One of the challenges in approaching and using Gephi (http://gephi.org) is that it has so much flexibility, power and such powerful capabilities that is can be off-putting for new users. The interface is not immediately intuitive and even with many of its panels minimised it tends to scare people off. It takes time and a deeper understanding of graph theory to appreciate its benefits and to be able to use it effectively — especially for analysis.

Recently I have been turned on to Onodo (https://onodo.org) to quickly create useful network visualisations and carry our rapid analysis. Onodo is a user friendly tool for doing basic visualisation and analysis within a browser making it cross-platform right out of the box. Data can be entered via their intuitive, in-browser node and edge creation tables or imported from a file. As data is added it is instantly previewed and displayed. The visual appearance can be tweaked on the fly and customised in a variety of ways (including applying a unique image or URL to each node). Once created, visualisations can be embedded and shared outside of the Onodo browser environment. Moreover, with a click of a button, Onodo calculates standard network parameters such as betweenness, closeness and displays these values within the table. It calculates and demonstrates basic network parameters and measures quickly and allows for the creation of chapters that cement using the visualisation as a data-driven narrative device.

Onodo lacks the vast flexibility and API of Gephi, but I can immediately see how I will be using it in the future to introduce users to network analysis and visualisation. It’s fast, intuitive, flexible and immediately accessible. It runs within a browser and so requires no custom workspace configuration. It provides a basis to expand understanding and to support interrogation of networks as familiarity grows and it provides a powerful platform to create the building blocks to drive a powerful data-driven narrative.

If you haven’t checked out Onodo yet, do! There’s a guided demo (https://onodo.org/demo) available. Additionally (and far more fun) there is a gallery (https://onodo.org/gallery) of sample network visualisations and to really make playing and experimenting fun you can duplicate any visualisation you find (you can make your own public as well) and this gives you a great dataset to work with right out of the block.

No excuses! Go forth and discover the potential benefits of network visualisation and analysis for your own data.

In an educational context, I have deployed slack to extend seminar discussions, permit easy sharing of ideas, provide course announcement messaging and to capture the broader course discussion being carried on throughout social media.

Unlike traditional Learning Management Systems, Slack allows users to choose their own forms of engagement with discussions and learning material in an interface not unlike our favourite and familiar social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, SnapChat.

The interface is modern, minimal and probably more closely resembles the messenger applications in FaceBook or LinkedIn. This makes it a very approachable and intuitive interface for most participants. This is distinctly different to those discussion forums implemented in LMS’s that have an interface evolved from other courseware delivery functions than the singular-focused functions delivered by Slack.

The key components in a Slack instance are:

Channels that allow for discussion round specific areas or within a particular module component. I have implemented channels for weekly themed discussion and other channels to more broadly support module wide administrative tasks.

User management including registration, authentication and attachment to individual channels.

Inline rich media support so that conversations remain linear but enhanced with embedded media files.

Slack allows me to extend my seminar conversations to an online space beyond the lecture hall or classroom. The intuitive light interface supports an informal and easy to use chat-like experience while the channels, with a light level of organisation, don’t get in the way of the discussions themselves.

In fairness, the challenge that Blackboard (as a very commonly used LMS) poses for many users is that there are layers of interface to work through to find what one is looking for and even then, many users complain that the threaded discussions are confusing and they aren’t sure what conversation they are actually participating in or responding to. Blackboard offers its own unique interface and experience that doesn’t leverage familiarity with popular platforms. This forces engagement on its terms and in unfamiliar ways. As Slack has a single linear discussion within a channel, it takes on more of a stream-of-consciousness approach. This has proven to be far more intuitive and familiar.

Users names are embedded in their contributions along with the date. Conversations are displayed in chronological order (with no intrusive extra content or graphic enhancements). They can be filtered and searched. Additionally (and extending the SM chat like functionality) users can choose to respond to a comment with a thumbs up or a ‘like’ easily drawing them into participation. Studies have demonstrated this mode of response to be a very strong form of engagement that maintains contact and by lowering the bar for participation keeps people engaged in conversation.

Slack provides a simple and efficient platform to share ideas. Creating a Slack post is not unlike a Twitter Tweet. It is captured and can inspire reaction. The Slack idea can be shared from a multitude of client apps (iOS, Android, Desktop) and does not require logging into or going through a series of steps to find a place to post within an application only used in the classroom such as BlackBoard. It is informal, familiar and easy. As a result it lowers the barriers and allows for an immediate capture of a fleeting thought.

Slack also allows a quick and efficient means for the lecturer to reach the module participants. Announcements can be targeted at individual users with a simple @handle prefix or a mass announcement at all attendees within a channel. Individual users control their notification preferences so they seamlessly blend into their communications stream and don’t require going to a separate application of being forced to check for messages. It can be immediate but it doesn’t force users to adapt to it, instead allowing it to be adapted to their own communication preferences.

Finally, Slack offers a automated capture of wider conversation in and outside of the classroom via social media. Automated scripts can be easily created in Slack to embed specific hostages within the Slack discussion allowing for fuller engagement on student’s platform of choice rather than forcing them to engage solely on a dedicated learning Management System. Tweets can be aimed to Slack as can participation on most popular social media platforms. Additionally, with an open Application Program Interface (API) integration apps such as If Then Than This (IFTT) can potentially harvest conversation from any missing platform and tie it directly into the Slack environment.

I am using Slack for my blended learning module (DH6019) to foster informal communication with and amongst participants that lack ongoing physical opportunities to engage with myself or one another. General communications are visible to all members of the group and in that way not dissimilar from a seminar group. There is a facility for private chats between individuals as well. Slack focusses on encouraging transparency in instantaneous synchronous communication or asynchronous messaging. Messaging is rich in content supporting text as well as URL to external sites and uploading of media of many types.

I can choose to embed a video of myself speaking, or from a variety of external sources such as YouTube, Vimeo, TED etc. I can embed an audio file or a still image in the same fashion. These files exist right within the conversation with the ability to view them in the larger context of the discussion — without having to go to a separate app or download for outside viewing.

My Slack implementation initially provided a main channel for administrative matters relating to module delivery, a channel for discussion of random ideas and weekly channels for each topic containing a video of the lecturer, uploads of reading materials. In this it may not differ greatly from BlackBoard. However, Slack is slick and minimalist in presentation and immediately familiar to students. Many have commented on how easy and intuitive it was to use and this gained immediate positive reaction. As a case in point, almost immediately one student created a separate channel to discuss and coordinate the preparation of group work for another module.

Slack offers a variety of means of engagement — a web client (Slack.com) as well as desktop applications for OSX, Windows and Linux. It also features iOS, Android and Windows Mobile clients so that participants can engage when and wherever suits their own needs. This adds to being able to participate whenever and wherever suits the participant or the idea strikes.

Slack is free to use with a limited number of restrictions around certain features. However, I have not encountered any of these restrictions in our classroom experience. I am familiar with a couple other initial forays into using Slack in Education in the last year and look forward to hearing their own reflections on the experiment.

My students have taken to Slack and have shaped it to suit their own uses — it allows for text chat to be extended to an audio hangout at the click of a button when richer engagement is desired. It permits students to catch up with past interactions at their own speed and share knowledge in ways that suit their own needs and wants. It has built confidence, amplified engagement and encouraged informal participation. In short, it is an emerging tool that allows users to shape their own usage of it, but on a common platform for broader engagement and interaction.

The integrations with a variety of social media platforms and other messaging services, have turned into into a course hub. I believe this is crucial as it leads to a write-once, deploy-many approach to sharing and amplifies the results of participants’ efforts. It also allows for individual preference for the tools to participate in Slack with.

Prior to deployment of Slack users complained of feeling out of touch with lecturers and with one another. Although lecturers were using a variety of means (BlackBoard, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, FaceBook) much of the interaction was asynchronous and often unidirectional.

Slack provided a means to allow student/participants to interact directly and on their own terms and to spark, carry on and develop their own paths of discovery.

As a result and after 4 months of use in DH6019 Tools and Methods participants report a reinvigorated sense of engagement with their lecturer, the material and their learning community.

A few years ago I was forced by circumstances to deliver a course online that had been advertised and designed as a standard 3 hour face-to-face lecture format. On the first day of lectures, the eager students spent a fruitless hour waiting for the lecturer to show up. The lecturer was eventually tracked down and when asked where I was informed the puzzled/desparate caller that I was in fact delivering a lecture at another institution in another city and would so be for the rest of the term. After getting past my own initial shock and then panic, I agreed to Plan B and at short order constructed a blog, plugged some critical widgets to allow for more interaction and spawned spaces on social media to allow for exchange of ideas. There was little planning time and little planning done.

The next Tuesday rolled around and following initial confusion, the students and lecturer all managed to find themselves in the same hall the next week where students discovered that things would be different. Having enrolled in the course expecting physical lectures and a standard form of assessment now panicked themselves to discover that the remainder of the term was going to be delivered online. Some students were seized with a realisation that three hours of Tuesday night were suddenly ‘free’ and embraced the luxury of time that had fallen into their lap — expecting to carry out online duties at convenient times of their own choosing. Others were dismayed that they were going to be deprived of riveting and spellbinding lectures by yours truly (I must have an astounding reputation) 😉 And that was the last time we all met face-to-face.

In the end we muddled through together, found ways to communicate and when I took the opportunity at the end of term to give them 10% for evaluating their judgement of module effectiveness I made some significant discoveries — as did the students.

Most significantly, many of those that had welcomed the freedom to carry out course activities at their own schedule discovered that they were challenged by the discipline that that demanded. Almost to a person they agreed that the way in which the course was delivered called on them to devote more time than anticipated and even imagined to completing tasks. This may have been the product of over ambition on my part (a nice way of saying that there wasn’t great forethought in the planning process). However, those same respondents who acknowledged that extra work also made another startling discovery — at least to them — and that was that the process had demanded that they learned be collectively organising and interacting and not just listening to the lecturer. They discovered the value of peer-based learning. It was learning based on shared experiences and it came through a process of active engagement.

I have been attempting to accomplish this same process in the lecture hall and classroom for years — interactive seminars, group work, breakout sessions, workshops, hands-on group-guided instruction — among others. I have also apparently achieved some success in this-apparently. However, the mechanisms leading to effectiveness have been less visible to the actual participants — often only to me and in fact I have been doing a lot of the learning as well.

What was learned:

• The use of social media as a learning tool — the repurposing of popular tools such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Medium, Pinterest and even SnapChat-for radically different use really worked;
• Those same tools demanded a lot of extra engagement and forcing their use goes against their primary design principles and doesn’t work;
• Attention to course issues presented through these media sometimes required intervention to start discussions but they took on a life of their own;
• It was more difficult than anticipated to integrate traditional writing and research assignments with presentation through social media and possibly to a public audience;
• It was absolutely essential to find a means to separate personal and professional lives during the course due to the use of social media; and
• There was an overwelming fear that employers would see and judge their contributions via social media and that stepping outside of a private institutionally bounded courseware forum was a step into dangerous territory.

It is often a combination of what may appear unfortunate circumstances that can lead us to rise to greater accomplishments and possibly also greater clarity of vision. In this case we turned to the familiar, found the means to share ideas and embraced technology to reinforce the core aspects of our humanity.

Note: I recognise the students who shared this experience with me and also shared their reactions as part of their evaluation and inform this reflection. Thanks very due to their perseverence and thoughtful reflection on the experience.

Finding the Human Connection in Blended Learning was originally published in Student Voices on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.