facebook for data collection

Back after a long gap with a post prompted by a conversation with Daughter Number 2, who said that a friend of hers had recently set up a facebook event that wasn't an event...

The idea was that, instead of describing an event, her friend asked a question. Then, people could respond to the question by selecting one of the three attendance options available in facebook events. For example, you could make a statement, such as "School Computing helps prepare pupils for real world computing uses.", and map the responses as follows:

Attending --> Agree
Maybe --> Not sure
No --> Disagree

Obviously, you can substitute any question/statement you like and define whatever mapping for the answers suits your purpose. As long as you are content with only three responses, this looks like a quick and dirty way to collect data. Here's one I made earlier:

I thought this was interesting. It uses a technology with which students are already familiar (arguably "addicted to" in the case of my daughters) and so requires no special logins or hurdles to jump through for the participants. Also, it is easy to use existing friends and contact groups to restrict who can see and respond to your question. Finally, because you have to choose a date for the event, you automatically have a deadline by which the responses have to be made.

It is not entirely satisfactory, however, because you cannot change the response buttons, so you have to explain the mapping to potential respondents and there is no way to export the responses for further analysis. Therefore, I had a quick look to see how else it could be done and found that there is a facebook poll app that allows you to create your own response options. It draws a decent graph and can export the results to Excel. Also, if you are willing to pay, you can get other useful features.

Clearly, neither solution is as flexible as dedicated poll/questionnaire tools such as SurveyMonkey and Poll Everywhere but I think that doing everything in facebook is an interesting approach. I especially like the way you can take something created for one purpose (event management) and subvert it for an alternative use (data collection).

Have a go at my event poll and my facebook poll and then let me know what you think. Would you use either method, or is it just a daft idea?

Twitter Tales

This week, I was exploring the use of social networking tools to stimulate or support creative writing with a class. I based one exercise on the Fortunately/Unfortunately wiki.

Twitter
Originally uploaded by respres

I started the story with this tweet: "Unfortunately, while walking to school I fell down a hole!" and the idea was that the students would take turns at continuing the story alternating between "Fortunately" and "Unfortunately". I'll give you the link to the story so far in a moment but a couple of explanations are required to help you make sense of some of the extra messages in the archive.

First, I just posted my tweet with out explanation. As a result, two people expressed concern that I had fallen down a hole! One of the messages in the archive is therefore me thanking them for their concern and explaining what I was doing. The other problem is, not all of the messages showed up in the archive. As a result, I had to re-tweet them. Unfortunately, we ended up with three "Fortunately"s in a row before I re-tweeted. Despite these teething problems, I think the story is beginning to shape up:

Hashtag archive - #BEd42010 A Fortunately, unfortunately story created by BEd students

What do you think of the story so far?

Online Learning

I've been asked to contribute to a research project by answering questions about online learning. I'm not sure yet how much I'll be able to add to the sum of human knowledge by taking part but I'm willing to contribute as best I can and I must admit to being curious as to what they'll ask about.

Crossville Treehouse
Originally uploaded by Chris Shiflett

It is an Higher Education focussed project, so I wouldn't be surprised if they concentrate on Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) such as Blackboard and Moodle. Now, I may be being unfair here but it seems to me that universities are comfortable with VLEs like that because there is a good fit with the content delivery model that is (probably) still the dominant teaching model in Higher Education.

As I was thinking about it, I realised that, although I have some experience of teaching using "traditional" VLEs, I have never been a learner in that kind of environment. A bit more thought lead me to consider that most of the online learning I have experienced has been through informal online networks formed around tools like blogs, wikis and, most recently, Twitter. For me, it is these informal, conversational, learning networks that currently seem the most interesting from a learning and teaching perspective.

However, I wonder how well informal tools lend themselves to formal learning? If universities adopt social networking, do they end up creating creepy treehouses instead of places of useful learning? It may be that universities don't even get VLEs and content delivery right. For example, I heard of one group of students who were so disgruntled with the university system, they wrote their own!

Therefore, I'd be really interested in your opinions: especially if you have experience of formal, online learning in a university setting.

Questions

What makes an online learning environment successful and/or useful? Can you describe good examples of the use of either VLEs or social networks in Higher Education? Can universities adopt or adapt social networking tools without creating creepy treehouses?

Answers to these questions, or any thoughts in this area will be greatly appreciated.

ECER 2009: Some thoughts (#ecer2009)

Introduction
It's the final day of ECER 2009 and I fully intended to go to an 8:30 session. I distinctly remember hearing the alarm. I remember switching it off... and then an hour later, I woke up again. Oops!

ECER 2009: Main Building
Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir

I went in to the University of Vienna anyway thinking I'd join the session after the first paper but when I got there, I had a closer look at the programme and realised the paper I was most interested in was the first one. Decided to write up some of my thoughts on the conference instead while it was still fresh in my mind.

Electronic presence
First, I'd like to echo what Graham Attwell said in his blog post. ECER is a major education conference with over 2000 people attending and thousands of presentations. Many sessions are delivered in parallel and in the case of ECER 2009 they took place in three, different buildings. The buildings were relatively close to each other but it would still take about five minutes to walk between the two furthest flung buildings. Add to that the sheer size of the programme, and almost inevitably you will miss things that would be good to hear. Some you will miss because you are choosing between two sessions that are happening simultaneously. But some you will miss because you just don't know they are on. The papers are organised under one of 27 networks. I mostly attended presentations in Network 16: ICT in Education and Training but tried to keep an eye on Network 10: Teacher Education Research too. I probably should have had a closer look at Network 27: Didactics - Learning and Teaching, and Network 6: Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures, and … But there are only so many hours in the day and in general I decided it was best to pick one Network and mostly stick to it.

However, this meant I missed a session on Digital Identity that sounded really interesting. I missed it because it was in Network 2: Vocational Education and Training (VETNET) - a network that I didn't consider looking at and, although I am interested in ideas of digital identity, it was not a search term I thought of using when searching the online programme.

How do I know it was on then? Because I saw Graham Attwell's Tweet about it and subsequently was directed to an online copy of the presentation by a Tweet from maresta. It would have been good to see more of this type of online activity but as Graham said in his excellent blog post, there were very few people Twittering from the event and, so far I have only found four of the presentations online: Grahams', Alana James', Norm Friesen's and mine. In contrast, there is the Scottish Learning Festival, an event mainly for teachers rather than educational researchers, where there was a small but active community posting material online (see for example SLF Live!). The organisers of the conference recorded some of the sessions - webcasting some of them live - and set up a Flickr pool for people to share their photos of the event. Even the TeachMeet fringe event at the Scottish Learning Festival generated more online content than the whole of the ECER conference!

Speculation
Why was the use of social networking tools at ECER so low? Graham speculates: "I suspect that the culture (or community) of educational research has not yet embraced these technologies." I wasn't convinced by this and offer CAL '09 as a counter example. There was a reasonably active Twitter presence at CAL, a Cloudworks page was set up during the conference, the organisers had set up a graffiti wall where messages could be posted electronically to be viewed in the poster presentation area and you could email photos to share with others. Perhaps Andy's comment is closer to the mark. It may be that social networking tools are yet to have a big impact elsewhere in Europe. It will be interesting to see if next year's ECER is better represented on Twitter and elsewhere.

Conclusions
I didn't mean this to be so grumpy and I originally intended to talk about some of the sessions I attended. It was a good conference. The facilities were good and the free wi-fi coverage excellent. I have plenty to think about, research to chase up and (hopefully) some contacts to pursue. So, I'd like to conclude by thanking the organisers and presenters. However, since it is unlikely that I will be able to attend ECER 2010, I hope the electronic coverage will be more impressive next year.

P.S. I finished this post at Vienna airport where there is good, free, wi-fi access to the internet and the hotel where I stayed also had free wi-fi. I have yet to find a UK airport offering free internet access and most of the UK hotels I have stayed at seem to charge too. I hope that as uptake of social networking spreads from the UK to mainland Europe, mainland Europe's enlightened attitude to wi-fi spreads to the UK. :-)

The Informal use of Social Networking Sites for Collaboration on Initial Teacher Training Programmes (#ecer 2009)

The Informal use of Social Networking Sites for Collaboration on Initial Teacher Training Programmes.

Coles, Anthony: Birmingham City University, United Kingdom

The researcher's university pushed staff to create Facebook presence since students were already there and using tools like Facebook for academic purposes. Not all staff were comfortable with this. The researcher gathered data from his students to see what their views were.

In the past, the course has had some issues with professionalism, i.e. inappropriate discussion on the universities Moodle discussion forum. However, in general, the feeling was that communication should be improved because there's time for thought, allows simultaneous contributions and it is inherently democratic (see Joiner 2004). But lack of social cues may lead to less socialisation, lack of pedagogic strategies and lack of elearning skills.

The majority use social networking sites (mostly Facebook) and most used it daily. There were distinct group: one group had 70% plus of their network friends coming from their course but a similar sized group had less that 10% of friends from the course.

What academic work did the students discuss online? Issues discussed? Number 1 was assignments in progress. Also discussed placement (both non-teaching and teaching issues), taught sessions, tutors (which is what concerns some academics), future career, other students...

Focus group said they used their social networks to organise meetings with other students. They said they saw the university VLE as a place to catch up on classes not a place to network. They found Facebook etc. was god for general support, e.g. simply by changing online status you can find out others are stressed by assignments too. They said that often part of meeting new students was to swap Facebook pages. They also liked that their own networks were controllable {I think this is in terms of skins etc. - DM} unlike the university's Moodle.

The researcher find that attempts to improve the social structures of the university have not been particularly successful. However, informal social networks do grow up around courses. The familiar nature of the tools (for the students) is one of the perceived advantages. It also allows them to draw their own boundaries and embody their own identity. However, it could lead to a blurring of professional/personal divide.

Point was made in the post presentation discussion that there are some students you would go for coffee with and others you wouldn't - same with online contact. :-) You don't have to respond positively to every friend request! It may be useful to know how students use these spaces to support their learning but it may not be necessary to participate in order to encourage educational benefits.

Do Doctoral Candidates Use and Benefit From Online Social Networks (#ecer09)

Do Doctoral Candidates Use and Benefit From Online Social Networks as an Aid Their Thesis and Dissertation Process?

James, E Alana: ReinventingLife org, Ireland (Republic of)

If they need it, they will learn to use it and they will come.

Personal Learning Environments - based on Sieman's Connectivist ideas. There are two ways to look at Personal Learning Networks (PLN) - ether something the student puts together him/herself; or can be more structured with tutor putting things together.

The researcher found that she started out with four distinct social groups but over the course of time, the four networks started to interact with each other.

She found it a win/win situation: it encouraged students to "think outside the box" and it made mentoring more fun - allowing her to deliver something once but share it with many students,

MPs talking, not hearing online

Heard this on the news and thought it was interesting. The Hansard Society has just published a report on MPs' use of the Internet. The BBC news item offers the following snippet.

"MPs are transmitting and not receiving," said Andy Williamson, director of the Society's eDemocracy programme.

Read the full news item to see what Andy is talking about.

There are encouraging signs in that more MPs are making use of the Internet but they seem to be sticking to the old Web 1.0 transmission model rather than the read/write Web 2.0 model. I suspect MPs are targeted with more comments and more abuse than my blog will ever be so I can understand them wanting to turn off comments but if you don't allow two way communication, you are missing the point of a blog (in my humble opinion).

If MPs don't get it, I suspect local government doesn't get it either. This could partly explain why anything that even smells of social networking is just blocked in most schools. If you don't use it, it's harder to see the value. If you don't see the value, it's easier just to say, "No".

ECER 2008 - Identification of barriers to Participation in a Practice-based Virtual learning

Live blog from a session at ECER 2008.

Presented by Anthony Michael Coles from Birmingham City University, United Kingdom.

Some of his university's modules have limited face-to-face contact so they rely on Moodle for continuity. Logs imply reasonable level of access but student behaviour suggests engagement is low.

Again, similar advantages and disadvantages as rehearsed in other seminars. (Referenced Joiner 2004.) However Joiner (2004), Kreijin et al (2004) and Frier (1983) suggest the "Nobody knows you are a dog" ideas are not strictly true.

Reasons given for non-participation were not always accurate. For example, students blamed technical difficulties and password problems but usage logs suggest this is not true. Of student's who did not use it, 50% thought they didn't need it. Despite induction training, 25% said they didn't know about it!

Participants who used it were fairly positive about its use for learning but less sure of its value for teaching.

The comment "I may try Facebook as that's how my friends communicate" was interpreted as a confidentiality issue. [Is that right? Is it just that they are doing it elsewhere already? - DM]

Again picking up previous comment, the students wanted to practise social interaction before doing "work". Have to see it as a social space not just a learning space - see Hall, R. (2006). Battery farming or free ranging: towards citizen participation in elearning environments. E Learning 3505-518.

Questions: The university did in fact discover that discussion was taking place between students ... But on their own Facebook sites. [See Creepy Treehouse! - DM] Could it also be the difference between formal and informal learning spaces?

ECER 2008 - teachers and Web 2�0 technologies: practice, pitfalls and potential

Live blog from a session at ECER 2008.

Presented by Tony Fisher, Rebecca Graber and Colin Harrison from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom.

Demos report: Digital Curriculum - Their Space. Recognised the potential for educational uses of social networks and Web 2.0 technologies. See also Social Software and Learning from Futurelab.

Part of the context in which teachers have to make decisions is the media interest, often highlighting the dangers, in social software.

Some themes emerged from teacher interviews. Teachers are concerned about the time it takes to do these things - to get to know the tools and to use them effectively. Teachers' attitudes to risk - personal risk as well as risk to pupils. Awareness of pedagogical opportunity - can be chicken and egg since you can't see educational uses until you have used it yourself. Contradictions raised by Web 2.0 tools, for example encourages collaborative work but individual assessment remains the norm.

Teachers know the Web 2.0 is motivating and widely used outside school. One teachers sharing his Facebook account but found pupils were not particularly interested in commenting on his facebook. Another teacher found Facebook too much work and committed Facebook suicide.

The example was given of a classroom rules wiki that had outrageous rules (e.g. "You must run in class"). The pupils were outraged, so the teacher showed them how they could edit it and an agreed rules wiki was created.

Only two schools in the sample didn't block YouTube! There is a major problem with the perception of risk. Teachers were aware of the need for propriety and were very carefful about what they would do. The speed of change is a major problem. Since technology is moving so fast, it is only the innovators and early adopters that have any hope. Everyone else will get left behind. Schools will never keep up!

Do you need pedagogical change before use of Web 2.0 becomes effective or will it drive pedagogical change? Do we have to question the whole nature of school?

Questions: Found that teachers access to hardware and Internet was as good if not better than pupils but social networking and online games were much lower than pupils. Email was the main use for teachers.

There was one example where a pupils was caught "making and instant messaging program". He'd hidden it on the school server and pupils were using it to help each other with Maths! School found it and removed it but he is now part ofd a group of pupils advising the school on new technology!

ECER 2008 - Students Use of Web2 technologies In and out of School

Live blog from a session at ECER 2008.

Presented by Colin Harrison, Rebecca Graber and Tony Fisher from University of Nottingham, United Kingdom and Kit Logan from the London Knowledge Lab, University of London, United Kingdom

Reports will be available on the Becta website. Currently a couple of the initial reports and a literature review have been published.

What technologies were pupils using outside of school? Access to computer 98.4% and access to Internet 96.6%. Nost using email and instant messaging (89.4% - more girls than boys), 74% using social networking sites (angain girls more than boys) and 59% playing online, multi-user games (includes game console networking.

Schools were using blogs and discussion forums however schools claimed to be using them more than pupils reported using them! Also, no significant difference between ICT active schools and other schools. Most (95%) have watched video online (e.g. YouTube) but don't use online. Very few were uploading video and those who do were uploading videos take on their phone. Students report using Google and Wikipedia most. Wikipedea was twice as popular as the next most popular (BBC Bitesize).

Students said they would like to do more Powerpoint in school (to support learning) than any Web 2.0 technology. However, in Web 2.0 active school, blogs did feature more strongly.

Case study of a Web 2.0 school showed that the Web 2.0 uses were concentrated in the ICT department. Most of the Web 2.0 tools are open to the public - something that was important to the pupils as their school and their work can be found on an Internet search. It is structured, teacher-led activities.

In answering questions, the presenters explored the gap between what the schools reported and what pupils reported. Part of the problem is the way these developments have not spread through the whole school yet. Sometimes pupils are not aware of what is happening in other classes! The spread of Web 2.0 technologies was described as "diffusion" rather than "roll out"!