Derek E. Baird :: Barking Robot

Gen Y, Social Media, and Learning in the Digital Age

I'm happy to announce that my book chapter that I co-wrote with Dr. Mercedes Fisher is now officially published!

Chapter Title: "Social Media, Gen Y and Digital Learning Styles."

Author(s): Derek E. Baird ; Mercedes Fisher

Pages: 2023-2044 pp.

Book Title: Social Computing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications

Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Subhasish Dasgupta (George Washington University, USA) Copyright: 2010

Abstract

In this chapter we outline how educators are creating a “mash up” of traditional pedagogy with new media to create a 21st Century pedagogy designed to support the digital learning styles of Gen Y students.

The research included in this paper is intended as a directional means to help instructors and course designers identify social and new media resources and other emerging technologies that will enhance the delivery of instruction while meeting the needs of today’s digital learning styles.

The media-centric Millennial values its ability to use the web to create self-paced, customized, on-demand learning paths that include using multiple platforms for mobile, interactive, social, and self-publishing experiences.

These can include wiki, blogs, podcasts and other social platforms like Twitter, Emodo and Facebook. New media provides these hyper-connected students with a medium for understanding, social interaction, idea negotiation, as well as an intrinsic motivation for participation.

The active nature of today’s digitally connected student culture is one that more resourcefully fosters idea generation and experience-oriented innovation than traditional schooling models.

In addition, we describe our approach to utilizing current and emerging social media to support Gen Y learners, facilitate the formation of learning communities, foster student engagement, reflection, and enhance the overall learning experience for students in synchronous and asynchronous virtual learning environments (VLE).

Related: Derek E. Baird > Publications

Social Identity, Knowledge Management & Member Roles in Online Communities

“The basic idea of the Web is that an information space through which people can communicate, but communicate in a special way: communicate by sharing their knowledge in a pool.

The idea was not just that it should be a big browsing medium. The idea was that everybody would be putting their ideas in, as well as taking them out.”    ~Tim Berners-Lee

As a community manager or social designer, it's vital to remember that there is a social identity within an group that is both individual and collective.

Community managers should let this process happen naturally to allow for the most meaningful communication to occur between peers and give members time to discover their role in the community.

Social Design in Community Spaces

 In their book, Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge (Harvard Business Press, 2009), Wenger, McDermott and Snyder outline the key strategies required to build a functioning, vibrant and healthy online community:

• Design Your Community to Evolve: You can't dictate strict design constraints, but must leave it open so new members can shape and contribute to the culture.

• Include Insiders and Welcome Outsiders: You need insiders who know the purpose for the community and how it works. Yet at the same time, you need new members and their ideas to keep the community vital.

• Plan for Different Levels of Participation: I'll dig deeper on this point later in this post, but the key takeaway is to remember that only a small 'core group' (10%-15%) will be actively involved in the day-to-day functions of the group.

• Plan for Private and Public Community Spaces: Creating "private" spaces for one-on-one focused interactions or private meetings should be a key element of your social design. Public spaces are equally important as they give members to engage, share knowledge and draw new members to join the community.

• Create Value: Online communities and groups must generate value for their participants. Solicit feedback from members and find out what you can to improve it.

• Combine the Old and the New: Communities need membership continuity to foster their shared identies and preserve their knowledge.

• Community Rhythm: There will be periods of greater and lesser activity--this is normal and desirable. Groups will naturally formulate their own culture and patterns of interaction.

Member Roles in Online Communities/Social Networks

Each group member wil bring a unique set of experiences, sources of information and level of participation in the community. For example, there will be some members who naturally become the group organizers because of their ability to keep track of details. Those who have artistic abilities will find their personal identity as they offer creative input.

The exchange of knowledge and experience transforms a group of people into a community as members begin to appreciate the expertise and perspective of each member.

As members interact, they develop relationships, shared values and interests.

View 'Member Roles Chart' Large

 

Summary

When designing for an online community, groups must be given time to build an identity. Each community is unique because of the individuality of its members.

Because of this distinctiveness members within a group must have an opportunity to discover what their contribution will be and which role they will play by interacting socially with one another. Allowing a community to create a sense of identity is a critical.

Finally, it's important to remember that a community built around a shared practice is a living entity that is always evolving. In other words, a well-designed social space should provide users with the tools and leave it to them to construct their own meaning and level of interaction within the community.

Related: Supporting Informed Participation, Social Engagement & Collaboration in Online Communities

'No Phone Zone' Lesson Plan: Teaching Teens the Dangers of Texting & Driving

The "No Phone Zone" lesson plan will educate students on the dangers associated with distracted driving (texting while driving, talking on the phone while driving).

The creation of this lesson plan was inspired by an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show that focused on the dangers of distracted driving. According to a 2009 Pew Internet Study:

• One in three (34%) texting teens ages 16-17 say they have texted while driving. That translates into 26% of all American teens ages 16-17;

• Half (52%) of cell-owning teens ages 16-17 say they have talked on a cell phone while driving. That translates into 43% of all American teens ages 16-17;

• 48% of all teens ages 12-17 say they have been in a car when the driver was texting;

• 40% say they have been in a car when the driver used a cell phone in a way that put themselves or others in danger.

No Phone Zone Lesson Plan

The Oprah Winfrey Show has provided teens with a myriad of digital resources--including an easy online editor--needed to make a 60-second PSA.

Students can create their own media, and mash it together with Oprah's voiceover, footage, music from The Oprah Winfrey Show and the No Phone Zone logo.

Best of all? It's all free!

This lesson plan was created by Derek E. Baird and has been released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. This lesson plan is not endorsed or affiliated with Oprah, OWN or Harpo, Inc.

Update: Education World has selected my 'No Phone Zone' lesson plan as the "Tech Lesson of the Week!"

Update: Scribd, the social publishing network, has chosen my 'No Phone Zone' lesson plan as a featured document of the week! Thanks Scribd!

Mashup Edu: Research on K-12 New Media Literacy

I am pleased to announce that the book chapter that I co-authored with Dr. Mercedes Fisher, "Pedagogical Mashup: Gen Y, Social Media, and Digital Learning Styles," has officially been accepted for publication in the Handbook of Research on New Media Literacy at the K-12 Level: Issues and Challenges, to be published by IGI Global is now officially available!

Dr. Fisher and I wish to thank the co-editor of the book, Professor Subramaniam at the National Institute of Education at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, for his hard work and direction during the writing and peer-review process.

In addition, we appreciate all the members of the peer-review committee for their feedback, suggestions and collaboration on this chapter. It's been a wonderful experience to work with members of the international education technology/media community.

We've saved the links for all the resources and references cited in the book chapter over on the social bookmarking tool delicious, which you can find here: http://del.icio.us/mashup.edu

Related Publications by Mercedes Fisher & Derek E. Baird

• Making mLearning Work: Gen Y, Learning & Mobile Technologies
• Social Software & Online Learning Design
• Social Media & Digital Learning Styles
• Handbook of Research on New Media Literacy at the K-12 Level

sixThings: Quality Standards for Publishers

Earlier this week sixThings, the oldest and largest standards alignment company in the country, announced that it will give its state learning standards database to any publisher that exclusively uses sixThing's alignment services.

When I was working at Yahoo! I had the pleasure of working with Amy James, the founder of sixThings, on integrating her standards database into the Yahoo! For Teachers service. Amy knows standards inside and out.

What sold our team on sixThings is that, unlike her competitors, Amy's team of former teachers does the correlations and alignments by hand. There are other companies that do alignments electronically, merging and mashing up databases of standards, but they are not as accurate and not as valuable to classroom teachers.

You can learn more about this program by contacting sixThings.

Amy is also the author of the Success Series of books designed to help parents can learn about the latest teaching methods and how best to assess their child's academic progress. The activities show how to take effective steps to strengthen their child's weaknesses, supplement their education, and help them prepare for standardized tests.

Related Resources

• Amy James on KE TV
• sixThings
• Amy James > Success Series Books

Note: I am currently working as a consultant to Knowledge Essentials Media, a sister company of sixThings.

YPulse: Five Things Marketers Can Learn From NECC 2008

YPulse is a leading source of daily news, commentary about Gen Y for media and marketing professionals. The site is edited by Anastasia Goodstein, the author of Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online.

This week I had the pleasure of writing a guest post for YPulse titled "Five Things Marketers Can Learn From NECC 2008." Here's an excerpt:

"One of my former colleagues at Yahoo! used to have a mantra: "We can do good and do well." Gen Y students are totally wired and the "Flat World" isn't an abstract view of the future, it's their reality. Increasingly teachers are looking for ways to interject global, local and other types of social awareness programs and curriculum into their classroom.

Educational programs that provide avenues for teachers and students to connect with other classrooms to "do good" can also provide you with an opportunity to build brand awareness with youth and allow you to "do well" at the same time. Tiger, Oprah, MTV, Target and Microsoft are already doing it, why aren't you?"

You can catch the whole post by clicking here. Thanks to Anastasia and the YPulse team for the opportunity.

Related Resources

• YPulse
• YPulse Mashup 2008
• Totally Wired Blog
• Barking Robot > YPulse

Digital Inclusion: Content, Community and Technology

BRIDGING THE DIGITAL CONTENT DIVIDE
Didactics World, December 2006
Derek E. Baird, M.A.

"Despite enormous strides towards digital inclusion, technology is only part of the solution. Another vital component of the digital divide that gets less attention, but is nearly as important is lack of quality, free, and open content on the web.

The key aim of the open learning movement is to have quality educational content available for students once they cross the digital divide."

Mashup Edu: A New Digital Pedagogy

Dr. Mercedes Fisher and I just finished a new book chapter titled "Pedagogical Mashup: Social Media, Gen Y and Digital Learning Styles" that will be published early next year. I'll have more details in a future post, but in the meantime I wanted to share the bounty of resources we culled together for the article.

We've saved the links for all the resources and references cited in the book chapter over on the social bookmarking tool del.icio.us, which you can find here: http://del.icio.us/mashup.edu

If you have any questions, or know of a great Education 2.0 resource that we should include, let us know!

Related Articles by Mercedes Fisher & Derek E. Baird

• Making mLearning Work: Gen Y, Learning & Mobile Technologies
• Social Software & Online Learning Design
• Social Media & Digital Learning Styles

Making mLearning Work: Gen Y, Learning and Mobile Technologies

Journal of Educational Technology Systems (JETS )

Volume 35 , Number 1 / 2006-2007

Making mLearning Work: Utilizing mobile technology for active exploration, collaboration, assessment, and reflection in higher education

Mercedes Fisher, PhD.
National College of Ireland

Derek E. Baird, M.A
Educational Technologist

Abstract

The convergence of mobile technologies into student centered learning environments requires academic institutions to design new and more effective learning, teaching, and user experience strategies.

In this paper we share results from a mLearning design experiment and analysis from a student survey conducted at the National College of Ireland. Quantitative data support our hypothesis that mLearning technologies can provide a platform for active learning, collaboration, and innovation in higher education.

In addition, we review mobile interface and user-experience design considerations, and mLearning theory. Finally, we provide an overview of mLearning applications being developed in the United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland including, Virtual Graffiti, BuddyBuzz, Flickr, and RAMBLE.

Keywords:

mLearning, social media, mobile, Flickr, BuddyBuzz, RAMBLE, Gen Y, mobile interface design, mobile user-experience design, participatory media, community generated content, rapid serial visual presentation, mobile learning theory, Ireland, Yahoo, Google, Tivo, PSP, iPod, open source education, YouTube, Claroline, National College of Ireland

Looking Forward: Thinking about mLearning

"The fates guide those who go willingly; those who do not, they drag" ~ Seneca

In late 2005, Dr. Mercedes Fisher and I began a new case study looking at the ways in which mobile technology, coupled with (mobile-based) content, can provide students with a platform for active learning, collaboration, and reflection in higher education.

The future of education, beyond the integration of Web 2.0 technologies into the classroom, is the migration of social media and learning from the PC onto mobile and handheld devices.

The European Union, in addition to their ongoing mobile education research, is also actively working on implementing several mLearning initiatives.

Moreover, mobile-based learning may (finally!) provide a way to close the digital divide and provide educational access and equality for children in developing nations.

In a recent speech, Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel pointed to some trends in terms of Internet access and mobile devices:

• 900 million people connect to the Internet via a PC
• 2 billion cell phones, many of these are web-enabled
• 50% of those outside the US will connect to the web via a mobile or handheld device, NOT a PC

One thing is clear: The convergence of mobile technologies and student-centered learning environments will require academic institutions to design and implement new and more effective user experience strategies for use in mobile learning environments (MLE).

I'm looking forward to sharing more of our research on mLearning, including our final case study, with Barking Robot readers soon!

Update: Here's our case study! Fisher & Baird: Making mLearning Work

Related Resources

• The Mobile Internet Generation
• Learning 3.0: Mobile, Mobile, Mobile
• BJ Fogg, PhD > Mobile Persuasion
• Mobile Learning & iTunes U
• YPulse > Mobile

More on FlickrEdu...

                    

Many thanks to BlendedEdu readers for such a positive response to my article on using Flickr as an educational social networking tool.

Since its publication in the November 2005 edition of techLearning, I have received email and feedback from educators from all over the world.

I'm thrilled that so many of you--from Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Japan, U.S, and elsewhere--have found the article a worthwhile addition to your arsenal of curriculum and teaching resources!

Thank you, again, for your feedback!

db

Links

• techLearning: FlickrEdu
• FlickrEdu Group
• Flickr + Art History
• debaird.net + flickr

FlickrEDU: The Promise of Social Networks

FlickrEdu: The Promise of Social Networks >>TechLearning:

"While not originally developed as an education tool, Flickr, and other social networking technologies have the ability to play an important part in student motivation, retention and learning—especially in distributed learning environments.

Social networking technologies and media are important tools because of their ability to foster interaction and communication between students. This is especially important in online learning communities, where students may have limited face-to-face time to build a support network with their peers."

How do you use Flickr in the classroom?

• HTML Version (requires registration)
• PDF Version

Web Resources

• Flickr
• Flickr + Creative Commons
• Flickr > Groups > FlickrEdu

FlickrEDU | Social Software Goes to School

Flickr, the popular online photo sharing and social networking community, is popping up in lots of classrooms as teachers find interesting and creative ways to integrate its many features into their curriculum.

Why is Flickr so popular in the classroom?

Perhaps the June 2005 Adaptive Path newsletter said it best:

“Flickr recognized that people wanted a better way to share their photos. They also recognized that people might have myriad ways of doing that. Flickr lets people derive their own value from sharing photos…Instead of attempting to define your experience, they simply provide a sandbox, and give you the means to create a meaningful experience within that.”

Sounds like social constructivism to me.

So how do you use Flickr in your classroom? I've started a Flickr community group where educators can share curriculum ideas, make suggestions, share student Flickr projects, or learn more about using social software in the classroom. So please join the discussion!

And for a more ideas how to use Flickr in your classroom, be sure to look for my article, FlickrEDU in the Nov 2005 issue of TechLearning.

Nov 11 Update: The article has been published. Here's a printable handout you are free to use for professional development workshops.

Social Media, e-Learning & Online Instructional Design

Online Learning Design That Fosters Student Support, Self-Regulation, And Retention, Campus-Wide Information Systems : The International Journal of Learning and Technology, (2005) Volume: 22 Number: 2

Authors Mercedes Fisher, PhD. Derek E. Baird, M.A.

Purpose: Investigating the social structure in online environments helps us design for and facilitate student (user) support and retention. Provides data showing how design and use of social media networking technologies provided collaborative learning opportunities for online students.

Design / Methodology / Approach: A study of computer-mediated groups that utilized social networking technologies and a web-based collaborative model in an online learning program. Participants were put into groups and observed as they used both online dialogue (synchronous and asynchronous) and social media technologies, such as blogs, as tools to support their learning.

Findings: The integration of web-based learning communities and collaborative group assignments into the course design has a positive influence on retention in online environments.

Research limitations / implications: The research was limited to the online student population at Pepperdine University, and did not include data or research from similar online programs at other universities. Future research should include data collected from students outside the U.S. to find out what role cultural mores, attitudes, and gender play in online learning.

Practical Implications: Provides curriculum design strategies that foster community, utilize social / participatory media, and support online student learning and retention through effective course design.

Originality / value: Current research on distance learning curriculum has focused on the instructor’s perspective. We feel that research from the student’s perspective can also yield some valuable insights for online course design.

Social Media, Gen Y & Digital Learning Styles

Journal of Educational Technology Systems
Issue: Volume 34, Number 1 / 2005-2006

User Experience Design Strategies: Utilizing Social Networking Media To Support "Always On" Learning Styles

Derek E. Baird and Mercedes Fisher

Abstract:

Raised in the "always on" world of interactive & social media, the Internet, TV 2.0 and digital messaging technologies, today's student has different media consumption expectations than previous generations. This net-centric generation values their ability to use the Web to create a self-paced, customized, on-demand learning path that includes multiple forms of interactive, social, and self-publishing media tools.

First, we investigate the formation of a burgeoning digital pedagogy that roots itself in current adult and social learning theories, while integrating social networking, user experience design strategies, and other emerging technologies into the curriculum to support student learning.

Next, we explore how current and emerging social networking media (such as blogs, iPod, RSS/XML, podcasting, wiki's, YackPack, Flickr, Twitter and other self-publishing media) can support digital learning styles, facilitate the formation of virtual learning communities, foster user engagement and reflection, and enhance the overall user experience for students in synchronous and asynchronous learning environments.

The data included in this article are intended as directional means to help instructors, interactive designers, media technologists and course designers identify social networking resources and other emerging technologies that will enhance the delivery of instruction while meeting the educational media consumption needs of today's generational learning styles.

We've saved the links for all the resources and references cited in this article on the social bookmarking tool delicious, which you can find here: http://del.icio.us/mashup.edu

Related Publications by Mercedes Fisher & Derek E. Baird

• Making mLearning Work: Gen Y, Learning & Mobile Technologies
• Social Software & Online Learning Design
• Social Media & Digital Learning Styles
• Handbook of Research on New Media Literacy at the K-12 Level
• Using Twitter to Engage Students in Learning