The Power of eCommunication

WIKIS & LEARNING COMMUNITIES
Consult the resources below (and others on the web) and write a post for The Power of eCommunication on the value of wikis to create learning communities (how wikis are used ? for what purposes ? your opinion on their social importance + selected examples of wikis supporting communities that you find on the web)

Tsz Chung Kitty Chan
Module 5
The Power of eCommunication on the value of wikis to create learning communities

How wikis are used?
Quoted directly from Wikipedia: “A wiki is a type of Web site that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration.”
*One particular point we have to take in mind is that the concept of ‘learning’ has other layers of meaning beside the traditional meaning of teaching and learning in school/academic settings.
I think wikis allow democratic use of the internet. Wikis supporting communities on the web for examples are:
http://www.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia is both a process and a product. Its aspect of anarchism is interesting.
http://home.bellanet.org/partners.php
http://www.alnap.org/index.html
http://www.innonet.org/
http://ctb.ku.edu/index.jsp
It is amazing to see how the wiki technology has been implemented in such diverse range of sectors(political, non-profit, humanitarian, education, academia, governmental or non-governmental organizations)
As for myself I am more familiar with using wikipedia, mostly for references and news. I tried to edit once about traditional Chinese costume, but when I went back few weeks later my entry was deleted (!)

The technological infrastructure behind Web 2.0 is complex.
To quote directly from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0#Technology_overview
"The complex and evolving technology infrastructure of Web 2.0 includes server-software, content-syndication, messaging-protocols, standards-based browsers with plugins and extensions, and various client-applications. These differing but complementary approaches provide Web 2.0 with information-storage, creation, and dissemination capabilities that go beyond what the public formerly expected of Web sites.

A Web 2.0 website typically features a number of the following techniques:

Ajax-based rich Internet application techniques
Non-Ajax-based rich Internet application techniques
CSS
Semantically valid XHTML markup and/or the use of Microformats
Syndication and aggregation of data in RSS/Atom
Clean and meaningful URLs
Extensive use of folksonomies (in the form of tags or tagclouds, for example)
Weblog publishing
Mashups
REST or XML Webservice APIs "

The Net Generation and the educational system
Given the characteristics of the Net Generation, and the digital environment in which it lives,
• what in the current educational system does not suit the NET Generation student, and
The fixed timetable, fixed venue/classroom location, expensive textbooks. formal learning in an authority-based, lecture-oriented school. Set texts or readings that inhibit personal and creative use of web searching tool and hands on learning experience.
• what changes, according to you, should schools and universities implement to meet the needs of this new type of student?
Create blogs/discussion forum for units of study, so students can continue to communicate outside of classroom.
Allow students to turn on their mobile during class. If people find ring tone and talking on the phone disturbing, then at least allow students to switch to the silent mode and send text messages.
Acknowledge the Net Gen learn through immediate, experiential and highly social environment. Curriculum and pedagogy or learning activity that promote team work, interactivity, social engagement, and fast pace learning.
Teachers’ expertise and being as inspirational model are still of vital importance to successful learning.

Given the characteristics of the Net Generation, and the digital environment in which it lives,
• what in the current educational system does not suit the NET Generation student, and
The fixed timetable, fixed venue/classroom location, expensive textbooks. formal learning in an authority-based, lecture-oriented school. Set texts or readings that inhibit personal and creative use of web searching tool and hands on learning experience.
• what changes, according to you, should schools and universities implement to meet the needs of this new type of student?
Create blogs/discussion forum for units of study, so students can continue to communicate outside of classroom.
Allow students to turn on their mobile during class. If people find ring tone and talking on the phone disturbing, then at least allow students to switch to the silent mode and send text messages.
Acknowledge the Net Gen learn through immediate, experiential and highly social environment. Curriculum and pedagogy or learning activity that promote team work, interactivity, social engagement, and fast pace learning.
Teachers’ expertise and being as inspirational model are still of vital importance to successful learning.

On November 8, the Sundance Institute announced in New York the first Sundance Film Festival for mobile users. Through its Global Short Film Project, it has commissioned six independent filmmakers to create five short films, crafted exclusively for mobile distribution.

This pilot project is the first to commission high calibre independent filmmakers to create original stories specifically for the mobile environment. The filmmakers will be working with a limited budget, time and resources to make a 3-5 minute film for a small mobile screen.

Robert Redford, Sundance Institute president and founder, said that “cell phones are fast becoming the ‘fourth screen’ medium, after television, cinema and computers”.

This project will explore the potential of the mobile medium to deliver cinematic entertainment to a global audience and may be the start of a new era in which the 'fourth screen' will change the way people are entertained and educated.

-Using music/sounds as a means to convey unspoken emotions in mobile interactions.

Why: The visual and emoticons available on pdas/mobile phones up to this point are much less interesting then those available in desktop/laptop/devices with bigger screens.

-Mindmap device. A software/application that 1)record everything the corpus/word that the user type on any computer device in order to collect and record learning experience; analyze the thought process of students, in order for teachers to better understand how students think about issues, solve problems, and acquire knowledge

Scope of access of privacy has to be negotiated. How much do students want their teachers know about what, how, why they think and do?

-expand further on previous idea: an ideal mobile communication device that can collect, mine, analyze the emotional, physiological state of users so to better understand each other and enhance better communication..like it can tell you what kind of perfume your blind date on phone is wearing..far-fetched? Maybe. Impossible? Probably not.

Ultimately a super device that would replace/replicate the senses, the tangibles of face-to-face social interactions.

(This feature article is intended for women's magazines and/or any other medium dealing with YouTube or new technologies.)

“Hi! My name is Katz20two and I am a YouTube addict.” In front of me, an attractive thirtyish brunette is opening up. She nervously rubs her fingers while she talks and, with a mixture of anxiety and puzzlement on her face, she slowly adds, “I am relatively new to YouTube, I have only be putting on videos for about a week, maybe over, maybe two weeks now…seems longer.”
These words you can heard on a video, posted 3 months ago on the most popular video sharing Web site on the Net: YouTube.
Her profile displays that she has already viewed more than 3650 videos in a short 4 months period of time. This is extremely impressive for anyone not too familiar with the service. You quickly learn, while skimming through other users’ profile's that she is not alone.
On the same page, another self-declared YouTube addict, known under the pseudonym “crs992”, states a number of symptoms to help people determine if they suffer from the same YouTube addiction. Under the title, “Are you a youtube addict?” he states, “You know you are when…immediately after you wake-up you log-on and check your video views…you are constantly on in your free time…”and so on.

Seriously, what is this all about? Does this Web site really deserve so much attention?