legitimate peripheral participation, ODBS, service science
In Design, Reflections on November 25, 2009 at 9:38 am
(Interspersing my ongoing write up and reflections based on my experience at ASIS&T, here’s a recent reflection on why I get excited about the intersection of ’sociological research’ and technology. The first creative use of my new BlackBerry, and I am proud to say that it does not involve twitter or facebook.)
Online learning systems cannot replace direct transmission of embodied knowledge, but it can present a way of achieving legitimate peripheral participation. This is a model of socially situated learning that is both tightly yet loosely (no, really, it is) packed in a skinny handbook, a close and frequent reading of which always inspires new insight. Based on recent concatenation of various ideas in my studies, I would like to consider the idea that utilizing online communities to allow remote or marginalized parties to engage legitimately should be the primary objective of successful long distance education systems. Now, what would it mean to actually try and execute such a system?
ASIS&T, design, HCI, notes, systems
In thesis on November 19, 2009 at 11:48 am
The second speaker at the SIG USE Symposium was Dr. David W. McDonald (note to self: read some of his papers), who comes from a background in HCI. His presentation, entitled “Issue of Scale: Mass Participation Computing”, gave us a glimpse of some of the cool projects that he worked on. He was a very lively speaker with a sense of humour. I was inspired by the ways in which live projects were implemented in existing “systems” (both online and offline) in order to gage participant’s reaction and feedback, and the fact that he is on faculty at Washington’s iSchool. His appointment reflects the truly interdisciplinary nature of what iSchools should be today.
He presents his projects in terms the theme of his talk, which is, how scale is transforming the paradigm of computing. What should be observed, studied and scrutinized in networks that represent an entire society? What types of questions are legitimate in such inquiries? How should the question be stated? And how should the results be evaluated and interpreted? We don’t know, but they sure make interesting inquiries and social experiments, as can be seen below. Click here for a brief summary of the 4 projects.
ASIS&T, collaboration, idea, notes
In thesis on November 16, 2009 at 12:49 pm
This post was originally titled “ASIS&T 2009: Day 1″, but I think I just crashed that saturday night, after a full day at the symposium, and the rest of my time in Vancouver was a blur of trying to attend a few interesting sessions, take some time out to see the city and visit a local friend, and wake up every morning to enjoy the relaxing breakfast at the O’Canada House B&B. However, the next time I visit, I think I might try out the Listel Hotel, who decorates their rooms in collaboration with the anthropology department at UBC.
One of the things that I was really looking forward to at the conference, was meeting some of the big names in information science, albeit from afar. Instead of boring you with a play by play, I’m going to give you instead what I have come away from the conference with, in terms of further understanding and appreciation. The next few posts are the highlights of the individuals I met, beginning with Sonnenwald, who was a marvelous speaker. Also, now I can put a face to her articles when I come across them!
