10.1 Complexity and Social Networks

Yellow Pods Social Network

a)      Peta – following b,c,d,e,f plus one other

b)     Jessica – following a,d,e,f plus many others

c)      Lloyd – following a,b,d,f

d)     Thomas – a,b,c

e)      Dianne – unable to identify

f)       Ash – following a,b,c,d plus one other

 

Over the last couple of weeks I have been have been following a few extra people from time to time, really just to check if we are understanding the questions/tasks the same way.  I have noticed that others seem to be doing the same.  Also to be totally honest I have made sure I have followed my pod mates to show that I am a diligent blogger, I presume others have been doing the same thing too. The social network diagram gives the impression that we are all following each other, but this is not so, to give better information each member of the pod should be given their own colour, then it will look like this.

 It can be seen in the above diagram that some of our group have a greater need or desire to follow other members' blogs than others.  This shows the dynamics could change greatly if a follower moved on or a new follower came in.  I have also noticed that it has been rare that people have commented on others, blogs.  I wonder if this is normal behaviour or if it is because of the purpose for which we are using our blogs.  I admit I have read some blogs and I have thought "I don't really agree", or "that's an interesting perspective",but I haven't commented, whereas I probably would in another environment.

If I repeated this activity with another Pod group, my observations could be quite different.   The reason for this is that a social network, like our Pod blogs are complex systems and they display emergent properties.  Jennifer Hallinan explains, these are ‘due to the interactions in a system, and are not inherent in the individual components.

According to the University of Michigan's Centre for the Study of Complex Systems, a complex system displays some or all of the following characteristics and they can be used to explain why we could expect different levels of activity and interaction throughout the various pod groups:

• Agent-based
• Basic building blocks are the characteristics and activities of individual agents – our Pods are made up of individuals, with different levels of confidence, enthusiasm and desire to share.
• Heterogeneous
• The agents differ in important characteristics.  The participants in our Pod groups are diverse and not necessarily comparable in the levels of participation in their allocated group.
• Dynamic
• Characteristics change over time, usually in a nonlinear way; adaptation.  Our Pod groups have changed over time, with some members dropping out, other members have participating on a very casual bases in the beginning, but towards the due assessment force is applied from the assessment deadline and perhaps other members of the group to participate.
• Feedback
• Changes are often the result of feedback from the environment.  Feedback can have considerable effect on the Pod system, there will be pods that have given each other more feedback and support which may have either pulled the group together or divided it.  It just depends on the type of feedback and how it has been accepted.
• Organization
• Agents are organized into groups or hierarchies.  Our groups were formed by Ken and we were expected to work together. This was done randomly and it depended on the dynamics of the group if there was someone to lead the group by arranging and setting up meeting places and leading group discussions.  No doubt some leaders were more active and motivated than others.
• Emergence
• Macro-level behaviours that emerge from agent actions and interactions.  The Pod groups have potential to cover a large scope of sharing and discussion, with few rules, in fact most rule have probable been unspoken.

http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~comp4001/

9.2 Research and evaluation in Government

A Wiki can be used as a place on the Internet where a government department can invite interested parties to contribute to a discussion paper on any issue of concern, e.g. The establishment of an Environmental Management Plan for a local riparian area or Development of child protection guidelines. The ‘open editing’ format allows anyone interested in the topic to make contributions to the document and edit/delete any previous comments. A wiki provides the opportunity for interested people from all areas of public life to seriously present their arguments on public policy. It can be accepted or rejected by others. All contributions are stored as data and can be referred to even if they have been edited by another person. A wiki provides policy makers with a draft and all proposals that have been contributed to assist them in preparing a policy that has been actively debated in a public domain.

Twitter in government is common place many politicians are using it to provide constituents with snippets of information or links to sites where they can find details on issues. Government departments could offer a service of answering quick question at set times. E.g. Centrelink could offer Monday 2nd November 1pm – 3pm tweet your questions about ‘rent assistance’.

Me as a supporter of Government 2.0
I do support Gov 2.0. At first I could only think of chaos when imagining the mining companies versus the greens and all the rest of us who have opinions completing a Wiki draft on ‘clean energy’. I had a vision of it being like ebay, where the last one to hit the enter button at close off is the winner. Then I thought about all the data the policy makers would have collected from contributors all over the country/world that they could use to write the policy document and then I felt calmer. I also read a great comment made by Matt Barton who really bought the whole use of wikis into perspective, he states, ‘they …enable collaboration and teach us all something very important about what a true democracy is all about’. His comments can be read at the following link.
http://wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_tutorial/What_is_a_wiki/Advantages_and_disadvantages

Twitter is happening. As the IT illiterates, who don’t want to get involved with Web 2.0 (or aren’t encouraged to by management) retire from government and the public service and those with the skills or willingness to participate and learn step up to the plate one of the biggest hurdles for governments in embracing Web 2.0 will be solved.

9.1 Is social networking a business model?

I have just joined Linkedin and I have sent out requests, My uncle has an account and I can see that his business, developing 5 star B&Bs and hotels, including interior decorating. He is continually dealing with people in Australia & Asia and as many of his clients use his service more than once I can see his business would benefit from using a social network in order to keep his business fresh in his clients’ minds.

An effective business model has a combination of different concepts such as infrastructure, offering, customers and finances. Social networking as a standalone business model design would not be functional, but as part of a business model it would be a valuable tool in the management of customer relationships.
Businesses keep in contact with their customers through phone calls, emails and traditional hardcopy mail, but I can see a great benefit to many business through establishing a social network between themselves and their clients. An example is; Last weekend I caught a business show with David Kosh, (it was obviously sponsored by Westpac, but I’ve put that aside) he was assisting two young guys who had established a ‘boot camp’ exercise business, they wanted a way to keep established clients when they employed a new trainer to take the class they established. It was all about keeping it personal. The business lady suggested contacting their clients with emails to ask how they were going and if they needed any advise to keep the personal contact, which is good, but … a social network would be a lot better. Through a social network all members of the class could be connected in another way and the greater the friendship between participants the more likely they will keep coming to boot camp classes. Also it could provide an opportunity where the trainers could give general tips to all, which could create discussions or they communicate by private email if the issue is more personal. It would also provide an opportunity for members’ contacts to get interested and join the group.

For the down side though, if a couple of people get disgruntled and start winging on the social network it could lead to people moving on, but it does give the business managers the opportunity to quickly address the issues, which will keep the customers satisfied.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_model

The Elgg Social Engine

d) Elgg.org is a social networking and social publishing platform, which powers a diverse range of social groups. It appears to be a well developed site and it promotes itself as being ‘elegant’ and ‘flexible’ with ‘scalable solutions for organizations, groups and individuals. It offers users an activity stream which shows your own actions, your friends' activity and the activity from across the site. It also offers other entities such as profiles, notifications, groups, blogs and embedded files, a full file repository and microblogging.

It has an appealing look and I like the uncluttered, clean look that I saw on the demo site. It has a professional look, which I like and I think it would be an attractive alternative to Facebook as a work-based social network.


Reference
http://elgg.org/

8.4: Aggregation, syndication and the social engine

a) RSS is a format for distributing regularly changing web content. With RSS you can get news feeds, events listings, news stories, headlines, project updates, excerpts from discussion forums or even corporate information from the sites you are interested in without having to check the site every day or week. Time is saved by not having to visit each site separately.

Subscribing to an RSS is simple. You first need to get an RSS reader, e.g. http://www.rssreader. When a RSS reader is set up all the user needs to do is put the selected addresses of the RSS feeds into the downloaded reader. This can be done with any source displaying the orange RSS icon.

The term RSS is most frequently used as a name to mean the syndication of Web content. Syndication is the sharing of content among different Web sites. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation. A web feed is also sometimes referred to as a syndicated feed.

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg provides a place where people can collectively determine the value of content as the users vote on the best surfaces. Content is displayed in stacks and digs.
Stack
Digg Stack shows diggs occurring in real time on up to 100 stories at once. Diggers fall from above and stack up on popular stories. Brightly colored stories have more Diggs. (dig.com)
Swarm
Digg Swarm draws a circle for stories as they're dugg. Diggers swarm around stories, and make them grow. Brightly colored stories have more Diggs. (dig.com).

References
http://www.whatisrss.com/
http://www.financial-freedom-informant.com/define-rss.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/syndication.html
http://labs.digg.com/

b) Social bookmarking is a way Internet users are able to reference their favourite sites. On these websites a user can add, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources. The benefit of using an online social bookmarking site is that a user’s bookmarked sites can be access at any computer that is connected to the Internet. Also it provides a facility to share bookmarks with others so your friends, coworkers, and other people can view them for reference, amusement, collaboration, or anything else.

When using delicious users can tag a page then once they have bookmarked the page they add tags in order to organize the sites for easy retrieval. Tags are one-word descriptors that a user can assign to their bookmarks. Tags can be described as being like keywords, but the user chooses them.

References
http://delicious.com/help/faq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking

c) GoToWeb20.net is amazing, I couldn’t have imagined that there were so many web applications available. I have bookmarked the blogging apps (in delicious of course) to have a try when I come for air in a few weeks. ScreenToaster and Speedtile look interesting too. I am starting to understand more and more that we will all get very used to having our desktop online which will mean all our personal settings and applications will be available anywhere, anytime. This will no doubt make working life more efficient.

Reference
http://www.go2web20.net/

8.3 Data portability, FOAF and the Semantic Web

How does the FOAF tag form part of the Semantic Web and Web services via social networks?
FOAF is an acronym for Friend of a friend and it is an organized computer readable collection of information describing people, their connections with other people, the activities they are involved in and all other relevant entities. FOAF allows an individual’s personal information to be transferred between Web sites, organize it and then group them into relevant social networks without the need for a centralised database. FOAF tags contribute to the semantic web through collecting and collating data using a software system designed to support machine to machine interaction over a network (Web services) making it feasible for the web to recognise and fulfill the requests of people and machines to use the World Wide Web.

References
http://www.foaf-project.org/about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOAF_(software)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_service
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=ontology

8.2 An interview with myself.

Why did I select this subject as part of my Post Graduate Certificate ITC Education?
I had wanted to investigate online social networks for quite a while, but other priorities always got in the way. There is nothing like a uni course and the thought of failure to change my priorities. I also was quite amazed that the course outline meant very little to me, which I interpreted as “I need to know a lot more about this area of IT”.

What have been the positive aspects of the course?
I have ‘learnt by doing’, which is a great way to learn. I have really enjoyed getting onto the various online community spaces and testing them out. I found that there are similarities between sites and that once you have mastered chat in one place you can chat when it is offered at other sites. I have also learnt that the various aspects of usability play an important part to the success of a website or online community site.

I have created a blog, got started with Twitter , chatted on Etherpad, CSU Interact, LC Moo, and Skype. I’m now very enthusiastic about Moodle, talked face to face on Skype and worked on Ning with my pod.

What have been the negative aspects of the course?
I have struggled with writing the mini essays of around 250 words, I have found the questions are fairly complex and I feel the 250 word limit doesn’t allow for a smooth flowing essay that includes an introduction and conclusion.
It has been difficult at times to get to our group sessions on Wednesday evenings, but it is mostly only a matter of organisation and I have been able to get their most weeks.

How will I integrate the use of online communities into my teaching?
The first thing I have done is got on board with a group of teachers who have a high interest in IT and become part of a Twitter group of teachers who are happy to help each other out professionally.

The next thing I want to do is set up a blog for the students at school and I will be using Moodle next year (when I will have more time, due to no uni study) to set up a unit of work for my students.

What I am finding now when issues are being discussed in regards to teaching or professional development I am now able to consider if an online network could be useful to our needs and which one would be best.

8.1 A description of a walk in the bush

As I stepped out my door to take my walk on our bush property I disturbed a lace monitor who scurried back into his hidey hole under a rock in a garden. As I took off down our dirt track driveway I saw a rainbow bee-eater fly out of its hole near our shed, its blue, yellow and green feathers shimmered in the sunlight.

After a few minutes of walking I heard a couple of channel bill cuckoos heralding the start of summer as they flew overhead. I then stopped to listen. I could hear many birds, some I could recognize, others I couldn’t. The fig birds hanging around in the palm trees always remind me of the tropics. The joker of the bush, the kookaburra, had a laugh and then flew to a gnarled old gum nearby. I then walked on.

High up on the escarpment there was a stronger wind blowing than the gentle breeze where I was walking. There are many species of eucalypts and other natives growing up the escarpment that creates great habitats for the whip birds and the bush turkeys I could hear. I tried hard to ignore the insidious lantana.

As I walked past the huge sandstone rocks that have stood the weathering of time, I thought of all the fun my kids had playing on these when they were young. The rope hanging from a high tallowood tree over the Waterfall Rock must be 10 years old now. The Truck Rock (named because it looks like a semi-trailer) has a strangler fig growing over part of it. It will look spectacular in 20 years time.

Exercise 7.2 New devices, age care and people with disabilities

In a 2000 study, 888,000 older people required assistance with common daily activities, because of disability or age (lifetec.org.au). Many companies involved with computer sciences are developing sophisticated technologies that can assist the elderly and disabled. Some developments are listed below.

An assistive listening device (ALD) can be used with or without hearing aids to overcome the negative effects of distance, background noise, or poor room acoustics.

The purpose of a Smart wheelchairs is to reduce or eliminate the user's task of driving a motorized wheelchair. Usually, a smart wheelchair is controlled by a computer, has a suite of sensors and applies techniques in mobile robotics. The interface may consist of a conventional wheelchair joystick , or it may be a "sipp and puff" device or a touch-sensitive display connected to a computer.

The new iPhone has voice control, which means elderly or disabled people can access their contact via voice commands after a push of one button on their phone. The touch screen on the iPhone also makes it easier to use for the elderly and disabled.

At home there are many innovations to help the aged and disabled, things such as mattress sensor pad which turns on the lights for when people get out of bed at night so they don’t trip or fall. Also there is a sensor which alerts if the gas has been left on and a device which reminds people to take their medication. Devices can also be installed to collect data on a person’s vital health signs, such as blood pressure and heart rate, this enables health professionals to monitor someone without actually seeing them. “In the future, homes could be built with technology installed such as sensors under the carpet to detect a fall or sensors to detect water overflows in the bathroom,”

Robotic lawn mowers and vacuum cleaners are available and the Japanese are currently developing an interactive face robot that is able to communicate both verbally and non-verbally with humans.

References
http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/06spp.html
http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471696943.html
©1997-2009 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/treatment/assist_tech.htm
Official Blue Care staff and volunteer newsletter Volume 13 2007
www.bluecare.org.au/NewsAndEvents/.../Blue%20Print%2013%201-9.pdf
http://www.lifetec.org.au/_uploads/4841061011_MR_Functional_kitchens_for_all_abilities.pdf

7.1 Smart screen interface case study

There are three basic arrangements that are used to identify touch. They are resistive, capacitive and surface acoustic wave.

The resistive system consists of a layer of glass covered with a conductive and a resistive metallic layer, which are separated by spacers. During operation an electrical currents runs through the layers and when pressure is applied to the screen and the two layers touch a change in the current is recognized and the coordinates are determined. Then a driver converts the touch into an instruction.

The capacity system has a layer of glass with a transparent metallic conductive coating. An electrode pattern distributes a low voltage field over the conductive layer. When a finger touches the screen it creates a voltage drop and the current flow is able to be measured to calculate locate the point of contact. The information is then transmitted to the computer. POS (Point of Sale), kiosks and ATMs use capacity systems.

A touch screen using a surface acoustic wave system uses a receiving and a sending transducer, which are positioned on the X and Y axes of the monitor’s glass plate. The reflectors on the glass plate reflect the electrical signal sent from one transducer to the other. The receiving transducer can instantly detect if the wave has been disturbed by a touch.

The touch screen on the iPhone has large buttons that can be pushed directly on the screen and allow the user to complete phone tasks without having to use the small buttons on a typical mobile phone. With the elimination of the keypad on a mobile phone it allows for a bigger screen without increasing the size of the phone. This has allowed for a widescreen facility to be included on the iPhone. Touch screen technology allows for easy access for consumers and businesses to use touch screen to do their banking at ATMs, get customer information from shopping centre kiosks and cash registers.

References
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/ipod-touch.htm
http://www.ezscreen.com/capacitive_touch_screens.html
http://www.ideamarketers.com/?windows_mobile_6_sip,_windows_mobile_si&articleid=599233

Topic 6: Trust and reputation

Trust and reputation how is it achieved?
Discussing across any TWO online communities.

Twitter was developed in 2006 and is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read brief messages known as tweets. The site is used by 6 million unique monthly visitors world-wide. The author's profile page displays the tweets and they are sent to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website. Twitter developers have made changes to their site to ensure its reputation remains reputable, some of these are including passwords and the ability for users to select their followers.

Twittering has dramatically increased in popularity over the last couple of years and it is seen as a respectable site. Its profile has been lifted with politicians, news services and celebrities twittering. Twitter is used for spreading news, spam, self-promotion, social grooming, conversations and for passing along information. Some aspects of twitter that I find appealing are no advertising, no quizzes like ‘what colour is your aura’, and messages are brief. Twitter has managed to have its service incorporated into business, as it provides an easy and fast form of brief communications between colleagues, this builds its reputation and trust within the community.

Wikipedia states that only 40 percent of Twitter's users are retained, this may be due to the services’ exponential growth and many people try it out, but have no real purpose for the service. Another aspect of twitter, which many novice users may experience are that if they do not block new followers initially they will end up with thousands of followers all sending irrelevant tweets. Also I have found by following a prolific twitterer like Radio National or a news company you get so many tweets that at a quick look once a day you often miss a tweet from a colleague or friend.

Facebook is also a free online social networking website. Wikipedia states that Facebook is the most used social networking site world-wide. It has an intuitive interface and users can be actively involved online quickly. Users can form groups that share a common interest, they can also share thoughts, photos and private emails with friends. Real-time chat is also available.

Facebook developers have included features to reduce invasion of privacy and the risk of identity fraud. They have included username and password to access the site. Also a user can select only to show limited information about them self prior to accepting a person as a friend. These actions show credibility. There are still security issues, which may not be being addressed purely because many young people share too much information about themselves online, users may in the future demand Facebook developers need to accept some of the responsibility for educating its users.

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

Wikis and Moodles usability, sociability and sustainability

Wiki and Moodle
Likeable design features that are tips for usability, sociability and sustainability

Usability
Both Wiki and Moodle are easy to locate and log into on the Internet. The sites are easy to navigate. Wikis are excellent for beginners and quite intuitive, they are easy to use by the creator and other users. Moodles allow the creator to easily add web content into the site and the end users are able to simple navigate the Moodle format to participate in their course. Both sites off high levels of support and there are many excellent tutorials for using these sites online.

Sociability
Wikis and Moodles both offer opportunities for sociability. A wiki allows all members to participate in preparing a collaborative essay or document, as there is also a wiki feature in Moodle this enables both of these applications this element of sociability. Moodle also provides real-time chat and video conferencing features which enhance sociability. Both Wikis and Moodles have changed as new features are developed through user and programmer suggestions.

Sustainability
Both Wikis and Moodles are powerful sites that have intuitive interfaces, which are easily accessible to the user. They have been widely promoted as essential tools for sharing and learning. Wikipeadia is a great example of a sustainable collaborative site. Moodle has developed a reputation as a risk free, easy to use way of managing a course.

Topic 6: Compare Wiki & Moodle

Click on the above Venn Diagram to see the full image size.

Topic 6: Wiki and Moodle design

Wiki design features that I like are;
• It can be modified by multiple users, which make it ideal for collaborative projects.
• It is easy for beginners to online communities to use.
• It provides a space for students or anyone to create pages.
• It can be used to easily publish student work.
• Podcasts can be embedded.

Moodle design features that I like are
• Provides an effective way to manage a course
• Allows access to world-wide information with teacher control.
• Can build in almost any kind of web content into the course
• Multipage lessons
• Able to link webpages, text documents, glossaries
• Provides opportunity for real time chat and video conferencing
• Ability to make quizzes with built-in solutions.
• Available wiki

Topic 6: CSU design rules for forum

Click on the above table to see a larger image.

Webex

Our online learning about Webex was very interesting, it seems like it would be easy to use and would provide lots of practical uses in an educational environment. But it is fairly expensive. This product/application is very similar to Smart Bridgit conferencing software which we use at school to share desktops while in a video conference. I had a look at Bridgit software including Voice over IP (VoIP)it is US$35 pm, I'm glad the dept pays for our Bridgit subcription. No doubt when we all can't live without it we will gladly pay, just like we do for Internet, pay TV etc.