I like the idea of aggregating all of the content from the mailing list discussion into my project wiki, but if I only do that then I don't add anything to the discussion. My role becomes that of a summariser of the conversation. As much as I hate the idea of using a mailing list to generate this kind of network, I think that by not participating the whole thing becomes less valuable. Just as adding an additional node to the network increases it's complexity exponentially, so removing a node decreases it. If I am a node and my links to everyone else represent ideas in a discussion, it's easy to see how not having that node and those links reduces the potential of the conversation…and the same applies to every other node and every other link.

This month's topic is ”conflict resolution”, and I'll do my best to participate in the discussion on the mailing list as it occurs, as well as move the summary to my wiki. — Michael Rowe 2010/05/03 10:16

• Students are creating their own groups for subjects / modules outside of the assignments (after the 4th year assignment had begun
• One student deleted content from a personal conversation that took place in the Activity stream, which he was reluctant to share with the rest of the department. At first, I thought it was a pity because he had raised some good points, and the conversation was one that I thought other students would benefit from. After thinking about it though, I realised that it was empowering for the student to be able to make a decision about what content he wanted to share with the group. One of the ethical issues with this project was how to handle the problem of requiring students to participate, but then decide what content to include in the analysis (students will be able to decide if their content can be included in the research, or if they want every contribution they made to be deleted) (15/04/10)
• Overheard one student comment that ”…social networks are for being social”. There may be a lack of insight into how the network can also be used for learning, or that there is a social component to learning (16/04/10)

— Michael Rowe 2010/05/03 10:16

A friend of mine asked me tonight what my research was about, so I told him in general but ended up talking more about the social network component because it's the focus of what I'm doing right now. After explaining how I thought that social networks might be a good way to fundamentally change how we engage with students and guide them individually along a pathway through the curriculum, he said something that really validated my ideas. He's doing a business degree through UNISA and he told me that if any of his teachers shared anything about themselves in their LMS, he'd feel far more comfortable asking the hundred little questions that continually pop up. They're not major problems, and each in itself isn't worth the effort of trying to figure out who to contact and write up a whole email. If he could just shoot a quick question into the ether, and get a short response, either from another student, or one of the teachers, he'd quickly begin to feel like there's someone who cares that he's doing OK, and would probably try harder. This reminded me of a student I was supervising in Grabouw, who found out that I played soccer, which she said surprised her. She'd never thought of me as anything but a lecturer, and had never considered that I might ever be anything outside of that very narrow scope in life. She realised at that moment that I was “human”. I was surprised at the time, but now it makes sense.

I think that the social network allows us to project those parts of our lives into the learning environment that we generally keep out. I decided to use my “Shrek ears” picture for my profile, so that students would immediately be able to see a part of me that doesn't come easily into the classroom. Barriers seem to come down when we share parts of our personal lives, that make us seem more human, rather than the automaton's that students often seem to think we are. Who knows, maybe there are some of us who are little more than automatons.