Wow - I wish I would have said that....

The article "Who is afraid of the Big Bad copyright?" is right on. I wish I would have written this. The law is not clear and thus the admonition to seek forgiveness rather than permission resonates with me. I also like the suggestion that our librarians cease to be the copyright police. And it is VERY interesting that there is not one reported case involving educators. Despite the seemingly monolithic language of statutes, it is what the courts say they mean that is the key. It would be difficult to imagine an educator losing a fair use case unless they had crossed the line into the commercial speech realm. With all of our focus in this class on social networking and bolgs, etc., the lines could become blurred. But until the first shot is fired, I say "use!"

SixDegrees.com

1. What was the target audience for this social networking site?
I choose to look at SixDegrees.com since it was the first. This was focused on friends and family, just as some of the popular sites are now.
2. How long was the site in existence?
Four years.
3. Why was it popular? What was its demise?
It was popular, I suppose, because it was first. Its demise is blamed on being ahead of its time, but that doesn’t resonate with me. It did not have the functionality of the successive sites, and the founders did not see the future clearly.
4. Is/was there another competitor in the same market that was more popular?
It did not have a more popular competitor to deal with, and again, appears to have failed due to lack of vision.
5. Would you ever consider creating an account and using it? Explain your reason using a personal experience as an example.
Sure. It looks very much like many of the popular sites now, like Facebook, of which I am a member, albeit a deadbeat.

You're such a Twit!

I am a huge Twitter fan. (Check me out at Bodytalkman.) I have been able to make contact with thousands of like-minded people all over the world in a very short time. My focus has been with the work that I do with Energy Medicine Foundation, but I see no reason why this couldn't work just as well in any context, including education. Indeed, the 140 words or less requirement of Twitter could easily spark some very interesting discussions. And it would certainly meet the attention span and tech savvy needs of this new generation. If engagement truly is the key, and in an educational context I define that as passion, it would be very interesting to see if any students continued on after they were no longer required to post. In the educational context I think content would be key, unless there was some mutual interest or "celebrity" factor, such as the preception that one's ideas were changing the world. I honestly don't see any negatives here, since the Discussion Board is already in place in Blackboard. And Twitter would be so much sexier and more interesting. Bottom line, I just might add a Twitter component to my next online class....

"Social" Networking

There are two things that strike me in Hargadon's blog. First, his argumennt that engagement is more important than the content. Doesn't the content drive engagement? Perhaps not in a social networking context. It would in a blog context for sure. But I gather relationship is the real key in this virtal world. The other comment that I found interesting was that the site should be guided. Again, this was somewhat counter-intuitive to me. Which raises the question, at what point do these sites cease to be social networking sites, and become something else all together? If you are working this hard at something, when does it cross the line into a commercial or business context? From an education standpoint, the content would be critical to maintaining engagement, and of course it would need to be guided. I suppose I would see the key as creating passion, either for the content or for relationship. I am reading the latest bio on Einstein and I wonder what it must have been like to be a correspondent of his. Would we all be interested in his blog? What sort of social network would he create today? And would his celebrity trump some of the arguments of Hargadon? I am an avid Twitter fan and I do see the value in this networking tool, although the sheer volume is a great barrier to effective communication. But I have met several people via tweets and have used their services or saved their websites. but this is where these sites seem to be driven by business relationship or commercial context more than social networking. It is this blur on underlying motivation that holds the key to the future of these sites.

Wiki Me

I like these two links because they are focused on business issues, which is where I teach:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/economics.html
http://www.khake.com/page31.html
I also liked this site for its information on a variety of places to create wikis:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiFarms
I am convinced that I will be developing one of these for one of my classes in the future. The benfits just seem huge to me, now that I am exploring the concept in detail. I am not worried about the negatives of students being able to enter and update entries, and it just seems like a great forum for the interchange of ideas, which is what I think a college class should really be. The key isue is time - not just in developing the wiki lesson plan for a future class, but even answering this very question....

All Wikied Up

After reading some of these great posts and the reading materials, I will try not to be repetitive. Here is the key, I think, and after much thought, I am really warming up to this. It creates engagement, a personal stake, in the dialogue. It means that the students have as much to say as the instructor (something I already encourage in my classes, where there are no "right" answers to the scenarios). It will also mean that the dialogue will follow the interests of the group, much like one would want in the F2F. One post suggested that there could be some concerns with students manipulating or altering posts, etc. This is the same concern with broader wikis. But if people are that passionate about the material, I say right on! That might be a very unexpected, but none-the-less ringing, endorsement of the class. This is particularly so if critical thinking is prized over reaching the "correct" answers. Granted, this won't be true for all classes, but it certainly would be true of mine. My guess is that a detailed syllabus might be a waste of time in such a class, where the course followed the interests and dialogue and controversy stimulated by the wiki. But what an interesting document would exist by class end! Wow. I may have talked myself into this. Is it possible that this sort of flexilbility and passion could stimulate creator involvement and greater interest and curiosity? Yes, for sure. But in classes, like mine, where the ages and abilities of the students vary greatly, we could also see many get left behind or out. I'm not sure at this moment how best to manage that. But this would also be an interesting way to teach a class from the instructor's viewpoint, as well. We, too, need stimulation and passion, and this just might be an amazing way for an old dog to learn new tricks.