Jon Dron and Terry Anderson Open Access Week 2011 Fun and Fear in Open Spaces Image from kurtxio

2 agoraphobia 2 the fear of open spaces

3 agoraphilia 3 the love of open spaces

Which networks do you use and find useful? Why? Any others?

5 A Wordle view of Landing rationale

setnet group collective Social forms

8 Group model Membership and exclusion, closed Hierarchies of control Focus on collaboration and shared purpose teachers: guides group

9 The net model bottom-up, open inclusive focus on individual and connections teachers: role models and co-travellers net

10 Set model cooperation, anonymity focus on filtering and selection tags and categorisation teachers: analyzers, curators and publishers analytics set

11 Holistic model Overlapping social forms: sets, nets, groups Ownership Control and context teachers: all the rest, plus Collective Intelligence

Generations of Flexible Learning Pedagogies 1. Behaviourist/Cognitive – Self Paced, Individual Study, 2. Social constructivist – Groups, classes 3. Connectivist – Networks 4. Holist - Sets and Collectives Anderson, T., & Dron, J. (2011). Three generations of distance education pedagogy. International Review of Research on Distance and Open Learning, 12(3), Private Public net group set indiv- idual

The LMS at AU Fixed periods of engagement limited learner control teaching-led Closed Private group

Athabasca Landing

15 Multiple rationales 15 setnet group collective Courses Committees Research groups Study groups Centres and departments Sustaining ties Making ties Ad hoc networks Knowledge diffusion Social capital Social presence Cooperation Sharing Serendipity Interest -orientation Sense-making Collective intelligence Intentional discovery

“Your Friends Make you Fat” They can also make you smart! Fowler & Christakis (2007) A study of Obesity

The Closed Garden versus Facebook Niche networks Differentiating work, from school, from fun Context is king

18 A Guided Tour of the Landing

Athabasca Landing

ToolInstances Users:2657 Messages:21762 Files:3561 Blog posts:3348 Wire posts:1921 Bookmarked items:1550 Discussion topics:1305 Pages:853 Photos:788 Top-level pages:530 Event Calendar:171 Albums:109 Bookmark Folder:87 Polls:69

New Users Added per Month

Monthly Blog Posts

Landing Groups 271 Groups Average of 9.39 members each

24 A soft space

25 Public vs private It all depends on context and purpose PUBLICSETNETGROUP Blogs36%50%2%11% Wikis (8% private) 18%45%2%33% Bookmarks9%65%0.5%24% Images6%75%6%10%

26 Public vs private 26

27 Groups Safety familiarity (in education) formality trust scaffolding structure Reliability Group think Cliques, hidden curriculum 27 group Scariness

28 Networks Connectivity strength of weak ties blurred boundaries shifting contexts risk insecurity partial openness (appear) unstructured 28 net Scariness

29 Sets anonymity openness danger Insecurity structure loss of identity unreliability 29 set Scariness

30 Why open? Greater interaction and feedback Following norms Social capital Self-promotion Altruism Course requirements Good ideas

Fear of.... loss of face loss of privacy legal issues loss of control permanence freeloaders being unkind (especially wikis) the unknown Why not open?

32 Why not re-use?

33 fear of the unknown Athabasca Landing: a site that enables selective sharing from private-public sharing is exposing: that is scary (and fun) choices without power are scary the unknown is scary

Open things in social space accuracy/trustworthiness: issues of reputation. validity and trustworthiness comes from the combined artefacts. Matthew Principle Group liability and guilt Freeloading Stupidity of Mobs, Group Think legal fears

Challenges of Open selective revealing - revealing different things to different people. It's scary revealing to others – Who will read this post?? problems of longevity: taking advantage of others loss of control, ownership fear of exposure - showing something not quite OK to a group is often easier than showing it to the world.

Teaching Presence in Social Spaces Network Leadership is not the same as group leadership Role models, co-travellers Valuing leadership beyond ‘contact hours’

37 nets are closed: you talk to who you know nets are open: they talk to others, friends of friends

38 But how do you use them? 38 group net set

The elgg solution elgg.org

41 Who do you share with? Group - safe Network - unsafe Set - scary

42 Practical Rationale Communications is a continuing challenge in our workplaces. Too many of our faculty and staff are disengaged from our community We lack any sort of knowledge management system- all knowledge explicit, little connected It’s hard to get to know people at Athabasca.

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