(New) Media Education: Teachers, join the conversation

Strategia di comunicazione Gianni Florido e la Provincia di Taranto (New) Media Education: Teachers, join the conversation Learn web 2.0 tools from students In order to learn how to teach students better Bari, 30 march, 2011 Managers of new learning: school leaders or student? Dino Amenduni, Proforma, Italy

Who is the speaker? My name is Dino Amenduni I am 27, I graduated in Work, Communication and Organization Psychology with a post-degree (master) in Marketing I am the new media team leader and advisor for political communication at Proforma ( Proforma – website ), an ad agency in Bari, a city in Southern Italy where I was born and where I live Proforma designed the strategy and concept of Michele Emiliano’s , Mayor of Bari (2004 and 2009) and Nichi Vendola’s , Apulia Governor (2005 and 2010) electoral campaigns.

Who is the speaker? I have co-led EmiLab , a group of 150 volounteers under30 supporting Michele Emiliano, Mayor of Bari, ( Partito Democratico , centre-left party) Michele Emiliano – fanpage on Facebook I am the social media team leader of Nichi Vendola, Governor of Apulia and national spokesman of Sinistra e Libertà (Left-oriented party out of Italian Parliament) Nichi Vendola – fanpage on Facebook I am a blogger on Fatto Quotidiano , a national daily newspaper Dino Amenduni - blog on Fatto Quotidiano

Topics Young people, learning and socialization : what is changing with social media The web: a risk or an opportunity for learning? What are the tools used by students for fun or entertainment that can become allies in education ? Is it possible to integrate vertical and horizontal teaching methods?

Web 2.0 Original theory by Tim O’Reilly (complete theory here) A short definition: Web 2.0 is a term generically used to describe a state of evolution of the Internet (and of the World Wide Web in particular) as compared to its previous condition. The term Web 2.0 is associated with all those web applications that allow users to actively interact and collaborate with the site

Web 2.0 theoretical reference models The Pareto Principle Wikipedia Model The Long Tail The Wisdom of Crowds

A. The Pareto Principle 80/20 The 80-20 rule (where the values 80% and 20% are obtained by empirical observation of various phenomena and are not strictly accurate) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes

A. The Pareto Principle 80/20 This principle can be applied to different sectors, such as: To Economics: 80% of wealth is owned by 20% of the population (obviously, the real values vary from country to country and according to the times). Or: 20% of salemen make 80% of the sales whereas the remaining 80% of salemen only make 20% of them. To Quality: 20% of possible malfunctions in a productive process causes 80% of total faults. Or: 80% of complaints come from 20% customers . To Computer Science: 80% of execution time is used by only 20% of software instructions. Or: 80% of the users’ operations are due to 20% of an application available functions. 80% of coding errors is ascribable to 20% of modules (source: Wikipedia)

B. Wikipedia model - unorganized division of labour
Creation of an entry (i.e. “paper”)
First draft
The entry is picked out by other users who, being experts in the field, add or modify the same entry
If some inaccuracy occurs (intentional or involuntary, it is irrelevant), it is immediately corrected
The entry will be improved with the contribution, even minimal, of many users
The Pareto principle is valid in Wikipedia as well : 20% of users modify 80% of the total entries present on the site. This distribution is applicable, on average, for the single entry as well

C. The Long Tail The long tail is an economic theory popularized by Chris Anderson (founder of WIRED magazine) in 2004. It is a model which seems to be able to explain how the market works. It is both a contemporary theory for the market of intangible assets and a “futuristic” one since it appears to be able to theorize about the change in the traditional distribution process (production/stocking/retail)

C. The Long Tail The widespread use of the internet, the “nowhere” where anybody at any time can browse endless lists of products, has enabled us to cut distribution and stocking costs, thus breaking the link between success and visibility The possibility to handle an almost unlimited virtual catalogue has revolutionized the dominat economic model : s elling small volumes of titles to many customers is more profitable than only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular titles Today: intangible assets corporations are in great difficulty (e.g. record companies and pornography)

C. The long tail - causes New low-cost hardware and software technologies enable the producers of intangible assets (graphics, music, videos, services) to do so at a contained or even no cost Services (internet, data filing) at contained costs supplying band and unlimited hosting to intangible assets producers Possibility to distribute one’s products at no cost (e.g. through Youtube), combined with the possibility of making these products available to anybody through the Internet, even with no publicity or without direct knowledge of either the product or the author (e.g, through Google or news aggregators)

C. The long tail - causes More efficient marketing and communication approaches , suitable for the distribution of these products (no more printing, stocking and shipping costs) Possibility for everybody to enter this market (no more division between producer and consumer: we talk about prosumer , that is a user who is both things at a time)

C. The long tail - consequences From broadcasting to narrowcasting : from an audience of millions of people to millions of audiences with fewer people This economic model, called “long tail”, is ecomically sustainable just beacause it only has minimal costs for producing the contents and, in the case of professional contents, it has no distribution costs. Having many more options, the users leave the mainstream and turn to market niches that better satisfy their needs

D. The Wisdom of the crowds It is a theory illustrated by James Surowiecki through an endless number of empirical evidence (2005). According to this theory, a diverse collection of independently-deciding individuals is likely to make certain types of decisions and predictions better than individuals or even experts

Example 1 : At a country cattle market, the crowd fairly accurately guessed the weight of an ox when their individual guesses were averaged ( the average of their 100 estimates was closer to the ox's true butchered weight than the estimates of most crowd members, and also closer than any of the separate estimates made by 10 cattle experts). Example 2 : prediction markets. A university research institute made citizens bet on the winner of the elections. In betting, the payout vary according to the bet orientation (both according to who is chosen and to the amount of the bet). The result of the prediction market proved more reliable than that of the opinion polls in measuring the difference of votes between the winners D. The Wisdom of the crowds

From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 - a map

From Web 2.0 to the class - Why this historic introduction? To examine the socialization and learning mechanisms of young people (and not only those) Those born after 1976 belong to the so called Millenial generation , that is that group of people, “digital natives”, who consider the Internet as the main source for finding information. If the Internet is more reliable than any other thing, it can only become an ally in education /training

From Web 2.0 to the class – tools The following web tools may be functional to young people’s learning and communication: Facebook Youtube Twitter Linkedin Slideshare Skype Delicious Wikipedia Please ask all relevant questions to better understand each of the above tools

From Web 2.0 to the class – Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social media in the world. It has 600 millions subscribers, 17 millions Italians . 65% of Internet users have a Facebook profile and 1 Italian out of 4 is a member. It is a mistake to ignore or avoid Facebook . It is a place for socialization and sharing knowledge, irrespective of whatever opinion one has of this tool. Therefore, we have to turn the threat into an opportunity: let’s change Facebook from being a students’ distraction means to a teachers’ ally. From Web 2.0 to the class - Facebook

From Web 2.0 to the class - Facebook Possible applications: Facebook group of the class to share contents, information, states of mind Facebook page regarding specific education projects or information paths Ordinary monitoring of relation dynamics among adolescents Monitoring the most popular topics on the web and using them as discussion prompts in class Using Facebook in class (to go out of school) and at home (to come back to school)

From Web 2.0 to the class – Youtube

Possible applications: Creating videos of parts of lessons as archives Using Youtube to find material for the lessons During teachers’ meetings : creating focus groups between students or teachers in order to assess progress in teaching methods and exchange experiences with other schools For peer education : filming the lessons, uploading them (in private) to Youtube and examining group dynamics, leadership styles From Web 2.0 to the class – Youtube

From Web 2.0 to the class - Twitter

Possible applications: Twitter is a social medium based on microblogging , 140-letter “tweets” (text-based posts). Unlike Facebook, the posts can be listed under topic lists (also called #hashtags) One can therefore create posts on a specific topic (in class or elsewhere) or look for information or sources on specific topics Moreover, one can also comment on events in real time , exchanging views with others (e.g. comments on conferences or events outside the classroom) From Web 2.0 to the class – Twitter

From Web 2.0 to the class – Linkedin

Possible applications: Linkedin is a social medium designed for professionals . The personal profile is created through sharing one’s curriculum, one’s professional activities It may be useful for teachers to exchange best practices and materials, to evaluate educational models to experiment in different places or to collaborate at a distance In addition, it may be a useful means of professional updating and improvement of one’s knowledge From Web 2.0 to the class – Linkedin

From Web 2.0 to the class – Slideshare

From Web 2.0 to the class – Slideshare Possible applications Slideshare is a social medium used for aggregating PowerPoint presentations . This very presentation will be uploaded to this social medium It can be used to upload notes , lecture notes, transparencies produced by the class It can also be used to look for external sources , i n Italian or in foreign languages, useful for improving the students’ and the teachers’ knowledge

From Web 2.0 to the class – Skype

From Web 2.0 to the class – Skype Possible applications Skype is an Internet telephone and videocalling service that offers free calling between computers and low-cost calling to regular telephones It also offers a free chat application (instant messaging), free videotelephoning and conference calling These applications can be used to exchange conversation among teachers, between teachers and students, for peer education , for multiple chats, videoconferencing …

From Web 2.0 to the class - Delicious

From Web 2.0 to the class - Delicious Possible applications Deliciuos is a social medium which allows one to save and share history of web researches If a teacher prepares a lesson looking for Internet sources, he/she can decide to share these web sources to the benefit of other teachers or students who therefore can follow the logical path done by the teacher You can also carry out researches by exploring browsing paths done by others on specific topics, as a form of further knowledge

From Web 2.0 to the class – Wikipedia

From Web 2.0 to the class – Wikipedia Possible applications: Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, accessible to anyone Some people think it is an eccessive accelerator of the learning experience: instead of doing research, one tends to copy and paste from Wikipedia. This problem can be avoided by using all the other Web 2.0 tools in an integrated way Moreover, Wikipedia is not only a passive / static tool: the encyclopedia entries can be created or modified any time. Therefore the creation of definitions can be an experience to try out in the class in order to stimulate collaboration processes

From presentation to Web 2.0 (and viceversa)

Thanks! A big hug Dino Amenduni Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dinoamenduni Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/doonie LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/dinoamenduni Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/doonie (here you can find this slideshow) Proforma Site: http://www.proformaweb.it Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/proformaweb Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/proformaweb Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/proformaweb

(New) Media Education: Teachers, join the conversation

by Dino Amenduni on Mar 30, 2011

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(New) Media Education: Teachers, join the conversation — Presentation Transcript