social media – ETEC 565 HJD e-portfolio

Open Sandbox

My investigations into the Terms of Service (TOS) for several social media products was an eye opening experience. I had never taken the time to read the details behind the ‘click to agree’ button when I signed on for any one of these services. In my haste, I now realize, I have signed off on certain rights and privileges that could impact my future. Is this a big deal? Maybe. My investigations will continue but have already connected to other ideas I am exploring on this topic.

My interest in this particular topic connects to a book I have been reading titled “Open Leadership” by Charlene Li. It’s premise is an investigation into how social technologies can transform the way leadership can be open while retaining control. This is not a ‘how to’ book on accessing, establishing or creating accounts within social media sites. This book focuses on how to harness the power of social media to lead in the times of Twitter and Facebook. The ten defining characteristics outlined in the opening chapters include

Information Sharing: explaining, updating, conversing, open mic, crowdsourcing, and platforms

Decision Making: centralized, democratic, self-managing, and distributed.

A subsequent chapter establishes some measures of how to control the openness of social media when structures are needed, by using ‘sandbox covenants’. This examines the policies, processes, and procedures needed to manage social media in the workplace. This brought to mind the guidelines recently created for educators in Ontario as outlined by the College of Teachers. These are important controls to ensure the intentions and actions of members of the company or profession behave in social media environments in an appropriate manner.

The key mind-sets of open leadership, according to Li, are optimism and collaboration. These two dimensions will impact how open and active a leader will be within a social media environment. The one example from the field of education that comes to mind is Chris Kennedy’s blog “The Culture of Yes“. Within this social media outlet, the ten characteristics outlined by Li for open leadership can be identified as being present.

One thing not mentioned in Charlene Li’s book is the connection to T.O.S. for each of the social media tools that an open leader may utilize. Privacy is not mentioned in the subject index. Once you look at the fine print for Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites, I wonder – Are the leaders losing control of their content, message and meaning? What happens when they click the ‘I agree’ button when creating their open, social media accounts, despite the sandbox covenants established internally? And if so, how can this be used to advantage? How does this apply to educational leadership?

Reference

Li, Charlene (2010) Open Leadership: how social technology can transform the way you lead. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishing. (see also: http://www.charleneli.com/open-leadership/)

Collaboration in Wiki-spaces

My reflections on the recent work on the collaborative wiki for this week’s module has left me pondering and wondering about the pedagogical and educational applications and implications for collaborative work spaces.

This activity was challenging since the only way to see if any changes had been made was to use the history and then compare versions for changes. This significantly changed the way I interacted with the information and with my classmates. Not necessarily easier or harder, just different. When you are used to seeing where and when additions or new information is posted, working with a wiki brings the word ‘collaborative’ to the forefront of my thinking.

Each page has the message “if you aren’t prepared to have your work ruthlessly modified, don’t post it here” as well as the warning ‘don’t post copyrighted material’. Both are reminders of the public nature of the writing environment.

The final product should be a piece of quality writing and a compilation of everyone’s thoughts on the topic, if everyone puts their ‘2 cents worth’ into the project. The fine-tuning and organization still takes a certain someone to take ownership of these tasks or the whole thing is left in a messy, disconnected collection of individual thoughts. In this writing environment, the individual contributor is always making some assumptions about the others involved – that they agree, that they are present, that they care about the topic, that they are participating (even if there is no record of their presence in the history), or that they are aiming for the best outcome for the project. These can be challenges but also strengths to this type of collaborative working space. If you have the right group of people working on the right task, these assumptions become irrelevant and a quality outcome is assured.