1. What is the power of a virtual community consisting of unique individuals? What are the power, capabilities, and possibilities of a virtual learning community? (TIMES magazine, Dec. 23, 2006 issue)
The virtual community is not bound by spatial or temporal boundaries. People from all over the world can join a community based on a "common sense of identity" and are no long bound by location barriers or time barriers. Eckhold believes that these communities exist in "effect but not actuality" and are "transient and recurrently emerging." Each of these people bring their own set of ideas and information to the community, thus helping it to constantly change and grow.
The power, capabilities, and possibilities of Virtual Learning Communities are limitless. They will be able to grow, expand, and develop with the ideas brought into the Communities by their members. This "new" Web 2.0 is empowering individual consumers by tapping the expertise of everyone out there to enhance products" (Time, 2006)
2. A community may be dysfunctional, troubled, dormant, dissipated and fail. Why does a community survive and develop, and why does it fail? What are the optimal conditions to sustain a community?
To stay healthy, a virtual community needs to either keep reinventing itself, which is cost and labor intensive, or it needs to assume a "stage of life" population model so that it can repopulate and replenish the "ranks of the established members who opt to leave". In other words, Virtual Communities need to constantly attract members of their audience to stay healthy.
A Virtual Community that does not bring in new members will ultimately fail. There are many reasons why people leave these communities, the main one being that their "needs" are no longer being met by the community as a whole. The Math Forum, which is a thriving Virtual Community, allows participants to interact around the services and resources that the participants generate together. These interactions contribute to a "Math" culture that encourages collaboration on problem posing and problem solving.
3. What is the design and structure of successful Virtual Community and implications for sustaining an effective Virtual Communities?
Factors that builders of virtual communities need to take into account include a focus on continued shared goals and a continuity of leadership. These Virtual Communities "promote communications between interested parties that are committed to using computers and the Internet to enhance what they know..." These communities need to stay "fluid and dynamic" which means the community must be able to change to meet the needs of it's audience.
Friday, January 29, 2010
"Time" Article Reviews
The articles I chose to read were "Citizens of the New Digital Democracy", "Your Web, Your Way", and "Time's Person of the Year: You" (reviewed in my previous blog).
"Citizens of the New Digital Democracy" - I am amazed at what people will post on the Internet. That is the subject of many conversations between myself, my husband, and my two teenage children around the dinner table: "Once on the Web, always on the Web".
I read articles and watch news casts of people whose lives have been ruined because of one misplaced photo being posted on the Internet. In this day and age where your resume is not just a piece of paper that you have carefully written to convey the best about yourself, now a perspective employer can check out your blog to decide whether or not you get the job or even whether or not you keep the job.
This brings me to the article - is everything posted on the Internet true? Am I "young and pretty, with a complicated and absolutely compelling personal life" like Lonelygirl15 or am I a 42 year old high school special education teacher? I guess that's the beauty of it. I can be whomever or whatever I choose to be in that specific moment in time, and it appears, that others "out there" care.
The article quotes one blogger as saying "You have peole from all walks of life wanting to share a piece of their life with you. The feeling of togetherness is unbeatable. It's a beautiful thing." And as to how authentic the faces on the computer screen really are? She says "I guess that's the only flaw, You can never really know the whole sidfe of the story. You just get bits and pieces. You have to put blind faith in who the person it."
"Your Web, Your Way" - The basis of this article is explaining how "Web 2.0 is all about empowering individual consumers".
The web has grown from being just an on-line dictionary or encyclopedia. It is now a place where you can "make your own film, distribute it worldwirde and find out what people think almost instantly". How is this done?
You Make It: "User generated content is revolutionizing the media landscape"
You Name It: "Users tag images, text, and produced ober 20 billion Web pages"
You Work on It: "Crowdsourcing is being used in fields ranging from photography to the sciences to dramatically cut costs"
You Find It: "Users are able to find an "endless array of obscure products in a new business model knows as the "LONG TAIL".
"The list is endless of the new "tangle of webisites" designed to help big business tap the expertise of everyone out there to enhance their products."
"Citizens of the New Digital Democracy" - I am amazed at what people will post on the Internet. That is the subject of many conversations between myself, my husband, and my two teenage children around the dinner table: "Once on the Web, always on the Web".
I read articles and watch news casts of people whose lives have been ruined because of one misplaced photo being posted on the Internet. In this day and age where your resume is not just a piece of paper that you have carefully written to convey the best about yourself, now a perspective employer can check out your blog to decide whether or not you get the job or even whether or not you keep the job.
This brings me to the article - is everything posted on the Internet true? Am I "young and pretty, with a complicated and absolutely compelling personal life" like Lonelygirl15 or am I a 42 year old high school special education teacher? I guess that's the beauty of it. I can be whomever or whatever I choose to be in that specific moment in time, and it appears, that others "out there" care.
The article quotes one blogger as saying "You have peole from all walks of life wanting to share a piece of their life with you. The feeling of togetherness is unbeatable. It's a beautiful thing." And as to how authentic the faces on the computer screen really are? She says "I guess that's the only flaw, You can never really know the whole sidfe of the story. You just get bits and pieces. You have to put blind faith in who the person it."
"Your Web, Your Way" - The basis of this article is explaining how "Web 2.0 is all about empowering individual consumers".
The web has grown from being just an on-line dictionary or encyclopedia. It is now a place where you can "make your own film, distribute it worldwirde and find out what people think almost instantly". How is this done?
You Make It: "User generated content is revolutionizing the media landscape"
You Name It: "Users tag images, text, and produced ober 20 billion Web pages"
You Work on It: "Crowdsourcing is being used in fields ranging from photography to the sciences to dramatically cut costs"
You Find It: "Users are able to find an "endless array of obscure products in a new business model knows as the "LONG TAIL".
"The list is endless of the new "tangle of webisites" designed to help big business tap the expertise of everyone out there to enhance their products."
Sunday, January 24, 2010
"Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your World."
"The history of the world is but the biography of great men."
Thomas Carlyle
TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 was you! You became the Person of the Year because "you" as individuals and as a collective "seized the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game". (Grossman, 2006).
How did "you" accomplish this feat? I'll tell you. 2006 was the year when YouTube was founded. Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, was developed, and MySpace became the new way to keep up with current friends and to make new friends online. 2006 was the year of the World Wide Web: "a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter". (Grossman, Lev, 2006) "You" made "Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded Podcasts". (Grossman, 2006). "You" created and developed a new, user friendly, social networking, news making and news reporting vehicle that brought the global community together.
Not everything that can be found on the world wide web is useful. "Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of the crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred". (Grossman, 2006)
But that being said, the World Wide Web is more like an experiment in which people have to learn to work together to "build international understanding" (Grossman, 2006).
Grossman, Lev. "Time's Person of the Year: You." TIME 25 Dec. 2006. CNN.com. Web. 24 Jan. 2010..
Thomas Carlyle
TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 was you! You became the Person of the Year because "you" as individuals and as a collective "seized the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game". (Grossman, 2006).
How did "you" accomplish this feat? I'll tell you. 2006 was the year when YouTube was founded. Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, was developed, and MySpace became the new way to keep up with current friends and to make new friends online. 2006 was the year of the World Wide Web: "a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter". (Grossman, Lev, 2006) "You" made "Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded Podcasts". (Grossman, 2006). "You" created and developed a new, user friendly, social networking, news making and news reporting vehicle that brought the global community together.
Not everything that can be found on the world wide web is useful. "Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of the crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred". (Grossman, 2006)
But that being said, the World Wide Web is more like an experiment in which people have to learn to work together to "build international understanding" (Grossman, 2006).
Grossman, Lev. "Time's Person of the Year: You." TIME 25 Dec. 2006. CNN.com. Web. 24 Jan. 2010.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
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