MOOC pinterest board – final pin
I have made a final pin (and updated the anchor image) on my board explaining the activity would no longer be monitored (thanks to Jen for the advice on this). Having been set up for a particular purpose which had now more or less expired, I felt I could no longer give the board my full attention.
As I was surveying all the comments made, it struck me that due to the board’s layout of having the first pins appearing at the bottom of the screen, and the newest ones appearing at the top of the screen, the image that was most appropriate for this activity is that of a loom.
Indeed, I feel Pinterest can be compared to a digital loom with patterns appearing, spread around the selected photos, reflecting the discussions and interactions.
I think this is a metaphor that works very well, reflecting the smooth/striated analogy that Sian Bayne’s refers to in her paper, when discussing Deleuze & Guattari:
The technological model Deleuze & Guattari provide as illustrative of these two types of space is one of textiles. Here, woven fabric is necessarily a striated space, with its gridlike form consisting of intersecting warp and weft. It is a space of closure: ‘the fabric can be infinite in length but not in width, which is determined by the frame of the warp; the necessity of a back and forth motion implies a closed space’ (p. 475).
I think this is such a beautiful metaphor, it totally appeals to my imagination!
With regards to Pinterest itself: although it is a creatively engaging platform, getting any analytics from it, is actually not that easy. Pins are listed individually and monitored against re-pins and likes. To get figures for the MOOC board, I know there are 71 followers and 24 pins. But for the comments for each, I need to do a visual check, i.e. no graphs nor anything like getting the statistics. Perhaps the business model let’s you sign up for this…. (?) It is something I would need to check in the FAQ (I had a quick look but like anything in this area takes hours to unravel…another nice fabric metaphor!)
So, taking final stock, here are my analytics (as per 16/2/2013):
Top for comments the pin on ‘sustainable learning’: 2 likes, 19 comments and 2 re-pins:
Top for re-pinned and likes: the pin on Feedback with 6 likes, 9 comments, 5 re-pins
The pin on ‘why posts (on the discussion board) get rated’ interestingly receives 6 comments, but no likes, nor re-pins itself.
Finally, pins that have received no comments, nor repins at all:
I was quite surprised for the grasshopper metaphor: I thought that was such a visually engaging pin, yet nobody seemed taken by it….
This has been an exciting activity, useful for evaluating an online platform which is both visually stimulating and participatory.
I believe it can be a great tool for classroom and MOOC engagement, but one must consider that, not surprisingly, the element of ‘feedback’ (itself a discussed pin) is a highly demanding activity and part of the opinion that supporting dialogue is such an important aspect of learning.