This week, I joined two online communities, one – Facebook - under my own name and the other - 43 things - that I found in our weeks’ readings, under a pseudonym.
Facebook was immediately fun and intrinsically reinforcing for me. After I typed in my profile information, the face of my best friend from high school and the face of my best friend from college instantaneously popped up! As it turns out, we've all made unsuccessful attempts to reach each other over the years so access to this site has been really valuable to me. This is something that none of us have been able to accomplish off line. I've been having such a great time communicating with them over this week that, I'll admit it right now, I'm hooked!
In the Facebook community, I utilized information from our reading selections to create my profile, being conscious of what information I chose to disclose to ensure that it matched my comfort level. I also recalled information in our readings about some participants' quest to amass "friends" and considered my own feelings the first day or so when I had "no friends", then three, then five and now nine. For me, there is not a consumerism-type of mentality about numbers, however I did notice that over the week I have often thought of other people who I would like to reconnect with and have done several "friend searches" to find them. Not surprisingly, rather than finding my friends, I'm often able to connect with my friends' children. I was pleasantly surprised when they are willing to include me on their friend list. In our discussion, they express that I'm "cool" to have a Facebook account, unlike their own parents - isn't it amazing the simple things that make one "cool"? I was also surprised that my 21 year old son's roommate sent me a friend request, with the message, just in case I couldn't place him, "Kai's roommate." In speaking with my friends' children and my son's roommate, the relationship they have with my family and friends shapes my interactions with them. I'm careful about what I say and how I interact with them. It's almost like I'm speaking to them with the person who connects us in the same room.
One interaction I had on Facebook paralleled one of our reading selections. I saw a picture of my younger son’s girlfriend and sent her a friend request. When she replied, she let me know that my son broke up with her about three weeks ago, something that I had not known. Just as in our reading selection, there was some uncomfortable feelings around finding out information in this way.
On the Facebook site, I feel empowered and encouraged that people I knew years ago still remember me and that we remain concerned about each other, despite the time and distance that separates us. When I talk about what has been happening in my life, I value the comments by people who have known me a long time. I think this is a great site!
Interestingly, choosing the other online community was rather difficult for me. If you read my Blog entry in posting 2, you know that I find the idea of a joining a community as a fairly serious responsibility, an action which I consider carefully before joining. With this in mind, I agonized over the choice for a long time, then just said "*&@# it" and chose one. I ended up joining "43 things" for several reasons. First, a silly reason: because it was in our reading selections this week. Secondly, I'm in a period of my life where self improvement, making goals and accomplishing them is important to me. Third, another silly reason, it seemed as good as any other choice.
I couldn't get a screen shot of my 43 Things site to show up here, so here is the URL: http://www.43things.com/person/go_for_it
As you can see, on this site, each person identifies their dreams and goals (if you can’t think of any on your own, there is a bank of popular goals or some listed by category – how pitiful is that). After you list your goal, you can see how many other people have the same goal. You can click on a link and can read about people who have reached this goal and how they did it. You can also click on a link and read entries from people who did not meet their goal and learn why they gave up on it.
One part of this site that is supposed to be motivating is the “cheer” activity. You have 5 “cheers” daily and you can go on other people’s sites and “cheer” a goal on their list. When I saw the few cheers come up on my page, I tried to feel encouraged about it, but really, it didn’t make any difference to me at all.
This week, I’ve checked this site on a daily basis, however, admittedly, with no where near the enthusiasm I have for the Facebook site. On the 43 Things site, there is no one who I actually know, so there is very little draw for me. Even though we are connected through our common goals, I think I need an actual relationship with someone to want to share information with them.
The different nature of these two social computing environments that I chose shaped my interactions in very different ways. First, as I’ve alluded to above, on the Facebook site, I looked forward to logging on to Facebook each day and I was excited to see a new entry or a new friend. I did not fee that same kind of attachment to 43 Things. On Facebook, I enjoyed telling people about recent (or historical) events in my life, but I had no motivation to do this on 43 things. On Facebook, when the feeback came from someone I know, it was very meaningful for me. When I got a “cheer” on 43 Things, it had little, if any meaning.
After joining these two communities, I plan to continue participation on Facebook into the foreseeable future. I doubt if I’ll spend much time on 43 Things as it just did not connect up for me.
As a final thought, as I’ve talked about this assignment to my friends here on Maui, I have gotten some great suggestions about other online communities that they belong to that are cause or concept driven. I plan to check these out to see how they compare with the other two that I’ve joined. Regardless of whether or not I’ll stay connected to any of these sites, I’m certainly going to enjoy the exploration.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Posting 2
TOPIC: When you push normal human longing for interaction and self-expression through the wild infrastructure of social computing, what you get is...this session's readings…
CONNECTIONS
Gaston (1999) looks back at the 1950s front stoop society in Chicago and the changes that occurred after households all had televisions and air conditioners provides an important reminder that advances in technology change us and our society in ways that may be unexpected. This word picture was certainly something that I was able to connect to and understand. There were second- and third-level consequences to the technological advancements back in the 1950s, just as there will be changes in our society as we all become more consistent users of the new technological advances (such as social computing) available to us now. It’s interesting to imagine where this new technology and new way of gaining and maintaining social relationships will take us.
In my experience, Gaston’s assertion that there are two principal forces at work in the American culture: the high value attached to individual choice and the longing for community are two very powerful motivators behind our social behavior. With the recent affluence of our society and lack of constraints such as Depression Era expectations of working from sun-up to sun-down, people came to feel that questions of how to live and with whom to live were a matter of individual choice not predetermined or based on society’s expectations and norms. As a nation, we came to experience the bonds to marriage, family, children, job, community, and country as constraints that were no longer necessary. However, the longing for connectedness, being important to other people, engaging in reciprocal and meaningful social interaction is the second equally important force. Thus the idea of voluntarily joining a community as a choice, rather than based upon the confines of a physical location is an understandable outgrowth of both of these values.
Another connection for me was the idea that the whole range of human tendencies will be a part of the social relationships in online communities as well as in the physical world. When Thedora expressed frustration about her three year old, as described in the article by Weeks (2009), the responses encompassed a full array of human tendencies — constructive, destructive, pro-social, anti-social, conservative and risky expressed just as there are in any other arenas of social life.
The whole range of human tendencies includes depression. The article by LaRose, Eastin & Gregg (2001) provided a fascinating analysis of the correlation between internet use and depression. Stemming from an earlier study which found a causal link between internet use and depression, these authors studied the relationship between internet use, social support and depression. They used Bandura’s social cognitive theory as a framework and investigated the influence of self-efficacy, internet-related stress, and perceived social support on depression. Their research showed a link between internet use and depression, but one mediated by self-efficacy and the expectation of encountering stressful situations on the internet. They also found that internet use decreased depression through the use of e-mail exchanges with known associates to obtain social support and with increased experience and comfort with the internet. I thought that this was an interesting application of Bandura’s theories and a very well thought-out research project.
Hague’s (2006) article initially brought up the issue of mediocrity and the concept of flooding the “marketplace” with blogs. When Seth said “bloggers blog too much” and “they’re littering an attention commons” I wondered, too, are there too many blogs? From my very limited experience these past weeks in exploring online options, I wonder if many online sites are competing for consumers’ attention in the same way that strip malls compete for our dollars?
I loved Rosen’s analogy of online profiles, comparing them to portraits of wealthy or influential people in the past. She said, “Today, our self-portraits are democratic and digital; they are crafted from pixels rather than paints…Like painters constantly retouching their work, we alter, update, and tweak our online self-portraits; but as digital objects they are far more ephemeral than oil on canvas. Vital statistics, glimpses of bare flesh, lists of favorite bands and favorite poems all clamor for our attention—and it is the timeless human desire for attention that emerges as the dominant theme of these vast virtual galleries. There’s nothing I can add to that! What a great way of thinking about it!
MISMATCHES
One issue that was a mismatch for me, in terms of developing a rich online community experience, is the idea that online communities have low barriers to enter and low barriers to exit. While all groups and communities undergo a change in membership, Gaston (1999) notes that participants in online communities often exit the community rather than make an effort to alter the character of the existing organization. If we can easily set aside the bonds of community, “unfriend” our friends, why even bother in the first place? To me friendship and membership in a community involves commitment, looking out for the other person while they look out for you, willingly sharing your time and resources. Becoming part of a community means becoming interdependent. You’re there, for good, bad or ugly. Hopefully, over time you will be positively influenced by others and they will be positively influenced by you. You don’t opt out when your feathers get ruffled.
Another mismatch for me was the idea proposed by Weeks (2009) that online connections flatten relationships. Although I agree with BJ Fogg, director of Stanford University's Persuasive Technology Lab as quoted by Weeks, “text is an impoverished medium for communicating emotion, intent, real meaning”, it can provide the “speaker” an opportunity to think more deeply about an idea, review and revise it before it is sent to the recipient. The communicative partners can, if they’re willing, can enter into a very deep, meaningful and significant conversation which can strengthen and vitalize relationships.
Speaking of the Weeks’ article, another mismatch for me is the whole idea of the Twitter site. The description as a ditzy, microblogging sort of say-whatever-pops-in-your-head site does absolutely nothing to interest me in this sort of social computing. As Weeks points out, it is like thinking aloud in front of strangers. It is a marketing tool and a me-me-me medium. I do not understand its draw.
Albrechtslund (2008) did not convince me that surveillance is not a creepy thing. He argues that online social networking introduces a participatory approach to surveillance, which can empower, and not necessarily violate, the user. Simply using the term “surveillance” brings up negative connotations in every context I can think of. Even though most social networking sites ask their users to provide personal data in the profile, and participants willingly do that, using this information for any self serving reason, whether it is marketing, targeting, apprehending or other benign or nefarious reasons does not in any way create a positive spin on this. Albrechtslund’s article finishes with the thought that online social networking appears to be a “snoop’s dream”. It left me shaking my head.
For me, Bigge’s whole article was somewhat of a mismatch. It appeared to be a series of relatively unconnected quotes. The quotes, while thought provoking individually, I though that overall this article seemed disconnected, leaving me to wonder, “What is your point?” From this article I learned about the idea that Ludies, or conscious objectors, abstain from social network sites despite social pressures to participate. Apparently, Bigge believes that participants are conscripted to work to gain social credits while being mined by marketers.
A QUESTION THAT REMAINS UNANSWERED
As Rosen asks in Virtual Friendship and the new Narcissism, “Perhaps the question we should be asking isn’t how closely are we connected, but rather what kinds of communities and friendships are we creating?”
REFERENCES:
Galston, William A. (1999). Does the Internet Strengthen Community? In Elaine Ciulla Kamarck and Joseph S. Nye, Jr. (eds.), Democracy.com? Governance in a Networked World. Hollis, NH: Hollis Publishing Co.
http://www.puaf.umd.edu/IPPP/fall1999/internet_community.htm
Weeks, Linton (2009). Social Responsibility and the Web: A Drama Unfolds. 8 January 2009. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99094257
LaRose, R., M.S. Eastin and J. Gregg (2001). Reformulating the Internet Paradox: Social Cognitive Explanations of Internet Use and Depression. Journal of Online Behavior 1(2). http://www.behavior.net/JOB/v1n2/paradox.html
Hague, Umair (2006). Usefulness and The Banality of Business. (Bubblegeneration Strategy Lab blog post). http://www.bubblegeneration.com/2006/03/usefulness-and-banality-of-business.cfm
Albrechtslund, Anders (2008). Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance. First Monday 13(3). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2142/1949
Rosen, Christine (2007). Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism. The New Atlantis 17, 15-31. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/virtual-friendship-and-the-new-narcissism
Bigge, Ryan (2006). The Cost of (Anti-) Social Networks: Identity, Agency and Neo-Luddites" First Monday 11(12). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1421/1339
CONNECTIONS
Gaston (1999) looks back at the 1950s front stoop society in Chicago and the changes that occurred after households all had televisions and air conditioners provides an important reminder that advances in technology change us and our society in ways that may be unexpected. This word picture was certainly something that I was able to connect to and understand. There were second- and third-level consequences to the technological advancements back in the 1950s, just as there will be changes in our society as we all become more consistent users of the new technological advances (such as social computing) available to us now. It’s interesting to imagine where this new technology and new way of gaining and maintaining social relationships will take us.
In my experience, Gaston’s assertion that there are two principal forces at work in the American culture: the high value attached to individual choice and the longing for community are two very powerful motivators behind our social behavior. With the recent affluence of our society and lack of constraints such as Depression Era expectations of working from sun-up to sun-down, people came to feel that questions of how to live and with whom to live were a matter of individual choice not predetermined or based on society’s expectations and norms. As a nation, we came to experience the bonds to marriage, family, children, job, community, and country as constraints that were no longer necessary. However, the longing for connectedness, being important to other people, engaging in reciprocal and meaningful social interaction is the second equally important force. Thus the idea of voluntarily joining a community as a choice, rather than based upon the confines of a physical location is an understandable outgrowth of both of these values.
Another connection for me was the idea that the whole range of human tendencies will be a part of the social relationships in online communities as well as in the physical world. When Thedora expressed frustration about her three year old, as described in the article by Weeks (2009), the responses encompassed a full array of human tendencies — constructive, destructive, pro-social, anti-social, conservative and risky expressed just as there are in any other arenas of social life.
The whole range of human tendencies includes depression. The article by LaRose, Eastin & Gregg (2001) provided a fascinating analysis of the correlation between internet use and depression. Stemming from an earlier study which found a causal link between internet use and depression, these authors studied the relationship between internet use, social support and depression. They used Bandura’s social cognitive theory as a framework and investigated the influence of self-efficacy, internet-related stress, and perceived social support on depression. Their research showed a link between internet use and depression, but one mediated by self-efficacy and the expectation of encountering stressful situations on the internet. They also found that internet use decreased depression through the use of e-mail exchanges with known associates to obtain social support and with increased experience and comfort with the internet. I thought that this was an interesting application of Bandura’s theories and a very well thought-out research project.
Hague’s (2006) article initially brought up the issue of mediocrity and the concept of flooding the “marketplace” with blogs. When Seth said “bloggers blog too much” and “they’re littering an attention commons” I wondered, too, are there too many blogs? From my very limited experience these past weeks in exploring online options, I wonder if many online sites are competing for consumers’ attention in the same way that strip malls compete for our dollars?
I loved Rosen’s analogy of online profiles, comparing them to portraits of wealthy or influential people in the past. She said, “Today, our self-portraits are democratic and digital; they are crafted from pixels rather than paints…Like painters constantly retouching their work, we alter, update, and tweak our online self-portraits; but as digital objects they are far more ephemeral than oil on canvas. Vital statistics, glimpses of bare flesh, lists of favorite bands and favorite poems all clamor for our attention—and it is the timeless human desire for attention that emerges as the dominant theme of these vast virtual galleries. There’s nothing I can add to that! What a great way of thinking about it!
MISMATCHES
One issue that was a mismatch for me, in terms of developing a rich online community experience, is the idea that online communities have low barriers to enter and low barriers to exit. While all groups and communities undergo a change in membership, Gaston (1999) notes that participants in online communities often exit the community rather than make an effort to alter the character of the existing organization. If we can easily set aside the bonds of community, “unfriend” our friends, why even bother in the first place? To me friendship and membership in a community involves commitment, looking out for the other person while they look out for you, willingly sharing your time and resources. Becoming part of a community means becoming interdependent. You’re there, for good, bad or ugly. Hopefully, over time you will be positively influenced by others and they will be positively influenced by you. You don’t opt out when your feathers get ruffled.
Another mismatch for me was the idea proposed by Weeks (2009) that online connections flatten relationships. Although I agree with BJ Fogg, director of Stanford University's Persuasive Technology Lab as quoted by Weeks, “text is an impoverished medium for communicating emotion, intent, real meaning”, it can provide the “speaker” an opportunity to think more deeply about an idea, review and revise it before it is sent to the recipient. The communicative partners can, if they’re willing, can enter into a very deep, meaningful and significant conversation which can strengthen and vitalize relationships.
Speaking of the Weeks’ article, another mismatch for me is the whole idea of the Twitter site. The description as a ditzy, microblogging sort of say-whatever-pops-in-your-head site does absolutely nothing to interest me in this sort of social computing. As Weeks points out, it is like thinking aloud in front of strangers. It is a marketing tool and a me-me-me medium. I do not understand its draw.
Albrechtslund (2008) did not convince me that surveillance is not a creepy thing. He argues that online social networking introduces a participatory approach to surveillance, which can empower, and not necessarily violate, the user. Simply using the term “surveillance” brings up negative connotations in every context I can think of. Even though most social networking sites ask their users to provide personal data in the profile, and participants willingly do that, using this information for any self serving reason, whether it is marketing, targeting, apprehending or other benign or nefarious reasons does not in any way create a positive spin on this. Albrechtslund’s article finishes with the thought that online social networking appears to be a “snoop’s dream”. It left me shaking my head.
For me, Bigge’s whole article was somewhat of a mismatch. It appeared to be a series of relatively unconnected quotes. The quotes, while thought provoking individually, I though that overall this article seemed disconnected, leaving me to wonder, “What is your point?” From this article I learned about the idea that Ludies, or conscious objectors, abstain from social network sites despite social pressures to participate. Apparently, Bigge believes that participants are conscripted to work to gain social credits while being mined by marketers.
A QUESTION THAT REMAINS UNANSWERED
As Rosen asks in Virtual Friendship and the new Narcissism, “Perhaps the question we should be asking isn’t how closely are we connected, but rather what kinds of communities and friendships are we creating?”
REFERENCES:
Galston, William A. (1999). Does the Internet Strengthen Community? In Elaine Ciulla Kamarck and Joseph S. Nye, Jr. (eds.), Democracy.com? Governance in a Networked World. Hollis, NH: Hollis Publishing Co.
http://www.puaf.umd.edu/IPPP/fall1999/internet_community.htm
Weeks, Linton (2009). Social Responsibility and the Web: A Drama Unfolds. 8 January 2009. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99094257
LaRose, R., M.S. Eastin and J. Gregg (2001). Reformulating the Internet Paradox: Social Cognitive Explanations of Internet Use and Depression. Journal of Online Behavior 1(2). http://www.behavior.net/JOB/v1n2/paradox.html
Hague, Umair (2006). Usefulness and The Banality of Business. (Bubblegeneration Strategy Lab blog post). http://www.bubblegeneration.com/2006/03/usefulness-and-banality-of-business.cfm
Albrechtslund, Anders (2008). Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance. First Monday 13(3). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2142/1949
Rosen, Christine (2007). Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism. The New Atlantis 17, 15-31. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/virtual-friendship-and-the-new-narcissism
Bigge, Ryan (2006). The Cost of (Anti-) Social Networks: Identity, Agency and Neo-Luddites" First Monday 11(12). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1421/1339
Friday, January 16, 2009
First Posting
Hello Everyone,
This is the first blog that I've created and the first social networking site that I've ever visited. In fact, just yesterday I learned how to use a digital camera, how to get the pictures from the camera into the computer, then on to this site. I'm still not sure this posting will go where I think it will go - we'll see soon! As you can see from my interests, for recreation and leisure I like doing outdoor activities like canoe paddling, hiking, bike riding and yoga, so I've never taken the time to sit down at the computer and learn very much about it.
I got interested in computer technology last semester when I took my first on-line course. I found out that this is an excellent way for me to learn. It worked so much better for me than a brick and mortar classroom that I became very intersted in computer applications and want to soak up as much information as I can. This semester I'm taking three online classes: this one (which I'm actually quite intimidated by), EDTC Computers in Education and EDEA School Community Relations. When I got my first Masters' degree in 1981, I was thrilled with the new invention of correction tape placed right into the typewriter. It made typing papers so much easier! We've certainly come a long way from those days!
I've been in education for my whole career in one capacity or another. Currently I'm a District Educational Specialist with the Maui District. This is my second semester at UH, majoring in Educational Administration. I'd like to add a master's degree in educational administration to the degrees that I already hold.
I'm going to post this now to see if it works, then will address the reading in another posting. My fingers are crossed that this will work....here goes!!!
Excellent! Now for the course content:
Boyd and Ellison's (2007)Social Network Sites: Definition, History and Scholarship provided a background of information that I needed to understand the phenomena of social network sites (SNS). As defined by Boyd and Ellison, SNS are web-based services that "allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system". While this definition fits well with the less clearly articulated one that I obtained from my 21 year old son, the concept of online socialization is outside my realm of experience. Prior to reading Boyd and Ellison's article, I understood SNS to be a way for people to develop new relationships with people whom they may never meet. Being clearly grounded in the physical world, this had never interested me. I was somewhat surprised and intrigued by Boyd and Ellison's observation that developing new relationships is not the primary function of most SNS, rather it is an opportunity to make relationships visible. As they report, "on many of the large SNSs, participants are not necessarily "networking" or looking to meet new people; instead, they are primarily communicating with people who are already a part of their extended social network".
In addition to the conceptual framework, Boyd and Ellison provide a basic description of different SNS sites, such as MySpace, Friendster and Facebook, and offer comparisons of these and other sites. They provide a history of emergent sites, their growth and occassionally, decline. Although this information was interesting to me, I was most fascinated in their account of the world wide participation in SNS sites, to use Boyd and Ellison's terms, "SNSs hit the mainstream". To me, this truly indicates that there is a fundamental change in the way that individuals on our planet are communicating and making connections on a multi-national level. The idea that a platform such as Orkut was created in the United States but now is a major communication site in Brazil and India reminds me that, as humans we have much more in common than we have differences.
While participating on SNS sites underscores our ability to connect anywhere in the world, Boyd and Ellison discuss the emphasis of some sites to attract or cater to users based on individual preferences or interests. They report that some, like aSmallWorld and BeautifulPeople, intentionally restrict access to appear selective and elite. Thy add that others, "activity-centered sites like Couchsurfing, identity-driven sites like BlackPlanet, and affiliation-focused sites like MyChurch—are limited by their target demographic and thus tend to be smaller. Finally, anyone who wishes to create a niche social network site can do so on Ning, a platform and hosting service that encourages users to create their own SNSs".
Boyd and Ellison discuss the concepts of "impression management", which is central to the individual's participation on SNS. They quote Donath and Boyd (2004) who suggest that "public displays of connection serve as important identity signals that help people navigate the networked social world, in that an extended network may serve to validate identity information presented in profiles". While this aspect seems me to be the narrow focus of many parents' worries about the safety of their children, Boyd and Ellison describe the panic around privacy that is fanned by the popular press. I was surprised about the small body of research available around privacy issues in the comprehensive article by Boyd and Ellison.
Boyd and Ellison conclude their article by suggesting other important sociological research topics not yet investigated.
To tell the truth, Dibbell's (1998; revised) A Rape in Cyberspace: How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database Into a Society was at first incomprehensible to me. Without the background needed to undertand the paradox of "real world" versus "cyberspace/imaginary world" turns in to "real world" and the interactions of the online experiences impacting the physical individual. Even the terms "RL" and "VR" were terms that I needed to stop and "translate" each time that I read them. To me, this article strongly urges the user of virtual reality spaces to act as ethically online as they would in real life. It provides the reader with insight as to the psychological harm caused to the participants when a crime is perpetrated. By relating the actions of Mr. Bungle in LambdaMOO and the fallout in both RL and VR, I was able to understand the interrelatedness of the experience on mulitple levels.
The third article for our class, Beer & Burrow's (2007) Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations discussed some developments in internet culture which emerged about 2005 . They defined Web 2.0, an upgraded web design which enabled more access to online resources and applications. They were interested in the sociological aspect of what they see as a "large scale shift toward user-generated web content".
Beer and Burrows delineate how Web 2.0 allows the construction of knowledge by users (exactly what we're doing in this class) through the use of many sources, such as Wikipedia, SNSs and personally identified blogs. Reading Beer and Burrow's article helped me to understand how information is continually refined and expanded through participation of those seeking information. Sites may be updated daily as learners add to existing content. Beer and Burrows' paragraph 2.13 provides an interesting example of this using the wikipedia entry on Harvey Sacks. Rather than a fixed authoritative account that would be found in a textbook, Beer and Burrows report that "these are dynamic entries that tell us not only about the searched term but also about the turbulent underpinnings of collective intelligence".
The concept that learning has moved so far beyond passive ingestation of knowledge fixed in time through a source such as a textbook has far reaching implications for the educational community. Reading this article made me realize that as an educational leader in my district, I need to understand that our students are learning in a very fashion than occurred for me AND in a very different fashion than is occurring in most of our public school classrooms. The dyanmic information gathering that is found on sites described in Beer and Burrow's article: the wikis, folksonomies, mashups and SNSs far outshine the "stand up and deliver" content provided by tired lackluster classroom teachers. As an administrator I often heard the phrases, "reform our schools", "facilitate learning for the 21st century learner" or "enable our students to become effective users of technology" however, I think that, like me, principals, teachers and other administrators in our districts do not even have a clue how to gain knowledge from sources like those outlined in the Beer and Burrow's article - let alone assist children in accessing this information. Along this line of thinking, Beer and Burrows go into some detail describing unflattering online material written in the United Kingdom and the United States about teachers. While this information is much more public than it has been ever before, it again points to students' need to obtain learning that is meaningful and relevant to the student.
While Beer and Burrows outline issues important for additional sociological research, I believe that these issues are important for educators as well. First, they recommend, "we need to be inside of the networks, online communities, and collaborative movements to be able to see what is going on and describe it. If we take Facebook for instance, it is not possible to enter into and observe the network without becoming a member, providing an institutional email, entering some personal details and generating a profile. Therefore, in order to get some idea of users and their practices it is necessary to become a 'wikizen'. The social researcher (and here I would add "educator") will need to be immersed, they will need to be participatory, and they will need to 'get inside' and make some 'friends'. We will have to become part of the collaborative cultures of Web 2.0, we will need to build our own profiles, make some flickering friendships, expose our own choices, preferences and views, and make ethical decisions about what we reveal and the information we filter out of these communities and into our findings. Our ability to carry out virtual ethnographies will – by necessity – involve moving from the role of observer to that of participant observer.
In paragraph 4.4, Beer and Burrows report that a second issue is that once inside these networks we may explore the possibilities of using Web 2.0 applications, and particularly the interactive potentials of SNS, as research tools or research technologies. Again, I would add that educators need to explore these as education tools. These open and accessible archives of information may be used to develop understandings of these people and to track out communities or networks of friends is education.
In terms of using Web 2.0 as the basis of gained knowledge, Tenopir's (2007) Online Databases—Web 2.0: Our Cultural Downfall? provides the reminder about the accuracy of the information gained from online sources may in actuality be of "dubious content". Although Tenopir is referencing online information, this is als true of any source of information, thus the individual must obtain some sort of internal compass that can identify true information from others that is less accurate. Tenopir provides some suggestions from Keen who provides guidance on how to point learners to more accurate information. As an answer to the amateur content of Wikipedia, he highlights Citizendium, the wiki encyclopedia that combines public participation with the guidance of experts. As an answer to unattributed news sites, he highlights the successes of some veteran newspapers (such as the Guardian and Wall Street Journal) and some more recent news sources (such as Politico) in transitioning to the web, with vetted content and amateur comments clearly differentiated and income generated in new ways. He suggests that legislative initiatives to catch and punish perpetrators can be a solution to illegal file sharing or intellectual property theft.
This is the first blog that I've created and the first social networking site that I've ever visited. In fact, just yesterday I learned how to use a digital camera, how to get the pictures from the camera into the computer, then on to this site. I'm still not sure this posting will go where I think it will go - we'll see soon! As you can see from my interests, for recreation and leisure I like doing outdoor activities like canoe paddling, hiking, bike riding and yoga, so I've never taken the time to sit down at the computer and learn very much about it.
I got interested in computer technology last semester when I took my first on-line course. I found out that this is an excellent way for me to learn. It worked so much better for me than a brick and mortar classroom that I became very intersted in computer applications and want to soak up as much information as I can. This semester I'm taking three online classes: this one (which I'm actually quite intimidated by), EDTC Computers in Education and EDEA School Community Relations. When I got my first Masters' degree in 1981, I was thrilled with the new invention of correction tape placed right into the typewriter. It made typing papers so much easier! We've certainly come a long way from those days!
I've been in education for my whole career in one capacity or another. Currently I'm a District Educational Specialist with the Maui District. This is my second semester at UH, majoring in Educational Administration. I'd like to add a master's degree in educational administration to the degrees that I already hold.
I'm going to post this now to see if it works, then will address the reading in another posting. My fingers are crossed that this will work....here goes!!!
Excellent! Now for the course content:
Boyd and Ellison's (2007)Social Network Sites: Definition, History and Scholarship provided a background of information that I needed to understand the phenomena of social network sites (SNS). As defined by Boyd and Ellison, SNS are web-based services that "allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system". While this definition fits well with the less clearly articulated one that I obtained from my 21 year old son, the concept of online socialization is outside my realm of experience. Prior to reading Boyd and Ellison's article, I understood SNS to be a way for people to develop new relationships with people whom they may never meet. Being clearly grounded in the physical world, this had never interested me. I was somewhat surprised and intrigued by Boyd and Ellison's observation that developing new relationships is not the primary function of most SNS, rather it is an opportunity to make relationships visible. As they report, "on many of the large SNSs, participants are not necessarily "networking" or looking to meet new people; instead, they are primarily communicating with people who are already a part of their extended social network".
In addition to the conceptual framework, Boyd and Ellison provide a basic description of different SNS sites, such as MySpace, Friendster and Facebook, and offer comparisons of these and other sites. They provide a history of emergent sites, their growth and occassionally, decline. Although this information was interesting to me, I was most fascinated in their account of the world wide participation in SNS sites, to use Boyd and Ellison's terms, "SNSs hit the mainstream". To me, this truly indicates that there is a fundamental change in the way that individuals on our planet are communicating and making connections on a multi-national level. The idea that a platform such as Orkut was created in the United States but now is a major communication site in Brazil and India reminds me that, as humans we have much more in common than we have differences.
While participating on SNS sites underscores our ability to connect anywhere in the world, Boyd and Ellison discuss the emphasis of some sites to attract or cater to users based on individual preferences or interests. They report that some, like aSmallWorld and BeautifulPeople, intentionally restrict access to appear selective and elite. Thy add that others, "activity-centered sites like Couchsurfing, identity-driven sites like BlackPlanet, and affiliation-focused sites like MyChurch—are limited by their target demographic and thus tend to be smaller. Finally, anyone who wishes to create a niche social network site can do so on Ning, a platform and hosting service that encourages users to create their own SNSs".
Boyd and Ellison discuss the concepts of "impression management", which is central to the individual's participation on SNS. They quote Donath and Boyd (2004) who suggest that "public displays of connection serve as important identity signals that help people navigate the networked social world, in that an extended network may serve to validate identity information presented in profiles". While this aspect seems me to be the narrow focus of many parents' worries about the safety of their children, Boyd and Ellison describe the panic around privacy that is fanned by the popular press. I was surprised about the small body of research available around privacy issues in the comprehensive article by Boyd and Ellison.
Boyd and Ellison conclude their article by suggesting other important sociological research topics not yet investigated.
To tell the truth, Dibbell's (1998; revised) A Rape in Cyberspace: How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database Into a Society was at first incomprehensible to me. Without the background needed to undertand the paradox of "real world" versus "cyberspace/imaginary world" turns in to "real world" and the interactions of the online experiences impacting the physical individual. Even the terms "RL" and "VR" were terms that I needed to stop and "translate" each time that I read them. To me, this article strongly urges the user of virtual reality spaces to act as ethically online as they would in real life. It provides the reader with insight as to the psychological harm caused to the participants when a crime is perpetrated. By relating the actions of Mr. Bungle in LambdaMOO and the fallout in both RL and VR, I was able to understand the interrelatedness of the experience on mulitple levels.
The third article for our class, Beer & Burrow's (2007) Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations discussed some developments in internet culture which emerged about 2005 . They defined Web 2.0, an upgraded web design which enabled more access to online resources and applications. They were interested in the sociological aspect of what they see as a "large scale shift toward user-generated web content".
Beer and Burrows delineate how Web 2.0 allows the construction of knowledge by users (exactly what we're doing in this class) through the use of many sources, such as Wikipedia, SNSs and personally identified blogs. Reading Beer and Burrow's article helped me to understand how information is continually refined and expanded through participation of those seeking information. Sites may be updated daily as learners add to existing content. Beer and Burrows' paragraph 2.13 provides an interesting example of this using the wikipedia entry on Harvey Sacks. Rather than a fixed authoritative account that would be found in a textbook, Beer and Burrows report that "these are dynamic entries that tell us not only about the searched term but also about the turbulent underpinnings of collective intelligence".
The concept that learning has moved so far beyond passive ingestation of knowledge fixed in time through a source such as a textbook has far reaching implications for the educational community. Reading this article made me realize that as an educational leader in my district, I need to understand that our students are learning in a very fashion than occurred for me AND in a very different fashion than is occurring in most of our public school classrooms. The dyanmic information gathering that is found on sites described in Beer and Burrow's article: the wikis, folksonomies, mashups and SNSs far outshine the "stand up and deliver" content provided by tired lackluster classroom teachers. As an administrator I often heard the phrases, "reform our schools", "facilitate learning for the 21st century learner" or "enable our students to become effective users of technology" however, I think that, like me, principals, teachers and other administrators in our districts do not even have a clue how to gain knowledge from sources like those outlined in the Beer and Burrow's article - let alone assist children in accessing this information. Along this line of thinking, Beer and Burrows go into some detail describing unflattering online material written in the United Kingdom and the United States about teachers. While this information is much more public than it has been ever before, it again points to students' need to obtain learning that is meaningful and relevant to the student.
While Beer and Burrows outline issues important for additional sociological research, I believe that these issues are important for educators as well. First, they recommend, "we need to be inside of the networks, online communities, and collaborative movements to be able to see what is going on and describe it. If we take Facebook for instance, it is not possible to enter into and observe the network without becoming a member, providing an institutional email, entering some personal details and generating a profile. Therefore, in order to get some idea of users and their practices it is necessary to become a 'wikizen'. The social researcher (and here I would add "educator") will need to be immersed, they will need to be participatory, and they will need to 'get inside' and make some 'friends'. We will have to become part of the collaborative cultures of Web 2.0, we will need to build our own profiles, make some flickering friendships, expose our own choices, preferences and views, and make ethical decisions about what we reveal and the information we filter out of these communities and into our findings. Our ability to carry out virtual ethnographies will – by necessity – involve moving from the role of observer to that of participant observer.
In paragraph 4.4, Beer and Burrows report that a second issue is that once inside these networks we may explore the possibilities of using Web 2.0 applications, and particularly the interactive potentials of SNS, as research tools or research technologies. Again, I would add that educators need to explore these as education tools. These open and accessible archives of information may be used to develop understandings of these people and to track out communities or networks of friends is education.
In terms of using Web 2.0 as the basis of gained knowledge, Tenopir's (2007) Online Databases—Web 2.0: Our Cultural Downfall? provides the reminder about the accuracy of the information gained from online sources may in actuality be of "dubious content". Although Tenopir is referencing online information, this is als true of any source of information, thus the individual must obtain some sort of internal compass that can identify true information from others that is less accurate. Tenopir provides some suggestions from Keen who provides guidance on how to point learners to more accurate information. As an answer to the amateur content of Wikipedia, he highlights Citizendium, the wiki encyclopedia that combines public participation with the guidance of experts. As an answer to unattributed news sites, he highlights the successes of some veteran newspapers (such as the Guardian and Wall Street Journal) and some more recent news sources (such as Politico) in transitioning to the web, with vetted content and amateur comments clearly differentiated and income generated in new ways. He suggests that legislative initiatives to catch and punish perpetrators can be a solution to illegal file sharing or intellectual property theft.
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