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Lifestream, Tweets

In Book Thirteen of the comic version of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? there’s a three-frame spread of Deckard waking up in the morning. In the first, there’s just an alarm clock beeping – 5am – and a hand reaching over to quieten it. Next “THE CLOCK TELLS YOU IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP” and in the final frame, “ONE MACHINE GIVING INSTRUCTIONS TO ANOTHER”. From this, some might infer that Deckard is a replicant, a machine receiving instructions from the clock. However, as I reached to quieten my own alarm this morning, when I used the biometric scanner to clock in at work and when I responded to repeated meeting reminder alerts from Outlook it felt much more like a statement about the robotization of humans! Though of course, my human performance, my efficiency, is enhanced by these technological tools.

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Life stream, Comment on Posting for the sake of posting – is it worthwhile by eappleby-donald

http://ift.tt/2jKtGmJ

Hey Renee,

Q: Do you think that the requirement to post (as part of assessment) & ‘feed’ the lifestream changes the nature of engagement? (i.e. posting for the sake of it?)

Though talking about assessed forum contributions, Ke (2010) suggested that forced participation can lead to superficial, grade-driven interaction. Others (see Gourlay, 2015; McFarlane, 2015) have questioned the validity of focusing on and assessing observable, performative behaviours within social constructivist approaches, since this privileges a particular way of learning/demonstrating learning. It’s an area I spend a lot of time thinking about as a teacher, so interested to know your thoughts.

Yup I think that’s correct. I think the requirement of the lifestream blog has the potential to change behaviours and I know I have seen it in myself. I wouldn’t usually post to twitter so much but I’m forcing myself to for the sake of the course. Hopefully, things will calm down as we all get to grips with what’s expected of us.

With assessed participation, yep absolutely, I’m watching colleagues on other courses where participation is part of the mark and they are all grumbling about having to write “something” in the forums even though they have nothing to say.

I understand why we would have marks for participation, but I think by doing that we also force some learners to behave in ways they wouldn’t normally when learning?

I have also been watching the community building for our course and I think that because we don’t have a discussion forum, we were trying to form bonds on twitter with its woeful character count. I guess it will be interesting to watch as things progress and see what happens 🙂

from Comments for Eli’s EDC blog http://ift.tt/2jKtGmJ
via IFTTT

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Life stream, Comment on Posting for the sake of posting – is it worthwhile by Renee Furner

http://ift.tt/2jKm9Es

I’ve been thinking about this point too, Eli. Perhaps it was just setting up – certainly I know I posted just to check if IFTTT was working as I’d intended it to.. and then again (& again) because I had not gotten IFTTT right. But then..

Q: Do you think that the requirement to post (as part of assessment) & ‘feed’ the lifestream changes the nature of engagement? (i.e. posting for the sake of it?)

Though talking about assessed forum contributions, Ke (2010) suggested that forced participation can lead to superficial, grade-driven interaction. Others (see Gourlay, 2015; McFarlane, 2015) have questioned the validity of focusing on and assessing observable, performative behaviours within social constructivist approaches, since this privileges a particular way of learning/demonstrating learning.  It’s an area I spend a lot of time thinking about as a teacher, so interested to know your thoughts.

from Comments for Eli’s EDC blog http://ift.tt/2jKm9Es
via IFTTT

The larger question is perhaps, how do the affordances of technology naturalise themselves within communication protocols, so that ultimately they change our expectations of participation and are integrated within education? And how can we ensure that pedagogy, rather than technology, remains at the helm?