Lesson 6: Homework for October 24, 2008 (Survery)

Lesson 6: Homework for October 24, 2008 (Survery)

Question:

When a teacher has required you to collaborate with other students on a project outside class, what has been the main cause of any frustration you have experienced?

Answer

1 Very difficult to estimate how long the group work will take to finish the project

4 People

2 Someone in the group might forget what he/she is asked to do. Therefore, the other team members have to help him/her in order to keep up with the schedule

6 People

3 Difficult to maintain the concensus

5 People

4 Time consuming

3 People

5 The resulted answers to the project might not represent every individual’s effort and work

4 People

6 It is difficult to be on schedule

1 People

7 Sometimes disagreements occur

5 People

8 Every individual has to work on the assigned work

2 People

Total: 30 People

Categories

1 Time (Obstacles 1, 4 and 6)

2 Distrust (Obstacles 2)

3 Maintaing Agreements (Obstacles 3, 5 and 7)

4 Responsibility (Obstacle 8)

Lesson 4: Social Bookmarking (Think, Explore and Explain)

Lesson 4: Social Bookmarking (Think, Explore and Explain)

Think
1. Before you began this course, what arrangements did you make (or still do) to save your favourite web pages? What provisions do you make to be able to access them whenever and wherever you need them?

Before I began this course (before I came to know delicious), I was actively using the organizer tools in Mozilla Thunderbird, which I can store the web pages according to various categories. Since the Mozilla Thunderbird is basically a email reader, it is extremely useful when I'm writing emails whenever I need to access my favorite web pages. I thought that Mozilla Thunderbird works just like delicious except the fact that they can't share the information I input for the whole network. Since the Mozilla Thunderbird is a email reader, I frequently log in their applications. So, it is relatively easy to remember what kind of information of web pages were stored in the applications.

Explore

Completed all of the steps in the Explore sectio

Explain
1. What are the main skills needed to use Delicious?

From the videos and slideshow of social bookmarking in 'Do', I felt that the users are necessary to have fundamental web 2.0 (probably web 3.0 in the near future) knowledge and skills in order to utilize Delicious. To be more specific, the function of Delicious become quite useful when the users understand the what the social bookmarking is. The social bookmarking have some aspects of sharing, which is the major trend in web 2.0. Since most applications of web 2.0 share the same or similar characteristics as a point of sharing (eg. P2P, flickr, youTube and Delicious), having understandings of web 2.0 is necessary to utilize Delicious functions.

2. What are the affordances of social bookmarking (what does it make possible, what does it impede)?

What does it make possible for sure is that Delicious have perspectives of development. For example, the Delicious functions can be improved by the function of sharing. Therefore, the one of the affordances will be to create more detailed, better functioned categorized web pages. On the other hand, what it can't do is that the perfect (it's difficult to define) fuctions. To be more specific, the Delicious can't collect the suggested homepages by themselves to expand the knowledge of users. Surely, they can be improved by editing with a hand of a lot of people, but they can't suggest homepages according to the categories listed in the Delicious.

3. How can Delicious be used to network professionally and connect you (& other students) to learning resources?

Since Delicious functions can be utilized by categorizing web pages of interests according to the certain categories listed, many users can be connected by following the names of categories. The networking by categories is useful, but it becomes much more useful if Delicious have another ways of gathering people who shares similar interests.

4. What skills and understandings have you learned about social bookmarking that may promote your development as an effective learner in the digital age?

Before I enroll this course, I didn't know what the social bookmarking is. But after I got acquainted with the functions of social bookmarking, I came to understand that the social bookmarking shares the similar possibilities and disadvantages compared to the other web 2.0 tools. Therefore, after I learned the effectiveness of Delicious (Delicious is a really effective tool!), I would like to place an emphasis on the fact that we (users) finally came to the point where we create the next trends of the web such as web 3.0 because the affordances of web 2.0 are virtually the same for many applications.

Lesson 5 RSS: Think, Explore and Explain

Lesson 5: Really Simple Syndication (RSS) -Keeping up to date, staying organised
Think, Explore and Explain

Think
1. Which sites do you visit regularly? Make a list (4-5 is fine). Before you began this course, what did you do (or still do) to keep yourself up to date on new content posted to your favourite sites?

Sites I visit regularly:
1 Monex securities (Stock exchange)
2 Company's webiste which I invest
3 Facebook
4 w3 (ICU internal network)
5 Moodle (ICU course website)

Before I enroll this course, I signed up to mailing lists of those websites. Since I signed up to those mailing lists, new upcoming information will automatically delivered to my email inbox.
In addition to collecting the information online, I used to (am still doing) call the corporations which I invest to gather their most up-to-date information. Those information were mostly tiny bit of information, but they are sometimes very useful when making decisions. Although those information are not posted online (=therefore, not relating this question), this kind of hands on effort would be necessary even if the digital age has advanced.
Explore
1 Monex securities (Stock exchange)⇒They have RSS buttons.
2 Company's webistes which I invest⇒Some companies have RSS buttons
3 Facebook⇒They do not have RSS buttons.
4 w3 (ICU internal network)⇒They do not have RSS buttons.
5 Moodle (ICU course website)⇒They do not have RSS buttons.

Possible reasons for havnig RSS feed
1 Monex⇒Since they deal with tremendous information regarding market conditions, interest rates and so on, the need for RSS will certainly exist. Also, since they(=Monex Securities) collect information from the government (U.S treasurely, etc), they actually utilize RSS buttons which the governmental offices have. I suppose that this phenomenon is intriguing because this shows us that one site utilizes the RSS buttons which the other have.

2 Some companies had posted the CEO's blogs in their official website, so I suppose they want to appeal their passion for their company to the investors. I thought that this is an example of using RSS as an advertising tools.

3 Facebook⇒Maybe they don't feel the need for RSS because the friend's up to date information will delivered to us by automatically when I log in to my profile. Since Facebook is a SNS, having RSS functions might leak the personal information of individuals.

4 W3⇒In order to access the internal network of ICU, I suppose we have to have a password.

5 Moodle⇒In order to access the internal network of ICU, I suppose we have to have a password. Since this site upload the up-to-date information of the course contents, the users are required to input the password.

2. I thought the significance of RSS from the video is that RSS certainly changed the flows of information. By using RSS, the flows of information have changed in that the arrows of data collecting process had come to us!

Explain
1. What are the main skills needed to use Google Reader?
First, you have to define what websites you want to get RSS. Although many of the websites have RSS feed, some websites which usually not too popular enough don't have any RSS feed.

2. What are the affordances of RSS (what does it make possible, what does it impede)?
What RSS makes possible is that you can acquire the up-to-date information in a very limited time. What RSS can't do is that if the websites I'm particularly interested doesn't have RSS feed, I have to follow the traditional way to gather information. From my point of view, RSS functions have an absolute purpose of collecting up-to-date information, but there are websites which the old past information will be particularly useful. In that way, RSS may have to alter to adapt the need for those websites in the future.

3. How can Google Reader be used to network professionally and connect you (& other students) to learning resources?
Since the Google Reader collects and stores the up-to-date information, the Google Reader can even be used as a information storing tool. Therefore, we can search the past information because they are ordered fashionably, which makes it easier to search the older post. Therefore, those functions makes it relatively easier to network professionally and connect to learning resources

4. What skills and understandings have you learned about RSS that may promote your development as an effective learner in the digital age?
First of all, I learned that there are free softwares, which functions as RSS! Personally, I suppose that we need to keep in touch with the up-to-date software whenever possible in order to keep up with the latest versions of the online softwares. I realized that it is probably the best way to promote our development sa an effective learning in the digital age in that we should keep in touch with the latest editions of the technology updates.

Lesson 2: Browser as PLE (Think, Explore and Explain)

Lesson 2: Browser as PLE (Think, Explore and Explain)

Think
1. Before you began this course, what arrangements did you make (or still do) to try and ensure that you could do any work you wanted to do during the day?
I tried (am still trying) to get things done by the desired deadline by utilizing the Google Alert system. The Google Alert systems have functions, which simultaneously store your own personal schedules and keep them up-to-date. For instance, Google Alert system informs me the tasks I registered to my Google account when the deadline comes nearby. And they continue to informs me until the deadline. I find this software to be very useful to keep me informed what I want to do.

Explore
1. Although they snapshotted almost the same page of the browser, those pages seem to be look distinct from each other depending on how they took snapshots.

2. I felt that the way took these snapshots were not just for reminding the pages they saw. They're more like a personal commiments.

3. In one of the snapshot in #3, I was interested in the comments he made in the page of the browser. In addition to take a picture by the snapshot, he inserted his personal comments to introduce that page to others.

4. In #4, I was fascinated with the interacting snapshot. One of the users put a snapshot, which interacts what I click. For example, if I click something, something which relate to shows up.

Explain
1. What are the main skills needed to use your PLE?
First, I should be readily informed the latestest updates on browsers and add-ons. As a classic personal example, it was relatively a short time I changed using from Netscape to Google as a browser.

2. What are the affordances of your PLE (what does it make possible, what does it impede)?
What does it make possible is that collecting and storing your own personal information by your own way. I suppose this is pretty much effective because most software in today are not use for your personal ways. What it can't do is that they can't deliver the desired information to us at this time. Even though they can store the information I input, they can't collect the information by themselves.

3. How can your PLE be used to network professionally and connect you (& other students) to learning resources?
Since PLE do not have restrictions (almost) to use, others can alternate the pages what they like.

4. What skills and understandings have you learned from creating a PLE that may promote your development as an effective learner in the digital age?
Before I create a PLE, I didn't know that there are numerous add-ons, which is specifically suited by use for the Firefox browser. Furthermore, I found the great add-ons, which is Biotech, and it actually helpted me a lot when writing scientific research report in college. They saved me a lot of time when writing the references section. Therefore, my conclusion is that I need to be ready for the latest updates on the digital age in order not to miss the great and tremendous opportunities.