SocialTech

Developing digital literacies in practice

Picture Credit: Scaffolding by Victoria Pickering

Last week I took part in The Guardian Higher Education Network's Developing Digital Literacy in HE live chat. How we defining digital literacy obviously shapes how we take work in this area forward, and I added the definition I use to the conversation:

Currently, my favourite definition is the one Sarah Knight uses here and in the recent Guardian article:

digital literacy defines those capabilities which fit an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society

The definition I use most frequently is based on the version introduced by the wonderful Tabitha Newman in her still pertinent 2009 presentation Digital Literacy literature review: from terminology to action:

The 'short hand' definition I most frequently use is this one:

Digital Literacy =
digital tool knowledge +
critical thinking +
social engagement

My version only changes Tabitha's in the last point - she uses the term 'social awareness' whereas I'd always use the term 'social engagement' or even 'social activism', to highlight the importance of real world practice and activity as critical to socially situated digital literacy. Digital literacy is not just about supporting learners to understand and engage with the world, but about enabling learners to challenge, shape and change their worlds.

JISC adviser Helen Beetham replied to my definition post with a great link and a summery of how we can go about translating our aspirations for digital literacy into practice:

 Hello Josie, thanks for the chance to come out in public and admit to coining that definition - along with my colleagues Allison Littlejohn and Lou McGill, in our report Thriving in the C21st.

More important than our definition, I stick by what we concluded about actually developing digital literacies in practice, that it requires:

- providing authentic contexts for practice, including digitally-mediated contexts
- individual scaffolding and support
- making practices of meaning-making explicit
- anticipating and helping learners manage conflict between different practice contexts
recognising and helping learners integrate their prior conceptions and practices

Anyone doing all that? I thought not. But it's very important to me that the Developing Digital Literacies programme involves groups of staff that have always taken this person-centred, culturally-situated approach to student development i.e. careers/employability staff, and learning development/learning skills staff. As well as student-facing staff in libraries of course.

I'm currently developing and rolling out a city-wide digital literacy programme across Leicester's Secondary Schools, as part of my role with Leicester City Council as ICT Strategy Lead for Children's Capital. One of the approaches I am taking is to work with the schools to talk about and to design a range of activities that support the development of digital literacy in the context of meeting challenges and solving problems faced by school communities. I'll write more about these and the process of supporting them as we get further along - there are some really exciting projects - but in this post I'm going to focus on the framework I'm using with schools to structure conversation around the ways in which developing skills, and reviewing or introducing new policies and processes can meet current needs and support learner outcomes.

The topics have been identified and developed in discussion with schools and with a range of individuals, governing bodies and working groups. They act as development framework markers to frame discussion, activity and research, and to structure the ongoing review of projects and commissioning taking place at individual school and estate-wide level.

The bullet points are indicative of areas that actions might be agreed and developed with schools to address. The majority of the 25 secondary (supporting students between 11 and 16 years old) have completed their first draft of actions and from these a range of activities and projects - either at individual schools, or where shared interests and issues have been identified, across clusters of schools, subject areas, or role.

Space & Place

• Ensuring the best possible use is made of digital environments in relation to the physical environment of the school buildings and grounds in supporting learning and teaching.

• Ensuring access and active participation as appropriate for all members of the school community from any location via both school and user owned internet connected devices; recognising that the function and role of the school is not confined to the school grounds and restricted by the school day.

• Increasing the numbers of parents and carers actively engaging with and contributing to school activities.

• Ensuring schools’ digital presence supports whole school community development, takes full advantage of engagement opportunities and keeps it’s community well informed of activities.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Innovation

• Identifying and addressing ICT training strengths and weaknesses at estate-wide and local school level.

• Raising the level of skills and confidence across the estate to ensure schools and individual staff are equipped to recognise and take advantage of opportunities for technology to support and enhance learning, teaching and school management.

• Promoting and supporting learner-centred and learner-led practice and pedagogy.

• Supporting staff in modelling effective and positive uses of technology for both learners and peers.

• Targeting the development of staff skills, competencies and confidence to support innovative and effective use of technology by learners.

Network Learning and Communities

• Supporting staff and learners to participate within, develop, create and manage collaborative web and mobile based networks.

• Ensuring staff and learners are equipped with the skills to support their own developmental personal learning networks.

• Supporting and developing collaborative working practices and activities between learners across schools, the city, nationally and internationally, including learner-organised activity.

• Supporting learners to utilise mobile and social technologies and practices for learning.

• Embedding a whole community approach to school practice and engagement in decision making.

• Ensure digital environments are safe and inclusive, support and promote equality of access for all members.

Information Management

• Supporting a city wide, robust approach to information management school policy and practices which address the management, handling, storage and disposal of data legally, effectively and safety.

• Managing the move to cloud based services and storage.

• Planning and support for the management of User Owned Devices and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) across the school estate.

• Promoting the creation and use of Open Education Resources.

Green ICT

• Ensuring a robust and accessible approach to Green ICT issues in schools, focusing on reducing unnecessary energy consumption and using technology to support schools in developing a culture of practical engagement with energy reduction.

• Ensuring that energy consumption data can be easily and effectively used to support the curriculum and evidence the schools commitment to ensuring energy consumption is kept to a minimum.

• Supporting effective user engagement programmes which allow learners and staff to manage their school environment.

e-Safety and Cyberbullying

• Ensure robust internal education, policy and processes are in place to effectively address e-safety and cyberbullying with regard to awareness, prevention, reporting, incident reporting, response and sanctions.

• Ensure that issues are addressed through whole community education and discussion, and responsible and safe use of technologies is addressed across the curriculum, wherever appropriate.

• Ensure that discussion, planning and accounts for the schools wider responsibility to learners and employees, and activity taking place outside of the school day, premises and networks are recognised and action taken where the school has responsibility/liability.

• Ensure that e-safety and cyberbullying guidance and activity accounts for the ways in which learners are using technologies, and that information, policy and planning remains up to date and relevant, and that learners are actively involved in shaping and supporting the schools approach.

• Ensure that the needs of vulnerable learners are identified and met.

TMSEN12: awesomeness, next steps & the debate results

TMSEN12 - a TeachMeet event focusing on practice and approaches that work to support learners with Special Educational Needs (SEN) took place on Saturday 28th February. It's fair to say it was an awesome day:

 

TeachMeet SEN 2012 (TMSEN12 for short) focused on practice that works for learners with Special Educational Needs - learning difficulties or disabilities which make it harder to learn or access education. According to 2010 Government figures, approximately 21% of all pupils in England are identified as having SEN.

Credit needs to go to my partner in crime, Jo Badge, and to Leon Cych and Mike McSharry for their stirling support. Most of all, huge thanks has to go to everyone who took part and particularly all the amazing speakers. Thanks also to everyone who joined us by live stream and in Twitter.

TeachMeet SEN 2012 followed the traditional TeachMeet format of practitioners talking about and demoing practice that works, in 7 minute micro presentations or 2 minute nano presentations.

Over 70 school leaders, teachers, trainee teachers, academics and Local Authority officers from Leicester and right across the UK spent their Saturday morning sharing effective practice, resources and generating new ideas.

Not just for SEN learners

Marc Faulder's tweet "So much at #tmsen12 today is valid for all learners" was a thought echoed by many of the participants, and reflected in the event debate, most explicitly in John Galloway's Accessible by default priority.  As many participants commented, the ideas and resources shared weren't just of benefit to learners with learning difficulties or disabilities - but could be of benefit to all learners. The message of the obvious benefit of putting lessons learnt from and effective approaches with our most disadvantaged learners squarely at the centre of planning and provision was loud and clear. By engaging with tools, resources and planning for SEN learners, we can more effectively support everyone.

Next Steps

I'm hopeful that the day was a valuable one for everyone who was able to take part. The value to, and validation of, participants is a really important aim of any event - it's critical that we support and celebrate our practice and provide opportunities for individual development, networking and sharing.

Modeling good practice is also a critical activity. This was brilliantly done by our speakers, and I very much hope that everyone introduced to the TeachMeet format as a process took away some inspiration for looking at how they approach their own activity scaffolding.

In my closing remarks I asked all participants to think about and let us know about their next steps. This event was inspired by the last TeachMeet Jo and I attended, although it took a little longer than we expected to organise:)

My follow up from the day will be to collect and curate the days outputs to ceate a micro site of the days presentations, talks and links. In the mean time, please do carry on sharing resources under the #tmsen12 tag, and let us know what your next steps are!

While you're waiting, you can check out:

Jo Badge Reflections on TeachMeet for Special Education Needs #TMSEN12

Simon Finch TMSEN12 pictures

& my TMSEN12 pictures

Technologies for Inclusion: The Critical Debate - results

TMSEN12 included a panel debate looking at technologies for inclusion. Sal Cooke, Bev Evans and John Galloway, presented and defended the issues and areas they identified as current national priorities. You can read their priority descriptions here. At distance participants and people at the debate we're invited to comment and vote on the outlined priorities, and here are the vote results:

Sal Cooke's Helping staff stay up to speed with the pace of technology practice and development won the vote by a clear lead. In second place was Bev Evans priority Funding for SEN technology in all schools. In third place was John Galloway's Accessible by default priority.

This was very much in line with the discussion on the day. There was a recognition that many mainstream services, tools and programmes were effectively being used to support SEN learners. There was also a recognition that many schools had been given or had invested in specialist or mainstream services, tools and programmes that could be used in fun, creative and effective ways, but weren't being. While no one disputed the need for parity of funding for SEN learners and schools, there was agreement that the critical issue was ensuring that staff could and were using technology, when appropriate, to enhance and make learning interesting, fun and engaging.

TMSEN12: The Critical Debate

It's almost time for TeachMeet SEN 2012! Last minute tickets available here.

Signups for TeachMeet SEN 2012 have gone really well. School, University and Local Authority staff have signed up from across the UK to come along, network, learn and present this Saturday in Leicester.

Our TeachMeet focuses on practice that works for learners with Special Educational Needs - learning difficulties or difficulties which make it harder to learn or access education. According to 2010 Governement figures, approximately 21% of all pupils in England where identified as having SEN.

TeachMeet SEN 2012 follows the traditional format of practitioners talking about and demoing practice that works, in 7 minute micro presentations or 2 minute nano presentations.

 

We will also be hosting a debate, with opportunities for both delegates and at distance participants to join in - looking at the broader strategic level issues and priorities. Our panelists are:

 

Sal Cooke, Director of JISC Techdis, one of the leading UK advisory services on technologies for inclusion. Sal has overall responsibility for the strategic focus and direction of JISC Techdis as guided by funders and stakeholders, ensuring it continues to be the pragmatic voice of inclusion and accessibility and promotes the innovative use of technologies, to support users within education, business and community sectors across the UK.

 

John Galloway, an ICT/SEN Advisor in Tower Hamlets, a consultant to a number of special schools going through BSF across London and Essex, and a freelance writer with several books and many articles to his name. He has been using computers with learners with a broad range of special needs since the mid-1980s and still gets excited by what technology can enable them to do. 

 

 

Bev Evans (@bevevans22/@TES_SEN) is the new Subject Leader of SEN Resources at TES – and spends time sourcing and creating resources and guidance to help support teachers, who have pupils with SEN, within the classroom. She also spends time visiting schools and events to find out what sort of resources practitioners are currently looking for to help support their work at school and beyond.

 

Our panellists have been asked to set out the current agenda for technologies for inclusion, and present and defend the issues and areas they have identified as current national priorities.

Our speakers have outlined their priorities - what do you think? Which of the panelist priorities resonate most strongly with you? Do you think there is a more pressing issue? Let us know and join in the debate by voting for the priorities you think are the most important, or contributing your own suggestions, either when you vote or in the comments below.

Sal Cooke:

1. Rethinking 'Assistive Technology

What is Assistive Technology in 2012? - or should we now call it something else?

As more and more of the mainstream technologies, including some free or very low cost solutions are displaying and integrating features that can aid our learners in a myriad of ways,  how do we need to think and re think what we “buy” download or access as assistive technologies?    

The Assistive Technology companies themselves are now operating in a very different world and equally so are schools, colleges and universities and of course so are learners and their families.  As a recent addition to the BATA Council I am very aware of the different pressures in this economic climate for both industry, and from my role as Director of JISC TechDis for the learning providers where the impact of technology (financial or pedagogical) can have such an impact on learners with specific needs.  

2. Keeping staff stay up to speed with the pace of technology practice and development

What about the people?  How will they gain the skills and knowledge about Assitive Technology in this ever changing world?

With the advent of apps, tablets, gesture based gaming and all manner of hand held devices - how do we expect staff to keep pace and obtain best value, the best information, and most of all the best for their learners?

The moves within the industry to more and more freemium offers and services could radically help schools and Local Authority budgets - but how do we know? Where are the sources of information? Do we need to be radical with mandatory training  - what about teaching and learning, and budgetary implications?

The recent post-16 Ofsted review recommended that the Department for Education and the Department of Business Innovation and Skills should jointly create a database of assistive technologies - is that a viable or desirable solution?

John Galloway

3. Accessible by default

With disability becoming more prevalent, why is accessibility optional?

We know that about twenty per cent of school children will have some sort of SEN, about half of them struggling with text. We also know that computer systems aren’t specially made for school children, they are made for average adults - it’s Microsoft Office, after all. But we also know that in Europe we have an ageing population which is leading to increasing numbers of people with disabilities, approximately 80m at the moment. And we know that adopting a principle of ‘inclusive design’ makes life easier for everyone.

So why do we have ‘Accessibility options’ on our computers, instead of ‘Accessibility by default?’ Many aspects of improving access - high contrast, variable colour schemes, enhancing the cursor - would work for most of us  (if we knew about them) These should be the defaults.

4. Anti-social networking  

Online communities promise so much for those with SEND, so why aren’t they more accessible?

Those with special needs and disabilities can sometimes find themselves isolated or excluded. Social networking could be a way of mitigating that isolation by both connecting them with others in a similar situation, and a leveller, including them in a world without the usual barriers. Yet there seem to be limited incidences of this happening, probably because:

• the interface is complex;
• the medium is predominantly text;
• families and carers don’t appreciate what it offers.

As it stands, social networking can exacerbate a digital divide, that it could so easily help to bridge.

Bev Evans:

5. Funding for SEN technology in all schools

How do we stop schools from being left behind in the technology stakes?

As technology becomes more and more important in schools around the country what can be done to help those pupils in badly funded areas progress or have the access to the equipment they need? Some areas within Wales are particularly lacking in funding or support in this important area ( I am sure this is true of other areas within the UK too) - is it really good enough that this is still happening in 2012?

6. Bring services to pupils

Why is support for pupils with SEN so patchy across the UK? Is it purely a funding issue or are other things contributing?

In my area of Wales I have always been aware that many parents of children with SEN, in particular those with children who have autism, move into the county to access the provision available. I’m also aware of this  happening between schools across Wales and, from the emails or messages I get through position at the TES, it is obviously something that happens elsewhere in the country too. Why do some school or LAs put less effort into properly supporting and addressing the needs of pupils with SEN? Is it always a funding issue or do other factors come into play?

You can vote here for the priorities you agree with, suggest additional priorities or leave your comments below.

Computer Science is not Digital Literacy

I'm a huge fan of the current wave of enthusiasm and political will to transform the way that ICT is delivered in schools. This morning at BETT, the UK's Education Secretary Micheal Gove will outline the Government's endorsement of the development of Computer Science and hopefully, a more interesting, relevant and creative computing curriculum.

I'm a big supporter of brilliant initiatives like Code Academy, who are making getting started with coding easier and more accessible than ever before, and the fantastic work going on to get children and young people not just consuming tech but creating it, such as Coding for Kids (check out the #codingforkids hash tag on Twitter for related links, discussion and resources).

I've also done a huge amount of work over the years promoting, supporting and contributing to the idea of digital literacy. I currently work for Leicester City Council, and this year will see the role out of a city-wide digital literacy programme which aims to support every teacher across the city's 25 Secondary schools in developing digital literacy, both as individuals and as whole school communities, positively impacting on education, providing opportunities for, and engaging every young person in the city. The City Council is working in partnership with the schools, both of Leicester's Universities, and with local community initiatives and entrepreneurs, as well as with national and international partners, to make sure our ambitions for the city are realised.

In a recent article, 'Digital literacy can boost employability and improve student experience' Sarah Knight argues that digital literacy - which she defines as "those capabilities that equip an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society" are important for the post-compulsory education sector to address. The recognition of how important digital literacy is to the post-compulsory sector throws the importance of ensuring children and young people are not disadvantaged by an education system that fails to equip them for real life into sharp relief.

While it was still around, Becta defined digital literacy as 

“…the skills, knowledge and understanding learners need to participate fully and safely in our increasingly digital world. 

It is a combination of:

functional technology skills

critical thinking

collaboration skills and

social awareness” (2010)

The definition I most use is similar to this, but I replace the passive connotations of social awareness with social engagement - active participation - as a better description of what digital literacy should look like.

For me, the main characteristics of the many of the available definitions of digital literacy are that:

• it supports and helps develop traditional literacies – it isn’t about the use of technology for it’s own sake or ICT as an isolated practice
• it's a life long practice – developing and continuing to maintain skills in the context of continual development of technologies and practices
• it's about skills and competencies, and critical reflection on how these skills and competencies are applied
• it's about social engagement – collaboration, communication, and creation within social contexts

It's dismaying then, to see in a week where we are seeing a huge move forward in the promotion of technology and a fresh look at how ICT as a subject area is designed and implemented in schools, to see digital literacy being used as an interchangeable term for computer science skills. 

Not being able to code doesn't make you digitally illiterate. Not being able to participate in  social, economic, cultural and political life because you lack the confidence, skills and opportunity to do so is what makes you digitally illiterate.

It should not be acceptable that after 11 years of compulsory education any young person should lack the skills and confidence to access information, or to be able to critically use and consume products and services. It should not be acceptable that we are neglecting to support children and young people in realising their rights to participation - as active, engaged community members and citizens. Digital literacy means the the skills and confidence to take an active role in engaging in networks, and in shaping and creating opportunities - social, political, cultural, civic, and economic, and we shouldn't be collapsing these broader rights into the relatively narrow concerns of computing science as a curriculum area. We need to be supporting and developing the work that schools, teachers and educators are doing across all curriculum areas, for formal education and extra-curricula and community based activities.

In Leicester, I am developing, designing and implementing a digital literacy programme in partnership that encompasses a wide range of areas - including basic skills, online identity management, digital research and learning skills, e-safety and cyberbullying, collaborative learning, and online citizenship. We will be supporting and celebrating computer science, coding, and ways in which young people can become active in creating and critically engaging with technology. But our ambition for our young people, education provision and communities, and the ways in which we can see these being transformed by digital literacy, certainly exceed the boundaries of computer science skills.

 

TeachMeet SEN 2012

Tickets here!

I'm very excited to be organising TeachMeet SEN 2012 - or TMSEN12, a meetup talking place later this month on Saturday 28th of January, in Leicester's lovely Phoenix Square.

What's a TeachMeet?

A TeachMeet is an informal meet up of people working in and passionate about education - they support grassroots professional development. Events are framed by short talks and demos from people working within education - sharing practice that works. You can check out the Wikipedia definition here.

Practitioner talk and demo slots at TMEN12 are typical of TeachMeet talk lengths - 7 minute micro presentations or 2 minute mini presentations. These are short to encourage a wide range and diversity of contribution, to make sure as many people attending as possible get the opportunity to share, and to make joining in more accessible and less scary for people who have never spoken at an event before.

What's different about TMSEN12?

1. This is a Special Education Needs (SEN) focused TeachMeet. Learners with SEN are a significant and diverse group, and we expect the first SEN focused TeachMeet to be an exciting one - reflecting the creativity, enthusiasm and the wide range of knowledge and approaches of practitioners.

2. This is the first face-to-face SEN focused TeachMeet. There was an online TeachMeet for Additional Support Needs/Special Education Needs back in April 2009. We are very proud to be continuing the tradition.

3. We recognise that parents and carers play an important role in supporting children and young peoples education, and that while parent and carer partnership with schools are always important, parents and carers sometimes play a particularly critical role in supporting learners with SEN. We also recognise that parents and carers of learners with SEN may home school. Because of this, we are also inviting parents and carers who would like to share effective practice to come along.

Is TMSEN12 just for SENCos and people who work at SEN Schools?

No! Every school supports learners with SEN.

What kind of thing do people talk about/demo at TeachMeet?

All sorts of things! You might speak about a really useful app, web tool or site; a technique that supports listening or speaking; an interesting and successful project; how you capture or share achievement; a simple, little change that has made all the difference to your learners; something you've created or a resource someone else has shared.

I think TeachMeet SEN is a great idea! How can I support it?

Excellent! Here are 7 ways you can help us:

1. Sign up to present your ingenious and effective practice. Come along and share.

Get your free ticket here, and then head over to the wiki to tell us what you will be presenting on.

2. Sign up to encourage and support. Get your free ticket here.

3. Tell people and organisation who need to know about TMEN12 - send them a link, encourage them to sign up to speak. We really appreciate it!

4. Tag your favorite blog posts, resources and ideas: Use #TMSEN12 on Twitter, TMSEN12 on Delicious. Let us know what and where else you tag resources. We will curate and share!

5. Watch the live stream and join in the debate on Twitter. The link will magically appear here and across the web nearer the time.

6. Sponsor TMSEN12! Help towards the event costs/resource for sponsor credit. Get in touch to find out more.

7. Suggest other ways you/people can support and celebrate TMEN12. Share your ideas!

 

Should you friend your students? The short answer is no

Earlier this year I delivered a further cyberbullying guidance document on behalf of Childnet International for the UK Government's Department for Children, Schools and Families. The Guidance follows up (and designed to compliment) cyberbullying guidance, a comprehensive document  that formed part of the Safe To Learn: Embedding anti-bullying work in schools suite of advice. While the initial document was really well received both within the UK & internationally, teachers unions and associations were increasingly being asked to deal with school employee cyberbullying cases - in which the staff member was the person being victimised. I welcomed the opportunity to produce further guidance which would both support employees in term of basic digital literacy information and encourage employers to meet their statutory obligations. The document set out, ambitiously, to encourage policy and procedure be put in place for preventing and dealing with cyberbullying as a whole school community issue - which includes meeting and recognising the specific needs, rights and responsibilities of employees. In no other area of harassment would it be acceptable for an employee to be expected to deal with cases that rose within the work place on their own - yet the reports from school staff included cases where cyberbullying was not taken seriously or understood, and where they had been expected to sort out situations for themselves.

Cyberbullying: Supporting School Staff (PDF) was released in April this year (Google doc version here).  I've been talking about the document a lot recently, and I want to just explore in a little more detail the thinking behind the advice given to school employees regarding friending students in social networking services. The actual text is (with my emphasis):

‘Friending’ refers to the act of giving contacts permission to view information or contact you within web-based services. The terminology will vary from service to service – ‘Friends’ may be called contacts or connections, for example. Most social sites enable you to give different levels of access and set privacy levels on your own content and activity. These functions will vary from service to service but typically include:
•     Information that is only available to the account holder
•     Information that is accessible by contacts on the account
holder’s approved list, and
•     Information that is made publicly available, either within
the service or across the whole of the internet.

‘Friends’ does not necessarily refer in this case to people who are your actual friends, although you may choose to restrict your connections to that. ’Friends’ in this context may also be work colleagues, family members, and people that you have met online.

If you have a social networking account, do not friend pupils or add them to your contact lists. You may be giving them access to personal information and allowing them to contact you inappropriately. They may also be giving you access to their personal information and activities

So the text above outlines three basic levels of permissions granularity that can be found on most sites, gives a definition of friending, and very explicitly says don't friend pupils. This is explicitly prescriptive advice, based on the case studies reviewed during the document negotiations, and an implicit understanding that the school staff accounts referred to are either personal, or contain elements of personal activity (I previously posted on a definition of three basic online identities, characterised as personal, professional, and organisational).

The approach taken then - don't friend pupils - reflects the kind of boundaries between staff and learners that we'd expect to see in offline behavior. You wouldn't expect a teacher to give a school aged pupil their home phone number, show them pictures of their friends or regale them with the weekends social exploits. Obviously friending isn't the only issue here - managing publicly available information so that you are comfortable with what co-workers, learners and employers can access about you is also addressed in the document. The research and anecdotal evidence indicates that we operate within social network services as if we were in a closed, private world. This isn't naive - I think it's a necessary fiction which makes social networking services human spaces. The do not friend advice is there to reinforce the message that private online is typically back of a post-card private, especially if we are within environments where we're not entirely sure who has permission to see what (*cough*Facebook*cough). It also reflects the leakiness of our online identities, the way in which the personal is often hand in hand with the professional.

What the advice isn't trying to do is to put anyone off evaluating social networking services to see if they could support learning & teaching effectively. The advice goes on to state:

If you want to use web-based social networking sites for a class or for the whole school, use a service that doesn’t give contacts access to personal information and updates, or allows collaboration without requiring permissions.

Alternatively ask pupils to create new, work-focused accounts for themselves, and run them as they would an online portfolio or CV.

You can find more information and advice about Social Network Services at www.digizen.org/socialnetworking.

Personal - Professional - Organisational: three basic online identities

There are three main ways we can characterise most peoples online internet and mobile activity and presence. Let me state up front that these distinctions are purposely blunt, but do act as effective and critical distinctions, especially when talking to people about how and why they can manage their online identities. They're also very indiscreet, leaky categories, although it is of course possible to find examples of people who's online identity is confined to or dominated by a single category. Why are these differences important? Because they provide us with the building blocks to talk about and actively reflect on our online activity. How we represent ourselves, and how we are viewed online, is increasingly a part of daily social and economic life. Critically, for people working within social media or supporting digital literacy, they provide a robust framework within which to talk about key issues: privacy, data ownership/mobility, representation and voice.

The three main categories I use then are personal, professional, and organisational.

Personal use might include using dating sites, having a social network account to connect to friends and family, uploading your family photos to a photo-sharing site. Personal use is most likely to be the category where attention to social network service permissions - who is able to see what - is particularly important to users.

Professional use could include the use of a professional networking site, or the use of a social network, a blog or other website to showcase and record work, develop connections and contribute to national and international professional networks. It includes a public facing CVs, publicly accessible parts of a personal learning environment, or an e-portfolios, conversations across mailing lists or social network services. Typically, these activities are public facing, so the most pertinent issues are typically about voice, representation, reputation and trust,

Organisational use would involve the employee using tools or platforms on behalf of their employer or in the line of their work duties. For example, an employee may run a blog as part of their role, maintain a social networking profile in order to make information accessible to students and parents, deliver assignments using a Virtual Learning Platform or set up a group account for learners on a video sharing site. Organisational use may be public, promotional and conversational, or operate within walled garden environments, or, indeed, a mixture of the two.

ReTweet & other micro-conventions

 

picture credit: kenworker 推友團在世界遺產吳哥窟前示範「銳推」Taiwanese twitterers showing us how to "retweet" in Angkor Wat

Warning: If you haven't used Twitter or other microblogging services before, this post which focuses on citation issues will likely put you off completely. It deals with only one aspect of microblogging activity, albeit an important one, but it is quite possible to lead a happy and healthy life without ever retweeting (RTing) anyone, or being an RTer, ever.

If however you get to the end of this post thinking, blimey Josie, you haven't begun to scratch the surface of this fascinating and vital issue, then why not treat yourself to the even more detailed danah boyd, Scott Golder and Gilad Lotan review paper Tweet, Tweet, Retweet: Conversational Aspects of Retweeting on Twitter.

As anyone who's spent five minutes thinking about publication and referencing styles will have concluded, while format is important, constancy is critical. Twitter and microblogging are still very much environments in process, with Twitter in particular currently having a kickass impact on the social web, from blogging practices to social network service functionality to real time reporting. Like any online community, what is acceptable, in terms of all kinds of behaviors, is negotiated between and within networks of users.

Linkage is emerging as an important currency and network tool amongst microbloggers - especially since Twitter removed users ability to view the posts people in your network direct to people not in your network, aka #fixreplies

so for example, if

@kalamishere posts: @yiannopoulos Singing along yet?

It won't appear in my twitterfeed (the stream of posts I get from the combined posting of everyone I'm following), unless I am also following @yiannopoulos.

Obviously an rss feed, or a twittersearch by name of an individual users twitter feed, like the one in my left hand sidebar, will reproduce all posts regardless. However, unless you are stalking or otherwise have a special interest in a particular user, the likelihood is that you'll never see links to and conversations outside of your network, even though these may be some of the most valuable to you.

The way around this, for people who want to make conversational posts public within Twitter or within Twitter readers is to use any character before the @ symbol, the most elegant probably being a full stop, ie: 

@josiefraser posts: . @menjivar Reviews of Free - take yr pick @Gladwell http://bit.ly/1rUoVn @ajkeen http://bit.ly/jwm7A @gapperblog http://u.nu/4evh

Some Twitter readers have problems converting .@ into links, so you'll notice in my example I leave a space between the full stop and the @, since I can afford the extra character. The value to the network isn't in the recognition - simply the giving of the name - it's in the link - the ability to click straight through to another users twitter stream, quickly review their content and interest, RT their content or add them to your follower list.

However, 140 characters - the limit of an individual post on Twitter, only accommodates so much kudos. What happens when you stumble across a post with more RTers than you can fit? For example:

@flash_ahah posts: RT @mattlingard RT @josiefraser RT @timbuckteeth: Most important issue in e-Learning, final version including all comments: http://bit.ly/14S989

The convention I'm using in this example is to put RT in front of everyone who has retweeted the post so far. This clears up, for example, someone in that chain who may have been addressing themselves to one of the others. For example:

RT @mattlingard @josiefraser RT @timbuckteeth: Most important issue in e-Learning, final version including all comments: http://bit.ly/14S989

could imply that @mattlingard sent the RT to @josiefraser. I'm also using : to indicate the origional poster. Again, there are a lot of different ways to retweet, and I'm not suggesting my preference is any better than any other. But suppose I now want to retweet the whole message: 

RT @flash_ahah RT @mattlingard RT @josiefraser RT @timbuckteeth: Most important issue in e-Learning, final version including all comments: http://bit.ly/14S989

Or - about 20 characters too many. There are four ways around this (probably more - please let me know).

1. Don't RT, just favorite. This will show up in your followers twitter stream, although not yours - i.e. it won't be non-manually exportable but it will be saved to your twitter favorites for later reference. I don't tend to do this, since I'm kind of mean with my favorites.

2. If the same story/link has turned up across several different groups of people you follow,  I tend to give up and just put "lots of people are posting about x today," or words to that effect. I figure once more than ten people have posted the same link, and unless there is a clear origional poster, it's best not to spend too much time worrying about on it.

3. edit content. Sacrifice pithy comments or indications of content for names and links. With cunning use of one of the internets many url shortening services, you could probably credit six or seven people. on the downside, this is going to look like a very boring and inexplicable link, so people probably won't bother clicking on it.

4. Cut out some of the RTers. I posted an intention this morning kickoff a new convention for posts with multiple RTers, roughly based on accepted academic practice, which is to use the et al as a heads up that other people were involved in getting the information to you. Obviously the main difference is that unlike an academic citation, where you can actually go somewhere and find out who the other contributors were, you can't necessarily do that on Twitter so you may well be consigning some people to the black hole of anti-kudos. I suggested that the person that I got the RT heads up was the last person to tweet, and or the person I read the information from. This is important, because although I might be following several people in the RT string, the serendipitous nature of twitter - the large amount of people followed, posts made, combined with ad hoc access (like most people I guess, I tend to dip in and out of my twitter stream) means that even though I might follow one person, I might not necessarily get the information directly from them, but via a third, fourth or fifth party retweet. So my amended RT would look like: 

RT @flash_ahah et al: Most important issue in e-Learning, final version including all comments: http://bit.ly/14S989

Immediately the academics and information professionals in my stream objected to this, and quite rightly so, pointing out that the important person in terms of referencing should be the originator. I broadly agree with this, although it's often not so clear cut, since people bring information into twitter typically without referencing external sources. This means I may well have several independent citations or comments from unconnected sources. However, this isn't supposed to be a hard and fast rule, but a useful convention to fall back on where appropriate.

I put the three most plausible conventions to the vote, along with an open field for other suggestions. You can go vote yourself and check out the current wisdom of this particular crowd, but at time of writing the preference, given some mitigating factors, is clearly

RT @(origional source) via @(my source) or, as I'd interpret it

RT @flash_ahah et al RT @timbuckteeth: Most important issue in e-Learning, final version including all comments: http://bit.ly/14S989

with RT @(origional source) or 

RT @timbuckteeth: Most important issue in e-Learning, final version including all comments: http://bit.ly/14S989

Favored in case of minimalism or if there really wasn't enough room. Not entirely happy with this last one, since it still doesn't indicate multiple posters.

Thanks to @jont @goatgirl74 @encratica @Eingang @sarahhorrigan @RecordedBooks @timdifford @shirleyearley @traceymadden, @paulbrichardson, @MarkRussell, @lyndsayjordan, @amcunningham for taking time to talk about this with me over at Twitter today. & cheers to everyone fr the RTs! 

Facebook, MI6 & basic digital literacy

Despite the neo-con conspiracy theory accusations, despite even the threats of Facebook The Movie (the specter of which I'm absolutely delighted about btw), Facebook continues to go from strength to strength in terms of empire building. According to recently released user & engagement stats, Facebook is currently the equivalent of the worlds fourth largest country, with around 240 million individual accounts. It's reporting a growth surge recently too - adding an incredible 700,000 to 750,000 new users per day.

The latest scandal to hit Facebook - and let's face it, one that isn't going to do their user stats any damage at all, is the tabloid and broadsheet friendly story centering on the British Secret Service, popularly known as MI6. Although MI6 has been recruiting on Facebook since September 2008, apparently their social media strategy hasn't stretched to the kind of employee guidance increasingly seen as critical in other industries. Recently recently appointed intelligence chief, John Sawers, ('C' as he will be codenamed in proper James Bond tradition), takes up his post in November. In the meantime, The Daily Mail are baying for Sawers blood (Daily Mail), following their crack investigation in to Mrs. Sawers completely unprotected Facebook pages.

Way back in October 2007, I asked the 200-ish audience members of the BIMA's Great Facebook debate - predominantly social media and related industry workers - to raise their hands if they felt 100% confident they understood who could see what on their Facebook accounts. About 4 hands went up, and mine wasn't one of them, despite the fact that I'd spent a year working on social networking service privacy settings. Since then, the third party application explosion has continued to muddy already the unfathomable waters of overly granular permissions settings. By January 2008, if came as little surprise to anyone working in the social networking service and privacy space that Facebook was being investigated by the UK's Information Commisioners Office for potential Freedom of Information Act infringements.

Currently, Facebook is rejigging it's operation model, simultaneously moving towards a more open platform and trying to make user permissions more understandable, including jettisoning it's regional networks in favor of sharing information between groups. All this is good news, and I look forward to tracking Facebook's progress. In the meantime, the best advice I can offer anyone is if you are using any service and aren't clear about who can see your content or how the permissions work, act as if the service is completely public. Don't post anything you would mind your mum, boss, colleague or local Daily Mail journo seeing.

The real story in the Sawers fiasco is, once again, is the one that research in the area has consistently pointed up. In general, people do not read terms of service or privacy statements. People like social networking services because of the warm glow of friendly, trusted association (some would say homophily) they submerge themselves in. Security and permissions settings are only as good as people can immediately or at least easily understand, leaving children, young people, vulnerable adults & MI6 potentially at risk.

Within increasingly connected societies, where the online is commonly integrated into our everyday social transactions, we need to be smarter about the implications of how we use services, and ensure that everyone has access to basic information. There was a huge fuss made when an leaked draft of the Rose Review mentioned a service - Twitter - as the kind of platform that digital literacy may support. Although there are obvious limitations in teaching platforms and applications rather than a focus on skills, competencies and understanding (and it only takes a cursory look our current Microsoft heavy curriculum to see the problems of this approach) - what the MI6 debacle demonstrates is the importance of recognising how and why people use services, and equipping them to use the social web in ways that don't compromise personal, or international, security. 

The Information & Privacy Commisioner/Onterio has a recently updated PDF on How to protect your privacy on Facebook.

You can find basic information about online identity management relevant to people in all work places in my recent work on behalf of Childnet International for the UK Government's Department for Children, Schools and Families: Cyberbullying, supporting school staff (PDF) 

If your organisation doesn't have a current employer and employee social web strategy in place, get in touch and I can help you design and implement one. I do special security service rates.

Related posts: ABC of permissions granularity

Notes towards Digital Literacy

Anyone who has talked to me for any length of time over the past couple of years will have been hard pressed to have avoided my growing preoccupation with the UK's digital literacy agenda, or rather, lack of one. However, while I've been talking about this a lot, I haven't made many written remarks outside of policy contributions and consultations. Hopefully this brief post will act as a marker of progress rather than just a register of the current limitations of the UK education system.

A lot of progress has been made recently in terms of the e-safety agenda, for example with the publication in March of Dr. Byron's Safer Children in a Digital World,  and the approval of all the reports recommendations by the UK Government, and the establishment of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) at the end of September this year. Additional moves toward modernising our Duty of Care towards pupils and staff, both providing and signposting support and in building awareness, responsibility and resilience in using technologies, has come in the form of e-safety provision within the QCA'a new curriculum and in the Department for Children, Schools and Families Cyberbullying Guidance that I was fortunate enough to be able to contribute to.

However, while it is a critical area of development and resourcing, e-safety alone is not enough. To regard it as anything except a critical element within a wider digital literacy framework, and to attempt to teach it alongside an antiquated, generally programme-specific ICT education is to short change our learners, and to fail to recognise the technological, social and economic shifts that have take place globally. To not integrate and model good practice in digital literacy has huge social consequences - from potentially disadvantaging individuals and communities in terms of social and economic opportunities, to the society-wide disadvantage we risk by not ensuring that everyone is in a position to make their voice and opinions heard within the law, and to engage technology as a way of bringing about community facilitation of all kinds, social organisation and change. 

So what is digital literacy? Currently, it is a discussion that isn't happening, but which needs to be taking place nationally and publicly amongst the major organisational stakeholders (across government, industry, and education), informed by the local conversations of learners, parents, education sector workers, and employers. 

Digital literacy then refers to a set of knowledge and competencies (including social skills and cultural competencies) required by technological, social and economic changes in society. It should covers a range of areas; skills and understandings that ensure everyone can get the most out of their engagement with technology. It includes e-safety and wellbeing, but also includes collaboration and communication skills, rights and responsibilities, ethical and environmental issues, commercial practices, privacy and security issues, digital identity and citizenship, along with finding, evaluating and applying information.

Some of these skills can be highly complex. However, there are ways of supporting even very young learners to understand important and relevant concepts, such as keeping oneself safe and helping others when using technologies. Conceptually, skills and behaviours supported within the framework of digital literacy should share the same ambitions as those outlined in Every Child Matters - being healthy, staying safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution and achieving economic well being.

These last couple of years have seen the establishment of an evidence base and a public recognition of the huge personal, professional and social impacts of new technologies. What many edtechs have been involved in is describing new social realities, practices and opportunities. What I'd dearly like to see now is a push forward from the work done by Ofcom, Childnet, and Becta (amongst many) in establishing the current state of play and an active engagement in developing new models and frameworks.