tomorrow I will be in China for 2 weeks

I am going to China tomorrow for two weeks. I will keep updating the web info in China.

Week 4-EJ -Web 2.0 in Taiwan

I search "web 2.o in Taiwan" in Google and find this interesting articles.

http://www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=30571&CtNode=429

At the beginning, it mentions that a "Taiwan-based Web site using Web 2.0-technology", won the conference's (DEMO 08 Conference held in California--where the newest and best products in digital technology debut--companies from Taiwan stunned foreign demonstrators) grand prize, the "People's Choice" award.

Taiwan is a small place with 23 millions people. We have a lot of online communities that have multiple topics forums. For example, now in Taiwan, the most famous online community is the PPT that are created by the students in Taiwan University (the best university in Taiwan).

Week 4-EJ 2- judgement the value on the Web

The way I judge the value of expertise on the Web is from multiple ways.

1. My own knowledge:
If I have some background of the topic, I can have more correct judgment of the contents. If I am not very familiar, I will search many different posting first and collect them and absorb as my own knowledge. As I doing this process, I will find out the validity of the contents later on. This is usually need time to process.

2. Comments from others:
I start reading the comments from last year I think. I find out this is a good way for me to value the contents. However, depends on different topics, people may rely heavily on their own preferences. Here it will combine with my own knowledge. However, if there are many comments, I can tell whose comments are more neutral. If there is only one or two comments, it will be hard to judge.

3. Topic or product identity:
I find out that some authors will write good words only for the products if they have cooperation with the company. In Taiwan now, it is very famous that the cosmetic company will give free samples to some famous blog writer and write down their ideas after using the products. At the beginning, I believe all of them and wondering how grate the blog writers are. Now, I notice they lie. However, these experience also will add to my own knowledge later on.

Week 4-EJ1- social bookmarking

I am in Taiwan now. ^^ I found that now we can use internet during fly. It is very convenience.

For social bookmarking, I used delicious before. At the beginning, I felt it was pretty cool. The reason I used was because my computer got broken and I did not back up all my files. My bookmarks are the most important things because it took me a while to collect all of them and they has many important information that I need.

I found delicious online by google searching and it was 3 years ago I think. However, later on I found that I can export all my bookmarks from my own browser ( = =\\ I should notice this earlier). Now I don't use online social bookmarks for no reasons. (maybe I am just lazy)

For instructional use, I think it will be a good social tool for students to know their classmates. We can learn or notice one person's interests or preferences from his/her bookmarks.

Week 3-EJ 3-power of searching in Web 2.0

From week 4 to week 5, I will be in Taiwan and week 6 in Mainland China.

As I know, there are some websites that are block in China. For example, blogger and wretch (the one I personally use), and last month, my cousin went to China and told me that YouTube is not available in China also. That shocks me.

Dr. Dennen provides me some solutions and also I find some solution online too. I find it is very powerful the searching in Web 2.0. Not only this situation. I am a MAC user and sometimes there are some good software for PC only. However, I always can find other solutions online. I appreciate the people design and come out solutions or similar software for MAC users.

Week 3-EJ2-Wiki and Blog

The first Wiki I used was Wikipedia. At that moment, I was curious about the validity of the content since everyone can edit. Later on, the more I used Wiki, the more I wondering why there are lots people are willing to spend time and effort to edit the contents. Maybe this is the power of Web 2.0

The blog I use most is Wretch (http://www.wretch.cc/). This is the most popular one in Taiwan. I found a lot of Pro-Ads here, such as cooking, cosmetic, travailing, 3C technology, etc. This is one of the most useful Web 2.0 resources to me because I learn and find lots of new and cool things (information, knowledge, etc.).

The instructional uses of Wiki and Blog:
When I was at BYUH, I worked at Development of Online Curriculum as an Instructional Technical support. I remember our director uses different Web 2.0 tools for Knowledge management purpose. We used Wiki before to keep track of the projects process. Google Document is another tools that I think is similar to Wiki. In our department, we use Google Document to collaborate information and I think I like Google document a lot compare to Wiki.
The reason is I use Gmail, and Google collects everything together: Google doc, calendar, chat, email, website, etc. I think it is very convinience that I don't have to log in so many website and remember so many different user names and passwords. (info overload to me)

How Wiki and Blog Supports learning and performance:
To me, I think they support learning and performance during the social and research process.
Social here I mean reading others' words, reply, comments, etc, From this two actions, I can see how my judgment of informaiton validity improve. I think even I do nothing but just read Wiki and Blog, I learn things. But how it will make me want to perform what I learn from Wiki and Blog? I think it depends on the topic and some motivation. I think motivation is an important key element when we apply Web 2.0 to instructional design.

Week 3-EJ 1-Social Network

For social network tool, I use Yahoo massage, MSN, QQ (very popular in China and Hong Kong), Skype, Facebook, Google Chat, and Wretch (most popular in Taiwan).

At the beginning, I only used Yasoo Massage for family talk and this was the first one that was popular in Taiwan in 4 years ago. Now, it extends to 7 different social network. In fact, I just tried Twitter last week also.

There is some strange feeling on the day when I joined Twitter. I suddenly felt lost because I felt so busy in these social network tools. I basically used them everyday but how come I still have time to do something else? Sometimes I wish there is only one that all my friends and family use so I don't need to be "busy".

My cousin and I use MSN for conmunication because she is in Hawaii now while I am in Tallahassee. One day, she commented on my Facebook and I replyed back. We continued this process for about 10 minutes. At that moment, I was wondering why don't she just chat with me in MSN. The next day, she then asked me this question too. This similar thing happen again right before I write this EJ. I then question myself, it seems people easily stick with the "first" beginning action. Like the example of me and my cousin, we stick with commenting each other's comments( this is the first action at that moment when we start communicating.) I know not all people but I just think there may have some like us.

Also, I find that my cousin and I may use MSN as soon as one of us suggest "why don't we jsut chat in MSN, it's faster." The reason why we did not use MSN was just because I thought my cousin wanted to use Facebook while my cousin thought I wanted to use Fackbook too. (haha, so funny)

From these social network tools, I find that the eailier one only for either synchronize or asynchronize, but now, more and more social network tools include both, like Facebook.
Four years ago when I started to use Yahoo message and MSN, there was not feacture about leaving message while the person was offline. After I think less than one year, they have this feature. This is really helpful and I am exciting about the more cool feature in next 3 years.

Week 2-EJ3-Second Life-hoping I will have a better impression about it

From reading others' EJ, I found some classmates like Second Life.

To me, I had the same bad experience as Bryan about using Second Life. It took me morn than one hour to set up--just the name. That gave me a really bad impression about Second Life and I felt I was stupid in using it. Later on, my friend let me used his account to try out Second Life. I still felt stupid because it was kind of wasting my time. I don't know what is my purpose playing Second Life and my friend told me he sometimes lost his hair or clothes in Second Life because he hits the "wall" or something. I just can not love it. Lots of my friends feel the same way.

However, like Bryan, I will give it one more chance this time and hope that I will have a better impression of it after this course.

Week 2-EJ 2-Produsage

Produsage is a new term to me, and I don't know if I understand it correctly even I read the textbook.

I really like the 4 principles of produsage in the textbook and I think they are helpful in my life (both personal and professional):

1. Open participation, communal evaluation
I think this is the major characteristic of Web 2.0 also. Now, people can find resources (both good and bad) online easily and also comment on them. This reminds me one of the challenges I found in previous EJ--Filter vs. Fountain. I think open participation makes Web 2.0 as a fountain because everyone can participate, and communal evaluation can somehow be the filter for these information.

For example, when I read or watch blog or youtube (anything that can allow people have comments), I found some interesting things in comments. It is true that we (as students) need to know how to judge what is good or bad resources online, and also to help students learn this skill as an Instructional designer too. Comments will be a good tools here. At the beginning I read some comments, and I found some people will post negative things (personal view or bias) and the others will post unagreements. This "conversation" helps me judge whose comments are more cogency and fair.

2. Fluid heterarchy, ad hoc meritocracy
When I read this one, I think of some of the theories we learned from the theory learning course.
Fluid heterarchy is each single small peises and help us view and analyze a big task easier. Like the previous posting (how am I going to organize my time for this course), I break down a complex thing into small heterachy, add the ad hoc meritocracy ideas in it that I can work on the different heterarchy at the same day while still keep organizing them.

Ad hoc meritocracy reminds me the team work in Instructional deisgn. Usually a design project is complex and requires different experts in a team: SME, instructional designer, developer, graphic designer, etc. Everyone has different skills but still can work together to support the same design project.

3. Unfinished artefacts, continuing process
This one also reminds me the theories I learned from theory learning course.
As we go through all the theories, I see the process how different researchers come out their ideas in different time. It seems they somehow tried to find a perpetual theory or method for learning, but at the end it all shows that learning theories, methods, or models, are a continuing process (well, this is truely my personal ideas and understanding, maybe you won't agree with me).

4. Common property, individual rewards
I think this one shows that the contents will be available forever? It seems depending on the produser to control if the contents will be continue available or not. For now, I don't have a deep idea about it yet, and i will find some ideas from reading BB and others' EJ.

Finally, I think I am already a produser because I am a producer and user at the same time. Like posting ideas in my blog and also comments and participate others' blog or wiki. (I don't know if I am right in this point about produser.)

Week 2 EJ 1- thoughts about "hive mind" and learner-center

As I read the text book, the author points out "hive mind". This is a new term to me.
From my understanding, hive mind is the high level intrinsic motivation of learner-center in Education. Hive mind shows that users are willing to participate, share, and help. Every bee (like user or learners) do their jobs (individual participate and share), and work with other bees (group share) to overcome big tasks (such as learning for learners).

Here is the idea I think that can apply the hive models into Education:

Feeding the hive:
For example, students in IS Masters program need to build a portfolio at the end. Here we can apply Web 2.0 (blog, wiki, etc.) in this project. I saw many professions in different filed (fashion design, hair style design, sale people, etc) use blog as a commercial tool. As similar, students can start a professional blog at the beginning to keep track of their learning, design, or research. This may become easier also for professors to evaluate how a student learn and grow in this filed.

How am I going to organize my time for this course

Since this is a 3-credits course, I need to spend at least 7.5 hours besides reading textbook.

Here is the schedule that I set up for myself:

I will log in to BB everyday and read others' posting.

Monday to Tuesday, usually I will spend time on these two days to read the textbook first. It's my habit to read textbook first before I do any posting. I don't now if this is a good method, but I feel I will have clear ideas about others' posting.

Tuesday to Friday (4 hours to 5 hours total), I will spend at least this amount of time in reading posts from others in BB and post mine ideas or comments. The way I help for information overload is that I will real (or skim through) the beginning of every posting and go deep into it if I am interested in. Sometimes I will only make comments if I found someone already said in their posting. I don't want to come out a new threat and post the same idea. I will also post my EJ by Friday.

Thursday to Saturday (2 hours to 3 hours total), I will start reading others' EJ on Thursday because I think most classmates will post or finish posting their EJ on these days.

Week 1, EJ 3-Challenges of Web 2.0

From the discussion in BB this week, I am especially interested in the challenges of Web 2.0. I found two related articles for it.

1. Churchill (2009) did a research of using blogs to support teaching and learning in a university in Hong Kong. The results were that students consider blog-based activities support learning because of the interaction -read blogs of other, receive comments, and preview tasks of others and read feedback received in relation to there. Then it continued saying that assessment and requirement were the two important issues that affected students' participation in blog activites. Students showed that they won't continue writing blogs or participate reading others' blog if this activites was not a required assignment and if the points they would get from participating this activites also is an issuse. (less points, less participation)

2. Reeves (2009) talked about the three challenges of Web 2.0 and the one interested me most was the "Filters Vs. Fountains". Web 2.0 is more like fountain that spred all kinds of informaiton to all people onilne. However, as intructional designers or teachers, they should act as a filter for their learners. Reeves points out that many students now rely on searching engin too often in research that they loose or have no correct judgement of what resources are good or bad. Moreover, because Web 2.0 makes infromation easy copy and past, this may confuse students that research means cut and past from online.

As I read these two articles and the posting in BB, I am wondering that yes, we have all kinds of rules in education, but, do they still fits for learners now in Web 2.0? I think Web 2.0 surely will change the learning in the future and how I, as an instructional designer can do to maximum the value of Web 2.0 in instructioanl uses to support learning. This is one of the things I want to learn from this course also.


Resources:

Churchill, D. (2009). Educational applications of Web 2.0: Using blogs to support teaching and learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 40, no1, 179-183.

Reeves, D. (2009, March). Three challenges of Web 2.0. Educational Leadership, 66(6), 87-89.

Week 1, EJ2

As I read and interact with some of the posting in Blackboard this week, I found an article named: What you need to know about Web 2.0 and I think this article help me understand some of the issues we discuss in BB this week.

First of all, this article briefly introduces some of the characteristics of Web 2.0, such as user friendly and cost-effectively. I think I totally agree with these two. As a user, most of the Web 2.0 technology is free and does not require me to have HTML prerequisite knowledge. Like I am writing my blog now, I just type my words not edit HTML (well, I can do so if I want too).

Next, it talks about RSS. In fact, I know what is RSS but somehow I can not really tell to describe what it is. (and I don't think I have to) RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and "allows users to pull to themselves only the informaiton that interests them instead of receiving what is pushed out by media outlets and other traiditional content producers." Before, I did not really take a good use of this tool and now I think this feature again support the user-friendly characteristic of Web 2.0.

Lst, the things interests me the most in this article is the author talks about the Web 2.0 applications for Education Professionals and applications in the classroom. From the BB discussion board, seems many people use Web 2.o to enrich their knowledge for their professions. Here it also mention that many educaiton professionals use Web 2.0 to hlep update the information of this world so that they can keep the communication bridge with their learners or students. The "application in the classroom" section mentions that Web 2.0 help create learner-center environment that learners learn from choose the messages or information they think are useful to them, discuss with peers, and learn from interaction with peers and teacher.

Resources:
Imperatore, C. (2009, January). What you need to know about Web 2.0. Techniques (AECT), 83, no9. 20-23.

Week 1: EJ 1

Hi Everyone, Welcome to my Electronic Journal Blog.

Web 2.0 technologies is not not new to me, I read blogs, call my family using Skype, chat with my friends by using MSN, watch Taiwan TV show in Yourtube, etc. It is part of my life already. I do consider myself as a follower in this realm but not leader yet and this is part of the goal I want to reach, hopfully after this class?

I think Web 2.0 technology is really powerful to our filed and also change people's lives greatly.
I found a video of Clay Shirky-- the author of Here comes everybody(the textbook we need to read this week)





It's about 43 minutes presentation and he points some interesting things about Web 2.0 technology with our society now. The Web 2.0 he used in his presentation, I believe, is familiar with almost people today.

I really like Web 2.0 technology and become very relying on it. This is one of the disadvantage of Web 2.0, I think. As a user, I become nerves without internet, youtube, blogs, searching engine... As a student, the first thing I do if I want to find out answers or research resources, I go to web not library. I think Web 2.0 technology is powerful but dangerous if we did not use it carefully or correctly in Instructional Design.