In the article "Public Life in the Electropolis", Slouka, Rheingold, and Mitchell discuss virtual communities and the pros and cons of these communities. Mitchell ponders the idea of whether or not digital technology is a useful community building tool. He specifically focuses on MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and the idea of classes, seminars, and and even one on one discussions conducted online. He thinks that online schooling is a bad option because it will take away the experience of physically going to school on a campus. He says that this real world experience is one of the most important parts of going to school. If we lose this real world experience are we losing the "special character" of a schooling community?? He furthers his discussion with proposing the idea that we could use technology to extend and enrich this experience instead of replacing it. Additionally, he switches gears and talks about how he likes that other isolated communities can be broadened and made into a larger whole. An example being senior/older person communities. What do you guys think?? Do you agree with any of these ideas?
Slouka discusses his opinions on the amount of useful information provided by virtual communities. He states that instead of producing useful information we will be provided with "mountains of babble among which the occasionally useful tidbit of information will be as easy to find as a nickel in a landfill." Do you agree, do you think that we are experiencing information overload?? Additionally do you think that some filtering is necessary with all of this information? Slouka seems to think so.
Rheingold thinks that we need to take a step back and really discriminate between the virtual world. He wonders how much of the important parts of real communities are present in virtual environments. What do you all think? Rhenigold also thinks that in order to answer this question we need to view online conversation as a tool. He thinks this allows for people to discuss exactly what you are using or building with this tool.
SO, do you think that digital technology is a useful community building tool??? Does it allow for the experience of community to truly be experienced or does it lack because you do not have that person to person contact? I am not sure how well I did with this blog, I may be totally off the mark when it comes to deciding what these dudes are talking about, but I still think that these are important questions to consider. See ya in class!
Slouka discusses his opinions on the amount of useful information provided by virtual communities. He states that instead of producing useful information we will be provided with "mountains of babble among which the occasionally useful tidbit of information will be as easy to find as a nickel in a landfill." Do you agree, do you think that we are experiencing information overload?? Additionally do you think that some filtering is necessary with all of this information? Slouka seems to think so.
Rheingold thinks that we need to take a step back and really discriminate between the virtual world. He wonders how much of the important parts of real communities are present in virtual environments. What do you all think? Rhenigold also thinks that in order to answer this question we need to view online conversation as a tool. He thinks this allows for people to discuss exactly what you are using or building with this tool.
SO, do you think that digital technology is a useful community building tool??? Does it allow for the experience of community to truly be experienced or does it lack because you do not have that person to person contact? I am not sure how well I did with this blog, I may be totally off the mark when it comes to deciding what these dudes are talking about, but I still think that these are important questions to consider. See ya in class!
13 comments:
I think we do have the potential to suffer from information overload...youtube.com is stuffed full of everyone's idiotic movies...there are SO MANY blogs out there...On the otherhand, maybe "filtering" is a new tool that's necessary to be "literate" in modern society...We talk about how to determine the credibility of sources for research papers...do we apply those same characteristics to online sources? Might technology like complex search engines like Google also help us with filtering? Are there any problems with relying on them for that?
That's a good point hambone, it seems like Google would help us with filtering, but in reality it doesn't really seem to, does it? There is no way to really type in exactly what you want without getting a lot of hits on ridiculous things.
I think the best point is made in this article when William Mitchell says we need to ENRICH, RATHER THAN REPLACE the physical community. I think everything online has the capability to be beneficial to communities and connections among individuals, we just need to understand this tool, like all other tools, is meant to strengthen and aid the individual rather than stand in for them.
More information is not better if we do not have the capacity to utilize this information. We need more interpreters and more physical interaction in order to make sense of the online community, and to truly benefit from it.
This article in a lot of way leaves us exactly as it started. It prettymuch concludes that there is no way to elevate virtual communities but at least there is a chance, during all the inane conversation that something deeper can transpire.
I guess that's prettymuch as good as one can do too. While most of the time it may be safe to conclude that a lot of the information online is utterly pointless, the article itself is material evidence that the outcome can be of substance.
As for the virtual MIT, I agree that much of what MIT offers would be lost. The internet can't reproduce reality.
I agree with Mitchell on his ideas about losing the "special character" of the schooling community. I think that one of the biggest/most important experiences in a persons life is when they go away and experience living on their own at college. I remember how he talks about the community at MIT and it reminded me of OU and how if we took everything to an online setting there would be no more Court Street or College Green and that would just suck. I love OU for the community.
I don't really agree with Slouka about his opinion of filtering because when we are looking up a topic on the internet just by going to 2 or 3 sites we can pretty much tell what is revelant to the topic and what it not. If something completely random and different comes up on just one specific site that is completely different than 10 other sites you are going to know it isn't revelant to the topic you are researching.
I think online conversation as a tool can be a useful community building tool in the real world but not so much in the virtual world. I think I have become closer to my peers because of online conversation but as far as in an online community I think you can never really experience a true sense of community without face to face contact.
I think that Mitchell has a good point about loosing the one on one contact with people. If you think about it interpersonal relationships are already suffering because of technological advancements. When I walk by people on the sidewalk or on campus a lot of the time they just look down instead of at me or others walking by. The schooling community is a great thing to experience. I think the only good thing about going virtual would be if it were cheaper or more convienent for those who can't afford or accomodate school.
Using technology in schoool to further education and build on what we learn would be the best option. And I do think that certain things need to be filtered because of all the junk that is in the virtual world these days. A lot of it isn't even reliable and you have to question its credibility. I agreed with a lot of the things that Slouka presented. Sometimes I just hate looking for or looking up things online becuase no matter how useful it may seems, it's sometimes just so much more work.
I don't think person to person contact can ever really be replaced and shouldn't be replaced. Sometimes I think one day we aren't going to contact each other in person at all and just communicate via internet...scary
I agree that a campus that uses a program like SL to meet in classes does take a little bit of the college experience away. The biggest reason I came to OU was to meet new people, and not go to Miami, because to me that would be a constant high school reunion. I wanted to see new things, meet different kinds of people, and experience different personalities. I don't think that would have been possible if my first quarter freshmen year was all on SL, I wouldn't have met anyone, and would just be talkin to people on a screen and going to school more than a half hour away from my house would have been pointless. I consider an online based college to be the same as something like community college, which to me isn't really a college.
I agree that if we go to an all online schooling program like MIT is considering we will lose a special quality. You can have a great relationship through the internet but you lose something when you don't have the face to face contact. Other people in the business world will also see the education in a different light, a not so positive light. I think Mitchell is right about furthering education and enhancing it with online courses but not replacing courses with online technology. It is a tool, but it shouldn't be used to take over the entire system. I also agree with Slouka that there may be an information overload. There is so much untrue crap info on the web today it is hard to know truth from ficition. However, if you can filter through the garbage there is valuable info out there that can be beneficial.
I think that digital technology is useful to an extent. Throughout all the articles this quarter, I believe it comes down to an equal balance of using technology and real life experiences. The internet is full of useful information, but unfortunately there is also a lot of useless information. People need to be taught the skills to decide which are useful and which are not.
Also, I completely disagree with the idea of online schooling. Individuals need interaction with others to learn other skills needed for their future, that they can only learn through interaction with others.
I like the point that is made in the article that it is important for us to use technology as a tool and not a replacement for building communities and other things. Real world experience is crucial for today’s society, for jobs, relationships, etc. in communication.
I think that it is hard to find reliable sources from the internet because it is so full of information. The information that we find may not be factual or real and it is important for people that use the internet to make sure that they are given legitimate information. We should use some type of filtering for information on the internet, but I think that it would be really hard for someone, or a company, to filter all of the information. I am sure that it can probably be done in the near future.
I believe that digital technology is a useful community building tool but leave it at that. It should solely help us communicate and we should not rely on it.
I think that if schooling is done totally online then you do lose the "special character" of a schooling community, meaning, that you don't get the real college experience, as far as interaction with peers and teachers. However, I think online schooling should still exsist because some people aren't able to attend a college campus every day.
As far as technology used to enrich people's lives is a great idea. I think the authors made a good point in the example of older people connecting to others through the internet. I know I would like my grandmother to do something like that so that she could make connections outside of the family, since she no longer works and has a large social network.
I think technology is a tool as well as a form of entertainment.
I think that, with training, we can act as our own internet filters, instead of relying on google or some other site. And it does require some real world experience. When someone tells you something, or you hear it through the "grapevine," you can't just presume it's true and go about your business. You should cross-check he references; if unrelated people tell you the same story, there is a better chance of it being true.
The same goes for google and wikipedia. There is a lot of ridiculous information out there, but by looking around and checking more than once source, one can deduce what is (probably) true and what is false.
As far as online college, I also agree with Mitchell about losing the special character. College isn't just about going to class and getting grades, it's about the experience. Total freedom, no parents, no restrictions (other than the law...sometimes) it's the experience of living on your own, meeting new and different people and making new friends. Online college can't do that. Hell, you can get a degree now without ever leaving your parents house...but what is the fun in that?
There are so many factors to online communitites that its hard to lean one way or the other. To a degree I think both sides are correct. We could be overloaded or overwhelmed with information, however I can learn anything I NEED to know in a matter of seconds. I also agree that online schooling will take away from the experience of going to school, and there are things to learn from just living on or near a campus. It gives us a taste of "real world" experience we couldnt get behind the safety of our computer screens. But in certain cases, online programs might be appropriate. For example, someone that is not physically able to walk from class to class or perhaps they cant afford to move to a campus. So its hard to say that any of these authors are completely wrong or right, but they all make strong points.
I believe that virtual communities will never completely replace our RL communities, although they will absolutely gain some speed in the next couple years. I believe these communities can "extend and enrich" our experiences with peers, but cannot replace our physically based community. Soulka gives some examples of digital communication being used over direct, the example she gives is MIT's education services to alumni and high school seniors. This is making communication between the two easier undoubtively, but I do not think this is a good example of REPLACING RL experiences all together. Although digital environments make all of our lives alittle easier or more fun, no virtual world has yet to be as meaningful as the real world.
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