I spent about an hour and a half on a social network yesterday. It was probably the most time that I’ve spent on a single SN in my life — the most that I’ve been drawn in to the experience. I say that because I get the sense that this is what is supposed to happen — that you get drawn in. I’ve just visited again and found myself engaged in a discussion on the new Class Blogmeister group that was set up by Diane Scott. I also linked into Larry Anderson’s profile page from a search for Second Life among the network’s members. Cool page, Larry, by the way. When I saw that he had his Second Life avatar’s name on his page, I rushed back to my profile and added in my Twitter login and my Second Life name, Suriawang Dapto, along with a link to my virtual office there.
So now I’m closing the window to avoid getting distracted again. But the question I ask myself is, “Am I doing education here (teaching or learning) or am I doing Networking.” Not fair to answer this seriously without a whole lot more experience — and I can’t promise that I will, as I spend so much time doing education and networking.
I’ve mentioned this in some of my presentations, that I do not believe that we – educators older than 30 (arbitrarily chosen age) – truly understand social networks yet. For instance, we’re trying to grow individual and independent social networks out of every discipline, school level, and just about any other probable community of educational interest. I’ll bet I’ve been contaced by e-mail or phone call by no fewer than ten people over the past month, each wanting me to see their social network. “This social network is going to revolutionize physical education!”
What strikes me is that our students make it work with just one. The three main choices, as far as I know, are MySpace, Bebo, and Facebook, the later seeming to be the one of choice at present. So why didn’t we figure out how to use Facebook as the social network for NECC. I looked there for a group for NECC. I probably won’t do that again :-/
So, anyway, I keep wondering about this. What’s the point, beyond costing time, which I guess many of our students have more to spend. It seems to me, that the true potential for all of this, and something that I don’t even think Facebook has truly captured yet, is the profile. What bothers me about social networks is that they have walls. It’s a weekness of Ning, in my opinion, that there do not seem to be easy and logical ways for us to connect to each other, based on common interests, regardless of the networks we’ve joined. There are certainly security issues. But for me to learn, to grow, to solve problems, and accomplish goals, I need to connect to people and resources that help me do that.
I guess I’m picturing social networks, whose boundaries become much more porous, and profiles, whose reach extends out into the Net in ways that attract connections based partly on how we populate our profiles, but also having certain aspects of our profiles populated automatically by what we are doing. There was a search tool out there, many years ago, called Kenjin [Feb 2000 PCWorld Review]. It would read the text from the active window on your PC screen, analyze the text, pick out the major themes, and then comb the Internet for links related to those subjects.
I wonder about a tool that would maintain a profile for us, based on how we’ve populated it, but also based on what we are doing with information. The profile would be fully customizable, the owner able to determine what would be public, what would be private, and what would be actionable in actively or passively connecting to other people and resources. Then temporary or permanent social networks could be created or create themselves around people of similar interests, concerns, problems, or goals.
This entry’s gotten to long already, but I’m continuing to try to hash this out.
David, I wonder about the same. My students don’t want to use Diigo, nings, or our own blogging software on our school’s website for the same reason. They do, but it’s because we require it. On the other hand, Facebook doesn’t work as the ONE, yet. I’ve got an account to try to stay in touch with alums (since they don’t want to visit our alumni portal on the school website), and I know way too much about them. Until there is a way to segregate and separate worlds via better privacy controls, I don’t think we can use just one. Great post!
Just to note on your comment: “The three main choices, as far as I know, are MySpace, Bebo, and Facebook, the later seeming to be the one of choice at present.”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-9973826-36.html
Thanks CS. I mention Bebo, because it appears to be the social network for teens outside the U.S. and as I read a lot of edubloggers from Europe, Canada, and the Oz & kiwi bloggers, I hear a lot about Bebo.
Thanks for the reference, though.
I think certain groups may dominate certain online spaces, crowding out others who feel, consequently, like they don’t belong.
I have zero interest in a MySpace page as a 34 year old person; I say my age, but am not sure that has much to do with it. I gather there are many 34 year-olds on MySpace. There simply aren’t the discussions and links and frankly the people in that space that I care much about.
Facebook? I don’t participate there, either. But when I found Ning groups, they somehow appealed to me. Is that my antisocial nature? Or my recognition of professional/social interests? Or my age?
I think its because the folks on Ning (let’s say, the Classroom 2.0 Ning site) are connected to me, not only in some cases by maturity, but also by their professional standing.
I hang out in that particular Ning site, a social space, because I feel I “belong” with a lot of the folks there.
I think you are right, however, that sometimes these networks can “draw you in,” and that can be something positive to celebrate but also something to more cautiously be aware of. I also recognize some of the limitations you bring up. Is it not fun seeing how all of these themes play out, over and over again, in different iterations, through our lens of “technology?”
Imagine if all of our circles overlap 100%… my real life friends, my gaming friends, my IT friends, my blog friends, my T-13 support group, my parenting group, etc. all mixed up… Well, no, I can’t imagine it. The simple fact remains that social networking is still subject matter oriented. I’m not entirely convinced that they need to be merged. Are there overlapp? Sure, but that happens at the individual level. One from a group will most likely not be interested in the subjects matter in another group. Different group also have different established dynamics and not everyone will feel comfortable.
To that end, I don’t think there is any reason for them to converge.
Students are also using livejournal.com significantly, in numbers that were surprising.
I think social networking is great! I am thinking about how it could be used to enhance the classroom and feel that it would really get kids going. In our district when I inquired about possibly making a facebook classroom page, it was shot down and I was told that another teacher was disciplined for interacting with students on facebook. It is a bit frustrating. I was thinking of trying out NING next year, but it doesn’t seem to have all of the capabilities that FB does.
I think the beginnings of what you are talking about are in FriendFeed. I can create a profile which aggregates my content from the various social network and presents them in one place. There’s also the beginnings of a social network in FriendFeed as well — I can see my friends’ friends’ content and filter through the things that I find interesting. An active example is tech blogger Robert Scoble’s friendfeed. Not only is his content (from blogger, flickr, qik, twitter, etc) visible, but comments and links to profiles who find certain bits of his content interesting.
Sounds like you are starting to broach the whole Creepy Treehouse conversation. IN working with hundreds of students online I have found that my web2.0 efforts have been successful because I already use the technologies that my students are using and I simply invite them in rather than requiring them to be there.
Said it well when he indicated the problem may be that a “heavy-handed, rigid, top-down approach to utilizing technology that is itself inherently fluid, flexible, and often geared towards a bottom-up or horizontal structure…” is just an unatural fit.
At the closing Keynote of TTIX 08 Sandy Mills-Alford said that collaboration is just structured interaction. She warned though that collaboration is only effective when you _DO_ something stating that without recursion collaboration is just socializing.
To that End I would answer your question “Am I doing education here (teaching or learning) or am I doing Networking.” in a parsimonious fashion: Are you _DOING_ something? After all one of the 7 things you can’t tell an educator…and why they need to hear them is:
Just because something seems meaningless does not mean that it is… seemingly meaningless activity can still be strangely fulfilling.