Topic 6

Exercise 6.1

Purpose	People	Community size
Subject using the forum gives students a sense of focus	The CSU forum overcomes geographical and time boundaries which allows unrestricted discussion at anytime	The class sizes are smaller than they are outside the University Forum which is good for subject specific discussion.
The CSU forum is reliable and secure	Students can answer each others questions without having to email the lecture.	Some subjects rarely have activities that promote the use of the CSU forum so its use is limited and thus ideas are not shared
The CSU forum encourages sharing of ideas	Computer technical problems or age of home computers or level of IT skills can keep users from accessing the forum. They could feel left out and miss important messages about assessments and exams.	The CSU forum allows students to build up professional contacts

Exercise 6.2
• What is it about the design of the wiki and Moodle that you liked or disliked?
Moodle is an excellent platform for educational purposes. It is similar to the CSU forum where details about subjects, assessments and student forums can be found at anytime. However, Moodle may disadvantage students who are not self motivated learners and require prompting by teachers in a class room setting.
What features do wiki and Moodle have in common and what are the differences (eg a Wiki, Forum and blogtool is also groupware design feature inside a Moodle site) ?
Moodle is a great tool for managing a whole subject. It provides information about topics within subjects, subject calendar, subject resources, forum and class enrolments. Moodle provides the exchange of large amount of information between enrolled students and teachers. Wiki on the other hand is a simple tool used within a subject for simple exercises that require student collaboration. It can be accessed by any internet user for small information exchange.
Is the presence of likeable features also a combination of the design tips for usability, sociability and sustainability, as advocated by Preece and Kim in earlier topics?
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue4/preece.html
http://www.linezine.com/4.1/interviews/ajkbgswoc.htm

Moodle and Wiki are free and keep their opening login page very simple which draws users into participating in their site. When these sites are used in education their online community is restricted to a school population, providing socialisation amongst pupils and teachers on common ground. This provides a secure online environment from external users. The combination of ease of use and school IT curriculum, Moodle and Wiki can be sustained in an educational setting.


Exercise 6.3
SocialGO is an online community that is similar to Facebook and Myspace as they are all free to join or have a trial service and are self explanatory to use. The familiar usability between these social networks supports the credibility of SocialGO. The site provides businesses and social groups a variety of existing tools for users to socialise such as videochat, photo sharing and blogs. Users can also find out what events and communities their associates are involved in for off line communication. SocialGO allows users to control which associates they want to communicate with which builds on the trust and safe reputation of the site. Online technical support is also available when required.
However, SocialGo would offer a different level of security, than CSU interact. SocialGo provides the user the option to reveal personal information by customising their login page unlike CSU interact where communication is mainly focused on exchanging subject information. Users can trust that the CSU site is secure because only members that are enrolled in the University can communicate on the site keeping the online community population smaller than SocialGO. Being a University site, it is a highly reputable site for students and lectures to exchange course information and assessment. It uses familiar communication tools such as forums and chat which eases sociability.