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The business of education
Tony outlined some web 2.0 business models the other day. Stephen Downes picked up on this, and commented "[I] am compelled to think that the disaster that happens when democracy is for sale is nothing compared to what will happen when learning is for sale" As Tony was thinking about SocialLearn, this is something I've been musing over for a while too. So, I offer this post up in the spirit of debate, because even putting the words business and education in the same sentence is heresy for some, and yet I think we will face some very difficult choices in this area over the coming decade, so we can't…
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Twitter events
The other day I mentioned that I like to Twitter when I'm watching football on TV. My wife doesn't watch, and if I'm not in a pub, it's a way of sharing the experience. Then on Saturday it was the Eurovision Song Contest. I started to watch it, but put a DVD on, then when I looked at Twitter it was awash with Eurovision comments. It struck me that Eurovision was in many ways the perfect Twitter event. It is, in fact, quite boring (none of the songs are any good), so there is plenty of time to Twitter. At the same time, it is quite enjoyable and provokes comment,…
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Twitter meltdown?
It's not been a good week for Twitter. Most of Tuesday it seemed to be down, and then most of Wednesday evening too. One comes to expect short outages in Twitter, you almost regard them with affection, that bespeak of its cottage industry status (I guess they've gone to put another dollar in the meter). But these outages have been very frustrating. Last night I was watching the Champions League Final, and I often Twitter with other people who are in that narrow cross section of ed tech/football fans/in my twitter list, so I'm not watching alone. But no luck last night, apart from a few brief windows of opportunity.…
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When is a creepy treehouse a community of practice?
Chris Lott coined the term ‘creepy treehouse’, and John Krutsch defines it as "a place online that adults built with the intention of luring kids in." Jared Stein has an excellent post on defining a creepy treehouse further: n. Any institutionally-created, operated, or controlled environment in which participants are lured in either by mimicking pre-existing open or naturally formed environments, or by force, through a system of punishments or rewards. n. Any system or environment that repulses a target user due to it’s closeness to or representation of an oppressive or overbearing institution. n. A situation in which an authority figure or an institutional power forces those below him/her into…
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Twitter Tales #1
This one starts with Stuart Brown reading the Broadcast Strategy Review, and I remind him there is a website. It then goes on to to prove the adage that ‘if man can describe it, Hirst can mash it.’ stuartbrown – reading the ou broadcast strategy review mweller – @stuartbrown – don’t you mean ‘viewing’ (ie the intranet site). Reading is so 1700s lauradee – @mweller what if ‘viewing’ isn’t your learning style? 🙂 I’m all about reading… am getting some Paperchase "tattoos for librarians" nogbad – @lauradeeDo "tattoos for librarians" say "Shhhhh!"? lauradee – @mweller @nogbad they say things like I love books (instead of I love…
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Twitter Tales
I know lots of people don’t get Twitter and last week Will accused me of having a Twitter addiction. Part of my response to Will was that as I work at home a lot, Twitter really gives a lot of that peer/professional/social interaction you get at work. I’m not addicted to Twitter, but I might be addicted to my network. Anyway, I thought I would start collecting series of exchanges on Twitter that over time will show this variety of interaction. So I’m going to start posting ‘Twitter Tales’ here. My approach is apart from a brief intro to let the tweets do the talking themselves and just list the…
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Mac/Linux users look smug now
I got a laptop from work last year with Windows Vista installed. I don’t use it much (I have a Vaio with XP which works fine), but it has become our media machine at home. Then yesterday it gave the message that the activation period had expired and this version of Windows was not valid. I tried entering the code on the sticker on the machine but no joy. I contacted tech guys at the ou who reckon I will need to plug it into the campus network for it to update. As I’m in Cardiff and in the US next week, this means it’s at least a couple of…
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We’re all Canadians now
Happy Canada Day by Our Enchanted Garden http://flickr.com/photos/enchantedgarden/178563428/ A tweet from Jennifer Jones the other day made me reflect on the prevalence of Canadians amongst my favourite bloggers/twitterers. In response to Dean Shareski tweeting "Now I’ve got colleagues saying to me, "Can you ask your twitter network…….?" Ask them yourself! I didn’t say that but I should have", Jennifer responded ‘Mine say ‘ask your Canadian friends’. This is much the same for me – I have a blog rule that goes something like ‘if one of the Canadians hasn’t blogged it, then it can’t be important’. Here are the Canadian bloggers that form the core of my blogroll:D’Arcy NormanBrian LambScott…
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Turning to Twitter in a crisis
Jim Groom has an amazing account of how a group of people at a presentation at the University of Richmond were suddenly told to turn off the lights and be quiet as a suspicious character with a gun had been spotted on campus. After the initial moment of fright, he relates how a number of them turned to Twitter, and how this turned out to be both soothing and useful: "I found the act to be really soothing. People at UR were information and advice to one another, while the larger network from around the world was sending regards, prayers, questions, and their well wishes. I had a very powerful…
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Web 2.0 – even if we’re wrong, we’re right
Brian Kelly has a good slidecast talking about exploiting the social aspects of web 2.0. He gave a similar talk with the title ‘Web 2.0 – what if we’re wrong?’ and in Twitter I tried to argue that even if we’re wrong, we’re right, but struggled with the 140 character limit, so I’ll put my argument here. Brian makes a good case about avoiding the Gartner Hype Curve where you have rising expectations, which are not met, and then a trough of despair (I can’t embed the actual slide direct, but it’s slide 19). He is right about this, and the possible risks. Many web 2.0 companies don’t have a…
