Case Study 1

I chose to explore the Flickr website @ www.flickr.com. I had no previous knowledge of any of the listed sites, so I just picked one from the list. I was actually surprised to see how this community works and that it exists. I have had family send me photos in this manner, but never knew how they were able to do so.
A knowledge based learning community seeks to advance the collective knowledge in a subject or field of inquiry, and to do so in a way that supports the growth of each of the individuals in the community. (Kling & Courtright, 2004). Flickr encourages members to increase each others knowledge in the area of photography.
Flicker is an online photo management and sharing application, where individuals can upload, edit, organize, and share their photos with whomever they choose. The tour took me through eight steps to learn how Flickr works. The steps are as follows; what is flickr, upload, edit, organize, share, maps, make stuff, and keep in touch. Each activity was explained in detail with visual aids. While exploring the community, I was able to look at many different types of photos in “the commons” area. This is where individuals post pictures by category or “tag” (keyword or label) and members are allowed to view the photos and make comments to each other about them. Almost like a photo museum, where anyone can post the photos they are proud of. Flickr was the first online photo sharing site to recognize itself as much more than a hosting service for personal photo albums. It has features inspired by the latest fashions in online-software design an image-tagging code. It's not just for self-display, but for visual conversation between members.
The purpose and goal of the Flickr community is to help people make their content available to others and to provide members with new ways of organizing photos and video. Flickr accounts are intended for personal use, for members to share photos and video that they themselves have created. The purpose of the commons area is “to increase access to publicly-held photography collections, and to provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge. (Then watch what happens when they do!)”. Many Flickr users have chosen to post their work under a Creative Commons license, and you can browse or search through content under each type of license in the “creative commons” area. The “Places” area is a map of the world where members can post photos they have taken according to where they live. I was able to search for my hometown, but the search stated that no one has taken a picture from Stratford and posted before.
The community has several guidelines for members to follow. They include content about respect of others and being polite as well as copyright guidelines. Photo content must be flagged as "safe", "moderate" or "restricted." Video on Flickr may only include "safe" or "moderate" content -- "restricted" video content is not allowed on Flickr and will be removed. According to Flickr administration, in most circumstances they will give second chances after violations. They will send you a warning if you violate any of the guidelines, and subsequent violations can result in account termination without warning. The site has two founders and 48 team members that monitor site activity. This team has a blog where they can post comments about photos or groups of photos, make comments to members, or post updates about Flickr.
In conclusion, I found this site to be very interesting and user friendly. The guidelines are clear and I did not see anything inappropriate. The instructions are easy to understand, so it should be easy for anyone to navigate. I am not particularly interested in taking photos to post for others to comment on, but can see how this would be great if you like photography. I am considering joining just for the ability to organize, edit, and share my photos with friends and family.

For Part B, I chose to visit Tapped In @ http://tappedin.org/tappedin/. I also just picked this one off the list; I had no prior knowledge of any of these sites.
Tapped In is a Web-based learning environment where educators and organizations can develop, implement, and manage online courses, workshops, seminars, mentoring programs, and other collaborative activities that supplement, or function in lieu of, face-to-face activities. Tapped In is a task-based learning community, where the learning takes place both online, facilitated by many different forms of distant communication, and through interaction that takes place locally as a direct result of either sending or receiving the messages. The technology is used to create both technical and social environments (Kling & Courtright, 2004) where members
depend on one another and are asked to incorporate different worldviews into their frame of perception.
Online activities take place within custom virtual buildings within the Tapped In environment. Each organization gets their own building, which typically has 3 floors:
1. A ground floor with a reception (where members find help desk staff and news) and other public rooms (conference rooms, etc.).
2. A second floor with group rooms, which can be open to the public, moderated, or totally private. Group owners can assign moderators and permissions to group members.
3. A third floor with personal offices for members affiliated with the organization.
Members communicate through text-based chat, private messaging, threaded discussion boards, conversation transcripts that are automatically emailed, and messages that can be saved for someone who is not logged in. Members can:
· plan and conduct learning projects with colleagues and students
· participate in or lead topical discussion and groups
· manage and attend online courses offered by providers
· mentor other educators
· try out new ideas in a safe, supportive environment
Tapped In has nine team members who routinely partner with education organizations, school systems, and technology companies, and also engage in participatory design of new learning technologies with their user communities. The administration team helps by offering online orientation and tutorials, help via e-mail and chat, support and publicity for provider activities, daily hosted events, monthly newsletter emailed to members, experienced online meeting facilitators, customization, data collection, and training.
This site is well organized, and seems to be full of helpful information. It is a little overwhelming at first to see all of the different rooms and postings available, but I think with more time it would be easy to navigate. The information I was able to access as a guest was very educational. I read several discussions where teachers had questions and their peers were able to give advice based on their own experiences. Overall this was a good experience.

Week 3 Discussion

For the week 3 activity, I read chapters 9 & 10. I am amazed by the amount and types of virtual communities that exist and that I did not know it until now. I have surfed the net a million times, but guess I looked past them. The only ones I knew anything about were Facebook and MySpace and that knowledge was limited to what my nieces and nephew told me. As far as thinking about the web as a replacement for self and/or social support, I definitely had not made it to that point until this week. It makes perfect sense; I guess I just needed it pointed out. As far as a summary of the readings, here goes.
Chapter 9 discusses how society has switched its way of thinking, from worrying about natural occurrences and how they will affect us, to how we have affected nature and what we may have caused through science and technology. This idea means we have become a risk society. Reflexive modernization is a process of modernization that is characteristic of a risk society. In this type of society, progress is achieved through reorganization and reform by re-evaluating what is already being used by society. According to Renninger and Shumar (2002), a risk society feels the need to assess for and calculate potential risks in their lives. Individuals will seek out information for varying issues by way of self-help guides, manuals, and other guides for living. The authors believe that the internet has accelerated the spread of such activities and virtual discussion groups. With this change, individuals are researching issues on their own and asking advice from various sources, no longer relying on the “expert”.
Chapter 10 discusses the life-cycles of learning communities and states that learning communities go through a series of phases. The phases are:
· The first phase-idea is proposed to network-people respond or the life cycle for this
activity dies.
· Refinement phase-people exchange ideas to refine the idea
· Organizational phase-exchange of time-schedules, procedures, and software tools.
· Pursuit phase-activity is actually carried out.
· Wrap-up phase-person who proposed idea thanks participants and if successful
participants congratulate each other.
· Publication phase-activity is published for people who have not been involved in the
process.
Knowing about the different phases allows participants to integrate them more effectively with other educational needs/roles, and it helps participants to understand their role in the group.

Thanks, Tomi