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A presentation/conversation to be provided by Dr Bex Lewis and Dr David Rush at the Hertfordshire Blended Learning Conference, 17th June 2010. You'll have to come along to see what we actually say alongside it!
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GOOD COP, BAD COP? TWITTER FOR COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
[email protected]@winchester.ac.uk
17th June 2010Hertfordshire Blended Learning Conference 2010
Dr Bex Lewis, University of WinchesterBlended Learning FellowLecturer History/Media Studies
Dr David Rush, University of WinchesterHonorary Research Fellow
Coming up…
Defining a ‘Community of Practice’ Personal Learning
Environment, including Twitter! Institutional Community of
Practice, incorporating Twitter? Building a Subject CoP ,
integrating Twitter? Debate
What makes for a good CoP or a bad CoP?
Image created by @drbexl
Defining a “Community of Practice” “Communities of practice are formed by
people [engaging in] collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor” Etienne Wenger
CoPs have three elements: domain community practice
Meaning of these words? Not shared Hence ambiguous
Image from : http://www.sxc.hu/
CoPs in Practice
Wenger’s original CoP idea been taken in several different directions Management establishing institutional CoP Self-interest groups using a CoP
Technology Stewardship in Digital Habitats Tech Steward
Knowledgeable about technology and users Sits between technology and users
Digital habitat – range of platforms, tools and apps in use
Image from : http://www.sxc.hu/
Creating Digital Habitats
“Technology stewards are people with enough experience of the workings of a community to understand its technology needs, and enough experience with or interest in technology to take leadership in addressing those needs. Stewarding typically includes selecting and configuring technology, as well as supporting its use in the practice of the community.”
Wenger, E., White, N., Smith, J.D., Digital Habitats: Stewarding Technology for Communities, 2009, p.25
http://cpsquare.org/
Joining Communities of Practice As an individual tech steward wish to
develop your own practice and that of institution
Within institution may have to create own CoP
Outside of institution have many choices
Image from : http://www.sxc.hu/
Follow and Be Followed
Start following people you are interested in Start following their followers – piggybacking Some will follow you in return Search for those using #hashtags of interest
to you Russell Stannard, http://bit.ly/9ijjX0, 09/09
Shared Interests http://wthashtag.com/ http://www.twellow.com/ http://mashable.com/twitterlists/
http://klout.com/drbexl
What’s hot now?
Genuineness
Conversations before and after conferences
Consistency and Interaction
https://twitter.com/Digitalfprint http://www.whendidyoujointwitter.com/
https://twitter.com/dgrush http://klout.com/dgrush
Do followers follow each other? All the gurus are ‘friends’ (follow and followed by)
digitalfprint Last 4 rows show core of followers – a network
Account Following Followers DigitalfprintGuru 1 170 148 Guru 2 93 86 Guru 3 32 38 Guru 4 19 30 Guru 5 13 28 Guru 6 10 26 Guru 7 6 19
Image from : http://www.sxc.hu/
Is a network a CoP?
According to Wenger there needs to be some reification – production of objects to record experience
Twitter doesn’t do this Reification in two ways
Use of Twitter support tools: Hootsuite, Tweepdiff, Twellow, Tweetbook, etc
Links to other places on web e.g. blogs
Image purchased from http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=7755704
Conclusions so far
Twitter may help us build up a network Relationships Reputation
In itself it is rather limited To build a CoP it might act as a starting
point Then would need to find shared
electronic spaces
An Institutional Community of Practice?
Image from : http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/?id=9458297&refnum=3720884&source=sxchu04&source=sxchu04
Understanding Community
“The first and foremost activity of tech stewards is to understand their community and its evolution well enough to be able to respond to its expressed and unexpressed needs with respect to technology. This understanding of how the community functions includes its key activities, member characteristics, subgroups, boundaries, aspirations, potential, limitations, as well as its context. Achieving such understanding will require a combination of direct involvement, observations, and conversations with community members.”
Wenger, E. et al, Ibid, pp.26-7
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KQGRNV5
Why DON’T you use Twitter? The majority were “too busy on
Facebook” or thought Facebookwas better
Don’t know anyone else using it Had an account, didn’t understand, de-installed Too celebrity-focused “really is an excuse for people to tell you what
cereal they had for breakfast or complain about every little detail that makes their lives so mundane in the first place”
Staff Survey
What they think Twitter is
Online form of SMS Platform for quick dissemination of brief information to
large group of interested parties. Fast, superficial but far reaching discussion
Sending text-message length messages to an internet site. Often used, it seems to me, to share so-called news of no relevance whatsoever.
It is a social network where your comments are restricted to only 140. I tried it but found it so irritating. I do not want to know when someone is having a cup of tea.
It's a self-glorification tool for those who are unable to accept that they are less interesting than they think they are.
University/InstitutionalLearning Environment
http://learn.winchester.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=1203
https://twitter.com/blwinch
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=106375376072443&ref=ts
Reliable?
Indicators that a CoP has formed? Existing Blended Learning COP based on
Moodle Plus f2f and other electronic means
Orientation of COP Mixture of “Access to expertise” and
“Relationships” Shown by content of communication and
nature of meetings Now being augmented by Twitter and
CoP for a Subject?
@winchmfs
Subject: School of Media & Film
Learning Environment
http://winchmfs.wordpress.com/
https://twitter.com/winchmfs
http://twitter.com/paulmanninghosw
Conclusions
Twitter Might be used as a seed for a COP based on individual special interests
Twitter Can be used to develop an existing institutional COP
Twitter Can be used to seed development of a subject COP
Thank you for your time
