Networked flippin’ learning

  by  Participatory Learning 

After Alec shared on Tuesday night his personal journey with social media and education,  and creating or revealing online identity, my first thoughts were, boy I’m glad I’m almost 50 when the advent of social media makes consideration of  private and public identities critical.  The EQ and judgement of a 50 year old, in most cases, is quite different that that of a 20 year old.   I was an emotional, impulsive, self-conscious 20 year old and the persistence, replicability , scalability, search-ability, invisible audience, collapsed context and public=private features of social media that Danah Boyd outlines in her presentation would have me immobilized in a chronic state of embarrassment and remorse.  I appreciated Boyd’s insight on teenagers being the same as always, but social media as a “hangout” providing a different venue in which they work out social structures and practice sociality.  Students don’t all get along, cliques still exist and class divides are perpetuated (via social media).  This is so important to understand before considering bringing social media into the classroom.  Her research  shows that students are hanging out online in OPEN SPACES with the implication for adults in their worlds to provide the frameworks to critically evaluate the information they are receiving.  She issues a strong caution – if we label and view this younger generation as digital natives we MUST NOT assume a skill set that yet needs to be developed – that of critical evaluation.

Back to the online identity question…. My private and public identities are  very congruous.  When I google myself, I see that I have left a lot of footprints, none of which cause me to cringe.   Anyone can see that I invest in real estate with my life and business partner,  our company puts out a newsletter, I’m in nursing education, raise funds and awareness for Kenyan orphans and have developed a few prezi’s that need some help!  These are things friends and family know already.  My facebook account has tight privacy settings, but my 114 friends can see that I’m posting family photos and links to social justice and health issues and comical but tasteful youtube videos, and sharing garden produce.  Although my online identity hasn’t yet hindered me in my professional life, I admit that, compared to my mentors, it could use some spiffing up.

Delicious is working well to collect the web resources I will need to reference in my papers.  I’ve organized 3 stacks and tagged articles within.

Re: Twitter, I have to decide if I need to scale it back to educational themes for a while to manage the reading volume.  Global health and social justice topics account for much of the content I’m reading.  Then I go to other’s papers to read more on education.

Project Planning and Progress

I’ve been exploring digital storytelling tools: Voicethread , as well as Camtasia.  Voicethread sounds easier to learn, maybe more realistic for a newbie, but Camtasia has more visual appeal because of the additional features.  I will begin to play around with my daughter’s wedding photos and create a Voicethread, then, depending on how that goes, I just might venture into Camtasia.

As I’ve begun planning my project and speaking to faculty that I’ll interview about their educational innovations involving technology, I realize that I need to be more intentional from this point on about connecting with these folks and learning from them.  I have access to a PLN in my very own faculty that, for various and sundry reasons  I’ve not optimized.  Because we all take students into clinical settings around the health region, scheduling a f2f chat is challenging, but that’s simply not a valid excuse anymore.  Skype is so easy to use.  One can download free recording programs and archive these interactions for future reference.  This is going into my Leadership Development Plan.

Since my nursing education idol referred to “flipping” her classroom, I had questions about what this means.  As I investigated, I realized that two of my faculty colleagues I’m planning to interview for my Project have implemented one feature of flipping.  They are using the online resources provided by the textbook publisher.  Students must complete online modules prior to class/labs so that they are ready to apply the learning when we meet together.  This approach to inquiry based learning makes a lot of sense to me, and I’m going to explore it further.

Are you a flipper?  Completely or partially?  What have you done to flip your learning spaces?  

Do you know where you’re going to? Do you like the things that life is showing you?

  by  grodt1987 

If my first paragraph frightens you, please persevere. Balance of mind returns in the second paragraph.

I took a moment to edit my twitter profile and “exposed myself”! to a different community. With the inclusion of “nursing educator”, within hours I had a request to be followed by the competition.  (social media espionage???)  Now I’m wondering why do they care about me and what I’m saying or reading?  This is not a person but a marketing machine that wants to follow me.  They have a vested business interest in knowing me?  How many follow me= Judy KJ’s social capital?!  How does the sum of one nursing program’s faculty’s followers compare to the others?  I sound like a conspiracy theorist, I’m sure, but I’m a little freaked out after George Siemans‘ presentation.  Just when I think I’m regaining some equilibrium in EC&I831, some other novel and/or challenging idea knocks me off balance again.  If we’re delivered information and product advertising and follower requests based on how we’ve been profiled in our cyberspace travel, how else is this information being used?  If I have the feeling I’m being watched, is this illusion or paranoia?  Am I being me-watched as I SWIM -(sense-make and way-find ) and recreate on the beach???  Is anyone else feeling vulnerable and exposed?  Suspicious of motives?

  by  TheeErin

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for making collaboration with workplace  colleagues possible by building a meeting agenda in a googledoc and creating a dropbox folder for clinical course resources this week, only to be received with thinly veiled hostility because, “in the past, we’ve always used the groups folder on the course page and I don’t have time to learn how to do this.”  The collaborative feature was completely overlooked or downplayed, I’m not sure which.   Now, I have empathy for this position, as this was me a year ago, so I graciously offered to, for now, place the resources into the folder on the course page.  Diffusion of innovation theory, help me out here.  My colleague is now in the knowledge or awareness stage.  By virtue of being on a planning committee with me, an early or late adopter, I’m not sure which, she’s in my peer network, exposed to this innovation in collaborative writing.  RE: complexity, compatibility and trial-ability: however simple or user-friendly this particular innovation is, it was not seen to be consistent with socio-cultural values, and in spite of being immediately trial-able for one meeting, this individual was a non-adopter, for now.  As other peers uptake use and extol associated virtues, this peer may be swept up in a critical mass of useage.  Until then, she will assess me with suspicion…?  Is anyone else getting strange looks and reactions as you integrate new ways of doing into your way of being?

Speaking of way finding, and on a much less paranoid note, I found my way to paper.li and I love it.  I LOVE how it organizes just like the newspapers I’ve loved to read.  The esthetic is different but as pleasing to me as the tactile experience of paging through a paper version.  And what I REALLY LOVE is how unlike the version you purchase on the newstand, my twitter version contains not only bad, but good and great news more global than local in scope; inspirational stories of countries making steady progress toward MDGs, of philanthro-capitalists awarding grants for innovators in vaccine development (our own VIDO here are U of S has been a recipient of funding from the Gates Foundation), of educational innovators, medical breakthroughs and  leadership feats.  I sometimes want to be called up to a higher place when I read news.  Is this wrong?  Is this adopting rose-colored glasses?  Would my supervising faculty criticize what they perceive as loss of my critical lense?  OR is this what George would call “weaving my own tapestry”, “creating (my own) coherence?  Please comment… I’d love to hear what you think.  I can handle criticism.  Whereas in my undergraduate degree, and even half of my graduate studies, established curricula and required readings have influenced which ideas received exposure, learning in an open course with the web as my library means the sky is the limit, and I exercise some free will in what to lay my eyes on and apply my mind to.   I, like George, think I can handle the ambiguity.

<div><a href=’http://www.flickr.com/photos/drp/1136216/&#8217; target=’_blank’><img src=’http://farm1.static.flickr.com/1/1136216_9a193d0dd2.jpg&#8217; alt=’Lights Out Please by drp, on Flickr’ title=’Lights Out Please by drp, on Flickr’ border=’0’/></a><br/><a href=’http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/&#8217; target=’_blank’><img src=’http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/2.0/80×15.png&#8217; alt=’Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic License’ title=’Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic License’ border=’0′ align=’left’></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;by&nbsp;<a href=’http://www.flickr.com/people/drp/&#8217; target=’_blank’>&nbsp;drp</a><a href=’http://www.imagecodr.org/&#8217; target=’_blank’>&nbsp;</a></div>

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I have to say, WOW, I’m so impressed with how everyone is learning and growing and writing with more flare and posting more riveting images.  I really loved  Sarah‘s
post this week – her huge heart for teaching young teens and boys comes through in spades and I feel like I really got to know her.   I would have loved to have her as a teacher for my 14 year old who is now 21 and according to my neighbors, will receive his brain back from aliens sometime in the next 4 years.

Until later, blog on!

PS has anyone had the attribution not show up, as with my first image in the post?  I tried twice to follow the instructions exactly as provided for using imagecodr and still, no credit beneath the great visual.

the blogosphere – it’s a vortex and I’m swirling

I’ve discovered so many exciting, intriguing, helpful, entertaining and downright funny blogs tonite (and haven’t done any work on my other class! Not good.)  I had no idea there was so much social media out there already for nurses and nurse educators.  I’m convinced I could spend 24/7 reading fascinating bits and pieces from blogs and twitter feeds.  I’m being sucked in and down….must re-sist!  Have responsibilities beyond this class.

Low and behold, there’s a f2f conference in November called blogworld with panel discussions on these health-related topics and a whole lot more:

• The use of digital applications and tools to change behaviors to improve health,
• Can social media improve how healthcare is managed? What can be learned from other industries.
• What companies can do to support patient needs
• STOP being afraid of HIPAA regulations when you blog, tweet, or podcast

I’m now following #RNchat too, which led me to many other treasure troves.

 I feel like the kid who went into  the candy shop  for blue whales and came out with jaw breakers, gummy bears, malted milk balls and licorice, but NO blue whales.  I think it’s soon time to FOCUS.

Mental health promotion aided by social media?

The  profession of nursing, by definition, brings nurses into contact with human suffering and loss.  The loss may be as monumental as death of a family member or friend, or it may be less obvious, such as a new diagnosis of schizophrenia or heart disease or muscular schlerosis; or the birth of a child with a physical or cognitive challenge.   Counselling and teaching are nursing roles in supporting those coping with loss .

Shauna, in her #eci831 blog last week, presented some ideas and posed some great questions around using social media to educate and support those dealing with various medical conditions.

Related to this application of social media is health promotion for grieving individuals, whether grieving for loss of health or function or grieving the death of a loved one.  What we know about healthy grieving or griefwork is that acknowledging and facing one’s feelings and expressing them in a tangible or creative way is therapeutic and healing.   I came upon this blog quite by accident, or… maybe serendipitously while stalking on facebook.  AmongFriends was set up specifically for bereaved persons to share their  grief journeys and support one another. 

Blog-grieving allows people facing loss to tell their stories , but in a more public way than what is traditional.  Being connected with others facing similar crises may allow for mutual member support, validation or “normalizing” of experiences from someone who’s been there, or is there right now.  With a larger network of commiserants than would be in a geographical community, chances that someone will understand and respond in a meaningful way.  There may be a sense of safety and security in  anonmymity, if one chooses, if a person isn’t sure if their reactions to their loss are “normal”.  I could have used this outlet when my son was diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes at 5 years back in 1995, when I felt too weak and crazy to tell friends and family what was going on, and consequently experienced depression for several years as a result of  lack of internal management strategies for chronic sorrow. 

I now appreciate an application for social media which I’d never considered before and which intrigues me for its potential as a mental health promotion tool.  

Counselling and nursing types out there, have you ever explored blogging as therapy for a grieving client?  If so, did you follow up?  Was the experience therapeutic?  Would you consider recommending blogging or joining an online social networking group as a means of processing feelings associated with loss?

life-saving tweets and twitter in nursing and medical education

Warning:  this video contains close-ups of internal organs and body fluids.

I’ll apologize upfront for the length of this video.  Thankfully, there’s some good entertainment value for you time.  (Feel free to disagree after viewing.)  After seeing this episode of Grey’s Anatomy last year,  the light dawned for me about the potential for social media and education and indeed, life-saving problem solving.  Incidentally, this was the same night Sheldon’s (Big Bang Theory) audience members were tweeting “KMN” while he lectured.  That’s a topic to unpack another day!