Helen's EDC blog

Hi James,

Great to chat with you and the rest of the group in the Hangout earlier.

‘it was great to see how Twitter enabled these other voices to momentarily ‘join our class’.’
Yes: absolutely! It was really exciting to see experts join us. For me, our hashtag functions to offer a sense of us being ‘removed’ from the wider twitterverse; the activity in the tweetorial reminded me that we are, as ever on this course, learning in public.

‘The sociomaterialist perspective of the ‘the constitutive entanglement of the social and the material’ (Orlikowski, 2007) and, therefore, the technical, is a seam which has run throughout our blocks of study and was highlighted in both the Siemens and Williamson readings.’
Like you, I feel this has been a thread that has run through the course, although it has particularly come to the fore around cybercultures and now algorithmic cultures. I think it very helpfully challenges us to move beyond critiques of digital education where we are ‘done unto’ by technology, or simply use technology as the means of production.’
I think this will be – necessarily – one of the focuses of my final assignment. I’m finalising ideas for content and form and look forward to discussing these with you next week.

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Thanks for this weekly summary, Helen – you’ve really nicely managed to weave the content of the Tweetorial discussion around the Siemens article, the Williamson lecture and also Sian Bayne’s ideas around entanglement and also work by Orlikowski on sociomateriality – really nice synthesis drawing on different courses.

By the way, I love the marginalia and other scribbles on the scanned piece of the Bayne reading: there’s something suggestive there of the way that sociomateriality reveals the ‘messiness’ of education.

‘In the second half of the week, we engaged in a two-day ‘tweetorial’ and I found myself communicating with Ben directly about LA.’

Thanks for your input to the Tweetorial – the exercise was really dependent on the contribution of the group and along with other members of the class, it really made for a compelling and captivating exercise. I’m really glad to see that you managed to entice Ben Williamson into our tutorial! Along with a contribution from Ibrar Bhatt on Friday morning (who also does interesting work around sociomateriality and digital literacy practices) it was great to see how Twitter enabled these other voices to momentarily ‘join our class’.

‘The data generated by our discussion were, to an extent, captured and ordered by the algorithm, but the results are simultaneously ‘messy’ and require human agency to make sense of the ‘cheese’ in the data.’

I enjoyed a wry smile at the way this unfolded and will enjoy looking through the data like everyone else to see whether it comes to the fore! Curiously, on the visualisation in your summary my eye was drawn to ‘STUDENTS GOT SPAM’ which might or might not be an accidental critique on the eating habits of the class (I doubt it).

‘The sociomaterialist perspective of the ‘the constitutive entanglement of the social and the material’ (Orlikowski, 2007) and, therefore, the technical, is a seam which has run throughout our blocks of study and was highlighted in both the Siemens and Williamson readings.’

Like you, I feel this has been a thread that has run through the course, although it has particularly come to the fore around cybercultures and now algorithmic cultures. I think it very helpfully challenges us to move beyond critiques of digital education where we are ‘done unto’ by technology, or simply use technology as the means of production. As you acknowledge, it more complicated than that, more entangled.

I’m going to look forward to reading you blog reflecting on the learning analytics from the Tweetorial. And before that of course, I’ll hopefully see you in a google hangout in the coming days, Helen.

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Thanks for your feedback James. An interesting question about whether my increased understanding of LA has affected my own behaviours; in short, I don’t think so. However, it has affected my attitudes towards the use of data in the schools and the Trusts I work with. Even key figures in the field – such as Siemens and Gašević – acknowledge that it is an emergent science and much work is needed to ensure that LA offers improved experiences and outcomes for students. In my experience, the focus on summative data in schools and their use as a means to judge staff and students is crude and often unhelpful.

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Hello Helen, thanks for this excellent weekly summary: it simultaneously tells me about your thinking and your lifestream activity over the last week. At the same time you’ve neatly brought in some of the ideas from the reading which adds a nice critical edge to your work here. Thanks also for the links to different bits of content which really helps the exposition of your ideas.

Something I hadn’t really thought about until now was whether the lifestream summary should also make space to bring in work by other members of the group. Looking at your links to the range of media being used by other members of the EDC class it seems to make sense that, in a course where there is so much interaction across the group within different digital spaces, that the lifestream summary should reflect this from time-to-time.

‘In terms of my play with algorithms, it has been, firstly, lots of fun and provided a new lens through which I observed my own internet use this week. I appear to be ‘rules-orientated’ and found myself feeling slightly transgressive as I explored some of the words on the Google blacklist. Have I subconsciously absorbed an algorithmic blacklist? Or am I attuned to the fact that my interactions are being tracked by algorithms?’

Out of interest, do you think your behaviour has changed since taking the Learning Analytics course? When I think about how my own approach to accessing online content has been affected by shared use of the computer I’m using now (something I know you can relate to), it almost feels like there is a ‘digital literacy’ issue at stake. In the same way that there is a growing interest in encouraging students to take account of the lasting consequences of their digital content, I wonder if there’s also a need for awareness around how their activity in digital spaces can affect their subsequent scholarly work (and beyond)?

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Dirk – ‘we are the campus’ – yes, we are!

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Hello James,

Thanks for your feedback on last week’s summary and for giving me a useful focus for the coming weeks (how subject matter/course design impacts on the variety of content in my lifestream). I hadn’t considered this necessary interconnection, but I’ll be sure to bear it in mind as I continue my reflections over the coming weeks.

Helen

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Well, it’s that or DodgeBall.

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Hi Clare
Thank you for your positive feedback. As I mentioned to Chenée, I find included personal material a little uncomfortable, so I’m pleased that you think it worked here. The article was brilliant (and beautifully illustrated) ‘ we are not given a short life but we make it short’. I haven’t heard of BrainPickings before either, so thank you for alerting me to it.
Helen

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Hello Helen, great summary here.

And that’s great that you’ve been able to put the mid-point feedback intro practice straight away. Thanks for the use of orange text: that was really thoughtful and, in a prolific lifestream blog, guided me towards the new content.

‘commenting on others’ netnographies; I intend to continue to do more of this over the coming days. As well as offering insightful commentaries on the MOOCs, the submissions also offer a variety of creative approaches to using a range of tools. I particularly liked Eli’s use of Adobe Spark and Myles’ use of Padlet.’

This is interesting: it suggests that the character – the make-up – of your lifestream was at least partly influenced by a desire to explore new digital resources that you might try out.

More broadly, the shape of your lifestream seems to have been heavily influenced by the sharing of the micro-ethnographies, as you touch on. In the coming weeks it might be interesting in these summaries to reflect upon how the subject matter and course design for a particular week has an impact in influencing the variety of content in your lifestream.

When the time is right, let me know if you want to chat around ideas for the final assignment: or indeed you can very validly explore them here in your blog (although if you want my thoughts do send me an e-mail just in case I overlook it). There’s no rush on this though as there’s time set aside towards the end of the course to think and talk through assignment ideas.

As something of an aside, bearing in mind the challenges you encountered around your micro-ethnography, it’s great to see that it has been picked up by so many of the group (18 comments and counting!).

Great work, Helen.

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Blades of Glory – the Citizen Kane of sports films.

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