The Ed Techie

The tension between out there and in here

Following on from the Facebook post, the work we have done has raised some interesting tensions between developing for a third party platform and those services provided by the institution, such as the VLE. These will be issues that many universities will have to face in the coming years, so I'll list the ones I think are important here. I don't have any answers to them, I just know they're things we can't ignore. I'll use Facebook as an example to illustrate the points, but they can apply across nearly any third party application which isn't directly integrated into the formal learning experience.

1. Does having interaction across multiple platforms dilute the overall effect? For example, if a subset of students start collaborating in Facebook does this have a negative impact on the dialogue and learning experience for the whole cohort in the VLE?
2. Even if 1 is true, can we do anything about it? Many students are connecting and communicating via Facebook before they even start their courses. It would be unrealistic to expect, or to mandate, that they stop using whatever system they like for communicating. For example, someone else had already created an OU courses profile application in Facebook, so maybe it's better if we deliver these tools.
3. What are the privacy issues and responsibilities? If a university develops applications for a platform is it implicitly endorsing that platform? For example, in Facebook when you join a network the default setting is that everyone in that network can see your full profile. Imagine some unsavoury student X starts bothering student A through this. Student A only joined Facebook because her university had developed some tools for it and seemed to be encouraging it. Where does the responsibility lie in this case?   With the student (for not controlling their settings)? With Facebook? With the university?
4. What are the support issues? For instance on the Open University Facebook page some students have started raising tech support queries. Sometimes they get a response, sometimes they don't, since this isn't an officially recognised support mechanism. Logistically handling queries across multiple platforms will soon become unmanageable. Is this problem exacerbated if the university has a semi-official presence on the platform in question?
5. What are the real benefits? Maybe none, but I think there will be some subtle ones, which research will dig up over the next few years. Will they relate to educational performance, ie those students connected through Facebook tend to do better because they have better quality peer support and find a range of alternative resources. Or will they relate to motivation? Maybe those students in Facebook tend to drop out less because they have peer support and pressure. Or will it influence satisfaction? Students in Facebook tend to rate the course better because they felt better connected to the cohort. Or maybe none of these.

I think the natural instinct of universities (and particularly senior management) when faced with issues such as these is to think 'more control'. As readers of this blog will know, I tend to favour less control, but that doesn't mean it will be a smooth ride. There are some potentially very difficult issues, and a few legal cases, to be addressed as we blur the boundaries between out there and in here.

Not an Eddie, but a Downesy will do

Tony, Peter and I may have just missed out on getting an Edublog award for the OU, but bless Stephen Downes, he's come up with his own alternative list. This time the OU Facebook Project gets an award for 'Best educational use of a social networking service'. He says:

What makes this different from the typical use of a social networking service is that it is substantially about using a social network service to support learning, rather than simply using it to connect the same old group of people together. What I mean by this is that it is intended for students and that it inserts a useful educational service into the social network application

The OU Facebook team is really Tony Hirst, Liam Green-Hughes and Stuart Brown, with me on the periphery. There are now around 2,600 users of the courses profile application that allows users to find others studying the same course. Using this one bit of information you can then add functions such as find a studybuddy, recommend courses, comment on courses, and see what other courses people have taken. There are a number of other apps in the pipeline, which the team can tell you about in their blogs.

In the meantime here we are celebrating.

[UPDATE - Stuart Brown has some more info on the Facebook app, including users and projected updates]

What web 2.0 apps would you least like to lose?

This is sort of web 2.0 desert island discs (I know lots of people have done this before, e.g. here and here). Having heard stories of people having their Flickr or Facebook accounts pulled, I wondered what would be the service I would least like to lose? Here are my top three:

1. Blog - okay, it's not a single service as such and pre-dates the use of the term web 2.0, but it's my list, so I'm bundling it in. As I said in my post of why educators should blog, I see the blog as the base camp for your online world. Everything else spreads from this identity. For me it is the sine qua non of an online existence, and it's also the one I gain the most satisfaction from. If I lost this I would feel truly that my professional life (and personal to an extent) was the poorer for it. Blog - I heart you.
2. Twitter - yes, in at number 2, and the surprise hit over Facebook. I started back in September when I decided I really needed to give Twitter a decent run. And I'm converted. It makes me feel connected to a range of peers, in a non-intrusive way (unlike IM), it is great for finding resources, it offers access to a support network, and is also good fun. If the future is a hive mentality then Twitter is it's waggle dance. If I lost Twitter I'd miss out on feeling part of a broader ed tech community, hell I may even have to go to conferences.
3. Facebook - I still like Facebook, but as my previous post sets out, Twitter has removed some of the motivation to go into it. Facebook is slightly more friend and institution focused. At the OU we have started developing applications for Facebook, which I think will be a very good way for students to enhance their own learning experience (for instance they can find people on the same course, find a study buddy, recommend courses, and soon share their story, swap resources, etc). I'm sure something else will come along and replace FB eventually, but the questions it has raised about how you support learners in this space and take advantage of the community it offers them, without invading their space will be important ones for us to address in education for years to come. If I lost Facebook I'd lose access to some friends who I only have contact through this and I'd also lose a space where we can think about the future of education.

Honorable mention - Slideshare. I do like Slideshare, it's just neat at what it does. And recording bad slidecasts is my new favourite hobby.

And that's it - Flickr, Delicious, LinkedIn, 43Things, YouTube - I could live without them. I like them, but their loss wouldn't be as catastrophic for me as the above.

What are the three you would least like to lose? Remember to focus on what impact their loss would have, not just on why you like them.

Status wars revisited

Back in September I posted about the status wars between Twitter and Facebook. At the time you couldn't get Twitter to update your FB status. A couple of people had cracked it but been told by FB to remove their code. I argued that FB don't want Twitter to update the status because that is the key to stickability for them.

I was wrong in that Facebook does now allow Twitter to update status (I thought they wouldn't allow it). But I was right in that this is a problem for Facebook stickability.  At least that's my experience, and it's interesting to reflect on the subtle difference between your Facebook status and Twitter stream.

I tried going Facebook status to Twitter first, but that meant I wasn't really engaging in what I suppose I must call the Twitterverse. I think you don't post regularly enough when you do this, you don't read as many tweets, and you don't use conventions such as @ for sending replies to users. And I think other Twitterers (Twits? Have we standardised vocabulary yet?), pick up on this.

So I decided that I would go the other way, Twitter to Facebook. This works fine technically - each status update begins 'Martin is twittering:'. But again it's a bit unsatisfactory. A lot of things I Twitter I wouldn't usually put in my FB status. There is a subtle difference between the two. It's not absolute, think of it as a Venn diagram - there is an awful lot of overlap, but there are areas that are unique to each.

In this diagram (courtesy of the marvellous Gliffy), the Twitter circle is bigger, since you tend to update that more. There is an area of overlap, the type of standard status posts you might do 'In a conference call.' Then there is the Facebook only area - for me these tend to be a bit more pithy, aimed at the friends I know in FB and cover a longer period, e.g. 'Martin is working today and definitely not blogging, updating status or twittering.' And then there is the Twitter only area. This will contain the replies e.g. '@mweller - stop twittering and get on with work', the more frequent updates, e.g. 'on a train, stuck in a tunnel' and also those aimed at knowledge sharing 'good post on twitter status here'.

For me then the Twitter only area is larger, so if I have to make a choice between losing one of the two (because I can't be bothered to maintain them both separately), then the FB-only area goes.

The knock-on effect of this is that I use Facebook less, since one of the draws of going in was to update my status, and not to reject 'Be a vampire' notifications. Of course there is nothing about the FB status that means I couldn't use it in the way I use Twitter (apart from the direct messages and replies), but it has to do with the very subtle communication affordances of the two. If I'm honest, I probably prefer the type of updates I do in Facebook, but I'm getting more value out of Twitter, so that's the winner.

If my experience is true for others then the shine is off Facebook.

In yer Facebook

A few people have blogged the Guardian report "Students tell universities: Get out of MySpace", based on the JISC project, in which the message from students seems to be that they want a separate space and don't want universities and educators invading it.

This will be all that many doubters need as justification to say that we shouldn't be bothering with all this social networking stuff. Here's why I think we should ignore that advice, or rather we should ignore it in a particular way.

Firstly, the use of networks changes - after the initial flurry of hitting people with a wet fish or becoming a vampire, people's use of a network settles down I think. So how students feel about FB a year from now will be different from how they feel now.

Secondly, we provide tools and services that help them learn, but don't direct their learning. We are not 'in' Facebook in the same way we are 'in' a VLE, where we monitor progress and contribution. Rather, universities can provide tools (like the FB ones we are developing) which help students learn between themselves.

Thirdly, if this is where they are spending a lot of their time, it is convenient to have some of their formal learning data in here - even if it's just notifications of updates from their VLE. It acts as a base camp then for other systems. This will be the key to why students will want some form of university input in their social network - convenience.

But I do agree that we shouldn't go barging in there and imposing formal systems - they'll only go someplace else. Going out to where students are rather than bringing them into our systems (or doing both more likely), has huge implications for what you design and  do. As soon as you start developing tools for this space, a whole range of applications occur to you that don't when you are inside the formal education space - they tend to be about facilitating connections, adding fun and being viral. Because your app has to survive in the social network ecosystem, this makes you develop ones that are perhaps better suited to the learner's needs than when you control the ecosystem.

Some quick opensocial thoughts

What with travelling back from Oz and catching up on work I've not had time to really look at Google's opensocial much. Not that there is much to look at currently, except some big announcements. If you don't know what it is, it is an open API approach from Google with a host of partners to allow users to easily create social tools which can be used in more than one location. So, here a week later than everyone else, are my thoughts on it.

Let's get the Facebook thing out of the way first - opensocial is the social networking technology equivalent of a politician waiting to see what their opponents propose and then suggesting the opposite as policy. So, whereas Facebook allows people to develop applications for Facebook, those applications are not easily portable anywhere else, and the data stays inside Facebook. It's classic walled garden stuff. This is the biggest complaint against FB, so naturally it's where Google should attack. Opensocial, in theory anyway, allows you to create tools which will port across to any platform or site that signs up to their API. This is smart - Google doesn't have to go and develop a social networking platform to compete with FB, it just makes the other networks suddenly seem more attractive to developers in particular. And if developers start creating cool opensocial apps, but don't bother with creating a bespoke FB one, then suddenly those other networks look more attractive to users too.

Ironically, FB being closed may be a good thing in the long run, because it forces Google to be open. Google have a decent record here with Google Maps (and the famous don't be evil motto), but without FB on the scene would they have gone for such an open approach? Maybe not.

From an elearning perspective, it has potential. We have been developing FB applications, but if we developed opensocial ones then users could port them wherever they like. The implication is that the PLE is a step nearer - we (the university) could create opensocial tools, for users to assemble in the platform of their choice. As RSS does for content, so might opensocial do for collaboration, and that's no bad thing.

I just need Tony Hirst to develop an app now...

A lexicon for the virtual/real world intersection

It strikes me that there are a number of new social behaviours that are arising when our online/web 2.0/social network selves intersect with our real, physical, everyday lives. So, while awake with jet lag I started compiling some new terms. I have put these up in a Wetpaint wiki, so you can add to them yourselves:

• Twintle - a knowing look someone gives you when you meet them face to face, who is also a Facebook friend or Twitter follower, where they debate whether they should mention your status updates, or whether that would be impolite. e.g. "I met Kathy the other day, and I'd been saying about how much I hated work at the moment on Facebook, and she gave me a twintle, but didn't say anything."
• Unpoke - the disappointment of meeting someone in real life and finding they are not as interesting or amusing as their online personas. E.g. "I met Psychopony the other day at a conference, he was really dull, definite unpoke."
• BackBacn  - when a post generates a lot of real life traffic, for example every second person at work comes up to you and comments on it. E.g. "I did a rant about the RAE the other day, talk about BackBacn!"
• Twetch - when someone reveals rather too much about themselves online. E.g. "Dave's a real twetch, he was twittering about his operation in graphic detail, I almost fetched my breakfast."
• Friendgap - the awkwardness when you meet someone whose invitation to be a friend you declined.

So have a go yourself - okay, it was an excuse to try out Wetpaint, did I mention I'd set up a wiki?

First OU Facebook app

I've been working with Tony Hirst, Stuart Brown and Liam Green-Hughes at the OU to develop some applications for Facebook (okay, they've been working, I've been talking about it).  We now have a semi-official OU Facebook project, the aim of which is to develop some applications we think will be interesting to OU people in Facebook. The aims of the project are to:

1. Gain experience in developing tools for a platform such as Facebook
2. Gain knowledge as to the type of tools and widgets that are popular
3. Observe patterns of use of these tools
4. Generate traffic and students for openlearn and the Open University
5. Gain an understanding of how learning behaviour changes in social networks
6. Generate interest in the OU.

We've drawn up a list of twenty apps we are going to develop. The first of these is the Course Profile, which means students can enter an OU course code, or title, and it will search the database and add in the full name. They can then display which courses they have studied. This sounds rather modest, but from it a range of other apps follow - you can find people who have studied the same course and get a study buddy, it can display the associated course books which you can then buy (from Amazon, or other students), you can link into associated networks, find student suggested resources, go to the libraryset of materials, etc.

The app can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/add.php?api_key=06d85b85540794e2fd02e9ef83206bf6

If you're not an OU student but want to have a look anyway, then enter T171 as a course code. That you can do this is an interesting difference between how we approach this project - we are not verifying that a student has studied such a course, so you can put in whatever you like. It is a tool for students to self-declare. This is a subtle difference, and why I think such tools will be useful and welcome. There have been a number of reports saying students don't want academics invading their space, but if we are providing them with tools which allow them to make better use of their space, then I think it adds value.

Also interesting was that while we were testing ours we found that an OU student had developed one as well. I think this is great, and it goes to show that if universities don't do this stuff then other people will.

The new morning routine

I have a morning routine now, which has evolved over the past year or so. It's remarkably different from even a couple of years ago, largely as a result of becoming a blogger I think. Here it is:

After the school run I sit at the laptop with a cup of tea and bowl of muesli (if I'm indulging - marmite on toast).

1. Firstly, I check email, delete all the spam messages, do any quick responses, and mark any more detailed ones for later.
2. I check messages in the student forum for the course I run.
3. So far, so 1990s. Next I go to my blog, check stats, and comments and respond on any comments.
4. Then I pop in to Facebook, check my news feed, update status and look at any messages or notifications.
5. By this time Twitteroo is loaded so I catch up on all the tweets from the US or Canada of the people I am following. I follow any urls that have been twitted and look interesting.
6. Lastly, to Google Reader to look at any new blog posts of the 112 blogs I subscribe to. I will scan most of these, ignore a few, read some, and respond to maybe one or two.
7. Now I'm ready to start work.

And here's some thought on what this routine reveals:

• It's a mixture of social and professional. Most of my Facebook friends, blogs and Tweeters are professional peers but what they post is often a mix of social updates and relevant resources.
• I'm more connected to what is happening in my field than I was before. I didn't used to start every day by reading an academic journal, but I will usually find one academically interesting post or resource before I've finished my cup of tea.
• It's expanding. Since being a blogger I have had the additional burden/privilege of tending one's own blog garden, but also I have become a much more active blog reader, so now have a lot of posts to get through in my aggregator. And then I added Facebook in to the mix, and more recently Twitter. I don't seem to have dropped anything though. At this rate my morning routine will be my all day routine.
• I'm developing new skills in scanning, interpreting, reading and writing. Given the expansionist desires of my morning routine, I have developed further skills in information processing - I'm not on a par with ultra bloggers, but I can scan my Google reader list quickly, and determine which posts to follow. It may not be always reliable, but it is reliable enough. I know how to get in to Facebook, get what I want and get out quickly. I am currently trying to develop my Twitter voice (more on this in a later post).

Any other activities that should form part of a connected morning routine?

Teach the people - would you sign up?

Teach the People is a social networking site with an emphasis on learning. It's not up and running yet, so I've registered for a beta invite. It has more of a content focus than a lot of the other sites, claiming that

"Instead of just messaging with other users like on traditional social networking services, users on Teach The People^SM are creating their own communities for fun, education, innovation; whatever! User can then fill those communities with as much content & media as they desire"

I hope it works, but I'm not sure myself, and this was based on my initial reaction - I didn't instantly get the point as one does with social networking sites where the emphasis is on casual interaction. This goes back to a point I made earlier about whether learning is intrinsically a bit dull? Maybe if you want a learning focus you have to do one of two things:

i) Start with an existing social networking community and introduce learning tools and services in to it. For example, help people use Facebook to aid their vocational tasks, informal learning or formal studies.

ii) Start with an existing learning community and provide it with social networking tools. Take the OU students and alumni for example and provide them with an environment that helps facilitate social interaction, and learning.

In short you need a critical mass starting either from the social or the learning camps. Teach the people may be trying to do both at once, which is too steep a curve to climb. Anyway, when I get my beta invite I'll be able to have a more thorough investigation.