Showing posts with label affordances. Show all posts
Showing posts with label affordances. Show all posts
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Introducing the 'Coding index for Social Media Use 4'.
Written for researchers interested in the ICT Access and Use project's coding indices development.
After reviewing first year students' initial and second interviews in the fourth phase of the ICT Access and Use project, Laura Czerniewicz and I have prepared a fourth index to code conversations in which the following themes were discussed:
After reviewing first year students' initial and second interviews in the fourth phase of the ICT Access and Use project, Laura Czerniewicz and I have prepared a fourth index to code conversations in which the following themes were discussed:
- Representations of self;
- Friendships and social media;
- Social media affordances;
- Personal social media rules;
- Students’ feelings in relation to social media;
- Other roles of social media.
These discussions are outside the scope of the previous coding indices, which looked at students' past, current and future use of ICT.
In this posting, I describe the codes we decided on, their definitions, and then provide some examples of each code.
1. Representations of self.
Students spoke about how they chose to represent themselves online as themselves (their real names), using personas or with fake identities:
4.1 Identity representation
In this posting, I describe the codes we decided on, their definitions, and then provide some examples of each code.
1. Representations of self.
Students spoke about how they chose to represent themselves online as themselves (their real names), using personas or with fake identities:
4.1 Identity representation
This is about stating who they are online, who they represented themselves to be, literally.
Not all students used a 'genuine identity' online, but some chose an online profile type that was a 'persona' or even 'fake identity' online. Three examples were:
4.12 Type of username
The naming convention students used in selecting usernames would follow from their choice of identity. Most used some variation of their first and last names, while others chose a 'pseudonym': a pseudonym is different from a fake name as there is often a link between it and one's real name. Two examples of pseudonym use were:
4.13 Self disclosure
Another aspect of self-representation lay in the degree to which students were prepared to share the information they publish to social networks with all of its members or select groups of members. Student S was very selective about the people she chose to be her Facebook friends and said that she was comfortable with being very personal on it, because; 'For the people that are on Facebook, I feel as if I can share anything'. It is likely that she would not choose to limit the information that her Facebook friends could see by specifying a "limited profile view" for some groups of them.
By contrast, a researcher commented that she would not allow her parents to be Facebook friends with her. However, now that she could use Facebook's 'limited profile view' option for them, she might as she could then share select updates with her parents. Student R described the importance of knowing what your social network audience might see with the example of how a former high school prefect left his school and then his homosexuality was 'outed' by “Facebook Friends” who had used the photograph tagging functionality to identify him in gay bars.
Another aspect of self-disclosure is whether students allow their information on social networks to be searchable in these services' local search engines and/or external ones. The coding "Search settings for the Web 4.13.2" was added to cover instances where this was discussed.
2. Friendships and social media.
Not all students used a 'genuine identity' online, but some chose an online profile type that was a 'persona' or even 'fake identity' online. Three examples were:
- Student V used his “real” profile to publish writing on fanstory.com.
- Student O used another name (or persona) when she published her online diary to wattpad.com, as she did not want her intimate thoughts traced back to her by those who could recognise her handwriting.
- Student S and her best friend used a fake profile of a handsome guy to stalk prospective boyfriends' other potential girlfriends on facebook.com.
4.12 Type of username
The naming convention students used in selecting usernames would follow from their choice of identity. Most used some variation of their first and last names, while others chose a 'pseudonym': a pseudonym is different from a fake name as there is often a link between it and one's real name. Two examples of pseudonym use were:
- Student S' last name is an isiXhosa one, but she chose an English pseudonym at University that was easy for non-Xhosa speakers to use and remember.
- For his Facebook account, Student V uses a nickname of a film character he was given by his school friends and has not changed it as he believes that his friends would search for him using it.
4.13 Self disclosure
Another aspect of self-representation lay in the degree to which students were prepared to share the information they publish to social networks with all of its members or select groups of members. Student S was very selective about the people she chose to be her Facebook friends and said that she was comfortable with being very personal on it, because; 'For the people that are on Facebook, I feel as if I can share anything'. It is likely that she would not choose to limit the information that her Facebook friends could see by specifying a "limited profile view" for some groups of them.
By contrast, a researcher commented that she would not allow her parents to be Facebook friends with her. However, now that she could use Facebook's 'limited profile view' option for them, she might as she could then share select updates with her parents. Student R described the importance of knowing what your social network audience might see with the example of how a former high school prefect left his school and then his homosexuality was 'outed' by “Facebook Friends” who had used the photograph tagging functionality to identify him in gay bars.
Another aspect of self-disclosure is whether students allow their information on social networks to be searchable in these services' local search engines and/or external ones. The coding "Search settings for the Web 4.13.2" was added to cover instances where this was discussed.
2. Friendships and social media.
Students described the relationships between their face -to-face friendships and those existing online in these relatively open-ended codings:
4.21 Face-to-face versus online friendships
This code addresses the value students perceive online friendships to have, and how “real” they perceive them to be. Some students, like Student R, expressed a 'preference for face-to-face contact'. He would prefer someone to get to know him face-to-face than via his profile, 'The profile is an extension of oneself; it is still really important to be in touch with the real person. Facebook gives you many links and you can communicate with someone that is far away, but if you make Facebook your reality, then you sort of lose touch with actually sitting down and just having a glass of wine with someone and just chatting.'
A few students described the 'benefits of online friendships'. For example, Student K said that he believed his online friendships are real. There are people that he feels he can talk to and share with. There are other people that really encourage him. He felt that the relationships are realistic, rather than virtual. Student N said that she goes onto the internet to relieve her stress during her exams. When she relieves her stress, she does talk about the exams a lot with her friends on Facebook.
4.22 Friendship types by contact type
This coding covers the types of friends a student has on Facebook and on other types of social networks. For example, Student S said that only her closest friends and family are on BBM, while most of her friends are on Facebook and anyone can follow her on Twitter. So different levels of closeness are associated with different social networks.
4.23 Online social capital and self-esteem
This coding covers student feedback on the importance that online activities play in developing their social capital and self-esteem. Some students commented that when they joined Facebook, they felt under pressure to have 1,000 friends or more, to match their peers. Student K said that most people at are at the stage where he was on Facebook, when he first started. He noticed that many people had 1000 friends and he had a few, which he thought was a crisis. So, he went to Facebook pages that allow one to easily find new friends. He would go onto these pages and write 'Hi, just add me as a friend.' Then his Aunt told him, 'For real now, you need real friends, it's not cool to have many friends; who you don't know, who don't care and you won't even talk to.'
4.24 Types of exclusion
This coding deals with the extent to which students feel included or excluded from particular social networks due to them not having access to particular tools. A common example for South African students is those who do not have Blackberry phones and therefore feel left out of BBM conversations between their face-to-face friends.
3. Social media affordances.
A category for social media (software) affordances is useful to code student discussions about the distinct affordances that social media provides them. Since the most commonly discussed social networks were MXit, Facebook, Twitter and Google+, the categories reflect this by covering:
4.31 Facebook status updates
This code covers the types of updates students made as well as the reasons for the updates.
Many students spoke about their use of Facebook's status 'update' affordance and described the frequency with which they made updates. Student S said that on Facebook, you cannot have five status updates back-to-back as you need to give time for friends to comment. She normally updates her status on Facebook at least once every two days
Students also spoke about the reasons for updates. For example, Student K uses his updates for religious purposes; he comments on the challenges that people face and testifies on what God is doing for them.
The type of Facebook status update feedback they desired was also discussed; Student V, wanted his 'Facebook friends' to discuss the updates he made, as he is a lyricist and interested in what people think of the thoughtful updates he wrote.
4.33 Facebook: number of friends
This code deals with the number of friends affordance and the meaning this has for students.
As a 'social network' software, Facebook offers the affordance of allowing its users to view their friend's social networks or those which users have not set to be private. It also provides the total number of a user's "Facebook friends". Student Y wrote that she has 900 friends on Facebook, which came about, because she went on exchange. She met many groups on rotation. There are also family, friends and South Africans on exchange everywhere else. She emphasised that this was not by 'accept', 'accept', 'accept'!
4.34 Lists and circles
This code deals with the role that “friends’ lists” plays, either in Facebook (lists) or in Google + (Circles). Facebook offers an affordance for users to create "friend lists" and manage which lists get to view a user's updates. In speaking about how Student O's friendships online could be sustained, she stated that the fact that you are 'on their list, or that they are on hers, shows that you consider each other friends'. Even though you don't communicate with people often, you can still use the 'Family', group views. People will ask questions and one still feels that they are part of your life.
Google+, the social network that pioneered the concept of lists, shapes these as 'circles'. Student S spoke about this affordance, saying: In Facebook, Google+ believes that this is an add-on, while in their service one has to choose who one shares content with. You have "Circles"; a work circle, then school, then family. You separate (your contacts into) these groups and when you share something you can tick who you do, and don't, want to share with. People do not know what Circles you put them in.
4.35 Twitter affordances
This code looks specifically at how students understand Twitter affordances, and how they perceive these affordances to be different to other social media. While Facebook offers the affordance of 'friending' other users which they may approve or decline, Twitter offers "following", which is automatically accepted. Whilst "tweeting" is similar to updates, this does have its own syntax and benefits. Students discussed these affordances, for example. In discussing the merits of Twitter versus Facebook, Student R said that at least on Twitter, the people that he is following and the tweets that they put out are basically what he is looking at. So, at least he is following it, and it's not a lot of nonsense that one is not looking for (like on Facebook). By contrast, Student K stated that he finds Twitter "a bit dry" and prefers Facebook as you can see his profile and "meet me", while with Twitter, you just see who a person corresponds with, but do not get a good idea of what is going on.
4.36 MXit affordances
This code looks specifically at how students understand MXit affordances, and how they perceive these affordances to be different to other social media. Popular because of MXit's affordance of free messaging, this service was spoken about by Student R, who said that part of the reason that got him off MXit is that when you logon, there is probably a group of people he wants to chat to, but when you show that you are online, you get all these random messages. He related this to his concerns around asynchronous messaging: he has never really liked the realtime conversation where it is just all at once, and one has to do a relay; from someone to someone, come back... answer, answer, come back. It is too dispersed for him and he finds it difficult to follow these conversations.
4. Personal social media rules.
Some students spoke about developing rules that they used to govern when, where and how they would access social networks. For example, Student S said that she 'has her own rules for the different social networks'; there was a stage on Facebook when she would accept all friend requests and it reached a stage where she got to 1,500 friends. But they were all commenting on her wall, commenting on her personal pictures and asking her personal questions and she did not like this at all. So, she decided to clean up her Facebook and she would only have people that she knew personally; from primary school, high school or university. Not someone that she has never met before.
These codes are the indicators of the different social media rules:
4.41 Information flow control between services
In theory, students can publish a new tweet, blog post, picture, et al. and share this information after linking these services within their social media accounts (for example, this blog post is tweeted about via my Twitter account and that tweet is then published to my Facebook feed). This coding tracks student mentions of this practice.
4.42 Student media management
This coding is used where students speak about managing the types of media they select for publication to social media services. For example, Student S stated that when she updates Facebook it is for an audience. She always says, if you have a picture, keep it, why put it on Facebook? She only puts it up on Facebook if she wants other people to comment, so it's definitely for other people, to get their attention. Another example is Student R who spoke about regularly updating his profile; he had stages where he wants to update everything on his profile. When he sees a new movie that he likes, he will go under under information and add it. The latest thing he has done was with his CVs, he just went it to re-shuffle them around as he likes to place them in order of importance. He was having quite a bit of a Gossip Girl prediction. So he did not quite revamp it, you can see the influcence coming in as these characters pop-up. His profile will start to reflect what is going on in his life; before this his statuses were like about Vampire Diaries, his profile picture, his information reflected what he watches and stuff. This has become like a part of him and he updates it as he goes along; very regularly.
4.43 Social media terms of use
This code refers to student mention and understanding of social media terms of use; different terms of use apply to different social media services. For example, some will retain copyright of the material users submit, while others will share copyright or leave it as the users. When asked 'How does it work, in terms of copyright, do you know? Do you have any functions, settings or stuff? Or, do you basically go on the idea that somebody else is a writer and will respect your...)' Student V replied, 'The thing is that I have not checked it out. I have just been, like WOW!, 'writing site', bam, thrown it on there. And because there are so many people, I assume that the copyright means you get to keep your own work. Especially, because you can actually sell your work through this site.'
4.44 Privacy
This code deals with mentions of privacy and privacy settings on social media. Students described their perceptions of the privacy controls that social network software afforded them. Student S said when she first used Facebook, her profile was open and there were not as many privacy control settings. Now, if you go on, you will just see her name and what she is studying; no photos, most of her wall is 'off'.
Students discussed their concerns about privacy issues. Student S stated that she is big on 'Facebook stalking' other people. She knows that other people will stalk her and she does not want strangers to have access to her personal information.
It also includes students' descriptions of being searchable (or unsearchable) on a particular service or external ones. For example, if they talk about selecting settings on social media services that would make their profile searchable via that service and other search engines.
5. Student feelings in relation to social media
This cluster of codes refers to spoke about students feelings about or 'relationship' to one, or more, social media services. It was clear from the interviews that students form a relationship with different types of social media. There is at times a kind of personification happening.
4.51 Relationship to a social media service
For an example of a relationship to Facebook, Student S said that she definitely feels that because Facebook is so personal to her, that when they (Facebook) make a change to it, she feels like they are messing with her (personal) space!
4.52 Rationale and benefits of a social media service
Students did talk about their reasons for using specific social media services and their benefits. Student N said that Facebook was useful for support during University exams: She does feel that because all of her friends are in the same boat, that she gets support. One of her friends is writing and he also does Economics, so, you know, he was telling her the other day "you know, you better read...". So, it helps to know that there is someone going through what you are going through, not to just tell someone you are learning for exams and "Sorry, it will all work out". It helps a lot.
4.53 Understanding of services' use of personal data
Students could also describe their understanding of how social media services used their data:
For instance, Student K said that he was doing a course called 'Evidence-Based Management' in which they spoke about Facebook and Google. On Facebook, its Privacy Terms & Conditions state that you must update your account within 18 months or it will be terminated. So, they always want you update your infromation as they are making money off your profile and one's account details are provided to advertisers and they are making a lot of money from us using it.
4.54 Termination of service
A few students spoke about terminating their social media membership. Student S wrote that there was a time in the holidays that she was 'hating Facebook' and even deleted it for a couple of days. Facebook can be a way for people to ignore you; so she was not getting many wall-posts, she was updating her wall, saying things in status updates, but no-one was commenting. She felt a bit ignored, so she deleted Facebook. She got angry at it. Student K wrote that he wanted to 'stay away from Facebook for ever'; he finds Facebook draining as he was addicted to it. He would wake up with Facebook and go to sleep with Facebook. He wasted a lot of time on it; it has many applications and he received many invitations from dating sites which sent you profiles every day to your email. He needed space, so he stopped for three weeks and deleted his profile.
6. Other roles of social media
Code 5 covers the examples which emerged which demonstrated other roles played by social media in students’ lives.
One example is Student R, who spoke of the school that he went to, about 150 years old and tradition means a lot. One of the traditions was that prefects could lash their skivvies. Obviously now in modern times, this is counted as assault, so it was banned. However, it was happening behind closed doors. Someone had taken a video (of a beating), whatnot, and had threatened to go to Carte Blanche. The head boy was de-prefected, but then the rest of the prefects-body threatened to throw their badges away and there was this huge drama. This found its way onto Facebook and then the school said they would block Facebook and if you wanted to use it, you must go off campus. As a border, being at school during the week, there was not much Student R could then do with Facebook.
Hopefully, this introduction to the index is so thorough that you don't have any questions :) ! If not, please add yours as a comment below, thanks.
4.21 Face-to-face versus online friendships
This code addresses the value students perceive online friendships to have, and how “real” they perceive them to be. Some students, like Student R, expressed a 'preference for face-to-face contact'. He would prefer someone to get to know him face-to-face than via his profile, 'The profile is an extension of oneself; it is still really important to be in touch with the real person. Facebook gives you many links and you can communicate with someone that is far away, but if you make Facebook your reality, then you sort of lose touch with actually sitting down and just having a glass of wine with someone and just chatting.'
A few students described the 'benefits of online friendships'. For example, Student K said that he believed his online friendships are real. There are people that he feels he can talk to and share with. There are other people that really encourage him. He felt that the relationships are realistic, rather than virtual. Student N said that she goes onto the internet to relieve her stress during her exams. When she relieves her stress, she does talk about the exams a lot with her friends on Facebook.
4.22 Friendship types by contact type
This coding covers the types of friends a student has on Facebook and on other types of social networks. For example, Student S said that only her closest friends and family are on BBM, while most of her friends are on Facebook and anyone can follow her on Twitter. So different levels of closeness are associated with different social networks.
4.23 Online social capital and self-esteem
This coding covers student feedback on the importance that online activities play in developing their social capital and self-esteem. Some students commented that when they joined Facebook, they felt under pressure to have 1,000 friends or more, to match their peers. Student K said that most people at are at the stage where he was on Facebook, when he first started. He noticed that many people had 1000 friends and he had a few, which he thought was a crisis. So, he went to Facebook pages that allow one to easily find new friends. He would go onto these pages and write 'Hi, just add me as a friend.' Then his Aunt told him, 'For real now, you need real friends, it's not cool to have many friends; who you don't know, who don't care and you won't even talk to.'
4.24 Types of exclusion
This coding deals with the extent to which students feel included or excluded from particular social networks due to them not having access to particular tools. A common example for South African students is those who do not have Blackberry phones and therefore feel left out of BBM conversations between their face-to-face friends.
3. Social media affordances.
A category for social media (software) affordances is useful to code student discussions about the distinct affordances that social media provides them. Since the most commonly discussed social networks were MXit, Facebook, Twitter and Google+, the categories reflect this by covering:
4.31 Facebook status updates
This code covers the types of updates students made as well as the reasons for the updates.
Many students spoke about their use of Facebook's status 'update' affordance and described the frequency with which they made updates. Student S said that on Facebook, you cannot have five status updates back-to-back as you need to give time for friends to comment. She normally updates her status on Facebook at least once every two days
Students also spoke about the reasons for updates. For example, Student K uses his updates for religious purposes; he comments on the challenges that people face and testifies on what God is doing for them.
The type of Facebook status update feedback they desired was also discussed; Student V, wanted his 'Facebook friends' to discuss the updates he made, as he is a lyricist and interested in what people think of the thoughtful updates he wrote.
4.33 Facebook: number of friends
This code deals with the number of friends affordance and the meaning this has for students.
As a 'social network' software, Facebook offers the affordance of allowing its users to view their friend's social networks or those which users have not set to be private. It also provides the total number of a user's "Facebook friends". Student Y wrote that she has 900 friends on Facebook, which came about, because she went on exchange. She met many groups on rotation. There are also family, friends and South Africans on exchange everywhere else. She emphasised that this was not by 'accept', 'accept', 'accept'!
4.34 Lists and circles
This code deals with the role that “friends’ lists” plays, either in Facebook (lists) or in Google + (Circles). Facebook offers an affordance for users to create "friend lists" and manage which lists get to view a user's updates. In speaking about how Student O's friendships online could be sustained, she stated that the fact that you are 'on their list, or that they are on hers, shows that you consider each other friends'. Even though you don't communicate with people often, you can still use the 'Family', group views. People will ask questions and one still feels that they are part of your life.
Google+, the social network that pioneered the concept of lists, shapes these as 'circles'. Student S spoke about this affordance, saying: In Facebook, Google+ believes that this is an add-on, while in their service one has to choose who one shares content with. You have "Circles"; a work circle, then school, then family. You separate (your contacts into) these groups and when you share something you can tick who you do, and don't, want to share with. People do not know what Circles you put them in.
4.35 Twitter affordances
This code looks specifically at how students understand Twitter affordances, and how they perceive these affordances to be different to other social media. While Facebook offers the affordance of 'friending' other users which they may approve or decline, Twitter offers "following", which is automatically accepted. Whilst "tweeting" is similar to updates, this does have its own syntax and benefits. Students discussed these affordances, for example. In discussing the merits of Twitter versus Facebook, Student R said that at least on Twitter, the people that he is following and the tweets that they put out are basically what he is looking at. So, at least he is following it, and it's not a lot of nonsense that one is not looking for (like on Facebook). By contrast, Student K stated that he finds Twitter "a bit dry" and prefers Facebook as you can see his profile and "meet me", while with Twitter, you just see who a person corresponds with, but do not get a good idea of what is going on.
4.36 MXit affordances
This code looks specifically at how students understand MXit affordances, and how they perceive these affordances to be different to other social media. Popular because of MXit's affordance of free messaging, this service was spoken about by Student R, who said that part of the reason that got him off MXit is that when you logon, there is probably a group of people he wants to chat to, but when you show that you are online, you get all these random messages. He related this to his concerns around asynchronous messaging: he has never really liked the realtime conversation where it is just all at once, and one has to do a relay; from someone to someone, come back... answer, answer, come back. It is too dispersed for him and he finds it difficult to follow these conversations.
4. Personal social media rules.
Some students spoke about developing rules that they used to govern when, where and how they would access social networks. For example, Student S said that she 'has her own rules for the different social networks'; there was a stage on Facebook when she would accept all friend requests and it reached a stage where she got to 1,500 friends. But they were all commenting on her wall, commenting on her personal pictures and asking her personal questions and she did not like this at all. So, she decided to clean up her Facebook and she would only have people that she knew personally; from primary school, high school or university. Not someone that she has never met before.
These codes are the indicators of the different social media rules:
4.41 Information flow control between services
In theory, students can publish a new tweet, blog post, picture, et al. and share this information after linking these services within their social media accounts (for example, this blog post is tweeted about via my Twitter account and that tweet is then published to my Facebook feed). This coding tracks student mentions of this practice.
4.42 Student media management
This coding is used where students speak about managing the types of media they select for publication to social media services. For example, Student S stated that when she updates Facebook it is for an audience. She always says, if you have a picture, keep it, why put it on Facebook? She only puts it up on Facebook if she wants other people to comment, so it's definitely for other people, to get their attention. Another example is Student R who spoke about regularly updating his profile; he had stages where he wants to update everything on his profile. When he sees a new movie that he likes, he will go under under information and add it. The latest thing he has done was with his CVs, he just went it to re-shuffle them around as he likes to place them in order of importance. He was having quite a bit of a Gossip Girl prediction. So he did not quite revamp it, you can see the influcence coming in as these characters pop-up. His profile will start to reflect what is going on in his life; before this his statuses were like about Vampire Diaries, his profile picture, his information reflected what he watches and stuff. This has become like a part of him and he updates it as he goes along; very regularly.
4.43 Social media terms of use
This code refers to student mention and understanding of social media terms of use; different terms of use apply to different social media services. For example, some will retain copyright of the material users submit, while others will share copyright or leave it as the users. When asked 'How does it work, in terms of copyright, do you know? Do you have any functions, settings or stuff? Or, do you basically go on the idea that somebody else is a writer and will respect your...)' Student V replied, 'The thing is that I have not checked it out. I have just been, like WOW!, 'writing site', bam, thrown it on there. And because there are so many people, I assume that the copyright means you get to keep your own work. Especially, because you can actually sell your work through this site.'
4.44 Privacy
This code deals with mentions of privacy and privacy settings on social media. Students described their perceptions of the privacy controls that social network software afforded them. Student S said when she first used Facebook, her profile was open and there were not as many privacy control settings. Now, if you go on, you will just see her name and what she is studying; no photos, most of her wall is 'off'.
Students discussed their concerns about privacy issues. Student S stated that she is big on 'Facebook stalking' other people. She knows that other people will stalk her and she does not want strangers to have access to her personal information.
It also includes students' descriptions of being searchable (or unsearchable) on a particular service or external ones. For example, if they talk about selecting settings on social media services that would make their profile searchable via that service and other search engines.
5. Student feelings in relation to social media
This cluster of codes refers to spoke about students feelings about or 'relationship' to one, or more, social media services. It was clear from the interviews that students form a relationship with different types of social media. There is at times a kind of personification happening.
4.51 Relationship to a social media service
For an example of a relationship to Facebook, Student S said that she definitely feels that because Facebook is so personal to her, that when they (Facebook) make a change to it, she feels like they are messing with her (personal) space!
4.52 Rationale and benefits of a social media service
Students did talk about their reasons for using specific social media services and their benefits. Student N said that Facebook was useful for support during University exams: She does feel that because all of her friends are in the same boat, that she gets support. One of her friends is writing and he also does Economics, so, you know, he was telling her the other day "you know, you better read...". So, it helps to know that there is someone going through what you are going through, not to just tell someone you are learning for exams and "Sorry, it will all work out". It helps a lot.
4.53 Understanding of services' use of personal data
Students could also describe their understanding of how social media services used their data:
For instance, Student K said that he was doing a course called 'Evidence-Based Management' in which they spoke about Facebook and Google. On Facebook, its Privacy Terms & Conditions state that you must update your account within 18 months or it will be terminated. So, they always want you update your infromation as they are making money off your profile and one's account details are provided to advertisers and they are making a lot of money from us using it.
4.54 Termination of service
A few students spoke about terminating their social media membership. Student S wrote that there was a time in the holidays that she was 'hating Facebook' and even deleted it for a couple of days. Facebook can be a way for people to ignore you; so she was not getting many wall-posts, she was updating her wall, saying things in status updates, but no-one was commenting. She felt a bit ignored, so she deleted Facebook. She got angry at it. Student K wrote that he wanted to 'stay away from Facebook for ever'; he finds Facebook draining as he was addicted to it. He would wake up with Facebook and go to sleep with Facebook. He wasted a lot of time on it; it has many applications and he received many invitations from dating sites which sent you profiles every day to your email. He needed space, so he stopped for three weeks and deleted his profile.
6. Other roles of social media
Code 5 covers the examples which emerged which demonstrated other roles played by social media in students’ lives.
One example is Student R, who spoke of the school that he went to, about 150 years old and tradition means a lot. One of the traditions was that prefects could lash their skivvies. Obviously now in modern times, this is counted as assault, so it was banned. However, it was happening behind closed doors. Someone had taken a video (of a beating), whatnot, and had threatened to go to Carte Blanche. The head boy was de-prefected, but then the rest of the prefects-body threatened to throw their badges away and there was this huge drama. This found its way onto Facebook and then the school said they would block Facebook and if you wanted to use it, you must go off campus. As a border, being at school during the week, there was not much Student R could then do with Facebook.
Hopefully, this introduction to the index is so thorough that you don't have any questions :) ! If not, please add yours as a comment below, thanks.
Friday, 9 March 2012
Create a comprehensive arts portfolio online via multiple presences.
Written for Visual Arts students interested in digitising and publishing a comprehensive record of their artworks online and for the educators helping them.
The good news is that your Visual Arts educator has helped you to develop a showcase electronic learning portfolio (e-portfolio): in my research project, its two educators chose Carbonmade, because it met these criteria. The service suits the pedagogical aims in South African Visual Arts well, where a portfolio of 35 images is often more than sufficient to cover the learner's body of work for an end-of-year (matric) exhibition, as well as tertiary education applications.
The bad news is that the teachers' online portfolio choice seemed to learners to limit them to publishing 35 images online, thereby preventing the publication of their complete oeuvre! In response, an educator highlighted that learners are not limited to using Carbonmade and should consider creating presences with other services to publish the remainder of their artworks. Students could then create reciprocal links between these services to make them easy for Carbonmade's viewers to find; this is a common practice in the profiles of artists with featured portfolios. To help you identify a service you might want to use, I have listed the four commonly linked types, below:
1. An addition to the Social Network presence you already use
(Popular examples: Facebook Pages and Google+)
The impressionist painter, Valérie Pirlot, provides links to many sites, which include online presences; her blog, Flickr account and a Facebook page, galleries; the Saatchi and Victoria Art, and an academy; the Royal West of England Academy.
The value of featuring all these links is that viewers can select specific aspects of her work that they are interested in viewing. It is also testifies to her professional status and the galleries and academy she associates with.
As a learner, you may already have a Facebook account and creating a Facebook page where you upload your artworks should have the benefits of being very convenient, whilst making it easy to share with your Facebook friends.
Google account holders users should consider using Google+. If your digitized artworks are well-labelled, this may have the benefit of producing better ranked search engine results on the world's most popular search engine, relative to other services.
2. A Photo Sharing Presence
(Popular examples: Flickr, Picasa)
(Popular examples: Blogger and WordPress)
Science fiction concept artist, Marek Tarnawski, provides a link to his blog http://farvus-craft.blogspot.com. His blog was created with Blogger, but you could consider using WordPress or other popular blogging software.
The benefit of choosing to blog for you could include:
4. Another Online Portfolio Service Presence
(Popular examples: behance.net, cghub.com)
Carbonmade is just one of many other online portfolio software services focussed on enabling creatives to publish their online portfolios. Each service provides a distinct combination of affordances to cater for the type of creatives they serve; so it's important to define what you may need before selecting one.
For example, CGHub promotes itself as "an online community where computer graphics artists share their latest work, tips, and tools, network with friends, search jobs, and more." So, if you want to improve your computer graphics skills, this may be useful to join. However, if you want to interact with creative professionals outside of computer graphics illustration and want the best visibility of your online portfolio, you should consider using behance.net.
I hope that this overview was useful for you. If there is a type of service I have missed, please mention it in the comment box below. Or if you have any other guidance, please do share. Thanks!
The good news is that your Visual Arts educator has helped you to develop a showcase electronic learning portfolio (e-portfolio): in my research project, its two educators chose Carbonmade, because it met these criteria. The service suits the pedagogical aims in South African Visual Arts well, where a portfolio of 35 images is often more than sufficient to cover the learner's body of work for an end-of-year (matric) exhibition, as well as tertiary education applications.
The bad news is that the teachers' online portfolio choice seemed to learners to limit them to publishing 35 images online, thereby preventing the publication of their complete oeuvre! In response, an educator highlighted that learners are not limited to using Carbonmade and should consider creating presences with other services to publish the remainder of their artworks. Students could then create reciprocal links between these services to make them easy for Carbonmade's viewers to find; this is a common practice in the profiles of artists with featured portfolios. To help you identify a service you might want to use, I have listed the four commonly linked types, below:
1. An addition to the Social Network presence you already use
(Popular examples: Facebook Pages and Google+)
The impressionist painter, Valérie Pirlot, provides links to many sites, which include online presences; her blog, Flickr account and a Facebook page, galleries; the Saatchi and Victoria Art, and an academy; the Royal West of England Academy.
The value of featuring all these links is that viewers can select specific aspects of her work that they are interested in viewing. It is also testifies to her professional status and the galleries and academy she associates with.
As a learner, you may already have a Facebook account and creating a Facebook page where you upload your artworks should have the benefits of being very convenient, whilst making it easy to share with your Facebook friends.
 |
| Valérie Pirlot's Facebook Page (8 March 2012) |
 |
| Leodor Selenier's Google+ page (8 March 2012) |
2. A Photo Sharing Presence
(Popular examples: Flickr, Picasa)
There are many photo sharing sites listed on Wikipedia and in Valérie's example, she chose Flickr. To learners, the benefit of choosing this service, or similar, includes:
- There is a relatively high limit on the number of images that can be uploaded each month;
- It includes a social networking component making it easy to share photos, comments and notes plus join groups you are interested in;
- You could also upload videos;
- It is compatible with many mobile phone applications, so easy to share to when using your phone's camera.
(Popular examples: Blogger and WordPress)
 |
| Marek Tarnawski's concise Carbonmade profile (8 March 2012) |
Science fiction concept artist, Marek Tarnawski, provides a link to his blog http://farvus-craft.blogspot.com. His blog was created with Blogger, but you could consider using WordPress or other popular blogging software.
The benefit of choosing to blog for you could include:
- There is no limit on the number of images that can be uploaded;
- You could also upload other media (such as videos);
- You can provide descriptions of your working process;
- Viewers can choose to subscribe to your blog;
- You can create reciprocal links with other blogs via a blogroll.
4. Another Online Portfolio Service Presence
(Popular examples: behance.net, cghub.com)
Carbonmade is just one of many other online portfolio software services focussed on enabling creatives to publish their online portfolios. Each service provides a distinct combination of affordances to cater for the type of creatives they serve; so it's important to define what you may need before selecting one.
For example, CGHub promotes itself as "an online community where computer graphics artists share their latest work, tips, and tools, network with friends, search jobs, and more." So, if you want to improve your computer graphics skills, this may be useful to join. However, if you want to interact with creative professionals outside of computer graphics illustration and want the best visibility of your online portfolio, you should consider using behance.net.
 |
| Nook's Carbonmade About page features a button that links to his portfolio on the Behance Network (14 March 2012) |
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
The optimal adoption of Web 2.0 services in seven stages for Visual Arts and Design educators
Written for secondary and tertiary Visual Arts and Visual Design educators and decision makers.
The optimal process for a Visual Arts or Design educator to adopt Web 2.0 services (like social bookmarking and electronic learning portfolios) could involve these seven stages:
The optimal process for a Visual Arts or Design educator to adopt Web 2.0 services (like social bookmarking and electronic learning portfolios) could involve these seven stages:
- Personal experimentation with social network services;
- Exploration of online services for curricular adoption;
- Personal use of these services;
- Achieving school management buy-in;
- Introduction of online services in a curriculum;
- Sustained adoption of these services in the syllabus;
- Self-publication with other web2.0-based services.
1. Personal experimentation with social network services.
Post the online self-publishing revolution, educators with an insider mindset will appreciate that the affordances offered by new technologies makes the world different for them and their students. As an example, Dr Paul Redmond highlighted in his talk; "GENerally speaking: Generation Y, Digital Natives and the challenges facing higher education" how the Millenial generation comes to university with different pedagogical expectations to previous generations based on their experience of growing up with technology. In particular, Dr Redmond argues that students now want interaction, peer-learning, contact and control. As a result, he encourages university educators to reconsider their curricular designs in light of addressing millenials' expectations.
Based on initial experiences with a few Visual Arts educators, I would argue that they are better able to appreciate the potential benefits of including Web2.0 services (such as social bookmarking and electronic learning portfolios) into their syllabi, after having personal experience of online social networking services' {such as Facebook or Google+} benefits. Through first-hand experience of finding old friends and colleagues, posting status updates, sharing pictures and other content, then rating it, educators can begin to appreciate how online media use might benefit them and why social network services are proving popular, particularly with their students.
6. Sustained adoption of these services in the syllabus.
After the initial adoption has proven successful, the educator should take steps to ensure that the use of online services in the Visual Arts or Design syllabi are sustainable. Three examples of these by a private school's Visual Arts department head were: improving his class' resourcing and ensuring his students were given access to digitization equipment in the school's library and computer lab, thereby addressing time constraints with scanning; getting school management approval for his department's new policy that all students from grade 10 to 12 should develop e-portfolios, and documenting how the best examples of previous student work could be linked on the school's Visual Arts website section. The educator has also been active in promoting the use of e-portfolios and social bookmarking to other educators at his school and in Cape Town.
Post the online self-publishing revolution, educators with an insider mindset will appreciate that the affordances offered by new technologies makes the world different for them and their students. As an example, Dr Paul Redmond highlighted in his talk; "GENerally speaking: Generation Y, Digital Natives and the challenges facing higher education" how the Millenial generation comes to university with different pedagogical expectations to previous generations based on their experience of growing up with technology. In particular, Dr Redmond argues that students now want interaction, peer-learning, contact and control. As a result, he encourages university educators to reconsider their curricular designs in light of addressing millenials' expectations.
Based on initial experiences with a few Visual Arts educators, I would argue that they are better able to appreciate the potential benefits of including Web2.0 services (such as social bookmarking and electronic learning portfolios) into their syllabi, after having personal experience of online social networking services' {such as Facebook or Google+} benefits. Through first-hand experience of finding old friends and colleagues, posting status updates, sharing pictures and other content, then rating it, educators can begin to appreciate how online media use might benefit them and why social network services are proving popular, particularly with their students.
2. Exploration of online services for curricular adoption.
It is important that Visual Arts and Design educators understand that there are many Web2.0 services outside the most popular social networking ones. Some of these are particularly useful to contemporary visual creative professionals. My research focuses on two types:
Firstly, the varied online portfolio services that are used by creatives. These can be re-purposed to create free electronic learning portfolios (e-portfolios) in new syllabi at schools {ideally meeting these criteria}.
Secondly, social bookmarking services (such as Delicious and Diigo) make it easy for educators to create an archive of digital learning materials and to share relevant ones with different grades. This is particularly useful for sharing online museums', art magazines' and local galleries' content.
While my research originally promoted the use of online portfolios before social bookmarking's use, I now encourage the latter's use first; it faces fewer technical barriers and can be integrated more easily into educators' existing pedagogical practices. For example, students can be given exercises to search online galleries, track down artists' paintings and bookmark those not accessible in their textbooks or other curricular materials.
3. Personal use of these services.
In using online services for the first time, educators are likely to be exposed to digital literacies and new literacies they are inexperienced with: an example in using social bookmarking is bookmarking a website with appropriate tags, then sharing it with a list of users. Another is researching a service's preferred syntax for tags, exploring users who have contributed the most in a tag of interest, then searching their contributions to bookmark the most relevant sites.
Through personal use of online services, educators can develop their digital/new literacies, whilst being better able to motivate for, and adopt, online services into new curricula and syllabi.
4. Achieving school management buy-in.
Ideally, the educator should prepare a pedagogical rationale for management and his or her department's staff which provides credible justification for the curricular adoption of new media. Providing sound grounds for securing management support is vital: the initial resourcing required to support these services is likely to be underestimated and management support for additional funding could be essential for sustained adoption. An educator may also need school management to provide additional teaching resources, IT and policy support, plus online publication integration to fully realize any new curriculum's potential.
5. Introduction of online services in a curriculum.
In the complex schooling environment, the successful adoption of online services into a new curriculum depends largely on; school management support, the educator's pedagogical choices and students co-adoption of the service.
My research focuses on the latter's choices with portfolio and social bookmarking services, as their use of these services is likely to have the greatest influence on whether their educator chooses to sustain the curricular adoption, or not. So far, my research has revealed
the importance of educators choosing a grade that is keen to achieve success in the Visual Arts or Design subject in launching the new curriculum. Alternatively, the curriculum can be adopted as an after hours activity with keen volunteers.
Research also highlights the importance of integrating the e-portfolio and social bookmarking curriculums with activities throughout the syllabus (rather than seeing the curriculum as a once-off, add-on). Only through sustained use of online services can students learn how to best use new media and produce showcase work.
It is important that Visual Arts and Design educators understand that there are many Web2.0 services outside the most popular social networking ones. Some of these are particularly useful to contemporary visual creative professionals. My research focuses on two types:
Firstly, the varied online portfolio services that are used by creatives. These can be re-purposed to create free electronic learning portfolios (e-portfolios) in new syllabi at schools {ideally meeting these criteria}.
Secondly, social bookmarking services (such as Delicious and Diigo) make it easy for educators to create an archive of digital learning materials and to share relevant ones with different grades. This is particularly useful for sharing online museums', art magazines' and local galleries' content.
While my research originally promoted the use of online portfolios before social bookmarking's use, I now encourage the latter's use first; it faces fewer technical barriers and can be integrated more easily into educators' existing pedagogical practices. For example, students can be given exercises to search online galleries, track down artists' paintings and bookmark those not accessible in their textbooks or other curricular materials.
3. Personal use of these services.
In using online services for the first time, educators are likely to be exposed to digital literacies and new literacies they are inexperienced with: an example in using social bookmarking is bookmarking a website with appropriate tags, then sharing it with a list of users. Another is researching a service's preferred syntax for tags, exploring users who have contributed the most in a tag of interest, then searching their contributions to bookmark the most relevant sites.
Through personal use of online services, educators can develop their digital/new literacies, whilst being better able to motivate for, and adopt, online services into new curricula and syllabi.
4. Achieving school management buy-in.
Ideally, the educator should prepare a pedagogical rationale for management and his or her department's staff which provides credible justification for the curricular adoption of new media. Providing sound grounds for securing management support is vital: the initial resourcing required to support these services is likely to be underestimated and management support for additional funding could be essential for sustained adoption. An educator may also need school management to provide additional teaching resources, IT and policy support, plus online publication integration to fully realize any new curriculum's potential.
5. Introduction of online services in a curriculum.
In the complex schooling environment, the successful adoption of online services into a new curriculum depends largely on; school management support, the educator's pedagogical choices and students co-adoption of the service.
My research focuses on the latter's choices with portfolio and social bookmarking services, as their use of these services is likely to have the greatest influence on whether their educator chooses to sustain the curricular adoption, or not. So far, my research has revealed
the importance of educators choosing a grade that is keen to achieve success in the Visual Arts or Design subject in launching the new curriculum. Alternatively, the curriculum can be adopted as an after hours activity with keen volunteers.
Research also highlights the importance of integrating the e-portfolio and social bookmarking curriculums with activities throughout the syllabus (rather than seeing the curriculum as a once-off, add-on). Only through sustained use of online services can students learn how to best use new media and produce showcase work.
6. Sustained adoption of these services in the syllabus.
After the initial adoption has proven successful, the educator should take steps to ensure that the use of online services in the Visual Arts or Design syllabi are sustainable. Three examples of these by a private school's Visual Arts department head were: improving his class' resourcing and ensuring his students were given access to digitization equipment in the school's library and computer lab, thereby addressing time constraints with scanning; getting school management approval for his department's new policy that all students from grade 10 to 12 should develop e-portfolios, and documenting how the best examples of previous student work could be linked on the school's Visual Arts website section. The educator has also been active in promoting the use of e-portfolios and social bookmarking to other educators at his school and in Cape Town.
7. Self-publication with other web2.0-based services.
The Department of Education encourages Visual Arts and Design educators to develop their own curricular learning materials. For educators who have visited interesting sites (such as those highlighted in one of my favorite documentaries; "A Country Imagined") and used their own curricular materials {such as descriptions, photographs and drawings} in developing classroom presentations, a site like Slideshare offers a platform to share one's presentations with a global audience. Another option is to share one's teaching via a blog (see the Monni Abbott's Art Class blog for a good example by a local art teacher).
By self-publishing one's educational content, educators not only have the opportunity to meet like-minded people online, they can also can raise the profile of South Africa and its artists online. A real win-win situation :) !
So, do you think these stages are optimal? Please let this blog's readership know by submitting your comment below. We appreciate your feedback.
The Department of Education encourages Visual Arts and Design educators to develop their own curricular learning materials. For educators who have visited interesting sites (such as those highlighted in one of my favorite documentaries; "A Country Imagined") and used their own curricular materials {such as descriptions, photographs and drawings} in developing classroom presentations, a site like Slideshare offers a platform to share one's presentations with a global audience. Another option is to share one's teaching via a blog (see the Monni Abbott's Art Class blog for a good example by a local art teacher).
By self-publishing one's educational content, educators not only have the opportunity to meet like-minded people online, they can also can raise the profile of South Africa and its artists online. A real win-win situation :) !
So, do you think these stages are optimal? Please let this blog's readership know by submitting your comment below. We appreciate your feedback.
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
My PhD in Media Studies' research problem statement
1 What problem does my research address?
There is a research gap regarding the multimodal choices that online portfolios afford, the choices that secondary school students make and the resonances of their choices. There is also a gap in describing how students negotiate with educators regarding choices the latter view as 'problematic'.
1.1 Who supports the presence of a problem?
David Buckingham (2003, 2007) argues that exposing students to media production in new school curricula can be a very effective form of media education. The new Visual Arts curricula that this Action Research project contributed to launching; “Create your own online portfolio” and “Improve your online portfolio” were intended to serve this aim.
In following these curricula, students made many multimodal choices in creating their online portfolios. Multimodal Theory, developed by Gunthar Kress (1996, 2010) and Carey Jewitt (2006, 2010), is highly appropriate for describing individual choices and their relationships; to each other, the page they help construct and other portfolio pages.
Jewitt (2006) has used Yrjo Engstrom’s (1987, 2001, 2005) Activity theory to explain the complex schooling context in which multimodal choices are made. Second generation Activity theory will be used to explain how the contradictions and tensions that result from a change to the traditional Visual Arts' classroom's 'tools', 'rules', 'division of labour' and 'community' in the new online portfolio activity system contributed to students negotiations with educators concerning 'problematic' choices.
2 How, where and when does the problem impact?
Although Buckingham’s body of research on media education (1990, 2007) suggests that teaching students media production is beneficial, there are few examples in the literature of these interventions by Visual Arts educators. There is also a research gap in students’ choices with online portfolio software.
By supporting successful initial curricular adoptions at a private (2010, 2011) and public (2011, 2012) school, this project enabled research into: select South African students’ multimodal choices with online portfolio software; their choices’ resonances; and uncovers how changes in creating an online portfolio as an adjunct to a traditional one contributed to students’ negotiations with educators regarding 'problematic' multimodal choices.
2.1 Who supports the impact of the problem?
Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear (2011) have also identified the importance of students being taught “new media literacies” through digital media production and describe the challenge of educators’ “outsider mindset” being an obstacle to digital media’s successful adoption. This project has helped Visual Arts educators to develop “insider mindsets” that are better suited to support the initial curricular adoptions of online portfolios.
Both the private and public school’s curricula support students with creating showcase Visual Arts electronic learning portfolios (e-portfolios). Barrett (2008) has written about the importance of educating students to use e-portfolios for life-long learning. She has also blogged on the decline in North American secondary schools’ adoption of e-portfolios (2010), listing many challenges that e-portfolio adoptions face.
Hazel Owen (2009) did an e-portfolio literature meta-review, which showed that although there are pedagogical benefits of e-portfolio use in well-resourced, tertiary environments, there are many hazards too. My research has supported secondary school educators with exploring the benefits and hazards of their Visual Arts students’ e-portfolio use as an adjunct to the traditional portfolio.
3 Why does the problem exist?
The conceptual basis for the problem is that online portfolios are a new cultural form; freemium Web2.0 services only emerged from 2003. Their novelty partly explains why so little research has been done into the multimodal choices they afford.
3.1 Who supports the conceptual nature of the problem?
There are distinct resourcing barriers confronting adoption of Information Communication Technology in tertiary education in the developing world: Laura Czernieciwz and Cheryl Brown (2004) identified four key resource categories; 'technological' (i.e. availability of ITC resources), 'personal', 'agency' (i.e. access to digitisation and computer equipment), 'contextual' (i.e. formal enabling networks) and 'online content' (i.e. articles written for local audiences) where barriers to adoption occur. These categories arguably apply in secondary education too, as it is a similar formal environment.
My research project project has assisted two secondary school educators in overcoming some of these obstacles and has facilitated the curricular adoption of online portfolios for studying multimodal affordances, students’ selections, their choices’ resonances and uncovers the background to negotiations regarding 'problematic' choices.
There is a research gap regarding the multimodal choices that online portfolios afford, the choices that secondary school students make and the resonances of their choices. There is also a gap in describing how students negotiate with educators regarding choices the latter view as 'problematic'.
1.1 Who supports the presence of a problem?
David Buckingham (2003, 2007) argues that exposing students to media production in new school curricula can be a very effective form of media education. The new Visual Arts curricula that this Action Research project contributed to launching; “Create your own online portfolio” and “Improve your online portfolio” were intended to serve this aim.
In following these curricula, students made many multimodal choices in creating their online portfolios. Multimodal Theory, developed by Gunthar Kress (1996, 2010) and Carey Jewitt (2006, 2010), is highly appropriate for describing individual choices and their relationships; to each other, the page they help construct and other portfolio pages.
Jewitt (2006) has used Yrjo Engstrom’s (1987, 2001, 2005) Activity theory to explain the complex schooling context in which multimodal choices are made. Second generation Activity theory will be used to explain how the contradictions and tensions that result from a change to the traditional Visual Arts' classroom's 'tools', 'rules', 'division of labour' and 'community' in the new online portfolio activity system contributed to students negotiations with educators concerning 'problematic' choices.
2 How, where and when does the problem impact?
Although Buckingham’s body of research on media education (1990, 2007) suggests that teaching students media production is beneficial, there are few examples in the literature of these interventions by Visual Arts educators. There is also a research gap in students’ choices with online portfolio software.
By supporting successful initial curricular adoptions at a private (2010, 2011) and public (2011, 2012) school, this project enabled research into: select South African students’ multimodal choices with online portfolio software; their choices’ resonances; and uncovers how changes in creating an online portfolio as an adjunct to a traditional one contributed to students’ negotiations with educators regarding 'problematic' multimodal choices.
2.1 Who supports the impact of the problem?
Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear (2011) have also identified the importance of students being taught “new media literacies” through digital media production and describe the challenge of educators’ “outsider mindset” being an obstacle to digital media’s successful adoption. This project has helped Visual Arts educators to develop “insider mindsets” that are better suited to support the initial curricular adoptions of online portfolios.
Both the private and public school’s curricula support students with creating showcase Visual Arts electronic learning portfolios (e-portfolios). Barrett (2008) has written about the importance of educating students to use e-portfolios for life-long learning. She has also blogged on the decline in North American secondary schools’ adoption of e-portfolios (2010), listing many challenges that e-portfolio adoptions face.
Hazel Owen (2009) did an e-portfolio literature meta-review, which showed that although there are pedagogical benefits of e-portfolio use in well-resourced, tertiary environments, there are many hazards too. My research has supported secondary school educators with exploring the benefits and hazards of their Visual Arts students’ e-portfolio use as an adjunct to the traditional portfolio.
3 Why does the problem exist?
The conceptual basis for the problem is that online portfolios are a new cultural form; freemium Web2.0 services only emerged from 2003. Their novelty partly explains why so little research has been done into the multimodal choices they afford.
3.1 Who supports the conceptual nature of the problem?
There are distinct resourcing barriers confronting adoption of Information Communication Technology in tertiary education in the developing world: Laura Czernieciwz and Cheryl Brown (2004) identified four key resource categories; 'technological' (i.e. availability of ITC resources), 'personal', 'agency' (i.e. access to digitisation and computer equipment), 'contextual' (i.e. formal enabling networks) and 'online content' (i.e. articles written for local audiences) where barriers to adoption occur. These categories arguably apply in secondary education too, as it is a similar formal environment.
My research project project has assisted two secondary school educators in overcoming some of these obstacles and has facilitated the curricular adoption of online portfolios for studying multimodal affordances, students’ selections, their choices’ resonances and uncovers the background to negotiations regarding 'problematic' choices.
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Problems and limits of traditional, analogue portfolios
Written for students of visual creativity.
David Hockney's book; "Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters" and the debate its Hockney-Falco thesis stimulated, should have encouraged drawing educators to introduce their students to the camera obscura, lucida and other optics as alternatives to groping for the image through "eyeballing", as Hockney described it (page 23, 2001). But just as drawing students are unlikely to be exposed to alternative drawing methods, most visual creatives are not formally exposed to the benefits of digital media as an additional portfolio medium to the traditional, analogue one. However, it is important for their students to fully consider all the limitations (and related problems) of relying solely on analogue portfolio media. Here follows a list of the limitations and problems for the student's consideration (plus the related benefits of having an online portfolio):
A. Difficult to assemble
There's a reason that analogue portfolios are mostly collated only twice a year; they're often difficult to consolidate, frame and mount for presentation. This is likely to result in it being difficult for your teacher(s) to have an holistic view of your progress and for you to gauge the presentation of your year-end exhibit. Field research showed that a Visual Arts educator perceived a major benefit of students' online portfolio use being the resulting affordance to benchmark their progress and take pre-emptive action where they were unlikely to have sufficient work for year-end exhibitions.
B. No back-up
You don't have to own a Jackson Pollock to know that an original, physical artworks is often impossible to replace. So, if your artworks are stolen, damaged or destroyed right before your exhibition, it becomes impossible to physically prove your accomplishments to examiners! However, if you had kept a record of your work in an online portfolio, this would provide your a useful reference point for marking.
C. Poor distribution
Post-Google, those with access are very likely to use search engines to find background information on you and view images of your artwork. It is important to consider that by limiting your work to analogue media, you rely on your audience being close to the work for viewing purposes. By contrast, an online portfolio provides an opportunity for internet-connected audiences to easily view your creative work. Plus, you can study the digital audience of your artworks, its reception and how best to grow an audience for your artworks on the internet.
D. Lack of contextualisation for most artworks
In Secondary or Tertiary Education, students’ work is often contextualised by exhibition context and very often only feature the work's title and date. A benefit of online portfolio production is that it affords many options to label your artwork thoroughly. For example, Carbonmade affords options to add an "artwork title", "tags", "client tags" and a "folder description". By completing some, or all, of these tags appropriately, you can properly contextualise your artworks for ideal viewers; whether layperson or art historian :) . For example, you could add your "artist's statement" under folder definition or list any clients you have worked for under clients tags.
E. Limited opportunity to exhibit non-drawing work
F. No easily accessible feedback record
Educators seldom place feedback directly onto their students’ work as this would impact on the originals. However, a benefit of online portfolio pages is that your educator could use a social bookmarking tool, like Diigo, to comment on your pages, limiting the viewership to you (or select Diigo users). This could make your educator’s feedback easier to track and, hopefully, follow.
G. Digitisation for further study or job applications
Early exposure to digitising artworks could be beneficial for students who may need to submit digital portfolios as part to their university or job applications.
While your digital copy will never be the same as the analogue work it was sourced from, it can serve useful purposes when placed in an online portfolio. So, is there more to gain than what's lost in the "medium shift" translation of artworks and their use in online portfolios? Please share your view by commenting on this post. Ta.
David Hockney's book; "Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters" and the debate its Hockney-Falco thesis stimulated, should have encouraged drawing educators to introduce their students to the camera obscura, lucida and other optics as alternatives to groping for the image through "eyeballing", as Hockney described it (page 23, 2001). But just as drawing students are unlikely to be exposed to alternative drawing methods, most visual creatives are not formally exposed to the benefits of digital media as an additional portfolio medium to the traditional, analogue one. However, it is important for their students to fully consider all the limitations (and related problems) of relying solely on analogue portfolio media. Here follows a list of the limitations and problems for the student's consideration (plus the related benefits of having an online portfolio):
A. Difficult to assemble
There's a reason that analogue portfolios are mostly collated only twice a year; they're often difficult to consolidate, frame and mount for presentation. This is likely to result in it being difficult for your teacher(s) to have an holistic view of your progress and for you to gauge the presentation of your year-end exhibit. Field research showed that a Visual Arts educator perceived a major benefit of students' online portfolio use being the resulting affordance to benchmark their progress and take pre-emptive action where they were unlikely to have sufficient work for year-end exhibitions.
B. No back-up
You don't have to own a Jackson Pollock to know that an original, physical artworks is often impossible to replace. So, if your artworks are stolen, damaged or destroyed right before your exhibition, it becomes impossible to physically prove your accomplishments to examiners! However, if you had kept a record of your work in an online portfolio, this would provide your a useful reference point for marking.
C. Poor distribution
Post-Google, those with access are very likely to use search engines to find background information on you and view images of your artwork. It is important to consider that by limiting your work to analogue media, you rely on your audience being close to the work for viewing purposes. By contrast, an online portfolio provides an opportunity for internet-connected audiences to easily view your creative work. Plus, you can study the digital audience of your artworks, its reception and how best to grow an audience for your artworks on the internet.
D. Lack of contextualisation for most artworks
In Secondary or Tertiary Education, students’ work is often contextualised by exhibition context and very often only feature the work's title and date. A benefit of online portfolio production is that it affords many options to label your artwork thoroughly. For example, Carbonmade affords options to add an "artwork title", "tags", "client tags" and a "folder description". By completing some, or all, of these tags appropriately, you can properly contextualise your artworks for ideal viewers; whether layperson or art historian :) . For example, you could add your "artist's statement" under folder definition or list any clients you have worked for under clients tags.
E. Limited opportunity to exhibit non-drawing work
There may be limited scope for you to include works done with reproduction (i.e. photography) and/or digital media (i.e. animations) tools in Visual Arts and Fine Arts exhibitions. If you need an outlet for other visual cultural interests, you can use an online portfolio such as Behance, DeviantArt or CGI Portfolio to showcase designs and photos; potentially benefitting from ratings, comments and reciprocal links from other members.
F. No easily accessible feedback record
Educators seldom place feedback directly onto their students’ work as this would impact on the originals. However, a benefit of online portfolio pages is that your educator could use a social bookmarking tool, like Diigo, to comment on your pages, limiting the viewership to you (or select Diigo users). This could make your educator’s feedback easier to track and, hopefully, follow.
G. Digitisation for further study or job applications
Early exposure to digitising artworks could be beneficial for students who may need to submit digital portfolios as part to their university or job applications.
While your digital copy will never be the same as the analogue work it was sourced from, it can serve useful purposes when placed in an online portfolio. So, is there more to gain than what's lost in the "medium shift" translation of artworks and their use in online portfolios? Please share your view by commenting on this post. Ta.
Sunday, 11 September 2011
Teaching 10 new activities with online portfolios
Written for Visual Arts and Design educators interested in teaching online portfolio creation.
The DOE Visual Arts syllabus' timetable offers two weeks for educators and students to focus on "presentation". Research at a well-resourced, elite private school in 2010 showed that an online portfolio curriculum enabled its educator to teach students new aspects of presentation, which included: profile writing, digitization, online portfolio creation and how creative professionals and hobbyists use this new cultural form.
These new learnings could be just the start of what students can explore in class using their online portfolio software's affordances. For example, their educator could teach them how to do ten new activities:
1. Label artworks for thorough contextualisation.
Unlike traditional student exhibitions, where the title and date for each artwork are typically provided, Carbonmade can be used to thoroughly contextualise students' artworks. This is relevant as online portfolios are likely to be viewed by new audiences. More thorough labeling can be achieved through following educator's guidelines to describe artworks with a description similar to that used art historians. For example under "image title": "Painting of a skull from the: ‘Vanitas Project’, 2011. Oil paint and charcoal on primed canvas. 420 x 295 mm". Students should also be encouraged to use the tags titled: "folder description", "tags", "client tags" and "image description" and to think about these tags' inter-relationships.
2. Preview an exhibition.
If kept up-to-date and used throughout the syllabus, a student's online portfolio can be used as a preview of his or her prospective year-end exhibition. It can also be used to identify extra-mural designs, photography, craft or other works that could be included in the exhibition, but are ordinarily neglected in Visual Arts education.
An educator could even use his or her insider mindset to change pedagogy; using the best online portfolios from previous students to introduce current students to their new project and highlight how it can be used to build the desired future portfolios (and year-end exhibitions, even).
3. Search online portfolios for artworks of interest.
Under http://carbonmade.com/portfolios, students can be shown how to search online portfolios using "area of expertise" or other fields of interest. They should also be shown how to use Carbonmade's featured portfolios section to find impressive portfolio examples by "career type".
4. Put learnings from one's favorite online portfolio examples into practice.
Students should be encouraged to apply learnings from the best examples they find; for example, the illustrator Josh Power's site includes; a personal logo, custom-labelled folder covers, an illustrated profile picture and humorous profile description that ties in well with his portfolio's imagery. These activities can be used to create new curricular exercises or suggest extra-mural activities for keen students.
5. Create an holistic portfolio.
The best portfolios are holistic; their art exemplifies their profile description and their creative choices differentiate their portfolios from the "run of the mill" average. To help students reflect on achieving an holistic experience, educators might use innovative assessment strategies. For example, students could be encouraged to contact the creative professionals whose portfolios they admire to do reviews of their student portfolio and provide tips for creating better online portfolios.
6. Choose a copyright license for one's art and portfolio.
The DOE Visual Arts syllabus' timetable offers two weeks for educators and students to focus on "presentation". Research at a well-resourced, elite private school in 2010 showed that an online portfolio curriculum enabled its educator to teach students new aspects of presentation, which included: profile writing, digitization, online portfolio creation and how creative professionals and hobbyists use this new cultural form.
These new learnings could be just the start of what students can explore in class using their online portfolio software's affordances. For example, their educator could teach them how to do ten new activities:
1. Label artworks for thorough contextualisation.
Unlike traditional student exhibitions, where the title and date for each artwork are typically provided, Carbonmade can be used to thoroughly contextualise students' artworks. This is relevant as online portfolios are likely to be viewed by new audiences. More thorough labeling can be achieved through following educator's guidelines to describe artworks with a description similar to that used art historians. For example under "image title": "Painting of a skull from the: ‘Vanitas Project’, 2011. Oil paint and charcoal on primed canvas. 420 x 295 mm". Students should also be encouraged to use the tags titled: "folder description", "tags", "client tags" and "image description" and to think about these tags' inter-relationships.
2. Preview an exhibition.
If kept up-to-date and used throughout the syllabus, a student's online portfolio can be used as a preview of his or her prospective year-end exhibition. It can also be used to identify extra-mural designs, photography, craft or other works that could be included in the exhibition, but are ordinarily neglected in Visual Arts education.
An educator could even use his or her insider mindset to change pedagogy; using the best online portfolios from previous students to introduce current students to their new project and highlight how it can be used to build the desired future portfolios (and year-end exhibitions, even).
3. Search online portfolios for artworks of interest.
Under http://carbonmade.com/portfolios, students can be shown how to search online portfolios using "area of expertise" or other fields of interest. They should also be shown how to use Carbonmade's featured portfolios section to find impressive portfolio examples by "career type".
4. Put learnings from one's favorite online portfolio examples into practice.
Students should be encouraged to apply learnings from the best examples they find; for example, the illustrator Josh Power's site includes; a personal logo, custom-labelled folder covers, an illustrated profile picture and humorous profile description that ties in well with his portfolio's imagery. These activities can be used to create new curricular exercises or suggest extra-mural activities for keen students.
5. Create an holistic portfolio.
The best portfolios are holistic; their art exemplifies their profile description and their creative choices differentiate their portfolios from the "run of the mill" average. To help students reflect on achieving an holistic experience, educators might use innovative assessment strategies. For example, students could be encouraged to contact the creative professionals whose portfolios they admire to do reviews of their student portfolio and provide tips for creating better online portfolios.
6. Choose a copyright license for one's art and portfolio.
The rise of the internet and remix culture have contributed to changing the traditional copyright paradigm of “all rights reserved”. Many varieties of copyright now exist; by teaching about the licenses available on Creative Commons, educators can assist students to make appropriate copyright licensing choices for artworks.
7. Deliver better-looking search results for one's name.
Since it is likely that students' peers and parents may search for them by name under http://carbonmade.com/portfolios, it is important for educators to instruct students to check their name's search results and to recommend measures to create the most relevant, best- looking result.
8. Promote one's online portfolio using other services.
Good students with a mature attitude could be encouraged to share their portfolios online through social media, such as Facebook, MySpace and Google+. Students can also re-create their portfolios on portfolio services that offer social network functionality, like deviantart.com and behance.net. These activities provide opportunities for learning about media distribution, including: developing an audience for one's work, responding to comments, learning from webpage usage stats and thinking about how best to create inter-relationships between different online services.
9. Act as a responsible online portfolio audience member.
In addition to being good online portfolio creators, students should also be encouraged to be pro-active digital citizens. For example, they should be told how to flag content and contact site administrators if they encounter offensive content or which authorities to talk to if they receive unwanted attention.
10. Use the online portfolio for life-long learning.
Ideally, educators should encourage students to think of their online portfolios as life-long, electronic learning portfolios. These can be used as proof of learning for access to tertiary education, work and related opportunities. To support effective e-portfolio development, online portfolios must be included in the entire syllabus' scaffolding, not limited to once-off curricular activities. Ideally, students should be given time in class to update and rewrite their portfolios' content on an ongoing basis, thereby getting used to the importance of maintaining and improving their online digital footprints.
I hope this post helps educators to consider teaching new learning activities in their online portfolio curricula and syllabi. Kindly add your comments; especially if there's any other new teaching activities that you can suggest?
I hope this post helps educators to consider teaching new learning activities in their online portfolio curricula and syllabi. Kindly add your comments; especially if there's any other new teaching activities that you can suggest?
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
2010 End-of-Year Research Review
Inspired by Steve Vosloo's end-of-year review, here's what I have done (or catalyzed) whilst putting the "pro" into "professional student" during 2010!
E-portfolio research project's scope finalised
When Web2.0 portfolio sites, like Carbonmade, are adopted into curricula, they become electronic learning portfolios (e-portfolios). Although these are based on Web2.0 technology, they need not be social networks as users do not make their connections with other users explicit (for example, Carbonmade's users do not "friend" each other, unlike Facebook's).
With the support of the WCED's curricular specialists, Leon Buchner and John Cowan, e-portfolios have been adopted at 11 Secondary Schools. As the innovation proved easy to disseminate with DOE buy-in, the project's focus changed from examining the diffusion of the innovation to focusing on sustainability factors: in particular, students' use of software affordances in class, educators' satisfaction that use meets curricular goals, plus other in-school and out-of-class factors likely to prevent sustained adoption.
An appropriate methodology defined
Initial short-term benefits of e-portfolio curricular adoption identified
Although literature suggests there are long-term benefits of e-portfolio adoption in a well-resourced, tertiary educational context, these may not translate in a different environment. Pilot research has shown benefits at a well-resourced, secondary school. These include: improved monitoring of year-end exhibition progress and better feedback to parents regarding marks they view as problematic. Preparing a full list of these benefits is likely to prove useful to those curricular advisers and decision makers wishing to promote the curricular adoption of e-portfolios to educators and school management.
E-portfolio adoption became a policy of the private school's Visual Arts Department
The benefits of e-portfolio adoption contributed to the Visual Art educator's decision as Head of Department to make e-portfolio use official policy for staff. E-portfolio curricula will be launched early in the year to emphasize the importance of e-portfolios in the Visual Arts syllabus.
"Use Your Favourite Online Portfolio Service" curriculum developed
Next year the private school educator's launch of this curriculum to his grade 11 students will be researched. Students that have used Carbonmade to create a thorough e-portfolio of their 2010 artworks will be given the opportunity to select an online portfolio service that best suits their future creative interests (for example, students interested in photography might use Flickr or Picasa, while those interested in fine art could use a creative network for feedback such as Behance or Deviantart). In grade 12, students will use their favorite online portfolio to prepare for post-school opportunities (such as applying for access to tertiary education, securing freelance work or pursuing creative hobbies).
Approval obtained for e-portfolio curriculum launches and research at public school
The "Create your E-portfolio" curriculum will be launched by a public school Visual Arts educator to grade 10 students next year. If it proves successful, the "Use Your Favourite Online Portfolio Service" curriculum will be launched to grade 11s.
Promoted e-portfolios to educators
Presentations at Visual Arts educator workshops, CPUT's MA and PhD in Technology and Education lessons, UCT's "Multimodality" colloquium and "Technology in Education" mini-conference have helped raised awareness amongst local Visual Arts educators of Web2.0 portfolios. One result is Jolande De Villiers Morkel's successful adoption of a curriculum that introduces third year Department of Architectural Technology students on her "Principles of Architectural Technology" course to using a Facebook Group to collaborate and using Yola, Carbonmade or blog software to publish showcase portfolios. This has been a pedagogical success and may serve as an example for other tertiary educators to follow.
Asked to investigate e-portfolio curriculum design for under-resourced settings
John Cowan believes that every Visual Arts learner should be encouraged to create an e-portfolio. However, there are no curricula that could support this in the majority of South Africa's secondary schools which are under-resourced. He has asked me to define a curriculum that would give students with access to Khanya labs and mobile phone cameras an opportunity to create e-portfolios. I am exploring funding opportunities to support this research at a local secondary school.
This progress would not have been possible without the assistance of the following people: thanks to Dr Marion Walton, Professor Johannes Cronje and my research colleagues for helping me clarify my research questions and methodology. I also greatly appreciate the support of the private school educator and the WCED's John Cowan and Leon Buchner, who have made research in secondary schools possible. I'd also like to thank the National Research Foundation, whose funding supports this research project. It has resulted in a successful example of e-portfolio curricular adoption that other Visual Arts educators can learn from. Here's hoping that I can research another successful example next year!
E-portfolio research project's scope finalised
When Web2.0 portfolio sites, like Carbonmade, are adopted into curricula, they become electronic learning portfolios (e-portfolios). Although these are based on Web2.0 technology, they need not be social networks as users do not make their connections with other users explicit (for example, Carbonmade's users do not "friend" each other, unlike Facebook's).
With the support of the WCED's curricular specialists, Leon Buchner and John Cowan, e-portfolios have been adopted at 11 Secondary Schools. As the innovation proved easy to disseminate with DOE buy-in, the project's focus changed from examining the diffusion of the innovation to focusing on sustainability factors: in particular, students' use of software affordances in class, educators' satisfaction that use meets curricular goals, plus other in-school and out-of-class factors likely to prevent sustained adoption.
An appropriate methodology defined
Activity theory frameworks, including pedagogy, technology support and school management will be used to understand the factors at school and out-of-class most likely to affect sustainability. To understand in-class use, frameworks for pre- and post e-portfolio adoption will be combined with a semiotic explanation of software affordances to best understand specific examples of e-portfolio's use and positive and negative outcomes.
"Create your E-portfolio" curriculum successfully launched
In my role as researcher, I provided sufficient support for the curricular adoption of e-portfolios to take place. This year a "Create your E-portfolio" curriculum was successfully trialled by a private school's educator; all grade 10 students had created e-portfolios by year-end and over 60% had uploaded most of their grade 10 artworks."Create your E-portfolio" curriculum successfully launched
Initial short-term benefits of e-portfolio curricular adoption identified
Although literature suggests there are long-term benefits of e-portfolio adoption in a well-resourced, tertiary educational context, these may not translate in a different environment. Pilot research has shown benefits at a well-resourced, secondary school. These include: improved monitoring of year-end exhibition progress and better feedback to parents regarding marks they view as problematic. Preparing a full list of these benefits is likely to prove useful to those curricular advisers and decision makers wishing to promote the curricular adoption of e-portfolios to educators and school management.
E-portfolio adoption became a policy of the private school's Visual Arts Department
The benefits of e-portfolio adoption contributed to the Visual Art educator's decision as Head of Department to make e-portfolio use official policy for staff. E-portfolio curricula will be launched early in the year to emphasize the importance of e-portfolios in the Visual Arts syllabus.
"Use Your Favourite Online Portfolio Service" curriculum developed
Next year the private school educator's launch of this curriculum to his grade 11 students will be researched. Students that have used Carbonmade to create a thorough e-portfolio of their 2010 artworks will be given the opportunity to select an online portfolio service that best suits their future creative interests (for example, students interested in photography might use Flickr or Picasa, while those interested in fine art could use a creative network for feedback such as Behance or Deviantart). In grade 12, students will use their favorite online portfolio to prepare for post-school opportunities (such as applying for access to tertiary education, securing freelance work or pursuing creative hobbies).
Approval obtained for e-portfolio curriculum launches and research at public school
The "Create your E-portfolio" curriculum will be launched by a public school Visual Arts educator to grade 10 students next year. If it proves successful, the "Use Your Favourite Online Portfolio Service" curriculum will be launched to grade 11s.
Promoted e-portfolios to educators
Presentations at Visual Arts educator workshops, CPUT's MA and PhD in Technology and Education lessons, UCT's "Multimodality" colloquium and "Technology in Education" mini-conference have helped raised awareness amongst local Visual Arts educators of Web2.0 portfolios. One result is Jolande De Villiers Morkel's successful adoption of a curriculum that introduces third year Department of Architectural Technology students on her "Principles of Architectural Technology" course to using a Facebook Group to collaborate and using Yola, Carbonmade or blog software to publish showcase portfolios. This has been a pedagogical success and may serve as an example for other tertiary educators to follow.
Asked to investigate e-portfolio curriculum design for under-resourced settings
John Cowan believes that every Visual Arts learner should be encouraged to create an e-portfolio. However, there are no curricula that could support this in the majority of South Africa's secondary schools which are under-resourced. He has asked me to define a curriculum that would give students with access to Khanya labs and mobile phone cameras an opportunity to create e-portfolios. I am exploring funding opportunities to support this research at a local secondary school.
This progress would not have been possible without the assistance of the following people: thanks to Dr Marion Walton, Professor Johannes Cronje and my research colleagues for helping me clarify my research questions and methodology. I also greatly appreciate the support of the private school educator and the WCED's John Cowan and Leon Buchner, who have made research in secondary schools possible. I'd also like to thank the National Research Foundation, whose funding supports this research project. It has resulted in a successful example of e-portfolio curricular adoption that other Visual Arts educators can learn from. Here's hoping that I can research another successful example next year!
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