CollabrATEC

The class read through four narratives. 

First Narrative - Formula 1

Why should we buy this story?  Seeing things from different cultures adds to the overall experience.  Time shift collaboration is important when you need to meet a deadline.  How do you deal with the time difference?  Take shifts, collaborate once a day, different teams work on projects separately, then the Lead team puts them all together. 

“Around the World” has to be pumped up.  Add the Tier One component to this story.  Software needs to provide translation for foreign languages.  Use microslicing technology for recording collaboration.  Provide close captioning on replay.  Leslie … Continue Reading

Howard Rheingold’s idea is an interesting one. However, I am torn on how collaborative it really is and how it is more of a gateway for multiple social media applications. For students, a central location for staying in touch, information and assignments is easier, but is it more applicable for all classes that what is already available? Unless it is a social media or journalism class, I am not sure students would use all the applications. If they will only use one or two for class would this application be unwieldy and unused by students.

I do not know if this is also due today at noon, but I will be interviewing freshman in a class at 2:30 today (Friday, 10/24/08), so will not be able to post until I have that information.

I believe this is a foundational platform that can be used to build upon, which is the stated intention from Rheingold. All of the tools incorporated in this platform (integrated forums, wikis, blogs, chat, comment, social bookmarking, microblogging, social video, video commenting, RSS, widgets, - his “first set of tools”-along with the included areas for curricular material: syllabi, lesson plans, resource repositories, screencasts and videos, which is what he calls “just the web service part of it”) I feel would be useful to integrate into our project platform.

I didn’t see anything new or exciting about this social media classroom. All it did was dumping all the existing social/ networking functions into one website. It probably will not work very well if the users are not teenagers or people who work with computers all the time. Once you put too many good things in one space, it gets confusing. A simple concept will seem too complex. And its users will be too frustrated to see the useful side of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrslljcnD8k&feature=related This technology would pretty much void any plans we could come up with concerning digital space requirements. Maybe we should concentrate on a building and it’s criteria, further.

I don’t see this website doing much more than what our CollabrATEC website. Social Media has a blog, a Wiki and a message board. I did like the idea of color coding the tabs to match the page. This affords easy navigation and knowledge of where you are. The one statement that I appreciated from Rheingold is…”Don’t try to keep up with the technology but rather keep up with the literacy that technologies make possible.” I prefer to stick with CollabrATEC.com myself.

Discussion:  Physical and Virtual are tied together

What are the different types of students in ATEC?  We need a human center of approach to design the new ATEC Building.  A needs analysis must be done. 

What are the user types?

1) What type students are there?

2) Describe the instructor…

3) What can we offer to graduates to keep up their skills?

4) Corporations/Military collaboration

Define the extremes… Everything else will fall into place.

What can a student get here that they cannot get anywhere else?

Assignment this week:  Find a freshman or high school student and interview them.  What is the future student?  What would they change in … Continue Reading

By Heather Green for BusinessWeek Oct. 27, 2008
It’s a given that young people live in a high-tech world. For details, take a gander at some of the data compiled by Peter Schilling, who heads the IT department at Amherst College in Massachusetts. His IT Index, as he dubs it, shows, for example, that just 5 of 1,680 students—0.3% of the school’s enrollment—have landline phones, compared with 82% of Americans. The data also capture emerging tech preferences. Freshmen (average family income: $76,183) make … Continue Reading

From our notes- a list the technology group started earlier in the semester on today’s topic- thought it might be something to build on- just an FYI of something we had already started to put together-

I cannot get the spacing right on this when I publish from copying and pasting my notes- it looks fine in this edit window, yet the spacing is off when I publish- sorry- can’t make it work correctly

Those who use the building

• students
• teacher/faculty
• administrators
• clients/guests

… Continue Reading

I think Howard Rheingold is really on to something. I like the fact that he’s trying to aggregate all sorts of course content and enclose it all in a scaffolding of Web 2.0 tools. I think creating this scaffold in “open source” makes for unlimited possibilities and gives the Social Media Classroom some longevity and flexibility (think Firefox or Moodle). Some major issues I have with the current version are a) look and feel - it’s kind of clunky right now. b) you have to download/install something. Adobe has a couple of very cool online collaborative applications; Buzzword and Acrobat … Continue Reading

i completely agree with this. i think it is becoming too social, and i also agree with Phillip in stating that it would be useful if we were making a .com site but we aren’t so i don’t know how useful the site would be as a whole. i think pieces of it could be learned from, but from what he had we have already cam up with.

I would probably transfer to another school if I had to use this application. Its nothing but MySpace with video chat. Learning will be compromised in such a system.

Point one: Howard Rheingold is decidedly an expert in our field of interest, or at least in analyzing and trying to manipulate modern communication tools to better facilitate effective communication. Point two: Maybe because of Point 1, I expected a miracle solution, but I don’t feel that his “social media classroom” (SMC) tops what we already have at our disposal. As Phillip noted, most classes don’t require the sort of commitment that a tool like Rheingold’s demands. His SMC is a nice neat box that helps to synthesize many tools available and would no doubt help students manage their options … Continue Reading

on a completely useless note, the guy being REALLY excited about his coke was the highlight of my viewing experience.

i’m sure this could be useful if you were designing the collabratec.com website, but i’m not really sold on the greatness of this Social Media Classroom where it pertains to school. Sure it’s a decent addendum to a class, but only for classes that require in depth discussion b/n students…otherwise i don’t see such a tool really being utitilized properly. the great majority of classes i have taken in my life (mostly art and natural sciences) have necessitated very little group discussions. also, in the video, the dude at 3:30 needs to learn to work on the timing between … Continue Reading

Howard Rheingold is developing the collaboratory that will redefine pedagogy, education and communication utilizing emerging media.http://socialmediaclassroom.com/

The class focused on features wanted in the new ATEC building.  A brainstorming session began.  All individuals were asked to write their desired features on small pieces of paper to then tape on the window.  The class worked collaboratively to divide these features into categories.  It seems that the majority of features wanted pertained to the environment/physical space of the building.  That category was then divided into two sub-categories… local and global.  Other main categories leaned toward “Communication” and “Resources.”  

Assignment for this week:  Each individual is to read over each storyboard, adding to each scenario.  We are then to go … Continue Reading

I’ve re-written this post 3 times. I can’t seem to get past my frustration over the uncreative approach we’ve been forced to take so far. That being said, I will try not to dwell on that which we cannot change, and rather focus on our end goal. “Keep your eyes on the prize, kids.”

We have a clear division in this class. Many of us are thinking in physical terms when it comes to the new ATEC. The rest of us are focused on the meta-physical; the cloud, interphase, and … Continue Reading

Do you really think that a cafe will be necessary? I would think a couple of crash spaces would be nice, like a half dozen cots or something in a corner in case you’re working all night.