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Final summary

Final summary

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My lifestream started frenetically, reflecting the confusion and sense of disorientation which comes with immersion within a new field and a new learning environment. I made 25 posts in the first week of the course and also put an inordinate amount of time into crafting artefacts.  In the first weeks of the course I was grappling with challenging and fascinating content and also with producing content in an entirely new way: via multiple feeds and sources. On reviewing those early entries, many are focused on the practicalities of working together. My reflection – my metadata – is either missing or tentative (see here, here and here, for example); I was, as most new learners are, operating within Bloom’s domains of knowledge and comprehension.

From https://get.quickkeyapp.com/multiple-choice-blooms-taxonomy/

As my lifestream progresses, the number of posts per week reduces (mostly – the tweetorial skewed this) but the entries become more focused and reflective as I begin to move into the domains of application and analysis. This is particularly marked after the mid-point review by James, in which targeted and specific advice about how to improve the blog was offered. Feedback works.

From http://www.teacherstoolbox.co.uk/T_effect_sizes.html

A visual theme which run as a thread throughout my lifestream is the Instagram shot of my laptop in various places. I reflected on the significance of this recuurent image here. I was in many different places when I took these photographs, but I was also only in one space: our MSCEDC learning space. This image also reflects my life as a cyborg, augmented by an array of mobile technologies which enable me to work, study and communicate anywhere.

In terms of stream feeds, Twitter dominates. On asking peers why they thought this was, ‘inertia’, ‘ease’, ‘connectedness’, ‘multimedia’ and guaranteed lifestream feed were all cited as reasons. For me, it was immediacy. I could quickly feel connected to other learners on Twitter, whereas blog communications were asynchronous; this was highlighted particularly during the tweetorial.

In my experience, there was a lack of roaming between blogs ( I reflect on this immobility here). I made comments on others’ but, when visits weren’t reciprocated, I returned to Twitter and its sociable babble. My MOOC micro-ethnography artefact attracted by far the most comments of all of my blog posts. As I reflected on here, there are a number of reasons why this might be: I posted fairly early in the week (so the arena wasn’t saturated with work to comment on); I included an amount of personal information in the artefact; and, finally and most importantly, we were encouraged to do so. The movement between blogs was scaffolded by the learning task: teaching presence is key to building a successful online community of inquiry.

Overall, what the lifestream traces is a journey from the domains of knowledge and comprehension through to synthesis, structured via the various artefacts we have created, and evaluation, via the weekly summaries and this final blog post.

From: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/497608

 

Lifestream summary: week 11

Lifestream summary: week 11

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This week has been spent thinking about, and starting to collate content for, the final assignment*. At the start of the week, I was unsure about both its form and its content. However, following a very useful email exchange with James, the former is now more defined. I’ve decided to create a photo diary of a typical day (or part of a typical day) which highlights and reflects upon the various digital and technological entanglements which are part of my experiences. Thinking about form is proving more tricky due to a (perhaps unfair) PowerPoint aversion, but I‘m getting there.

I’ve also spent some time reviewing this lifestream blog in preparation for writing the final entry next week. It’s interesting to observe the development of voice and form as it progresses. What becomes apparent as I assess the lifestream content is that we have become a learning community which uses Twitter extensively, more so (as James highlighted in last week’s hangout) than previous cohorts. It’s interesting to consider why this medium appeals; it is more ‘natural and immediate’ than commenting on others’ blogs and feels more akin to the sort of conversation we might have f2f. The reading and commenting on others’ blogs, however, offers the space and time for more considered and critical reflection. All interesting things to note as I think about how I can apply some of the techniques and approaches from the course in my own professional practice.

*as well as starting to move house…**

**…which in itself has brought with it a raft of reflections on the algorithmic results which have resulted from the connected online activity…

 

Lifestream summary: week 10

Lifestream summary: week 10

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Following the frenetic interactions of the Tweetorial, this has felt like a much quieter week, as we retreated to assess the data which had been captured by via Tweet Archivist. Having looked at a number of responses to the task (see here, here and here), it appears that many of us have dismantled any notion that the data provides us with any meaningful insights into our learning. What it has provided us with is an example of why algorithms, their outcomes and their analyses all have to be interrogated as active processes (we’re back to entanglements again) which are neither objective nor transparent. They are complex constructs which, as Helen’s work shows, can provide us with multiple fictions.

Our discussion in the Hangout touched on the impact which the use of analytics can have on learning and learners. Knowing that we were going to be subjected to an algorithmic assessment impacted on our behaviours in the Tweetorial and, in future, could affect how we approach tasks as we try to ‘beat the machine’.

The other key activity this week has been further development of my ideas for the final assignment. It’s been such a rich, thought provoking course that I’m a little at sea with where to start and what tools to use. However, as suggested by James in his email to his tutees, I’m going to look for help and suggestions from the other students on the course…

Lifestream summary: week 9

Lifestream summary: week 9

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Having taken the learning analytics course last year, at the start of this week I was back in familiar territory, reading Siemens on LA and EDM and watching Ben Williamson’s lecture on the digital university. In the second half of the week, we engaged in a two-day ‘tweetorial’ and I found myself communicating with Ben directly about LA.

The tweetorial was very much a tweetathon and I was fascinated to follow Anne’s link to some emergent analytics around our engagement and communications over the two days. Nigel’s cheesy diversion had an impact on the data which was generated via Twitter.

It will be fascinating to see what further analysis offers up, but this initial insight provided evidence of the conflicting interpretations as to what algorithms can offer us: order and chaos. 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.

For me, thinking summatively about what we’ve focused on over the last 9 weeks, I keep circling back to Bayne’s term, ‘entanglement’ (Bayne, 2015).

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. As Siemens highlights, learning cannot be reduced to data:

The tension, the interplay, between the technical – the algorithm – and the human, informed much of our discussion during the tweetorial. Discussions circled back to the subjective agency which informs LA – both in terms of data extraction and interpretation – and to the impact of data on the subjects – both teachers and students. Kitchin and Dodge’s definition of algorithms – cited by Williamson – reminds us that data are not objective:

I’m looking forward to drawing more strands of thought together as we progress into week 10.

Orlikowski, W. J. (2007). Sociomaterial Practices: Exploring Technology at Work. Organization Studies (28)9, pp. 1435-1448.

Lifestream summary: week 8

Lifestream summary: week 8

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I spent some time in other spaces this week, firstly reviewing other’s ethnographies and then starting to look at the results of our algorithmic play. As I start to think about the final assignment, it’s interesting to sees such creative use of a range of tools.

Renée: Screencast-O-Matic
Chenée: Sway
Daniel – SoundCloud
Daniel – Slidely
Cathy – Storify

With the shift in our focus to algorithmic cultures, as I roam in these spaces I have been thinking about the tracks and traces I am leaving and how my experience of the content is necessary entangled with the technologies I am using. As Knox (2015) reflects:

…and…

As I discussed with James last week, the content in my lifestream is impacted by the choices we are making about the spaces we are inhabiting as we learn and explore.

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?

My activities this week have been captured here. As we reflected upon in Learning Analytics, the implications of the use of Big Data and the permeation of algorithms into education provide us with much to reflect on. I tried to reflect some of this in my Padlet, with the video about Knewton and the School of One embedded within a cluster of quotes from Knox and Eynon about the educational implications of the use of algorithms.

Lifestream summary: week 7

Lifestream summary: week 7

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This week has been comprised of four key activities:

  1. completing my own mini-autoethnography: this submission has generated the most responses from my peers and I’ve been thinking about why that might be. It’s a video – is that format more engaging than some of the other media I’ve used? I submitted it fairly early on in our weekly cycle so the forum was less crowded with submissions. It contains some insights into my personal life. As I reflected in my response to Chenée’s comment*, I’m not really sure how I feel about this context collapse, but I recognise that the personal is of interest.
  2. responding to comments on my submission; the dialogue around the netnography has stimulated more thoughts and ideas about to how to approach the final assignment.
  3. 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.
  4. and, in light of James’ mid-course reflections on my lifestream, revisiting some blog posts and adding more reflective metadata to them: amended posts can be found here, here, here and here. The new content within these posts is orange. In terms of reflecting on and consolidating what I’ve produced already, and in beginning to think about the final assignment, this was a useful exercise to undertake.

*’I had to be pushed by my partner to include the personal images: it sits uncomfortably with me to blend my private space with this public one (I know that this is something which you reflected on in your own lifestream (http://edc17.education.ed.ac.uk/cpsaros/2017/01/30/performativity-and-collapse-of-context-in-an-educational-space-week-2/)) but he felt that I needed to reference why the medium of the MOOC wasn’t working to deliver the sort of mindful experiences which I get from other areas of my life. I think it works but I still feel a little uneasy about this ‘collapse of context’.’ from http://edc17.education.ed.ac.uk/hwalker/2017/03/01/mscedc-mooc-ethnography-looking-forward-to-seeing-everyones-work-this-week-mscedc-httpst-co1mfqw68qb0/

Lifestream summary: week 6

Lifestream summary: week 6

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This week, I finally received a response from Monash University regarding my ethnographic study of their FutureLearn Mindfulness course. As expected, I will be unable to quote course participants as they haven’t provided their consent. As Marshall discusses, consent must be obtained: ‘all of the conditions of informed consent must…hold…participants must be informed in advance of the research, and all data collected and the uses made of it needs to be specified accurately and completely’ (p.257). In anticipation of this outcome, my focus had already shifted towards what James informs me is an ‘autoethnographic’ approach – focusing on my experience of being a participant in the MOOC. As I’ve reflected on already this week, I am interested in the tensions inherent in the use of a MOOC to deliver a mindfulness course and this will be the focus of my ethnography. Baggaley’s reflections on the digestibility of the ‘supersized’ MOOC content and the sense some participants have of feeling ‘overwhelmed’ is pertinent here. Adams et al’s paper suggests that the effective use of video may override some of the issues of teaching at a massive scale; however, as the paper highlights, positive feedback from engaged participants must be set against an average non-completion rate of around 90%.

After reviewing some really excellent work by previous students on the course, I have decided to present research via video and I’m currently working on this.

In terms of our community’s interactions, Twitter continues to offer much activity, interaction on the hub has petered out. Cathy made a welcome visit to my lifestream this week. My aim next week is to roam a little more into others’s blogs. I’ve made a start here.

Adams, C. et al., 2014. A phenomenology of learning large: the tutorial sphere of xMOOC video lectures. Distance Education, 35(2), pp.1–15.

Baggaley, J., 2014. MOOCS: digesting the facts. Distance Education, 35(2), pp.159–163.

Marshall, S., 2014. Exploring the ethical implications of MOOCs. Distance Education, 35(2), pp.250–262.

Lifestream Summary: Week 5

Lifestream Summary: Week 5

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This week, a lot of the discussion on both the hub and within our tutorial was focused on the ethics of netnography. My initial struggles with this and with how to best introduce myself to the MOOC proved to be almost meaningless as my voice and presence on the course is just one of thousands on the course. My assigned study group for the FutureLearn course is comprised of a smaller group of 80 people, but even there, communications are frequently one way and not discursive and roaming in the way that our engagement with the EDC course has been so far.

Starting the MOOC has been an interesting experience. Whether it’s because I know I’m not going to complete the course or because I have some knowledge and understanding of much of the content, I am skipping through much of the content and merrily clicking the ‘Mark as complete’ button. As a ‘traditional’ learner, I’m much more diligent and focused on task completion, but the arena of the MOOC has altered my ‘agency over the terms of (my) experiences’ (Stewart, 2013, 235). In terms of my community presence, I am behaving like both a lurker and a mingler (Kozinets, 1999) in different parts of the space.

What’s interesting to observe, as we focus on our MOOCs is how our EDC community has been impacted. We’re communicating on Twitter and via the Hub but it appears that there are fewer peers using these channels – perhaps as we retreat to focus on our MOOCs. Dirk has highlighted on the Hub that he feels that our communication streams are too fragmented; I’m not sure I agree. I use the different mediums on offer for different purposes: I use Twitter to broadcast/ask for help and advice; I use the Hub, currently, for necessarily private communication about the MOOCs; and I visit others’ blogs to inform my deeper learning goals and also to continue to build my sense of being part of a Community of Inquiry.

Lifestream summary: week 4

Lifestream summary: week 4

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This has been a week of two halves. The first part of the week was defined by discussions around the visual artefacts. The variety of ideas and forms was fascinating and it’s interesting to reflect on the differences in what we are all taking from our readings and our discussions. The public nature of our lifestream blogs also allows us to see just how varied our responses, strategies and approaches are. It’s also more than a little intimidating, and I haven’t yet reached a conclusion about whether I’d prefer to work ‘blind’ and have my progress reviewed by only a tutor…

The second half of the week brought, for me, a sense of disconnect as we retreated to consider our MOOC choices. After spending three weeks developing my links and connections with the other students on this course, it felt like we were moving away from ‘our ‘community to explore community. It’s interesting that our discussion around the MOOCs and our choices has moved to the relatively private world of the Hub and I was thinking about why this might be: is it to ensure that our discussion around the MOOCs is not accessible by others who are participating in/delivering the MOOCs? I’m already considering the ethics of engaging with the other learners on my chosen course when my motivations aren’t ‘pure’. This presentation by Kozinets considers some of the issues but I need to find out more about the netnography netiquette and the ethical issues and suggested approaches to ethnographic studies of online communities.

 

 

Lifestream summary: week 3

Lifestream summary: week 3

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I’ve spent a lot of this week revising and reviewing my lifestream: adding more metadata and reflections based on the readings, our Hangout tutorial and the second Film Festival discussions. As I’ve already mentioned, this process is an interesting one, with the blog allowing for a spiralling* return to ideas and concepts. I did, however, wonder about *your* experience as readers. Will you be willing to return to ‘old’ ground, will you see the additions? Are you a new reader anyway? Or am I simply throwing ideas out into the ether which will never be read…?

This week, I’ve read Haraway and Sterne. Haraway was challenging and I found this YouTube PechaKucha presentation to offer a useful (if not entirely unproblematic) synopsis of her paper. The notion of the cyborg as a metaphor for unity, as a manifestation of a rejection of the dualism of human vs. technology is a rich seam to explore. The cyborg is a ‘complex entanglement’ of the human and the technical; technology is not subservient to the human, nor is it instrumental. The cyborg is a metaphorical rejection of a determinist stance and functions as a conceptual manifestion of the sociomaterial integration of the human and the technical.

I tried to reflect some of these ideas in my visual artefact. I made two false starts on this, trying out a website and a Glogster poster before determining upon Prezi. This in itself was an interesting process: the chosen medium determined how I could present/express my ideas and thus had an impact upon those ideas themselves.

*I’ve been thinking about the connections between this process and Bruner’s spiral curriculum.

Sterne, J (2006) The historiography of cyberculture, chapter 1 of Critical cyberculture studies. New York University Press. pp.17-28. (ebook)

Haraway, Donna (2007) A cyborg manifesto from Bell, David; Kennedy, Barbara M (eds),  The cybercultures reader pp.34-65, London: Routledge. (e-reserve, pdf)