08/07/2008 by nicola.

Karyn Romeis posted back in May asking about social media journeys, as part of research for her dissertation - I’m finally getting round to responding which may be too late.

How did you get started with social media? What was your introduction, how did the journey unfold and what difference has it made in your professional practice?
The good:
I got started way before I had ever heard of the term social media. My first social web experience in a professional way was an online tutor course for UFI / LearnDirect in 2000/1, with discussion forums - that was one of the first times we really collaborated in a meaningful way. At this point I think I was really passionate about opportunities for communication online - having been both participant, mentor, creator, moderator of discussions - I was part of an international group and the speed of collaboration - we were using a blend of asynchronous discussion and synchronous chat - was brilliant !

Can’t remember when I first started following blogs, somewhere between then and 2005, had started some informal wiki experimentation with a couple of people in IT when I was in a temporary role at United Business Media in 2005. Was also still using discussion forums as part of my web work - writing pleas for help with css at 3am and discovering others in similar positions also at that time of day :-).

2006/7 was year of the wiki for me at PwC, I was involved with an R&D project looking at wikis, so working with people around the world to discuss whether wikis were the right ‘tool’, helping to get them going, trying out experiments with various social and other plugins on the wiki - but mainly lots of conversations and two colleagues had set up a related community of interest. We widened the scope from just blogs and wikis to other areas under the social media and web 2.0 umbrella so were starting to look at visualisations of connections and relationships as well.

The mostly irritating:
I think I joined Facebook in 2006 but not for long - threw a few sheep and chickens at some friends, connected with my brother in a different way which was nice but I didn’t find I wanted to spend time on there (some of my friends mostly still don’t spend any time online at all). I couldn’t be bothered to try and play the role of social community evangelist with them, I preferred connecting with them offline. I donated some money to a cause on FB and found my name attached to the donation which really annoyed me so I de-activated my account. I temporarily came back onto Facebook for Future of Education last year but that was only because I had to in order to attend, threw a few more sheep, chickens and a hissy fit then de-activated my account again. I’ve posted previously about some of the unpleasant aspects of online collaboration so will not repeat.

Social or antisocial and in conclusion:
I have joined some other social networks and related communities around 2006, but tend to use more for specific queries - enjoy some of the browsing, enjoy the conversations more.Up until this year, used to share links but not via delicious, which I used as a convenient one-stop source of bookmarking between various computers, laptops (and now phone), however mostly thanks to lots of advice from Eduardo Peirano - have been figuring out some of the aspects of the social side of it - some mistakes, some more to figure out about what can, can’t do.

Started my blog around Spring 07 - not really as an excuse to be social - more around - releasing some storage space in my brain, but am really grateful for conversations with people as a result of posting various thoughts. Writing in public has sometimes made me more conscious about what I’m saying, I still tend to publish first then edit, instead of doing it the right way round ! Twitter - which I started using more, following a valuable f2f conversation with Karyn in May last year, was much more social - greatly expanded horizons (thanks Karyn !), enjoyed most of the insanity, kind of regretting giving it up but still unsure about whether to go back. Having been social and antisocial via the web - am I less enthused now than when I was really excited in 2001 ? I have moments when it can be less enjoyable and less ‘new and shiny’ but working with wonderful people, sharing conversations and ideas - is what keeps me alive and inspired !

In terms of professional practice, I think at times it has made me think more carefully about how I communicate and how much can be left unsaid. Have seen so many social media articles which say its all about the conversations - but that’s only half the story - there’s a lot of reading between the lines and how you can be social and antisocial online without saying anything at all, regardless of which social ‘tool’ you are using.

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20/06/2008 by nicola.

Two situations have happened in the past couple of years where over enthusiasm has resulted in recklessly agreeing to do things which later leave me feeling embarassed and frustrated.
1. Last year - started having early discussions with a person about designing a website for a charity - via a social network, not through the UN online volunteering which is my usual ‘channel’. It all sounded ok at first, was approaching fairly cautiously but at some point I seemed to think it was ok. Hadn’t reached a point where actually agreed to start anything. Just one thing, can’t remember exactly what it was now, but it rang a faint alarm bell, so I decided to google the person and found some references to this particular person on some scam sites.
2. Yesterday met with 2 very nice people who are doing some research into collaboration / collaborative tools and we did have a really great chat. However later found out when got home that the company that they are doing the work for, a large company have previously had a commercial operation which involved staging events - legitimately - but during those events, the nature of those businesses / commercial activity being carried out is something that I personally don’t approve of - at all.

Would like to think that have enough on and offline life experience to stop making bad judgements, but apparently not.

Has 1) made me want to stop volunteering online ? NO WAY. Could 1) ever occur again ? hope not.
What about 2) ?

We have been doing some very experimental stuff with second life at work and one of the students has been researching ethics in second life. We have been discussing how easy it would be have discussions / do stuff with no-one being able to really trace back what was either discussed or done. I am definitely one of the web / online collaboration fans and actively promote this but the reality is that more online collaboration can make it easier for people with crappy motives to carry out their crappy ideas.

I decided to delete my twitter account last night - I will miss the interaction with a mostly amazing bunch of people but there are also a whole bunch of people in my network that I have got no clue about and the idea that even one of them could do something awful makes me feel sick. I don’t know whether I would restart with twitter or not. At one point last night, I was questioning my entire ‘web / online’ use and networks I am in - whether to stay in them or not, whether to shut down the website, this blog etc

I don’t think that would be a sensible approach. There is no doubt that widening access to information and people is of greater benefit - providing networks where people can find, talk, share with others is a great thing and there is the bad side, but hopefully sharing these kinds of things online can lessen the impact of bad stuff being carried out too.

Had a nice ending to this day at least - doing some web2 stuff at work and just asked around our regular VLE user mailing list (we don’t have a formal learning technologies network group ‘online’ formally yet at Surrey, but on its way) if anyone using blogs for either personal or in their teaching / learning and have been flooded with enthusiastic emails from people who have thought about, really want to find out more or have made a start - this was totally unexpected and very cool

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29/04/2008 by nicola.

Anol Bhattacharya who writes the brilliant SoulSoup blog has shared a link to this Social Networking Wars video

On a related note, am unplugged at home from this Friday for at least a month (or so) going to rediscover the offline world - so have a fantastic month (or so) !

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16/03/2008 by nicola.

Have been experimenting for about an hour - Linden Labs released a new version (1.19.1 release candidate) this week where you can edit a shape to display web pages (you can already display movies on them).This is my first attempt (have no 3D modelling experience but managed to get this far). I used the brilliant Torley Linden video tutorial to do it. You need to own land or a bit of land or persuade someone to give you building rights to edit their land, in order to do this.

You cannot scroll pages or click on any links as yet, its just for display purposes. If you can write in Lindenscript, you could turn a shape displaying a web page, into a chatbot so it could add interaction that way. You could make the links clickable too. There is a Firefox browser in SecondLife, but I do not have the ability yet to use it.

Re twitter one, have twitter linked into SecondLife so can see live tweets, but was interesting to see the page instead of just semi-transparent lines of tweets appearing across the screen.

have probably spent around 15 hours in SL to date - interesting that can user-generate 3D content with no coding required, although some limitations.One disadvantage is that you can’t copy and paste what you have created out of secondlife - its proprietary code - but with Sun/NMC open virtual worlds initiative underway, hopefully this will change.

Does html on a prim have any business / learning use ? With movies on a shape, SGI have done this to display live meetings and conferences so that users in SL can view them. Not sure yet about html on a prim but think it has lots of potential - anyone else have any ideas ?

PS as a postscript to this, have been property hunting this week for a place to rent - in real life; and in order to explore web page display in Second Life, have also been land / property hunting in Second Life so it has been completely crazy where I have been on the phone in real life, checking land, land auctions in Second Life, viewing estate agent signs in both, checking payments / fees details in both - sometimes within a matter of minutes - it was so similar switching between worlds………:-))))

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15/02/2008 by nicola.

Adam Broitman of Amediacirc.us is asking for students to submit ideas on the future of education - more details on this page and video Its for PodcampNYC as part of a special focus on education. Contact Adam for more details.

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