Social technology in education and activism Jo Ann

Social technology in education and activism Jo Ann Oravec oravecj@mail. uww. edu College of Business and Economics University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Will the Internet “save the world”? • Not long ago, many of us did feel that it would… We’ll discuss • Internet archives/social memory • Weblogs/warblogs • collaborative weblogs/reputation systems (online learning communities) • interaction facilitators (meetings/petitions)

Both the utopian/dystopian aspects of social technology: • Building “communities of practice” and • enabling surveillance • decreasing attention spans • increasing information overload

Consider the radio talk show. . . How is this technology being currently used? • The “genre” of the radio talk show affects the content delivered… • is the medium the message?

Facilitating the creation of a social memory… Archive. org has • archives of websites over time (you can track a website’s evolution) • video archives • help forums for locating materials • Archiving problems with electronic materials are many and varied

What are “weblogs”? Bloggers? • Weblogs (or "blogs") emerged in the past decade as an Internet genre, providing a platform for the development of critical, individual voices within the context of Internet resources. • Weblogs consist of links to web materials along with specific commentary, presented in chronological format. • “Bloggers” create weblogs!

Commentary is usually in narrative format • Weblog commentary is usually textual… in contrast with Internet trends toward graphics. • The “extraneous” personal information often infused in blogs may be bothersome to many, but is the essence of blogging to others. • They play increasingly important political and social roles-- Howard Dean has one. • MANY journalists are producing blogs along with their articles to provide supplementary materials.

Terrorblogs/Warblogs • Public awareness of weblogs is increasing-individuals used weblogs as expressive vehicles after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. • Weblogs alerted others to specific Internet resources as well as conveyed concern and grief in reaction to particular on-line accounts. • “Warblogs” soon emerged as well.

Media ecology approaches Weblogs have taken distinctive places in the ecology of the Internet along with… • personal home pages • webcams • and other genres of online personal and autobiographical expression.

• The increasingly-high aesthetic standards for personal home pages may have increased the appeal of weblog production among novice computer users. • Weblog templates make weblog construction fairly easy… few controversies about physical design/appearance • for free blogging tools/hosting: http: //www. blogger. com

Weblogs to counter information overload… Weblogs are serving important roles in the everyday approaches toward knowledge acquisition of many individuals… The nearly-incomprehensible expansion of resources on the Internet has made it difficult for individuals to keep updated. Both reading and writing blogs can take a great deal of time, however!

Channels of regularly-updated materials … this brief selection cannot convey the value of an ongoing weblog, but does demonstrate the usefulness of having streams or channels of regularly-updated Internet materials related to areas of interest.

How to do things with weblogs • Weblogs provide a selective portrait of the Internet-related practices of individuals as presented by the individuals themselves– • what resources they access and • how they evaluate and apply them. …. . is reading weblogs a kind of voyeurism?

Encouraging development of critical voices • Weblogs encourage the growth of unique critical voices… … the hyperlinks in weblogs couple individuals' personal narratives with certain Internet resources in strategic ways for critical purposes.

So far, relatively few Internet celebs have emerged… • Motley Fools • Matt Drudge • Jenny (of the Jennycam) …. . most celebs had other channels for fame before spreading their influence on the net • weblogs/warblogs are creating new platforms for celebrity

Bloggers reflect on blogging • "It's taking the Internet to the next step, " said Todd Holdman, who publishes a Web log out of his Minneapolis apartment. "I can post my opinions on anything and everything, from what breakfast cereal I ate today to Enron. There's new content all the time. And it's free. "

Are we systematically being lied to?

In order to counter the onslaught of disinformation… • We will need supportive and responsive environments for learning and interaction • We need to be able to provide critiques quickly… share critiques with others… compare information over time (social memory) • perhaps humor should/can/will play a role

We need to tie into the “learning communities” movements (outside of academe) • What are auto-didactic individuals like? • What groups and structures emerge to support the student? • What are supportive auto-didactic environments like? www. plastic. com www. discordia. us

www. plastic. com • Plastic. com was the first new Web site developed by Automatic Media, founded in July 2000 • AM merged several well-known alternative sites, including FEED (www. feedmag. com, a site focusing on culture and technology) and Alt-Culture. com (an online database of youth culture). • It is largely self-organizing…

Plastic participants earn “karma” points. . . • They can suggest new stories for plastic; and • they can have their comments rated favorably by moderators. • moderators are chosen by editors (based on their participation)

The points are used to rate their future contributions • Readers can “filter out” contributions that come from members who don’t have high ratings. • Individuals can establish a unique voice by responding to submitted materials over time.

Slashdot. com is yet another selforganizing learning community. . . emphasizing computer tech • Unlike listservs, both plastic and slashdot provide some forms of rating/filtering (albeit imperfect)… • rating and filtering may be essential for quality control, and for motivation. … beyond the “marketplace of ideas” many radio talk shows are similar…

Benefits of these communities • Plastic. com is CHEAP to run! • people who are maintaining it are volunteers… • it is ideal for large groups… • it allows for speedy reaction to events

We need to learn from the successes of Web innovations to support political/social interaction • What works on the web? • What doesn’t work? • What innovative forms of interaction are emerging? • On-line auctions, building reputations as dealers (why not build reputations as authors in similar ways)? • Recommendation systems for books

www. petitiononline. com • Free public hosting of petitions • From the FAQ: “We do not accept petitions that advocate violence, extreme hostility, that use foul language, or are otherwise irresponsible or antisocial. We consider petitions which attack individuals for independent expression of their own legal and non-violent opinions, for example, to be irresponsible and anti-social. We don't accept petitions from anonymous authors, which almost by definition constitute cheap shots. ”

www. meetup. com • Meetup organizes local interest groups. • Meetup is a free service that organizes local gatherings about anything, anywhere. • 408, 575 people have already signed up for Meetups about 1313 topics. • Meetups happen at local cafes (and other places) in 580 cities across 42 countries. • Find your topic, sign up, show up! That's it.

www. idealist. org

www. moveon. org

• Move. On builds electronic advocacy groups. Examples of such issues are campaign finance, environmental and energy issues, impeachment, gun safety, and nuclear disarmament. Once a group is assembled, Move. On provides information and tools to help each individual have the greatest possible impact. During impeachment, Move. On's grassroots advocates generated more than 250, 000 phone calls and a million emails to Congress. • How does MY voice count? At Move. On, every member has a voice in choosing our shared direction. Using our Action. Forum software, you can propose issue priorities and strategies.

Who has time for all this? • Many of the technologies just discussed are run by volunteers- • unemployment in the high tech sector has been a factor in the popularity of blogging

From Douglas Rushkoff on the decline of dot. coms • . . . the very qualities that make the Internet so compelling and valuable [include] transparency, participation, openness, and collaboration • … the ideals and communities that allowed the Internet to fend off efforts to harness its power for a single. selfish objective.

• So do not mourn. Rejoice. • While you may never be able to sell that great dot-com name or make a bundle on that tech stock you bought last year, you're getting to participate in something that no civilization in the history of the planet has ever had the privilege of experiencing until now. . . the Internet.