Digital Literacies

Hmm. Like, … whatever!!!

The Guardian ran a few reports here and here (one day after another in fact) …. and here.  And yesterday Twitter went crazy with a new trending topic when news hit from Nielson that Teens were not tweeting. I guess it all makes a welcome change from people moaning about kids being online all the time and from hearing the wonderment about all our little digital natives who are born wireless and with inbuilt bluetooth (etc.) It is a new refrain that implies disappointment that kids are not obsessed with the latest fad – that it is the oldies who are doing it.

As Apophenia has pointed out many of the tweets on Twitter’s 3rd most trending topic at the moment are from teens protesting that they do tweet.

Le’s face it hardly anyone uses Twitter – a fact you will find confirmed if you announce that you do so, to a bunch of people down the pub (unless they are all your tweeting friends). So it is not a surprise that not many teens tweet – and despite their protests, the tweeting teens don’t seem to be typical – just like their tweeting oldie counterparts.

Teens tweet Tweet Tweeting

I think it is interesting as we have become so convinced that all kids are all online and up for technology for technology’s sake, that we are in a state of shock when we find this is the case.  Facebook (and Bebo and Myspace etc) offer a space where you can do much more identity work than on Twitter. Facebook lets you play in lots of ways, Facebook is a fun thing to do. Kids seem to prefer it on there and frankly I think are glad if the adults migrate to twitter away from Facebook where they had made a brief and unwelcome appearance. Different online spaces have different affordances and I sense that as we are all maturing in our uses of online spaces, we are making decisions according to what we want from something. We know that teens migrate through the social networking sites as friendships change and develop – switching from Bebo to Myspace, to Facebook (etc.)  Twitter may not serve ther purposes so well… for me I closed down Facebook when I realised that all my friends were mixing with colleagues and ex students, present students were all mingling in my space. I found it unnerving to have brothers in with post grads  (for example) and could not manage to feel relaxed about writing on my wall in such a social mash-up!   Maybe the young don’t have such diverse networks and anyhow worry less about saying things in front of the ‘wrong’ people. For me Twitter is a space where I can custom build my network and have it as a space where I mainly talk as if in work, in my academic comfort zone. It’s like a very select staff room.

So yes … I feel a comparative study coming on … luckily I already have the ethical review complete and can start work on this in September!! And as I said on the blog yesterday, this stuff needs researching from both ends … looking at the data online and the stats … but also TALKING to the people.

In the meantime New Media & Society has this.

When I first started researching online texts I was drawn into looking at sites created by young people. This was way back in about 2002. I was looking at teens’ personal websites (not blogs) and discussion boards relating to babyz... all sorts of weird things like sites for Wiccan teens. I was really interested in all the stuff they were collaborating on and looked at the texts really closely – was totally bowled over by what they could do. S I wrote about all these online texts and about what the kids were doing and how they were playing and learning online.

Then I started doing a blog myself and getting into Flickr and so was writing about Blogging and Flickring (and eBay, and YouTube) . This was good as I realised very quickly how and why young people were getting so seduced by, absorbed by technologies.

As time has gone on, I have realised that it is important to not just look at the texts that are being produced, but at the processes by which they are being produced. A text that is online reflects a social process. It has been produced within a social context that cannot be presumed or assumed. In order to understand online text production, we need to know about the provenance. The meanings are also rooted outside the text, often in social happenings and events that exist outside the online space. As researchers of online spaces we have to understand that those spaces are often rooted elsewhere and the texts are not always self-standing, independent and self explanatory.

So I have realised that you need to look at the texts, but also at where they are produced so look at both ends.

Nevertheless in what I would call ‘mature’ online spaces, – spaces which have a social history, an often intricate set of networks that have been woven within the web, – these can be comprised of texts that root into the virtual space itself and have independence from geographical place. Not all mature sites do this of course, since some social networking function alongside or in support of offline activities and relationships.

So I draw a distinction here between mature sites and less mature sites … and texts which have roots in online and offline spaces; and texts which have roots just in the online world. I think that sites / online texts which root only in the offline world are less likely to survive.

Pic from Emblatame

This is Guy and I happy at our book launch a few weeks ago… many thanks to Lynda Graham for the picture. This was also the day when we launched our new research centre – The Centre for the Study of New Literacies at Sheffield. We were so lucky to have Anne Haas Dyson from Illinois University and Angela Thomas from Sydney. They both gave fantatsic keynotes, focusing on their research. We had so many of our friends ad colleagues – teachers and academics, come along to wish us luck with the Centre. It was a great start for a centre that we hope will be a catalyst for research as well as a showcase and discussion forum. We plan lots more events for the coming year – not least a conference in July 2010.
We hope that students from the MA in New Literacies will like to come along to events – and that our doctoral students will be playing a role in the Centre too.

A company called ‘Common Sense Media’ publishes a lot of stuff which I think is rooted in old school values that need to update and move on with the times.

They are of course not alone in continuing to value autonomous learning over collaboration; assessment of each individual’s grasp of facts & knowledge; a desire to separate learners in an attempt to ensure that they can be evaluated more easily. This is what schools and schooling have been based upon over centuries.

But nowadays I think we need to value collaboration and participation far more; we need to think about how we teach students to read critically and to share knowledge; to show where they got ideas from so that others can look too. We need to be teaching them to understand that many people working together can achieve so much more than individuals working competitively. We need to show learners that it can be good to produce texts in collaboration and to amend them time and time again to add detail, to refine, to bring up to date (etc)

Thus in this article about hi tech cheating, the emphasis in my view needs to be on making sure kids acknowledge their sources. Showing them that it is of value to research and find information, will mean there is no need to deceive others. In this age of always on acess to info, there is no need to set such a high premium on reproducing facts. By continuing to insist that this is what is important, we are teaching kids skills that belong to past centuries.

Just in case you think I am totally utterly barking mad .. I do agree we need to know lots of things without the need to look up stuff online all the time – but I am arguing about a principle here. This is the principle that we need to relax a bit on knowledge stuff and concentrate far more on helping kids to use sources carefully and in a critical way.

End of rant.

Btw – does this sign mean ‘No Arm Swinging’? Or is this an example of alternative readings? (Answers on a postcard please.)

Many researchers are now asking the subjects of their study, not to be subjects, but participants.

Amongst other things, this is an attempt at making the whole process of research a more equal relationship – so that research participants get a say in how they are represented and in what data is used. They may also even help to design the research tool – such as put together the questions for interviews and so on. Researchers might otherwise risk representing participants in ways they are not happy with – or indeed which misrepresent them (this is an abuse of power imo).

More and more researchers are also using visual data as part of their research evidence – for example, giving people cameras to record aspects of their lives or to present the way they see things.

I love the site Duckrabbit as it shows what can be achieved when people are shown ways of representing themselves through words and images. Here the work is described as journalism – but there is sometimes a fine line only between ethnographic research and sensitive journalism which seeks to document people’s lives rather than sensationalise.

Maybe the researcher and their participants will then look at the films as if pure data and discuss what they show. However I don’t believe in ‘pure data’ and so think discussion between researcher and participants – around what is ahown and what is not, would be very fruitful.

Interesting also to wonder, is what is the effect on research participants of making their own films? How does the process of making the films affect (or not) the way they see themselves and their lives? And is this the same as the effect of the final product? (Does the product reflect what it was intended to?) Can the research process be transformative or therapeutic? Asking and thinking about these questions takes the research on a stage further.

One of the things that Twitter does, is allow you to display your social capital. Of course this is what Donath & dana boyd were getting at when they wrote about social networking in general, being about ‘public displays of connection‘.

But I think that Twitter is a somehow more nuanced display and database of one’s connections than a lot of other spaces. Maybe because of the starkness of it all – just the tweets and the identifying name/icon at the side. It looks like an RSS feed.

The display of one’s network is not necessarily why we get involved; but I do like to see the displays of others – just in case I want to pick out a few people to follow. How do I select?

I look for the tweets which have interesting links; or maybe I recognise a name as being someone whose work I have read elsewhere. In making selections I capitalise further on my existing networks and thus extend them – according to what I value. I can accumulate additional social capital by building on what I already have.

In my son’s case, he will select according to who links to the funniest jokes; the riskiest videos; the most obscure music sites (etc.)

The reason why some people talk about hating Twitter is because they hear about twitter feeds which are populated by people (and knowledge and cultural references) that they do not value.

So. as Bourdieu says:
Social capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition – or in other words, to membership in a group – which provides each of its members with the backing of the collectivity-owned capital, a ‘credential’ which entitles them to credit, in the various senses of the word.

I know that the term ‘display’ is a bit of an uncomfortable one – but most people do choose to keep their twitter stream public. We are increasingly happy to share what we say with many others. A lot of the time we assume our tweets will be read just by those we know – but are also aware of the potential of new followers. We display our stuff partly so that we can get to know likeminded others. (And this is why we all LURVE Web 2.0).

Just one more point before I go … it seems strange to think about copyright and plagiarism in association with Twitter. Since what is valued is not just knowledge – but being a good sourcer of further supplies of knowledge – one necessarily credits where one got the information in the first place. If you Tweet – or ReTweet – as in quote someon’es Twitter stream, then you refer back by hyperlink to their origianal tweet. This gives you credit for picking up the source and the info, as well as crediting the originator. See copyright discussion here sourced via evestirling and digital maverick.

Can’t do a post without a video …

While I was watching a Mike Leigh film on tv on Saturday night (I know I should have been reading on a Saturday night of course), during one of the advert breaks they suggested that we all go online and write our views of the film so far.

I love this. What a neat idea. As it happened I was Home Alone and so this potentially offered me a way of viewing and sharing an opinion with others at the same time. In the past, critics of tv viewing habits sad that we all had ’square eyes’ or would ruin our eyesight and all sorts of other things. They implied that watching tv was bad for you and ‘rotted the brain’. Certainly they assumed it was less good than reading a book. I loved the way this suggestion to go online acknowledged that people have opinions they want to express; that they watched in an active way and that they were not just ‘receiving messages’ in a one dimensional way. I also loved that the telly was giving us opportunities for sharing our views through online networks.

So much for those who argue that the Internet fosters isolation.

Mind you – I did not do any review because I was multi-tasking – on my laptop surfing whilst also watching tv. I wonder how many other people do this habitually?

First heard about Barbara Ganley a few years ago when I was invited to, but could not make, an edublogger event in London. Occasionally you get invited to these things and cannot bear that you did not go as the write ups make it seem that if you were not there, then you missed a crucial heartbeat. Lucvkily she is now into slowblogging and so we may be able to catch her up. Slowblogging is like slow food (the opposoite of McDonald’s I suppose).

At a time when I am wondering whether I should take a new direction in what I am doing or how I am doing it (my fiftieth birthday has pre-occuppied my mind in the same way as my tenth and my 18th(!) seeming more important than the others), I discover that at age 51 she has given up her job in academia and gone it alone.

It seems though that she is getting it together as there is this call for papers (California – very nice) which seems like a very good proposition to me. – all part of her venture into Centers for Community Digital Learning.

Anyway here is Downes citing some edubloggers he likes:

So why is it that our swanky hotel charges a drastic fifteen quid (approx $25 US) to access the Internet using an ethernet cable and that we can get online down the road in the Film House for no charge at all?

Is the ability to find reasonable Internet access (wifi) part of a new cultural capital. geekiness has its real dividends as we sit here booking cinema tickets and arranging which exhibitions we will see; looking at Google maps for quick rouites and photogenic spots.

We are the new frugalistas. Just like our Mums and Dads, counting the pennies, but keeping our hands in our 501s as we go. As ever we sport an ironic turn of phrase and chant to each other in unison “There is only Art, my love”.

Interesting piece of software … something that uses Artificial Intelligence to determine the gender of a blogger…