A3StarbirdButler

A3StarbirdButler

To Do

• please work as a group (minimum: 2 members; max: 6 members) and submit one answer as a group (clearly identifying the members of your group)
• identify one focused topic within the chapter which is of greatest interest to your group!
• each group member: should identify one additional source relevant to the topic chosen!
• each group: provide a two page max summary statement in our course environment (mention the additional resources identified)
• prepare a short presentation to the class for the class meeting on Sept 17! the groups can choose how to present their results (oral only; use slides; one member, several members, or all members); time allocation (will be dependent of the numbers of groups: but somewhere between 4 and 10 minutes)

Form for your response

1. Herbert Simon

Catharine Starbird & Stephen Butler

2. Most interesting idea/concept you learned from the article?

Shneiderman wrote this book in 2002, before the rise of social networking sites like FaceBook, MySpace, and Linkedin. Since that time, social networking site use has dramatically increased; FaceBook doubled their number of users from 2007 to 2008 (ComScore.com). This paper looks at how social networking sites relate to his human activity model and relationships model. It will explore the connection of these models to a constructionism learning framework.

Shneiderman's model of human activities contains four stages: collect, relate, create, and donate. This model fits nicely into a constructionist learning framework. Constructionism, a learning method created and donated by Seymour Papert, holds that powerful learning occurs when students create personally meaningful artifacts that they can share with peers and others (Papert, 1991). The collect and relate stages of Shniederman's model line up with the peer-to-peer sharing and learning networks that drive modern applications of Constructionism. The creation stage is a central part of both Shneiderman's model of human experience and the Constructionist learning experience. Donating or sharing with others completes both processes.

Constructionist learning theory can be a powerful tool in e-learning communities, where peer-to-peer interaction drives the educational process (Bruckman, 2002). Social networking sites, like MySpace and Facebook, are potentially valuable educational resources. Examining the MySpace network using Shneiderman's activity model and Constructionism learning theory reveals a ready-made e-learning community whose potential is currently untapped. At the center of each MySpace user's experience is his or her profile page, the digital representation of the user's online self that includes personal information, a digital picture, wall-paper and web page design, music selections, add-on applications, and a host of other components. Users create and then continually recreate this page to maintain their desired online social presence. Like constructionist learning theory and Shneiderman's activity model, this act of creation is the central component of the MySpace experience. Meanwhile, the MySpace network contains millions of other pages for viewing and collecting information about how other people create their digital selves. Established, dynamic friend networks can be used for communication and collaboration: a user can see the wallpaper her best friend uses or listen to a new song posted by her older brother's roommate. This information can inform her own creation. At the end of each creation process, every profile is instantly shared or donated across a selected portion of the network. Though most of the learning and creation on MySpace is currently social or pop cultural, there is no reason why this network could not be the source of meaningful educating. An ideal learning environment is set up and ready to go. A question for educational researchers is how can we deploy a resource or system that taps into the constructionist playground of social networking sites.

Ben Shneiderman introduces the concept of the four circles of relationships: self, family and friends, colleagues and neighbors, and citizens and markets. Even though the boundaries are imperfect, they are "characterized by size differences and the degree of interdependence, shared knowledge, and trust." (Shneiderman, 2002). His model fits into a social constructionist learning framework. The social constructionist model looks at how groups participate in creating shared meaning (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). We each have a personal understanding of reality, which gets altered by our family and friends, and further altered by our connections with other groups, colleagues, and citizens. Examining FaceBook using the relationships model and socially constructed learning model reveals great potential in knowledge construction and sharing and large concerns about privacy, control and access to information, trust, and group think. FaceBook provides access to individuals that can span the range of relationships. You create your own profile page, but share that with friends and family. You might be asked to join a group with common interests or experiences, and you might be asked by a colleague to become 'friends' with them. Depending on the level of security you setup on your account, your profile could also be viewable by the general public. FaceBook does not currently provide a way to have separate types of relationships through their site; someone would need to create an entirely separate FaceBook account to maintain both a family/friends account and a colleague/neighbor or citizen/market account. Since there isn't a mechanism to separate multiple relationships in one's life, the individual has to decide what relationships they will connect to through FaceBook. Unfortunately, there is an expected behavior (social pressure) that makes it difficult to reject people, whom you know in the real world, from becoming your friend. If your boss sent you a request to become your FaceBook friend, what message would it send if you rejected him/her? This expected behavior has consequences either way; you add them as a friend and immediately open up private parts of your life to a somewhat untrusted source or you reject them and suffer the potential repercussions at work. Trust is an important issue in building relationships and friendships, but with our personal, professional, and academic lives blending together, we often run into cases of TMI - too much information. Does a work colleague need to see pictures of your drunken adventures the weekend before? Does a potential employer need to know that you enjoy cross-dressing? While these are two extreme examples the blending of small, personal, and trusted sources (family and friends) with larger and less trusted sources (colleagues and neighbors) and with even larger and untrusted sources (citizens and markets) causes issues with privacy, control and access to information, and group think. Where there are certainly benefits of social networking sites, there are many unanswered questions about how these sites have changed the landscape of socially constructed knowledge and the impact this will have on relationships. How does the success of social networking sites alter Shneiderman's model of relationships? What is the impact of these changes? How do we address concerns of privacy and trust while utilizing these sites for shared knowledge creation?

http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2396 http://www.facebook.com/

Berger, P. L., and Luckmann (1966). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.

Bruckman, A. (2002). The future of e-learning communities. Communications of the. ACM 45:60-63.

Lampe et al. (2006). A face(book) in the crowd: social Searching vs. social browsing. CSCW '06.

Papert, S. (1991). Situating Constructionism. In Constructionism, edited by I. Harel and S. Papert. Pp. 1-11. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.

Shneiderman, B. (2002). Leonardo's Laptop. Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies. The MIT Press.

3. articulate what you did not understand in the article but it sounded interesting and you would like to know more about it

Stephen Butler:

Berger, P. L., and Luckmann (1966). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.

Lampe et al. (2006). A face(book) in the crowd: social Searching vs. social browsing. CSCW '06.

Catharine Starbird:

Bruckman, A. (2002). The future of e-learning communities. Communications of the. ACM 45:60-63.

Papert, S. (1991). Situating Constructionism. In Constructionism, edited by I. Harel and S. Papert. Pp. 1-11. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.