This article is an attempt to objectively define the phrase “creepy treehouse” as coined by Chris Lott, and in current usage by ed tech folks such as Scott Leslie, Marc Hugentobler, John Krutsch, and others. I plan to follow up with a post on my perspective on CTH in the field of educational technology.
- creepy treehouse
- see also creepy treehouse effect
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n. A place, physical or virtual (e.g. online), built by adults with the intention of luring in kids.
Example: “Kids … can see a [creepy treehouse] a mile away and generally do a good job in avoiding them.” John Krutsch in Are You Building a Creepy Treehouse?”
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n. Any institutionally-created, operated, or controlled environment in which participants are lured in either by mimicking pre-existing open or naturally formed environments, or by force, through a system of punishments or rewards.
Such institutional environments are often seen as more artificial in their construction and usage, and typically compete with pre-existing systems, environments, or applications. creepy treehouses also have an aspect of closed-ness, where activity within is hidden from the outside world, and may not be easily transferred from the environment by the participants.
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n. Any system or environment that repulses a target user due to it’s closeness to or representation of an oppressive or overbearing institution.
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n. A situation in which an authority figure or an institutional power forces those below him/her into social or quasi-social situations.
With respect to education, Utah Valley University student Tyrel Kelsey describes, “creepy treehouse is what a professor can create by requiring his students to interact with him on a medium other than the class room tools. [E.g.] requiring students to follow him/her on peer networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook.”
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adj. Repulsiveness arising from institutional mimicry or emulation of pre-existing community-driven environments or systems.
Example: “Blackboard Sync is soooo creepy treehouse.” Marc Hugentobler
In the field of educational technology a creepy treehouse is an institutionally controlled technology/tool that emulates or mimics pre-existing technologies or tools that may already be in use by the learners, or by learners’ peer groups. Though such systems may be seen as innovative or problem-solving to the institution, they may repulse some users who see them as infringement on the sanctity of their peer groups, or as having the potential for institutional violations of their privacy, liberty, ownership, or creativity. Some users may simply object to the influence of the institution.
I’ve been observing this phenomena increasingly, as instructors push down hot Web 2.0 technologies, while students push back with vocal objections or passive resistance. I call this the creepy treehouse effect.
More directly, any move to integrate or aggregate new institutional tools or systems with pre-existing tools or systems already embraced by the community may be seen as creepy treehouse, in as much as it may be construed as institutional infringement upon the social or professional community of it’s participants.
For example, the Blackboard family of learning management system products are often seen as creepy treehouses, as they provide e-learning tools in a very rigid, closed environment that is institutionally controlled in an attempt to “engage” students through technological novelty or mimicry of existing Web-based tools for social engagement. Increasingly, learning management systems are incorporating what educators assess as being potentially valuable learning tools such as blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, instant messaging, etc., not recognizing that these tools may be seen as artificial, meaningless, tiresome, temporary, or simply another aspect of The Man by the institution’s target participant group: the students.
At the same time, other LMS tools that are more exclusively related to the traditional activity of teaching (e.g. gradebooks, online quizzing, material posting, etc) are not viewed as inherently creepy treehouse. Tyrel Kelsey suggests:
Students reject creepy treehouses for one reason: they are creepy. I think a better approach to education is the idea of a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) … which [students] can invite the professor into when they feel comfortable doing so.
Creepy treehouses are not limited to the realm of education or educational technology. In the computer software environment, for instance, Microsoft Office Live is likely to be judged as creepy treehouse relative to Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Zoho, not due entirely to it’s competitiveness or the relative similarities of the products, but more to the origination of the software: Microsoft is often seen as a controlling, soulless, self-centered institution, whereas Zoho and Google are seen as not only preceding Microsoft Live, but also open, user-centered, community-driven, or alternative.
Opinions in the community as to the creepy treehouse-ness of a given system or environment may vary greatly due to the subjectiveness of individual experiences. I expect that newly introduced tools, systems, or environments are more likely to be suspect and labeled “creepy treehouse”, though over time such systems may prove to have more salient long-term value to the community than anticipated.
Oh, this is excellent.
[…] http://flexknowlogy.learningfield.org/2008/04/09/defining-creepy-tree-house/ […]
a few years ago, i repsonded to a Call for Papers at a national conference. the theme? “The Street,” as in, meeting our students in “The Street,” i.e., on their terms.
my paper that year said back, “your students don’t want you in their street.”
ha. creepy treehouse. i love it.
[…] a phrase, not a word. But I’d not heard of it until Howard Rheingold mentioned it in a tweet. Flexknowlogy has a short essay describing various ways the phrase is used. Here’s one that is important […]
Great posting, learned from it.
All of this, in some way or another comes back to opt-in v. opt-out models of power in relation to users. Whether it’s the creepy corporate treehouses (Facebook) or the well-intentioned creepy treehouses of education.
Bad pedagogy is like bad TOS. It’s top down - not collectively defined. We have to give students the right NOT to take part. That means making it abundantly clear that this is a legitimate option they will be supported in making.
A possible response to the problem of the creepy tree house is the provision of appropriate opportunities for students to take part defining their own social media policies as a group - what they will and will not share and how they will support those who choose to opt out. For example, in my program students had created a few Facebook groups (prior to my course).
I tried Twitter with my students as a back channel. I did this more as a demo than a requirement - in fact, it wasn’t a requirement. And I made it very clear that they did NOT have to participate. Nor would they be graded on their participation. Given that this was a web2.0 publishing course, tools like Twitter were of critical significance in relation to microcontent delivery formats (and emergent trends in publishing). The focus here was understanding, not social observation. A few of my students joined and are actively participating. My own policy was not to follow them unless they wanted me to do so (I teach at the college level).
Negotiating power relationships and privacy issues is the greatest challenge for equity-focused classroom2.0 educators. Unless you are teaching a web-focused course (in which production and technology are core to the curriculum focus) asking students to participate in social and participatory media should require clearly defined intentions (for example, “is this [latest 2.0 thingy] even relevant or useful to the teaching of [your subject here]?”)
Another way we can address this problem is to talk about it openly and directly with students. For example a discussion about Opt-in and Opt-out, privacy and Terms of Service in Facebook led to some wonderful discussion in my class - given the number of students who are unaware of the default settings in FB. These kinds of discussions can be redirected in relation to education and the classroom - in relation to the very possibility of genuine honesty, trust and transparency of social relationships in a context of assessment and evaluation.
Furthermore:
“At the same time, other LMS tools that are more exclusively related to the traditional activity of teaching (e.g. gradebooks, online quizzing, material posting, etc) are not viewed as inherently creepy treehouse.”
I think this argument isn’t properly supported above. I just obtained my secondary teaching degree and practiced in four different high schools. I worked with at risk, special needs and advanced academic students. In all cases there were instances of academic disengagement and classroom management relating to “traditional” teaching. Sitting in a row in an uncomfortable desk being talked at for an hour by somebody who may or may not tie your identity to the curriculum may well be experienced as the ultimate coercion. In fact, I’d go so far as to say the entire educational system as it is today (still largely unchanged from 50 years ago in relation to the architecture of learning environments and philosophies of teaching) is incredibly oppressive.
One other issue that the creepy treehouse argument fails to address is the relationship of any learner (old or young) to the technology adoption lifecycle.
Surprisingly, many of my students positioned themselves as late majority - according an activity we did around adoption. A few even said they were laggards (didn’t like tech, felt overwhelmed and wanted to avoid) and a few felt they were early adopters (actually only TWO).
Characteristic of late majority users is a need to have things proven before adopting. This entirely different from the behaviour of the early or instant adopter who will try anything just to try it.
“Students reject creepy treehouses for one reason: they are creepy.”
Actually students reject the incitement to participate or try new things for a variety of reasons - including their place on the technology adoption lifecycle.
There is also basic disengagement and the cognitive disequilibrium experienced on the part of any learner in any context (the feeling of discomfort “why do I need this? I don’t like this. I don’t want to do this”). Learning isn’t especially fun in cognitive terms. A lot of research supports that.
And finally, there’s the politics of disengagement - what Herbert Kohl describes in his book “I won’t learn from you.” This is the conscious or unconscious disengagement that comes with the experience of inequity or exclusion. For example, if my students do not see their social identities reflected (social, cultural, socioeconomic, etc) they are unlikely to want to participate - again, this is very different from the disengagement you describe above.
http://melaniemcbride.net/2007/08/01/herbert-kohl-and-the-enigma-of-not-learning/
@Melanie Some great points that help complete the picture of why students don’t want to engage. And while some of them reach beyond my hopes in defining the concept of the creepy treehouse effect, I intend to address a number of these in a follow-up post.
[…] http://flexknowlogy.learningfield.org/2008/04/09/defining-creepy-tree-house/ […]
Thanks Jared - I realise I got a little carried away but I kept on thinking about your post and then had to return and leave the further remarks. I will also be writing a post of my own. This is very, very important issue you’ve brought up.
@Melanie Not at all. I appreciate the good thinking! Looking forward to your own post; please reply with a URL or Pingback.
To humbly add another thread to this fascinating discussion, I think its important to include a pseudo-Althusserian perspective on the issue. Compulsory education is first and foremost designed to produce productive workers. The architecural design of the classroom, the hours of the day, the separation of process vis a vis the “hiddenness” of pedagogical methodology from the students; all these factors mimic and initiate young students into the conditions of the modern work force (to a greater or lesser degree). If this is all true, then its also true that using social networking/web2.0 environments for class purposes is the pedagogical equivalent of being required to “hang out” with your boss after work and on weekends. Its a violation of the work/not work boundary, and one of the reasons I think students respond so viscerally to that violation is that it impinges on the separation of identity constructs for students by asking them (implicitly) to merge their professional with their casual selves.
I’d also note that it can work the other way as well, for the same reasons. When I was still playing a lot of World of Warcraft, I was always at some level afraid that someone in my guild would end up being a student in my class. The fear wasn’t that I wouldn’t have the respect of the student, but that the identity roles of professional and non-professional would become conflated.
When I’ve done Web2.0 projects in my FYCOMP courses, I always start with the presumption (and subsequent class-time) that they will be creating a new MySpace/Facebook/delicious account purely for the purposes of the project — I don’t forbid them from using existing accounts but we do talk about what you call “creepy tree house” (I’ve always just called it “yet another instance of the dominant ISA co-opting available structures” — yours is much better).
Thanks for the post!!
[…] the gist is - students/learners - don’t go to your tutor/mentor’s creepy treehouse - build your own! A Creepy Tree House is what a professor can create by requiring his students to […]
[…] be studying the efficacy of these models,” he said. Sarah asks, “Is Second Life a ‘creepy treehouse‘?” Referring to the term used to describe a place (physical or virtual) created by […]
[…] In our case, this term refers to an institutional system or environment put in place to be used by students. But our students see this as intrusive and more of an artificial requirement than an effective or naturally occurring system. A full explanation is available at the Flexknowlogy website. […]
[…] A blog-search in my RSS feed gave me a link to Melanie McBride’s post on Classroom 2.0: Avoiding the ‘Creepy Treehouse’, and then on to Jared Stein’s post on Defining “Creepy Treehouse”. […]
[…] Defining “Creepy Treehouse” […]