Green POD group project

The Greenie POD group have made a Wiki to place our research into for Assignment 2
http://greeniespod.wikispaces.com/


HOW GREENIES STARTED THEIR ONLINE COMMUNITY GROUP PROJECT

We began by emailing each other to discuss how we should meet online. Janice created the Greenie Etherpad where we meet once a week to discuss Assignment 2.
http://greenies.etherpad.com/1?

Its a great tool because it records our discussions for review later if required. We are a very co operative group and our online community has been sustained by sharing the research, reporting our findings weekly and we are sensitive to online etiquette. For example we start and end our discussions with salutations and we wait until one conversation has ended before making a comment for uninterrupted conversation.

Janice then created a Greenie Ning site which worked well.
http://greeniespod.ning.com/?xgi=dASbAkb
We could add chunks of research text like a blog but unfortunately our discussions we not recorded.
Ann then created the Wiki with the address mentioned above where we store our research in appropriate headings. We use the Etherpad to discuss what parts of the assignment, found in the Wiki, need editing.
Our Wiki and Etherpad sites has been very effective because of their usability. These tools over come physical distance between Greenie members, allow continual flow of conversation through synchronous communication, offers security by limiting access to only Greenie members and easy navigation of the sites. I had some difficulties with my internet connection during meeting at times, but I was able to catch up by looking at etherpad conversation the next day.

Topic 10

Exercise 10.1 CSU interact Chat room
A • Kenneth Eustace (Aug 19, 2009 8:01 PM EST) Please stand!
B • Denise De Paoli (Aug 19, 2009 8:02 PM EST) so this is where the party is at, good evening!
C • Jennifer Waterman (Aug 19, 2009 8:02 PM EST) lucky you, I couldn't get to do anything last week, so bought a new computer
D • Diana Briscoe (Aug 19, 2009 8:02 PM EST) We have already been having a bit of a chat so it's now gone quiet with your entrance ken!
• Kenneth Eustace (Aug 19, 2009 8:02 PM EST) Gosh brings back memories... and don't forget the value of humour... used often in online meetings out of control.
E • Lesley Anderson (Aug 19, 2009 8:02 PM EST) National Anthem, Ken??
• Lesley Anderson (Aug 19, 2009 8:02 PM EST) salute the flag?
• Diana Briscoe (Aug 19, 2009 8:02 PM EST) Definitely like a good party
F • Jeanie Axton (Aug 19, 2009 8:03 PM EST) and flag!
G • Sarah Eade (Aug 19, 2009 8:03 PM EST) Or at least a raise of glasses in a toast!
• Lesley Anderson (Aug 19, 2009 8:03 PM EST) oath to the queen?
H • James Vyhnal (Aug 19, 2009 8:03 PM EST) which nation?
• Jeanie Axton (Aug 19, 2009 8:03 PM EST) And flag raising
• Lesley Anderson (Aug 19, 2009 8:03 PM EST) we could sing a chorus of True Blue
• Jeanie Axton (Aug 19, 2009 8:03 PM EST) Adelaide crows athem
• Kenneth Eustace (Aug 19, 2009 8:03 PM EST) Seems the chat tool has run out of colours for each participant... I know the 7 in the rainbow were enough for us!
I • Thomas Banks (Aug 19, 2009 8:03 PM EST) I'm exhausted tonight, I cannot think of anything to talk about
• Diana Briscoe (Aug 19, 2009 8:04 PM EST) Am really enjoying this course although I don't quite know what I am doing' Had a go at secondlife which was fun but weird - an avatar asked how old I was, didn't let on lol
J • Deborah Morden (Aug 19, 2009 8:04 PM EST) HI everyone, had great difficult last week in trying to connect to the gmail chat so pleased to have more sucess tonight
K • Ashleigh Johnston (Aug 19, 2009 8:04 PM EST) hehe same thomas. i suggest you use a bunch of emoticons and that's it
• Diana Briscoe (Aug 19, 2009 8:04 PM EST) Where are you all from?
• Kenneth Eustace (Aug 19, 2009 8:04 PM EST) `lesley yes hard to do in ASCII text.
• Diana Briscoe (Aug 19, 2009 8:04 PM EST) Where are you all from?
L • Antoinette McDonald (Aug 19, 2009 8:04 PM EST) I found second life a weird experience too
• Thomas Banks (Aug 19, 2009 8:04 PM EST) I only discovered yesterday that there are three more topics up, I was keeping an eye on the interact area, not the other page that they go up
• Jeanie Axton (Aug 19, 2009 8:05 PM EST) Secong life was certainly interesting... i got told to get lost in first 5 seconds!!!
• Thomas Banks (Aug 19, 2009 8:05 PM EST) I had a bash at second life a few years ago, didn't care for it :\
• Antoinette McDonald (Aug 19, 2009 8:05 PM EST) Was quite surprised by my reaction
M • Dylan O'Donnell (Aug 19, 2009 8:05 PM EST) Yes that caught me by surprise too Thomas.

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M
A	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
B	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
C	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
D	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
E	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
F	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
G	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
H	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
I	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
J	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
K	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0
L	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
M	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0

The social network analysis above was based on CSU interact chat room. A chat room is a place where analysis would should how frequently interactions take place between
-two or more people
-lurkers making few comments
-leaders posing questions in a forum

This chat room was made up of a lecturer and students which may explain frequent interaction between A (lecturer) and DEFGH (students). Some students interacted with each other more than others depending on their connection for example some students may be in the same POD.

The chat room interaction would be different to POD because PODs are smaller in size thus more chance for even interaction between people. Some interaction may not be between individuals but an individual with the whole group. For example, asking general group questions will receive a variety of answers. The frequency of Interaction may vary depending on the roles of individuals in the POD. There may be a leader who interacts with all members and there may be followers who interact with the leader and individuals.

Topic 8

Exercise 8.1
Morning Coastal day
I generally do exercise in the mornings, before busy commuters head to work and before I am awake enough to talk myself out of my nice warm bed. I am lucky I live in a beautiful coastal area so where ever I roam, the view of the beach, ocean, cliffs and expensive house are all around me. I live in a hilly area so when going up hill, I try to comfort myself with the thought of cruising down hill at the crest. As I walk through the windy neighbourhood streets, I greet some running friends and a couple walking their dog. They were heading down to the lagoon where dogs can be unleashed and free to run around and poo, yuk! Dog owners are supposed to cleanup after their dogs but its common to see the foot print of a previous unlucky walker in dog remains.
I make my way past the lagoon to see a dog barking at a pelican from behind a fence. The dog then jumped the fence and chased the pelican across the lagoon with the owner calling for him. The dog was very persistent and as the lagoon got deeper the dog began to swim after the pelican and bark at the same time. The owner jumped in the nearest canoe and paddled after his pet which was now 100m away. The pelicans were surprised when the swimming dog caught up with them and flew away as it barked again. By now the frantic owner was herding his pet to the shore. The dog seemed proud of its efforts and as it walked out the of the water, it shook it self dry, wetting the owner who swore and trotted back home.
Exercise 8.2
So many applications so little time!
In my computer experience, I have discovered that no one is an expert at all the applications out there, so I will need to be patient and content at understanding the ones that I encounter in my work place. I have also seen that people are happy to share information and ask for help in the use of these application so I shouldn’t feel too alone about learning IT .
As an educator using the computer new technologies, will this make me available 24hrs a day to my students?
My teaching hours are 8.30am to 3pm so when will I have time to answer forum questions and mark online submissions of assignments?At the moment, questions are answered in the class and most marking is done in the afternoons or weekends. I may need to set forum times and look into collaborative marking (Web 2.0 tools) involving the whole class to management time more effectively.
What marking guidelines will I use?
Class work and Assignments submitted using these new technologies will incorporate a variety of media, images, video and references. Clear instructions/templates for students on what to incorporate into work submitted to will avoid unnecessary and miss leading information. New more specific marking guidelines will need to be developed to help students stay focused on the task at hand.
Exercise 8.3
Data movement between Twitter and Facebook
Allows users to keep up to date with the latest movement/thoughts of friends
http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/2007/Semantic_Web.asp
What is the Semantic Web?

Where Web 2.0 is focused on people and communicating by social interaction using simple applications, the Semantic Web is focused on machines. A computer alone can not find, search and aggregate information with out a human operator. The Semantic Web is a project that aims to change that by presenting Web page data in such a way that it is understood by computers, enabling machines to do the searching, aggregating and combining of the Web's information — without a human operator. This is done by RDF(Resource Description Framework) which turns a web page into meta data that computer can use. RDF details information such as a site's sitemap, the dates of when updates were made, keywords that search engines look for and the Web page's intellectual property rights.
Semantic Web technologies are used in research and life sciences where researchers collect data on different medicines and illnesses that have multiple names in different parts of the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOAF_(software)
FOAF (Friend of a friend) is similar to the Semantic Web in that it is focused on the machine to describe persons, their activities and their relations to other people and objects using RDF and OWL (Web Ontology Language). Anyone can use FOAF to describe him or herself. FOAF allows groups of people to describe social networks without the need for a centralised database.
Exercise 8.4
http://www.whatisrss.com/
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RSS.html
http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid26_gci498311,00.html
Syndication is the reuse of material such as new feeds across the web and aggregation is summarising online material for reuse.
Rss (Really Simple Syndication) allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in such as music charts, news feeds, discussion forums and events listings. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. You ensure your privacy, by not needing to join each site's email newsletter.
RSS can be combined with Digg it. Social bookmarking of articles, images and videos re submitted to Digg it and to keep track of updated articles use the Swarm and Stack tools.
b) Delicious is effective for work groups to access their favourite sites on any computer. This is a convenient way to share sites because data can be transferred and accessed in any location. The user has to create a delicious account then the user tags sites of interest which is like copying the websites address and storing it at delicious. To access the website again on another computer, the user opens up their delicious account (similar to favourites on computers) and clicks on the site.

c) http://www.go2web20.net/about/
Is a directory of web2.0 applications in the one place which makes navigation through the web easier instead of searching for them individually. This site also ensures searches on working web2.0 sites only to avoid wasting time. Currently in my workplace of education, schools are exploring web2.0 application for classroom use to be prepared of the government issue laptops that will be distributed in NSW schools. The tools used so far are story bird for creating stories and masher which makes videos by combining music and photos. The end products can be shared privately or publically. Very good for group work.
d) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgg_(software)
Elgg is a free open source social networking platform. It offers blogging, networking, community, collecting of news using feeds aggregation and file sharing features. Everything can be shared among users with access controls and everything can be cataloged by tags as well. Edspaces is part of the Elgg community which is the largest social networking site for educational purposes, my workplace. All of the users content can be tagged to create their own personal learning network.

Topic 9

Exercise 9.1
Research IBM, 2006, Social Computing Group Publications, , accessed 9 October 2009.
Jason Dowell, 2006, LinkIn Profitable – Is Social Networking A Business Model? , accessed 6 October 2009

The advantages and disadvantages of Social Networking, 2009,< com="" tag="search"> accessed 9 October 2009

Pros	Cons
Generally most social networks are free to set up for business	Expensive for extra feature like advertising for jobs
Maintain a large pool of business contacts as well as friends in a click of a button
Opportunity to search for employment. Provides resume templates Rates jobs on how close you are to your contacts Research information about desired employment through your contacts using InMail service for a free	Can not be anonymous especially if you want to search for employment or ask technical questions you are supposed to know , you need to create a new identity but may lose contacts
Find out professional and personal information about clients and their clients	No group wide communication tool, individuals can not broadcast messages
Gain client confidence due to the use of technology
Job related questions can be answered in the Answers area similar to a blog	Loss of potential clients that lack IT skills who prefer face to face contact
Autonomous business model where users use their initiative to buy and sell products and create contacts

Exercise 9.2

Martin Stewart-Weeks, 2009, Policy 2.0: towards whole-of-government policy development, http://gov2.net.au/, accessed 9 October 2009

Ramon Padilla, 2009, Blogs vs Wikis <http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5711955.html?tag=search > accessed 9 October 2009

Wiki in government used for
Editing documents/policies for public discussion
Help desk tools
FAQs

Graig Thomler, 2009,<>, accessed 8 October 2009
Twitter in government used for
Customer service
Advertise about government blogs
Makes politicians more ‘human’ for voters
Follow topics to keep track of what people are saying about the government
Send out information about an emergency and disasters

With the spread of IT through Australian homes and the world, it is inevitable that the government incorporates IT into it offices. New political university graduates have gained IT skills that should be used in their workplace. Web 2.0 technologies in particular offer better communication across government departments and jurisdictional areas for government policy development for example via a private government website. Wiki tools could be used for developing and drafting policy documents, summarizing policy settings and stresses, and identifying possible directions. Blogs could be used by policy developers to debate and discuss as the policy emerges.
As with the new emerging technology, it will task time for government agencies to adapt with the use of Web 2.0 tools so that experts can contribute freely and without restriction and trust that security breeches will be minimised.