The FB/SNS discussion continues...

Michael Coghlan, our Manager and I had already made a time to meet this morning to fine tune the details on the e-Learning Professional Development we would be offering to staff this semester - however it seems appropriate to continue f2f the email and podomatic discussions about whether Facebook should be unblock for TAFE staff we had been having recently.

This discussion evolved around:
- what's so great about Social Networking (SN) anyway?
Well, it allows people to 'tap' into a wealth of knowledge - quickly and freely.

It's an emerging knowledge sharing process whereby people can link up with others beyond their physical surrounding and time zones.

People's Social Networking Sites (SNS) are always switched on - and it's probably quicker to get a response to an ICT issue from your SN then it is from contacting ICT Support.

Michael pointed out how organisation such as IBM are using SN to enhance their business practices.

- how would we ensure staff weren't doing more 'social' then 'networking'?
Michael highlighted the fact that the boundary between 'work' and 'play' in Social Networking sites (SNS) has blurred - and as Sue Waters and Vicki Davis quite rightly point out - it's about more about 'educational networking' than 'social networking' which educators are engaging in.

- how would we ensure staff and students used the space 'appropriately'?
If staff and students are encouraged to use SNS in an 'educational setting' then there will be opportunities to discuss what the 'social norms' are.

Anyway, aren't our staff 'professionals'? So shouldn't we treat them that way?

Surely they are 'accountable' for what they do - and if they choose to dabble in some SN at work - they'll only have to find another time to complete their many tasks - probably 'after hours' like the rest of us already do.

And why can't staff use 15 mins of their lunch break (if they get take on that is) to 'experiment' with SN?

- is it really the role of TAFE to 'educate' students about SNetiquettte (Social Networking Etiquette)?
As Michael once again pointed out - there's a mass of our adult student population who did not grow up in Generation MySpace, and therefore don't know how to operate on the Internet - so surely we have a 'responsibility' to train our students to be more 'employable' in the Knowledge Era!!

What did come out of today's discussions were that if staff are to help guide their students through the 'educational use' of SNS, then we as a team need to provide more professional development in this area. Surely, this is a step in the right SN direction?

To unblock Facebook or To not unblock Facebook?

I know the topic about whether "To unblock Facebook or To not unblock Facebook" is 'doing the rounds' - however, a recent email about whether Facebook should be unblocked for TAFE staff has created some healthy discussion about the 'Educational Benefits of using Social Networking Sites' for 'Vocational Education and Training' Staff and Students.


Michael Coghlan created a 'Podomatic' as his contribution to this discussion, called: Should TAFE be using Facebook.


Our Manager has contributed some very valid and interesting points to this discussion:

Interesting topic. One question is whether Facebook can offer any additional functionality to communicate with students off campus, above what we already have? Or is its purpose quite different from our current thinking about how ICT is used in an educational setting? In many cases the use of Facebook is for on campus students, so the initial question about its use may be shaky. Maybe we need to stop segregating students into on and off campus, it is not reflective of the more fluid approach to today's student body.

As with many social web 2 tools (in fact all ICT) just because it exits does not therefore follow that it is appropriate or necessary. Certainly one can always find an application for most of these products.

Another question is how many products are to be supported or endorsed in TAFE SA, often a particular product may be the personal like or dislike of individuals, this is not enough to endorse it, it must be based on its capacity to support learning or other student needs, and possibly to offer functions above what currently exists.

However there should be room to experiment and research which may then show how a product can be used before it is endorsed. It would appear that the use of Facebook may fill a need for the current generation in a setting like TAFE SA.

Facebook like many of these products primarily evolved with a social function and some evidence points to the fact that young learners do not want their education and social lives to be mixed, Allison Miller found this in her Inclusive E-Learning project, also this link below has some evidence of the same.

http://sarah-stewart.blogspot.com/2007/11/using-facebook-in-midwifery-education.html

The misuse of such sites by some students as indicated in the extract .... (from initial email which started this debate) ... may lead to extra monitoring required in the use of such a product, whereas this may be less likely to happen in products that are hosted on our own systems. It appears that some young users of Web 2 tools have seen this as an area in which they are not accountable for their content, this is obviously not the case, but in "managed environments" this potential risk may be lessened. However this aside I come back to the point, what can Facebook or other WEB 2 products currently offer that most of our current ICT products can't? Maybe it is not directly linked to teaching but building a sense of community that our students are comfortable with, and is supportive in an educational setting.

There are considerations of the security and stability of content and systems over which we have no control. What happens if students post work and the host system (Facebook) fails?

What is it from a learning perspective are we trying to achieve should be asked first. There is some risk attached to experimenting broadly across an organisation without any empirical evidence as to the impact.

This has been shown previously where ICT was considered to be a solution from delivery perspective and the student body rejected the product and approach.

At this moment in time I think we are still really on the introduction of ICT and web technologies, which we must continue to watch and use, then test and evaluate.

Is there evidence that the students want particular tools used as part of their learning, or is it driven by teachers? It is very important that we as teachers continue to experiment with new technologies but with some ways to critique the effectiveness.

It may be worth checking but I think Facebook owns the data on its site, is this a problem?

Just some thoughts, really the question is not limited to Facebook but the application of emerging ICT in teaching and Learning and how do we keep pace and use with an informed approach.

More links, interestingly in the reading of these it seems the use of Facebook in educational settings is more for social communication, sharing, planning and discussion about learning more content, also they are often driven by the students once the space is created.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/students/news/story/0,,1834189,00.html

How data can be used from Facebook by marketers and entrepreneurs

http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2006/03/facebooks-value-proposition.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/fred/pubs/stutzman_pub4.pdf

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/07/working_in_face.html

Probably more questions than answers, but there is some excellent information on the use of Facebook in educational settings. I think Facebook needs to be seen in a different light to conventional ICT used to support the delivery of content.

He also responsed to my contribution to this discussion which I blogged about yesterday with:

I think this is also being discussed at a higher level, and this is where our ideas may be directed. Even some of our enlightened persons maybe hesitant about Facebook because in terms of data stored on it there are no safeguards.

Socially it has a place, educationally most of what is required and you describe can be done on our existing systems. The challenge is to work out what may benefit students, but maybe not necessarily encapsulate that in our systems where we have responsibilities.

What are our responsibilities to vocational / adults in this arena, we are not funded to provide education in the social responsibilities of using SNS's, perhaps this should be the domain of schools and parents.

Certainly our teachers may need a heads up on what is happening in SNS's however our primary function at the present moment and in the current political climate is to improve the effectiveness of VET delivery to areas of skills shortage etc

Sorry to be a cold hearted manager type :-)

So my reply to this was:

Thanks for your "cold hearted manager type" response - however - our staff and students are 'excited' about using this application - not sure I can say the same about some of the TAFE supported technologies - and this is where a lot of people are going to 'discover' what SN is all about. There's a lot to learn and gain from SNSs.

I think this 'email conversation' sounds a little like the one we had before edayz - ie about 'do we have an ethical responsibility' to wholistically educate our students - and not just what fits into the Training Package guidelines. And TAFE still has a 'social' side to its training responsibilities - not just to fill the skills gaps.

Love to debate with you further in the morning. Allison

Some questions to ponder from this discussion:

What are the POSITIVES of Social Networking? and what are the NEGATIVES of Social Networking?

Why do Educational Institutes 'shy away' from embracing 'Social Networking Sites' - and 'block' them?

How do we entice Educational Institutes to 'value' Social Networking?

Do Educational Institutes have an ethical responsibility to be 'guiding' their students through 'how to operate' in SNS?

How do we 'measure' and 'demonstrate' the educational value of SNSs?

How can we gather the data to show the 'ROI in terms of relationships' and 'ROI in terms of information and learning'?

thx @kerryank for responding to my 'tweets' on this topic - your responsiveness helped me formulate these questions?

I don't expect these questions will be answered in the short term, but will 'emerge' as more and more of our staff and students forge their own way into SNS, and demonstrate the benefits (and hazards) themselves.

Should Facebook be banned from Educational Institutes?

I received the following email today from a colleague:

Hi Everyone

I have been asked to do some research about the site www.facebook.com as I understand it is currently blocked. I would like to seek the practitioners network views on the need for such a site to be unblocked. I believe the argument is so lecturers can have access to this site so they can communicate with students while studying off campus.

The questions that I would like a response to are?

1. What are the other educational uses of such a site?
2. Is this the best way to communicate with students who are studying off campus or are there better and more effective tools?
3. Your comments to the review below?

Facebook, an online facebook and social network service, is increasingly being used by school administrations and law enforcement agencies as a source of evidence against student users. The site, a popular online destination for college students, allows users to create profile pages with personal details. These pages can be viewed by other registered users from the same school which often include resident assistants and campus police who have signed-up for the service. Recent disciplinary actions against students based on information made available on Facebook has spurred debate over the legality and ethics of school administrators' harvesting such information. Facebook's Terms of Use specify that "the website is available for your personal, noncommercial use only," misleading some to believe that college administrators and police may not use the site for conducting investigations. However, Facebook spokes people have made clear that Facebook is a public forum and all information published on the site should be presumed available to the general public, school administrators included. Legal experts agree that public information sources such as Facebook can be legally used in criminal or other investigations.

Many thanks for your time on this.

And here is my response:


1. What are the other educational uses of such a site?

Social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook allow people to share information and create 'interest groups'.

SNS allow staff and students to 'network' with people beyond their local environment and their local time zone.

SNS are important to help our staff and students to learn how to 'communicate' in an online environment.

SNS allow students to create online 'portfolios' - which they can use to store their 'resume' and evidence of their work and what they are capable of. This can help them when applying for jobs or further education/training or applying for Recognition of Prior Learning/Skills Recognition.

2. Is this the best way to communicate with students who are studying off campus or are there better and more effective tools?

SNS are one of the many ways people are now communicating and sharing ideas and information. Whether it is the most effective could only be determined by the way it was being used. Ie if a class had a 'group' page - this would be a very effective way of communicating easily with a lot of people.

When people are 'friends' or 'follow' each other - it is very easy to monitor the progress of what others are doing. This allows you share and use what your 'friends' have already discovered or developed.

Depending on the need, the class could also 'invite' or include others (ie experts in an area) to contribute to their learning.

SNS also provide an excellent platform for collaborative learning.

3. Your comments to the review (below)?

We need to teach people about SNet-iquette (Social Network ettiquette), and the positive and negative effects of their online 'behaviour', and how they are creating an online 'digital foot print'.

I believe educational institutes should be 'leading the way' in educating people about these things. Therefore, by encouraging staff and students to use these sites as educational tools, we are encouraging the conversations necessary for people to work out what is, and what is not, appropriate in an online environment.

SNS are new to a lot of Lecturers and Administrators, as they might not necessarily use these sites themselves - so we should be providing them with some Professional Development - so they can lead their students into making the best decisions about how to use these sites.

I'm so pleased that this type of 'research' is starting to take place in educational institutions - let's hope the benefits of SNSs far out way the negatives - to allow sites like Facebook to be openly available.

Your blog's readability?

Is it possible for a website to tell you:

'What level of education is required to understand your blog?'

This is how this blog rated:

Sourced from Kate Olson's Kate 2.0 blog

Take "The Blog Readability Test" on your blog.

Now I'm wondering if this posting will lower or increase my rating (tongue in check)

Is too much Knowledge a Curse??

As I'm reading through all of the wonderous blog postings which are nicely feed into my 'Google Reader' - I'm always happy to watch the number of feeds slowly dwindle.

However, I've read for the second time this week of others in my Personal Learning Network (PLN) who have left their 'blog reading' for just a couple of days, and then they've returned to find more than 3,000 feeds in their RSS Aggregator. OMG!

Yes, they can simply hit the 'Mark all as read" or "Refresh"- but how many blogs are they subscribing to if it only takes a couple of days for their 'Reader' to hit the magically '3,000' mark? Hmmm - does this mean I have scope to subscribe to more than the 50 or so blogs I 'm currently subscribed to?

But is too much knowledge a curse???

"Here’s the great cruelty of the Curse of Knowledge: The better we get at generating great ideas—new insights and novel solutions—in our field of expertise, the more unnatural it becomes for us to communicate those ideas clearly. That’s why knowledge is a curse. But notice we said “unnatural,” not “impossible.” Experts just need to devote a little time to applying the basic principles of stickiness."

Written by the Heath Brothers, but sourced from Ideas & Thoughts

During my first year at Teachers' College (they used to call it that in my day) I didn't have a clue what my Economic Lecturer was ever saying - or whether he was even speaking English? I know this was Economics - but I really didn't understand a word he was saying.

After a one-on-one conversation with him I realised that I was never going to understand what he was saying. At the time I considered him to be 'eccentric'. But after considering the Heath Brothers' quote - perhaps he just had the "Curse of Knowledge" and wasn't practising the basic principles of knowing how to make an idea stick for others?

Balancing Act:
Photo 'Scales Group' by Christopher Proudlove,


So at what point do we 'tip the scales' of receiving too much information?

Is there such a point, when we have too much knowledge that we don't know how to effectively share it with others at a level which is catering for their needs?

What are the signs when the scales have been tipped too far?

So even though it's great that we gather lots of 'knowledge' through our Personal Learning Networks - it's also really important that we understand the needs of our students/clients/audience - and pitch that knowledge at a level which enables them to 'make it stick'.

PS Received a lovely Pownce response to the question 'Is too much knowledge a Curse?' from Russel Montgomery

Why do you openly and freely share what you know?

Whilst discussing with my Manager today the ways I could ‘share’ the information I will gather at the Australian e-Portfolio Symposium in a couple of weeks, I mentioned that I would 'blog' what I'll learn (right here in fact) so other people, beyond my organisation, could learn from it.


This was much to my Manager's dismay, and he responded with - "Well, you'll never get rich if you give it all away".


I found this comment particularly funny, considering that everything I 'create', which is related to what I do as a 'government' employee (whether I create it in or out of work hours), technically, is 'owned by the Minister'.

So my reply was: "Well, if it's money you want - then you're certainly working for the wrong organisation".

Then later I read the following on one of George Siemens' blog postings:

"User created tutorials have come a long way ... Now, with YouTube, podcasts, blogs, and wikis, excellent help resources are often available. There is, of course, nothing formal about this ... just people helping each other. What's their motivation? Most likely, at some point, they similarly benefited from an online tutor (whether learning how to use a piece of software or coming to understand a concept better because someone shared it in a blog or wiki). The teacher is the learner is the teacher.”

So this got me thinking: "So, why do people openly and freely share what they know?"

There's are loads of example of 'free and open sharing' on the web. There are so many great tools that allow people to quickly and easily 'share what they know'. And although there are endless examples, here are but two:

One really great recent example is the OpenPD sessions being run by Darren Draper & Robin Ellis, who run FREE, three hour PD sessions, online, with the most recent one being on "the inclusion of social software in one's curriculum and instruction"

And I'd be very remise if I did not mention one of the greatest online givers and mentors I've ever met: and that is Sue Waters - who regularly and readily shares all that she knows - and when she doesn't know it - will spend the time to 'source' the information for you.

So why do you openly and freely share what you know?

Is it:

- because you have potential to learn alot more? thx @blueverse

Or is it because:

- give a little, get a little back. Reciprocity? thx @skytrystsjoy

Well, for me it's about the 'giving of positive energy'. I find by passing on something 'positive', eventually something 'positive' comes back to me - not necessarily directly - but through lots of other means. This 'giving' also provides an excellent 'spring board' into building strong and trusting relationships.

I'm still very intrigued at the open, sharing-ness of the Twitter community. I love the way that Twitterers quickly open their 'hearts and minds' to their fellow Twitterers, and role-model the ideal open online learning community.

So please share: "Why do you openly and freely share what you know?"

'The Tweet Scan Can'

Since attending one of Alan Levine's CogDogRoo workshop's last October I've really 'taken' by Twitter, to say the least. Over this last Summer break, I've spent A LOT of time in Twitter, building my Twitter networks, and learning lots and lots and lots.

At first, my husband was a 'little' concerned about my Twitter 'obsession', but he's since come around to the fact that it satisfies some of the things that I really love - 'being with people' and 'learning'.

But sadly to say - my summer holiday is coming to a 'screaming close', and I can't afford the luxury of spending hours and hours 'scouring' missed tweets - in fear that I'm missing all of that wonderfully useful information, as well as building up the understanding of how the 'peeps' in my Twitter network function.

So I've had to find more 'efficient' ways of getting my 'Twitter' fix.

I've tried getting tweets directed to my mobile phone whilst out and about, but I'm yet to receive my mobile phone bill to verify whether I'm charged to receive these international SMSs - especially since I received 75 tweets in one afternoon. I'll update you on this later.

I use Snitter to have all 'live' tweets 'flash' on my screen, whilst working on the Net. I was very 'stoked' yesterday when at my first day back at work (not just working from home) - I was able to download and install Snitter - probably very much against 'company policy' but I very valuable tool for keeping my social networks alive (and my Twitter addition satisfied :)).

I've started to feed the cool blog sites fellow Twitterers write and recommend - using Google Reader - and this is working
really well. I can read the blog postings at my leisure - instead of trying to 'squeeze' them all in whilst 'going over' my missed tweets.

And now I've discovered a 'shortcut' to making sure I don't miss any tweets Twittered especially to me @theother66. As I described in 'TweetScan is Twitter-sweet' I'm now using TweetScan to 'aggregate' any tweets with 'theother66' into my Google Reader. This means I'll also receive tweets from anyone - not just those I'm following!! So when I arose this morning, I was able to see who'd been tweeting me whilst I was playing with Mr Sandman:



By working out these less time consuming ways of using Twitter I've actually made time available to write this blog, all before breakfast and the kids waking up (big smiles all round).

Also read Sue Waters' "Getting More out of Twitter" post!