F2F Event + Social Networks = Increased Likelihood of Richer Connections

You know – I have the exact same tendency. Not necessarily because I want to discard them so much as the combination of getting caught up in life and fear that they won’t remember me / rejection.

Maybe this might finally solve my problem with how to use facebook……

Yes, I see what you mean. Especially if a little too much time has gone by. My two friends from two different classes I took last semester who are now friends on Facebook is a good example. I guarantee if I see them on campus in the spring, I’ll say ‘hi’ and chat. Other people from I class I might hesitate saying ‘hi’ to because I’m afraid they won’t remember me. Of course being over analytical, I start to wonder about chatting with those people I’m kind of friends with on Facebook…do I say, hey, did you ever work out your New Year plans (that you were providing ongoing status updates on)? Feels kind of stalkerish….at least it increases the likelihood of ongoing conversations with many different people. We can only be richer for that.

Yes, I see what you mean. Especially if a little too much time has gone by. My two friends from two different classes I took last semester who are now friends on Facebook is a good example. I guarantee if I see them on campus in the spring, I’ll say ‘hi’ and chat. Other people from I class I might hesitate saying ‘hi’ to because I’m afraid they won’t remember me. Of course being over analytical, I start to wonder about chatting with those people I’m kind of friends with on Facebook…do I say, hey, did you ever work out your New Year plans (that you were providing ongoing status updates on)? Feels kind of stalkerish….at least it increases the likelihood of ongoing conversations with many different people. We can only be richer for that.

Hi Greg-
Good points.

Re: Facebook, yes you would have to use Facebook (join & participate) to realize any benefit (as you would have to in any other social network) and I don’t think most claim adjusters log into Facebook because over two-thirds of organizations block such sites (read, not confirmed).

However, Facebook-like applications behind the firewall could provide the benefits discussed in this post and its subsequent comments.

Nearly all of my Facebook friends are over 40 (or at least look it ; ) and nearly all are in the education space. So I’m not using it to “entertain myself” as suggested by Professor Wesch who is responsible for the ‘visions’ video (via your Visions of Students Today post). I use it almost exclusively for business and school rather than personally. I’m using it to create lasting relationships with those who share my professional interests and who I will probably never meet f2f.

So, based on my experience, I do think it (the social network) may work in organizations for those over 23 especially when it is relevant – when it is not used solely to entertain.

Wesch says,

…it is our job as educators to explore what techniques are most effective and to try to generate new, more effective techniques.

and

How can we recreate the learning environment in a way that encourages students to do things that creates the learning we hope to inspire? How can we create a learning environment that encourages students to ask critical questions and become adept at filtering, analyzing, and organizing the masses of information now penetrating our environment? And how can we inspire students to ultimately create high quality information and knowledge themselves? I see enormous potentials for new technology to help us in this regard. But I also see ways in which the technology could be used to reproduce and even magnify the failings we see in our education system today.

This to me is his primary message. We explore what is new to see if it’s better. If it’s not better, we move on. Facebook is one such thing among many (Skype, Second Life, blogs, wikis, etc.).

I wonder if Wesch has uncovered (or completed) some research that support comments about digital natives. This one I like because it supports why we need to work with new digital environments:

They may be learning about this digital information environment despite us, but they are not reaching the levels of understanding that are necessary (MINE: problem, but who says they are not?) as this digital information environment becomes increasingly pervasive in all of our lives. All of the classic skills we learned in relation to a print-based information universe are important, and must now be augmented by a critical understanding of the workings of digital information (MINE: solution, but who says it’ll be better?).

This is why need to understand. Why we need to make every attempt to ‘get it.’ I’m still trying to ‘get’ Twitter’ as others have.

Hi Greg-
Good points.

Re: Facebook, yes you would have to use Facebook (join & participate) to realize any benefit (as you would have to in any other social network) and I don’t think most claim adjusters log into Facebook because over two-thirds of organizations block such sites (read, not confirmed).

However, Facebook-like applications behind the firewall could provide the benefits discussed in this post and its subsequent comments.

Nearly all of my Facebook friends are over 40 (or at least look it ; ) and nearly all are in the education space. So I’m not using it to “entertain myself” as suggested by Professor Wesch who is responsible for the ‘visions’ video (via your Visions of Students Today post). I use it almost exclusively for business and school rather than personally. I’m using it to create lasting relationships with those who share my professional interests and who I will probably never meet f2f.

So, based on my experience, I do think it (the social network) may work in organizations for those over 23 especially when it is relevant – when it is not used solely to entertain.

Wesch says,

…it is our job as educators to explore what techniques are most effective and to try to generate new, more effective techniques.

and

How can we recreate the learning environment in a way that encourages students to do things that creates the learning we hope to inspire? How can we create a learning environment that encourages students to ask critical questions and become adept at filtering, analyzing, and organizing the masses of information now penetrating our environment? And how can we inspire students to ultimately create high quality information and knowledge themselves? I see enormous potentials for new technology to help us in this regard. But I also see ways in which the technology could be used to reproduce and even magnify the failings we see in our education system today.

This to me is his primary message. We explore what is new to see if it’s better. If it’s not better, we move on. Facebook is one such thing among many (Skype, Second Life, blogs, wikis, etc.).

I wonder if Wesch has uncovered (or completed) some research that support comments about digital natives. This one I like because it supports why we need to work with new digital environments:

They may be learning about this digital information environment despite us, but they are not reaching the levels of understanding that are necessary (MINE: problem, but who says they are not?) as this digital information environment becomes increasingly pervasive in all of our lives. All of the classic skills we learned in relation to a print-based information universe are important, and must now be augmented by a critical understanding of the workings of digital information (MINE: solution, but who says it’ll be better?).

This is why need to understand. Why we need to make every attempt to ‘get it.’ I’m still trying to ‘get’ Twitter’ as others have.

I agree that it’s important to what’s new to see if it’s better. The key is, better for what? Your corporate examples are good: if I’m able to work more effectively with partners in other groups (and maybe even with clients), that’s clearly better — though I need to be able to recognize “more effective” when I see it.

That last quote from Wesch (in comment 4) has a lot of meat to it. In the first part, it seems to me he’s saying the equivalent of “it’s one thing to learn HTML; it’s another thing to build a webpage that does something for you in a new way.”

For me the aha moment early in my CBT career was the first working section of a course, when I’d mastered the coding sufficiently that the author component became simply a tool, one that offered me immense possibilities not just for “answer analysis” but for delivering highly specific feedback that would help a person learn.

The pessimistic side of me, alas, resonates with his remark that technology can “reproduce and even magnify the failings we see in our education system today”

I don’t think that’s inevitable, but in some organizational settings it’s as likely as excessive CEO compensation.

Dave- your comments made me think of a sticky note I kept at my computer when designing…”But is it better?” I was at some event listening to a speaker I no longer can remember and that point really resonated. So, I kept it and I think it often kept me on track. thanks for your comments.

Janet:

I’m glad you made sense out of my nearly-incomprehensible first sentence, which should have begun “important to LOOK AT what’s new…”

As with most technologically-based changes since the first teaching machines, I see some tendency of early adopters to clamber onto (or ahead of) bandwagons, which is their role. But they clamber off just as quickly. Just yesterday someone dismissed social networks as “SO dead” because of whatever glimmer on the horizon was energizing her.

Your “is it better?” sticky note reminded me of my insight that the worst CBT course you’d even design would be your second one. With your first, you’re learning how to operate whatever tool you’re using. With your second (for “your” read “my”), you throw in every special effect, sound, image, technique. By the time you hit your third course, you’ve probably sobered up.

Janet:

I’m glad you made sense out of my nearly-incomprehensible first sentence, which should have begun “important to LOOK AT what’s new…”

As with most technologically-based changes since the first teaching machines, I see some tendency of early adopters to clamber onto (or ahead of) bandwagons, which is their role. But they clamber off just as quickly. Just yesterday someone dismissed social networks as “SO dead” because of whatever glimmer on the horizon was energizing her.

Your “is it better?” sticky note reminded me of my insight that the worst CBT course you’d even design would be your second one. With your first, you’re learning how to operate whatever tool you’re using. With your second (for “your” read “my”), you throw in every special effect, sound, image, technique. By the time you hit your third course, you’ve probably sobered up.