Assessment Questions

Here's my questions for this week:

1.) Laffey, Lin and Lin discuss the term "social capital" being a "construct of social unitis, which facilitates collective action. How can we assess these actions?

2.) Ke and Hoadley discuss the differing types of online learning communities. How does the diversity in types of learning communities impact the evaluation of those online interactions?

Health & Support Groups

I found the articles this week interesting. Here's my questions:

1.) How can we ensure the quality of information in social networking?

2.) How can we encourage physicians, specialists and researchers into these pre-existing support groups to allow for quality of information?

Wk11 - Social Presence

Here's some of my questions for social presence:

1. Gunawardena (1995) concludes that “social presence [can be] a potentially significant factor in improving instructional effectiveness in both traditional and communications technology mediated distance classes” (p. 164). How can this be applied to online classes that have limited avenues for social presence such as blackboard?


2. How does social presence influence classroom behavior online? Do people’s personalities show themselves online?

Fictional Narrative!

Here's the link to my fictional narrative:

Fictional Narrative

Wk10 - Trust and Reputation

Here's my questions for this week:

1.) With regards to last week's article "A Day Without Facebook" and this week's articles on trust, how trusting are you with your personal information on the web? Do you post a phone number? Do you have a "locked" profile?

2.) Currently, facebook has restructured it's Terms of Use and Privacy Policies and is attempting to use a "town hall" approach to rewriting it's terms of use and privacy policies with over 10,000 members in each group. They have also created a bill of rights for facebook group which has nearly 93,000 members. This being said, does the social network define the rules and norms of the community in social networking sites or are those rules and norms simply set within a broader rule base that the technology creates have set in place? Do we trust those rules inantely because we believe they know what they're doing?

Wk9 - Community & Participation

I hope everyone had a great break! Here's my questions for this week:

1. Gray’s article (2004) discusses informal learning in an online community of practice. How can we apply the idea of a professional community of practice to a network in a K-12 school and would they be beneficial?

2. The article “A Day Without Facebook” is dated Sept. 12, 2006. It has to do with the feed system facebook created and the lack of response from an oligarchic facebook management. Currently, that feed system is still in use. More recently, facebook changed their online privacy policy and had a similar reaction. In response to this, facebook created an all-community system for reviewing a bill of rights for users and a new privacy policy. It seems that an important aspect of a community is the established rules or norms for that community. How then, should social networks determine their user or community’s rule structure or norms or should the social network dictate them to the users and those that don’t like it can leave?

Wk8 - Friendship and Relationship

Here's my questions for this week. They both have a similar underlying theme:

1. Many of the readings today compared face-to-face interactions with online interactions and how relationships are formed in both comparatively. Is this a fair comparison for a medium that is by nature relationship building (face-to-face) verses a medium that was intended to share information?
2. Should there be a different standard for online interactions and relationships because of the lack of non-verbal communication and personal interaction?

Notes from 2-23 Meeting

Here's my notes from the 2/23 Session!

Josh's Notes

Let me know if you have any questions about what I've got. Also, for reference, here's Chris' notes as we both did recording:

Chris' Notes

Content Management System Showcase

The Internet has become a readily available tool for businesses to use. One of the ways that businesses are able to use the Internet is through the use of Content Management Systems or CMS. Online, web-based CMS allow anyone with access to the Internet and to the CMS to collaborate on documents, network with other users, and develop projects with others. This showcase will examine three popular CMS: Alfresco (http://www.alfresco.com/)), Joomla! (http://www.joomla.org/), and WebGUI (http://www.plainblack.com/webgui). The areas for evaluation will be: Platform Requirements, Ease of Use, Security, and Flexibility/Extensibility.

Alfresco

Platform Requirements

Alfresco runs on most J2EE Application Servers and is the only product of the series that has a paid option with support and maintenance done by the creators. Alfresco also has the largest variety of support for database and web server. It is licensed under GPL + FLOSS Exception.

Ease of Use

Alfresco includes features for email discussions, WYSIWYG editing, and spell checking (with an add-on). The layout and functionality of the site work very well both in Firefox and Safari; however, some of the features that I find I would use more are buried in the navigation rather than in an easy-to-find location. This could be fixed since the project is open source. For screenshots of the web-based platform, click here.

Security

Alfresco has some security features, although not as many as the other CMS. Alfresco keeps logs of user logins, allows content approvals, audit trails, and many different types of authentication. The major draw back to the security features of Alfresco is the lack of robust SSL compatibility. It has basic compatibility but does not allow for SSL logins or SSL pages.

Flexibility and Extensibility

Alfresco is the least flexible of the three CMS discussed in this showcase. It does allow for extensible user profiles and multi-user support, but it does not allow for blogging, chatting, or contact management within the system. This is the biggest drawback to the system. The features it lacks makes it less useful in a corporate environment.

Use

Alfresco is developed for use in a corporate environment and as such is very good at allowing corporations to develop documents and research items collaboratively. The only major drawback to Alfresco is the lack of community around the project, which means that there are very few add-ons and extensible add-ons available for it. This would seem to indicate that it is used in corporations as a closed-system rather than an open-system.

Joomla

Platform Requirements

Joomla is free software that runs on any system that supports PHP; however, the developers recommend the use of Apache. The only limitation to Joomla is that it is currently bound to the use of MySQL, but because MySQL is popular, it allows for the greatest user base use. It is licensed under GPL.

Ease of Use

Joomla is very easy to use and has a navigation and user interface structure that will be useful to anyone. Some of the major drawbacks to Joomla’s ease of use are the lack of style customizability, spell checking, zip archives, and drag-n-drop of content. The features that seemed to be the most important that was missing was the ability to spell check. That seems to be something that they should be developing at this point. The software can be evaluated in a sandbox environment on Joomla’s homepage for free at http://demo.joomla.org/ (registration required). This demo allows the user to access the frontend and backend of the software in order to use it’s features “in the wild.”

Security

Joomla’s security is about equal to the other CMS listed. It allows for SSL logins and pages, captcha (through an addon), and keeps very good records. The only place where Joomla isn’t effective is in the authentication. It doesn’t have the variety of authentication that Alfresco does.

Flexibility and Extensibility

Joomla! has the largest community of users of the three being evaluated. Many of these users have written add-ons for different things that they needed to do with Joomla! which means that there thousands of add-ons available on the site for download and use with the system! Joomla has add-on files for multiple language use and has many language files available on their website.

Use

Joomla! is one of the most easy to install and easy to use CMS available at the time. It is widely written about and widely used so the resources available to users on the web for help in addition to the good help section on the site makes it a good solution for school, businesses, and univerisities. Joomla! is also wrriten in PHP which means that it is easy to write your own add-ons in addition to the thousands it has available ot it's webpage and across the web. Joomla!'s only major drawback is the lack of authentication, which is really used in large corporations. Joomla! is better suited for small companies or school and universities, although some larger corporations have used it according to Joomla's website.

WebGUI

Platform Requirements

WebGUI is free software that runs on mod_perl and uses Perl. It is license through GNU/GPL and uses MySQL for database activity.

Ease of Use

WebGUI is the second easiest to use of the CMS listed here. This may be because of personal preference in site design and functionality. The major drawback of it’s ease of use is the use of Perl. Outside of that, WebGUI is the easiest to use of the set with the most features of any presented here. It includes, spell checking, style wizards, and zip archive functionality. All of these are available “out of the box” without installing anything in addition to the software! Many screenshots and an interactive demo of the software are available on the WebGUI site here.

Security

WebGUI is right on cue with many of the security features of Joomla! nearly matching them point by point. The only additions it makes are problem notification and a sandbox.

Flexibility and Extensibility

WebGUI has the best flexibility and functionality “out of the box.” Many of the features that have to be installed as add-ons in the other two CMS are available out of the box with WebGUI. It by far has the most functionality out of any of the three, but the only place it lacks competiveness is in document management.

Use

WebGUI is probably the most usable out of the three CMS listed here. It gives the most support and functionality out of the box and allows users to begin working right away without the addition of add-ons. The only drawback for WebGUI is the installation process. The process is harder and more complex than the other two. The use of Perl as the programming language also makes it less accessible because it doesn’t use a common web programming language, such as Java or PHP.

Wk7 - Technology Behavior Questions

Here's Week 7's questions! Woohoo!

1.) The Metzger, Flanaign, & Zwarun (2003) article discusses students’ use of the Internet as a resource. The article talks about the amount of time spent online being heavily devoted to academics. Since this article is almost 6 years old, how has the ratio of academic to non-academic computer use changed with the creation of social media tools including instant messaging and social networking site? Secondly, have students improved their ability to find reliable sources on the web or has more available information made it more difficult?

2.) How does the online disinhibition effect affect the way students conduct themselves in an online environment? If so, do all six factors Suler (2004) presents in his article contribute to online disinhibition or are some of those factors negated in an online environment?

Wk6 - Blogging Questions

Here's my questions for week 6! I just realized they didn't make it up here!

1.) The Desilets, Paquet, and Vinson article concludes, “wiki[s] are indeed usable by non-technical users.” How can we get over the stigma that has been associated with Wikipedia and the unreliability of information found in wikis in order to implement Wikis in business and industry?

2.) The Kajder and Bull gives a good example of blogs being used effectively in the classroom. Nardi, Schiano, and Gumbrecht discuss blogging as a social activity: “Our research leads us to speculate that blogging is as much about reading as writing, as much about listening as talking.” My question has been coming up quite often. How do we evaluate the effectiveness of technological tools in the classroom or industry? Can we simply evaluate people’s opinions on their effectiveness or do we have to develop a means for evaluation outside of people’s opinions?

Wk5 - Collaboration Questions

Here are my questions for this week. I think the most challenging thing when discussing online collaboration is the way that a text-based medium influences the communication. Non-verbals are not conveyed well over a text-based medium and I wonder then how much of communication is lost because of not having non-verbals.

1. How does a text-only medium affect the way messages are sent and received? Does the lack of non-verbals cause interference or message breakdown? If so, How can we overcome that breakdown in communication?

2. According to Johnson & Johnson, there are five conditions for cooperative learning. One of the five conditions is “considerable face-to-face interaction.” How does the removal of face-to-face interactions in an online environment affect the conditions for cooperative learning? Is the replacement of a text-only medium an adequate replacement or should we replace it with a more robust system?

Wk4 Questions

Here's my questions for this week:

1.) Resnick discusses the differences between learning in school and outside of school. Specifically, she discusses the use of tools and the individual nature of the education system. Tools and social tasks were used more outside of school. With this in mind, how do we get past the constructs of the school systems to allow social computing and social activities within our schools?

2.) How does the goal definition between traditional instructional design differ from the goal definition of the ecological perspective?

3.) How can we use social computing to help mediate the disparity between what Salomon & Perkins call “high-road” and “low-road” learning?


Notes:

Behaviorism -> Cognitivism -> Constructivism (Cognitive, Constructionism, Social Constructivism)

Can a rich enough "social constructivist" environment, lead to a stimulus/response similar to behaviorism?

Is it more important to have social skills or broad knowledge?

Introduction Readings and Questions

The watts chapter has an interesting perspective on the clustering mentality of the six-degrees of separation discussion. The idea of clustering presents an interesting challenge to social intelligence. The question then is: how does clustering affect social intelligence?

How do we leverage the availability of the web an collaboration devices with the distractions those items can cause in the classroom?

First Post

Woohoo! This is my first post and hopefully it's working!!