A Methodological Review of a Master Thesis “Functions of Online Communities”
The review is based on a master thesis by Ivo Kiviorg, “Functions of Online Communities”, which is an empirical research paper. The research concentrates on studies considering working principles of the communities, and then proposes two questions, which ought to find out what online communities offered to their members and what tied the latter together in the communities. The author of the research paper intended to find an appropriate approach to study the areas of interest.
Although the author of the paper has not defined the used methodology, the paper is built upon quantitative research. It has the following features: (1) its structure is rigid, (2) literature review has a major role on the research questions and proposed 13 concepts, (3) data is measurable (it has a numerical format), and observable, (4) it uses statistical analysis of a survey and compares it with previous findings. (Mack et al., 2005)
The author of the research paper uses a cross-sectional survey design with a sample of 387 people from an online community Rada7.ee with a response rate of over 75%. Then survey data is analysed using factor analysis, principal component analysis method and Varimax rotation. Correlation design was also used to find out the motivations underlying social identification of the sample, because the relations between different questions are found in order to compile them into five factors.
The purpose of using quantitative methodology was to collect data in order to analyse the information about peoples’ ties in the communities to derive the answers to the questions that the author of the research paper initially asked. Ivo Kiviorg used such methodology in order to find out how various people identified themselves in the community and how the pre-given concepts varied among people.
19.12.09
A blogged review of "Social Media, Viral Marketing, and Crowdsourcing."
I reviewed a wiki of "Social Media, Viral Marketing, and Crowdsourcing".
The wiki was built up on Wikiversity platform, and the contributors were four students. The users had collaborated on one page, and provided a clear, neat table of contents. It was clearly understandable who contributed to which part.
Norbert Kaareste analysed today's social media. He had started from history of every aspect and the definitions were clear, although I would have wanted to read more about the topic in the wiki itself, not from additional resources. Norbert ended up with the future of social media. References were provided as links, and I could not understand why there was a set of links before references and then came the references. All in all I had a good impression on the topic. Norbert had a lot of personal input in the post.
Maris Üksti discussed viral marketing by citing various sources. She started from the history, giving examples and listing elements, then moving on to conclusion. I figured out what is viral marketing by the post, so I had a good impression of the content. References were again links, with reference section in the end. A mixture of linked words and links were presented in the text. Maris had concluded the text nicely with her own words.
Indrek Saar wrote about crowdsourcing, and had a bit different structure from the rest of the participants. He had linked the words, and given links in the end (resources). Again the topic was clearly presented (some language mistakes prevented understanding minor sentences, which did not affect the whole meaning), and I got some new knowledge. Indrek had provided a lot of examples which helped understand the topic.
All the three inputs were similarly structured, so that it was clear that groupwork had been done. I was actually wondering what would the fourth person, Marek Mühlberg, write, and the answer was - a conclusion. What first struck my eye were the references, which were the most neatly presented. Inside the text, though, again I saw linked words and the url-s. He had interpreted all the three concepts a bit differently than they were initially presented, and had made a short analysis of the three. I think that it was good that the conclusion was presented differently, otherwise it would not have made sense.
I think that the blog lacked only minor co-operational factors, but otherwise it was readable and understandable: And what is most important, I got new knowledge out of it.
The wiki was built up on Wikiversity platform, and the contributors were four students. The users had collaborated on one page, and provided a clear, neat table of contents. It was clearly understandable who contributed to which part.
Norbert Kaareste analysed today's social media. He had started from history of every aspect and the definitions were clear, although I would have wanted to read more about the topic in the wiki itself, not from additional resources. Norbert ended up with the future of social media. References were provided as links, and I could not understand why there was a set of links before references and then came the references. All in all I had a good impression on the topic. Norbert had a lot of personal input in the post.
Maris Üksti discussed viral marketing by citing various sources. She started from the history, giving examples and listing elements, then moving on to conclusion. I figured out what is viral marketing by the post, so I had a good impression of the content. References were again links, with reference section in the end. A mixture of linked words and links were presented in the text. Maris had concluded the text nicely with her own words.
Indrek Saar wrote about crowdsourcing, and had a bit different structure from the rest of the participants. He had linked the words, and given links in the end (resources). Again the topic was clearly presented (some language mistakes prevented understanding minor sentences, which did not affect the whole meaning), and I got some new knowledge. Indrek had provided a lot of examples which helped understand the topic.
All the three inputs were similarly structured, so that it was clear that groupwork had been done. I was actually wondering what would the fourth person, Marek Mühlberg, write, and the answer was - a conclusion. What first struck my eye were the references, which were the most neatly presented. Inside the text, though, again I saw linked words and the url-s. He had interpreted all the three concepts a bit differently than they were initially presented, and had made a short analysis of the three. I think that it was good that the conclusion was presented differently, otherwise it would not have made sense.
I think that the blog lacked only minor co-operational factors, but otherwise it was readable and understandable: And what is most important, I got new knowledge out of it.
Ethics and Law in New Media, week eleven
Analyse both free software and open source approach in your blog. If you prefer one, provide your arguments.
The two do not have much of a difference, except that the first has four points in the definition and the latter has more than four (it keeps in mind the discrimination aspect, and license specifications). Another difference is in terminology, which is to my mind a word play. "Free software" leads me to think that it is not as similar as "open source", because initially I thought that the first term comes with no source code, but when I discovered that there is source code provided in both of these approaches, then I was a little bit confused, because I could not quite get the terminology. I looked through the Free Software Definition and the Open Source Definition besides the materials, and what I found is already written in the beginning.
I think I would prefer the second term, open source, because to me it defines more clearly what comes with the package.
The two do not have much of a difference, except that the first has four points in the definition and the latter has more than four (it keeps in mind the discrimination aspect, and license specifications). Another difference is in terminology, which is to my mind a word play. "Free software" leads me to think that it is not as similar as "open source", because initially I thought that the first term comes with no source code, but when I discovered that there is source code provided in both of these approaches, then I was a little bit confused, because I could not quite get the terminology. I looked through the Free Software Definition and the Open Source Definition besides the materials, and what I found is already written in the beginning.
I think I would prefer the second term, open source, because to me it defines more clearly what comes with the package.
6.12.09
Ethics and Law in New Media, week ten
What could the software licensing landscape look like in 2015? Write a short (blogged) predictive analysis.
It is difficult to predict what it will look like, but based on the text I read, there might be two various scenes - I picture the first with Microsoft still pushing its rights and making it easier with technology to track abusers of the contract. The second might be a battle between MS and GNU, which leads MS thinking what they could do better and how they could profit from that, like it has been till now.
I do not actually believe that much is going to change in five years licence-wise. People in Estonia are used to Microsoft, IT directors install MS software by default (with the exception of some organizations like Tiger Leap Foundation who suggest that it would be good to use free, open source software), because users tend to be more acquainted with such software. In the Tiger Leap Foundation's computers there is a variation between Linux and MS Windows, what do you think most teachers use? Of course the last one (this is solely based to my own opinion and observations from my workplace).
Perhaps Ottavio's idea, that Microsoft is going to change something radically - be it software or policies, holds true, but if Microsoft would have Online Word or Excel or whatever from that package, it would still be secondary to Google, and I think that they would think of the way to get benefit from it as well. To go on with the predictions from here, there have been discussions whether Google could maliciously use its userbase data to so-called "rule the world"? I doubt such actions, because it would drive the world mad, and I also doubt if Google would be ready for that. I guess not. Definitely there will be more free innovative online content, because education technology-wise the Internet is a rich facility.
Write a short analysis about applicability of copying restrictions - whether you consider them useful, in which cases exceptions should be made etc.
I think that copyright restrictions should be made for educational and research purposes, as this could help to improve software. A good example (sadly not from Education) is Microsoft itself - with ALTAIR they launched a program, where users could improve the library and I believe this was for their own benefit as well, to get ideas from the users for free.
Restrictions could be limited as well when we want to avoid multiple programs for one thing - for example conversion to PDF is a good app with different programs, that way no multiple readers should not be used. This is an idea I got from the course text.
Also when I have purchased an item, it should not be prohibited for me to make more than one copy of the disk for personal use. Of course nowadays CD and such manual data carriers are outdated, Internet stores all information. Legal online storage permission of a purchased disk would also be nice.
Libraries and University facilities should be able to make copies and let their students use the materials. Here a good example is Tallinn University (I think Microsoft programmes are not the best example when we consider this course) where it is possible to use their programs during learning time. Of course lots of legal stuff is added to it, but still, for personal use it is OK.
I would consider all copying restriction exceptions useful, because I love free software, but most of all I prefer online solutions and I use them eagerly. Google has won my heart for now, I must admit - it's open for everyone and free to use.
It is difficult to predict what it will look like, but based on the text I read, there might be two various scenes - I picture the first with Microsoft still pushing its rights and making it easier with technology to track abusers of the contract. The second might be a battle between MS and GNU, which leads MS thinking what they could do better and how they could profit from that, like it has been till now.
I do not actually believe that much is going to change in five years licence-wise. People in Estonia are used to Microsoft, IT directors install MS software by default (with the exception of some organizations like Tiger Leap Foundation who suggest that it would be good to use free, open source software), because users tend to be more acquainted with such software. In the Tiger Leap Foundation's computers there is a variation between Linux and MS Windows, what do you think most teachers use? Of course the last one (this is solely based to my own opinion and observations from my workplace).
Perhaps Ottavio's idea, that Microsoft is going to change something radically - be it software or policies, holds true, but if Microsoft would have Online Word or Excel or whatever from that package, it would still be secondary to Google, and I think that they would think of the way to get benefit from it as well. To go on with the predictions from here, there have been discussions whether Google could maliciously use its userbase data to so-called "rule the world"? I doubt such actions, because it would drive the world mad, and I also doubt if Google would be ready for that. I guess not. Definitely there will be more free innovative online content, because education technology-wise the Internet is a rich facility.
Write a short analysis about applicability of copying restrictions - whether you consider them useful, in which cases exceptions should be made etc.
I think that copyright restrictions should be made for educational and research purposes, as this could help to improve software. A good example (sadly not from Education) is Microsoft itself - with ALTAIR they launched a program, where users could improve the library and I believe this was for their own benefit as well, to get ideas from the users for free.
Restrictions could be limited as well when we want to avoid multiple programs for one thing - for example conversion to PDF is a good app with different programs, that way no multiple readers should not be used. This is an idea I got from the course text.
Also when I have purchased an item, it should not be prohibited for me to make more than one copy of the disk for personal use. Of course nowadays CD and such manual data carriers are outdated, Internet stores all information. Legal online storage permission of a purchased disk would also be nice.
Libraries and University facilities should be able to make copies and let their students use the materials. Here a good example is Tallinn University (I think Microsoft programmes are not the best example when we consider this course) where it is possible to use their programs during learning time. Of course lots of legal stuff is added to it, but still, for personal use it is OK.
I would consider all copying restriction exceptions useful, because I love free software, but most of all I prefer online solutions and I use them eagerly. Google has won my heart for now, I must admit - it's open for everyone and free to use.
5.12.09
Ethics and Law in New Media, week nine
Study the GNU GPL and write a short blog essay about it. You may use the SWOT analysis model (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats).
GNU GPL licence was originally derived by Richard Stallman in 1989 in order to protect software and let various professionals develop the source code for free. Nevertheless, it is protected for the people to obtain the code but not put it under copyright licence or patent it. Free Software Foundation carries on fighting for free software promotion, and is allowed to make changes to the GPL when necesary.
The strengths of such licences are, as we all know, freedom of usage and distribution of software, which make the latter easy to distribute, but at the same time retain the rights to the creator of the software (code). This means that the modified versions automatically take the same rights as the original GNU General Public Licence (GPL), and are distributed under the very same conditions of the licence. In such cases the author is protected with copyleft, but the other users are free to distribute the software and also modify it, which adds to the quality of the software. The changes should be marked in order to track the code and notice flaws, which is also positive for this makes the program easy to change.
The licence itself is easy to read and short, so that everybody could get a grasp of the overall text and dig into it, which normally is skipped with long and difficult licence texts.
It is also possible to sell this kind of software under GPL licence provided that the source code is left open. Perhaps the last remark makes software programming easier as well.
The weaknesses of such licences are that the modified versions of the GPL do not necessarily comply with the previous ones, but it is possible to convert them back to previous versions, though. Perhaps a weakness is the fact that modifiers of the programs cannot modify the conditions of the licence due to the fact that the rights still belong to the initial creator, because GNU GPL copyleft is derived from copyright law. As for making business, the users are automatically bound to the licence, thus making them responsible for making sure that if they modify the code, other future users should abide the licence.
The licence does not give warranty to such programs, which may make it difficult to find support or the support may cost more than with commercial OS-s.
Opportunities with GPL are endless, because they enable people to be creative and distribute their creation either for free or for a fee. Other enthusiasts can amend the software and distribute it further, thus making a collaborative, worldwide effort to furbish programs or get new ideas from the others' work.
There is always a threat that GPL will be changed so that there will be some restrictions, like patenting, because the licence permits Free Software Foundation to make changes in the GNU GPL if any changes occur.
So with little threat, this kind of licences are the best way to distribute open and most of the time free software I think the benefits overweigh the doubts and weaknesses of such licences.
Find a good example of the "science business" described above [in the text] and analyse it as a potential factor in the Digital Divide discussed earlier. Is the proposed connection likely or not? Blog your opinion.
Well, if we think of the very same digitalization of books, especially important books, lots of people can benefit from it, starting from the poor Estonian students who cannot afford buying books in the current economic downfall finishing with those who cannot afford University education, for example, but want to get good knowledge of certain topics.
Universities have access to digital libraries but usually it is quite a hassle digging through the protective wall of registration and payment. I agree with Priidu, who said that providers of the materials need to be paid, but as Estonia's university lecturers run courses on Wikiversity, they get paid either through EITSA or the universities themselves, so they are not doing their work entirely for free. So I guess there are alternative payment methods. A good initiative is that lots of international universities have put their lectures online in video format or podcast, that brings the students a better opportunity to learn.
GNU GPL licence was originally derived by Richard Stallman in 1989 in order to protect software and let various professionals develop the source code for free. Nevertheless, it is protected for the people to obtain the code but not put it under copyright licence or patent it. Free Software Foundation carries on fighting for free software promotion, and is allowed to make changes to the GPL when necesary.
The strengths of such licences are, as we all know, freedom of usage and distribution of software, which make the latter easy to distribute, but at the same time retain the rights to the creator of the software (code). This means that the modified versions automatically take the same rights as the original GNU General Public Licence (GPL), and are distributed under the very same conditions of the licence. In such cases the author is protected with copyleft, but the other users are free to distribute the software and also modify it, which adds to the quality of the software. The changes should be marked in order to track the code and notice flaws, which is also positive for this makes the program easy to change.
The licence itself is easy to read and short, so that everybody could get a grasp of the overall text and dig into it, which normally is skipped with long and difficult licence texts.
It is also possible to sell this kind of software under GPL licence provided that the source code is left open. Perhaps the last remark makes software programming easier as well.
The weaknesses of such licences are that the modified versions of the GPL do not necessarily comply with the previous ones, but it is possible to convert them back to previous versions, though. Perhaps a weakness is the fact that modifiers of the programs cannot modify the conditions of the licence due to the fact that the rights still belong to the initial creator, because GNU GPL copyleft is derived from copyright law. As for making business, the users are automatically bound to the licence, thus making them responsible for making sure that if they modify the code, other future users should abide the licence.
The licence does not give warranty to such programs, which may make it difficult to find support or the support may cost more than with commercial OS-s.
Opportunities with GPL are endless, because they enable people to be creative and distribute their creation either for free or for a fee. Other enthusiasts can amend the software and distribute it further, thus making a collaborative, worldwide effort to furbish programs or get new ideas from the others' work.
There is always a threat that GPL will be changed so that there will be some restrictions, like patenting, because the licence permits Free Software Foundation to make changes in the GNU GPL if any changes occur.
So with little threat, this kind of licences are the best way to distribute open and most of the time free software I think the benefits overweigh the doubts and weaknesses of such licences.
Find a good example of the "science business" described above [in the text] and analyse it as a potential factor in the Digital Divide discussed earlier. Is the proposed connection likely or not? Blog your opinion.
Well, if we think of the very same digitalization of books, especially important books, lots of people can benefit from it, starting from the poor Estonian students who cannot afford buying books in the current economic downfall finishing with those who cannot afford University education, for example, but want to get good knowledge of certain topics.
Universities have access to digital libraries but usually it is quite a hassle digging through the protective wall of registration and payment. I agree with Priidu, who said that providers of the materials need to be paid, but as Estonia's university lecturers run courses on Wikiversity, they get paid either through EITSA or the universities themselves, so they are not doing their work entirely for free. So I guess there are alternative payment methods. A good initiative is that lots of international universities have put their lectures online in video format or podcast, that brings the students a better opportunity to learn.
Ethics and Law in New Media, week eight
Study the Anglo-American and Continental European school of IP. Write a short comparative analysis to your blog (if you have clear preference for one over another, explain that, too).
I am trying to base my comparison on Laura Moscati's paper in which I found quite a good overview of these two systems after seeking for a long time for a plausible comparison.
The two systems differ mainly in two aspects where the Continental European school of IP (droit d'auteurs) protects the author's work throughout its various stages, and gives protection without formality. There is moral and economic right to be protected. The Anglo-American variant (Copyright Law) gives the right to reproduce copies in order to let the largest number of people access it. Before the work gets copyrighted, it has to be registered with Copyright Office after being reproduced and published.
The paper also tells that America has recently joined Berne Convention of 1896. The list of countries from the US Copyright Office shows the countries that have relations with the US. Berne Convention countries are included. The abovementioned convention deals with authors' rights according to Continental European model, thus making the two schools of IP more similar than before. Laura Moscati also states that the initial roots of both schools come from the droit d'auteur of French origin. Copyright which emerged with the advent of the printing press, left its marks in both, the Continental European and the Anglo-American schools of IP.
I think that if I had to choose, I'd choose the Anglo-American school of IP, because the work is distributed to the largest number of people possible. I think that our course and also our speciality strives for ways how to distribute work to as many people as possible who need the work to progress, to create and gain new ideas from the past works. Copyright for copy-paste avoidance is fairly clear, but works should not be hidden behind financial benefit "curtains" if they delay the flow of thoughts and creations.
I am trying to base my comparison on Laura Moscati's paper in which I found quite a good overview of these two systems after seeking for a long time for a plausible comparison.
The two systems differ mainly in two aspects where the Continental European school of IP (droit d'auteurs) protects the author's work throughout its various stages, and gives protection without formality. There is moral and economic right to be protected. The Anglo-American variant (Copyright Law) gives the right to reproduce copies in order to let the largest number of people access it. Before the work gets copyrighted, it has to be registered with Copyright Office after being reproduced and published.
The paper also tells that America has recently joined Berne Convention of 1896. The list of countries from the US Copyright Office shows the countries that have relations with the US. Berne Convention countries are included. The abovementioned convention deals with authors' rights according to Continental European model, thus making the two schools of IP more similar than before. Laura Moscati also states that the initial roots of both schools come from the droit d'auteur of French origin. Copyright which emerged with the advent of the printing press, left its marks in both, the Continental European and the Anglo-American schools of IP.
I think that if I had to choose, I'd choose the Anglo-American school of IP, because the work is distributed to the largest number of people possible. I think that our course and also our speciality strives for ways how to distribute work to as many people as possible who need the work to progress, to create and gain new ideas from the past works. Copyright for copy-paste avoidance is fairly clear, but works should not be hidden behind financial benefit "curtains" if they delay the flow of thoughts and creations.
30.11.09
Wiki for "Wealth of Networks"
I set up our team wiki, we base our teamwork on "Wealth of Networks" by Yochai Benkler.
You can find it on a PBworks page named "Wealth of Networks."
The task itself is the following:
Note: although presented as a wiki, the paper should retain most qualities of academic writing - source list, references, writing style etc. Talk pages and other means may be used for informal discussion of the paper.
You can find it on a PBworks page named "Wealth of Networks."
The task itself is the following:
1. Write a wiki-based team paper
The paper should be about 10-15 pages in volume and cover any subject within the general limits of the course. The title should be approved by the supervisor before starting to write (not meant as censorship but rather to prevent too wide or too narrow treatises) - so please inform about your team lineup, the location of the wiki and the title your work before starting (you may include some of this information in your profile). The paper will give up to 40 points to the authors (the supervisor reserves the right to distribute points unevenly if there is evidence of greatly different rates of contribution). The number of team members depends on the overall number of participants, but is generally 3-4 people - enough to facilitate some teamwork.Note: although presented as a wiki, the paper should retain most qualities of academic writing - source list, references, writing style etc. Talk pages and other means may be used for informal discussion of the paper.
Ethics and Law in New Media, week seven
Read Chapter 3 "Against Intellectual Property" of the Brian Martin's book. Write a blog review (especially, comment on his strategies for change).
I totally agree with the author. While reading the story I automatically remembered a case where a cat owner wanted to dry her cat (or was it hamster?) in a microwave and sued the company for not having information about drying hamsters in a microwave oven after the animal had died
There is an illustrative joke about hamsters:
Q: Why shouldn't I dry my hamster in a microwave?
A: Because the dryer is the proper place to dry a hamster. Toss him in with a dryer sheet and he'll come out all fluffy and warm. Hell, he'll even smell good for a day or two.
I think in this case the owner should be sued, not the microwave oven company.
The next trivial example is how a woman burnt her mouth with hot coffee in MacDonald's.
Perhaps this is somehow connected to my previous Law and Ethics post's death test example?
I gave the two examples to show just how greedy people can be. I think patents are a metaphor of greed, because these people who patent things (that may not originally be theirs) for malicious purposes (e.g. taking the rights of growing and using some kind of tea away from people who have grown tea for ages), and those people simply seem to be afraid.
I agree that when the new ideas concern direct help to underprivileged, they should be available the sooner the better. While reading the text about the part I just mentioned, I could not help but think of this year's fuss about swine flu. Is it a case of pharmaceutical companies trying to sell their medicines? Why does not anyone talk about the usual flu which also kills people when left untreated? Maybe a company who has produced and patented the medicines wants the fuss to be around in order to gain profit from the medicines... maybe, we do not know.
When I read about the strategies for change, I found some controversies. Changing of thought can initially be a noble idea, but it takes a lot of time to change the understanding of masses. Not all of us can and will change their idea of proprietary work, ideas, etc. This takes a whole lot of time when this takes place. The idea itself is of course positive, I agree that people should change their way of thinking about different ideas.
The author somehow leads people to protest against copyright, not to go with the flow but try to act differently. As I have read before, Linus Torvalds was among the first to show the benefit of open source, which led to a powerful operation system with the help of the ideas of other people. He is a good example of letting other ideas become a profit to his initial work. I think for wise people copyright is not a restriction, they still find a way to obtain the works and read/use/develop them.
I would like to finish the topic with a small example of my view of piracy and copyright/patents. I really like listening to music. Getting it online is much faster and easier than buying it from a music shop/internet music shop. After obtaining the the pieces of music, I decide whether I like them or not, and based on my opinion, I will go and buy my favourite CD-s, because then I will have their songs even when my computer hard disk dies. The ones I do not like are not listened to anyway, so I do not see any harm in such action. I have lots of CD-s of my favourite band at home, because I like to support them by showing my appreciation and contributing to their songwriting.
I totally agree with the author. While reading the story I automatically remembered a case where a cat owner wanted to dry her cat (or was it hamster?) in a microwave and sued the company for not having information about drying hamsters in a microwave oven after the animal had died
There is an illustrative joke about hamsters:
Q: Why shouldn't I dry my hamster in a microwave?
A: Because the dryer is the proper place to dry a hamster. Toss him in with a dryer sheet and he'll come out all fluffy and warm. Hell, he'll even smell good for a day or two.
I think in this case the owner should be sued, not the microwave oven company.
The next trivial example is how a woman burnt her mouth with hot coffee in MacDonald's.
Perhaps this is somehow connected to my previous Law and Ethics post's death test example?
I gave the two examples to show just how greedy people can be. I think patents are a metaphor of greed, because these people who patent things (that may not originally be theirs) for malicious purposes (e.g. taking the rights of growing and using some kind of tea away from people who have grown tea for ages), and those people simply seem to be afraid.
I agree that when the new ideas concern direct help to underprivileged, they should be available the sooner the better. While reading the text about the part I just mentioned, I could not help but think of this year's fuss about swine flu. Is it a case of pharmaceutical companies trying to sell their medicines? Why does not anyone talk about the usual flu which also kills people when left untreated? Maybe a company who has produced and patented the medicines wants the fuss to be around in order to gain profit from the medicines... maybe, we do not know.
When I read about the strategies for change, I found some controversies. Changing of thought can initially be a noble idea, but it takes a lot of time to change the understanding of masses. Not all of us can and will change their idea of proprietary work, ideas, etc. This takes a whole lot of time when this takes place. The idea itself is of course positive, I agree that people should change their way of thinking about different ideas.
The author somehow leads people to protest against copyright, not to go with the flow but try to act differently. As I have read before, Linus Torvalds was among the first to show the benefit of open source, which led to a powerful operation system with the help of the ideas of other people. He is a good example of letting other ideas become a profit to his initial work. I think for wise people copyright is not a restriction, they still find a way to obtain the works and read/use/develop them.
I would like to finish the topic with a small example of my view of piracy and copyright/patents. I really like listening to music. Getting it online is much faster and easier than buying it from a music shop/internet music shop. After obtaining the the pieces of music, I decide whether I like them or not, and based on my opinion, I will go and buy my favourite CD-s, because then I will have their songs even when my computer hard disk dies. The ones I do not like are not listened to anyway, so I do not see any harm in such action. I have lots of CD-s of my favourite band at home, because I like to support them by showing my appreciation and contributing to their songwriting.
28.11.09
I recommend a Youtube channel.
Today I looked up Thea's blog updates and discovered my topic there, which led me to the videos I had watched already and discovered much much more interesting content on mwesch's channel.
Right now I am watching a video about YouTube, content creation pros and cons. Although it is almost an hour long, I totally recommend it!
The rest of the vids are on mwesch's channel.
Right now I am watching a video about YouTube, content creation pros and cons. Although it is almost an hour long, I totally recommend it!
The rest of the vids are on mwesch's channel.
22.11.09
Ethics and Law in New Media, week six
Find and blog about an illustrative case of hacktivism.
Hacktivism is a form of social activism with online solutions. While googling for Hacktivism, I found this document. It says that not any kind of attack is considered hacktivism, but only the websites that have connection to the issue of protest.
I think there have been many different hacktivism attempts to illustrate, but I started to think while reading the Hacktivism Declaration that a form of hacktivism could be such that a whole lot of people would post interesting content about some important event on a black background with a neon or white text. It is extremely difficult to read, and I think that at first you even will not figure out that it is possible to copy-paste the text to a more suitable background, because the content would be so interesting that people's minds are concentrating on reading more than replacing the text onto a more suitable surface. I think this kind of action could be a mild form of hacktivism, what do you think?
Blog about a good case of social engineering
The case of Gazzag with Jenny seems to me her own failure, because she had read the notice that all of her contacts would be invited to the network. I just do not understand her disappointment. I have got similar invites from Hi5, but haven't subscribed, because there are really many social networks that do not work for me or other people. Hi5 and Netlog still send me reminders that my friends have invited me to join their networks. It is the same case when you order a cool ring tone and you will get a whole lot more (even if you do not want to get them), because you have unwillingly (or having not read the terms of condition) subscribed a whole service of ring tones which will be sent to you if you do not send an SMS saying "STOP " (for extra cost, of course).
I once wanted to experiment on such a service, and I really do not remember if there was a teeny-tiny notice on a TV screen saying that if you order this ring tone you will be dragged into a bombardment of ring tones for which you have to pay extra monthly sums. The better for the scammers if you do not read your SMSes, because you will definitely be surprised by an ugly phone bill. I stopped the service paying extra money, but I was at least aware of such a scam for future reference. I believe that there was a warning (which you cannot see anyway, because it is written in a teeny-weeny size and moves away fast).
Another such case is with cool Internet ads. Like "test your IQ" or "Do you want to know the time of your death?" which are cool quizzes. They get the victims interested and when they have finished their quiz, it wouls be fair that the result comes out, but these clever people trick the victims into giving their phone numbers with an excuse to see the quiz result. They have put a small text at the bottom of the page with all terms of conditions, but they know that usually people do not read small texts at the bottom of the pages, thus it is a great possibility for them to take money out of people. Again, stopping the service also needs payment.
Take a look at SURMATEST (death test), where you have little text: "Tegu on perioodilise teenusega. Teile saadetakse iga nädal 1 dieedinipp, 1 taustapilt ja 1 polühelin (nädalatasu on 27EEK).Teenuse peatamiseks saatke: "STOP TIPS" lühinumbrile 1818. Polüfooniliste helinate puhul on artistide nimed esitatud üksnes selleks, et tellijatel oleks kergem leida soovitud lugu, ning ei viita mingil moel sellele, et nimetatud artistid oleksid helinad esitanud või välja andnud. Meie helinad töötavad kõikide müügil olevate mudelitega, etc.© 2008 TIMWE S.p.A"
Similar links: IQ test pahandab kasutajaid (Tarbija24.ee)
Formulate some measures which can reduce the effectiveness of social engineering attempts
Measures have been taken already to avoid such actions.
Estonian publicity tries to educate young people already in order to avoid such attacks.
First it is absolutely necessary to use an anti-anything software, and a legitimate one.
Second, it is wise for the parents to teach themselves and their kids the basic truths about Internet and other gadget security, one could use links like:
Veebivend
Veebivend 1
Materials connected to the campaign
Materials 1
Internet security, etc.
The wisest thing would be not to befriend with strangers in social networking places and not to give out too much information about yourself, but this is often ignored.
I cannot think of something new that has not already been said. The best possibility to avoid such cases is not to use any electronic devices, nor bank cards, nothing that can be used maliciously, of course.
Hacktivism is a form of social activism with online solutions. While googling for Hacktivism, I found this document. It says that not any kind of attack is considered hacktivism, but only the websites that have connection to the issue of protest.
I think there have been many different hacktivism attempts to illustrate, but I started to think while reading the Hacktivism Declaration that a form of hacktivism could be such that a whole lot of people would post interesting content about some important event on a black background with a neon or white text. It is extremely difficult to read, and I think that at first you even will not figure out that it is possible to copy-paste the text to a more suitable background, because the content would be so interesting that people's minds are concentrating on reading more than replacing the text onto a more suitable surface. I think this kind of action could be a mild form of hacktivism, what do you think?
Blog about a good case of social engineering
The case of Gazzag with Jenny seems to me her own failure, because she had read the notice that all of her contacts would be invited to the network. I just do not understand her disappointment. I have got similar invites from Hi5, but haven't subscribed, because there are really many social networks that do not work for me or other people. Hi5 and Netlog still send me reminders that my friends have invited me to join their networks. It is the same case when you order a cool ring tone and you will get a whole lot more (even if you do not want to get them), because you have unwillingly (or having not read the terms of condition) subscribed a whole service of ring tones which will be sent to you if you do not send an SMS saying "STOP " (for extra cost, of course).
I once wanted to experiment on such a service, and I really do not remember if there was a teeny-tiny notice on a TV screen saying that if you order this ring tone you will be dragged into a bombardment of ring tones for which you have to pay extra monthly sums. The better for the scammers if you do not read your SMSes, because you will definitely be surprised by an ugly phone bill. I stopped the service paying extra money, but I was at least aware of such a scam for future reference. I believe that there was a warning (which you cannot see anyway, because it is written in a teeny-weeny size and moves away fast).
Another such case is with cool Internet ads. Like "test your IQ" or "Do you want to know the time of your death?" which are cool quizzes. They get the victims interested and when they have finished their quiz, it wouls be fair that the result comes out, but these clever people trick the victims into giving their phone numbers with an excuse to see the quiz result. They have put a small text at the bottom of the page with all terms of conditions, but they know that usually people do not read small texts at the bottom of the pages, thus it is a great possibility for them to take money out of people. Again, stopping the service also needs payment.
Take a look at SURMATEST (death test), where you have little text: "Tegu on perioodilise teenusega. Teile saadetakse iga nädal 1 dieedinipp, 1 taustapilt ja 1 polühelin (nädalatasu on 27EEK).Teenuse peatamiseks saatke: "STOP TIPS" lühinumbrile 1818. Polüfooniliste helinate puhul on artistide nimed esitatud üksnes selleks, et tellijatel oleks kergem leida soovitud lugu, ning ei viita mingil moel sellele, et nimetatud artistid oleksid helinad esitanud või välja andnud. Meie helinad töötavad kõikide müügil olevate mudelitega, etc.© 2008 TIMWE S.p.A"
Similar links: IQ test pahandab kasutajaid (Tarbija24.ee)
Formulate some measures which can reduce the effectiveness of social engineering attempts
Measures have been taken already to avoid such actions.
Estonian publicity tries to educate young people already in order to avoid such attacks.
First it is absolutely necessary to use an anti-anything software, and a legitimate one.
Second, it is wise for the parents to teach themselves and their kids the basic truths about Internet and other gadget security, one could use links like:
Veebivend
Veebivend 1
Materials connected to the campaign
Materials 1
Internet security, etc.
The wisest thing would be not to befriend with strangers in social networking places and not to give out too much information about yourself, but this is often ignored.
I cannot think of something new that has not already been said. The best possibility to avoid such cases is not to use any electronic devices, nor bank cards, nothing that can be used maliciously, of course.
8.11.09
Learning by Sharing - the essay
Before starting to do any essay I have to note that I was quite taken aback by Mark Prensky and I have a lot of his articles open to read later. First I am trying to design a sketch or a mind map for my essay which I am basing on the article with the same name - Learning by Sharing and add some of the other notions I got from different sources. Especially Prensky.
Learning by sharing
Introduction
More and more information and communication technologies (ICT) are used in order to make learning more interesting. According to an internationally acclaimed speaker and education designer Mark Prensky, a traditional “tell-test“ school model is less than three hundred years old and is still in use today with the current Digital Native (2001b, p. 1) generation that was born into a society where computers and other technology have always been a part of their lives. These learners have developed new kinds of study skills and do not feel the excitement in the traditional classroom, because they are used to fast speed information processing and arbitrary thinking (Prensky, 2001a, p. 2) compared to the current school model that originates from the 1800-s and was meant for preparing the workforce (Toffler, 2008). One of the possible learning methods for this generation, besides games (as Prensky suggests) (Prensky, 2001a, p. 10), could be learning by sharing or collaborative learning.
The thirteenth article: Marc Prensky. Digital Game Based Learning.
Marc Prensky. Digital Game Based Learning.
I like Prensky's articles because he is so radical. Go and tell something like that to our teachers and they will certainly throw you with rotten tomatoes. By all means, this is only figurative, because teachers are intellectual by all means.
But now to go on with the article, Prensky does not feel ashamed to declare that it is the educators' fault that pupils feel bored at school. School does not provide them with a brand new content that they are used to, and he draws a good parallel that a doctor will not blame the patient for falling ill (p. 2). He adds that "people live in the world into which they are born, and do things of their time that appeal to them." He puts his thoughts into a very interesting context.
I like Prensky's articles because he is so radical. Go and tell something like that to our teachers and they will certainly throw you with rotten tomatoes. By all means, this is only figurative, because teachers are intellectual by all means.
But now to go on with the article, Prensky does not feel ashamed to declare that it is the educators' fault that pupils feel bored at school. School does not provide them with a brand new content that they are used to, and he draws a good parallel that a doctor will not blame the patient for falling ill (p. 2). He adds that "people live in the world into which they are born, and do things of their time that appeal to them." He puts his thoughts into a very interesting context.
The twelfth article: Marc Prensky. Open Collaboration.
Marc Prensky. Open Collaboration.
Marc Prensky elaborates on Game Based Learning in this article. He suggests that games are good for Digital Natives because they put them in the middle of the story and give them intellectual fun. He also insists on putting this kind of learning materials online without any fee so that everybody could contribute to the game or other learning materials in order to make for example a tiny game into something much bigger. Prensky gives examples of different cases which have managed to evolve to various bigger concepts.
He also explains why it is necessary to leave the game or other source's source code open - it is because education needs innovation (because current e-sources are according to him "pathetic" (p. 5)), and collaboration with different teachers, because innovation needs to be encouraged.
He brings about the idea of open content where people like to give their input. He notes that Tim Berners Lee has already said that important is not what you take out from the Internet, but what you put in it. This system is self-organising, thus no need to worry about the appropriateness.
He also raises the question of money. Prensky thinks that making something payable prevents innovation growth, and that it is not allowed by educators. He says that such money does not make anyone particularly rich (p. 6).
He says that there is no point in keeping to one's page, people must make content that is engaging and possible through open collaboration.
This article raised a few thoughts of how to develop such games if you are not a programmer. There are computer specialists at school, but everybody nowadays demands money for extra work. In Estonia we are still learning to teach the Web 2.0 devices, when the web itself is moving on. I think that only enthusiasts agree with Prensky, but majority who do not want to hear anything about extra work, are not contributors. Then there is the money issue, which could still become a problem in this consuming society.
Certainly teachers like Kim Casper can easily develop content (but still with money issues in mind), because they have a few lessons per week compared to lots of teachers from Estonia who have neither time nor the stamina to create such online content. But there are still more teachers than Estonian teachers who would be able to add to such initiative. It is a great concept, but needs enthusiasts to contribute to it.
Marc Prensky elaborates on Game Based Learning in this article. He suggests that games are good for Digital Natives because they put them in the middle of the story and give them intellectual fun. He also insists on putting this kind of learning materials online without any fee so that everybody could contribute to the game or other learning materials in order to make for example a tiny game into something much bigger. Prensky gives examples of different cases which have managed to evolve to various bigger concepts.
He also explains why it is necessary to leave the game or other source's source code open - it is because education needs innovation (because current e-sources are according to him "pathetic" (p. 5)), and collaboration with different teachers, because innovation needs to be encouraged.
He brings about the idea of open content where people like to give their input. He notes that Tim Berners Lee has already said that important is not what you take out from the Internet, but what you put in it. This system is self-organising, thus no need to worry about the appropriateness.
He also raises the question of money. Prensky thinks that making something payable prevents innovation growth, and that it is not allowed by educators. He says that such money does not make anyone particularly rich (p. 6).
He says that there is no point in keeping to one's page, people must make content that is engaging and possible through open collaboration.
This article raised a few thoughts of how to develop such games if you are not a programmer. There are computer specialists at school, but everybody nowadays demands money for extra work. In Estonia we are still learning to teach the Web 2.0 devices, when the web itself is moving on. I think that only enthusiasts agree with Prensky, but majority who do not want to hear anything about extra work, are not contributors. Then there is the money issue, which could still become a problem in this consuming society.
Certainly teachers like Kim Casper can easily develop content (but still with money issues in mind), because they have a few lessons per week compared to lots of teachers from Estonia who have neither time nor the stamina to create such online content. But there are still more teachers than Estonian teachers who would be able to add to such initiative. It is a great concept, but needs enthusiasts to contribute to it.
7.11.09
The eleventh article: Marc Prensky. Make Those You Tubes! More Sharing = Faster Learning.
Marc Prensky. Make Those You Tubes! More Sharing = Faster Learning.
I read the article where Marc Prensky suggests that all teachers and students should use YouTube or similar video sharing communities for learning. According to Prensky, it is important to use the means because many of the world's most important people (politicians, teachers, thought leaders, etc) have posted their thoughts on such websites. He also suggests that for searching information a person should use video search engines together with text search.
I think that in a way it makes sense, because there are different learning styles. By viewing videos, visual and aural learners would gain more from such learning, for example how-to videos would teach exactly what to do, contrary to only textual information where you have to guess the movements. Even more, this means is a cheap way to upload videos and share them online with the whole world. Most of the people have some kind of a camera to record, and a possibility to use a computer. There are free programs that enable video downloading and uploading, and it is amazing that today's Digital Natives have great interest in digital technology. Teachers who upload some kind of useful content can contribute to the whole world. Students can share their achievements and get peer feedback, which at some point is very important.
Materials used: AOPA Online: Your Student's Style
I read the article where Marc Prensky suggests that all teachers and students should use YouTube or similar video sharing communities for learning. According to Prensky, it is important to use the means because many of the world's most important people (politicians, teachers, thought leaders, etc) have posted their thoughts on such websites. He also suggests that for searching information a person should use video search engines together with text search.
I think that in a way it makes sense, because there are different learning styles. By viewing videos, visual and aural learners would gain more from such learning, for example how-to videos would teach exactly what to do, contrary to only textual information where you have to guess the movements. Even more, this means is a cheap way to upload videos and share them online with the whole world. Most of the people have some kind of a camera to record, and a possibility to use a computer. There are free programs that enable video downloading and uploading, and it is amazing that today's Digital Natives have great interest in digital technology. Teachers who upload some kind of useful content can contribute to the whole world. Students can share their achievements and get peer feedback, which at some point is very important.
Materials used: AOPA Online: Your Student's Style
The tenth article: Marc Prensky. Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants
Marc Prensky. Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Part 1.
First, the author states that the brains of today's young people might have physically changed or at least their thinking patterns are different. Marc Prensky calls these students Digital Natives who were grown up with technology. We, or the generation who grew up without technology, but have adapted it, are Digital Immigrants. The difference between those two is that the latter always have their past which was technology-free or at least computer free environment.
Prensky is concerned with the Digital Immigrant instructors for Digital Natives, because as today's youth processes information very fast, they prefer games and like multitasking, but the older generations are used to serious, step-by-step learning. He suggests that today's teachers should skip the step-by-step part and teach today's students more randomly, and to learn to teach old things in a new way. Prensky himself likes to adapt old content to games.
It is interesting how the author brings examples of games that were designed in order to learn a difficult program or how to teach different subjects in the "Digital Native" language. Key concept here is pace - everything has to be done in a faster manner than the traditional academic way. It is also useful to use your own students to help you develop content.
The article had a point in it when the author said that today's learners are different. They often parallel some words from the English lesson with some games, or they give examples from the games. I think that in a reasonable amount games would be fine, but there are other technologies what to implement.
First, the author states that the brains of today's young people might have physically changed or at least their thinking patterns are different. Marc Prensky calls these students Digital Natives who were grown up with technology. We, or the generation who grew up without technology, but have adapted it, are Digital Immigrants. The difference between those two is that the latter always have their past which was technology-free or at least computer free environment.
Prensky is concerned with the Digital Immigrant instructors for Digital Natives, because as today's youth processes information very fast, they prefer games and like multitasking, but the older generations are used to serious, step-by-step learning. He suggests that today's teachers should skip the step-by-step part and teach today's students more randomly, and to learn to teach old things in a new way. Prensky himself likes to adapt old content to games.
It is interesting how the author brings examples of games that were designed in order to learn a difficult program or how to teach different subjects in the "Digital Native" language. Key concept here is pace - everything has to be done in a faster manner than the traditional academic way. It is also useful to use your own students to help you develop content.
The article had a point in it when the author said that today's learners are different. They often parallel some words from the English lesson with some games, or they give examples from the games. I think that in a reasonable amount games would be fine, but there are other technologies what to implement.
4.11.09
The ninth article: Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture.
Henry Jenkins et al. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture. Media Education in the 21st Century.
In the foreword Henry Jenkins claims that it is necessary to teach children new media concepts so that they would be able to take part in the participatory culture (Jenkins, xiii) in order to become full society members. He names a set of social skills that are necessary to be learned in the classroom or after-school activities. The skills are necessary to navigate wisely in new media, and among them he names play, multitasking, collective intelligence, judgment, networking, and negotiation.
"According to a 2005 study conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, more than half of all American teens - and 57 percent of teens who use the Internet - could be considered media creators (Jenkins, 3).
The author defines participatory culture as having "relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, and strong support for creating and sharing creations with others. Members who feel some degree of social connection with one another." (Jenkins, 5-6). The author notes that everyone is a participator in such community and all people are at ease when producing content, because they know that it will be valued at a smaller or larger scale.
He has studied various studies which confirm that participatory media will be of greater value among peers, because everybody is allowed to create content themselves. Also the youth who grow up with computers and use them on a daily basis, will be able to communicate via electronic channels and with people from different cultures more easily.
But nowadays there is not an issue whether children have access or not, because a 2005 report from the United Kingdom concluded that now children are categorized into two: a) those to whom the Internet is a diverse, rich environment, and b) those to whom it remains unengaging, and narrow (Jenkins, 17). Those who use computers at home are more dominating in these skills and the other, less skilled pupils are left aside, and the latter find themselves struggling in the Internet.
The author claims that the importance of media education should be ethical issues, enabling acccess to skills and experiences in order to become a full participant in current society, and to ensure that every child would be able to verbalise understanding of new media or interactive media (p. 26-27).
Also he declares that "adolescents need to learn how to integrate knowledge from multiple sources, including music, video, online databases, and other media". This information has to be processed. The need to participate in online collaborations is on demand, because the world is globalizing.
As this was a book preview, not all of the content was captured, but I hope that I got some ideas for my essay. Together with globalization we could make all learning easier with students and teachers from different countries communicating with students via Internet.
In the foreword Henry Jenkins claims that it is necessary to teach children new media concepts so that they would be able to take part in the participatory culture (Jenkins, xiii) in order to become full society members. He names a set of social skills that are necessary to be learned in the classroom or after-school activities. The skills are necessary to navigate wisely in new media, and among them he names play, multitasking, collective intelligence, judgment, networking, and negotiation.
"According to a 2005 study conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, more than half of all American teens - and 57 percent of teens who use the Internet - could be considered media creators (Jenkins, 3).
The author defines participatory culture as having "relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, and strong support for creating and sharing creations with others. Members who feel some degree of social connection with one another." (Jenkins, 5-6). The author notes that everyone is a participator in such community and all people are at ease when producing content, because they know that it will be valued at a smaller or larger scale.
He has studied various studies which confirm that participatory media will be of greater value among peers, because everybody is allowed to create content themselves. Also the youth who grow up with computers and use them on a daily basis, will be able to communicate via electronic channels and with people from different cultures more easily.
But nowadays there is not an issue whether children have access or not, because a 2005 report from the United Kingdom concluded that now children are categorized into two: a) those to whom the Internet is a diverse, rich environment, and b) those to whom it remains unengaging, and narrow (Jenkins, 17). Those who use computers at home are more dominating in these skills and the other, less skilled pupils are left aside, and the latter find themselves struggling in the Internet.
The author claims that the importance of media education should be ethical issues, enabling acccess to skills and experiences in order to become a full participant in current society, and to ensure that every child would be able to verbalise understanding of new media or interactive media (p. 26-27).
Also he declares that "adolescents need to learn how to integrate knowledge from multiple sources, including music, video, online databases, and other media". This information has to be processed. The need to participate in online collaborations is on demand, because the world is globalizing.
As this was a book preview, not all of the content was captured, but I hope that I got some ideas for my essay. Together with globalization we could make all learning easier with students and teachers from different countries communicating with students via Internet.
The eighth interview: Don Tapscott's interview about education.
It is sad that people do not have supernatural powers to understand whether the article or book to be read is of good value or not. Sadly I have lost interest in quite a few books or they have had deadlines and I had to return them. Thus I am going on with the articles, and wondering whether audio is applicable for a reading task?
Right now I am listening to Tapscott's interview. Bad quality, but good topic.
A quick scetch of what I have heard.
He is talking about today's learning. The kids today aren't prepared to working hard. The backgound of these kids is different and their attention span is different today, nobody even knows whether they have the possibilities to do their homework.
Pupils become very engaged in their computer, where full attention is guaranteed. They can actually mix all channels of media and do homework at the same time. The students are good collaborators.
According to Tapscott there is a need to change the education system. Education is teacher-centered and the students stay aside from the process. He is giving an example of Portugal, where everyone has interest in new generation's learning, but on the contrary he says that in American schools most of the children do not even have laptops.
He also acknowledges that technology is not of utmost importance, and integrating technology into the curriculum is hard work. He also brings forth that the model of education comes from the factory/industrial model, and we are gradually moving on to studio learning. He says that with a small class size you do not need technology, but with more than 30 kids it is impossible to hold a lesson/lecture without it.
What is the purpose of education? According to him children should not learn for the tests, it is important to have more students who know about the things happening in life. Students should be able to find information, synthesize it, organise it. They should know how to gain knowledge, be able to collaborate and communicate. Also how to understand context and to get information.
Tapscott gives lectures, and his intention is to make the students think.
Now to reflect on the topic, I have read several news where 21st century skills are discussed. Those are used to prepare the students for life and work. Test scores are not of use in real life, therefore, I think, the students should be able to concentrate their thoughts and also find necessary information in the web or anywhere. For example know which person to turn to for necessary information. I personally think that it is more difficult and time-consuming to search for keywords in the books since modern technology finds the answers more quickly.
The factory model of the current education system should definitely be reformed, since I can witness pupils who are unwilling to learn from the book and want more engaging content. They are used to interactive environments and sitting in one place for 45 minutes seems to be a strain for them. We still manage to calm the students, but it is getting more and more difficult with time. It seems that more and more pupils want to express their opinion and to wander off-topic. At the same time silence is required in the classrooms, otherwise there is no discipline according to some colleagues. While doing group- or pairwork there can be a little bit of talking.
Pupils have school stress.... all of this seems too much for the current generation of digital natives. The teachers are not that much accustomed to computers, it is an unexplored territory for them. Some of the teachers and parents have managed to become digital immigrants, to explore the territory and pull through quite well, but I think there is a lot of work to do in this field, first to educate parents and educators and then try to go on with improving our education. It seems that educators need more time and effort to be able to integrate computers into the lessons in order to make them more engaging for such learners. I think that today's digital natives will change the current situation, because they feel at ease with computers and technology, and in fact, they think that the teachers do not know much about it. They will be able to find the most interesting way of making the content engaging.
Also the pupils lack information finding skills. You give them the source and it is difficult for them to find the correct topic from there. But to learn a new game they probably do not need a manual, they explore and discover themselves the rules of the game. So that leaves us thinking how we could improve the learning environment of current digital natives being digital immigrants ourselves.
Right now I am listening to Tapscott's interview. Bad quality, but good topic.
A quick scetch of what I have heard.
He is talking about today's learning. The kids today aren't prepared to working hard. The backgound of these kids is different and their attention span is different today, nobody even knows whether they have the possibilities to do their homework.
Pupils become very engaged in their computer, where full attention is guaranteed. They can actually mix all channels of media and do homework at the same time. The students are good collaborators.
According to Tapscott there is a need to change the education system. Education is teacher-centered and the students stay aside from the process. He is giving an example of Portugal, where everyone has interest in new generation's learning, but on the contrary he says that in American schools most of the children do not even have laptops.
He also acknowledges that technology is not of utmost importance, and integrating technology into the curriculum is hard work. He also brings forth that the model of education comes from the factory/industrial model, and we are gradually moving on to studio learning. He says that with a small class size you do not need technology, but with more than 30 kids it is impossible to hold a lesson/lecture without it.
What is the purpose of education? According to him children should not learn for the tests, it is important to have more students who know about the things happening in life. Students should be able to find information, synthesize it, organise it. They should know how to gain knowledge, be able to collaborate and communicate. Also how to understand context and to get information.
Tapscott gives lectures, and his intention is to make the students think.
Now to reflect on the topic, I have read several news where 21st century skills are discussed. Those are used to prepare the students for life and work. Test scores are not of use in real life, therefore, I think, the students should be able to concentrate their thoughts and also find necessary information in the web or anywhere. For example know which person to turn to for necessary information. I personally think that it is more difficult and time-consuming to search for keywords in the books since modern technology finds the answers more quickly.
The factory model of the current education system should definitely be reformed, since I can witness pupils who are unwilling to learn from the book and want more engaging content. They are used to interactive environments and sitting in one place for 45 minutes seems to be a strain for them. We still manage to calm the students, but it is getting more and more difficult with time. It seems that more and more pupils want to express their opinion and to wander off-topic. At the same time silence is required in the classrooms, otherwise there is no discipline according to some colleagues. While doing group- or pairwork there can be a little bit of talking.
Pupils have school stress.... all of this seems too much for the current generation of digital natives. The teachers are not that much accustomed to computers, it is an unexplored territory for them. Some of the teachers and parents have managed to become digital immigrants, to explore the territory and pull through quite well, but I think there is a lot of work to do in this field, first to educate parents and educators and then try to go on with improving our education. It seems that educators need more time and effort to be able to integrate computers into the lessons in order to make them more engaging for such learners. I think that today's digital natives will change the current situation, because they feel at ease with computers and technology, and in fact, they think that the teachers do not know much about it. They will be able to find the most interesting way of making the content engaging.
Also the pupils lack information finding skills. You give them the source and it is difficult for them to find the correct topic from there. But to learn a new game they probably do not need a manual, they explore and discover themselves the rules of the game. So that leaves us thinking how we could improve the learning environment of current digital natives being digital immigrants ourselves.
The seventh article: Cooperative learning
The Structural Approach to Cooperative Learning by Spencer Kagan
This article concentrates only on learning strategies based on the classroom activities. The main point that I gained from the article was that all students should achieve at least something from groupwork. It was not connected with interactive things, so it will be of little use in my essay.
This article concentrates only on learning strategies based on the classroom activities. The main point that I gained from the article was that all students should achieve at least something from groupwork. It was not connected with interactive things, so it will be of little use in my essay.
The sixth article: Learning by Sharing. Thomas J.P. Thijssen, Rik Maes, Fons T.J. Vernooij
Learning by Sharing by Thomas J.P. Thijssen, Rik Maes, and Fons T.J. Vernooij - a study.
The study comes from Amsterdam and is quite radical. It stroke me immediately from the introduction, because the authors degrade the current school system while promoting the multi-dimensional learning model which, according to them, should replace the traditional, uni-dimensional model. (p. 4)
The authors also draw conclusions from various literature that learning should not be learner-centered as it can be group-based. The latter helps the learner study better and gain more knowledge. The latter might prove as well that working in group can contribute in many ways, such as perfect other learners' mistakes. The second possible way of learning the new way would be learning at one's own pace and curriculum, which enables the students to learn according to their own pace, abilities and learning style. (p. 6)
For the teacher the two above-mentioned approaches mean that he or she is the leader of the team who guides the students through the learning process. Enabling the learner to move forward on his or her own pace will result in the learner becoming active. I think that in today's world this would really be a necessary step towards better learning, because based on my own observations learners are not happy with the teacher's input, they would like to contribute to their learning themselves.
According to the article the teacher's role is also to develop the students' learning abilities in order to gain better results from one's learning process. This process would require self-evaluation from both sides - the teacher and the student, who reflect accordingly on their teaching and learning (p. 7). I agree that it is important to improve the students' learning skills and the ability to be able to choose between important information and the unimportant.
The authors of this paper also emphasize on the importance of the communities of practice, but in order to be most productive they need to be reshaped. There is need for collaboration between all parties, the need for innovation and brainstorming.
The idea of a visiting teacher is brought in on page 12. It is a good idea, and it is recognized in Estonian schools (there was a week called "Back to School 2009" in October) where parents or former students or workers of different professions come to talk or teach about their experience. A fairly different experience may come directly from the practitioner and the pupils may discover something that the teacher would not have told them.
The study comes from Amsterdam and is quite radical. It stroke me immediately from the introduction, because the authors degrade the current school system while promoting the multi-dimensional learning model which, according to them, should replace the traditional, uni-dimensional model. (p. 4)
The authors also draw conclusions from various literature that learning should not be learner-centered as it can be group-based. The latter helps the learner study better and gain more knowledge. The latter might prove as well that working in group can contribute in many ways, such as perfect other learners' mistakes. The second possible way of learning the new way would be learning at one's own pace and curriculum, which enables the students to learn according to their own pace, abilities and learning style. (p. 6)
For the teacher the two above-mentioned approaches mean that he or she is the leader of the team who guides the students through the learning process. Enabling the learner to move forward on his or her own pace will result in the learner becoming active. I think that in today's world this would really be a necessary step towards better learning, because based on my own observations learners are not happy with the teacher's input, they would like to contribute to their learning themselves.
According to the article the teacher's role is also to develop the students' learning abilities in order to gain better results from one's learning process. This process would require self-evaluation from both sides - the teacher and the student, who reflect accordingly on their teaching and learning (p. 7). I agree that it is important to improve the students' learning skills and the ability to be able to choose between important information and the unimportant.
The authors of this paper also emphasize on the importance of the communities of practice, but in order to be most productive they need to be reshaped. There is need for collaboration between all parties, the need for innovation and brainstorming.
The idea of a visiting teacher is brought in on page 12. It is a good idea, and it is recognized in Estonian schools (there was a week called "Back to School 2009" in October) where parents or former students or workers of different professions come to talk or teach about their experience. A fairly different experience may come directly from the practitioner and the pupils may discover something that the teacher would not have told them.
The paper says that collaborative learning is also an important notion. In this respect the teachers act as guides and help the students go through the research. It can be implemented in learning as well – the teacher will give general guidelines and teach the students to get hold of the learning process. Students then give feedback on the teaching methods which enables their tutors to make changes when necessary. (p. 13)
The authors note also the gap between theory and actual working experience, and suggest that through internship this kind of gap can be solved. I think that it would be useful to bring such experience already to high school or secondary school, not to mention the end of basic school. This kind of learning through practice bridges the gap of learning and work. (p. 14)
The shortest point to be made from this text would be that all parties are learners as well as teachers.
The authors also bring in the role of ICT in learning by sharing which enables all the parties to collaborate more flexibly from any place in the world. (p. 19) The fact that a lot of knowledge is available on the Internet, lets the collaborators improve the existing material at any time or any place. It is mentioned, that this kind of education is cheap and let the students learn on their own, receiving immediate feedback.
According to the authors it is also possible to customise education according to different learning styles, which enables the students to progress at their own pace. It is useful for both students and the teachers, because according to the authors the students most likely adapt to the technology very quickly and the teachers can learn from them.
It is concluded that learning by sharing would serve as a model for life-long learning.
1.11.09
Ethics and Law in New Media, week five
Browse the Jargon File. Write a small blog entry about a term/definition which was the most intriguing for you.
I searched for the hacker profile, and found an intriguing post about food. I thought that a hacker prefers only fast food and does not care much about the food quality, but on the contrary the Jargon File notes, that they tend to like exotic food and most of the hackers are health food eaters. It also notes that the stereotypical claim that I previously thought comes from before the early 1980s.
Also Norbert's post was of interest, he stated that 'hacker' has a positive connotation and 'cracker' is used as a negative word.
Write a short blogged analysis about the hacker ethic found in today's world (is it there or not, how much of it etc).
According to the sources I have read, there is hacker ethic in today's world, but it is not sufficient enough to succeed in today's IT world. The key terms for succeeding according to McAllister are teamwork and collaboration in addition to hacker spirit. For that he suggests an education reform would be necessary in order to develop a new kind of computer engineering degree.
It seems that Web 2.0 has put a basis to cooperation and collaboration and open source is what "sells" in the hacker world.
Wikipedia: Hacker Ethic
Steven Mizrach. "Is there a Hacker Ethic for 90's Hackers?"
Neil McAllister. "Does the 'hacker ethic' help or harm today's developers?"
Choose a minority group and describe how they can make use of Internet to reduce alienation and prejudice.
For example a group of young people who are just discovering the world of Internet, and whose parents do not know much about what is going on there. The Internet could help them with useful material (of course this has to be guided by someone, because otherwise it is difficult to find) and help them with the problems that arise in the Internet. These pages contain lots of useful tips and tricks how to survive in the Internet world.
I think this kind of a situation is soon ending, because generation by generation the people are getting wiser and are able to teach their own kids to navigate in the Web, but right now there remains a group who will be afraid of computers and the Internet.
I searched for the hacker profile, and found an intriguing post about food. I thought that a hacker prefers only fast food and does not care much about the food quality, but on the contrary the Jargon File notes, that they tend to like exotic food and most of the hackers are health food eaters. It also notes that the stereotypical claim that I previously thought comes from before the early 1980s.
Also Norbert's post was of interest, he stated that 'hacker' has a positive connotation and 'cracker' is used as a negative word.
Write a short blogged analysis about the hacker ethic found in today's world (is it there or not, how much of it etc).
According to the sources I have read, there is hacker ethic in today's world, but it is not sufficient enough to succeed in today's IT world. The key terms for succeeding according to McAllister are teamwork and collaboration in addition to hacker spirit. For that he suggests an education reform would be necessary in order to develop a new kind of computer engineering degree.
It seems that Web 2.0 has put a basis to cooperation and collaboration and open source is what "sells" in the hacker world.
Wikipedia: Hacker Ethic
Steven Mizrach. "Is there a Hacker Ethic for 90's Hackers?"
Neil McAllister. "Does the 'hacker ethic' help or harm today's developers?"
Choose a minority group and describe how they can make use of Internet to reduce alienation and prejudice.
For example a group of young people who are just discovering the world of Internet, and whose parents do not know much about what is going on there. The Internet could help them with useful material (of course this has to be guided by someone, because otherwise it is difficult to find) and help them with the problems that arise in the Internet. These pages contain lots of useful tips and tricks how to survive in the Internet world.
I think this kind of a situation is soon ending, because generation by generation the people are getting wiser and are able to teach their own kids to navigate in the Web, but right now there remains a group who will be afraid of computers and the Internet.
30.10.09
Learning by sharing - scholarly articles (Google Scholar)
As the date is approaching, one needs to start reading. I googled scholar a bit, and found my topic things:
1) Learning by Sharing by Thomas J.P. Thijssen, Rik Maes, and Fons T.J. Vernooij (Amsterdam Institute for Infopreneurship & University of Amsterdam) [Read the description]
2) Bias Learning, Knowledge Sharing - this article was not exactly what I was looking for.
4) Learning by Sharing - this doesn't suit my expectations. A Google book preview, an old research about intergenerational approach.
1) Learning by Sharing by Thomas J.P. Thijssen, Rik Maes, and Fons T.J. Vernooij (Amsterdam Institute for Infopreneurship & University of Amsterdam) [Read the description]
2) Bias Learning, Knowledge Sharing - this article was not exactly what I was looking for.
4) Learning by Sharing - this doesn't suit my expectations. A Google book preview, an old research about intergenerational approach.
27.10.09
The fifth read: The future of education - I found some good videos.
I will count this post together with the unfinished book of Introduction to Digital Media as the fifth read. I find the videos very educative, and thought that I should use them as sources as well.
Here Michael J. Trout tells about the future of Education.
Mr. Trout wants to change education radically. He's found a chance what would help doing it. Education Singularity - in the near future one organization is going to make education accessible worldwide regardless of the time, location. He hopes that he would be able to start the concept. Watch, listen and touch - you'll be able to learn everything.
A sweet little video about the students' opinion of learning. I agree with the computer part, it is a nuisance in the lectures, yet you will need it in the end. Lots of important information is hidden in the internet.
Alvin Tofler on the current situation of education:
Alvin Toffler is talking about the history of public education, when in the 1800s the poor needed to work and could not study because of that. Only wealthy people could afford school. Those educated people needed industrial discipline (show up in time and do the work all over again). Because of that the schools were designed which simulated factories. You have to be in school at a fixed time. Schoolbus-system prepares the pupils to commute to work. We do not need that anymore, because people work from home and in odd hours.
He thinks that the entire system is obsolete. According to Toffler, the system is prepared for yesterday, not tomorrow. Bill Gates has said: "We cannot reform our education system, we must replace it." It would be dangerous for the workers in terms of losing jobs.
There are going to be battles about education in different countries until the system is broken and replaced.
All the videos originate from the Ning-based webpage The Future of Education
Digital Ethnography blog is also a worthy read :)
Here Michael J. Trout tells about the future of Education.
Mr. Trout wants to change education radically. He's found a chance what would help doing it. Education Singularity - in the near future one organization is going to make education accessible worldwide regardless of the time, location. He hopes that he would be able to start the concept. Watch, listen and touch - you'll be able to learn everything.
A sweet little video about the students' opinion of learning. I agree with the computer part, it is a nuisance in the lectures, yet you will need it in the end. Lots of important information is hidden in the internet.
Alvin Tofler on the current situation of education:
Alvin Toffler is talking about the history of public education, when in the 1800s the poor needed to work and could not study because of that. Only wealthy people could afford school. Those educated people needed industrial discipline (show up in time and do the work all over again). Because of that the schools were designed which simulated factories. You have to be in school at a fixed time. Schoolbus-system prepares the pupils to commute to work. We do not need that anymore, because people work from home and in odd hours.
He thinks that the entire system is obsolete. According to Toffler, the system is prepared for yesterday, not tomorrow. Bill Gates has said: "We cannot reform our education system, we must replace it." It would be dangerous for the workers in terms of losing jobs.
There are going to be battles about education in different countries until the system is broken and replaced.
All the videos originate from the Ning-based webpage The Future of Education
Digital Ethnography blog is also a worthy read :)
19.10.09
Ethics and Law in New Media, week four.
Investigate and describe (in your blog) an illustrative case of digital divide in your country.
In Estonia digital divide is found mostly between elderly and younger people.
While surfing the Internet in hopes of finding data about digital divide, I found the following document: "Digital Divide in Estonia and How to Bridge It."
According to that document in 2002 58% of Estonian population is non-users. They may know the benefits of computers, but are disturbed with lack of motivation or skills. Half of non-users are not aware of the benefits of the Internet. Those willing to use the Internet are open-minded and can manage technological difficulties. The other people who cannot or will not use the Internet are either retired people, "passive people", and "blue collar" individuals. Retired people mostly have not got in contact with computers and thus lack user knowledge and are not aware or do not want to understand the benefits of the Internet and computers.
"Passive people" see no benefits from using a computer, they do not have the need to use it, they are against technology and prefer to use traditional media. They have little interest outside their daily life. They are in trouble handling the user interfaces and computers in general.
"Blue Collars" are mainly workers who do not use computers in their work. About a half of the group has the same characteristics as the previous group, with the exception that personal monetary gain would attract them to the Interent. This group is characterised by psychological, monetary and technical barriers.
In 2002 there were an estimated 176,000 retired people in Estonia who belong to the
“Passive People” group; “Blue Collars“ include 151,000 workers plus 42,000 medium-level specialists and client service personnel. To most of these people lack of motivation is the main reason not to use the Internet.
I think nowadays the situation has not changed much. In my workplace there are around 60 workers all of whom have to use a computer one way or another. There are at least 5 people aged 40-60 who are not willing to use a computer outside work, they fill in e-Kool only. One of these people does not even fill in e-Kool, she has delegated her rights to another person. Another example is a person with principles, she is over 40, she fills in e-Kool, but does other things manually. As everyone does not hand the reports anymore since parents can see their childrens' marks from e-Kool, she still fills in report cards for pupils. I would say that 2/3 of workers in my workplace are active Internet users either for finding materials, browsing through their documentation, etc.
Analyse and describe (in your blog) Internet availability in your country. How big is the availability difference for urban and rural regions? Do you consider this a problem?
I think that in our country the internet coverage is almost everywhere. Visitestonia says that nearly 100% of our capital city is covered with wifi. Internet World Stats suggests that out of almost 1400000 people 760000, or 57% of population are active Internet users. ICT Statistics Newslog provides us with the fact that Estonian Government expects 90% of the country to have access to 100 Mbps network by the year 2012.
According to Estonian Informatics Centre, a year 2008 initiative KülaTee3 has managed to get providers of connectivity for low-density population areas in every county.
The abovementioned statistics show that there should be no problem connecting to the Internet, but perhaps these two topics - digital divide and Internet availability are in connection? Nowadays the Internet expenses should not be a problem to many households. I think that the economical situation in Estonia has perhaps increased the number of households without the Internet, but there are other places where a person can access the Internet, like libraries, wifi networks in different places, etc. I do not consider internet access a problem, but I think the problem lies in those people's minds who do not want to use it.
For Estonians: compare the current situation in Estonia to the four scenarios of "Estonia 2010". Which one is the closest to the reality?
The four scenarios of "Estonia 2010" are the following:
I would say that innovation is the key word of Estonia's future. I will try to comment on these scenarios from my own perspective. The fist situation is impossible, because our troops would never achieve the size they are in the "angry little country". Technologically other big countries are way ahead of us, and I would never believe Estonia would start inventing a nuclear weapon-like monster. What concerns the second scheme, I think that Estonia has a fear for Russia and with nearly 26% of Russian population (CIA World Factbook) we just cannot break apart from Russian influence. Still, being closest to reality, I believe this could be mixed with Grand Slam and get the current situation with Estonia striving for innovative outcomes to save the current economic situation and somehow raise its position in the world perspective. The ferryman scenario would be excluded, because to my mind Estonia cannot be only a transit country.
How important do you deem the social cohesiveness (or caring) in reaching ubicomp?
I think that caring as a notion is still a high value. It is important, even in ubicomp.
In Estonia digital divide is found mostly between elderly and younger people.
While surfing the Internet in hopes of finding data about digital divide, I found the following document: "Digital Divide in Estonia and How to Bridge It."
According to that document in 2002 58% of Estonian population is non-users. They may know the benefits of computers, but are disturbed with lack of motivation or skills. Half of non-users are not aware of the benefits of the Internet. Those willing to use the Internet are open-minded and can manage technological difficulties. The other people who cannot or will not use the Internet are either retired people, "passive people", and "blue collar" individuals. Retired people mostly have not got in contact with computers and thus lack user knowledge and are not aware or do not want to understand the benefits of the Internet and computers.
"Passive people" see no benefits from using a computer, they do not have the need to use it, they are against technology and prefer to use traditional media. They have little interest outside their daily life. They are in trouble handling the user interfaces and computers in general.
"Blue Collars" are mainly workers who do not use computers in their work. About a half of the group has the same characteristics as the previous group, with the exception that personal monetary gain would attract them to the Interent. This group is characterised by psychological, monetary and technical barriers.
In 2002 there were an estimated 176,000 retired people in Estonia who belong to the
“Passive People” group; “Blue Collars“ include 151,000 workers plus 42,000 medium-level specialists and client service personnel. To most of these people lack of motivation is the main reason not to use the Internet.
I think nowadays the situation has not changed much. In my workplace there are around 60 workers all of whom have to use a computer one way or another. There are at least 5 people aged 40-60 who are not willing to use a computer outside work, they fill in e-Kool only. One of these people does not even fill in e-Kool, she has delegated her rights to another person. Another example is a person with principles, she is over 40, she fills in e-Kool, but does other things manually. As everyone does not hand the reports anymore since parents can see their childrens' marks from e-Kool, she still fills in report cards for pupils. I would say that 2/3 of workers in my workplace are active Internet users either for finding materials, browsing through their documentation, etc.
Analyse and describe (in your blog) Internet availability in your country. How big is the availability difference for urban and rural regions? Do you consider this a problem?
I think that in our country the internet coverage is almost everywhere. Visitestonia says that nearly 100% of our capital city is covered with wifi. Internet World Stats suggests that out of almost 1400000 people 760000, or 57% of population are active Internet users. ICT Statistics Newslog provides us with the fact that Estonian Government expects 90% of the country to have access to 100 Mbps network by the year 2012.
According to Estonian Informatics Centre, a year 2008 initiative KülaTee3 has managed to get providers of connectivity for low-density population areas in every county.
The abovementioned statistics show that there should be no problem connecting to the Internet, but perhaps these two topics - digital divide and Internet availability are in connection? Nowadays the Internet expenses should not be a problem to many households. I think that the economical situation in Estonia has perhaps increased the number of households without the Internet, but there are other places where a person can access the Internet, like libraries, wifi networks in different places, etc. I do not consider internet access a problem, but I think the problem lies in those people's minds who do not want to use it.
For Estonians: compare the current situation in Estonia to the four scenarios of "Estonia 2010". Which one is the closest to the reality?
The four scenarios of "Estonia 2010" are the following:
- "Militaristic information oasis"
- "South Finland"
- "The Ferryman"
- "Grand Slam"
I would say that innovation is the key word of Estonia's future. I will try to comment on these scenarios from my own perspective. The fist situation is impossible, because our troops would never achieve the size they are in the "angry little country". Technologically other big countries are way ahead of us, and I would never believe Estonia would start inventing a nuclear weapon-like monster. What concerns the second scheme, I think that Estonia has a fear for Russia and with nearly 26% of Russian population (CIA World Factbook) we just cannot break apart from Russian influence. Still, being closest to reality, I believe this could be mixed with Grand Slam and get the current situation with Estonia striving for innovative outcomes to save the current economic situation and somehow raise its position in the world perspective. The ferryman scenario would be excluded, because to my mind Estonia cannot be only a transit country.
How important do you deem the social cohesiveness (or caring) in reaching ubicomp?
I think that caring as a notion is still a high value. It is important, even in ubicomp.
15.10.09
Ethics and Law in New Media, week three.
Read the "Inside Echelon" by Duncan Campbell. Write a blog opinion about the present situation of the system, what it is used for and how it can influence the global community. You can also draw a couple of hypothetical scenarios (what if...).
Duncan Campbell easily describes Echelon system's history and the current situation. Although, when reading the articles that date from 2000-s, I think it is old information and I need further research on the topic.
The systems now have been automatised and computers process information faster and more efficiently. During war time the system was used to detect possible threat to US, but nowadays it is probably concerned with economic spying.
Since I am not fully aware of the causes of 911, I do not understand how this kind of operation could not be foreseen with the help of Echelon. Was it done face-to-face, without any telephone-, internet-, telex-, and fax communication? There are certainly plenty of conspiracy theories, one of which being the US Government finding solutions to start a war in Iraq, which might be true due to such vast network of information available to the US. In further research I found a blog post on 9/11 and Echelon: Key Players Unearthed, where the author states that lots of big companies work with Echelon, but I did not get the answer for my question of how the actions before 9/11 could not be spotted. However, Campbell's article showed that government leaders and other significant people used the information for their interest, which might lead to the conspiracy theory I pointed out.
Going on from here, the article states that critical information is gathered only to monitor the people of interests, like political leaders and other activists, nowadays of international companies. First all the information, including unnecessary birthday greetings, were gathered, but as the system has automated search criteria, it chooses between the necessary and unnecessary information. Virtually all information of the world can be gathered, and it is monitored mainly by the United States of America and the United Kingdom as main controllers of such network. As we discussed in Introduction to New Media, people might be monitored via cameras on Google Street View, or just plain cameras in the streets; added with Echelon and similar information gathering networks there is virtually no privacy. Nowadays the information is used on spying international companies on new technologies so that America would remain the leader of world's technology, as I read from the article of US Economic spying. The article confirms that there is not much possibility in creating anything new for smaller countries, because ideas are being stolen and perhaps sold to bigger companies.
I think that such network of information processing is not an important threat to insignificant people. Probably for Estonia, as being the part of former Soviet Union, there is not much threat either, since the Soviet Union has disassembled and is not of such interest now as it was in war-time.
Write a blog description of an Internet fraud (scam) scheme.
A simple fact, that it is not allowed to ask 100% of money before having sold the good(s), is widely ignored in e-commerce in Estonia.
A famous scam in Estonia in 2007 was initiated by Mari Aid, and Sulev Kits, members of the executive board of Trendshop OÜ which was owner of the portal Tsiigu.ee. First, people were tricked into buying very cheap things from Tsiigu e-shop, and the first customers really got their goods and gave good reviews on the shop. When time moved on, the scam began to work - 100% of money was taken beforehand and no goods were given to customers. As the customers became troubled, they discussed the matter in different forums like Perekool, Buduaar, Osta.ee etc, where Aid also sold her goods, and found similar victims. They turned to police.
Being in debt, the website was closed, as you can still see, but Mari Aid had the blatancy to open a shop in Viljandi, and continue selling the non-existent goods to mothers. Finally, in 2009, she was accused of cheating the amount of 283 644 kroons from more than 130 people. On Oct. 2, she finally got a sentence, but she still denied scam.
References:
http://uudised.err.ee/index.php?06130943
http://www.tarbija24.ee/281207/esileht/olulised_teemad/tarbija24/kasu/303516.php
http://www.tarbijakaitse.ee/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=5115&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
http://www.tarbija24.ee/?id=127535
http://www.nupsu.ee/index.php?menu=news&page=viewnews&item=21806
http://www.tarbija24.ee/?id=170748
Review the scambaiting websites mentioned above. Analyse them from an ethical point of view.
I remember getting a Nigerian "lottery-mail" once and getting interested in similar cases. I Googled (or at that time maybe AltaVistad) the mail and ended up in mugu-baiting web-page, which is similar to "What's the bloody point?" site. It was so amusing, I laughed till the late hour. In fact I think it was the very same site.
From an ethical point of view I think it is not ethical nor it is safe to try it at home. If I am not mistaken, there was a warning that the people they are dealing with are criminals and people should take caution in answering to those e-mails.
I think that it is unethical to send such e-mails to 'mugus' (I just started to like this word), because as seen from the example of a poor American Rupert Sessions, it is possible to get money from simple people. On the other hand, it is not ethical to start joking with these criminals. I think the wisest thing to do is to report to certain authorities who can continue dealing with such cases. The author of the website takes it too far, even getting some money out of the criminals themselves, which proves that some of them are not that wise as to understand that the author is taking the same measures out of them. But by insulting them in the end he is no wiser than the criminals. Anyway, it is a good laugh from both sites!
Duncan Campbell easily describes Echelon system's history and the current situation. Although, when reading the articles that date from 2000-s, I think it is old information and I need further research on the topic.
The systems now have been automatised and computers process information faster and more efficiently. During war time the system was used to detect possible threat to US, but nowadays it is probably concerned with economic spying.
Since I am not fully aware of the causes of 911, I do not understand how this kind of operation could not be foreseen with the help of Echelon. Was it done face-to-face, without any telephone-, internet-, telex-, and fax communication? There are certainly plenty of conspiracy theories, one of which being the US Government finding solutions to start a war in Iraq, which might be true due to such vast network of information available to the US. In further research I found a blog post on 9/11 and Echelon: Key Players Unearthed, where the author states that lots of big companies work with Echelon, but I did not get the answer for my question of how the actions before 9/11 could not be spotted. However, Campbell's article showed that government leaders and other significant people used the information for their interest, which might lead to the conspiracy theory I pointed out.
Going on from here, the article states that critical information is gathered only to monitor the people of interests, like political leaders and other activists, nowadays of international companies. First all the information, including unnecessary birthday greetings, were gathered, but as the system has automated search criteria, it chooses between the necessary and unnecessary information. Virtually all information of the world can be gathered, and it is monitored mainly by the United States of America and the United Kingdom as main controllers of such network. As we discussed in Introduction to New Media, people might be monitored via cameras on Google Street View, or just plain cameras in the streets; added with Echelon and similar information gathering networks there is virtually no privacy. Nowadays the information is used on spying international companies on new technologies so that America would remain the leader of world's technology, as I read from the article of US Economic spying. The article confirms that there is not much possibility in creating anything new for smaller countries, because ideas are being stolen and perhaps sold to bigger companies.
I think that such network of information processing is not an important threat to insignificant people. Probably for Estonia, as being the part of former Soviet Union, there is not much threat either, since the Soviet Union has disassembled and is not of such interest now as it was in war-time.
Write a blog description of an Internet fraud (scam) scheme.
A simple fact, that it is not allowed to ask 100% of money before having sold the good(s), is widely ignored in e-commerce in Estonia.
A famous scam in Estonia in 2007 was initiated by Mari Aid, and Sulev Kits, members of the executive board of Trendshop OÜ which was owner of the portal Tsiigu.ee. First, people were tricked into buying very cheap things from Tsiigu e-shop, and the first customers really got their goods and gave good reviews on the shop. When time moved on, the scam began to work - 100% of money was taken beforehand and no goods were given to customers. As the customers became troubled, they discussed the matter in different forums like Perekool, Buduaar, Osta.ee etc, where Aid also sold her goods, and found similar victims. They turned to police.
Being in debt, the website was closed, as you can still see, but Mari Aid had the blatancy to open a shop in Viljandi, and continue selling the non-existent goods to mothers. Finally, in 2009, she was accused of cheating the amount of 283 644 kroons from more than 130 people. On Oct. 2, she finally got a sentence, but she still denied scam.
References:
http://uudised.err.ee/index.php?06130943
http://www.tarbija24.ee/281207/esileht/olulised_teemad/tarbija24/kasu/303516.php
http://www.tarbijakaitse.ee/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=5115&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
http://www.tarbija24.ee/?id=127535
http://www.nupsu.ee/index.php?menu=news&page=viewnews&item=21806
http://www.tarbija24.ee/?id=170748
Review the scambaiting websites mentioned above. Analyse them from an ethical point of view.
I remember getting a Nigerian "lottery-mail" once and getting interested in similar cases. I Googled (or at that time maybe AltaVistad) the mail and ended up in mugu-baiting web-page, which is similar to "What's the bloody point?" site. It was so amusing, I laughed till the late hour. In fact I think it was the very same site.
From an ethical point of view I think it is not ethical nor it is safe to try it at home. If I am not mistaken, there was a warning that the people they are dealing with are criminals and people should take caution in answering to those e-mails.
I think that it is unethical to send such e-mails to 'mugus' (I just started to like this word), because as seen from the example of a poor American Rupert Sessions, it is possible to get money from simple people. On the other hand, it is not ethical to start joking with these criminals. I think the wisest thing to do is to report to certain authorities who can continue dealing with such cases. The author of the website takes it too far, even getting some money out of the criminals themselves, which proves that some of them are not that wise as to understand that the author is taking the same measures out of them. But by insulting them in the end he is no wiser than the criminals. Anyway, it is a good laugh from both sites!
11.10.09
Ethics and Law in New Media, week two.
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8.10.09
Ethics and Law in New Media, week one.
Read Pekka Himanen's paper "Challenges to the Global Information Society" and write a blog review of Himanen's paper.
Himanen talks in his paper about the challenges that are going on in welfare society or in the information society. He describes the information society as creative and based on interaction, relying on innovation and collaboration. I think a lot of his predictions can be transferred to the current situation where desperate change is needed and new ideas are welcome.
His ideas on the one hand are true, because work is done faster, people need less time to do the jobs, but on the other hand he kind of draws a very illusionistic picture of the future. Almost prophetic.
I think most of his paper can be applied to current Estonian situation, where deaths exceed births, and there are more old age pensioneers and lots of workless people. The number of workless people is still growing. I also think this prophecy (although he did not mean it like this) would be of use in this very moment, because this is the time for changes to occur.
This article gave me hope that I am not the one insane person trying to turn my colleagues to using computers in order to create a more fruitful and amusing lesson (of course there are a few of them interested). I believe that the generation after us is experiencing or will experience the signs of Himanen's prophecy.
Moving on to Himanen's statement that new information society is caring, creative and supporting, I automatically thought if this could be possible with all the criminals and people "with lower status", some of them are irreparable from my point of view. Otherwise I am quite pro Himanen's claims. It would be really positive if there could be such a world. I am left with imagining butterflies and flowers from a commercial of new Fanta without artificial ingredients, only natural fruit juice!
His ideas on the one hand are true, because work is done faster, people need less time to do the jobs, but on the other hand he kind of draws a very illusionistic picture of the future. Almost prophetic.
I think most of his paper can be applied to current Estonian situation, where deaths exceed births, and there are more old age pensioneers and lots of workless people. The number of workless people is still growing. I also think this prophecy (although he did not mean it like this) would be of use in this very moment, because this is the time for changes to occur.
This article gave me hope that I am not the one insane person trying to turn my colleagues to using computers in order to create a more fruitful and amusing lesson (of course there are a few of them interested). I believe that the generation after us is experiencing or will experience the signs of Himanen's prophecy.
Moving on to Himanen's statement that new information society is caring, creative and supporting, I automatically thought if this could be possible with all the criminals and people "with lower status", some of them are irreparable from my point of view. Otherwise I am quite pro Himanen's claims. It would be really positive if there could be such a world. I am left with imagining butterflies and flowers from a commercial of new Fanta without artificial ingredients, only natural fruit juice!
Study Theobald's question of 'mind-quake', find a real-life example and describe it.
As I am a teacher, I am probably going to give examples from the field of education. I think a good example of Theobald's mindquake is probably a shift from the rigid school system towards e-learning. There are lots of inflexible teachers whose working habits are based on books only. The new generation, or as they say "digital natives" feel comfortable with computers, but there are still a lot of teachers who do not apply computers or any other digital equipment to learning. I think it is of utmost importance to have at least some knowledge of computers nowadays unless you do not want to stay behind from your students. You are more competitive with good computer knowledge than without any.
Another example popped into my mind, a bit comical, perhaps. In the Soviet times people used to use magazines after the toilet procedures since there was not much money to buy toilet paper, which nowadays would be impossible to be considered normal, I suppose.
Pick one of Handy's paradoxes, find a good real-life illustrative case and describe it.
The paradox of aging. It is extremely obvious that in today's rapidly changing world it is quite impossible to follow all the new trends and changes. Some people attempt to keep in pace with the changes, but to many of them it is impossible to keep track of changes.
I am going to give a simplistic, down-to-earth example, perhaps. Elderly people usually tend to teach how younger generations should raise their children. They neither remember their difficulties nor feel that much of it has changed. For example in olden times parents did not have nappies, and there were few washing machines. Babies were wrapped in blankets and they moved less than the babies of current mothers. The children of today grow with technology and handle it flawlessly, even better than their parents, and can teach them a lot about different gadgets. Lots of grown-ups still are afraid of computers, thus they prefer not to work with them. Even dating new people is different nowadays - the Internet is a powerful means for it, you may have long conversations and wrong impressions before really getting together.
Pick one of Castells' features of network society and write a short analysis.
The culture of true virtuality. We can take different forums as an example of the culture of true virtuality. People have nicknames and in real life those people prefer to be called by their nicknames rather than their real names. Usually it is easier to communicate "through your computer screen", because you can open up more easily with your "false identity" than in face-to-face conversations. On the other hand it is easier to disguise in virtual reality where 1/3 of communication is held. By 1/3 I mean the row of words to which only the recipient can give meaning. It does not include body language, voice or facial impressions, only words.
People with similar interests usually gather to similar forums, chat rooms, games, etc. They use specific language, which may not be understood by outsiders (e.g. parents, people with different interests). They are targeted by ads from companies that satisfy their specific needs. Google AdSense is pretty skilful in finding those ads.
Another growing phenomenon in Estonia is Facebook. Since Rate.ee and Orkut have exhausted their users, a lot of people are moving towards Facebook. It is a more dynamic, flexible, cross-communicative social networking platform where people can choose between different options to be amused, to get information and to pass information on to the others. There are different options to keep users "hooked on", and to "feed" them specific advertisements. From my example pupils really like to spend time in the above-mentioned social networks and communicate with their friends via different IM-providers.
2.10.09
30.9.09
A mock-up of a web-based mini-enterprise.
Our dot com business will be based upon Google Sidewiki. Using that tool we will add comments and mini-reviews to websites of various places of subculture: artist and youth cafes, clubs, galleries etc.
From there on we will try to bring the customer to our website, which concept will be similar to that of weekend.ee, featuring in-depth reviews and opinions about those subculture places.
The business model will be based upon ads. We will be hosting Google ads on our website, which is good in providing links based on the sites content. We will also promote a service through our website and for selling our abstract service we use either eBay or Amazon.
Marge contributed the image of the mock-up (Sidewiki is on the left):
Marge contributed the image of the mock-up (Sidewiki is on the left):
29.9.09
Introduction to digital audio with Nuno Correia.
I made a podcast for learning French sounds.
Raw ad file by brit@
French podcast ad by brit@
You can find the original files in RapidShare.
FINAL PODCAST AD [zip]
Raw French Podcast by brit@
French Podcast by brit@
You can find the original files in RapidShare.
As a free user you have to wait approximately 90 seconds before downloading the files. Choose the free user option.
FINAL PODCAST [zip]
Raw material
I started off with 4 recordings (raw material) and continued with searching Edith Piaf's "La vie en rose" for the soundtrack, as the last story talked about the song. I introduced the podcasts, gave two sessions and finished the podcast with an ending. I then tried to fix the background sound mostly manually, as I have the older version of Audacity.
Then I tried to start thinking about the sounds and I downloaded a few, and "played" manually with the duck (or envelopes), and some effects were recorded by me during the process. I also had to fix some poor recordings and pasted the sounds into the text, thus the different sound of my voice.
Finally I compressed and normalised the whole thing. I was a bit puzzled how I would end the podcast, as the song remained singing and I could not find the suitable ending for it, but then I downloaded an enthusiastic crowd sound and that seemed like a perfect ending (it also hid the final sounds).
The advertisement of the podcast.
- Raw material
Raw ad file by brit@
- Final version
French podcast ad by brit@
You can find the original files in RapidShare.
As a free user you have to wait approximately 90 seconds before downloading the files. Choose the free user option.
FINAL PODCAST AD [zip]
The original podcast.
I present my podcast in a SoundCloud-packed WAV-format.
- Raw material:
Raw French Podcast by brit@
- The final version:
French Podcast by brit@
You can find the original files in RapidShare.
As a free user you have to wait approximately 90 seconds before downloading the files. Choose the free user option.
FINAL PODCAST [zip]
Raw material
I started off with 4 recordings (raw material) and continued with searching Edith Piaf's "La vie en rose" for the soundtrack, as the last story talked about the song. I introduced the podcasts, gave two sessions and finished the podcast with an ending. I then tried to fix the background sound mostly manually, as I have the older version of Audacity.
Sounds
Then I tried to start thinking about the sounds and I downloaded a few, and "played" manually with the duck (or envelopes), and some effects were recorded by me during the process. I also had to fix some poor recordings and pasted the sounds into the text, thus the different sound of my voice.
Final steps
Finally I compressed and normalised the whole thing. I was a bit puzzled how I would end the podcast, as the song remained singing and I could not find the suitable ending for it, but then I downloaded an enthusiastic crowd sound and that seemed like a perfect ending (it also hid the final sounds).
Hope you enjoy my podcast!
Assignment 29.09.09
I found the article about young Egyptian women being able to take political activism thanks to Facebook.
Egypt: Thanks to Facebook, young women take to political activism
15 May 09 - In recent years, Egypt has witnessed increasing participation by women in grassroots political activism. Local civil rights advocates attribute the phenomenon to novel means of communication and organisation, especially the social networking website Facebook.
In this case women of Egypt have found the means to reflect on their political views and have met new people with similar interest. Women wanted to prove that political activity should not be dependent on gender. During a peaceful strike some women were still arrested.
And also do not forget to read the theory: An Introduction to Activism on the Internet
Egypt: Thanks to Facebook, young women take to political activism
15 May 09 - In recent years, Egypt has witnessed increasing participation by women in grassroots political activism. Local civil rights advocates attribute the phenomenon to novel means of communication and organisation, especially the social networking website Facebook.
The phenomenon has become particularly notable since the advent of the ‘April 6 Youth’, a grassroots movement seeking peaceful political change. The movement takes its name from a general strike held on Apr. 6, 2008, when a planned labour action at a public-sector textiles company turned into a nationwide protest against skyrocketing food prices and political stasis.
The young were mobilised through mobile-phone text messages and Facebook - where one of its online groups currently boasts more than 75,000 members.
In this case women of Egypt have found the means to reflect on their political views and have met new people with similar interest. Women wanted to prove that political activity should not be dependent on gender. During a peaceful strike some women were still arrested.
And also do not forget to read the theory: An Introduction to Activism on the Internet
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