Blog-a-Bing

This blog is 'retired'.

2007-02-26T07:12:00.000-08:00

Its been a few years since I last visited this blog. Quite a long time to leave one's blog unattended. Hence, I am officially retiring - albeit late - this blog. :)

Not blogging like I used to during my postgrad days in Utah State (good times!), but I still try to maintain at least one 'proper' blog these days. For those interested, the new permanent blog is at: http://www.shummerville.com/elearning/

But if one still finds interesting things to comment on old writings of mine, you are welcomed to comment or email me to start a dialogue.

About this Blog

2004-10-10T17:13:00.000-07:00

Actual Event Date: 31 Aug 2004

They are three main purposes as to why this INST 7150 Blog was set up, namely:

First purpose is for personal self-absorbtion reflection, and try to deepen understand by writing and asking the right questions.

Second purpose is for students of the INST7150 class to participate as a Group Blogger

Third purpose is that this blog aims to be a repository of insights on the following topics (see categories), even after the class has ended, in the hopes that it will serve as a quick online-learning resource.

I hope you have fun using this blog as much as I had in creating it.

Cheers,
BH

“Have you talked to your best friend recently?”

Understanding MMO - Part 2

2004-11-29T04:28:00.000-08:00

This week (wk13) , Wiley's reading requirements asks us to examine the following questions:

Are teaching and learning really done differently here than in classrooms? If so, how? If not, why?

Use general constructs in your discussion, like guidance, feedback, practice, presentation of information, timing of presentation, etc. Illustrate your points with examples from your own gaming experience.

Q: ‘When does MMO start to get boring?'

A week ago, I asked on Wiley's blog ‘When does MMO start to get boring?' And Marion posted the same question this week. Just like Marion , I was a Counter Strike (CS) buff too. But CS as a game never got too boring… because as a first shooter game, you never know when an enemy is going to cut your throat from behind… or a crazy teammate shoot you by mistake.

But I did find co-operating with other players in CS difficult. Mostly because I did not stick to a 'clan' or group. And did not foster enough trust or feel part of that group. However, I did fight teams that worked very well, and epitomizes cooperation and teamwork. With snipers (a.k.a. camper!) stationed at strategic spots , that made breaking through defenses a pain. 'fire in the hole!' via bombs or smoke grenades was the only way to get through... ah, memories! :)

I enjoyed my initial experience with lineage, but got bored soon when much boring leveling-up activity was needed before my character could progress. It did not have a clear achievable aim compared to games like AOE, Starcraft. Even CS had a simple 'save the hostages' aim for the player to achieve. In terms of hoarding property... or whatever currency that fuels the economies of MMO game, it bored me.

Unlike Mark , I did not meet mean people, but had people thinking I was 'faking' it. they felt that I knew more than I was 'acting'. I have suspected some 'weak' players in other games before, you know... those who create accounts to react havoc on the scores of other players... (*blush* I was one of them) so that your own personal score gets better. But in lineage environment, I am not sure how this can occur. Maybe someone who reads this post can respond and explain to me why?

Although I felt that the online avatars were very helpful, but unlike Kami , I got frustrated with trying to keep up with my 'peers'. Peers meaning the other thousand of players online who have managed to join a blood pledge... The NPC could only guide one so far. Unlike AOE, where I could learn to examine strategies in battle play, I found lineage more of a treasure hunt... gathering commodities and trading inventories just to get to the level where you can participate in a real joint battle. But with so much emphasis placed on gathering those odds and ends... what happens should someone release a patch that made the demon amour (that took 100 hours to assemble) suddenly become obsolete? That thought alone was a real incentive killer. In my experience with other online multi-player strategy games like AOE or starcraft, when a strategy/tactic gets too strong, it is also 'patched up'. like the infamous 'marine rush', or 'reaver drop'... so, in essence nothing escapes the threat of 'Nerfs' ( Burke, June 2002 )

Shelly had an interesting way of summing her lineage experience. Compared to her, my Schema Theory changed when I found out that death resulted in no penalties until you reach level 10. Before that, I avoided and ran away from enemies I cannot beat. Now I commit ‘suicide' just to be able to restart at starting point (ok, I still don't know how to buy a damn transportation scroll!). She says Lineage supports constructivist theories of learning. Now for Constructivism to work, does it not require some form of prior knowledge before you can make sense of the newly acquired knowledge? Before lineage, did all of us even know what orc s were? or what a scimitar is? I have my doubts… But I do agree that lineage does provide an environment where 'I am allowed to construct and negotiate meaning with other players.

This post cannot be complete without an honorable mention of ‘ John Roe '. Like Dave Wiley commented in John's blog, I concur that we find wonders in dealing with people outside of class (relatively newbies). Some sage (probably a 13 yr old) will open your horizons to 'how deep the rabbit hole goes...' in lineage. :)

Truthfully, how many of us are going to continue playing this game? If it was not for class, and grades? I am really curious… :)

Cheers,

BH

Understanding MMO - Part 1

2004-11-29T04:24:00.000-08:00

This week (wk12) , Wiley introduced to the class the world of online MMO gaming. The game reviewed is Lineage .

The aim this week (I think) is to relate how online gaming via MMO to ‘first principles' that facilitate learning. Dave ‘Elder' Merrill advocates that Learning is facilitated when:

Learners are engaged in solving real-world problems.

Existing knowledge is activated as a foundation for new knowledge.

New knowledge is demonstrated to the learner.

new knowledge is applied by the learner

New knowledge is integrated into the learner's world.

So, I tried my hand at Lineage to see if activities inherent within MMO environments could achieve these ‘first principles'. Jose has a hybrid version (MMO learning & teaching) of Merrill's 5 star instruction boarding on copyright infringement :)

My approach in doing this game as an assignment is similar to Mark Mason 's approach. i.e. ‘to experience the game as it exists with no explanations other than what I would find in the game itself.'

Recap of Adventures in Lineage

Fun with the class

• I explored HV with some of my classmates who arranged to log-on at same time. It was a nice feeling to be moving around together in a group. Ability to ask a question, and have them respond because they knew you and wanted to help was a very comforting thing. Earlier before the pre-arranged meeting, I had some frustration with the game. Granted I did NOT read the 184 page PDF which could have greatly helped, but instead wondered around and asked (shouted more likely) questions when I came into a fix.

• I had the good fortune to meet a knowledable and helpful veteran player who explained certain commands and concepts to me. He went beyond the call of duty, even giving me items for free! He brought me to the avatars that were actually disguised as online tutorials. These tutorials helped us understand better the intricacies of the game. Even Kami agreed with this.

Fun on my own

• After my fun trip with the class, I explored the lineage environment on my own for a bit.

• This time, I consulted the 184 pg PDF doc by the guides to get some sense of direction. But I still made errors. E.g. errors include: killing cows for meat was wrong. (But I like beef!)… Cost me honor points. I only realized this when passersby told me about it.

First Impressions:

• Some super-friendly individuals (remind me of myself *blush*) completely took me by surprise. How willing strangers were willing to come lead me through certain things (E.g. get a skeletal shoe to have permanent haste applied on my character. He gave me entire loads of cash and items via the trade menu for nothing in return. I was embarrassed but took his offer anyway). It was unconditional help, and it surprised me how this can take place without prerequisite trust earned…

• Later when we had time to chat, he said that he was similarly helped on the first day when he first played the game. So, he is just returning the favor. I had a jolt at this point! During my post grad at USU, I was in an exact similar position. Experience. I had some seniors (Ms Allen) who really helped show me the way and made my life easier at USU. It was strange to me why they showed so much compassion and help to me. But it made me want to return the favor to others. So, a year later, I found myself helping others in my situation. Be it student housing, school work, projects, relocating, etc. I was offering help to others much to their surprise. Some people responded warmly, others never returned a wink. Reminds me of a movie ‘play it forward' (played by Haley Joel Osment). Such a simple concept, that actually works in online gaming environments.

• The 3 different personality types was a good touch. Whether you want to be law-abiding citizen, neutral, or evil they rate you based on your style of game play.

Online character bio:

character's name: classified (secret identity!)

class, race: knight (human)

weapons: long sword, scimitar, long shield, skeleton boots (haste), bows, brave pots, healing potions, etc.

appearance: macho looking knight. Male.

Fav creature: a Diablo looking demon with flames surrounding it. (realized later that it is because the player had a full demon suit on him)

Frequency of death: uncountable

Most embarrassing death: getting killed by a wild boar.

Most honorable death: fighting bare-handed in the dungeons of HV!

Insight1: Even online, you have to obey laws (E.g. there is a price of everything, the guards within lineage are unkillable, etc.).

Insight2:‘Did you know that you could get married within lineage?' How's that for social software!

Cheers,

BH

Indiana vs. Detroit & the fans: What a fight!

2004-11-20T01:11:00.000-08:00

For those basketball fans out there... check out the latest game (http://www.nba.com/pacers/) between detriot and indiana. It was a nice game to watch... pacers played better and deserved to win. But with a few seconds left in the game, things got heated up, and Ben wallace over-reacted to a ron artest (who else?) foul by pushing him in the face. Artest walked away silently. Moments later - artest lying down - a beer came flying at him from the stands hitting him.

Next thing, artest charged into the crowd. Funny thing was, even with players from both sides restraining their team mates, the crowd would not let up... people coming from the back and continued to fight the pacer players... scene got so ugly the game was called off. It was a big fight... interesting to watch, but you feel bad for the players and the league involved. There were old people getting hurt, children getting scared (metal chairs were seen flying)... alcohol probably had something to do with the fan's behavior too... see more of it in the news.

The question I like to ask is: "what kinds of penalty/compensation is going to be mett out?"

I personally think that the players should not have to pay fines for this particular fighting incident. I am not for fighting (esp. brawls), unless you are protecting yourself or loved ones. In this particular case, some fans ran right onto the basketball court and glared fiercely at Artest. What you expect Artest to do after getting punched by several detriot fans? Of course he hit them... Besides Artest, Jermaine O'neal also landed several heavy punches on the fans. One guy was totally floored by O'neal...

Implication? Some big time law suits for these 'lucky' fans who got punched by rich NBA stars. If the court does rule in favor of the scenario i painted above... it will only invite same repercussions should brawls of this magnitude ever occur again. Won't the enterprizing sod think... "lets run down to courtside and stare at him (provoked player) in the face... have him throw the first punch and we'll be rich! Easy... money!!"

Perhaps I am biased. But hell, if I were in those situations, I would want my teammates to fight by my side. I sure as hell would jump to their defence...

Bing

'Trust me, I know what I am doing' (Hammer, S.)

2004-11-12T13:20:00.000-08:00

'Trust me, I know what I am doing' (Sledge Hammer). Back to this painful topic of trust again. My previous post on this topic talked about factors affecting internet-based reputation management systems, and how that affects cooperation in an online environment. This post will be a little less gloomy (yes, my dear readers, I finally got out of my depression! Not completely, but getting there…) and promises to be more fun. It deviates slightly by concentrating on the specifics of fake identity, purposes of deception, and importance of accountability. And something else is different too… I write this post without reading or linking a single blog posting from anyone else's blog on the topic. ‘Goes against “first principles” of blogging!” someone screams… but hey, I want to write something entirely original for a change. Will it kill my readership of two or three? I'll have blind faith in them, and will take that risk…

Title: Identity, Deception and Accountability Online

Who am I really?

‘I am the product of all the people I met in my life, and my interactions with them.' Without anonymity, my offline and online persona is essentially the same. With anonymity, I can be quite different (Carl Williams* anyone?).

*insider joke for students & staff at USU IT dept. – apologies to those who don't get it.

Fun way to learn importance of identity & accountability

In this week's readings , Dave asked ‘If people could act without accounting for their acts, how to suppose they would act?' My response to that is to go watch the two following movies.

Movie #1: ‘ Groundhog day ' (I liked the show so much, I bought it!). For the rest who are too lazy to check out the movie, or do not TRUST (eh, this post actually is related to the topic?) my recommendations, the movie basically shows a person who repeats the same cycle of each day. There is no tomorrow for Bill Murray in the movie. He just relieves everyday till it drove him crazy. Wouldn't you go nuts if everyday was exactly the same? Wouldn't you go bonkers if nothing you did (no matter how hard you tried) did not matter?

What has this got to do with anything? The realization that there is no repercussions to any of his actions meant that history of past actions no longer mattered; it was equivalent of being ‘ anonymous '. In other words, you can get away with anything, there is no accountability . It was fun to watch bill Murray turn from depressed sod, to crazed fanatic, to supervillian bank robber, and finally to the local superhero helping everyone in the town.

Movie #2: ‘ The Incredibles ' is another movie worth watching. Why is a super hero's secret identity important? In the words of Mrs. Incredible (a.k.a. elastic girl), ‘it's our only protection to lead normal lives.' (Incredible, 2004)

Come-on, a cartoon?! Hang on there… I am getting to the point. So, if anonymity can protect our dear superheroes' identity, can't they help protect our average Joe's innate desires to be superheroes, e.g. crazed-no-life-bloggers; (or super villains, e.g. Trolls) in an online environment? And still allow them to lead normal lives? Think about the people who play secondlife ( http://secondlife.com/ ) and have virtual marriages, virtual careers, virtual anything! Whether they choose to make constructive use of their time, e.g. building virtual schools and educational materials, or indulge in taboo virtual fantasies, ok… you get the picture, it's up to them. However, you will more likely appreciate the power of anonymity if you are in the latter category.

Stop and think

In what manner are identity and trust related?

If there is some legitimacy to your identity, e.g. an email with a proper domain name , or a past history of work (wikipedia does a wonderful job of tracking the edits you make as a member) it is more likely to be genuine, and more likely for people to trust you. Relating to personal experiences, when I was an intern with CED, I emailed vendors with an official someone@ntu.edu.sg account. And the same time I emailed others with a hotmail account. Needless to say, the official account was treated like a real potential customer; univeristy representative looking to license our product? Big bucks! As compared to who is this joker with the hotmail account? Is he for real?

To what degree can trust be established with anonymous or pseudonymynous individuals?

How many adults (like me) will be willing to admit reading manga & comics and writing fan fiction ? I believe that Pseudonymynous individuals can still obtain a high degree of trust. Look at fan fic . Most of the stories I read are from authors who will never reveal their identity online. I wrote an interesting and funny (but crude) story on fan fic and received 3 different feedback within next day of posting. Some writers who have become accustomed to the quality of others writers articles even suggested collaboration in writing together. Certainly a level of trust however minimal must be present for such cooperation to take place.

What is the role of accountability in creating trust?

If there is no accountability, there is no danger, and no threat of repercussions. You can get away with anything. See above comment on ‘groundhog day '. How do you create trust then? Like Jose Gomez 's comment to my earlier post ,

‘…I still not convinced that informed consumers are satisfied with blind belief. I think as consumer becomes more experienced and aware of the dangers of the internet (esp. those involving monetary transactions), we do become cynical and do not just conduct themselves on blind faith but with a critical mind…' (Gomez, 2004)

So, if you had worked well with someone for 27 times, do you expect it to go well on the 28th? Reputation built on past behaviors and rationality would tell me 'yes'. Personal experience taught me 'no'. I learnt never take anything for granted. Blind faith can only bring you so far… you never know when your 28th stumbling step is... My point is, even with accountability, there is no guarantee of creating trust. But I am still a believer, and a fool.

What are the roles of accountability and trust in facilitating cooperation?

Just earlier I mentioned how fan fic is a possible avenue where people with Pseudo-names are able to collaborate together to write a story. But with anonymous identity, I think cooperation breaks down. If you don't even know someone, how do you work with him/her? There has to be a minimal amount of accountability to show genuine interest and concern. In Donath's article, he mentioned how even an email whose account names (e.g. bing@domain) is important as the domain gives contextual clues about the reliability of the writer.

Donath ( ?, p6) expressed it best with:

‘While the name of the individual writer may be unfamiliar, often the name of the domain is not. Like notes written on letterhead, a posting submitted from a well-known site shares in its reputation: a posting about oceanography has added authority if it came from whoi.edu (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute) and a question about security breaches may seem more intriguing if it came from .mil (the U.S. military)'

So, having a respectable domain name makes a significant difference. But wait! Does it not back fire as well? Flip it around, and think from that perspective…

Quiz time: win a prize!

Q: When you post stuff and have your official domain (university, or company domain) traceable, it indirectly links you as owning the commentary. How is this a problem?

There was a real life case that occurred where a university professor who made stereotypical remarks about the gay community caused a major uproar in gay sensitive groups. The university involved lambasted him but still had to protect the instructor because he was protected under first amendment rights to free speech. But the net effect was bad press for the school, and lots of bruised egos.

~ Note: if you manage to use google or yahoo to identify the name of the instructor & university I mentioned, and email me (bbchia@cc.usu.edu) your result. If you get it right, I will give you a prize – No joke. :)

How does category deception affect our perception of others?

Hence, trolls who engage in category deception can adversely affect our impression of a social software. They are destructive mechanisms that the web will be better without. Donath (?, p 18) explains how our perception of others is not one of wholly unique individuals, but of patterns of social categories. According to him, first impressions count. These first impressions will affect how we see old acquaintances, meet new ones, and determine the degree of suspicion/trust in their motives and behaviors. Funny thing is I can actually relate donath's insight in the offline world as well as the online one. Scares the sh** out of me.

What Online multi-player games out there leverages on 'Identity, Trust and Accountability' to promote cooperation?

Game #1: Age of Empires III (a.k.a. Age of Kings)

http://aok.heavengames.com/

Personal experience in this game made me realize that I employed deception tactics when I was playing AOE II series. I had some excellent team mates whom I trusted and worked rather well with. It never occurred to me how well we worked as a team… employing the same deception tactics (e.g. during a random sorting of teams, we would arrange ahead of time to team-up, but act like strangers going into the sorting room). Player Rating meant everything then (achiever player type). You could see from the win-losses how good a player was. The higher your ratings got, the more accountable you were for your own actions. Because now there is much bigger stake at hand… Trust naturally becomes an important issue (you won 15 in a row, will you take a risky alliance with someone else whom you don't know and risk your perfect record?). You want good team mates, they want the same. Some smart (highly skilled) players would use new accounts to disrupt the records of rival players, either through sabotage or using cheat codes. So, cooperation and trust don't come easy when the stakes are raised.

Game #2: Final Fantasy XI

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml

Those players who have not earned enough respect, i.e. at least a mildly respectable level 40, will find themselves unprepared to take on the game. Because the difficulty of the game play has been raised so high, you are unable to advance by yourself in this game. You need a party of 12 to 18 people to complete, after which they'll have to split into groups of six to fight the expletive-inducing bosses (Vassar, 2004). So alliance in battle plays a big part in helping you get through the stages. Regardless of Player prerogatives (killers, explorers, achievers, etc.) have to work together to advance in the game. Chances are that if you find a good group, you want to work with them continually (sound like a PhD gathering…). Again, cooperation and trust don't come easy when the stakes are raised.

Game #3: Counter Strike

http://www.counter-strike.net/

My personal addiction to this game about 2 years ago still brings back a smile (rare thing these days). Domain names concept applies here to the ‘clans' you belong to. I was never that good at the game, but I improved quite a bit when I joined a faction, and learnt team tactics. The intense rivalries between some of these clans make a fierce but friendly competition between the groups. Veterans dispatch advice to the eager new ‘recruits', and over time, highly skilled players are invited to join different clans. Trust is not as big an issue in this game as compared to the above two, how come? One possible reason is that there is no history of past performance tagged onto a player profile. Although each session you play enables others to see your skill level through game play and ‘frag' (kill) ratio.

Leave you thinking

I conclude this post with Donath's (?, p 23) golden question: ‘How can social software (blogs, Usenet, discussion boards) be redesigned to allow for better communication of social cues?'

Cheers,

BH

Ps+ And thanks Dave, for referencing Gene Hargrove's 9 pages essay on Tom Bombadil , who made no sense to me at all. Lucky for you, I like Tolkien fan fic, or I would have really found it a waste of time.

Reference:

Donath, J. S. (year ?). Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community. Retrieved on November 12th, 2004 from source: http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html

The Incredibles -- The Official Movie Website. Retrieved on November 12th, 2004 from source: http://www.theincredibles.com/

Vassar, D (Nov, 2004) Final Fantasy XI: Chains of Promathia Review. Retrieved on November 12th, 2004 from source:

http://www.g4techtv.com/xplay/features/50206/Final_Fantasy_XI_Chains_of_Promathia_Review.html

Face Off (part 2): Pizza night

2004-11-12T01:25:00.000-08:00

Always interesting to meet the people face-to-face after interacting them for a while in an online environment. Tonight was the second meeting of the Inst 7150 group. Surprised that some people showed up despite my email warning that I will be there… perhaps they did not know? I would have posted the group pictures online, but remembered that not everyone liked to have their faces taken by me. Close call!

Found out some interesting things during the 2 hour session, namely:

Did not realize how tough it was for ‘Joe' (real name protected in case the LambdaMOO people find him and wishes to torture him again) trying out the LambdaMOO environment. Man, was he screwed big time... Joe was mocked for his education, typing ability, etc. The attacks were ruthless. As one guy described him, ‘he had the word “newbie” tattooed on his forehead.' It was strange for me, as I felt bad for him, even worse that I found his mishap funny, but at the same time I identified at some level with him, being a newbie at LambdaMOO myself.

Did not realize that people were linking to the AECT copyright committee site already within days of publications. That was a pleasant surprise. Example, having distance education guru Nathan list our AECT copyright committee blog on his blogroll was nice!

Did not know that some classmates were actually reading my ‘blog-a-bing' . I thought that I was writing to a readership of one, namely Dave . But this dude is paid to read my blogs… so I don't feel so bad subjecting him to my (at times garbage) posts. Having people who are not compelled to, come up to me and say, ‘ go read his (mine) blog… its ok. ' was priceless.

The most important thing I took away from tonight was that how a feeling of ‘no comments' can dampen even the strongest of blogging spirits (hang in there, mark ). So, next time you read someone's blog, leave a damn comment ! A bunch of us agreed that even a ‘Joe has read this post.' or ‘Joe thinks this is a shitty post.' is worth something. Simply because it tells us that we have at least a readership of one. So guys, lets practice what we preach. Hey, but if the person finds your comment invaluable or ‘ugly' and sends you a mail saying ‘leave me alone!', then be nice and stop it. If you can identify with the following scenario below, I think you are in good company.

Reading & referencing Research articles ==== [5 hours]

Reading & referencing others' blogs ======= [4 hours]

Writing own ideas for blog posting ======== [2 hours]

Editing and checking spelling errors ======== [1 hour]

Actual posting on blog =============== [.25 hours]

Seeing ‘no comments' every week ======== [Priceless]

There are some things worth wasting time on, for everything else, there's Wiley's class .

(Just kidding Dave, but you know me.)

Cheers,

BH

I don't get no RespeCt… in IRC'

2004-11-08T08:57:00.000-08:00

‘I don't get no R espeCt… in IRC'

My experience with mIRC

Set up was embarrassingly for me. I heard all about IRC before, but first time I actually took part in one. Below are some of the channels I wasted my time at:

#newbies
- Great place to start off learning about IRC. Very friendly people there. Shared neat tricks with how to do formatting & stuff… way faster to learn than reading the texts & manuals.

#philosophy
- I found many people in heated discussions here. But I did not run into wader's experience of foul commentary…

#helsing
- My current favorite manga. So I spent time looking for other fans to discuss same topics.

#cybersex
- For the less inclined, you should stay away from this channel. For those with pure academic hearts (as if!) this place will show you the dark side of IRC. ‘Beware of the dark side…' (Yoda, ?)

# singapore
- went looking to find locals. But all were concentrating on private chats nothing there.

#japan
- just a bunch of people who liked to text chat. Spent the bulk of my time sharing my experience of learning nihongo, and sharing stuff about Japanese culture.

What my classmates had to say:

Kami wrote ‘lots of folks were signing in and then out, but were not involved in conversant activity. What is that all about? Do people sign in and then immediately go to a private chat?' I was thinking the very same thing initially, then dismissed it as the norm. Also, we share the same thoughts that IRC chat was purely a venue for socialization, while LambdaMOO was more of a game where people could indulge in the game or each other.

Mark is out-doing everyone else again. Filled with lots of insights, and linked to even more resources, it's a gem of a post. I did not know that people were having virtual marriages in http://secondlife.com/ , I did not know that kids killed themselves over losing a game in EverQuest (best I ever irritated an arrogant opponent was beating him and making him cry in a chess tournament), etc. Read his blog. Just go.

Key Insight:

‘I don't get no respect' ( Rodney Dangerfield ).

In lamdamoo, there was a unique social dynamic between the relationships of the killer-achiever-socializer-explorer. There was a level of respect that came associated with your experience in using lamdamoo, as opposed to none with IRC. You had to prove yourself (even as an explorer) before the killers will think twice about taking you on.

Heather had this to say about this same thing… ‘LambdaMoo were very specific to your purpose for being there. And, for newbies, that interaction was hard. You had to prove that you could do things and know before you gained respect from others. The IRC didn't come with any notions of I'm better since I've been here more.' Glad to find people who feel the same way… :)

Conclusion:

Some people love the IRC environment, and found opportunities to work together and share insights. The synchronous nature of IRC is probably its main draw.

Personally, I dislike IRC – period. It's synchronous nature is a put off for me as I don't have the time to go and chat with these people on a regular basis. Like wader said, I prefer bulletin boards and fan fics' asynchronous nature because they let us contemplate before posting. Same reason why I had a hard time with blogging not so long ago.

Cheers,

BH

Nothing to ‘MOO' about

2004-11-06T18:21:00.000-08:00

Q: What the hell is MUDs & MOOs?

For a quick introduction to MUDs & MOOs, read pavel Curtis' article ‘ the incredible tale of lamdaMOO ' that was featured on tech TV.

For those who know what MUDs & MOOs are, I think it's worthy to mention that a stable MUD occurs when the four principle player types balance each other out (bartle, 1996). It is interesting to note that balance is not achieved in terms of equal number of each player type, but in understanding the relationships that exist between the four categories. The social dynamics that exist between them is reason enough to read the Bartle's article .

When is it not considered a MUD?

Players: When all sense of elsewhere-presence is lost, you no longer have a MUD

World: If there is no-one to tell, you don't have a MUD

Interacting: If players can't play, its not a MUD

Acting: Without depth, you have no MUD

Xin had one of the better summaries explaining the features of MUDs & MOOs. I like her take on how, ‘ the ability to create artifacts make the way people communicate with each other more living, interactive and interesting. The artifacts (rooms, trails, buildings, furniture, etc.) play an important role in mediating the interactions'.

I agree with Caixia who describes MOO as a ‘simple, text-based virtual reality where you can communicate with other friends, create something you like, and interaction with the virtual world' . She also feels that MOO emphasizes the interaction between players, while zork focuses on the interaction between player and the virtual reality.

Q: How do they differ from other social software such as blogs, newsgroup, USENET, fan fic, etc?

Caixia sees that Moo differs in 3 fundamental ways. namely: (1) creates both a “space” and a “place” for players, and (2) provides them with more affective clues and (3) synchronous interactions. Read her blog post for more details.

Personally I see Bloggers (and myself) falling under the category of ‘socialisers'. This is a group that is proud of their friendships, their contacts, and their influence (bartle, 1996).

What my other classmates had to MOO about:

John Delin did us a favor summarizing the 3 key articles this week. I agree with John that MOOs as a method to get people excited about programming is quite a stretch. I want to learn programming. Does MOO spark the flame within me? No friggin' way!

I liked Marion 's quote ‘Online there is nothing but words. No tonal variance, no comforting squeeze of the hand, and on the positive side, no slap on the face when offence is taken. There is nothing but words.' He added how in an online environment, non-verbal communication such as emoticons and abbreviations have made their way into our daily online communication. Moving onto a MOO environment, people can not only display their emotions with words, e.g. ‘I hate you', but also throw a chair at the person. They now have as Marion said, ‘objects and an environment with which to interact'.

Like Kami , I was glued to Bartle's article that described the synergetic relationship that exists between players who fall under 4 major categories. I never thought of social dynamics that existed in players who took to the different role.

Personally, I can't put myself specifically to any one particular group. In Diablo I was a player killer once, in Counter Strike & Star craft I was an achiever, in Ultima I was an explorer (had no drive to complete the game objectives, just wanted to explore), in Age of methodology, I was a socialiser & explorer (I spent more time reading on the different cultures and ‘talking' to people than actual fighting). These games are not pure MOOs but the article got me thinking how depending on the game, I switch between roles.

Q: What has this got to do with instructional design at all?

Mark 's post is post of the week. If you have no time for others' blogs catch this one for this week's topic. I liked his comparison of MUDs to board games, and especially liked his bit on ‘MUD Learning Theory and Its Application in a Classroom Environment'. In it he raised the question of ‘ What happens in a classroom when the ratio of achievers, socializers, explorers, and imposers is out of balance? And added ‘how do instructional designers first measure, and second meet the needs of different kinds of learners?'

His question got me thinking the following scenario:

Imagining that one day course management systems like blackboard and WebCT somehow incorporates the additive nature of MUDS & MOOs into their system, and also imaging that if we someday figure out a manner in which we can categorize learners (Maggie Martinez's learning orientation research is a start) & customize instructions as envisioned by mark above, have we truly reached a utopian learning environment?

Ah! What will happen to the social dynamics within an online class if you manage to suit the instructions to all your individual students' needs? Will it cause imbalance like Bartle described in his article? I wonder…

Stop & think

Check out Tappedin (http://tappedin.org/tappedin/) site. What do you think?

Cheers,

BH

Reference:

Cherny, L. (1995). THE MODAL COMPLEXITY OF SPEECH EVENTS IN A SOCIAL MUD. Retrieved on November 4th, 2004 from source: http://fragment.nl/mirror/Cherny/The_modal_complexity.txt

Bartle, R. (1996). HEARTS, CLUBS, DIAMONDS, SPADES: PLAYERS WHO SUIT MUDS. Retrieved on November 4 th , 2004 from source: http://www.MUD.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm

Don't trust me: I make use of people

2004-10-28T01:11:00.000-07:00

Slightly embarrassed to be writing a posting on trust… something I thought I knew a lot about, but was apparently wrong. But an assignment is an assignment, so here goes:

Title: Trust in online/face2face interaction, & Reputation Management Systems

Think about the popularity of fan fic, blogs, Usenet, forums, etc. for a minute. Why do you subscribe to certain writers, bloggers, Usenet newsgroups, forums? Like it or not, there is a certain level of ‘trust' you have in that medium that keeps you going back, even if you don't like that particular person's agenda (e.g. Bush or Michael More haters). So, ‘trust' in an online environment is something worthy of discussion.

Dealing with trust in an online (or in a face2face) environment boils down to past interactions with the other party. More accurately, it is the history of past interactions that gives you a better representation of that party's abilities and trust worthiness (Resnick, 2000, p2). It does not matter if we have never dealt with that person, so long as a clear history of transaction by others who had dealt with that person is made available to us.

Reputation management systems in an online environment give us this opportunity of a ‘third eye' to evaluate people based on the reviews of others who interacted with them. Resnick (2000) believes that for reputation systems to work there have to be 3 properties in place:

longevity of entities

current feedback is captured and distributed transparently

Past feedback posted to guide buyer decisions

Longevity of entities ensures that future interaction will occur. This creates expectation and adds to the belief that the reputation system works. A transparent system of past and present feedback will help others who have never dealt with him/her before to paint a picture of that person, and better gauge their credibility.

In theory, Economists will point out that in eBay's system where feedback is overwhelmingly positive, that a potential ‘lemons market' could develop, whereby some sellers can take advantage of the system of predominantly trust and good relationships to sell some poor quality products.

In practice, this is not the case. So what prevents a lemons market from developing?

Kollock (1999) likens informal online markets to the financial exchanges that happen in wall street stock markets. Basically both environments offer conditions that promote trust among buyers and sellers. The environment has to have 1) matching service, to pair off buyers and sellers; 2) method of information exchange, where past and present transactions are recorded, and distributed; 3) a clearing service, (e.g. escrow) where by transactions can be completed safely.

Stop and think

Let's suddenly bring this whole discussion to a halt, and now put it in exclusively in a Face2Face environment. What changes? … essentially nothing. Resnick (2001) points out 8 factors that affects trust in traditional exchange of goods. Caixia's blog actually retyped out these 8 factors (thanks!), and I agree with her that ‘ Reputations are more important in facilitating cooperation online than offline.' Dave wade is another supporter of this belief. However, I still fail to see how these 8 factors are related in an online environment.

What my classmates had to say…

I liked Marion's post on trust where he quoted from his own experience with his class where there was no cooperation among students and ultimately did not obtain the highest payoffs possible. It got me thinking of the following scenario:

Think about a situation in a classroom (face2face or online, it does not matter) where students are asked to peer-review each other. For those who know Prisoner's dilemma or Game theory (call them bonnie & Clyde), they will rate everyone in the class low, on the assumption that everyone else will rate each other fairly. This will result in bonnie & Clyde scoring significantly higher scores than everyone else . When high assessment stakes are on the line, what's trust got to do with anything?

Deonne's post approached it from a different angle, and asked a series of good questions to evaluate reputations in both online and offline environments, namely:

Are good reputations necessary? Rewarded?

How are reputations established?

How does reciprocity fit into the cycle?

What are the benefits of having a good reputation?

Are people honest when talking about others?

Should censorship be allowed?

I like this particular posting, probably post of the week among those I read. I agree with Deonne that in setting up online reputations like in eBay, ‘Newcomers are typically distrusted until they “prove” themselves.' It goes along with the critical mass some sellers/buyers attain after sometime where feedback becomes a norm for them, and they don't even bother to respond to negative feedback anymore.

The biggest gripe I have with offline reputations is the tricky business of eliciting feedback. Because in face2face situations we do not have the protection of the anonymity of the web. Deonne's example of students filling out class evaluation forms in the U of U is an excellent example of avoiding possible repercussions of honest feedback. And we all know how valuable those information are!

I did not really think of censorship in depth until I read her post. To me, this brings a new equation to the game. Censorship can determine what kinds of comments get posted, and who gets to post. Same thing applies to blog post & comments too.

For example, if we housed a blog system in a school, then technically all those post & comments belong to the school. Any repercussions that result from controversial post/comments will be directed to the educational institution. Who then determines what types of religious, stereotyping, political, other sensitive issues are to be considered taboo subjects? What about countries without first amendment right protection or freedom of speech? How is censorship different in those context? I do not the answers either, but like the observation Deonne raised.

Edisoabi offered some possible tools ( blogdex and Daypop ) to start researching on trust in blogging communities. Lastly, Curtis' blog beautifully uses the ‘santa-claus-principle' analogy to illustrate why eBay's system works even when people don't know how it works.

Considerations of an internet-based reputation system

What are the incentives & disincentives of providing good & bad feedback in an online environment?

Talk about blogs. You are a blogger. You want traffic. So, you read others blogs and post positive comments hoping that it will make them like you enough to read your own blog. Would you curse and swear at their blog, and say they are posting garbage even if 90% (my own biased estimate) of blogs out there are? Will you be not afraid of the repercussions out there? It's the same thing with how sellers, buyers work on eBay.

Resnick (2001) coined ‘high-courtesy-equilibrium' to explain the lack of free riders and rarity of neutral or negative feedback on eBay. eBay has created an environment that promotes people to give positive feedback, and hence spurn more transactions. The commenting system on eBay is flawed due to this biasesness, but it works.

Is one good feedback = one bad feedback? I think the challenge now is to balance the weights of the rare (but sought-after genuine negative feedback) as opposed to the avalanche of good feedback that surrounds us. Same thing goes to the post and comments in blogs/forums, etc. Closest thing I see to balancing this now is probably Slashdot . But that is for another discussion.

In a nutshell : it's not how the system works, but that its participants believe it works – even if they don't know why (Resnick, P., Zeckhauser, R., 2001). In an extreme sense, ‘Blind faith'.

Cheers,

BH

Reference:

Kollock, P. (1999). The Production of Trust in Online Mark ets. Retrieved on October 24 th , 2004 from source: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/online_trust.htm

Resnick, P. (Dec, 2000). Reputation Systems. Retrieved on October 24 th , 2004 from source: http://www.si.umich.edu/~presnick/papers/cacm00/index.html

Resnick, P., Zeckhauser, R. (2001). Trust Among Strangers in Internet Transactions: Empirical Analysis of eBay's Reputation System. Retrieved on October 24 th , 2004 from source: http://www.si.umich.edu/~presnick/papers/ebayNBER/index.html

IDEAS on sharing insights gathered at AECT@Chicago 2004

2004-10-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

As I sat in Martindale's session with Dave Wiley on blogs, I talked to Preston parker and came up with an idea of collaboration and joint ‘make use' of resources when we send students for conferences.

If we use just a blog for AECT@chicago or any other conference for that matter, it is instant news. The advantage is on the fly information updated to your Weblog. And if you are lucky, there might even be comments in your posts. The disadvantage is that readers might have to go through everything before they get the full picture.

What people want is a one page quick reference or manual on that selected topic.

Suggestion: a permanent wiki hosted by Dave, where students who attended the AECT @ Chicago conference are able to input sessions they attended. The advantage is that if you have 2 or more people attending different sessions, they are able to share the sessions they are interested, but otherwise unable to share. So the more, the merrier… Even if 2 people attended the same session, the wiki allows users to edit content they agree or disagree.

This wiki can also be scalable. One wiki titled ‘conferences'. And under that it could have ‘AECT@chicago 2004' or ‘AECT@anaheim 2003'. Or AERA ‘blah … blah…'

Would it not be cool to see the insights gathered from the USU student attendees at conferences? If you see obstacles and objections against such collaboration I am unaware of, please share your comments.

In a nutshell : it allows people (who want to share) to share insights.

Disclaimer: if you think that this is making use of people/intellectual capital of the group, it is not for you.

Cheers,

BH

actual event date: 22 October 2004

Fan fic

2004-10-17T23:53:00.000-07:00

This posting is in response to wiley's question on fan fic (see url) http://wiley.ed.usu.edu/courses/interaction-2004/week07.html

What's the big deal about fan fic?

Well for one, its spawn a movie ‘sky captain and the world of tomorrow'. You geeks know what I am talking about…

http://www.skycaptain.com/

http://www.livejournal.com/community/skycaptainslash/

Fan fic sightings

Mark mason introduced a great article called the ‘zen art of teaching ' in his recent post. But for me, Curtis has the blog post ( link ) of the week on the topic of ‘fan fic'. Read it, it's worth your time. His post introduced ‘ hypergraphia ' and it opened my eyes on how writing can be a form of self-defense and stress reliever. I never considered this approach to writing before… Personal experience has taught me to voice out my inner thoughts through writing. There is no worse feeling that being cooped up with unanswered questions and thoughts. Putting them on paper or electronic form may never get them answered, but at least it's a way of letting go. ‘Dr. Merlin's guide to fan fic ' is a fun way to warm up to fan fiction. And don't ever get into a debate on fan fiction without knowing what a ‘ Mary sue ' or ‘creativity demon' is.

Why write on fan fic?

free

easy to post

ability to get feedback (heaven forbid, fan mail?)

anonymity of the web

gathering of common interest (geeks)

fun – for those who care

weizhai correctly identified that fan fic is an inherently motivated activity. If you are not interested, you won't get hooked (e.g. Bekir). Like John said, ‘If you start assigning students to participate (much like assigning someone to be a genuine "friend" to another), you can violate the whole experience/spirit of the medium itself.'( john, 2004 )

Homework (hate it!): * if you really want to read the reviews, check on 19th Oct 2004 (Tues)

Random Fan fics I read & commented:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2099363/1/ (Harry potter: harmonie x Ron)

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2075418/1/ (hellsing: confused half-vampire Seras)

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1549182/1/ (matrix: under the gun)

Fan fic I wrote [user name: ‘gicik']

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2099535/1/ (‘dummies for vampires' self-help guide)

warning: its probably gibberish to non-fans of the hellsing anime/manga.

Fan fic & instructional technology?

Now, say your literature teacher/professor asks a female student (let's call her Shelly ) to write a story for a class assignment. E.g. ‘Charles dickens – the later years'. Shelly writes a 5000 word story and posts it on fanfic.net. Her story gets reviewed by 500 other readers, and starts to gather a following. Shelly gets intrigued in her fan base and continues to write more stories. The teacher thinks ‘what a godsend! She is writing on her own!' but at the same time she notices that shelly has stopped handing in homework assignments altogether. When asked why by the teacher, shelly responded: ‘Do I write to 500 readers or do I write for one teacher?'

When we can get students so motivated that they do work beyond the ‘call of duty' that is a good thing. Or is it? Do the 500 other 14 – 17 year old readers give equally good feedback on her literature writing and analysis than her 60 yr old professor who has a PhD in literature? This brings us to reputation management system which coincidently is our topic of discussion for week 7 at inst7150 .

Too often I see people lap up the wow factor of a few hundred reviews as a revolutionary approach to learning. Wader's blog suggested applying this fan fic approach to higher education institutions like MIT's open courseware , and have faculty peer review each other. But I don't think that works because of a variety of reasons. First, not all institutions are like MIT and openly share their content. The dirty little secret about most faculty in universities around the world is that their own course materials are probably made up of bits and pieces from other people's work. Yes, copyright and plagiarism even at the professor level. And even if there were faculty who were 100% original, would they be willing to put their work open to scrutiny to the world? there are only so many Dave wileys who don't care about image (flip-flops) and take criticisms like taking a snack… how would it look on their resume to see their course compared to another and have it look pathetically weak? How many brave faculty you know will want to take this risk? Things are never as simple as they seem.

But I am not one to say that a phenomenon like fan fic has no instructional value. Stop & think: ‘Would it not be ideal if we can leverage on the popularity of things like fan fic and apply it to learning?'

e.g. weizhai' s comment on how Fan fiction can help promote association, and prepare the students for real world problems. Although the virtual collaboration of working online is quite different from the subtleties of face to face friendship and collaboration, engaging in activities like ‘Through commenting on “plot, characterization, grammar, or spelling”, learners are engaging in a meaning exchanging and sharing process, which contributes the advancement of the community as a whole…' ( weizhai, 2004 ) is still a valuable learning experience.

Fan fic & personal development

At the end of Melissa Wilson's awesome article on ‘ Dr. Merlin's guide to fan fic ', she wrote: ‘When you receive negative feedback, don't automatically flame the sender. Read it, think about it, and decide if it has validity. Then make your own decision as to what you're going to do with your next story, because there will always be a next story. And it's going to be a great one.'( Wilson , 2004)

I find it eerie how something like fan fic can be associated to dealing with all issues pertaining to work, school and friendship? Next time, should you be so fortunate as to receive negative feedback on any of the above; don't get angry… but instead, stop and think! Only those really honest with you will be bothered to point out your problem. Decide if their criticisms have validity (they usually do), and make your own decisions as how to make amends for your mistakes.

Cheers,
BH

Mt_Naomi_overview_stitched

2004-10-17T20:56:00.000-07:00

Mt_Naomi_overview_stitched,
originally uploaded by bhchia.

Trying out flickr...

"Pig out'' at Roosters, Ogden

2004-10-14T22:09:00.000-07:00

We had a nice dinner. Dave Wiley generously paid the bill. Thank you.

Recap of some ideas shared during ‘pig out' night:

“How the heck are we going to remember what we post a month, a week from today? Suppose you post something about jib jab ( http://www.jibjab.com/ ) & copyright. Would you remember it under a category called ‘copyright', or would you remember it as ‘oh, that post I did on sept 2007...”

Shared idea 1: RSS friend or foe?

John Delin & Dave (see comments) had this to say about blogs without RSS feeds ( http://johndehlin.blogspot.com/2004/10/10-04-04-assignment-blog-hopping-blogs.html ).

"...Couldn't agree more about blogs without RSS feeds. How the heck are we supposed to follow them?? Hit reload everyday? I don't think so. "

Sorry Dave & John, I don't totally agree. See my post on RSS at http://inst7150.motime.com/category/1483 and the problems associated with your savior ... RSS.

Shared idea 2 : Give me god damn categories!

Another response to that earlier post & comment of John & Dave was that without proper categories*, how useful can your post be a week, a month, or a year down the road? How are we supposed to follow them? Read every archived month/year? I don't think so...

*( blogger.com still does not support it. If you want to spend the time to find out how, check http://spide.blogspot.com/2004/09/tips-categorize-blogger-posts.html . I have not tested this hack, but you are lucky to even have this. When I was testing it, the hacks were way worse )

At least the serious bloggers out there are using movabletype, wordpress, etc. that is robust enough to capture and catalogue the content properly, and most importantly easily. But people who post using blogger.com (like myself), I don't see any long term value in posting. Things that are not reusable, including capturing great insights and ideas on blogs like yours, is just dead weight in the internet.

In a nutshell: There is already too much information on the internet. If its not reusable/retrievable, it should not be there.

So, now I offer to the class (and anyone out there on the internet reading this) again, free admin rights to http://inst7150.motime.com/ where categories is available and dead simple to use. Its idiot proof. Only drawback is that Howard & the rest of the motime gang does not have the support of rich boys like Google. But they are dedicated. Effort and unwillingness to give up is reason enough for me to support them. In time, they can only get better.

Wiley's blog made from plone is way prettier. But for sake of ownership and assessment purposes, he can't release the development of the blog to students. If we can't play with it, we can't learn as much. The blog site I originally created was just an empty page. There are tons more features you can add. But following Wiley's painful experience of slashlearn , you should only add as many features as needed and desired by the target users.

I added things like a search function, Syndication, etc. You can add anything else. I release all control. Or if you want to group blog just for the simple reason to be able to capture your cool ideas (its yours if you post with your own motime userid), and have others comment and share insights, all you have to do is email me at benchia@singnet.com.sg and I will set you up.

In addition, I already have a site that runs on wordpress. Its also called ‘understanding online interaction' (http://www.shummerville.com/blog ). Although registration is open to all, I will give admin rights if you want to play with it. It's the same blogging platform that mark is using at http://www.virtualtheology.org/ . I hope to have it up before AECT@chicago ( http://www.aect.org/ ). So, I suggest users who want to group blog post at the motime blog for warm up, and when you get really serious, the same offer stands for wordpress.

Cheers,
BH

Inst7150 class Blog impressions so far: Marion Jensen's chicken armpits

2004-10-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

Once in a while, I get into a mood that allows me to sit through and really read through a number of blogs and play ‘catch up' with the past entries that I failed to read. So even with RSS, I still do not read all our class bloggers posts. No offence to the other class bloggers, I simply have too many in my RSS reader already.

It does not give you a good picture if you don't follow all of the blogger's post. So, I like to share with everyone, the more interesting blogs from our inst 7150 class that I try my best to follow. I will spotlight these class blogger once every few days, i.e. read all his/her earlier post and comment if applicable. Hopefully this gives you a better picture of the blogger. If I missed yours by end of the semester, there has to be a real good reason why I omitted yours. Then again, sometimes there is no reason.

I like to start with Marion Jensen's http://chickenarmpits.blogspot.com/ blog. The catchy name was an incentive. Tip: get a catchy URL.

Highlight posting: In Marion Jensen's blog entry ( http://chickenarmpits.blogspot.com/2004/10/for-what-its-worth.html ) “… I simply need more time.” highlighted how 5 hours is simply not enough to gain a broad understanding to post something of merit (I hear you matey!), especially those balancing school, family, work, and other activities. Steph en Downes ( http://www.downes.ca/ ) is an oddity (I mean it in a nice way) because he lives and dies by his blog. He is defined by his blog.

Even with technologies like RSS which brings news to me at my finger tips; it does not solve the problem of successfully joining community of bloggers under the constraints of a struggling PhD student working his way through his tuition. Thanks Marion for raising this concern.

Misc. posting:

Published a book! How many PhD students you know publish books? Congrats.

Dead link on ‘with a little help from my good friend…'

Dead links on the geocaching post ( http://chickenarmpits.blogspot.com/2004/09/geocaching.html )

On useful blogging technologies

A ‘recent comments' feature would really be useful. How many people are like me, who take a longer time to learn (I'm not smart, is that a crime?), and occasionally play ‘catch up', and still like to comment, but on posts that were done a week, or a month ago? This problem also goes both ways. If I can't read what comments appear in my blog (older posts), then why should I bother to post on other people's older blog posting if they too will never read it?

Blogging cannot be just for the super initiated bloggers. Blogging is supposed to be fun, easy and convenient. Wouldn't a ‘recent comments' function be useful? The motime blog I subscribe to is working on it, and I hope they pull it off. If anyone knows how to do this, let me know via email. If you post a comment to this post, I won't read it, because I am not accustomed to receiving comments, and don't bother to check anymore. See the problem?

Cheers,

BH

Blogging ‘in theory vs. practice'; blogging = friendship

2004-10-10T17:33:00.000-07:00

Actual Event Date: 10 Oct 2004 (Mon)

Reading Steph en Downe's Sept issue of Educause review ( link ) sparked a series of thoughts which will be the subject of this week's short article. I begin with discussing 3 key distinctions between educational blogging in theory and real life practice. Then share (with the world!) my personal new found perspective on blogging on a more human level. I.e. blogging is just like friendship.

Educational blogging: in theory

Blogs let learners get valuable feedback from peers, teachers & whoever they open their blogs to. // [see personal comments in italics below]

Blogs let students who otherwise have problems communicating in class, a common ground to voice their opinion. // [see personal comments in italics below]

Blogs let learners communicate and participate in a community of self-directed learners // [see personal comments in italics below]

Educational blogging: in practice

Blogs let learners get valuable feedback from peers, teachers & whoever they open their blogs to. // depends. Do students really post what they feel? Can they do so without fear of repercussion from other students or faculty? Grade Savvy students know exactly what values their instructor holds, and smartly posts exactly what their instructor wants to hear. Are all these ‘doctored' comments truly valuable in a student's learning experience?

Blogs let students who otherwise have problems communicating in class, a common ground to voice their opinion. // depends. An international student who is weak in the use of English or timid in sharing his personal ideas and views may still choose not to contribute to the blog.

Blogs let learners communicate and participate in a community of self-directed learners. // depends. There are bloggers who choose to read a lot more than they write (E.g. Dan Appleman ). Does a lack of active blog participation prevent one from feeling part of a community of bloggers? Conversely, does reading and occasionally commenting on a number of power blogs, automatically create a sense of community to the group blog?

The problem with Enforced educational blogging

One common fear educators who have experimented with blogging is ‘ Do students drop their blogs the moment the semester is over?' Will Richardson ( weblogg-Ed blog )'s research over the years confirms this fear. And he notes that the inherent censorship of an institution served blog will never allow the student bloggers to write with passion. Downes sums up this problem best when he asked ‘What happens when a free-flowing medium such as blogging interacts with the more restrictive domains of the education system?'

Fear of controversies

Some schools are using it, but many more are worried about the controversies that go along with blogging. Students & faculty who may be racist or stereotyping other races or religious groups can easily cause the institution they are at unnecessary bad publicity. Eric mussleman, of Indiana University Bloomington, & Harvard University and Slater's lawsuit with Diebold Election System are some of the many noted controversies. Use google if you need more examples.

What then on the posting of copyrighted content? There are more blog entries in the web than anyone can read in their lifetime. Should blogging really take off, what is to stop a new form of plagiarism in the form of copying and intelligently modifying blog posts?

In short, even with the utopian idea that surrounds the educational impact of blogging, there are still enough pitfalls surrounding blogs that keep skeptical educators at bay. Some anti-blogging faculty describes blogs as ‘a white man's vanity page'. Speaks volumes of their views on the use of blogging in education.

Blogging = Friendship

I love Downe's description on the blogging practice as not just about posting cool articles and wonderful insights. ‘No, it's not about the writing…' as Downes pointed out, but the outcome that ultimately occurs if everything else is done right.

A crazy thought hit me as I was reading his article. That is, Blogging is just like friendship . Both activities require communication to be truly successful. Can one have a decent friendship without communication? How good is a blog without readership & comments? Blogging helps students reflect on what they are thinking and carry on a conversation about topics of interest over extended period of time, and bring in other readers of similar interest. How different is that from true friendship? You share insights, hopes and dreams with those whom you connect to at a personal level; you help further each other's interest in same topic, and rope in people who connect to your group interests. Under such a comparison, it is not hard to understand why blogging is so popular.

My insight on blogs this week can be summarized below:

In a nutshell: With greater ease of use, and better understanding of best practices in blogging, the gap between the theory and practice of ‘blogging in education' will narrow. In time, building upon the mistakes we learnt from the past, educational blogging could truly become the missing link in supporting lifelong learning.

My question for this week is:

“If blogging is like friendship, under what situation or circumstances do you decide to give it up? And why?”

Cheers,

BH

“Have you talked to your best friend recently?”

Misc. information:

Time Spent on this week's assignment

• 1 hour a day, 5 days a week.

• Posting on edublogger

• 2 hour (rough total) thinking, collecting my thoughts to blog.

• Grand Total = 7 hours

Blogs part the first: observation

2004-10-10T17:32:00.000-07:00

Actual Event Date: 13 Sept 2004 (Mon)

Ever been in a situation where you were reading a magazine, newspaper, or even a webpage article that said something that was wrong, and you wished you could scream out to them the answer?

I have been in a few of these situations. My favorite example is the time I read a movie review written by an American about Hong Kong slapstick comedy movies ( Stephen Chow series), and gave it a bad rating simply because he/she did not understand the joke & the genius behind the movie. Every culture has its own distinct nuances, and taboos. For an American trying to understand and critique Asian cinema is equivalent to how Hollywood is swooning over movies like ‘crouching tiger, hidden dragon'; which to most Asian audiences is a piece of crap. Just pick any of the classic ‘kungfu' movies e.g. ‘once-upon-a-time-in-china' series, and you see a much better plot, better fight choreography (no strings!), realistic and authentic setting, dialogue, and the works.

Why am I ranting? Because with blogs, I noticed that such frustration and barriers to lack of knowledge can be removed.

This week's assignment f orc es us to look at some random blog at live Journal. So, I used some keywords and searched for Japanese Manga. Eventually I found myself introduced to a manga called ‘hellsing'. I am now part of a “hellsing" community on LiveJournal. URL: http://www.livejournal.com/community/hellsing/

Note : hellsing is a manga about vampires, monsters, filled with plots and conspiracy to destroy the world. It is a ‘bloody' (literally) cool manga. Definitely R(A), and not for the faint hearted.

The blog community that surrounds ‘hellsing' is a hotbed of information sharing. Anything from plot summaries, character analysis, torrent downloads, fan doujinshi, and self-sustained FAQs, it keeps the fans coming back for more. Some merge the blogs with discussion group postings, others with simply a static website. But a growing number of these hybrid fan/blog sites devote themselves to collecting feedback from their users.

The pattern I observed from the fans/bloggers of this community, is that they are all motivated to sharing information, and finding the ‘truth'. They will post, repost, agree and disagree, before they come to a consensus on what is the acceptable ‘truth'. No one will ever have all the right answers to everything, if he/she did then they don't belong on this planet. Having a simple to use platform like blogs that allows mutual interaction and communication to come up with the best possible solution looks to me like a great resource.

Of course, disbelievers will say that putting ‘a bunch of monkeys' together will come up with nothing. But these ‘monkeys' that choose to participate in blogs are living, breathing, subject matter experts and enthusiasts who need no external motivation to research on their interest in that topic. When you gather such a pool of enthusiast, you will start a community of knowledge among those users.

Case study:

one particular blogger (mr_mitts) has such a following that he asks his fans on what he should write about next ( link ). He posted a lengthy but excellent article ( link ) that relates how the manga author used historical content from WW2 to enrich the story line of ‘hellsing'. Enthusiasts and history buffs quickly pointed out what was accurate and inaccurate. The discussion that followed from the comments was just plain cool.

Now, relating this to real life. How difficult would it be to duplicate this exchange of views and information? The fan base here spans 1149 fans from 77 countries. Without the ease and power of modern day social software, would we be able to replicate this form of collaboration?

My insight on blogs this week can be summarized below:

In a nutshell: Blogs is such an easy way for readers to share about a topic they love, and allow feedback from others who know something that they don't yet know. Great tool for sharing information and knowledge, and building a community of learners.

My question for this week is:

“Has the culture of Blogs truly affected the culture of main stream society?”

Cheers,

BH

“Have you talked to your best friend recently?”

Misc. information: (Time Spent on this week's assignment)

• 1 hour a day, 5 days a week.

• Live journal

• 2 hour (rough total) thinking, collecting my thoughts to blog.

• Grand Total = 7 hours

Blogs part the first: observation

2004-10-10T17:27:00.001-07:00

Actual Event Date: 13 Sept 2004 (Mon)

Ever been in a situation where you were reading a magazine, newspaper, or even a webpage article that said something that was wrong, and you wished you could scream out to them the answer?

Why am I ranting? Because with blogs, I noticed that such frustration and barriers to lack of knowledge can be removed.

My insight on blogs this week can be summarized below:

My question for this week is:

“Has the culture of Blogs truly affected the culture of main stream society?”

Cheers,

BH

“Have you talked to your best friend recently?”

Misc. information: (Time Spent on this week's assignment)

• 1 hour a day, 5 days a week.

• Live journal

• 2 hour (rough total) thinking, collecting my thoughts to blog.

• Grand Total = 7 hours

Paradoxes of online congregation

2004-10-10T17:27:00.000-07:00

Actual Event Date: 20 Sept 2004 (Mon)

Spent the week thinking about why do people congregate online, and it came to my attention that there are a number of paradoxes that exists. Decide to write a ‘brief' piece on this. Below are my observations and rantings.

Paradoxes of online congregation:

Looking at NEWSNET, online forums, etc. we see that informal learning is certainly a powerful and unexplained phenomenon, but yet the bulk of the world's learning is still other-directed and other-controlled (traditional colleges, certification courses, etc.)

The more popular a NEWSNET discussion topic, the more information (not referring to spam) it gets via postings, and the harder it is to find relevant information.

The more knowledgeable you are, the less likely you will answer questions. // e.g. veteran Slashdot users will not answer those simple questions everyone can answer, but ‘reserve' themselves for those tough ones. Hence, the smarter one gets, the less likely he/she shares information.

Freire's teaching tells us that perfect knowledge will allow people to change their perspective, transcend their social environment, and break free from the oppressed cycle. // Relating back to the uncensored online forums dealing with sensitive topics ( link ), this perfect information/knowledge is technically attainable, but ironically the validity of this knowledge is weak when the contributors themselves choose to remain anonymous. Slightly related to the fight between Wiki & the Register ( link )

[follow up on above point] these people who have a lot to say in the public online forums choose to stay anonymous, while those brave enough to reveal their identity practice self-censorship.

Paradoxes of learning (at USU)

Research done by Long (1989) has shown that low degrees of pedagogical control actually aids self-directed learning. Tough (1979) followed up the research by showing that less than 1 percent of all self-directed learning projects he investigated were done for credit.

Relating this to our very own inst 7150 class ( link ), we see also such a paradox in place. Previous learning teaches us to write what our instructors want to see/hear – if you want the grade. This stifles our creativity and growth. Yes, even for a course as flexible as this one! Acting adventurous (e.g. by not following syllabus) allows us to acquire new knowledge, skills and attitude. However, this action comes at the cost of the grade. And it is the grade that ultimately reflects to the masses how well one has learnt, and is rewarded by society (e.g. scholarships, jobs, etc.). Face it, I'm screwed.

Paradoxes of learning (in Singapore )

The education system during my undergrad days required me to memorize and regurgitate information. I have a B.A. in economics and statistics, but have either forgotten what I learnt or rarely used it. The degree was just a stepping stone, or an entry prerequisite for a job interview. All that counts was that piece of paper. To make matters worse, your grades reflected on it determined if the elite company even calls you up for an interview. In government sector, those grades determine how much you get paid even. What an ugly truth.

There is a point as to why I brought up this issue. This market approach to education (at least in my country) rewards this accumulation of certificates and further promotes it. I am not all against certification. I just do not like the over emphasizing on obtaining the certificates to the point that it becomes detrimental to teaching and learning.

I cannot think of a better country that now rewards this system now than my own. Singapore students have always been teased as very exam smart, but not very good workers. Employers share stories of how young graduates (new workers to the company) who were asked to do things; requested for a text book with the model solution/answers. This group I am referring to excludes the small number of people in Kaa's law ( link ).

Do you know of people who have GPA of 4.0 but know nothing? I met a few. These are people deemed ‘scholars' by the education system, and Singapore's future rest heavily upon their shoulders. Not all scholars are bad; some are incredibly intelligent and capable. But it is when the society deems all ‘scholars' as saviors, that I see a problem. Just join any of the public forums (link) (un-moderated of course) run by Singaporeans and you see the resentment the average Singaporean student has towards the scholar reward system.

But all is not lost. A nice move the Singapore education system is going towards is pushing for ‘project works' (link). I was fortunate during my stint with CEDto witness some of the bold moves towards project works from the cedar secondary girl school (K12 equivalent) in Singapore . This example ( link ) , albeit an older one, where they use project work shows how they now bring learning beyond classrooms. Their newest examples that were presented at CED, but not shown on the website were even more promising.

This departs from the traditional memorization test in high stakes assessment exams and allows the student to work on real world problems and solve them by doing real tasks that involves real skill like collaboration with others, working on a budget, time line, etc. Although this new movement is still in infancy, I think it's a step in the right direction.

But back to my main point. The more students gravitate towards such projects, the more their grades will suffer. The paradox is that lower levels of learning are rewarded, as opposed to higher levels of learning and development.

Peter Jarvis summed it up best when he said ‘This paradox (of learning) is summed up by the contradictions of living in society: there can be no freedom without constraint, no certainty without uncertainty, no truth without falsehood, no joy without sorrow, no sense of peace without the threat of war, and so on. Above all, there can be no learning without ignorance and no growth and development without learning'. (Jarvis, 1992)

Cheers,

BH

“Have you talked to your best friend recently?”

Reference:

Jarvis, P. (1992) Paradoxes of Learning: on becoming an individual in society. San Francisco , CA : Jossey-Bass, Inc.

Tough, A. (1979) The Adult's Learning Projects (2 nd Ed.) Toronto : Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 18-19

Long, H.B. (1989) Self-Directed Learning: Emerging Theory and Practice. Norman : Research Center for Continuing Professional and Higher Education, University of Oklahoma , 8-10

Wikipedia vs. The Register

2004-10-10T17:26:00.000-07:00

Actual Event Date: 19 Sept 2004 (Sun)

Recently there has been a spade of attacks between wikipedia & the register . It got to the point where even David Wiley got sucked into the argument, and prompted him to write a letter ( link ) in response to it.

The claims & attacks from both sides ranges from immature (something I am very familiar with) to incoherent. From the onset, I am a fan of wikipedia, but I agree with detractors that it is not a panacea of all our problems. Two main points I like to make are:

Wikipedia will not make universities obsolete ( link )

Online libraries will always have an edge in ensuring validity of the content, and a superior category system in which users can find what they want. Wikipedia however serves a different purpose. It is a great ‘quick & dirty' resource tool for you to pick up information contributed from the masses (yes, that includes you too). Both have strengths and weaknesses, but both will not make each other obsolete.

“if you don't like it, fix it” ( link )

Andrew Orlowski compared wikipedia's war cry of “if you don't like it, fix it!” to being urged to liven up a boring stranger's very poorly-attended party by showing up. He added, “But why should anyone bother? There may be a good reason no one shows up in the first place”.

My response is, rather than just complain, do something about it. Be more mainstream, don't just sit there and whine. Personally, I like wikipedia's war cry of “if you don't like it, fix it!” better still, just don't use it. But don't try to undermine the work or others who basically just want to share and enjoy basic human rights ( link ).

Cheers,

BH

“Have you talked to your best friend recently?”

Do the affordances of the network actually change communication or, more broadly, sociality?

2004-10-10T17:25:00.001-07:00

Actual Event Date: 13 Sept 2004 (Mon)

In a nutshell, yes. If you just want to read a direct answer, scroll to the bottom of this post. If you want the ‘whole picture' of how I came up with this conclusion, read the whole post! Yeah, it's long – deal with it (Wiley ©).

A quick review what I was tasked ( link ) to do this past week.

=== begin assignment ===

My overall impressions of the whole newsgroup archive

I spent a number of hours surfing google groups ( rec. & soc. , etc.). And the truth of the matter is, the newsgroup archive can be mildly interesting (‘ how to hack into paypal ') to incredibly boring to me. Even when I went to groups that were talking about issues that interest me like recent movies, e.g. ‘the incredibles' ( link ), the things people talked about were boring, so I did not participate there. So, sue me.

Bored to desperation, I retracted to my comfort zone and went to local (meaning Singaporean) forums that I regularly visit. Examples of local discussion boards I read include:

http://sgezine.com.sg

http://www.mrbrown.com/

http://www.talkingcock.com

http://www.newsintercom.org

http://forums.delphiforums.com

A lot of the discussions on these forums come from Singapore heart Landers. And in the privacy of cyber space, these forums offer views, news & insights on local issues that would otherwise be impossible to find in local online news papers like Straits Time Interactive ( link ).

Sensitive topics like government policies, use of public funds, resentment of foreign talent , etc. are almost non-existent in the local mainstream news, be it broadcast on TV, hardcopy newspaper or even online editions of newspapers. What do get across are heavily censored articles cleared by editors as ‘publishable' content. A lot of the discussions deal with those that are sensitive in context.

I do participate in the forums, but I would be a fool to reveal what my identity is on THOSE forum. However, not everything there is sensitive. An example of one thread I can talk about was started by someone who was born during ‘my time' (1974 – 1980). And all he wanted was to recall back fond memories of the 1980s, but he knew he could not do it alone. So, he opened up a discussion thread with a brief description of 10 items he remembered and it sparked a wave of replies. (See #3 below)

The URL of one discussion you participated in

http://forums.delphiforums.com/sammyboymod/messages?msg=36845.45

keywords: ' For those born in 1974 to 1980' (For more details see below)

A brief summary of the discussion you participated in, and

The discussion thread I participated in talked about memories of those who were born during ‘my time' (1974 – 1980). And all the author wanted was to recall back fond memories of the 1980s, but he knew he could not do it alone. So, he opened up a discussion thread with the following sentence (see below) and it sparked a wave of replies.

‘You grew up watching He-man, MASK, Transformers, Silverhawks and Visionaries. Not forgetting, Ninja Turtles, My Little Pony and Smurfs too. ‘

Basically if the excerpt below intrigues you, you will like it. Personally, I am still a sucker for huge robots cartoons (e.g. transformers, Big-O, etc.).

It is available at URL: http://forums.delphiforums.com/sammyboymod/messages?msg=36845.45

Note: you have to sign in to be able to read. And also click through the irritating ads. But it is a small price to pay for the treasure trove of information behind it.

In summary, what one guys started with a list of 10 items he fondly recalled from the 1980s ended up adding to more than 1000+ items with 273 posting (as of this writing). The discussion brought tears to my eyes as old memories came flooding back. Nothing academic was learnt, but it was an additive 2 hours of reading. Key word: ‘addictive'

The number of hours you spent in the archive.

Spent 2 hours (hey, I am a slow learner, and yes, I am one of those freaks who read the instructional manual before using a product.) figuring how google groups work:

google groups help

basics of usenet

FAQs on google groups

Spent another 2 hours reading mindlessly through boring content.

Spent 5 hours reading local (meaning Singaporean) discussion boards of interest. Local examples of discussion boards I read include:

http://sgezine.com.sg

http://www.mrbrown.com/

http://www.talkingcock.com

http://www.newsintercom.org

http://forums.delphiforums.com

Warning: content found might be offensive, especially if you are unfamilar with singapore local culture. 18+ & above only.

=== end of assignment ===

Back to the question of ‘Do the affordances of the network actually change communication or, more broadly, sociality?'

From the examples we see, affordances in network has increase communication beyond traditional means. Through all these new social software easily available on the web, people are able to reach out to a pool of other users to solve problems, and improve communication.

Questions that creep up my mind as I thought about this week's assignment are:

‘ What is it about a public unmoderated discussion forum that makes these people (me included) participate? What is it that makes people want to share? What is it that drives them to spend hours reading and contributing to this archive of information?'

To me, if only we figure out a way in which this incredible motivation to share information and insights could be channeled into our academic learning. I learnt more about politics, economics, etc. in these informal forum setting than I would in classrooms and textbooks. E.g. I was interested in buying a certain property, so I searched via keyword for that property in mind and found hours of discussion on why it was good or bad. Replies spanned from one liners to full economic analysis (this guy probably had no life), but the point is that informal learning exists and if properly tapped can be an invaluable resource.

During the recent ITI conference at USU, an audience member asked David Wiley on his work with informal online learning community at MITOCW. The question asked was in response to Dave's proposal on replacing teacher access with a thousand other students.

Q:' Why do people want to contribute? What's the incentive you have found that these people participate ?'

A: [Wiley replies] "dunno. It's stable, it happens." *shrug*

[My opinion] Dave notices this phenomenon has been going on for ages. And does not have a reason for it. And he says this without a tinge of guilt. For all the research he pumped into creating this online community, he does not even give a summary of his findings. Worse, he does not seem to care. Very un-Wiley like, and disappointing. It is something I find worthy of researching. Be it surveys, interviews, etc. finding out what makes these people ‘tick' and why they want to help when there are no clear payoffs is important. If one solves this ‘Pandora's box' then one certainly is on the way to creating great instruction riding on the motivational drive of informal learning.

End of this week's rant.

Cheers,

BH

“Have you talked to your best friend recently?”

Blogs (tech issues)

2004-10-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

Actual Event Date: 13 Sept 2004 (Mon)

This post is to help share knowledge on how to do the following blog features on systems that by default do not have them. Each week, I will address one of the following questions, and give leads on how best to tackle each of them:

importance of RSS feeds

importance of categories

importance of search function

importance of permalinks

importance of a ‘newest comments' feature

importance of a ‘recent posts' feature

etc. (to be determined)

The list is not exhaustive, and will continually evolve to meet today's blogging needs.

1. Adding RSS Feed

Problem: This article on ‘RSS traffic burdens publishers servers ' explains why RSS isn't so hot despite its usefulness. I picked this motime blogging service instead of blogger because it loads way faster, and codes cleaner. So, the tradeoff is less stability & power, but usability and speed is more important to me now. Still Not convinced? Read ‘ Full text RSS on MSDN gets turned off '.

But for anyone who wants to subscribe to my blog, they can either click on the cute XML icon, or add the following URL: http://feeds.blogstreet.com/pub/975.rss into their RSS reader.

Solution: How did I do this? I went to blogstreet.com's RSS generator ( link ) and made my page an RSS feed in 2 clicks. Literally.

Cheers,

BH

“Have you talked to your best friend recently?”

About Myself (Bing-Howe)

2004-10-10T17:24:00.000-07:00

Actual Event Date: 10 Sept 2004

I started blogging about 6 months ago. Was first introduced to it by Dave Wiley in one of his Inst7150 class. Absolutely hated it... at first. There are many reasons why I disliked it then, but that's a different issue. However many months later, I found myself writing a paper on it (link) and to my amazement, it was not as bad as I thought. One thing led to the next, and before I knew it, I was teaching others on how to blog in educational settings (link).

Blogging was not only fun, but educational, if done the right way. So, here I am looking back at Blogging and giving it, and myself a second chance to further understand how blogging works, and find out what best practices there are in blogging.

I hope readers who find this interesting enough will join in the group blog and lend me your insights via posts and comments. I only maintain 2 blogs at present, but its quality and quantity that counts, isn't it? Look forward to seeing your posts!

cheers,

BH

Personal History on the use of Internet, & social software

2004-10-10T17:20:00.000-07:00

Actual Event Date: 13 Sept 2004

Interview session in the Dave Wiley's office

D: David Wiley [typing away on his mac, while listening to Metallica]

B: Bing-Howe [sitting crossed legs, with cigar in one hand, booze in the other]

D: So, let's begin. Tell me when did you first start using the internet?

A: back in 1994. But I stopped soon after I used it. Simply because I thought it was not cool to be following the crowd. And I did not want to be seen as a geek back then at university. I was pretty silly then.

D: Who introduced you to it?

A: actually no one. I overheard some people talk about it, and got curious to try it out. I was reading traditional newspapers then, and survived very well without computers and internet for 17 years. None of my friends were techno geeks, so I was on my own. I read about how the internet started with ARPANET, and that one of the 4 original nodes were in Utah . Little did I expect to be here 10 years later.

In USU, I learnt about blogs & wikis and ended up teaching that same topic to faculty, staff, students back home at NTU [ link to workshops@CED ]. I was surprised how far ahead in US blogging scene was compared to back home.

D: How did your skills develop after learning the existence of the Internet & social software?

A: Lots of informal learning. I took many formal training courses on web design for example, and ended up learning less than I would if I were sourcing out information myself.

I take ‘Social software' to mean any digital medium that allows people to interact with each other via the internet, regardless if they are using voice, video, text, smell, mind control, etc.

When I found email, it was just the right time in my life. Because it became a more efficient way in which I could communicate with my friends from overseas. The internet for me was 99% social. The ease of using email & MSN made staying in contact easy. But I miss receiving snail mail like post cards, and love letters. :)

Through MSN, I keep myself in contact with my closer friends. Until they find me so bothersome that they put me on their ‘block' list. It still excites me to see a familiar face through a webcam knowing that the recipient is on the other side of the globe!

D: How has the internet impacted your life, professionally and socially?

A: I learnt so much from the internet. It has become a form of addiction really. Everyday I have to check my emails, and read news through the internet.

Professionally, the internet has allowed me to work with people from different parts of the world. Even as I do my post grad at USU in Logan , I am working with people in Singapore , New York , etc. They help pay my rent, and give me invaluable working experience. Through the use of blogs, I get to read (via RSS) what my peers are doing and the latest happenings in the field. However, I maintain my own blog, not for the purpose of discussion and discourse with peers, but mostly as a self-reflection medium. But I keep comments open should anyone want to comment.

Socially, the people I know have expanded. [ See pic link ]. That pic shows my e-mail contact list sorted out according to country folders. Due to my past travel experiences, I got to know many people from different cultures, and the internet was the ‘glue' that kept us in contact. My fav story: I once received a request to help someone (whom I never knew before) from overseas via email. That person simply needed housing at Utah State University , and I did what I could to help. From there, I would never expect that person to slowly become one of my most trusted friends in life. So, the internet is pretty cool.

D: You know you are copying my style don't you? And it will cost you a grade.

A: Hey, when has grade gotten control over me? I may need credits, but knock yourself out with grading. :) Like Merrill said, ‘don't let education get in the way of your learning'

Summary

Dave asked a series of simple but intriguing questions to start off this course:

When did you first start using the internet?

Who introduced you to it?

How did your skills develop after learning the existence of the Internet & social software?

How has the internet impacted your life, professionally and socially?

As I read through this week's recommended readings on ‘ history of internet & social software ', I tried to think about how the internet affected me over the last few years. It was surprisingly difficult. The problem was that I had grown so comfortable with this internet medium that I almost forgot when it was when I started using it. Dwelling deep into my memories, I recall my junior college days (I was 17 yrs old then) back in 1994. The internet had already made a brash entrance into many of my friends' lives. But I stupidly took great pride in resisting the trend of joining the internet bandwagon. I actually thought that it was quite an achievement for me to get through university without much of internet, and relying solely on a few computer programs like MS Excel, Word, and SPSS.

Fast forward to 2000. I hit the work force, and suddenly I was thrust into a scenario where I was expected to know all the stuff on the internet. I was the young guy in the company, so they all came to me on technology issues – which were not even in my job description! Not wanting to look incompetent to my colleagues and bosses, I embarked on a crash course in IT, internet was just one of many other sub-topics.

The nature of my job allowed me to sign up for technology courses, and I took full advantage of the opportunity. However, in looking back, I see now how most of my learning was done informally. I learnt more from ‘playing around' with programs, and looking for information from the web, and asking more knowledgeable friends than any of the IT courses I attended. Maybe it was because the IT instructors were just reading from a textbook and could not answer questions beyond the scope of the text. But that was the seed from which I wanted to learn more about ‘effective instruction'.

The story of how researchers from ARPA were using ARPANET to collaborate on projects, trade notes, gossip & schmooze was the first sign of a Virtual Community of Practice (VCoP) at work. During my brief internship with CED I too noticed how colleagues were using emails and instant messaging via MSN or even hand phone sms to communicate. And they were just next door to one another!

During that time, I was also approached by a bunch of librarians to start a project to build online communities who visit their library at SP . One for professional librarians, another exclusively for students. So, I went down to SP and gave a workshop of blogs and wikis as the social software that will help them build their VCoP. Workshop went great, everyone loved it. Set up the blog for them. 1 week later, zero adoption rate. What went wrong? That's for another post later on….

But I want to close by saying that having easy to use social software does not guarantee that communication and building of a community will result. I learnt it the hard way.

Cheers,

BH

“Have you talked to your best friend recently?”

Gadamer's Truth and Method.

2004-10-10T17:19:00.000-07:00

Actual Event Date: 6 September 2004 (Mon)

I agree with Gadamer that ‘we cannot have experiences without asking questions. And that asking the ‘right' questions is more difficult that to answer them' Gadamer further describes ‘ someone who wants to know something cannot just leave it a matter of opinion, which is to say that he cannot hold himself aloof from the opinions that are in question… until the truth of what is under discussion finally emerges.' In other words, the person who seeks to understand the real truth will not accept the ‘truth' gathered from the masses, ala doxa. But instead he will seek to discuss the issue until the real truth finally emerges and accepts it.

Relating this to social software

Should one be able to follow the model proposed by Gadamer, he may be able to ask the right questions, and post it on his blog, mailing list, webpage, etc. However, I do not see any of those social software as a way to uncover such ‘truths'. Wikis on the other hand seem to be heading in the right direction. The nature in which no one has absolute control, and in which doxa has little or no bias gives the wiki a platform in which such Socratic dialogue can occur.

The majority of blogs out there on the web (check out randomly selected blogs from LiveJournal or Blogger ) are those that pose questions that ‘ engage in dialogue only to prove himself right and not to gain insight… ' We see it in the form of kitty blogs(link), where people just rant about their cats all day. I felt guilty at this point of writing, because as hard as it was for me to embrace blogging, majority of my posting ( link ) were just a self-reflection of what I did and observed. Although comments were available, I wrote the pieces without knowing what I did not know. I do not wait for a decisive answer, I just putting my thoughts on paper and post it on-line. Does that mean that blogging in terms of self-reflection is fundamentally flawed?

Time lapse between sending a letter & receiving an answer was forever changed with the introduction of email and the internet. Gadamer believes that speeding up this form of communication has led to a decline in the art of letter writing. We only have to look at oldaily site ( link ) to see the number of misspellings in his posts. So, we agree that letter writing form has deteriorated over the years, but have the ‘quality of responses' gotten better as a result of this new advancement in communication?

Dave asks, ‘ Many online classes have a mandatory comment posting requirement. This course has a mandatory question posting requirement. Just what does that mean?'

The prior inst 7150 class I attended had mandatory blog postings & commentary. It started out bad for me. Reasons on why I choose not to blog are succinctly summarized by Dan Appleman ( link ). However, since then I have learnt to blog, in fact I blog more often now without rules enforcing me, then I did during Wiley's prior inst 7150 class.

Some researchers belief that the quickest way to kill a discussion posting is to make it mandatory. They believe that compulsory posting are adverse in promoting online interaction through discussion boards. But is it really such a bad thing to have a mandatory posting requirement?

I now look to blogging as a personal reflection medium in which I can express & review my thoughts. I don't write for a specific audience (although some blogging gurus will violently oppose that belief). I do not ask questions that are undetermined, awaiting for a decisive answer. I believe that there is no one ‘right' solution to every question. Hence, I like to reflect by writing open-ended questions. From what I read in Gadamer's article, I follow none of his ‘right' way of asking questions. Does that make all my questions on self-reflection ‘weak' ones?

According to Gadamer's article, it is always ‘ more difficult to ask questions than to answer them '. What has this got to do with INST 7150's mandatory posting of blogs? Well, if Wiley still firmly believes in what Gadamer says, then he probably assumes that ‘commenting' on a blog (responding to questions) is easier than ‘posting on a blog', i.e. asking the tough questions. And that at the end of the semester there will be more comments than blog postings.

As Gulfidan ( link ) rightly pointed out, ‘Commenting' is not a course requirement of this inst 7150 course, but blog entries are. I too am curious to see the course blogging & commenting output at the end of this semester. The devil's advocate in me is going to guess that despite all of Gadamer's questioning being taught in this class, that the total number of comments in this entire 7150 course will be less than the number of blog entries (questions asked). Any takers?

Cheers,

BH

“Have you talked to your best friend recently?”