Group items tagged

These were 3D or virtual worlds (eg Second Life), photo publishing (eg Flickr), digital storytelling and podcasting

empowers individuals to: Make It – i.e. user-driven content Name It – i.e. social bookmarking referred to as folksonomy Work on It – i.e. mass collaboration or crowdsourcing Find It – i.e. online product search generating the new business model, Long Tail.

landscape is dynamically changing

Innovators: Brave people - pulling the change. Innovators are very important communicators. Early Adopters: Respectable people - opinion leaders, try out new ideas, but in a careful way. Early Majority: Thoughtful people - careful but accepting change more quickly than the average. Late Majority: Sceptical people - will use new ideas or products only when the majority is using it. Laggards: Traditional people - caring for the "old ways", are critical towards new ideas and will only accept it if the new idea has become mainstream or even tradition.

little causes have big effects; and changes happen not gradually but at one dramatic moment.

estimate target groups for communication purposes as well

The characteristics of the exceptional people who start epidemics

They are the messengers who spread social messages.

Connectors: People with a special gift for bringing the world together, people specialists, know lots of people and are able to make social connections. Mavens: Information specialists and problem solvers with social skills who like to share their knowledge. Salespeople: Have the skills to persuade when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing.

creating "contagious" social change

enables people to rendez-vous, connect or collaborate through computer mediated discussion and to form online communities. Broadly conceived, this term could encompass older media such as mailing lists but some would restrict its meaning to more recent software genres such as blogs and wikis."

intrinsic motivation

new challenges and a desire to make things better

empowered, professional and extremely resourceful.

confidence

characteristic of the "blogger"

(the early adopters) are ready to engage with social software: "I believe that it is the autonomy and freewill that has caught the attention of the second wave and it is their ability to "do it for themselves" that will be the sustainable feature of their ongoing elearning practices. It is the simplicity and ease of use of these social networking tools that has brought most success in the shortest amount of time during the [Framework] projects run in 2006."

it is a learned skill...if we want to communicate, through using blogs, we have to comment ...we have to have the confidence to 'talk' and build a profile. Commenting is a good starting point even if it is just to say 'thank you'."

meaning of groups, networks and communities.

blurring

linking and the forming of networks and/or communities that evolve from its use that many find so attractive.

Siemens’ Connectivism theory and is further supported by Stuckey and Arkell (2006) who state that, "The current mantra for knowledge management is connect don’t collect". (p 7)

"the importance of communities of practice and their generative knowledge building capacity"

The Domain – a shared interest The Community – Engaging in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. The Practice - They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems - in short a shared practice.

A key element of linking, networking and forming communities of practice is "trust". You need to have trust in the judgments of the people with whom you are connecting. Trust is the basis of all human interactions. Boone in Stuckey and Arkell (2006 p 7) states, "I don’t want raw data, I don’t want information, I want the judgments of people I can trust".

Ownership – Fundamental to the whole "revolution" is the fact that individuals can now ‘own’ their own space on the Web – moving from being consumers to becoming contributors and collaborators. Sites that allow individuals to create and maintain their own collections of photos, videos, music and bookmarks online are examples of this. Personalization – the ability to customize the interface of many of these sites is an example of the personalized approach. But personalization goes a lot deeper with this, and includes the ability to actually ‘construct’ the way in which information is represented, where it comes from, how it is used etc. Participation – the move from simply publishing or participation is another hallmark of this software. Even blogs, while being a personal publishing tool, allow for participation – at one level through the comments that can be left, and at another through the communities of interest that develop. Aggregation – the availability of software that makes use of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) demonstrates how information from one source can so easily be integrated into another. Sites that allow individuals to create their personal aggregations of news feeds, blog links, and other feeds, such as NetVibes and PageFlakes, are good examples of this. Other sites such as Technorati illustrate how easily communities of interest can be formed through the aggregation of people’s blog entries.