UNLEASHING THE TRIBE

[Learning 2.008 Conference]

Or why participation culture needs to leak into the classroom What are the main ingredients of participation culture and why should learning institutions be adapting practice? Importantly, what are the characteristics of a "participation culture education"?

Presenter: Ewan McIntosh
Room: MS208

[Jay Reimer]

How can I make participation authentic in the classroom? I need students to engage the material and demonstrate a depth of engagement; how can I move my kids in that direction? What are the keys?

[georgia dawg]

Look around, in this meeting, this morning. Are people really engaged? Sure people are typing into their computers and maybe hearing the odd word, but are they really listening?

Is this really what we want to see in the classroom? This conference is about learning, but nobody is listening.....

Maybe its just me..... Doesn't technology detract from participation and make us individual learners?

[Colin Campbell]

Ewan is talking about gatekeepers

[Tod Baker]

Doesn't buy the flat world concept.

Are teachers gatekeepers?

Quality of teaching > #1 factor improving learning

How many hours do we get to reflect on our practice? It's essential to improvement.

teaching
thinking
time

Three Points
1. Tech tools not transformative. The school, pedagogy is transformative.
e-mail most transformative tool
Tools can support transformation, people need to make small, passionate communities
creativity can't be romanticised

2.

[Ann Krembs]

the world is filled with tribes

tribes--good and bad

edu-tech tribes are plenty

(Just a random side-note: Listening to McIntosh is just great because his accent is so pleasant sounding.)

"i" and "me" take that out--should me "they" and "them"

What do THEY want, what do THEY do--focus on THEY!

teachers=gatekeepers=(my thought--we can lock the door or open!) Op, there he just said it! Let's open the floodgate man!

(SWEET--63 yr old mom blogger! Mom, wanna blog? Yeah, right. Maybe though. I should set her up. Technology improves edu--need to help mom not be so frightened of it all!)

"The only way to imporve outcomes is to improve instruction."

How many paid hours do we have to reflect? 140 South Korea, 45 Scotland. Let's transfer the money allotted in to an hourly system--great idea! Apply for hours, money becomes secondary.


"Most people are mediocre by nature."

Point #1
"Despair cool tools!"

"The technology itself is not transformative; It's the school, the pedagogy...."
"Tools doen't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring."
Emails are dreaded by the one form that EVERYONE knows. Email is the most transformative one. "I'll email you..."

Complain by blog--get reimbursement, mail--nothing

Lost battery:( Need more plugs!

[Colin Campbell]

Notes

By another member of the Scottish tribe whom, like Ewan I think has a typically Scottish duplicity about how he feels about his own tribe(s).

Ideas, questions and statements from this session

Tribes, challenges the notion of digital natives using his Mum as an example.

How many hours do teachers get paid to think and develop their teaching?

Time is the hard bit

3 points Ewan wants to make

1 is about tools

Tools. The technology is not the transformation

Tools get boring, everyone complains about e-mail

HSBC interest free overdraft changes (Social networking uncovered this)

HSBC responded

Intuitive often means familiar

Be careful to give into the notion that things that are familiar are intuiative

Facebook and myspace would be the 3rd biggest country in the world

Who blogs? Small following --> grows

People get jobs from social networking/ blogs

Looked at a girl's blog, the audience being her best friends

You write in the place that people that care

'small passionate communities are what matters'

Creativity,

kids don't use social networks for creativity they use it for practical socialising

End part 1....cc

[Colin Campbell]

More notes from cc

The barely motivated become activists

Bebo, Ewan interested about why these things stick.

What can we learn from social networking about face to face teaching?

Johnny Lee (weemote) Go and see. Does he have to finish his PhD?

Point 1. Was what can we learning from their (children's) space?

Point 2. "Shared awareness"

Looked at Dodgeball, Google maps, twitter

Looking at different ways of staying in touch and the implications

Looked at a flashmob. Text message gathering. Mobile adverts 80% response web 1% More personal, low tech based on friendship. Needs an instigator

Used this an analogy for a good approach to education/ teaching

An artifact is necessary

Short, sharp clear messages amongst people that trust each other are powerful

Secret Spaces Mobile

Group spaces Bebo, Tagged

Publishing spaces liveblogger, Blogger

Performing spaces second life world of warcraft home etc

Participation spaces marches meetings\etc

Watching spaces Televison, gigs, theatre

cc

[Tod Baker]

Social tools today give us the chance to communicate, collaborate, and take action like never before. also a Here Comes Everybody idea

Main Points continued
2. Agility of learning?
Flashmob > shared awareness
How? txt msg
The instigator works like an effective teacher...short, sharp, clear messages.
It's coordinated with positioning, mics, timing...

Secret, group, publishing, performing, participation, watching spaces...how do I use these?

[Tony Tovar]

Many times when we resist technology in the classroom, it's because we are focused on ourselves as teachers and not on the students. If students are excited about X-Box or i-Phone, how can we as teachers learn to harness that?

"The quality of an education cannot exceed the quality of the teachers."
"The only way to improve outcomes is to improve instruction."
"When we call something intuitive we often mean familiar." -Esther Dyson

If you combined all the users on MySpace and Facebook, it would be the third largest country in the world. Imagine teaching a geography class and ignoring the U.S. Schools can not ignore the fact that social networking sites are the intuitive form of communication for our students.

Small passionate communities are what make this tick.

We cannot romanticise the creativity of children on these sites. They are using it mostly for ordinary things like organizing get-togethers or asking "wassup?" They are not creating beautiful videos with sensitive music that make you cry. There's the learning gap that we can take advantage of!

Learn from their space. You do not need to use Facebook in the classroom, but you can gather insight for your face-to-face classes.

There are 3.5 billion cells phone users in the world. There are 1.1 billion internet users. Kids are able to access broadband through their phones much more quickly and easily. If you teach in Asia and are not using cell phones in the classroom, you are behind the times.

[Randy Stadham]

looking at Zotero
Gatekeepers??? stopping good stuff to students
publishing student work
Social Networks MySpace 3rd largest country
finding the right communities
learning from their space
lessons from face to face

Dodgeball

Secret Spaces
Group Spaces
Publishing Spaces
Preforming Spaces
Participating Spaces
Watching Spaces

[Jabiz Raisdana]

Unleashing the TribeEwan McIntosh:

The idea of flattening world is grotesque!

Notion of tribes can be positive or negative.

Edu-tribe can be destructive.

Tying into media students understand.

Is there a difference between schools and universities?

Students use limited web tools. Digital native/immigrants not accurate.

Quality of teaching more important than systems.

How do you improve instruction? Think and reflect. Worldwide teachers are paid to reflect on practice.

Most people are mediocre by definition.

Email is the lowest common denominator.

Change happens when people feel comfortable using technology in their daily lives.

My Space and Facebook 3rd biggest country in the world.

If something is blocked it is like denying it’s existence.

You write where people care! Small passionate communities matter.

Kids don’t use social networks to be creative.

If you consume cable based TV your worldview is skewed.

The disconnect we have with technologically is a reflection of the disconnect we have with our children.

Learn from the students’ spaces.

Agility of information

Laptops old school: mobile phones and gaming systems wave of the future.

Filtering the web is useless.

You don’t have to be part of a group to be a part of something bigger. Sharing awareness.

Facilitating learning through social awareness, not technology.

Setting up a narrative that can later be followed.

Students need to ask the right question rather than answer any questions.

More reflective composed thoughts later here on the Ning Blog and late on my blog here.

[Jessie Koenig]

Teachers are gatekeepers...what gates can we open for the students to try their hand?
Most people are mediocre by definition.
TEACHING, THINKING, TIME are the most important
1. Technology--how social networking fits into the learning and system
"Tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring."--Clay shirky
Email is one of the lowest social denominator
ordinary

check out the ted talk on international news: Feb. 2007 global news
Internet allowed people who wouldn't have been involved
BEBO
426,000 cell phones thrown away in one day in the US.

Check out the info for the Wii remote to be used in a variety of manners: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/