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.

Topic1

Exercise 1

Social Networking http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html

Online Community http://www.fullcirc.com/community/communitymanual.htm

A social network is a community of people communicating off or online. They usually have something in common with each other for example members of a social group, friends, hobbies, school or profession.

An online social network also called as an Online Community, allows users to contact people in cyber space all over the world using a variety of sites including MySpace, Cyworld, Bebo, FriendWise, FriendFinder and Facebook. Generally these sites have free membership and users can create their own social network within the sites.

By studying about Social Networks and online communities, I hope to gain skills in creating online communities for the subjects that I teach. Students in all schools in NSW will be receiving government issue laptops soon and I have been assigned the position of creating an online community using MOODLE. It is an Open Source Course Management System that is free online and provides platforms for online courses, student forums and access to assignments.

Exercise 2

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&defl=en&q=define:folksonomy&ei=rMN0SvyIA9iGkAX-1rCoDA&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

http://tomgruber.org/writing/ontology-of-folksonomy.htm

Folksonomy is the tagging of web information such as web sites and photos of interest so that they can be easily retrieved without having to do an internet search for them again. I have tagged photos on Facebook and bookmarked sites of interest with Del.icio.us.

FOAF

http://www.foaf-project.org/

http://www.ldodds.com/foaf/foaf-a-matic

FOAF (friend of a friend) is a program that tags information about yourself to allow automated searches to find you and the communities you’re linked to.

Exercise 3

Facebook

I used the Nielsen’s Heuristic evaluation form for Facebook. Facebook is easy to uses simple natural dialogue amongst its uses but also within the site itself. To start up your own website in Facebook is self explanatory. You need a Username and password to login and to log out you need to click on the logout button.