I joined the Faculty of Health at the University of Canberra in March 2009. Since then I have had the great good fortune to work with remarkable colleagues each day. I have been saving up a post to write about Nursing and Midwifery in the Faculty … a remarkable group of people who have taught me enormous lessons about caring and service.
My links with and interest in nursing and midwifery training date back to my PhD days at the Institute for Educational Development at the University of Surrey in the 1980s. Ann Wickenden helped me understand the transformational opportunities available in the education and training of nurses and midwives. Her study reported on the education of basic general nurses whilst they were working in the clinical setting. “Set against a system where the position of the student is essentially that of an apprentice, previous studies have demonstrated that theory is often divorced from practice and any teaching which does take place is frequently sparse and erratic.” When I read Ann Oakley’s chapter (Interviewing women, a contradiction in terms) in Helen Robert’s book on Doing Feminist Research (1981) I realised how much I had to learn about ethnographic enquiry and the very special bonds developed by carers, mothers and babies in maternity settings.
The nursing curriculum at the University of Canberra fosters the development of critically reflective registered nurses. Staff use an evidence-based model of clinical placements, the Clinical Education Units. They focus on integration with community and industry connections for student learning, as well as working with the nursing community in forms of research and development. Their vision is for “our nursing graduates to be critically thinking nurses who challenge the status quo, clearly articulate their concerns, and use evidence to develop effective practice solutions”.
Midwifery is viewed as “relational, practical work between childbearing women and midwives which is based on specific knowledge, skills and attitudes”. The midwifery curriculum is student centred, process oriented and competency based, designed to meet the standards of a practice based discipline. The midwifery staff’s vision is that our future midwives “will be kind useful midwives”.
There are ten full time staff members in Nursing and three in Midwifery. These smaller numbers “allow for strong relationships and direct support which is not possible at larger universities. We see students to support their learning, give feedback on assignments or clinical practice, offer course advice and pastoral care, or just to talk together about the work we love.”
What I admire so much about the staff in Nursing and Midwifery is that their practice delivers practitioners who love their profession and embody the kindness and care essential for all our flourishing. They would be a remarkable group in any setting. At the University I think they set a gold standard of performance to which many of us should aspire.
Meet some of them here:
Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Canberra
Le Tour
Each year in Australia SBS provides great coverage of the Tour de France. Each year we sit up in the early morning and watch remarkable feats of endurance … and hope in the most naive way that we are witnessing the true expression of mano-a-mano.
The Commons has some great images of the race many years before SBS’s coverage. I find them remarkably evocative and a powerful stimulus to consider the expression of the human spirit through sporting endeavour.
Photo Credits
Champs Elysees
First Tour de France
Climbing over a closed railway crossing
Hit by a car
Schepers drinking water
Ezquerra in the mountains
Sport n.0: Connecting Social Networks
Last year I wrote a paper for a special edition (Multimedia, the World Wide Web and eLearning in Sport) of the International Journal of Computer Science in Sport. The paper was rejected by a number of referees. The rejection was a salutary experience for me.
I wrote the paper in the afterglow of the remarkable CCK08 on line course. I was enchanted (and remain so) about the possibilities of connected groups and the opportunities that arise from sharing openly with colleagues whose work resonates with one’s own work and thoughts. The paper seemed a great way to share some of these experiences.
Two events have prompted me to revisit the rejected paper this week:
1. News that Facebook has 500 million users and that “more than a third of those who use the internet worldwide sign in to Facebook to update their status or post photos”.
2. Stephen Downes’ discussion of the xWeb as “the utilization of smart, structured data drawn from our physical and virtual interactions and identities to extend our capacity to be known by others and by systems.”
The paper is titled Sport n.0: Connecting Social Networks
Abstract
This paper discusses a connectivist approach to the development of social networks in computer science in sport. Social networks have used Web 2.0 tools to grow their connections and the prospects for a Semantic Web 3.0 present enormous opportunities for all of us in our personal and professional lives. This paper uses the concept of Sport n.0 to explore how each of us in the computer science in sport community can grow our interconnections through the use of social media. A case study of the development of one social network site is presented as a heuristic to explore possibilities for connectedness. The paper concludes that a move to open access is a key to the sustainability of the International Association of Computer Science in Sport and the flourishing of the International Journal of Computer Science in Sport.
Keywords: sport n.0, Connectivism, social networks, social media, open access
Social Networks
In this paper I explore the social network possibilities open to communities of practice in computer science in sport. The paper is an exhortation to invest energy to create and develop open networks that share insights, knowledge and experiences that transcend language, geographical space and synchronous time.
Alexandra Marin and Barry Wellman (2009) point out that “social life is created primarily and most importantly by relations and the patterns formed by these relations. Social networks are formally defined as a set of nodes (or network members) that are tied by one or more types of relations”. George Siemens (2008a) notes that “the advancements of the last several decades have made networks of learning explicit. Networks are reflected not only as physical information communication technologies, but as the very means through which knowledge is distributed for addressing complex challenges”.
Jane Hart (2009) has done a great deal to promote and support social learning. She suggests that “Social Learning can create more powerful and enduring learning experiences through the use of online communities and networks, where learners are encouraged to co-create, collaborate and share knowledge and fully participate in their learning”. Stephen Downes (2006) has argued that “theorists will have to, like students, immerse themselves in their field, to encounter and engage in a myriad of connections, to immerse themselves, as McLuhan would say, as though in a warm bath. But it’s a new world in here, and the water’s fine”.
This paper proposes that the computer science community immerse itself in social networks to engage theorists and practitioners in a discourse enriched by the possibilities of a Sport n.0. We are in an age of digital scholarship.
Digital Scholarship
Nancy Maron and Kirby Smith (2009) point out that this is an age of digital scholarship and observe that “as electronic resources for scholarship proliferate, more and more scholars turn to their computers rather than to print sources to conduct their research. While society journals, university presses, and conference proceedings still form the backbone of the scholarly publishing enterprise, alongside them many new digital scholarly resources have appeared, sprouting up wherever there is a devoted individual or team of scholars willing to create and nurture them”. Tony Bates (2009) considers that this digital scholarship is ‘embedded’ digital literacy and observes that “to be a scholar now means knowing how to find, analyse, organise and apply digital information. Studying without the use of technology is increasingly like learning to dive without water”. Rob Fitzgerald et al (2009) report the development of digital learning communities that are built by “an exploratory conversation between students, teachers, texts and technologies and that this is so whether learning is happening in the school, university, workplace, classroom, laboratory, or field”.
In the call for papers for this special edition (Multimedia, the World Wide Web and e-learning in Sport) of the International Journal of Computer Science in Sport (IJCSS), Larry Katz and Christoph Igel observed that: “We are interested in papers that explore the innovative use of these tools and their effectiveness in improving learning and performance”. The call was contained in a PDF document and shared inter alia with the International Association of Computer Science in Sport’s listserv by email.
Larry Katz is a professor at the University of Calgary. Andrew Waller and Mary Westell (2009) report that the University of Calgary has had an Open Access Repository since 2003 that contains “citations for over 14,000 items, approximately 9,000 of which connect directly to full text. Material types include journal articles, reports of many different sorts, datasets, and theses and dissertations”. Christoph Igel’s work at the Universitat des Saarlands has been recognised with the award of the Chief Learning Officer 2009 for his work in the development of virtual learning and sharing communities.
In the context of the IJCSS call for papers it is interesting that a special edition on multimedia should be published in a conventional forum that limits the media that can be used and shared. This paper is a plea for a move to open access publishing and the transformation of intellectual property using Creative Commons approaches to community development as exemplified in the success of the Journal of Medical Internet Research (Gunther Eysenbach, 2009). It is a plea too to welcome and value the work of people like Brewster Kahle and John Willinsky.
Alex Wright (2007) points out that “ever since the Web first started to flicker across the world’s computer screens, we have seen a bull market in hyperbole about the digital age”. This paper celebrates that social networks are human networks and that there is an evident need to balance claims made for digital networks with the personal interactions each of us has in our daily lives (see Photograph 1).
Photograph 1: IACSS Dagstuhl Workshop, September 2006
Sport n.0
Many commentators locate the development of social networks and digital scholarship in terms of the n.0 characteristics the worldwide web. Wikipedia provides a brief account of Web 1.0 and a much more detailed account of Web 2.0. More recently Greg Boutin (2009a; 2009b; 2009c) has been exploring the characteristics of Web 3.0. The European Future Internet Portal has shared a video about Web 3.0 and points out that 3.0 characteristics include: “an Internet of Services, where services are ubiquitous; an Internet of Things where in principle every physical object becomes an online addressable resource; a Mobile Internet where 24/7 seamless connectivity over multiple devices is the norm; and the need for semantics in order to meet the challenges presented by the dramatic increase in the scale of content and users”.
It is interesting to note that when the Information Architects’ blog (2007) discussed Web n.0 to visualise Web trends (see Visualisation 1), the authors observed that “we have added a Web Generation number … please note that there are some websites that are Web 1.5, some that are 2.5, and some that are 0.5. This is not a mistake. Web 2.5 is what Facebook is up to… The Generation number is not necessarily qualifying, but it’s not surprising that websites that do well are usually above 1.0; some of them (like eBay and Wikipedia) were 2.0 long before the term was coined”.
Visualisation 1: Web Trends Map 2007/V2
This visualisation locates the 200 most successful 2007 websites on the Tokyo Metro Map, ordered by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective. A trendmap for 2009 is available.
The potential of these n.0 changes for our communities of practice in sport is enormous and has been exemplified in Larry Katz’s Sports Technology Research Laboratory and Christoph Igel’s e-learning work. My own approach to developments in Sport n.0 were shared earlier this year with delegates at the Thirteenth World Congress of the International Association for Sports Information and in a SlideShare presentation about Institute 4.0. Mills Davis (2009) has discussed four types of web: 1.0 the Web (connects information); 2.0 the Social Web (connects people); 3.0 the Semantic Web (connects knowledge); and web 4.0 the Ubiquitous Web (connects intelligence). In the 4.0 space there will be “agent webs that know, learn and reason as humans do”.
Social Media
A report by the Smart Services CRC (2009) defines social media as “websites which build on Web 2.0 technologies to provide space for in-depth social interaction, community formation, and the tackling of collaborative projects”. There has been a proliferation of these media in recent years.
As each of us explores these social media we have the opportunity to learn with and from others. Wikis have proven to be a powerful medium for sharing. An excellent example of what is possible is demonstrated in the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge CCK08 course wiki and in work by such people as Leigh Blackall (2009).
The aggregation of our experiences through wikis offers enormous opportunities to grow communities. Gene Schembri (2008) has provided an interesting example of how a wiki can be used to support learning communities in sport. He observes that wikis enable people to: share information; discuss a topic and invite comment on it; provide open access to upload and share resources; and provide opportunities to edit material to ensure that content is current and accurate. Most wikis allow authors to create content without a knowledge of mark up language. Sue Vesper (2009) provides some interesting background information about wikis for those keen to explore their use.
There are some fascinating projects underway to explore social media. Howard Rheingold’s work with the Social Media Classroom (2009) aims to “grow a public resource of knowledge and relationships among all who are interested in the use of social media in learning, and therefore, it is made public with the intention of growing a community of participants who will take over its provisioning, governance and future evolution”. Michael Wesch (2008) and his students at Kansas State University are exploring digital ethnography. Michael Wesch’s video The Machine is Us/ing Us (2007) has been viewed almost ten million times on YouTube, it has over 21,000 ratings and 8,000 comments.
In 2008 a massive, open, online Connectivism course demonstrated how Sport n.0 might use social media to link and grow its communities of practice. This course, Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (CCK08), is the subject of the next part of this paper.
Connectivism
In 2004 George Siemens proposed that “Connectivism presents a model of learning that acknowledges the tectonic shifts in society where learning is no longer an internal, individualistic activity. How people work and function is altered when new tools are utilized”. His identification of Connectivism as a learning theory for the Digital Age has stimulated enormous interest and discussion. A community keen to explore his ideas came together for the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (CCK08) in the second half of 2008.
Principles of Connectivism identified by George Siemens (2004) that underpinned the CCK08 course were:
- Learning and knowledge rest in a diversity of opinions.
- Learning is a process of connecting specialised nodes or information sources.
- Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
- Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known.
- Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
- Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
- Accurate, up-to-date knowledge is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
- Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality.
George Siemens (2009) has provided a comparison of learning theories to locate the distinctiveness of Connectivism. This comparison is presented in Table 1.
Table 1: A comparison of learning theories
CCK08 provided a forum to explore, discuss and debate Connectivism and I believe the model has enormous possibilities for communities of practice in computer science in sport. The structure of the course was:
- Each week had a clearly defined topic.
- The topic was introduced by a short article or introduction or podcast.
- Links to external resources for additional reading/viewing were provided weekly.
- Short podcasts and opinion pieces explored disagreements.
- Discussions were held in asynchronous forums like blogs, Moodle, and wikis. The course code (CCK08) was used for tagging posts or sharing del.icio.us resources.
- Assignments and activities for participants who enrolled “for-credit” were required for completion/reflection on a weekly basis.
- Weekly live lectures and presentations were held. These lectures were delivered in Elluminate, UStream TV and BlipTV and were recorded for participants in different time zones.
- Guest presenters were involved throughout the course.
- Mind maps of key discussion topics were co-created with participants at the conclusion of each week.
- The time required by learners was a minimum of five hours per week (reading, assignments, etc) and a maximum of ten to fifteen hours (depending on learners’ expertise with online environments and familiarity with subject matter).
At the end of the course George Siemens (2009b) summarised his involvement as a course facilitator: “I have spend a minimum of 12 hours per week on CCK08. Some weeks, especially at the start, were likely closer to about 30 hours”.
The pattern of George’s time included:
- Contributions to The Daily: 3-5 hours a week (reading posts and writing commentary)
- Reading Moodle forum contributions: 5-7 hours a week (reading and posting)
- Recording/wrapup/introduction for the next week: from zero hours some weeks to 2 hours others
- Live sessions: 3+ hours (Elluminate and UStream sessions)
- Responding to email: 2-5 hours a week
- Marking papers: approximately 1 hour min per paper (reading, reflecting, and trying to write something coherent and hopefully of value to the participants). Total marking time for the course: more than 75 hours
- Course preparation time: 60-80 hours
Overall George estimated that the total time he spent on the CCK08 course was between 375-425 hours.
There are many communities that have flourished as a result of the CCK08 course. Stephen Downes (2009a) has provided an overview of the course and its open access potential.
The CCK08 course was an excellent case study of Nancy White (2009) Communities of Practice. These communities have nine facets:
- Meetings – in person or online gatherings with an agenda.
- Projects – interrelated tasks with specific outcomes or products.
- Access to expertise – learning from experienced practitioners.
- Relationship – getting to know each other.
- Context – internally-focused or serving the wider world.
- Community cultivation – recruiting, orienting and supporting members, growing the community.
- Individual participation – enabling members to craft their own experience of the community.
- Content – a focus on capturing and publishing what the community learns and knows.
- Open ended conversation – conversations that continue to rise and fall over time without a specific goal.
I believe the CCK08 is an important model for developments within the computer science in sport community. Its use of social media has enormous implications for the way knowledge sharing communities are supported and sustained. Importantly Connectivism acknowledges the place personal learning environments have in this process. The CCK08 course led to an incandescence of activity and a flourishing of social networks. The Daily produced during the course gives a feel for the digital scholarship stimulated by the course. Two examples of community building projects that arose from the course include Digifolios and Personal Learning Spaces and Connectivism, Technology, Web 2.0.
Stephen Downes (2009b) argues that “the first phase of educational media was focused almost entirely toward learning management”. Social media have made a second phase possible. Stephen Downes characterises this phase as the personal learning environment (PLE). Tony Hirst (2009) explores some of the possibilities for PLEs in a time of “radical syndication” and “the uncourse attitude”. His work demonstrates some of the ways in which content can be packaged, bundled, unbundled, mixed, remixed, contextualised, commented upon and scheduled for delivery using freely available web tools and techniques that do not need a programmer to operate them. The United Kingdom’s Open University Platform (2008) is an excellent example of this approach as is a web site that addresses the mashable (2009) affordances of digital media.
IACSS09
My involvement in the CCK08 course accelerated and focused my interest in social networks. During the course I used a range of social media to explore collaborative learning. I invested considerable energy in developing my blog Clyde Street and as part of the CCK08 course I posted each week and commented on colleagues’ blog posts. Visualisation 2 plots the increased readership of the blog since its inception in June 2008.
Visualisation 2: Clyde Street views per month
Clyde Street attracted its highest monthly readership during March 2009. This coincided with two conferences at which I blogged live. One was the International Association of Sports Information 13th World Congress in Canberra. The other was the National Library of Australia’s Innovative Ideas Forum 2009 also in Canberra.
Live blogging provides an opportunity to share presentations with colleagues within Australia and around the world. It offers an almost synchronous sharing opportunity as well as an asynchronous record for colleagues in different time zones. Microblogging services such as Twitter are now offering real time sharing of information in 140 character blocks of text.
My experience in CCK08 encouraged me to develop a Ning site for the IACSS09 Symposium to be held in Canberra.
The aim of this site was to build a social network around the work of IACSS and to create a pre-conference connection between delegates and organisers. It was defined as an unofficial site to avoid any confusion with the official Symposium site.
The Ning site was launched in December 2008 and one of the strong reasons for using the Ning suite of tools was its language potential. Ning offers the opportunity to use twenty-three languages on the site. The Language Editor page provides information about this functionality. Importantly it is possible to import language files from other Ning sites. My hope was that this agnostic feature would stimulate exchanges in a variety of languages (see Visualisation 3).
Visualisation 3: An example of four languages for upload to the site
One of the options available to Ning sites is to have an advert free skin and I chose this option (for a small monthly fee) to ensure that IACSS was not seen to be supporting any commercial activity by a third party over which IACSS had no control.
In December 2008, I started sending out invitations to join the Ning site. This was an important step as I was able to moderate all membership uptake to ensure that there was no abuse of the site by uninvited third parties. Once a member was approved that member had full access to the site’s functions. Importantly the site does not require mark up language. At the time of writing this paper there are forty-seven members. Each of these members has the freedom to:
- Add a blog post
- Start a discussion topic
- Create an event
- Add music
- Upload photographs
- Upload video
- Write a note
- Invite a friend to join the site
These functions are located on one site and remove the necessity to use multiple sites for the social network.
The CCK08 course discussed earlier in this paper demonstrated the potential of social media to grow networks linked by mutual interest. The IACSS09 Ning site is an example of a connectivist approach to social network development in computer science in sport. At present it awaits examples of non-English language use. The next step is to encourage drivers from IACSS to initiate this multi-lingual exchange.
I believe this kind of exchange can lead to the production of remarkable open access materials. I conclude this paper with a brief discussion of open access publication as the logical outcome of a commitment to Connectivism, Sport n.0 and social networks.
Open Access
Lee Orsdel and Kathleen Born (2009) provide a detailed overview of the impact of the global 2008 financial crisis on library budgets. They report that “In an unprecedented move, the International Coalition of Library Consortia issued a statement to publishers in January warning that double-digit budget cuts over the next few years are expected and calling for creative strategies from publishers who want to keep their business. The Association of Research Libraries followed with its own statement in February, underscoring the need for publishers to take this crisis seriously”.
This financial crisis is occurring at a time when the impact of Open Access journals is growing (Shu-Kun Lin, 2009). It is occurring at a time when there are increasing calls for and commitments to Open Access in universities such as Harvard, the Universite de Geneve, and Roehampton. It is occurring at a time too when the Public Knowledge Project (2009) is growing its reach as is the Internet Archive. It is occurring at a time when there is increasing discussion of the Edgeless University (Peter Bradwell, 2009) in which “technology is changing universities as they become just one source among many for ideas, knowledge and innovation. But online tools and open access also offer the means for their survival. Through their institutional capital, universities can use technology to offer more flexible provision and open more equal routes to higher education and learning”.
Matt Wedel (2009) has raised some fascinating issues in relation to the links between published articles in peer review journals and the posts written in blogs. He draws attention to what he calls the Intolerable Problem: “which is that people online can critique papers and present new evidence and arguments in a format that is impermanent and not peer-reviewed. It’s intolerable because on one hand such material is not currently (operative word) citable in most outlets, and on the other hand repeating it sans citation in peer-reviewed literature smacks of plagiarism (to some, but not to all)”.
When I first contemplated writing this paper I posted my thoughts online in this post. I received two responses about the principle of sharing a paper on line. Both responses encouraged me to contemplate what a collaborative paper might look like. I do find myself attracted to Matt Wedel’s (2009) argument that “I still think that the investment of blog posts with respectability, value, citability, or whatever rests entirely with readers, and always will. Options range from treating posts like papers to treating them like bar conversations to treating them like spam. You decide”. The availability of WebCite functionality will transform this debate: “a WebCite®-enhanced reference is a reference which contains – in addition to the original live URL (which can and probably will disappear in the future, or its content may change) – a link to an archived copy of the material, exactly as the citing author saw it when he accessed the cited material”.
If accepted for publication this paper will appear in 2010. In order to retain some currency I have chosen to use references mainly from 2009 in the drafting of this paper. By the time the special edition of IJCC on multimedia appears we will have had the Seventh IACSS Symposium. At this Symposium it is intended to use as many of the social network tools available to connect delegates in novel ways that are appearing elsewhere. As IACSS develops its own Symposia formats it will be interesting to see how these formats resonate with those organised by CERN (2009) and AACE (2009) amongst others.
It is a most remarkable time of change in the ways we communicate.
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Wedel, M. (2009). Blogs, papers and the brave new digital world.: Matt’s thoughts. Article (On-line/Unpaginated) http://svpow.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/blogs-papers-and-the-brave-new-digital-world-matts-thoughts/ accessed 29 June 2009.
Wesch, M. (2008). An anthropological introduction to YouTube, YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU accessed 29 June 2009.
Wesch, M. (2007). Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us. You Tube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE&feature=channel accessed 29 June 2009.
White, N. (2009). Red-Tails in Love: Birdwatchers as a community of practice. Article (On-line/Unpaginated) http://technologyforcommunities.com/2009/03/red-tails-in-love-birdwatchers-as-a-community-of-practice/ accessed 29 June 2009.
Wright, A. (2007). Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages. Washington: National Academies Press.
Hyperlinks
Social networks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networks
IACSS
http://www.iacss.org/index.php?id=29
IJCC
http://www.iacss.org/index.php?id=30
Larry Katz
http://www.strc.ucalgary.ca/katz/index.html
Christoph Igel
http://www.sportwissenschaft.de/index.php?id=275
PDF
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF
Email
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email
University of Calgary
http://www.ucalgary.ca/
Universitat des Saarlands
http://www.uni-saarland.de/index.php
Chief Learning Officer Award
http://www.uni-saarland.de/campus/fakultaeten/zentrale-einrichtungen/competence-center-virtuelle-saar-universitaet/aktuelles/1-preis-clo.html
Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/
Creative Commons video
http://creativecommons.org/videos/a-shared-culture/
Brewster Kahle
http://www.archive.org/about/bios.php#brewster
John Willinsky
http://pkp.sfu.ca/history
Worldwide Web
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet
Wikipedia
http://www.wikipedia.org/
Web 1.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_1.0
Web 2.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
European Future Internet Portal
http://www.future-internet.eu/home.html
European Future Internet Portal video
http://www.future-internet.eu/publications/media.html#c140
Sports Technology Research Labratory
http://www.strc.ucalgary.ca/index.html
Competence Center Virtuelle
http://www.uni-saarland.de/campus/fakultaeten/zentrale-einrichtungen/competence-center-virtuelle-saar-universitaet.html
IASI Congress
https://secure.ausport.gov.au/conferences/iasi
Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
CCK08
http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/connectivism/
Social Media Classroom
http://www.socialmediaclassroom.com/
Digital Ethnography, Kansas State University
http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/
CCK08 Google Tag
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=CCK08+tag&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
CCK08 del.icio.us Tag
http://delicious.com/tag/cck08
Elluminate
http://www.elluminate.com/
Ustream TV
http://www.ustream.tv/
Blip TV
http://blip.tv/
The Daily
http://connect.downes.ca/
CCK08 Moodle
http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/moodle/course/view.php?id=20
Digifolios
http://digifolios.ning.com/
Connectivism, Education and Learning
http://connectivismeducationlearning.ning.com/
Open University Platform
http://ouseful.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/ou-goes-social-with-platform/
Mashable
http://mashable.com/
Clyde Street
https://keithlyons.me/
Innovative Ideas 09 Forum
http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/meetings/innovative-ideas-forum/2009/
Twitter
http://twitter.com
IACSS09 Ning Site
http://iacss09.ning.com/
Ning Language Editor
http://iacss09.ning.com/main/language/list
Ning Import Language File
http://iacss09.ning.com/main/language/upload
IACSS09 Ning Membership
http://iacss09.ning.com/profiles/members/
International Coalition of Library Consortia
http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/
International Coalition of Library Consortia Statement
http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/icolc-econcrisis-0109.htm
Association of Research libraries
http://www.arl.org/
Harvard Press Statement
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/blog/news_features_releases/2009/06/harvard-graduate-school-of-education-votes-open-access-policy.html
Universite de Geneve Statement
http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/outils/Directive_Archive_ouverte_UNIGE.pdf
Roejhampton University Statement
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/fullinfo.php?inst=Roehampton University
Public Knowledge Project
http://pkp.sfu.ca/about
Internet Archive
http://www.archive.org/index.php
Ning paper alert
http://iacss09.ning.com/profiles/blogs/open-and-connected-communities
WebCite
http://www.webcitation.org/
WebCite Enhanced Reference
http://www.webcitation.org/#How_look
CERN (2009)
http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=48321
AACE (2009)
http://www.aace.org/conf/edMedia/
Performance and Auto Suggestion
A fortnight ago I wrote a post about deliberate practice. Whilst writing that post I was thinking about Sergei Rachmaninoff.
I had read about his anxiety after the premiere of his first symphony. Maurice Kougell quoted Martin Bookspan:
The year was 1897 and the place was St. Petersburg. The occasion was the premiere of the First Symphony of the twenty four year old composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff. It was a complete fiasco; Rachmaninoff himself described how he sat in rapt horror through part of the performance and then fled from the concert hall before it had ended. At a post concert party which had been arranged in his honor for that evening, he was further shaken and ill at ease but the crowning blow came the next morning when the reviews appeared in the News. Cesar Cui wrote: “if there was a conservatory in hell, Rachmaninoff would get the first prize for his symphony, so devilish are the discords he places before us.”
Maurice Kougell observes that “this combination of events was too traumatic for a personality as sensitive as Rachmaninoff’s. He was seized with a fit of depression and apathy from which he could not rouse himself. For two long years it lasted. Finally, friends persuaded him to see one of the pioneers in the field of autosuggestion, Dr.Nikolai Dahl.” Some years later Rachmaninoff dedicated his Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor Opus 18 to Nikolai Dahl.
Peter Chou adds the following information:
From the beginning of January 1900 until April, he went daily to Dr. Dahl to receive treatment while lying in an hypnotic doze in an easy chair in the doctor’s apartment. This treatment consisted of the almost ceaseless repetition to him of the words: “You will begin to write you concerto… You will work with great facility… The concerto will be of an excellent quality…”
So remarkable was the success of this principle of auto-suggestion over the inertia of his inner self that his creative powers began to function by the beginning of the summer. He wrote anew with increasing fluency. Ideas and thematic material welled up with all the facility of those now so seemingly far-off days when he wrote “Aleko” in little over a fortnight. The andante and finale of the C minor Concerto, Op. 18, came to him in this way, before the opening movement, and were completed by the autumn of 1900, and given their first performance at one of the Prison Charity Concerts organised by Princess Lieven in Moscow in connection with a prisoners’ aid society. Siloti conducted when Rachmaninoff played; and at these concerts as well as the composer other notable artists who appeared were the cellists, Pablo Casals and Brandoukov, the violinist, Eugene Ysäye, and Fedor Chaliapin.
The C minor Piano Concerto was completed by the spring of 1901, and also the Suite, Op. 17, for two pianofortes, briefly sketched out the previous autumn. As already mentioned the concerto received its first performance in England at a London Philharmonic concert of 1902, the soloist being Basil Sapellnikoff. Rachmaninoff dedicated the concerto to Dr. Dahl as an expression of his gratitude for the success of his care. As no one saving the doctor, the patient, and his cousins knew of the “cure” there was considerable speculation as to the reason for the dedication. The completion of this large work shattered whatever remained of an inferiority complex in the psychology of Rachmaninoff.
Marianne Tobias (2003) points out in a book with the delightful title Classical Music Without Fear that, after spending time with Dr Dahl, Rachmaninoff produced his second symphony “which weighd in at 320 pages in the original manuscript”. She observes that “herein you can find all the Racmaninoff hallmarks: luscious melodies, boisterous dances, passionate introspective writing, emotional fervour, and bold, rich orchestration.”
This story and the discussion of deliberate practice focus my thoughts on the confidence coaches and athletes need to perform. I am particularly interested in how coaches develop their narratives with athletes and how athletes themselves use (if at all) self talk. Perhaps this is why I am so interested in the possibilities of horse whispering.
Photo Credits
Like Whispers in the Fog
When photography turns social experience
Discipline + Defence + Red Shirts: A Winning Formula at the 2010 FIFA World Cup?
The 2010 FIFA World Cup web site has some fascinating information about Spain’s performance at the tournament. In this post I want to draw attention to Spain’s:
- Discipline
- Defence
as characteristics of a winning team. There is something about their kit I would like to share too.
I believe their discipline and defence were exceptional. What is important to note is that Spain started the tournament with a defeat to a lower FIFA ranked team.
As background information here are some details about the sixteen teams who appeared in the Knockout Stages of the tournament:
| Country | Games | Goals For |
Goals Against |
Goal Difference | Yellow Cards |
Second Yellow |
Red Cards |
| Spain | 7 | 8 | 2 | +6 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| Netherlands | 7 | 12 | 6 | +6 | 21 | 1 | 1 |
| Germany | 7 | 16 | 5 | +11 | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| Uruguay | 7 | 11 | 8 | +3 | 9 | 0 | 1 |
| Paraguay | 5 | 3 | 2 | +1 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| Brazil | 5 | 9 | 4 | +5 | 7 | 0 | 1 |
| Argentina | 5 | 10 | 6 | +4 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Ghana | 5 | 5 | 4 | +1 | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| Portugal | 4 | 7 | 1 | +6 | 8 | 0 | 1 |
| Slovakia | 4 | 5 | 7 | -2 | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| England | 4 | 3 | 5 | -2 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| Korea | 4 | 6 | 8 | -2 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| Chile | 4 | 3 | 5 | -2 | 13 | 0 | 0 |
| Mexico | 4 | 4 | 5 | -1 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| Japan | 4 | 4 | 2 | +2 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| USA | 4 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
Discipline
Spain had a very small number of yellow cards given to them throughout the tournament. Five of their eight cards were in the Final. Compared to their opponents they had fewer yellow cards and conceded fewer fouls. They received no yellow cards in four of their games. The game against the Netherlands was the first game of the tournament where Spain were given a yellow card in the first half of a game.
| Opponent | Fouls Conceded | |
| Spain | Opponent | |
| Switzerland | 8 | 21 |
| Honduras | 9 | 19 |
| Chile | 13 | 21 |
| Portugal | 13 | 18 |
| Paraguay | 12 | 25 |
| Germany | 7 | 9 |
| Netherlands | 19 | 28 |
Here are the patterns of their games:
Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Game 4
Game 5
Game 6
Game 7
Spain had an admirable discipline and defence record in the 2010 World Cup. After their first game defeat to Switzerland they conceded only one more goal (Chile in the qualifying group). Spain did not concede a goal in the Knockout Stages of the tournament.
Defence
Spain’s defence was more disciplined than their opponents throughout the tournament in terms of the fouls conceded and in limiting shots at goal. Their performance exemplified the suggestion that attacks win games, defences win championships. The final Group Game (Game 3) was the only occasion when an opponent equalled the number of shots Spain made.
|
Opponent |
Shots |
|
|
Spain |
Opponent |
|
|
Switzerland |
24 | 8 |
|
Honduras |
22 | 9 |
|
Chile |
9 | 9 |
|
Portugal |
19 | 9 |
|
Paraguay |
16 | 9 |
|
Germany |
13 | 5 |
|
Netherlands |
18 | 13 |
Red Shirts
Spain is referred to as La Furia Roja. Martin Atrill and his colleagues reported in 2008 that:
Since 1947, English football teams wearing red shirts have been champions more often than expected on the basis of the proportion of clubs playing in red. To investigate whether this indicates an enhancement of long-term performance in red-wearing teams, we analysed the relative league positions of teams wearing different hues. Across all league divisions, red teams had the best home record, with significant differences in both percentage of maximum points achieved and mean position in the home league table. The effects were not due simply to a difference between teams playing in a colour and those playing in a predominantly white uniform, as the latter performed better than teams in yellow hues. No significant differences were found for performance in matches away from home, when teams commonly do not wear their “home” colours. A matched-pairs analysis of red and non-red wearing teams in eight English cities shows significantly better performance of red teams over a 55-year period. These effects on long-term success have consequences for colour selection in team sports, confirm that wearing red enhances performance in a variety of competitive contexts, and provide further impetus for studies of the mechanisms underlying these effects.
Spain played four of their games in the World Cup in red shirts and three in their away, blue, strip. They lost their first and only game of the tournament whilst wearing red shirts. They received the World Cup trophy in their red shirts despite playing the game in their blue shirts.
A Winning Team
The combination of discipline and defence marked Spain out as a distinctive team at this World Cup. In the semi-final against Germany no yellow cards were given to either team. Both teams in that game conceded fewer than ten free kicks each (Spain 7 and Germany 9). Spain’s defence was so effective that they did not concede a goal in the Knockout Stages of the tournament.
Photo Credit
Old and Wise
FIFA World Cup Final in Toronto
2010 FIFA World Cup: After the Final Whistle
At this World Cup I have been following:
- Goal scoring patterns.
- Game outcome in relation to FIFA Ranking (May 2010).
- Referees for each game.
The official web site for the World Cup has provided enormous detail about each game and the tournament.
I have collected all my posts at this page. After 64 Games at the 2010 World Cup here are some observations:
- 145 goals were scored in the tournament. 101 goals in the Group Stage. 44 goals in the Knockout Stages.
- 59 goals were scored in the first halves of games, 84 in the second halves and 2 in extra time.
- In 54 out of 57 games the team that scored first did not lose (the remaining games were 0-0 draws).
- Nigeria, Cameroon and Brazil were the only teams to score first and lose.
- In 51 out of 64 games the higher FIFA ranked team (May 2010) won.
- The higher ranked teams that lost were: Greece (v Korea), Serbia (v Ghana), Cameroon (v Japan), Spain (v Switzerland), France (v Mexico), Germany (v Serbia), Cameroon (v Denmark), France (v South Africa), Serbia (v Australia), Italy (v Slovakia), Denmark (v Japan), USA (v Ghana), Brazil (v Netherlands).
- There were two penalty shoot outs. The higher ranking team won both shoot outs. The team that took the first penalty in these shoot outs won. The team that scored the first penalty won in both games.
- 24 referees officiated at the World Cup.
- No yellow or red cards were given in the Germany v Spain semi-final.
Next stop is Brazil in 2014.
Photo Credits
World Cup Stadium 2010
Lonely Traveller
Social Media Sharing
I have been posting some #worldcup updates to Twitter this week. In passing I have accessed a number of links to social media resources through the serendipity of being online at just the right time. A read of Danny Brown’s 52 Cool facts About Social Media started my journey.
I delighted in finding these resources to grow my awareness of social media (driven partly by research for a paper on cloud computing and coaching).
Aggregations of Social Media Links and Guides
Jane Hart shared a great introductory guide to Social Media this week. I am constantly in awe of her awareness of social media and her energy in sharing her discoveries. This week she notes that “This is a social resource as it also provides the opportunity for you to provide your own experiences of using social tools for learning”. This is the link to the contents page of the guide.
I caught up with Darcy Moore’s Prezi presentation on Cool Online Tools too. I enjoyed reading his reflections on personal learning environments in education. “Year 11 will have virtually no opportunity, in their day at school, to use a computer or the many tools available online. During this presentation, I acknowledged that the student delegates will just have to use all this stuff at home. One kid pointed out, that even if they had DERNSW laptops, software could not be installed and many of the sites, especially social media and collaboration tools, would be blocked anyway. I was surprised at how little they knew of the tools discussed. The students were unfamiliar with all the tools, except iGoogle.”
Personal Learning Environments
David Hopkins’ post (from December 2009) shares a collection of PLE diagrams. his own is included:
I liked Skip’s video Personal Learning networks for Educators and thought it was an excellent introduction made all the better by creative editing.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6WVEFE-oZA&feature=channel]
After viewing Skip’s video I followed up on the The Educator’s PLN Ning site.
EduFeeder
At the end of the week, Stephen Downes’ OLDaily led me to Teemu Leinonen’s fascinating post about the EduFeedr project (an educationally enhanced feed reader for blog-based courses). Teemu’s blog post provides some background to this project:
In spring 2008 the authors organized a course on composing free and open educational resources (in the Wikiversity). It was officially a master’s course at the University of Art and Design Helsinki. The authors decided to make the course available with an open enrollment through the Wikiversity and promoted it in their blogs. As a result about 70 people from 20 countries signed up for the course on the Wikiversity page.
The course was organized as a weekly blogging seminar. In each week the facilitators posted a weekly theme and links to related readings on the course blog. The participants reflected on the weekly theme in their personal blogs and commented their peers.
One of the challenges in a large blog-based course is to follow all the communication. Typically this communication takes place not only in blogs but also in other environments such as Delicious, Twitter, etc. Most of these environments provide RSS feeds but typical RSS readers are not very suitable for following this kind of courses. Most of the RSS readers such as Google Reader are designed for personal use. In a Wikiversity course it would be important to have a shared feed reader that all the participants could use.
EduFeedr is a web-based feed reader that is designed specifically for following and supporting learners in open blog-based courses. The design process of EduFeedr is based on the research-based design methodology. We have organized several Wikiversity courses where we have tried out various online tools to manage the course. The initial user needs for EduFeedr came out from this contextual inquiry. Interaction design methods such as scenario-based design, user stories and paper prototyping have been used in the process.
I wondered what role Livefyre might play in stimulating other types of conversation in blog based courses. I think it my have a role to play as another communication channel and I have signed up for the Beta version scheduled for launch on 14 July. From the Livefyre blog:
Livefyre is an embeddable live commenting and conversation platform that turns comment sections into live conversations, increases the quality of those conversations, and drives traffic to content around the web. Livefyre is introducing a number of firsts into the conversation ecosystem, including conversation check-ins, real-time game mechanics, and a revolutionary moderation and reputation system. The Livefyre platform quickly and easily replaces legacy commenting systems on any site.
Publishing
Dodie Ainslie shared a wide range of links and resources this week in her discussion of student publishing sites. This post is part of a wider series of posts about Writing Digitally.
Twitter
EduDemic provides a guide to the 30 newest ways to use Twitter in the classroom. Later in the week Sue Waters published her Twitterholic’s guide to tweets, hashtags and all things Twitter. Sue, like Jane Hart, has a wonderful way to share ideas and practice. Her advice is “for those of you who have heard of twitter and have dismissed it thinking ‘”Twitter is for people with too much time on their hands” — think again 
Educators are connecting with each other on Twitter and using it like a big teachers lunch room that’s open 24/7 whenever they need help, assistance or just want to connect with others.”
Foursquare
I have been slow on the uptake of Foursquare. This week I found a guide that might help me in a post on the Accredited Online Colleges blog. The post observes that “Unlike other social networks, Foursquare encourages people to get out and enjoy their city by sharing check-ins, tips and to-dos while earning points and badges as they explore new venues and favorite hang-outs. Foursquare can also be used in education, though, for online students, lower education teachers, and in campus communities.” Thanks to this post I have 30+ ways to build my practice. A colleague is helping me with this uptake.
Bibliographic Tool
This Zotero Guide for undergraduates jumped out at me.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDoO_JxQAko&feature=related]
Cloud Opportunities
I mentioned at the start of this post that I have been writing up a paper on cloud computing and coaching. This is the abstract of my paper, Cloud Computing and Ubiquitous Support for Coaches:
Cloud computing is transforming the ways in which coaches work with athletes and enrich their own professional development. Cloud computing enables “convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction” (NIST, 2009). The pace of change in cloud computing is such that many coaches need access to and the support of educational technologists to manage their engagement with the opportunities the Internet provides. This paper presents examples of coaches’ use of cloud computing. It explores how the openness of the cloud raises risk management issues for providers of institutional networks. The paper concludes with a discussion of the transformation of cloud resources by coaches through the use of iterative ‘good enough’ approaches to digital repositories (Lund, 2009).
References for the abstract:
Lund, T.B. (2009). Standards and Interoperability. http://edrene.org/results/deliverables/EdReNeD4.3TSR_Standards_and_interoperability.pdf Accessed 8 March 2010.
NIST (2009). NIST Definition of Cloud Computing v 15. http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing/index.html Accessed 8 March 2010.
Each week I am aware of the enormous opportunities to learn about and share experiences of social media. This week I have accessed Twitter more than usual to post links to my World Cup analysis. I realise that the items noted here are a very small part of a weekly sharing that goes on in and through social media tools.
Photo Credit
How fast do you want to go?
Semi Finals at the 2010 FIFA World Cup: Outputs
I wrote a post before the semi finals of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The post noted some of the inputs going into these two games from the four teams involved.
The outputs of the games were:
- Higher ranked teams (FIFA Ranking May 2010) won both games
- The team that scored first won both games
- Spain continued its remarkable discipline record and received no cards from the referee in the game v Germany
These are the Castrol Index data for the games:
Time Lines
Game Statistics
Deliberate Practice: What Coaches Can Learn From Pianists
This morning on Classic FM (Australia) Margaret Throsby had a telephone conversation with Boris Berman about the Melbourne Festival of the Piano. Part of the interview was about a one-hour public seminar to be held on Wednesday 7 July. The seminar’s title is On Practice and will be presented by Boris Berman with special guests Paul Lewis and Ronald Farren-Price.
I cannot find a link to a recording of the conversation but was struck at the time by Boris’s clarity about the role of deliberate practice. Quoting Rachmaninoff, Boris observed that “if I do not practice for one day … I notice. If I do not practice for two days … my friends notice. If I do not practice for three days … the audience notices.”
He talked in detail about:
- Linking all practice to the artistic outcome.
- Transforming practice environments.
- The role of mental rehearsal away from the practice environment.
Once again I was struck by the lessons that coaches can learn from exploring the world of performing arts. I am keen to read Boris Berman’s Notes from the Pianist’s Bench.
One reviewer notes that the book starts:
where most diligent students hopefully find themselves presently: in the pratice room. But what a practice room this is! While yours (and mine) consists of four naked white walls with a big black piano in it, Professor Berman’s practice room is a laboratory of experimentation and consideration. His enormous experience in performance practice, spanning all styles from harpsichord to Cage, allows him to approach a topic from several angles at the same time. Berman is especially afraid of exaggeration and dogmatic advice and believes our faults to be the extension of our virtues: “My biggest hesitation about writing this book has been a fear that my advice will be misinterpreted or carried ad absurdum. Guided by the teacher, a young musician must learn to use common sense, both in making interpretive decisions and in deciding on appropriate physical actions to realize them.”
Boris Berman is clear about the role practice plays in performance excellence. His workshop with Paul Lewis and Ronald Farren-Price would be a great resource for coaches from a different kind of bench.
Photo Credit
Piano and/or keyboard
Semi Finals at the 2010 FIFA World Cup: Inputs
Going into the semi final games of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, these are some of the performance characteristics of the four teams remaining.
Alphabetical
| Team |
| Germany |
| Netherlands |
| Spain |
| Uruguay |
Alphabetical and Group Position
| Team | Qualifying Group Position |
| Germany | 1 |
| Netherlands | 1 |
| Spain | 1 |
| Uruguay | 1 |
FIFA Ranking May 2010
| Team | FIFA Rank May 2010 |
| Spain | 2 |
| Netherlands | 4 |
| Germany | 6 |
| Uruguay | 16 |
Games Won
| Team | Games Won |
| Netherlands | 5 |
| Germany | 4 |
| Spain | 4 |
| Uruguay | 4 |
Goals Scored
| Team | Goals Scored |
| Germany | 13 |
| Netherlands | 9 |
| Uruguay | 7 |
| Spain | 6 |
Yellow Cards
| Team | Yellow Cards |
| Spain | 3 |
| Uruguay | 6 |
| Germany | 8 |
| Netherlands | 12 |
Red Cards
| Team | Red Cards |
| Germany | 0 |
| Netherlands | 0 |
| Spain | 0 |
| Uruguay | 1 |
Games Played at Altitude
| Team | Games at Altitude |
| Spain | 3 |
| Uruguay | 3 |
| Germany | 2 |
| Netherlands | 1 |
Games Played at Sea Level
| Team | Games at Sea Level |
| Netherlands | 4 |
| Germany | 3 |
| Spain | 2 |
| Uruguay | 2 |
Some other information
- Germany and Spain have lost to lower ranked opponents in this tournament.
- The referee for the Netherlands v Uruguay game has refereed four games at this tournament. His last game was Argentina v Germany.
- The referee for the Germany v Spain game has refereed three games at this tournament. His last game was USA v Ghana.
After all this information, there is this suggestion too:
Photo Credit
Argentina v Mexico
