from individuals to networks and sustainable communities? Steven Warburton King’s College London Institutional Web Managers Workshop 2007

“the first IWMW was more like therapy”

dimensions of communities descriptors: –connected, authentic, visible, bounded (fuzzy), symbolic artefacts processes: –social, shared purpose, self identity (enlightening), collaborative, negotiated, emergent, ephemeral typologies: –formal, informal, non-formal –‘real’ and ‘virtual’ –communities of practice, of innovation, of interest, of learning and so on

community problematic negotiated and fluid community exists in relation to the individual boundaries are contested roles

architecture the discourse of virtual learning environments rigid, formal and hierarchical - a scaleable industrial model with an agenda of control (tracking and administration) teacher/course centric push model (content delivery and assessment) standards (SCORM, LOM, QTI, LIP, IMS LD) and quality frameworks contributions are owned by the institution, designed to protect IP poor record of innovation and interoperability self centred knowledge acquisition where is the locus of power? discourse of control?

policy institutional web managers users IA design/bran d IPR access accessibility AUP knowledge quotas monitoring

paradigm shift?

merely rhetoric? freedom, choice, ownership sharing, collaboration creativity, creative commons technical choices expanded (free, open source, proprietary, in-house, outsourced, distributed) informal versus formal - disruptive spaces

ecology the discourse of personal learning environments open, distributed, interconnected - a flattened structure with user chosen services linked by feeds integration of both personal and professional interests provision collaborative and individual workspace a profiling system for making social connections support for community-based knowing within disciplines, programs, institutions and individual learning contexts protects and celebrates identity respects academic ownership net-centric supporting multiple levels of socializing, administration and learning

community mapping?

or network mapping? driven by the individual as node rss/tags

digital identities curating the self leveraging a number of services structured and unstructured data creating a distributed identity

digital identity: impact and policy? institutional reputation management personal reputation management

ethical issues

consent personal, autonomous, owned –how do we reconcile personal freedoms and institutional responsibilities public and private domains –respect for and protection of student privacy –student visibility/invisibility, the quiet learner identity performance –adding personal spin, managing reputation, transparency tracks and traces –the permanence of blog posts developing new policies in these areas? responsive and agile?

first step? digital literacy for participation ( Eshet-Alkalai, 2004) photo-visual literacy: the art of reading visual representations reproduction literacy: the art of creative recycling of existing materials branching literacy: hypermedia and non-linear thinking information literacy: the art of skepticism socio-emotional literacy “Digital Literacy: A Conceptual Framework for SurvivalSkills in the Digital Era” Jl. of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia (2004) 13(1),93-106

second step? towards empowerment cultural literacy (judgment, self knowledge) digital literacy to identity literacy acknowledging institutional structures (inscribe power) unlearning (tutor literacy)

iwm community and roles developing shared purpose how will this community coalesce and respond to emerging pressures how and where to articulate understandings of self, role and community consideration of issues that are both socio- cultural and socio-technical

Thank you