electro-textual

Link : CCK08: Power and Auto-Subscribe (the connectivism forums, week 08).

In week 08, Stephen decided to exert his power over the masses of people involved in the massive OOC known as connectivism 08. Through the flick of a switch, he drew many back into public conversation.

People who know the forum software called “Moodle”, will know that you can “force” your enrolled students to receive copies forum posts via email. Stephen flicked this switch, and hundreds of people around the world started to experience Inbox Pressure from all the messages. (ironically many of the messages were complaining about the inbox pressure, while adding to it  ;-]

“Moodle offers me the option to ‘force everyone to be subscribed to this forum’. Given that this week we are talking about Power, Authority, and Control… what did you think about that?” Stephen’s keyboard boomed into inboxes around the world.

The pressure for some was too great. He was accused of abusing his power, of being evil, a trickster. Some people decided then and there to leave the course.

Others appreciated the humour of the initiative (a game-like foray into how power works in teaching and learning), and some even said they would switch on their own subscription. i was among this crowd, partly because i always set my Moodle forum email options to Full Daily Digest, which protects me from inbox flooding.

Michael Coghlan offered his perspective .. on how he uses Moodle with his classes.

a) first include people (via “Auto-Subscribe”), then
b) empower them to understand and change their settings if they will.

i never thought to Force Subscribe, but i might just try michael’s approach next time ;-] A judicious use of power.
—————————————-

Recently in our intranet i’ve started setting people’s email to Full Daily Digest as default, when i first join them up .. because most people get annoyed if they receive a single email per forum posting.

i find it easier to do that for them, than to experience their annoyance and then explain how they have the power to change .. (Yes i have the power to include that option when i bulk subscribe new users.)

kind regards, michael

*(ooc = open online course)

photo credit: tom.arthur

Yes i should be catching up on many weeks of the cck08 connectivism .. but this gadget from Pat’s shop is too much fun to pass by. The Lego usb stick. i especially love the one with a lego cap on it.

make Designed Objects > Zip Zip Usb Memory Brick.

Pat runs the make shop in Elgin St, Carlton (Melbourne) .. full of beautiful designer objects. The web site is fully flash, but still searchable with proper urls and page titles. Lovely work.

So, Lisa was having some issues finding a straightforward way to incorporate audio technologies into her classroom. i suggested some ‘preparation-free’ activities such as :

• recording the presentation live in class (audio only)
• recording the screen demonstration live in class (screen and audio)

We thought this might work, and i’d had some fun using “jing” for making a screencast. Looked easy to me.

So i turn up at Lisa’s workplace, laptop at the ready. What could possibly go wrong?

• my laptop can’t connect to the Moreland network, and Jing will not run unless you login to screencast dot com (!!)
• installing Jing on Lisa’s machine takes a long time, because it needs the Dot Net framework (whatever that is)
• after taking a test screen cast, the software will not upload to screencast
• i have to admit that if her students would have trouble playing an mp3 file from their usb stick, then an SWF file will make them savage and wild with frustration.

Lucky we’re used to things not working out technically ..and we keep a good sense of humour. Also fortunately, Lisa remains undaunted, and decides she’ll have a proper go at making it work. Yay Lisa!

Looks like we’ll have to set up a wikispace for her class. The really good thing i discovered earlier, was that you can upload a Jing SWF video file into your wikispace directly. (for example, on the Can You Hear Us? site.)

image and photo credits: licensed under creative commons at flickr: Thanks very much: Mark Strozier

So it’s week 6 already, halfway through the course, and i must sheepishly admit i’ve been ignoring my responsibilities as a student.

i’ve been following some of the forum discussions, and some of the connected bloggers, and Stephen’s dailies .. i’ve even made some notes and saved up a few delicious bookmarks.

But i haven’t posted any reflections or readings here on the blog. Oh blimey.

So Pauline mentions, on her way out of the office, that she once saw a “scanner pen” that would read aloud printed words from the page.

“Stop right there!” i leapt up from my seat.
(Actually, i gazed up in a web-induced stupor, “Hmm?”)

At a conference for adaptive technologies a couple of years ago, she saw one of these things being used. A pen, that scans the page and reads aloud.

i want one.
i want several !!

How useful would that be for literacy learners?!
.. could be a good way to save time recording texts yourself too.

Dear Reader,
have you ever heard about one of these gadgets, and where i might find one?
thanks and kind regards, michael

Browsing the Radio national podcasts, i found this interview and panel discussion:

“Author and media analyst Margaret Simons takes a stab at defining the different types of blogs that currently exist.” (The interview follows an article in Creative Economy, where you’ll find relevant other links.)

1) Pamphleteering - often political blogs are like this, with many authors.
2) Digest blog, which aggregates and comments on a range of other stuff, eg from other blogs or from mainstream media.
3) Advocacy, eg telstra – where the company gets their workers to post the company line in an informal blogging style.
4) Popular mechanics, or how-to. Sue Waters on edublogs would be a good example of this.
5) Exhibition – by craftspeople and artists, writers, poets etc.
6) Gatekeeper .. watching the media as it reports the news (eg possum comitatus beats up the Australian on its newspoll reporting).
7) Diary – possibly the majority (family snapshots and life) .. in decline because of social networking sites (myspace, facebook etc).
Advertisement .. created by companies, thinly veiled, pretend blogs.
9) News blog, eg crikey.

(Direct link to mp3 here: Media Report .. interview with Margaret Simons .. but i still can’t get the player to work .. )

i love the way the abc has their audio accompanied by a transcript – how useful for higher level literacy learners!! (as well as people like me who have trouble with active listening.)

The interview was followed by a panel discussion on the perceived lack of civility online, with Andrew Bartlett (Australian Democrats), George Megalogenis (political writer) and Laurel Papworth (blogger).

George says one of his posts drew in bullies from both sides of politics (the “usual suspects”), hogging the space and leading to less diversity in comments. He went out on a limb and said, “Enough” .. which led to many more comments than ever before. People who came on to discuss the type of blog they wanted to read were much more the kind of readers he wanted to engage with.

Andrew says that he already gets plenty of people shouting slogans at each other in the Senate, and wants more diversity and nuance in comments to his blog. Real “battle to get a civil discussion place”.

How can we silence the trolls? Fascinating discussion .. have a listen.

Laurel aka Silkcharm also blogged the event, and noted a couple of blog genres missing from the taxonomy: event blogs and education or course blogs

She also makes some strong points on the differences between blogs and social networking sites. Without embedding some special kind of commenting system (eg Disqus), a blogger cannot build individual profiles on the people in their audience.

PS: Thanks Laurel for your rapid comment. Much appreciated!

photo credit: dkalo