I came across this article and couldn't help but read it agape. I really feel that this is far from the intended use of modern technology.
Someone else weigh in here; do you feel that this is exploitation or ingenuity?
There is also a mention at the end of the article about China's using the internet as a cross-over from cyberspace to the real world. Is this a good idea? Even scarier; is this the future?
I guess as an entrepreneur, she's doing ok. She has a whole system laid out for the process:
Chen Xiao’s Remaining Time Store Offers Services To Those in Need
People’s time can be a commodity It’s your right to arrange Chen Xiao’s life, and it’s my duty to serve you
The purchase scheme uses the following: time expenditure + material costs + transportation fees
Purchase procedure: 1. First, estimate the amount of time Chen Xiao will need, including transportation. There are three types: (A) Example: I’d like Chen Xiao to write a big-character poster for me; I’d like Chen Xiao to send an SMS to someone; I’d like Chen Xiao to give someone a phone call. For these, buy 8 minutes of Chen Xiao’s time. (B) I’d like Chen Xiao to visit a friend; I’d like Chen Xiao to go to a certain school; I’d like Chen Xiao to go to a certain place. For these, buy 1 hour of Chen Xiao’s time x quantity (factor in distance and course) (C) I’d like Chen Xiao to help someone; I’d like Chen Xiao to help me buy clothes. For these, buy 1 day of Chen Xiao’s time.
2. After that, estimate the reasonable product costs. Example: I’d like to have 295 yuan’s worth of goods. Please choose a price scale, such as 1 yuan product x 5, added to a 10 yuan product x 9, added to a 100 yuan product times 2.
3. After you have finished estimating these preparations, choose a suitable transportation cost. The transportation fees are round-trip.
Even weirder is that a lot of people are saying that this is ingenious! If you want to see some comments left on her guestbook, check out this link.
The economy is in the toilet, though.....maybe Chen is looking for a partner......
Maps of the Imagination by Peter Turchi demonstrates how maps, which at face value seem to be merely pictorial representations of the real-world, are in reality documents that need to be read as critically as any text one will find. It is important to remember, Turchi shows, that the very existence of an item on a map is really an argument. Turchi says, "We must recognize, too, how the unavoidable act of selectivity affects the map. Raven's map of the United States is in fact a map of the contiguous United States (Turchi 88)." Considering that one cannot put everything on a map that its real-world counterpart contains, it is important to remember that there is an agenda behind such omissions. While these omissions are sometimes innocuous (such as if when one looks at a map of the United States, and sees Philadelphia, Camden, Vineland, Atlantic City, Trenton, but not Glassboro shown because Glassboro is smaller than the other cities mentioned), it is important to consider that the cartographer made this choice deliberately. I actually haven't researched this, but I can safely assume that Trenton, Jersey City Newark and New Brunswick have larger populations than my town of Folsom and thus deserve to be more prominantly displayed on a map. Though I disagree with Turchi's argument that the omission of Hawaii and Alaska constitute a "disturbing omission," I understand his point.
Here's a map of New Jersey that demonstrates my point.
Hammonton is about 25 miles to the east of Glassboro. My town of Folsom borders Hammonton, yet the map does not show it. This is understandable as Hammonton has about 13,500 residents and Folsom has a population of about 2,000 (according to US Census records, courtesy of Wikipedia).
This is important to remember because we come in contact with a great deal of visual representation on the Internet with increasing frequency. Traditional liberal arts education prepares people to look at texts critically, but these skills need to be updated to help us confront some of these new challenges that have arisen with the advent of ever-more powerful computer technologies. We must look at texts critically. We must also look at visual texts critically as well. I believe this is Turchi's focal point, and I find this assessment to be on the mark.
Turchi also points out to how our transparent view of orientation (or better, our forgetfulness regarding the effects of orientation) can taint the way we view things. The map is a great example. We have to understand that the pictorial representation of the world as we see it is merely a convention, a construct even. This doesn't make it bad, or good. The map does, however, make it easy for us to understand where we are in relation to other states, the country, and the rest of the world. A map that orients everything in relation to the US would not be useful to people living in Australia, and it shouldn't be. Their map should understandably look different, as Turchi points out.
Turchi is immeasurably more articulate than I am at explaining his point. He says, "But we do not see things the way they are. The simplest demonstration is the now-elementary art-class excercise of representing a road receding into the distance... An 'accurate' realistic drawing requires distortion (Turchi183)." Here, we are reminded that, yes, we never see things the way they are, but also, that seeing things the way they are requires us to distort the facts. This sounds like good practice for artists, but risky ground to stand on for writers and academics. I had a tough time grasping this, but Turchi goes on to explain this metaphor's relation to writing. He says, "Whereas a realistic painting creates an illusion for one of our sense, realistic writing evokes the world in all its dimensions--physical space, time, sound, smell, et cetera-- through the abstract code of those inky squiggles (Turchi 186)." Bravo.
Not only has Turchi explained something to me about his text, he has shown me something new about writing. For too long, I have not only ignored vivid, descriptive writing about the human condition, I have criticized it and eschewed it with the greatest fervor possible. I have ignored what makes writing special: its ability to relate the experiences of one to many. One can argue that relating the experience from one (the author) to many (the audience) is the goal of all writing. This is clearly seen in many fictional stories, poems, and creative non-fiction. However, this is goal of all good academic writing as well. When we pick up a 300 page volume written in chunky academic prose, we are attempting to understand what the author wants to teach us.
While I don't use my Facebook page frequently (I don't believe I've been on my page for about two months now), I was very curious about how Mark Zuckerberg would handle what has become a PR nightmare for Facebook. This instance also helped show how important good PR is. I followed the story because I am interested in seeing how the web has facilitated the dissemination of information. If a situation like this happened in the past, there may or may not have been a public outcry. And if there was, it is very possible that this voice of outcry would have been dispersed throughout the country and the world.
The legal jargon of Facebooks' new TOS appears to indicate that we
don't really post the information we put on the site. While Zuckerberg
was quick to clarify, saying that the information we put on the site is
our own, these words sound empty as the fact remains that if we cancel
our accounts, the information remains on the site's servers. Because
we are dealing with virtual information that resides in virtual places,
I am at a loss in finding a real-world equivalent. It's almost like buying
something and then not being allowed throw it away by the company that
sold it to us. Then, upon hearing the complaints that would naturally
follow, it is as if the company went out of our way to remind us that
the item that we bought in question is still our own. I believe the
technical term for this is double-talk.
UPDATE: Facebook has since reverted to its old terms of use, which are more reasonable. They can be viewed here.
Unfortunately for Zuckerberg, the life-blood of his business, the increasingly networked nature of online communication, became the bane of his existence for a time. This network of people, which has allowed Facebook to become the juggernaut that it has, was dealt a huge blow by this very same network. I find it ironic and comedic at the same time. Had we all not been so well connected via Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress, and the like, the reservations that few had would not have been brought to light by the many.
When I was first introduced to the idea that wikis and other forms of socially-mediated media could help spread meaningful information in the past, I was skeptical. I was college-educated, and was loathe to look to the masses to guide me without the watchful eye of such regulatory bodies as university presses and editorial boards. But events like the Facebook debacle have shown my prior thinking to be flawed.
The flashlights of many have been brought to bear on the shady deeds of those in control of information, and have been met with encouraging results. I hope informed citizens everywhere will use this example to blow their whistles whenever they see those in control of our information displaying less-than-ethical actions, and work to expose them.
Wired published today an article detailing the machinations of a group of determined Nordic websites who wish to see the speedy demise of Internet Explorer v. 6. The short article explains that IE 6 is a nightmare for both users and designers. This, coupled with IE's well-documented security issues, should cause many to take notice, and to consider upgrading their web browsers. Much has been made on Twitter on the issue, and you can check the #IE6 tag to follow the discussion. The article's a quick read, and worth your time.
Firefox says: "Internet Explorer ver 6 tastes like a giant blue mint." Firefox's breath is now minty-fresh!
Image courtesy of the IE6 Warning Campaign Facebook page.
I used Internet Explorer v. 6 in the past, but haven't used it recently. After taking a web design class over the summer with Prof. Wolf, I learned the value of using Firefox for various reasons. For anyone interested in building sites, definitely use Firefox. I hear Chrome is good, but I haven't tried out it yet.
Peter Turchi's Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as a Cartographer was probably my favorite reading so far. I found the book to be not only informative, but extremely thought-provoking. It forced me to think about not only literature and writing, but my own thought-processes as well, in a whole new light. I want to present a few questions that are aimed at sparking discussion in Monday night's Information Architecture class.
1) Early on, Turchi discusses the concept of "blanks" within the borders of maps. I'd never put much thought into it before, but he brings up the great point that "blank spaces" can represent information that is deliberately withheld for a variety of reasons (including ignorance, the information being deemed "unimportant", or sometimes to build suspense). This made me think of the concept of "negative spaces" in art, and how powerful a tool it can be. Do you think that intentional omissions in writing (or "negative space") can hold the same amount of power as the given details? Does it sometimes enhance it?
2) On page 75, Turchi brings up "Conventions of the Illusion" and mentions the French impressionists' struggle for acceptance, citing that their work was "rejected for decades, not only by the Salon, and by many of Europe's leading museums, but also by the public." He goes on to quote T.S. Eliot who says, "The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, modified." Can this concept be applied to the ever-changing and evolving technologies that are being developed today?
3) On page 139, it is revealed that we may have limited perspective and understanding, but each of us has our own world that we must map; one that includes hometowns, vacations spots, etc. We compile mental maps that are skewed, but make sense to us. Are networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc, really just a way for us to glimpse into the "mental maps" of others?
4) Turchi devotes a section of the book to the idea of the "distortion formula of realism" in which artists used perspective to demonstrate how they perceived things, even though the images often defied what was real (i.e. to depict proper perspective of a road disappearing into the horizon, the two sides must meet at a vanishing point on the canvas. In reality, the two sides of the road never touch, they just appear to.) With the advent of blogs and citizen journalism due to new technologies, are we seeing more of this "distortion formula" in the way we receive our news and information?
5) On page 90, Denis Wood is quoted as saying: "How to choose? This is the question, for the answer determines the way the earth will look on the map...The selection of a map projection is always to choose among competing interests, to take...a point of view." Basically, he is saying that no map is truly "objective", or "accurate". Could we also say that this applies to the written word; That no written document or literary work (whether it be novels, blogs, news, etc) can be truly objective due to the fact that its author has biases, opinions, and points of view that come through in their writing?
6) I wanted to add one more question that struck me while reading this book. When I hit the section entitled "A Rigorous Geometry", the discussion about measuring the earth really got my brain working. I couldn't help but think that the entire basis for determining the dimensions of the earth is based on human-made mathematics. We created numbers and equations (as well as words and concepts), and utilize them to determine truths on a daily basis. But can there be a "truth", or is it only derived from systems that we have invented and implemented to make sense of the world around us? If we take a newborn and tell him all his life that the sky is purple and 1 + 1 = 12, then his entire "world" and every truth he finds is now different from the norm, but yet perfectly in sync with his concepts.
I saw this special a few weeks ago, and it came up in conversation with a friend of mine yesterday so I thought I'd share it with you.
This story was on 60 Minutes, and discussed technology that is capable of "thought identification".
They talk about the benefits of this evolving technology, but we must look at the dangers of this concept. Be sure to watch for the section at the 5:30 mark where they go over scanning the brain for memory of events and locations, as well as the 7:10 mark when they really blow your mind with proposed ideas for the future.
How do you feel about this? This is another example of the idea that "Just because we can do something does not mean we should."
Our class was charged with reading The Social Life of Information, a commentary on how we may not be looking at the whole information picture. John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid argue that we cannot look at information as if it is some discrete thing, separate from the social context in which it is used. This argument is extended to technology as well. The authors state that their book "emphasizes how easily, nonethelesss, these social contributions are overshadowed by the dazzling claims about new technology and the new economy, and seeks to draw attention back toward them (Preface X)." Information does not exist in a vacuum. Nor does the technology that has helped promulgate and make this information accessible. Instead these entities belong to a network, a community, an ecology of sorts in which all parts-- context, people, information and technology co-mingle. We cannot examine one part of the ecology without looking at where it came from and what influence it may have on other items.
The authors argue that we cannot oversimplify this complex relationship between information and its social context. They argue: "as people try to plot the effects of technology, it's important to understand that information technologies represent powerful forces at work in society. These forces are also remarkably complex." While this bit of information wasn't necessarily new to me, I was expecting this book to more technically focused. After finishing the book, I understand why the authors chose the "people" aspect of information as the over-arching theme. The authors feel that the people part of the information ecology is being ignored, or at least minimized, and this does a disservice to anyone trying to understand information science generally and information architecture particularly.
I was most interested in how the Brown and Suguid talked about collaborative learning in a corporate context. It reminded me of Communities of Practice, and for good reason: the authors were drawing on Etienne Wenger's work for inspiration. Brown and Suguid report: "the reps also developed a collective pool of knowledge and insight on which they drew... All contributed from personal stock, and there was a great deal of overlap, but each had his or her strengths, which the others recognized and relied on (104)." Even my workplace, a casual dining restaurant, which hardly demands a technical skillset, resembles this model presented by the authors. Some of us, for example, know more about alcohol than others. One of my friends seems to know everything about every menu item. When someone has a specific question about whether a particular item has something he or she may be allergic to, I will call on my friend before I would some of the managers because I trust and recognize the validity of his knowledge. Some of us know more about the rules and regulations of the restaurant than others, and others know the ins and outs of the computer the best. When we have a question, we are largely self-regulating. This is information which new workers may or may not be tested on, but is information that we have nonetheless come across through the years. I wrote a blog on embodied knowledge in the workplace this week that fleshes out this concept further.
This sort of communal sharing of knowledge is not endemic to simply low-level work like my serving job or claims processors as mentioned in Wenger's book, it is also employed to great affect in high-level technical jobs (126). Here's a relevant example from Brown and Suguid: "In the last years of graduate school or in internships, scientists, humanists, doctors, architects, or lawyers, after years of schoolroom training, learn their craft in the company of professional mentors (127)." Some of us think (myself included) that school should prepare me to work on my own. And for some jobs, this is fine. But the for the majority of jobs-- education, retail, administration, or some of the others mentioned by the authors, this is not the case-- we often need to work together in the workplace. So, hording knowledge the way a squirrel hords nuts is not so useful.
The authors continue with an interesting take on local knowledge-- information indigenous to a particular discourse community. They say that "such local knowledge, however, can also reinforce the divisions that help create it. As any one group develops in the direction of its unique practice, insights, and knowledge, it may develop away from the other groups with which it must work (154)." I always looked at local knowledge as a positive and necessary thing. But the authors suggest that training that is too specialized may become problematic for collaborative work which is becoming increasingly important in more varied contexts thanks to new technology.
The book also helped me re-think some of my opinions on education in light of new technologies drastically altering the educational landscape. However, these changes must be monitored carefully. The authors point to how teaching has become a sort of "delivery service" and schools are becoming a sort of "a loading-site". However, this sort of thinking is fallacious, because, as mentioned before, it does not take into account the "people" aspect of education. We are not machines. Neither are our teachers. We belong to a complex network of entities whose influence on other parts of the ecologies can only be roughly approximated. We cannot always take into account how much race, gender, age, religion, nationality, or prior educational experience will have on a given person's education. What is good for one is not always good for another. Perhaps we can look now to leverage this technology and create a more customizable educational experience for everyone involved.
The Social Life of Information talks about many things, including the concept of "embodied knowledge." This is a concept whose name I was unaware of, though I refer to it frequently when I talk to friends about how my workplace is operated. When I read the book, I was a little in the dark about the idea, but after thinking about it, I can see many examples of how experienced workers in my restaurant possess embodied knowledge. This information is a result of experience, and is not something that can be easily trained.
When the casual dining chain where I've worked for seven years decided about a year ago to trim its menu down, several of us more experienced workers saw the potential fall-out. We feared that people would be displeased if their favorite item left the menu, and that these people would possibly choose to not return. It happened. When people came to our store and realized their favorite item was gone, they were, indeed, upset. Sometimes, they took it out on us servers. Other times, they took it out on the managers. Other times, they called corporate HQ.
But this was no surprise, at least to some of us servers and bartenders. Many of us saw this coming from a mile away. We know our patrons. We know our product. We know our management. Many of us believed that the decision to cut the menu down was a myopic one. I understand management's reasoning. They felt that it had become too inefficient to keep the menu big. A smaller menu is a more manageable one, from an execution standpoint. Upper management was only thinking of how to make the nuts and bolts of the operation more efficient. They did not consider how people might react. There is a people aspect of all businesses that must be acknowledged and dealt with.
I have seen new managers come into a store and single people out, and try to have them removed. While there are always some bad apples in a bunch, and sometimes, people do things that are not good for the company, I'm not really dealing that aspect here. Instead, I am looking at things from the perspective that experienced workers have embodied knowledge that has only developed through experience.
Here's another example. Sometimes, people give their appetizer order and entree order at the same time. It is then the server's responsibility to manage this information properly. Appetizers usually don't take as long as entrees do, but not always. We can estimate how long a given item will take to cook. For example, mozzarella sticks take about three minutes to cook. On a slow day, you can get them in four minutes. On a busy day, it could take eight or ten minutes. Quesadillas can take five one a good day or ten on busy day. In our computer, we have a button called "FIRST OUT". You can put a whole order into the computer. For example, mozzarella sticks + two entrees. It doesn't matter what the entrees are. When you hit first out, only the mozzarella sticks go through for four minutes. If the food is cooked in less time, the entrees pop up on the cooks' screens. So, the entree order goes to the cooks after the mozzarell sticks are sent out, or four minutes, whatever happens first. And this FIRST OUT button works well, sometimes. But sometimes, it is disasterous. If the appetizer takes ten minutes, and the entree takes just six, they will come out at the same time. People tend to get angry when this happens. Experience can help us feel out when it is most efficient to wring in the food to get the desired result.
When I trained a new server last week, I had to explain this process of how first out works. I told her it's good to use it to start with, so she doens't forget to wring in anyone's food, but that the button is not good to use all the time. When people are trained, they are told to use the button all the time. Without the experience, and the embodied knowledge that comes with it, new servers would be left in the dark as to why the FIRST OUT button failed them. This experience is valuable to keeping the restaurant running smoothly.
Hope this made sense. Twitter me if you have comments or questions.
Overall, I found the readings in The Social Life of Information to be interesting, although they felt more like Part II of last week's Information Ecologies (as mentioned by classmate Chris Meyers in an earlier post.)
I did, however, feel that some of the text was a bit dated. Early on in the readings, Brown and Duguid bring up the idea of "endism", which really got me thinking. They list a handful of things in society that are believed will be "brought to an end" by the ever-evolving technology around us. The authors seem to dismiss this notion, but the fact is that in the nine years since this book was published, we have seen trends sway a bit in the direction of certain aspects of "endism." For example, the book cites that technology could end "press, television, and mass media" as well as "universities." Let's now look at the world as it is in 2009. Hard copy newspapers are rapidly being phased out and replaced with faster-paced online reporting and blogging, we can watch newscasts and news video online, and one of the newest trends at colleges is the option of "online class" (in some instances, a person can even complete a full college education via online resources.) The idea of "endism" may not be too far-fetched, in some cases.
One other concept that I found particularly interesting was the idea of manipulation of information by autonomous agents, especially product brokering. The authors talk about Amazon.com keeping tabs on what items you search for, then, at a later date, recommending similar products based on your earlier searches.
This was a great example of the overall theme of this book; where we are with technology versus where we think we should be. Product brokering seems to be a prime example of a developed technology with the intention of convenience, but lacking the critical thinking that would raise the quetion of; Do we need this?
I recently read an article that dealt with our privacy in terms of the search engines we use. I scanned the article for you all to read. It's another great example of that "for every action..." philosophy; search engines (and the internet, in a more broad sense) allows us fast and easy access to loads of information, but there are drawbacks, as seen below.
If you're interested, check out this video. It's from the first trailer for Resident Evil 5, the soon-to-be newest installment of the long-running survival horror series of videogames, set to release next month. It contains imagery that I believe is worthy of investigation.
Much has been made of this trailer's questionable use of imagery. Last April, I commented on the trailer and on some of the discussion that it created. While some people felt that much was made over nothing, a few of the more articulate members of the gaming press looked at the situation seriously. N'Gai Croal, a Canadian-born black man (I guess that would make him African-Canadian-American, perhaps), is a well-respected videogame writer for Newsweek magazine. Shawn Elliott, whose blog I linked to, is now a videogame developer at 2K Games in Boston. When I heard the buzz surrounding the trailer, I was skeptical. After all, Capcom is a Japanese company who has been extremely successful at reaching out a global (read: European and North American) audience. The Resident Evil series of videogames has always sold well here, so I never suspected any malice on their behalf. After viewing the trailer, however, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth.
Here is a new trailer, which is much different from the original.
This newer trailer clears some things up for me, and while most of the antagonists are black, everything seems to be spun in a way as to make it not their fault. And there appears to be a higher-up antagonist, who is white. Your darker-skinned (I'm unsure of the female character Sheva's nationality) also seems to make things a bit more inviting.
I bring this all up again because a free, playable demonstration of the game was made available recently for download for the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. I downloaded it when I had the chance, and played it twice on the snow day. It was a visceral and cerebral experiences. I played the section shown in the first demo. The addition the dark-skinned co-protagonist is an extremely notable addition. There was no African partner in the original trailer. Instead, the trailer showed a dashing white hero squaring off against hordes of sneaky, shadowy blacks. Your man, Chris Redfield, stood tall and withstood the onslaught of dozens of angry black bezerkers.
Here, I should probably digress and say that I play a lot of shooting games. Some are played online, cooperatively against human opponents, while others are played against computer-controlled characters. Common enemies in shooter games include aliens (such as in the Halo and Gears of War series), Nazis (such as in Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and Brothers in Arms), or zombies (Resident Evil, Left 4 Dead). These are all easy-to-hate enemies. Aliens, especially aggressive, imperialistic ones, are easy targets. Nazis and to a lesser extent, WWII Japanese, responsible for countless war atrocities and crimes against humanity, are also commonly featured in shooting games. Zombies too are great to kill as they're highly aggressive, and are already dead. However, things feel much different when you are killing hordes of black zombies. I believe that this is because their most noticable difference between them and your primary onscreen avatar (or myself as a white man), is their color.
When I saw the first set of five or six black zombies approach me in the game, it was an experience unlike any other I can remember in a game. It was even more powerful than when I faced off against an ethnically diverse set of zombies in Resident Evil 3. This time, it felt more real, looked more real (hello, hi-def) and sounded more real (thanks to surround sound). I never expected to feel a sense of dread in a game like this. It was similar to past Resident Evil games to be sure, but it was also more potent. I don't know if this means anything about me, if anything. I hope anyone interested can check this stuff out and talk with me if you'd like. I'm curious to hear from both game players and non-players, guys and ladies, and people of all ethnic backgrounds, but especially African-Americans. I am curious if they felt the same thing that Croal, Elliott, and I felt.
This week's readings were very interesting and thought provoking. Information Ecologies by Nardi and O'Day focuses on not only developing technologies, but on the use of these technologies by humans and how we are served by them.
The idea of "values" was particularly interesting to me. Nardi and O'Day present ideas from Neil Postman who says that there is "too much information coming too fast." He goes on to say that the mass media feed us "drastically decontextualized highlights" from places around the world (Iraq, Darfur, etc), and it leaves us no possible way of contextualizing the experience, but rather only caring as long as a crisis lasts.
This point rang especially true. Postman cites the invention of telegraphy and photography as the technologies that first permitted this rush of decontextualized information. I started to think about this and realized that the same thing is constantly happening, but with newer technologies and in different outlets.
MySpace, Facebook, and a slew of other networking tools allow us to make contact with people from around the globe.But how much “contextualization” actually occurs during the lifetime of our online relationship?We learn about the person and a bit about where they live and what their life is like, but we can’t truly comprehend a life in their shoes.The sights, the sounds, the feelings, the social norms and acceptances are all things that we can’t get from long-distance communication, and the life of our attachment to them, their circumstance, and their world lasts only as long as we are chatting with them.They are, as one of my favorite authors, Chuck Palahniuk, once stated “single-serving friends.”So, as much as technology has the power to bring the world closer, it also becomes apparent that it’s undeniable that it’s still a big place incapable of being tied together with the stroke of a mouse.
The case studies in the book were another interesting point, and the one about “virtual worlds” was pretty interesting.I think that this new wave of “virtual classrooms” comes with great benefits.In the book, the virtual world offered a safe haven, and an experience that could help compensate for disadvantages in the students’ lives.Going a step further (or farther?I always get that mixed up), colleges now often offer online courses to students.This can be very beneficial, but it can also be detrimental. It goes along with the old physics saying “for every action…”, mainly because it offers convenience, but then subtracts the human interaction portion of the experience.I can look back on my years in school and can name teachers that I’ve loved and have had great impacts on me, and ones that I didn’t like and aggravated me more than anything else.Point being, I can recall these things because of not only what I learned, but how I interacted with these people.I have a few friends who have taken online courses, and they are often assigned readings, tasks, and given online tests at certain times.If they need to ask the teacher a question, they have to email them.Gone is the banter of teacher and student, and gone is the in-class interaction between peers.I believe those things contribute just as much to learning as the actual lesson plans and assignments; face-to-face conversations where we learn how to read people’s body language, how to handle a conversation with different types of people, how to articulate thoughts into speech rather than typing out text and having the use of a “delete” button.
All in all, this book really got me thinking, and I think it’s important to realize that we must be the masters of technology and not vice versa.
I've been thinking about the reading for this week, Information Ecologies by Bonnie A. Nardi and Vicki L. O'Day, and its applications for me and the work we're doing in Information Architecture. I hope you find this post useful and for a fruitful, metaphor-filled discussion on Monday.
Information Ecologies, written by Bonnie A. Nardi and Vicki L. O’Day describes the growing role of technology in the lives of students and workers in the late 1990s. This development has only continued, and bears much relevance to our work in Information Architecture. The book opens up describing opposing positions on the Information Revolution. Some people called technophiles see technology as serving as a kind of societal savior. Other observers view technology in an opposite light, suggesting that our reliance on technology is more likely to bring an apocalypse than anything else. Nardi and O’Day suggest, however, the a truer reflection of this phenomenon is probably somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. And I think they’re right. Technology is a tool; it is not inherently good or bad. And unlike language, technology is neutral. Perhaps there’s a better way to look at this debate whether our extensive use of technology as being good or bad and consider the metaphor that Nardi and O’Day use. The authors define an information ecology as “a system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a particular local environment. In information ecologies, the spotlight is not on technology, but on human activities that are served by technology (Nardi and O’Day 49).” So maybe we shouldn’t be looking at technology as a discrete entity. We should be looking at how it is used by people and to what ends. I think this ecology metaphor works well because it takes into account the interconnectedness of our relationship with technology The middle portion of the book describes three case studies that bear relevance to our work. The first one describes how the work of librarians has actually increased in importance with the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Another case study described the interactions of students and teachers in a virtual world. It was an experiment in learning that showed that cultural obstacles may exist in the classroom. I thought this relevant because I have rationally been a detractor to spending money to have computers in schools, but this section showed that the virtual worlds can be useful by making learning more participatory. The third case study, which described “gardeners” in an engineering firm was most interesting to me. Gardeners are people that develop technical skills “on the side” and become liaisons between experts and non-experts. They aren’t always the IT people, but develop enough acumen to use the tools functionally and can then pass the information on to other people. I thought this may be the type of position I should strive for as I have been disappointed in how difficult a time I’ve had in learning to build a web site. While I got better at building the site in time, I’m afraid that I’m never going to be super good at doing technical things. Like the gardeners described in Information Ecologies, I enjoy acquiring new information, learning from others, and sharing said knowledge with others. I wouldn’t want to be someone that banged away at code all day, but I also wouldn’t want to sit in meetings, or write all day. Some combination of the three sounds appealing to me. I also found the part about the computer company that didn’t hire computer people interesting. Instead, they hired waiters (like me), teachers (as a tutor, that’s close), and other people whose jobs demanded a high level of patience and face-to-face interaction. The person interviewed in the book said something along the lines of “you can teach people to use a computer, but you can’t teach them patience.” I hope I can one day (soon) put the many hours of building patience as a waiter for 7 years to work in a job that doesn’t rely so heavily (and by heavily, I mean I rely entirely) on people’s generosity to make money. Wish I wrote that page number down, I want to give that company a call. I believe the goal of Information Ecologies was to challenge the way we view our relationship with technology and to force us to look at it with a fresh perspective.
I felt that I had to share this story, because I think fits in well with the focus of this Information Architecture class, as well as the Information Ecologies readings for this week.
My father is a computer tech, and one of his accounts is a school in Camden. He was called in after the faculty members found that somehow the administrative password to log onto the school's system had been changed. The principal of the school explained to my dad that a 15-year-old student had hacked into the system and changed the password "just for fun". How did he learn to do it? "Well," said the principal, "he found a video on YouTube that gives a step-by-step walkthrough of how to hack into computers and make changes through the command prompt/DOS.”
Ironically, the only way my dad could fix the situation was to find that same video on YouTube, hack back through the system, and reset the password.
It seems to me that for every advance in technology we achieve, there are those who are ready and willing to exploit it and use it to start trouble and cause problems.We can now shop online, but must fear our credit card numbers being stolen.We have portable GPS systems, but must acknowledge that our exact location as well as a variety of other facts (such as maximum speed, average speed, miles per gallon of gas, and even where/how long we stopped the car) can all be accessed and recorded via satellite tracking.And we have things like YouTube that provide entertainment and networking capabilities, but also provide an outlet for those seeking to use technology as a weapon.
To say it can be stopped isn’t realistic.I asked my dad why the school didn’t manually block access to certain websites.“They did that already,” he responded.“The kids found a way to bypass it and just come in through the back door.”
Information Ecologies began with a great section about using technology with heart.As much fun and as convenient as these advances are, we must realize that it also comes with a fair amount of problems as well, because not everyone in the world is using their heart every time they log onto their computer.
I'm working through Information Ecologies by Bonnie A. Nardi and Vicki L. O'Day, and I was surprised to see how closely the questions I'm interested in mirror the ones addressed in the book. The big question in the book is not whether an over-reliance on technology is good or bad but rather how it is affecting us. I see a lot to like about the technology we use, but I also see drawbacks. I want to be a good user of technology and a smart one.
I am connected to my computer most of the time I am not at my serving job (am I'm even connected to it a great deal when I'm at my other job as a writing tutor). Like most of you, I use the Internet for research, to general acquire new information, and to communicate with my teachers, classmates, and other aquaintenances. I type all of my papers (believe me, my writing is indistinguishable to everyone but me) on the computer too. These are all positive things and mostly productive activities.
But what is this doing to me? Since I began typing a short time ago, I checked both my email and my twitter account twice. I always check my email, even when I'm not expecting any important messages. I check my twitter too just to see what other people are saying. When I take these mini-breaks, I often will check multiple sites and even a few radio stations. It can be really killer for my productivity. If I don't check these things, I worry that I'm missing something . As I write this, I remembered that I had to play a cd in my stereo as well (I could have put the disk in my computer, but my laptop's speakers are lousy, so I had to stop what I was doing to put the disk in my stereo).
The point here, for me, is that for every good thing that technology allows me to do, there is another distraction that it provides, another rabbit hole to follow, or another shiny object to grab. How do I rectify this? Some will probably say that these things are natural, and maybe they are. But discipline has to come in somewhere. There needs to be a time when I say "no" to myself, I won't check my email, twitter, change the cd, or anything else until my work is done. This is perhaps not too big of a problem for most people, but it is for me. I have limited time because I'm working so much, and I have such poor sleeping habits. In the end, I need to learn to become the master of technology, and not let it be the master of me.
Firefox says: "Internet Explorer ver 6 tastes like a giant blue mint." 
