Landing : Athabascau University

Activity

  • Jon Dron published a blog post Free the lobsters July 14, 2010 - 1:01pm
    There's a very interesting and thought-provoking Gizmodo article by Adam Rifkin today that compares Google use to being like a panda, browsing and foraging, nibbling a little at a time, a lot of the time, and Facebook use to being pulled into a...
    Comments
    • Rodger Graham July 14, 2010 - 6:39pm

      I'm a free lobster as of several weeks ago but have to admit, from time to time, that I miss some of Facebook's connectivities. Pictures posted, certain news items from friends, etc. Not enough to go back in but enough to wish for a replacement. Excellent points about FB though, and I completely agree. Thanks for sending that Jon.

  • Jon Dron bookmarked The Real Life Social Network v2 July 13, 2010 - 10:51am
    Interesting if absurdly huge slideshow from Paul Adams of Google, talking about our different overlapping networks. This very closely mirrors and supports what we are doing on the Landing, where we have been developing a context switcher to enable...
  • Jon Dron bookmarked The Real Life Social Network v2 July 13, 2010 - 10:51am
    Interesting if absurdly huge slideshow from Paul Adams of Google, talking about our different overlapping networks. This very closely mirrors and supports what we are doing on the Landing, where we have been developing a context switcher to enable...
  • Jon Dron commented on the blog Moving the social networked learning (the Landing) forward July 12, 2010 - 10:27am
    Comments
  • Jon Dron commented on the blog Moving the social networked learning (the Landing) forward July 9, 2010 - 2:27pm
    Comments
  • Jon Dron published a blog post iPad the continuing story July 8, 2010 - 6:52pm
    Having spent a couple of weeks travelling and using (almost) nothing but an iPad for my computing needs, I can confirm that it is mostly possible and often very pleasurable to do so, but with some really big caveats. I mentioned a few of these in my...
  • Familiarity vs similarity as means of providing social recommendations
  • Eexcellent Post by Ben Werdmuller (of Elgg fame) suggesting a place for both distributed and centralised social network architectures because the use cases for each approach are different.
  • Jon Dron bookmarked 3 Things Facebook Gets Right June 22, 2010 - 2:21pm
    actually, I think that facebook does many things well, though I think they are a deeply awful company and will ultimately fail unless they embrace openness and a distributed model facebook understands parcellation, presence, collectives, networks,...
  • Jon Dron bookmarked Why Facebook Can't Genuinely Connect People June 17, 2010 - 6:46pm
    I like the notion here that Facebook fails to bring people close because vulnerability cannot safely be shown in such a one-dimensional space. That's why our new context-switching functionality (due on the Landing fairly soon) will be so important,...
  • Jon Dron published a blog post iPad. Yes, it is rather good. June 15, 2010 - 7:35pm
    A different kind of thing? I've had an iPad for a while now and am beginning to get the hang of it. By which I mean  that I think I know pretty much what it is capable of in its current incarnation, and can see the potential as more and more...
    Comments
    • George Siemens June 17, 2010 - 1:02pm

      Hi Jon - thanks for your review of the iPad. About as thorough a review as I've encountered :)

    • Heather Clitheroe March 27, 2011 - 12:43pm

      I just bought myself an iPad, and I'm slowly trying to work out the best way to use it - any tips you might have would be greatly appreciated! I'm writing up a blog post on my Landing page about what I've found so far.

  • Jon Dron commented on a bookmark Designing for Social Interaction May 18, 2010 - 1:29pm
    Comments
    • Jon Dron May 18, 2010 - 9:20am

      Gladwell's ideas are a nice way to start thinking about that complexity - certainly some kind of overlay would help. It's the qualitative differences in relationships that are hard to bring out, and that's certainly one way to start doing so (I have a vague recollection of reading about someone having tested Gladwell's hypothesis using social network analysis, but can't recall the outcome: does anyone know of any?)

      It might also be interesting to consider different kinds of social capital in this respect - bonding, bridging, linking - which seem to fit quite well with the weak tie/strong tie notion and might be more in line with Eric's thoughts on temporary relationship management. What we want in such a context is probably both bridging and linking social capital, but probably not bonding social capital.

    • Eric von Stackelberg May 18, 2010 - 11:24am

      I understand Gladwell's "Mavens" and "Connectors" to be much the same as Rogers (Diffusion of Innovations) "Opinion Leaders" and "Change Agents" would this be appropriate?

      On a different note. Rogers Generalization 8-12 States: Individuals tend to be linked to others who are close to them in physical distance and who are relatively homophilous in social characteristics. Would this then suggest social networking systems and virtual worlds should be effective because they provide rich communication effectively reducing the impact of physical distance.

    • Jon Dron May 18, 2010 - 1:29pm

      I'd agree with that. Interesting discussion.

      Again, it's risky to over-generalise though - a tendency tends to veil the specifics and very far from all communities involve physically close, socially homophilous people. For instance, it's worth distinguishing geographical communities, communities of action, communities of practice, communities of interest etc (there are many dozens of definitions of 'community' and thousands of sub-types). The benefits probably apply in most cases but they probably apply differently and it's not all about physical distance. 

      In many cases I'm unconvinced that SNs and virtual worlds provide 'rich' communication, though I guess it depends on your definition. In fact, once we leave the physical environment, it's pretty ambiguous what the benefits of richer communication are and it is sometimes the lack of richness that gives benefits. For example, it's easier to tell if someone is lying if you hear them on the phone than if you are talking to them in real life. Discussion forum posts tend to be more thought-through and offer different (not necessarily better) value to learners than real-time conversations. Twitter posts work differently than blog posts and give us more control over the pace in some ways (less in others). It's not so much that communication is rich, perhaps, as that it is possible in a broader range of ways and contexts. None of them, including the most immersive video conference, come close to being with a person in a physical space but each shapes and influences how we interact in different ways, sometimes offering something more suited to our needs (often not). I'd suggest maybe it's the breadth and specialisation rather than the depth that brings benefits?

  • Jon Dron commented on a bookmark Designing for Social Interaction May 18, 2010 - 9:20am
    Comments
    • Jon Dron May 18, 2010 - 9:20am

      Gladwell's ideas are a nice way to start thinking about that complexity - certainly some kind of overlay would help. It's the qualitative differences in relationships that are hard to bring out, and that's certainly one way to start doing so (I have a vague recollection of reading about someone having tested Gladwell's hypothesis using social network analysis, but can't recall the outcome: does anyone know of any?)

      It might also be interesting to consider different kinds of social capital in this respect - bonding, bridging, linking - which seem to fit quite well with the weak tie/strong tie notion and might be more in line with Eric's thoughts on temporary relationship management. What we want in such a context is probably both bridging and linking social capital, but probably not bonding social capital.

    • Eric von Stackelberg May 18, 2010 - 11:24am

      I understand Gladwell's "Mavens" and "Connectors" to be much the same as Rogers (Diffusion of Innovations) "Opinion Leaders" and "Change Agents" would this be appropriate?

      On a different note. Rogers Generalization 8-12 States: Individuals tend to be linked to others who are close to them in physical distance and who are relatively homophilous in social characteristics. Would this then suggest social networking systems and virtual worlds should be effective because they provide rich communication effectively reducing the impact of physical distance.

    • Jon Dron May 18, 2010 - 1:29pm

      I'd agree with that. Interesting discussion.

      Again, it's risky to over-generalise though - a tendency tends to veil the specifics and very far from all communities involve physically close, socially homophilous people. For instance, it's worth distinguishing geographical communities, communities of action, communities of practice, communities of interest etc (there are many dozens of definitions of 'community' and thousands of sub-types). The benefits probably apply in most cases but they probably apply differently and it's not all about physical distance. 

      In many cases I'm unconvinced that SNs and virtual worlds provide 'rich' communication, though I guess it depends on your definition. In fact, once we leave the physical environment, it's pretty ambiguous what the benefits of richer communication are and it is sometimes the lack of richness that gives benefits. For example, it's easier to tell if someone is lying if you hear them on the phone than if you are talking to them in real life. Discussion forum posts tend to be more thought-through and offer different (not necessarily better) value to learners than real-time conversations. Twitter posts work differently than blog posts and give us more control over the pace in some ways (less in others). It's not so much that communication is rich, perhaps, as that it is possible in a broader range of ways and contexts. None of them, including the most immersive video conference, come close to being with a person in a physical space but each shapes and influences how we interact in different ways, sometimes offering something more suited to our needs (often not). I'd suggest maybe it's the breadth and specialisation rather than the depth that brings benefits?

  • Jon Dron commented on a bookmark Designing for Social Interaction May 16, 2010 - 1:10pm
    Comments
    • Jon Dron May 18, 2010 - 9:20am

      Gladwell's ideas are a nice way to start thinking about that complexity - certainly some kind of overlay would help. It's the qualitative differences in relationships that are hard to bring out, and that's certainly one way to start doing so (I have a vague recollection of reading about someone having tested Gladwell's hypothesis using social network analysis, but can't recall the outcome: does anyone know of any?)

      It might also be interesting to consider different kinds of social capital in this respect - bonding, bridging, linking - which seem to fit quite well with the weak tie/strong tie notion and might be more in line with Eric's thoughts on temporary relationship management. What we want in such a context is probably both bridging and linking social capital, but probably not bonding social capital.

    • Eric von Stackelberg May 18, 2010 - 11:24am

      I understand Gladwell's "Mavens" and "Connectors" to be much the same as Rogers (Diffusion of Innovations) "Opinion Leaders" and "Change Agents" would this be appropriate?

      On a different note. Rogers Generalization 8-12 States: Individuals tend to be linked to others who are close to them in physical distance and who are relatively homophilous in social characteristics. Would this then suggest social networking systems and virtual worlds should be effective because they provide rich communication effectively reducing the impact of physical distance.

    • Jon Dron May 18, 2010 - 1:29pm

      I'd agree with that. Interesting discussion.

      Again, it's risky to over-generalise though - a tendency tends to veil the specifics and very far from all communities involve physically close, socially homophilous people. For instance, it's worth distinguishing geographical communities, communities of action, communities of practice, communities of interest etc (there are many dozens of definitions of 'community' and thousands of sub-types). The benefits probably apply in most cases but they probably apply differently and it's not all about physical distance. 

      In many cases I'm unconvinced that SNs and virtual worlds provide 'rich' communication, though I guess it depends on your definition. In fact, once we leave the physical environment, it's pretty ambiguous what the benefits of richer communication are and it is sometimes the lack of richness that gives benefits. For example, it's easier to tell if someone is lying if you hear them on the phone than if you are talking to them in real life. Discussion forum posts tend to be more thought-through and offer different (not necessarily better) value to learners than real-time conversations. Twitter posts work differently than blog posts and give us more control over the pace in some ways (less in others). It's not so much that communication is rich, perhaps, as that it is possible in a broader range of ways and contexts. None of them, including the most immersive video conference, come close to being with a person in a physical space but each shapes and influences how we interact in different ways, sometimes offering something more suited to our needs (often not). I'd suggest maybe it's the breadth and specialisation rather than the depth that brings benefits?

  • Obvious really - the more we connect the more we communicate through whatever channels are available.