Category: Greg Green

To frame my reading for the week and our class discussion, I propose the following questions:

1. This is the first topic we have talked about that I really have no idea of what it is or expectations of the technology so I think I should start with:  what exactly is augmented reality?
2. How does augmented reality differ from virtual worlds?
3. How does this reach those of us that aren’t looking to augment our realities?
4. What technologies are used to augment reality?

1. What is situated learning and how does it differ from learning in the real world?

After reading the text, I’ve found that situated learning exists in both the online world and the offline world (something that wasn’t immediacy clear to me).  Situated learning is basically the concept that how we learn depends on the situation that we are presented with.  It’s theorized that within situated learning there are two different aspects:  learning about and learning to be.  Learning about is basically just getting knowledge about a topic — ideas or practices related tot he topic.  Learning to be is engaging in practices about a topic and absorbing knowledge that way.  The traditional model suggests that we always learn about something then move towards learning to be.  Thomas and Brown argue that online, virtual environments turn this upside down.  I tend to agree with Thomas and Brown that in virtual environments it is often necessary to learn to be first instead of learning about but I do not think this is exclusive to the online world.  There are plenty of things offline that this is also true of.  Driving a car is impossible to learn how to do without actually doing it.  Other people’s horns are there to let you know when you messed up.  Although learning a language can be done via the learning about method, the learning to be method is more effective — immersion programs are gaining a lot of steam because it is easier to learn the language when someone is dropped in a foreign country with no other option than to learn the language.  I have my doubts that the order these two processes occur is an online/offline thing.

2. Is there more to the concept of “retail theater” than the creation of an electronic version of real life?

There is definitely more to the idea of retail theater than just creating an electronic version.  The idea of retail theater is that a retailer is trying to make their operation a destination for the consumer.  Examples might be bookstores having book readings by authors or an electronics store having in-store trainings on how to program that remote.  It is a value added offering that helps to make the consumer go to a retailer for a reason other than price.  This is an issue that online retailers are currently trying to solve.  Most consumers are shopping online because of low prices.  Very few have managed to make that jump to become a “destination.”

3. Are ethical issues faced in Second Life also present in offline society?

From what I can tell, most of the ethical issues that were mentioned in Botterbusch and Talab’s article are things that also happen offline.  People are exploited every day.  People dressing as furries in real life partake in the same “fun” activities as their Second Life brethren.  Theft happens ALL the time.  I think what really scares us isn’t that these things are happening in virtual environments but that we are so naive to think that they wouldn’t.

1. What is situated learning and how does it differ from learning in the real world?
2. Is there more to the concept of “retail theater” than the creation of an electronic version of real life?
3. Are ethical issues faced in Second Life also present in offline society?

In response to the reading I did my framing on not being part of the required reading anymore, I have chosen to rant on Bogost’s reply to Schnell:

To frame my reading for Week 11, I hope to find answers to the following questions:

1. What role has the US Government and US military played in the development of military games (specifically first person shooters)?
2. How does history fit into military FPS?  Is it necessary to have any historical basis in the game?
3. Do military video games change human behavior?  Do they only create killers in our schools or do they provide a basis for military training as well?

After further reading and deliberation, I can elaborate on my framing questions.

1. How can educators use Facebook to connect with their students?

For the educator that was looking for advice on how to use Facebook to connect with one’s students, boyd provides an answer.  Boyd suggests that the educator creates profiles on what is popular, keep it the profile public, professional, and not lame, accept students but not search them out, and be active.  I think the most important parts are keeping the profile public, professional and not lame and also accepting students friend requests but not searching for them.  Its important to act like a normal person on the site while still being a role model.  Trying to be like one of your students (or be a friend to your student) isn’t a good look.  When my mother signed up for Facebook (she had been recently retired), she had a similar quandary to figure out.  She was getting friend requests from former students, from a long time ago and recently.  She really wasn’t sure how to go about it, but for the most part she figured out these guidelines on her own.

2. How can Facebook avoid public outcry when adding new features or changing privacy settings?

In the second boyd reading, he mentions that if the default settings are loose, those who care the least or are the most ignorant of the settings (and probably need to be protected the most) are the most likely to be vulnerable.  I propose that setting the defaults to be the most restrictive might be a good way to continue.  When features are added, I have noticed that this is often not the case — the defaults are extremely permissive.  I know that having the default settings really buttoned up wouldn’t end the outrage, but it at least might save them from a few lawsuits.

3. How does WikiLeaks ensure good information and not info that is planted by foreign nations or corporations?

The most interesting part of WikiLeaks comes from one method they can use to authenticate information that they cannot confirm themselves.  While watching the TED chat featuring Julian Assange, he mentioned one specific document that they had issues authenticating.  The WikiLeaks staff read it and felt it was authentic, both intellectually and with their guts, but could not confirm it.  They posted the article with the disclaimer that they thought it was real, but it might not be.  At a later point in time, they were contacted by the company that had sent this memo out — they wanted to trace how it was leaked.  Assange asked for info proving they owned it and suddenly it was confirmed to be real.  I’m sure the people at the company thought nothing of it but they really hurt themselves in this situation.  They maintain a staff to look at the language of a document and to do background checks on those who leak stuff, but sometimes they just have to outsource.

To frame my reading for the week:

1. How can educators use Facebook to connect with their students?
2. How can Facebook avoid public outcry when adding new features or changing privacy settings?
3. How does WikiLeaks ensure good information and not info that is planted by foreign nations or corporations?

After taking some more time to read and deliberate what I read, I have some thoughts on my framing questions from earlier:

• Newspapers can only survive if they change their roles.  The report mentioned that only six newspapers shut down in 2009 and those were largely the second papers in their markets.  To me, this says that newspapers need to focus on providing local news.  People go to their local newspapers for information they can’t get on CNN — obituaries, local news, upcoming local events, and police blotters.  In the past when there were less media outlets, newspapers could afford to largely run wire stories that would appear in hundreds of other places because their readers wouldn’t have an opportunity to see the news elsewhere.  That isn’t going to fly now.  I also think that stating that only a small percentage of news comes from sources other than the few large, legacy organizations is misleading — a large portion of news has come from the AP and Reuters wire services for a long time and stats on these organizations are (conveniently?) left out of this report, as far as I can tell.
• As reporters at traditional news sources lose their jobs, the writers of the State of the Media Report seem to believe that news will stop being reported all together.  It seems like quite “the sky is falling” routine that is common nowadays.  I think that news sources that are doing well (like cable tv networks) will end up picking up the slack.  Even if these drastic projections of the news industry are true, the cable networks are going to need SOMETHING to talk about for 24 hours a day.  They will have to beef up their investments in reporting staff out of necessity.  I also wonder how the news wires will factor into keeping the news flowing — their articles seem to be everywhere.
• I don’t know if community journalism will be as big as I keep hearing it will be.  The State of the Media Report mentioned that most reporting from blogs and Twitter links back to legacy news agencies — to me, this says that we really don’t trust regular citizens for our news.  I think citizen journalism will fall mostly into two areas:  the coverage of local news in smaller areas (where the newspapers are often atrocious in terms of immediacy and English skills) and for breaking news of unplanned events, such as disasters. I think back to how bad my local paper is at managing to report on local events at all and wish that there was a reasonable solution to read about all the news that they either deemed unfit to print or didn’t care enough to report on.

To facilitate further reading of this week’s texts, I will be searching for information on these specific topics:

• What is going to be the role of newspapers going forward? Will they continue to exist?  The State of the Media seems to paint a bleak future for them.
• If most news (especially on the web) still originates from a few traditional sources and these sources are losing revenue at a drastic rate, what will happen when they stop making enough money to continue operations?
• How is community journalism affecting the news?

1. Anderson writes of Moore’s Law, a theory originated by Gordon Moore, and how it will eventually lead things to being free.  Is this really possible to have things be free?
2. Something that is free is difficult to compete against?  How can a company sell something that others are giving away free?  How did Microsoft compete against free versions of Linux?
3. Anderson speaks specifically of his position of Editor of Wired and the difference between scarcity in print and scarcity online.  Is there really a difference between the two?