19 Responses to “Get out of the creepy treehouse!”

1. Melanie
   April 29th, 2008 @ 11:45 pm

   Thanks for the plug! I must say, Jared’s post is much stronger than mine but thanks for including.

   I think this is an interesting and relevant pedagogical problem I also think we all – students, educators, parents, etc – have to be aware of the many, many, many other reasons that students disengage in the classroom. That we have to diagnose disengagement according to a variety of different factors before accepting the creepy treehouse argument.

2. John Connell
   April 30th, 2008 @ 6:39 am

   I like the metaphor, Melanie, because it can be used at so many different levels – from the ‘with it’ teacher using Web 2.0 as a gimmick to motivate students, to various dimensions of compulsion that go with the territory of formal schooling, and many others in between. Thanks for the link.

3. David Muir
   April 30th, 2008 @ 10:15 am

   Hello John

   Hmmm! This IS good. A simple phrase that makes sense and at an instant hit level but leads to to thinking about all sorts of deeper issues. Thank you for sharing.

   Straight off it made me think about my own practice. For example, I use Flickr with students a fair bit. (See for example Telling Stories) Is that creepy treehouse? I fear it might be… I need to think more carefully about this.

   Next, I wondered about a topic that’s close to your heart. Is Glow a creepy treehouse? I hope not… but I can see the danger. If you do return to this topic, I’d be interest to see your thoughts on the creepy treehouse effect in relation to Glow.

   Finally, as I read some of the posts you link to, I began to think about the potential mess that comes from merging the personal, private and professional – something that is all to easy to do (inadvertently?) in the Web 2.0 world. For example, I have an identity on a number of social networks which my daughters know about. No real problem there… but what happens when my daughters’ friends find my pages? I don’t know about them, but I feel very creepy treehouse when that happens.

   Thanks again. Lots of food for thought!

4. John Connell
   April 30th, 2008 @ 10:56 am

   These are exactly the kinds of questions raised by the metaphor in my own mind too, David – including thoughts of Glow.

   For me the issue of authenticity and of honesty are critical components here. Despite Melanie’s self-effacing words in her comment above, I actually took more from her post than from Jared’s. For instance, commenting on a range of social networking tools, she wrote:

   “There is no reason why these tools cannot be used ethically, responsibly and productively if we are mindful and self reflexive in our pedagogies.”

   I liked her comment that:

   “There is also the matter of social disengagement, what American educator Herbert Kohl describes in his book “I won”t learn from you.” This is the conscious or unconscious disengagement that arises in a context where the learner feels excluded or alienated from the learning context. For example, if my students do not see their social identities reflected (social, cultural, socioeconomic, etc) they are unlikely to want to participate.”

   I will need to think about Glow, but my take on the whole metaphor is that it will depend on how the platform is deployed locally in schools, how much control over use of the environment is devolved to the individual teacher and, crucially, the individual student. My guess is that most authorities will seek to control more than they need to, and more than they ought to, at the beginning. But continuing discussion and debate around what is good practice, and what is not-so-good practice, in the use of Glow might start to get people thinking about questions of genuine engagement of learners with and in the environment.

   Some fascinating issues to discuss, I think!

5. Melanie
   April 30th, 2008 @ 5:45 pm

   Thanks so much John! you’re too kind.
   I wanted to add one last point:
   I’ve taught in a variety of learning environments from at risk low income schools where students are often teaching parents how to read or speak English and students do not have access to intellectual, technical or nutritional resources to aid their study and success to more affluent schools where learners go home to university educated parents, well stocked home libraries, quiet study spaces and access to the best technology. The outcomes are not inconsistent with the socioeconomic and cultural lives of these learners outside of the school.

   In my teaching this year I realised that none of the online social spaces and tools I was using featured one person of color in their advertising. I also noted that none of the figures I referenced were people of color. In fact, most were white dudes (no offense white dudes!) Which brings me back to Kohl’s point that learners may not be so inspired to take part in something that – by design – doesn’t include or make reference to them.

   And this is why, lately, I’ve been asking questions about social media and social class.

   I think race will come next. We must, must, must talk openly about issues of diversity and engagement.

6. Chris Lott
   April 30th, 2008 @ 9:00 pm

   “There is no reason why these tools cannot be used ethically, responsibly and productively if we are mindful and self reflexive in our pedagogies.”

   No one is arguing otherwise. The genesis of the “creepy treehouse” was simply to point out that however tools MAY be used ethically, responsibly, and productively, they often are NOT.

   And it isn’t solely about being “mindful” and “self-reflexive” (I assume one means self-reflective) which are obvious truisms, but about having actual experience in the systems being used, rather than trying to “leverage” them as outsiders looking in. I don’t care how mindful and self-reflective one is, if they don’t walk-the-walk to the degree necessary to understand the nuances of the social system, they will fail. Inhabitants of a system are quick to notice that kind of clumsy colonization for what it is. And then you get the Creepy Treehouse effect.

   No one, that I am aware of, is positioning themselves to maintain that good, positive uses aren’t possible… only that they are highly unlikely to occur as a result of calls to “use MySpace, all the kids love it” and “we have to get into Facebook now.” It’s the academic version of bad advertising executives scheming about populations they understand nothing about.

7. Melanie
   May 7th, 2008 @ 6:23 pm

   Chris,

   I actually think we’re far more in agreement than you’ve ascertained. But that’s an interesting misreading of what I said.

   Here’s why:

   1. I never ever suggested that analysis was “solely” rooted in mindfulness or reflexivity – you simply pulled that one point out rather randomly to fulfill a rather sloppy response.

   2. You framed both my terms along subjective lines as “trusisms.” Neither properly qualify as either. And however convenient that was, it was intellectually diminutive.

   Reflexivity is a well established theoretical approach that informs a lot of teaching practice – particularly constructivist teaching.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexivity_(social_theory)

   Mindfulness – Howard Rheingold and others also use this term. It originates in Buddhist thought. Also not a truism given the few who actually practice this type of thinking actively – thus Howard’s recent vlog posts about Attention training.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness

8. Melanie
   May 7th, 2008 @ 6:27 pm

   Reflexivity link again:
   http://tinyurl.com/6kfo2d

   The last one was broken in the process of posting the comment. The above link goes to the page I intended – reflexivity (social theory) in Wikipedia.

9. Chris L
   May 7th, 2008 @ 8:12 pm

   If I misread you, I apologize. To clarify: when I say “it is not solely about X” I’m not inferring that you said it was solely, I am expanding the bounds of the conversation beyond those two points which seem self-evident (to me). I wasn’t pulling the point out for a sloppy response, I was responding to that precise quote and moving out from there.

   I know what reflexivity *is*– it is not uncommon in philosophy or literary theory for that matter. I have an issue with the general concept because I don’t see how, practically all the time, it is referring to something other than self-reflection. I guess this exposes my pomo epistemological roots when it comes to the idea that you can ever remove yourself from the frame. If you can’t– and I say we can’t– then what we are talking about is *self-reflection* and *engagement*, all the other doctoral thesis filling meandering and term-coining notwithstanding. I guess I’m being petulant, for which I should probably also apologize.

   Self-reflection and engagement, in fact, would be two components I would list as part of mindfulness. As an on-again, off-again Buddhist (Mahayana — I drift most strongly towards Zen) I’m not unfamiliar with mindfulness, though sadly deficient in practice.

   The truism reference isn’t intended as an attack. I just don’t think that there is any question that these tools can be used ethically, responsibly and productively if we are mindful. However, there is more required. For one thing, the element of practice (in both the typical and the Buddhist sense of the term, while we’re on that track). I’m pretty sure one can be mindful and refle(ct)(x)ive and still create an artificial, non-productive, creepy social environment.

   Although I suppose one could argue that if that’s the case then the person doing so isn’t being sufficiently mindful and engaged, but that feels like it leads to an endless, no true scotsman kind of discussion about the topics we already agree on.

   The point I am trying to make– and what matters, I suppose– is that the idea of the Creepy Treehouse, when I coined it and in all the discussion I have seen since, has never been a negative statement about working in, around, and with social networks and social systems. Seeing it taking in that direction is frustrating because I, and what I meant, said, and continue to say, is quite the opposite: it has been about taking a look at the way they have been– and are being– misused, and avoiding those mistakes when we do! In fact, the history of the term was as a spontaneous reference during a public debate about the merits, ethics and productivity of using Web 2.0 and social software in education, and I was arguing on the “pro” side, but urging caution and, dare I say it, reflection and contextual understanding that can only come from educators that exist within and wholly engage those systems.

   “Do as I say not as I do” doesn’t cut it, as we know, and things being both relatively new and different, even the old academic “do as I say and as I can assure you I once did” doesn’t work either!

10. Melanie
    May 7th, 2008 @ 11:01 pm

    Got it – thanks for this response.

    I totally understand what you’re saying now about how your term is being taken in a different direction than you intended. If you find fault with my own interpretation please leave a comment in my blog indication so – if you have time.

    One last thing on self reflexivity. Last year, while I was obtaining my teaching degree at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE/UT) we were asked – continually – to examine our work reflexively as a process of professional praxis. I think the key difference between mere reflection and reflexivity is that reflexivity involves ACTION that stems from reflection. Self reflexivity is a process of continual self analysis and change. Not merely analysis alone. Hope that clarifies further.

    Thanks again for taking the time to respond to me and to this very important discussion. It’s made all the better by it. And I suspect our various points above may help others to clarify what is an emergent issue if there was one.

11. Jared Stein
    May 16th, 2008 @ 7:29 pm

    Wow, I’m glad I stumbled on to this post, but more importantly the ensuing discussion. Amazing thinking about just a single phrase.

    Chris is right in steering us towards an analysis of the concept (and, here, the term) as a pejorative for implementations of technology that are artificial, abusive, stifling, and ultimately counterproductive to educational objectives–this was what I was hoping to define in my post, but I also know I tend to write so verbosely that sometimes I lose necessary simplicity, stretching it to other loosely related issues.

    I know Tyrel Kelsey, a student of mine, and others have begun talking about encouraging students to build their “own treehouses”–i.e. positive and relevant social networks or PLEs–and while that’s a useful metaphor for it’s immediacy, I don’t know if it’s as apt as it could be.

    I should note that several others have complained that “creepy treehouse” is not a suitable term–I agree with this to the extent that it would be a social misfit in educational textbooks or peer-reviewed journals alongside other terms like “community of practice”, “cognitive apprenticeship”, or “parallel distributed processing”, etc. But “creepy treehouse” does an excellent job of communicating the repulsion felt by some students to these artificial learning environments with succinct immediacy.

12. John Connell
    May 16th, 2008 @ 8:41 pm

    At another, simpler, level, Jared, if the term has the effect of causing teachers to stop and think about authenticity of the learning environments they build for students, whether online or not, it will serve a positive purpose.

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15. Martyn Wild
    July 6th, 2009 @ 6:38 am

    John, I was visiting your blog, and reflecting on the (last year’s)’creepy treehouse’ discussion.

    And latterly the idea of ‘community building’ rather than ‘community growing’.

    I think a useful thought here is to avoid a simplistic dichotomy in both (or any) such views – and consider that authentic community based environments can be ‘grown’ from different seedlings and have different characteristics. They don’t have to have longevity; nor do they have to be grown from the ground up, to have authenticity or value.

    Viewing social networks (or any technologies in which communities can gather) as ‘network publics’ (danah boyd – zephoria.org/thoughts), opens up the idea of SNS as public places where multiple groups meet, engage, come together, disperse and reform – possibly in another ‘public’.

    The technologies themselves provide the possibility for the ‘publics’ to form – some are successful, others less so, but all have different characteristics and at different times in their lifespan.

    Sometimes these technologies have to be provided – deliberately built or planted if you like. But equally, as they then grow (if they do), their characteristics might change, their authenticity takes on a different hue – but because they are created, articifically (as in Glow?) in the first place doesn’t negate or reduce their value.

    Anyhow, just a thought – in time for your keynote hopefully!

    Martyn

16. John Connell
    July 7th, 2009 @ 8:15 am

    Very useful comment, Martyn. I particularly like your comment aout ‘different seedlings/different chracteristics’ – the notion that such collaborativce communities fail if they do not achieve longevity is one that has bothered me before.

    Thank you.

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