The Guardian newspaper has published a very level headed article about the findings of the recently published UK report on “Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World.”

I haven’t read the report yet (it is on today’s to do list) but according to the press release “findings from the report show that students typically spend four hours a day online, a figure that looks set to rise as teenagers make increasing use of Web 2.0 technology in their daily lives.  One of the challenges for the higher education sector is therefore to ensure that staff can keep pace with the advancing technology which many of their students rely on every day, using the technology to enhance the student learning experience.”

The Guardian interviewed Martin Weller and Brian Kelly. Much of what they said was predictably sensible. I was, however, intrigued by this quote from Brian Kelly.

“Some university student unions are also warning students about online ethics and the danger of slagging people off online, or posting pictures of drunken nights out that they wouldn’t want their mother or future employers to get their hands on, he says. “We’ve had no time to develop a culture. Everyone knows how to answer a telephone but it takes time for those conventions to come about, and there are no conventions for cyberspace.””

I think he is wrong. One of the remarkable things about Web 2.0 and social software is how fast cultures and especially conventions have evolved and become accepted, despite the novelty of the applications. Take Twitter. Twitter is still new and fast growing and despite the lack of any rules (or hardly any) a vibrant culture has emerged. RTs. FollowFriday. Hash tags. And so on. Just take the hashtag convention. That is emerging in a context of social use and is negotiated informally within the community of users. This is where i think Twitter get it right and Facebook get it so wrong. Twitter encourages the community to negotiate its rules and conventions. Facebook tries to impose the rules though manipulating access to APIs and data and ends up producing something which we feel we do not own. And it is the ownership and sense of ownership within the community which enable us to define our own digital identities, rather than having them imposed on us. Enough for now, but I will return to this issue.

NB Congratulations to Jisc on their latest website overhaul. The incorporation of Twitter comments and a general more Web 2.0 approach have transformed the Jisc site into an interesting and vibrant space – that is not something you can say for many institutional or agency web sites. European Commission – take note.

“But the more interesting question is whether this will mean any change in the culture of Facebook – always assuming that it has any discernible culture.”

An interesting question raised in an otherwise somewhat flip article in the Guardian, commenting on the news that most Facebook users are over 25 and the fastest growing demographic group on Facebook are woman over 55, according to new research from Inside Facebook. (The article is curious, the author appears unsure as to whether a newspaper of the Guardian’s perceived gravitas should report seriously on the demographic makeup of Facebook users).

One thing this research does confirm, once again, is the misleading nature of terms like the ‘Net Generation; and ‘Digital Natives’.

But does Facebook have a discernible culture? No, I would say, Facebook is merely a social networking platform. But of course communities if users develop culture. And our use of adoption and use of tools and media help shape our cultures. Social networks are hardly new. it is just that digital platforms and tools allow the development of distributed networks – over space and time – and allow the sharing and of artefacts  developed as part of that culture. witness the way Blip.fm (yes I know I keep going on about it) allows us to develop networks and communities around music.

According to Wenger (1998), a community of practice defines itself along three dimensions:

• What it is about – its joint enterprise as understood and continually renegotiated by its members.
• How it functions – mutual engagement that bind members together into a social entity.
• What capability it has produced – the shared repertoire of communal resources (routines, sensibilities, artefacts, vocabulary, styles, etc.) that members have developed over time. (see, also Wenger 1999: 73-84).

Most communities on Facebook or Blip.fm are not communities of practice as defined by Wenger. They might better be defined as communities of interest. But they do show features of the different dimensions identified by Wenger especially in terms of capability and that capability is in turn mediated by tools in the form of affordances. And yes, of course communities have cultures!

References

Wenger, E. (1998) ‘Communities of Practice. Learning as a social system’, Systems Thinker, http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/lss.shtml. Accessed March 27, 2009.

Wenger E 1999, Communities of Practice. Learning, meaning and identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

It is a busy period for me and hence little time for posting. Off again tomorrow to Pontypridd, then to Manchester for ThoughtFest08, a quick trip to Swindon to see my parents and then to Warwick University and on to Loughborough for the Jisc Users and Innovations programme Benefits Realisation project.

I do have the odd hour off! Last Thursday was the UEFA cup game between Werder Bremen and Milan (in Milan) and I managed to get myself to Bremen for the game. Problem was having made it to Germany, I found the game was not being seen on German TV. Conspiracy theories for this range between anti Werder bias on part of German broadcasters, ridiculous prices being charged by Milan for media rights and a desire not to show referees bias outside Italy!

So what to do? Innovation was running high. There were French, Chinese and Romanian broadcasters covering the game wide. satellite dishes were being moved, news cards plugged into computers and receivers. sadly, the only venue that my friend Lars knew was showing the match was on the wrong side of the river, it was pouring with rain and the ferry had stopped for the night. So, in the end, we decided to take our computers ot my local pub, where there is access to an open network from a nearby student house. The landlord had already positioned himself next to a radio with locals gathered around it. Lars and me got busy on our MacBooks, surfing for open feeds. And there were a lot of feeds – both on open streams and on peer to peer networks. The problem was there were also a lot of people seeking to watch those feeds. We ended up with two jerky rebuffering feeds running some 25 seconds behind the radio commentary. But nevertheless, the computers became a central focus on attention, perched on a high bar table and angled so everyone could watch.

The result, as I am sure you will guess since i am blogging this, was 2-2, so Werder progressed on the away goals rule.

But seriously, how long can this farce of closed media rights go on. As bandwidth continues to improve, I guess by next year the feeds will be reasonably good. And with so many people in China, in Romania and all over the world prepapred to generously share their satellite streams, it is only a matter of time before the football authorities  and the broadcasters have to reconsider their strategies for trying to screw as much money as possible from ordinary football fans for trying to follow their teams. Lets campaign for Open Football!

There is an interesting report today in the Guardian newspaper on the results of an annual survey, undertaken by the UK based ChildWise charity. The finding include:

Some 30% of the 1800 young people questioned say they have a blog and 62% have a profile on a social networking site. Accrording to the report children and young teens are more likely to socialise than do homework online.

Screen time has become so pervasive in the daily lives of five- to 16-year-olds that they are now skilled managers of their free time, juggling technology to fit in on average six hours of TV, playing games and surfing the net, it suggests.

But reading books is falling out of favour – 84% said they read for pleasure in 2006, 80% in 2007 and 74% this year.

Children who use the internet spend on average 1.7 hours a day online, but one in six spent more than three hours a day online on top of the 1.5 hours they spent on their games consoles. They still have time for 2.7 hours of television – though the report says they tend to multitask, doing these activities simultaneously.

One in three said the computer is the single thing they couldn’t live without, compared with a declining number – one in five – who name television.

Pupils are using the internet less while at school, frustrated by the low-tech access and the restrictions put in place to stop them from accessing inappropriate material.

Younger girls are now catching up with boys in the use of games consoles.

Goerge Siemens has written an important post called ‘Systematization of education: Room for PLEs?’ Why do I think it is important? Because George tries to look at the relationship between the development and uses of technology and the societal organisation of education.

The crux of his arguement is: “PLEs are great. They’re just completely incompatible with the existing education system.”

George quotes Evetts, Mieg, and Felt who “suggest that expertise has as a significant sociological component. Power, authority, and validity all play a role. Focus on accountability, audits, and performance targets are now heavily intertwined with professionalism. Structures of control – such as education – are not solely about knowledge and the interaction of learners with academics. Education is a system based in a sociological context. Or, more bluntly, there is “no fundamental difference between the pursuit of knowledge and that of power.”

A PLE, in contrast, is a tool/process/concept that addresses the needs of learners. It is not, to date, integrated with the power structures of society. It is only – and perhaps even honorably – about knowledge. It’s entirely possible that an integrated power structure can be built at a grassroots level, thereby developing the capacity of PLEs to replace existing LMS tools (which again, find their strength in existing power structures of control and data organization under the umbrella of the institution). This transition will not, however, occur without a corresponding power shift that emphasizes networks as an alternative to hierarchical curricular control structures that begin with industry and government setting research agendas and often influencing standards and curricular needs.”

As George says: “The modernization of education: during the industrial revolution, education transitioned from a personal relationship between faculty member and learner to a systematized model of large instructional classes and numerous teachers.”

He concludes: “Education has ceased to be about the individual learner (the early university model) to being about the existing power allocation of society (today’s model as a by product of industrial techniques applied to education).

As a result, it makes perfect sense that LMS are popular. LMS’ speak the language of the current power structure in education: control, accountability, manageability.”

I agree with almost everything George says. But I am far less pessimist than him. I think George misses two things: the inherent contradictions in capitalist societies and the power of individual and collective agency.

Just as there are contradictions in the capitalist economic system, so are there in the different superstructures which support that system. Yes, education has become systematised to deliver the education and training required by modern industrial societies. But at the same time, the system is unable to keep up with what is required. It is not just a question that curricula cannot keep pace with the speed of technological and social innovation. It is an issue that the skills and knowledge required by today’s technology cannot be delivered through a rigidly sytematised, market led educational system. Furthermore, globalisation, the rapid turnover in employment and occupations and the implementation of new technologies have led to pressures for continuing learning – what is being called lifelong learning. Present education systems cannot deliver this. Hence the never ending reforms of our schooling systems and the ongoing financial problems of universities. Putting it simply, it will cost too much to extend the present model of institutional education to deliver the learning required by the present phase of capitalism. PLEs and MOOCs offer alternative models – for better or worse. Although institutions may resist such models, they will have little alternative than to embrace change.

OK – that is the first argument. The second is based on individual and community agency. The education systems are powerful. But they are not hegemonic. There have always been spaces for individuals and groups to organise their own learning in their own way. In the UK in the 19th and 20th centuries workers organised their own education through the Mechanics Institutes, just as today we find an increasing wave of self organised and open learning available through the web. There are many innovative teachers experimenting with new technologies. Often this work is going on on the fringes of the system, where the control may be less strong. Language teaching is one such example. Most language schools are only interested in results and if the teacher chooses to use PLEs or Web 2.0 tools then they do no object as long as the results are good. Today I was talking with Maria Perifanou, an Italian language teacher in Tessaloniki in Greece. She told me how her students are using Edmodo, set up as part of their langauge course,  to communicate about what is happening in the riots. “They send messages, songs, links, express opinions… they used it these days to tell about  their situation…in Italian…so this brought them their need to share opinions…to become a community.”

It is not merely a question that the system has to change before we can adopt Personal Learning Environments. PLEs support informal and social learning. It is that informal and social learning which can change the system. It is notable that the uprising in Greece is being led by students – many of whom are still at school.

We all can have agency in changing the system and the use of social software and the development of peer networks is part of that process.

This video has been produced by Pontydysgu and friends as our entry for the Alt-C2008 Digital Slam competition. We discussed the idea over skype and then each recorded our own part of the soundtrack. The text is from Wikipedia entries about the Digital Divide. We wanted to bring music and pictures togather to explore the multi faceted and often contradictory phenonomon of the digital divide. And we wanted to bring voices and pictures together from different countries and cultures. We had orginally intended to include Greek language in the mash but found that there is no Digital Divide entry in the Greek version of Wikipedia. We will write one.

Anyway hope you enjoy it.

Words – Graham Attwell, Cristina Costa, Dirk Stieglitz and Maria Perifanou.
Music – Break Rise Blowing by Countdown.
Text – Wikipedia
Pictures – Abrilon, Lisachaos, Maebmij, ninnet, AnantaB (all Creative Commons, Flickr)
Production – Dirk Stieglitz

My post ‘Universities get with it, wake up, be cool‘ has attracted some attention, both in comments on the blog and on twitter. Most people have agreed that the university degree ceremonies in the UK are outdated but some have not.

OK – it was a semi-humerous post. But there is a serieus point. How we celebrate achievement is part of our culture. And how universities celebrate student achievement is part of the learning culture of the institution. Degree cermonies such as the one in Aberystewth that I described – and I have no reason to believe there is any great difference in other UK universities – cannot be seen as anything other than a reflection of the learning culture of those institutions. What are the messages such events present. Firstly a veneer of the medieval univerity run by mysterious committees with inpenetrable ceremonies. Places where hierarchies are important – why else the different coloured gowns – or batman claoks as someone said on twitter. Secondly the lack of technology speaks for itself. And thirdly all this is overlaid with a crass commercialism. Vendor produced souvenirs, overpriced group hotos, hired gowns etc. University is a place you go to purchase your degree. This is not the learning culture I want to see. Universities should be serious fun. Universities should be democratic – a place of mutual leaning. And universities should be a part of continuing learning – not seperate from the rest of your life but part of a learning journey.

Universities get with it, wake up, be cool!

It might be summer but it is certainly not quiet. And the slow revolution of self organised elearning is gathering pace (Twitter seems to be a major ‘organising’ technology but more on that in a later post). One initiative which looks interesting is F-Alt. Inaugurated by post punk playboy Scott Wilson, F-Alt is the Fringe for this years Advanced Laerning Technologies Conference, Alt C, to be held in Leeds.

As the wiki says planned (or not so planned) activities include “round-table brainstorms on some of the top topics (and non-topics). Its all up for debate.

Format: each session is a round-table brainstorm of problems, issues. Short quick quick fire format, say 20 to 30 minutes, with the aim of gathering of thoughts. Each topic identifies the questions that need to be answered to make some of these socio-technical educational interventions actually work.

Rules for participation
No long winded waffle. Participants must be short and sharp and to the point. More twitter than paper presentation.”

Sounds my kind of conference. If you are going to F-Alt and would like to be part of the loop just sign up on the wiki. And even if you are not planning to go I am sure we will have all kind sof technologies for distance communication.

Been travelling for last week – hence few entries in this blog. Amongst a run of meetings I went to Aberystwth for my stepdaughter Arddun’s graduation ceremony. I can’t say I was looking forward to it and indeed it was every bit as boring as I expected. Don’t get me wrong – I am all in favour of celebrating achievement and Arddun worked hard for her degree and deserved her day out – well done love.

But why – oh why – do the universities make such a mess of such cermonies. We were sheparded into an overcrowded hall – with no air conditioning – where we were treated to half an hour of dirge like organ music. Then we have to stand whilst a procession of middle class, middle aged, white (mostly) men trail in wearing the most ridiculous fancy dress costumes (although I did like the silly hats – theyw oudl go down well in a German carnival).

The presentation of the honoury degrees could have been entertaining – if only because Welsh actor Mathew Rees was included (the other one was to a woman whose entire life seemed to have been devoted to serving on government committees) but the univeristy screwed it up by making them stand sheepishly silent whilst soem academic read out a leaden text of their career. Then came the student presentations. I have to say it was well managed. Aber had obviously hired a member of staff with previous experience as an air traffic controller as she signalled and led students to the stage in groups of six – accompanied front and back by an usher carryng a ceremonial stick to keep them in order or in case they lost their way back to their seats. The rector or chancellor or whoever he was made some short reading in Welsh and bowed or rather nodded his head at each student in turn. Back to seats and on with the next six. An hour and a half of this, interupted only by some Welsh harp music.

And then to the finale. A speech by the Rector (or vice chancellor or whoever he was) with wonderful words of encouragement marking the students progress from “learning to earning” (he obviously hasn’t heard of the credit crunch) and “think not what Aberystwth can do for you but what you can do for Aberystwth” – i.e. if, by some miracle, any of you lot do make any money in the future, give us some of it. Oh – and a brief history of the univeristy.

And then on for ONE (and one only) free glass of sparkling wine or orange juice and the opportunity to buy graduation tat (slang word for mechantising rubbish such as graduation teddy bears!) from a tat stall and to pay over-inflated costs for a picture of the big day.

It doesn’t have to be like that. Why not some of the excellent Welsh rock music. Lights, multi media on the big screen. A collage of university life – like it really is. Culture – todays culture – not an made up medieval ceremony. And if the rector and staff can come in fancy dress why not us. How about  dancing. Or – better still – why not run it in Second Life. Or lets have audience particpation with a back channel.

If any Univeristy out there is interested I would be happy to liven up your degree ceremony next year. For a small fee. Or perhaps for an honoury degree in event management.

Don’t miss this brilliant review – curiously filed by the Guardian newspaper under ‘Reference’ – by  linguistics Professor David Crystal on texting. David tells how langauge has always been changing and how the use of various forms of abbrieviations is not new.

“There are several distinctive features of the way texts are written that combine to give the impression of novelty, but none of them is, in fact, linguistically novel” he says. “Many of them were being used in chatroom interactions that predated the arrival of mobile phones. Some can be found in pre-computer informal writing, dating back a hundred years or more.”

He goes on to say that: “Although many texters enjoy breaking linguistic rules, they also know they need to be understood.”

He concludes: “An extraordinary number of doom-laden prophecies have been made about the supposed linguistic evils unleashed by texting. Sadly, its creative potential has been virtually ignored. But five years of research has at last begun to dispel the myths. The most important finding is that texting does not erode children’s ability to read and write. On the contrary, literacy improves. The latest studies (from a team at Coventry University) have found strong positive links between the use of text language and the skills underlying success in standard English in pre-teenage children. The more abbreviations in their messages, the higher they scored on tests of reading and vocabulary. The children who were better at spelling and writing used the most textisms. And the younger they received their first phone, the higher their scores.

Children could not be good at texting if they had not already developed considerable literacy awareness. Before you can write and play with abbreviated forms, you need to have a sense of how the sounds of your language relate to the letters. You need to know that there are such things as alternative spellings. If you are aware that your texting behaviour is different, you must have already intuited that there is such a thing as a standard. If you are using such abbreviations as lol and brb (“be right back”), you must have developed a sensitivity to the communicative needs of your textees.”