Blake: Work Priorities

Bob Rattivarakorn, Trends Research Analyst; RarePlay

The new “social Web” or Web 2.0 is gradually having an impact in schools as teachers and students begin to explore the potential of social networking, blogs, shared online features and wikis. These technologies are giving rise to new educational opportunities - social collaborative learning. As time goes on, teachers are increasingly becoming familiarized with these new technologies and are using blogs and wikis more and more. They are beginning to catch up with their students who are already accustomed to socializing online, instant messaging, podcasting etc. Earlier forms of online education, such as e-learning, have traditionally focused on publishing content online, but the social Web today has empowered individuals to actively share knowledge and learning experiences. Sites like Schoopy, Groupvine, mynoteIT, Carmun and Haiku are built upon community communications among students and teachers; each revolves around online collaboration on projects via social networking/blogs and wikis as well as tools like online grade tracker, shared files/calendar, managing class schedules and assignments.

Learning is most effective when students actively connect and share knowledge during group social interactions and collaboration periods. Time and location constraints often put limits on social learning in classroom teaching. Moreover, students are sometimes reluctant to share or express their thoughts on topics publicly. Thanks to the rise of the social Web, today teachers and students can now create and publish their own content, and this enables the shared construction of knowledge. In other words, education is gradually moving towards the so called buzz word "social constructivism". The technology now allows students to contribute to the learning process anywhere, anytime; whether it’s engaging in live conversations with teachers, downloading lessons via podcasts, editing a shared document on wiki or blogging on school news/events/activities.

David Ramel

June 20, 2007 (Computerworld) You know all about YouTube: More than 100 million videos viewed each day, tens of millions of unique visitors, one of the top sites on the Internet and so on.

So, you've probably watched YouTube videos. But have you ever uploaded your own creation? Probably not.

According to the Web-audience measuring service Hitwise Pty., only 0.16% of U.S. visitors to YouTube uploaded videos in a recent week. The rest are just watching.

What's holding you back? It's easier than you think to post video, and there are even some good business reasons for doing it. I'll explain the steps for producing corporate video and throw in some home video tips for off-hours fun.

We badly need to develop supporting guidelines that will help guide our affiliates around communicating more effectively with members about the benefits & pitfalls of blogging and social networking.

This week, I'm training the NEA UniServ Academy and have been instructing participants on the value of modernizing collective action for the 21st Century. I believe social networking and Web 2.0 tools like Blogging are very effective technologies and need to be embraced by our Union. This group--a rather young group of folks--understands the power of these new technology tools and each has created their own blog.

That said, one of our UniServ participants from Ohio shared with me this excerpt from a pamphlet distributed by OEA :

Important Information! MySpace and Facebook

MySpace and Facebook present a unique set of problems for education employees. Look for an in-depth article on the subject in an upcoming issue of Ohio Schools. In the meantime[sic] here are a few suggestions that you can share with your colleagues.

The OEA strongly encourages members to avoid MySpace and Facebook. OEA advises members not to join, and for existing users to complete the steps involved in removing their profiles.

While this advice might seem extreme, the dangers of participating in these two sites outweigh the benefits.

[...]

This type association communication is disturbing [read: embarrassing] for several reasons:

1. NEA headquarters implies support and encourages members to use and even "join" social networking and blogging sites (ESEA, College Affordability, Campaign 08, etc.)

2. Younger members will view this advice as alarmist and completely "old-school." For many of them, MySpace and Facebook are a central part of their lives (see next posting: "OutSide NEA").

3. These new Web 2.0 tools are our Association's chance to modernize and communicate the value of collective action to new, younger members. We need to collectively act to preserve members' rights to manage and maintain their access to online tools just as we did in the 70s with defending the association’s right to access school mailboxes… email and Net access (e-rate).

4. We can’t afford to lose this important opportunity to meet and organize a new breed of members online.

Grandpa, Dennis the Menace, Betty Crocker, and a jelly bean. Oh the personalities represented in my classroom.

Today Dennis the Menace made a few poor choices. Hitting, scratching, yelling - generally naughty things. After constantly reprimanding and taking away privileges from Dennis, the other students began to sigh and groan whenever he did the wrong thing. Just before the day was out, Dennis pulled his last trick out of the bag and was about to fling a coin across the room when Grandpa hopped up from his shape on the rug and forcefully blurted out, “NO, don’t!” Dennis, a bit startled, turned and made a face - but he put the coin away.

[Read New Teacher Diaries]

[By Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY]

Shanda Edstrom can't stop herself. Every day — pretty much no matter where she is — she's just gotta go to MySpace.

Her friends are there. Her former high school classmates hang out there. Heck, these days it seems like every teen and twentysomething in the USA is there.

"I'm on it every day for like two hours at a minimum," says Edstrom, 18, of Clackamas, Ore., who works at a Kinko's in Portland. "It's just crazy."

Forget the mall. Forget the movies. Forget school. Forget even AOL. If you're a teen in America today, the place to be is the social networking site MySpace, which has virtually exploded in the past few months.

[Read Online]

[online @ Ragans' eNews Stand]

by Shel Holtz

Many companies have opposing views on the usage of social networking sites at work. Thus, some companies are blocking sites all together and others are promoting their use. Read on to find out which side Shel is on…

There seems to be a case of split personality going on in a lot of companies. On the one hand, the blocking of social media sites continues apace. On the other hand, the adoption of social media in the enterprise is also on a growth spurt.

McAfee, the security company, is out with a study that concludes that one-third of bosses block employee access to music downloading sites like iTunes, to dating sites. One quarter block access to sites like YouTube. More than half wish they could block access to social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, but only 20% have taken the step. McAfee suggests the rest have resisted because the sites are actually used for work-related communication. Kudos to McAfee Avert Labs Security Strategist Toralv Dirro, who tossed off this wonderful quote:

“The lines between work and play are blurring … but putting fair-usage policies in place and educating people on how to be safe on these sites is the most realistic option.”

That’s pretty enlightened for a security software company. It’ll be a cold day in hell before we hear similar quotes from the fear mongers at Websense.

According to surveys from Barracuda Networks, two-thirds of companies plan to restrict access to the Net over the next year, an increase of nearly 23% over this year. About half of the company’s customers already block access to social networking sites (25% block just MySpace, 6.3% block just Facebook, and 19.3% block both).

Meanwhile, the prospects for adoption of social media behind the firewall as part of a company’s intranet seem to be gaining momentum. SocialText secured $9.5 million in venture capital from its existing investors concurrent with the arrival of former Adobe and Cisco exec Eugene Lee as the company’s new CEO. (Founder Ross Mayfield is sticking around as president and chairman.) Ferris Research analyst David Ferris told InternetNews “There is a strong interest in wikis in corporate environments, and most tools don’t give you the features Socialtext offers, like access controls, which are really important in the corporate space.”

There’s more: The Radicati Group has projected the market for “business social software” at $920 million this year, growing to $3 billion in four short years.

At some point, companies are going to have to come to terms with the fact that networks cross organizational boundaries and that open access—governed by clearly-communicated policies—will produce benefits that far outweigh the costs and risks. Companies that understand this sooner—like Serena Software, which has embraced Facebook as a resource for employees—are likely to gain a competitive edge over those businesses too busy quaking in their boots over the bogus issue of lost productivity.

To see more of the Columbia Daily Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to www.columbiatribune.com

[Copyright (c) 2007, Columbia Daily Tribune, Mo.]

Teachers are often warned to stay away from social networking sites popular with teenagers, but a handful of Hickman educators have decided to embrace the online fad.

[Stephen Baker writes "Blogspotting" for BusinessWeek.]

Researcher Danah Boyd took a lot of attacks when she blogged an essay about the social differences between Facebook and MySpace users. Now she points to a study done by a Northwestern professor, Eszter Hargittai, who surveyed students at U. of Illinois-Chicago. The results appear to confirm at least some of what Boyd wrote.

Here's what she wrote in June:

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other "good" kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we'd call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn't go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school.

Hispanic students were the only ethnic group surveyed on campus that used MySpace more than Facebook. There also appears to be a correlation between the parents' education and Facebook usage. One interesting note: Asian-Americans are far more likely than the others to use Xanga and Friendster.