Assessment

1. I found the Ke and Hoadley article interesting in its discussion about online learning communities. A really broad question that I have is, based off of the Kowch and
Schwier (1997) definition, can there truly be classroom-assigned learning communities? After all, the definition says that "natural will" is one of the bonds forming the community, which in my mind, goes against the brute-force creation of a community. Beyond that, though, I think that the framework provided does a good job in pointing out just how many different things could be looked at when talking about assessment in an online learning community.

2. In these assessment articles, there seems to be a lot of exploring going on for a framework or more specific way to evaluate the impact of social computing. However, it seems to me that only the Ke and Hoadley reading in our bunch get anywhere close to mentioning the measure of student performance. The others seem to be more about perception or the "how" of social computing. Is this because we know online learning works and just want to know why (or how to make it better) or is it because it is too hard to narrow down student performance and causation?

Health and Support Groups

What I found interesting about several of the readings for this week were the various perspectives being looked at. While the Russell et al. article about CHAIN looked at how researchers and practitioners share information with each other, the Farnham et al. article looked at how patients may use a social network. The Nutbeam article then discusses a model moving towards health literacy where access to information equals health empowerment.

1. From the Farnham et al. article, I did not find it surprising in the least that the patients generally chose to use their computer access to communicate with family members instead of using the HutchWorld environment that was created for them. It seems to me that, as the authors point out, there were just too few people in this study to really examine how social interaction might work. Having such a small group, with perhaps only a few people logged in at a time, makes it less likely to "bump into" people and, from my experience, if I log into a system and find that the environment is empty, I tend not to think about going back there. My question is ... seeing as this research was from 7 years ago, what would the results be now? I'm wondering if the internet has become so much more ingrained that control groups would complain about not having it. I would also hypothesize that the results would still be more time dedicated to talking with family, especially now with easy-to-use software like Skype available.

2. I think that the Russell and Nutbeam articles look at an issue that is somewhat related though in different contexts: the sharing of health information. While the Russell article is focused on people sharing/asking for timely, needed information, the Nutbeam one looks at how to help a society become health literate on a macro-level. In reality, I find the Russell article much more interesting because it describes a system and how it is used, though I wonder if, given more information, we could apply Nutbeam's model to it? Perhaps, perhaps not. My problem with the Nutbeam model is that it is more of a series of levels than a map towards a course of action. I never got the sense in the Nutbeam article about how it could truly be implemented (with examples, etc) and how its structure was better than what was currently being done. The biggest flaw that I see in the Nutbeam model is that I got the impression that he equates health literacy with healthy decision making, which I don't see as true. We all know that smoking and drinking are bad for us, but that doesn't necessarily stop us from doing it. Just like in the Farnham article, assumptions are made that because information or a system exists, people will use it . Instead, I think that the Russell article helps to demonstrate that people will use a system or information once a) they perceive a need and b) they see the information/system as being an easy way to meet that need.

Social presence

Whoops ... posted on wrong blog ...


In the Rettie article, she attempts to address confusing terms in regards to online presence and interaction. She creates the large category of awareness and then breaks that down into social presence and connectedness. She separates these using instant messaging as an example: in looking at a buddy list, a person may feel connected but without engagement, may not feel experience any presence. In her discussion, the author believes that this separation will help in the creation of new learning systems. My question is, when is the difference between the two important? Are there any learning situations where awareness alone is enough to enhance an experience?

In the Swan article, three different factors were found to be associated with successful online courses: a clear course that skews towards simple rather than complex, an instructor who is plugged into the course with a notable and helpful presence, and peers who usefully contribute to the online discussions. In the second study, the researchers found that verbal immediacy was able to be achieved in online courses and contributed to student learning. Taking into account these preliminary findings, as well as the attributes of social presence in Rettie, is it possible for instructors to encourage social presence by modeling behaviors that lead to verbal immediacy, or is this something that will happen organically as students adjust to working in a totally online environment?

Reputation/Trust

1. David and Pinch discuss the "6 degrees of reputation" using Amazon.com's review system as a model. Within their article they discussthe usefulness of the review system, problems they've uncovered, some users' experiences, and even drill-down to talk about why people post reviews in the first place. I found the various perspectives of the article intriguing, and it also made me reflect why I typically don't write reviews on Amazon but am perfectly willing to on other sites.

Here's my view: Amazon is to huge and unweildy to form real community. Sure there are message boards and reviews, but it covers so many products and so many people respond that I've never seen any use in it. I've found that I prefer to post other places with a much more defined (and much smaller, though still large) audience such as DVDTalk.com or CruiseCritic.com.

Given the affordances mentioned by the authors to opining online, the real question is, what signals to you that reviews/opinions have merit? The tiered system is in place, but even that must be assimilated by the user into action. For me, it comes down to patterns action. If many people say that a certain dvd player is slow to load or breaks down after a few months, I may weigh that more heavily than single complaints. Store suggestions and professional reviews are also considered because they have more to lose with a misleading reviews.

2. I think that the conclusion about Yhprum’s Law in the Resnick, Zeckhauser, Swanson, and Lockwood manuscript about eBay is fairly spot on ... eBay ratings systems can fairly simply be rigged or used maliciously, but the system tends to work decently well. Does this demonstrate that at little assurance is enough for most people to "get over" the idea of shopping/bidding online? Is a listing fee and a little bit of oversight enough to scare away most scams? I think it would be interesting to compare eBay with a free service like Craigslist which, at least according to reputation, is a haven for scam-artists and items not available on eBay such as illegal substances, prostitution, etc.

Participation/community network

1. In the McDonald article, they make the case that lurking is, depending on the context, a legitimate participatory activity within an online community if practice. I'm not sure I agree with this fully, though I guess it depends upon what we deem a lurker. Sure, they can learn plenty of stuff, I won't argue that, and from the Lee article I also won't argue that lurkers can still "participate" in the learning. McDonald seems to want to classify lurkers as people who don't participate in a particular discussion but perhaps do in others or who participate in back channel communication. I can buy that ... I obviously don't participate in every online discussion I read. However, if someone NEVER participates online, how can they be a part of an online community of practice? Is it different in real life? Does "showing up" count as participation in a physical CoP? The line I draw between the two is that participation can be singular, but for me, a CoP requires give-and-take beyond a single person.

2. I found the "day without facebook" reading amusing. The railing against feeds is an interesting argument, but obviously a failure as well as feeds are obviously still around. Do these kind of 'net boycots or petitions ever actually work? Does the presence of feeds really hurt privacy when we are talking about the fact that they share information consciously given by the user to people consciously accepted as friends? If employers, police, or anyone else wants to use that information to pass judgement, are the information users at fault or those who post the information in the first place? I see facebook like any online community ... whatever you say, post, or share will somehow always be available so it is best to be a little forward thinking AND/OR make your information as private as possible.

Friendships and relationships

1. Many of the readings (specifically Tyler) seemed to spend a lot of pages with faint praise and fault, ending with a general conclusion that the Internet is neither good or bad or that online communication can be both a positive or negative influence. I see it as the Internet has moved from a novel tool to a very ingrained part of a lot of people's everyday life. Do you think it is inherently biased to ask people to compare online with face-to-face communication (or phone to phone)? Even though the Internet is such an everyday thing to me, I still think there is a stigma associated to online things ... online shopping ... online dating ... online friends. Is the desriptor "online" a neutral word?

2. I found the Sigman Press reading interesting, especially the the information linking mortality to living alone. I'm not sure that any of the other readings truly supports that people who spend time online are more lonely or have fewer interactions ... instead, I don't think it is a balanced scale ... just because I spend time online doesn't mean that I don't spend time interacting. Do you agree with the authors that online networking may not be "social" from a biological perspective? If you thought that your online habits were leading to a potentially shorter life, would that cause you to give it up, go outside, and socialize? ;)

Notes from 2/23 Session on Blogs and Wikis

Here are my recorder's notes for the 2/23 class session. I hope you find them interesting/helpful. :)


Chris's Recording Notes from 2/23 class