1. User-created content (blogs, photostreams, wikibooks, machinima clips)

Prior to this subject, I had little experience with user-created content apart from Wikipedia and YouTube and have had no experience in integrating them as part of an educational process.

2. Social networking (the reason students log on – may represent a way to increase student participation)

I have never been interested in social networking and have only explored myspace so I can understand a little about what students are talking about. After experiencing NING, I have the following thoughts germinating about social networking:

- If you don’t like networking in the real world, will you also not be keen in the virtual world?  Perhaps that is why students, who are really non-stop social networkers in their day to day life are so switched on by it – it is simply another tool for them to do what they are already doing and already love.

- It is addictive, you want to keep up to date and know what is going on.

- I suspect your personality is unlikely to change just because you are online. If you are shy in real life, you will probably be shy online and not contribute much – the reasons for that shyness, doubt about whether what you have to say is worthwhile etc, are still present in the virtual world. If you are an opinionated person with something to say, you’ll be like that in your social network. I have found I have to make a conscious effort not to post too often on NING as I always have something to say – whether anyone else finds it interesting or not -  I usually will have an opinion and am happy to express it. But I want to avoid over-dominating discussions.

- It chews up mass amounts of time. It is one of the most time consuming activities I have ever come across.

- I feel like I am leading a double life. There is the real world, but then there is this whole separate life happening online that those in my real world know nothing about.

- Would I continue in a social network (that was just for social purposes only) by choice? Unlikely. I may seem a social creature but the reality is I am very solitary and a quite independent worker – not into the group collective way of working. Ever since I left the workplace and now work for myself I have loved it – I was worried I’d miss the contact with other employees but that hasn’t been the case at all. Now I know this does not fit the approach needed in the Web 2.0 world. Perhaps this side of my nature will develop as I delve deeper. But for the moment I feel this is not my preferred way to interact socially. I can see potential huge benefits though from an academic or professional point of view – even if it is not my personal preferred means of communicating.

3. Mobile Phones - gateway to digital lives

The only application I have seen of this is a few schools in Sydney where they text announcements to students and/or parents. Now that is pretty cool.

I am looking forward to the day when phones include a projection device, that would be extremely interesting.

4. Virtual worlds

I have had no experience with this – yet!

5. New scholarship and emerging forms of publication

Last year I decided I was no longer going to write and publish anymore hardcopy study skills resources. Instead I created (and continue to create) an online study skills handbook. I felt that it was important to try and tap into students’ affinity with technology. I also love the flexibility of this sort of publishing. I can continually add, update and improve – unlike the static resources I wrote some years ago. Even if I updated those, there would be a huge amount of people out there using the old versions.

6. Massively multiplayer educational gaming

A huge phenomena of this is Mathletics. I cannot believe how this has taken off in school. Students play against other students across the world, answering Maths questions (yes, Maths, and they love it!). Whole schools compete. It is incredibly successful – I’d love to do a study skills version but don’t yet have the budget or the knowledge!

1. Grassroots video

This is one I have been spending a lot of time on lately. On one of my sites I have lots of video clips and I have been constantly exploring different formats and ways of encoding the file to see what gives me the best results. At the moment I am evaluating a number of streaming video services. My biggest issue with video is that there seems to be no standards yet and so there are infinite ways you can put video on the web but no best practice. In fact, I’d love to be able to film some of you tomorrow at the block doing a 20second clip on topics like how you study and learn or how you manage time etc.

2. Collaboration Webs

Until Ning, I had not really had any experience with collaboration webs. I had explored myspace, bebo and facebook simply to understand what they students were talking about (and spending so much time on) but I had not felt the desire to create my own page. Indeed, Ning has definitely confirmed something for me – these sites can chew up huge amounts of time. It would be interesting though to use this type of site for teaching and learning activities – I guess UTS online sort of fits into this category and I have been using this for years.

3. Mobile Broadband

I have been exploring this for the last few months as I am looking for a device that will give me mobile wireless broadband, is small and sturdy and won’t cost the earth that I can take with me when I travel overseas. We went to the big technology centres in Tokyo a few months ago to see what was new in this area. The problem I am finding is that many of the mobile broadband devices that are portable do not have full functionality. I need to be able to edit and upload web pages while I am traveling so I am still looking – if anyone has any advice let me know!

4. Data Mashups

From the title I had no idea what data mashups were.  After reading about it I understood what it was but have definitely had no experience with this technology – in fact was unaware it even existed.

5. Collective Intelligence

I have of course used Wikipedia although I have not contributed. I have also been impressed with Amazon’s clever marketing which examines what I purchase and makes recommendations to me – some of which I do end up purchasing – I always wondered how they did this – assumed they just had a very powerful database. I really wanted to see what humanbraincloud was like but it was getting revamped however the blog was interesting.

6. Social Operating Systems

Definitely no experience with this – no surprise seeing social operating systems are obviously in the very early days of development. The main thought that occurred to me as I was reading this was privacy issues – this will open up a whole new set of concerns for people about the way information about them on the web is collected and collated. It is always surprising when you google yourself to see just how many bits and pieces there are about you on the web, but if these were developed into a cohesive package? And where do we draw the line between our professional and personal identity?

Review the significant trends (p.6) – how do these relate to your experiences of technology in learning contexts?

1.The growing use of Web 2.0 and social networking – combined with collective intelligence and mass amateurization – is gradually but inexorably changing the practice of scholarship.

Gradually is the key word for me. My experience with schools and technology are that they are often very slow to adopt new technologies. As Trent discussed in his post, schools block many of these sites, are concerned about privacy and safety  issues and then of course there is also the issue of moderation – students can at times be inappropriate in what they contribute. I can see the potential in this area but more education and training is needed at a school and individual teacher level before this becomes a well-used learning tool in schools.

2. The way we work, collaborate, and communicate is evolving as boundaries become more fluid and globalization increases.

YES and I love this aspect. If I need a programmer I can go to rentacoder and can find people all over the work to collaborate with. I love that I can outsource so much more easily now than ever before. And of course, when you are doing distance education this is essential to promote discussion in what otherwise can be a very solitary learning experience.

3. Access to – and portability of – content is increasing as smaller, more powerful devices are introduced.

Discussed above but another concern I have with this is as the hardware grows more powerful and more mobile, unfortunately the software sizes seem to keep increasing to so we never get a miniature version of what we have on our desktop instead we get a scaled down version with respect to functionality. I want portable but full functionality.

4. The gap between students’ perception of technology and that of faculty continues to widen.

Without a doubt – yes, yes, yes. I discussed my experiences with this in the first week’s readings but this is certainly one of the major challenges we face.  When I run staff sessions on study skills I always talk about putting study notes on IPod and always get a laugh with the line, ‘now you don’t know how to do that, but the students do’. But I also agree with Nicole – everyone CAN learn about these technologies and we can lessen the gap!

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KEY TRENDS

• Environment of higher education is changing rapidly (costs, budgets, mode , student profile).
• Increasing globalization is changing the way we work, collaborate and communicate (wider perspectives, resources and more workers)
• Can’t assume information literacy
• Academic review is out of sync with the new scholarship
• Notions of collective intelligence and mass amateurization are pushing the boundaries of scholarship
• Students views of what is technology is different from faculties

CRITICAL CHALLENGES:

• Finding ways to assess new forms of work
• Need visionary leadership to capitilise on shifts taking place
• Issues of intellectual property and copyright (need to protect and at times unclear)
• Skills gaps between understanding how to use tools for media creation and how to create meaningful content
• Growth of collaborative learning means educational community needs to develop new forms of interaction and assessment
• Higher education increasingly expected to deliver to mobile devices

TECHNOLOGIES TO WATCH:

1. User-created content (blogs, photostreams, wikibooks, machinima clips)

• no classroom boundaries
• low cost way to publish work
• can compare to others and get different perspectives
• easy to connect with others
• accessible, often free

2. Social networking is the reason students log on – may represent a way to increase student participation

3. Mobile Phones – gateway to digital lives

4. Virtual worlds

5. New scholarship and emerging forms of publication

• expands the audience (in a cost-effective way)
• greater collaboration
• hones ideas and thinking through sharing (learn from many voices)
• available tools/media make the info more easily understood

6. Massively multiplayer educational gaming

KEY EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

1. Grassroots video / video sharing
2. Collaborating Webs
3. Mobile Broadband
4. Data mashups
5. Collective intelligences
6. Social Operating Systems

Data Mashups – custom applications where combinations of data from different sources are ‘mashed up’ into a single tool

Social Operating Systems

• they will base the organisation of the network around people rather than around content
• tools that not only recognize our social connections but will expose into in entirely new ways that will make these networks richer and more fluid
• can lead us to connections we would have missed
• value of the web is in the way it helps us create, identify and sustain relationships

CRITICAL CHALLENGES:

• Significant shifts in scholarship, research, learning have created the need for innovation and leadership at all levels (in order to ensure potential technology is embraced)
• Growing expectation on the modes of delivery
• Renewed emphasis on collaborative learning means new forms of interaction and assessment being developed.
• Need to provide instruction in different types of literacy (ie info navigation) and how to use the tools to create meaningful content

SIGNIFICANT TRENDS:

1. Growing use of web2.0, social networking, collective intelligence, mass amateurization is changing practice of scholarship.
2. Work, communication, collaboration is evolving as boundaries become more fluid and globalization increases.
3. Increasing portability and access to content as new devices are developed.
4. Gap widening between students and faculty perception of technology.

SEVEN MEGA TRENDS:

1. Evolving approaches to communication between humans and machines
2. Collective sharing and generation of knowledge
3. Computing in 3 dimensions
4. Connecting people via the network
5. Shifting of content production to users
6. Evolution of a ubiquitous platform