This post is the result of what happens when communicating into the void, online. It is about being open to misinterpretation, assuming people will get where you’re coming from, but lacking visual cues, people just don’t. They sometimes really do need explicit guidance and it’s your job to give that. Here, I try to make it clear what the role… Read more →
Much like deep sea fishing, data trawling is a bit more of a catch-all than a targeted pull of specific data-points, but from that larger less focused catch you can then drill down very specifically and effectively. For example, if you import data into a tool like Gephi you can potentially see interactions and comments from each member of a… Read more →
Stephen has kindly taken time and responded to my rather pithy comments on his post from August 11th. Below I’m reproducing his responses to my initial comments – originally available here, with my comments in bold sans-serif beneath. Stephen I’ve actually spent quite a bit of time with Facebook, not just a user but also as a developer, working with… Read more →
Response to: Ascent From Social Media, By Stephen Downes, Aug 11, 2016 http://www.downes.ca/post/65670 Stephen I did read your post. Not because I subscribe to your content (in any shape or form) but because I came looking. What I found was *maybe* a **bit** old fashioned, out of touch and ill informed. So, at risk of being put in my place by a huge… Read more →
Watching the Facebook feed is a beautiful thing. It twists and turns and pulls you in directions like a swirling river current, going you-know-not-where, endlessly flowing, eternal and irresistible. It consumes all before it, devouring knowledge relentlessly and regurgitating every piece, big or small, serious or trivial, into equal prominence in space and time. Like the nano-bots we read about… Read more →
What becomes apparent to me as I listen to the wholly subjective and largely uninformed takes on social media that some people have is the horrid nature of social media ego. The competition of who knows the most, who does the most, who has the most stats (I note with cruel glee that my Klout score is often higher than… Read more →
After several recent conversations about social media at our university I find myself in familiar territory once again. It’s almost like groundhog day to experience the endless cyclical repetition of early semester academic keenness, quickly followed by mid semester lethargy and scepticism due to teaching exhaustion, with a finishing flurry of resounding I told you so from Marketing who always insist it’s their job. The… Read more →
After writing (yet) another proposal for our university’s social media initiatives to help (yet) another strand of activity at the uni to reach out to its core audience, I am struck by just how easy most people think this is. Everyone wants more out of social media – lecturers, community outreach, student support, staff support, marketing, faculty news delivery… whatever…. Read more →
The LinkedIn group “Higher Education Teaching and Learning” is a fertile ground for all sorts of thinking in this area. I’ve posted up a question “What makes the most impact on encouraging staff to use technology in their learning and teaching?“, and the discussion is taking off, I have already had some thoughtful (and deep in some cases) contributions. I’m… Read more →
Everyone is on the bandwagon of social media. Everyone believes they must be involved, ‘doing it’, part of the new thing that social media is reckoned to be. And the poor old (very old) concept of the university cannot escape this. [rssless]So who is a university social media expert? Who can we turn to that we actually believe IS an… Read more →