Klout, Or Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in High School
There has been much chatter and twitter about Klout in recent weeks. Today The Globe and Mail had this article explaining how it does not always pay to be "the belle of the ball."
Klout, is the "new" "standard of influence" according to their tagline. No wonder people are using their Klout scores on their resumes. In a marketplace where currency is literally and figuratively hard to pin down, to locate, we are constantly looking for some measure of importance. Isn't that what social media is all about?
But this begs the question, is this high school all over again? When someone like the Beebs would have a Klout score of 100, what is Klout actually measuring, and how is this useful, if at all, in relation to pedagogy?
The answer to the above is a resounding, we will see. I believe that movement towards or away from Klout will become another real-time teachable moment. We can use the popularity of these matrices, and the way that society arbitrarily measures and regards these standards, as a way to promote discussion of the ever-changing face of social media.
Audrey Watters's post found here addresses some of the issues that I raise above.
I plan to discuss Klout in the new media course I will be piloting, and following it closely as it trends or wanes. We should/could all use these spikes (buzz) in social/new media trends as a space for discussion and collaboration. Change does not occur in a vacuum and as educators interested in edtech we are at the intersection of possibility and application.
Over the next few weeks I am going to leave space on my blog to my other passion, Victorian literature. Look for more posts about the 19th century, specifically ethics and tactility. It will be fun, I promise.
"Our duty is to preserve what the past has had to say for itself, and to say for ourselves also what shall be true for the future." (John Ruskin)
Klout, is the "new" "standard of influence" according to their tagline. No wonder people are using their Klout scores on their resumes. In a marketplace where currency is literally and figuratively hard to pin down, to locate, we are constantly looking for some measure of importance. Isn't that what social media is all about?
But this begs the question, is this high school all over again? When someone like the Beebs would have a Klout score of 100, what is Klout actually measuring, and how is this useful, if at all, in relation to pedagogy?
The answer to the above is a resounding, we will see. I believe that movement towards or away from Klout will become another real-time teachable moment. We can use the popularity of these matrices, and the way that society arbitrarily measures and regards these standards, as a way to promote discussion of the ever-changing face of social media.
Audrey Watters's post found here addresses some of the issues that I raise above.
I plan to discuss Klout in the new media course I will be piloting, and following it closely as it trends or wanes. We should/could all use these spikes (buzz) in social/new media trends as a space for discussion and collaboration. Change does not occur in a vacuum and as educators interested in edtech we are at the intersection of possibility and application.
Over the next few weeks I am going to leave space on my blog to my other passion, Victorian literature. Look for more posts about the 19th century, specifically ethics and tactility. It will be fun, I promise.
"Our duty is to preserve what the past has had to say for itself, and to say for ourselves also what shall be true for the future." (John Ruskin)
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