Posted on

Lifestream, Tweets

Bowie’s Cyber song contest involved a level of fan participation previously unheard of. Participants could collaborate by suggesting lyrics and being taken through rehearsals, as well as view the recording in real-time (webcast) and comment/chat. Today, with technologies such as Skype, Google Hangouts, Twitter and Facebook Live, this does not seem terribly progressive – but at the time it was groundbreaking, and demonstrative of the possibilities of digital technology-enabled participatory cultures.

Posted on

Lifestream, Tweets

This week I’ve been reliant on free wifi, or wifi in the houses of friends. While Hong Kong is generous in its ‘Internet provision’, not being constantly connected has been challenging due to the nature of the course. Beyond connection itself, I’ve had a lot more face to face interactions – which meant it was difficult to simultaneously engage in the online world. Sherry Turkle would be ‘proud’: I was not connected, not alone.. The experience highlights the tension of being present both online and IRL – perhaps more relevant to our second block, ‘community cultures’.

Posted on

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

Posted on

Lifestream, Comment on Reminders by Philip

http://ift.tt/2jxIbYD

Thank you Renee, very interesting and compelling comments. As I was reading I thought of another example of the space-presence concept. Since we have been Tweeting about Blade Runner, I have been reminded of the Star Trek series. As the Enterprise moves through space, it simply occupies a given point at a given moment of time. It takes up space, nothing more really. It is only when the ship or its occupants interact with that space, or with other objects or entities within that space, that actual presence is felt.

I find this a difficult idea sometimes, especially when my brain tries to interject all kinds of possible exceptions and scenarios. But, I still like to think I’ve got a decent concept going that is workable.

In any case, I like your statement that you must become an “active community member”. To me, and perhaps to oversimplify, this means I must make my presence in space known in some active, overt manner (quantitative), in order for my presence to have any qualitative meaning.

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

Posted on

Lifestream, Comment on Reminders by Renee Furner

http://ift.tt/2iTxGN6

Interesting reflection, Philip. Made me think of White & Le Cornu’s V&R typology (2011). It might be an interesting activity to map your own online engagement prior to #mscedc and post- certainly I think my own map will change significantly as I’m generally much more of a lurker (elegant or not;).

While I can see how your blog is ‘your space’, and how people might cross from their ‘own’ spaces into each other’s spaces (maybe like you’d pop over to a friend’s for a cup of tea?) I wonder about beyond that. i.e. Twitter does not ‘belong’ to any of us, yet our posts under #mscedc create ‘our’ space. Communal space, if you like – where people with less immediate connections to the tag can drop in/drop out/be invited/elegantly lurk. Perhaps this (communal) space is inferred when you talk about using platforms to ‘establish myself in the online community’.

This element of ‘presence’ is key to me. #mscedc forces me to become an active community member, due to the publicness of the platforms utilised. White has suggested that early engagement such as mine (and others within the course who have been less publicly active previously) marks a transition point, from knowledge consumer to community participant: ‘It’s the point at which they are exploring their ‘voice’ within the discourse’ (White, 2015).

This has got me thinking about what creates ‘quality discourse’ – and the impact of being required to demonstrate regular engagement (for the course grade) on that discourse (a point @Eli_App_D, @c4miller & @Digeded touched on early in Twitter). I don’t suppose it helps that IFTTT posts each Tweet separately from all but the preceeding tweets in Twitter conversations – rather than capturing conversations wholistically. Makes us all seem a bit shouty! 😉

from Comments for Philip’s EDC blog http://ift.tt/2iTxGN6
via IFTTT