Castañeda, Linda and Costa, Cristina and Torres-Kompen, Ricardo (2011) The Madhouse of
ideas: stories about networking and learning with twitter. In: Proceedings of the The PLE
Conference 2011, 10th - 12th July 2011, Southampton, UK.
The Madhouse of Ideas:
stories about networking and learning with Twitter
Linda Castañeda; Cristina Costa & Ricardo Torres Kompen
Universidad de Murcia, Spain; University of Saldford, United Kingdom; Citilab Cornellà,
Spain
Abstract
This paper aims to analyse the meanings of the stories submitted to the project through
the concepts of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) and Personal Learning
Networks (PLNs), as both notions seem to be present, and often intertwine, in the
collected narratives.
This paper will start by providing an overview of the concepts of Personal Learning
Environments and Personal Learning Networks as reported in the literature. It will then
present the context of the project, and outline the results of the qualitative analysis of
the content and data collected. The findings will highlight the critical elements in the
creation and development of Personal Learning Environments and Networks and
uncover new themes as they emerge from the analytic work done on the Twitter stories.
The paper will also critically discuss these themes in detail with regards to the literature,
and will finish with the preliminary conclusions of this ongoing research, and its future
steps.
1. Introduction
1.1.
PLEs and PLNs
PLEs (Personal Learning Environments) first emerged as a concept in 2001, with
“Lifelong Learning: The Need for Portable Personal Learning Environments and
Supporting Interoperability Standards” by Oliver and Liber. This was the first article to
use the concept. However, this paper was not published at the time, which makes The
Personal Learning Environments Session at the JISC/CETIS Conference 2004 the first
recorded use of the term. In any case, the concept has seen a rise in popularity in the
last few years, as a result of several trends: the increase in participation and usergenerated content on the Internet, thanks to better broadband and connections; the
switch from consumers to prosumers (a term originally coined by Alvin Toffler in his
book “The Third Wave”, 1980, to refer to the blurring of roles between producers and
consumers) due to the explosion of Web 2.0 applications; and the discourse on
personalisation that surrounds the educational world, among others.
As a new concept, it has been difficult to pinpoint a definition for PLEs. There seems to
be some agreement in the sense that there are two main approaches: one that sees
PLEs as objects, programs, software, platforms that allow users to “connect” to their
personal learning spaces and applications; and another one, that looks at PLEs as a
concept, a methodology, a way of learning.
It is in this later context that PLNs are presented as an involving component of one’s
PLE. Adell and Castañeda (2010) assert that “we create a PLE as a set of tools,
sources of information, connections and activities which each individual uses on a
regular basis to learn. (p.23). Hence, a Personal Learning Network is the result of all the
connections and relationships an user establishes over time through their PLE. There
are probably as many definitions of a PLE as there are PLEs. Anything that is “personal”
cannot be created by anyone other than the actual user. As such, it acquires personal
meaning whilst personal definitions also emerge from the process of engaging with
one’s learning in one’s environment. In the last few years microblogging seems to have
become a main component of one’s PLE. Twitter, in particular, has become a main part
of one’s networked PLE in which one’s PLN is enhanced, cultivated and nurtured
(Simoes and Mota, 2010).
1.2.
Microblogging as the centre of a PLN
Twitter is probably the most popular platform for microblogging. It was launched 5
years ago and has currently over 200 million users. Over its existence Twitter has
emerged as a new channel for communication and interaction. It has been appropriated
in different ways for different purposes and uses. For instances, commercial companies
use it as part of their marketing strategy and as a form of reaching to their customers in
a more interactive way. Educators from all around the world embed it in their teaching
practices in an attempt of experimenting novel and creative teaching approaches in the
classroom. Whole communities of research and practice regard Twitter as their meeting
point: a distributed place where resources and ideas, and collaborative links are
fostered. Twitter has also given voice to all sorts of causes and initiatives, while allowing
people to be connected and informed, and even take active part in current events in
real-time, regardless of geographical location and timezone.
2. The Madhouse of Ideas Project
“The MadHouse of Ideas” (http://www.madhouseofideas.org) is the English version of a
original
Spanish
project
called
“El
Bazar
de
los
Locos”
(http://www.elbazardeloslocos.org). The original project was developed in the Spanishspeaker Twittersphere and was developed from August to November of 2010.
“Madhouse of Ideas” was launched in December 2010 and closed his first call for
papers in March 2011.
Similarly to the original project, the Madhouse of Ideas consists in collecting personal
stories regarding the use of Twitter for teaching, learning, education, enterprise,
communication, lifelong learning and digital identity.
The project uses a crowd-source technique to collect information about the use of
Twitter as a tool, with the intention of comparing and showcasing different approaches
to the use of Twitter which could help other people, who read those stories to
understand, “why people are so excited about Twitter”. Yet, the stories offered to the
project unveiled much more information about how individuals use and regard Twitter
than initially expected. Different facets and meanings of the current use of
microblogging and contemporaneous communication online have emerged, and with it
the meaning one’s Personal Learning Network has in communicating in a connected
environment.
The project is conducted exclusively online, via the website dedicated to the project and
Twitter itself, the object of our research (http://madhouseofideas.org). The former
served to aggregate the stories of the educators who volunteered as authors of their
own stories whilst the latter was used as a platform for both crowdsourcing and
dissemination of content. The target audience of the project was practitioners and
researchers from different levels of education and disciplinary areas, from different
institutions and countries, who are highly networked online and use Twitter as part of
their approach to learning and professional development.
3. The Study
In order to analyse how concepts as PLE and PLN appear -when and if they do- in the
stories of the Madhouse Of Ideas, we have considered all of them as case studies, and
the stories offered for the Madhouse project as a naturalistic storytelling collection.
Consequently, this paper is a first attempt to interpreter the content of the Madhouse of
Ideas narratives focusing on the concepts of PLNs and PLEs. The data used for the
study includes all stories submitted to the first phase of the project whose call for papers
ran from 15th of December until the 31st of March.
3.1.
Sample
The sample consists of a total of 25 submissions, classified into one of eight categories
defined by the original project: education, lifelong learning, social media, enterprise,
knowledge, art, communication and digital identity. The first 25 papers were written by
16 males and 11 females (59% and 41% respectively), and on this first call people from
5 countries participated in the projeact: Germany, Portugal, Romania, Spain and United
Kingdom. Surprisingly, as you could see in Figure 1, the majority of papers were
submitted by Spanish authors, who had already contributed to the “Bazar de los Locos”.
4%
15%
42%
Spain
UK
Germany
12%
Portugal
Romania
27%
Figure 1. Countries of Origin of authors
As expected, the pre-set categories caused some problems for some of the
contributors: where to put their submissions? As is evident in the Graphic 2, many
categories overlap, as is the obvious case of education and lifelong learning, but maybe
less so for communication and art.
Digital Identity,
2
Education , 8
Communication
,5
Art, 1
Knowledge, 2
Lifelong
Learning, 3
Enterprise, 1
Social Media, 4
Graphic 2. Distribution of Stories in the Project Categories
In order to conduct the first content analysis of all the stories we have configured a
methodology of study based in a content analysis by categories. We have focussed our
analysis into two basic areas: the type of learning supported by Twitter, and the learning
activities/experiences which occurred or are supported by the use of Twitter.
On these two areas we have analysed evidences about topics which can serve us as
categories. To be precise:
●Type of Learning that is supported by Twitter
○Social of learning
○Personal Learning
○Other Learning
●Learning activity supported by Twitter (Attwell, 2008; Adell & Castañeda, 2010,
Waters, 2008)
○reading/lurking/retrieving Info
○doing
○discussing
○sharing
○reflecting
○organising
Apart from the categories above, we have observed there were also other strong pieces
of evidence included in the content of the stories shared with the project. We have
gathered relevant information from those stories, including the specific citations that
show evidence of each category.
4. Data Analysis: Stories from the MadHouse
In order to understand what the stories of Madhouse aimed to share and teach us, we
have analysed the papers in light of the categories we mentioned before.
This analysis shows that only 2 of the papers (stories 5 and 6, approximately 8% of the
total) do not include any explicit reference to the categories we have considered. We
are going to include their analysis in the following.
4.1.
Type of Learning
Again, there are as many approaches and experiences as users. Nevertheless, some
themes emerged during the analysis of the project contributions.
Regarding learning modes, there were two main themes: personal learning and social
learning. Of those two, social learning is by far the one that is most frequently
mentioned, matching Twitter’s position as one of the most popular social media
applications.
From the stories we have analyzed, 40% of authors (10 stories) mentioned the
importance of Twitter for their social learning explicitly in some quotes:
“Anyone who uses Twitter on a regular basis will tell you that the power of
the tool is not so much in its content, but in its ability to connect you to
other people. Twitter quite simply connects you with people who are
interesting, informative or humorous. The value of Twitter is in tapping into
its social critical mass. Twitter is not so much about the information and
useful links you can gain access to. Twitter is powerful because it allows
people to share their emotions.” (Story 1)
“Everybody could give a different reason for Twitter, but if we could go
deeper into the reasons for tweeting, we would probably conclude than
there is one that summarizes all of the rest and that it is above any of the
rest, which is learning. I usually tweet as a teacher, on education topics
and network with other teachers. Therefore, Twitter is, for teachers, the
place we debate, share and very often, fortunately, joke.” (Story 3)
“Taking is fine, but it is also important to remember to put back in.” (Story
19)
“It involves people, sharing, discussing, talking. It is just a new way of
doing it.” (Story 25)
As you can see in the tag cloud below (figure 1), once all the quotations related to social
learning were collected, the most common words were people, teachers, share, social,
sharing.
Figure 1 Most common words talking about social learning
The mentions of personal learning are less than we expected, taking into account the
perceived connection between Twitter and the concept of Personal Learning
Environments, PLEs.
We have found only 4 quotations explicitly organized about Personal Learning (16% of
stories). So:
“Some usages of Twitter can encourage reflection, informal self-learning,
lifelong learning to learn, the culture of sharing with the world, shared
knowledge construction and development of our PLE, Personal Learning
Environment.” (Story 4)
“Creating a Personal Learning Experience (PLE). Twitter can be used to
impact on the student’s learning.” (Story 6)
“Such a powerful tool for it releases infinite sources of information and
offers a boundless networking service that has become, for some of us,
an essential part of our PLE.” (Story 18)
“Everyone on Twitter has their agenda, whatever that may be; I’m ok with
that and happy to help when I can.” (Story 22)
And the most common words used on this were, as is evident in the figure 2, Personal,
Learning and PLE
Figure 2. Most common words sued by authors talking about Personal Learning
4.2.
Learning activity supported by Twitter
Evidences in stories about learning activities which take place on Twitter have been
very common in the papers we have analysed. Following the categorization we did with
the literature we revised, we are going to present the data we have gathered below.
Each one of the learning activities we have analysed (reading/lurking/retrieving info;
doing, discussing, sharing, reflecting and organizing) will be represented in the following
table, using the following structure: data of how many authors have included references
to this learning activity in their papers, and percentage of stories represented in this
category. A word cloud generated with the quotations is also presented as a visual
evidence of the learning activity in question. The table serves to provide an overview of
the analysis of the study by making use of visual representations and citations relevant
to the categories under focus.
Cloud of Words
Learning Activities: Reading/Lurking/Retrieving
Evidence: 27%
Citations
“Alerts me to new call for research
bids and also allows me to keep up to
date with what’s happening in the
world.” (story 12)
“When you need some information
and you either do not find on Google
or are too lazy for it or it is faster to
ask on Twitter (for instance in a
mobile device). If you have a sufficient
big and diverse network of followers
(around 1500 in my case), you might
get the answer in the next minute or 5
minutes.” (story 20)
“One that will broaden your horizons,
help you filter information.” (story 25)
Learning Activities: Doing
“Launching the first Twitter race in
history. playing and getting Twitterers
to contribute to #frasesdealumno”
(story 2)
“We have populated the Internet with
our texts, photographs, videos,
slides… and we have populated too
the places where the contents we sent
have been our emissaries.” (story 23)
Evidence: 8%
Cloud of Words
Learning Activities: Discussing
Citations
“We can use it for communicating with
our students, We learn as we
communicate with each other, as we
exchange information, building our
digital identities upon such
information, on- and off-line at the
same time, within a technologyenhanced, relationship-intensive,
social environment.” (story 10)
“People can communicate.” (story 11)
“Opportunities to create wide ranging
debates.” (story 12)
Evidence: 8%
Learning Activities: Sharing
“I have enjoyed sharing my own
findings and receiving feedback from
my Twitter friends.” (story 3)
“Engaging education (learning) and
sharing the best practices that a
teacher is using in his/her classroom.”
(story 6)
“Small connections can sometimes
make big things happen.” (story 13)
“Imagine being connected to people
who know, people who want to share
what they know, and people who want
to know what you know too. Imagine
how much you could share, you could
know, and you could learn.” (story 16)
Evidence: 61.5%
Cloud of Words
Citations
Learning Activities: Reflecting
“Twitter plays a crucial role in the
processes of reflection-action for an
increasing number of teachers.” (story
10)
Evidence: 8%
Learning Activities: Organising
“I have enjoyed sharing my own
findings and receiving feedback from
my Twitter friends.” (story 3)
“Engaging education (learning) and
sharing the best practices that a
teacher is using in his/her classroom.”
(story 6)
“Small connections can sometimes
make big things happen.” (story 13)
Evidence: 11.5%
“Imagine being connected to people
who know, people who want to share
what they know, and people who want
to know what you know too. Imagine
how much you could share, you could
know, and you could learn.” (story 16)
Table1. Learning activities
4.3.
Problems and obstacles for using Twitter
One of the points that interest to us was the issue of problems and obstacles found by
users. There was actual evidence of issues surrounding the adoption of Twitter, as one
of the contributors wrote:
“I saw this and thought ‘what a modern and stupid thing for people that
don’t have many things to do’ [...] it is quite boring, how can you use it
properly?” (Story 26)
This is probably one of the most popular initial reactions to Twitter. The “what do I care
what other people had for breakfast” approach. Another entry also touches on this
issue: “I was sceptical about Twitter at first. Whilst I used other social networking sites,
they all seemed to have a specific purpose.” (Story 21)
After having overcome the doubts and having joined Twitter, users are confronted with
the inherent characteristics of the application: writing is limited to 140 characters (and
even less, if we follow some “gurus” advice) and, a very good point, there is little room
for non-verbal communication. This causes problems to some users: “Twitter drives me
crazy sometimes. I think this is because... ...I am heavily dependent on my reading and
interpretation of non-verbal signals” (story 19). Part of this issue has been somehow
solved by the addition of images, emoticons and even music, all components of our
non-verbal communication skills, but there are still some inflections, some “between the
lines” messages, some hidden meanings that Twitter fails to convey.
Once users start using Twitter, sometimes it starts taking over other channels of
communication, and taking a central part in that person’s window to the world. Some
users feel pressured to participate, be original, and be “useful”. Some others get
anxious because whenever they are not on Twitter, things continue to happen - the
timeline stops for no-one. As one of the contributors put it, she started “compulsively
tweeting, a stage one must overcome but that I don’t recommend, for there’s the danger
of missing out on the substance of the speeches; the infoxication that can result in a
sort of burden. The whole thing was at times a bit overwhelming.” (Story 15)
Then there is the issue of Twitter and its role in our Digital Identities. Should it reflect our
personal or professional profiles? Should we have more than one account? One of the
contributors says that they were “not sure how to approach it, blurring of boundaries
between the personal and professional”. (Story 13)
And speaking about professional, what happens when Twitter becomes a
communication channel in the workplace? Is microblogging enough to replace other,
more conventional channels? One user comments: “(because there were other
information systems in place) the microblogging streams were restricted as they did not
represent the complete stream of work”. (Story 14)
Finally, there is one other issue, that of privacy, that tends to rear its ugly head
whenever the subject of social media and social networks is brought to light. One of the
contributors to the project said that they were “concerned with the risks to privacy
implied in some social networking habits”. (Story 17)
5. Conclusions
From the data we have, and the kind of analysis we did, the major conclusion we could
extract is that Twitter is perceived more than a platform for social learning and a
channel for collective sharing, than a personal one. People include in their stories lot of
testimonies regarding their experiences of sharing and supporting social learning, but
only few mentioned other learning activities, as reflecting, doing or even to get
information.
Nonetheless, and even we have noticed there are more evidences of “social learning”
than for “personal learning”, we support the idea that there are implicit relationships
between both of them. It is not by accident that Social learning is supported by Personal
Learning Networks as structures, and these networks are crucial parts of Personal
Learning Environments. Consequently, these kinds of evidences around social learning
and PLN are in the end evidences of stories about learning and about Personal
Learning Environments around Twitter.
Apart from those specific data on categories, there are some issues which have
emerged from the analysis of the stories. One of these was “the infoxication that can
result in a sort of burden.[...] The whole thing was at times a bit overwhelming” (story
15). Curiously enough, the writer then explains how she “started to follow @stephenfry
for a dose of humour to dilute this hectic situation”.
Another issue is the one related to what we call “the breakfast syndrome” that some
users experience when they first join Twitter: “what do people care what I had for
breakfast this morning”/”what do I care what people had for breakfast this morning”
(Story 25) and may other variations. Users do not know what to share, and how to do it,
what are “the rules”, how often should they Tweet and so on. It is just a question of
jumping in and learning by doing, but it takes some effort to get started.
In addition there are some evidences in the papers around some features that
definitively affect to learning processes, but there are not directly related to learning, as
for example how Twitter adds a social element to another tool “Twitter replaces, in many
senses, the lack of “humanity” of RSS” (Story 19); how Twitter could be the entrance to
the condition of resident in the Web (White, 2008): “I started to share my own points of
view and feelings, I started feeling more like a resident than a visitor” (Story 20); how it
could diminish the isolation feelings and could improve empathy between participants
“We recommend each other movies, recipes, books, music. We share good and bad
moments. We complain, we whine, we procrastinate” (Story 25).
It can be argued that the sample analysed here does not reflect the average Twitter
user. This, after all, is a small collection of writings by teachers, educators, researchers
with a common factor: they are passionate about learning, and they are open to trying
new ways of communicating, sharing, contributing to the general knowledge.
Furthermore, they are highly networked online. Therefore, it is no surprise that they
have all adopted Twitter as one of the main elements in their personal toolbox, their
PLE, their PLN.
6. Further Steps
This is an ongoing project, and we expect more posts to be submitted. In fact, one of
our aims is to disseminate the project during the conference, and ask participants to
share their experiences through the website. As we have discussed throughout the
paper, Twitter is becoming more and more an important part of many users’ PLEs and
PLNs, and it would be interesting to collect more experiences and information that show
evidence for this, as well as for the diversity of approaches that users take. With the
emergence of alternate channels, such as Google+, it would also be interesting to see
which other trends emerge in the future, regarding new means of communicating,
collaborating and sharing.
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