Week 6 - What did I do?

"You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop..."

OK, it hasn't been the Twilight Zone, but it has felt like that a few times this term. I don't have a next stop from this class, but it is time to take the exit to the next set of classes...continuing the journey. Before leaving, though, I need to wrap up by writing what I did for the last week of the class:

• Reviewed every produsage 2 project for the class and participated in several, which was a joy - such wonderful creativity in our class, and refreshing diversity among projects
• Wrote on my blog
• Wrote on the class discussion board
• Skimmed the Bruns reading
• Read all of my classmate's blog and wrote on a few (love banana pudding)
• Submitted my team's produage project and my accompanying paper
• Solidified some new friendships that, hopefully, will carry over to OSSA for a long time to come
• Continued recruiting for OSSA, which will be an ongoing effort long after this class ends today.

Thanks everyone for the ride. It was a fun adventure, to say the least. :)

Ethical Responsibility

So I was done posting, except for the "what I did" post, and then I watched Nancy's Youtube Video. She brought up something I hadn't really thought about, aside from academic and copyright issues. What if we observe some Web 2.0 behavior that is threatening?

I've certainly seen my fair share of teen angst on the internet, with people talking about suicide or wanting to get even with someone who has wronged them, but I never really take any of it seriously. The Internet is awash with a sea of anonymity and people saying things they would never say to someone face to face. Some of that is venting, but based on a few recent incidents (like murder-suicides, school shootings, and violent rampages), it's obvious that some of that chatter is real.

I'm not sure about the answer to this, much as Nancy left the question unanswered, but it is something to keep an eye on with our own produsage. Perhaps seeing this type of activity on our own produsage sites will make us feel differently. Hopefully, the time won't come.

Web 2.0, Decisions, and The Road Ahead

I've learned a lot in this class, about Web 2.0 technologies, and how Web 2.0 can support learning and instruction. I suppose that's good, considering the original purpose of the class. But I also found out something interesting about Web 2.0 that I had never really thought of before (at least not deep thought).

The world of Web 2.0 is really crowded, with many, many, many sites trying to attract users and do things better than other, similar sites. The idea behind produsage, as I came to know from the course readings, is to build a community of produsers, or hive, that creates collaboratively for the betterment of the community as a whole, leaving individuals to find their reward in contributing rather than owning the work. But there is certainly no utopia to be found on the Internet and groups still fight to be the "best" place to create produsage works, often splitting efforts, which seems to result in smaller communities with less brain power. I suppose that's in the spirit of Web 2.0 as well, as produsers are free to head in whatever direction suits them at the time.

In our class alone, we created about 50 new sites, each vying for attention from other Web 2.0 users. 50 more places are now competing among the millions of sites on the Internet, looking for the few users that may or may not find the sites useful, for a minute, for a season, or for a lifetime. At least, as Bruns and Shirkey both point out, creating the sites is relatively inexpensive and failure doesn't mean losing a life's savings on the effort. For many, like our students, using Web 2.0 is a matter of finding a place to use. For us, as leaders and teachers, we are in the business of creating those spaces, or at least organizing the choices by filtering for the students.

I am thankful to have been immersed in the technology and competing on the landscape. I'll take my lessons learned and continue ahead on the journey, where I'll, no doubt, learn a whole bunch more.

Thank you to everyone I had the pleasure of interacting with this term and thank you to Vanessa for creating a usable and useful space in which to learn. It was certainly an adventure to remember.

Produsage 2 Reflection

I had a great time developing the produsage 2 assignment with Chris, Lea Ann, and Barbara and feel like I have developed some new friends in the process. I was reading Kent's Blog post and nodding in agreement. Web 2.0 isn't just a web-based tool for networking, or learner support, it is also a mechanism to foster friendships that live outside the learning environment.

With my UF site GOSA, I have built lasting friendships in a web-space where distance learning students bridge the space between computers by really getting to know each other. Tomorrow, I'm attending graduation at UF with more than 40 friends, only 18 of which are graduating. The other 22 people (more than those actually graduating) are GOSAns (as we call each other on the site) showing up to support their friends. There are people driving from all over the state of Florida to have a "meet up" and support and cheer friends...real friends, created in web-space.

I hope that now OSSA will become a place to make lasting friendships as well, and that the site will spur face-to-face meet ups, just as the other site has done. I realize that OSSA will have members all over the United States and maybe even the world, so organizing face-to-face meetings will be harder, but friendships can transcend space, just like distance learning really doesn't have to be so distant.

When I have the opportunity to speak about using technology for community building, beyond the brick and mortar existence of the campus, I'd love for OSSA to be another example of students banding together to take the distance out of distance learning. Vanessa told me early in the term that "we get out of the class what we put into it". I think the same applies to social networking. If students need connection, OSSA is a place to find that connection and ultimately members will get out of it whatever they put into it.

I'm really looking forward to the journey of OSSA growth and friendships.

No documents exist for "angry customer"

My girlfriend is trying to pay our Comcast bill (for cable and Internet) and Comcast has merged their .net and .com addresses to make it easier for customers to navigate with one username and password. Not only is it not easier, but it also doesn't work.

She called and the voice prompt kept hanging up on her. Finally she saw a live chat icon and clicked on it. When the chat box appeared, it asked for a description of the problem, to which my girlfriend filled in "angry customer".

Immediately, a message appeared and said "no documents exist for angry customer".

Then she typed in "pissed off customer" and that worked.

What is happening to customer service in this world?

Week 5 - What did I do?

The class is winding down and I'm going to miss the experience of producing projects for the class, although I'm pretty sure there will be plenty of deliverables to keep me busy in future courses. So what did I do this week?

• Read the Bruns assigned reading
• Worked with Chris, Lea Ann, and Barbara on the OSSA site (OK, this took the bulk of my time, but we wanted it to look really good before introducing the site to everyone)
• Posted to the course discussion board
• Posted on my blog
• Read classmate blogs and posted on the course blog
• Posted in OSSA discussions topics, including helping Lea Ann with connection problems, recommending new computers for Chris, and marveling at how much Barbara can cram into one week of her life.
• Worked with Chris, Lea Ann, and Barbara on the OSSA site (I know, this one is here twice, but I did a lot of work on it ;)
• Submitted produsage assignment 2 and the accompanying paper
• Kept my word to never use Twiddla again

The rest of the class seems as though it will be reflective and I'm thankful for the opportunity to slow down and remember that I took the class to learn, as much as I took it to produce...or produse, perhaps.

Week 5 is in the books! Week 6, here we come.

Community of Practice, State of Confusion

We've (meaning me, Chris, Lee Ann, and Barbara) been working on produage assignment two for several weeks now and during the construction of the site we've had to make many decisions about who would use the site and what would attract them there initially. Equally important, we've also had to decide what would make them stay once they got there.

So this leads to the community of practice thought. I certainly understand what a community of practice is, but when designing a project using web 2.0 technologies, it is quite difficult to define a community. We set out working just for Instructional Systems students in the community, but are there enough IS students to really support a community of practice on our site? Then we decided to include the College of Education as the community, but one of our team members graduated from the Information Studies program, which has a lot of online students too. So why should we leave them out? Then we expanded the scope again to include any student at FSU, online or otherwise, that shares interests with other users on our site.

We've expanded from a community to the size of a state and the organization of such a large undertaking is confusing, to say the least. However, I think we've created a site where multiple communities of practice can share one giant umbrella community as FSU students. Diversity often creates opportunity for growth. I'm hoping that this is the lesson we learn from the Online Seminole Student Association as it grows and survives long after then end of this course.