Spotlight Session Notes

I realise this post is a little late but there are still some things I need to mention about last week's Spotlight on Teaching and Learning. I found the second day of symposium a little un-inspiring so in this post I will focus on the event of the first day. Obviously, I found the last paper session of the day - Blogs and Wikis in Learning: Sharing the Experience, another Library sponsored session - the most inspiring. This session was a Panel Discussion featuring Anton Angelo (Student and Information Technology Services, University of Otago), Charlotte Brown (Reference Department, Central Library, University of Otago), Erika Pearson (Media, Film, and Communications Studies, University of Otago), and Noel Waite (Design Studies, University of Otago). Each of these speakers focused on some aspect of incorporating Web 2.0 technologies into teaching students.

I was particularly impressed by Dr Pearson. For a paper on cybersocieties, Dr Pearson set the students the task of blogging regularly. These posts were then assessed at the end of the semester. This was yet another instance of blogs working. Although there were still different levels of engagement - but it should be remembered that traditional teaching methods have the different levels of engagement - the students seemed to accept the challenge. Of course, with a blog it is easy for the lecturer to post comments that serve as further prompting for the students rather than them developing their assessment in solitude and therefore having only one chance to "get it right."

What I found most interesting was the flexibility that blogs allowed for in learning. For instance, most of the comments and even posts were made in the middle of the night. This has great implications for student involvement since - with an open forum on the Internet - we can deliver classes which are tailored to students' lives; we can have a virtual tutorial at 3am in the morning! It was also interesting that on-line participation increased off-line communication. Particularly with students whose first language is not English or they are just shy, they can post what they want to say on their blog and then this can give people in the class better insight into their personality and these points of convergence can stimulate greater in-class involvement. This is rather surprising since there seems to be a prevalent view that on-line participation re-enforces physical isolation. It seems that this is not always the case.

There seemed a great need to explain why blogs are a suitable assessment tools. To me it seems as if we have to spend all our energy in justifying ourselves then what is going to be left for actually doing the work. This just hints at the blatant paranoia about emerging methods/tools. It seems as if we are still so stuck in the "old ways" that when something new comes along our first duty is to attack it - beyond the point of constructive critique - since we are too afraid to dabble and get our feet wet. Indeed, some of the students of Dr Pearson's paper failed to have a sense of play in their blogs. This was because they did not realise the full potential of the "simple" operations of the medium. It seems strange that young people are coming to university without a sense of adventure when it comes to Web 2.0 technologies.

Reflective Blogs: Redux

This morning's session at the Spotlight on Teaching and Learning went really well I thought. I was a bit apprehensive that I was going to be offering my own humble perspective on how blogs can be mobilised for student assessment. More particularly, I could not offer any information on how this would work from an academic perspective. It turned out that with the other two presentations - Fostering Learner Engagement and Cultural Understanding Through Foreign Language Blogging, Antoine Alm (Languages and Cultures, University of Otago), and The Use of a Blog as the Medium for Online Role Plays in Nutrition in Post Graduate Study, Megan Gibbons (Midwifery and Otago Institute of Sport and Adventure, Otago Polytechnic) and Sandra Elias (Midwifery, Otago Polytechnic) - my presentation actually provided a point of contrast in that it provided feedback on how learners view this experience. In this post, I will elaborate on my previous post - my presentation - and augment it with the points I raised that were not outlined in that post as well as the discussion that followed my presentation.

Further Points:

• Blogs have the potential to let students be much more honest. I know that I am much more my-self on-line than off. Posting in a blog means we do not have to worry about how people are actually viewing us.
• Blogs allow us to develop a portfolio which we can later use for things such as funding applications and for admission to certain academic programmes.
• A blog is much quicker to maintain than a manual journal.
  

Discussion Points:

• A blog can provide documentation of practice which a practice researcher can later use when they draft their contextualising document.
• Blogs provide the option to post comments. Although this could be a reasonably rare occurrence - at least it was in two instances of blogs used for assessment today - the option is still there. It is better, in my view, to provide this option rather than not. Even if students don't take it up at least there is the availability for them to comment.
• Blogs are much more customisable than discussion boards - particularly Blackboard. A blog becomes a student's own space. Although this can have a down-side in that a lot of time can be spent getting the look of a blog the way a student wants and this can distract from other studies.
• There are privacy issues with a blog. If you are going to blog about problems you encountered then you need to do so in a way that the person with whom you are having the problem cannot be publicly identified. Having said this, I found blogging about the problem let me focus on ways to solve it rather than letting me simply do my old trick of running away and hiding. Of course, there is also the phenomenon that a blog can be a more neutral way to resolve conflict: instead of confronting someone - which may exacerbate the problem - they may read your post and this may guide them in their own endeavours.

I found this session rather invigorating. I was also pleased to see academics talking about the successes they had with their assessments. It seemed a very positive step forward in mobilising this tool for educational purposes.

Reflective Blogs

Whence am I Coming?
This paper is informed by both my participation in the Digital Information Literacy Project as well as my experience as a Theatre Studies student and a director of theatre.

Digital Information Literacy Project

• Supported by the University of Otago Library
• Action Research based enquiry
• Examining how Theatre Studies and the Library can mobilise Web 2.0 technologies to increase communication.
• From this enquiry it became clear that blogs were a good (and easy) way to increase communication.

Theatre Studies

• For 400-level papers we were required to keep a journal
• Most of us had very little idea about what was expected of us - and the lecturer was understandably anxious about giving us exemplars
• We were not encouraged to share our journals and there was little incentive to write regularly

This report is coming from a student perspective; I have found blogging a useful way to informally improve my theatre practice

Blogs Provide an Alternative to Traditional Journalling

• They have the potential to keep students more "on-track" because the lecturer can keep an eye on their posting behaviour
• They have the potential for immediate feedback from both the lecturer and others in the class. Particularly when journalling is undertaken by a small class they can make the task seem less isolating
• Because they can be media-rich - allowing easy posting of pictures and video - they provide a much greater range of creative potential
• In a theatrical context - particularly when a student is creating a piece of theatre that will be shown to the public - they have the potential to heighten awareness of the audience so that audience could be much more "informed" about a production. Blogging is also a useful life-learning skill that theatre students can take with them if they continue with a theatre career.

DIL Report

Digital Information Literacy Project Report

Neal Barber

Throughout this project, I have spent time experimenting with Web 2.0 applications and considering how those applications can be mobilised for Library and/or Theatre Studies purposes. My original aim was to look at the use of on-line tools for both creating and publicising the results of theatre. However, throughout the project I found my focus changing - as is inherent in reflective practice - to have a greater focus on teaching the skills students require for literacy in a digital world.

A major focus of this project was to engage with Web 2.0 applications reflectively. To this end, my blog - Information is Not Knowledge - has charted my progress throughout. To aid in finding information related to this project, I have added the tag "DIL" to each post. However, the reflective nature of this project also feeds into the Theatre Studies Programme's new focus on reflective practice; a blog is an incredibly valuable tool in this process.

Recommendations for the Library:

• Create a teaching session for Postgraduate students that helps orient them to Web 2.0 applications and, particularly, how to apply them to a formal learning situation and how to create research communities on-line.
• Create shot tutorial vod-casts using on-line video editors which library staff can use in face-to-face teaching as well as in virtual reference situations.
• Create a presence in Blip-TV.
• Draft a Web 2.0 Research guide.
• Further explore how we can use Delicious in the Subject Guides. To this end, we can start by creating a list of links to academic blogs.
• Mobilise blogs to improve communication between the library and our patrons and inter-departmentally within the library.
• Create a Creative Commons guide and attendant resource list.
• Support academic departments to mobilise the appropriate tools for their specific situations.

Recommendations for Theatre Studies:

• Staff to set up and maintain personal blogs.
• Staff to maintain a departmental blog.
• That students be encouraged to use Web 2.0 applications for their reflective practice.
• Use an on-line office suite to collaboratively create documents.¹

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this project and I hope that we can continue to work together to further this project and help our patrons become more fluent in Web 2.0 applications. Should you wish for clarification of anything in this report please do not hesitate to contact me.

Technorati Tags report,DIL,spotlight

Making Connections

Apart from becoming rather bogged down with information - or should that be blogged down? - my reading about blogging in tertiary eduction is starting to make some connections. For our Advanced Directing paper, a large proportion of our grade was for a reflective journal. We were supposed to make frequent entries into this journal but were not given much guidance about what these entries were supposed to look like. This was a conscious decision on the part of the lecturer - and a decision I actually agreed with - since she did not want us to just copy an exemplar. However, as a student, such a decision does not help the student. We were looking for concrete guidance and were not terribly interested in the dogmatic philosophy behind the assessment. On the other hand, we were not given any guidance - in the form of articles to read - on why we were doing this assignment and what we were supposed to be getting out of it.

This journal was supposed to be a record of our learning throughout the year. Since such a large proportion of our grade rested on it, however, the lecturer checked it once during the year. This was the only feedback we received before the journal became due. There was little incentive for us to share our journals - or entries from them - to get an idea of what our peers were doing. Also, because we were not encouraged to share the journals, many of us fell into the trap of not writing in them frequently but rather back-dating a lot of entries after we realised that months had gone by without writing anything.

It seems that a blog would have been an ideal solution to this problem. Not only would this have provided us with more guidance from what our peers were doing but it would also have fulfilled the spirit of the exercise more fully since having a public record would have kept us honest about our posting. These blogs could have also helped increase our collegiality - particularly important since there were only 5 of us in the class - and increase our number as we became part of a much wider community.

Power to the People

Back, Karla and Barwick, Daniel. "High Tech's Double Edge: Creating Organizationally Appropriate Responses to Emerging Technologies." On The Horizon: 15.1 (2007) 28-36. 22 Jul. 2008 Emerald Journals. .

Whilst the "emerging technologies" this article addresses are blogs it regards them more from a management perspective rather than a practitioner's one. It is based on a case study of the situation at the State University of New York College of Technology at Alfred in 2006. In this situation, a public blog became staff and students' only outlet to air grievances with the college's president. This forum became so powerful as to effectively end the president's tenure. However, instead of decrying blogs in general Back and Barwick argue that administrations need to understand it so they can deploy it in their favour and prevent the college receiving bad publicity.

Selected quotes (resplendant with annotations):

"Little attention is paid to the leadership/management challenges and opportunities these technologies create" (28)
"Openly critical academic blogs present administrators with unique opportunities for increased effectiveness, and most of their supposed drawbacks are really just indicative of disguised institutional problems of which such blogs are merely symptomatic" (29)
"A public college presidency ended not simply because of the president's failure to meet expectations, but also as a direct result of an administration's inability to adequately respond to a private blog"

This just goes to show how powerful this method of communication can be; since blogs are popular publishing, word can spread quickly around the blogosphere so, if the right information is spread, you can reach a large audience very quickly. You just need to tap into this tool to make sure that - in your opinion - the right information is spread.

"Free speech is traditionally regarded as a cornerstone of the campus environment" (31)

Yet this article points out that it is only free speech of a certain type - i.e. upholding the system - that is the true cornerstone of the campus environment. Should such a phenomenon be unchallenged?

"Students are an integral part of the operations of the campus. They live on the campus, work on the campus, and in many cases help govern the campus. [...] Students are also implicit ambassadors for the college and both active and passive recruiters as well" (31-32)

If we teach students a way to incorporate new technologies into their formal studies then we are better assisting them to cope with future challenges. Indeed, most students don't need to be taught how to use emerging technologies - the computer literacy of a large percentage of tertiary students these days is astounding - but rather on how to use them effectively to manage/store information and create/synthesise knowledge.

"Although many believe that academia often leads with the integration of new technologies, history does not support this belief"

Indeed, if academia does not start making up some of the ground they lost then universities are in danger of being left behind as places of learning; if the system does not adapt then it is in danger of being seen as antiquated and irrelevant. There is also the wider issue of universities being slow to change generally. Is this a symptom of trying to account for tradition and new technologies? Also, because things have been done for a certain way for the entirety of living memory then when something new comes along there is a great sense of inertia which this new technology has to counter.

"We believe that administrators should seek ways to use new technologies to increase the level of communication(or to provide alternative means of communication) across the campus, and that the result would be improved perception in the work environment" (33)

Indeed, the same goes for lecturers communicating with students. Do we not provide a richer experience when we teach the students why something is important? What better way to help inculcate this why than with a blog which reflects the personal philosophies of a lecturer?

Should Academics Blog?

Here I summarise 7 articles which each take academic blogging as their focus. These summaries are mostly quotes from the particular papers with a little of my own commentary - appended in italics. The aim of this post is to provide academics which will, I hope, entice them to blog professionally to:

1. Increase exposure of their programme.
2. Provide a model for students who have to submit reflective journals.
3. Offer a different format for reflective journals.

• Glenn, David. "Scholars who Blog: The soapbox of the Digital Age Draws a Crowd of Academics." The Chronicle of Higher Education (June 6, 2003): http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i39/39a01401.htm

"Academic bloggers worry that the medium smells faddish, ephemeral."
"Academic bloggers are sometimes subject to twinges of self-consciousness and guilt, and fear that their elders will thing they're misbehaving."
"There are no financial returns to blogging."

Yet a department/programme can increase enrolments - a form of financial return - through the wider publicity their blog can generate. There is also the chance to raise the institution's good-will factor as well as the possibility of picking up publishing contracts. All these benefits are not tangible "financial returns" but blogs can increase financial returns in the long run.

"Anyone at all can read and comment on their discussions."
"Blogs also appear to bring full professors, adjuncts, and students onto a level field."
"Write on your blog only when you think you have something to say."

This article provides advice and information for academics who are starting out in the blogsphere. Glenn, correctly, sees the blogsphere as a more open, democratic sharing of knowledge but this openness - currently at least - challes established publishing protocols of what constitutes "research."

• Tribble, Ivan. "First Person: Bloggers Need Not Apply." The Chronicle of Higher Education (July 8, 2005): http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2005/07/2005070801c.htm (accessed July 10, 2008).

"But it's best for job seekers to leave their personal lives mostly out of the interview process."

I am not sure how this impossibility is to be achieved - is he asking that we should have some nasty - not to mention mentally unstable - Dr-Jekyll-Mr-Hyde thing going on?

"Several committee members expressed concern that a blogger who joined our staff might air departmental dirty laundry (real or imagined) on the cyber clothesline."

Tribble takes a very sceptical view of blogging. Indeed, he stops just short of saying that blogging can totally ruin your chances of securing a tenured position. Although, he does chose good - and funny - examples of people who's blogs show they are unsuitable for the position; here is the warning: think before you blog!

• Tribble, Ivan. "First Person: They Shoot Messengers, Don't They?" The Chronicle of Higher Education (September 2, 2005): http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2005/09/2005090201c.htm (accessed July 10, 2008).

"The issue is not the medium itself, but how it is used."

After the backlash from "Bloggers Need Not Apply" Tribble felt he needed to further clarify his thoughts on blogging and conceded that it was more the current use of blogs he was decrying. Although this article was more paying lip-service to The Chronicle's readership.

• Farrell, Henry. "The Blogosphere as a Carnival of Ideas." The Chronicle of Higher Education (October 7, 2005): http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i07/07b01401.htm (accessed July 10, 2008).

"Is it a good idea to blog if you're on the job market or have a nontenured position?"
"Blogging would eat up time that could be devoted to publishing articles or working on a book."

But blogging IS a form of publishing. Not only are you actually publishing - and there is fault here with the system which does not regard a blog as a research output - but you can also blog with a view to publishing.

"While blogging has real intellectual payoffs, it is not conventional academic writing and shouldn't be an academic's main focus if he or she wants to get tenure."

This is talking more about the system than blogs themselves. Perhaps it is time for a bit more fine-tuning...

"Their blogs allow them not only to express personal views but also to debate ideas, swap views about their disciplines, and connect to a wider public."
"Academic blogs offer the kind of intellectual excitement and engagement that attracted many scholars to the academic life in the first place."
"Academic blogs also provide a carnival of ideas, a lively and exciting interchange of argument and debate that makes many scholarly conversations seem drab and dessicated in comparison."
"Blogging sacrifices some depth of thought [...] but provides in return a freedom and flexibility that normal academic publishing can't match."

A blog doesn't have to always sacrifice depth of thought though. You can always save your post as a draft and then keep working on it as you would an article. And there is no need to keep blogs short - even though the internet can give us the attention span of gnats.

"Which is not to say that blogs and more conventional forms of publishing can't compliment each other very nicely."
"Prominent academics who start blogging do have an initial advantage; they're more likely to attract early attention than people without established reputations."
"Less-well-known academics, and nonacademics with interesting things to say, have a real opportunity to speak to a wider public and to establish a reputation over time."
"Blogospheric conversations, when they're good, have a vigor and a liveliness that most academic discussion lacks."
"An unusually high level of intelligent discussion around a topic is more usually associated with stale pro- and anti-theory polemics."
"It's far harder than it used to be for academics to become public intellectuals."
"All of those blogs weave back and forth between the specialized language of academe and the vernacular of public debate. They are creating a space for dialogue between the two, connecting them together, and succeeding, to a greater or lesser degree, in changing both."
"They represent a serious challenge to well-established patterns of behavior in the academy."

Farrell's article is the most balanced I present here. Although he clearly sees blogging as a beneficial activity for academics, he also points out the dangers of which bloggers should beware. Perhaps I read too much into the article but I see that Farrell wishes to change the current academic system by undercutting the hegemony of the scholarly article to democratise academic publication and - here's the rub - help institutions value blogs as a "proper" academic outlet.

• Goetz, Rebecca A. "First Person: Do Not Fear the Blog." The Chronicle of Higher Education (November 14, 2005): http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2005/11/2005111401c.htm (accessed July 10, 2008).

"Blogs and the blogosphere are new concepts, and the possibilities for scholarly communication are endless and exciting."

Even though written almost three years ago and there has been some uptake of blogging by academics, the change is still slow to percolate up the institutional ladder.

"I have come to believe that those online exchanges build better, more involved scholars who have a wide circle of blog-colleagues."
"Perform thought experiments and try out ideas quickly without going through the conventional publication or conference process."
"There will be many more bloggers like me who mix the personal and the professional in fun and quirky ways."
"Job seekers who blog are thoughtful, interesting people who are fascinated by the possibilities that this new medium has for enhancing their personal and professional lives."

Goetz started this blog when she was a post-graduate History student at Harvard. Now, she has an academic position in Texas and is continuing to blog. This article was a conscious rebuttal to "Bloggers Need Not Apply" and consolidates the points raised by Farrell.

• Delong, J. Bradford. "Can Blogging Derail Your Career?: The Invisible College." The Chronicle of Higher Education (July 28, 2006): http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i47/47b00801.htm (accessed July 10, 2008).

"I would like a larger college."
"My invisible college is paradise squared, for an academic at least."
"Web logging is a lottery ticket to something int he future, unknown but good."
"Academics who blog think more profound thoughts, have a influence on the world - both the academic and the broader worlds - and are happier for it."

This depends on your definition of academic. Do academics not have the duty to the public good - since they, in New Zealand at least, are funded by public money - to promote increased knowledge?

"A thoughtful, intelligent, well-informed Web logger like Juan Cole or Dan Drezner is an important part of a university's public face."

This article is one of a further series of rebuttals to both of Tribble's articles and has become one of the foundation texts for academic blogging. Delong sees the blogsphere as a way for academics to widen their network of associations; a particularly useful tool for those departments which have a smaller staff and, therefore, for academics who may not have any colleagues interested in their particular area of research on hand.

• Drezner, Daniel W. "Can Blogging Derail Your Career?: The Trouble with Blogs." The Chronicle of Higher Education (July 28, 2006): http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i47/47b00701.htm (accessed July 10, 2008).

"Any substandard publication creates a black mark that is difficult to erase."
"Blogs are an outlet for unexpurgated, unreviewed, and occasionally unprofessional musings."
"Today's senior faculty members look at blogs the way a previous generation of academics looked at television - as a guilty, tawdry pleasure that should not be talked about in respectable circles."
"Any usurpation of scholarly authority is bound to upset those who benefit the most from the status quo."
"Quality blogs allow scholars to link grand theory to real-world events, cultivate new ideas, and spark public debates."

Again, Drezner focuses on how blogs can upset the status quo of academic publishing. It is for this reason that he feels the academy views blogs as somehow inferior rather than an innate sub-standard quality.

What to Blog

I have encountered a problem with one of my blogs. I set up one blog to publicise what I am doing when directing plays. The purpose of this blog is to entice the audience to come and see the show. As such, I don't want to give the audience the impression that things are not going well. This is a particular bind for me because I tend to notice the negative. Consequently, I find myself blogging about my process more on my reflective practice blog. In a way, this nullifies the intent of my blog since it was set up to keep the audience informed on what I am doing so the audience can better appreciate the production. It just goes to show that you need to consider what you are blogging and the purpose of your blog before you post an entry.

To Teach or To Learn?

During the last session of my DIL project the co-ordinator apologised to me because she was feeling that I was not getting enough out of the project. I, however, was feeling quite to the contrary. Although it was true that I was feeling frustrated that I was not being extended I have since realised I was being extended in a different way than I expected.

I had always intended this project to be an exercise in how to effectively mobilise Web 2.0 strategies/tools. However, I ended up learning how to teach. I think I am rather fluent in using on-line tools since they are mostly pretty easy to operate - they are designed this way - and if I find a new tool it won't take me that long to figure out how to use it. Instead, I had experience in passing some of this knowledge onto people who may have had little or no experience with computers. It is great to realise you were learning when you think you weren't - you just need to shift your frame of reference.

Podcasts Redux

I have had some further thought on podcasts. There is one good academic reason to mobilise this technology. It is good for a lecturer - particularly in Distance Education who is also lecturing on campus - who can then create a podcast of her lectures to make it easier to distribute to students. However, then she has the problem of on-campus students also making use of this service thereby maybe reducing lecture attendance.

Teaching Web 2.0

At staff meeting last week, my colleague presented on his trip to the Life Long Learning conference. One of the things he mentioned was teaching students in their own Personal Learning Environments - which, these days, are more likely to be web 2.0 based. Instead of bringing the students round to the University's way of thinking - and using their education platforms - we should be bringing our way of thinking around to the students. This, of course, does not mean that we should be pandering to students and forgetting the traditional educational processes but aim for a syncretic pedagogy.

After the session, I had coffee with a number of my colleagues where we discussed learning web 2.0 applications. From this - and my experience in the Otago Uni DIL project - we need to consider how we approach these applications/strategies. For example, often the thing which stops people from experimenting on-line is that they are afraid they will cause some damage. However, the good thing about using a University system is that there is really very little danger of doing something which will damage the system since it is so protected. Even if you are using your home system the worst you will need to do is format your hard-drive and this shouldn't be a problem since you should back up your data periodically anyway. However, is it enough to just tell those who lack confidence - particularly if they worry they will break the system - that there is very little chance of doing something wrong.

I think we should be teaching the skills that are useful for web 2.0 in general - rather than actual applications. There are some things - such as creating a profile, how to use the help function - that are almost universal across applications. Of course, you need to teach these skills within the context of an application or they will not make any sense...

Podcasts

In our DIL session on Thursday we discussed podcasts which turned into a conversation about RSS generally. Previously, I was reasonably in the dark about what a podcast actually was. For example, I knew it was a downloadable form of video/audio distribution but that was about it. Now, I think I have a better handle on what they actually are - an automatic distribution of you video or audio. However, this is what I have a problem with. It seems like they have limited applications. There are very few situations where you would want to download everything that someone produces. Just like an RSS feed from a site that provides a full-feed rather than the first few sentences of an update. It really isn't that hard to click to read a fuller version if the brief one doesn't suit your needs.

Also, if you create a podcast then you need to make sure that you are not filling people's computers with rubbish. Having said this, the editing requirements are usually too great for someone who cannot devote a great number of hours to keeping a podcast - i.e. someone who devotes their time to a podcast. However, one should pay attention to the difference between downloadable video/audio and a podcast. The former is simply an infrequent uploading of content to a site or blog.

The discussion then moved onto RSS feeds. We watched a Common Craft clip on YouTube: RSS in Plain English. Not only is the presentation obnoxious - in the sense of loud, rambunctious etc - but it is also a rather scary view. Apparently, we are wasting time if we go to our favourite blogs and websites to check to see if there is anything new. As if many of us can say that our time is actually that precious. And I also have to add that, if your time is so precious, then why are you wasting it on reading blogs or news feeds anyway!

Various Sundry Titbits

I first wanted to post something that was of the utmost importance and I felt I REALLY needed to post - but do you think I can remember what it is?

I have been working on reading published articles for academics' blogs to help show the Theatre Studies Programme what benefit they could gain for blogging. The benefits mentioned are all pretty obvious: greater collaboration, quicker publishing time, increased exposure, more freedom to mix the personal and professional (one thing I particularly admire). The negative aspects all seem to boil down to one piece of advice: what you write online is viewable by everyone. Pretty common sense really...However, I will be putting up something a wee bit more fulsome here eventually.

Now I remember what I was going to write about: why am I exploring on-line video editors when their off-line counterparts are often much more powerful and just as simple to use (I am thinking here of iMovies which has been designed with those with little or no video editing experience). However, the advantage with an online editor is that you do not have to have a terminal set aside as a video-editing station but students can use any terminal on campus - or indeed off. The good thing about a free service is that there is no further cost outlay to provide software licences.

However, it seems I have hit somewhat of a stumbling block. There are many tools out there designed to share your clips or add social bookmarks but very few for creating your own clips. Is this because the coding is so difficult? Is it too hard to make such tools easy enough to use? I know not...

Dawn and I also had a chat about online photo editors. In particular, we discussed those which claim to improve your photos. Whilst it could be a good idea to use these to improve that pic you snapped spur of the moment there could be some danger in relying on them heavily. This danger comes from diluting the basic skills of photography. I am not saying we shouldn't digitally manipulate images after we take them - this is a common-place and is part of photography. It is just that you can only improve the quality of an image so much; you can never make a bad image good with digital manipulation. Also, these editors are designed for web display. If you are using them for any purpose other than web display they will be effectively useless.

Today was also a first for me. I made my first comment on a colleague's blog. I found the blog of one of the Otago Polytechnic participants who is undertaking a project very similar to mine so could provide her with, I hope, helpful information on where she can locate tools to create an online slide show.

I also have discovered the danger in online tools where you quickly update what you are doing - such as Twitter and Facebook. My boss is my friend on Facebook and saw that I had updated my status somewhat flippantly. You see, I had insinuated that I sometimes do not apply myself fully to the task at hand. This, however, was not my intended meaning. I simply meant to state that I had the energy/motivation to get work done - two things that can begin to fade when you work the 5-9 shift. Just a word of caution: be clear in your communication and you can avoid possibly embarrassing situations. Incidentally, this brings me back to the topic with which I started my blog as this is one of the warnings that constantly cropped up in the readings I was doing for academic blogging...

Wikis or Blogs?

I couldn't quite see the difference between wikis and blogs. To me they both seem to serve a similar function. The focus here, however, will be on using these two tools for collaboration.

A wiki has an advantage because if you are working on a document collaboratively then anyone can edit the document live. However, you have no record of the original. With a blog, you can post the document and then comment on suggested changes. This may be a better option for creating collaborative documents. Of course there is also Google docs, which is perhaps an even better option.

Also, I can't help feeling that the purpose of a wiki is to allow everyone to edit the information. Something really sticks with me with the fact that you create a wiki that not every one has access to edit seems against the spirit of a wiki.

Video Editing

Here are the results from my first playing session with JayCut. The video is not very "theatrical" but then it can be seen as more ritualistic - my colleague even mentioned that it reminded him of a wedding.

I was searching for videos to upload and came across the following two sites:

Internet Archive
"The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public."

Ourmedia
"Video producers and podcasters use Ourmedia to show off their works and create communities of interest."

Both sites have a wealth of information in many different forms.

Reflection?

Well, I have been asked to reflect on what I am doing in the DIL. Last night, however, I realised that because I was not carrying out reflection in action I could not reflect on action since I wasn't even recording what my actions were! Consequently, my day yesterday was not quite as effective as it could have been.

I did start working on Wikis and video editing so I will summarise what I remember.

Simon Hart was keen that I look at wikis for the Theatre Studies Programme to use as a way of collaborating between staff since they could post an entry and other staff could edit it and provide feedback thereby having a living document. The other option for these purposes is to have a blog with an RSS feed so staff knew when a change had been made; the changes would be in their face rather than staff having to go and hunt for them. My next step is to set up a wiki to see just how they work from a practical perspective.

I also skulked around the net to see if I could find either wikis or blogs which fostered a community of practice. This was very hard since most of them talk about theatre in general rather than specific forms of theatre - queer theatre was the community of practice with which I was concerned. My thoughts here lead me in the direction of setting up a community site for queer theatre. Although the problem will be buy-in since, for the site to be of any use, the community would need to embrace it fully. Add to this the phenomenon that theatre practitioners have very little time/effort to update a blog or other site this task may be quite difficult.

I then changed my concentration ever so slightly to look at on-line video editors. Why? A practitioner could use them to report/reflect on their work (if they are working in a traditional paradigm); they could be blended with live theatre; they could be used as a digital performance. I am using a web 2.0 directory to find on-line editors to use. So far this has been fruitful but has not been carried out in a co-ordinated fashion. My colleague Allison Brown, Digital Initiatives Librarian, who had the brilliant idea that I compare the different editors I find on a spreadsheet. What a fantastic idea! And, I know, you are thinking it is also so banal but my mind is working slowly these days. So, you can look forward to more...

Resources

Betty's Instructional Technology Blog linked through to this great wiki. One reason it is so fantastic is it has a Video and Digital Storytelling section.

Scariness Much?

On Thursday, I had my first session for a study led by Otago Polytechnic looking at the digital information literacy needs of tertiary students and staff (more info here.) I am planning to use to project to explore the ways we can use digital information in creating, and reporting on, theatre projects. Whether this may be using digital information in "traditional" theatrical productions or creating virtual performances online. As a corollary aim I am looking at using social networking strategies for creating communities of practice.

Our first session was a basic "hi and welcome" session. We did, however, watch "Epic 2015" on Youtube as a way of considering the implications of Web 2.0 strategies. Incidentally, I think Professor Mike Wesch's "The Machine is Us/ing Us" is a much more useful video for thinking about how the organisation is happening now. And, you can see Prof. Wesch explaining the video here. However, "Epic 2015" looks more towards the future than what we can do now. Incidentally I think it is great the video starts with "it is the best of times; it is the worst of times" since this encapsulates one of the founding premises of the video: we are marching backwards into the future. We can see how things we do nowadays can logically be extended to what will happen in the future.

I think perhaps the most worrying thing about "Epic" is that it envisions a world in which everyone is the creator of authority. One of the problems with the web nowadays is that anyone can publish anything. Some may see this as a good thing but it means that the information out there can be a heap of codswallop. In one way Web 2.0 strategies can be a kind of filter in themselves. You can find information that other people have found useful so this is a partial quality control. What is more, academics now have the chance to reach a much greater audience using things such as blogs or wikis. This helps keep the information out there relevant and, most importantly, "correct."

Although these new strategies have given us cause for thought. For example, we are finding we need to re-evaluate some of our long held perceptions about: authors/authority - although we must remember the author has been dead for quite some time - copyright, ethics etc. Indeed, it seems that Web 2.0 strategies are now allowing digital information to act in the same way as semioticians see language functioning - each utterance carries with it the ghosts of all past, and future, utterances. Now we can organise information as we intuitively organise our language.

Incidentally, as an English student I take a bit of perverse glee in The New York Times reverting back to a printed paper!