What a week! I had a great week thanks to Robert and all the classmates!
The Web Searching assignment pushed me into a new level of Internet search. Exploring NoodleTools, I learned to use different search engines for different purposes. Some of the search engines are more useful than others, and I should start to compile the ones I am going to use often. At the same time, I thought I should pay more attention to who selects the information you see when I do a search. Eli Parsier effectively presented in his thought-provoking speech, Beware online "filter bubbles", that now the computer is the gatekeeper of the incoming information. Google, for example, looks at 57 signals, such as what kind of computer you are using or where you are located before returning the search results. Without your knowing it, you will end up being left in the filter bubbles where what is really important is precluded by the computer. I have realized that choosing a good search engine can be one way to combat this.
We had great discussions this week on Web Searching, ABCD Objective, and Project Task 1, and I truly enjoyed them. I would like to express special thanks to Colomba when she pointed out the problem in my abcd objective. It gave me a chance to think more carefully about how I can make a good learning objective. I am not sure if NICENET offers the grouping option, which some Learning Management Systems do, but it might be helpful, especially for this type of assignment, if we can have small groups to help each other. The advantage of grouping is that we can limit the amount of reading and also we can make sure everyone gets some kind of feedback. I once created an asynchronous discussion forum for my 180 students. They said they enjoyed it but at the same time expressed that it was difficult to follow discussions because there were too many postings and a lot of them were redundant. It might be difficulty to set up groups and maintain them, but I would like to try that next time I do an asynchronous discussion with my students.
I am looking forward to interacting with more classmates next week.
Sam
Hi Osamu: Great post. Yes, even though Google's motto is "do no evil" a big company has the potential to cause unintended consequences that affect people negatively. Filter bubbles are a great example. As consumers we should be ready to use alternatives should a product no longer be useful.
ReplyDeleteAs far as grouping, no, nicenet does not offer that. Nicenet is essentially a stripped down cms, cut to the basics. There may be ways to work around this limitation by grouping threads, and I thank you for suggesting that idea. We typically use the WIKI to do a group peer reading of each other's projects, and googles sites allows that set up fairly easily.
Anyway, it is great to push these tools to their limits.
~Robert