Stewart, B., (2013)

It has taken me three evenings to take in Stewart’s paper on new literacies of participation; there’s so much in it and it’s overflowing with references to contemporary literature that supports the author’s arguments.

I enjoyed reading this paper. I didn’t think I was going to because I took exception early on to the concepts of MOOCs being a “Trojan Horse for the sociocultural development of participatory perspectives and literacies.”  The Trojan horse was the means by which the residents of Troy were fooled into letting the means of their destruction within their defences. So, at first I understood this analogy as judging participatory perspectives and literacies to be ‘bad’ for education and learning.  As a passionate advocate of learning together and from one another (it’s even the strapline I use to promote the Academy I manage), I found the analogy off-putting.  However, I don’t think Stewart is trying to construct an argument that these new literacies are damaging, but rather that they challenge conventional academic roles and structures and are student-centric rather than than tutor-centric.

As a distance learning student my current views have been formed based on this MSc programme, which is highly participatory and encourages sharing and discourse at every opportunity.   So I tend to see such activity as entirely positive.

It’s interesting that this turn towards peer to peer sharing of knowledge, peer review and discussion as a means of development is equally strong in the corporate world and the clinical professions I have contact with (optometry and pharmacy).  Perhaps this is, as Stewart suggests is the case in higher ed, partially due to the effect of positive media hype regarding learning in MOOCs.

Mindmap deconstruction of  Stewart, B., (2013).
Mindmap deconstruction of Stewart, B., (2013). Massiveness + Openness = New Literacies of Participation? MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Technology, 9(2), pp.228–238.  Click to open full resolution in new browser tab.

Comments on Nigel’s EDC Lifestream Blog

‘While this has meant less time devoted to looking at resource links suggested by my fellow students and less time in the discussion forum on the digital hub, I do feel it has been the most productive way to use the time I’ve had available.’

Sounds sensible Nigel, and definitely in the spirit of the ‘ethnography’ we’re trying to experience in this block. Immersion in your MOOC community (rather than you EDC one!) shouldn’t take up al of your time, but some engagement will hopefully be worth it. Do try to keep the lifestream going as this is more important overall.

‘Both are facilitated by the same provider but the way the course is constructed is very different. ‘

Yes, interesting, in that while the format can seem a little rigid, different courses can take quite different approaches.

‘So far none of the course facilitators have answered the queries and the only help has come from other learners.’

Yes, I wonder if this is intentional, or perhaps a sign of the difficulty of being responsive in MOOC. Either way, it is perhaps the perception of what one is *supposed* to be doing as a teacher that matters!

‘The level of interaction I’m seeing in both MOOCs I can see that I won’t be able to present an ethonography artefact that delves much deeper than the level of a survey. However, I do think there are some interesting trends in the way the forums are used that I can highlight.’

Ok, that is perhaps useful to flag up as an early insight at this stage. As I think discussed in the tutorial last week, lack of community interactions, or indeed ‘warmth’, could be a valuable result from your ethnography. A few others are also starting to post initial ideas (demographic information, or ‘motivations’), so it might be worth taking a look through peoples blogs (if you haven’t already) to see how this might be approached. Trends in the way forums are used sounds useful!

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TWEET: Cayla Dolls

Another example of the worrying aspect of unsupervised access to the internet.

In my view the issue has to be approached on multiple fronts:

  • educating children about the danger, much as my generation were educated about dangerous activities such as trespassing on railway lines, swimming where there’s no lifeguard, or venturing out onto ice covered water.
  • developing better ways to filter out undesirable content.
  • not allowing the very young to have unsupervised and unfiltered access to the internet, which in turn necessitates educating their parents / guardians about how to do this and the dangers of not doing it.

TWEET: fragmented communication

The timing of Dirk’s Twitter post couldn’t have been better and it’s a relief to know that I’m not the only one struggling to stay focused now that we’re having to divide our attention between so many different communication channels.

There’s an important learning here to avoid similar fragmentation of communication amongst the learners I support and I will take that into my professional practice.

Week five Lifestream summary

This week I’ve focused most of my effort on the core reading and spending time on the MOOCs I have joined.  While this has meant less time devoted to looking at resource links suggested by my fellow students and less time in the discussion forum on the digital hub, I do feel it has been the most productive way to use the time I’ve had available.  There’s some irony in the demands of involvement with the MOOC(s) resulting in less time available to spend with this course’s community!

Photo of hands holding paper cards with concept words
from http://www.datamaticsinc.com/5-effective-time-management-tips-for-small-business-owners/

Joining a second MOOC has been a useful experience.  Both are facilitated by the same provider but the way the course is constructed is very different.  I was surprised to find that the first exercise on ‘greetings’ in the Spanish for beginners MOOC was presented in text format, followed by a quiz which involved trying to spot the written greetings in pre-recorded audio examples.  Several course participants commented on this in the discussion forum, pointing out the difficulty of knowing how the written words are pronounced, the effect of the various types of accented letters used and the relevance of the ‘upside down question mark’.  So far none of the course facilitators have answered the queries and the only help has come from other learners.  The issue has created a small amount of discussion and problem sharing, so maybe it was a deliberate ploy to create ‘common bonds of shared adversity’ (Lister, M. … [et al.], (2009)).

Post early to class discussion forum... nobody replies
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The level of interaction I’m seeing in both MOOCs I can see that I won’t be able to present an ethonography artefact  that delves much deeper than the level of a survey.  However, I do think there are some interesting trends in the way the forums are used that I can highlight.

References:

Lister, M. … [et al.], (2009) “Chapter 3. Networks, users and economics” from Martin Lister … [et al.], New media: a critical introduction pp.163-236, London: Routledge

Reflecting on yesterday’s tutorial

I’ve been giving some thought to the types of community participation that Kozinets, R. V. (2010) details and how these relate to activity within the on-line Academy community I manage and support.

We definitely have some members of the community who fall somewhere between ‘Minglers’ and ‘Makers’.  When I spot these individuals I will often try to recruit them as ‘champions’ for our Academy – volunteers who help other members and generally aid community building by helping ‘Newbies’ find their way around and understanding ‘the way things are done around here’.

I do know that our biggest population consists of ‘Lurkers’, as forum posts are read by many more members than are actively contributing.

The few ‘Makers’ we have tend to develop their own private forums, although I do my best to persuade them to open their forums to the wider Academy community.  In the same way that I and my fellow students are conducting these Lifestream blogs ‘in the open’, with the potential for interesting and possibly valuable input from others not involved with the course, I’m sure our ‘Makers’ would benefit from input beyond those more immediately involved with the ‘central consumption activity’.

We do have a few ‘Interactors’, colleagues who join in discussions from other companies we work with and from our charity partners; these connections are useful in bringing a different perspective to the discourse.

On a very few occasions we’ve seen activity that might be described as coming from ‘Bashers’ (Correll, 1995).  More often than not the root cause of the individual’s disgruntlement has been outside the online community and, once our Minglers and Makers have got involved the situation has been turned around.  It doesn’t surprise me that former Bashers can readily become Minglers and Makers.  Those I have encountered are ‘Bashers’ only because they see room for improvement, given the means to drive the improvement they seek their passion can often be put to good use.

The Academy’s forums are very much in their infancy but some of the private forums have members I would describe as ‘Insiders’.  As yet there are no members I would describe as ‘Devotees’ or ‘Networkers’.

I do think that Kozinets’ way of classifying community participation is useful.  Whilst I wouldn’t consider it a checklist of must have roles, I think absence or presence of a particular type of activity is likely to be a helpful indicator of how the community is maturing (in terms of duration rather than outlook) and could help identify inputs or stimuli that would help the community develop.

References:

Kozinets, R. V. (2010) Chapter 2 ‘Understanding Culture Online’, Netnography: doing ethnographic research online. London: Sage. pp. 21-40.

Correll, C. (1995) The ethnography of an electronic bar, Articlein Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 24(3):270-298 · October 1995

 

TWEET: Academic and social networks merge

In addition to studying this course I’m about to take my first examinations in Ballroom and Latin American dance teaching.  Not great timing (trying to do both at once, not my dance steps), but there is some cross-over between the two and I’ve found myself studying the community aspects of the various classes I help teach during weekday evenings.

Mindmap deconstruction of Kozinets, R. V. (2010)

Mindmap deconstruction of Kozinets, R. V. (2010) Chapter 2 ‘Understanding Culture Online’, Netnography doing ethnographic research online.
Mindmap deconstruction of Kozinets, R. V. (2010) Chapter 2 ‘Understanding Culture Online’, Netnography doing ethnographic research online. Click to open full size in new tab.

This chapter includes details of research that has been carried out over a number of years.  It’s perhaps not surprising that the research findings seem to mirror changing attitudes to ‘online’ and the evolution of new and different technologies for facilitating community networks.  I can’t help thinking that the earlier researchers might have suffered from ‘confirmation bias’ and found exactly what they were expecting to find.  However, the author attributes the difference in findings to the difference in research methods between ‘laboratory controlled’ and ethnographic, which does makes sense.

I’m sure there must be similar research being conducted now into the more recent incarnations of online networks, such as WhatsApp and Snapchat. To me these two examples in particular demonstrate  the way commercial considerations and the user networks themselves both play a part in the direction of development these types of technology platform take, as the author highlights in the later sections of the chapter.

Reference
Kozinets, R. V. (2010) Chapter 2 ‘Understanding Culture Online’, Netnography: doing ethnographic research online. London: Sage. pp. 21-40.

Week four Lifestream summary

It’s hard to believe we’re already a third of the way through, it’s been something of whirlwind experience so far.

I found the visual artefacts we completed this week more thought provoking than I think I would have found written pieces, for a few reasons:

  • They’re  more immediately accessible, particularly the static images
  • There’s a certain amount of ambiguity, which is open to interpretation by the viewer (much like viewing an art work)
  • I have a preference for visual representation

I’ve not had as much time to devote to the subject matter or blogging this week, with evening commitments and several house guests over the weekend.  However, I have been working my way through Lister, M. … [et al.], (2009) and distilling the points raised that felt important, or that particularly resonated with me.  The first of these “Understanding the self as a networked presence has almost become a commonplace – consciousness is increasingly understood as an ‘assemblage’ in which technologically mediated communications systems are as much part of our consciousness as ‘nature’ or the body.” felt particularly pertinent to our thinking, as it links the cyberculture topic with community culture.

I’ve also signed up to the ‘Spanish for Beginners’ MOOC with ‘Future Learn’ and, while I’ve yet to fully understand the ethnography task, I have found the the introductory discussion forum is a mine of data about the participants, in most cases providing information such as their location, gender, why they’re taking the course and other courses they are enrolled on.  I have started to collate this data and I’m already seeing some interesting gender, location and motivation trends.

References:

Lister, M. … [et al.], (2009) “Chapter 3. Networks, users and economics” from Martin Lister … [et al.], New media: a critical introduction pp.163-236, London: Routledge

Comments on Nigel’s EDC Lifestream Blog

Hi Nigel,
I loved this brilliant image packed with interest and meaning. What jumped out at me was your tense shoulder (despite its being bionic) and the fitbit on your wrist. I understood that juxtaposition to symbolise the tension between how far you want technology to ‘augment’ or ‘enhance’ the human?
Cathy

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