Hi Shirley,
Thanks for sharing the link to your project - I really like the idea of case studies shared by participants. I didn't spend enough time on the site to get a sense of how the context for case studies was shaped or whether discussion was facilitated - would be great to chat with you further about this.
Trish and I (and colleagues) have been working with case studies (news items and examples mainly) in our sessions with student groups around the digital tattoo project we are involved with. We initially we hoping that visitors to the site would share their stories as well - though we haven't had much success with this so far - would be great to talk further about the strategies you used to generate stories.
Maybe we could arrange an online chat sometime with our student team? Sorry you can't be with us on Friday.
Cindy
Cindy Underhill
Posts made by Cindy Underhill
I didn’t grow up with the internet so all of my poor choices were made in relative anonymity – not so with my daughter and son who are learning about their own digital identities – sometimes the hard way - and they live online – where I am only a part time resident.
This idea that our online participation falls somewhere on a visitor-resident continuum is an interesting one in that it is more about behavior and motivation than age and technical saavy (in contrast to Prensky's earlier description of digital natives vs. immigrants). David White (Oxford) describes the principle in this 20 minute video. If you have the time - it is an interesting look at some familiar ideas.
The central premise is that visitors (who may be young, old or somewhere in between) tend to be very instrumental in their approach to using social networking or "web 2.0" tools and approaches. they are concerned with solving a particular problem and tend to move in and out of these applications leaving very little trace of a digital identity. Residents on the other hand, already have an identity, are comfortable in their social spaces and may have a well established identity online. Privacy is something that visitors are perhaps more concerned with than residents - however - notions of privacy and its importance may be shifting (and that may be a generational thing).
Recently, we asked a group of (68) grade 9 students about their "sharing" behavior online. Exactly half reported to "share everything about themselves online" and half reported to "be very careful about what they share". Interesting, most knew about privacy settings in online applications and were (in fact) exercising their control in terms of how they share what with and how they do it.
Do you have any observations about the students you work with? Are they primarily visitors or residents in their online spaces?
This idea that our online participation falls somewhere on a visitor-resident continuum is an interesting one in that it is more about behavior and motivation than age and technical saavy (in contrast to Prensky's earlier description of digital natives vs. immigrants). David White (Oxford) describes the principle in this 20 minute video. If you have the time - it is an interesting look at some familiar ideas.
The central premise is that visitors (who may be young, old or somewhere in between) tend to be very instrumental in their approach to using social networking or "web 2.0" tools and approaches. they are concerned with solving a particular problem and tend to move in and out of these applications leaving very little trace of a digital identity. Residents on the other hand, already have an identity, are comfortable in their social spaces and may have a well established identity online. Privacy is something that visitors are perhaps more concerned with than residents - however - notions of privacy and its importance may be shifting (and that may be a generational thing).
Recently, we asked a group of (68) grade 9 students about their "sharing" behavior online. Exactly half reported to "share everything about themselves online" and half reported to "be very careful about what they share". Interesting, most knew about privacy settings in online applications and were (in fact) exercising their control in terms of how they share what with and how they do it.
Do you have any observations about the students you work with? Are they primarily visitors or residents in their online spaces?
Paddy Fahrni wrote,
Nicely put. Though I am not so sure we ever had (or could have) control over how a person interprets or uses another's ideas. Certainly open sharing on the web exposes those ideas to a much, much, much wider range of people (including others who may have had the idea at the same time or who have other ideas to directly challenge your own). This kind of exposure, is scary for some who are accustomed to sharing their ideas in much smaller circles. However, as you point out, if we can balance that fear with the possibility of enriching our ideas with the multiple points of view you describe - we really are getting the best that we have to offer each other.in moving to sharing ideas/content online you relinquish control of those ideas. You also give up control of how people interpret or use your ideas. However, your participation exposes you to multiple, diverse views key to growing your own learning and expanding your ideas.
What's increasingly apparent to me, though, is that most of our students are under incredible pressure to produce (perhaps at the expense of learning) and - given the time constraints we place on them in formal, higher-ed - they will be looking for the quickest way to do that - which (apparently) means sticking to the resources you know and asking the instructor when confused. It takes some time to build a rich, trusted personal network of resources to support learning. Do we value that activity and (if so) how do we support it?
Cindy
Vance,
Thank you for your contribution and your living example of how your networks contribute to learning. The links you shared have (I suspect) contributed to the learning networks of many of us (mine included)!
It is interesting to me that many of our students aren't often using their networks to learn in this way. Many keep their social networks quite separate from what they consider to be their learning environments. I suspect this relates to a piece in what Howard Reingold stated in his opening comments for the mini course you linked us to: the value of networks changes with the ways we use them (both in how they are constructed and how we construct our own). I would imagine that it is possible that as students become learners and find other learners who share interests and expertise, their social networks may evolve to support their learning in these ways. On the other hand, if those networks were built for social interaction only, will they make the transiition to something else, and is that what learners want? Will they need to create new sorts of networks for learning and professional activities that don't cross over into the social?
And, back to our question of digital identity, how do we build and maintain an authentic online presence if we are working hard to keep our "communities" separate from each other?
I look forward to hearing more of your perspectives this week!
Cindy
Thank you for your contribution and your living example of how your networks contribute to learning. The links you shared have (I suspect) contributed to the learning networks of many of us (mine included)!
It is interesting to me that many of our students aren't often using their networks to learn in this way. Many keep their social networks quite separate from what they consider to be their learning environments. I suspect this relates to a piece in what Howard Reingold stated in his opening comments for the mini course you linked us to: the value of networks changes with the ways we use them (both in how they are constructed and how we construct our own). I would imagine that it is possible that as students become learners and find other learners who share interests and expertise, their social networks may evolve to support their learning in these ways. On the other hand, if those networks were built for social interaction only, will they make the transiition to something else, and is that what learners want? Will they need to create new sorts of networks for learning and professional activities that don't cross over into the social?
And, back to our question of digital identity, how do we build and maintain an authentic online presence if we are working hard to keep our "communities" separate from each other?
I look forward to hearing more of your perspectives this week!
Cindy
Hi Hariette,
Glad you were inspired to jump in to the conversation! I have a question about something you wrote:
Harriette Spiegel wrote,All this "$:open" networking is simply a manifestation of the hold that peer pressure has on our society.
In your view, is it possible that our open networks can contribute to learning?
Cindy