Technology training is my profession yet I am a complete novice in eLearning.  When choosing my subjects for this semester of my Masters course, it was pretty obvious to me that elearning is the way of the future and I needed to get on board. 

In March I wrote and posted my FIRST ever blog article!  OMG!  Those of you who are avid blog users may find that a reasonably disconcerting statement as I suspect that task comes very easy to you.  Me – I’m still struggling with writing directly online.  Even though my first attempt wasn’t terribly long or involved, I was a little anxious and wanted to get it ‘right’ – is there such a thing?  Not having ever written online before, I created it in Word and then give myself a chance to read, edit, spell check, etc then paste into my blog – I will confess that I still do this!

Come June, I am tweeting, blogging, writing on wikis, tagging in Delicious, participating in discussions on Ning, back channelling – and I know that these Web 2.0 tools are only the tip of the iceberg!  I distinctly remember my first day at uni this semester how much my brain was getting confused in digesting all these terms. I was and am still truly amazed at the opportunities and avenues of learning online that are available to learners and educators. 

Now – I’m definitely hooked!  Who would believe that now instead of playing games or staring out the window on the bus on the way to work, I am catching up on my latest tweets using Twitterberry, checking out websites and blogs – learning all the while!

In the last 15 weeks, I can’t beginning to describe the range of feelings that I have had – anxiety, excitement, deflation, enjoyment, absolute and complete sense of abandonment, relief, consumed, energised, stressed, out of control……… but by far the most satisfying is ‘ok, now what next?’

To my fellow edutweet team, it was BRILLIANT!  That experience I will remember for a very long time.  Aside from the good dynamics and the collaboration, for me, the reality of learning in a model designed to learn, was just the way to go!!!!  It gave me lots of answers to my questions about online learning communities, the value of Web 2.0 tools and how effective planning and discussion can occur when only those tools are used!  I have never been involved in anything like that before and will certainly take up that challenge again with open arms. 

To everyone in EMT1, all the best with all your study – you never know, our paths could cross again.

Anne – you have opened my eyes to the wonderful world of eLearning and I truly thank you for that.  Your approach and the challenges you set were inspiring!  I’m still a bit of a lurker but I’m starting to break out!  I don’t remember the last time I have ever been involved in such a high concentration of self-directed learning.  What I have realised is how MUCH I enjoy it!  If me, why not everyone?

Within this framework, Twitter (and adjunct tools and applications) will be used to facilitate the exchange of ideas and resources.

I have also been a member of a Ning community for the purposes of posts, forums and blogging for a Masters subject and I was thinking about the ‘role’ played by our lecturer.  I remember her mentioning that one of the new roles that is emerging in the elearning environment is that of community manager.  As defined on the Wikipedia, a community manager is a person who works at building, growing and managing a community around a brand or cause.  Jeremiah Owyang, an online community manager at Hitachi Data Systems believes that the role involves listening, responding, informing, shutting up and sitting back and then listening more.  Looking back, I would certainly agree that the role that our lecturer played during the course of study would certainly have included all those functions – listen and reading posts, contributing to help ’steer’ the path, responding when directly asked questions, etc – not only ‘managing’ the community but also participating as a member. 

Jay Cross in his article ‘the future is people, not technology’ suggests that a community can benefit from people who can help ’shape the vision and keep it consistent with the community’s orientations’.  He suggests that ‘people learn more efficiently at the time of need, in the context of work and sometimes will be assisted by people in the know’.  He believes that because traditional instructors and instructional designers understand how adults learn and how to transform information into learning, they can be deployed into a new capacity ie the community technology steward.  He suggests that it would be possible for this person to:

• Bring new members up to speed with the community’s technology;
• Identify and spread good technology practices;
• Support community experimentation;
• Assure continuity across technology disruptions; and
• “Keep the lights on” (including backups, permissions, vendor payments and domain registrations).

Nancy White’s video What the ##%$^ is Technology Stewardship (2007) highlights that it is not ‘tools first – it’s the activity of the community to be supported’.  She also mentions that it’s ‘not just the pattern of activities, but the people facilitating the integration between the tools and the community’.  These people are the keystone to solving the complexity by adapting the tools to work to the communities quirks and practices.  John Smith, Etienne Wenger and herself developed a definition for a Technology Steward as ‘a person with enough experience of the workings of a community to understand its technology needs, and enough experience with technology to take leadership in addressing those needs…. stewardship typically includes selecting and configuring technology, as well as supporting its use in the practice of the community’.  Technology stewards are not there to control the community but to work with and for the community.

John Smith explains that ‘nobody wakes up spontaneously and says “I’m a technology steward” but he does believe that there needs to be someone who knows what they are talking about and to help with making choices and planning direction.

What an exciting time for traditional trainers to be redeployed into new and exciting roles?

My last thought when going to sleep on Friday night was ‘god!  I have to get up so early for a Saturday!  That doesn’t seem fair and what about my sleep-in’.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have worried as I was pretty much awake most of the night in any case thinking about how our group presentation would go at Uni the next day and being somewhat nervous in its outcome.  

I joined a group of fellow students who were looking at the idea of using Twitter as a tool for creating a learning community for adult teachers and learners.  I was a little apprehensive in the beginning about joining this group mainly because of my total lack of knowledge of this microblogging tool.  However once involved, I found the challenges interesting to say the least.  Not only has it been a huge learning experience for me but also an opportunity to be involved in a completely different yet innovative approach to how a group can plan, co-ordinate and design an outcome and NOT meet face-2-face during the entire process.   

Part of the assessment for the group was to present our concept to the rest of the students enrolled in this subject.  I don’t think I was particularly nervous about the presenting side of things (I have been doing that sort of work all my working career and in front of small to large audience).  I think my major concern was that my contributions to the presentation would be effective and knowledgeable and that I would be able to also assist in the Q&A session that followed the presentation. 

I’m not sure what all the worrying was for!  Firstly, from the group’s perspective (and time will tell when the ‘fruits of the pudding’ are revealed in our grading) I think we were quite successful in our ‘portrayal’ and the idea was received particularly well by the others – and I say that with complete humility.  Secondly, I was very grateful for the recognition that the members of my group gave me in regard to my contribution towards the outcome but also the acknowledgement of my improved skills during the course of the work and how well I had adapted to applying and using this knowledge.   I was definitely a novice with the tool and believe I was extremely lucky to be in company of some very skilled people who appreciated that what I offered to the group was an opportunity to ‘case study’ the idea.

Aside from ‘our’ success, the day was full of other interesting experiences.  I was quite amazed at the range of ideas for designing a learning community that the groups presented.  One group is piloting the use of Web 2.0 technology (particularly Teen Second Life, blog, wiki and a ning to enhance education and learning to two schools (one rural and one considered disadvantaged); another group is looking at developing a learning community for those Baby Boomers who consider their skills limited or who are quite overwhelmed by the concept of Web 2.0 environments; a third group created a community for parents and teachers to learn simultaneously about the new national curriculum due to be implemented in 2011; and a group who are here, from Asian countries studying (namely Phillipines) formed a community to assist in learning experiences that they might use in their own countries upon return.

It opened my eyes to ideas of how the Web 2.0 environment can be utilised in learning environments.  I can honestly say that I found great benefit from such an experience.  The fact that the day was designed for assessment purposes does not necessarily bring images of ‘enjoyment’.  However to me, it certainly was, but most importantly, very enlightening and a valued way to learn.  I honestly can’t remember too many (if any) other such experiences where the focus was primarily on assessment yet the experiences so rewarding.

After flicking through the first few pages highlighting coming events for children in and around Melbourne, I came across this article (see attached) – Brain’s New World written by Dr Michael Nagel (Senior Lecturer and Head of Education Programs in the Faculty of Science, Health and Education at the University of the Sunshine Coast). 

The article discusses the rapid advance of technology that is not only changing our lives but as Dr Nagel describes, changing our brains.  Dr Nagel refers to people born into the world of Nintendo, laptop computers, blogging, text messaging, twittering and virtual reality as Digital natives and those who are developing their range of neuro-architecture during the advent of modern-day technology as Digital Immigrants. 

Nagel believes that Digital natives are more concerned with focusing of time in nanoseconds – not hours and days as once was the case while Digital immigrants are concentrating on quickly trying to improve their technology skills to be able to understand and communicate better with their children.

Dr Nagel links this change in focus to the grey matter of their brains and how that changes in response to the changes in environment.  He explains the functioning of the brain through our development and our aging acknowledging that the brain changes everyday in responsive to environmental stimuli.  The question he asks is what happens when the brain changes its organisation to accommodate a world of stimulation where technology and high-speed communication and media are in abundance ie the environment that Digital Natives are constantly involved in?

Dr Nagel believes that this ability of Digital natives to multi-task as they navigate through one environment while shifting focus from one attention-seeking device to another may help explain changes in the way that people communicate and/or interact with one another.  He refers to two findings:

• Dr Richard Restak (renowned neurologist and neuropsychiatrist) who believes that this attention switching capability could be a contributing factor to such as ADD (Attentione deficit disorder) and/or ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder); and
• Dr Gary Small and colleagues from UCLA who have findings from research indicating that technology may be changing the way we interact with each other.

Nagel acknowledges that there is no turning back in the new world, but we should all be mindful of the different types of behaviours that are emerging – behavioural conditions that, in the past, were in some instances linked to hereditary dispositions, may now be attributable to be a product of our culture and environment ie evolutionary stage.

Brain’s New World

Profile of Dr Michael Nagel, viewed on 19 April, 2009, http://www.usc.edu.au/University/AcademicFaculties/Science/Staff/027553.htm

I have only recently joined Twitter and am still ‘feeling’ my way around.  Aside from investigating its uses, I am part of a group investigating the possibility of using Twitter as a learning tool for university students.  My very limited knowledge of this tool focused on its use as a quick ‘communication’ device, restricted to 140 characters in each conversation.  This was confirmed when I watched the video from CommonCraft titled Twitter in Plain English.  I was struggling to envisage such an application (particularly with the character restriction) being a useful tool for educational purposes.

As Alec Couros mentions in Tip of the Iceberg, Twitter ‘has allowed people to more deeply connect to each, share resources, share online opportunities, collaborate more conveniently and has become the gateway to deeper, more meaningful communication’.  In fact this microblogging tool appears to have many and varied uses when viewed as a learning tool because of its instantaneous and ephemeral nature.  As Darren Kuropatwa states in his reply to Terry Freedman, when ‘Twitter is used as a learning tool it allows people to think transparently and consequently can help them learn by:

• levelling the playing field – the outgoing and verbally expressive student is heard at the same volume as the more reserved classmate without being stifled themselves;
• allowing novices to see how the better students conceptualize their learning; and
• encouraging people to contribute as the anonymity will allow expression of their confusions and correct their misunderstandings’.

In Twitter Me This: Brainstorming Potential Educational Uses for Twitter, Christopher Sessums highlights some ideas of using Twitter in educational settings.  These include:

• writing/ microblogging/reader response; and
• Collaboration/Project Management.

Although ‘Twitter is generally considered a social media network’, there are several academic advantages identified on 25 Twitter Tips for Colleges Students, Campus Life, Features, Tips and Tools, including:

• ‘chat with professors and students, whenever, wherever;
• use RetweetMe to set up reminders for various study purposes;
• track a professional to learn about a particular career;
• collaborate on a project;
• start a second discussion in class;
• quick reference tool eg keyword search, quick review for a test or presentation, etc; and
• start a dialogue with students around the world.’

The following are more examples of applications of Twitter as a learning tool:

• students tweet progress and difficulties while working through a complicated problem allowing for focus and concreted feedback instantaneously;
• students tweet thoughts during lectures;
• set up Twitter account with the name of a topic or question and then collaborate in a web page;
• use Twitter to replace logbooks for students by encouraging them to tweet and reply about their learning progress;
• use as an educational resource by linking tagging (Delicious) to conversation (Twitter);
• weekly questions posted so that each student can respond – then one student collate the answers and summarise in one post (this can be rotated within the student group);
• post a brief summary or précis on readings;
• sharing links for noteworthy news;
• plug real-time events;
• inviting participants to join online conversations or Webcast;
• providing lively back channel during official presentations, without the noise of passing paper notes;
• chat with lecturers, teachers, other students during and outside of contact hours; and
• facilitate ‘virtual classroom’ discussion using @username feature.

It is possible to tweet from a mobile device, Instant Messenger and many other websites including Facebook which certainly allows for versatility. There are various applications/directory that help integrate Twitter with other tools which allow more versatility for collaboration.  The following is not a complete list but will give some indication of what is available:

• TwitterCamp (a desktop application that allows tweets to be monitored and is best suited when run on large displays such as plasmas, LCDs, and projectors at conferences);
• TwitterMail (an application using email to enable status updates to be posted to Twitter and receive tweets sent to your username ie @username)
• TwitterBerry (an application to link Twitter to Blackberry) and Twitterrific (an application to link Twitter to iPhone);
• Tweetree (an aggregator to collects all of twitter information so you can see the various posts that people are replying to in context, shared images, and youtube videos);
• Twellow (online directory of Twitter users that are arranges profiles based on geographical and bio information to categorize profiles and find people with similar interests to you to follow and interact with);
• Twitterlicious (simple Twitter client for Windows that shows the latest Twitter messages in chronological order);
• TweetCube (a free file sharing service that allows tweeting of larger file including audio, video or images to be shared between followers); and
• Tweetscan (search facility to find particular discussions).

Twitter also provides tools that could be used to enhance Twitter as a learning tool for students.  These include:

• 12seconds.tv – share 12 seconds video clips;
• direct messages – send a message that can only be seen by yourself and the recipient;
• hashtag# – help make a tweet searchable;
• @username – to address a message to a public space; and
• favourites – saved tweets.

Anne Bubnic in Twitter as a Personal Learning Community mentions that ‘the Twitter community can contribute by accelerating the pace and flow of new information as educators from across the globe can provide first hand information on how they are using technology for teaching and learning and everyone will benefit from the experience.’

References:

Barrett, T, March 2008, Twitter – A Teaching and Learning Tool, viewed on 9 May 2009, http://tbarrett.edublogs.org/2008/03/29/twitter-a-teaching-and-learning-tool

Bubnic A, Twitter as a Personal Learning Community, Tech Savvy Teacher, viewed on 9 May 2009, http://abubnic.blogspot.com

Boss, S, December 2008, Twittering, Not Frittering: Professional Development in 140 Characters, George Lucas Educational Foundation, viewed on 9 May 2009, http://www.edutopia.org/twitter-professional-development-technology-microblogging

Dura, D, April, 2007, TwitterCamp, viewed on 9 May 2009, http://www.danieldura.com/code/twittercamp

Kuropatwa, D, April 2007, Twitter: Ephermeral Learning Tool, A Difference, viewed on 9 May 2009, http://adifference.blogspot.com/2007/07/twitter-ephemeral-learning-tool.html

McBride, M, February 2008, Classroom 2.0: Twitter, del.icio.us and participatory learning, viewed on 9 May 2009, http://melaniemcbride.net/2008/02/10/classroom20-twitter-delicious-and-participatory-learning

June 2008, 25 Twitter Tips for Colleges Students, Campus Life, Features, Tips and Tools, viewed on 9 May 2009, http://www.collegedegrees.com/blog/2008/06/04/25-twitter-tips-for-college-students

Rowse, D, March, 2009, 10 More Must Have Twitter Tools, viewed on 9 May 2009, http://www.twitip.com/10-more-must-have-twitter-tools

Sessums, C. D, June 2007, Twitter Me This: Brainstorming Potential Educaitonal Uses for Twitter, viewed on 9 May 2009, http://eduspaces.net/csessums/weblog/179742.html

Wheeler, S, January 2009, Teaching with Twitter, Learning with ‘e’s, viewed on 9 May 2009, http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2009/01/teaching-with-twitter.html

Tonight I viewed an article, Top Ten Reasons to Blog and Top Ten Not to Blog.  What an insight?  I actually could align certain points of the article not just to blogging, but to my reaction to participating ‘comfortably’ in general.  What was even more interesting for me was the fact that I read the ‘not to blog’ points first!  Thought provoking!  Points like:

• because you are too lame;
• because you are a scared little wuss; and
• because no one really wants to read what you have to say.

I really don’t think any of these are completely true for me but….

Then I read the ‘..to blog’.  Interesting points:

• because this is how you are going to learn in the future;
• because learning is conversation and blogging lets you have more and better conversations;
• because Professionalism is more than consumption, it is contribution; and
• because it’s a ’swap meet for the mind’.

I certainly agree with these points and as a trainer, am very much aware that elearning is the way of the future.

I think I mentioned in my assignment that maybe I’m coming to terms with understanding the communication process and this environment.  Personally, I would have hoped that this might have happened at a faster pace but I guess, it’s happening.