Month: April 2008

Open Source Economics and the Participatory Web

For this post to make any sense, you first must visit the TED talks web site and listen to the presentation on open source economics by Yochai Benkler. The comments generated by this presentation are also interesting.

Many theoretical ideas associated with open source and the participatory web fascinate me. I find myself caught on both sides of many issues. The idea of creating ways to capture collective intelligence is quite appealing. However, I also create content and make part of my income from a commercial product. How do individuals make their living when important products are generated by hobbyists? When someone makes a case for the economics of open source, I try to understand what he/she has to say.

What I struggle with is taking present examples through to some long term resolution. For example, open source software. No doubt, Apache is a great web server. Linux is a reasonable operating system. NeoOffice (Open Office for the Mac) is an effective office suite. Why pay for the commercial versions? This is a reasonable question and many of us use such products. However, consider pushing this software development model a bit. Who creates this software? These folks are not your local car dealer, grocer or college prof. These are professional software people who work outside their professional roles in a collaborative creative enterprise. But, what happens should these open source products threaten the projects these folks work on for their income? Even if people have the good sense not to develop hobby applications that compete with their professional specialties, the hobby products do compete with the income source for someone. What happens if most commercial ventures find themselves in competition with a group of hobbyists? Will the entire system break down? What incentive would their be for professionals to acquire the training and develop the skills required to function at a reasonable level? As this system matures will the system find a way to strike a balance that does not limit the development of future talent?

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How much time will it take?

A recent post from Museum 2.0 (I know, I know, but I suppose everyone has a 2.0 niche) considers the question of “How much time does it take“.

When David explained that each of the Holocaust Museum’s myriad comment boards, blogs, and online forums is moderated by a staff member, the audience turned a little green. As one woman put it, “spending time on this means time staff isn’t spending on other work.”

The post attempts to offer advice on the time commitments required for various Web 2.0 roles. Translated – if you want a school administrator, a teacher, etc. to blog, podcast or whatever, just what will the time commitment be.

The post proposes the time required to qualify as a content provider (maintain a blog, podcast) is 5-10 hours per week. You get off easier for a Facebook or MySpace account – 1-5 hours.

I am not sure how one arrives at such numbers. Experience I suppose. 5 hours a week seems about right for a blog.

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Flat World Blogging

Several months ago I read an analysis of “Flat Classroom” blogging in Beyond Schools. The analysis was an attempt to consider lessons learned and to identify “issues” in several international collaborative projects focused on creative writing. Perhaps a way to frame the core message is to note that it cannot be assumed that an activity will be productive just because it is innovative and just because it involves technology.

Among the “issues” noted were:

  • time zone differences limiting interactivity
  • unmotivated students
  • projects that stretch on for too long a time, and
  • assessment procedures

I have been waiting to promote reading of the Beyond Schools post because Cindy spent some time in Russia and a collaborate student activity has been part of her experience. I wanted to give the project she was associated with some time to mature and allow the opportunity for some personal insights to emerge (I only watch). I am not certain I have reaching any conclusions, but it is time to at least encourage others to look.

The local project, Getting to Know You, involves middle school students in Russia and Grand Forks. The interaction of middle school students is facilitated by a teacher from the Grand Forks school in which Cindy works and a Russian teacher Cindy met in the U.S. but did not work with directly in Russia. All students are writing in English.

Some issues that occur to me in observing the project.
1) What is/are the objective(s) and do the activities follow? It occurs to me that there may be several possible goals here, but the goals are not necessarily the same for the classes or perhaps equally reflected in the activity. The development writing skills may have been a goal. Clearly, the Russian students have an opportunity to practice a second language. Finally, there would seem opportunities to increase cultural/international awareness. Instructor commitment to goals and student awareness of goals is likely to be important.
2) What about evaluation? I am not aware that the project I observed involved formal evaluation. I know that the local contributions were “Improved” before posting.
3) Time frame for interaction. The Beyond Schools post was worried that time zone differences would reduce the effectiveness of collaboration. The time frame in the Getting to Know You project involved much longer delays between interactions. I wonder if more intense interaction for an agreed upon shorter period of time would have been preferable.

One thing I also wonder about projects like this is whether there is a second round. Do educators try something, consider what happens, make adjustments, and then try again? Or – do educators find a new idea and as a consequence work their way through the steep part of the learning curve only to move on to another new idea. These are questions – I don’t claim to know the answers.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

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I hope you read my content from my blog

Louis Gray offers a comment on a trend that encourages secondary sites to offer content originated by bloggers. I noticed this was possible several months ago when I moved my blog to its present location and registered the new location with several aggregators. I found that I could read my entries from “readers” without having to actually connect to my site. The links to my site that were provided were pretty much unnecessary because all recent posts were there and complete. Back when we offered content via old style web pages embedding images or pages within frames appearing under a different URL was frowned on. I know that WordPress allows me to determine how much content I offer via RSS feeds and I have my feeds set to offer only part of each post. Automated ways of integrating and cross-referencing online content are intriguing, but I do hope individuals who find my material of value take the trouble to explore this site in its entirety.

For a different perspective – shyftr

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MySpace Motivates Teen Beating?

My wife watches the Today show every morning before we head to work. If you happen to do the same, you know that one of the featured stories “today” examined the beating of a girl by 6 acquaintances in Florida. The beating was supposedly in retaliation for comments made by the victim on MySpace. The beating was also taped so the perpetrators could use it later to further humiliate the victim.

This incident will likely generate a great deal of media attention. I am concerned with the “spin” that may be attached.

The Sheriff investigating the case was quoted in the Today show online summary saying:

“Our goal is not only to deal with this issue, but to try to educate parents across the state and across the nation that this is what your children are watching,” he said. “This is what some children are participating in. And we as a society have got to say, ‘This has to stop,’ because if we desensitize our children to this today, then what’s next tomorrow?”

Today does include a segment from the beating for viewing. It is shocking and potentially could  encourage parents, educators, and law enforcement personnel to take bullying more seriously. Actually, I am not certain who must be convinced this is a problem. I am concerned that the video also serves as a positive example for misguided adolescents. Somehow recording the bullying of peers has become cool. How do you change such a perception? Certainly not by filtering and pretending it does not exist.

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