Jonesieblog

I’ve been pondering over the last few days the extent to which the feeling around Web 2.0 reminds me of the feeling around the Web back in the mid ’90s when I first went online.

In fact, I’ve been trying to work out when I first saw a web site. It wasn’t so so early as to be particularly impressive – the browsers were Mosaic or Netscape, so I guess that puts it around 1995.

Anyway, back in those days, the world wide web was a place almost entirely free of commercial activity (apart from the “adult industry”, of course – they always seems to lead the way in the use of new technology!). It consisted of lots of web pages written by amateurs or academics. User generated content, you might say! It felt like suddenly anyone could publish to the world. Joe Random could, in 5 minutes, knock together a page that looked as good as any other page. They tended to look like this or this. There was no such profession as “web designer”.

Then, over the years, big business woke up to the possibilities of the Web, and bandwidth improved, making fancier graphical websites feasible. Eventually, it became difficult for Joe Random to produce a web page that didn’t look amateurish in comparison to commerically produced web sites. The Web didn’t feel like it belonged to us anymore.

And now we have Web 2.0. From my perspective, I couldn’t initially see what all the fuss was about. The Web has always been a place that I wrote to. But I realised as I reflected upon my history that most people joined in much later on, seeing the Web as a source of information that they consumed, rather than something they helped to create. For them, Web 2.0 does represent a renewal of the original purpose of the Web.

Of course there’s much more to Web 2.0 than user generated content – Web as platform, rss, folksonomy etc etc – I just couldn’t get why people were excited about being able to write on the Web. Now I do.

Stumble it!

Having suggested that we Glow mentors should get started without delay, I thought I’d better come up with a positive suggestion! So here’s a good one: if you haven’t already done so, read Coming of Age.

It’s a fascinating introduction to the educational possibilities of Web 2.0.

It’s homework for me, because I haven’t finished reading it yet!

Stumble it!

Hey – I just had a cup of tea in my freebie glow mug, which was black with a tiny glowscotland URL, and look what happened:
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Do I get a prize for being the first to blog this?

I laughed out loud, I must admit. I take back all the negative things I said – the Glow team have a wicked sense of humour – the dour mood at the conference was all just a set up for this glorious moment

Stumble it!

Well, after yesterday’s experiences at SETT, I had it in mind to write a blog post entitled “Glow vs Teachmeet06″. But now that I’m home, I discover that John@Sandaig has already written a post with this title here.

I feel rather more stongly than John about the difference between the two (either that or he’s more discrete than I am!). I think the Glow launch was a real let-down, for several reasons.

Firstly, it was obvious that Glow was supposed to be ready for launch at this event in some form, but it wasn’t. The overall feeling was of vapourware.

Secondly, nobody speaking on the stage seemed to be convincingly excited or passionate about what Glow is offering (although the dance performance was great fun). We saw the same old faces from Masterclass looking rather tired and stressed. No disrespect to them, but I think we need some fresh blood if Glow is going to have a real buzz about it (this is why I initially didn’t put myself forward as a Glow mentor). A critical moment as far as I am concerned was the point at which a speaker said “we will be in touch with you soon. We’ll be talking to your authorities to organise how that happens”. WHAT??? Digital immigrant thinking. Why not say “here’s the address of the Wiki”, “here’s the Google Group we’ve set up in the interim”, or even “please start blogging, and tag your posts ‘glowscotland’ so we can put together a feed”? Glow has potential, but I think that the really exciting stuff will happen outside Glow unless it can really pick up on the amazing stuff that’s going on right now.

Speaking of which, I saw the future at TeachMeet06 (good summary on David’s blog here). I saw passionate, convinced and convincing speakers who are actually walking the walk right now with classes, using Flickr, Second Life, blogging, podcasting, JumpCut etc etc.

To end on a positive note, if you are a Glow mentor – get blogging and tag it “glowscotland”. I look forward to entering into a dialogue with you directly. Why wait for LTS to catch up?

Stumble it!

Well do they? It is great to use blogs to share good practice, bounce ideas around and formulate new policies. But what about the negative stuff? There are many issues in a large organisation like mine (East Lothian Council) that might act to impede the development of effective learning and teaching. Is anyone brave enough to air such issues in a blog managed by their employer? Might they be in breach of their contracts of employment if they did? I have always been under the impressions that we are not allowed to go directly to the press with concerns. If not, will we really be allowed to air those concerns in such a public arena as Exc-el? What is more, should we be allowed to?

Now don’t get me wrong – I think Exc-el is a great tool, and the fact that blogs tend towards the positive is also good. It would be pretty pointless if it just became a place to moan. But without the ability to discuss the real nitty gritty of the problems we face, it runs the risk of just being a place to show-off and to dream.

To give you one example of the kind of thing I’m talking about, I read an East Lothian publication over the Summer that described a visit by the First Minister to see how PPP had gone. He described it as a resounding success and a model for other authorities to follow. How quickly we have forgotten this,this,this…
[rest of post self-censored to avoid risk of disciplinary action]

Stumble it!