21
Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics The University of Bolton

Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

  • View
    215

  • Download
    0

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

Personal Transparency and self-analytic tools for online habits

Mark JohnsonDavid SherlockDavid Griffiths

The Institute for Educational CyberneticsThe University of Bolton

Page 3: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

Making effective use of technology in learning

• Opportunities are available to Learners, e.g.– To seek out resources– Networking with other learners– Finding learning opportunities– Using tools available outside the institution

• These are very useful skills, even in a very traditional educational environment

• Similar situation in business

Page 4: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

A digital divide?

• Not all users are equally able to deal with the opportunities of new technologies

• Those who are skilled are empowered, those who are not are excluded

• Widely recognised that learners and teachers need– Knowledge (what is available )– Skills (how to use what is available)

• We provide courses to provide these things

Page 5: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

Disposition and attitude

• Learners and teachers also need an appropriate disposition and attitude towards technology

• Often this is – Unrecognised as a significant factor– Seen as something we can’t fix

• There is a ‘long tail’ of disengagement with technologies

Page 6: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

Natives and Immigrants?

• Prensky’s proposed the Digital Native / Digital Immigrant metaphor

• This suggests that we can’t do anything about attitude and disposition, it is determined by early experience of technology

• This determinist view is not supported by the past history of technological change, current use of technology, or the experience of educators

Page 7: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

Habit

• The SPLICE project proposes that technological habits may be transformed from a position of disengagement to engagement

• Focused on identifying the mechanisms involved

• A key to this is to understand the nature of ‘habit’

• Habits give some people a new way of operating and new power

Page 8: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

Engaging in the online world

• Self publishing is a huge opportunity – A personal amplifier– Builds “social capital”– Many build careers on this, in business, academia, music…

• If everyone is amplifying then you also need to attenuate– Tools and ways of working can manage this– RSS readers can manage the information feeds which they

receive, simplifying the task for users• Learners need to develop habits which enable them to

act effectively in their technological environment

Page 9: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

TrackMe

• TrackMe is a tool developed by the SPLICE project

• Built in the Flock browser• Designed to make unconscious technological

practices more conscious through providing a range of analytical tools– categorization and management of web-history– sharing of practices through social networks– visualization of increasing online identity

Page 10: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

Transparency

• Social software increases personal transparency• Transparency is not always comfortable• TrackMe extends personal transparency in a small group,

and supports comparison with others• Learners identify effective technological habits• Transparency encouraged using

– micro blogging (via Twitter)– social bookmark (via Delicious) – comparing user profiles with other users of TrackMe

• Using these tools provides insight, and also practical skills

Page 11: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

Using twitter to get different views on a resource

Page 12: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

Timeline of learner’s resources for a task

Page 13: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

Analytics

• Analytics on a personal level • Between users• How their resources compare with other users• ‘Random Resource’ helps users discover new resources• Aim to help users identify the things they do with

technology that have a positive effect on their learning process.

• Further self reflection is provided by integration with the Touchgraph Google browser which offers a visual representation of a learners engagement and activity on the web for easy analysis.

Page 14: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

TouchGraph

• The TouchGraph Google Browser shows the network of connectivity between websites, as reported by Google's database of related sites

• TrackMe uses TourchGraph to generate a map of a learner’s online activities and the connections between them

• Opportunity to reflect on – How online activities interact with each other. – How activities have benefited from transparency and

openness by showing which of the learners

Page 15: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

TouchGraph map of a learner’s online activities and connections

A post at Blogger has acted as a catalyst between two resources resulting in a explosion of learner interaction

Page 16: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

Questions• On exploring the analytical some of the questions are• How effectively do your technological actions meet the goals you

establish?• How much repeated effort do you use in accessing multiple

webpages?• To what extent do you find yourself getting ‘distracted’ by online

engagement?• Can you remember all your passwords?• How much time do you spend ‘refinding’ things that you have

previously found?• Can you detect any change in your habits?• Is your online profile rising as you explore the internet?

Page 17: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

Practical recommendations

• In relation to each of the questions above, some practical suggestions:

• Using RSS to aggregate frequently visited web pages• Developing more effective search habits and saving

them• Using Identity management techniques to manage

passwords• Using Social Bookmarking services• Making more effective use of public social action

(Youtube, etc)

Page 18: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

Work with learners

• Mixed group of learners from Multimedia and Visual Art courses at a Further Education institution in Wales

• Liked mapping personal presence on the web with TouchGraph

• Learners can see how increased engagement with social software services can impact on social position

• Basis for talking about bigger issues of technology, technological habit and personal empowerment

Page 19: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

What is the real problem?

• When people experience technological difficulties we have found that these often do not have their origin in technology

• They have their origin in deeper personal things

• Often it is a reluctance to reflect on and change habits

Page 20: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

Autonomous reflection not adopted by learners

• TrackMe envisaged as a tool which would encourage autonomous reflection of technological habit.

• Reluctance to reflect on and transform technological habits lead to a relucance to use TrackMe

• Results indicate that TrackMe is ineffective in this. Learners were not convinced of the benefit not of the tool, or even the argument

Page 21: Personal Transparency and self- analytic tools for online habits Mark Johnson David Sherlock David Griffiths The Institute for Educational Cybernetics

But TrackMe gives us something to talk about

• TrackMe offers a way of talking about something which would otherwise be very difficult to experience and articulate

• Exposes the connection between individual human action (especially with technology) and increased connectedness and social capital.

• The issues raised by TrackMe were still being talked about by learners in the group well after the end of the project

• Gradually new practices emerge with those discussions