I read Reader 1 as part of my research before I first set up my blog in order for me to get to grips with the concept of Web 2.0. I have read it again in order to gain further insight into the way web 2.0 works.
- The reader refers to the: three particular competencies that are relevant to the positioning of Web 2.0 within professional practice and the workplace, i.e 'Architectures of participation', 'Remixable data and transformations' and 'Harnessing collective intelligence'. I decided to take a look at what these terms meant and then relate them to my own work as a dance teacher and examiner.
- The reader explains this as the way in which we both absorb information on the internet and also create it, so that we are at times passive and at other times active when we use Web 2.0. We communicate, interact and therefore contribute to social networking sites like Facebook. Hamilton's concept that: "participation is a function, in part, to the reduction of the barriers to access", had a particular resonance with me in light of my recent computer crashes that caused me so many problems in my work. It is fortunate that we have other devices, such as Smartphones, so that we can still participate in using the internet if our main computer fails.
- Ullrich talks about the fact that social media sites make data and functionality accessible as they wish to promote a widespread use of their sites. Smartphones are a prime example of how easy it is for people to participate in Web 2.0 with the sites like Facebook,Twitter and Youtube being already placed in your phone settings so that it encourages you to join theses sites and facilitates the means for you to do so.
The fact that it is easy for people to participate in Web 2.0 means that more and more people are using it.
REMIXABLE DATA AND TRANSFORMATIONS
- I use music editing a lot for teaching and choreography and source some of that music from sites such as Spotify. I didn't know that when I was creating a new piece of music, by editing different sections together, I was creating a a 'mashup', or that this was terminology linked to Web 2.0, used to describe mixing up information from more than one source to "generate a new service displayed in a single graphical interface" until I read the article below:
http://books.infotoday.com/books/Engard/Engard-Sample-Chapter.pdf
- I sometimes share music I have found with my pupils and other teachers. Until I read about remixable data in the reader I hadn't realised that, when I was sharing music, I was participating in one of the central ideas of Web 2.0, that being the notion of exchanging images, music, text and opinions and creating an open platform for discussion.
The above quote by Valtysson reflects upon the idea that in Web 2.0 there is no real difference between the person creating the material and the person using it, because the sites rely upon the interaction of their users for the development of their content. Bruns refers to the concept of simultaneously producing and consuming work on the internet as 'produsage'.
- I hadn't really given any thought to the fact that every time we leave a comment on a blog or a social media site we are changing it by doing so and it is constantly evolving as a result. Ullrich refers to this as perpetual beta.
Harnessing Collective Intelligence
- In gathering together people's thoughts, ideas and comments Web 2.0 is harnessing collective intelligence. Social networking sites and sites like Amazon and Ebay feed upon the data they collect from their users. Amazon, for example, looks at what we buy and suggests other similar products that might be of interest to us. These sites are using Gruber's three processes of:
a social system - in which people communicate via computer technology.
a search engine - which is capable of gathering and processing the information and finding questions and answers.
intelligent users- who know how to search and obtain the information they require.
- One of the ways that internet sites gather information about their users is by placing 'cookies' on their sites. While I have heard this terminology before I didn't fully understand what internet 'cookies' were,or how they worked, until I read the following article:
http://lifehacker.com/5461114/fact-and-fiction-the-truth-about-browser-cookies
- I thought that cookies created spam emails, but, having read the above article, it appears that this is not the case. I wanted to understand how spam emails are created, so I did a bit of research and found the following link:
http://www.private.org.il/harvest.html
Ethical Considerations
- This got me thinking about the ethics involved with internet use. Most of us use the internet on a regular basis, but what are the implications of having this technology at our fingertips?
You only have to glance down any high street to see the amount of people on their phones or sit down in a cafe and see people tapping away on their phones or tablets. For many it seems to be something of an obsession.
I have already commented, in a previous blog, about my own pupils' frequent use of their mobile phones and tablets. There certainly seems to be an increasing dependency upon the use of internet devices.
- I found an interesting article, taken from the Varsity newspaper, recently on the subject of student dependency on technology, written from two different student perspectives.
The first student has a more negative outlook as she considers the impact of the use of technological devices upon the environment. She also is of the opinion that meeting in person is much healthier than a passive use of social networking sites.
The second student is of the opinion that: "when it comes to new tech and social media the benefits outweigh the costs for students." The link to the article is:
- This article provided the inspiration for a drama workshop with my pupils aged 11-16 years on the pros and cons of social networking. I was interested to get the viewpoint of the students I am teaching.
We began with a brainstorming session in which my students put forward their views on using social networking sites. We then took some of the things they had mentioned and developed them into improvisations. Some key topics that emerged were:
1: Peer pressure - some of my younger pupils said that they felt obligated to join sites such as Facebook because their friends were all using the site so they had joined even though some of them were under the age of 13 that Facebook imposes as a requirement to join it's site.
2: Cyber bullying- a couple of pupils said they had been victims of this and talked about how it had affected them. Interestingly, they had not stopped using social media as a result, they had just blocked the people who had sent the hurtful messages.
3: Socialising- all of my pupils were of the opinion that it was a great way to keep informed about events and arrange meetings.
4: Photo sharing- all of my pupils had posted photographs of themselves on their social networking pages and enjoyed looking at each other's photos.
- I was unaware, until I read the article below, that, once you had posted a photograph onto Facebook, you no longer owned the copyright to that photograph and Facebook were at liberty to use it:
I asked my pupils if they were aware of this- none of them were. I personally strongly disagree with the fact that a social media site can take ownership of your photographs and data in this way.
- Although there are privacy settings on social media sites and you can restrict who sees your profile, you can't fully control who gains access to your page as someone that you have granted access to could show other people what you have put up there.
We discussed this in the drama workshop and nearly all my pupils said that they had been shown the pages of people they were no longer friends with via other friends who still had access to the page.
My older pupils also said that they had often been sent inappropriate material on their social media pages by teenage boys who were friends.
- We discussed the fact that parents can put controls onto the computer to restrict their child's access to inappropriate material, but they have no idea what they are accessing on their phones and tablets and sharing with their friends via social media.
- I did some research on the statistics surrounding the access of inappropriate material online by children and discovered the site below. I found it very alarming.
- The UK government is taking steps to try to make the internet a safer place for young people. It has commissioned reports from Ofcom to look into child safety on the internet. Below is a link to a news article about this:
This article made me question whether the government should be taking greater steps towards imposing controls over appropriate internet content, but then you could argue that that might be an infringement of our democratic rights.
Countries such as China and Iran place certain restrictions on their citizens' use of the internet and in North Korea ordinary people are not allowed to use the world wide web at all.
- As I thought about this I was reminded of the words in Reader 1 : democratisation of the web. If we impose too many restrictions are we in danger of creating a situation akin to that in China?
- I did not realise, until I discovered an article online about it, that the USA uses something called PRISM as a means of intent surveillance and that there have been suggestions that the UK government also uses PRISM. The link to the article is below:
I find the thought of someone being able to access the content of a person's emails and monitor the sites they visit a gross infringement of one's privacy.
- I am also concerned with the fact that anyone can post anything they like on Youtube. I have had pupils post videos of themselves practicing their dances and have had to ask them to take them down, not only because they were using my choreography without permission, but also because they were infringing copyright by using the music in this way.
At a recent examiner's meeting I attended the question of social media was brought up. A teacher had posted one of her pupil's examination reports on Facebook. In this instance the pupil had attained a very high result and the teacher wanted to show people, but it opens up the whole question of confidentiality and professionalism; had the teacher asked the consent of the pupil and parent before posting this, for example? If a bad report had been put up, would it have opened the floodgates for criticism of the examiner in question?
It was also mentioned that one of the examiners, who also has a dance school, had an incident where one of her pupils had watched exercises from the Modern dance syllabus demonstrated by a child in her living room.The examiner's pupil had then taught it to herself.The exercises were incorrectly demonstrated and consequently she had learnt an inaccurate version of the syllabus, which her teacher then had to correct. This is potentially damaging on several levels:
1. Copyright- this was not given permission by the society to be put on Youtube
2: The work was inaccurate so someone copying it was also learning it incorrectly
3: Potential heath and safety issues- trying to learn something without applying the correct technique could cause injury.
It was concluded at the examiner's meeting that social media is an effective tool for our work and a good way to gain a target audience but that, as examiners and teachers we are in a vulnerable position and have to be extremely careful in the use of it.
This task has really made me think about the wider picture of internet use. While I like the the fact that I can gain access to any information I require via the web and appreciate that Web 2.0 opens up so many opportunities for communication and networking, I am also worried about the privacy aspects.
- I read an interesting article by Jake Davis recently in the Evening Standard. He was one of the LulzSec hackers who was imprisoned at the age of eighteen for hacking into confidential government files. In it he said:
"people need to think about the process of a needle moving around on a hard-drive and inscribing their data. Where is it stored? What happens when you send an email? how long-lasting is a picture? How far do people have to be pushed to give it up to other people? People don't think of the net as a physical thing - they imagine it's all in this ethereal cyberspace. It's a lot more personal than that."
Whilst I was concerned by his words, I was interested to discover that it had inspired a play entitled 'Teh Internet is Serious Business' (NB the misspelling of 'The' is deliberate in the title). It was performed at the Royal Court theatre. I would really like to have seen this play. Just reading about how we leave a giant footprint of personal data when we use the internet that other people can access is a frightening thought. It seems it really is a case of :
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