Emerging Technologies in a Submerging Economy

The NITLE Instructional Technology Leaders Conference

--------------------Ursinus College March 27-29, 2009

The presentational plan

0. Intro• Social media• Mobility• Gaming and

virtual worlds

• Next?

•Updates•Options•Cost/benefit•Pedagogies and

other campus uses

•Imbrication

Principles of Forecasting (2001) (http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/methodologytree.html

)

Apprehending the futures

Web 2.0 in 2009

-growing in scale

-growing practices

(after Schmelling, http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2008/7/30schmelling.html)

“As of December 2008, 11% of online American adults said they used a service like Twitter or another service…” (Pew Internet and American Life)

comScore MediaMetrix (August 2008)

• Blogs: 77.7 million unique visitors in the US…

• Total internet audience 188.9 millioneMarketer (May 2008) o 94.1 million US blog readers in

2007 (50% of Internet users) o 22.6 million US bloggers in

2007 (12%)

David Sifry, September 2008; Juan Coleon the Colbert Report (http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/)

Universal McCann (March 2008)

• 184 million worldwide have started a blog | 26.4 US

• 346 million read blogs | 60.3 US

• 77% of active Internet users read blogs

David Sifry, September 2008; ScienceBlogs

(http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-

blogosphere/)

• How influential are blogs in the world?

World Information Access 2008 Reporthttp://www.wiareport.org/index.php/56/blogger-arrests

(first stat, Flickr blog, November 2008http://blog.flickr.net/en/2008/11/03/3-billion/;Second stat, Flickr CC search page, March 2009,http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ )

Social images are large• 3 billion+ photos in

Flickr• 4,230,432 -

32,170,657 shareable

• LinkedIn: 30 million users claimed

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/14/as-the-economy-sours-linkedins-popularity-grows/

(eMarketer, March 2009; Scott Sigler, 2008)

“There are currently 2,807,974 articles in the English Wikipedia.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_of_Wikipedia , March 2009)

YouTube nearly youbiquitous

Senate and House channels, January 2009http://www.physorg.com/news151139956.html

Facebook growth

• 175 million users • (When 200?

http://markets.nitle.org/markets/18734)

• Facebook continues to roar• The quiet war with Google• Also LinkedIn, Cyworld, etc.

(Comscore image, via http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/22/facebook-now-nearly-twice-the-size-of-myspace-worldwide/)

Social object: the person

Practices: data mashups, Web 2.0 as platform

• Open APIs• Access to data• “Mashup”

(AccessCeramics project, Lewis and Clark College)

• Programming staff• Perceived recognition

Keeping up

NITLE interest and program cloud, 2008

Practice: tag clouds

Classic forms developing

Diigo

Practices: years of edublogging

Selected, documented practices:

• Publish syllabus• Publish student

papers• Discussion• Journaling• Project blogs• Public scholarship

• Creative writing• Distributed seminars• Campus organizations• Prospective students• Library collections• Alumni relations• Project management• Liveblogging

What else? reexamine external hosting

More social object pedagogies

• Annotate details

• Remix (“Make it mine”)

Jason Mittell, Middlebury College, spring 2008

(http://justtv.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/teaching-technology-remix-video/)

Rutgers;University of Mary

Washington;http://

www.journalofamericanhistory.org/podcast/

Beyond the classroom

• accessCeramics, Lewis and Clark College

• 1000 images, February 2009 (http://accessceramics.blogspot.com/2009/02/today-is-big-milestone-as-weve-reached.html)

Options and possibilities

• RSS reading • Web 2.0 literacies

• More integration with other tools

• LMS• Professional

content

• Peak or ubiquity?http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/14/the-death-of-web-20/

What is “Web 3.0”?

Several models are in play:

• The 3-d Web• The Semantic Web• Web on mobile

devices• The social Web

(http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/googlescholar/archives/046534.html )

• Web 3D, virtual world as browser

(+) energetic .edu(-) market plateau(+) travel savings(-) support challenges

American Chemical Society, Second Life;Vivaty

Web 3D pedagogies• Virtual worlds• Teambuilding

…but market size problems

Second Life; Google Lively

II. Web 3.0?

Missie Wadlandis game, http://www.wadlandis.nl/

Google Earth-2d: KML-3d: Sketchup

Web 3D• Google

world as browser

Mirror worlds(David

Gelernter, 1991)

Google Earth• -2d: KML• -3d: Sketchup• -Geotagging

photos, videos

Web 3.0: the Semantic Web

Semantic tool in play: ClearForest Gnosis, FF plugin

Web 3.0: the Semantic Web

“Starting today, we're deploying a new technology that can better understand associations and concepts related to your search… For example, if you search for [principles of physics], our algorithms understand that "angular momentum," "special relativity," "big bang" and "quantum mechanic" are related terms that could help you find what you need.”

Google search adds semantics, March 2009

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/two-new-improvements-to-google-results.html

Uses in education in 2009

• Information Gathering• Information Handling• Information Publishing• Simulation• Experiments

(see also Ensemble project, http://www.ensemble.ac.uk/)

• Team Building• Computer Mediated

Discussion• Computer Mediated

Experimentation• Role Play• Content Creation• Content Annotation

SemTech presentation, London 2009http://www.semtech.ecs.soton.ac.uk/presentations/tt-

presentation.pdf

[summing up]

• See how campus population uses Web technologies: meet them where they live?

• Explore how outsourcing to Web 2.0 services works for other campuses, and your own campus

• Develop information/media literacy approaches across departments, disciplines

[summing up]

• Explore Web 2.0 affordances in other tools (ex: Scholar.com)

• Keep an eye out for emerging practices being used

• Watch Web 3.0 technologies as they emerge

Wireless and mobile devices:

On the way to

ubiquitous

computing

Devices

Kindle; Asus Eee PC(latter image from http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4247009.html )

LiveScribe; HP executives

conducting themselves poorly

Devices

manu contreras

Devices

I. Hardware

• Audio recorders• Personal response systems

Cogdog, http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/NPR, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101343866

One way of looking at it

All of Web 2.0, just more so• Ambient• Accelerating • Annotating

Funeral of pope John Paul, AP

I. Hardware

• New storytelling forms emerge

The American exception, -2008

(Found on BBC site, June 2005)

• PC ownership rate

• Land lines• Network

interop issues• Expectations …then

Blackberry and iPhone

Pedagogies

Capture and/or present

• Image• Video • Audio• Text

(GIPSY program, VU-SPINlab, 2005Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam )

More: students researching

• Googling on demand• Local digital

resources• Queries to colleagues,

experts, faculty, librarians

• Best practice, scribes: more than 1, fewer than all

Assignment in class: quick finding of facts (Randy Stakeman, Colby, NITLE emerging technology workshop, 2009)

Pedagogies

Learning spaces

In the classroom • one leading pilot

space for wireless

• mode: lecture/lab

Campus• other sites: library,

residence hall• new learning

spaces• chunks of campus

Pedagogies

Volokh Conspiracy blog, April 2007

External world• increasingly

reachable, present

• world as syllabus, research field

Annotated space• writing to removed

units• writing to space,

augmenting reality (classic: Spohrer's "Information in Places")

• spatial information: 34 North 118 West

Mobile study journaling

John Schott, Carleton College, 2006

Mobile phones and multimedia

(http://www.mobiquran.com)

Mobile (re)publishing

(http://www.mobiquran.com)

Mobile (re)publishing

Threats

Problem devices• Small screens• Tricky input• Different

interfaces

That privacy issue

Multitasking• threats:

distraction, wandering index/stimulus

• generational issue• practice: shells

down, machines open

Campus life changes• Informal learning• Social organizations alter timing and

location?• Emergency alerts (voluntary)

[summing up]

• Consider low-cost devices and apps• Assess where campus population is

using information • Where does more mobility mean

more value from digital infrastructure?

Gaming and virtual worlds• The form and industry continues to

develop and grow• Pedagogical uses unfolding• Liberal arts campus cases and

community

Diversity of game genres American teenagers, Pew Internet,

2008

• Oiligarchy, Molle Industries• DimensionM, Tabula Digita

• Jetset, Persuasive Games

Pedagogical functions

James Paul Gee• Claims games offer

pedagogical experiences (2003ff)

Other experts follow suit:• Marc Presnsky• Henry Jenkins• John Seely Brown• Mia Consalvo• Constance

Steinkuehler• Kurt Squire

Sample pedagogical principles:

• Semiotic domains; transference

• Embodied action and feedback

• Projective identity• Edging the regime of

competence (Vygotsky)• Probe-reprobe cycle• Social learning (roles;

consumption-production)

• “Fish tank” tutorial• Strategic self-

assessment

Example: multimedia literacies“…within games, there are in fact multitudes of

literacy practices – games are full of text, she asserted, to say nothing of the entirely text-based fandom communities online that take place in forums, blogs and social networks.”

Constance Steinkuehler,FuturePlay 2007, Toronto

Quoted in

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=16264

Another summary

Jason Mittell, MiddleburyCollege: games are platforms for learning…• Skills • Simulations• Politics (criticism, activism)• Media studies (psych, cultural

studies, media)– NITLE brownbag, January 2008

How is gaming used now?Classroom and courses• Curriculum content• Delivery mechanism• Creating games

Chris Fee, Gettysburg College;

Christian Spielvogel, Hope College

Game studies

• Serious Games• Conferences• Scholarly articles and books (MIT

Press)• Games Learning Society conference,

http://www.glsconference.org/2008/index.html

Scholarship

•Harry J.Brown, Videogames and education (2008).•Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, eds. Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives (2009).

Game studies

How is gaming used now?Librari

es• Collec

tions• Game

night

Some concerns

• Media effect (violence)

• Transfer across domains, platforms

• “Simulation gap”• Subjectivity and

assessment• behaviorism

versus constructivism Image from Scot Osterweil, presentation to

Learning from Video Games: Designing Digital Curriculums (NERCOMP SIG , 2007)

Liberal arts uses• Gettysburg, Hope,

Depauw

More current options

Already in use elsewhere:•Machinima for video

production•Students making games

(constructivism, collaboration)•Information/media fluency

curricula

• Explore no- and low-cost games

Inform 7, free IF editor(Richard Liston, Ursinus College, classroom example 2008)

[summing up]

•Learn from current projects and research

•Shared collections: objects and reference

Build the value proposition for emerging tech

Or, where does ET phone home?• Assessment (curriculum)• Other campus benefits

– Admissions, alumni• Participation in the world

Use the networks

• Exploit new tools to learn about new tools

• Stalk friends and strangers• Work the old pathways, too -

“talking”, “books”

Keep an eye on the world:Changed.gov

Keep an eye on the world:North Dakota

“Social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have become vital tools for volunteers as they wage a desperate, round-the-clock battle to protect Fargo from the river and spread the word about rising floodwaters.

“Oftentimes, the government Web sites and phone lines are overloaded and don’t have the capacity to answer all the queries,” said Jeannette Sutton, a University of Colorado sociologist who has researched the use of social networking in emergencies.

“A site like Facebook is so robust, it has the strength to support this kind of usage,” she said.”

“Fargo uses social networks to fight floodwaters”Associated Press, March 27 2009

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