Thursday, August 6, 2009

Thanks for the class

The class is almost over. Thanks Dr.Dennen, Christan and WoonJeon, and other classmates.

Enjoy your break, and see you guys in next semester.

Sophia

a useful blog on captivate

http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/

There are lots of useful tips on application of captivate. Enjoy it.

week 6

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).

In this class, I have not only learned a lot of technologies related to web 2.0, but also the main principles beneath web 2.0, which I think it is much more important.
The technologies, such like Diigo, Stumbleup, second life, are totally new to me. I have heard of them, however, never tried them. Because of this class, I have lots of practice of these technologies. Among these tools, personally, I like Diigo very much. It’s very convenient for the students and internet users to track and record what they have read online. I think this company and the idea (highlight and notes) will be more popular within three years, with the development of online book. Right now, such as Google and Amazon, some companies have started to provide online reading services. If they could combine the Diigo’s function into their own websites, they will take advance in the business.

In addition, how to manage and promote web 2.0 and how to deal with the copy right protection issue also attract me. Sometimes, big changes with the development of new technologies will freeze out the companies. Hence, how to incorporate the new tech into their own situation becomes the first priority these companies face. In this class, we have talked lots of the strategies to promote the utilization of web 2.0. I have also learned a lot from some specific articles.
As an instructional designer, our main responsibility is to design effective method to improve learning and performance. Web 2.0 provides another approach to achieve our goal. Collaborative learning and collaborative intelligence, which is the core theme of web 2.0, is very functional for us. So, we should keep the strategies and the themes of web 2.0 in mind and carefully plan to incorporate this method into our work. Even though right now, in my working setting, web 2.0 is not broadly used. I do believe, with the advance of this technology, people could realize the value of web 2.0 and benefit from it with three years.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

week5

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

To be honest in my opinion, the authorship/copyright is the most important and tough issue related to web 2.0. Since web2.0 emphasizes the collaboration and contribution from lots of members. Hence, how could the authorship be evaluated and determined?
Some non-professional websites will publish the contents which are contributed by the members without mentioning every member's name. It's also impossible to mention everyone. In these situations, I don't think the members', at least myself's desire will not be negatively influenced, because the publication does not have significantly affect on my life and work.

On the contrary, I do care about the authorship/copyright in the professional field. If I belong to a professional field, and my contribution in the outcome were not mentioned by the hosts, I will be upset and even sue them.

a report about China under web 2.0

Recently, I have read an article talking about the status of China under web 2.0. Dr. Dennen also mentioned some reports about this issue. Those reports have totally opposite opinion. The western media think Chinese government has the control 2.0. However, the new report demonstrates an accurate picture of China under the influence of web 2.0. It compared the past 10-year change happened in China.
10 years ago, China was really on control 2.0 stage. All the media in China were blog to the government. Internet was also controlled by government. In the police office, there was a bureau in police office monitoring the internet utilization. I just remembered when I was in the university, there was a student who posted some reports about Chinese government. He was finally got to the police office to "have some tea".
With the development of China, the status is much more better right now. I just provide a real case here. About one year ago, a video appeared in a video-sharing website which is hosted by Chinese and is similar with youtube. In the video, a government officer was flirting with a girl who is under 14. The officer was totally aggressive and said he had lots of money. The internet users were all upset about the video. They decided to find out who the officer was. Finally, the officer was found and sent to jail. This is the real China.

The second produsage

The second produsage is a wiki space, in which members could share the experience and information about elearning softwares application.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

week 4

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?

Doing the research before you believe the "expert"
  • background check
  • related information gathering
  • peer evaluation
  • personal communication

I think the assessment could vary in different settings. In the web era, you could not observe the behaviors of the person. The only way to evaluate the expertise of a person is based on your own opinion. Even though there are lots of approaches to achieve the information, I think we should be careful about the assessment. Just a real case.

Last year, there was a scandel happened in China. Zhenglong Zhou, a famer in Shanxi Province, posted a series of photos of wild South China tiger online. Accroding to the report, this kind of tiger has been extinct for three years. Hence, his posting got all the people's attentions. He even was regarded as a hero. Shanxi Province invested tons of money to look for the wild tiger. Unfortunately, some internet users critisized the accuracy of the pictures. Some people thought Zhenglong Zhou made over these pictures using photoshop. There was a serious debating around this topic. To be honest, there were lots of political issues which led the local government lost in the assessment. After several months' debating and investigation, these pictures were approved to be fake.

In this story, I just want to say, with the development of technologies, the accuracy of the information and the expertise of the expert has become difficult to evaluate. We should be much more careful to believe the expertise.

A specific explanation of metadata

I got this from wikipedia. Sharing with you all.

Metadata (meta data, or sometimes metainformation) is "data about other data", of any sort in any media. An item of metadata may describe an individual datum, or content item, or a collection of data including multiple content items and hierarchical levels, for example a database schema. In data processing, metadata provides information about, or documentation of, other data managed within an application or environment. This commonly defines the structure or schema of the primary data.
For example, metadata would document data about data elements or attributes, (name, size, data type, etc) and data about records or data structures (length, fields, columns, etc) and data about data (where it is located, how it is associated, ownership, etc.). Metadata may include descriptive information about the context, quality and condition, or characteristics of the data. It may be recorded with high or low
granularity.

Chapter 7 is talking about metadata for the knowledge structure, which I thought is one of the key features of web 2.0. For me web 2.0 is not just social network, communication, etc, it also refers to the convenient information achievement. Using the tag, hyperlink, and other bookmarks could facilitate the information getting. This is also the benefit of web 2.0.
In this fast-speed society, time-saving is a component to ensure success. Web 2.0 probives an opportunity and help to reduce the time spending on information gathering.
I do believe web 2.0 could help the society develop.

web 2.0 application in different settings

Last week, in the weekly meeting in my office, my supervisor led a discussion related to web 2.0. He did not mention the exact concept web 2.0, instead, he talked about facebook and wiki. The whole story was the IT personnel and the communication office personnel suggested Facebook and wiki could be allowed to access to facilitate the communication in working time. However, the top executives in the Department could not accept that since they thought people could be distracted from working if they are allowed to use facebook.
Around this issue, we had a discussion. At the end, it became a discussion in different generations. The elders can't accept the new tech. The youngers are on the contrary.
After the discussion, I had some thoughts. I work for the state department, which is not that flexible. During the working time, we could just access the intranet and use some websites related to work. All the other sites are forbidden.

I have a question. If you have some experience, just help me. :)

1. Could web 2.0 be applied in the organization like this? Definitely, there are lots of article talking about the application of web 2.0 in some global companies, like the Google, Costco, etc. However, there are lots of limitation of the application of web 2.0 in the government and lots of companies. As the instructional designer, if we need to promote the new technology, how could we convenience the vendor that the benefits are overweight the costs?

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Wiki, Blogs in the business setting

I have used wiki and blogs in the studying and working for several years. Since in China, we could not achieve wiki freely, I did not use that. In stead, I used blogs for information and experience sharing. My first utilization of blog into learning is about cosmetic. Here is the link. http://www.wretch.cc/blog/arora The blogger posts her operation on cosmetic products in the blog. As the followers, we learn from her and post our questions on the blog. Not even her, other experienced person will answer our questions. Hence, our learning on cosmetic products will be enhanced.

My experience on wiki is mainly in academic setting. I have used wiki for information collection in a project and used wikispace to set up an online community in some case studies. I will give a specific example here. Last semester, in the organization behavior class, we need to do lots of case studies with some classmates. We used wikispace as our tool to communicate instead of face to face meeting. Every member could publish its own thoughts on wikispace and comment on others. After discussion, we consolidated all the informations and finished our case study. It definitely facilitate the communication and maximize the achievement of collaborative intelligence.

However, there are lots of challenges of the application of wiki and blog in different settings. My concern is in the business setting. There are some successful cases about the application of wiki and blog in business setting. In Lockheed Martin, teh CIO started to use blog when they introduced blog into their work. The electrical engineers use wiki to share the experience and information in Google. However, these successful cases don't mean succeeding in the application of wiki and blogs is a piece of cake. There are lots of challenges.

First, the fear of new tech. Employees will fear of change. The introducing of new tech will mean the redesign of job and significant changes will take place.

Second, the confliction between the existing workflow and the new tech. I have already discussed this in another post.

Third, the motivation of the utilization of new tech.



I recommend again an article here:

Six ways to make web 2.0 work

from McKinsey Quarterly.

In the article, lots of challenges have been analyzed and associated solutions have been provided.

Hope you could enjoy the article.

:)

The first try on Diigo

To be honest, I am not a fan of new tech. When I find something really useful, I will be sticked on it. For example, I like Google. Eventhough everyday there are lots of advertisements about Bing, I will love Google.
Taking web 2.0 provides me lots of opportunities to try new stuff. I have started to use Flickr and Diigo.
In the promotion video, diigo's function is fully illustrated. It is a searching engine, online bookmark, highlight tool, experience sharing community, and social networking.
Hope it could facilitate my future online reading.

Six ways to make Web 2.0 work------the reflection on a recommended article

Recently, I have read an article about web 2.0 on Mckinsy Quarterly.

-----Six ways to make Web 2.0 work

-------- Web 2.0 tools present a vast array of opportunities for companies that know how to use them.



Generally speaking, I think this article provides a clear picture about the utilization of web 2.0 in business settings from the strategic level. It analyzes the obstacles of the application of web 2.0 and provides six strategies to solve these problems.



1. the transformation to a bottom-up culture needs help from the top.

2. The best uses come from users-but they require help to scale.

3. What is in the workflow is what gets used.

4. Appeal to the participants' egos and needs-not just their wallets.

5. The right solution comes from the right participants.

6. Balance the top-down and self-management of risk.





Among these strategies, I personnally think number three is the most interested issue. Truely, lots of companies will require the employees to endeavor extra efforts during the implementing period of new technologies or approaches. In these cases, initially, employees will present their enthusiasms. They will immerse themselves into the new tech and even sacrifice their breaking time to experiment it. However, with the proceeding of the new tech, their enthusiasm will fade away. They are sick of performing the routine jobs plus extra work. Hence, their performance on both routine jobs and the new tech will be negatively influenced. In order to solve this dilemma, companies should insert the new tech into the existing workflow. In another word, the company should redesign the jobs and make the new tech televant to how employees actually do their jobs.



This article provides both negative and positive cases in the application. I like the writing style of the author. Hence, recommend the article to all of you who are interested in web 2.0 and the application of web 2.0 in business settings.

Join me in Flickr

Join me in Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1136418@N24/

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The initial thought on Produsage 1

My initial thought about Produsage 1 is using Flickr to set up a picture sharing community (group).

The background: lots of classmates work as instructional desigers who need to use powerpoint or other tools to design curriculum both online and face-to-face. Inserting vivid pictures could make the product more attractive. Hence, editing pictures and looking for appropriate pics for our utilization will cost lots of our time. However, we could not use the pictures online all freely since lots of pics are protected by copyrights.

Eventhough there are lots of websites providing free pics, finding the most appropriate pics for specific purposes is not easy.

I am thinking setting up a community in which the classmates could share the picture storing in different categories, for example, business, academic, medical, etc. So that it could facilitate our real work.
Besides, if classmates are interested in Photoshop, we could also share the experience about PS. Everyone could comment and suggest about the picture editing.

How do you feel?

Thanks

Sophia

Saturday, July 11, 2009

week2 produser

Eventhough I have no idea what produsage is, I have already used the related technology for a while. For example, last semester, on the organizational behavior class, our team used wiki for a base to complete our case study.
I originally want to talk about the detail of the wiki application, after reading Vanassa's posting about the government control 2.0, I want to write something about it.
It is the truth that China government has some control about the web 2.0 implementation eventhough the government did not admit they do so. This may be caused by the national conditions. The education level of Chinese people is not as high as in the developed contries. They are easy to be influenced by the external information. With the development of web 2.0 and related techs, any information could be published online and be accessed to all the users. If the user could not filter the wrong information and find out the right one, how could they do? How could the government do? For example, FalunGong, which is an illegal organization in China, broadcasts themselves online. They advocates people to suicide to sacrifice. At first, Chinese government did not control it, and tons of people was negatively influenced. Then the government got involved and filtered all the information about them.
I don't know how you guys could think about that. The human right in China is still on advancing. We need more time and more effort.

twitter VS facebook

In the last 2 weeks, we have mentioned some technologies beneath web 2.0, for example, blog, wiki, twitter, facebook......etc.
I have used lots of techs, except twitter. I know twitter. But I don't have experience with it. I don't know the unique feature of it.
For me, a successful website, or service must have at least one unique feature to attract the users. If another company wants to publish a similar competitive product, it must illustrate it has some other unique and strong function. For example, Google is a famous searching engine. Microsoft provides Bing to compete with it since bing emphasizes not only on searching, but also on decision making.

Twitter and Facebook, as two of the biggest social networking, must have their own unique features.
After reading some articles, there are some differences being demonstrated.
1. the relationship between people are different
2. the user communities are different
3. the application tools are different, eventhough right now twitter has opened its appl source for facebook to use.

How do you feel?

week 2 produsage

To be honest, I don't know what produsage is before reading the chapter. After reading that, I am not sure I have totally mastered the related knowledge, but I do get the general picture of produsage.
Maybe because of my science background, I don't like the textbook. I prefer direct and logical writing style. For me, it's easy to understand the term if the author provide a clear definition and some examples. In this textbook, the auther used lots of complicated words to illustrate such idea back and forth. This frustrated me. Actually, I skipped some information during the reading because it just duplicates a lot.

After reading, I have a big question here:
do you think defining the term and using the new terms are really important?
Maybe for the learners, it is not the most important part. But from the commercial perspective, maybe it is important. Advocating new terms means that you could earn some money from it? :)


How do you feel?

Sunday, July 5, 2009

week 1---the general idea about web 2.0

Week 1
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.


Even though I have used the web 2.0 technologies for a long time (wiki, blog, facebook, etc), to be honest, I could not define web 2.0 correctly. According to my opinion, the common technologies included in web 2.0, such as the blogs, the wikis, and the online communities, have been broadly spreaded and immersed into our lives quietly. In another word, web 2.0 has been popular without notification.
I could not just define myself as the leader or the follower. For me, it depends on the technologies and/or content. For example, for some unfamiliar topic, which I just read or watch , I am a follower. On the contrary, some topics which I am interested and familiar with, I will be fully engaged as a leader.
For this class, I have a great expectation. I hope to learn the basic principles of web 2.0, the issues and trends related to this topic, and the practices in this field. I hope not only have the interaction with the instructor, but also a peer-to-peer discussion with all the students to maximize the intelligence. This is also the core of web 2.0, right?

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Welcome to Sophia's web 2.0 journey


This is my first English Blog.

Welcome.


This is Yellow Mountain, which locates in my hometown.

I do think my journey in Web 2.0 is similar to the journey in Yellow Mountain, challenging and fabulous.

For this class, my thought is:

Read More, Practice More, Learn More.