Final Posting

This will serve as my final blog posting for the class. My participation this week was rather limited due to a lack of connectivity, but I did read all my classmates comments on the discussion boards, responded to 10 produsage comments, posted three blogs, and a partridge in a pear tree. My final thoughts about the course can be summed up in one word, meta-reflection. I plan to revisit the readings, blog postings, and discussion board posts over the next two weeks in an effort to finalize my position on the various viewpoints associated with web 2.0 technologies.

Thank you all for a wonderful experience.

Kenny

Week 6 Prompt

Reflect on what you have learned in the class and how you will use it professionally as both a lifelong learner and an instructional systems professional (or whatever field you’re in).

To early to reflect, seriously, I mean this summer has been so action-packed, compact, exasperating, and overwhelming that I will need at least two weeks to decompress. I will take that time to reflect on the past 12 months in which I: moved my wife, three kids, and dog from N.C. to F.L., completed 36 credit hours, and moved the same wife, three kids, and dog from F.L. to N.J.

I am blogging from a Starbucks, while the movers are still unpacking, because I do not have internet access yet. Yes, I am that guy sitting in the corner drinking a Venti no fat latte and typing on a laptop as everyone who passes by thinks, "That guy must think he is so cool."

I was only offline for a period of 4 days and it feels like I missed a month's worth of conversations on the discussion boards, blogs, and comments. So, I can only reflect that I learned more about emerging and existing tools to place in my ID toolbox for future work and hope that I can carry the torch (re: exhale).

Week 5 Participation

I focused this week on the Produsage assignment and developed what I think will be a useful tool for students who take this course in the future. I was a little confused because I thought there was going to be some peer interaction with our Produsage tools in order to get feedback, but I think it is to late. This week I completed:

• All assigned readings
• Developed Produsage tool
  
• 5 blog entries
• Commented on 6 classmates blogs
• Numerous discussion board posts
  
• Reviewed 2 classmates Produsage tools
  

Blogging Through Transition

The semester is not yet over, but my time in Tallahassee is rapidly winding down. I am blogging while the movers are packing all my stuff and loading it on the truck. I will have to continue the course from hotel to hotel as I make my way to N.J. This should be an interesting two weeks.

Week 5 Prompt

How do issues such as authorship, copyright and open access impact your desire, ability and willingness to engage in produsage, both personally and professionally?

Now that I understand the specifics of authorship and copyright (i.e., that a copyright exists the second original works of authorship are fixed in a tangible medium of expression) I see how important it is to license work under a creative commons license if I want to allow others to reuse, remix, or repurpose any content. Previous to this degree, I was aware of GNU licensing through the open software initiative, but never considered contributing to the public domain. In the future, I plan to license all content, that is feasible, under a CC license in order to contribute to the greater good.

Solicitation for ideas

This is a call out for some additional content ideas related to my produsage project. I want to aggregate useful data for students who enroll in this class in the future. The idea centers around providing a one-stop location where the core information sources and products developed throughout the semester will automatically update to provide real-time information. I have the prototype up and running and wanted to get input on the sources and types of information you found yourself regularly referencing during the class. You can view the site by clicking on the prototype link to add comments, or just add a comment to this post.

Thanks!

Week 4 Participation

This week I dedicated a large portion of my time to researching, writing, and editing the Web 2.0 Community Observation paper, as well as continuing to research data aggregation tools for the Produsage assignment. I was late to the discussion board and felt like I was merely commenting on others original thoughts. I prefer to complete my readings and postings early in the week because I feel more engaged in the discussion. So, with that being said, I am off to read next weeks assignments and fall asleep to thoughts of Produsage....

Data Aggregation Part Deux

I continue to research topics surrounding data aggregation and stumbled on the site MetaWeb, which was recently acquired by Google. Metaweb is the leader in semantic data generation and creator of Freebase, an application to aggregate collected data. Metaweb offers a service called topic blocks that can be integrated into any website. I added a social media topic block to my Blog and it can be seen on the right-hand side of the page. Google acquired Metaweb in an effort to provide smarter search results, and it appears that we creeping up on Web 3.0.

Week 4 Prompt

How do you judge the value of expertise on the Web? Does it differ from your notion of expertise in face-to-face settings? Why or why not?

I consider the source. Is the information produced by an entity that I consider to be credible offline? If so, there will be an initial tendency to accredit traditional expertise with online expertise. However, my initial assumptions can be easily compromised if the content is disorganized, not factual, or disjointed. Speaking of content, it is much easier as a consumer to evaluate expertise if I am intimately familiar with the subject. Take aviation, I can immediately discern the expertise of content reported by general news services opposed to aviation-specific news outlets. As for subjects that I am less familiar, such as health and finance, I tend to rely on the expertise of others when judging expertise. I hope that I am not influenced by superficial elements (e.g., site design) and make informed decisions about site content. That is my hope, but according to a Consumer's Report study on web site credibility found that the majority of consumers are persuaded by a site's overall appeal.

The data showed that the average consumer paid far more attention to the superficial aspects of a site, such as visual cues, than to its content. For example, nearly half of all consumers (or 46.1%) in the study assessed the credibility of sites based in part on the appeal of the overall visual design of a site, including layout, typography, font size and color schemes.

Social Media versus. Data Aggregation

I have been reading quite a few articles on the emerging trend of data mining and data aggregation as the next big thing to hit the web. The consensus is that future developments should not focus on creating new means of social collaboration, but on the aggregation of content. Consumers are being bombarded with information on a daily basis and companies who can use the semantic web to compile user-specific social data and present it in a compact and stylish presentation will continue to grow.

Vanessa's recent disconnected experience brings this scenario to life, "I'm realizing just how much time I'd normally spend online. The backed up email is overwhelming. I dread what is in my RSS feed. Forget Facebook." Enter Flipboard, a new app for the Ipad, which is a self-proclaimed personalized social magazine.

Week 3 Participation

This week I spent a great deal of my time on the BB discussion board, posting several original thoughts as well as replying to discussion points. I established a yahoo pipes account and created a tool to dynamically aggregate all of our class blogs into a single source that can be embedded into the BB framework. This tool can be modified to collect any source of c0-constructed information (e.g., de.licio.us and diigo) on the web. I read all of my classmates blog postings and lurked/participated in a CG-related Blog and Facebook account for our social media project. Of course I read all the required readings. I honestly believe that the unstructured form of this course allows me the freedom to explore, but requires extreme discipline to stay on topic.

Week 3 Prompt

What uses might a collaborative wiki or blog have in your chosen (current or desired) work environment? How would they support learning and/or performance? What would be the design and implementation challenges if management tried to do this? What would be the design and implementation challenges of a user-initiated effort?

This topic was touched on early in week 1 by Brust and others, but I would like to expand on the use of a wiki to collaboratively update flight manuals in the Coast Guard. Prior to entering this program, one of my collateral duties was to convert the Air Force HC-130J flight manual into a Coast Guard specific flight manual. The original document was ~900 pages and consisted of general aircraft data, normal, emergency, and non-standard operating procedures. My goal was to evaluate the content and alter it to meet our operational needs. The project team consisted of three subject matter experts responsible for the technical writing and production with the assistance of independent contractors. The first draft was printed and distributed to the field for formative evaluation with comments/edits collected via email and phone communications. This cycle was repeated several times until the final product was approved. The flight manual is now being used by the field and recommended changes continue to be collected via the old methods.

This revision process could have been much more dynamic if the edits were conducted using a wiki. Completed sections of the manual could be hosted on the site and real-time edits captured during the writing process. The same editorial methods would be used to evaluate proposed changes, but the process would be more streamlined. I forget who posted the link, but it appears that the Army developed a similar process for their field manuals and the Coast Guard could benefit from lessons learned. However, I don't think flight manual edits could be user-approved. In other words, the process of submitting the document through the proper channels would still be required, but the process for producing the product could be greatly improved.

Really cool mashup interface

I have been thinking about the produsage assignment lately, and I am fairly certain that I want to create some type of mashup as a final product. But what web-based resource can I produce to promote learning in the Web 2.0 environment? One really good source of information regarding all things technological is ReadWriteWeb and I have the app installed on my iphone, which allows me to read snippets of daily articles related to the web and technology. One of the articles described the BBC's use of semantic web technology to aggregate data for its coverage of the 2010 World Cup. This article sent me looking for ways to extract and use semantic data for this class and I found a new service called Extractiv. The site allows users to scour the web, based on user-defined parameters, and retrieve relevant machine-readable (semantic) data. I signed up for an account and tried out the service, but I could not find a way to make use of the massive amount of data returned in JSON format.

Ultimately I stumbled upon a really cool program, called Yahoo Pipes, that falls somewhere in the middle of an RSS reader and the semantic web. This web-based tool allows users to write executable scripts, which scours the web for specific content and returns real-time search results. I played with the tool for a long time, so long in fact that my wife is beginning to question whether I am actually do school-related work, and you can see the results of my efforts in the right-hand column of my blog and on the class wiki page titled Yahoo Pipes.

I believe that this may be a good way to incorporate student-produced information (e.g., blogs, wikis, diigo, etc.) into the BlackBoard LMS. Initially, one of the most frustrating things about this class was the distributed nature of content we have to read. I believe that using Yahoo Pipes would be a great way to corral all that information inside the structured LMS environment.

More to come....

Week 2 Participation

This week was a whirlwind, where the readings were intense, the discussions deep, and my level of production increased. This week I completed:

• All assigned readings
• Installed/hosted a wiki project
• Several blog entries
• Comments on classmates blogs
• 10+ discussion board posts (to include a new topic)
• selected my Web 2.0-based communities
  

Really short posts

When I set this blog up, I noticed that I could contribute via text message from my phone. So, you may occasionally read really short posts for the purpose of taking notes on the fly. For instance, I was out and about when I heard about a product, which I simply sent to the blog so I could review it later. Probably not the most efficient way, but definitely interesting.

Week 2 Prompt

How might the concept of produsage be applied in your life (personal and/or professional) as it stands today? Are you already a produser? If yes, what do you do? If no, why not?

I believe that I fit the description of a produser, both personally and professionally. I wonder if the term will be adopted into the everyday vernacular of our emerging culture the way that Google has become a verb. It is interesting to see that as I type the word I am confronted with the "red underline" indicating I have misspelled the word, but as terms become more commonplace (or perhaps the dictionaries database becomes more dynamic) the red lines disappear.

On a personal basis, I contribute to a number of collaborative works online to a limited extent, e.g., websites, blogs, photos, and videos. Professionally, I completely see the application of the term on several levels, to include a distributed generation of content, the continuous process of perpetually refining products. My recent experience producing training materials, manuals, and doctrine for the HC-130J opened my eyes to the limitations of individualized, segregated, and bureaucratic work practices.

I was lucky to be a member of an international consortium of consumers who banded together to present a common voice to the manufacturer of the aircraft. Originally, each nation would independently request and pay for the same process improvements shared by a multitude of nations. This benefited the producer, but financially constrained the consumer. By joining together and working directly with the manufacturer, we were able to both produce and consume at the same time, which resulted in much better product. The consortium grew to consist of a number of specialized communities of practice ranging from maintenance, finance, engineering, and operations sects who will continue to collaborate long after the final plane exits the assembly line.

Learncentral.org

Week 1 Prompt

What have been your prior experiences with Web 2.0 technologies? Do you consider yourself a leader or follower in this realm, or something else altogether? Why? Also, discuss what you hope to get out of this class.

I guess I would have to rate my past experience with Web 2.0 technology as a moderate follower. As a service member, I am extremely hesitant to "put myself out there" by personalizing my life online. I am aware of the most popular tools, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, etc. but rarely actively participate because of the public private struggle going on in my brain. There have been many instances in my life where I wished I could retract a comment, thought, utterance, or look and I am concerned with the permanence of these tools. I have an account on all three, but prior to this course I never actually looked at them. My last course, Media, Text, and Technology, exposed me to terms and tools that might be of limited use to me in my career, but I doubt that anything other than the basic tools (email, IM, or blog) will be required.

I hope to learn a way to expand my current online presence without sacrificing my private life, or is this just wishful thinking?

Scribd

I just came across a new (to me) Web 2.0 tool called Scribd. I was looking for an article on the use of w20 in formal educational settings and found one on Google. The link returned a document which was viewable online. It had some interactive tools to manage the viewing experience, but I did not pay it much attention until I clicked on the download button. I was presented with a screen to login and realized I was actually using a new tool. Scribd allowed me to sign in with my already existing Facebook account, and the download commenced.

After a little research, I discovered that Scribd is the self-proclaimed largest social publishing and reading website. The informational tutorial states that over 50 million users are subscribing, commenting, embedding, rating, and reading on the go every month. I dug a little further and this truly seems to be an amazing HTML 5 compliant tool. I just participated in a web-based meeting with over 10 people located across the country to defend my internship. I had to email each participant a copy of the report and the .pptx slides so they could follow along. This meant each person had to print the report and powerpoint slides to follow along (we did use WebEx but it was cumbersome). With Scribd I could have presented both in a format viewable online without any modifications or additional work. Since it is HTML5 compliant, there would have been no loss in formatting or fonts. Pretty cool.

June 29, 2010 time 2100

Today I spent time reading Shirky and the other assigned readings, responded to a prompt on the discussion board, and added the newly posted blogs of my classmates to Google reader (which I can now follow on my iphone).

Shirky is an interesting read and I look forward to getting into the meat of matter...

P.S. I am attempting to recoup book fees, so feel free to click through any of the ads on my blog ;}

Captains Log 28 June 2010, 1909

Today marked the beginning of our voyage. I read the numerous introductory posts, compiled a unified document of assignments, established this blog, downloaded/installed the iphone app Feeds (an RSS reader) to follow my classmates blogs, and signed up for Twitter.

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