The urgency is in part, a function of the time limits imposed by the course schedule. “If this is week 3, then I should be understanding the topic of “community” better than I do, so I’ll post to the discussion board for lots of visibility and instant feedback…”

However, the course progress is very different that it would be if participants just blogged. It will be interesting to see if the discussion forum posting continue now this precedent has been set. Or, will participants find the blogging response appropriate for this course and their learning expectations?

That thought has definitely crossed my mind, and for a number of reasons I think - learning curve and current culture being amongst them. As our colleague said at the presentation the other day in the OMB (don’t think I should quote him by name in a public forum without permission), the ultimate choice of tool must depend on existing circumstances. I wonder to what degree - good or bad - this will have to consider the existing norms and culture in which the tool is embedded?

On the other hand, I also wonder the degree to which use of tools like SecondLife and others that devolve control, power and choice to the learner could in fact influence cultural change? I wonder if that’s what they mean by disruptive technology?

I’ll be interested in seeing how things go with my FOC course in that respect. There are students who have never been in SecondLife before and will have to get their sea legs within a very short period of time. The course is open enrollment though and can be taken without credit, so there is the notion of self-directed learning to a fair degree - but nonetheless it will be an interesting use case.

Now as far as the informal aspects you mentioned, how do you mean? Can you give an example?

Learning happens outside of Universities. I, for one, am slightly concerned about the desire expressed by Universities to adopt more informal aspects of learning. I don’t think that everything from the informal world be should be taken to the formal, despite the popularity of the informal.

For the record, this quote from Flexknowlogy (”Defining ‘Creepy Treehouse’“):

In the field of educational technology a creepy treehouse is an institutionally controlled technology/tool that emulates or mimics pre-existing technologies or tools that may already be in use by the learners, or by learners’ peer groups. Though such systems may be seen as innovative or problem-solving to the institution, they may repulse some users who see them as infringement on the sanctity of their peer groups, or as having the potential for institutional violations of their privacy, liberty, ownership, or creativity. Some users may simply object to the influence of the institution.

One of my colleagues did an informal survey of his students to see whether this notion had any validity to it and a fair amount of them said “yes.” I can’t recall the statistics, but it does suggest that some areas - like school and private life - should be kept separate.

That said, as you say, when 3rd party tools like Google make it virtually impossible to separate your online activities, it raises some very interesting implications for online interaction in general.

Personally I’ve adopted a different attitude about it all. I have so many accounts on so many sites across the internet there is no way I can maintain any sort of anonymity, so I just behave under the assumption that people I don’t want to find me will anyway.