Social Media, Learning… and the ‘Always On Generation’

Steve Wheeler@timbuckteethPlymouth University

Can we predict the Future...?

http://w

esternfrontierblog.wordpress.com

/

“One day every town in America will have a telephone!”

- U.S. Mayor (c 1880)

The First Mobile Phone

Photo by Steve Wheeler

http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him an iPhone.”

- Abraham Lincoln (on the ‘selfie’)

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Image source: http://www.masterlink.com/blog

“This is for everyone” London 2012

“The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed” – William Gibson

http://intergalacticrobot.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/helen-oloy.html

Ubiquitous Connectivity

cc S

teve

Whe

eler

, Uni

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ity o

f Ply

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010

http://i.imwx.com

User Generated Content

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/hugovk/3945049632/

Sentiment tracking

“If you think of the Web mainly as a place to ‘look up things’, you are

missing the point”. – Alec Couros (2012)

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“Where digital communication has

fractured the tyranny of distance and computers

have become pervasive and ubiquitous, identification through digital mediation

has become the new cultural capital”.

- Wheeler (2009)

Digital cultural capital – Membership of the Tribe

http://www.coreideas.com.au/

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Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow's_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg

Abraham MaslowHierarchy of Human Needs

Source: http://johnantonios.com/2010/02/06/the-social-media-hierarchy-of-needs/

http://www.slideshare.net/courosa/why-social-networks-matter

GlobalSocial

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http://scoop.intel.com/what-happens-in-an-internet-minute/

Social Media use in 2013

>1 Billion (100 billion connections)

>500 Million >150 Million

>14 million

articles

>6 Billion imagesSources from service providers and also http://econsultancy.com

3.5 Billion views/day70 hours/minute

>400 Million

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3>170 Million(55 million posts per day)

http://www.slashgear.com/babys-first-ipad-24121114/

“The average digital birth of children

happens at about six months.”

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Courtesy of Steve Anderson

Learners taking notesPhoto: Lori Cullen

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Digital Natives?

The Net

Generation?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56155476@N08/5667863948/

Homo

Zappiens?

Millennials?

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Power users 14%

Ordinary users 27%

Irregular users 14%

Basic users 45%

Source: Kennedy et al (2010) Beyond Digital Natives and Immigrants: Exploring types of net generation students, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26 (5).

n = 2096, mean age range 17-23 years

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http://truedantalion.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/silver-surfers.html

Digital Residents or Visitors?

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http://w

ww

.howtoee.com

/tips-about-friendship-at-work/

http://jiscrsc.jiscinvolve.org/wp/files/2013/04/digvis-digres.png

“We all fall somewhere along a continuum between Digital Visitor and Digital Resident, from very occasional online interaction, like accessing your bank account, to the evolution of a complex online presence through a variety of platforms.” – Judy Bloxham (JISC, 2013)

Digital Residents, Digital Visitors (White & Le Cornu, 2011)

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Personal Learning NetworksPhoto by Steve Wheeler

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http://web.media.mit.edu/~papert/

“I am convinced that the best learning takes place when the learner takes charge.”

– Seymour Papert Stev

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Flow Channel

CHAL

LEN

GE

SKILLSLow High

Low

Hig

h

Anxiety

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Adapted from: Csikszentmihalyi (1991)

CHAL

LEN

GE

SKILLSLow High

Low

Hig

h

Anxiety

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Adapted from: Csikszentmihalyi (1991) and Killi (2009)

P1

P2

P3

P4

Beyond my reach

What I can learn with help(ZPD)

ZPD and scaffolding

What I can learn on my

own

Technology and toolsKnowledgeable others

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Zone of Proxim

al Development (Z

PD)

CHAL

LEN

GE

SKILLSLow High

Low

Hig

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Anxiety

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Adapted from: Csikszentmihalyi (1991) and Killi (2009)

Celebration

One tribe or many?

http://www.zimbio.com

Costume echo = group identity

http://commons.wikimedia.org

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Postural echo =Identification

http://w

ww

.leifjeffers.com

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Tribal Nature of New Media

“New media ... have made our world into a single unit... The world is now like a continually sounding tribal drum. Media point us away from individual man and toward tribal man.”

- Marshall McLuhan (1960)metapedia.com

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“Twitter and blogs ... contribute an entirely new dimension of what it means to be a part of a tribe. The real power of tribes has nothing to do with the Internet and everything to do with people.”

Internet Tribes“A tribe needs a shared interest and a way to communicate.”

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“The internet eliminates geography. This means that there are now more tribes: smaller tribes, influential tribes, and tribes that could never have existed before.” - Seth Godin

http://nedgrace.files.wordpress.com

Tribes

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Digital Tribes and Virtual Clans

There is one digital tribe ... But there are may subsets of this large digital tribe – what we can term ‘virtual clans’.

- Wheeler (2009)

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http://www.phillwebb.net

Totems

“It is easier to project your feelings of awe towards a totem than something as complex as the tribe.”

- Emile Durkheim

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Digital Totems?

• Gathering places• Rituals and rules• Celebration and fun• Transmission of customs,

social mores and values (storytelling)

• = Tribal identity• = Social networks

http://w

ww

.flickr.com/photos/jcbw

alsh/3412625028/

Source: Wheeler (2009) Digital Tribes

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Digital Totems

For digital tribes ... their totems are their social networking tools within the World Wide Web.

http://www.faqs.org

Source: Wheeler (2009) Digital Tribes

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Wikipedians(Deletionism + Exclusionism) /Inclusionism =

Source: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Darwikinism

Survival of the fittest

content Stev

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Flickrites and Facebookers

http://www.travel-images.com http://www.coal-is-dirty.com

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Smart Mobs

http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu

“Smart Mobs consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they don’t know each other. [They can] cooperate in ways never before possible.”

Rheingold, H. (2002) Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.

The ‘Thumb Tribe’ – one thumb signalling

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Flash mobs

http://idirekt.cz

The power of txting to organise collective action

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Image source: http://www.sportsnetworker.com

‘Some get fans, and some get fines’

Source: http://www.espncricinfo.com/england-v-west-indies-2012/content/story/566001.html

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/

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“Lee Harvey and the Wailers”(Lee Harvey did not jam alone)

http://www.myspace.com/hsu/photos/6850630

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“60% of all Internet pages contain

misleading information.”

- Thomas Edison

We need ‘digital wisdom’

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language

personal data

language

Managing identity

nameimages

netiquette

reputation

avatar interaction

privacy

identity

legacy reputation

name

privacy

images

interaction

http://i.dailymail.co.uk

LOL – let’s post this up on Facebook

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We all need new ‘literacies’• Social networking• Privacy maintenance• Identity management• Creating content• Organising content• Reusing and repurposing• Filtering and selecting• Self broadcasting• Transliteracy

http://www.mopocket.com/

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Digital literacies

“Knowledge that is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”

- SocratesPlato

http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-713124904

Darwikianism Stev

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“All too often today we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.”

- John W Gardner

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/image/s_flowers-lost-gardens-of-heligan.jpg

http://www.newcastle.edu.au

The future?

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Thank you