Social Media for Learning

I was reading up on the updates that came with iOS12 on the iPhone and I discovered you can access some new photo filters: Comic Book, Comic Mono, Ink, Watercolour and Watercolour Mono. The downside is you can only use these filters within Messages, but you can save to your photos for reuse later.

Above is an example of a photo of me taken using the Comic Mono filter. I’ve captured how to do this below. This is partially for my own benefit so I can come back to it but also to demonstrate that it is actually easy to do if you follow the steps.

How to access the comic book filter on an iPhone

• Open the Messages app and start or reply to a conversation.
• Tap the camera button to open the camera and then tap the spirograph-star button in the lower-left corner.
• Next, tap the red-green-blue Filters button and scroll to the right to find the five new photo filters
• Then tap the X button to close the Filters drawer.
• The Messages app chooses the front-facing selfie camera by default, but you can select the rear-facing camera instead and keep the filter effect in place.
• Tap the shutter button to take a photo with your chosen filter
• Then tap the blue-arrow button to send it or Done button to add it to your text message and return to the Messages app. Either way, the photo is saved to your iPhone’s camera roll.

The filter works using both the front-facing selfie camera and the rear camera which you use to take photos. Now whilst you may not necessarily want to create a comic selfie, and given the emphasis on my hamster cheeks maybe I won’t be using this as my next profile picture; however it did get me thinking it could be a fun way to engage in digital storytelling. This could be done by creating a storyboard using images taken with an iPhone camera and one of the filters to produce a comic style strip as a digital story.

It should be noted that there are also many free online tools to create comic style stories (see some examples in the list at the end of this post).

Digital storytelling is way of using digital artefacts such as images, film or audio that can be shared digitally. It could also include taking photos of sketchnotes or creations using Lego, playdough or anything else you might choose to use! Digital stories might be shared for example via a blog or website, through social media or in an online discussion forum. Original photos or those with a Creative Commons licence can be used equally as well in a digital story and in a previous post I shared how Lumen 5 can curate these into a video. Chris Thomson’s blog is an excellent resource for all things ‘Storytelling’.

Photo elicitation is a technique where a single or collection of photos (or other images such as paintings, cartoons, graffiti) can be used as a stimulus for conversation. This method can be used in research to ‘elicit comments’ from participants – photos can be chosen by the interviewer or by individuals. It can also be used as a form of open discussion. Usually undertaken face to face but there are no doubt multiple ways this could be replicated online. Liz Austen has written about how we can meaningfully listen to students’ voices using images.

Educational uses for digital storytelling or photo elicitation

Below are some examples of how these two approaches might be applied.

• Create personal narratives – aspirations, achievements, significant events, inspirations, reflective learning journeys
• Produce narratives to convey student support focused information
• A way to portray synthesised research visually
• As a focus for discussion
• An opportunity to develop digital skills and creative ways of communicating

Other comic strip tools

• Canva https://www.canva.com/create/comic-strips/
• Storyboard That https://www.storyboardthat.com/storyboard-creator
• Pixton https://www.pixton.com/
• Make Beliefs Comix https://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/
• Powtoon https://www.powtoon.com

A recent post in the Intelligencer titled Group Chats Are Making the Internet Fun Again shared by my colleague Scott Turner has sparked a flurry of conversation on Twitter this Sunday morning. What started as a conversation about the article on group chat, went off on a variety of different tangents. I’ll come back to that another day, as what I wanted to share here was my initial reflections after reading this post and the connections I made to pubs and coffee shops.

The post talks about the author’s choice to take conversations with those he chooses to engage with online, away from social media to group chats (namely Apple iChat). He reminisces about the”the halcyon era of AOL Instant Messenger, once the most widespread method of messing around with your friends on the internet”.

In many of the popular social media spaces, there is the facility to have threaded conversations. This is where someone shares something or raises a question, and then one or more people reply. Further replies are connected so that you can follow the ongoing conversation. In addition readers of any post can simply interact with a like. One of the (many) critisisms of Facebook is that the complex algorthims and ‘multi-metric ranking system’ has meant that we don’t get to see all of the posts made by people we are connected to. Posts do not appear in your feed in a chronological order.

One definition of group chats is “a group of people who regularly exchange messages on the Internet, especially people who share an interest.” The group chat provides an opportunity to limit the conversation to a specific group and access is just for those individuals. Posting on Twitter (unless you have protected Tweets) is open to all to see. On Facebook anyone you have chosen to friend has the potential to see the group conversations. That said both spaces do also offer private group chat. In Twitter you can give a group private direct message a title, useful when you have a specific themed chat. Facebook also offer groups (which can be private or open), which can be named as you wish. LinkedIn too offers the affordances to create open or closed groups. Then there is WhatsApp, Snapchat, Slack and paid tools like Microsoft teams and Yammer.

There are of course pros and cons to any form of group chat. The subject can be focussed but can also go off on tangents. Any chat is open to different opinions, but you have the choice to leave the conversation should you choose to. The number of messages can accumulate if you don’t keep up, but then again you don’t miss out if you can take the time to scroll back. Conversations can be synchronous (in real time) or asynchronus (respond at a later time). Larks and nightowls (those up early or late) can post when they want to and members of the the group chat can choose when to respond. Turning off notifications during the time period you want to sleep is a good idea!

With all this considered it got me thinking about the way we communicate as humans and where we choose to have these conversations in physical social spaces such as coffee shops and pubs. These places can be very popular, and yet like online spaces, they can also fall out of favour. Aside from selling good quality beverages, people often visit these places for the social aspect. Let’s face it, it’s much cheaper to make your own coffee or buy your drink from the supermarket. People enjoy both talking and listening (in) to others, and socialialising is very popular in pubs and coffee shops (along with many other places!).

In these public social spaces conversations can take place:

• as private conversations in pairs or small groups (assuming you haven’t a loud voice that carries) with those you arrange to meet there
• with those you may know and ‘bump into’ because that’s your local or
• with those you have never met as you choose to strike up a conversation with them.

The popularity of the venue can be linked to where you feel most comfortable. A city centre bar may be the hub for many a conversation, but a quiet local pub may be preferable for a private conversation. A high street coffee shop chain can provide a convenient place to meet, but a small independent coffee houses might offer a more unique and cosy atmosphere. A quiz night in a pub or drinks after a football match will bring people together with a shared purpose and anticaption of shared interests and conversation.

I’d suggest that online social media spaces are similar. There are different ways we can choose to interact and an ever growing choice of places to do this online. Social media sites might seem to lose favour for some and if people choose to migrate their conversations to other social spaces of their choice than that’s great. If you wanted somewhere to go for a quiet conversaton over a drink, but choose to go to a busy place, then don’t be surprised if it’s loud and heaving with people. The key thing to remember is that where you choose to have conversations is just that – a choice and the right choice is something we all need to learn to judge for ourselves. As an educator I see value in encouraging my students to experience different social spaces and to have conversations about protocols and privacy.

With the rise of smart phones and free WiFi in public spaces like pubs and coffee shops, access to social media is easily available and you might think you can get the best of both worlds of face to face and online conversations. In the main this might be true, but online you have the option of when to engage in a conversation. However when someone starts a face to face conversation, (unless you make it clear you do not want to engage with them) it is important to be fully present. Be mindful of multicommunicating –  the practice of engaging in more than one conversation at a time. Just as it would seem rude to be part way through one conversation and start interacting with another person near to you; joining an online conversation via your phone whilst talking to someone you are with can also be considered rude if the other person feels they are being ignored.

Whether communicating face to face or online it is important to develop listening skills, interpersonal skils and understand the protocols which may vary depending on with who and where the conversation is taking place. I’d like to think people don’t frequently go out of their way to be deliberately rude, but sadly it does happen. It is (in my view) important that whenever we communicate (face to face or online) that we are courteous, aim to be clear,  and give consideration to others to ensure they have an equal opportunity to interact.

Image sources: Pixabay (public domain)