Why Facebook and teaching don’t go together

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Facebook is one of those phenomena that is really hard to explain. We all seem to be wary of its privacy policy and terms of use; yet we all seem to be there, myself included!! Strange, isn’t it?! It’s like some kind of flocking behaviour … we all seem to go in the same direction without giving much thought to it. It is either that, or we are going to miss out on our ‘flock’s’ discussion. So that’s called ‘being part’ of something, I suppose. And that is essentially why facebook works. It is not that the technology or its architecture is great, because it isn’t. It is not even that its terms of use and privacy policy are fair, they actually stink. So what is it? It is the people with whom we connect in there: new and old friends, people who we see in the corridors but never talk to, people who we have never met but who we think might be worth adding or accepting into our network because somehow they are connected to someone we know…  and the story goes on and on. There is no doubt that as human beings we are social and we crave for this kind of connections. And the more “friends” we have the merrier! It’s good for the ego (and yes, some people do collect them. This is particularly visible on twitter where people beg for one more follower to reach a new milestone of 1000 followers, for example – but that is a story for another post…).

For the last 5 years I have been working with academic staff and PhD students, helping with the use of new media to enhance their research, and also teaching, activity. Before that, I did it myself. i.e., I embedded social media in my courses as taught young and mature students in the Portuguese Navy. I am proud to say that my students wrote the first Portuguese Navy’s wikipedia entry for one of their Admirals. It was a learning experience for us all. It meant much more than that. It ended up being a tribute to the last living naval aviator of the Portuguese Navy. And that was back in 2006. I am sad to say that even today I have not been able to convince that many people to do something similar with their students. It’s a pity because it would be a way of giving some academic credibility to that resource…

So, yes, I have found resistance on how the web provides us with new ways of working, teaching and learning, and communicating our research. And that is OK, I guess. There is a time for adaptation and negotiation of people’s attitudes towards new practices. It takes time to mature. It keeps me in business too.

In the last 2 years or so I have seen a huge increase in people’s interest in the use technology in the classroom and for the communication of research. That is great, and some neat projects have been developed. As a result more people get interested in it, because someone else’s success is more likely to get their attention than any session I might offer on the benefits/pitfalls of using social media in academic practice. We like examples. We trust our peers more. I understand that.

Now, what I have a hard time coming to grips with is why on earth people would use facebook for their teaching or research, unless their research is on facebook(!). A have seen a lot of that lately, and I must say I don’t like it. I will explain why.

Using facebook for teaching is a quick win. Most students are already familiar with it. They like it. They might even think it’s kind of cool. It’s s space they feel at home. Some of them live in there. A quick tour through the computer suites of any University Library lets you know that. So why am I so against it for teaching and learning?

Facebook is space where people hang-out socially and privately (and if they don’t, maybe they should! I say this because usually family members, friends and colleagues co-exist in in that space as your ‘fb friends‘  and they usually belong to more than one of those categories. So you, and they, show a side of you that can be somehow more private than what you show in other networks where your different type of friends don’t mingle).

Teaching and learning should indeed be social, and personalised, but, in my opinion, it should not interfere with anyone’s private sphere. And you see, that is where things get messy. The difference between private and social can be blurry. Not to mention all the legal implications of ‘inviting students’ to facebook. If students or educators join a network on their accord, it is their business. When a lecturer says they have set up a group or a page to support their learning it becomes the lecturer’s and the institutions’ business too. We are leading people into it, even if we say it’s optional. And it suffices that one student needs to create an account for that purpose for things to get interesting. Again, it’s about that flocking behaviour. He/she might feel he/she needs to get an account so he/she doesn’t miss out on what the class is discussing. That can raise several questions, be it because the student joined facebook and was not aware of the small print and now his/her data is being used by other companies and ‘they did not know’; be it because now private information about them is ‘floating’ on the web (privacy settings sometimes return to default…beats me why…well I kind of think I know why), etc . And as you know, “there is always one” who will complain. And I fear we will have very little to say in our defense.

If that was not reason enough, people will add you to their list of ‘friends’ and then you face the dilemma of considering if  you should or not add them. Even if that account is only for teaching purposes you will soon realise it is not really so, as other colleagues find they should add you, and other people follow their lead in asking to be your “friend”. All of this because the boundaries are blurry.

This would take us into the debate of digital literacies and how important it is for everyone to be aware of the two sides of the same story. Facebook is a great tool to connect people. I can imagine how important it is for students to connect to their family and the friends they left back home when they moved to Uni, or even to just chat to the person next to them :-) .  It might also be important for academics as they get to connect to other colleagues at their (!) and other institutions more often. The social appeal of facebook is enormous. There is always someone on there posting something. A ‘like’ is enough to acknowledge our presence. “We shall not be forgotten”. It’s powerful.  Yet, I don’t think it is a place for teaching. There are many other places where academics and students can congregate and communicate their learning without having their socio-professional* and social private lives collide. Sometimes it’s good to have them separate!

*socio-professional because social and participatory media makes communication less formal, more fluid and friendly. We give a little bit more of ourselves when we use such channels. The register is more informal.

Digital Identity in Higher Education

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Last week the Educational Development Unit from the University of Liverpool invited me to  participate in their Pedagogic Research Group( You can visit their blog here). They wanted to discuss Digital Identity and used the paper Ricardo Torres and I wrote as a basis for discussion. During the discussion many points were raised such as “who we should be online”, “what should we share’, “how should we talk”…

The short answer is: be yourself! Explore your voice. Make your work accessible by communicating your ideas. Share your passion. Personalise your approach.

 

As part of that, I also tried to convey the idea that a sociable and personal(ised) approach online is different from being private. A sociable and personal(ised) approach is about putting a little bit of ourselves in everything we do. It means to provide that personal touch that makes us ‘human’. We show we care about the topics and debates we engage in. We also show respect and appreciation for those with whom we interact. Private has to do with a side of our life that is reserved to certain people and contexts. I think this is an important distinction to be made. I also think it makes people less wary of this idea of not being online.  ‘Now having to go online and share things about myself’ is scary. Spooky to be honest, especially because we immediately think we need to share things from our private sphere. It doesn’t have to be so. We can share who we are in our socio-professional sphere. For instance, I’m someone who enjoys what I do. So I smile too.  (although you wouldn’t probably tell from the video below!). My work is serious to me, but I enjoy it tremendously, and I want to get that across.

Having a presence online means for me to conduct my professional activity in a more sociable way. That creates a socio-professional identity that is much more appealing to those who read and interact with me. I enjoy it more too!

I ask for a moment of reflection now: think of that teacher, professor, speaker that has always fascinated you. Why was that so? Was s/he eloquent in the way they exposed their ideas? What made their classes/sessions/speeches special?

I’d dare say it was the passion with which they carried their message across. Very few teacher/professors are left in my memory for that reason. But all those who I have a lively memory of is because they shared their passion with me. Those were the classes I never minded attending. I remember my American Culture lecturer during my 3rd year at University. Going to those classes was like being inside a History book. She was quite a story teller that Teresa. She started and finished her class with the narration of a story. And she lived that story over and over again as she told it to a new class. I was sure of that. It was full of passion and rhythm. I – a sucker for stories – always found myself fascinated by hers. I would put my pen down and listen to them to the point I was riding in the same bus as the freedom riders. I always came out of that class with a renewed passion for the topic. I was often also disappointed at myself for not having been able to take one single note during those 2 spectacular hours. And each time history repeated itself. The same happened later when I did a postgraduate course in Coimbra. Attending Professor’s Antonio Dias Figueiredo classes was almost like taking me to the candy shop. There was always something new to try…and I mean to literally try. In that course we were given a blank VLE we had to populate with the litearture we identified ourselves with, with ideas and topics we wanted to debate, etc. We were the architects of our own learning. In his classes I learnt not only about following his passion (for teaching and learning, which he sure knows how to convey, and which became mine too). I also learnt to create my own as I explored new ways and shared my findings as I went along…

Where is this leading to? …well, it’s about this idea of consuming and producing information. The two walk hand in hand. For someone to be able to consume, someone has to produce. On the web there are different forms of consuming and producing. We can merely look at what others have done, but where is the passion in that? It does not make justice to their passion, nor does it show evidence of ours. Now…, if you like it, comment on it and share it, then things take on a different shape. Active engagement is both a reflection and evidence of one’s enthusiasm and willing to be part of something bigger (than ourselves).

I know these new online environments are still something quite new. All this social media buzz is rather daunted too. And as people try to thread carefully in fields they are still unfamiliar with, sometimes we become too contrived in our approach – often because we  fear the opposite, the too spontaneous! Heard of that spooky story that cost someone their job? Me too. But remember, it’s not about putting the private in the public sphere; it’s about showing the person behind the screen!

These technologies allow us to show, and sometimes find, our passion. They also provide novel ways of conveying it to our audiences.

Below is a short video we have recorded.

Note to self: I promised I would blog about the topic of using ‘social media and ‘(not) having time’. Sometime soon, I hope.

Worth reading and commenting:

Social Media in learning and teaching (blogpost by the Educational Development Unit at the University of Liverpool)

You can publish anywhere!!

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It’s Willets* who says it; not me!

The instructions to assessment panels are that they must judge on the basis of quality, quality, quality – not location, location, location. So individual researchers can submit pieces of work that have appeared outside the conventional hierarchy of journals, and I am assured by the people running the REF that they will not be penalised for this.

So where are you going to publish from now on? And why?

just curious…and this would help me with my research. Thanks in advance.

*David Willetts MP gives Third Roberts Science Policy Lecture

The importance of understanding participatory media

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For the past 3 1/2 years I have been looking at the impact the web has had on the practices of Academics who are highly engaged in virtual environments. This inevitably takes me to explore the social side of their professional enterprise as the web has become a place of active participation. Engagement is the glue that brings people together online. For it to work, there are some (invisible) rules that need to be observed. These include exchange, mutability, transparency, and trust through socialisation. They make us bond.

As a form of understanding the wider picture, I have also – even if informally – been taking a look at how businesses and services operate online, and how institutions and members of the public represent themselves in the same space. The misunderstandings are common to those in Academia. Some people do get participatory media. The majority does not.

Hence, I must say that I am far from being impressed with what I have observed! With the exception of well conceived strategic examples – A shout out to AVAST! and its Head of communication @Jas who truly understand modern forms of communication – I come to think that we are still a long way from getting the social component of the web.

To start with – online hierarchy is structured differently. It would be naive to say that there are no power relations on the web , or that participation is not driven by personal and commercial interests. In many cases it is! Yet, there is scope for collective participation. The individual is also entitled to a voice. You would think we would be capitalising on that. In most cases, we are not!

With the possibility of mass participation new forms of communication and access are enabled. Twitter is a great example of it. Only in my wild dreams did I ever think I would be able to access celebrities with a tweet, let alone a Professor! Now it is possible, although only rarely!

I especially liked the exchange between James’ Singer and a fan who points out he doesn’t really get twitter. This is the same as to say you don’t really get social media. You are still in broadcast mode! Would it hurt to follow some fans? It’s a form of reciprocating appreciation; being open to engagement. After all, they help pay your bills! The same applies to some intellectuals and their publics. This instance represents a misunderstanding of the medium.  It also conveys the preconception that it suffices to transfer past practices into a new channel. Participatory Media is not about transferring practice to a new platform; it is about engaging with our audiences differently. There is a need to combat the legacy of the past when information was transmitted, not co-created.

However, the use of social media doesn’t only get confused with this idea of feeding individual Egos. It goes beyond it. Some people, and organisations, see it as a form of exploiting and benefiting from other people’s work. Again – practicing one way communication, with one audience as beneficiaries: them! For instance, it happened when Academics wrote for  magazines and journals. In an attempt to pass on knowledge and raise their profile, they gave away copyright of their own work in exchange of it being published. Today, we have the possibility to keep both. Different forms of publication permit not only wider access to the information we produce; it also allows for more inclusive licenses. Creative commons come to mind. Yet, we still comply with old standards. Tradition dies hard!

This happens, for instance, when people ask you to contribute to their website and in exchange keep copyright of your work. Notice the irony?! You give your time and work away for free to suit the commercial purposes of others. It seems a bit hard to believe we do that. But we do.  What makes people think they are so great other will come? But most importantly, what makes contributors think they are not good enough that they submit themselves to such rules?

Every individual is a potential contributor to knowledge in an environment that requires less formalities. So why give our work away when we get nothing in return?  Everyone is asking themselves What’s in it for me? – and they often don’t find an immediate answer. Yet, what we should all be really asking is: what’s in it for us?

Participation is about exchange. And that is what many of us often forgets. When we give our copyright away, we are not only separating ourselves from our work, we are also denying others the right to re-use it.

I could go on and on with this, but I’ll stop here. For once, I wanted to provide a less positive and vibrant image of the web and its forms of participation. Tension and selfish interests are a significant part of this environment. They model practices; they shape beliefs, and above all they stall genuine innovation and initiative.

We need to consciously decide on which side of the game we want to be. Since Willets came to announce that it does not matter where researchers publish their research, as long as they publish quality work, I think this is a great opportunity to take a chance to publish wherever it is right for us (according to our ideology and what we think our mission in academia is). It my case it will be in Journals and sites that observe the Open Access philosophy and allow me to choose which licenses I can use to share my work.

[apologies for random thoughts - they might not connect from beginning to end - but they have been populating my mind as I plough through my Literature Review sections]

How I got here

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Answer to meme#2: how did I get here?

..honestly – I have no idea! I don’t think I was ever meant to get here! Above all – when I think about it – it feels weird. But it also feels good.

I was the first member of my family to go to University. In fact, I still am. I knew I wanted to go to University from a very young age, because it meant I would go and live in Lisbon. That was my goal back then! I was always fascinated by that city.  I just didn’t know what I wanted to study, let alone who I wanted to become. But I knew I wanted to be there.

For a short period of time I fancied the world of flight attendants – mainly because of all the travelling involved. I soon abandoned that idea when at the age of 16 I experienced flying for the first time. Their job seemed a bit boring! I also knew I was too clumsy to be serving coffee to passengers.

In middle school I learnt to dislike maths. I guess it was a kids’ trend back then… not to like maths. It was also kind of complex to mix letters with numbers… I thought! I got disinterested. I shifted my attention to foreign languages! I ended up going for humanities in high school, and did my national exams – similar to A levels – in English, German, Portuguese, Latin, and Sociology. I really liked sociology. I had good grades too. In my imagination, however, this would lead me to unemployment, so I ended up doing a 4 year BA in Modern languages and literatures (English and German). In practice, it was not much better. I left University with some knowledge of the languages and writers I had studied, but not with any practical knowledge that would get me a job. I did not know where to start, so I applied for an ERASMUS scholarship and went to Germany to pursue a postgraduate certificate in Translation. I thought I was still not ready for a Masters. Such degrees were reserved to much cleverer people.  But the desire to travel was still there. I wanted to experience a new country, to live there and absorb its culture. A postgraduate certificate seemed the right move. A natural, tiny step in the academic ladder after an undergraduate course. (I had no one to tell me I could have ventured into a Masters. It  never crossed my mind I could have done so either!)

I arrived in Heidelberg days before the 9/11. I took language courses until the University term started. I experienced the fear and anticipation of a possible new war… through the eyes of those who had already experienced two previous ones.  It scared me at first. But the fascination for a different culture was greater. I was determined to stay the whole year, and even more if possible.

I enjoyed meeting people from different countries and debating the current topics. While doing so, I tried to master the language to the point that it got better than my English (that was back then…). I got bored to death translating technical texts. I loved the cultural and social life though! I managed to do an internship at the Portuguese Consulate in Stuttgart during the Easter break. Basically I had no money to go back to Portugal. I didn’t think I wanted to either. There I learnt the Portuguese Navy had opened a vacancy for languages. I decided to take my chances. I needed a job after all. The Navy seemed a new world I could see myself in. Against all odds, I got it. I guess I went to serve the military on behalf of most of the men in my family who managed to escape compulsory military service. I enjoyed it. A. LOT!

I had no idea what my role was going to be when I arrived there. Neither did they! During basic training, my company commandant kept saying I might go into the NATO section given my language skills. The day after I swore to die for the country I was born in I was sent to the School of Naval Technologies. I was to teach! Me… a teacher?! Throughout my University days I had always avoid going into educational field. I thought that was not for me. But that was where I ended up!

I was lucky though. My line manager sent me on a training course – a kind of PGCert. I came back a couple of months later and I had this wonderful class to teach: Seamen who were being promoted to Petty Officers. They had to pass the English exam to be able to qualify for the promotion. I had 7 weeks to achieve that and work on their Portglish! After that I got the Seamen apprentice. Having escaped the traditional education route, they had come to the Navy to launch torpedoes… so they thought (in their dreams!). They got to put up with me for another 7 week period instead! As I experienced this new territory, I realised I could not teach them the way I had been taught. I needed to get them engaged. I also wanted them to be able to network, and share their experiences, which are, by the way,  fascinating. That’s when I took to technologies.

I took part in short courses online and face to face. I then enrolled for another postgraduate certificate in Coimbra on elearning techniques and context. You see: in my mind I was still not ready for a Masters! That gave me a good background and put me in touch with people who believed in me. That gave me the motivation and courage to apply for an academic Masters (an MPhil). There I went to experience research and practice as one. That was also the time I experienced learning in a community of practice. That would eventually be my research and dissertation topic too. While doing that, I also had the opportunity to do another postgraduate certificate with the Institute of Education of London online. It gave me an idea of how things worked in the UK.

I was coming to the end of my 4th year in the Navy when  I started writing up my dissertation. I had one more year to go before my contract expired. Navy jobs for graduates are just to get you started – (in most cases) you are not supposed to make a career out of it. So I thought it was time I started looking for another job before they told me to leave. I got an Interview at a University in the south of the UK but I did not get the job.

Shortly after I got offered an interview for a job at the University of Salford. I must confess I had no idea where the university was geographically located! After locating it on the map I landed in Manchester and did my interview in a rush as I had a plane to catch. (I was still teaching in the Navy!). I got the job and shortly after I moved here. I was marvelled with the opportunity to work at a University. I never really thought this place was for me! But I took the chance. Shortly after I arrived, I decided I should venture into a PhD. I am still not sure if this is the right thing for me – am I really cut to be a researcher? I told my line manager (at the time) about my idea of pursuing a PhD. He sounded so much more enthusiastic and positive about it than me that, without realising it, he convinced me!!!

So here I am, trying to finish it while still working at the University. I love it here. There’s so much potential. So many things we can/could do and help other achieve. This is also where I want to stay. I would like to be able to encourage and support people who, like me, think this is not for them. It can be, if you want to!

My PhD Research in plain English

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Answer meme #1 of the Writing Researcher challenge

My research focuses on the use of participatory media by academic researchers in the current changing environment.

In this post I will try to deconstruct this title into something more intelligible to those who do not work in this area.

For the past 3 ½ years I have been studying the influence and implications the use of web technologies ( online tools and applications such as twitter, facebook, blogs, wikis, skype, other social network sites, etc.) have on the practice of academics, i.e, individuals who work in an Higher Education institution as educators and/or researchers.

I am not so much interested in which tools each individual uses, how often, or what they use them for, as I am in learning how participating online has shaped and innovated their professional practices. My research participants are highly online networked individuals who collaborate and communicate in online environments, represent their work and present themselves through the digital medium. By doing so, they are inevitably also faced with the advantages and implications of being digitally active. Hence, I am also interested in teasing out how their forward thinking and innovative practice might encounter some barriers regarding implicit and explicit rules stipulated by their institution and external regulating bodies.

In a nutshell, I am looking into the practices of a cohort of highly online networked scholars to try to understand how activities and philosophies practised online are transferred to their workplace, and what impact academics feel these practices have on their academic venture. – 263 words

Open to scrutiny…

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….but be gentle!

I know it’s been a while since I have last posted here. I could blame it on not having time, but I always think that is a very lame excuse. Just thinking of time makes us not having time! The truth is that I have not been finding the inspiration to write in blog style. I hope the blogging voice comes back soon though as I have loads to share with you: PG Futures,  The PRISM Conference, the ECE Conference, PLE Unkeynote, participation on the Digital Transformation School, the Live Online Radio Shows we did, the new developments on the PhD…

Hopefully soon! Meanwhile, I have been asked to submit an abstract to run a workshop on online research methods ‘with an emphasis on web 2.0′. This is what I came up with. Still a bit vague… Would love your input before I need to submit it…which is kind of soon. Tonight!!! :-S

Thank you so much for your suggestions in advance!

Participatory Media as a research tool: new ways of gathering data and engaging with research participants

This is a two-session workshop which will seek to engage participants in relevant debates and activities regarding the use of the participatory media (social web) as a research tool. The session will start with a short presentation on the use of participatory media for the development of new research methods. It will be followed by participant-led discussions and related activities.

 

The goals of the workshop are to:

  • Outline the advantages and implications of using participatory media as a research tool
  • Explore examples of the use of participatory media for gathering of research data and engagement with research participants (crowdsourcing of data and generation of information through networks and communities, blogs and wikis, videos and podcasts; polling; online interviews; etc)
  • Discuss research ethical issues in online environments (open/closed; consent; ownership of information; use of publicly available data, etc)
  • Provide participants with relevant literature and resources