[Insert Witty Blog Post Title Here]

Whew...Is anyone else exhausted after this past week? Perhaps it’s the pressure from trying to wrap up the produsage assignment amidst technical difficulties (why would I expect anything technology related to be 100% hiccup free?) or the fact that we just wrapped up the 5th week of social media tools (seriously, how many can there be?). Either way, my brain is effectively drained, hence my super clever title for this post.

So for part of my produsage assignment I thought it would be great to incorporate a Twitter feed from a hashtag search, pretty much like the one in the sidebar on the EME6414 Web 2.0 blog page that displays a running feed of #eme6414. Sounds easy enough right? At least that’s what I thought when I embarked on the task only to discover many hours later that it would be impossible...at least to accomplish natively through Twitter.

I learned the technical term for what I was after was a search timeline widget - a fancy snippet of HTML code that is able to pull all the results of a hashtag search and display them in a chronological timeline. I also learned that Twitter deprecated (fancy word meaning to declare some technological feature or function to be obsolescent) the search timeline widget on July 27, 2018. Coincidentally, the very same day that I was trying to figure out how to create one! For anyone curious, you can check out the original announcement from June 2016 on the developer's forum here. Since then, Twitter has introduced a new way to generate code for embedding tweets, but sadly, not for search timelines.

I then proceeded to spend a good chunk of the next day determined to find an alternative solution to my problem. I had decided early in the week to take a break from the participation aspect this week (thank you Token #2!) but I still found myself elbow deep in trying new tools. My inbox was overflowing with activation emails for dozens of promising tools I had signed up for, and if it wasn’t for Google chrome dutifully remembering my login credentials, there is no way I would have survived. Although it wasn’t perfect and it took way longer than I expected it to, I did eventually achieved success in creating a search timeline widget. My solution was not pretty and I’m still trying to understand why it worked, but nevertheless I’m proud of the fact that I got it to work.

When I started writing this blog post I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going to end up. I had jotted down some notes to talk about how after 5 weeks of social media indoctrination my initial reaction to my problem was to seek out help through social media and how it seemed to share some similarities with the community of practice of teachers described in the Goodyear, Casey & Kirk (2014) article. Or how even though I told myself to take a break from participation I had to really fight the urge to connect as the number of unread posts on my feed reader climbed higher and higher. But I think the moral of this story is to not take all of these Web 2.0 tools and the technology that went into creating them for granted. We are fortunate to have so many options at our disposal for fostering community and engagement in the classroom or the workplace that we don't even really stop and think about the marvel of technical engineering that goes into creating them; but I think that we should.  So the next time you come across a particularly awesome piece of computing genius take a moment to stop and thank a developer.  

Our Social History

If you are familiar with the late-night talk and news satire show Last Week Tonight hosted by comedian John Oliver you may have seen a bit titled “How is this still a thing” where he questions whether certain practices or ideas have outlived their usefulness, like Daylight Saving Time or celebrating Columbus Day. A similar query came to mind when I explored the social media emulator tool Fakebook: How did this become a thing?

Fakebook is exactly what it sounds like, a tool that lets you set up a fake Facebook profile, complete with personal information, posts and even friends. The intent of the site is made clear in that it allows teachers and students to create imaginary profile pages for study purposes, but why? Obviously, the existence of fakebook is predicated on the actual Facebook but it still begs the question as to why a study aid would be built on the basis of a social media platform. That we would have a tool to retell historical or even fictional events through a social media platforms says a lot about how we as a culture chronicle our history.

Ryan Taylor recently blogged about Allwyn Collinson’s six-year history project to recreate the events of World War II in real-time through Twitter. It’s a fascinating concept and one that has undoubtedly made knowledge of these events more widely known. A check of @RealTimeWWII’s Twitter profile boasts an impressive following with 515,000 followers.

Both of these examples seem to validate the concept that Marshall McLuhan put forth back in 1964 with his famous quote, “The medium is the message.”  The below video from the BBC Radio 4 gives a quick primer on the subject in under 2 minutes.  In his book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, McLuhan makes the argument that throughout history, what has been communicated is less important than how it has been communicated and that the technology used to transmit the message has had a transformative effect on society.

I think this idea that the medium is not something neutral, that it does something to people, is much more profound in the age of social media. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. have made an undeniable impression on us and how we define our history. These are no longer individual histories but social ones. Through these social media lenses, my history is equal parts my own experience and your collective reaction to my experience. The instinct to record our history has always been there. Cavemen painted their stories on the walls. Today, our stories are written in the photos and status updates posted to our Facebook walls, and we invite others to participate in writing those stories.


McLuhan, M., & Lapham, L. H. (1994). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (Reprint edition). Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press.

"Z" is for Zotero

Back in Fall 2017 I took an Inquiry & Measurement for practitioners course. After a 14 year hiatus from the academic world, my research skills were admittedly a little rusty and I was naturally a bit anxious about the prospect of having to format proper citations and keep track of dozens of articles. I couldn’t remember the last time that I had set foot in a library for the purpose of finding journal articles for research and any technique or strategy that I once used had long since been forgotten. Fortunately, the instructor of the course provided some tips for using the library including some recommended tools. One of those tools was Zotero.

[zoh-TAIR-oh] 

I admit, I was initially intrigued by the name but later came to appreciate the features it offered. In plain terms, Zotero is a reference manager and it can store and manage bibliographic references like books and articles. But more than that, Zotero is a powerful research companion for organizing all types of information and sources.

Zotero’s power comes from its ability to manage metadata - essentially, information about the information being stored and organized. Every type of item contains different metadata, this includes things like titles, creators, publishers, dates, page numbers, tags, notes and any other data needed to cite the item or to make it more useful when searching for it in the future. Speaking of citations, one of the tedious time consuming tasks of any research project is ensuring citations are properly formatted. Thankfully, Zotero instantly creates references and bibliographies with over 8,000 citation styles. It even has plugins for direct integration in word processing software making it easy to create citations directly from within Word or LibreOffice.

One of the tasks that can quickly get out of hand with any research project is keeping track of all the references and knowing why you saved them. Zotero lets you easily organize your items into collections. The main program window is split into three panes. The left pane is your library. Here you can organize all of your items and put them into different collections - much like a music playlist. Items that are stored in collections are links to a single copy of the item in your library. This way, the same item can belong to multiple collections at once.

Screenshot of Zotero client application

The middle pane shows you the contents of a collection, with all of the items and any attachments they have. Notes, files and links that are attached to an item will appear beneath the parent item. The right pane shows the metadata associated with each item. The type of metadata displayed will vary depending on the type of item that was saved. All of these fields can be edited and it may be necessary to correct an entry or fill in missing information to have a complete citation generated, but most of the time they are complete and accurate.

Items can be manually added to your library, but one of the best features about Zotero is that it can automatically capture and save items you find with the click of a button. With the Zotero Connector for Chrome, Firefox and Safari, Zotero can automatically create an item using the embedded metadata from the site and, when available, Zotero will even download a full-text PDF and save it with the item. Zotero also lets you assign tags to help identify items and make them easier to find later on.

Finally, Zotero allows you to create shared group libraries that make it possible to collaboratively manage research sources and materials. What’s cool is that you can sync these shared group libraries to your account, so that they show up in your client application. You can also access them online, which is great for times when you need to look something up that you saved from a different computer. Group members can attach notes with the items they save which can really help with identifying how an item relates to the purpose of the project, such as specifying a page range or even listing a perfect quote.

At the time, I didn’t know Zotero had this function and it would have been a great way to collaborate on our group research project. Instead we relied on storing files in a shared Google drive, which, I found myself having to open multiple files to find the one I wanted because all I had to go on was the filename, which wasn’t always the most descriptive.

Out of curiosity, I created a public group for EME6414 and added a few interesting articles. Feel free to register for Zotero and join the group if you’re interested. Once you join, you’ll be able to see the items that have been saved as well as add your own. Leave a comment and let me know if you’ve tried Zotero (or other reference management tool) and what you thought of it.

Student Engagement on the Grid

I remember growing up as the quiet kid in school. I moved around a lot when I was younger so I was always the new kid in the class. And not just the new kid who moved from the next town over but one that came from a state that no one had ever been to before; that kind of new kid. This, coupled with a healthy dose of shyness meant that I didn’t speak much in class. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to say - it’s just that the fear of being embarrassed by saying the wrong thing was much greater. At times it was almost palpable, like when the teacher would scan the room for someone to call on to answer a question and I avoided making eye contact like my life depended on it.

My story is not terribly unique and there are many stories just like mine. Perhaps this even sounds a bit like your story. With classroom numbers on the rise it is becoming easier for students to avoid classroom participation. This is an obvious problem for students as participation is a key aspect of learning. In addition to adding interest, speaking up in class provides practice in expressing ideas so that others can understand them. Students that participate are more motivated to make connections with the content and are more likely to retain the information. This is also a problem for teachers, as class participation yields valuable feedback on what students don’t understand and insight into how to adjust instruction accordingly.

Flipgrid is one possible solution to these problems. Flipgrid is a video response platform that can be used to host online video discussions between students and teachers. Not only can students respond to prompts from the teacher, but they can also provide feedback to other students. Fostering robust student-to-student interaction is probably the biggest advantage of this tool, not to mention it’s just really cool to make and share your own videos!

Why Flipgrid is great for education:  From a technical standpoint, Flipgrid is easy to integrate into a classroom because it works on any device or browser. The platform itself is lightweight and clean, so it doesn’t get in the way of what really matters - the voice of the student. Flipgrid empowers students to find and share their voice. Remember that shy student who wanted to avoid participation out of fear of embarrassment? With Flipgrid, students can flip the camera if they are feeling self-conscious and pause while recording with an unlimited number of retakes, so they don’t have to worry about getting it exactly right the first time.

It’s easy to get up and running with Flipgrid, all it takes is 3 simple steps:

1. Create your Grid: Your Grid is where you will host your video discussions. Think of it like a virtual classroom or community of learners. Once you name your grid and save it, you will get an auto-generated Flip Code. This code is what students will use to access the Grid.

2. Add Topics: This is what students will respond to. A question, a photo, the latest headline, just about anything can be the source of inspiration for discussion. You can even add additional resources like videos, documents and web links.

3. Share: Students don’t have to create their own Flipgrid account to participate, they simply enter the Flip Code to access the Grid and start responding to topics.

Flipgrid used to have an education specific edition called Flipgrid Classroom that cost $65 per year and gave you unlimited grids, topics, responses and replies to responses. Certainly a lot of engagement for the buck. But now, thanks to a recent partnership with Microsoft, Flipgrid is being offered to educators for free! What’s even better is that Flipgrid is offering a prorated refund to all educators who purchased a subscription after June 18, 2017. in the last year. Check out all the refund details here.

If you’ve ever been curious about incorporating video discussions into your classroom, there’s never been a better time to jump in and check it out. See you on the Grid!

The Myth of the Digital Native

The terms digital native and digital immigrant were coined by Marc Prensky in a 2001 article of the same name, and although he did not explicitly define it, the term was later applied to children born after 1980. I had heard specifically of digital natives before and believed it to refer to those born during the Internet’s golden age, but what I didn’t realize was that I was included among their ranks.

I don’t immediately consider myself to be a digital native and this fact was made abundantly clear during this week’s tool exploration. I think I only recognized two maybe three of the tools that were recommend to try out, but please don’t tell anyone, lest my membership in this cohort be revoked. This is of course an exaggeration, but it illustrates the problem with these terms and believing that that everyone born after a certain date has an innate understanding of technology. I came across this video from PBS Digital Studios which explores the question of whether digital natives actually exist.

But more serious than the question of existence is whether there is a danger in thinking that digital natives don’t need to be taught how to use technology? I think the answer is a resounding yes. The video argues that no one is born a fluent speaker of any language, whether it’s computers or Swahili; it must be learned, through immersion and practice. I also enjoyed that the video touched on the theme of access that I blogged about in my last post. It states:

“[computers] are a huge part of our everyday life but they are a privilege that not everyone has total access to, and if they do, access doesn't come prepackaged with understanding.”

It can be tempting to want to ascribe these intuitive skills and penchant for all things technology to a generation born in the age of the Internet based on broad assumptions about their seemingly constant use of these tools; however, it is a risky practice, especially when it comes to education. Just because members of younger generations may be surrounded by technology that didn’t exist for previous generations, we shouldn’t assume that proximity is synonymous with proficiency nor even preference. In this week’s reading, Crook (2012) notes that despite the push to embrace Web 2.0 opportunities for engaging this digital generation, the evidence suggests that students are not as inclined to take advantage of them and that their “engagement is biased towards consumption rather than production” (pg. 65). While these tools can provide new opportunities, as educators, we should not assume that students will take them up automatically and without guidance.

Finally, I came across this article which argues that the digital native rhetoric has been perpetuated by proprietors of educational technology who seek to profit by selling solutions to this problem of connecting with a new generation. If we are to believe that digital natives exist, then we accept the idea that members of the digital-savvy generation think and learn differently than students that have come before them, and that is perhaps the biggest myth of all.


References:

Crook, C. (2012). The 'digital native' in context: tensions associated with importing Web 2.0 practices into the school setting. Oxford Review of Education, 38(1), 63-80. doi:10.1080/03054985.2011.577946

Prensky, Marc (October 2001). "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants". On the Horizon. 9 (5): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1108/10748120110424816

Sadowski, J. (2014, July 9). The “Digital Native,” a profitable myth. Retrieved from https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-digital-native-a-profitable-myth

On The Question of Access

Week 4 is here almost gone and the buzzword of the week has been application and the instructional design for social media. As I’ve mentioned before in previous posts, the social media landscape is vast and the arrival of each new tool can seem a bit like a drop in the ocean. So how can we actually make use of these vast tools to promote and support learning?

There is an ever increasing body of research devoted to studying the use of social media to support learning such as this one that looked at what motivates students to use Facebook groups and the benefits they receive from doing so and this one that looked at Twitter as a means to increase student engagement. Both studies found evidence that supported the use of these tools in the classroom and they are hardly an exception. Many more studies are coming to similar conclusions about the benefit of these tools and it’s easy to see why.

It’s called social media and when applied to education it can make learning a more social experience. Rather than a one-way flow of information from the teacher to each student, social media tools can disrupt this flow and give students the opportunity to be creators and collaborators in the learning content. And because these technologies operate in real-time, they are excellent for reading and discussing about real world current events as they are happening.

But with all the hype that can accompany new technology tools, one of the things that gave me pause is the issue of accessibility. It turns out I wasn’t the only one that had this thought as Leah also blogged on the topic and I recommend you check it out if you can. But while her focus was on assistive technologies for people with disabilities, I was thinking even more basic to just access.

I came across this video a while ago about the “homework gap” and while the message is specifically aimed at the broader topic of internet access, the point it makes is very much applicable to this discussion about use of social media in education. According to the video:

"70% of teachers assign homework that requires access to the internet. Yet, 5 million families with school aged children do not have access to high speed internet service at home”

While the numbers keep getting better with each year, we have yet to arrive at universal high speed internet access for all students. And as the world becomes more technology-centric, digital literacy and fluency will becoming increasingly important for long-term success. When incorporating social media tools in the classroom to capitalize on any of the positive benefits they provide, we should remember to stop and consider the important issue of access as it relates to all of our students.

ThinkLink...ThingLing...ThingLink!

Anyone who uses the Windows Spotlight feature for their lock screen on a Windows 10 computer will instantly recognize ThingLink. It may not be the easiest name to pronounce, but what it lacks in pronunciation it makes up for in potential.

According to their website, ThingLink is a product identification tool that makes it easy to add clickable tags to any image on the web and share the tagged images on social networks. ThingLink also claims to be the leading provider of image and video interaction tools in the classroom.

My very first Thinglink creation on the topic of copyright

My actual first ThingLink image

I am just now discovering ThingLink; however, it’s been around for a decade, which is an eternity when it comes to online software applications. And it seems to have carved out a niche in the image tagging market as I could not find much in the way of competitor tools. Genially seems to be the closest competitor without digging too deep into it. (If you’ve used this application, let me know about your experience in the comments)

Anyway, back to ThingLink. Behind the scenes, ThingLink runs on JavaScript to serve up rich media content (images, video, etc.) on top of an online image. This additional content appears when viewers move their mouse over tagged areas of the image. This seems like such a simple concept, but it has huge potential, because an infinite amount of additional resources could be connected to that single image. This technology increases engagement through interactivity.  It’s no longer just t a static one-dimensional image, but a portal to an endless world of content.

Last week I wrote about digital content curation and how this practice distills the world wide web down into its best parts. ThinkLink has a similar value proposition and allows you to easily cull materials from all over and present them in an engaging fashion. I can see this as a very useful tool in the classroom and could really apply to any subject matter. Students could find a picture, or be assigned a picture for inspiration and from that create an interactive presentation into whatever theme it is. They could curate using existing media found online, or it could be used to showcase their own original content that has been uploaded or created digitally. ThingLink also provides the ability for teachers to organize their students into groups to make managing and sharing easier. It even allows students to add comments to images created by classmates. With the advent of rich media tagging technology of applications like ThingLink, glue sticks, scissors and construction paper may soon be a thing of the past!