I recently read David Weinberger's new book Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder. Weinberger is the one who also (with others) recently brought us The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual.
A video of Weinberger providing an overview of the ideas presented in Everything is Miscellaneous as part of the Authors@Google series is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43DZEy_J694.
This was a profound book, one that I have underlined and dog-eared within an inch of itself because of the copious amount of cool and interesting ideas I saw running through it. I will have to do several postings on the ideas in this book since there is so much there.
Essentially, Weinberger points out the fact that Mr. Dewey was just one person and the organization of knowledge Dewey presented is just one of the numerous ways one can organize and present information. Current technologies are finally making possible the infinite organizations of information in the multitude of ways that make sense to different individuals (something about which Dewey would have, perhaps, been horrified). Weinberger, however, points out the incredible value when all this information is "thrown into a big digital 'pile' to be filtered and organized by users themselves."
Information is not an asset to be guarded, but to be "let loose" so it can be mashed up by people in the ways that work for them.
More to come!
Showing posts with label social networking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social networking. Show all posts
Monday, July 9, 2007
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
I'll see you on Facebook
Power dynamics in a classroom setting are nothing new. Students can sometimes have anxiety about their performance, particularly in relation to teachers they may perceive as intimidating.
A recent study on the possible effects of student-teacher interaction from teacher "self-disclosure" on Facebook supports the notion that more (and appropriate) self-disclosure by teachers in Facebook can help reduce student anxiety, thus leading to more positive classroom interactions. The idea here is that if students can see their teachers as human beings (as well as teachers), then the students feel more comfortable interacting with the teachers and are thus more likely to learn.
None of this should be surprising, but the utilization of Facebook to provide such disclosure (i.e. the fact that we have technologies now that encourage these kinds of social networking), as well as the fact that someone did a study on it, is kind of fascinating.
From the blog posting referencing the article:
http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2007/06/ill-see-you-on-facebook.html.
The article itself:
"I'll See You On 'Facebook': The Effects of Computer-Mediated Teacher Self-Disclosure on Student Motivation, Affective Learning, and Classroom Climate," by Joseph P. Mazer, Richard E. Murphy, and Cheri J. Simonds [Communication Education, Volume 56, Issue 1 January 2007 , pages 1 - 17].
From the conclusion of the article:
"Self-disclosure is one approach that teachers may take to develop relationships with their students. However, as communication technology develops at an increasing rate, it is important for teachers to recognize how certain technologies, even those used largely by students, can positively affect student-teacher relationships. Facebook is a contemporary technological tool that can offer teachers and students a unique method to nurture the student-teacher relationship, which can ultimately create a positive learning experience for both parties."
A recent study on the possible effects of student-teacher interaction from teacher "self-disclosure" on Facebook supports the notion that more (and appropriate) self-disclosure by teachers in Facebook can help reduce student anxiety, thus leading to more positive classroom interactions. The idea here is that if students can see their teachers as human beings (as well as teachers), then the students feel more comfortable interacting with the teachers and are thus more likely to learn.
None of this should be surprising, but the utilization of Facebook to provide such disclosure (i.e. the fact that we have technologies now that encourage these kinds of social networking), as well as the fact that someone did a study on it, is kind of fascinating.
From the blog posting referencing the article:
http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2007/06/ill-see-you-on-facebook.html.
The article itself:
"I'll See You On 'Facebook': The Effects of Computer-Mediated Teacher Self-Disclosure on Student Motivation, Affective Learning, and Classroom Climate," by Joseph P. Mazer, Richard E. Murphy, and Cheri J. Simonds [Communication Education, Volume 56, Issue 1 January 2007 , pages 1 - 17].
From the conclusion of the article:
"Self-disclosure is one approach that teachers may take to develop relationships with their students. However, as communication technology develops at an increasing rate, it is important for teachers to recognize how certain technologies, even those used largely by students, can positively affect student-teacher relationships. Facebook is a contemporary technological tool that can offer teachers and students a unique method to nurture the student-teacher relationship, which can ultimately create a positive learning experience for both parties."
Monday, June 4, 2007
SecondLife and Information Island
I have so much mulling about in my brain that's its hard to know where to begin. I should probably start with the groovy SecondLife (3-D virtual world) demo I saw at a recent gathering of the Portland Area Information Literacy group.
Michael Brown (Portland State University) and Donna Cohen (Information Management Consultant) led the group through a tour of SecondLife, particularly focusing on an area called Information Island. Information Island is an "archipelago" of dozens of "islands" (aka interest areas). Some of the resources they pointed us to for learning more about SecondLife were:
I can see a lot of applications for SecondLife and InfoIsland in the K-12 realm - can you just imagine a teacher guiding students through a unit where they all have their avatars work together to build an Egyptian pyramid or the Great Wall of China? In this way, I can see this environment greatly enhancing the learning process. Similar projects, such as University of Virginia's virtual recreation of ancient Rome, officially titled Rome Reborn 1.0, show the possibilities when technology embraces the rich content in the humanities.
So, clearly virtual worlds have a strong educational benefit (not to mention total coolness factor!), but what about how virtual worlds could be applied to non-K-12 or liberal arts environments? Aside from being able to serve as a more multi-dimensional "webinar" (i.e. where everyone's avatars gather in a central place for a lecture and through SecondLife have a more interactive experience) what purpose could such an environment serve for an academic health sciences library? One of the islands in the "Info Island" archipelago, Health Info Island, may have some answers. Health Info Island, states as one of its goals to "Experiment and develop new ways of interaction between users and libraries" and to do more outreach in consumer health. It will be interesting to see how such a virtual environment could be used as a reference and learning tool for health information as this "Info Island" develops.
Michael Brown (Portland State University) and Donna Cohen (Information Management Consultant) led the group through a tour of SecondLife, particularly focusing on an area called Information Island. Information Island is an "archipelago" of dozens of "islands" (aka interest areas). Some of the resources they pointed us to for learning more about SecondLife were:
- A tour of the Library in Second Life on YouTube
- Second Life's Education Site
- Second Life Education Wiki
- An Annotated Bibliography of Second Life Online Resources.
I can see a lot of applications for SecondLife and InfoIsland in the K-12 realm - can you just imagine a teacher guiding students through a unit where they all have their avatars work together to build an Egyptian pyramid or the Great Wall of China? In this way, I can see this environment greatly enhancing the learning process. Similar projects, such as University of Virginia's virtual recreation of ancient Rome, officially titled Rome Reborn 1.0, show the possibilities when technology embraces the rich content in the humanities.
So, clearly virtual worlds have a strong educational benefit (not to mention total coolness factor!), but what about how virtual worlds could be applied to non-K-12 or liberal arts environments? Aside from being able to serve as a more multi-dimensional "webinar" (i.e. where everyone's avatars gather in a central place for a lecture and through SecondLife have a more interactive experience) what purpose could such an environment serve for an academic health sciences library? One of the islands in the "Info Island" archipelago, Health Info Island, may have some answers. Health Info Island, states as one of its goals to "Experiment and develop new ways of interaction between users and libraries" and to do more outreach in consumer health. It will be interesting to see how such a virtual environment could be used as a reference and learning tool for health information as this "Info Island" develops.
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