web 2.0
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We are digitalists – these are our tools
<Image Tatuagem geek no Barcamp – Tiago Doria http://flickr.com/photos/tiagodoria/432822929/> To avoid the digital natives and immigrants debate, let's opt for the term digitalists instead, and define them thus: "Those who are comfortable using a range of digital media and are open to the changes that digitisation brings to society." It's not exclusive, anyone can become a digitalist, and it's not absolute, you can be a digitalist in some areas and maybe have reservations in another. But you're not Andrew Keen. This follows on from previous post, where I took Scott Leslie's post about just sharing to argue that the mode of sharing has changed. Digitalists know this because they do…
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The cost of sharing
I've mentioned Scott's Planning to share, versus just sharing post in passing, but here is a slightly more considered response. Scott sets out his frustration with top down, planned approaches to sharing: "I have been asked to participate in many projects over the years that start once a bunch of departments, institutions or organizations notice that they have a lot in common with others and decide that it would be a good idea to collaborate, to share “best practices” or “data” or whatever… But inevitably, with a very few exceptions, these projects spend an enormous amount of time defining what is to be shared, figuring out how to share it,…
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Digital literacies
I was asked to provide some thoughts on digital literacies for the Vice Chancellor, but rather than just do a dead email, in keeping with the spirit of the topic, I thought I’d put them in a blog post. This isn’t the research related view, but rather a personal perspective. Here are what I think are interesting about what we might term new digital literacies: Different voices – think of the bloggers you read the most. It might be people like Stephen Downes, David Warlick, Will Richardson, D’Arcy Norman, Alan Levine, Scott Leslie, Tony Hirst, etc. Now consider the top-cited researchers in educational technology journals. I’m not sure who they…
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The eduWomble manifesto
Adblock For those who have difficulties with the connotations of edupunk, straight of Wales we bring you – eduWomble! One of my twitter friends Griffithss4 tweeted yesterday that regarding their learning environment “Current approach can be summarised (and will be referred to) as the #’Womble Strategy” For those outside the UK, the Wombles was a children’s television programme set on Wimbledon Common about creatures who lived underground and made their homes and stuff by recycling the rubbish humans left around. The green message was very ahead of its time, but it’s the theme tune that offers itself up to us educational technologists as metaphor. The main theme is represented in…
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Technology as metaphor (or I’m on e-Literate)
I was really pleased to be asked to contribute an article to the edition of On The Horizon that Michael Feldstein is editing. As part of the procedure all the authors are writing a guest blog post on e-Literate. It feels kind of like getting the opening slot on the Parkinson show (US readers – substitute with Leno). My piece is up now, called SocialLearn: Bridging the Gap Between Higher Education and Web 2 (surprise choice of topic, I know!). As well as talking about SocialLearn I wanted to make the argument that the technology we (individuals and institutions) use is a metaphor, or at least an artefact, for how…
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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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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…
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Moving from being a provider to a meaner
Question: What have librarians, IT services and academics got in common (apart from occassionally questionable dress sense)? Answer: All have one key element of their role undermined or removed by the web, which can be loosely described as provision of content or service. Back around 1999 when the likes of David Noble were bemoaning that the internet would make academics redundant (he was the Andrew Keen of his day), us e-learning advocates would argue that merely providing content is not all that educators did. Which led to the oft-quoted move from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side. Librarians have also faced a similar challenge from…
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Top widgets (or why Google runs the world)
(charlessc – http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlesc/100343106/) My favourite search tool, Lijit, has a feature on the top widgets. The top two by quite some distance are Google Analytics and Google Syndication (AdSense). Surprisingly mybloglog is third (well above Technorati and Twitter). The post also breaks them down by type, with ‘metrics’ being the most common type of widget people add. They also show the most popular tools within each category, and it’s here you really see the dominance of Google. In the Analytics category Google Analytics scores 39.9% compared with Sitemeter in second place with 16.2%. In Ads, Adsense has a whopping 84.8% share of the market, and in video, YouTube unsurprisingly sweeps…
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What would Russell make of it?
John recently posted about Bertrand Russell and his essay ‘In Praise of Idleness’. When I was a student this was one of my favourite books, largely because I was idle and was trying to justify it (and you’ve got to admire someone who smokes such a pipe). I have been thinking about this a lot recently (sadly, this is true, this is what I think about), and considering what Russell would make of modern day Britain or the global society. He puts several arguments forward in the essay, the first being that work (which was physical work then), was a tool for governments. The second is that leisure is a…
