Week 5 - Real Communities, Virtual Communities

So are communities that are on the internet virtual communities? well personally i think not...

In out tutorial lesson we were given six examples of communities and we had to discuss whether we thought they were just a virtual community or not. This was really interesting as it brought up a number of key points, for example; what real and virtual really means in the context of the internet and what makes them categorised that way.

It seems that the questions that were shown to help us think about defining whether they were real or virtual communities were hard to implement one way or the another, for example, who is to say when it changes from being a real to a virtual community? different people have their own personal opinions on this. In our groups we concluded that even if a community is only meeting online, it is still people connecting and forming relationships so it cannot really be classed as virtual.

It was interesting to hear different peoples views and thoughs on this, i felt the discussion went in a very healthy direction as it seemed to bring people around to the same way of thinking, which was that it's quite hard to define whether certain communities are purely virtual.

Communities Update...(Friends Reunited)

I was reading in a few places about friends reunited so i thought i would give it a try, so i am now registered with them.

Ive looked around on the site and there are a lot of people from my school year already registered so might give a few of them a message...

Friends reunited is a site where you sign in and input the details of your previous schools, universities and jobs in order to find people that were there at the same time, and so they can find you. To go to friends reunited click the link below.

Visit Friends Reunited

Another Joke

Heres another joke that someone sent me, i found it funny!

Did you hear about the teacher who was helping one of her kindergarten students put on his boots?

He asked for help and she could see why. With her pulling and him pushing, the boots still didn't want to go on. When the second boot was on, she had worked up a sweat.

She almost whimpered when the little boy said, "Teacher, they're on the wrong feet." She looked and sure enough, they were.

It wasn't any easier pulling the boots off than it was putting them on.

She managed to keep her cool as together they worked to get the boots back on, this time on the right feet. He then announced, "These aren't my boots."

She bit her tongue rather than get right in his face and scream, "Why didn't you say so?" like she wanted to.

Once again she struggled to help him pull the ill-fitting boots off.

He then said, "They're my brother's boots. My Mom made me wear them."

She didn't know if she should laugh or cry.

She mustered up the grace and courage she had left to wrestle the boots on his feet again. She said, "Now, where are your mittens?"

He said, "I stuffed them in the toes of my boots..."

Her trial starts next week.

Community - Reflective Practice

So i was on Money Saving Expert website today and thought i would say thanks to someone who had posted about where to buy cheap dvd's, well to my surprise about an hour after i had posted someone else was posting on the board and it was all derogatory remarks flaming me! Their argument was that people "like me" cluttered up these forums by posting useless thankyou messages. While i agree that sometimes too many thankyou posts can disadvantage a forum (it can increase the loading time of the page for example) in this particular situation i was the only person who had thanked him so i felt this was out of order!

Well this particular thread seemed to very quickly turn into an all out "forum war" with people posting on both sides of the fence about their feelings on the matter and in the end the moderators had to step in. They decided to move the discussion from "online discount vouchers" to the "Vent Board" (which is meant to be where people "vent their anger").

From my observation of this forum it seems to me that there is a big sense of "camaraderie" between members and they each want to get one up on the other.

Week 4 - Models of Reflective Practice

So i still haven't finished week 3's portfolio tasks and another tutorial comes by already! Its a good job the tasks this week are to continue with last weeks :)

This week we had discussions on how we should reflect on our blogs as well as on our online communities. We decided the best way was to review what we had done and experienced, but to also use conceptualization in order to convey why we had done this in order to form a basis for our conclusions.

We discussed about the "Kolb Learning Cycle", which is useful for showing us the stages that are necessary for our learning. It is a simple model but really affective in conveying each of the four stages of human learning; Experiencing, Reflection, Conceptualization, Planning.

So interesting stuff so far, i wonder what awaits us in the coming weeks...

Communities Update... (Money Saving)

I have come accross a very good website that shows everyone how to save money, particularly helpful for students!! It goes through all of the money saving details you could ever want to know (mortgages, shopping, credit cards, latest high street deals etc...)

A particular useful part of the site is the "Forum" community where people can post their own money saving tips and there is even a place where people post the latest bargains they have seen around on the internet!! There is a seperate place for student money savers and also a whole place full of online vouchers, so check it out you never know what you might find!

Its called Money Saving Expert and is worth a look. To visit the site click on the picture below, if you find it useful please leave me a comment, thanks.

Week 3 - Models of Practice

So I made it to week 3! OH... why did I bother.

The great minds of the course decided that the portfolio task for this week was to go through a 49 page (yes 49 page!) handout and use qualitative and quantitative analysis, not to mention we then have to do "Bales Interactive Process Analysis" !!!

grrr! >:(

From the tutorial this week I mostly learned about the different frameworks and structures to do with online communication. Early analysis of online communications was mostly quantitative data (numeric- more number oriented, for example: number of words, number of messages etc...), whereas nowadays qualitative analysis (text base, for example: asks an opinion, gives suggestion) is more the norm.

We were taught about an interesting type of analysis created by someone called Robert Bales, his way of analysing was originally for face-to-face communication, but can be applied to the online type just as usefully. He created his "Interaction Process Analysis", which is very intriguing as it assigns the communication content into three different areas; negative, neutral, and positive. Now in these three areas there are four groups that have a number of questions in them, the four groups relate to different things (positive reactions, attempted answers, questions and negative reactions) what you have to do is link the communication to one of the questions in the four groups to see what the type of communication is. The process is shown below:



Well i better get back on the grind and get on with the portfolio tasks for this week...

ClIvE

Week 2 - The Technology

Well I've just had my first tutorial of the COOL module, due to not having my timetable as stated in last weeks post, and I have to say that I think overall im going to enjoy the "COOL" module. Not least because there is no exam ;)

Today's tutorial was all about groupware, which is technology that is specifically designed to support groups of people working or communicating together. Divided into groups we discussed the different types of groupware we could think of, e.g. instant messaging, video conferencing... and how they differed from each other. I have to say I already knew of most of them, but I found it interesting the way they could all be classified when we were introduced to using the "Time-Space Matrix".

The "Time-Space Matrix" is where we had to differentiate between the different types of groupware and put them into groups, using certain conditions. The conditions were: Same Place (Co-located), Different Place (Remote), Same Time(Synchronous), and Different Time (Asynchronous). All groupware has its advantages in certain situations, but there are also disadvantages with each. I believe one of the best forms of groupware has to be E-mail as it can either be instant (if the person is at the computer at the time it is sent) or when it is sent it will be saved for viewing later (another similar example of this type of groupware is SMS messaging).

Below shows our finished analysis with some of the groupware put into the "Time-Space Matrix".



ClIvE

Joke

A joke i thought you might like, if anything it breaks up reading all the boring stuff :)

In a classroom of third graders, the teacher says to the kids, "Today, class, we will be telling stories that have a moral to them." She explained what a moral to a story was and asked for volunteers. Little Suzie raises her hand.

Suzie: " I live on a farm and we have a chicken that laid 12 eggs, we were excited to have 12 more chickens but only 6 of them hatched."

Teacher: "That's a good story, now what is the moral?"

Suzie: " Don't count your chickens before they are hatched."

Teacher: "Very good Suzie, anyone else?"

Ralphie: "Yes teacher, I was carrying some eggs I bought for my mom in my bicycle basket one day and I crashed my bike and all the eggs broke."

Teacher: "That's a nice story, what is the moral?"

Ralphie: "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."

Teacher: " Very good Ralphie, anyone else?"

Little Johnny: " Yes teacher, my Aunt Karen is in the army and when she was in the Gulf War, she parachuted down with only a gun, 20 bullets, a knife, and a six-pack of beer. On her way down, she drank the six pack. When she landed, she shot 20 Iraqis and killed ten of them with her knife."

Teacher: "Very interesting, Johnny, what is the moral to your story?"

Little Johnny: "Don't mess with Aunt Karen when she's drunk."


Well i thought it was funny! if i get sent anymore that i think are good il include them...

ClIvE

Week 1 - "COOL"

So i missed the first tutorial due to the timetable not being given out on the Friday, but instead they were given out the following Monday, needless to say i was working that day!

Anyway i spoke to a few friends regarding the lesson and looked at the information on WebCT, it seems that in the lesson we were told that a requirement was to:

"actively engage with a range of on-line communities in an appropriate, professional and constructive manner"

So ive decided to make the best of it and join some communities that i have an interest in. I have only joined a couple for the time being but im still on the lookout for any others that catch my eye.

Experts-Exchange
This is a help community that deals with computer problems (software or hardware) and it claims that more IT people have found their answers on this site than any other website in the world! Should come in very handy with my individual project problems then!!
Basically people get given 1500 points on signing up and for each question they ask they have to assign a number of points that will be given to the person who gives the accepted answer. This also encourages people to help each other out as the more points you have the more you can assign to questions, so if your in a hurry the higher points you give the quicker you are likely to receive an answer.

Ebay
Im not sure if this counts as joining a community, but i suppose it should as people can and do communicate through it. Anyway i joined as i wanted to buy a few new ps2 games, they should hopefully keep me occupied for a while so im not spending all my money in the bar!
If you dont know what ebay is then click here and go and find out... :)
...Its a place where you can buy and sell old/new items either in an auction format or for a fixed price, and yes ebay does charge you a fee for selling your items! but its not that much about 5% of the final price i think.

This blogging lark really is quite new to me and im finding it hard to put all my thought and critique down! but i suppose that at least it is adding to my key skills, i.e. communication, and helping me to learn new things so it cant be all bad! ;)

I've been looking around on the web for examples of blogs to help but there is so many! where to start... well i managed to come across one particular blog of interest eBayStrategies, this is a very informative blog all about the stuff going on at ebay and how best to promote your auctions, it also has good information on the fraudulent side of things and how to stay clear of these scammers.

All in all i think its great that people of any age, gender, ethnic background etc... can create their own blog (and for free as well)! There does not seem to much restriction on what can be discussed either as there are masses of different communities and even in different social groups (professional, social, educational, political etc...).

Well thats all for now folks but more to come... *hopefully* ;)

Introduction

Hi and welcome to my little place on the web!

I have set this up as it is a requirement for me to get a decent grade in "Communities Online" :0)

So the main aim of this blog is to report on my findings and experiences, and to also share my opinions on the different subjects and discussions raised in this module. So im looking forward to it as you can imagine....

So please feel free to post a comment or even just say a quick hello!

ClIvE