Category: Education

I have been introduced to an experiment in Social computing by some members of AECT called The Overlay. If anyone is interested in looking at their system and what they have done they are looking for people to play around with it. It is still somewhat rough and under developed, but it is worth a look for those who are curious and they certainly would like any feedback you may have.

I have long known that some people will do things one way and other people in the same situation will do things a different way. I have incorporated my blog into this social computing class and a few other people have as well, but most of the class have chosen not to do so. There is nothing wrong with that, but I recognize some benefits that would come if we were all blogging as a means of communication for our ideas. There is the preface. . .

As I read about the work of Heidegger (Dourish p. 109) I began to recognize why the blog is so easy for me to use and to see why others look at it as an oddity. For me the blog is ready-to-hand because I already had it set up. I did not have to create my blog, I am comfortable with the world of blogging, I have my computer with me almost constantly and I have created tools that give me access to publish on my blog almost instantly. Now I begin to recognize that the blog would be present-at-hand for most other people in the class. They would have to set up the blog. They would have to get used to the rhythm of blogging (thinking of something and deciding to share it with others, finding something to share and making sure to create links and references to the source) and they would have to take the time to acquire the tools that would make the blog useful or ready-to-hand. I have tried to facilitate the ready-to-handness in previous postings (RSS Tools) but I must not confuse the availability of tools with the familiarity with those tools.

It would not be completely easy for others to pick up blogging merely because of this class, but that does not mean that the benefits of blogging are not worth the effort for those who are willing to pick up the tools and learn. In short, it is worthwhile, but I must not get trapped into thinking that because it is easy for me it will be easy for others.

Part of the fun of the Social Computing class is that we can look at ourselves and evaluate the social computing of our class. One way we have done that is to interview other members of the class regarding the group work they are involved in for the class. That gives us a view of the social computing taking place within groups and on team assignments.

Taking a larger view of the class as a whole, I have been evaluating my use of a blog for the class journal requirement. One reason that I wanted to blog my class journal entries was that I wanted them to be accessible to people outside the class so that I could get feedback from a wider audience. Very quickly I realized that there would be another large benefit to the class if everybody were blogging regularly – blogging on a regular basis would allow for people to have a much more interactive type of conversation between class members because of the nature of RSS publishing.

In one of my entries I talked about having a week long conversation rather than a 36 hour conversation every week. I was referring to the fact that most of the blogging done for class is done within the 36 hours before our class meets. It occurred to me that I might not be checking the discussion boards frequently enough and the discussion might be happening there – although I believe that to be a less convenient way to have the discussion. I looked through the discussion boards and found that the majority of posts to the discussion boards take place – amazingly – within the 36 hours before our class meets.

My conclusion is that there is a student pattern of focusing closely on the topic related to class right before there will be some face to face accountability. I claim no superiority in this regard, but cognitively I know that what should be happening for the most effective learning to take place is for the conversation to be continuous. We should be thinking a little bit and then sharing a little bit and then thinking a little bit more about what others have shared throughout the week.

I am not sure if this pattern can be changed within the short span of a semester, but I will try personally to get myself out of that rut – not only for this class, but for all my classes. Perhaps we can talk about this in preparation for our next class, but that is unlikely since nobody is likely to come look at my posting until 36 hours before we meet again.

I thought it was very interesting to read about the Chicago School in the context of movements within the fields of anthropology and sociology. After reading about the Chigaco School in Where the Action Is (Dourish 2001 p.62) all my confusion was cleared up from the beginning of the Strauss book.