Group Design Project 2

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[edit] Instructions for Literature Review

  1. For week two, you should collaboratively conduct a literature search for research on social networking and Web 2.0. You can browse the Internet and discuss what you find within the VMT chat room. For instance, you might want to go to [1] and read the section about Social networking/Internet social networks or go to [2]. Of course, you want to find information that is not so well known and that is particularly relevant to computer support for knowledge-building communities. So these sites can just be starting points for your team.
  2. Meet as a group in a VMT chat room and discuss the project.
  3. Discuss a group statement about the project that everyone can agree represents your group's finding.
  4. Summarize your finding in the SUMMARY area of the chat room whiteboard.
  5. Post your group's summary below.

Make sure that you are logged in. You can create a timestamp with your individual name by deleting the words "Date and Time of posting" and typing ~ ~ ~ ~ (a sequence of 4 tildes, with no spaces).

[edit] Some issues to discuss

  1. How would you define "social networking" and "social interaction" for this course?
  2. Is the Web 2.0 a vision of a set of technologies and infrastructures that allow people to connect to others, to form groups and to build knowledge together in these groups?
  3. Is Wikipedia a good model of "social networking" as you define it? Is this course? Is VMT?
  4. Is the wiki technology a good model of "Web 2.0" technology as you define it? Is the wiki for this course? Is VMT's environment, which combines synchronous chat, persistent whiteboard, asynchronous wiki, messaging and simple awareness in the chat room? What is missing from these?
  5. What technologies did you find to help people find and connect with people who would make good teammates for knowledge building? (For instance, what if you were supposed to do your group projects with people in other countries who were also interested in these research questions, instead of with other students who are already members of this course -- how would you find and contact them?)
  6. What technologies would help you to conduct this literature review collaboratively -- both the browsing and the analysis of your findings.

[edit] Comments on Group Statements

Think about how to use some of the technologies you came across to extend the social networking capabilities of the VMT environment. For instance, how would you use RSS or profiles?

Group 3 noted that there is not much knowledge building across groups, where groups build on each other's postings. How would you support that? Note that there are "discussion" tabs for each of these pages where people could carry on threaded discussions of the statements after they are posted. There is also a page called Our page for building knowledge of the whole course. Maybe we will start to use these as the course goes on -- it is a lot to expect in the first weeks when everyone is getting used to the chat, whiteboard, wiki, etc. by group.

I noticed that all of the group statements are relatively uncritical of the claim that current sites and technologies achieve social networking and the goals of Web 2.0. One can be more critical and see the sites as being rather simplistic and primitive -- just scratching the surface of what may be possible. Think about what is still missing. What is still very difficult to do?

[edit] Team 1 Statement

Seth Erickson and Elizabeth Veasey
Seth_E 22:15, 13 April 2007 (EDT)


Web 2.0 and Social Networking - A Review and Analysis of Literature


---Social Networking and Social Interaction---

Ferdig (2007) cites that a social network is a social structure made up of of individual entities or nodes tied by one or more types of relations, such as friendship, trade, web links, etc. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. There can be multiple kinds of ties between the nodes.

Huffman (2006) insists that social networks function on many different levels, from families up tothe national level, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals. Examples include online dating services where users will post their personal profiles, location, age, gender, etc, and are able to search for a partner. Other shared goals or interests include business networking (Ryze, XING, Azoola, Ecademy and LinkedIn), emotionally supportive phone counseling (Phone Buddies), social event meetups (Meetup), or recreational hobbies. (Wikipedia, 2007)


---Web 2.0---

According to Barsky (2004), Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others," creating network effects through an architecture of participation, and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.

Borja (2006) says that a content-management system like Wikipedia, by reputation, is becoming a catalyst for Web 2.0 innovation. In other words, Web 2.0 has enormous potential to bring user-generated content to the Internet. The idea is to free data from corporative control and allow anyone to assemble and locate content to meet their own needs or the needs of clients. Rather than having to conform to the paths laid out for us by content owners or their intermediaries, the user creates the content. (Achterman, 2006)

The picture below gives some examples of how web programs have evolved from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. (O'Reilley, 2005)

Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0


---Applications that use Web 2.0---

Sites such as Facebook, Google's Orkut, and Blogger can all be used to group social networks by preferences/interests. These Web 2.0 applications are stretching the frontiers of social interation. They can even be used to find individuals of other countries and languages. Speicifically, Facebook is a social network technology catered to College and High School communities, that may be used to find other students, and group them by interests, from all over the world. Among online social networks, FB stands out for two reasons: its success, both in terms of membership and quality of information available on it; and the fact that, "unlike other networks catered to young users, the information is uniquely and personally identified." Accordingly, FB is of interest because it has 10 million users, and as a source of highly valuable information about privacy attitude and privacy behavior among young individuals. Unlike other online networks, FB offers its members very "granular control on the searchability and visibility of their personal information" (in particular, by friend or location, by type of user, subject, and by type of data). By default, users’ profiles are searchable by anybody else on FB network, and are readable by any member at the same college or organization. (Acquisti & Gross, 2006)

Technologies like Blackboard, and Virtual Math Teams (VMT) allow for collaborative work. Through the on-line Blackboard delivery system, for example, a student has the opportunity to use both the synchronous (virtual classroom) and asynchronous discussion features, built in e-mail lists, the opportunity to generate a personal web page within the course, and other really interactive features. (Blackboard, 2007)

Currently we, in the Info 608 class, are using Virtual Math Teams (2007). This Project centers on small-group interaction and group cognition that take place within a specific set of circumstances. The VMT Project is able to "study and document the distinctive nature of math chats and their specific potentials for fostering group cognition". In this way, it illustrates, like Blackboard, an example of a much broader vision of engaged learning in online communities of the future.

In conclusion, it has been evinced that Web 2.0 is the evolution of internet interactivity. This social networking technology has the ability to change the way we see reality. It truly is a microcosm of the way we interact in our physical world. In that world, we interact with a social structure made up of of individual entities or nodes tied by one or more types of relations, such as friendship, trade, communications, etc. By using a collaboration of nodes we are extending ourselves as individuals and communities. This is the same in virtual communities, and as we evolve those communities, our external reality will change also.


---REFERENCES---

Achterman, D. Beyond "Wikipedia". (2006). Teacher Librarian. 34 (2),19-22.

Acquisti, A. & Gross, R. (2006). Imagined Communities: Awareness, Information Sharing, and Privacy on the Facebook. Retrieved April 11, 2007 from: http://petworkshop.org/2006/preproc/preproc_03.pdf

Barsky, E. (2007). Introducing Web 2.0: RSS trends for health librarians. Retrieved April 11, 2007 from: http://pubs.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/jchla/jchla27/c06-001.pdf

Blackboard Learning Systems. (2007). Blackboard. Retrieved April 12, 2007 from: http://www.blackboard.com

Borja, R. (2006). Educators experiment with student written wikis. Education Week, 25, (30) 10.

Ferdig, R. E. (2007). Editorial: examining social software in teacher education. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 15, ( 1 ) 5-10.

Huffman, K. (2006). Web 2.0: Beyond the Concept: Practical Ways to Implement RSS, Podcasts, and Wikis. Education Libraries, 29 (1), 12-19.

O'Reilley, T. (2005). What Is Web 2.0? Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. Retrieved April 12, 2007 from: http://facweb.cti.depaul.edu/jnowotarski/se425/What%20Is%20Web%202%20point%200.pdf

Virtual Math Teams. (2007). Researchers: Data Analysis. Retrieved April 12, 2007 from: http://mathforum.org/vmt/researchers/data.html

Wikipedia. Social Networking. (2007) Retrieved April 11, 2007 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking

[edit] Team 3 Statement

Fernando and Dave
Dave 21:56, 17 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] How would you define "social networking" and "social interaction" for this course?

Social networking, for this course, would be the connections between students that allow them to build upon each other’s knowledge. Each student uses the social network to gather information, discuss the information with other students, and present the collaborative work to other members of the social network. The social interaction in this course is the discussion and collaborations that occur in the chat rooms (VMT) and the wiki postings of the collaboration. VMT provides a whiteboard plus real time chat that has allowed users with a six hour time difference to communicate with each other seamlessly. The whiteboard allows these users to share graphical and textual representations of their ideas while the chat allows them to discuss the topic at hand. Wikis allows groups to share their ideas with other groups, creating a broader social network.

[edit] Is the Web 2.0 a vision of a set of technologies and infrastructures that allow people to connect to others, to form groups and to build knowledge together in these groups?

Tim O’Reilly described Web 2.0 as being a platform for “harnessing collective intelligence” (O'Reilly, 2005). By using the Internet to share and build upon knowledge we are accomplishing the vision of Web 2.0. It has become synonymous with online venues like RSS, Flickr, MySpace, and YouTube. Each of these sites encourages the sharing and social network that made Web 2.0 what it is (Metz). The tools for Web 2.0 allow more dynamic content and much more user interaction. The downside is that Web 2.0 requires a more active user willing to put some effort and that sometimes users are incorrect. Academic institutions frown upon references from Wikipedia.com.

[edit] Is Wikipedia a good model of "social networking" as you define it? Is this course? Is VMT?

Wikipedia is a good model of social networking as well as VMT. The combination of both of these technologies creates a much better social networking environment. Each tool has its strong points and weaknesses. Wikipedia does not have the real-time personal interaction but is a great tool to share information. VMT makes up for the shortcomings of Wikipedia. VMT provides an interface tool between peers. The discussion between people allows individual thoughts to develop into a better collection of ideas. These ideas are then posted on Wikipedia for the use of the social network. The course itself is a great model of social networking. The course uses these technologies and allows individuals from Hawaii, Arizona, and Pennsylvania to interact and discuss topics.

[edit] Is the wiki technology a good model of "Web 2.0" technology as you define it? Is the wiki for this course? Is VMT's environment, which combines synchronous chat, persistent whiteboard, asynchronous wiki, messaging and simple awareness in the chat room? What is missing from these?

The wiki technology is a great way to harness “collective intelligence” not only for the course but for virtually any topic, but what is different with the course Wiki is we are all posting different and some repetitive views on the same subject matter. We are building on individual’s knowledge within our groups but what seems to be missing is a solid building of knowledge between groups. We post our answers and observations to the wiki but we don’t seem to be reviewing and building beyond that. VMT’s environment also provides a good working model of Web 2.0’s social networking (chat and messaging) and social interaction (whiteboard and wiki). Corporate America seems to be adopting the technology claiming that “work [was] made easier” and “helped the organization to improve its processes.” (Majchrzak, Wagner, & Yates, 2006). The VMT is also a great Web 2.0 technology as it allows user interaction and expression. Again the corporate world uses this type of technology with tools such as NetMeeting to allow offices around the world to collaborate on a project. (An integrated tool that allows users to easily log conversations into a page)

[edit] What technologies did you find to help people find and connect with people who would make good teammates for knowledge building? (For instance, what if you were supposed to do your group projects with people in other countries who were also interested in these research questions, instead of with other students who are already members of this course -- how would you find and contact them?)

Both Google and Yahoo provide great services that allow users to interact and share ideas. Both provide a search engine capable of finding almost anything on the internet. Both provide a social network. Google and Yahoo Groups provide an easy interface that allows user interaction and collaboration of ideas. Other utilities provided by Google and Yahoo are chat, email, blogs, calendars, and picture sharing. Google takes it further by providing a documents and spreadsheet utility that allows users to share word processor documents and spreadsheets.

[edit] What technologies would help you to conduct this literature review collaboratively -- both the browsing and the analysis of your findings.

Again, the services provided by Google and Yahoo are a great start. There arises the need to post the information and the wiki technology is a great way to present the information. One other tool that seems to be valuable is NetMeeting or a similar program that would allow users to share their screens. Sometimes it is much easier to point out something that a user is viewing than to have to explain how to get there.

[edit] References

Majchrzak, A., Wagner, C., & Yates, D. (2006) Corporate Wiki Users: Results of a Survey. Retrieved April 16, 2007 from http://www.wikisym.org/ws2006/proceedings/p99.pdf.

Metz, Cade. "Web 3.0." PC Magazine 10 April 2007: 74-79.

O’Reilly, T. (September 30, 2005). What Is Web 2.0. Retrieved April 16, 2007 from http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

[edit] Team 5 Statement

Members: Kevin, Ben, Kate, Olivia, Lisa
Date and Time of posting: Olivia 16:12, 17 April 2007 (EDT)
[edit] How would you define "social networking" and "social interaction" for this course?

The concept of social networking involves viewing social structures as made up of individuals, viewed as nodes, which are tied or linked together by a specific type of relationship. It's important to note that these social relationships don't mean that people have to communicate dirrectly in real time. These relationships can take the form of postings on a message board, newsgroups or blogs. The social interaction aspect of social networking involves the exchange of information is in a shared network space.

[edit] Is the Web 2.0 a vision of a set of technologies and infrastructures that allow people to connect to others, to form groups and to build knowledge together in these groups?

Web 2.0 allows the sharing of information through the internet and then distributing that information. The technologies for sharing information range from wiki pages to RSS feeds from blogs. The information can be distributed through the large number of individual users through torrent files. Since each file is distributed among many people when the information is requests a small amount is uploaded from many individual places instead of one central database. This makes information that is widely held even more accessable.

[edit] Is Wikipedia a good model of "social networking" as you define it? Is this course? Is VMT? Wikipedia is a perfect example of the web 2.0 idea.

Wikipedia is a great model of social networking because the information entered doesn't require simultanious conversation between nodes which allows them to process information at their own pace and add to the wiki when they are ready. The wiki is also a good example of collaborative learning communities. People are contributing to the knowledge base. This course is a more direct version of social networking since we actively communicate together in a chat room at the same time instead of leaving posts as in the case of wikipedia. VMT allows us to take the social networking a step further by introducing the whiteboard to help with the networking. It should be noted though that currently the VMT system seems to have a number of bugs and connection issues that hamper our groups abilities to communicate effectively with each other.

[edit] Is the wiki technology a good model of "Web 2.0" technology as you define it? Is the wiki for this course? Is VMT's environment, which combines synchronous chat, persistent whiteboard, asynchronous wiki, messaging and simple awareness in the chat room? What is missing from these?

Wikis would be an excellent example of Web 2.0, because it allows for linked collaboration, open communication, decentralized authority, and freedom to share and re-use. The VMT environment allows more simultanios communication by the social network.

[edit] What technologies did you find to help people find and connect with people who would make good teammates for knowledge building? (For instance, what if you were supposed to do your group projects with people in other countries who were also interested in these research questions, instead of with other students who are already members of this course -- how would you find and contact them?)

Current social networking sites like myspace and facebook allow you to search for other people who have the same hobbies as you. So if you are interested in finding others who share your interests to make them teammates for knowledge building then by listing yourself and your interests you have put yourself out there to be recruited. For example, one can create a new group on Facebook called "Web 2.0 research" or something along the lines of knowledge-building social networking. The creator of the group can then send out invitations to all their contacts or students in HCI or Information systems majors at universities across the world. Anyone who accepts can be easily contacted via the networking site!

Another technology is one dealing with direct phone communication called Skype. Through this software you can make free long distance phone calls and then use your web cam to see the person you are talking too. There is also the option to just use text messages instead of voice. This software allows for inexpensive communication worldwide.

[edit] What technologies would help you to conduct this literature review collaboratively -- both the browsing and the analysis of your findings.

Netmeeting is a good example of a tool that could be used for collaborating between a larger group of people. Some of the features of netmeeting include the ability to share desktops and take control of other's workstations. This feature is particularly useful for editing documents and restricts editing rights to one person at a time, which would resolve the problem of multiple people editing the whiteboard in this Web 2.0 environment. For example, all the members of a group could dial in to a meeting at the same time and one member could then "share their desktop" while all are connected via netmeeting. All members could comment on the work in progress in real-time. without fear of losing work due to multiple editting.

[edit] References

1. Social Networking Sites: Why teens need places like myspace. Young Adult Libr Serv 5 no 2 Wint 2007

2. Web, Library and Teen Services 2.0 Young Adult Libr Serv 5 no2 Wint 2007

3. What is Web 2.0? www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

[edit] Team 6 Statement

Members: Bertha, Brian, Eric, Rajeev
Date and Time of posting: Bertha 21:56, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

[edit] How would you define "social networking" and "social interaction" for this course?

There are two levels of network and three levels of interaction in this course.

There is the network of group members and the network of groups. Group members interact to exchange and discuss our individual interpretation of the course material; group members look at other groups’ postings on their interpretation of the course material; and individuals produce their individual assignments for which they will feedback from the professor.

In doing so, we are sharing and building a collection of knowledge which other persons not necessarily related to the course but have access to the course website can also benefit from.

Social networking evolves or develops in this course: From a plain networking perspective; each person in each team is a suports a end node for HCI and nodes are connected through their PCs and internet provider. A interactive design team project can virtually evolve through use of human knowledge and understand, computers application use amd internet servers that exist on the team members end and the VMT node location. Social interaction occurs or can be identified when team member interact via VMT useing communication options for documenting team activities, learn knowledge and shared understandings.

[edit] Is the Web 2.0 a vision of a set of technologies and infrastructures that allow people to connect to others, to form groups and to build knowledge together in these groups?

Web 2.0 does not refer to a vision of a set of technologies or infrastructures that allow people to connect to others, to form groups and to build knowledge together in these groups. It refers to a change in how existing technologies and infrasturctures are used to improve how people to accomplish these goals.

[edit] Reference

"Web 2.0." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 12 April 2007, 12:09 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 11 Apr. 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2>.

[edit] Is Wikipedia a good model of "social networking" as you define it? Is this course? Is VMT?

Wikipedia is a good but not comprehensive model of social networking. It is a good example because it uses existing technology (the Internet, linking, multimedia, search engines, multi-communications methods etc.) and existing skills (authoring, researching, categorizing, etc) and applies them towards the end of sharing and building information toegether. However, its social interaction is limited to compositions and is not very condusive of discussion.

This course is given over a platform (VMT) that allows the functions of Wikipedia and provides a forum for live discussion. It is superior to Wikipedia in terms of the possiblities that VMT provides, however how the course performs as a social networking model will depend entirely on how the users of VMT will make use of the platform.

[edit] Is the wiki technology a good model of "Web 2.0" technology as you define it? Is the wiki for this course? Is VMT's environment, which combines synchronous chat, persistent whiteboard, asynchronous wiki, messaging and simple awareness in the chat room? What is missing from these?

The wiki technology is a good social collaboration model. By maintaining a history of changes, easy edit options, and multiple access capabilities the wiki is the best document management tool available. This tool is so versatile and easy to use, that it is even used in many corporate environments as a Document Management service. The VMT and wiki combination is potent as social networking tools. However there are a few features that are lacking for the combination of the two different sites. It may be impossible to achieve a completely integrated look and feel between the two sites, as there are two different engines involved in the background, but some extra features would help. Tighter interaction and integration of Java scripting pushing the application with system generated reminder emails, and/or more user-friendly interface to confirm communication delivery would be ideal in ensuring a better Web 2.0 environment. The development of social collaboration tools is hindered by the need to service the variety of clients through which users will access the tools. The need to balance between creating an equally accessible forum and providing more tools of communication becomes a dilemma when striving to develop a tightly integrated experience. Furthermore, improvements to the user interface and more dynamic integration of Whiteboard and Wiki can be achieved using dynamic coding techniques suggested by the Web 2.0 approach.

[edit] References

[edit] What technologies did you find to help people find and connect with people who would make good teammates for knowledge building? (For instance, what if you were supposed to do your group projects with people in other countries who were also interested in these research questions, instead of with other students who are already members of this course -- how would you find and contact them?)

Web 2.0 sites like Yahoo Answers, Blog sites including Wordpress and other techniques can be used to connect with far flung colleagues. Through posting answers, comments, connections on orkut , each of these can be used commercially. Inclusive of this, there are research and collaboration sites built by research institutes, like IEEE, that are used to help corroborate and work on papers simultaneously. It is disappointing to find there are few on-going forums for such interests that are hosted by higher-education institutions. Most such forums are meant for short term discussion events hosted by the institution more for promotion of their strength in the area of study. Others are not very effective forums for social networking; for example, MIT's Discussion network (https://alum.mit.edu/discuss/).

[edit] References

[edit] What technologies would help you to conduct this literature review collaboratively -- both the browsing and the analysis of your findings.

Video conferencing would make a good addition to the collaboration process. It would allow users to use traditional methods of collaboration and reduce the amount of time needed to adjust to the different technologies.

Present day technologies allow video conference sessions to be recorded for future review, so the asynchronous benefits of collaboration through technology would not be lost. When reviewing the recorded session, it would be necessary use one of the other collaboration tools as means of injecting new information or opinions to the discussion.

A technology, something like the Blackboard collaberation technologies (virtual classroom), which allow sharing of web sites through the blackboard chatt room, which I have seen instructor use for some of my classes here at Drexel. A variation of this tool could allow all team members to have the ability to see live database searching of a online information resource such as IEEE, JSTOR, Web of Science, etc. being done by other team members.

Additionally, if each team member understood how to build URL's and/or hyperlinks which retrieved specific search result from a online resource, then the team together could discuss via a Wiki whitebaord all the searches techniques’ used, as well as the literature that was turn-up by the searches. And any changes that may need to be addressed to search stategies.



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