Leading Learning Conference :: Forum

I have been using Facebook for a very limited amount of time, but as I go through the environment I have noticed quite a bit of what I have heard from different presenters on the topic may not be true.  A few of my thoughts:

1. If I join a group in Facebook not everyone in Faceback has access to my profile, this only occurs if I am the creator of a group.  I can also limit this access within the Privacy settings of Facebook.

2. I can set a limited access profile that contains only the information that I want to share with anyone. 

3. Many Elementary and Secondary schools keep track of their Alumni through Facebook.  They use it to inform their alumni of upcoming events in order to spread the word.

4. You have a choice whether or not someone adds you as a firend and what kind of access that person has to your profile.  You can also block certain users from having access to your profile or what items they do have access to.

5.  It is a low commitment way to reconnect with those people that you want to reconnect with, as well as people that you currently do connect with. 

Opinions?

I just wanted to say that after hearing CBC morning news this morning regarding how a teammate of the boy who died in the rugby incident used Facebook to create a "community" in response to the death, I was struck by the positive power of this tool.  This 16 year old used Facebook as his FIRST method of response ...... and from that he built a huge community which is now responding to the tragedy with a fundraising initiative.

I've also heard of high school election campaigns going virtual via Facebook and blogging.

There's something to harness in all of this.

Having heard about the popularity of facebook through the conference, I decided to contemplate the use of facebook as a platform for real time communication. To my dismay, it is relatively restricted to a certain group of people that you have to invite to your facebook. Unlike the case of blogs, anyone can access and upload their comments anytime, facebook seemed to be rather restrained.

Quentin, I am very impressed and fascinated with your presentation on Web 2.0. It was indeed a good sharing with multitude of various types of webwares that teachers can leverage on for teaching. You also mentioned about the 'openness' in the paradigm shift with reference to the opening up of classrooms, resources and mass collaboration. Are you referring to the availability of wider scope of teaching resources and learning beyond the classrooms as well as possibility of communication and collaboration across the globe? My understanding of  the term is still hazy and I would greatly appreciate if you can give me a simple definition of it.

Hi Fong,

Are you referring to the availability of wider scope of teaching resources and learning beyond the classrooms as well as possibility of communication and collaboration across the globe?

A couple of different areas: I am referring to the general openess and transperancy of educators classrooms as some of us begin to move towards the use of instant online publishing and the use of online applications to share our resources.  By looking at blogs, wikis, and online publishing in general, and also microblogging tools like Twitter and Jaiku.  We are getting a better glipse of the often closed door of the traditional classroom. It leaves educators open to the feeling of the Imposter Syndrome as well as the need to respond to the criticism of "Smart" people.  I do think we need to respond to this criticim in order to inform and improve our own practice.

The sharing of resources and course content, as well as mass collaboration are flattening the playing field when it comes to access to the content and resources anywhere in the world.  It also offers new and open ways to communicate and collaborate across the globe or down the street.

Hope that helps!

I think Quentin makes a good point here: "The sharing of resources and course content, as wll as mass collaboration are flattening the playing field when it comes to access to the content and resources anywhere in the world. It also offers new and open ways to communicate and collaborate across the globe or down the street." Here are the benefits that have come with Web 2.0:

Sharing of resources and information: We can post our powerpoint presentations, videos, audio clips, and podcasts online. We can access the ones posted by others. This new access to information/resources gives us incredible potential to expand our knowledge base. Also, the idea that we are willing to share our resources/knowledge online and allow others to use this information in their practices/presentations has completely changed the concept of copyright (see creative commons licenses). 

Mass collaboration and collaboration over greater distances/people that we only know virtually:  I have done presentations and workshops with instructors using wikis, blogs, and skype for communication. We had met in online communities (just like this one) and collaborated on projects not because we were located in the same geographical area/knew each other but becasue we had similar ideas or interests. Web 2.0 allows us to break up physical boundtries and connect with people with whom we would not be able to connect otherwise. This way, Web 2.0 allows us to expend our social and professional networks (unprecedented change). 

Access to content: This is probably the most incredible advantage that came with Web 2.0. We, and our students, have access to much more content and much more diversified content than before. With online tools (blogs, bloglines, flickr, podcasting) our access to information has exponentially increased. The information that we access is also presented in different forms than before - content is delivered in many different forms: images, video, sound, hypertext.  We seem to be living in a post-textual world! This changes the concept of what literacy is - we can't talk about teaching only reading comprehension skills anymore.

All of these open up new possibilities, offer new ways to communicate, new ways to access information/greater access to inforamtion, and new ways to interact with information, which I think will lead us in the future to change how we conceptualize learning.