Maibritt studies in Tallinn University ...

Task 14. Final reflection of the course.

2010-12-19T18:00:00.001+02:00

First I would like to begin with my expectations of the course - as the name suggests, I expected to get acquainted with new environments throughout the Internet that we hadn't used before, and the theory behind them. I also expected the course to have the usual pattern - each task (or set of tasks) would take one week, as we are used to.

The reality outcome was too much theory and a few environments (including PiratePad, Flashmeeting, PLENK 2010), which seemed familiar from other courses. Course tasks had to be planned quickly to your daily schedule, since deadlines and tasks appeared quite vaguely and if missed, you lost points. As an average Estonian MA student, I work and this makes such schedule very difficult to manage.

All in all I would not trash the whole course - I think the group got new theoretical knowledge which can help them in many fields and tasks later. The course should have had a backbone in order to plan the activities and studies. I am sure that a student nowadays learns better from doing things than from reading and reflecting, so a few practical tasks would have come in handy with this course as well. The most memorable courses for me have been practical ones with certain tasks. Although I liked the thought of having the course in my computer, not being physically present in Tallinn.

And what puzzled me was that one lecturer disappeared at the beginning and the other one was left all alone with all the tasks to read. At least it seemed so after the group started "rioting" on the deadlines. Thanks to the understanding nature of Terje, the group got a smoother schedule.

About my contribution - since this year has had many changes, I was not able to work as thoroughly as in the last two semesters, and I disregarded a few tasks from the plan. Regarding my personal schedule, I did my best to pass the course. If the course would have taken place the next semester, I would have done better.

Task 13. Re-designing and re-instrumentalising activities.

2010-12-19T17:37:00.001+02:00

The task was to think about an activity and (how it) can be amended with the help of digital technology.
Let's take watching television, an everyday activity.
Television in Estonia has been available since the year 1955, but it made its way to public already in 1928. The first television sets became available in the UK, US, and Soviet Union. In 1956 first television sets could be bought in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.
TV transmission was first black and white, but now it is colourful, digital and can be easily viewed from any corner of the world. Estonia got its colourful picture inside the TV set already in 1975, but the world could view colourful images already in 1940.
I was born in the 1980's and as far as I can remember, we have always had a television set, a colourful one, and we fought over using rights of the TV with my two brothers. Television watching was possible only through one TV set and it was controlled manually, you had to stand up, go to the television set and push or turn the buttons.
The 1990's became the turning point in our family, where the remote control came and also virtual console games could be played through the television screen with the help of remote control joysticks and guns. Super Mario was my personal favourite.
When I first started to learn about the computers in 1996, it was not so thrilling with computers having only DOS systems and graphics were minimal, but in 1998 when our family got its first personal computer, my world changed - I got hooked with the "thing", later accompanied with Internet, and my interest in digital technology rose.
Nowadays these two gadgets can easily be mixed, since one can view computer images through a TV screen or vice versa, digital technology has helped us a lot. You do not necessarily have to have a TV set at home to view television.
I would describe my TV viewing habits then and now:
In the 1980s when I wanted to watch TV, I turned it on manually and sat on the couch watching children's programmes. If necessary, I stood up from the couch and turned up the volume or changed the channel manually. In the next decade it was possible to watch satellite TV in our family, and channels like MTV, VIVA and the like became popular for me. I also liked Cartoon Network. In the middle of the decade it was possible to change channels with a remote control without standing up. Occasionally there were mishaps in transmission.
The 2000s did not bring much change until the impossible happened - my TV set fell down and I lost the possibility of watching TV. I chose another alternative and downloaded illegaly all the serials that I was watching at that time and spent night hours watching them. When the hard disc broke, I did not care and am not a fan of TV anymore.
But there are some films and shows I enjoy watching via my computer, which has different TV archives and can be watched legally. Since television became digital on the 1st of July in 2010 in Estonia, the official Estonian channels can be viewed through your computer screen. If you cannot watch your favourite shows it is easier to record them and watch later straight from your computer. No need for a TV set anymore (if you are comfortable without one). But still, TV watching is a lot different - there are digital television boxes which allow you to watch different channels all over the world. There are usually two remotes on people's couches - one for the TV set, another for the digibox. When you push the buttons, you can choose between channels, read teletext and information about the programmes, and much much more.
I think TV history has changed throughout the years and will become even better. For example controlling the channels with your mind (a built-in chip that controls your emotions and thoughts) and projecting them onto your wall, no need of many gadgets at all. I believe that this is a very utopian perspective of things, but I think that watching TV will become even simpler than it is now.

Literature:
History of Estonian Television
Television, wikipedia article

Reflektsioon kursusele Õpikeskkonnad ja õpivõrgustikud

2010-12-11T03:00:00.000+02:00

Kursuse lõpureflektsioon hõlmab endas küsimustele ausalt vastamist ja enda sisse vaatamist kursuse lõpuks.
Kommenteeriks oma õpilepingut kursust läbides - kindlasti sain ma lisateadmisi õpikeskkondade osas, kuid ma arvan, et pärast kursust tuleks materjalid veelkord süvenenult läbi lugeda, et kogu info talletada ja seda edaspidi vajadusel kasutada. Kursuse jooksul sain palju uut informatsiooni, samuti kinnistusid kontseptuaalse disaini oskused, mida eelmisel aastal just õppisin.

Eesmärke ma ei saavutanud kahjuks täielikult, kuna töö- ja ajaplaneerimine ebaõnnestus. Tutvusin kursuse blogiga ning uute õppematerjalidega, kuid ei suutnud hakkama saada kõikide koduste ülesannete õigeaegse postitamisega. Tagasisidest olin huvitatud, kuid seda jagus napilt.

Kursusekaaslaste blogide kommenteerimise olen vaid "vajadusel" enda jaoks märkinud ja ilmselt ei teinud ma sellest vajadust, mistõttu jäid minu poolt blogid kommenteerimata.

Olen õpilepingus tsiteerinud: " Oma saavutusi hindan eelkõige enesetunde järgi - kui tunnen ennast hästi, siis on järelikult kõik õnnestunud. Kui südametunnistus piinab, on midagi tegemata jäänud. Ehk siis praktilisemalt olen rahul oma blogipostituste ja sellele eelnenud ning järgnenud tegevustega ning täitnud need õigeaegselt." - nimelt võin käe südamele pannes öelda, et hansu läbiviidud e-kursustest on see esimene, milles ma lõpuni vastu olen pidanud, kuid südametunnistus jäi mõne postituse puudumise pärast (samas lugesin üle, oli 7 postitust olemas, järelikult kriteeriumid täidetud) kripeldama.

Ma usun, et minu jaoks töötavad ühest küljest reeglid, kuna siis sunnin ennast tööle, kuid vahenädalad ja natuke kergem "režiim" minu enda jaoks ei toiminud hästi, kuna sellega unustasin antud aine tööd tegemata ning seadsin tööelu esiplaanile. Tugevad küljed on südametunnistus, mis sunnib mind tööle, kuid nõrgad küljed on kindlasti aja planeerimine ning töö jaotamine. Paraku ei ole ma endale kindlat graafikut suutnud teha, et oma asjadega võrdväärselt tegeleda.

Järgmisena peaksin läbima ajaplaneerimise kursuse.

Üldiselt kursusega jäin rahule, kuigi viimane osa jäi osadele gruppidele veidi arusaamatuks. Saan aru, et meie grupil oli eelis mõne teise grupi ees, kuna kaks grupi liiget olid eelmisel aastal läbinud kontseptuaalse disaini kursuse. Vaba ajaplaneerimine võimaldas ka "kummi venitada", et õpingud stressirohketeks ei kujuneks.

Task 12. New Interactive Environments. Tool or medium?

2010-12-10T00:25:00.001+02:00

Today I will concentrate on the question whether digital world makes people different or not? Is computer technology a tool or medium?
While reading the text I had lots of other thoughts going through my mind concerning the people mentioned in the article, and the times when these texts were written by Leont'ev and Vygotski. The whole text seemed a little difficult to read, but it had a nice conclusion in the end so that one could finally gather his or her thoughts.

So - according to the article computer technology is both a tool and medium, more important is the person's view to the question. I think today some of us can actually live without computers and communicate the same way as in the olden days, but most of the people need computers in their work, leisure time, for communication, etc. - in this way to me it seems that digital world is a means for people to create an alternative means.
The author concentrates on digital world as a means for people to shape it according to their views and integrate every communication medium into it thus creating a "dominating medium".
I agree, digital media is a means to communicate and feel free to do almost anything with it, but does it make people different? While the author of the text seems to imply that it is not the computers or media that make people evil, but people themselves, then I have to disagree a little. I think that some of the "crazy" ideas still come from the media or social media. Perhaps the fact that people themselves are behind digital media and thus implicitly connected with creating the media, we might say it is true that people themselves have created the evil that comes from the medium, but it is the medium that brings quite a lot of emotions and thrill to people, and some of them take advantage of the great source like the Internet, and perform bad deeds.

In conclusion my answer to the question is that digital media is a medium with the help of which one can communicate and find out about things in a quicker way than one used to find before. It has definitely changed the behaviour of human kind, but if one wants to, he or she can live without digital technology and survive.

Source: Rückriem, G. Tool or Medium? The Meaning of Information and Telecommunication Technology to Human Practice. A Quest for Systemic Understanding of Activity Theory. Helsinki, 2. 12. 2003.

Task 11. New Interactive Environments

2010-12-05T23:58:00.000+02:00

This task focusses on analyzing the Piratepad list what our group created during the live session on the topic "activity management". No doubt this was a preliminary task to introduce Activity Theory when you take a retrospect on the previous activities.

The list concentrates on different activities and processes which where bundled together during a live session of NIE course. The group created a wide list of different components what constitutes the activity management.
Considering the questions given by the facilitator and looking at the list thoroughly, I think that according to my understanding quite an impressive list is made up by the whole team, and while thinking about it I came up with the fact that all the necessary (and some extra) components were listed.
It seems that some components of the list covered the others, for example relations - actors, roles, participants could be grouped together into a smaller chunk. I tried my best to see irrelevant components, but perhaps while being very thorough myself, I agree on the pieces that make up the list. One thing that could have been different would perhaps be giving names to different components - e.g. project manager / facilitator, etc.
As I mentioned before, the list could be shortened, thus I would take all similar chunks and group them under one summarizing term. For example start, end, timeframe could be grouped under the name "task time management", or participants, role, actor, etc. could be named solely "participants". Perhaps this is due to my profession, but I would definitely shorten the list into smaller chunks and then explain them thoroughly mentioning the wider range of components.
Considering the Activity Theory framework, I think that without even knowing amything about the Activity Theory, our group's list has an object (a course/tasks) and a subject (actors/participants). There are different artefacts, like schedule, process, methodology, software, and other things mentioned. Rules are also pointed out (restrictions, limitations, evaluation criteria, etc).
I think according to AT the list is lacking terms for division of effort and community. Some terms may hint the presence of the terms (timeframe, time management, interrelatedness, feedback), but there is no specific term for the previously mentioned chunks.
At the beginning I did not come up with any of the irrelevant or missing components, but by the end of the task, using Activity Theory, I managed to come up with a few missing components.

Literature used:

Activity Theory http://www.learning-theories.com/activity-theory.html

Task 10. New Interactive Environments - Putting Activity Theory Into Practice

2010-11-29T01:03:00.000+02:00

PLENK2010 and NIE compared with the help of activity theory.

PLENK2010 is a course which provides the learner a variety of tools to choose from in order to create their own content and define the content of the course rather than use materials provided by the facilitators. The course operates online and meetings between the students and facilitators take place via Elluminate live sessions. The course aims at creating a joined knowledge base on personal learning environments without forcing the students to take part in every single task that is not relevant to the learners - the latter have to select appropriate content for themselves.

Activity Theory in this case is applied the following way:
The subject of the course is the student or the student base, which is quite numerous. The subjects come from different countries and do not have to be necessarily university students.
The object of the course is the knowledge base that both the students and the facilitators provide.
The tools provided by the facilitators and the students are the following:

course forum on Moodle
Daily Newsletter
RSS-feed
Elluminate Live Chat (for discussion and weekly review)
course wiki
course blog
students' blogs
students' twitter accounts
delicious bookmarks
video
etc.

The rules are set up by the facilitators and do not bound the subjects to the course very strictly, although they are assumed to participate with their own knowledge base. There are also dates provided for online meetings and feedback.
The community is set up by 4 facilitators, the learner base (different countries/age groups/interests, etc), and the online environment with its various tools and help.
Division of labour is divided between different parties and can be understood clearly from the website.

NIE is a course which provides the learner a lesser variety of tools from the previous course, and gives certain tasks in order to get feedback from the students. The course operates online through the course blog and the facilitators' tasks, and also a few live sessions which take place via Flashmeeting. The course aims at providing knowledge to students who in turn raise questions and analyze/criticize the topics provided by the facilitators. This is also a fully online course, similarly to the previous course.

Activity Theory in this case is applied the following way:

The subject of the course is the student or the student base, which is less numerous than the previous course's. The subjects are the students from TLU, and can be also other interested people.
The object of the course is the knowledge base that both the students and the facilitators provide.
The tools provided by the facilitators and the students are the following:

course blog
student's blogs
Wikiversity page
Doodle for scheduling
Flashmeeting online chat
EduFeedr for monitoring
etc.

As you can see there are less tools than PLENK has.

The rules are set up by the facilitators and do bound the subjects to the course very strictly, a few mishaps are allowed. This is quite different from PLENK.
The community is set up by 2 facilitators, the learner base (different countries/age groups/interests, etc), and the online environment with its various tools and help.
Division of labour is divided between different parties and can be understood clearly.

Main differences between the two courses are:

the number of subjects
the number of facilitators
the number of tools
rules differ in the sense of strictness

Drawbacks concerning the activity theory applied to the two courses

First it was difficult to understand how to position the courses into activity systems, but digging into the article helped me since my previous task was left undone. I think the clear system was a great help for understanding how to classify the course information into the components of the theory. I used Figure 4: Activity System for e-commerce, which was provided in the article "An activity-theory-based model to analyse Web application requirements" by Uden, L., Valderas, P. & Pastor, O. (2008).

Õpikeskkonnad ja õpivõrgustikud. Tehnoloogiad ja standardid.

2010-11-21T20:12:00.003+02:00

Selge on see, et standardeid on vaja igasuguste seadmete ja rakenduste toimimiseks mitmetes keskkondades, mistõttu neid aretataksegi.

Meelde jäi tõetera, et tihtipeale kestab standardite arendamine kauem kui arvatakse, kuid neist on ka kasu. Mulle tuli SCORM tuttava sisupaketina ette, kuid lähemalt ma seda uurinud ei olnud.

Nii palju kui mina aru sain, sobivad mulle kõige lihtsamad standardid, mis on avatud õpiobjektide puhul kasutatavad (metaandmed, voogedastus jne).

Õpikeskkonnad ja õpivõrgustikud. Õpivõrgustik

2010-11-21T20:11:00.000+02:00

Koosta enda jaoks raamistik, mille põhjal erinevaid õpivõrgustikke saaks võrrelda (s.t. näitajad, mille alusel kahte võrgustikku võrrelda)
Uuri natuke lähemalt seda “õpivõrgustikku” ja võrdle seda meie kursusega kui ühte võimalikku õpivõrgustikku.

Nagu paljud kaasõpilased on arutlenud, arvan ka mina, et õpivõrgustik on omamoodi sotsiaalne võrgustik, mis keskendub ühe eriala/aine/huvitava teema õppimisele.
Minu kriteeriumid õpivõrgustikule on järgnevad:
Juht (õppejõud, mentor, õpetaja) - võib olla, aga ei pea olema. Tema roll pigem sekundaarne, tegevuste suunamine.
Inimressurss, kes moodustab õpivõrgustiku. Minu nägemuse järgi on see õpilased või üliõpilased, kes õpivad samal kursusel või sama ainet, nemad moodustavad omaette võrgustiku. Sinna võrgustikku kuulub kindlasti ka mentor.
Keskkond, milles õppetöö toimub. Selleks võib olla ükskõik milline paik, ei pea tingimata klassiruumidesse surutud olema. Abiks interaktiivsed vahendid, mis hõlbustavad erinevates paikades elavate (üli)õpilaste õppimisvõimalusi.
Veebikeskkonnad - suletud/avatud. Õppetöö toimub veebikeskkonnas, mida on võimalik jälgida. Selleks võib olla suletud keskkond, nagu WebCT, Elgg, IVA vms, aga ka avatud, õpilase enda valitud keskkonnad (blogid, wikid, veebilehed). Avatud veebikeskkonna eeliseks on kasutatavus ka väljaspool (üli)kooli, mis toob uusi huvilisi ja uusi ideid. Keskkonnas alustab tööd kõigepealt mentor, kes annab õpilastele ülesandeid ning tagasisidet. Õpilased reflekteerivad või koostavad ise õppematerjale kursuse tulemusena.
Taoline veebipõhine keskkond peaks olema arenemisvõimeline ning sisaldama uuendatud informatsiooni.

PLENK 2010 ja Õpikeskkonnad ja Õpivõrgustikud võrdlus.

Teema - mõlemal kursusel sarnane temaatika.
Inimressurss - PLENK 2010 hõlmab suuremat seltskonda kui opikeskkonnad.
Kättesaadavus - mõlemad keskkonnad on veebipõhised, võimalik ligipääs erinevatest maailma paikadest. Eestikeelse kursuse osaks on ka ülikoolis kohal käimise.
Veebikeskkond - mõlemal juhul avatud keskkond, esimese kursuse puhul võimalik sisselogimine.
Ressursid - Esimesel juhul erineb kursus selle poolest, et osalejad suhtlevad iganädalaselt veebis ning üldjuhul kirjutatakse foorumisse. Teisel kursusel on oluline ka inimeste nägemine vähemalt kord kuus ning blogide pidamine.

Generative Content Creation. Critical Review - Geoffrey Rockwell and Andrew Mactavish "A Companion to Digital Humanities", paragraph 10 - "Multimedia"

2010-11-15T01:12:00.002+02:00

The paragraphs go through the definition of multimedia from different points of view in order to reach some kind of a conclusion what multimedia really is. As the conclusion defines, there are two ways of considering multimedia:

to think about multimedia through definitions, histories, examples, and theoretical problems;
to use multimedia to think and to communicate thought.

Multimedia is described by quite a lot of people who strive to get a clear definition for the term. Reading through various materials I understood that history has its critical part in forming different concepts, as well as different names were given for media generated for computers. Rockwell and Mactavish (2004) name some of the terms, such as new media, digital media, hypermedia, multimedia. Having known that such names exist, I had also wondered what the difference was between these terms, which brings us to definitions.
The authors explain that the term new media stresses works that are different from the existing forms of entertainment, or works that are not necessarily digital, but are new to the 20th century.
Hypermedia refers to the labyrinth of information that is accessible through hypertext, which links and makes a connection between different texts (but is not used within some types of games). All of the names refer to a different cluster of multimedia, but seems that the authors agree that the most important term integrating all the above-mentioned names is still multimedia.

The authors have taken several definitions from different sources, which they divide into different categories in order to analyze the term "multimedia":

Computer-based - a multimedia work is a digital work that is accessed or created through a computer;
Rhetorical artifact - multimedia work is a work of human expression, designed to convince, delight, or instruct the classical sense of rhetoric;
Multiple media - combnes different media and different traditions of production and distribution;
Integrated ... artistic whole - we treat multimedia as unified works that are intended by their creator to be experienced as a whole;
Interactive - interactivity becomes a defining feature that helps weave multiplicity into a whole.

Bolter and Grusin (1999) suggest that multimedia works are a new way of expression, but remediated forms of existing genres of expression. This is true, because quite a lot of information nowadays comes from the existing genres or works. Neveertheless, this fact is not crucial for multimedia production, because it is still in a new "package", presented differently from the old examples.

As it seems that the authors like classifying, the next one would be types of multimedia:

Web hypermedia
Computer games
Digital art
Multimedia encyclopedia

The last category came to me as a new one, because one would think that the latter included all multimedia elements: hypertext, (still) images, video, etc., but the authors explain that this is an extension of the print genre, but to my mind this is unsuitable for the classification, because it already includes some of the previously mentioned types.
They also browse the development of the term through different categories like:

Numbers and text - the first IBM's "word processor" was launched in 1964, and by the end of 1970s personal computers already had primitive word processing programs that allowed printing and editing;
Images - Apple Macintosh (released in 1984) was designed to handle graphics, that is why it came with programs such as "MacPaint", a mouse for painting, and a graphical user interface. These images soon had capabilities to be pasted into other documents, etc;
Desktop publishing - together with printing and page making low-end publishing was made possible. These features evolved and soon Adobe PhotoShop enabled designers to publish more detailed publications. The authors say that this category is the precursor to multimedia;
Authoring environments - having practised with desktop publishing tools, designers were already familiar with implementing these environments into their work. 1987 HyperCard was released by Apple, people were able to create simple animations with simple interactivity. This program based on hypertext, but also had a more difficult programming language which enabled to control other devices (audio-, CD-, videodisk players);
Sound - during 1980s - 1990s simple sound capabilities were developed;
Digital video - as it put a great stress on computers, some great works were still made, like the Aspen Movie Map (1978), which combined pictures in order to make the user to wonder through Aspen. The release of different video standards made it possible to manage video in digital form;
Virtual space and beyond - In 1990s cyberspace was mentioned, which seemed as a new frontier for multimedia computing. This involved a person and technology through which it would have been possible to enter digital reality.

These categories seem quite reasonable in order to browse through multimedia history, though are not quite thorough. There is much more history to multimedia, but other landmarks of history were greatly displayed in the other reading tasks given by the lecturer Rui Torres (e.g. Packer, Randall, and Ken Jordan. 2002. Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, Manovich, Lev. 2001. The Language of New Media).

The last category researched by the authors is theoretical approaches considering multimedia, which involves best practices, game criticism and interactivity, and theories and histories of multimedia. The above-mentioned issues are necessary to study the base for multimedia including other sciences in order to think about different concepts forming multimedia.

Finally the authors suggest that scholars of multimedia should take seriously the challenge of creating multimedia as a way of thinking about multimedia and attempt to create exemplary works of multimedia in the traditions.

Task seven. My Understanding of Interactivity.

2010-11-07T23:51:00.001+02:00

Introduction

To begin with, my naïve assumption was that interactivity is something that moves around things - for example, when a person communicates with someone (or something), or when a computer program reacts to a person's touch or voice, it interacts. But as the previous articles clearly pointed out, there are more dimensions to the term than anyone could expect. What I gather from the papers, interactivity is a term that is in constant motion and improvement, so that it could be rephrased in every 5-10 years. As Kiousis quoted Jensen, it means that the two authors have already proved that it is possible to modify the term and as it is in constant alteration. The best blog I found about the question in mind is probably this one - "What is Interactivity anyway?" which perhaps unintentionally or intentionally is left blank - to everyone's own imagination (it could also be the name of the blog which seems like a post without words).

In Search of My Own Term for Interactivity

According to different sources mostly the definition of interactivity comes down to the notion of a person and computer interacting together. As communication between people has become less popular with new media's rise it is quite obvious why interactivity as a term cannot find its rest and is in constant self-search, because new media as a term is in continuous change since we do not know when.
The technology used back when the above-mentioned authors wrote their articles, was quite old and in the state of improvement, like CD-s, DVD-s, VHS cassettes, even tapes which are annoying to use nowadays. Media presentation has moved to web and there is almost no need to carry any artefacts (just in case when the Internet would not work there is a need for backup). The Internet was discovered and put into use, constantly being improved and updated. Html has changed to different programming languages, which now enables us to store our files anywhere in the "cloud" (also more available storage space and cheaper Internet connections have helped) and present them from there.
Interactivity has changed from animated gif-s to touch screens and hyperlinks to pop-up picture galleries and interactive text. People carry their interactive devices with them throughout the day and it is possible to interact with the help of machines all day long.
As I pondered on in my thoughts, I came up with the fact Google Image Search is full of static images which can turn interactive while looking at them because of people's eye traits, which means that even a non-interactive image can be transformed into an interactive one with the help of a person himself. Thus it is necessary to have at least one person and his/her imagination to be able to create interactivity, and Kiousis was correct to have added the psychological part into the discussion.

Conclusion

I do not mean to be trivial, but as far as new media is concerned, it is possible to say that interactivity is in search of its definition since peoples' imagination can come up with different solutions to improve the interactive experience of a person with the help of technology. The dimensions can grow in various directions since even Web 2.0 is changing into Web 3.0 - a semantic web. We do not exactly know what is happening in 10 or 30 years' time, so it is interesting to see what can happen to the term of interactivity in the sense of computer interaction with a person.

Sources

1. Wikipedia definitions on Interactivity
2. Whatis.com definition of Interactivity
3. Svanaes, D. (2000). Understanding interactivity - steps to a phenomenology of human-computer interaction.
4. Nathan Sheldroff's World - What is Interactivity anyway?

Õpikeskkonnad ja õpivõrgustikud. Personaalne õpikeskkond.

2010-11-01T00:36:00.001+02:00

Magistriõpingute alguses meeldis mulle väga, et enamus õppejõude opereerib avatud õpikeskkonnas. Tõele au andes ei ole ma vajanud väga sisselogimist, et oma õppematerjale presenteerida. Mulle tundub, et enamus sisselogimisi on siiski htk projektide raames valminud keskkondade testimisega seoses ning ka neid oleks saanud läbi viia avatud õpikeskkondades.

Sotsiaalse meedia roll minu õppetöös on märkimisväärne, kuid kogu kupatust ei ole ma kokku võtnud mitte sotsiaalsesse järjehoidjasse ega ka vooagregaatorisse, pigem eelistan seda oma läptopist brauseri tööriistaribalt jälgida. On olemas küll Google'i vooagregaator, kuid seda ma unustan jälgida.

Põhiosa õppetööst toimub minu õpiblogis blogspot.com-i abil. Blogidel on üldse suur roll IMKE magistriõpingus, kuna rühmatööd on samuti koondatud blogidesse (kas wordpress või blogger, eelistatakse kahte varianti). Samuti kasutavad õppejõud oma blogisid õppeülesannete edastamiseks või tagasiside andmiseks.
Teine variant õppejõudude poolt on olnud wikiversity beta versioon, mis on samuti avatud õpikeskkond ning kuhu saavad liituda ka väljaspoolt tulnud õpilased, kes on huvitatud teadmiste saamisest.

Otsingusüsteeminan kasutan Google Scholarit ja tavalist Googlet, samuti erinevaid veebiallikaid, sh. materjale (pdf, doc, html, jne). Samuti ei saa mööda vaadata Youtubest Vimeost ja muudest video vaatamise allikatest, mis sisaldavad erinevaid häid õpetusi. Neid vahendeid saab vistutada ühtlasi ka blogisse.
Vistutamisega seoses tuleb meelde ka esitluste "pilv" SlideShare ja dokumendi"pilv" Scribd, kuhu on nii mõnigi vajalik materjal salvestatud või mida on õppejõu poolt soovitatud. Ühisdokumentide tegemiseks oleme eelistanud grupitööna Google docs keskkonda, samuti erinevate vormide koostamiseks. Need kõik on sotsiaalsed vahendid, mis võimaldavad kasutajatevahelist kommunikatsiooni.

Kommunikatsioonile edasi minnes on kaks põhilist vahendit skype ja msn, mida kursuse raames kasutatakse kas koolikaaslastega suhtlemiseks või probleemide lahendamiseks. Samuti eelistan vajadusel kasutada veebipõhist meebo.com suhtluskeskkonda, kuhu saab integreerida nii msni, skype kui ka facebooki ja muude keskkondade suhtlusvidinad. Otse loomulikult on kasutusse läinud ka tavaline mobiiltelefon, kui arvutit ei ole läheduses.

IMKE kusustesiseseks keskkonnaks on oma loodud wiki pbworksis, mille haldamine lükkub ideaalis põlvest-põlve edasi. See sisaldab vajalikke lugemismaterjale ning erinevat kursuste infot, sh. keskkondi, viiteid ja muud olulist. Ei või unustada ka kursusekaaslaste andmeid (nimi, meiliaadress jm). Keskkond on kinnine, et andmed lihtsalt ei lekiks ning sissepääs ainult administraatori loaga. Kursuse suhtlus toimub skypes, wiki foorumi vidin Nabble'st ei toiminud nii hästi kui oleks lootnud.
Ainete planeerimise kalender on Google Calendari hallata, mis toob mugavalt kogu toimuva info arvutiekraanile.
Samuti on kasutuses Facebooki IMKE kommuun, kuhu saab erinevaid teateid postitada ja vestlusi pidada ning ei või ka unustada twitterit, milles erinevad kursusekaaslased olulisi uudiseid postitavad.

Kui lisada inimfaktor ja esemed personaalsele õpikeskkonnale juurde, siis Kehrwiederi kohvikus toimuvad koosolekud ja vestlused annavad õppetööle palju juurde nagu ka loengutes toimuv infovahetus, kuid sel aastal on antud faktorit veidi väheseks jäänud. Samuti käivad õppetöö juude raamatud, mida aeg-ajalt erinevalt e-materjalidest füüsiliselt raamatukokku kohale minnes laenutada tuleb.

Kokkuvõtteks peaks ütlema, et minu personaalne õpikeskkond on üsna interaktiivne, välja arvatud vooagregaator või ühisjärjehoidja. Õppetöös sees olles olen valmis katsetama erinevaid keskkondi, kuid päris mitmed on aja jooksul jäänud tähelepanuta. Põhiline toimiv õppevahend on minu peamine õpiblogi blogspotis, kuigi erinevate ainete raames oleme pidanud ka teistesse blogidesse kirjutama (grupiblogi, lepress jne).
Üldjoontes on see õpikeskkond avatud, kui välja arvata iCampus, mis nõudis sisselogimist ja oli kinnine välissilma jaoks. Ma olen enda loodud õpikeskkonnaga rahul, kuigi seda võiks koondada vooagregaatoriga, et oleks ülevaade asjadest olemas. Samas on mul võrreldes esimese aastaga vähem kursuseid, mis võimaldab kõigel silma peal hoida.

Task 6. New Interactive Environments.

2010-10-31T23:30:00.000+02:00

This week's task was to analyze Kiousis' piece- Interactivity: a concept explication. He bulges through a lot of literature to make his point clear, and in the end he manages to give his own definition of the term.

First he begins with reviewing what others have written about the term itself. He notes that in order to get the concept, one needs to "dig through" a lot of points in order to get the main message. He begins with others' thoughts of what interactivity really meant to them. First it was associated with communication technologies, being an independent variable as a medium and a dependant variable as peoples' perceptions, but often the multi-dimensionality is disregarded while talking about interactivity.

He goes on with quite comprehensive literature review which he has chosen from the fields of psychology, sociology and computer science/design. The third field which wasn't used in the previous text is psychology. The author implies that mostly the literature handled the term as a technological and communication aspect, there are still studies that see it as perception, and adopt a psychological variable into it. He browses through various categories as communication definitions which primarily focus on computer-mediated communication, and non-communication definitions which take the psychological role in the term.

The fact is that even if the term is connected with technology, one cannot overlook medium structure and human characteristics. Schneiderman, for example, balances technological criteria (system functionality and reliability) with user criteria (time to learn, speed, rate of user error, etc.). (p. 365) The term is mostly described as perceiver-based more than technology-based, although it originally evolves from the latter. Interactivity originates from the machines which the user has to perceive later in order to understand what is going on in the technological base.

As the author goes through a list of definitions, he understands that the major problem is that the term is weakly explained. He then points out various mistakes, mainly concerned with peoples' perceptions with ever-growing technological opportunities. He also suggests that the term itself should be hybrid, because there is no single possibility of creating a term for the word interactivity, because it is perceived from different angles and the fact that technology is constantly changing, the term will change with the new concepts in the studied fields.

In the conclusion he gives a solid definition: "interactivity is the degree to which a communication technology can create a mediated environment in which participants can communicate (one-to-one, one-to-many, and many to-many) both synchronously and asynchronously and participate in reciprocal message exchanges (third-order dependency).", and goes on with the three factors that interactivity is established by: technological structure of the media used (e.g. speed, range, timing flexibility, and sensory complexity), characteristics of communication settings (e.g. third-orderdependency and social presence), and individuals’ perceptions (e.g. proximity, perceived speed, sensory activation, and telepresence) . (p. 379)

The author hopes that more literature will appear concerning the term, but he has done a lot of work in order to get a clear view to the reader about the current status of the term in the year of 2002, which by now has undoubtedly changed due to vast changes in technology and its users.

New Interactive Environments. Task five.

2010-10-27T23:33:00.001+03:00

Concept of Interactivity.

To me interactivity is the action which takes place in "communication" between various people/things, for example, as we are mostly connected with computers, interactivity in this sense would be the environments we go and things we do in the Internet that respond to us either by showing something, going to another place, answering (voice or text or pictures), etc., and the exchange of this "communication" varies in a rapid way.

The article I read about the concept of interactivity would show us how the term has been handled throughout the years, since it is by now a background to history of interactivity.

The author, Jensen, contemplates about the notion of interactivity, which in many cases may vary its definition depending on the context. Initially one can find the meaning of this notion in very many fields, thus there is no clear-cut meaning of the term. The author contemplates about the various fields throughout the text in order to get the meaning of interactivity, but in the very end he does not find a single explanation for it.

Goetz and Jäckel establish three fields in which the term ’interactivity’ should be understood in order to establish the concept, and gives explanation of the term considering the fields:

sociology - two people need to be present and "exchange and negotiation regading meaning takes place between those people who find themselves in the same social context";
communication studies - any action between a person and the media is called interaction;
informatics - the author suggests that it is the "relationship between people and machines".

He tries to dimensionalize interactivity to show how one should understand the term in various dimensions, but still the first, risk-free conclusion that he comes to is that the concept of interactivity is complex and there is no single explanation to it. The other, more thorough explanation would be a definition that he gives: "a measure of a media's potential ability to let the user exert an influence on the content and/or form of the mediated communication".

I think this was a good trail of thought to sum up the concept which even the author considered not the final and the very best discussion of the term, but I think he suggests that there should be more done to explain the concept of interactivity.

E- portfoolio. Viies nädal.

2010-10-24T21:44:00.000+03:00

Lähtudes viiendas nädala kodutööst hakkasin mõtlema, milline võiks minu e-portfoolio olla ja mis eesmärgil ma seda koostaks.

Tiigrihüppe poolt korraldatud Digitiigri koolitusel koostasin esimest korda e-portfooliot, kuid kahjuks ei suuda ma meenutada tarkvara nimetust. See oli spetsiaalselt õpetajatele (kui ma õigesti nüüd mäletan) koostatud tarkvara CV koostamiseks.

Ma keskendun oma portfoolio loomisele, kuna hetkel mul teadlikult koostatud e-portfooliot ei eksisteeri. Õpiportfoolioks võiks tinglikult nimetada seda blogi, kuna siia on koondatud postitused erinevatest ainetest ning mõni üksik aine on jäänud väljapoole antud blogi.

Kuna ma töötan õpetajana ning õpetaja ametis on tähtis osa enesearendamisel, mis on omakorda kasulik kategooria tõstmisel, siis kavandan ma oma e-portfoolio just selle mõttega, et kokku koguda materjal, mis oleks vajalik minu karjääriredelil edasi liikumiseks ning oleks ka CV-le täiendavaks materjaliks.

Materjalid, mis on vajalikud e-portfooliosse sisestamiseks.

Riigi teatajas on kehtestatud õpetajate atesteerimiseks vajalikud nõuded, millest ma oma järgnevas analüüsis ka lähtun:

tõendid koolituste kohta, mille ma läbinud olen (koolitusel ülestähendatud märkmed, mõtted, ideed ja muud materjalid); koolitusi tuleb läbida 160 tunni ulatuses 5a jooksul,
tõendid/kogemused koolis/vabariigis toimunud olümpiaadide korraldamisest või neis osalemisest; õpilaste juhendamisega seotud kogemus,
pedagoogilise praktika juhendamisel saadud kogemuste ülestähendamine; võimalusel ka praktikandi kogemus,
uurimistöö retsenseerimise/juhendamise kogemus,
konverentsidel ja muudel taolistel üritustel esinemised (teema, sihtgrupp, rahulolu jne)
loodud publitseeritud õppevara avaldamine,

Milliste vahenditega ma oma portfoolio loon.

Keskkond, kuhu ma oma portfoolio loon peab olema lihtsalt kasutatav ning visuaalselt nauditav. Kindlasti saab seda lihtsalt muuta ja see võib seetõttu olla ka lihtne veebilehekülg, mis on kergesti navigeeritav.
Mulle endale meeldib Weebly kodulehe süsteem, kus on mul olemas ka nii-öelda CV-laadne leht (lähemal meeldetuletamisel üsna mahukas), kuid ma olen selle olemasolu veidi unarusse jätnud. Samuti sobib selleks ka näiteks lihtne kodulehe formaat nagu Wix.com (vt. Ingrid Maadvere portfooliot).

Weebly lehele lisasin oma cv, SlideShare ettekanded, mille olin teinud kooli mitteametliku haridustehnoloogina töötamisega seoses, ning samuti väikese ülevaate sellest, mida pean enda elus oluliseks.

Õpikeskkonnad ja õpivõrgustikud. Kolmas nädal.

2010-10-24T20:11:00.000+03:00

Jäin küll rongist maha, aga järjepidevuse mõttes teen siiski oma selle nädala ülesande ka ära.

1. Baseerudes oma eelmisel nädalal defineeritud õpikeskkonna definitsioonile mõtiskle sotsiaalse meedia vahendi(te) üle kui potentsiaalse õpikeskkonna võimalik(ud) koostisosa(d). Millised on sotsiaalse meedia eelised õpihaldussüsteemide ees ning millised on sinu arvates peamised probleemid nii õppija kui ka õpetaja/õppejõu vaatenurgast?

Sotsiaalse meedia vahendite eelised:

Kindlasti avatus ja tihti väike või üldse puuduv haldustasu. Õpilastel on võimalik keskkondadele hõlpsalt ligi pääseda ning oma õpikeskkonda mugavalt täiendada vastavalt nõutud töödele. Väga hõlpsalt leiab keskkondi, mis ei nõua mingit haldustasu ning kuhu saab lihtsalt uusi postitusi lisada.
Sotsiaalne meedia lubab piire laiendada, mis lahti seletatuna minu mõistes tähendab seda, et lisaks õpilastele/üliõpilastele saavad loodud kursuse materjale kasutada ka väljaspoolt kooli huvitatud inimesed õppematerjale kasutada ja huvilised loodud ideid kommenteerida. Blogipõhine õppegrupp moodustab homogeense blogosfääri, mis hakkabki postituste ja kommentaaride harmoonial põhinevalt toimima.
Andmed asuvad veebis, st. mujal kui enda arvutis. Neid ei pea salvestama lisakettale, vaid keegi teeb salvestamise töö Sinu eest juba ära. Inimesel on võimalus salvestada oma digitaalset materjali erinevatele "pilvedele", mis säilitatakse tema eest.

Sotsiaalse meedia vahendite puudused:

Privaatsuse puudumine. Sellistest keskkondadest on hõlbus leida inimeste personaalset infot (enesetutvustus, e-post jne) ning seda kurjasti ära kasutada.

Kindlasti on neid inimesi, kellele ei meeldi avalikkusele oma mõtteid kajastada, mistõttu neid võib segada avatud õpikeskkonna loomus ning nad võivad keelduda oma loodud sisu publitseerimast. On kogemus ühe üliõpilasega, kes avalikkuse ees postitamise vastu võitlemiseks saatis oma kodutööd õppejõule meili kaudu. Siit tuleneb ka autoriõiguse probleem. Näitest tulenevalt võime oletada, et üliõpilane kartis oma ideede vargust, mida on üsna lihtne avatud õpisüsteemide kaudu teostada.
Kõige maalähedasem probleem on vast internetiühendusega tekkinud probleemid, mis takistavad koolitööd tegemast, kuid need takistavad ka kinnistes keskkondades tegevuse toimumist.

Minu jaoks on sotsiaalmeedia vahendites siiski rohkem positiivseid külgi, sest kui tihti ja kui kauaks see internet ikka ära kaob. Pigem on sotsiaalmeedia abil ikkagi võimalus uurida vajalikku infot (seda eelnevalt sõelast läbi lastes, mis on adekvaatne või mitte) ning teada saada erinevate inimeste käekäigust, kuid leidub ka neid inimesi, kes teevad teiste üle nalja, et nad omavad näiteks Facebooki kontot või peavad blogi.

New Interactive Environments. Task Three

2010-10-14T22:40:00.000+03:00

Today I am concentrating on different students' study plans as task 3.

I studied Maarja, Jakob, Katri, Mehrnoosh, and Valeria.

1. What elements, components, etc. have been used by others to describe their activity?

All the students named above used a kind of graph to describe their activities during the process. Most of them added written information to graphical illustrations, but Jakob was the only one to get away with only graphic devices. I also noticed that he had added some extra information in the comments section, so it was useful to read.

2. What level of detail?

The most detailed descripition was Maarja's, and the precision caught my eye at once. Jakob, Mehrnoosh, and Valeria seemed the only ones to present their tasks in a graphic form with some explanation of the graph (the latter was a bit longer than the first one).

3. What structural aspects are showing up in their descriptions/visualisations?

Most of the students had used a graph and a short explanation of the graph. Everyone began from deciding on the courses based on the available curriculum and moved on towards different decisions like timing, will to learn, etc. Every single plan had a different approach, but one could find similar clusters. Maarja's and Valeria's graphs were similar in the sense that they involved questions and paths to the final decision, but at the same time I found Mehrnoosh's and Valeria's graphs similar from the meaning of thoughts and decisions.

4. What is missing?

Most of the graphs were missing a thorough explanation.

5. What are pros and cons of the different approaches?

I think a graph is a great tool for visual learners, as it can be presented in various ways (more boring or less boring). Jakob's graph was a great example for an interesting, youthfully grasping graph, and the others were quite classical. In another blog I also found a hand-drawn graph, I assume, which caught my eye at once, but I did not choose the blog for analysis. I would have liked to see a longer description of the choices, because for me it is more interesting to read than to search the words for the author's connotations. Connotations come from our own minds, thus the real explanations from the authors remain hidden.
Pros are definitely the amount of time for creating a graph versus adding an explanation to it as well, the first variant takes up less time for sure.

I also peeked in other blogs and found out that quite a lot of people had chosen the graph approach, this is why I liked Maarja's approach the most, because it was deeply thorough. Jakob gets extra points for his creativeness, and I must say he does have an explanation in the comments.

New Interactive Environments. Task Two.

2010-10-10T22:05:00.000+03:00

I started thinking about my semester's choices, and first ended up with a short mind map to sum my thoughts up:

In case you cannot see the object properly, I will provide you with a simpler HTML page.

I will start analyzing the background information.

Work

This year I considered work more important than last year, because I missed so many days because of the learning cycles that IMKE curriculum has. Since there were very many interesting courses, I decided to participate in most of them to concentrate more on the Master's Thesis on the second year.
During school there is no replacement for me at work, so my tasks are not completed. This year my chosen lecture decisions based on the following:

More time for work
More time for Master's Thesis
More time for rest and my family

Since my work demands all of my concentration, it is not possible to study during working hours.

Family

As the last year was crowded with homework there was almost no time for my family. All my child heard was "Mom's learning now, be a good kid and play with your Legos." Or something the like. Quite a lot of my evenings were filled with homework and work tasks. I also spent a few nights studying in order not to miss deadlines. I was not there for my family at all.
I also spent a lot of time in Tallinn during learning cycles, thus my child missed me a lot. This influenced deeply my this year's decisions not to spend too little time with my son and leave a little mind rest for myself.
This means I have weekday evenings free for my family and my own relaxation, and I can go to sleep early in the evening. I wake up more alert and willing to work. My child is happier, and I do schoolwork more eagerly.

Courses

Previous year's choices showed that during study cycles it was possible to interact with coursemates and it was much more fun to study in that way, you had help and teams available at all times. Collaboration was great!
Since there were many new courses I got quite a lot of new ideas and bright thoughts, but as I mentioned previously, my work and family life suffered greatly from studying.
This year there are a few courses left on my compulsory courses list, thus it is easier to choose between the courses that do not disturb my private life and work.

Since I have more time, I also have more options, and thus I chose some optional courses from another curriculum, because I think these courses might come in handy for my future career. This way I ended up choosing some lectures from Educational Technology curriculum.
First I read through the information in order to see if the course fitted my needs and registered online.
The study system allows you to register online without attending the Tallinn University building. This year my choice was between e-courses and weekend lectures. With e-courses it was also necessary to observe the lecturers' weblogs and wikiversity entries in order not to miss the beginning of the courses.
Last year I ended up with passing 72.5% of the curriculum, this year I will try to do the rest.
I am seriously wondering how I could manage this much last year.
This year it seems that noone is bothered at work that I am missing very often, and my family is also happy. I have weekends for studying, because then I am fresh and fully able to concentrate on schoolwork.

Õpikeskkonnad ja õpivõrgustikud. Õpikeskkonna definitsioon.

2010-10-03T22:21:00.003+03:00

1) Õpikeskkond on koht, kus tegeletakse õppetegevusega. See võib olla ükskõik, milline koht või internetikeskkond, milles olles omandatakse uusi teadmisi. Õpikeskkonad võmaludavad õpilastel end mugavalt tundes (aga ka vahest teadmatult õppides) õppida.
Selles aines käsitleme kindlasti veebikeskkondi, mis on mugavalt struktureeritud ning võimaldavad nii õppida, õpitut peegeldada kui ka tagasisidet saada.

2) Õpihaldussüsteemidest olen põgusalt kokku puutunud Moodle'iga, IVA-ga, VIKO-ga ja iCampusega või eestikeelse eCampusega (ega neil kahel peale keelelise erinevuse muud vahet ei olegi).
Ma analüüsiks neid viimaseid, kuna need on uusimad.

Positiivne taoliste õpihaldussüsteemide puhul on sotsiaalvõrgustiku mudel, mis võimaldab inimestel saada automaatset tagasisidet nii antud keskkonnas kui ka meili teel. Lisaks on seal võimalus faile lisada ja õppejõuga otse vestelda, samuti muude lisavidinate (kommuunid, grupid jms) lisamise võimalused. Kuna tegemist on ELGG-iga, siis olen enne selle süsteemi "maigu" suhu saanud just Koolielu portaalist, milles on võimalusi vaat et rohkemgi kui antud õpihaldussüsteemides.

Negatiivse poole pealt jäävad taolise keskkonna võimalused siiski kasinaks, ning sinna ei ole integreeritud automaatse tulemuse genereerimise võimalust, samuti paigutuvad sinna asetatud failid väga ebamugavalt järjestusse. Tundub, et antud keskkonda on vaja põhjalikult tuunida, et sellest asjalik õpihaldussüsteem saada.

Mulle meeldib kõige rohkem ehk IVA, mida sai Tiigrihüppe koolituse ajal proovida, see tundus väga loogiline ja mõnus hallata, kui Moodle jäi tiba keeruliseks, aga see võib tuleneda asjaolust, et mul oli seda väga vähe aega õppida. VIKO on väga suurte puudujääkidega algeline õpihaldussüsteem ning vajab massiivset täiendamist nagu iCampuski. WebCT-ga ei ole mul isiklikke kokkupuuteid olnud.

Õpikeskkonnad ja Õpivõrgustikud. Õpileping.

2010-09-26T21:50:00.001+03:00

Minu personaalne õpileping:

Ma soovin lisateadmisi õpikeskkondade osas, et oma teadmisi eelkõige töös rakendada ning teistega jagada. Õpivõrgustikud kaasnevad õpikeskkondade loomisega ning nende tööle rakendamisega, seega on osa õpikeskkondadest ja samuti minu huviorbiidist.

Õpiprojekti eesmärkideks on antud teemavaldkonnas pädevamaks muutuda, et teisi juhendada antud temaatikas just haridustehnoloogilises valdkonnas. Usun, et saan antud kursusest juurde nii mõndagi uut ja kasulikku.

Eesmärgid saavutan õppematerjali tutvumisega ning selle läbitöötamisega. Tegevused järjestaksin nii:
1) Kursuse blogiga tutvumine
2) Uue õppematerjaliga tutvumine, selle läbitöötamine
3) Koduse ülesande õigeaegne postitamine ajaveebi
4) Tagasiside lugemine, teiste kursusekaaslaste blogipostitustega tutvumine, et saada uusi ideid.
5) Vajadusel kursusekaaslaste blogide kommenteerimine

Vahenditeks on õppejõudude poolt pakutud materjal, lisamaterjal veebist (raamatutest), samuti kursusekaaslaste blogid. Kindlasti leidub ka päriselust näiteid, mis illustreerivad pakutud materjali.

Oma saavutusi hindan eelkõige enesetunde järgi - kui tunnen ennast hästi, siis on järelikult kõik õnnestunud. Kui südametunnistus piinab, on midagi tegemata jäänud. Ehk siis praktilisemalt olen rahul oma blogipostituste ja sellele eelnenud ning järgnenud tegevustega ning täitnud need õigeaegselt.

Tulevikuks märgin ära:
Reflektsioon (kursuse lõpus) – Mis minu jaoks töötas ja mis mitte? Miks? Mis on need aspektid, mille kallal pean veel vaeva nägema? Mis on minu tugevad ja nõrgad küljed? Mis ma peaksin järgmisena tegema?

Õpikeskkonnad ja Õpivõrgustikud. Enesetutvustus.

2010-09-26T21:28:00.002+03:00

Tutvustan ennast õpingukaaslastele.

Eestikeelse tutvustuse lisan siia teist korda, sest esimese modifitseerisin inglisekeelseks ja duubeldasin seda kevadise kursuse jaoks. See tutvustus on kursuse nimega õpikeskkonnad ja õpivõrgustikud tarbeks.

Niisiis, minu nimi on Maibritt ja õpin Tallinna Ülikoolis teise aasta magistrandina interaktiivset meediat ja teadmuskeskkondi. Töötan Pärnu Ühisgümnaasiumis võõrkeeleõpetajana alates 2001. aastast ning hobi korras aitan kolleege haridustehnoloogilistes küsimustes.
Minu koolitee on enamasti kulgenud koolis, kus ma töötan. Vahepeal põikasin Tallinna Pedagoogikaülikooli inglise ja prantsuse keelt õppima ning sekka ka tilgakese informaatikat, kuna vaba aega oli jalaga segada. Sellest tekkis ka hilisem magistriõpingute huvi just arvutitega seotud valdkonnas.

Eraelus kasvatan peaaegu 6-aastast poega ja naudin elu!

New Interactive Environments. Task one

2010-09-26T21:17:00.000+03:00

Since this is my one and only blog during my studies, I have made an introduction already, and am willing to link it to my post in order not to repeat my words.
You are welcome to get acquainted with me by clicking HERE or HERE.

Review on Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think"

2010-05-23T22:27:00.003+03:00

I honestly read Steve Krug's book through, because it was more attractive with less text and more images to make things clear to the core point for a user, or in this case, a book reader. The approach of designing the book is similar to the described content - in order to make it readable, it has been made concise, packed with illustrative pictures, and "scannable", as people nowadays mind reading books full of dull text. It can be compared with a usable web page described in the book. The author adds that the reader should not know everything to get the picture, this is why he has kept the content as concise as it is.
The other good thing about the book is that Krug also suggests better solutions for the existing flaws on web pages as well as possible scenarios and outcomes for different problems, making the book a true handbook for all kinds of web page makers.

Many parts of the book came to me as familiar from Hypertext and Interface and Interaction Design lectures. I think the lecturer has used parts of it in his talks. I think that this book is very interensting and easy to read and the author gives precise instructions on how to create a web page efficiently so that the user would navigate better and with less effort on it.

The book starts with guiding principles and moves on to navigation principles. Then the author talks about usability and user testing, finalizing the book with most common problems that might come up and how to fix them. He provides sample dialogues, images, and tables in order to summarize the topics. The author also brings up some of the accessibility problems that might come up. I am not going to retell the contents of the book, but I will point out a few notes that I took:

the user should not think while he or she browses the web in order to grasp the site quickly
the less the user thinks, the more efficient the page is, it is necessary to remove "noise"
users scan only certain words that they think is necessary for them, they do not read the whole content
help is not necessary, because users do not use it, they try to get through the page themselves, the same goes for introductions, not much "happy talk" needed there
organize parts in a clear way
keep pace with known web page conventions, make obvious what is clickable
remove unnecessary words, make choices clear to the user
a good road map will be necessary in the form of "breadcrumbs" or a good menu so that the user could not get lost
bookmarks are necessary because they show you a large chunk of the menu and they should be visible
page logo is important, as well as the navigation marker "you are here"
site home page should note its identity, the hierarchy, and has to have a "search" button as well as the good things that draw people's attention to it.
the users need to know that they findon the page
show your own identity on the web page, but make it concise
testing should be done in the beginning and the more people involved, the better it is. After testing the mistake should be fixed and then tested again

All in all I think the book was a good read and even the points that I took out were familiar to me from various usability lectures as well as hypertext lecture. It was good to align the content with your own real-life examples, and I am glad we have tried these solutions out in our lectures as well.

I would recommend the book to all starting web page creators since it is interesting to read, packed with lots of examples and really catches the reader's attention, just like a really functional home page should do!

Week 11. Individual reflection and assessment

2010-05-17T00:45:00.001+03:00

I took out my learning contract and started revising it. According to my contract I managed to fulfill most of the parts:

I learned a lot from the theoretical part of creating an e-learning course as well as got a good experience of managing a group - although there were minor setbacks, everything turned out pretty well in the end. As far as committing yourself to the role is concerned, I sometimes did too much, and should have loaded more responsibility to the other members.
Secondary school practice went as predicted, and I managed to post more information about the tasks in order to make them clear for the lessons I was absent.
I think I even got a good load of experience of time planning, since I managed to do most of the weeks in time, but since I joined later, I had to do some of the tasks later as well. I did not have to create a to-do-list, but managed to remember how to do the tasks needed.
What changed was the collaboration tool from pbwiki to google docs, and also our prototype environment appeared into weebly. Other sources were used as predicted.

I think I succeeded most of the time, thus I would (based on other team members' good words and the lecturer's good words) grade myself kindly with an "A". As far as my satisfaction is concerned, I really made an effort and succeeded!

Week 10. Prototype Evaluation, and other stuff.

2010-05-09T02:15:00.000+03:00

You can find our group's thoughts from the prototype's blog post.

New things about groupwork were the ones that there were no new things, we did our job, and those who were busy managed to add their opinions as well. Thus we created a common understanding of our course and posted it to our prototype's blog, since it was the most suitable place to put it in.
As for my personal contract, I understood that it is not utterly possible to make people to do their job unless they are available. And this way groupwork had to be re-organized. Those who care put more effort in working and those who have other priorities put less of an effort, but all in all we worked together well as a group. I think it is really about priorities and likes of the tasks.
I think I am still motivated to doing such things in later future, because I love learning by reflecting to yourself and the facilitator.
I think my learning contract has worked within the course, but I would reflect it more deeply the next week.

Week 9. Reflection

2010-05-03T09:37:00.004+03:00

Since we have done pretty much until now, this week's tasks were quite simple. This week we tried to smooth the consistency of our e-learning course, and added some extras to the course (e.g. team members, and timeline). I felt that my course companions were very supportive this week and made me realize that it is not always necessary to take the lead and that group members are capable of working on their own as well. It felt relaxing.

I found out that in our group there is a very nice division: some are active and some inactive, but still we managed to do the necessary work. I think that without having all members present, it is still possible to finish the work in order to get a good e-course result.

What I have noticed is that I get a great leading experience, how to act as a leader, how to make people work, etc. Also a good skill :)

PS. The timeline can be found in our weebly course environment from team page.

Oh, and it's so good to acknowledge that creating an e-course is much more than learning about e-courses. Alice is a great example of a good learner - she has learned about social networks and different collaboration- and web platforms as well. I feel thrilled!
The same about Chiara and me - I think we both are learning from international group work. This is the first time I am working with such a varied group of people, and I am grateful for new experiences. To tell you the truth, I am waiting for comments on my posts and reflection, because this course is unique for its reflection "bonus". And, well, who doesn't like positive feedback (and constructive critical feedback as well).

Töö allikatega, viitamine ja viidete haldamine e-õppes. Teine nädal.

2010-04-23T19:10:00.020+03:00

Kõigepealt videokonverentsist.
Kuna mul on õnnestunud osaleda päris mitmel videokonverentsil, ei oleks see olnud minule uus kogemus, kuid tutvumise mõttes oleks see päris lahe olnud. Kuna ma ei saanud osaleda, olin loengul samal ajal, siis vaatasin konverentsi ajalugu.Meelids ka Hansu üles pandud vooagregaator NetVibes, kuskohast saab enda blogisse pandud uusi kommentaare lugeda :)

Nüüd aga asja juurde:
http://viitamiskursus.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/teine-nadal-folksonoomia-ja-uhisjarjehoidjad/

Põhimõtteliselt on blogi ka omaette folksonoomia-allikas. Oma blogile olen lisanud päise allamärksõnapilve, et õppejõududel ja lugejatel oleks mugav mu blogis orienteeruda, sest endalegi üllatuseks on minu nn. õpiportfoolio arenenud väga laiahaardeliseks peegeldamise ja tööde esitamise keskkonnaks. Kuna mulle meeldib kirjutada, siis kasutan meelsasti oma blogi mõtete kajastamiseks ja seetõttu vajan kursusetööde märksõnadega eristamist.Visuaalse naudingu lisamiseks olen erineva sagedusega esinevad märksõnad pannud suuruse järjekorda.

Delicious vs. StumbleUpon.

Delicious on mulle tuttav keskkond, alustasin deliciousiga mitu aastat tagasi, kui selle veebiaadress oli veel lahedal kujul www.del.icio.us.Põhimõtteliselt delicious on lihtne vahend veebiaadresside salvestamiseks, nende märksõnastamiseks, teiste huvitavate veebiaadresside otsimiseks jne. Sotsiaalmeediat on sinna ka lisatud, nagu ka loengumaterjalidest lugeda võis.
Kui ma StumbleUponi avasin, siis ei saanud hästi aru kuidas see veebilehti salvestab, aga see oli natuke mõnusama keskkonnaga (samas keerulisem) kui delicious. Olles visuaalselt atraktiivsem, toimis see Firefoxi aplikatsiooni abil, mida ma ei tahtnud alla laadida. Ma avastasin ühe keerulise mooduse, kuidas brauserisiseselt seda kasutada, kuid kas ma tahan nii palju aega raisata? Võin öelda, et tallatud rada on kergem käia, ehk siis delicious on lihtsamalt üles ehitatud ja seda on mugavam kasutada. Selleks ei pea ma alati toolbari installeerima, et lehekülgi salvestada (kuigi mul on see olemas).
Hiljemal kasutamisel märkasin parema hiireklahvi menüü küljes ühte stumble ikooni pärast tööriistariba allalaadimist. Ilmselt tuli mulle päris palju "pahna" sellega süsteemi kaasa, aga õilsa eesmärgi nimel ju võib. Igatahes StumbleUponile lisandus üks hea võimalus hiirega lehekülgi lemmikuks salvestada.

Suurim pluss Deliciousil on kasutusmugavus ja lihtsus, StumbleUponil sotsiaalne mõõde paremini välja toodud.
Suurim miinus Deliciousil on ehk mitte nii atraktiivne väljanägemine (lihtsuses peitubki võlu, tegelikult) aga StumbleUponil tundus see miinus kalduvat tööriistariba installeerimise poole. Samas ma ei uurinud ka päris põhjalikult, ehk oleks mõne lihtsama stumble'imise variandi ka leidnud. Foorumist ma ei leidnud oma küsimusele, kas ilma tööriistaribata antud keskkonda on võimalik kasutada.

Sellised mõtted põgusast "maitsvast komistamisest" (otsetõlge).
Minu delicious on delicious.com/maibrittkuuskmae, see on hiljuti avatud ühe konkursi tarbeks. Isiklikku, algset, on piinlik näidata, kuna ei ole seal koristamas käinud. Kõik mis arvutist tuli läks sinna üles, mistõttu peaks osa sisust privaatseks tegema.
Komistuskivide lehele panin sellise kasutajanime http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/britake/, aga sealne konto on üsna tühi eelmainitud põhjusel.

E-Learning Week 8 - Reflection

2010-04-22T23:21:00.008+03:00

I had some thoughts concerning Ketlin's post of week 7.
She said she did not have a clear image of a decent e-course in mind before she started this subject, but she has learned a lot now. I must admit, that I have learned something as well, but it is fairly simple for me to surf around in the e-learning environment. I am feeling pretty good now that I have passed one bad e-course example, I even decided to give the lecturer course feedback so that she could improve her courses. After learning some basics and browsing through materials I feel pretty secure in open learning environments. I am also proud that I have participated on an e-course of the lecturer who got a quality mark from EITSA (Estonian Information Technology Foundation), so I have a few courses to compare.
I just hope that all of our group's materials of our course will be posted before evaluation, because group work matters 25%, not your own effort in the group, as far as I understand.

Explain, which type of learning environment is best suitable for your e-learning course prototype?

Our group has decided to adapt an open personal learning environment, because it is easier to follow and there are no extra passwords to remember. The other point would be that social media applications require a lot of mobility and time to get acquainted with the whole concept, thus a weekly space is left for the student to learn the things and reflect on them. We have put our materials in the web, namely a weebly-based page, which gives the objectives, main information, tasks, and the facilitator's blog (the name is made up thus there is no need to contact the person who is the "facilitator" there). Tools for learners would be a few social networking tools and also a blog for reflection. Since there is no groupwork, only minor skype chats may occur, but it is not clear yet, whether the learners would be keen on it. Some tasks are made in twitter, thus there will be an agregator for twitter feeds as well.
Why did we choose Weebly?

easy to navigate, just a few clicks
simple to create, and manage, just a few drag-and-drop items + text, embeddable code, etc.
forum/feedback/blog option
simple interface

What was the most important thing you learned this week? What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

I still learned that it is possible to do group work so that not everyone is present, but through collaboration with some and then the others it is possible to manage with group tasks very easily. There has to be a keen person who "fuels" the conversation, and participants who do work in time. I had quite a lot of fun setting up the weebly course and inventing facilitator's blog posts and comments. I love creative work!

What is your evaluation of this week's groupwork? (What did go well and what did not? How did groupwork influence fulfilling your personal learning contract?)

According to my observations this week has been productive, we have been online and decided things together, and there was no need to schedule time, we were all online and had a spontaneous meeting. This made our task division even more effective. Well, since everybody agreed that PBworks is not the best environment for course presentation, we decided that we would change it. As we had at least 2 weebly users, we decided to use this environment. We have had several talk sessions with the group and that is assuring, everyone took part nicely.

Describe what has changed in your personal learning environment and in group environment?

I love my organization :) but group environment changed in the sense that there appeared a new web page for the course prototype.

Prediction of Possible Business Models in Social Media in the Future.

2010-04-21T22:53:00.000+03:00

Introduction

Social media is very clever in implementing business models in such a way that the user does not even notice while being hooked up in engaging content or an interesting application of a social media site that they find themselves paying for a service. Having tried to avoid spending money for social media-based applications has not succeeded since I have been tempted to try out the possibilities of upgraded services just to feel how it is to benefit from something. This experience has led to the conclusion that one should think about all the pros and cons of the service and come to a conclusion if buying upgraded services is necessary. I understood that there is a possibility to avoid paying when you leave the passion for an application aside or think rationally about the application benefits whether they are really necessary or not.
Having read through all possible variants of revenue models in social media, a warm feeling of recognition appeared. Nowadays social media and media economy mostly demands novelty and unique solutions in order to please the customer. When I find a social media-based web page, I have constantly found myself thinking about the websites’ conception how a certain site gains money from its customers while being totally free in the first glance. In further investigation certainly a kind of revenue model becomes apparent since the people behind the website mostly need an income.

Facebook Fan Pages

An emerging way of gathering future customers or hidden revenue is through Facebook’s fan pages. Companies usually create their fan page and tempt people to join these sites in order to “spam” their walls with news and interesting information. The “bite” to get the future customer hooked up with companies may be a lottery (offering a cheaper or free service from the company itself), which in turn hands out joined users’ data and a possibility to send free ads. It most definitely may happen that the future customer starts liking the information and “personal” approach (which in fact is spam on his/her wall), and buy services from the companies. People usually are too comfortable to remove their data from the list after the lottery has ended, so they are an easy target to this kind of advertising.

Peer-to-peer advertising is also an efficient way to gain new customers for the companies. It can happen in real life or through instant messaging chat, e-mail or connecting/forwarding services (like ‘Facebook connect’ or ‘send to friend’). For example a friend or acquaintance suggests the other person to join a fan page of company X, because they are having a lottery for an iPad. Company X then requires you to become a fan of their Facebook profile, provide them with your e-mail address, and choose the kind of newsletter (I call it spam) you want to receive. Peer-to-peer advertising is useful since people tend to believe their friends and acquaintances more than “just another company”, and peers usually know their acquaintances’ preferences, thus leading a possible target group member to the company. Social media also operates with friend or acquaintance ties by providing you with relevant ads of the companies your friends like, which also could lead a person to join these companies.

The larger the fan base of a company is in Facebook the more reliable the company seems to “outsiders”. The last fact has to be pointed out because it is most likely that in participatory economy or in the collaborative environment the users are willing to provide free feedback which is also beneficial for the company and saves from the hassle of survey costs. Reflection coming straight from the customer is even more valuable than surveys from people who perhaps are not connected with the company at all.

Dropbox Revenue Model

Another example is free service provision up to a certain limit and after having crossed the limit you have to pay a small amount of money in order to maintain your rights or upgrade the service. The sum is usually not very big as to reject the option of upgrading if the service is valuable for a user. Since cloud computing gains more popularity, lots of social media pages offer storage space somewhere in the web. I will take Dropbox as an example, since I have tried out the service and am seriously considering whether I should pay for the service or leave my Dropbox size at the current level.

Revenue model for Dropbox is the following – first you create an account and get a certain amount of data storage space which increases by simple steps. You have to complete your profile, download Dropbox application to your computer (the more computers you engage the more extra room you get), and so on. Completing these steps enables you to gain a little bit more space. Then you are offered to advertise the service to your peers who in turn join with Dropbox service as it is a tempting solution to get your data accessible from different locations which are provided with internet connection. In turn the person who
suggested his or her friends who have finished completing the first steps in becoming a “free” customer can have more free disk space somewhere in the servers or “clouds” of the internet. If the initial customer has loyal friends, he or she can upgrade Dropbox space from 2,5 gigabytes up to 8.

The user may think, on the one hand, that it is possible to get rid of extra files from your computer and free disk space, but on the other hand the application creates a new folder where it stores all of your documents. If other computers are engaged, they have the same amount of files. Extra copies and the archive of saved copies are also located in the web, which is positive, because one can make changes within the application without losing necessary data. Considering all the pros and cons of this website I might even consider upgrading the status, but since the cost is relatively high for me, I am skipping the option.

Conclusion

I believe that it is possible to tempt people with hidden revenue models, because still there are a lot of users who do not realize that there is always a catch behind a free service of a social media page. Having educated myself to the level where I can choose whether I want to join a fan page or upgrade a service or I can live without unnecessary spam, I feel secure in social media environment. Spam on the wall tends to annoy more than give me additional information. But new, innovative sites and content certainly draws more users to the ad base.

E-Learning Week 7 - Reflection

2010-04-18T23:03:00.001+03:00

What was the most important thing you learned this week? What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

I will take Chiara's example and talk about the conference I attended, E-learning conference 2010. I got a lot of inspiration through that and when the materials are put up, I hope there is a possibility to look at them. In the conference I had this e-learning course in mind several times. But I will not talk about the conference, since there are more important issues to be discussed. I learned that there is a possibility that without the group leader things get done as well. Chiara was so kind this time as to lead the forces, thus I was happy that other people take the lead as well!

What is your evaluation of this week's groupwork? (What did go well and what did not? How did groupwork influence fulfilling your personal learning contract?)
Describe what has changed in your personal learning environment and in group environment?

Concerning group work I will reflect on Chiara's post, that the communication was not all that terrible, since she got hold of the groupwork to her hands and pushed us into working. I think we would have done it anyway, but work and school and other down-to-earth activities kept the team busy on the given times (one-two people were present, still). As far as the tasks are divided, I think people do not have to be online at the same time, everyone can improve/add something to the discussion later. I remember that everyone had their excuses, thus there should be other communication options/means to collaborate. The contract did not fulfill its purposes from the leadership point of view, but I think that everything is still on track.
We have not changed our environment yet, but I think that we should place the final product somewhere else than Pbworks (but I am growing to like the environment for this course a bit).

My personal learning environment is the same, I think. I still use a blog, which is a kind of portfolio for my learning experience. I use Skype for chats and task division, and E-Learning course for task monitoring.

Töö allikatega, viitamine ja viidete haldamine e-õppes. Esimene nädal.

2010-04-14T00:51:00.006+03:00

Kirjutan vastuseks sellisele postitusele: http://viitamiskursus.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/esimene-nadal-sissejuhatus/

Mulle meeldisid väga viitamise 10 käsku - viitamine on minu jaoks eriti armas teema, kuna hetkel on meil koolis aktuaalsed aastatööd ning ülikoolis on loomulik, et ma pean üliõpilasena (omades oma osa viitamisest) oskama korrektselt viidata.
Mulle meeldib kõige rohkem blogis viitamine, seal ei ole vaja hakata nuputama, millist stiili kasutada - APA, MLA või Chicago. Lisaks veel küsimused, kas Vikipeediat arvestatakse või mitte (jah, pigem arvestatakse allikaid, millest artiklid kokku kirjutatud on, aga miks siis üks õppejõud jonnakalt vaid Vikipeediale viitas? - võib esitada retoorilisi küsimusi), kas ma peaksin lisama numbri ja joonealuse viite või sulgudes oleva kirjanduse loetelu katke... väga keeruline.
Õnneks on tänapäeva tehnoloogia väga uuenduslik ja teeb üliõpilase elu kergeks (ma ei soovitaks keeleõpetajana kunagi Google Translate'i, aga kui muidu ei saa, siis soovitan saadud tõlke alati üle kontrollida; nii on ilmselt ka kõikide veebimaterjalidega), seega olen avastanud väikese üliõpilase abimootori nimega Citation Machine, mis paneb sinu sissetrükitud andmed kenasti korrektsesse vormi. Kui ISBN numbrit tead, siis on veel parem, ei pea midagi sisse toksima (aga alati kontrolli, enne kui seda teadustöös kasutad).

Uudiste kirjutajana tean, et alati tuleb algallikale viidata ja jälgida, ega lool liiga karme piiranguid ei ole. Mul on omapärane kogemus enda läbiviidud intervjuuga, kus ajakirjanik võttis minu loo, kirjutas sellest sobivas mahus materjali oma nime all ümber ja esitas lehes. Kahjuks ei suuda ma originaalartiklit leida, aga otsingust on näha pealkiri "Pärnu kooli teeb USA kolledžiga koostööd". Loo ümberkirjutanu ei viidanud ei originaalartiklile ega selle autorile, aga kuna ta oli mu sõbranna, siis andsin talle andeks.

Kommenteeriks rusikareegleid ja 10 käsku järgnevalt:
Kui ma ülikooli sisseastumisesseed kirjutasin, olin küll omadega veidi puntras, aga viitamist ei unustanud. Ilmselt tegin seda erinevates stiilides, aga tundub, et tahtsin võimalikult palju viiteid ära näidata, ei tea kas selle pärast, et uhkem oleks või selle pärast kui palju vaeva ma nägin.
Praegu võingi öelda, et eksin selle reegli vastu, et viitamisel tuleb kasutada läbivat stiili, aga samas kõik on harjutatav, ma olen ka arenenud.
Kuskohast on pärit 10 käsu adaptatsioon viitamise kohta? Ma ilmselt olen viitamiskuulekas, korralikult kasutan (enamasti) viiteid. Kui tõesti aega ei ole, siis jätan viitamata, aga selle võib minu uneaja arvele panna.
Viitekogu ei taha hästi kolleegidega jagada, sest seal on mul üks segapudru.
Ahjaa, allikate kohta tahtsin kirjutada, et neid tuleb pidevalt uuendada, kuna informatsioon vananeb nii kiirelt, et kõigega ei jõua end kursiski hoida.

Küsimustega on mindud väga ülikoolikeskseks :)

1. Palu ühel oma kooli üliõpilasel ja ühel õppejõul oma sõnadega seletada, miks on viitamine oluline.
Ma arvan, et selgitused õppejõudude poolt on juba LeMillis antud ja üliõpilased ütlevad umbes samade sõnadega, kuna neid on nii õpetatud.
2. Leia veebist üks korrektselt algallikatele viitav õppematerjal ja üks mittekorretselt viitav õppematerjal. Mis on mittekorrektselt viitava materjali puudused?
Leidsin iseenda koostatud miniblogi, mis keskendub prantsuse keele päeva videote presentatsioonile, kus ma ei olnud ühtegi allikat ära märkinud. Selle tõttu ongi ilmselt see kursus ka mulle kasulikuks meeldetuletuseks, kuidas oleks viisakas viidata.
Teiseks tooks oma veidi korrektsemalt viidatud essee sellest samast blogist, mis on kenasti ära viidatud (ülikool teeb head).
Aga leidsin ühe väga hea viitamiskanali, Youtube'i, kus on vajalik algallikale viitamine, et mitte näidata end video omanikuna. Selles videos on hea näide, kuidas on tehtud mingi algdokument ja see muutmata jäänud kohati: " No copyright infringement intended. Copyright FreemantleMedia North America, Inc. Adam Lambert singing Mad World during Birth Year week on American Idol season 8 :)"
3. Millised nõudmised sead Sa oma üliõpilastele kirjalike tööde vormistamiseks ja viitamiseks? Kas Sinu õppeasutuses on kehtestatud üldised tööde vormistamise ja viitamise nõuded?
Ma arvan, et mina niipea üliõpilastega veel ei tegele, kuid ma eeldan, et kui ma saaksin mõne õpilase tööd juhendama, siis ma pakuks talle mõne materjali läbi lugemiseks ning kasutaks endale õpetatud tõdesid õpilasele edasi andmiseks. Kindlasti ei luba ma referaatides copy-paste teel tekkinud siniseid väljaprinditud lingikesi ja muid taolisi apsakaid töödes ilmuda. Meie koolis minu teada ühtset viitamisreeglistikku ei ole välja töötatud.

Töö allikatega, viitamine ja viidete haldamine e-õppes. Sissejuhatus. Esimene nädal.

2010-04-13T23:19:00.003+03:00

Tere.

Kirjutan vastuseks sellisele postitusele: http://viitamiskursus.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/esimene-nadal-sissejuhatus/

Selline ma olengi. Pildistamise hetkel asusin tööl ja üritasin asjalikku nägu teha.

Olen ennast juba päris palju tutvustanud, küll eesti küll inglise keeles. Paraku on sellest blogist, mis oli algselt mõeldudki taolise Vikiülikooli kursuse jaoks, saanud minu Tallinna Ülikooli IMKE (Interactive Media and Knowledge Environments) inglisekeelne õpiblogi.
Taustast nii palju, et olen eluaegne Pärnakas ja eluaegne Ühisgümnaasiumis käija, kes oma õpetajahariduse hankis Tallinna Pedagoogikaülikoolist ning uut haridust juba uuemast, Tallinna Ülikoolist taga ajab ülalmainitud magistriõppe läbijana.
Töötan Pärnu Ühisgümnaasiumis inglise ja prantsuse keele õpetajana ja tiigrihüppe haridusportaali aineeksperdina.
Kõige selle kõrvalt kasvatan ka tubli koolieelikut Ukut, ja kui natuke rohkem aega on, laulan naiskoor "Lindas". Põhitähelepanu on hetkel õppimisele ja töötamisele suunatud.

Kursuselt ootan ma uusi põnevaid ressursse ja tegelikult panen ka ennast proovile, kas sel korral olen võimeline sellise kursuse lõpuni käima (kus ei ole reaalset käsku midagi lõpuni teha). Tuttavaid on ka tore kursusel kohata :)

E-Learning Week 6 - Tasks and Reflection

2010-04-11T23:42:00.002+03:00

What do you consider as important elements in an e-learning course?

1) A well-educated course facilitator - the facilitator's role is the most crucial as he or she has to build up a course for people who might not even meet the facilitator and coursemates. The facilitator has to know the basics of building an e-learning course as well as have a good grasp of the material.
2) A nice introduction - to define the outcome and goals of the course.
3) Good materials - by materials I mean videos, texts, notes, etc., which draw the learners' attention in such a way that they memorize things very easily. The materials to my mind should be concise and very striking, especially for younger people.
4) Evaluation - understandable criteria for passing the course. Those should be not too harsh and not too simple, because with too tight schedule a learner could never do well in a course with harsh requirements, and with too broad criteria the result might not come out as well, too, because then they just forget about the requirements and think there is time enough to pass.
5) Feedback - this is an important part, since every person needs reflection for how he or she has advanced. It can be a mark or a comment.

What was the most important thing you learned this week?

I think I realised that groupwork is tricky work since there is no ideal time when you can meet, there is no ideal pattern that the group co-operates on, because the people in the group are so different. Yet you manage to do all things well and on time, which is a relief.

What is your evaluation of this week's groupwork? (What did go well and what did not? How did groupwork influence fulfilling your personal learning contract?)

Groupwork went well, because we met online and discussed which parts should be done and which tasks should be divided. I think that according to personal learning contract I can regard myself as successful, because the group managed to do well. I was a bit puzzled, though, that there is a kind of dependence on the group leader. Puzzled, because I think that grown-up people are able to think on their own as well. But all in all we managed well and all parties did their job on time.

Describe what has changed in your personal learning environment and in group environment?

Nothing has really changed in these learning environments. I have taken my blog as a learning blog or portfolio and for group work we are still using Pbworks. Maybe we will switch to another one, but currently all of it is as it was before.

Reply to the Facilitator's Questions of Week 3

2010-04-06T17:21:00.000+03:00

Should every group member be responsible for all the points you have made? For instance, who should make sure that everyone has the information that is necessary for the next tasks. Is it a task for every group member to check or is it a group leader's task to take care of?

Actually every group member took part in the creation of the points, I just formulated the final "product". The following steps will be agreed upon with the whole group, and I think we will collectively distribute tasks needed for future. I believe each group member will get familiar with the necessary information, this is not definitely my task, but as a group we support each other. I also allowed access to write into our space, so you can comment there now, I believe.

I had a look at your group environment in pbwiki about the criteria for a good online course. As I don't have access to that environment and I am not allowed to leave comments I present them here:

1. "Practical = sufficient length of the course" - a strange combination :). I found the following claim also very subjective: "The course should take up time as much as it would not disturb one's private life". I would argue that our private lives are very different and how one can quarantee that it doesn't disturb participants' private lives?
Another claim: "There is a need for the course and the need persists because of its good quality." A course can be good, but the need for that course might change due to different reasons, one of them can be out-to-date knowledge and skills it provides and encourages...

2. I so much agree with you that a course should be free, but somebody should pay for the costs at some point. Currently we have a list of courses in our wikiversity, which are for free, but certificate is given only to those who have either paid for this or enrolled to a formal program. Of course it is not the best solution, but at least it is a step further to open up the education for everybody.

3. Your claim: "The course has to be inspiring, and provide with lots of interesting ideas and new thoughts." It used to be that way that a course should be already designed in a way that it provides lots of interesting ideas and new thoughts. Now we encourage participants to say their opinions, share their experiences, discuss and argue. And I believe that all the participants can contribute to this. Of course another problem is the level of engagement from the participants... So a good course should provide opportunities for participants to provide their ideas and thoughts...

But in general, these are really good and relevant points a course designer should consider.

Thanks for the time spent on looking through our work I totally agree that there were some personal subjective thoughts, but this was the reflection of our group on the ideal course design. Since there are 5 people, everyone contributed their preferences and we had this great mash-up of thoughts. I know that there is no one clear solution for a course, and the facilitator has to make amendments on some points, but every course designer gives his/her best to create the best course.
I think that if a course wants to be up-to-date, the facilitator has to renew the course components and constantly keep the information and different applications updated - it takes up a lot of time and ideas, but I think it is possible for some time at least.
As for free courses Wikiversity is a really great environment to continue life-long learning without getting the certificate (for those who do not care about certificates).

E-Learning Week 5 - Reflection

2010-04-04T12:18:00.000+03:00

Tasks:

Revise your personal learning contract if needed, considering what you have learned so far, what is going differently from your initial plans, how the environment has changed. Please start a new blog post for revision and keep the first version of the contract. Refer to the first version.

Since I created my learning contract based on some knowledge already, I think it would be unfair to change anything there. After week 6 I can add if my experience with the e-learning tasks of my pupils went well or if I did anything wrong (not to encourage my pupils' motivation).

E-Learning Week 4 - Tasks and Reflection

2010-03-29T00:03:00.011+03:00

Tasks:

Find at least one good and one bad example case of course design and reflect your opinions of these courses in your personal Weblog. Visit the blogs of your groupmates, read their reflections of course designs and add your opinions as comments about these courses.

I can easily draw a comparison between four e-courses, which I have participated in or am currently participating in:

All of these courses are designed in such a way that there is input from the facilitator as well as from the student. The first three courses would be good examples and the fourth would be the bad example, although the example is still not the worst kind.

The first course is very orderly. First it gives the backbone of the course and in the backbone there is a possibility to move on to the course topics. In each topic you have the hometask as well as extra materials. In addition the lecturer provided us with a forum and a weekly skype discussion opportunity (to gain points and to get feedback on different topics). He also invited guests to our skype sessions. These weekly sessions were good for communication between different people, and also groupwork was pretty good among our participants. Each group member had to contribute to the paper we made and thus noone could miss their part. We created the course work environment in a wiki as well. What was missing from the course was the introduction to the topic (as in "today we are going to learn... etc.), but that was really a minor error. Individually we read papers and filled in our blogs.

The second course are very well designed with tasks given in correct order, topics and extra materials under the introduction, leading to separate pages. As I got used to the backbone of the previous course, the index before the topics seems a good solution, but after the index there is scrollable content (too much scrollable content is not good). This course seems not too "scrollable", satisfactory in that sense. The facilitator introduces the topics and provides with good reading materials which give additional academic knowledge to the initial knowledge base, which is great. Students have to reflect on different tasks (given on Wikiversity page) in their blogs and groupwork has to be done on a separate page. A good thing is that the facilitator gives feedback on the course in each participant's blog, and also provides us with a web conferencing option. The facilitator also keeps the students updated through her blog.

The third course is divided into two environments, having the backbone with a similar index as the second course has, and the Wikiversity page is more used as the introduction to weekly topics and tasks. Tasks are given in a separate blog, which may be a bit confusing to the first-time users, but this is well-adaptable to a technology-prone person. The facilitator uses an extra pageflakes page to collect all students' blog links into one blogroll visible to all participants at once, which is a good idea to have a look at the others' blogs as well. The blog option is used for weekly materials.
I found this kind of learning more amusing, but also more confusing. The learners in that course were intrinsically motivated and quite communicative, thus making the course more enjoyable. Sadly I had to leave because of lack of time (enormous workload).

The three previous examples were examples of good e-learning course designs, but the last one should be a bit worse example.
The fourth Wikiversity-based course's layout is quite stretched, so you have to scroll it down, and the table of contents (what I previously called "index") appeared only recently. This is a very inconvenient way to navigate on the page. The facilitator provides with the introduction of each page, but when you start looking closer at the topics, the content seems pretty much copy-paste from the original sources (which does not seem very academic). There is a separate closed environment (iCampus) for participation and you have to upload your documents there. She provides the students with sources and topics on iCampus, but she has not defined the marking scale, nor the criteria for passing the course. This course seems a bit disturbing, because I feel more like blogging instead of scribbling documents and uploading them. Also I do not like scrolling and would prefer clicking on the topic and moving on to a separate page.

As a group define what are the criteria for a good online course and reflect it in your group space (whatever you choose this to be), but make this group space visible to other groups by posting a link on E-learning/Participants page under your group.

The page created is tallinnuniversityprojects.pbworks.com, and our group task is here.

Reading and reflection

Make a selection of reading material for the fourth week
Reflect on your learning experiences in your personal Weblog following the reflection template:

1. Explain, what are the components of course design.

1. Structure - in which order and how to place content. What kind of information to provide, what kind of links, etc.
2. Material - presented in a structured format, so that the learner can understand the topics. Chosen material does not differ from classroom material.
3. Motivation and feedback - Due to effective feedback provided by the facilitator, the learner feels motivated.
4. Interaction - a) programs that enable activity, b)open questions, games, tools and calculators stimulate good activity, c) engage the mind!
5. Involvement - Learner-controlled involvement through several activities.

2. What was the most important thing you learned this week? What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

The most important thing that I learned this week was that group collaboration needs strong peer support and encouragement, as well as changes in chosen web-based applications. It may turn out that in fact the chosen solution may not be the best for this particular group.

3. What is your evaluation of this week's groupwork? (What went well and what did not? How did groupwork influence fulfilling your personal learning contract?)

I was very pleased with this week's groupwork in terms of collaboration and input. After reminding ourselves that PbWorks does not allow multiple changes for one page, we agreed on using a Google Document in order to collaborate on a draft version of our task 1, and this also went quite well, everybody started participating right away. Alice had to make an account in Google and she managed to fix her thoughts in the document as well.

I expected our wiki-collaboration to make more progress. I certainly expect the group members to add or change my posts in our wiki as well.

I think I had good feedback on my questions and I hope I could support my team members as well as I could as well. I hope to get feedback on our groupwork from the facilitator as well, since this was the first task ever done by our group in such way. I felt we could have done more there, but maybe I am just overthinking.
Overall, my management skills proved to be excellent in getting the group together as well as allowing them all to collaborate in their own pace. I am satisfied with myself, thus I should make a green tick somewhere in order to mark my coping with the task in the contract.

4. Describe what has changed in your personal learning environment and in group environment?

What changed in our group learning environment was that a separate document for online and simultaneous collaboration was needed. Creating a Google Document was not a difficult job. I think our group is going to use this kind of collaboration more, and maybe new means of collaboration will arise as well. Final results that our group got, were still put in PbWiki space.

The future of the Long Tail Model in the field of New Media

2010-03-27T22:08:00.001+02:00

The Long Tail Forecast

Due to a massive update of services in the new media field, there is a possibility to sell or distribute almost everything with the means of the Internet. What I predict for the future, when we look around the Web space, is that social media like Twitter, Facebook, and other hybrids are going to make a crucial role in passing information to necessary sources. I think that information will be the source of the future long tail model. All possible multimedia solutions may be mixed in order to provide necessary information to a whole lot of people and in this way sell products from books to airplanes (this was a figurative comparison). Right now there are several business strategies that let people see only a part of information and they have to pay for the other part, but the information gets outdated and no one may need it anymore. Lots of companies and individuals nowadays use blogging as spreading information around, as well as vlogging and podcasting. You can spread the word around through witter feeds, facebook updates, myspace updates, you name it.

Traindom

Today I saw a twitter feed for a site named “Traindom”, which is a solution for starting an online information business. This is exactly what I am thinking about in terms of Long Tail model in the future. Companies start selling their information instead of answering questions of every single person, easier, cheaper, less time consuming. Traindom offers an interactive solution for e-courses instead of e-books, which according to them are obsolete. By that they enable customers to create courses for free and ask for money until the customers start making money. I think this is a clever solution of online Long Tail information model.

Conclusion

In conclusion I think that we cannot predict the far future, because social media is in constant change. I think there will be something totally new and unforeseen. But until now the social media applications are making a huge progress in helping the information flow to the right channels, thus help those channels buy the necessary information or goods they want or need. This will be satisfying for everyone – for those who benefit from it and for those who gain something from it.

Blue Team's Game Review

2010-03-25T22:53:00.004+02:00

I tested Blue team's game, and now I would like to reflect on my thoughts on the game:

First of all, the initial problem seemed to be the wrong version of Wesnoth, 1.6.5, which gave me an error statement, that scenario 1 was erroneous. This led to downloading the other version, which I was not happy about at all. But everything for the good cause. Unfortunately the campaign did not start playing on the first Beta version as well, as far as I tried. Still, I did not manage to open the game, because an error popped onto my screen every time I wanted to play it. I tried to download it with SVN and also manually, but no use.
My final try was downloading the other Beta version of Wesnoth:

It seemed that there is the same problem: Unknown scenario: '1_stseen'.

Concerning the review, I must say that I can write our game review, which I found very fresh and new in this game landscape, because we had cool characters and nice concept. Due to my lack of playing skills the game did not last for long, because I was not able to kill all the enemies. Nevertheless I saw what happened there during creation process, thus it was an interesting experience.

I could add that the other group had made an effort as well, as they had nice characters and a wild storyline. All in all the course was a great experience that one could learn very well from all the mistakes that happen.

My Reflection on Open Source Management Groupwork Contribution

2010-03-24T00:16:00.005+02:00

Introduction

Group formation was the quickest task we completed, as well as taking over the name "Red team". As red generally is a provocative colour, our group's tasks also did not come out as well as they were supposed to. The first task was to group people under certain tasks, and I got a chronicle keeper's task. I created the Red Team's tasks and "tickets" (not in the way they were supposed to be), also marked our progress, and finally reflected on the groupwork. For documentation I used the wiki part of trac environment.

The most critical part of the course was to make everything flow. As all tasks depended on different other tasks, and since the group had difficulties with programming the campaigns, there often was nothing to document, and thus it was necessary to wait for the process to go on.
From time to time I made some changes in Trac, for example uploaded storylines or documented overall progress together with Taavi.

My task was also to support the group in other tasks, like exploring Wesnoth scenarios, and suggesting the ideas from these campaigns, which would be useful in our game. On the other hand, I helped proofread the scenarios as well as posted them in Trac. I think my task in this game was achieved all in all.
I tried to help the team leader as much as I could and was able to, as well, mostly in documentation. As well as the other team leaders, I also tested the game, which worked well for me, but was difficult to progress during low Wesnoth gaming skills.

Lessons learned:

Individually I cannot say that I could have changed anything within the group, because the development did not depend directly on certain people, it depended more or less on the workflow, and on the fact how the game was managed to be put together. It probably was stuck behind the lack of knowledge in the beginning and how to "bite" through the latter afterwards.

It was quite difficult to document any progress or what went wrong until the previous steps were completed. As it turned out, trac was the main component in the development process. Nevertheless, most of the work was transferred to Skype or done orally, because we tried to develop the game together as a group. Next time we should collaborate more with the lecturer as well, in order to get faster feedback on our errors and perhaps some help in fixing them. Forum help turned out to be more difficult than in the first glance, because it was quite difficult to grasp the necessary help topics during the process.

Wesnoth Documentation - Red Team

2010-03-23T11:33:00.001+02:00

The groupwork process was the following:

First our group tried out playing the games in order to understand the process which takes place in Wesnoth campaigns. All scenarios were distributed among group members so that everyone could dig into the games and suggest their ideas for good game development, and understand how the game was created.

Secondly the group members looked at the code in order to find associations connected with our group's possible campaign scenarios and understand how it worked. A lot of effort was used to get a decent understanding of the code meaning and trying to find the ways of implementing the code into our game-to-be.

The third step was to create a storyline, which was a different story from our initial concept. Since we did not get any feedback to our initial story, we decided to change it. The storyline was written using imagination and proofread by other team members.

Code was created in parallel with story development. The initial concept where noone would have been killed, was changed, because the outcome was not as successful as necessary. Thus finally a new concept was created where units were killed in the end. During code development forums and other resources were used for help, also teamwork was really strong.

Maps and images were also created during story development, to keep everything in concordance. Maps were created using Map Editor of the Wesnoth game, and images were created in Photoshop as well as in Fireworks.

Meanwhile the whole process was documented as it progressed.

Our group members used skype as well as meetings in order to keep the workflow running.

Main difficulties:

1. Keeping all units alive was tricky, because it was difficult to create. This was changed so that all units get killed in the end.

2. There was a problem with image paths when the team tried to insert images of the characters in the game.

3. The forum was not useful in terms of code change, because the code had not been translated properly or it was difficult to find. This part would have been easier if it would have been done in the lecture, together with the explanations.

4. All team members depended on the other team members, and when there were difficulties, the work did not take place as planned.

Wesnoth Game Documentation - Storyline [explicit lyrics, not for kids] - Red Team

2010-03-23T11:24:00.004+02:00

The story was created by story managers, and is the following:

Introduction

Rocco lives in a muddy village which is a very cool place for spending time, chatting and drinking coffee, but one can never become wealthy enough, that is at least what Rocco thinks. A nearby city has everything necessary to have fun with, and to do nice business. Rocco loves coffee and has proper knowldedge about running a cafeteria, but in the village called Pärnartu, people rather need bread and butter and have no means for spending time in cafeterias. As Rocco has no money for opening even a kiosk where he could sell coffee, and as he is a man of big business, it is 100% clear that he has to move over to a more urbanized area.
The closest urbanized area is a city of Bruzzano, where a spoiled son of Bernhard, Eduard, runs the chain of Cafeterias "Wobernard". Rocco applies for the position of the Chief Paristant of the "Wobernard" chain, but he is forced to sing and dance on the table. As he refuses to do it, he does not get the desired job. Being offended by arrogant urban bitch-asses, he decides to take some of "Wobernard" cafes by force. It is simple - you have to beat the shit out of the managers of the cafes, and then you can run the cafes as you wish. Having a terrible day full of blood and screaming is better than whole life without work in this god forsaken place.

1. Campaign: Agricultural Harrassment.

As a lousy villager, Rocco wakes up at 09:30, and not at 05:15, as benevolent inhabitants of Pärnartu are expected to do. After all he is a man of vision. Having gathered together a decent army of closest friends he heads to Bruzzano to take over the cafes which are mistreated by Eduard.
Villagers: Rocco + 10 other characters.
If possible, they have no money, but a strong wish to fight. They reach Bruzzano and kick all managers out of Cafes.
Urbans: Eduard + 10 other characters. Managers are doing their work. They of course defend cafes as they can by biting, spitting and screaming all over the place.
Task: Take over 10 cafeterias. Win: villagers have cafeterias. Lose: Rocco is killed.

2. Campaign: A Valuable Idea

Rocco is singing and dancing, he is very happy. "Coffee and chocolate," he sings, "latte and capuccino, milk and sugar – this is like a dream." Cafeterias make nice profit and now boys can even buy stuff instead of stealing. Once Eduard is again able to eat porridge and yoghurt, he decides to end this prole-party in his former cafeterias. After another banana everything is decided – he makes Rocco starve to death.
Even Rocco knows what capitalist competition is – you have to make your competitors starve to death or at least make much more money. "I will never fight as an animal, from now on my secret weapon is my clever mind," says Rocco. Description: 10+10 cafes and capitalist competition. Who has more money is the winner and who has less is a bloody-communist (is defeated).

3. Campaign: Roberta Steiner und „Steiner-Tasse Salon”.

Bruzzano is a good place for running a chain of something. The cafeteria is really something runnable. Roberta Steiner knows that, and as a long-term customer of „Wobernard” she has an irresistable desire to open a cafeteria-like Salon chain "Steiner-Tasse”. She has decent finances, so there is no question in opening the charming and feminine part of the cafeterias. Near Bruzzano there is a very cute virginiawolfesque village Nugavere. It is cute and picturesque, so that when the citizens of Bruzzano walk to Nugavere and are simply happy and smiling every fifteen minutes. Roberta Steiner knows that this is the right place to open the salon of Steiner-Tasse. "Steiner-Tasse is against the whole world," thought Rocco, because customers dared to compare his cafeterias with some haggy salon. Roberta makes the best chocolate in the area, that is what people said. The coffee tastes like angel's kiss; this is the place where people would love to die mouth full of chocolate and coffee. Rocco cries and then goes to Steiner-Tasse Salon under heavy camouflage... From that day on he knows that bitch has to die, because her chocolate is so tasty and coffee even better. On his way back from Nugavere an old lady suddenly stops him. She is in tears, but still the good old toothless face of Wobernard is recognizable. Rocco knows that they both are in tears because of this evil bitch. “We have to rape and kill her,” Rocco says. Wobernard spruces up his fake breasts and states: "I'm for killing her first and you can rape her after, but I do not support this." They hug and agree on killing her.
Of course Roberta is not stupid and has enormous amount of bodyguards who are totally in love with her and ready to die if fighting is inevitable. Wobernard, without even removing his fake breast, gathers his loyal friends to kill Roberta. Rocco knows that a proper warrior first removes make-up, and only then takes a few sips of booze for encouragement. As brave as a dragon and as mad as a cow, Rocco calls for all his fellow-warriors. Rocco and Eduard meet, hug (which is an ancient warrior custom), and head to Nugavere. Win: Roberta is dead. Lose: Eduard or Rocco are dead.

4. Campaign: Grand Coffee Finale.

Moments of tenderness do not last long. Time to choose the Chief Paristant of the Bruzzano has come. The whole city is preparing for a grandiose and fun event and so do the candidates. Rocco and his new best friend, son of Bernhard, Eduard, are doing preparations as well. They sharpen their swords and boil coffee water hotter than it has ever been before in purpose of eliminating the rival. There is only room for one Chief Paristant in this Cafe Kingdom. There is no time to hesitate and there's nothing but life to loose, thus the Grand Coffee Finale has begun.
Win: Eduard is killed. Lose: Rocco is killed.
"It's just business, nothing personal."

E-Learning Week 3 - Tasks and Reflection

2010-03-23T10:29:00.064+02:00

The first task was to create a group environment for our study group.
First, I managed to gather the group in Skype for a conversation, and I also created a group environment in PBWorks.

For the first task we created a group conversation in Skype, after which we moved to Google Docs for some collaborative effort. This collaborative effort was fixed into a nice task 1. This task would need some feedback in order to see if it is done correctly or is there something more that needs to be added. [This point was already written on week 4]

The second task was to read and reflect on the following:

1. Which principles of groupwork, communities of practice and collaborative learning should a distributed group consider, when planning the design of an e-learning course?

Concerning groupwork, one should consider the following points (according to the reading material):

Distribute roles, and shift them if necessary.
Meet the deadlines and make sure everyone has done their jobs in the group.
Make sure everyone has the information that is necessary for the next tasks.
Encourage peer collaboration and ask others to remind of the work to be done.
Encourage and give peer feedback in order to feel good about the job that has been done and give courage for the next steps.
Use a collaborative environment in order to participate fully in groupwork.
Use an agregator in order to follow others' posts and try to make the most out of the information you get from there.

2. What was the most important thing you learned this week? What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

Concerning groupwork, the experience was great. I was able to gather a group and make them participate as well. Everyone was very willing to join and had their spirits up, which was a good sign. To be honest, I considered that the group would be more passive, but I was positively surprised that I worked with such a great team. Even Alice, who joined the group later, was very positive and got her hands on the project.

3. What is your evaluation of this week's groupwork? (What went well and what did not? How did groupwork influence fulfilling your personal learning contract?)

I would evaluate our groupwork the following way:
First I managed to add every member to my Skype account and start an individual conversation with them, then we managed to fix (using Doodle) a common time when we should meet all together. I was very positive with the

4. Describe what has changed in your personal learning environment and in group environment?

My personal learning environment consists of the usual means, because this is a kind of system I have used during the whole IMKE learning period. On week 3 nothing changed in our group learning environment yet. A PbWiki environment was created in order to collaborate with the groupwork tasks. I created an introduction of all members as well as put some vital information to the environment.

Long Tail Model in New Media

2010-03-23T10:25:00.001+02:00

The Long Tail marketing model enables to sell different goods which are covering a niche for a small number of people, in other words these are not mainstream products. As the lecture talked about selling books and audio, the other multimedia formats can be sold the same way. For example online movie renting is a great solution to engage lots of films which would be hidden or not present at all in the movie shops, can hold a perfect choice of older and newer, and perhaps even the worst films ever created. Usually there is interest in all kinds of films, and through online renting service a person would be able to get his or her favourite genres and enjoy them whenever he or she wants.

The long tail model is applied through selling content via Internet, thus not taking any physical space. People have to download content in order to watch it, and are asked to pay for watching the content. Now it does not really matter if the film itself is a niche product or a big hit, every person can find the film he or she likes, and watch it for a small fee. This model also keeps the maintenance costs low.

Another possibility to engage long tail model would be in selling information. News, blogs, podcasts, e-books, etc. can be a valuable source for anyone, but as there is not enough room for information in the libraries, it is a great opportunity to keep things on the “shelves” of online repositories for people to enjoy. Here the long tail model would be applied in form of an online repository and delivered to people through registered usage and/or payment. People now would be able to find even old and outdated information in any media format to
listen to, read or watch. I think such models make information available for all kinds of crowds. Digital information is a better source for all kinds of materials than analogue information. It is stored better, accessed more easily, and longer preserved than the original sources. This covers the need for every single person’s information need as well, and that is why this kind of model is valuable for present and future consumers.

Thoughts on Generating Revenue in New and Interactive Media.

2010-03-23T10:22:00.002+02:00

Introduction

Interactive media is developing very fast, so that there are quite a number of changes happening every now and then. It is necessary to use creativity and some background research in order to define peoples’ interests in getting them addicted in something, and therefore getting a grip of a large amount of people to cleverly ask for revenue for the services they are willing to pay for. Although nowadays it is difficult to distinguish between
new and improved versions of making money through Internet, people are still making innovations in revenue making models.

Online communities

Since online communities are developing very fast, my guess is that a lot of the future models for generating revenue could come from these sites, including Twitter, Orkut or Facebook, where it is possible to get people hooked in many different actions. I think it is easily possible to gather a group of people through these websites, and through some kind of addictive action develop a further plan for gathering revenue for that. One can agitate a fund raising event or an auction widget. There is another possibility to make money, that is
playing online games in Facebook. These attract people easily, because they are simple and logical games. Through playing people buy virtual goods and in order to get more exclusive items, and pay for virtual money exchanged for real money. I believe that many kinds of events are possible revenue collectors as long as these actions keep people hooked up. For the latter people need to think of new ways to keep money coming in, because people tend to get bored with one thing.

Online multimedia solutions

I think another solution for gathering revenue would be online multimedia content, which is very versatile and helps people express almost everything. In the past ten years a lot has changed, and together with that the multimedia content. It is more sophisticated and can be made interactive for focussing attention to the content. Through such actions an introduction to something larger would be delivered freely to people, and after a person gets interested, he or she has to make a payment in order to be exposed to more engaging content. In such cases one has to think whether the content is worth watching or it is too boring to digest.

Virtual estate

As the Internet has driven people crazy about different things, then perhaps the virtual estate selling could also be a new form of getting revenue. It could be in the form of a game or a website, in order to show off people’s homes and let them decorate it in different ways. A Facebook game “Restaurant City” reminds me of a quite similar strategy, where it is possible to buy items in order to decorate your restaurant, and if you do not have enough virtual credit, and are hooked up enough, you buy more for your own virtual money which is
bought for real money. The game is not directly connected with virtual estate, but it is one way of letting people express their likes and dislikes in order to cleverly get a hold of their money.

Conclusion

In short – as long as one gets people addicted with online content, it could be anything that collects revenue from people. I think that one has to provide free content to engage people in something interesting and in order to consume the product fully the person is asked for revenue.

Revenue Sharing Model in New Media

2010-03-23T10:21:00.002+02:00

Participatory new media makes it possible to make profit through various channels where participation can be fun and engaging, making it even more valuable for the users. We have all become used that there is advertising flashing everywhere over the internet, either spam or something of interest, but earning revenue makes an ad more tempting for the user of the service. A service provider gets a higher sum of money and a lot of profit through such revenue system, but it is equally valuable for the service user, clients and the main company.
Not only ads are being sold this way, there is a possibility to sell different goods and get paid
by clicks from your site. In the following paragraphs I would like to describe three examples of participatory media revenue sharing models of Google AdSense, Qinteractive, and Amazon.com.

Google AdSense

Google AdSense is a widely known affiliate program, and I believe that this solution may the first possible connotation in the minds of a lot of people when talking about revenue system on the Web.
Google AdSense is a revenue-based advertising service, which is widely accessed across the world by millions of users. This is managed through AdWords. [1] The scheme itself is very simple, where a user puts a suitable advertisement box inside the content of his/her website or blog or a YouTube video, and gets paid by showing advertisements which are relevant to the content, plus gets paid for clicks.
The best known solution is probably website advertisements, but besides that Google offers several solutions like advertisements through mobile webpages and -applications, feeds, videos and online games. This kind of advertising is customizable and comfortable to use, for example a user can block advertisements that he or she does not want to appear on the website.
Google also offers performance reports through which one can control how the payments arrive, either daily or specific date. The service is fully monitored by the site manager and for the user it is free and needs no extra bureaucracy. [2]

Qinteractive

This company offers many profitable solutions for companies in order to make profit from the ads. Three main solutions that one can gain revenue from, are the following:
• Registration Path Solutions,
• Display Advertising Solutions, and
• E-Mail Solutions.
The first option lets the user collect revenue through his or her website without direct investments through integrating advertisements during registration or download process. Revenue is collected through each double opt-in a registered user is taking. The solution promises to give high revenue for every new visitor to the user’s site, and it happens within one website.
The next option uses various data in order to target the users from one’s website with advertisements for revenues. One can choose the size of the advertisement which is generated based on the users’ preferences.
The last option lets the user benefit from their e-mail through advertising.
This solution is meant for companies in order to let them advertise and get revenue for letting Qinteractive’s solution take advantage of the company’s website. They have a lot of clients with high traffic sites, including companies like eBay, WalMart, Johnson&Johnson’s, Kelloggs, etc. [3]

Amazon.com

Amazon offers an affiliate program based on its products, not advertisements. This solution offers a possibility to link products to one’s website through which a user can be directed to Amazon.com. When Amazon gets a new client, it offers a sum of money for each possible customer. This kind of a program lets the people who do not user Amazon.com directly, find it through the specified website which directs the user to the necessary book or other product.
The hardest part here is to make the content of the website as interesting as to make the possible future customer buy the book or CD you have incorporated into your webpage. This can be done by making an interesting review about these items, and suggesting them to the viewers. Amazon pais only for the future customers. [4]
Amazon offers several solutions for displaying the item:
• product links and banners, which show off the product with or without an image,
• cool widgets which let you display several items in a small space, or
• an easy-to-make online store, which can either be embedded or linked to the
website. This solution lets people buy things from the affiliate site, and confirm the payment on Amazon.com. [5]
These three options are just a little choice from the wide variety of affiliate programs that the Internet offers. Besides having advertisements on your website it is necessary to know the simple truths about advertising and having relevant content on the webpage. Some ads are automatically generated based on the site content, others based on the user statistics, some ads have to be embedded based on the administrator’s preferences and hopefully spark an interest in site users in order to get revenue for the new customers.

Sources:

[1] http://www.2createawebsite.com/money/google-adsense.html
[2] http://www.google.com/services/adsense_tour/
[3] http://www.qinteractive.com/
[4] http://money.howstuffworks.com/affiliate-program9.htm
[5] https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/

E-Learning Week 2 - Tasks and Reflection

2010-03-22T12:55:00.077+02:00

Personal Learning Contract

My objectives: From this course I wish to learn the processes and theories concerning creation of an e-learning course and everything that is connected with it. I would like to use my knowledge with creating online courses for secondary school learners, and do it properly. Also I would like to test my management skills how well I can do with groupwork organizing and maintaining group spirits high during the course. I think I will take the responsibility of maintaining groupwork in order, and in other group-related management things. One more thing that I would like to add is that as a learner I would like to gain more experience in self-directed learning or time planning.

What resources will I need: I am going to use my learning blog on blogger, also pbwiki-based wiki as group-work-related environment. As most of use are skype users for online communication, I could gather the group within skype. I also need people for groupwork, but since the group was formulated during week 2 (and later newcomers joined the groups of their preference, there was no difficulty in gathering the members in one skype list). I will also need the course learning materials as well as additional internet sources to complete my goals. In order to practise with my own pupils, I will need them to participate, and from April, 5 to 9 I am going to practise the task of giving a proper e-course to them.

How will I do it: My strategy to achieve the objectives is to participate in all course activities and read all the materials related to the course. It is a bit difficult timewise, but still manageable. I will certainly follow the facilitator's blog and pass the news to group skype chat in order to maintain the group alert.
The order of my individual actions would first require getting acquainted with the materials as well as extra resources, and then reflecting upon them in my blog. Possibly reading other peoples' thoughts as well as discussing things with them via Skype or other IM sources, or commenting on them in their blogs.
The order of my groupwork activities is first getting acquainted with my fellow groupmates, then creating an environment for them, and asking them to join the collaborative process. Finally creating a unique product within our group that would please the participants.
What concerns practice with my students, then the order is building up a task list in the blog (we have used the blog before and they are aware of the address), and asking them to do their chores by a certain time. Also providing the information in eKool for those who are prone to finding excuses. I will give them the grading scale and the resources where they find extra material. Finally I will look through their posts (they have created their blogs and used them beforehand with my lesson) and reflect on their tasks. Finally I will create a test in order to assess their learned material.
Concerning time planning I intend to focus myself on my to-do-list more often and find time for schoolwork during busy weekdays of different chores. At least 1-2 hours for my schoolwork every two or three days should be OK.

Evaluation criteria: I think that I will understand if I was successful or not, when I have completed all my tasks that I intended to do during this course. Providing a successful e-learning experience for my learners would be a bonus, this is not the essential task that concerns this course, but of vital importance for my work.
Evaluation is based on my ability to create a meaningful and inspiring e-learning course for my secondary school pupils. This can be easily measured from the flow of the course flow and pupils' feedback.

Self-reflection: I think that the best evaluation criterium for my success would be my satisfaction. I also think that when I am able to do the rest of the tasks in time, that would be just perfect.

Reading and reflection:

1. What was the most important thing you learned this week? What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?
I found some points in the text that reminded me of certain things. For example self-directed learning which is quite difficult to manage if you are not a full-time student, but a student with a job and a family to raise. I remember I quit one e-learning course because I had a contest to prepare, two jobs to keep and a child to raise. Fortunately this was not at all a university-related project, thus I could leave the course without any conscience-stricken feelings. Now school is my priority and I am trying to cope with my tasks in order to prove myself I am better this time (from the last university experience).
I know that there is a possibility to learn or induce in yourself a proper time-management system in order to do all the chores in time and leave some time for yourself as well. This would be the next e-course I would like to participate in.
I also (re-)learned that in order to create content in the web that is mashed together with other people's thoughts, a facilitator has to provide learners with multiple environments among which they could choose their perfect means. The learners should use tools that enable reading feeds and creating knowledge base in the community. It is inevitable that the learners learn well from using the means and this, in turn, gives to their overall knowledge base, and in the future helps them to be able to cope with using these skills in their workplaces or with different tasks.
The third vital thing that I learned this week (there are new things for me after all) was about personal contracts. This may be the best solution for self-guidance and time planning, after one has created the contract and "signed" it with him/herself. The contract has to be followed and always reviewed in case something has been forgotten. There is a possibility to make amendments and changes in the contract in case something pops up later, but the contract is a great means to keep you on track. Group contracts might be used in case the group is not cooperating or willing to cooperate.

2. Was there something you didn’t quite understand and want to know more about it?
I think the material was well understood.

E-Learning Week 1 - Reflection

2010-03-22T12:54:00.130+02:00

1. What are the trends in e-learning and how do they influence online course design?

Main trends in e-learning are:

Un-structured learning environment (no strict learning environment system).
Web 2.0 usage in all aspects of e-learning (meaning weaving a social network of learners not keeping the content inside the iron walls of learning systems).
Online participation either alone or groupwise, worldwide collaboration and teaching/learning.
Virtual learning (Second Life), game-centered learning.
Mobile learning (M-learning).
The possibility to filter and disseminate information, not only to find it.
The possibility to give and get feedback from peers as well as facilitators.

New trends have made course design open and easily accessible. Courses are provided requirements, as well as pre-requirements if necessary; also grading system and materials are visible to all participants as well as outsiders.
Open courses let the students choose their own environments where they broadcast their procession of thoughts as well as get feedback from the facilitator and coursemates or strangers following their blogs. I also think that this is even better than just getting feedback from the closed group (which means smaller number of) students and lecturers. Groupwork is also provided in most of the courses in order to let the students collaborate and interact in order not to feel lonely or without peer feedback. Different means of collaboration are given by Web 2.0 devices which are mainly open source and freely available.
The learner is given a choice of technical means he or she decides to use for individual and group communication. And if those means are not provided, I believe that the student is wise enough to choose among his/her own means. Also lots of materials are accessible from the web, this means that a student has the choice of e-books versus paperback books.
In Estonia there are still some facilitators who do not approve of open learning systems, thus they keep their materials hidden, and accessible through one environment. I think that this kind of courses are aversive in essence, because all kinds of passwords and "locks" drive people away from the content.

I think current course and different Wikiversity courses follow almost the same trend of course design with some courses preferring "locked" environments with log in function. My experience has had both types of e-courses, but I prefer following the "open" ones.

2. What was the most important thing that you learned this week? What kind of questions/ideas/experiences this week’s activities raised for you?

I think the most important thing I learned was that there are theories behind this concept of e-learning (people tend to forget about theories when they are so involved in learning the subject). But as I got acquainted with these theories, the topic seemed familiar to me, since I have got the theory part from Tallinn Pedagogical University. I think I got some ideas for my own initiative in e-learning facilitator's role (while studying, I carry out e-lessons for French lessons, because there is no replacement for me at that time) and I plan on using them in my blog.
I also enjoy writing, and what does a person enjoy writing more than about him/herself, thus I was happy that there is another course that enables writing and blogging.

E-Learning Initial Task - Introduction

2010-03-22T11:06:00.007+02:00

I will re-introduce myself for the e-learning course. My previous introduction is HERE

About me:
My name is Maibritt Kuuskmäe. I am an outgoing person from Pärnu, Estonia, where I raise my five-year-old son and go to work. I teach children aged 8-19 English and French in Pärnu Coeducational Gymnasium. I studied English and French in Tallinn University of Educational Sciences 8 years ago, and it feels nice to study again (I feel a lot smarter than straight after secondary school). Currently, as my schedule is very packed, I am not able to go singing in the choir, which I have done for a little while. I have "enslaved" myself with studying in Tallinn University. I am undergoing Master studies in Interactive Media and Knowledge Environments. I am very interested in e-learning as I implement online solutions in my lessons whenever possible. I have not used specific e-learning environments in my everyday work, but I have got acquainted with them through different courses, for example Digitiiger for school teachers.

Online learning experience emerged before coming to Tallinn University, but I failed the course, because of lack of time, thus I had several doubts of taking online courses. After passing my first online course, I felt safer already, because the critical question was time distribution and self-discipline. I have passed one e-course, and currently enrolled in several of them, because it feels more liberating when you study from distance. The main difficulty for me is actually time distribution, and sometimes lack of time.

About social media tools.
I am currently using online IM solutions, like imo.im or meebo as well as MSN Live Messenger and Skype, due to schoolwork. Also my study blog is in Blogger, but for one course we are using Wordpress blog as well. For social bookmarking tools I prefer Delicious, as this one was introduced to me first.
At work I use blogs and pageflakes in order to put all necessary pages there for the pupils to follow. I also like to create web pages and thus I may use one simple web page like a weebly-based one. I like to insert forums into blogs from Nabble forums.

My preference is e-learning in an open environment, because then it is easier for all the participants to participate.

My hopes for the course are to get something new and interesting in addition to my knowledge. I also hope that our school could adapt an e-learning model in secondary school level.

Analysis of Wesnoth Community

2010-03-02T19:23:00.000+02:00

Readings, analysis of the Wesnoth community and brainstorming on better campaign building.

The community is built up based on different pages with all the support one needs for game development. Inside the community there are all kinds of possible variants in order to help users to develop the game. Different categories lead to different pages, for example there is a download page and source code page, etc. The best feature besides the forum, is perhaps the online IRC channel possibility to get help.
The main source of information even for those who dare not to read through the information, is the forum. It is divided into sub-categories, which lead to certain topics. The variety of help provided in the community is large, thus the community proves to be very helpful for the beginners and advanced users of the game.

How to build campaigns better? I will add a few thoughts how I see that campaign building could be improved.
- collaboration between people even more intense (using various sources for project development),
- faster feedback during campaign development, better if immediately delivered through a chat client or an IM solution,
- brainstorming about new campaign code solutions together with a group in a real-time discussion,
- suggestions for innovation in the game
Otherwise I cannot see any new solutions to add, because the forum is sufficient enough to find all the necessary information for game development.

The Validity of Cory Doctorow's Business Model as a Writer

2010-03-02T15:22:00.000+02:00

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction writer, and a blogger who writes stories, contributes to different magazines and edits a weblog Boing Boing. He also acts as a visiting lecturer at Open University (UK). Besides fictional stories he has published several collections of non-fictional stories which comprise his thoughts about different issues [1]. He also is the supporter of Creative Commons as a distribution method [2].

His business model is simple: besides publishing his books, he also releases them under Creative Commons licence in the internet. First, he encourages the readers to read his books, and also promote them, which is free advertisement. With the help of his readers he gets reviews and may sell more of his printed books, and as he says in his interview, one will get even with the few lost copies and a lot of free publicity.

In his interview he explains that the bigger the publisher is, the less scared it is of publishing Creative Commons content online together with releasing the printed versions. He is satisfied that his books sell in print and are downloaded [2]. When I consider myself, I like printed books or original CD-s when they are from my favourite authors/bands, and I prefer to purchase one if I really like it. I think this is the idea behind his works as well, because not everyone prefers online books. Doctorow also suggested a model of getting a refund for his works not via direct donations, but he suggested that people should buy a copy of his work, and then donate it somewhere where it could be useful. I think this leaves a generous impression of the author, and people are willing to buy books in such purposes.

And to finish up with, Cory Doctorow seems like a cool guy who can easily survive by having a Creative Commons model in his book delivery to the people who love reading his books.

Links:
[1] craphound.com
[2] Interview with Cory Doctorow
[3] Wikipedia: Cory Doctorow

The Impact of Modern Technologies to Media Economical Market

2010-02-24T23:17:00.002+02:00

In the past few years Web 2.0 technologies have rapidly grown, which means that there are massive possibilities of creating and sharing content, goods, information or what not with other people. The term Web 3.0 has already been mentioned, which according to Scott Brinker is the newer version of the Web, and its core lies in the vast amount of valuable data, and how to link it. The previous versions, Web 1.0, used to link different web pages, and 2.0 is more involved in collaboration and linking people [1]. Thus it is clear that Web 3.0 will also be the key to Media Economical Marketing in the future. Online solutions for media marketing are quite rich.

The most effective way of media marketing is without a doubt the richest source of various people. When they gather online in one place, we call it social networking, and the advantages of it are quite numerous starting from a huge number of visiting individuals, their friends and other acquaintances, who make up a huge network around the globe.

Google AdSense is the traditional model for taking advantage of web page space in order to advertise the company’s products. It finds people with certain interests and offers different products for that specific person. In a way it is also social, because people can insert AdSense to their webpages and take advantage of this service in such way. An even more effective way is to make a group in a social networking site, and try to think of something in order to attract the customers there.

According to Alexa Ranking the most popular social networking site is Facebook with over 122 million monthly visitors, and Twitter takes the third place with over 23 million monthly guests [2]. With such numbers it is possible to access a huge crowd of interest to sell the media, and adding accessible information to the sources is even better. I think the phenomenon of social networking has given marketing a completely new touch. Lots of comapnies use Facebook as their advertisement platform in order to take advantage of such rich environment of valuable resource – people. It is easy to create a group or an advertisement, invite people to become fans by offering them a reward (information, prize, etc.), then the friends of the friends who have joined this group, can see that their friends are fans and are attracted this way to enter the ’fan base’ of the company. The more fans, the easier it is to be ’popular’ and ’wanted’, thus makes it easier for the company to try to sell information or other goods to the potential clients. Those clients then can also collaborate with different tasks, and add value to the products.

Lots of companies and people tend to use Twitter as their side-advertising environment. For example when they have created something new, uploaded it to YouTube, they can tweet about it and create interest in various people. The latter then want to see the interesting new upload and if interested they may become hooked up. In the Interactive TV presentation a question arose concerning Twitter. If we created a TV program with input from Twitter via keywords, we would soon raise interest in our friends and their friends may become interested, which in turn could create a viral interest in something we have created. It would then be possible to redirect the people to that product.

Cloud computing has made it possible to store huge amounts of data in one place. YouTube is one of the examples where a lot of different data lies. One can make this channel a type of economical market for media with creating engaging content and hooking up lots of people. With a strong viewer base it is easier to attract potential merchandise buyers. For example one could insert a weekly task in the video to record a video of the viewers wearing a certain T-shirt. This would make it easier to sell merchandise concerning the products.

Technologies also allow embedding of videos and different sources to the company’s web page, which may be the key to attracting even more guests to the page. It is also possible to intertwine many accounts and make direct posts to Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, etc. so that you can see from either of those accounts that something has happened and want to check out the news. It is always useful for a company to link some useful information and let people know that when they give a little overview of themselves, it would be possible for them to get more information. Personal data, then, can be used to promote products of interest to these people.

Another popular thing is blogging, and when incorporating different Web 2.0 means of advertisement to the blog (embedding, tweeting the posts, creating a company web page), we could create a marketing environment. The blog then would serve as a useful information source for people. As Web 3.0 is all about information, the customer is best served with information through blogs. The techniques of advertising could be the same as described in the paragraphs above, but the main resource of information could lie in the blog. If this information interests people, they will certainly buy a DVD or a book in order to see more, to experience more of this information (visualization, genre, etc). It is always wise to leave some hidden information in order to sell it later.

Another major breakthrough is mobile technology which is evolving very rapidly. By that I mean smartphones, which are small widgets that does almost everything for a person who owns it. It has several functions and quite a tolerable screen in order to view videos or e-mails. On the 2010 Tiger Leap Annual Conference, an Estonian scientist from TTU said that the future of the web will lie in a smartphone, because it is small, compact, not too heavy, and stores various information. Assuming that it is possible to predict that a lot of content will be created for such phones. A widespread iPhone craze has already begun, people use it while waiting for green light or when they wake up (and do not want to switch on their computers). These phones allow making videos, video broadcasting, which can also be a great marketing strategy to be in touch with clients face-to-face. This is the same way as we use Skype, for example. So the future of marketing could lie in smartphones instead.

I think that we will be surprised at today’s ways of online marketing in 20 years, because this environment is so rapidly changing that it is quite difficult to predict the future of it.

Sources:

[1] http://www.chiefmartec.com/.m/2010/01/data-marketing-for-web-30.html
[2] http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-websites

Study of Three Companies Using Copyleft

2010-02-24T22:39:00.002+02:00

Write a case study about three IT companies using Open Source as a part of their business strategy (one of them could do it a its main business, e.g. Red Hat.

1. California-based company Cloudera uses Apache Hadoop for a huge amount of data processing. The company uses Open Source to collaborate and extend their products. Besides products, they offer services, support and training, which, according to them, lowers data-processing costs and new information. It also offers different extentions for Hadoop project. The project runs on inexpensive servers.

Cloudera desktop makes it really simple to use Hadoop, and the company hopes to win their customers' support with an easy-to-use solution. You can download the goods free of charge, but it also has a premium option.

For more information take a look at: www.cloudera.com

2. CubeTree is a social network-based free enterprise collaboration set. It has multiple functions and it can integrate feeds and different other platforms (Twitter, GDocs, etc.). It is open source and includes Debian, MySQL, etc. There is also a CubeTree API available for developers. This platform ensures that future enterprise collaboration will be social network centered. The platform is a cloud service.

CubeTree business strategy involves premium version, which gives bonuses to the user. It gives more storage, and other benefits, but the cost is really low, so it would not matter if you pay or not.

For more information take a look at: www.cubetree.com

3. Linux is an open source operation system, which Red Hat has made its source of profit. In their business strategy they use a subscription model, with what one can get a reliable and secure service. Paid users can access latest upgrades, access to Red Hat Network, and support for seven years. The company gives users a safer system guarantee, task automation, and other such benefits. Red Hat Linux is also available for trial download.

Copyleft principle

2010-02-16T01:22:00.043+02:00

1. Study the principle of copyleft and write an analysis about its three variants (strong, weak, none) with real-life examples.

The strong features of copyleft licence are the possibility to make software modifiable and leaving the source code open in order to let others improve it or make their own versions of it. The modified version should also be distributed with accessible source code and it should go with the copyleft clause. This enables the best possible solution for creating software, modify and improve it. For example the very same game we are developing, Wesnoth, is created by collaborative force, as is Mozilla Firefox and its extensions. These and other software solutions are in regular use by very many people nowadays.

In order to ensure that full copyleft is applied, it is necessary to determine in the copyleft that no copyright terms should not be applied and it can only be distributed under the same terms as the original version.
Different copyleft variants are strong, weak and non-copyleft. The weak copyleft derivatives might not have the same outcome as the original copyleft, or no copyleft at all. For example GNU Lesser General Public Licence and Mozilla Public Licence.
Full copyleft means that all parts of the work can be distributed only under the same licence as the original work. Partial copyleft allows only partial copyleft changes.

Copyleft is applied only when a person wants to redistribute the software, instead of restricting the distribution, it allows modification and further distribution.

First task - write an essay about my experience with new media

2010-02-13T14:06:00.005+02:00

When I start thinking of my relations with New Media, my mind goes back to 1997, when our very first PC was bought. I did not have the Internet yet, neither did I know what that meant while I started to compile html-based web pages and becoming interested in strategic PC games.
The next year I entered Tallinn University of Educational Sciences, where my interest evolved with discovering the Internet, and the passion led me to take the second minor in computer sciences. I reckon that this was my first experience with different programs in around 2000, with the help of which I created several interactive things.
Besides having had contact with authorware, created a few flash-based programs or having used silverlight and other such programs, the first real experience, to my mind, was this semester when we created an innovative TVprogram mock-up, where we had to use a really simple programme called quartz composer. The outcome was fabulous and manipulative. In IMKE Master Programme we get in touch with various interactive means, and as elective courses one can improve his or her knowledge in New Media.
In my work I use the existing Web 2.0 technologies which are available for classroom use, like wikis, blogs, games, videos, etc. I think this becomes more and more common in the current classroom use, as generations are changing and newer teachers are coming to class. Education technology has become very useful in school environment, as well. I work as a teacher, but also help other teachers with all kinds of different programs and also computer problems.

Topic posted in iCampus

Interface and Interaction Design

2010-02-09T00:07:00.000+02:00

In this subject we created a prototype of an iPhone application with our group. You can see the design process in our group blog
This course will result in e-Vent on May 18, 2010 @ TLU

The whole experience has been fun and nice. I loved the whole process.

Interface and Interaction Design

2010-02-08T22:02:00.001+02:00

Our group blog is here #imkedesign.

Right now we have done tasks like:

idea generation - the whole group
created a blog - Maibritt
created personas - the whole group
personas powerpoint - Maarja

Open Source Management tasks for Feb. 1

2010-02-01T23:30:00.003+02:00

Task 1. Read the arguments of both schools (FSF and OSI) and write a comparison.

According to the two articles the main difference in the two movements is the philosophy behind them. Open Source is basically the methodology behind software developemnt, but with free software there raises a philosophical question.
The term for free software is ambiguous in its meaning, where people do not quite understand what "free" means. "Free" in free software means more of a freedom to do things, not without cost.

Basically the two movements are the same, there is a little difference in thinking, a lot of opposing between the two movements, but the outcome is almost the same with minor differences.

Task 2.Installing and playing Wesnoth. Write a game review.

Battle for Wesnoth is a game which can be played both online and offline, and also as a single-player and multi-player game. It still reminds me of Heroes 3, which I played when I first had an actual computer at home (in the end of 1990's). The game left a great impression with sleepless nights and dreams about leaders moving in the playground. However, the game was not open source, nor was it free.
A good thing about the game is that you can play it, you can modify it, you can download others' modifications and modify those as well.
The point of the game is to beat enemies and help the leader finish his campaign. My favourite soldiers are archers who can stay unharmed the longest, because they shoot from far.
The whole map is based on hexagonal shapes, the base is made up of hexagonal shapes, as are the paths and the trails. You can move only a certain amount of space in order to kill the enemy. It is a game where you switch turns to fight, and you cannot get the enemy in one move.
It seems to me that the game is easy to understand and play, but at first lack of instructions makes it a bit difficult to understand (but you'll get acquainted with it soon since it is quite simple in essence).
The game is enjoyable to play and if one had more time this might become engaging.

Our breaks at Kehrwieder

2010-01-28T12:36:00.003+02:00

I stole this from Ottavio:

http://qik.com/video/4625508
Some IMKE stuff.

ENjoy!

Interactive TV - home task 1

2010-01-25T23:51:00.001+02:00

I am showing you my presentation on showing the mood of the TV show.
Here the function is to make animals talking in human voices in order to amuse people. The animals are pre-recorded in funny situations and people have given their voices to be played whenever the animal is being text-messaged.

The animals have SMS codes and the number is also somewhere on the screen. There are enough sound clips and funny situations recorded to keep people amused.

Multimedia design - coursework in Estonian

2010-01-17T16:15:00.003+02:00

PROTOTÜÜBI DISAINI KIRJELDUS
Multimeediumi disaini prototüüp

SISSEJUHATUS

Antud prototüüp kujutab algklassiõpilastele mõeldud prantsuse keele sõnavara ja lihtsamat grammatikat tutvustavat õppeprogrammi. Õppematerjalid on koostatud algklassiõpilastele, kuid vanemad kooliastmed võivad samuti antud materjale prantsuse keele algõppeks kasutada. Internetis asuvate õppematerjalide eeliseks on nende kättesaadavus, samuti on neid võimalik alla laadida, kui puudub internetiühendus.

Kuna programm on suunatud 7 – 11-aastastele lastele, peab see olema värvikas ja kaasahaarav, mitmesuguste funktsioonide ning rohkete kordustega, et materjal hästi kinnistuks. Eelmainitud fakti silmas pidades on koostatud erinevat tüüpi ülesandeid. Algkooliõpilased on loomult aktiivsemad õppijad ning seetõttu peab kindlaks tegema, et ülesanded oleks mängulised ja loovad ning neis ei esineks liiga palju uut sõnavara. Kindlasti annavad ülesanded õpilasele tagasisidet tema edasijõudmise kohta ning võimaldavad teha tunnikontrolle, mis õpetaja meilile saadetakse.

Kahe silma vahele ei ole jäetud erinevate litsentsidega kooskõlastatust, et teiste autorite materjali ei oleks vägivaldselt kasutatud. Kui materjale on võetud väljastpoolt, siis ainult sellistest allikatest, mis on Creative Commonsi litsentsidega varustatud ja sel juhul viidatakse vastavalt programmis materjali juures. Sõnavara harjutuste pildid on eetilised ning ei tekita vastakaid arvamusi, need on pigem kunstiliselt kujundatud ja lastepärased.

Antud prototüüp kujutab programmi lahendust, mida täiendatakse tulevikus veelgi mitmekesisemate harjutustega ning rohkema tagasisidega õpilasele. Interneti kaudu võimaldatakse ka teistel õpetajatel materjale täiendada oma maitse järgi. Ülesannetest ei puudu ka animatsioon, mida prototüübis ei esine. Prototüüp ei ole mõeldud valmislahendusena.

TEEMA PÕHJENDUS

Autor valis antud teema, kuna õppematerjalide tegemise huvi ja vajadus ilmneb tema igapäevatöös. Tänapäeva õpilased on üles kasvanud arvutitega, nn. „internetigeneratsioon“, kes teevad meelsasti dünaamilisi, interaktiivseid ülesandeid õpikuga töötamise asemel. Paraku internetti üleslaetud valmislahendusi ei saa tihtipeale mugandada, mistõttu jääbki vajaka taoliste õppematerjalide olemasolust, mille tegemine on ajapuuduse tõttu autoril senini tahaplaanile jäänud. Antud kursus andis hea võimaluse meelde tuletada milliseid rakendusi õppematerjalide tegemiseks leidub.

Kuna autor töötab igapäevaselt prantsuse keele algtaseme õpilastega, siis tekkiski idee just selliseid õppematerjale koostada. Eesti lähtekeelega prantsusekeelseid ülesandeid on väga vähe ning seetõttu ongi antud õppeprogramm väga kasulik nii autorile ja tema kolleegidele kui ka prantsuse keele algtaseme õpilastele (eriti algklassiõpilastele).

NÕUDED LOODAVALE RAKENDUSELE

Kuna rakendus on suunatud eelkõige I kooliastmele, siis peamiseks nõudeks on eakohane sisu ja vorm. Rakendus peab suutma materjali edasi andma lõbusal, dünaamilisel moel, et õpilasel ei hakkaks igav. Õpilane saab pärast ülesannete sooritamist automaatset tagasisidet nagu prototüübi teises ülesandes. Õppematerjalid peavad olema kooskõlastatud Riikliku Õppekavaga ning Creative Commons litsentsidega.

Õppematerjalides on lastepärased tegelased ning pealeloetud tekst peab olema selgelt arusaadav, hästi artikuleeritud, pigem aeglane kui kiire. Ülesanded peavad olema niiviisi kombineeritud, et alguses toimub sõnade õppimine ning pärast nende kinnistamine erinevate tegevuste kaudu. Õpilastel peab sõnu olema lihtne sõnu õppida, mistõttu neid on vähe ja need jäävad ülesannete läbides meelde, kuna kasutatud on erinevat tüüpi ülesandeid (näiteks erinevad valikmenüüd, tekstiväljale kirjutamine, häälimine kuulamise järgi, jne.). Kaasa aitab ka asjaolu, et ülesanded nõuavad õpilaselt aktiivset osavõttu, kaasa arvatud kuulamis-ülesanded, mis käivituvad nupuvajutusel.

Rakendus ei tohi olla liigsete efektidega koormatud, pigem olgu efektid sarnased ning kordugu läbi üht tüüpi ülesannete (näiteks ülesandes läbivalt sarnaseid värve kasutada). Sisu peab olema loogiliselt üles ehitatud ja menüü loomulikult kulgema (näiteks õpilasele on aru saada, kuidas pääseb edasi ja kuidas tagasi). Siiski kasutatakse lastepäraseid, värvikaid, joonistatud tegelasi. Eelistatakse animeeritud tegelasi staatiliste piltide asemel ning tegelased peavad lastele ruttu tuttavaks saama ning esinema läbi terve programmi. Kuna tegelased võtavad tähelepanu endale, siis taust jääb tagasihoidlikuks ning tekst ei paista samuti tegelaste kõrval silma. Veebilehel asuvad ülesanded on sarnase struktuuriga ning vaid erinevatel ülesannete tüüpidel on erinevad värvid, ülesannetes jäävad üldjuhul läbivateks värvideks ca. 4-5 põhivärvi variatsiooni.

Muusika- ja videoklippide heli on võimalik otse ekraanilt valjemaks ja vaiksemaks keerata, kuna kõrvaklappidest kuulates võib vali heli põhjustada kuulmiskahjustusi.

Rakendus peab toimima veatult ning kiiresti, olema täiuslik ja omavahel nii sisuliselt kui vormiliselt seotud. Näiteks kui sõnavaraharjutustes on juttu perekonnast, siis grammatikaülesannetes käsitletakse enesekohaseid asesõnu (minu isa, sinu ema, jne.).

Õppeprogramm peab sobituma uuemate programmide versioonidega (nt. Flash, Silverlight) ning kõikide veebilehitsejatega.

SÜSTEEMI SISUKAART

Süsteem asub veebilehel, millelt saab menüü abil navigeerida erinevatele teemadele. Teemad on raamatu vormis, mille ühelt leheküljelt minnakse üle teisele. Sellist liikumist võimaldavad nupud või muud taolised õpilasele arusaadavad funktsioonid. Esimesed ülesanded tutvustavad õpilastele baassõnavara ning järgnevad kinnistavad sõnavara erinevate interaktiivsete harjutuste abil. Valikus on nii mänge, grammatika- ja sõnavara ülesandeid, aga ka kontrolltöid ja tunnikontrolle.

Veebilehe pealehelt saab teemade ülevaatliku kokkuvõtte ning materjalidega seoses toimuvate uudiste ülevaate. Teemad on esitatud erinevatel lehekülgedel (nt. ülesanded, kontrolltööd, mängud), mis avanevad otse veebis, kuid on ka allalaetavad muudatuste tegemise vajadusel.

Veebilehe struktuur näeb välja taoline:
AVALEHT
sissejuhatus
uudised
ÜLESANDED
ülesanne teema1
grammatika
sõnavara
lisaülesanded
ülesanne teema2
laulud
grammatika
ülesanne teema3
täringumäng
TUNNIKONTROLLID
tunnikontroll1
tunnikontroll2
tunnikontroll3

Ülesannetekogus on vajalik arv lehti konkreetsete ülesannetega: sissejuhatav(ad) ülesanne(ded), kinnistav(ad) ülesanne(ded), kokkuvõtv(ad) ülesanne(ded).

Igal leheküljel on (animeeritud) tegelaskuju, nuppudega seostatavad ülesanded ja tekst. Teksti mõte on juhendada õpilast läbi protsessi. Kõikidele läbitud lehekülgedele on võimalik nuppude abil tagasi minna, et materjaliga uuesti tutvuda või vead ära parandada. Videoid on võimalik seisma jätta ja tagasi kerida, helifailid korduvad nupule vajutades, meediamängija võimaldab heli seisma jätta ja edasi/tagasi kerida.

Navigeerimiseks mõeldud nupud asuvad samal positsioonil kogu rakenduse vältel. Nuppude värvus ühtib programmis tarvitatud teisteks funktsioonideks mõeldud nuppudega. Kasutatud on selget, arusaadavat teksti, ideaalis ka taustaheli, mis juhendab lapsi ning kinnistab nuppude tähendust.

INTERAKTSIOONIVAHENDITE NING MULTIMEEDIA- JA MUUDE ELEMENTIDE VALIKU PÕHJENDUS

Adobe Flash võimaldab erinevaid multimeediaelemente kompaktselt kasutada, mistõttu jäi autori valik just sellele programmile pidama.

Peamine interaktsioonivahend on loodud läbi graafiliste kujundite (tegelased, nupud, jms), mille kaudu edastatakse vajalik sõnavara või ülesanne dünaamilisel moel, mis omakorda jääb õpilasele paremini meelde. Nuppude kasutamine nii tegelaskujudel kui ka eraldi võimaldab õpilasel kontrollida heli või teksti liikumist ning vajadusel see üle korrata. Kuna tegelaskujud on lastepärased ja värvikad, on taust ja nuppude värvivalik üsna tagasihoidlikud.

Erinevate heliklippide kasutamine antud rakenduses on keeleõppe seisukohalt väga vajalik, mistõttu on neid rakendatud üsna mitmes ülesandes. Heli ei ole häiriv ning on nuppudega manipuleeritav parema kontrolli saavutamiseks. Heli kvaliteet on hea, tekst aeglaselt ette loetud ning muusikapalade ja videote käivitumisel on võimalik heli otse ekraanilt juhtida, kuna taolisi rakendusi kuulatakse enamasti kõrvaklappidest ning liiga vali heli võib kõrvakuulmist kahjustada.

Videoid kasutatakse ülesannete vaatamiseks, häälimiseks ning nede põhjal tehakse kas uusi harjutusi või nad on lihtsalt kinnistavaks ülesandeks. Videod aitavad edastada elulisi situatsioone ning dialooge, mida graafiliselt on keeruline kujutada. .

Tekst on lihtsalt arusaadav, kasutatud on rakendustläbivat lastepärast kirjastiili (Comic Sans MS) suurusega 22. Lastepärase kirjastiili eelistus tuleneb sihtgrupi vanusest ja eelistustest. Samuti on see kirjastiil üldlevinud. Kasutatud on läbivat suurtähte paremaks arusaamiseks. Tekst on esitatud kahes keeles, et õpilasel iseseisvalt töötades ei tekiks raskusi arusaamisega. Kui on viidatud mõnele autorile või veebilehele, on tekst pisikeses kirjas, et see ei võtaks ära liigselt ekraani ruumi.

90's madness.. inspired by IMKE café visit

2010-01-10T04:03:00.008+02:00

Methodological Reviews

2009-12-28T17:36:00.002+02:00

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.

This kind of methodology was not sufficient, even the author states that the issue needs further longitudinal research. In this case the sample was chosen from only one community, which clearly is not enough for the data collected for defining the 13 concepts needed for description of the social ties in online communities. Perhaps the same amount of people from different online communities would be a better sample. Qualitative elements might have been used in order to study various communities and the patterns of communication between users (a more longitudinal study which needs gathering data from e.g. the users’ posts in order to analyse whether the 13 concepts were really functioning) to get more precise outcomes.

A Methodological Plan of Research Project “English as a Foreign Language Learning through Interactive Educational Games”

The broad topic of the research is learning English through online games. The problem of my study lies in the lack of online game use in the basic school level language lessons. In order to justify the problem, I will provide evidence by reviewing the literature.

The purpose of this study will find out whether and which online games initiate English language learning motivation. The following questions narrow down the purpose:

Does learning through games improve the motivation and test scores of Estonian Digital Natives (Prensky, 2001)?
What amount of game use is appropriate in the English lessons?
What kinds of games are appropriate to use in the English lessons?

Research objectives in this study are:

To determine the (a) frequency and (b) types of games used in Estonian basic school English lessons.
To observe whether the use of games affects on the (a) motivation, and (b) test scores of the pupils.

For my research I will use participatory action research to observe the progress and the motivation level of the students in English lessons through games, and get the answers to my research questions. Practical action research will be good for focusing on how to improve student motivation in English lessons. Action research comprises of both qualitative and quantitative research, thus mixed methods are used.

To collect data I will first specify random samples among basic school students aged 10 – 16 in different Estonian schools, and assign their teachers specific tasks. With the help of other teachers we will observe and analyse two sample groups in one grade level of each school. The study will give reflection on whether games improve English language learning in basic school or not.

As for the process, first, the analysis of the existing theory is conducted in order to define the needs of today’s learners aged 10 – 16. For this purpose literature is reviewed and analysed. Secondly it will be necessary to specify the games that will be used in the lessons for learning fixation process. Work with National Curriculum will be conducted in order to define the most useful games. Thirdly the games are used in lessons. One sample group will learn through games for a certain amount of time, but the other sample group will learn without interactive online resources. Both groups will be tested several times in order to measure their outcomes. Teachers have to make notes about each process so that they can be analysed later. In the end an open-ended-question survey will be conducted among these sample groups of pupils for their self-reflection. The teachers also reflect upon their opinions of the test groups.

When the data is collected, analysis is needed in order to evaluate current research. First, the data will be evaluated and processed. Then the findings will be compared and analysed. The outcome should evaluate the answers to the research questions. Future research is most definitely suggested, because learning through games is a fairly new research topic, especially in Estonia

Finally the data is arranged in a correct manner in the research paper with proper references and correct language use.

Used Sources

1. Creswell, John. Educational research. Prentice Hall, 2005. Print.
2. Kiviorg, Ivo. Functions of Online Communities. Tallinn, 2009. Internet
3. Järvinen, Pertti. On research methods. Opinpajan kirja, 2001. Print.
4. Rugg, Gordon, and Marian Petre. A gentle guide to research methods. Open Univ Pr, 2006. Print.
4. Natasha Mack, Cynthia Woodsong, and Estados Development. Qualitative research methods. Family Health International, 2005 (p. 2). Print.
5. Given, Lisa. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods. Sage Publications, Inc, 2008. Print.
6. Niglas, Katrin. Course slides. Tallinn, 2009
7. Prensky, Marc.Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Part I. Internet, 2001
9. Action Research. Wikipedia. Internet. Date of access: 27/12/2009

A blogged review of "Social Media, Viral Marketing, and Crowdsourcing."

2009-12-19T04:48:00.001+02:00

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.

Ethics and Law in New Media, week eleven

2009-12-19T03:43:00.000+02:00

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.

Ethics and Law in New Media, week ten

2009-12-06T23:09:00.000+02:00

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.

Ethics and Law in New Media, week nine

2009-12-05T23:31:00.003+02:00

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.

Ethics and Law in New Media, week eight

2009-12-05T01:49:00.001+02:00

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.

Wiki for "Wealth of Networks"

2009-11-30T21:21:00.000+02:00

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:

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

2009-11-30T02:50:00.002+02:00

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

T here 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 recommend a Youtube channel.

2009-11-28T03:32:00.002+02:00

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.

Ethics and Law in New Media, week six

2009-11-22T22:39:00.092+02:00

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.

Learning by Sharing - the essay

2009-11-08T23:44:00.010+02:00

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.
Wikipedia states that collaborative learning comes from Vygotsky’s views on social nature of learning and that it is a process where the experience of two or more people is shared by interaction (Wikipedia, 2009). This kind of learning can also be viewed as meta-learning. In this model the teacher is viewed as a coach, and the input comes from the student. The current essay elaborates on learning by sharing in order to understand the nuances of such approach. Three aspects are viewed: a) collaborative learning, b) Web 2.0 tools for online collaboration, and c) engaging different people in collaborative learning.

Collaborative Learning

Maes et al. criticized the existing school system ten years ago, when the information society began to emerge. They noted that there was a global demand of education, but no possibilities for supply (1999, p. 2). The lessons were (and still are) conducted by a teacher who instructs the whole class to act according to the given guidelines (Maes et al., 1999, p. 4). Such actions usually help practising different learning skills to memorize information better. I agree with Prensky when he says that today's Digital Immigrant instructors see that something is different with the kids, but do not see what is really happening to them (Prensky, 2001c, p. 3), one can notice that a lot of classroom time is consumed to maintain order in the lessons. In staff room discussions it becomes clear that teachers often wonder why there are so many bad test scores and why the learners are restless. This kind of behaviour leads to thinking that there is something wrong and needs to be changed.
By learning collaboratively students can contribute to the process, thus being more engaged and interested in the activity. Today’s learners are more likely to adapt to new technologies than the teachers, therefore it is possible to share the acquired knowledge with their instructors. Digital Natives are contributors in their nature, and many of them like to invent new content (Prensky, 2001c, p. 5), this way they can be useful both to the group and to the teacher through interactive process. However, it must be noted that all learners should devote some (preferably equal) amount of knowledge to the group, because people in this group depend on each other. Collaborative learning enables students to choose their own pace and they become (at least in some amount) active participators of learning by sharing.
This kind of interaction also enables peer-review and -feedback, which is very important to today’s learners, as seen from the examples of extremely popular social networks like Facebook, Orkut, and Rate.ee. Social networking is fairly important in today’s youth culture, because it gives a certain feeling of online success and belonging when a person “owns” a lot of (online) friends or acquaintances and/or has received many testimonies or reviews. Lindau advocates that social networking communities are so popular because they create user-centered networks where the users are is in the center of attention (Lindau, 2009).

Web 2.0 Tools for Online Collaboration

One can find various options for sharing educational content online with the help of Web 2.0 devices. The latter provide a wide range of cooperation tools from blogging and Wikis to video conferencing, which makes the Internet a rich environment full of different useful learning aids. The best part is that learners can produce their own materials online and share them with their peers – either through collaboration tools, weblogs, social networking sites or instant messenger (IM) conversations – Web 2.0 tools are oriented to creation (Raud, 2009), thus enabling easier access to contributors. It is possible to learn even by using mobile phones (M-learning), and game consoles (game-based learning), because one can access the Internet through various gadgets. As it was mentioned in the previous chapter, this “twitch-speed” (Prensky, 2001a, p. 9) generation is good at learning things from scratch, often using no aids but their own brain. This leads to creation of various learning materials ranging from simplistic to professional (Prensky, 2001b, p. 5).
A typical technology-filled school in Estonia is a sufficient environment for stimulating live interaction and cooperation. Unfortunately one cannot find such equipment in all of Estonian schools, but nevertheless, in most homes and libraries there is (free) Internet, as in a wide range of cafés. Learners can easily access content, which plays a decisive role in engaging the youth in such activities. Hereby an example of a simple collaboration project, a blog named “Catch a Smile” is examined to illustrate the understanding of the students’ input. The concept of such weblog is to post a photo with a smile and add a story to it. As we already know, handling cameras and posting content on the Web is fairly simple for Digital Natives, but all of them have a different perception of the notion “smile”, which produced versatile content, and also contributed to the teacher’s perception of a smile.

Estonia

has taken a huge step towards E-learning and collaborative learning. Tiger Leap Foundation has offered great support for such initiative by providing schools with computers, students with laptops, and published a lot of online educational content. In the current economical situation in Estonia it is cheap to use a computer and a projector or a Smartboard in the lessons to save on paper and stationery costs. This technology, in turn, is enough to carry out a collaborative lesson, for example an eTwinning project. The aforementioned initiative is a good example which connects European teachers with similar interests through a wide range of projects, enabling interaction and shared learning for different schools without having to pay for travelling.

Engaging Different People in Online Communities

Online learning makes it possible to interact with different people from countries across the world. Such communication enables the learners to get acquainted with other cultures, experiences and topics of interest. The best learning is learner-centered and -initiated, because then meta-learning takes place. Online communities may be one way of gathering such people together to share each other’s experience and gain from the collaborative effort. In the aforementioned environment people develop trustworthy relationships and can get positive feedback and encouragement.
An online community may be a portal or a bulletin board where people can post topics about various issues. Digital Natives prefer Internet for searching information as they are computer-centered, this plays a decisive role in choosing an online place to turn to for immediate help. With a small number of people the concept of community may fail, but with a large number, certainly, the community will be richer in essence (Preece, 2000 p. 89-70). Communities offer several outcomes for people – learning, sharing, solving problems, making friends, etc. In Estonia there are two popular teacher’s communities – Class Teachers’ Community and Maths Teachers Community. These two display an illustration of active participation. These entities involve file sharing, exchanging experience, news, and social chat, in addition to working perfectly because they have massive content input. The community users can learn from each other’s mistakes or success stories, and can benefit from the content that is created by using it in their lessons. Pupils have communities of interest like Mängukoobas (Play Den), which is devoted to games and interaction. This place is a thoroughly premeditated concept where children can play games, earn points, etc. – similar to social networking sites with a financial touch in it. Spikrivabrik (Cheating Factory) is a more traditional bulletin board where one can get advice on cheating in the lessons. Both of these conceptions accumulate learners with similar views or perceptions and make them interact within the community boundaries because of their interesting, user-centered content.
To conclude this topic, I will introduce the notion of caring in communities. The concept of online community certainly originates from the society, and the Internet is operated by real people with real feelings (Leigh Smith et al., 1992 p. 2). Although it may seem that the person behind the screen (if it is online learning) cannot see you, certain code of conduct is demanded from the participators. Above all, large web-based entities need certain rules in order to keep trouble away and to make people contribute to the content. Users need guidance in navigating the communities (Ibid. p. 86) to maintain them in order and not to let people create false identities or post flames (Ibid. p. 83). Usually the rules help keep trouble away from study communities, because these people come with enthusiastic perceptions of learning through collaboration.

Conclusion

This essay elaborated on learning by sharing within three main categories, which touched upon the topic of collaborative learning, online tools for conducting such learning, and finally engaging different people in learning communities. The underlying aim of collaborative learning lies in sharing, caring and the code of conduct in the Internet. As Web 2.0 is already changing to Web 3.0, there will be new nuances of E-learning, thus the traditional educational environment has to change at some point, or it will stay far behind the current learner needs. In order to be a better teacher for today’s generation of fast learners who need instant access to various sources and constant praise and feedback from peers and instructors, one must take into consideration further exploration of the area.

References

eTwinninghttp://www.etwinning.net, date accessed 9/11/09

Facebookhttp://facebook.com, date accessed 9/11/09

Jenkins, Henry with Purushotma, Ravi, Weigel, Margaret, Clinton, Katie, Robinson, Alice J. (2009) Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture. Media Education for the 21^st Century, The MIT Press [Google book preview], http://www.google.com/books?id=T1i_nQrg-vkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false , date accessed 30/10/09
Kangur, Jakob (2009), Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, [Blog post] http://jakobkangur.blogspot.com/2009/11/wikinomics.html, date accessed 7/11/09
KLOP – Estonian Class Teacher’s Community [Internet]http://klop.edu.ee/, date accessed 9/11/09

Leigh Smith, Barbara and MacGregor, Jean T. (1992), What is Collaborative Learning? [Internet],http://learningcommons.evergreen.edu/pdf/collab.pdf, date accessed 9/11/09

Lindau, Katri (2009), Design of Learning Communities [Blog post],http://katriimke.blogspot.com/2009/11/design-of-learning-communites.html, date accessed 9/11/09

Lindau, Katri (2009), The Short History of Social Network Sites [Blog post],http://katriimke.blogspot.com/2009/11/short-history-of-social-network-sites.html, date accessed 6/11/09

Maes, R., Thijssen, J.P.T., Dirksen, V.M., Lam, H.M. & Truijens, O., (1999), Learning by Sharing: Developing an Integrative Learning Model [Internet], http://primavera.fee.uva.nl/PDFdocs/99-05.pdf, date accessed 30/10/09
MOTT – Estonian Community of Maths Teachers [Internet],http://mott.edu.ee/, date accessed 9/11/09

Mängukoobas – Play Den [Internet],http://mangukoobas.lahendus.ee/, date accessed 9/11/09

Preece, Jenny (2000), Online Communities. Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability, Wiley & Sons [Introduction, Paragraph 1, 2]
Prensky, Marc, webpage [Internet]http://www.marcprensky.com/, date accessed 7/11/09

Prensky, Marc (2001a) Digital Game Based Learning, Chapter 3. Why Education and Training Have Not Changed [Internet],http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Ch3-Digital%20Game-Based%20Learning.pdf, date accessed 8/11/09

Prensky, Marc (2001b) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Part I [Internet], http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf, date accessed 7/11/09
Prensky, Marc (2001c) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Part II. Do They Really Think Differently? [Internet],http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf, date accessed 8/11/09

Prensky, Marc (2009) Make Those YouTubes! More sharing = Faster Learning [Internet], http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-Make_Those_You_Tubes--EdTech-2009.pdf, date accessed 8/11/09
Prensky, Marc (2002) Open Collaboration. Finding and Polishing “Hidden Gems” [Internet], http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Open%20Collaboration%20-%20OTH%2010.3.pdf, date accessed 8/11/09
Raud, Kirke (2009), Capturin Attention and Measurement Issue in Web 2 [Blog post],http://kirkeraud.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-to-capture-attention-in.html, date accessed 9/11/09

Saks, Katrin (2009), Catch a Smile [Blog]http://catchasmile.wordpress.com/, date accessed 9/11/09

Spikrivabrik – Cheating Factory Forum [Forum],http://www.spikrivabrik.ee/, date accessed 9/11/09

Tapscott, Don (2009), About Education, Grown Up Digital, and the Net Gen Education Project [Audio],http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/tapscott5-6-09.mp3, date accessed 4/11/09

Tapscott, Don & Williams, D. Anthony (2008), Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, Portfolio, Penguin Group, Inc. [Introduction, 1. paragraph]
Toffler, Alvin (2008), On Education [Video],http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04AhBnLk1-s, date accessed 27/10/09

Wikipedia (2009), Collaborative Learning [Internet],http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_learning, date accessed 8/11/09

The thirteenth article: Marc Prensky. Digital Game Based Learning.

2009-11-08T23:02:00.004+02:00

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.

He poses a very important question: "Why is school and corporate learning so incredibly unengaging to today's learners?" His answer is that to most of the educators teaching is about content - what to teach - not why and how to teach. He also brings forth a cool term "shelfware" which means CD Roms that are put on a shelf and never used.
In the article it is also suggested that lots of learning has gone online. Yesterday I found a video of using Skype for teaching languages, and thought that this would be a good idea, but I bet that Prensky thinks that it is the same as classroom teaching, only by means of internet telephone. What he tells about current courses is that it bores the listeners to death when a person is reading the text from the PowerPoint's bulleted list and asks for feedback when nobody wants to tell anything, because it would slow down the leaving process. I think that in some lectures in Tallinn University this happens as well, where pupils have to listen to the lecturer's voice while reading the PowerPoint (and that is where the students take out their laptops to read current news or do some work or engage themselves with more interesting content). When you have to do a real task (either online or in groups) it is more interesting than just to listen to the theory. Probably it would be a good idea to devote some time to reality game development in order to give the content to students via putting themselves into the situation, it should not be the whole lecture, it can be only a part of it.
Another problem raised is the problem of engaging students who have grown up with twitch-speed films and video games. The content should be engaging for the learner not for the teacher.
Prensky elaborates on why tell-testing is the best approach now, and gets three possible solutions:

the teacher is just inexperienced,
the teacher just loves to stand up and talk,
the means of know-how to do anything else are lacking. (p. 6)

The author then elaborates on the roots of education and states that modern education is the product of the printing press (p. 8). With the Industrial Revolution school was turned to a factory which produces workers, as has been mentioned in the previous articles I have read as well. Interestingly, standardized testing was the result of WW I. To conclude, this test-tell education is less than three hundred years old (p. 9). This education has not changed throughout 19th and 20th centuries, not even with the invention of telephone, TV, and radio. I wonder why nowadays the Internet providers give people triple packets which consist of TV, Radio and Telephone cable provision, when most of the current generation use their mobiles and computer only. TV is viewed through the computer.
Today computers have come between this tell-test method and this is what has happened:

written language has become less important,
linear organization (reading from books, linear thinking) has been replaced by random-access (hypertext) organization,
speed has increased (twitch-speed). (p. 9)

Education and training have not managed to keep up with such changes.A few people, according to the author, are thinking about changes in education for the "twitch-speed" generation.

Actually when coming to Tallinn University this time, it was totally different. Some academic nuances are there, but I felt the old and comfortable university feeling in the English Department's lecture. Handouts, repetition, taking notes on a paper and in the computer. Otherwise it seemed a totally different world with online lessons and lots of computer usage. I was really thrilled, although I am used to sitting in the classroom and listening to the teacher's voice telling us what to do. I must mention, I am kind of an "old" teacher myself, teaching the way I was taught at school and having learnt the didactics that are compatible with the older generations, the overall traditional education. But inside, I feel that these pupils nowadays lack something, and Prensky opened my eyes (a bit radically, but he at least gives a hint to what needs to be done).

The next issue is learning. Practice is important according to the author, but practicing can be made more interesting by thinking what adds to it, but nobody wants to practice. This is where games help. He also akcnowledges that learning has moved from classroom into computers, but it is no les tell-test than it was before.
The main reasons for education being the way it is, are the following:

money issues (training is a cheaper and quicker way to teach compared to simulations and games);
lack of knowledge of today's learner's needs;
not knowing how to teach today's learners, because they learn without listening to us (e.g. this generation knows more about computers than their elders and they have achieved it without tell-test learning);
the system is big and fragmented with a large number of learners and different teaching pace;
the reformers are fragmented, education reform constantly changes;
there is the need for infrastructure first;
the system is holding back the changes, because it needs time;
the system kind of works, it is not quite broke (e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous - if the problem is not admitted, there is no possibility of fixing it);
retraining the staff is difficult;
accountability for Game generation is harder than measuring test scores. (p. 18-21)

This is a really striking article in a way. It seems so true that pupils are disturbed in the current school system, but the change may take time and I kind of developed an interest in game based learning or in how to make learnin better for these generations. I might consider this as my Master Thesis.

The twelfth article: Marc Prensky. Open Collaboration.

2009-11-08T19:21:00.002+02:00

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.

The eleventh article: Marc Prensky. Make Those You Tubes! More Sharing = Faster Learning.

2009-11-07T12:12:00.003+02:00

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

The tenth article: Marc Prensky. Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

2009-11-07T09:57:00.008+02:00

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.

Marc Prensky. Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Part 2: Do They Really Think Differently?

This is an interesting article in the sense that it reveals quite a lot of interesting about our brain. People have a brain that changes according to the influence it gets. It is not true anymore that the brain cells get damaged over a period of time and will not recover, the author tries to prove that the brain constantly reorganizes itself all our child and adult lives (p. 2). This kind of reshaping takes time and needs thorough focusing.
Another revelation from this article taken from the studies of different social psychologists' research shows that people of different environments and cultures think in a different way (p. 3).
The author goes through the history of retraining the brain - first the speech-oriented brain needed to adapt to written language, then TV and now video games and computer games. Their attention span is not very long for the traditional lesson, but while playing games, they pay more attention to different facts. For example my pupils have learned fish names from some game, and they used it in a food-related word play (note that all of the students were not familiar with the words, and they were not even food words, but they still used them).

The author talks about the problems in this field as well, such as reflection, critical thinking and elaborating on the topic. He suggests that more should be done in this area, but still in the Digital Native's language.

I agree with the author when he says that today's Digital Immigrant instructors see that something is different with the kids, but do not see what is really happening to them. I remember when I was studying in secondary school, there were questions raised whether the future teacher will be computerised. Nothing will replace the instructor, but computers have emerged to educational institutions so that Digital Natives could feel at ease in learning. From my own experience there are different kinds of pupils, some of them are very interested in computer-based learning, but some are not. Although the younger the pupils are, the more they engage with computer-based content.
Estonia has taken a huge step towards e-learning, and Tiger Leap Foundation has been a great support for such initiative as for example in our school there are computers in computer class, there are laptops for pupils and probably more to come. Teachers are using laptops in their lessons to save up on paper and books. It is a good time to implement technology, because the local governent has a limited budget for educational institutions.
I personally think that this digital divide is going to end when Digital Natives come to teach, but who knows - maybe something has changed by then.

The ninth article: Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture.

2009-11-04T23:57:00.010+02:00

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.

The eighth interview: Don Tapscott's interview about education.

2009-11-04T20:00:00.003+02:00

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.

The seventh article: Cooperative learning

2009-11-04T10:16:00.006+02:00

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.

The sixth article: Learning by Sharing. Thomas J.P. Thijssen, Rik Maes, Fons T.J. Vernooij

2009-11-04T08:35:00.003+02:00

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 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.

Ethics and Law in New Media, week five

2009-11-01T16:09:00.004+02:00

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.

Learning by sharing - scholarly articles (Google Scholar)

2009-10-30T15:53:00.007+02:00

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.

3) Cooperative Learning [Read the description] 

4) Learning by Sharing - this doesn't suit my expectations. A Google book preview, an old research about intergenerational approach.

The fifth read: The future of education - I found some good videos.

2009-10-27T13:37:00.010+02:00

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 :)

Ethics and Law in New Media, week four.

2009-10-19T12:54:00.114+03:00

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:

"Militaristic information oasis"
"South Finland"
"The Ferryman"
"Grand Slam"

(source)

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.

Ethics and Law in New Media, week three.

2009-10-15T23:19:00.204+03:00

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!

Ethics and Law in New Media, week two.

2009-10-11T00:34:00.074+03:00

Write a short opinion in your blog about the real applicability of nonmarket production and related strategies in your main field of activities (e.g. design, education etc).

I think that amateurs can contribute to non-commercial production as well as professionals, but perhaps on a narrower scale. I think that it is a great idea to share knowledge (e.g. Wikipedia) via Internet (I love searching for phrases more than browsing the pages of a book). Of course, all of the content produced by amateurs must be supervised, but as they probably provide credible references, all of the content can be double-checked.

Wikipedia is a great resource for searching for information, and it is widely used at school, especially among the pupils. Although they do not always double-check the accuracy of the sources, they prefer to use it in order to find most of the extra content from there.

A good example of seemingly non-commercial way of delivering knowledge are free translation programs which translate directly from one language to another, providing a funny outcome. Some of the dictionaries provide an alternative, though - if you pay extra, then a real person translates your texts.

I think online learning materials can be one field of nonmarket production in education, especially Estonian online sources for Estonian pupils.

A non-profit portal in Estonia carries out different competitions in order to get credible, professional or non-professional material. Sometimes pupils, "amateurs", create more interesting materials than experts. Materials' licences are obtained by non-profit foundation and then delivered for a free use.

Pick a blocking software package from the list above. Install it to a PC and test it by browsing the web. Try some of the supposed 'forbidden' sites as well as some controversial issues (feminism, disabilities, minorities, various political movements and organisations). Blog your experiences.

I chose Net Nanny for its provoking name. And I was not so wrong after all, as during the initial steps there appeared a woman on the screen directing me through the whole process.

After restart it already reminded me that the evaluation period is only 14 days. Truly American!

The program suggests that I can modify its settings, that means allow/warn/block different content. It is up to me what I can view. Some content was allowed, some was set to warn and some to block. First I tried the site "sex.com", which was automatically blocked, but the program gave me the option of giving an exception to the site, is it truly safe? In order to override the safety rules it required a password that I provided earlier. I do hope my work computer will not get infected because of this experimenting.

It even records IM actions in a graph, as well as web-surfing. It lists page content frequency, oh, and it also lists the talks of my IM provider (Windows Live Messenger). I did not notice any activity from Skype, though.
It seemed to me that certain pages, like Facebook, Orkut, and Hot.ee could not be accessed (it showed that there were connection problems, but in the other computer they worked well), I suppose this was due to the program running in my computer. I just wanted to check my social networking statistics.
All in all I can see that this is quite a useful tool for my kid when he grows up. It is possible to block all kind of content, even unwanted game topics. As a bonus it is possible to restrict internet usage times, which may come in handy after the kid will have made trouble and ought to get his punishment. Without a password it is impossible to change the settings of the program.
For the usual internet user, though, it may turn out to be a nuisance, but for the sake of parental control it is fine. Still, it does not block the opportunity to go to a friend's computer and try those pages out without any control.

Ethics and Law in New Media, week one.

2009-10-08T15:41:00.315+03:00

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!

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.

-----------------------

/I'll leave my written remarks of Himanen's paper for my personal use...these do not count as the assignment/

First he describes the global trends of the development of information society by naming key concepts like:

Increasing international tax competition - that countries challenge each other for investments and skilled workforce.
The new global division of labour - routine production is a matter of cheaper workforce, while developed countries must use innovation and higher expertise in order to improve productivity. Developing countries offer markets for the products from developed countries.
Population ageing - workforce is diminishing, because the society moves towards the society of elderly people, which means that a few babies are born and most of the people are either middle-aged or pensioneers.
Increasing pressures on the welfare society - there is greater global tax competition, which stresses welfare societies, as well as rising dependency ratio. In order to improve the situation innovation must be used for productivity enhancement.
The second phase of the information society - as the first phas developed technology, the second phase must focus on larger social matters and looking at ways of operating.
The rise of cultural industries - The field of culture is expanding, which results in content digitalisation; coupling of information-, communication technology, and media.
The rise of bio-industries - due to ageing it is necessary to enhance different bio-industry work, for example genetic engineering, medicine, welfare technology, and biotechnology.
Regional conscentration - because of the increasing urbanisation rate there is pressure on larger innovation rate. Global competition requires larger entities, though.
A deepening global divide - The income gap between the poor and the rich is now 75:1, which can be improved by changing the structures of world trade and bridging the information divide.
The spread of a "culture of emergency" - In workplaces there is a risk of increasing instability in order to achieve development.

He also gives three main global competition models, which are the "Silicon Valley Model", the "Singapore Model" and the "Finnish Model", the latter of those concentrating on European issues.
He points out the main values of the reform in European Model:

Caring - every person is responsible for the welfare of another person, people have to care for other people. Everyone has equal opportunities.
Confidence - it gives safety and makes the atmosphere of fear less possible.
Communality - being part of a larger community which shares your interests. Living together with other people of similar interests.
Encouragement - members of such community feel that they achieve more from being supported by other people. Every person gives fruitful encouragement, one cannot let somebody down in order to be progressive.
Freedom - every individual has rights, their privacy is protected, differences are tolerated. Other people must not be harmed, though.
Creativity - all humans need to find an outcome, realise their potential and fulfil themselves in continuous personal growth.
Courage - this value helps realise all the other values according to Himanen.
Visionariness - it consists of hope, new ideas, willingness to make the world a better place.
Balance - equity between all the values.
Meaningfulness - this is something that fulfils the life principle. One might think about what makes his or her life meaningful.

The next thing Himanen points out are key concepts of social development:

A creative economy - creativity should improve and add value to productivity. Traditional skills need creativity. Expertise and creativity are very important in welfare society, especially in the cultural and the welfare sector, where financing should be directed. Interaction between IT and the former sectors create totally new opportunities.
Himanen points out that Europe is innovative, but produces little brand names and business models, he adds that financing in education, research and development is needed. Taxation must promote job creation and entrepreneurship, which makes financing of welfare society possible.
An important value is the achievement of a high employment rate. In information society work depends on creativity, it has to be done passionately with inner power and that makes it possible to stay ahead of the competition. Working with others in a creative community enriches production.
A creative welfare society - people must have equal opportunities, they are born with equal opportunities. The government is responsible for providing it to its people.
More alternative service providers should appear next to "mainstream" companies. Productivity is enhanced through innovativeness, and in various networked organisations (not only Internet). Users of the services or products should be roped in the innovation process.
Also training and examples of innovation and creation come in handy. Education is of utmost importance, and it has to be of high quality. Life-long learning is essential. People must learn how to build self-confidence and social skills. They learn how to identify and solve problems, generate ideas, criticise, and work together with other people. As information is the "raw material" for people, free access to information should be allowed. Innovation is based on the higher education system.
Humanly meaningful development - It is important to provide socially, mentally, physically, and culturally balanced development. Health programmes should be promoted. People have to find ways of how to balance their time between work and leisure, otherwise they can burn out when working too much. The goals must be reasonable in order to achieve them, flexible working hours could also be a solution to balancing work and leisure. When job satisfaction grows due to the factors mentioned beforehand, it is more effectively done. Physical balance is also of utmost essence, so different health programmes can be introduced in companies.
A global culture - This requires open-mindedness and tolerance. It is important to keep experts in their country, but there is an opportunity to get the experts from overseas. An important factor that helps to keep experts in their own country or attracts experts from the other countries, is reasonable income taxation. For the latter openness to diverse ideas and various people are important. We can benefit from globalisation, but we must give something in turn as well.

Research methods - Gert suggested a book.

2009-10-02T02:36:00.002+03:00

Here's a link: Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research

A mock-up of a web-based mini-enterprise.

2009-09-30T13:13:00.006+03:00

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):

Introduction to digital audio with Nuno Correia.

2009-09-29T21:56:00.019+03:00

I made a podcast for learning French 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!