Community

Social Media Lesson

/ Cole Camplese / 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago we held our annual Symposium on Teaching and Learning with Technology here at Penn State. It was an amazing event once again — this time with just shy of 400 faculty and staff choosing to spend a beautiful Saturday with us. Our keynotes rocked, with David Wiley supplying a rallying call towards openness that has helped move our OER conversations forward. At lunch, danah boyd delivered a whirlwind of a talk that people are still buzzing about. One thing in particular was how both David and danah hung out with us not only the night before, but all day on Saturday. Up until this year none of our previous keynotes have stayed and chilled with us — they even joined us for the post Symposium party afterwards.

danah wearing the hat.

danah wearing the hat.

Sessions were excellent and the conversations in the hallways was lively. I could go on and on, but nearly all the sessions are now captured over at the Symposium site — including David’s keynote with a slick side by side widescreen presentation that our Digital Commons team came up with (danah is coming soon).

Click for full image

Click for full image

But this post is about something related … two things are lingering in my mind after the event. The first is how much Twitter was used during the event itself. The tltsym09 hashtag turned into a trending topic early in the morning — sometime during David’s opening keynote. That in and of itself is really cool and very interesting. The Twitter stream of the day is long and it does tell a bit of a story all by itself. But, sometime during the morning I realized that people weren’t really blogging the event like they had in the past — does a Twitter stream provide enough for those not there to grab onto? With the lack of sessions being blogged I am afraid we could be doing the event a disservice. I’d love to hear thoughts on how to take the Twitter stream and do some real sense making on it all.

Click for Full Screen

Click for Full Screen

The other big social media lesson I am taking away from the event has to do with Flickr and community tagging. Early on we decided to use the tltsym09 tag for the event across the social web. We were thrilled to see hundreds of photos flow into the tag aggregation on Flickr. What I wasn’t thrilled about was the hijacking of the tag by a cross dresser on his bed in lingerie. It didn’t offend me per se, but I know for a fact (from a couple of emails) some folks were mortified and I was asked to “fix” it. Flickr doesn’t really allow me to delete tags from other peoples’ photos and while the pictures clearly didn’t fit into our group, there was nothing about the pictures that would cause Flickr to pull them. Turns out it was simple to just contact the guy and ask nicely — he removed the tag.

This is one of the reasons people are terrified of openness and the social web — lack of control. It has caused us to rethink our own use of the social web, so we’ve created a Flickr account that will be the repository for our pictures, but it doesn’t solve the community stuff. I think we need to have a conversation about how we take advantage of the social web in light of the fact that it is as simple as watching the trending tags on Twitter Search and hijacking them to insert your product, pictures, etc into the flow of the emergent conversation. Funny how even after all these years of participating in an increasingly open way, we can continue to learn and adapt our usage to really take advantage of what we are learning.

Any thoughts?

Perfect Status

/ Cole Camplese / 11 Comments

It comes as no surprise that I like Twitter for lots of reasons … the primary reason for me is that it seems to solidify connections in close to real time. Facebook has surprised me in its ability to do something similar in the recent months. Both seem to be really interesting steps forward in the online conversation space. The one thing that both of them have going for them is a very powerful, “what are you doing right now” approach to status updates. This simple question pushes people to participate and to me it is the most powerful piece to coalescing community.

With that in mind I read a really good piece at the NY Times the yesterday called Being There, about the art of the status update. My favorite line from the whole thing was a simple statement about what a status update really is …

Spontaneous bursts of being

I really enjoyed the article and decided to conduct my own status update InstaPoll on my network to see what I got back. What I found was that people want to be drawn into a conversations via a status updates. Most are interested in the notion of engaging with those “around” them. That is really interesting to me … some people view the status update as shouting into an empty room, but what it looks like from my very informal and unscientific data gathering is that people crave engagement … they want to respond to where others are in the moment.

Seems to only make sense given our intense interest in not only providing constant updates, but our incessant need to know what people think in 140 characters or less. Some of the better responses to my question, “What makes a great Twitter/Facebook status update?” are below … if there is anything you might want to add to this conversation leave as a comment.

  • @colecamplese re: your survey. I think good status updates offer a chance to continue a conversation. personal/professional items are good.
  • @colecamplese asking a question everyone has wondered but never asked?
  • @colecamplese I think they are (should be) different… Tweets for more frequent (often mundane)…Facebook for daily/weekly “bigger stuff”?
  • @colecamplese Small, mundane little things that when taken out of context seem oddly amusing….and lots of punctuation.
  • @colecamplese whatever you feel in the moment.
  • @colecamplese NOT where I am or what I’m cooking. New blog post, new idea or concept, looking for discussion – yes
  • @colecamplese totally depends on the reader IMO. Interesting stuff to ME makes it a great post. (news, games, VW stuff, etc)
  • @colecamplese I totally agree with Bart. I love opinions, what peeps are doing, where they’re headed, etc.
  • @colecamplese something that makes me laugh
  • @colecamplese re instapoll Posts that helps me learn/think. Links to interesting stuff, plus reasons why I should click. News, questions
  • @colecamplese layers.
  • @colecamplese witty comment about common activity.
Instant Feedback

Instant Feedback

Telling Stories and Lending a Hand

/ Cole Camplese / 21 Comments

Last week I was doing some reading and came across a post that made me very happy. It is about a new project to find ways to crowd source the notion of helping out in our local schools. Dave Eggers, the author of the wonderful book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, had a dream — he wanted to find ways to connect with and help local schools. He acted on that dream. Behold, Once Upon a School. I’ve been relatively vocal here about my recent dissatisfaction with schools in general. I’m now seeing the public school system at work and I am concerned for how it is all going to turn out for our kids. I’m in school myself and I am looking at all of it with a very critical eye … I have become very interested in helping to find ways to connect with and improve education — across the board.

I’m lucky in that my job allows me to feel good about what goes on in higher education. What I am concerned about is that most of our students aren’t getting to experience great learning environments every single day. They get some good ones and some less than perfect ones. I think it is even more spotty in the K-12 space — not because of the teachers, but because of the unfortunate realities of the system. I watched Dave’s presentation and fell in love with the idea of finding new ways to connect with my own local schools. I went to the site, put in my area of expertise, added my zip code, clicked submit and waited to see what classroom I could spend time in. There was the reality right in front of me, not a single classroom in State College. What could we be doing more of as a community to connect with teachers and schools? We’re a powerful bunch, what should be done?

Interviewed

/ Cole Camplese / 3 Comments

Last week I visited my colleague Ellysa Cahoy’s blog to find that she was participating in an interview meme. I usually avoid these things but given I am pushing to keep moving on the One Post a Day challenge, I figured having a little extra content wouldn’t kill me so I took Ellysa up on the offer. The other thing is that Ellysa is going to spend some time with us in ETS this Summer as one of our Faculty Fellows … never hurts to get on the good side of the innovators!

Here’s the part I don’t like about meme’s — the chain letter aspect Even so, I’ll follow the rules that were laid out to me. If you’d like to try this too, just follow these instructions:

  1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
  2. I’ll respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the questions.)
  3. You’ll create a new post on your blog with the answers to the questions. Be sure you link back to the original post.
  4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
  5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

You’re designing the next killer iPhone app. What would it be?

I’d design an open platform for designing iPhone Apps for newbies. One thing I’ve noticed is the level of expertise needed to build native apps. If that is too much of a cop out then I’d build a location aware social network aggregator that would sync with my email, direct me to a place to get a good cup of tea, and tell me where to eat … maybe that app exists though!

Is traditional blogging dying a slow death at the hands of Facebook / Twitter updates?

I don’t think so, but I’d have to know what “traditional” blogging looks like … I think people are figuring out where and when to publish. The new tools that are making their way into the mainstream all seem to be built around short bursts of content or status updates. Blogging is a much more thoughtful process in my mind. When I only have something quick to say I post it to Twitter, but when I am really working through some ideas I tend to write blog posts. The other tools also seem so tied to a dedicated social network, while blogging seems much more open. I may be different than others, but I see all of these tools to be part of a larger eco-system … one that is built on personal publishing and online identity. With all that said, I just think we are seeing a shift in the amount of content being created because the micro post is now more acceptable in an environment like Twitter. We’ll have to wait and see where it all goes.

If you viewed your life as a piece of software, what version number would you be? (i.e., Cole 2.7)

That is a really tough question. I know that I am a different version than I was before I had children, but other than that is tough to say. My children have changed my perspective in ways that no other single event in my life has. So I am clearly not a 1.0 release. I doubt I’m 2.0, but would be willing to put my self somewhere in a 3.0 release schedule. I think before I went away to College I was a totally different person with a very limited world view. That, graduate school, working, and having kids have fundamentally changed me for the better. So all that to say I’m changed, but not done changing. I’m into my third decade on this planet and I hope to continue to grow and learn. I’ll say I’m 3.6 (for my age). Fair enough?

The mobile Web: Platform for new teaching and learning opportunities, or just a unique interface design format?

Its both, but the mobile web is here to stay. I think I’d skip over the mobile web and think more about connectedness in general. What I think is the big story is the ability to grab information from really anywhere. We’ll see new opportunities emerge because of ubiquitous nature of Internet access. I’m thinking about a device like the Amazon Kindle and while it doesn’t really shine as a web browsing appliance, its instant connectivity and access to the Amazon store is a big deal to me. I’d really like to see students with those devices being able to buy chapters of books at a time instead of paying way too much for textbooks that are rarely used. I think the mobile web is going change quite a bit and will provide us all with new things to explore.

What’s your favorite children’s book to share with your kids?

Hands down, the Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein. Nothing better. I still try to read it to my son and daughter every time I pick a book. I’ve always loved it!

Commenters from 2008

/ Cole Camplese / 6 Comments

I’ll follow along with the exploits of Alan, D’Arcy, and Jim by posting my top 10 commenters over the last year. Clearly those guys get more comments than I do, but it is nice to see that we (for the most part) appear on each others’ list — Sorry Rev, I will get better this year. The thing I notice about this list is how local it is to State College and Penn State in general. On my list there are only four people who are not PSU folks — I just find it interesting. At any rate, there it is. 222 different people left comments this past year and I can tell you that is plenty to keep me happy! Sort of blows my mind when I think about it. A huge thank you to everyone who took the time to share your voice in 2008!

  • Jamie Oberdick 29
  • Shannon Ritter 25
  • Alan Levine 16
  • Allan Gyorke 14
  • Bryan Alexander 12
  • Steve Brady 12
  • D’Arcy Norman 11
  • Robin Smail 11
  • Brett Bixler 10
  • Bart Pursel 9
  • Jeff Swain 8
  • dave 8
  • Brad Kozlek 8
  • Jim Groom 7

Our Boom De Yada

/ Cole Camplese / 18 Comments

I’m sure many of you have seen Discovery’s advertising campaign, “The World is Just … Awesome,” in which lots of people sing a modified version of I Love the Mountains, called Boom De Yada. Discovery’s version is really inspiring, so much so that if you go to YouTube you’ll find hundreds of versions of it from people all over the world.

I spent a little time over the weekend watching a bunch of them and once you start exploring it is tough to stop. So many of them are really inspiring, but the one that really made me smile is an original version from a fourth grade class.

Now, you can say this is just people imitating other people but if you ask me there is something deeper going on here. I am of the mind that the web is a platform for starting conversations — and I’m not just talking about online conversations. If you follow what probably happened in the example above you can begin to see how powerful this is … perhaps their teacher saw the commercial and got the idea that his class could make their own. This simple thought (enabled by technology) motivated that group of kids to work together to create something original, new, and challenging. They had to work together to make it happen … and then by sharing it with the World gave a whole other set of people the inspiration they need to try something new together.

So that’s exactly what happened after I showed the two videos above to Madeline and all her cousins Saturday night while we were in Bloomsburg … they instantly wanted to make their own. Over the course of an hour or so, they each wrote pieces to the song and decided who was going to do what. It was so cool to see all of them working together to make something. In the middle of it they wanted to find a way to include two of their cousins who live in Florida so they wrote them in as well. It was amazing watching them come up with the words and perform it. I think it made the whole house a really happy place! I know I had a blast getting to spend time with them while they laughed, sang, and edited with me.

Community Question: Lifestreaming

/ Cole Camplese / 6 Comments

With the closing of several Google services I’ve been thinking about some of the content I (and a bunch of other people) publish across the social web. So much that I want to get some ideas about what many of you think about it all. If you step back and think about how many new people are joining and actively participating in social networks, one has to consider where we go from here. What do we do to protect the emergence of our meta identities — each crafted in small pieces across many networks. As a simple example, take a look at the emergence of Facebook with adults … according to a new report issued by the Pew Internet & American Life Project’s December 2008 tracking survey:

The share of adult internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years — from 8% in 2005 to 35% now.

That is a whole lot of people creating lots of real data about themselves and their relationships. Even if you don’t worry about closures or server meltdowns, consider the following from a post on Read Write Web:

The most obvious example of this loss of access to lifestream data? The inability to access anything beyond beyond page 162 on Twitter. No matter how many times you’ve posted, you cannot go back any further than 3240 tweets. So, every new public message you send removes one from your history. (To see this in action, simply add “?page=162” to the end of any Twitter user’s default URL.) Those who had seen Twitter as a journal of sorts for recording fleeting moments for posterity, suddenly found those moments just as fleeting online.

I’ve talked to lots of people who think that their Twitter streams belong to them. The reality is that we are trapping our thoughts, relationships, and content in someone else’s microblog. It has bothered me since we used Twitter in my CI 597C course — much of the course dialogue happened in the backchannel there and much of it is lost. Clearly this only one small example, but I am guessing you get the idea.

So I am curious about what kinds of strategies we should be considering as we continue down this path? I doubt the answer is to stop participating — the ship has left the port and it isn’t coming back in. What do we think?

The Plunge

/ Cole Camplese / 9 Comments

Last night I attended my doctoral course in assessment here at Penn State. I was surprised that I was a bit anxious as I walked into the room. I guess it comes back to the fact that I was a student and not the teacher for the first time in quite some time. I’ve been teaching courses at Penn State off and on for the last eight years, so the notion of sitting on the other side of the equation left me feeling a bit vulnerable (I think that is what I was feeling). I’ve been quietly working on my doctorate for the last couple years — slowly plodding along, but exclusively by doing independent studies, taking courses online, or by getting credit for teaching. This is the first time I have been a student in a real classroom in quite some time, so being a bit nervous was a natural feeling. I am lucky enough to be taking the course from my advisor and friend, Dr. Kyle Peck and his wife, Dr. Catherine Augustine. Both of them are easy going and very smart. They put us at ease — all nine of us.

After I got into the flow I found class to be rather relaxing — I was able to leave email and daily demands alone for a good three hours as we talked through some very basic concepts related to assessment. I think my positions at the Institution have afforded me unique views into the issues we’ll explore so I felt as though I was at a bit of an advantage. I have either been a practicing instructional designer or leading instructional design teams for the last 12 years so that has also given me experience in the things we were talking about — made me immediately ready to dive in. I think I will be able to add value to the class on a few levels and am looking forward to exploring it all as it progresses.

With that in mind, I am going to try something a little different as I move through this experience … I am going to use this space and my PSU blog to attempt to open the course up to those not in the room through my thoughts. I am begining to wonder how I can use an open set of tools to invite others into my learning and see how it impacts my own thoughts and outcomes. I’ll be writing weekly reflections, tagging content in delicious with insys522, making new YouTube videos asking questions from the course, creating podcasts, and more. These aren’t assignments … no one is directing me to do this.

My own personal reflection from the experience last night has pushed me to ask some new questions about teaching, learning, and community engagement. I am curious about what more I can learn by almost redesigning things as they happen to me … sort of looking at design as a mind tool. Will I create deeper meaning for myself through this practice and will it have any sort of impact on people in and out of the course are two issues I am eager to explore? Those are just two of the questions I am considering as I walk into a fresh field of snow — no footsteps to follow on this one for me. I’ll do my best to be as transparent through the process and I welcome any and all comments, feedback, encouragement, or whatever else gets thrown my way. So, in a sense I am inviting you to engage in a semester long experiment with me to see what learning and sharing in the open can mean. I hate to say it, but even if you don’t show up I will — but I certainly hope you do! Anyone up to take the plunge with me?