George Siemens argues that while blogging is about publishing our network, wikis are about using networks to achieve particular aims. He also links to a few recent articles about wikis.
Archive for March, 2007
More about wikis
Published March 22nd, 2007 in social software, collaboration and networks. 0 CommentsAnalysis of online communities
Published March 21st, 2007 in knowledge media, social software, communities and paper. 0 CommentsI found this interesting paper, which analyses different online communities:
Gallant, Linda M., Boone, Gloria M., and Heap, Austin (2007). Five heuristics for designing and evaluating Web–based communities by, First Monday, volume 12, number 3 (March 2007).
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_3/gallant/index.html
The abstract reads:
“From a three-step analysis of online communities, a set of five heuristics emerged: interactive creativity; selection hierarchy; identity construction; rewards and costs; and, artistic forms. These heuristics were generated from concepts appearing in past research, and then tested by a content analysis with focus groups using the case examples of two well-developed Web-based communities, Facebook and MySpace. The users saw this type of social technology as a flexible form of their own expression to create their own identities, social relationships, and meanings. Overall, MySpace was seen as offering greater creativity and artistic form than Facebook. The users in this study used online communities for gaining social rewards; e.g., forming and maintaining friendships, with little concern for social costs such as time expended or privacy concerns. This study contributes to a set of heuristics that can be used to evaluate other Web-based online communities in social contexts such as gaming, communities of practice, and business.”
Blogs as organisational dialogue
Published March 21st, 2007 in knowledge sharing and social software. 0 CommentsHere is an interesting post on use of weblogs to support organisational dialogue. In this case, weblogs are not used for purposeful knowledge sharing, but instead provide visibility between people and organisations. The point is that subscribing to weblogs can provide an insight into what people are working with.
Paper on “Development activities”
Published March 18th, 2007 in knowledge media and organizational learning. 1 CommentThe students in my classes are formulating problems and questions which should form the basis for their exam papers. I’ve promised them to do the same thing, so I’ve decided to write a paper, while they are writing their exam papers. Here are my initial thoughts:
The purpose is to develop a model for levels of organizational learning and development. Based on an activity theoretical approach, my aim is to develop a concept of development activities. The concept is related to concepts such as organizational learning and the learning organization. Further, the concept is motivated by the question of, how organizations should approach further education. Further education has often proved unsuccessful, because the participants are not able to relate what they have learned to their practices. The concept of development activities addresses the following questions:
How does an organization learn and develop?
What is the relationship between individual and collaborative learning and development?
How should organizations approach further education?
What kind of organizational structure supports organizational learning and development?
How can digital media support learning and development in organizations?
That’s it so far - comments are very welcome.
Collaboration through wikis
Published March 18th, 2007 in social software and collaboration. 0 CommentsI’ve gathered a small collection of interesting wiki projects. Most of them are collaborative projects on writing books.
Wikibooks
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page
- a collection of open-content textbooks
We are smarter than me
http://www.wearesmarter.org/
- a networked book on business
MetaCollab
http://collaboration.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
- collaboration on collaboration
OpenContentWiki
http://opencontent.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
- David Wiley’s wikis
Conversations about Learning Objects
http://opencontent.org/wiki/index.php?title=Conversations_About_Learning_Objects
- David Wiley’s wikibook on learning objects
Collective intelligence (in Danish)
http://wiki.kollektivintelligens.dk/mediawiki/Forside
- a book about collective intelligence
I’ll be interested to learn about other projects, which use wikis for different kinds of collaboration.
Sharing knowledge on a weblog?
Published March 1st, 2007 in knowledge sharing and social software. 1 CommentMy first thoughts on knowledge sharing concern this weblog. Sune questions the use of weblogs as tools for knowledge sharing. His experiences in using weblogs in relation to a university course were that the weblogs were not used for cross references between the students’ weblogs, but were primarily used by the individual groups as a documentation of their work.
The question is: Does it make sense to share “knowledge” on a weblog? And what to share on a weblog? So far, my not very thoughtful answer has been: everything. But does it make sense to share bookmarks, publications, book and article references, and posts from other weblogs? I’m not sure, but I do know that I use other people’s weblogs and often find interesting references, ideas and questions.
