Conole Keynote Ascilite 2009 Conference Presentation

New digital spaces - pushing the boundaries into the unknown; trajectories of user behaviour in new frontiers Gráinne Conole, Open University, UK ASCILITE Conference, Auckland, 8 th December 2009

Outline
The broader context
A changing digital landscape: redefining ICT
Paradoxes created by ‘digital’
Educational dilemmas
Jenkins twelve skills for participatory culture
A case study intervention
Cloudworks:
Vision, theoretical underpinnings, key concepts
Emergent patterns of user behaviour
Evolving theoretical framework
Grand challenges
What are the key research questions?
Methodology?
Theoretical perspectives?

A changing digital landscape: redefining ICT
Trends
Shift from content to social mediation
New practices of creation, sharing and dialogue
Scaling up/network effects
Web 2.0 practices
Peer critiquing
User generated content
Collective aggregation
Community formation
Digital personas
Thought experiment: A user interacting with technology to achieve a specific goal goal achieves Mediating artefacts Multiple communication channels: Email, texting, blogs, wikis, forums, Skype, social networking sites, virtual worlds… Multiple locations & representations : Repositories, RSS feeds, social bookmarking, concept maps, tag clouds, data maps, avatars

Paradoxes created by the digital Expansive knowledge domain Hierarchy & control less meaningful Increasingly complex digital landscape Content distributed, everything is miscellaneous Collective intelligence Free content & tools, open APIs and mash ups Death of expertise everyone an expert Multiple pathways / lost in cyberspace Beyond ‘digital space’/ New metaphors Multiple (co-)locations/ loss of content integrity Social collective/digital individualism Issues re: ownership , value, business models

Educational dilemmas Expansive knowledge domain Hierarchy & control less meaningful Increasingly complex digital landscape Content distributed, everything is miscellaneous Collective intelligence Free content & tools, open APIs and mash ups Challenges the role of the teacher Need for new learner pathways Widening skills gap between ‘tech savy’/others Need to rethink the d esign process Potential for new forms of learning Lack of uptake

Digital literacies
Jenkins twelve skills for participatory culture
Play – experimentation/problem solving
Performance – alternative identities
Simulation – construct models of real-world processes
Appropriation – sample and remix of media content
Multitasking – scanning and then focusing on salient details
Distributed cognition – interaction to expand mental capacities
Collective intelligence - to pool knowledge with others
Judgment – evaluation reliability of different information
Transmedia navigation – follow the flow of stories across modalities
Networking – search for, synthesize and dissemination information
Negotiation – travel diverse communities, multiple perspectives
Visualisation – different data representations for ideas, patterns, trends
Digital literacies Seely Brown Jenkins Lea and Goodfellow Lankshear

A case study intervention
Issues
Lack of uptake of technologies for learning and teaching
New skills needed for engaging in a participatory digital landscape
Teachers say they want examples /want to share/discuss
Aim
To bridge the gap between the potential of technologies and their actual use in an educational context
Research question
Can we harness web 2.0 practices to foster better sharing and discussing of learning and teaching ideas and designs?

Principles and methodology
Principles
User-centred
Theory-based
Critically reflective and evolving
Methodology
Rich evaluation with elements of virtual ethnography
Agile development : initially build in Drupal, now Codeigniter
Series of phases: design decisions, development, evaluation
Data collection
Web stats including google analytics
Interviews
‘ Cloudfests’ and focus groups
Workshops and conferences
Observation and reflective diaries
Critical friends group and design summits

Initial theoretical perspectives “ Social objects” Social networking makes little sense if we leave out the objects that mediate the ties between people Engeström Design framework for sociality Enabling practice Mimicking reality Building identity Actualising self Bouman et al .

Key concepts
Clouds:
core objects in Cloudworks
Cloudscapes:
collections of clouds
Activity streams:
dynamic filters of new activity
Follow and be followed:
Personal activity stream and peer recognition

Key concepts: Clouds Clouds: Ideas Design or case studies Tools or resources Questions or problems

Key concepts: Cloudscapes Cloudscapes: Conferences Workshops Course team Student cohort Research theme Project

Digital trails and pathways
Filtering – personalisation and tailoring
RSS feeds for people and cloudscapes
Different levels of email alert
Activity streams
Public activity stream (all activities on the site), Cloudscape activity streams, User activity streams
Tabbed views – all, clouds, cloudscapes, comments links, references, extra content
Serendipity
Active clouds on home page
Featured cloudscapes on home page
Browse clouds, cloudscape, tags, people
Search for keywords

Individuals, collectives, communities
Views from 142 countries
Users:
Teachers (from K-12, tertiary, independent)
Researchers
Educational technologists/support staff
Policy makers
Researchers
Learners
Characteristics
Boundary crossing
Multi-purpose, different motivations
Lurking through active participation

Key concepts: Activity streams Clouds

Key concepts: Activity streams Clouds Cloudscapes

Key concepts: Activity streams Clouds Cloudscapes Comments

Key concepts: Activity streams Clouds Cloudscapes Comments Links

Key concepts: Activity streams Clouds Cloudscapes Comments Links References

Key concepts: Activity streams Clouds Cloudscapes Comments Links References Extra content

Follow & be followed
Similar to following in twitter
Can follow cloudscapes & people
Indicates things & people you are interested
Anything you follow appears in your personal cloudstream

Cloudworks principles and culture
Open , drawing on web 2.0 practices
Clouds as core objects – social, cummulative, intelligent
Intentionally both built around “communities”/’clusters of interest”
Cross-boundary , both filtering/personalisable and serendipitous
Dynamic and evolving through use alongside real events as well as virtual ones
Variety of types of activities and uses, but focus always on sharing, finding and discussing educational ideas and designs

Emergent patterns of use
Events: conferences and workshops
ETUG workshop , 20 th- 21 st October 2009
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/index.php/cloudscape/view/1903
Discussions: Flash debates
The changing nature of conferences
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/2577
Eliciting expertise and open reviews
Literature review of Web 2.0 use in Higher Education
Aggregating resources
Personalising formal learning with technology

Some stats…. 1603 registered users Aspect Everyone Team Non-team Cloudscapes 142 58 84 Clouds 1557 1014 543 Comments 2378 786 1592 Links 2021 1371 650 Added Sept . From 143 countries

Evolving theoretical framework Alevizou, G., Conole, G., Culver, J. and Galley, R., paper submitted to Netwerkd Learning Social objects Activity theory Context & culture Sociality framework Changing practices Rhetoric performance Expression of self Collective intelligence Expression of self

Summary
Evidence of new practices occurring on the site
Genuine “buzz” about the site increasingly
Mix of web 2.0 functionality and nice alignment with existing web 2.0 tools
Supporting a range of learning and teaching activities , but remaining true to the core principles and vision
Cloudworks champions on the rise
Evaluation is shedding a lot of light on emergent practices in web 2.0 environments
Evolving roadmap, including:
Iterative redesign
Voting/recommendations
Open API
Going open source
Mobile Cloudworks

Grand challenges
Digital divide is ever increasing. How do we deal with this?
Are we seeing Jenkin’s 12 digital literacies skills? How can we help those in education develop these more?
How can we study these complex, fast evolving technological systems ? New methodologies ?
What theoretical insights should we draw on?
Is there evidence of new pedagogies emerging?
Are we capable (and willing) to rise to the challenge?

Flickr images
Treasure island 1 http://www.flickr.com/photos/tontoncopt/2075310775/
Web 2.0 city http://www.flickr.com/photos/4everyoung/313308360/
Grand challenges http://www.kamaelia.org/GrandChallengesCover.png
Masai http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcsamsom/2316324361/

Conole Keynote Ascilite 2009 Conference Presentation

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