Social Media and Mobile Technologies in Workplace Practices: Interpretations of What Counts as Good Research. Technology Enhanced Learning Summer School #telss12 interactive lecture. Thursday 24 May, Estoril, Portugal: http://www.prolearn-academy.org/Events/summer-school-2012/

1. John Cook
Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/johnnigelcook
Social Media and Mobile Technologies in Workplace
Practices: Interpretations of What Counts as Good
Research
Technology Enhanced Learning Summer School
#telss12 interactive lecture
Thursday 24 May, Estoril, Portugal
http://www.prolearn-academy.org/Events/summer-
school-2012/

2. A cautionary tale!
Formal & informal learning
Health Warning
formal learning
did this to me


3. 7 years later & informal learning
saves me!

4. Formal learning strikes
back and did this& informal learning!
7 years later to me
4 years ago!!

5. Reintegrated John? 2 years ago

6. Play
5 aside
football
Rugby union
fan
LIFE Parent
Management
PhD
students
Kids
Self taught bass Research
player
Teaching
Formal learning and/or
learning in informal John
contexts

7. Structure session
 Participants will be asked to put forward initial ideas on how they would
investigate a research question.
 I will then briefly present my own approach to researching the above
question and recount my recent experience of getting a paper about
this work reviewed for a journal of international standing. The paper
drew on a case study on people tagging in workplace learning.
 Participants will be invited to critique my approach.
 I will summarise the lecture interactions, framing them in terms of
computer science, natural science and social science research
perspectives.
 The session will conclude by inviting participates to go away and
consider the issues surrounding interpretations of what counts as good
research from a TEL perspective.

8. BOYD: Bring Your Own Device
 Smartphones, tablets, laptops ...
 With our increasingly mobile workforce, consumerisation in
IT has led to staff demanding to use their own devices for
work - or for distractions during work breaks!
 Citrix cites savings of up to 20%
 IBM claims 80,000 staff are now accessing its corporate
network using self-owned devices.

9. Given the emergent nature of the area
The literature on the use of social media
and mobile technologies in workplace
practices is small.
The following question arises

10. What, if any, potential is there for the use of social
media and mobile technology in informal,
professional, work-based learning?
Talk to the person next to you for 2 minutes (take
turns). Just few sentences:
1. Your discipline: xxx
2. How you would investigate the above
question: xxx
There is no one correct answer!

11. Your discipline:
How you would investigate the above question:

12. Call on facebook for help to seed the debate
Your discipline: cybernetics
How you would investigate the above question:
turn it around: which of these technologies makes
workplace/informal leaning more difficult? people will
disagree, discuss, and use a lot of "but"-sentences.
(the part behind the but is the interesting part).

13. Call on facebook for help to seed the debate
Your discipline: Education
How you would investigate the above question:
trainee teachers out on placement – interest in the
different types of technologies they use/ don't use.
Not many tweeters - but this would be a great way
for them to keep up-to-date with Government
legislation; the policy announcements from the
Education Minister- (most weeks something new); to
follow debate themes run by Education
professors, Michael Rosen is a must, the TES, as
well as pulling through fun/interesting/random
threads to enliven their day..mobile is clearly the way
forward. Full report www.ESCalate.ac.uk/8140

14. Call on facebook for help to seed the debate
Your discipline: Not given
How you would investigate the above question:
Read everything I've ever written...Ok this one is best!
Toward a mobile Architecture of Participation with
Nigel Ecclesfield & added Mike Sharples
http://architectureofparticipation.wordpress.com/2010/
09/10/towards-a-mobile-architecture-of-participation/

15. My own approach
 I will now briefly present my own approach to researching
the above question
 Education-related. The paper drew on a case study on
people tagging in workplace learning
 Recount my recent experience of getting a paper about this
work reviewed for a journal of international standing.

16. My own approach
 The paper provides a critical overview of key issues from the literature on
 work-based learning,
 face-to-face and technology supported,
 as well as social (mobile) networking services
 with particular attention being paid to people tagging.
 It then introduces an initial typology (checklist) of informal workplace learning in
order to provide a frame for understanding social (mobile) network(ing) services
in work-based learning.
 Finally, a case study (taken from the literature) of People Tagging tool use in
digital social networks in the European Commission funded MATURE project is
used to illustrate aspects of our typology.

17. The Reviews
Reviewer 1: Accept minor amendments.
Reviewer 2: Accept minor amendments, as Co-Editor
of Special Issue thought Review 2 too harsh.
Review 3: Reject & resubmit. Didn’t like it, comments
showed from physical science and maybe expected
all research to be done that way! But, some good
questions raised that helped improve paper.
Made changes, different Reviewer 3 brought
in, accepted …

18. Participants invited to critique my approach
Thoughts …

19. What is your Impact Factor?
 Cook, J. and Pachler, N. (2012). Online People Tagging: Social (Mobile)
Network(ing) Services and Work-based Learning. British Journal of Education
Technology, 43(5).
 Email john.cook@londonmet.ac.uk for Final Draft:
 Note that BJET is a high quality international journal: Impact Factor: 2.139; ISI
Journal Citation Reports Ranking: 2010: 11/177 (in Education & Educational
Research).
 “The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average
number of citations to recent articles published in science and social science
journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal
within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed to be more
important than those with lower ones.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor
accessed 16 May 2012

20. I will now summarise the lecture
interactions, framing them in terms of research
perspectives:
• computer science
• natural science
• social science
• Correct me if I got it wrong 

21. The session now concludes by inviting participates
to go away and consider the issues surrounding
interpretations of what counts as good research
from a TEL perspective.
Thank you …

22. Related readings and resources
 http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/john-cook6/
 http://www.slideshare.net/johnnigelcook
 e.g. JTEL2009: http://tinyurl.com/psejxu
 http://londonmet.academia.edu/JohnCook/About
 http://twitter.com/johnnigelcook @johnnigelcook
 http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Cook/739730049
 http://www.linkedin.com/profile/edit?trk=tab_pro