1. Much of what we read about for social computing and Web 2.0 talks about how it is user-driven and somewhat organic in its nature. With that in mind, is it important to make a conscious effort to include those specific tools within public education, or will those tools emerge naturally through acceptance and use? Does social computing lose something if it becomes an assignment or prescribed process and is not completely voluntary (blogs for this class, etc).
This question is one part of a question I thought of last semester in EDCI 660 when Scott tried to turn our class into a learning community or a community of practice. I spent the entire semester wondering … can communities be formed from brute force, or is it something that must just emerge because of the needs/desires of its members. Perhaps key words might be useful and effective.
2. In the reading from Six Degrees about the power grid, examples are used to demonstrate how people can become dependent on networks, such as the electric grid. This idea made me reflect on how dependent we are with the cellular network … what was once a luxury has become a necessity to many people (how will we know where/when to meet up, etc). When does a network hit critical mass such that it topples from a luxury to something you assume everyone has? In a public school classroom, we generally can’t assume that every student has a computer or internet access, but we generally assume that they all have electricity and phones. Will this be a key to these tools’ widespread use in education … when they have reached proliferation?
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