Continuing commentary and opinions on content of The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2008.
As I mentioned yesterday, in the Fall of 2007 I was teaching an introduction to college writing course, its MSU’s equivalent of first year English. The plan was to use several different social technologies in the class as part of the emphasis on the class theme, which was images of the self, perception, and identity. One of those social networking sites (SNSs) was Facebook (FB). The idea was to use FB groups to work and communicate some things but to also use it as a medium to investigate our selves (who we friend, what other groups we belong to, etc..).
The response was a pretty typical bell curve in that a few students were happy to see us using FB, the majority fell someplace between “ok, yeah, sure, whatever” and “I’m not so sure about this but you’re requiring it so I’ll do it”. A small, but very vocal, percentage, outright refused to open up their FB accounts to me as a “friend”. I told them they could do a limited view, still no deal. These few eventually obliged or opened an account under a different email and only use that account for this class. The last small, but again, very vocal percentage simply refused to use FB. They wanted no part of it, they didn’t use it, they didn’t like it, they didn’t approve of it, and they didn’t want to have any additional information about themselves out on the Web, especially on FB. All relented in the end, but it did take some coaxing.
This supports the point originally made in the last posting that students, most of them at least, will be happy to belong to a class group, or an university group, but they don’t want their teacher on their friends list. More and more, around our campus, I’ve seen student organizations saying “find us on Facebook” instead of listing a web site. FB IS their web site. No hosting cost, no HTML coding or uploading pages and links.
Educators ignore the power of social networks at their own peril. Saying that the anything “social” has no place in the educational process is doing two things that are, in my opinion, quite dangerous. First, it is ignoring the way students today communicate with each other and an essential way they process information. Second, it is suggesting that education, and learning, should NOT be a social activity and I believe there is great benefit to the social nature of learning.
I’m not suggesting we give up other avenues in favor of this, just that this gets added as an arrow in a quiver that can always use more arrows.
Perhaps, in the next entry, I’ll actually get back to the contents of the ECAR report. : -)
Showing posts with label aj kelton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aj kelton. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Undergrad Students and Technology - Part 1
I wish I had a dollar for every time I said I needed to make blogging part of my regular routine. And I have tried, a number of times. So this time I’m not going to say that. What I am going to say is that I need to get a number of things in my life into a regular routine.
I recently attended a meeting and in preparation for that we were asked to read “The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2008.” This is not something that I would have had access to if it weren’t provided to me for this meeting. MSU does not have a subscription to ECAR. When my own Research Bulletin appeared in ECAR in August of 2007 I suggested MSU might want to subscribe but I think there is just not funding for this, or nobody wants to pony up.
So, in reading this I found myself underlining a LOT of things. My plan is to take 15 minutes or so out of my day and read through the report, posting into the blog what I underlined and why. I hope this can be a conversation, so feel free to post your thoughts about my thoughts in the COMMENTS sections (below). At the very least, I hope this gives you something to think about.
The reason we were asked to review this had to do with an entire section on social networking sites, or SNSs. In the forward, on page 5, Ron Yanosky proclaims SNSs a “quintessential new [form] that define a generation.” I found this to be a bold statement right up front, but I don’t disagree. In fact, I hope to make this very issue part of my ongoing research.
The survey that this report is based on found that 85% of the respondents use SNSs and that number jumped to “95% of those 18-19 years old” (p5). The n on this is 27,317 students from a variety of different institutions, both in size and focus, and only those who the schools identified as freshman or seniors. The n is the response number and not those who received the email invite.
Another surprise is that their findings indicate that “students are neither obsessed with [SNSs} nor careless in the way they share information about themselves.” (p5) I found this most interesting given the number of young people who foolishly post pictures of themselves on sites like Facebook that they will certainly later come to regret anyone else having seen, like a potential employer. Forget that some are posting pictures of themselves doing things that are illegal.
In written comments that were provided, “some students vociferously objects in their written comments to any institutional intrusion into SNSs.” (p6) To that same extent, I’ve found many students like to see groups and organizations from the school in Facebook. So they want us in their they just don’t want us to “friend” them.
Last year I required Facebook for the class that I was teaching and I got a very interesting response from the students. More on this next blog.
I recently attended a meeting and in preparation for that we were asked to read “The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2008.” This is not something that I would have had access to if it weren’t provided to me for this meeting. MSU does not have a subscription to ECAR. When my own Research Bulletin appeared in ECAR in August of 2007 I suggested MSU might want to subscribe but I think there is just not funding for this, or nobody wants to pony up.
So, in reading this I found myself underlining a LOT of things. My plan is to take 15 minutes or so out of my day and read through the report, posting into the blog what I underlined and why. I hope this can be a conversation, so feel free to post your thoughts about my thoughts in the COMMENTS sections (below). At the very least, I hope this gives you something to think about.
The reason we were asked to review this had to do with an entire section on social networking sites, or SNSs. In the forward, on page 5, Ron Yanosky proclaims SNSs a “quintessential new [form] that define a generation.” I found this to be a bold statement right up front, but I don’t disagree. In fact, I hope to make this very issue part of my ongoing research.
The survey that this report is based on found that 85% of the respondents use SNSs and that number jumped to “95% of those 18-19 years old” (p5). The n on this is 27,317 students from a variety of different institutions, both in size and focus, and only those who the schools identified as freshman or seniors. The n is the response number and not those who received the email invite.
Another surprise is that their findings indicate that “students are neither obsessed with [SNSs} nor careless in the way they share information about themselves.” (p5) I found this most interesting given the number of young people who foolishly post pictures of themselves on sites like Facebook that they will certainly later come to regret anyone else having seen, like a potential employer. Forget that some are posting pictures of themselves doing things that are illegal.
In written comments that were provided, “some students vociferously objects in their written comments to any institutional intrusion into SNSs.” (p6) To that same extent, I’ve found many students like to see groups and organizations from the school in Facebook. So they want us in their they just don’t want us to “friend” them.
Last year I required Facebook for the class that I was teaching and I got a very interesting response from the students. More on this next blog.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Showing off for my workshop
Hi everyone, I am posting this blog to show the workshop I am leading how to enter a blog. Please just reply and say hello
Friday, April 25, 2008
PodCampNYC 2.0
Today I had the pleasure to present with Peggy Sheehy (SL: Maggie Marat), who works as a librarian/media specialist at the Suffern Middle School in Ramapo, NY. The Ramapo Islands (originally 3 sims but now up to 6) were the first school-owned sims on the Teen Grid.
I was fortunate enough to spend a day at the Suffern Middle School observing how the students were using Teen Second Life in their classes. I left there very impressed after watching four different classes. It was at that point Peggy and I decided we wanted to do something collaborative.
When the call for PodCampNYC 2.0 came out, Peggy asked if I wanted to do a joint presentation. The title developed was “Second Life: Shift Learning” and would focus on how learning was shifting for both grade school and at the college level.
So, bright and early this morning Peggy drove down to pick me up and we left for Brooklyn, to Polytechnic University, where the Unconference was being held. We got there plenty early, which was fine since we needed to put the finishing touches on our presentation slide show. Both of us are Mac users so it was great to use Keynote and make the presentation really sharp. It’s over 30mb, which is the max for Slideshare, but I’m going to try and cut it down so we can post it. I’ll probably reduce the size of some of the graphics.
The day started with a nice opening from the organizers. We then proceed to our first session but the presenter never showed up, so we picked up and joined “Teachers Teaching Teachers”. It was a great session and I’m glad I got to catch it. The next session we wanted to see was in the same location. It was a presentation by Tabitha from Global Kids on some of the machinima their students are doing. It was very interesting and great to see that someone is engaging young people to think and act on global social issues.
During this session we met some folks from Rutgers and we all hit the Cafeteria for lunch. I know, I know…but the food was surprising good and not stupidly expensive.
I was a bit concerned that our presentation followed lunch – that is a slot that many people miss, come in late, or sleep through due to a food coma. Although it is true that a number of people came late, we had a great group. Attendance was not our problem.
The presentation was being made in a classroom and it was clearly not set up for this type of activity normally. No big deal, ya work with what you get when you go to a conference. After hooking the computer to the projector, the projector promptly died. First the bulb went and then the thing would not turn on at all.
This was a huge challenge for us but it didn’t stop us. Peg passed around the presentation on a flash drive to folks with laptops. Those without we invited to move closer to my computer. Peg has a 12” screen but mine is 15”, so we used my computer. It worked, well, and everyone seemed really engaged.
My big gripe about this was that nobody came by at the beginning of the session to see if things we okay and when the tech guys came by at the end to get the projector from the room (we were still presenting, I’ll explain that in a second), I told them the projector wasn’t working and this tech started arguing with me. Forget the fact that I know how to use a projector, or that Peg is a media specialist, or that the room was full of tech types (this is a tech conference), clearly we were wrong and didn’t know what we were doing. This is an example of why some tech types get a reputation for being rude. Fortunately, this seems to be more the exception these days, and I’m sure this guy is highly qualified, but he lacks the skills to effectively interact with people.
Anyway, there was nothing scheduled in the room after our presentation so we just kept going. We told people they could leave if they needed, wanting to get to other presentations, but that we were just going to keep going. We stayed for more than an hour overtime and there were still people there. In fact, three people actually walked out of the room with us! Needless to say, the attendees were engaged and interested.
We attended one more session after that and then decided to brave the rush hour traffic to get home, which was really not that bad.
Overall it was a great experience. Peggy is a talented and gifted individual who has more energy than most people I know combined: I’ll present with her again anytime, anywhere. What they are doing up at Ramapo is nothing short of incredible.
I was fortunate enough to spend a day at the Suffern Middle School observing how the students were using Teen Second Life in their classes. I left there very impressed after watching four different classes. It was at that point Peggy and I decided we wanted to do something collaborative.
When the call for PodCampNYC 2.0 came out, Peggy asked if I wanted to do a joint presentation. The title developed was “Second Life: Shift Learning” and would focus on how learning was shifting for both grade school and at the college level.
So, bright and early this morning Peggy drove down to pick me up and we left for Brooklyn, to Polytechnic University, where the Unconference was being held. We got there plenty early, which was fine since we needed to put the finishing touches on our presentation slide show. Both of us are Mac users so it was great to use Keynote and make the presentation really sharp. It’s over 30mb, which is the max for Slideshare, but I’m going to try and cut it down so we can post it. I’ll probably reduce the size of some of the graphics.
The day started with a nice opening from the organizers. We then proceed to our first session but the presenter never showed up, so we picked up and joined “Teachers Teaching Teachers”. It was a great session and I’m glad I got to catch it. The next session we wanted to see was in the same location. It was a presentation by Tabitha from Global Kids on some of the machinima their students are doing. It was very interesting and great to see that someone is engaging young people to think and act on global social issues.
During this session we met some folks from Rutgers and we all hit the Cafeteria for lunch. I know, I know…but the food was surprising good and not stupidly expensive.
I was a bit concerned that our presentation followed lunch – that is a slot that many people miss, come in late, or sleep through due to a food coma. Although it is true that a number of people came late, we had a great group. Attendance was not our problem.
The presentation was being made in a classroom and it was clearly not set up for this type of activity normally. No big deal, ya work with what you get when you go to a conference. After hooking the computer to the projector, the projector promptly died. First the bulb went and then the thing would not turn on at all.
This was a huge challenge for us but it didn’t stop us. Peg passed around the presentation on a flash drive to folks with laptops. Those without we invited to move closer to my computer. Peg has a 12” screen but mine is 15”, so we used my computer. It worked, well, and everyone seemed really engaged.
My big gripe about this was that nobody came by at the beginning of the session to see if things we okay and when the tech guys came by at the end to get the projector from the room (we were still presenting, I’ll explain that in a second), I told them the projector wasn’t working and this tech started arguing with me. Forget the fact that I know how to use a projector, or that Peg is a media specialist, or that the room was full of tech types (this is a tech conference), clearly we were wrong and didn’t know what we were doing. This is an example of why some tech types get a reputation for being rude. Fortunately, this seems to be more the exception these days, and I’m sure this guy is highly qualified, but he lacks the skills to effectively interact with people.
Anyway, there was nothing scheduled in the room after our presentation so we just kept going. We told people they could leave if they needed, wanting to get to other presentations, but that we were just going to keep going. We stayed for more than an hour overtime and there were still people there. In fact, three people actually walked out of the room with us! Needless to say, the attendees were engaged and interested.
We attended one more session after that and then decided to brave the rush hour traffic to get home, which was really not that bad.
Overall it was a great experience. Peggy is a talented and gifted individual who has more energy than most people I know combined: I’ll present with her again anytime, anywhere. What they are doing up at Ramapo is nothing short of incredible.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
NJ SLEDucator's Unconference at MSU
Ok - three definitions first.
NJ SLEDucator - Formal: One who belongs to the Second Life in-world group New Jersey Second Life Educators. Informal: Anyone who has an interest in Second Life and Education (Higher Ed or K-12) in New Jersey
UnConference - "An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is created and managed by the participants (generally day-by-day during the course of the event) rather than by one or more organizers in advance of the event." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference
MSU - Montclair State University :-)
Now, an explanation. Last spring (07) Laura Nicosia and I talked about having a summer "thing" where we got some folks together, informally, to talk about this new "thing" we found called Second Life, which we both loved and saw the potential for.
Fast forward nearly a year. Montclair becomes the first University to have a publicly available island in Second Life. Princeton makes a huge splash by opening a number of joined sims and Seton Hall has also joined the party with a space of their own. And a little "virtual" birdie tells me that the CHSS Island may soon be joined by some MSU neighbors (but that still hush hush, keep it under your hat).
I mentioned the idea of an 2008 summer thing to Gregg Festa, who thought it was a great idea and signed up to work on it with me. It was Gregg who suggested the idea of an "unconference". I liked the idea immediately and we were off and running.
Details will start to come together shortly, and hopefully we'll have the wiki up soon so folks can start signing up and contributing content. Until then, we need to pick a date.
The Conference Center in University Hall, here at MSU, is a wonderful facility run expertly by Phil Cardillo. It affords amazing views of the surrounding area (for miles!), and an especially exceptional view of Manhattan. So, the first NJ SLEDucator's UnConference will be held there (at least thats the current working name).
The May dates I originally picked were booked. I was trying for a Friday (since there are no classes at MSU on Fridays, so the parking a getting around would be easier), or one of the days between Spring Finals and the first Pre-Session. No such luck. The only three days available to us are listed in the poll to the right (5/19, 5/20, and 5/21). If you are planning on attending, thinking about attending, or even remotely interested in attending, please select one of those date or choose "Pick Another Date" and we'll look later in the summer.
More to come.
NJ SLEDucator - Formal: One who belongs to the Second Life in-world group New Jersey Second Life Educators. Informal: Anyone who has an interest in Second Life and Education (Higher Ed or K-12) in New Jersey
UnConference - "An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is created and managed by the participants (generally day-by-day during the course of the event) rather than by one or more organizers in advance of the event." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference
MSU - Montclair State University :-)
Now, an explanation. Last spring (07) Laura Nicosia and I talked about having a summer "thing" where we got some folks together, informally, to talk about this new "thing" we found called Second Life, which we both loved and saw the potential for.
Fast forward nearly a year. Montclair becomes the first University to have a publicly available island in Second Life. Princeton makes a huge splash by opening a number of joined sims and Seton Hall has also joined the party with a space of their own. And a little "virtual" birdie tells me that the CHSS Island may soon be joined by some MSU neighbors (but that still hush hush, keep it under your hat).
I mentioned the idea of an 2008 summer thing to Gregg Festa, who thought it was a great idea and signed up to work on it with me. It was Gregg who suggested the idea of an "unconference". I liked the idea immediately and we were off and running.
Details will start to come together shortly, and hopefully we'll have the wiki up soon so folks can start signing up and contributing content. Until then, we need to pick a date.
The Conference Center in University Hall, here at MSU, is a wonderful facility run expertly by Phil Cardillo. It affords amazing views of the surrounding area (for miles!), and an especially exceptional view of Manhattan. So, the first NJ SLEDucator's UnConference will be held there (at least thats the current working name).
The May dates I originally picked were booked. I was trying for a Friday (since there are no classes at MSU on Fridays, so the parking a getting around would be easier), or one of the days between Spring Finals and the first Pre-Session. No such luck. The only three days available to us are listed in the poll to the right (5/19, 5/20, and 5/21). If you are planning on attending, thinking about attending, or even remotely interested in attending, please select one of those date or choose "Pick Another Date" and we'll look later in the summer.
More to come.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Ask not what your community can do for you...
Social networking is big. Duh, right? That is what you might have just said to yourself.
“Duh, AJ, what rock have you been hiding under? Everyone knows social networking is big!”
What I’m suggesting though is, perhaps, social networking is bigger than just “big”, that perhaps it is historical. Clearly history will write a place for what is going on right now in that people are communicating in ways that have never been possible before. I’m sure I’m not the first person to suggest this (and if you know an author I can read on this, leave info in the comments), but I’m saying that social networking is foundational; it is laying the groundwork for the next big social global historical shift.
Humans are using technology to make up for something that time had started to take away, social interaction. The role of community has not changed, where we are going for that community has. This is, of course, not to suggest that social interactions via technology are better or worse then those that take place face-to-face, it simply means that an easy and accessible tool for allowing interaction with a greater number of people, over a large stretch of space, has stepped in to fill a gap where local interaction seems to have started to fail.
When the world was tiny, all we had to worry about were those in our village, or maybe a select few from neighboring villages we visited from time to time. Our social network was small, but intense.
As modes of transportation and communication improved, we began to spread out our networks. At this point, we knew more people, but we didn’t know all of them as well as when the group was smaller.
Not that long ago, in a world that became bigger and yet smaller, with people we know spread out all over it, it became harder and harder to maintain the depth of intensity to most of our relationships with others. Add to this the increase in the use of technology, and our busy schedules, and people started to feel isolated and distant.
Recognizing that community is essential to nearly all facets of our lives, this new use of the very technology that was keeping us apart started to spring up. Now, we are talking about social technologies and many of the same people who were lamenting that technology is isolating and marginalizing the human race are now pooh-poohing the social networking technologies that are bringing us back together. One could argue that this revitalizing of community through technology is actually better than way back when we lived in small villages.
If we tried to look at depth of relationship (a staple of community) on a chart, over time, the depth would be higher when the number of people in our circle was smaller and they were in a closer proximity. That line on the graph would curve downward over time as our contacts increased and were located farther apart, geographically. Now, that line is curving back up again because, even though we have much larger circles of contacts than every in history before, and they are spread farther out than ever in history, our depth of relationship with these contacts is more intense because a) it is easier to stay in touch thanks to the Internet and, b) we are grouping off with more people who have similar interests to our own.
So, to me, it seems all about community. Certainly, as a community (in all the senses that can be defined), we can accomplish so much more than a single individual can. I propose a goal for each of us. Think of all the “communities” you are a part of: parent, child, spouse/partner, sibling, co-worker, worshipper, neighbor, fan, chief cook, bottle washer, whatever…. look at all these communities and know that we each have the power to make those communities better. Do just a little bit each day to make your communities better and the world could not help but be a better place. And THIS is why I’m dedicating myself to the issue of community. Its time to talk about this, to try and make sense of it, but its also time to act.
“Duh, AJ, what rock have you been hiding under? Everyone knows social networking is big!”
What I’m suggesting though is, perhaps, social networking is bigger than just “big”, that perhaps it is historical. Clearly history will write a place for what is going on right now in that people are communicating in ways that have never been possible before. I’m sure I’m not the first person to suggest this (and if you know an author I can read on this, leave info in the comments), but I’m saying that social networking is foundational; it is laying the groundwork for the next big social global historical shift.
Humans are using technology to make up for something that time had started to take away, social interaction. The role of community has not changed, where we are going for that community has. This is, of course, not to suggest that social interactions via technology are better or worse then those that take place face-to-face, it simply means that an easy and accessible tool for allowing interaction with a greater number of people, over a large stretch of space, has stepped in to fill a gap where local interaction seems to have started to fail.
When the world was tiny, all we had to worry about were those in our village, or maybe a select few from neighboring villages we visited from time to time. Our social network was small, but intense.
As modes of transportation and communication improved, we began to spread out our networks. At this point, we knew more people, but we didn’t know all of them as well as when the group was smaller.
Not that long ago, in a world that became bigger and yet smaller, with people we know spread out all over it, it became harder and harder to maintain the depth of intensity to most of our relationships with others. Add to this the increase in the use of technology, and our busy schedules, and people started to feel isolated and distant.
Recognizing that community is essential to nearly all facets of our lives, this new use of the very technology that was keeping us apart started to spring up. Now, we are talking about social technologies and many of the same people who were lamenting that technology is isolating and marginalizing the human race are now pooh-poohing the social networking technologies that are bringing us back together. One could argue that this revitalizing of community through technology is actually better than way back when we lived in small villages.
If we tried to look at depth of relationship (a staple of community) on a chart, over time, the depth would be higher when the number of people in our circle was smaller and they were in a closer proximity. That line on the graph would curve downward over time as our contacts increased and were located farther apart, geographically. Now, that line is curving back up again because, even though we have much larger circles of contacts than every in history before, and they are spread farther out than ever in history, our depth of relationship with these contacts is more intense because a) it is easier to stay in touch thanks to the Internet and, b) we are grouping off with more people who have similar interests to our own.
So, to me, it seems all about community. Certainly, as a community (in all the senses that can be defined), we can accomplish so much more than a single individual can. I propose a goal for each of us. Think of all the “communities” you are a part of: parent, child, spouse/partner, sibling, co-worker, worshipper, neighbor, fan, chief cook, bottle washer, whatever…. look at all these communities and know that we each have the power to make those communities better. Do just a little bit each day to make your communities better and the world could not help but be a better place. And THIS is why I’m dedicating myself to the issue of community. Its time to talk about this, to try and make sense of it, but its also time to act.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Feedback is always good!
Laura Nicosia and I presented a 3-hour pre-conference session on Wednesday. Neither of us could stay for the rest of the conference, but one of our colleagues was there on Thursday. This is the note he sent us.
Hi,
I was at NJEdge today and people were talking about your
presentation. You did a great job and so many people were
impressed. Even ********** was singing your praises!!!! She said that
you are on the cutting edge.
I cannot tell you how that made me smile and feel a great sense of
pride and happiness. Thanks for your great efforts and for leading
MSU in this work. The path has been blazed!
Here is our slide presentation:
http://www.slideshare.net/sorry.afk/071031-njedge
Hi,
I was at NJEdge today and people were talking about your
presentation. You did a great job and so many people were
impressed. Even ********** was singing your praises!!!! She said that
you are on the cutting edge.
I cannot tell you how that made me smile and feel a great sense of
pride and happiness. Thanks for your great efforts and for leading
MSU in this work. The path has been blazed!
Here is our slide presentation:
http://www.slideshare.net/sorry.afk/071031-njedge
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