I started to take it for granted.

Fast forward to one week ago when my download speed was reduced to 60 kbps download and you have a major reality check. Pages that used to load in a virtual instant took half a minute to load, or would sometimes time-out and fail to load at all.

Importantly, it became clear that the reduction from high-speed to dial-up rendered many sites unusable. This included data-intensive content such as streaming video on sites like YouTube and Google Video; web conferencing/VOIP applications like Skype; and graphic intensive or photosharing sites like Flickr.

In an instant a substantial portion of the web became inaccessible, despite the fact I had a computer with an internet connection. Even some largely text-based pages were unavailable as a result.

When you place this discussion within a framework of distance education, or flexible education the implications are severe. The Wikipedia article continues:

“Technology offers a unique opportunity to extend learning support beyond the classroom, something that has been difficult to do until now. ‘The variety of functions that the internet can serve for the individual user makes it ‘unprecedentedly malleable’ to the user’s current needs and purposes’”

The internet has a phenomenal capacity to expand learning outside the traditional walls of the classroom through use of images, streaming video, web conferencing, virtual worlds, blogs and wikis. However the reality of digital divide introduces a learning field which is anything but level, and there are major issues of accessibility and equal opportunity.

So the issue for educators and the Australian government is how to bridge this divide the most effectively - and hopefully eliminate it completely.

Arguably the most successful producers of technically-oriented video on the web today, The Common Craft Show is known for their paper-based explanations of emerging technology. They have successfully produced a host of videos in which new technologies are presented devoid of complicated computer terminology and replaced with easy to understand descriptions.

In a post in his blog today (”Discovering the RSS Explanation Problem“), Common Craft founder Lee Lefever discusses the epiphany that started it all and lead him to their initial foray, “RSS in Plain English“:

“I was at a small conference on Silicon Valley in early 2004. There was a CEO of a start up there and during his talk, he mentioned RSS. Someone raised their hand and asked the question “What is RSS?”

“This CEO’s responses to the question, and I’m not kidding, was “RSS is an XML-based content syndication format.” As you might expect, this was met with a look of bewilderment.”

I personally refer to this CEO’s response as techno-babbling; and it serves no purpose whatsoever when dealing with users - especially brand new ones.

Particularly when coming through a support channel, such as a service desk, if a user already understood a response like this, they wouldn’t have needed to ask for help in the first place. Although the explanation may be technically correct, if it is above the user’s comprehension level it is wasting their time.

My motto is: If a concept can be explained simply, it should be. Using techno-babble is counter productive because it makes users feel stupid - as though they should understand what you’re saying but don’t.

User support is as much about educating people and providing customer service as it is about fixing their problems. And to do this you have to speak to their comfort and experience levels.

This goes for emerging technologies as well. If you are trying to inspire uptake of a service or product, users must be able to visualise the technology within a framework they understand, and as importantly, see value in. If a user fails to see value in something, you can rest assured they won’t use it.

In that sense, by saying “RSS is an XML-based content syndication format.” the CEO wasted his own time, as well as the user’s. The user walked away just as clueless as they began, the opportunities inherent in RSS were insufficiently explained and undersold, and the CEO lost a valuable opportunity to inspire uptake.

As Lee LeFever summed up: “It’s not always ‘what is it?’ as much as ‘why should I care about it?’”

Everybody loves a good rumour - especially IT people. The current one circulating the tech realm is of the enigmatic follow-up to Windows Vista - being referred to as “Windows 7″.

Several sites have posted articles hypothesising what might or might not be in the OS, what users would like, and when the release date will be. The commonality seems to be the theory that the release will come in the second half of 2009, rather than 2010 as had been previously understood; and the fact that Microsoft seems to be paying attention to all the consumer discontent currently hanging in the air.

Whatever form the next Windows offering takes, I just hope it’s better than the current one. In the meantime I’ll be adopting a let’s-wait-and-see attitude about it all, because most IT rumours end up being fueled more by speculation than anything else.

That said here are a few of the articles I’ve run across currently covering the story:

• “Windows watch starts to point to 7“, CNET News.com, 22 January 2008
• “Vista successor, Windows 7 to be released next year?“, APC Magazine, 22 January 2008
• “Could Windows 7 be the best Windows yet?“, ZDNet.com, 22 January 2008

Via Computerworld (Microsoft dumps Vista virtualization limits):

January 22, 2008 (Computerworld) — Microsoft Corp. on Monday dropped its prohibition on running the least-expensive versions of Windows Vista in virtual machines, doubling the choices for Macintosh owners who run the rival operating system in VMware Inc.’s Fusion or Parallels Inc.’s Parallels.

Given the reaction of many consumers across the IT market - including myself - this is a very wise move on Microsoft’s part. Yes Windows still dominates the personal computer market, but the trend amongst many users has been marred by disgust and frustration.

Many have begun to move onto greener pastures, which is arguably responsible for the move by some manufacturers like Dell to start offering alternatives.

“You asked, we listened. For advanced users and tech enthusiasts, we’re happy to offer a new open-source operating system, so you can dive in and truly enjoy a PC experience just the way you want it. In addition to the FreeDOS systems we already offer, we are proud to announce PCs with Ubuntu.”

I suspect Microsoft has finally cottoned on to market opinion and is trying to quell the discontent. Hopefully this will also translate to significant improvements in the operating system when the first service pack is released later this year.

Only time will tell.

References:

• “Microsoft dumps Vista virtualization limits“, Computerworld, 22 January 2008
• “Vista virtualization move opens real doors“, CNET News.com, 22 January 2008