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Kaye England

Factiva - 2 views

global.factiva.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/...default.aspx

online learning collaboration forum chat project

shared by Kaye England on 10 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Novel way for using technology. By PETER LELONG, VINCE SUMMERS. 500 words31 July 2002Hobart MercuryMRCURY26English(c) 2002 Davies Brothers Limited STUDENTS in years 5 to 8 are helping to write a great online novel called Billy Bathtub. As confidence grows in the use of online learning technologies, we are seeing the range of activities made available for students continue to develop. The adventures of Billy Bathtub, supported by the Department of Education, is a topical case in point. Author Damian Morgan is currently engaged in writing a novel, online, in collaboration with Tasmanian students during second term. A teacher and writer for many years, Damian has been working with students from around the state in recent weeks. On the completion of the novel in August, Erica Wagner, a publisher with Allen & Unwin, will be editing the novel for publication. The contributions of the students who participated in developing the story will be acknowledged. The partnership of writer and editor in an online collaborative project with schools around Tasmania is certainly a new and innovative way of engaging students from years 5 to 8 in the writing process. With the completion of four drafts of chapter one completed, the author posted a number of questions on the forum to engage students to take an active part in writing the story with him. "I know this is the story of Will Reynes, but do I call him Will or do I call him I?" Morgan asks. One of the many responses which he received: "I think if the story is going to be written in the present tense it should be written in the third person, but if it is in the past tense, the first person. I personally find stories easier to read if they are written like that." The story revolves around the adventures of Will Reynes, who we first meet in chapter one as he tries to rescue his window-cleaning mother from a high-rise building, where she has become entangled in her safety harness. In chapter two, Will, is with his father in a frantic rush to the airport, to meet an important scientist who comes complete with a large ceramic elephant. Students involve themselves in the writing of the novel by submitting ideas through the Discover Education online forum. The author responds to the suggestions from the students. This interaction between author and reader in the development of a novel demonstrates a very good use of the technology. Schools can also engage in online chat sessions with the author by booking time with him over the web. Alternatively they can invite him to visit their classroom. The Discover web site provides a link to download the software, Microsoft Comic Chat, for the online chat segment of the project. Once configured this program provides a secure online environment for students to communicate with the author. The story will continue to unfold with contributions from students until the end of August. To take part visit the Discover web site at http://www.discover.tased.edu.au/ billybathtub/. Document mrcury0020020730dy7v000nc
  • Kaye England on 10 Apr 11
     
    Even though this article from The Mercury (Hobart) is nearly 9 years old, I believe that it is very interesting, and the first time that I have been aware of an online collaboration to write a children's novel. It also shows that online collaboration need not be complicated. Sometimes we overlook the simple in order to engage in the latest popular online trend or something that is seen to be technologically complex. This article shows how sometimes a simple online collaboration tool works best. The collaboration involved students from grades 5 to 8 and was coordinated by author Damian Morgan. Damian received a grant from the Tasmanian government to undertake the collaboration project. Collaboration for the project was undertaken in an online forum and through online chat sessions. Over a period of time students contributed and collaborated with Damian in order to write the novel. Collaboration can take many forms and often we don't realize that we are engaged in it, I suspect that the children in this project were having fun, learning and collaborating all at the same time and had little notion of it! It is interesting that access to the forum is still available and in fact it details the collaborative conversations between students and Damian. The forum is still available at the following URL: http://forum.education.tas.gov.au/webforum/student/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum;f=97 Final and draft versions of the novel are available at the following URL: http://odi.statelibrary.tas.gov.au/Resources/Framer.asp?URL=%2F2002%2F2%2F010%2Fdefault.htm&ID=00215534 References: Lelong, P. (2002, July 31). Novel way for using technology. The Mercury (Hobart), p. 26. Retrieved from http://global.factiva.com
  • ...2 more comments...
  • anonymous on 12 Apr 11
     
    This resource directly links to my topic of crowdsourcing as it discusses a crowdsourcing project which involved young students having the ability to write a novel in a collaborative manner. Students were part of the process of writing 'The adventures of Billy Bathtub'. The article highlights some of the key benefits of crowd sourcing: non-professionals can make important contributions. Anyone can contribute, in this case, despite their age, their input was deemed valuable. It is important to consider that this project occurred in 2002; the nature of the online context was vastly different to today, and we can see this with the design/appearance of the project's online forum. In http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/07/creative_crowdwriting Gorski (2007) explored two popular examples of collaborative novel writing using crowdsourcing. 'A million Penguins' and 'These Wicked Games' also allowed a group of people to write the novel. However unlike 'The Adventures of BillyBathtub' they did not rely on a forum, but rather wiki technology and were also very open and allowed anyone to make edits. Due to this chaotic structure, i believe 'The Adventures of Billy BathTub' was more successful because it was more controlled and restricted. 'A million Penguins' and 'These Wicked Games' faced many issues including vandalism. Many contributors were also contributing content to chapters without bothering to read what was happening in the narrative. However as stated by Jeremy Ettinghausen (publisher of 'A million Penguins') the project was mainly a experiment to see what would happen if anyone could edit and write a novel (A Million Penguins - The More the Merrier, 2007). This article suggests that collaborative narrative writing can be successful if organizers implement some degree of crowd control and impose certain restrictions to avoid chaos, spam, and vandalism.
  • anonymous on 12 Apr 11
     
    References: A Million Penguins - The More the Merrier.(2007, February 1). Retrieved from http://thepenguinblog.typepad.com/the_penguin_blog/2007/02/a_million_pengu.html Gorski, K. (September 7, 2007). Creative crowdwriting: the open book. Wired Online. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/07/creative_crowdwriting
  • Jiawen Lin on 12 Apr 11
     
    Hi Kaye, thank you for your interesting article and comments. Following is mine: This article is a good example of how people use internet to communicate and collaborate, which is similar to one of my readings: The American Pain Foundation (APF) and The HealthCentral Network Collaborate to Develop Enhanced Internet Resources for People with Pain. Both articles explain how people are connected by Internet to share ideas, gain information, and interact with each other through a website. Both websites mentioned in these two articles are open for general users, such as year 5-8 students and patients with pain, who may not have professional skills on Internet, so these websites are designed to be simple and user-friendly. Such websites let users easily focus on gaining information and collaboration without technical issues. As Kaye (2011) claims, "a simple online collaboration tool works best". In addition, this article shows the trend of using Internet to improve learning efficiency and allows communication and collaboration after school. As students' contribution will be available to view once they enter it to the website, Internet not only makes collaboration across time and geographical boundaries by global networking but also encourages students to contribute to their projects with more flexibility. Furthermore, as students normally access to Internet at home, this makes learning in a more relax and intimate environment. As Pelton (1996) mentions, online learning allows students to move from a passive learning to an active learning mode. In short, online collaboration helps student to achieve learning goals more efficiently with powerful and user-friendly features. Reference: England, K. (2011). Comment on Novel way for using technology. Retrieved from http://groups.diigo.com/group/curtin_net308 Pelton, J. N. (1996). Cyberlearning vs. the university: An irresisti
  • Kaye England on 17 Apr 11
     
    Thanks Jiawin and Cathy for your comments. It was a very interesting project wasn't it and I agree with you Cathy that one of the reasons that it was successful was probably due to the way it was controlled and organised - not like some of the examples in your readings (which were very interesting by the way). Jiawin - I read your articles too with much interest and would agree that the Internet is a powerful tool as it allows the sharing of ideas and information. Sometimes I think that people are afraid of engaging in some of these new online collaboration tools - but there is much to be gained by simply 'having a go'!! Thanks, Kaye
Bianca F

Teaching and learning online with wikis - 0 views

www.ascilite.org.au/...augar.html

collaboration teaching online wikis education

shared by Bianca F on 17 Apr 11 - Cached
  • Bianca F on 17 Apr 11
     
    Augar, Raitman and Zhou discuss the benefits of using wikis and online collaboration in teaching and learning. In this article, the authors describe what a wiki is, and how it is used. Originating from the Hawaiian word for quick, (Augar, Raitman & Zhou, 2004, p. 95.) wikis are fully editable websites where content can be edited and added by users. This can also be referred to as "open editing" (Leuf and Cunningham, 2001.) and is a great tool for online collaboration. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia of information is a popular example of a wiki. It is possible for users to edit and add to the content of Wikipedia allowing knowledge and content to come from many sources. Augar, Raitman and Zhou provide a comparison of a few different wikis and their functionality, including the ability to upload images (not all wikis support this) and their method of tracking users and their contributions to the wiki. This particular function is useful to guage participation of students in an educational sense. As Augar, Raitman and Zhou have concluded through a survey of university students at Deakin, for one particular class, 50% of students were not satisfied with the completely online learning experience (2004, p.98) and in order to foster a more positive learning environment with a higher level of satisfaction for students, an ice breaker acitivity has been employed using an onine wiki to improve participation and collaboration. The ice breaker activity took place over two weeks and required students to answer a series of questions designed to help them get to know their fellow students on a more personal level and to introduce them to how to use the wiki properly. Augar, Raitman and Zhou claim the ice breaker activity was successful is accomplishing this. References: Augar, N., Raitman, R. & Zhou, W. (2004). Teaching and learning online with wikis. In R. Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds), Beyond the comf
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  • Ran An on 17 Apr 11
     
    This paper articulates that Wikis are an excellent tool for collaboration in an online environment that any internet user can share and add content on the website. Wikis, as a useful tool, facilitate online education, which are reviewed to emphasize the features that make them became a valuable technology for teaching and learning online. This project uses a wiki to host an icebreaker exercise which aims to facilitate ongoing interaction between members of online learning groups. Some wiki projects illustrate how e-learning practitioners move beyond their comfort zone by using wikis to enhance the process of teaching and learning online. I think Wikis is a valuable online tool to improve students for participation and collaboration in an educational teaching and learning region. Its particular function is that users could add relevant information and knowledge to enrich the topic on Wikis website. However, this function also cause that the information Wikis websites are being provided with is not exactly correct enough with lacking of formal format and academic reference; therefore, I believe that Wikis is not an ideal online studying tool for those high education users. References: Augar, N., Raitman, R. & Zhou, W. (2004). Teaching and learning online with wikis. In R. Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILIT
  • Fransisca Mayang Sari on 17 Apr 11
     
    Wikis is a truly tools for online collaboration, whereas we as users would be able to visit the page we looking for, able to read it, re-organize and even update the structure or content inside, which is in other words, we would be able to collaborate each other in terms of creating one documents with contributing our thought and list out information inside. This article is one from a good example, it's really focus on how wikis can be use in terms of facilitating online education, the article itself I found it as a credible resource which is based on report from School of Information Technology, It is useful and really explaining on how wikis can be use as online education tools. By looking at the value for the project, we can use wikis as one of the online collaboration tools whenever we need to sharing contents as well as adjusting the content, hence we would be able to contribute our part equally and accessible at all times in any occasion. By relating this article with my article - which is talk about the use and features of social bookmarking site (delicious), wikis as well provides special features in terms of facilitating online collaboration which is same as delicious sites, it is useful, support communication and collaboration among users, accessible and convenient. References: Augar, N., Raitman, R. & Zhou, W. (2004). Teaching and learning online with wikis. In R. Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILIT
  • Bianca F on 17 Apr 11
     
    Augar, N., Raitman, R. & Zhou, W. (2004). Teaching and learning online with wikis. In R. Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference (pp. 95-104). Perth, 5-8 December. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/augar.html
Bianca F

The Virtual Newsroom: An International Online Collaboration between Broadcast Journalism - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

collaboration Online education

shared by Bianca F on 17 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Bianca F on 17 Apr 11
     
    Although I am not sure if a YouTube video link is alright for this assignment I felt it was a great source for the topic of online collaboration in student education and learning. Coomey envisioned an online global collaboration of journalism and broadcast students from different universities and in the year 2000 set out to accomplish this project in collaboration with other universities around the world. Many obstacles were in the way of success however, mostly technical, and highlight the evolution of online collaboration technologies. Computer access in 2000 was not as readily available as it is today in 2011, bandwidth was slow and internet connections were unreliable. Time differences between the students in their respective countries was also an issue as for this project, chat rooms were used as the main collaboration tool. Coomey ultimately says the collaboration effort was not really a collaboration as the students weren't able to work together due to these technical issues but rather they were only able to discuss their projects after the fact. Now in 2011 as most of the technological issues have been solved and also with the development of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. A new project called the Global City is now in it's maiden form and the website can be found here http://www.theglobalcity.org/. With the continuing evolution of online collaboration tools an the innovation of users we can see that many of the obstacles and boundaries once faced are slowly able to be dissolved, which opens up new opportunities and experiences to students around the globe. References: Coomey, M. (2010). The Virtual Newsroom: An International Online Collaboration between Broadcast Journalism Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPAtVVKwzPw
  • Rosanna Candler on 24 Apr 11
     
    As a journalism major having spent the last two weeks working 9am to 6pm newsroom shifts to produce our newspaper's first edition for 2011, I find myself particularly drawn to this topic. Putting aside its unreliable air-conditioning and sticky keyboards, the short tempers of sleep-deprived students and the threat of vitamin D deficiency...working in the newsroom proved to be one of the most socially creative and genuinely rewarding environments I have experienced. And I can say with certainty- it wouldn't have been the same online. I am an enthusiastic advocate for the news media to embrace the online sphere and enable its consumer to "archive, annotate, appropriate and recirculate media content in powerful new ways" (Jenkins, 2004). The convergence of news online presents an exciting opportunity for audiences to interact with the news in "increasingly participatory" (Dueze, 2007) ways such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube (Coomey, 2011). There are noticeable positives to an online newsroom: reporters can publish their work immediately and from anywhere, the capacity for international voices, and not having to rent office space or purchase on-site equipment. According to a 2005 survey into the roles of journalists in online newsrooms (Magee, 2005), organisations expect their journalists to multi-task- writing, producing multimedia, and publishing their work- an overload which may dilute the quality of the product. A traditional newsroom has its journalists physically and mentally there, and the atmosphere is intoxicating. It's noisy, you bump into people, and there's always someone microwaving Chinese food. You don't need to wait for someone to come online to reply, or get tripped up by faulty programs and Internet connection. It's a hive of imagination and collaboration. Someone will walk past and offer their suggestions on a better layout, people call out for a headline or editing suggestion, others showing photographers and
Kristy Long

No collaboration without communications - 7 views

www.steptwo.com.au/...index.html

intranet; collaboration; communication; organisation

shared by Kristy Long on 10 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Kristy Long on 10 Apr 11
     
    While web 2.0 technologies have been around for awhile now, many organisations are still in an experimental phase. There are all too often rare wins and rare examples of it being used correctly to fulfil a strong business need or solve a business problem. This article argues that organisational collaborative tools such as social intranets etc will not be embraced or used to their full potential if employees do not already communicate with each other - i.e. have a structure, management style or physical layout that supports them to communicate. As the article states, "The existence of collaborative tools does not automatically imply that people will collaborate or collaborate effectively." (A. Broomhall, 2009) This makes sense. In a working and professional environment, most staff are more guarded in their communication (depending on the culture of the organisation of course) and less reluctant to use collaborative tools like they might as strangers on the World Wide Web. If the fundamentals of communication are working well in an organisation and already exist (ie. people have met face to face, have already established communities, have trusted relationships where they share information) they are then more likely to collaborate online. There are several intranet features which can be used to strengthen these communication paths and employee relationships: - staff directory - news channels - social news sites. It is these types of technologies (available on most intranets) which can help encourage the development of communication networks, and in turn support the use of collaborative tools. Reference: Broomhall, A (2009) No collaboration without communications Retrieved from http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cmb_nocollaboration/index.html
  • ...4 more comments...
  • Kaye England on 11 Apr 11
     
    This was a very thought-provoking article and I was especially interested in how the author stated "The existence of collaborative tools does not automatically imply that people will collaborate or collaborate effectively" (Broomhall, 2009, para. 5). In one of the articles that I posted on wikis in education by Deters, Cuthrell, & Stapleton, J. (2010) they noted that without proper preparation of students and specific guidelines that the success of the wiki would be in doubt. I believe that this can be related to this article by Broomhall. Without proper preparation and planning online collaboration can fall flat and fail. I don't fully agree with Broomhall (2009, para.6) when she says "It is a simple concept, but if people are not already communicating with each other, then there is little chance they will feel comfortable enough to share their knowledge online." I believe that there are many instances where online collaboration between strangers can take place most effectively (not least of which is this exercise in learning on DIIGO!). Waltonen-Moore, Stuart, Newton, Oswald & Veronis (2006) concluded in their study on an online learning environment that it is possible for virtual strangers to collaborate and successfully complete their work. I would agree that it comes down to good planning, facilitation and monitoring of any online collaborative environment in order to make it successful. References: Broomhall, A (2009) No collaboration without communications Retrieved from http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cmb_nocollaboration/index.html Deters, F., Cuthrell, K. & Stapleton, J. (2010). Why Wikis? Student Perceptions of Using Wikis in Online Coursework . Journal of Online Teaching and Learning 6(1). Retrieved from http://jolt.me
  • anonymous on 15 Apr 11
     
    This article by Broomhall (2009) also explores the notion that, simply implementing collaborative software into an organisation does not necessarily mean that it will be used. Collaborative tools like wikis may seem easy to use by those that use wikis like Wikipedia, although it does not mean that everyone within the organisation will have the confidence or skills to use the wiki or understand the purpose of using the wiki for collaboration or communication within the organisation. This article is a small and easily understood article that is relevant to explain the main issues that may arise in an organisation that is using collaborative tools like wikis in content management and communication. This article compliments the articles like Clarke's article (2007) "Collaborative authorship with Atlassian Confluence" and Stackpole's article (2008) "Wikis that work: Four IT departments get it right" about wikis as it ensures, that when implementing a wiki the organisation understands the importance of ensuring that "the basics of communication are established" (Broomhall, 2009) and that "staff share a common understanding of the organisation, its functions, organisational structure and its role in the broader industry" (Broomhall, 2009). Staff that have an understanding of the role of the company will be more likely to understand how open collaboration can assist the organisation and how their use, can assist in creating communication between other departments and staff from other locations, thus breaking down silos that may exist and enable the promotion of a sharing culture within the organisation. References: Broomhall, A (2009) No collaboration without communications Retrieved from http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cmb_nocollaboration/index.html
  • anonymous on 15 Apr 11
     
    References: Clarke, R. (2007). Collaborative Authorship with Atlassian Confluence. GlinTech. Retrieved from http://www.glintech.com/downloads/Collaborative%20Authorship%20with%20Atlassian%20ConflueCon.pdf Stackpole, B. (2008). Wikis that work: Four IT departments get it right. Computer World: the voice of IT management Retrieved 13 April, 2011, from http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9118878/Wikis_that_work_Four_IT_departmdepa_get_it_right
  • Shan Shan Cheung on 17 Apr 11
     
    Thanks Kristy for your article. When we talk about collaborations tools in organisations, we pay more attention on the collaboration tools more than human factor. What I found in my articles are focus on tools. My comments think about how to choose appropriate tools, how to develop and manage tools. However, we should not ignore the origin of knowledge sharing. It is base on people's communication. I agree with Broomhall (2009), if people are not already communicate with other, they do not feel comfortable share the knowledge online. It is like we do not borrow our money to stranger. Therefore, collaboration tools should work as communication tools at the same time. Tools are something which need human's practice, especially collaboration tools. If no one uses collaboration tools, we cannot see any collaborative activities inside. Tools are not collaboration tools anymore. Broomhall (2009) noted some channel of communication, such as intranet, staff directory. The channel which I am interested is social site. Social site is not a communication channel. I found that in my research is informal sharing place an important role in organisations. Organisations not only benefit from formal records or information. They can get more benefit from informal channel. Informal sharing should be part of collaboration tools have to concern. Reference: Broomhall, A (2009) No collaboration without communications Retrieved from http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cmb_nocollaboration/index.html
  • Bianca F on 17 Apr 11
     
    Thanks for providing this article, Kristy. I agree with Broomhall that just because collaboration tools have been put in place, it does not guarantee that these tools will be utilised or even used in the manner in which they were intended. However I also don't agree that "if people are not already communicating with each other, then there is little chance they will feel comfortable enough to share their knowledge online." (Broomhall, 2009.) I think that Net 308's Blackboard discussion forums, although not extremely lively, are an example of strangers communicating with each other and sharing knowledge. Successful forums and even groups on Flickr are comprised of those that have not met in real life nor communicated with each other prior to utilising the collaboration tool they are part of. Although I will agree that successful collaboration required the right collaboration tool and proper facilitation of such, the main factor in success or failure of online collaboration comes down to common purpose or interest. Without that fundamental element, at least at the beginning, I believe success to be far fetched and difficult to achieve. I agree that a staff directory would aid in the success of collaboration in the organisation Broomhall refers to in this article. I feel that an ice breaker activity as outlined by Augar, Raitman and Zhou (2004.) of sorts would also benefit. References: Broomhall, A (2009) No collaboration without communications Retrieved from http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cmb_nocollaboration/index.html Augar, N., Raitman, R. & Zhou, W. (2004). Teaching and learning online with wikis. In R. Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference (pp. 95-104). Perth, 5-8 December. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/augar.html
  • Elin Frustol on 17 Apr 11
     
    This is an interesting article that brings up some great points on the importance of communication regarding collaboration. I totally agree with the author, communication within an organisation is vital in order to collaborate effectively. The main problem companies experience when implementing online collaboration tools, is the objections many employees have when introduced to these new tools (Foster, 2009). Fear, uncertainty, resistance and concerns are some of the issues companies have to deal with as employees are asked to go from being a passive consumer of online information to becoming a creator of content by posting discussions, comments etc. that anyone can view. Foster (2009) suggests that businesses should spend more time thinking about the impact of these changes on their employees. In order to deal with the different issues employees may have, Foster suggests organisational change management. Like Broomhall, Foster (2009) highlights communication as the common element whether the change is coming from the top of the organization or from the bottom. The article is a useful resource for this project as it focuses on the importance of communication when organisations are implementing collaborative tools. Broomhall (2009) argues that employees need information about internal changes and external influences which may impact their daily work. As Broomhall points out, the existence of collaborative tools does not automatically imply that people will collaborate. References Broomhall, A. (2009). No Collaboration without Communications. Retrieved from http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cmb_nocollaboration/index.html Foster, D. (2009). Collaboration Technology and Organisational Change. Retrieved from http://gigaom.com/collaboration/collaboration-technologies-and-organizational-change/
Samantha Clews

High Schoolers Attend College in 'Second Life' - 1 views

proquest.umi.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/pqdweb

education online learning collaboration students distance

shared by Samantha Clews on 13 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Samantha Clews on 13 Apr 11
     
    East North Carolina University (ECU) has used the virtual reality game "Second Life" as an education tool for those students who are still in highschool. The college has set up courses through Second Life in which teenagers can have access to as they are physically unable to attend. The article states that one main reason for this type of route is the lack of funding for early-college programs. The site gives a cost effective alternative yet still allows students to engage as though in a real classroom. An article by Dorothy Lepkowska. Which was featured in The Guardian, talks about the site as a means to educate teachers as well. She states "Second Life is an immersive 3D tool and learning environment, so it allows us to present things as we would if we were all in the room. We can take questions, show video clips and the participants can interact with each other but without all the time constraints and costs involved," Again the issue of cost is something that is pushing institutions in this direction. According to a Wire Feed, by Targeted News Service the University of Hawaii has also created their own island within second life. Their university building has been made to look exactly like their school, however they have been able to add extra learning areas than they could in real life. The main point of the article is the fact that Second Life allows those students to participate in a class like environment even if they cant physically attend. This brings me to an article by Mark Blakenship (2011) in which he talks about students being taken to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (a new addition to Second Life). He states "students can join in the digital Globe and get an interactive sense of what it was like see a play there. Inside Second life, Fiebig (the professor) also has students "perform" plays by typing their lines into the game's chat function." It is argued that perhaps students prefer this as the thought of talking in class frightens them, yet th
  • Sheila Bonsu on 17 Apr 11
     
    This article is a great example of online community collaboration, reality meeting the virtual world. There are several reasons for the University employing the use of Second Life technology. The reasons stated by the article were the lack of funds and infrastructure. Collaboration tools must all means provide flexibility when real life fails to do so as demonstrated by the article. The only doubt I have with online learning through Second Life is whether the students are more or less engaged in comparison to on-campus students. As pointed out in the Qualitative findings of students' perception on practice of self-regulated strategies in online community discussion journal article, some students in Malaysia for example regarded the use of the Internet as a distraction to learning, and preferred the more familiar didactic learning environment (Vighnarajah, Wong, & Bakara, 2009). One of the key findings of the study was that student users who were familiar with the Internet found it rather distracting to continue learning once they were online (Vighnarajah et al., 2009). With Second Life as the means to collaborate a community of students for this High School, I wonder if the technology is sufficient considering the environment of this particular online collaborating platform. I also wonder if Second Life as a tool is appropriate for students. My topic is on Organisations and online collaborations and I want to touch base on where online collaboration succeeds. Online collaboration is good for businesses or organisations when participation is often measured by contribution and outcome of a certain task. The same cannot be said for students learning online through Second Life. Reference: Vighnarajah, Wong, S. L., & Bakara, K. A. (2009). Qualitative findings of students' perception on practice of self-regulated strategies in online community discussion. Computers & Education, 53(1), 9. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com.d
  • Fransisca Mayang Sari on 17 Apr 11
     
    This article is taken from credible source such as compilation articles based on Proquest - Curtin University library. The main topic of this article is that, Second Life as a cyber world which launced in 2003, is a free client program that enables users to have interaction among one another in form of virtual bodies along with avatars. Specifically this article highlighting on how virtual world is part of online education, where there is a virtual college that designed by combine the convenience of online education along with the atmosphere of a college classroom in 3D version. By relating to my own topic, which is talk about the use as well as features of social bookmarking site (delicious), the virtual world or in here especially Second Life as well provides specific features in order to facilitate the online education, it provides 3D experience which help the users as student to stimulate their experiences and transferring online education in the forms of digital. For examples one of the features in here is when student able to attending their classes, as for the value for the articles itself, it is useful and shows that there a great range of way on how people can use games and social sites merely not just for entertainment but as well as education. References: High Schoolers Attend College in Second Life. (2011). Retrieved April 17, 2011, from http://proquest.umi.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/pqdweb?index=10&did=2253249221&SrchMode=1&sid=14&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1302676765&clientId=22212
peter stanier

The Obama Campaign: How the enthusiasm of supporters created a Political revolution - 3 views

www.wired.com/...propelled-by-in

Politics Online collaboration Supporters Revolution

shared by peter stanier on 14 Apr 11 - Cached
  • peter stanier on 17 Apr 11
     
    Highlighted throughout this wire piece is the principal idea that the collaboration of online political supporters of the Obama campaign did not happen randomly, rather as Benko (2008) notes there was a "clear vision" behind the strategies used to empower, encourage and promote this activism. While this article takes a more statistical approach the vast success that the campaign had in translating online collaboration into an offline political movement is demonstrated as over 150,000 campaign related events were organized through online communities, and in the last week of the campaign online volunteers were asked to make over a million phone calls encouraging others to vote. A key strength of this source is the lack of political ideology or motive present. As a news piece it offers factual and well supported observations and comparisons as to how this online collaboration evolved. This is documented when noting the crucial role that this organized campaign played in generating financial muscle for the candidate, Obama himself noting "that it was the working men and women" who helped to obtain over $600 million most of which was donated online. The Obama campaign employed the right people in Rospars, Hughes an Goldstein (2009) to exploit the potential Youth, grassroots and hard - to-reach voters with an online political strategy they helped to not only involve them in this revolutionary online collaboration but to also give them a feeling of political empowerment. This reliable source is therefore key in documenting how the Obama campaign skillfully executed an online strategy to maximize group collaboration. Offering not only a balanced and factual observation as to how the internet empowered and mobilized the ordinary citizen thus revolutionizing the political scene of the western world, but also crucially that with this campaign there was a clear bridge that activism online can result in political involvement and ultimately change offline. Refer
  • Rosanna Candler on 24 Apr 11
     
    It is important to remember that, although Obama cleverly attached the Internet to his campaign, a combination of factors contributed to his 52 per cent (Stirland, 2008) majority: A compelling and humanising personal narrative, stellar oratory skills, and that "the moment was perfect for his message of 'change'" (Norquay, 2007). Obama's candidacy was a consciously planned and executed national movement that "lent itself to mass mobilisation among that very portion of the population that is the most new media friendly and tech-savvy, the younger demographic" (Norquay, 2007). The youth not only engaged in the web pages and online action groups produced by the Obama campaign, they took it upon themselves to create their own media content; such as the 'Yes We Can' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY, 2008) celebrity-driven music video which reached Youtube notoriety, or the portrait graphic a supporter produced later going on to be assimilated into the official promotion. This content-creation parallels my topic on Middle East revolutions, through activist's construction of uniform slogans, signs and imagery (McHugh, 2011). This article concludes with the prediction that Obama's "rise to the presidency will be studied for years to come as the textbook example of a new kind of electioneering driven by people and technology" (Stirland, 2008), and- to a less successful extent- this was realised in the Kevin07 campaign, in which "Kevin Rudd launched his campaign to online publicity buzz- turning to blogging, Youtube and Facebook" (Best, 2007). The Obama Campaign speaks volumes on trends towards the democratic possibilities of technology; but dystopian thought suggests that "people go online to find out more about a subject, not to be politically transformed" (Lievrouw & Livingstone, 2002). Even though a 2000 ULCA study (Kahn & Keller, 2004) showed only 29.7% of users felt the internet led to people having greater pow
Samantha Clews

Using a Wiki to Enhance Cooperative Learning in a Real Analysis Course - 4 views

proquest.umi.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/pqdweb

collaboration education learning students Wiki

shared by Samantha Clews on 14 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Samantha Clews on 14 Apr 11
     
    This is an analytical article in which the writer, Elisha Peterson, discusses the use of Wiki's in her mathmatical undergraduate course. The wiki-based software, wikidot, allowed her students to post questions as well as work collaboratively on assignments. In the article the author outlines the ways in which the wiki was specifically helpful for her class. She believes that it helped to improve participation by her students. This nturn helped students to feel more at ease when they saw what other students assignments were about. She also talks about their collaborative glossary of terms, in which each student had to post two definitions. She found that because of the collaborative nature, the students posted more than the required. It was also interesting to note that students were able to comment and correct other students work, which in turn ensured they werent studying the wrong material. However it seems that what was the most important for her class was the the compatibility wikidot had with their typesetting tool LaTeX. This made typing out mathematical equations an ease instead of students having to scan written material to the site. it seems that another positive of the site is the fact that it shows the logged time of each student, and therefore shows how much time they spent online either merely reading or perhaps editing (and what they edited was shown as well). I feel the most important part of her analysis is the feedback from her students. When examining the feedback it was obvious to see that many students believed that the online collaboration helped them when it came to studying for exams. I believe this would be a great way to get help from other students; you are able to address your question to a whole group of people instead of just one person (the teacher) this way students will get answers much quicker. It seems that the only issue behind the use of a wiki is the fact that students are unable to edit a page at the same time, however it s
  • Emily Murphy on 15 Apr 11
     
    Online collaboration has already proved its worth in software production and in the business models of various websites and organisations (eg. Wikipedia). This article provides a good example of how online collaboration can be worthy of inclusion into course material. In this example, students in the author's maths class benefited from extending their small community into an online space because students could correct each other's glossary entries and gain guidance by looking at other students' projects online. While it would have been possible for these students to collaborate offline as well, I found it interesting that various properties of the Internet seemingly made online collaboration easier than offline collaboration. For example, students could access the Wikidot page even outside of class time. Built-in features of the wiki such as forums, syntax for 'definition lists', hyperlinks, and LaTeX further assisted communication online. Having completed units involving the use of online collaboration tools (including Wikidot), I've observed that the usefulness of online tools is inevitably limited by how many students actually participate. While Ye and Kishida (2003) postulate that a 'community of practice' motivates participants to learn through participation, I would theorise that the allocation of marks to collaborative tasks is the most effective motivation for students to participate. Indeed, the author finds that tasks to which marks are allocated had excellent participation rates, while the forum, for which use was not compulsory, was used by only a few students. References: Ye, Y. & Kishida, K. (2003). Toward an Understanding of the Motivation of Open Source Software Developers. Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Software Engineering. Accessed April 15, 2011, from http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=776867
  • Bianca F on 17 Apr 11
     
    This article discusses the author, Elishia Peterson's experience in creating and maintaining a wiki for her mathematics students to use during their semester. Peterson describes the tasks and activities she assigned the students in order to utilise the online collaboration tool that is Wikidot and was satisfied with the level of student involvement. (2009). Peterson is also forthcoming in any negatives and shortfalls she experienced during the course of the semester period, including the issue of more than one person working on the page at a time (which locks the other out and they are thus required to wait their 'turn') and that having to learn how to use the Wiki properly also took up a little extra time. Despite these minor issues, Peterson explains that the wiki created a more "streamlined student - instructor" relationship and that the communication kept the students engaged. The ability to post course material and answer questions on the wiki, along with the activities assigned to the students, created an environment where the students were able to work together. Peterson does mention that the use of the discussion board may have further enhanced the experience for her students but she found the board largely ignored perhaps as there was no grade requirement to utilise that specific tool. This reminds me of Broomhall's (2009) observation that just because a collaboration tool is available, does not mean it will be used. References: Broomhall, A (2009) No collaboration without communications Retrieved from http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cmb_nocollaboration/index.html Peterson, E.. (2009). Using a Wiki to Enhance Cooperative Learning in a Real Analysis Course. Primus : Problems, Resources, and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies, 19(1), 18-28. Retrieved April 17, 2011, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1642644011). Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/pqdweb?index=1&did=1642644011&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=4&VI
Mandy Burke

Four Trends in Enterprise Video Conferencing - 5 views

www.readwriteweb.com/...erprise-video-conferencing.php

collaboration online net308 videoconferencing business organisation employees smartphones mobile

shared by Mandy Burke on 12 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Mandy Burke on 12 Apr 11
     
    Due to the global financial crisis, companies globally have been finding ways to cut costs. Instead of staff travelling to attend meetings, businesses rely on methods such as video conferencing to assist in facilitating meetings with geographically dispersed teams. This article published on the technology blogging site Read Write Web discusses four main trends in regards to video conferencing. The four trends stated are consumerisation, mobility, interoperability and providing a social layer. Mobility and the social layer are interesting trends when thinking about collaboration via video conferencing. Smartphones being released are beginning to include video conferencing as a standard functionality. Through the use of smart phones, mobility allows team members to participate and collaborate whilst on the move. It unshackles team members from the restraints of being restricted to an office. For team members that travel regularly being able to videoconference from hotel rooms or other offices through their smart phone provides them with flexibility previously not seen. Social layers being added to software is becoming the norm (Flinley, 2010). The social layer extends video conferencing beyond just audio and video. By adding social layers to videoconferencing software, users are able to communicate in the one location rather than utilising multiple platforms. A social layer provides "social networking, instant messaging, voice and video into one system" also including the ability to share files. By encapsulating all means of communication in the one destination, team members save time and recording communication becomes easier. References: Finley, K. (2010). Four Trends in Enterprise Video Conferencing. Read Write Web. Retrieved on 12 April 2011 from http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2010/10/trends-in-enterprise-video-conferencing.php
  • ...4 more comments...
  • Kaye England on 12 Apr 11
     
    I was interested in this article not only from a business perspective but also from an educational perspective. Video conferencing is something that we would like to use in the presentation of information literacy classes to off campus students in our library. The four trends that Finley (2010) discussed that of consumerization, mobility, interoperability and social layer are trends that will see video conferencing used much more in both business and educational settings (as well as for personal use of course!). Giesbers, Rienties, Gijselaers, Segers & Templeaar (2009) present an interesting case study of two virtual teams. One of the teams used video conferencing and the other team used online forums for their project work. The conclusion of this study was that there were no perceived advantages in the group that used videoconferencing. The debate then became about the advantages and disadvantages of asynchronous and synchronous communication. I for one am a reflective thinker - I like to be able to think things through and respond in my own time - so asynchronous communication suits me well. Synchronous communication such as videoconferencing can put more pressure on people to respond immediately. The key component in the videoconference group that stood out though, was the difference in leadership. It was more obvious in that group who the leader was and that seemed to make a difference to the group. Suduc, Bizoi, Filip (2009), conclude in their study that web conferencing requires much more leadership and organisation than other forms of collaboration. However, with that in place they say that there are many advantages to this type of collaboration, including, cost, time saving, reduction in travel and facility costs, improvement of decision making and communication. I definitely think that video conferencing will become more and more immersed in our day-to-day business and educational functions in the days to come. References: Finley, K. (201
  • Jiawen Lin on 16 Apr 11
     
    This article introduces some video conferencing applications, such as Cisco, Skype, Nefsis Basic, BlackBerry Playbook, and Google Voice, and shows how they are used as collaboration tools in enterprises. Burke (2011) summarizes that the use of such tools helps to establish instant communication, save travelling time, and cut business cost. One of my selected articles, iManage Unveils the First Multi-Platform Collaborative Content Management Suite, announces a new Internet content management application suit called iManage WorkSite MP which is an online collaboration tool as well. Both video conferencing tools and Internet content management applications are network-based, so users' contributions will be available instantly, and shared information can be distributed globally. Both of them aim at improving business efficiency, reducing cost and resource, and finally developing organisational service and product quality. While video conferencing tools focus on communication by audio and video, Internet content management applications, such as iManage WorkSite, has more to do with information management, such as text, image, and spreadsheets. It can be said that online collaboration tools can facilitate meetings among team members geographically, provide access to shared knowledge and ideas, and manage organisational information effectively. I argue that the combination of both video conferencing and content management tools can offer a comprehensive service to an organisation to compete in the global economy. As Fedorowicz, Laso-Ballesteros, and Padilla-Melendez (2008) state, the development of online collaboration "will facilitate multidisciplinary innovation and reduce barriers and inefficiencies among people working together"(p.1). Reference: Fedorowicz, J., Laso-Ballesteros, I., & Padilla-Melendez, A. (2008). Creativity, Innovation and E-Collaboration. International Journal of E-Collaboration, 4(4). Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com.
  • Samantha Clews on 17 Apr 11
     
    I was first interested in this article from personal, and educational experiences with one of the tools mentioned. (Skype) The article explores the idea that Video conferencing can be used to cut costs in this growing financial crisis. A family member of mine uses the tool to collaborate with business partners as it is a much cheaper and easier option than flying all over. It is also easier to quickly update somebody without the high cost of international phone calls. the article explores other benefits of using the tool for business, such as the ability to use it on the move and the ability to combine it with social networking tools. Through personal experience, having family that live in another country, the tool is helpful to share photos, information, and to merely see each others faces, something that is much more beneficial than a phone conversation. This then brought me to an article by Mark Blankenship, in which he talks about a skype lecture he gave to a group of undergraduates. He states "They listened, took notes, asked questions, and engaged in discussion. Except for the fact that I never shared a physical space with them, my experience with the students was remarkably similar to the experience I've had with students in the actual world" therefore perhaps developing a fifth trend in which users feel that video conferencing enhances the ability to act as a real face-to-face mechanism, in which the social element is not hugely different than that of a real social interaction. Also proving to be more than just a one-on-one tool, as it can be used to interact with a group of students to aid in learning where a guest speaker is unable to attend the physical lecture. References Blankenship, M.. (2011, March). How Social Media Can and Should Impact Higher Education. The Education Digest, 76(7), 39-42. Retrieved April 17, 2011, from http://proquest.umi.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/pqdweb?index=5&did=2253484511&SrchMode=1&sid=14&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VTyp
  • Kelly Kerr on 17 Apr 11
     
    This article provides a high level overview on video conferencing in a corporate setting and discusses four main trends, such as consumerisation, mobility, interopability and the social layer. It discusses Skype and how quickly it is gaining a business market share in in comparison to other enterprise tools such as TelePresence and WebEX. The success of Skype is due to the fact that it is so easy to use and allows users to share desktops so they are "virtually" in the same room. Mobility is also a main driver for video conferencing. When we consider that every laptop has a webcam, the potential for mobile video conferencing is immense and not just limited to tools such as the iPhone using the Facetime protocol. Add to this that the workplace is changing with more people working remotely either from home or travelling on business and the potential for video conferencing is growing as we need to connect with colleagues and clients. In essence I think video conferencing is the way of the future, however interoperability with devices has the potential to create issues until a standard or protocol is defined much in the same way TCP/IP was defined as the global standard for web traffic in 1983 (Microsoft, 2005). Presently devices can "talk" to each other if they use the same protocol, however there are many protocols emerging at the moment and no industry set of rules that all protocols must adhere to. Reference TCP/IP background. (2005). Retrieved April 15,2011 from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc775383(WS.10).aspx
  • Jiawen Lin on 17 Apr 11
     
    This article introduces some video conferencing applications, such as Cisco, Skype, Nefsis Basic, BlackBerry Playbook, and Google Voice, and shows how they are used as collaboration tools in enterprises. Burke (2011) summarizes that the use of such tools helps to establish instant communication, save travelling time, and cut business cost. One of my selected articles, iManage Unveils the First Multi-Platform Collaborative Content Management Suite, announces a new Internet content management application suit called iManage WorkSite MP which is an online collaboration tool as well. Both video conferencing tools and Internet content management applications are network-based, so users' contributions will be available instantly, and shared information can be distributed globally. Both of them aim at improving business efficiency, reducing cost and resource, and finally developing organisational service and product quality. While video conferencing tools focus on communication by audio and video, Internet content management applications, such as iManage WorkSite, has more to do with information management, such as text, image, and spreadsheets. It can be said that online collaboration tools can facilitate meetings among team members geographically, provide access to shared knowledge and ideas, and manage organisational information effectively. I argue that the combination of both video conferencing and content management tools can offer a comprehensive service to an organisation to compete in the global economy. As Fedorowicz, Laso-Ballesteros, and Padilla-Melendez (2008) state, the development of online collaboration "will facilitate multidisciplinary innovation and reduce barriers and inefficiencies among people working together" (p.1). Reference: Burke, M (2011) Comment on Four Trends in Enterprise Video Conferencing. Retrieved from http://groups.diigo.com/group/cur
  • Fransisca Mayang Sari on 17 Apr 11
     
    Video conferencing as one of online collaboration tools, able to change the way people communicate as well as their perceptions towards the work day in nowadays. Video conferencing has become a part of communication strategy, this article shows that about 37% of Skype users use the service for business purpose, which is they use Skype to make conference video that is more convenient and less traveling cost, users would be able to meet up without consuming traveling time which normally required in order to meet face to face. I found out this article are useful in terms of explaining the way video conferencing been used in business as well as introducing 4 new trends on how people use it, and as resources itself, it is credible enough, this article took from ReadWrite Enterprises web sites that mainly focusing on business purposes. By relating on my own topic, which is talk about the use and features of social bookmarking site (delicious), video conferencing as well provides specific features in order to facilitate the video conference, hence users would be able to use the features and communicating online, same as the way delicious using it special features, such as tags, where people would be able to collaborate their bookmarks as long as they are sharing and using same tags. As for value, this article shows and recommends how useful video conferencing is and there is multiple ways and benefits we could get by using it online. References: Finley, K. (2010). Four Trends in Enterprise Video Conferencing. Read Write Web. Retrieved on 12 April 2011 from http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2010/10/trends-in-enterprise-video-conferencing.php
Kaye England

JOLT - Journal of Online Learning and Teaching - 1 views

jolt.merlot.org/...deters_0310.htm

wiki collaboration education teacher

shared by Kaye England on 10 Apr 11 - Cached
  • Kaye England on 10 Apr 11
     
    This article looks at another popular online collaboration tool in educational settings - the wiki. A wiki is a good choice for online collaboration because it is easy to set up, monitor and for most students easy for them to use. Deters, Cutherell & Stapleton's (2010) article looks at a study of the use of two wikis in particular, PBWiki and Wet Paint. Benefits when collaborating on a wiki are that can author, edit and find information very easily, making wikis especially helpful in the educational setting. Whilst this study overwhelmingly supports the use of wikis, they did identify a number of issues, which can be overcome. It is important that the wiki has instructor or teacher support. The teacher needs to set up guidelines, rules and examples for students to read before the wiki exercise begins. There can also be some technical issues with Wikis - but once again with good technical support these issues can be overcome. The study revealed that most students enjoyed using a wiki and the response was overall very positive. Not only did the students participate as part of their studies, but they could see how it would be possible to use wikis in their own teaching practices. Wikis are a wonderful tool that can be used in many settings and as stated by Deters, Cutherell & Stapleton's (2010, Discussion section, para.2), "in online learning situations, wikis assist students in learning new content and support them in connecting new knowledge with personal experiences".
  • Kaye England on 10 Apr 11
     
    References: Deters, F., Cuthrell, K. & Stapleton, J. (2010). Why Wikis? Student Perceptions of Using Wikis in Online Coursework . Journal of Online Teaching and Learning 6(1). Retrieved from http://jolt.merlot.org/vol6no1/deters_0310.htm
  • anonymous on 16 Apr 11
     
    This article is a good case study on the benefits of using a wiki for teaching and learning. Since, wikis allow playful creation, flat hierarchies, simple rules, flexible scheduling and diverse participates (Ebersbach, 2008, p. 24-25) it is a great collaborative tool to use in teaching and Learning for students of any age. It would also be more appropriate for teaching staff to start implementing the usage of wikis or collaboration tools for teaching and learning as younger generations are digital natives and use web technologies regularly for communication and collaboration with peers. This article is also a good source to support the argument of using wikis for teaching and learning as it highlights and illustrates the support that students have towards teaching and learning outcomes, with the data illustrating that the majority of students found wikis to be useful for "teaching and learning and for collaborative problem solving" (Deters, Cuthrell & Stapleton, 2010, p. 5). Therefore, highlighting how a wiki allows for asynchronous use for students as many university students may study in a range of modes that include part time or distance modes, thus ensuring that all students regardless of time, space and location can collaborate and communicate both with other students and their facilitators for problem solving. References: Deters, F., Cuthrell, K. & Stapleton, J. (2010). Why Wikis? Student Perceptions of Using Wikis in Online Coursework . Journal of Online Teaching and Learning 6(1). Retrieved from http://jolt.merlot.org/vol6no1/deters_0310.htm Ebersbach, A. (2008). Wiki Web collaboration Retrieved from http://www.springerlink.com.ezproxy.lib.uts.edu.au/content/q08xw7/#section=226612&page=1
Emily Murphy

Collection of Activity Data for SourceForge Projects - 2 views

www.cse.nd.edu/...activity_data.pdf

Net308 collaboration open source OSS virtual community collaboration tools

shared by Emily Murphy on 11 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Emily Murphy on 11 Apr 11
     
    My topic is the collaboration practices of open source software development. OVERVIEW: This article compiles data taken from online OSS-management tool SourceForge, and provides an excellent overview of the features, advantages, and limitations of this particular tool. SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/) is an online tool that facilitates collaboration on Open Source Software (OSS) projects. Among the most significant tools that SourceForge provides are forums discussing each project, a file-release tool, a basic task management system, the ability to post documentation (eg. instruction manuals) online, and the all-important Concurrent Versions System (CVS). This article goes into satisfying detail of how CVS works and why it is advantageous to software developers, explaining the CVS process as follows: 1. CVS holds the current version of a program's source code, and allows developers to 'check out' (i.e. download) this source code so that they have their own version to play around with. 2. Once done, developers can 'commit' (or upload) their changes. If possible, the CVS automatically merges this code with any other changes that have been made since the code was checked out. 3. The CVS system retains a copy of all previous versions of the code, and thus allows reversion to previous versions, as well as the existence of multiple 'branches' of the same source code. The main advantage of the CVS tool is that it "[allows] multiple developers to be working on the source code at the same time without conflict" (p. 6), although teams are may be limited slightly by SourceForge's basic task management system which "lacks capabilities for resource and personnel management" (p. 4). SourceForge is one online tool that greatly aids in the co-ordination of open-source projects. Any software developer considering the use of a pre-made online tool for collaboration would bene
  • ...3 more comments...
  • anonymous on 12 Apr 11
     
    Although my topic is crowdsourcing and not OSS, SourceForge is actually a strong example of crowdsourcing online. The website is simple, clean and easy to use. One of its main advantages is that it has a clear user friendly structure and offers developers useful features such as a clear summary and reviews of a piece of software. Open source software collaboration is an example of crowdsourcing because the crowd is in charge of shaping the nature of the product or system in question. In this case improvements and changes to software codes are influenced by a range of people with different skills and knowledge. These individuals are not necessarily industry experts, but rather a range of people with varying degrees of expertise. Going by the statistics in this article, SourceForge.net is proof that crowdsourcing works and can provide useful and sustainable results if a stable, reliable and controlled system such as CVS is made available to 'the crowd'. According Christley and Madey (2005, p. 1) SourceForge.net "is the word's largest open source software development website with the largest repository of open source code and applications available on the internet". This article is quite technical in nature, so it doesn't really explore reasons behind why people choose to engage with websites such as SourceForge.net. According to Veale (2005) people are motivated to make contributions online even though there is no payment involved. This differs from collaborative sites such as www.made.com and www.designcrowd.com. Veale (2005) argues that payment is no longer a primary motivation; individuals contribute for free because they get something out of this. One of the benefits of contributing to OSS projects is being able to improve something and use it for yourself or just being able to be a part of a community. This article is a useful resource for exploring open source software platforms and crowdsourcing.
  • anonymous on 12 Apr 11
     
    References: Veale, K. (2005 December 5). Internet gift economies: voluntary payment schemes as tangible reciprocity. First Monday, special issue #3. Available: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1516/1431.
  • Emily Murphy on 15 Apr 11
     
    Great points! In reading about OSS collaboration, I have found that as well as the benefit of being able to improve something for one's own use, participants are motivated by the learning opportunities and the opportunity to satisfy their own ego.
  • Ran An on 15 Apr 11
     
    This article elaborates some overviews about data SourceForge which is from online OSS-management tool, with its characters, advantages, and limitations. SourceForge is a very altruistic platform to benefit people for the development of software tools. It is good example of a social networking platform that is geared towards producing collaborative work, which is productive. Its purpose is not entertainment or socializing, but its about bringing together people with specialized skills and providing the framework and tools to allow people to work on a product in a virtual workplace. I don't totally agree by collecting statistics on the software development process,especially one that is non-commercial and can potentially be worked on by any member of the public to be a totally useful study. Software was development which is not a static work flow. There are many standards, development methodologies, languages, platforms, not to mention the human factor that can make interpolation results of the data difficult. However, I strongly believe the success of SourceForge Projects is not the collaborative effort that causes success, but those developers to press ahead and work on their masterpiece. There are some projects that are very successful, but on the whole a majority of the projects are half started and incomplete. There have been many studies in the past to try to quantify the efficiency of Software Engineering and to date. There is no ideal solution to completing a Software Engineering Project. It is still a maturing engineering discipline.
  • Jiawen Lin on 17 Apr 11
     
    This article reviews SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/) which is an Open Source software (OSS) development tool and provides free services to Open Source developers. By explaining how SourceForge collect, manage and apply activity data, this article points out the strengths and weaknesses of SourceForge as an online collaboration tool. An (2011) comments that the purpose of SourceForge is to bring "together people with specialized skills and [to provide] the framework and tools to allow people to work on a product in a virtual workplace". This feature is similar to Optimize Solutions which is mentioned in one of my selected articles: Optimize Solutions launches to help professional services organizations better manage - projects, resources, expenses. Both SourceForge and Optimize Solutions are collaboration tools with powerful functions for data management and user communication. With their network-based interface, distance is no longer an issue for collaboration and interaction among users. SourceForge deals with data and statistic; and Optimize Solutions manage various business resources, such as documents, images, and spreadsheet. While SourceForge is open for users to develop softwares, Optimize Solutions is used within an organization and external clients for business purposes. Although these two applications offer services in different fields, they both aim at enabling global collaboration and improving processing efficiency. I believe that with the development of information technology, especially online collaboration, such applications will be widely used in most organizations and for personal use. Reference: An, R (2011). Comment on Collection of Activity Data for SourceForge Projects. Retrieve from http://groups.diigo.com/group/curtin_net308?view=recent&page_num=1
Michael Nycyk

Google Docs are a Free Online Educational Tool - 1 views

www.suite101.com/...nline-educational-tool-a105900

collaboration ouaNet308-2011 308 508 Curtin Net education Google Docs

shared by Michael Nycyk on 15 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Michael Nycyk on 15 Apr 11
     
    This is a comprehensive blog entry introduction to the potential of Google Docs as a collaborative tool for students. These potential uses are also valuable in work places or other group work. The value of this resource is the well-written way Wetzel articulates the advantages of Google Docs for collaborative practice. His argument is that such a system, aside from being free, is valuable to go beyond the e-mail sharing culture to a full real-time collaborative environment. Wetzel then proceeds to give examples of the potential for the application of Google Docs in education contexts and classrooms. To summarise, he argues three main points in using Google Docs for collaboration:  The ability for Google Docs to provide instant feedback to students on their work  To conserve expenses on school projects such as printing costs  Encouraging the working together of students on a projects in a systematic and orderly manner The tone of the article is clearly very much in favour of using Google Docs for collaborative practice in educational settings. However, though this may not be an issue in educational contexts, there are disadvantages using Google Docs that are not reported. Two bloggers highlight those weaknesses which may be of concern when trying to use more features in Google Docs that are not there but are part of the Microsoft Office Suite:  The speed of internet connection is vital; if it is slow the collaborator may not be able to keep up with others' postings (Bukisa, 2011)  Most of the time you cannot work offline with Google Docs, you must be online to create and update documents (Creative Marketing Solutions, n.d.) However, the article does put a compelling list of features that make Google Docs a good system to use for educational collaboration.
  • Michael Nycyk on 15 Apr 11
     
    References Bukisa. (2011). Google Docs review. Retrieved April 13, 2011, from http://www.bukisa.com/articles/480255_google-docs-review Creative Marketing Solutions. (n.d.). How to use Google Docs. Retrieved April 13, 2011, from http://knolt.com/creative-marketing-solutions/2010/10/20/heading-2/ Wetzel, D. R. (2009). Google Docs are a free online educational tool: Web-based productivity software for teacher or student collaboration. Suite101.com. Retrieved April 2, 2011, from http://www.suite101.com/content/google-docs-are-a-free-online-educational-tool-a105900
  • Samantha Clews on 17 Apr 11
     
    The article, Google Docs are a Free Online Educational Tool Written by David R. Wetzel gives a comprehensive overview of the benefits of Google docs specifically in relation to education. The article outlines these positives a few of these include (but are not limited to) the ability to secure the websites content, making it a safe place to upload work, the ability to comment and give almost instant feedback, the ability to update students on deadlines, information, and helpful tools and also to keep course content. It seems that these positives are quite a universal thing as Keith McPherson (2007) explored all of these benefits in his article new online technologies for new literacy instruction. This reminds me of the use of wiki's in education, a tool that is explored by Elisha Petersen (2009) in which the tool is used to do the same. This brings me to question, which is better? Why use one over the other, if they achieve the exact same thing? Wetzel's article doesn't seem to give any suggestion that the tool has anything wrong with it. Something that, in technology, is hard to believe. Keith McPherson, However, outlines a few limitations of the program. He states "the conversion of graphics and tables from a Word document to a Google document is not reliable and Google Docs does not run on older browsers and Safari or Opera" (McPherson, 2007). Ryan Spoon a Principal at Polaris Venture Partners writes in his blog that he decided to use Wikidot (a wiki platform) instead of Google docs, he believes that although Google docs are great for specific documents they "don't scale over time well… more importantly the documents are treated distinctly and ultimately get as cluttered as your computer desktop" so although two tools (wiki and Google docs) can inevitably achieve the same thing, they still work in very different ways, and one has to evaluate the finer details. References Peterson, E.. (2009). Using a Wiki to Enhance Cooperative Learning in
Michael Nycyk

Undergraduate perceptions of the usefulness of Web 2.0 in higher education: Survey Deve... - 5 views

web2integration.pbworks.com/...eb+2.0+in+Higher+Education.pdf

collaboration ouaNet308-2011 308 508 Curtin Net education Google Docs

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  • Michael Nycyk on 15 Apr 11
     
    Kumar's work has a reasonable amount to offer in terms of a resource; his research gives more clues to the perceived effectiveness of Google Docs users have towards it as a collaborative tool. He has chosen to use the effective research method focus groups with semi-structured questions. Perhaps the useful part of investigating Google Docs as a collaborative tool is how he selected students at the university site who were in many disciplines. Thus he was able to elicit some good insights into why Google Docs is so praised as a collaborative educational tool. One finding was that students preferred Google Docs as a time saving tool where no formal meetings took place. Although the students were on campus, it was surprising that they felt they would rather use Google Docs then all meet to work on a project. The other finding was that the acceptance of this Web 2.0 collaborative technology was greater amongst students that had previous experience with Google Docs or other similar software. Another major advantage found by Kumar (2009) was that overall using such collaborative tools increased interest in the subject matter of their particular discipline. The concept that new technologies add value to existing practice was also interesting. Although Kumar was not clear on this concept, what students indicated this was the case, such a statement suggests that using Google Docs is linked to increased interest in a subject and in turn a desire to succeed. The weakness of this resource is Kumar is not clear of this link; however, as an article to show that Google Docs is of value equating collaboration tools with increased productivity shows how potentially valuable using them can be.
  • ...4 more comments...
  • Michael Nycyk on 15 Apr 11
     
    References Kumar, S. (2009). Undergraduate perceptions of the usefulness of Web 2.0 in higher education: Survey development. In D. Remenyi (Ed.) Proceedings of 8th European Conference on E-learning, Italy, 308-314. Retrieved April 13, 2011, from http://web2integration.pbworks.com/f/Undergraduate+Perceptions+of+the+Usefulness+of+Web+2.0+in+Higher+Education.pdf
  • Kaye England on 15 Apr 11
     
    I was interested in this article as I work in an academic institution (75% of our students are external) and it is a very topical subject for us at the moment. It was of interest to note that many students "expect to learn with new technologies and because higher education should prepare students for the workplace of the future" (Kumar , 2009, p.308). In terms of the use of Google Docs as a collaborative tool in academic institutions I think that we are only just beginning to see the benefits of this type of online collaboration. Google Docs, as stated by Edwards & Baker (2010, p.836) "can be used to save valuable time that would be otherwise spent e-mailing, revising, saving, e-mailing back etc.". Google Docs is a relatively new collaborative tool but the benefits to both lecturers and students are very evident, as anything that saves time and engages students is worth using. It was interesting that Kumar (2009) said that the use of Wikis was not a popular online collaborative tool - although it was easy to see the possibilities of its use. In one of my resources I looked at the positive use of wikis in educational settings as they "assist students in learning new content and support them in connecting new knowledge with personal experiences" (Deters, Cutherell & Stapleton, 2010, Discussion section, para.2). Successful online collaborative work is not necessarily a time saver or a short cut but approached positively and with good planning and leadership I believe that it will become an efficient and well used educational tool. References: Deters, F., Cuthrell, K. & Stapleton, J. (2010). Why Wikis? Student Perceptions of Using Wikis in Online Coursework . Journal of Online Teaching and Learning 6(1). Retrieved from http://jolt.merlot.org/vol6no1/deters_0310.htm Edwards, J. T., & Baker, C. (2010) A Case Study: Google Collaboration
  • Michael Nycyk on 15 Apr 11
     
    My reading of it Kaye is that Kumar found that was the case at the time the study was done, but I am sure if he redid the study that would be less of an issue. I see Wikis are being quite popular now. Also I agree with your point, it is not always about time saving but if one spends the time learning it, it can be a useful tool for education. Our experiences in this course with Ning last year and the online conference proved that.
  • anonymous on 16 Apr 11
     
    This article is interesting as it highlights the benefits of using collaborative tools in higher education for teaching and learning. Although, it is also interesting how the article mentions wikis as one of the collaborative tools and then Kumar (2009, p. 6) then omits wikis as part of the group focus discussion as the students involved in the focus group had not used wikis in their personal life nor on campus. What is more interesting about this reasoning by Kumar (2009) is that it was not explained to students about the use of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a very popular wiki used as a reference tool both in studies and personal life, so it is hard to comprehend that the students in this focus group did not draw any correlation to Wikipedia and the use of wikis. This article also supports the benefits in using a wiki for both, organisations and for teaching and learning as Kumar (2009) highlights how a wiki "improves students writing" (Kumar, 2009, p. 3) and also engages students to collaborate across disciplines (Kumar, 2009, p. 3). The majority of articles supporting wiki use as a collaborative tool have highlighted how the ease of use allows for communication and collaboration, whilst also focusing on the culture of sharing within these two groups. Therefore, wikis are a great collaborative tool, although it is important to also create a sharing culture and provide guidelines when implementing the use of a wiki so, that the participates will use it to support the organisational culture or teaching and learning outcomes in collaborating and communicating with fellow peers or colleagues. References: Kumar, S. (2009). Undergraduate perceptions of the usefulness of Web 2.0 in higher education: Survey Development. In Proceedings of 8th European Conference on E-learning (ECEL), Italy, retrieved from http://web2integration.pbworks.com/f/Undergraduate+Perceptions+of+the+Usefulness+of+Web+2.0+in+Higher+Education.pdf
  • Kaye England on 17 Apr 11
     
    Yes Michael - I agree - things are constantly changing and evolving on the Internet and as you say if Kumar did the study again it would be a different outcome. Cheers, Kaye
  • Ran An on 17 Apr 11
     
    This paper articulates through research and data analysis from although relatively small focus group the effectiveness of using new technologies 2.0 to enhance learning of students from different background in their respective disciplines. This is as same topic as one of my discussions with article Art Education, Collaboration and the Internet. It talks about internet technology integrates into contemporary education. New generation communicates and shares information differently in current technological society. Computer literate generation are different from earlier generations who rely mainly on books and printed materials. Collaborative online activity as an educational endeavor is involving people from different areas to work together.(Harris, 1999). Internet is also being used in region of high education that adopts Web2.0 to help students learning for their self-study and group projects and leverage strategies. (Kumar, n.d). Not only for undergraduate students, but also those students from high schools and colleges, all gained the benefits of new technologies across disciplines in order to achieving their teaching and learning purposes of education. For high education, I completely agree with that Google Documents is very popular among the students for collaborative projects or assignments, because I often use Google document for my topic research and reference as well. I also believe that the internet generation's familiarity with new media undoubtedly will make this way easier for teachers to craft effective learning experiences and to use such tools to engage students. Reference: Harris, J. (1999). First steps in telecollaboration. Learning and leading with technology. 27(3),54-57. Roland, A. (2003). Art Education, Collaboration and the Internet. Retrieved from http://www.artjunction.org/articles/arted_collab_internet.pdf Kumar, S. (n.d). Undergraduate Perceptions of the Usefulness of Web 2.0 in Higher Education: Survey Development. Re
Rosanna Candler

Governments and the Executive "Kill Switch" - 2 views

dl.comsoc.org/...niednot.pdf

Government authoritatian Egypt revolution kill-switch internet

shared by Rosanna Candler on 12 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • peter stanier on 17 Apr 11
     
    The role any Government should play in regulating the Internet is certainly an intriguing argument. Having analyzed the liberating power of the Internet with particular regards to assisting revolutionary political collaborations in the western world (Fraser, 2008), it has become apparent that any attempt to restrict access to content or the internet itself only seeks to further the cause of these being oppressed. This is demonstrated throughout this paper with the uprising in Egypt and the documentation that the "internet shutdown only sought to incite the protesters more." Perhaps the most pressing issue presented from this paper is not only Mubarak's ability to shutdown the internet, but that similar scenarios have arisen across the Arab world and the political justification for large-scale shutdowns of the world wide web have all been fundamentally flawed. Moreover the desperate attempts from political factions to prevent online access, and the steps and methods employed to ensure a shutdown demonstrates just how significant the Internet has become from a governments perspective in empowering both the opposition and the individual leading to potential online collaboration in an attempt to cause political revolution. While there is perhaps too much focus on the technical aspects required to implement a shutdown throughout this article, the poor lack of justification for attempting to potentially kill the Internet within the western world is certainly pressing. While political collaboration online did not reach the same aggressive scale in relation to the situation in Egypt, the justification for a potential kill switch being solely based on a fear of online pandemics is certainly flawed and as Chen (2011) notes human presence will "most likely be a hindrance" in the face of a cyber emergency. Whether online terrorism will become a prominent threat in the 21st century remains to be seen but the justification for killing the internet in order to ha
  • Rosanna Candler on 24 Apr 11
     
    It seems rare that such a thorough and enlightening review would be found tucked away in the inside page of a global internetworking magazine. Thomas Chen has produced an excellent overview of the Mubarak Government's rationale in shutting down internet and mobile operators, as well as a world-wide evaluation of the relationship between the Government, private ownership sectors and the Internet. Weeks earlier Tunisia endured Internet control on a lesser scale, with the closure of news sites and political blogs, arresting news bloggers and were even "suspected of injecting hidden Javascript on certain Facebook pages to steal login passwords" (Chen, 2011). Chen tackles the difficult question 'What is the proper role of Government?' with the ease you would expect of a technology magazine's editor, questioning whether the Government is entitled to centralised control (quarantine) as though an online threat were a human pandemic such as SARS or swine flu. Mubarak's 'flicking of the switch' during the January uprising has ignited alarm over free speech in the United States. In 2010 a bill was introduced which suggested giving the President the ability to cut off "the nation's connection to the rest of the Internet during a time of crisis" (Lawson, 2011). At the time Senator Lieberman clarified that this so-called 'kill-switch' was for the safety of the American people, to disconnect them from international traffic 'in case of war' (Lawson, 2011). The idea that this switch is not only technologically possible but also a future prospect caused great concern. At the end of the day, did the 'kill-switch' work? The short answer is obviously "no", as the revolution continued during the blockage, Internet was returned after four days, and the Government fell after 17. However the long answer is far more complex. The existence of the 'kill-switch' technology reminds us that Government control and censorship of the Interne
Rosanna Candler

Egypt did not have an Internet Revolution - 5 views

bikyamasr.com/wordpress

Egypt Internet Revolution catalyst collaboration

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  • Belinda Milne on 15 Apr 11
     
    Very Interesting article. Here I am reminded of Jean Baudrilliard and "Simulacra & Simulation". In it, he talks about how the media shapes the way viewers understand. Effectively he suggests war as it shown on television, was a manufactured by media represention. "The media and the official news service are only there to maintain the illusion of an actuality… of the objectivity of the facts. All events are to be read backward." (Baudrillard, 1994, p.38) Like most things, with recent events in Egypt, it is the media represented accounts, which have become the "real". The idea the Twitter and Facebook can mobilise a revolution is a powerful symbol. "What is perhaps the most telling here is that, as Bikyamasr points out, "millions of the Egyptians that went to the streets probably don't own a computer, and definitely were not checking Twitter or Facebook for where the next gathering was taking place." The article suggests that, by the time the internet was cut off, the protests were already in full swing. Perhaps the Egyptian Government fell for the media reports of the power of Social Media. "It was through word of mouth, not online calls for activism that brought the Egyptian government to its knees". It is important to point out that word-of-mouth is a powerful tool for communication, whether it is through hand-written messages, text or social media, word-of-mouth messages are more likely to be trusted and acted upon by recipients (see Kozinets et.al, 2010) as well as fostering a connection and sense of community between the sender and receiver. References Baudrilliard, J. (1994) Simulation and Simulacra. University of Michigan Press. Translated from the French by Sheila Faria Glaser. Kozinets. R., de Valck, K., Wojnicki, A. & Wilner, S. (2010, March). "Networked Narratives: Understanding Word-of-Mouth Marketing in Online Communities" in Journal of Marketing. 74(2). pp.71-89. Retrieved via American Marketing Association/Atypon.com, 13 April 2011. http://ww
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Belinda Milne on 15 Apr 11
     
    I can't seem to see Rosanna's comment.
  • peter stanier on 17 Apr 11
     
    Mayton seeks to address what he views as the Western Media attributing the Egyptian political revolution to the presence of activists online. He underlines that with only a quarter of the population having access to social networks and media online, the idea that a "Revolution 2.0" occurred is seriously flawed. While acknowledging the useful presence of collaboration online, Mayton attributes the success of this political change to a word-of mouth and paper handout campaign, combined with a motivated and committed Egyptian people, preferring to credit the Internet with bringing the issue to the forefront of international politics. However Wael Ghonim a leader of the ground movement that would ultimately topple Mubarak, contradicts the ideas presented in this article. Instead he accredits social networks and in particular facebook (ref) as being the catalyst behind the revolution. While Ghonim acknowledges that any political protest requires bodies on the ground, he attributes the internet and collaboration that occurred on facebook with empowering Egyptian individuals. Furthermore the ability of these networks to spread information at a vast rate, combined with the ability to go undetected were attributed to the success of the initial protest which began in April 2008. This protest organized solely online was the trigger cause for the unrest and the political change that would unfold. Mayton highlights that the common misconception that every Egyptian has direct access to the internet is perhaps symbolism for an Egyptian society that still remains stratified. While this paper underlines the idea that attributing the success of this political collaboration to the internet overlooks the ground work and alternative methods employed to help further this revolution, there can be little doubt that in this course of history social networks did provide empowerment for some of the Egyptian people and played a significant role in this advancing this political colla
  • Rosanna Candler on 24 Apr 11
     
    To most Australians, the conflict in Egypt was not an Internet revolution until their newspapers, bulletin websites and television told them as such. Spurred on by Google Middle East and North Africa Marketing Director Wael Ghomin's announcement that the Egyptian protesters had "the internet to thank for their victory" (Luna, 2011), headlines across the globe were swept up by the 'Revolution 2.0' media darling. It may be a journalist's job to disseminate current affairs- constructing language and presenting palatable news to their public- however the truth and integrity of the Egyptian Uprising reports suffered at the hands of the outspoken. Jordanian expert on branding Ahmad Humeid recognises these synoptic "slogans" (Pickerill, 2011) such as 'Revolution 2.0' as "extremely important for Western media audiences... [to] take an event and package it in a certain light" (Humeid, 2011). Joseph Mayton's commentary works to detangle the internet's 'exaggerated' role in Egypt. He presents the facts: 25 per cent of Egyptians have no access to a computer, let alone a wifi connected iPhone in their back pocket. The 'Online Revolution' label directly discounts the internet "have-nots" who "struggled for the same cause under the same umbrella". Finally, activists continued to mobilise, even during the four days the Government shut down the Internet service (Mayton, 2011). Yes, there was a significant initial online role in the January protests, but this article encourages that we cannot lump strong-willed street activism in its hundreds of thousands as an Internet uprising. Mayton reminds us the well-worn lesson: we should not accept anything at face value. Ignorance is bred through the blind digestion of 'fact'; we can only come closest to the truth by negotiating as many disparate viewpoints as possible. References: Mayton, J. (2011) Egypt did not have an Internet Revolution. Published on BIKYAMASR, Feb
Rosanna Candler

How the Internet brought down a dictator - 4 views

technolog.msnbc.msn.com/...ternet-brought-down-a-dictator

Egypt revolution internet dictator Government social media collaboration

shared by Rosanna Candler on 12 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • peter stanier on 17 Apr 11
     
    Contrasting the prominent role the internet played with political revolutions in both the Arab and Western worlds (Dutta, 2008) the striking notion is how significant the Internet and subsequent social medias are in empowering ordinary citisens. For the first time in history the minorities of society have a place to establish equal-footing, share information and as Conley (2011) notes destabilize the old guard and oppressing political regimes. As we see internet inspired revolutions spreading across the globe the idea championed by Ghonim that "the best way to liberate a society is to give them the Internet (Smith 2011)" is becoming increasingly relevant. There's also an underlying theme throughout this news report that this political collaboration was strengthened by the inept tactics adopted by the Mubarak government. As well as the significant costs to the Egyptian economy and businesses through unplugging the Internet, it only served to advance the cause of the protesters elevating personal political stories to a global audience and invoking internet users and organizations from around the world to partake and assist in this online collaboration. A pressing issue for me is the evolution of this collaboration, the grassroots movement can be traced back to 2008 (Egypt's opposition pushes demands as protests continue, 2011) and since then the underground and organized techniques employed by the protesters online, were crucial in not only this political movement going undetected by an oppressive regime but also the successful outcome of this collaboration. While briefly touching on the potential negative aspects of the greater utilization of social media, this source clearly demonstrates how the internet and particularly social networks have assisted in the liberation of the Egyptian society. Although it remains to be seen whether similar internet revolutions will occur, evidenced here is a political collaboration build online and as Cowie (2011) docume
  • Rosanna Candler on 24 Apr 11
     
    In a media environment where opinion tends to incline toward black or white extremes, MSNBC's technology blogger Wilson Rothman clearly and diplomatically maps out Egypt's January conflict. Performing a simple online search of 'Egypt revolution' will deliver thousands of arguments for two sides of the coin: those reinforcing a dedicated belief that social media conceived and sustained the revolution, and those (such as Mayton, 2011) who consider this estimation a gross discredit to the majority of activists with no online access. Most refreshingly, Rothman refuses to bow to broad and antagonistic statements- preferring instead to present the chain of events and their professional commentary- providing his reader with the means to determine their own position. In light of Wikileaks tracing the seeds of activism from 2008, Facebook and Twitter was used to mobilise numbers for the January 25 demonstration. This is the function for which many consider the Government 'turned off' Internet in Egypt for, however Philip Howard regards the ability to document (photograph and video) and post online the violent police response as a far greater threat and 'kill-switch justification' for the Government. During this time, the leaked media (i.e. SpeakToTweet) were "rendered more uplifting and powerful by their illicit nature" (Rothman, 2011). Journalist John Guardiano has gone as far to say that "Mubarak resigned really because of the pressure imposed on him by CNN, Fox, MSNBC, Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, Twitter, Facebook and the Internet" completely disregarding the Tahrir Square protesters and igniting the online comment "You bring your hyper partisan lens to bear on events you know little about" (Guardiano, 2011). Rothman's article reminds us that although Egypt's Revolution was 'Internet-fuelled' and gave individuals the capacity to "tell the story...and making sure someone is there to hear the story" (Rothman, 2011), it is
Matthew Hewett

Reference 1: Online Collaboration and Agile Software Development - 2 views

drdobbs.com/...196900197

collaboration software development

shared by Matthew Hewett on 11 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Matthew Hewett on 11 Apr 11
     
    Subject: How online collaboration has affected the software development industry Reference 1: Online Collaboration and Agile Software Development By Doug Poirier, January 11, 2007 ABSTRACT Agile software development requires input from all team members, and such collaboration is most effective when everyone participates. (Poirier, 2007) Full document available from http://drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/196900197 ThinkTank software is available from http://www.groupsystems.com/ Bibliography Poirier, D. (2007). Online Collaboration and Agile Software Development. Dr.Dobbs Retrieved from http://drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/196900197
  • Matthew Hewett on 11 Apr 11
     
    Review of article - Online Collaboration and Agile Software Development This article is in an online magazine http://drdobbs.com and is aimed at software developers. The article is not peer reviewed but is by a software developer writing for other software developers in a well-respected magazine. It does not initially focus on using collaborative software development tools but looks at the issues and problems that affect remote groups attempting to collaborate on developing software without the assistance of collaborative software. It is written in an easy going manner and the author talks about issues that he has personally experienced. It then starts to focus on the issue of collaborative software and on the online collaboration tool called ThinkTank that is available from GroupSystems (http://www.groupsystems.com) and reviews details the use of the software in a trial setup. At this point a number of features of the software are outlined and screen dumps showing some of the features of the software are also included. A review of the article and a latter review of the GroupSystems website did make it clear that the ThinkTank software is more of a collaborative meeting software rather than software that developers use to collaborate when doing actual programing, but it is still a useful piece of software for developers to use when communicating between multiple sites. Poirier, D. (2007). Online Collaboration and Agile Software Development. Dr.Dobbs Retrieved April 8, 2011, from http://drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/196900197
Sheila Bonsu

SyncSpace for Android and iPad Revolutionizes Visual Online Collaboration - 0 views

www.sfgate.com/...article.cgi

community Online collaboration net508 Internet communication

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  • Sheila Bonsu on 15 Apr 11
     
    This news article introduces us to a new visual online collaboration called SyncSpace. According to the article, SyncSpace provides real time remote collaboration. The idea behind the application is to connect people remotely to brainstorm and share ideas in a way that can't be done with traditional modes of communicating. The notion that an organisation constantly has to share ideas in a collaborative way is what SyncSpace core functions are based on. In a true collaboration sense, employees in different cities can now use the app to work together on a variety of projects. The app among other things permits multiple users to view and edit the same document in real time from anywhere in the world ("SyncSpace for Android and iPad Revolutionizes Visual Online Collaboration," 2011). As well as working online, SyncSpace provides the functionality to work offline. Working with other online tools, SyncSpace also allows the user to share their documents on Twitter, Facebook and email. This new application will provide small scale organisations the ability to collaborate and share ideas in real time whilst on the move. In the fast paced business world, remote networking is favourable. SyncSpace is part of a new breed of tools created to aid organisations collaborate effectively. Reference: SyncSpace for Android and iPad Revolutionizes Visual Online Collaboration. (2011). Retrieved from Sfgate.com website: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/04/13/prweb8296303.DTL
Bianca F

The Antithesis of Flash Mobs - How Professional Learning Communities Are Changing Educa... - 1 views

www.thomasjwestmusic.com/...unities-are-changing-education

Education online collaboration learning community

shared by Bianca F on 17 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Bianca F on 17 Apr 11
     
    In this article, West argues that the field of education is falling behind and missing out the opportunities that online collaboration can bring to students. He states that "with the ease that misguided youth can organize themselves into a mob; professionals can organize themselves into supportive learning communities." (2010). In particular West discusses Twitter, the use of certain hash tags relevant to his field in music education. West also discusses groups available on Facebook, and how Skype has been used to bring a field expert into the classroom and have a composer watch and ensemble from the other side of the world in order to provide commentary and feedback. West mentions that prior to social networking and other online tools, the only real way to collaborate with those in your field of interest or profession was to attend conferences or conventions held for that specific purpose. But now with the availability of online collaboration tools and the wide spread accessibility, there is a "new universe" (2010) of collaboration and information. West employs that the classroom no longer need to be 4 walls, 1 teacher and 20 odd students, and that the classroom has "at it's disposal a rapidly growing cornucopia of tools, information and services online…" that could bring so much more to students and educators alike. References: West, T. (2010). The Antithesis of Flash Mobs - How Professional Learning Communities Are Changing Education. Retrieved from http://www.thomasjwestmusic.com/apps/blog/show/3327014-the-antithesis-of-flash-mobs-how-professional-learning-communities-are-changing-education
  • JoelMo Joel on 17 Apr 11
     
    The interesting part of this post that relates to my topic is when West describes Flash Mobs as a springboard for violent events in Philadelphia. According to several papers I have read regarding Flash Mob studies, West is obviously right when he talks about the "ease with which youth can organise themselves into a mob" (Rheingold, 2002). He is also right when he states that they have demonstrated the power of online collaboration because Flash Mobs Mobs simply emerge when communication and computing technologies amplify human talents for cooperation. They are products created from humans' interactions on and with digital mobile communication devices (Nicholson, 2005). But he is wrong, I believe, when he talks about Flash Mobs in general as being an abuse of social networks. Flash Mobs are just one of the many possibilities of how Internet can be used to transform virtual online collaboration between a large number of people into real, concrete offline happenings. Clay Shirky though does a great job of describing the position of Internet in our always changing social interactions and organisation (2008). He notably argues that how tools get used depends on the political environment, and if the Philadelphia riots were actually adopting the same organisational process as Flash Mobs, they did not have anything to do with Flash Mobs (Callari, 2010). As one of the first mob organisers, Bill Wasik, says: "the mobs started as a playful social experiment" (Ubrina, 2010). If Flash Mobs can be used as protest tools, especially in low freedom environments, they were themselves peaceful - almost artistic - interventions. One example used by Howard Rheingold, and which he called a "Smart Mob", is the Ice Cream Flash Mob in Belarus where people ate ice cream to protest against the authoritarian government (Rheingold, 2002). Mobs should be distinguished in nature and by definition, from riots, even though these had been partly organised through Internet.
Ran An

Art Education, Collaboration and the Internet - 1 views

www.artjunction.org/...arted_collab_internet.pdf

education collaboration Internet communication

shared by Ran An on 15 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Ran An on 15 Apr 11
     
    The article elaborates how Internet operates and applies successfully step by step in contemporary art educational field. The article explicitly explained how the Australian Art schools and teachers teach and guide their art students to use online information and different of websites to learn and share their discussions and opinions. Internet education has playing an important role in schools and universities since Internet widely entered to our society and life. In order to achieving their study goal, lots of adult students choose online education in contemporary technological society. In this article, Art online education is a successful example in domain of internet education. As Harris (1999) described a telecollaborative activity as an educational endeavor that is involving people from different areas to work together by using internet tools and resources.The biggest challenge for current art education is how to help students to live this digital communication age. When internet and new technologies provide us with unique opportunities in the life, the thing need to be worried about is how to study and utilize these communication technologies. However, to students, utilizing internet technology to think, to imagine, to create is the significant aspect for catching up this networking era.(Roland, 2003). To young generation, it is not a big issue to learn how to read and gather information from internet, and it is not a problem either to know how to communicate with others by online chatting tools. I think only internet knowledge they need to catch up for their online education is how to use special software to finish their online projects. The topics about internet collaboration and internet education will continue permeating into our society in this technological and digital era. This is an inevitable trend of technological progress and development. Reference: Harris, J. (1999). First steps in telecollaboration. Learning and le
peter stanier

The use of online tools to organize political collaboration. - 1 views

www.law.miami.edu/...amra%20quoted%20on%20wired.pdf

shared by peter stanier on 14 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • peter stanier on 17 Apr 11
     
    The success of the Obama campaign in integrating technology to assist with groundwork organization is highlighted as the key reason throughout this paper for Obama's electoral success. Stirland documents the case of one individual who exploited the democrats large scale voter database to collaborate with others in organizing gatherings, phone banks and the canvassing of peers in attempt to fast track this political revolution. Building on the minor successes of Politicians who had gone before him (Ragan, 2008) Obama implemented a "sophisticated and Organized(Stirland, 2008)" online infrastructure in an attempt to channel enthusiasm and inspire supporters to collaborate in the get-out and vote campaign. This paper seeks to eliminate the idea that this collaboration was random, rather it points to the time and effort the campaign invested in ensuring that not only were it volunteers well trained and organized with regards to both online and offline activities, but that through the use of this political database they knew exactly which areas to target and which issues to raise. Moreover throughout this paper is the persistent argument that the foundations of this political movement began with volunteers connecting online, and it was this collaboration online combined with the presence of a real belief in a cause and candidate that would ultimately lead to such a successful ground movement. Although this paper often overlooks the relevance of both the tools and political operatives who assisted this collaboration, it makes sure to highlight the extent to which the campaign significantly exceeded anything on offer from its rival noting the lack of conviction that even rival supporters had in its ability to compete with Obama's online support. Thus in integrating technology into a grassroots movement individuals were able to harbor and execute an organized and strategically sound collaboration and ultimately bring about real political change. Re
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