Instagram photo by David Wiley. I can only guess David would license it under creative commons as Instagram seems not to care.

From the back blog department, audio recording and notes from a panel discussion I participated on at SXSWedu, Developing a Culture of Openness where I appeared with Jim Groom, Karen Fasimpaur, and Philipp Schmidt

The open digital world is characterized by its allowance of free widespread and effortless sharing. Sharing can make our lives richer and more meaningful; as individuals, educators and members of society. Yet only a small portion of the general population, to include the educational community specifically, actively shares in the digital realm. While some lack the time or inclination, others remain unconvinced of the benefits and several are still concerned about negative consequences. What are the benefits of sharing? How can a culture of sharing be developed in schools and in society at large? What is your favorite example of how sharing has made your life better? We’ll explore these questions and more in this interactive discussion session.

Audio is archived from the broadcast sent out over ds106radio.


Karen: P2PU School of Ed -struggles with K12 on sharing, 95% don’t share openly

Jim: “When you start sharing, you can’t predict where its going to go or what it might mean”

Me: If we are talking about creating a culture of haring, it suggests we are not doing it. Everything I learned about sharing was in kindergarten.

Audience member: “teachers don’t always have a vehicle to share”

Jim: stigma of sharing from file sharing

Who’s not sharing? @brlamb

Audience member: what are expectations for privacy in sharing spaces (twitter, google, etc) (some in Europe).

Jim: worried about sharing of educator data by third parties. You are a product. Wants teaching and learning to be a green space, a public park we can experiment with

Audience member: Georgia Tech had blog system taken down (get link) due to concern over sharing student info [ed note: actually it was a wiki http://www.hackeducation.com/2011/11/15/georgia-tech-invokes-ferpa-cripples-schools-wikis/

Jim: Give students control of their own data, give them power of decision, and stop FERPA

David Wiley: ‘You can only share whats yours; you run into trouble when you share other people’s stuff. “If you empower people to share their own stuff, all the problems go away.”

Karen: story of a lurker, how to help overcome barriers to being more open? She’s told that people new to online communities “need to do it in a private environment” Not her way, but she realizes people need a comfort zone and some sort of transition.

Jim: Opening sharing by having assignment bank in ds106, students create challenges for others to do,a s well as tutorials. Opme en framework that tries to encourage sharing.

Powerful moment when students get a comment from a stranger. Anothrer student did not see point of creative commons until she started finding all the useful content out there; she changed her default license in flickr. Lost reference on idea that what makes social media work is the balance between what individuals gain from the sharing, with the layer on top of what it means when the sharing is opened

Audience member: People downplay value of their work “I don’t have anything important to share”

Jim: (goes on start of movie references) Red Dog reference, Rambo as the “fantasy of American that we did win the war in Vietname” . Questions how is the culture of sharing reflected back in popular media? When you put in the DVD what is the first message you see? “Sharing is a crime” here we are in education trying to promote sharng as a positive things and our popular culture us saying “it’s a problem” That reluctance to share has a connection to this culture.

Audience member: is there a guilt created in education for not sharing? But a lot of stuff being shared is noise. How do we get highest impact given time limits? Companies trying to put up paywalls by saying they are filtering the bet for you.

Me: hang out with smart people. It is finding right people to provide input, but also important to go outside your sector, benefit of serendipity (Jason Zweig on Structured Serendipity http://www.edge.org/q2011/q11_2.html#zweig)

Karen: Smart sharing can save time, make your life better

Jim: “People will amaze you at their ability to create” Sometimes what sounds like noise is not- it’s not always the content itself, but the interactions around it. Sometimes we go about sharing as if everyone is interested in sharing the same thing

Audience member: What about social entrepreneurship, how to pay for services, one can be spocial responsible with shared data- give people theor decision to share their data

Phillip: How do you build a sustainable culture of sharing? “If you give away everything for free, how do people make a living?

Me: Be much more clear what they are doing with data

Jim: quotes the Hulk “We’re doing the basic science” There is some national or federal investment about keeping the space of K-12 and higer education clear and free of having to depend on for profit spaces to allow us and students to explore and think about these ideas; its whats going to keep us innovative. “Keep the free market out of education! Keep it away, it’s bad. Please, for the love of all that is holy!”

Phillip: there is are corporate approached to making money with open. Mark Shuttleworth has done it with a business model

Audience Member: How to get academic recognition for sharing?

David Wiley: Journals measures of impact are a proxy for quality, not a direct measure, but tools like Google Scholar gives much more direct indicators by citation tracking.

Profile Picture for Alan Levine aka CogDog


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