“The Internet has been about community all along, Usenet, forums, chat rooms, geocities Home page and webring and e-mail. To say that things have changed is wrong. What’s changed is that the barriers are gone. What’s changed is the syndication process — RSS.”

Interestingly, I had just commented to Jon Becker in his blog post about “How To Digitally Supplement a PLC” that the key was using the power of RSS to bring the conversation to the faculty.

David went on to note that social networks are all different. Using Gene Smith’s diagram, they are all about:

• Identity,
• Presence,
• Relationships,
• Conversations,
• Groups,
• Reputation, and
• Sharing

I like this breakdown and am adding to David’s comments. Linkedin and Plaxo are all about identity. Wither and Bebo are about presence. Relationships are in many of the tools and conversations such as MySpace, Facebook, and Ning. Twitter is entirely about conversations (and can be addictive!). Groups are a major part of Flickr, Ning, Facebook and Basecamp. Reputation comes out of forums and followings – the number of posts, replies and ranking. Delicious and Diigo are built on sharing.

David asked how this might apply to education. He noted that students and teachers can ask questions and give directions, with other students and teachers responding. The whole thing turns into content, driving discussion which builds more content.

To me, the key lies in the learning outcomes. If one goes back to Chickering and Gamson’s Seven Principles of Good Practice, one sees connections between the seven principles and Smith’s building blocks:

Good practice in undergraduate education:

1. Encourages student-faculty contact.

- Tools that encourage relationships and communication work here, including Twitter, Facebook, and even learning management systems such as Blackboard or Desire2Learn. The key is the two-way routine contact.

2. Encourages cooperation among students.

- Groups and sharing help in the collaborative efforts needed for cooperation. Setting up a Ning site can be a useful way to not only build cooperation within a class, but with the global community as well.

3. Encourages active learning.

- The Read-Write web is not a passive environment. As students and teachers learn together through exploration of the web resources, they build knowledge and capacity to effectively compete in global markets.

4. Gives prompt feedback.

- The Read-Write web not only offers 24/7 connectivity, but fosters peer-review and formative assessment. Through the relationships build online, trust is developed and students learn to analyze and critique their own work and that of their peers, driving quality up.

5. Emphasizes time on task.

- The good news (and the bad) is that these technologies and processes expand the time for student work beyond the simple dictates of the course catalog. One of the challenges might become helping students find balance in this always on world, as Jeff Nugent noted last night.

6. Communicates high expectations.

- Through identity, presence, and reputation, faculty can model expected behavior and drive expectations. I have always found that students rise to the expectations set no matter how high, and the new social media gives students the tools to achieve those high expectations.

7. Respects diverse talents and ways of learning.

- One of the positive aspects of social media is the exposure students receive to other cultures and other ways of thinking. This in turn can help drive their creativity and desire to explore new avenues outside the rigid curricula in place in most schools.

Much of the literature seems to paint social media with the same broad brush. David Warlick, David Gratton, and Gene Smith are helping me see the many facets that make up social media, and the multiple opportunities these open for students.

As Will Richardson and Jeff Nugent noted this past week, we are in a transformative time. Will noted that some 75% of educators in this country do not realize that they can have a network. I would add that many of the 25% that do realize that they can have a network are blocked by their school systems from using that network…but that has been discussed before and hopefully will change as school board members die off. Both Will and Jeff talked about technology as a second language, with Jeff looking for ways to translate for the 75% who do not yet appreciate the transformation occurring around them.

In thinking about this language issue and Wes’s comment about the 19th Century model of teaching, it once again raises in my mind Chickering and Gamson’s Seven Principles of Good Practice. They noted that good practice in undergraduate education:

- Encouraged student-faculty contact
- Encouraged cooperation among students
- Encouraged active learning
- Gave prompt feedback
- Emphasized time on task
- Communicated high expectations
- Respected diverse talents and ways of learning

Non-interactive lecture violates the 7 Principles, and many faculty have worked hard to modify their lectures to add Classroom Assessment Techniques and other practices that make them more interactive. However, they miss many opportunities in which technology could play a role.

Many administrators and faculty equate technology as a point-to-point add-on to a class. For instance, they see adding a classroom capture system such as AnyStream as a vehicle for distance learning rather than an enhancement and study aid for local students. Some universities are adding YouTube Channels, but if it simply replicates passive delivery of lectures, an opportunity for learning is lost.

The framework above lists numerous tools and web applications that can add interactivity to learning environments. One of the more compelling aspects of many of these tools is the ability by students and the larger world to comment on and interact with student work. Wes has demonstrated some amazing uses of VoiceThread to connect students and their global audiences. I am amazed at comments I receive through SlideShare. The Google family of applications have collaboration at their heart. I am a del.icio.us junkie and feed off the new learning I see everyday from my very rich and global network. RSS feeds have opened up the blogosphere and provided new avenues for instruction.

Wes has some nice resources at his Blended Learning Wiki, and learning is increasingly blended. Jeff blew me away about six months ago as we debated “What is online learning?”. His answer – all learning today is at least in part online learning – you cannot separate online from offline. As part of translating for the faculty with which we work, we need to expand on their desire to add interactivity by introducing and modeling the uses of Web 2.0 applications and help them see that the world indeed is online.

The authors of the study hoped to answer three questions:

1.   1.  Why do distance learners take online courses?
2.   2.  What are the engagement patterns, self-reported learning and personal development outcomes, and satisfaction levels of distance learners versus campus-based learners?
3.   3.  What are the engagement patterns, self-reported learning and personal development outcomes, and satisfaction levels of traditional-age (24 years old and younger) versus adult (older than 25 years) distance learners?

For purposes of their study, distance learners were defined as first-year or senior undergraduate students who took all of their courses via the Internet in the spring term of the 2005-2006 academic year.  They reported three findings:

1. “For distance learners, postsecondary education is but one of many priorities in their lives. Distance learners tend to be older; most work and care for dependents and enroll in online courses because such classes fit more easily into busy, demanding schedules. The top three reasons cited for pursuing learning at a distance—convenience, self-pacing, and self-directed learning—suggest that many of these students were looking to advance their education in the context of their current lifestyles. It is possible that without a distance learning option, many of these students would not be enrolled in postsecondary education at all.
2. The engagement of distance education learners compares favorably with that of campus-based learners. Distance learners are generally as engaged and often more engaged than their campus-based counterparts, with the exception of engagement in active and collaborative learning activities. In addition, the self-reported gains of distance learners tend to be greater than those reported by their campus-based counterparts.
3. Older distance learners differ from younger online students in noteworthy ways. Older students report greater gains and are more likely to engage in higher order mental activities such as analysis and synthesis as part of their studies. However, they are less involved in activities that depend on interacting with others, such as working with other students on problems or assignments.”

The authors concluded that their results suggest that distance learning was comparable to face-to-face learning, at least in terms of student engagement in effective educational practices.  I took a slightly different message away.  First, a mantra I have said for several years, the delivery method (online versus face-to-face) is less important than the activities undertaken by the teacher and students.  Chickering and Gamson’s Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education work equally well on campus or online, and those principles presuppose active engagement by the teacher as well as the students. 

Second, the differences noted in this study between older students and younger students to me aligns with the growth in social interactions of the Web 2.0 generation.  

The authors stated:

“Student engagement takes many forms—intellectual challenge, active and collaborative learning, meaningful interactions with faculty, and the perception that the learning environment is supportive of the student’s efforts to overcome obstacles to learning.  Active and collaborative learning is the one area in which distance learners fell short of their campus-based counterparts.  {my italics} In part, this seems to be an artifact of activities related to group-based interactions such as working on projects during class or outside of class. These kinds of experiences are associated with desired outcomes of college such as satisfaction, persistence, and intellectual and social development.” 

 I would suggest that active use by faculty of the many new web-based social tools could provide the avenues for the types of active and collaborative engagement that these authors found missing from many online courses today.   The digital natives entering our colleges and universities already use socially engaging applications for personal use, and adoption and use by faculty could spread the engagement from the younger students to older students.  It will require thoughtfully designed online activities, but engagement is and should be a two-way street!

As always, I would be interested in my colleagues thoughts and responses.