Links to four papers I presented in the 1990s at the excellent Teaching Learning Forum in Perth which remind me that subjectivity and discourse are crucial terms which remain of great relevance to understanding why and how education works. Apologies for the archival publication! Click to read more
Facebook occupies a significant amount of attention in thinking about the proliferation of digital networking in everyday life and this attention now also extend to universities which have, for some years, been wrestling with the appropriateness of using Facebook (in various ways), to improve student learning. In this paper I do two things. First, I try to present a comprehensive summary of Facebook’s principal features, noting that its underlying function is to permit reciprocal exchanges of attention. Second, I review the way several academics have written about their experiences of using Facebook ‘in education’ to discern the tensions between norms of university education and this everpresent system. The main conclusions concern the way Facebook blurs boundaries between traditionally separated spaces of formal and informal education, while noting the risks involved in academic becoming part of the attention-oriented norms of contemporary social networking. Click to read more
This paper, co-authored with Barratt and Lenton, demonstrates that the use of filtes and other generalised internet censorship mechanisms can produce harmful results, specifically in the context of drug education for harm reduction. Blocking the many drug information forums and sites drives discussion of drugs into the ‘dark web’ where it cannot be easily controlled and where it is linked to the actual distribution of illicit drugs. Click to read more
What was Web 2.0? Versions as the dominant mode of internet history, published in New Media and Society, is now available through Online First publication. This paper is one of several that I have written / am writing that attempt to explore the consequences for how we collectively ‘think’ the internet as a result of Web 2.0. Links here to the other posts. Click to read more
In this recent paper, published in Media International Australia, I argue that Web 2.0 cab be understood, not as a technology or practice, but as the marker of a discourse of historical interpretation dependent on versions, historicising the internet so that it is now understood as different from (and yet connected to) that of the 1990s. While Web 3.0, implied or real, suggests the ‘future’, it also marks out a loss of other times, or the possibility of alterity understood through temporality. Click to read more
Elaine Tay (Murdoch University) and I have recently published a second article on the use of wikis in higher education for developing better student learning. This article, in International Journal of ICT Education, presents research into the attitudes and behaviours of students using wikis for individual writing tasks. The wiki-based assignment differs from the use of wikis normally researched because it was an individual task, not involving collaborative writing. We conclude that using wikis for individual writing tasks can, where appropriate active instructions are given to support development of cognitive abilities, lead to improved outcomes for students. Click to read more
Marcus Foth and I have co-edited a special issue of Journal of Community Informatics focusing on the action research links between universities and communities. We explore some issues relating to the importance of conversation as the guiding principal for effective interaction in this domain. Link to full text available. Click to read more
Elaine Tay (Murdoch University) and I have just had published the first article on research we conducted into the use of wikis in a unit at Curtin University. Our paper shows how social media might be used effectively in higher education. We place into question the assumption that such technologies necessarily engage students in constructivist learning; we argue that the affordances of social media must be complemented by social affordances, designed into the learning experience, which thereby generate the necessary connection between students’ motivations to study and their motivations to exploit social media. We demonstrate, via the example given, how assessment structures and strategies are the most effective focus when attempting to create the pedagogical affordances that might lead to collaborative learning. Click to read more
This paper, designed for community and social activists (given as a keynote to the Making Links Conference in 2009), argues that we must look beyond network technologies as the easy solution to every problem, and focus instead on the human relationships which might be enabled by them. I continue, through experience and analysis, to be slightly cautious about the persistent enthusiasm to embrace technologies as answers deep questions of practical social development. Click to read more
A short paper and poster presented at the 7th International Conference on Networked Learning which summarises my views on networked learning in a knowledge network society; has a strong emphasis on the exploitation of Web 2.0. Click to read more
