George Veletsianos, PhD

Category: my research Page 10 of 20

Social Media in Academia: Networked Scholars – reviews

By

On November 11, 2015

In my research, networked scholars, NPS, scholarship

I just received the final covers for my upcoming book, Social Media in Academia: Networked Scholars (see below). More importantly though, some very kind people I admire have read the book and have written some very nice things about it:

“A timely and significant contribution to the field. Many books tend to take either an advocacy stance or dystopian view of technology in scholarship, but Veletsianos manages to take a critical perspective that is both grounded in theory and rooted in practical experience. For any academic interested in the impact of networked technology on teaching or research, this is highly recommended.”

–Martin Weller, Professor of Educational Technology at the Open University, UK

“Social Media in Academia is one of those rare books that every new assistant professor and doctoral student should read and take to heart. Establishing one’s public profile through networked scholarship is not a task to be undertaken casually, but one that requires mindfulness and discernment. Veletsianos provides invaluable guidance that all academics, but especially those just starting out, should heed.”

–Thomas C. Reeves, Professor Emeritus of Learning, Design, and Technology at the University of Georgia, USA

 

social_media_Academia_final_cover

 

Making sense of the Digital Learning Research Network gathering (#dLRN15)

By

On October 20, 2015

In emerging technologies, my research, online learning, sharing

I was at a small gathering last week, called the Digital Learning Research Network. It was hosted at Stanford and it aimed to explore the messiness of digital learning. This was not representative of Silicon Valley’s uncritical love affair with technology. Many colleagues wrote reflections about it: Catherine Cronin, Kristen Eshleman,  Josh Kim, Jonathan Rees, Tim Klapdor,  Alyson Indrunas, Adam Croom, Whitney Kilgore, Matt Crosslin, Laura Gogia, Patrice Torcivia, and Lee Skallerup Bessette (to name a few). When was the last time you were at a small conference, other than the ones focusing on blogging, and this many people took time after the event to blog about it?

The messiness of digital learning isn’t a new development. It is something that educational technology evangelists ignore, but as a researcher who has an affinity for qualitative data, and as one who is increasingly using data mining techniques on open social data, I can tell you that mess is the norm and not the exception. I’m not the only one.

For me, the conference questioned educational technology but looked to it for empowerment. It critiqued universities but saw them as places to create a more just and equitable society. It brought attention to the US-centric conversations happening in this space, but recognized that we can learn from one another. It sought research, but did not seek to emulate research-focused conferences. It allowed Dave to share his thoughts but called him out on it when it was time to stop. ;)

I see the conference as the start of a longer and larger conversation. Many of us are doing research in this space and many were missing. Let’s expand the conversation.

Strategies for designing student- centered, social, open, and engaging digital learning experiences

By

On October 6, 2015

In emerging technologies, learner experience, my research, online learning, open, scholarship

Recently, I had the privilege of organizing a workshop for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Athabasca University. The goal was to help the organization work through what they might need to do to put in practice a new strategic plan which calls for student-centered and open digital learning. I used the slides below to assist faculty, instructors, and instructional designers translate theory into practice.

 

Networked Scholars, or, Why on earth do academics use social media and why should we care? (workshop)

By

On October 5, 2015

In my research, networked scholars

Below are slides from a workshop I gave on the use of social media by academics. During the workshop I described how/why academics use social media and online networks for scholarship, and explored the opportunities and tensions that exist in these spaces. Throughout the workshop, I  facilitated small group and large group conversations on this topic based on participant interests. Topic we investigated included social media participation strategies; self-disclosures on social media; capturing and analyzing social media data; ethics of social media research; and social media use for networked learning.

 

Digital Learning, Emerging Technologies, Abundant Data, and Pedagogies of Care

By

On September 3, 2015

In my research, online learning, scholarship

I was at the Emerging Technologies in Authentic Learning Contexts Conference in Cape Town this week, where I gave one of the keynotes. In my talk, I highlighted some of the assumptions of the Educational Technology evangelists and explained how educational technology as an industry departs from educational technology as a field of study. I argued for context-driven innovation, and gave some examples from our current/upcoming research to explain these arguments. My slides are below.

My visit in Cape Town included many highlights – amongst them, meeting Jan Herrington, Gilly Salmon, Dick Ng’ambi and revisiting with Johannes Cronje and Nick Rushby. Spending time with Laura Czerniewicz though, was a real treat. Here’s proof (selfie #1 by Laura, photo of selfie by Jolanda Morkel)
 

The buzzwords of #edtech

By

On August 26, 2015

In emerging technologies, my research, online learning, scholarship

An interesting article this morning from Jeff Young at the Chronicle of Higher Education notes:

One of the obstacles to bringing “adaptive learning” to college classrooms is that professors, administrators, and even those who make adaptive-learning systems don’t always agree on what that buzzword means. That was a major theme of a daylong Adaptive Learning Summit held here on Tuesday. Several people interviewed at the summit, held by the education-innovation group National Education Initiative, noted that part of the problem is a proliferation of companies that make big promises based on making their technologies adaptive, yet all use the term slightly differently.

I would counter that the big (and unsubstantiated) promises are a greater problem than the buzzwords, but the lack of clarity on what these concepts refer to are an issue, too.

The introductory sentences from Online Learning: Emerging Technologies and Emerging Practices (the second edition of the Emerging Technologies in Distance Education book I edited, which is forthcoming in 2016), make a similar argument:

Many of these (new) approaches to education and scholarship can be categorized as either emerging technologies (e.g., automated grading applications within MOOCs) or emerging practices (e.g., sharing instructional materials online under licenses that allow recipients to reuse them freely).

The terms “emerging technologies” and “emerging practices” however, are catchall phrases that are often misused and haphazardly defined. As Siemens (2008, ¶ 1) argues, “terms like ‘emergence,’ ‘adaptive systems,’ ‘self-organizing systems,’ and others are often tossed about with such casualness and authority as to suggest the speaker(s) fully understand what they mean.”

A clearer and more uniform understanding of emergence and of the characteristics of emerging technologies and practices will enable researchers to examine these topics under a common framework and practitioners to better anticipate potential challenges and impacts that may arise from their integration into learning environments.

Networked scholars – final table of contents

By

On August 12, 2015

In my research, networked scholars, NPS, open, scholarship

I’ve received the publisher queries on my book yesterday, and the table of contents has been finalized as below.

I’ve opted for a few first-person narratives, interviews, and descriptions of the habits of academics who use social media in their day-to-day life. One gap in the literature that is becoming increasingly problematic is that researchers are focusing on social media use for scholarship – when social media are intertwined in scholars’ lives in complicated ways. One example is the use of social media for activism and raising awareness (e.g., targeting casualization). A second example is the use of social media to connect with friends and family in social media spaces where colleagues and supervisors are present and figuring out how to navigate the personal-professional tensions that arise as a result of the collapsing contexts.

Social Media in Academia: Networked Scholars

Section

Title

Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter 2

Networked Scholarship

Chapter 3

Anna: A Social Media Advocate

Chapter 4

Knowledge Creation and Dissemination

Chapter 5

Realities of Day-to-Day Social Media Use

Chapter 6

Networks of Tension and Conflict

Chapter 7

Nicholas: A Visitor

Chapter 8

Networks of Inequity

Chapter 9

Networks of Disclosure

Chapter 10

Fragmented Networks

Chapter 11

Scholarly Networks / Scholars in Networks

Chapter 12

Conclusion

References

References

Index

Index

Page 10 of 20

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén