"bowling alone" hypothesis (Putnam, 2000), which suggests that media are displacing crucial civic and social institutions
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Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as "Third Places" - 52 views
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This is, I think, why I'm more keen on today's social networks than I am on games -- games do not provide deep emotional support.
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According to Putnam, time spent with relatively passive and disengaging media has come at the expense of time spent on vital community-building activities.
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The evidence to date is mixed
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A core problem on both sides of the debate is an underlying assumption that all Internet use is more or less equivalent
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It would be more plausible and empirically rigorous, then, to consider how specific forms of Internet activity impact civic and social engagement as a result of their particular underlying social architectures
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combining conclusions from two different lines of MMO research conducted from two different perspectives—one from a media effects approach, the other from a sociocultural perspective on cognition and learning.
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By providing spaces for social interaction and relationships beyond the workplace and home, MMOs have the capacity to function as one form of a new "third place" for informal sociability much like the pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts of old.
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loosely structured by open-ended narratives
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They are known for their peculiar combination of designed "escapist fantasy" and emergent "social realism"
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from two research projects: one an examination of the media effects of MMOs, the other an ethnographic study of cognition and culture in such contexts.
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the conclusions of both studies were remarkably aligned.
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the assumption that the most fruitful advances are sometimes made when congruent findings are discovered through disparate means
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demonstrate the "effects" of game play vs. no game play.
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first project was a traditional effects study
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second project, a qualitative study of cognition and learning in MMOs (
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ethnography
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sociocultural perspective
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as a way to tease out what happens in the virtual setting of the game and how the people involved consider their own activities, the activities of others, and the contexts in which those activities takes place
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a reasonable level of generalizability (random assignment to condition in the first study) and contextualization (ethnographic description of existing in-game social networks and practices in the second)
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but I wonder why he chose these games -- this is not specified. Only their success in US and abroad?
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brick-and-mortar "third places" in America where individuals can gather to socialize informally beyond the workplace and home
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the exaggerated self-consciousness of individuals.
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In what ways might MMOs function as new third places for informal sociability?
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virtual environments have the potential to function as new (albeit digitally mediated) third places similar to pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts.
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in this section we analyze the structural form of MMOs that warrants this "third place" assertion.
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eight defining characteristics of third places
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there is no default obligation
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To oblige any one person to play requires that explicit agreements be entered into by parties
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the default assumption is that no one person is compelled to participate legally, financially, or otherwise.
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Unless one transforms the virtual world of the game into a workplace (e.g., by taking on gainful employment as a virtual currency "farmer" for example, Dibbell, 2006; Steinkuehler, 2006a) or enters into such agreement, no one person is obligated to log in
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and this is why, in my opinion, you will never see games in school. The game cannot be the Third Place because school is a Second Place.
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Yee's (2006) interviews also reveal that individuals who game with romantic partners or family find that such joint engagement in the "other world" of MMOs allows them to redefine the nature and boundaries of their offline relationships, often in more equitable terms than what may be possible in day-to-day offline life
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the relationships that play-partners have with one another offline are often "leveled" within the online world
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an individual's rank and status in the home, workplace, or society are of no importance
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appeal to people in part because they represent meritocracies otherwise unavailable in a world often filled with unfairness
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conversation plays an analogous role
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"In all such systems, linguistic interactions have been primary: users exchange messages that cement the social bonds between them, messages that reflect shared history and understandings (or misunderstandings) about the always evolving local norms for these interactions" (p. 22).
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third places must also be easy to access
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such that "one may go alone at almost any time of the day or evening with assurance that acquaintances will be there"
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accessible directly from one's home, making them even more accommodating to individual schedules and preferences
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barriers to initial access.
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"What attracts a regular visitor to a third place is supplied not by management but by the fellow customer,"
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"It is the regulars who give the place its character and who assure that on any given visit some of the gang will be there"
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affective sense
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As one informant satirically commented in an interview, "You go for the experience [points], you stay for the enlightening conversation.
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engendering a sense of reliable mentorship and community stability.
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Oldenburg argues that third places are characteristically homely, their d�cor defying tidiness and pretension whenever possible. MMOs do not fit this criterion in any literal sense
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In neither of our investigations did the degree of formality exhibited by players within the game bear any relation to the degree of visual ornamentation of the players' immediate vicinity.
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Thus, while the visual form of MMO environments does not fit Oldenburg's (1999) criterion of "low profile," the social function of those environments does.
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Oldenburg (1999) argues that seriousness is anathema to a vibrant third place; instead, frivolity, verbal word play, and wit are essential.
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The playful nature of MMOs is perhaps most apparent in what happens when individuals do bring gravity to the game.
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the home-like quality of third places in rooting people
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Participation becomes a regular part of daily life for players and, among regular gamemates such as guild members, exceptional absences (i.e., prolonged or unforeseen ones) are queried within the game or outside i
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create an atmosphere of mutual caring that, while avoiding entangling obligations per se, creates a sense of rootedness to the extent that regularities exist, irregularities are duly noted, and, when concerning the welfare of any one regular, checked into
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Are virtual communities really communities, or is physical proximity necessary?
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Anderson (1991), who suggests that geographic proximity itself is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for the emergence and preservation of "community."
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Social capital (Coleman, 1988) works analogously to financial capital; it can be acquired and spent, but for social and personal gains rather than financial
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operates cyclically within social networks because of their associated norms of reciprocity
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bridging social capital is inclusive.
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This form of social capital is marked by tentative relationships, yet what they lack in depth, they make up for in breadth.
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On the one hand, bridging social capital provides little in the way of emotional support; on the other hand, such relationships can broaden social horizons or worldviews, providing access to information and new resources.
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bonding social capital is exclusive.
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social superglue.
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it can also result in insularity.
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shows that bridging and bonding social capital are tied to different social contexts, given the network of relationships they enable.
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Virtual worlds appear to function best as bridging mechanisms rather than as bonding ones, although they do not entirely preclude social ties of the latter type.
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One could argue that, if the benchmark for bonding social capital is the ability to acquire emotional, practical, or substantive support, then MMOs are not well set up for the task:
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While deep affective relationships among players are possible, they are less likely to generate the same range of bonding benefits as real-world relationships because of players' geographic dispersion and the nature of third places themselves.
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Despite differences in theoretical grounding and methodologies, our conclusions were remarkably similar across complementary macro- and micro-levels.
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It is worth noting, however, that as gamers become more involved in long-term social networks such as guilds and their activities become more "hardcore" (e.g., marked by participation in large-scale collaborative problem-solving endeavors such as "raids" into difficult territories or castle sieges), the function of MMOs as "third places" begins to wane.
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It may be, then, that the structure and function of MMOs as third places is one part of the "life cycle" for some gamers in a given title.
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In such cases, MMOs appear to enable a different kind of sociability, one ostensibly recognizable as a "community" nonetheless.
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However, our research findings indicate that this conclusion is uninformed. To argue that MMO game play is isolated and passive media consumption in place of informal social engagement is to ignore the nature of what participants actually do behind the computer screen
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Perhaps it is not that contemporary media use has led to a decline in civic and social engagement, but rather that a decline in civic and social engagement has led to retribalization through contemporary media (McLuhan, 1964).
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Such a view, however, ignores important nuances of what "community" means by pronouncing a given social group/place as either wholly "good" or "bad" without first specifying which functions the online community ought to fulfill.
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Moreover, despite the semantics of the term, "weak" ties have been shown to be vital in communities, relationships, and opportunities.
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is to what extent such environments shift the existing balance between bridging and bonding
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In light of Putnam's evidence of the decline of crucial civic and social institutions, it may well be that the classification "lacking bridging social capital" best characterizes the everyday American citizen. T
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Without bridging relationships, individuals remain sheltered from alternative viewpoints and cultures and largely ignorant of opportunities and information beyond their own closely bound social network.
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it seems ironic that, now of all times, we would ignore one possible solution to our increasingly vexed relationship with diversity.
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Publishing with iBooks Author - O'Reilly Media - 2 views
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iBooks Author is the first tool of its kind. Never before have publishers, authors, and content creators had a tool for making dynamic, interactive ebooks in a WYSIWYG environment. This book is intended to get you up and writing in iBooks Author.
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Rock That Assessment - ("Thrift Shop" Parody) - YouTube - 190 views
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Some teachers and I put this together to motivate our classes for upcoming assessments. The response has been very positive so I wanted to share it with all of you. Enjoy
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The Cost of Saving Lives in Bangladesh - Ben W. Heineman Jr. - The Atlantic - 13 views
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if real reform is to occur on the ground, hard, complex questions must be asked and answered
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consumers across the globe looking for cheap prices
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global garment retailers who want the incur the lowest cost--and offer the lowest price--to compete in developed markets but who do not want to be complicit in publicized worker tragedies in developing markets
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$38 dollars per month
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whether Bangladesh has the means to enforce such laws
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International Labor Organization
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Inadequate government is a huge obstacle to change
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only about one percent of Bangladesh garment factories have good standards.
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garment factory owners are willing to allow workers to organize in unions or associations in order to have a voice in health and safety conditions
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"who pays" and "who is accountable"
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Approximately 60 percent of the clothing made there goes to United States or the European Union
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there are several problems
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standards may depend on local law
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buyers may simply cut off the suppliers rather than helping them improve their practices
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global buyers simply leave the country when they conclude that conditions are so bad
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question then becomes whether international buyers are willing to go beyond imposition of standards and supplier cut offs and to pay, in some form, for the undetermined costs
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actually implementing major substantive change
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significant challenge in a weak state like Bangladesh.
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Can a robust consumer movement arise among those shopping for discount clothing in response to the Bangladesh building collapse?
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What are the standards? What is the cost? Who is accountable?
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drawn an analogy between the collapse of the Rana Plaza in the Bangladesh Capital of Dhaka and the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York which claimed 146 lives
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Rana Plaza catastrophe represents a more complicated set of fractured global relationships, responsibilities and financial capabilities.
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JellyCam - Stop-motion maker - Tickly Pictures - 75 views
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JellyCam is a bit of software for Windows and Mac computers. It creates stop-motion movies from snap shots from a webcam or loaded in pictures. You can add a mp3 soundtrack. Export as a .flv video for upload to YouTube.
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Coffitivity - 57 views
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shared by Roland Gesthuizen on 28 Mar 12
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UK Study: Parents, Not Teachers, Key to Education | Education News - 79 views
www.educationnews.org/...-not-teachers-key-to-education
study parenting education homeschooling homework research
shared by Roland Gesthuizen on 28 Mar 12
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Children are influenced by everything around them, the way their parents act, what their parents say and do, and increasingly as they spend more time ‘with’ celebrity figures how these role models act.
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A study by the Royal Economic Society, to be presented this week, finds that parental effect on test results is five times that of teachers' influence. This comes in the wake of warnings by Sir Michael Wilshaw last week that teachers were unable to properly do their own jobs because parents were expecting them to cover their own parenting skill shortfalls and to become surrogate family for the students. -
It all happens well before school comes into the equation. If a child grows up in a literature rich, engaging environment with adults that spend quality time giving opportunities for great learning experiences in the world, the worst teachers still can't decoy that child's enthusiasm for learning. He can always learn at home. But if the child grows up neglected, not nurtured with rich learning experiences ( and I'm not talking about helicopter parents spending every waking moment ramming study down their throats - just quality conversation and hands on experiences )l doesn't get read to or taken out to shop, teachers are fighting an uphill battle with a disengaged individual. Parents, don't wait for school teachers to teach your kids. Start straight away..
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shared by Kalin Wilburn on 16 Dec 11
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Digital Learning Day :: Home - 67 views
www.digitallearningday.org
DigitalLearningDay digital Technology learning Online_Learning DigitalLearning education elearning
shared by Kalin Wilburn on 16 Dec 11
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Join us as we create a national awareness campaign to celebrate innovative teachers and instructional strategies. Technology has changed the way we do everything from grocery shopping, to listening to music, and reading books. It's time to take action to leverage this potential with more innovative uses of technology in our nation's schools to ensure every student experiences personalized learning with great teaching.
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Writing Stories - Stenhouse Publishers - 49 views
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Ideas, Exercises, and Encouragement for Teachers and Writers of All Ages. Free online preview of the entire book.
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Insula (building) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views
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In Roman architecture, an insula (Latin for "island," plural insulae) was a kind of apartment building that housed most of the urban citizen population of ancient Rome, including ordinary people of lower- or middle-class status (the plebs) and all but the wealthiest from the upper-middle class (the equites). The traditional elite and the very wealthy lived in domus, large single-family residences, but the two kinds of housing were intermingled in the city and not segregated into separate neighborhoods.[1] The ground-level floor of the insula was used for tabernae, shops and businesses, with the living space upstairs. Like modern apartment buildings, an insula might have a name, usually referring to the owner of the building.[2]
Motivate your students for that assessment. - 87 views
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When a Bookstore Closes, an Argument Ends - The New Yorker - 21 views
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once a bookstore is gone we lose the particular opportunities for adjacency it offers,
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Restaurants, bookstores, cafés—on a grander scale railway stations, on a lesser one chessboards near park benches—are the sinews of civil society.
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Enlightenment happened more often in a café than a classroom.
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By atomizing our experience to the point of alienation—or, at best, by creating substitutes for common experience (“you might also like…” lists, Twitter exchanges instead of face-to-face conversations)—we lose the common thread of civil life.
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Books are not just other luxury items to be shopped for. They are the levers of our consciousness.
No More I'm Done! - Stenhouse Publishers - 54 views
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Pew Internet & American Life Project - 0 views
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Over half of the adult internet population is between 18 and 44 years old. But larger percentages of older generations are online now than in the past, and they are doing more activities online, according to surveys taken from 2006-2008. Contrary to the image of Generation Y as the "Net Generation," internet users in their 20s do not dominate every aspect of online life. Generation X is the most likely group to bank, shop, and look for health information online. Boomers are just as likely as Generation Y to make travel reservations online. And even Silent Generation internet users are competitive when it comes to email (although teens might point out that this is proof that email is for old people).
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Diigo: a match made in SHEEN Sharing heaven? « SHEEN Sharing - 2 views
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Diigo is like a next generation Delicious: it’s social bookmarking with the ability to also append comments and discussions on resources to the resources links, and to highlight and comment on sections of resources you’ve linked to. Being a Web2.0 tool, you can then expose these resources, comments, discussions and highlights to other applications using feeds and widgets. This means that the ECN can use Diigo to share resources and their experiences with them in one common place, but the results of this can be picked up and exposed in any site or repository.
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instead of saving your favourites or bookmarks in your browser, you save them to your account on the website; this way, it doesn’t matter what computer you are on, you can always access them. You can import your browser bookmarks
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Diigo is a next-generation social bookmarking site. It includes features for sharing and exposing annotations of, discussions around, and highlighted portions from resources, as well as really useful group features, allowing groups with specific interests to discuss and share resources.
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Diigo and Netvibes We’re trialling using Netvibes as a central gathering and dissemination point for resources shared and recommended via the ECN. Netvibes lets you put any number of “blocks” or widgets into it so it’s a one-stop-shop with little windows into feeds and pages and tools from other sites. You can put a block in Netvibes from a Diigo group; you’ll see resources shared publicly within that group, along with tags, descriptions, comments, discussions, and highlighted portions of those resources. For each resource you can either view all the Diigo commentary on the resource, or view the resource directly (you can toggle easily between these in Netvibes). You can link straight from that block by tag, by user, by group, and by resource, and go straight into the relevant place in Diigo. You can have a block in Netvibes showing a public group’s forum discussions. You can have a block in Netvibes showing your resource list slideshow. You can have blocks in Netvibes based on feeds for specific tags, e.g. a block showing everything tagged “employability”. This means you can have a fairly fine-grained structure within Netvibes, making it easier for visitors to the Netvibes page to find things on the main topics of interest.
Zen and the art of shop class - 0 views
Total Avatar Shop - 41 views
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Faculty and IT: Conversations and Collaboration (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE - 20 views
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IT staff should participate in academic planning to develop course projects and institution-wide outcomes, and faculty should sit on technology committees to develop shared goals and values with IT staff.
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Only with the insight this provides can IT staff propose systemic technological solutions that meet the specific needs, as well as the broader academic objectives, of faculty.
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faculty need to know how students learn with technology and what students can create or do because of it.3
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the most effective collaborations come from a common sense of purpose and goals.
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In the spirit of building relationships and sharing knowledge, IT staff could sit in classes to observe the teaching and learning process and to see how technology is — or could be — used. Faculty could attend academic technology conferences alongside IT staff. And when a technology solution is warranted, IT staff could provide faculty with a vetted set of instructional technology tools to explore and choose from. In return, faculty can invest in becoming tech-savvy enough to assess, and ultimately use, those tools. Faculty won't be blindly "window shopping" for technology tools, and IT staff won't be proposing solutions in a vacuum; instead, they will be sharing in goals and challenges.
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faculty need technology that helps them to be better professors and that helps students become more sophisticated learners.
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Faculty can start by identifying specific teaching and learning challenges they are trying to resolve, as individuals and as a faculty body, and can then challenge themselves and IT staff to find creative ways to solve them.