I have been wanting to explore Shutterfly for some time, but because I pay for a Flickr account and have spent considerable time with Picasa, it seemed like just one more version of what I have been recommending. In the back of mind what I knew was unique about Shutterfly was that while it was a photo sharing site it also offered a way to offer general web content. This struck me as an important distinction.
A few days ago I came across this strange post on MarketWatch (strange because MarketWatch is not exactly the place I search for ideas for the classroom). The business oriented post that includes the present stock market value of Shutterfly explained Shutterfly’s effort to offer classroom web sites. The article explains that parents would like to see images from the classroom and from student field trips, but providing such images is difficult because of security concerns. So, Shutterfly has offered a version of the tool allowing the creation of web sites to meet this and other classroom to home communication needs. The classroom web sites are by invitation only which is the way the teacher or a parent volunteer controls access. While Shutterfly’s main business model is printing user photographs in various formats (images, calendars, photo books) and photos are clearly what Shutterfly does well, the template and modular-based approach makes it relatively easy to create an impressive site.
Clay Shirky notes that someone has taken “Here comes everybody” and created a set of links that annotate concepts/examples he discusses (see my previous post on this resource). The list is complete and the links I checked (e.g., a nice summary of the Tragedy of the Commons) were appear to be carefully selected. What a great way to illustrate the theme of the book and organizing without an organization (at least here comes someone).
I wrote about the return of expertise a couple of days ago and today I encounter a new search engine roughly based on “human” expertise. Topicle is a new search site that allows participants to create their own search engines. You can search using existing search topics or create your own. There was not topic on “education blogs“, so I created my own. I simply copied a few URLs from my bloglines account to get it started. I admit this was not very original, but it would seem a search tool should cover some of the basics before moving on to specialized topics.
Topicle is supposed to function as a social search service. Participants identify topics, add URLs, and rate existing URLs. We will have to see if my little seed grows.
The PEW Internet and American Life Project has released another report on Teens and Social Media. The report released just a few days ago is based on data collected in 2006 and allows comparisons with similar surveys from 2004 and 2000.The report indicates:
93% of adolescents report using the Internet (hence the data reported on “Internet users” need be adjusted downward only a bit to reflect general adolescent use)
64% of 12-17 year olds participate in at least one content-creation activity
39% share artistic creations (including photos)
28% have created a blog
27% maintain a personal web page
55% have a profile on a social networking site (mostly MySpace)
In general, participation has increased since 2004 (see chart)
One of the points the authors argue is that content creation is often a way to start conversations. Teens report a high proportion of their media receive comments.With the exception of video, girls are more likely to produce content (e.g., 35% vs. 20% for blogs).There is some evidence of an awareness of safety issues. For example, uploaded photos are offered to only some potential observers (restricted access) most or some of the time (77%).
There are data on contact with strangers in a separate document describing the survey and offering question by question data. If PEW keeps to past practices, there will be a later report on online safety.
I found some of the data in available in the description of the questionnaire to be of interest. Here are a couple of items not included in the report.
Location of access:
I find this variable of interest partly in reaction to filtering that often occurs in schools. If students access from locations outside of schools, it might be argued that filtering access within schools ignores issues students are likely to encounter elsewhere.
Access at any time:
89% from home
75% from school
70% from home of friend or relative
50% from library
It seems strange that 25% claim not to access the Internet at school (this % has increased since 2004 – school is less likely to be an access point).
Location of most frequent access:
77% from home
18% from school
I wish someone was doing general studies of school technology use like Becker did a decade ago. The PEW data are very general and leave many of my questions unanswered.Issues raised the data cannot answer:Very little really provided about educational use.
Was access from school related to a class assignment or is it more likely the school provides access used to meet nonacademic needs?
How frequently was access from home related to a school task?
What proportion of the content creation was related to school assignments/activities?
It is reported that blog activity is quite common.
What is the post frequency?
How frequently is blog activity located within a social networking site.
What topics do adolescents address in their blogs?
Lenhart, Amanda, Mary Madden, Alexandra Rankin Macgill, and Aaron Smith. “Teens and Social Media.” PEW Internet & American Life Project.
Wikipedia has clearly become a destination for those seeking information online, but this category of web resource still attracts some competitors. Perhaps concerns regarding the quality of content allow opportunities for challengers.
Some offer an alternative based on a potentially superior way of organizating and sharing information (e.g., Freebase) and others an approach that address the information quality issue by incorporating an editorial element of some form. Citizendium falls into the second category (my earlier post on a plan to addres this shortfall). Comments on the vision, the process, etc. can be found on the About page. Among the adaptations – individuals are designated to observe and guide, individuals who contribute must be identifiable (e.g., use an email address that requires a real name).
I decided to set for myself the task of recommending a bookmarking service. After exploring a bit, I alterd my goal. Promoting a specific application would be presumptious on my part. I do not have enough experience with the options and the decision really comes down to personal preferences. A few comments and several links may be more valuable.
As I struggled with my initial goal, some of the comments made by Nicholas Negroponte (at NECC) came back to me (BTW – his comments are available as a podcast from the Apple Music Store). His comment on the commercial software/hardware scene pretty much claimed that vendors must create more powerful software and hardware to continue to attract business. The goal is to assure income by creating more powerful stuff rather than creating less expensive stuff capable of doing a fixed set of things. An unintended consequence may be that the powerful stuff is less friendly to use and perhaps more cumbersome than most users would require.
The connection? Consider ease of use relative to power/features when commiting to a bookmarking service. Perhaps some of the more sophisticated and full-featured programs may exceed your needs.
Some other bloggers attempting to provide product comparisons:
Scuttle might be useful if you have access to a server and enjoy having control of a bookmarking site. Control might involve defining the general purpose for the bookmarking site and limiting those who are allowed to contribute.
My personal favorite among these options is FURL. This site not only allows storage of the URL, tags, and personal annotations, but also saves a copy of the site on a specific day (which may differ from what the site displays on a different day and clearly different if the actual site goes away).
I am guessing that del.icio.us is the most popular bookmarking site. It is easy to use. Popularity may be an issue because the “social” part of social bookmarking depends on others and theoretically the more “others” with interests that match your own the better. I think popularity may play one other role. I wonder how all of these sites are going to survive. I would think popularity would have something to do with the business model sustaining a site. A popular site would seem more attractive if it uses ads because it would expose more users to the ads. A popular site would also seem more attractive as a service provided by a funding source (e.g., Yahoo, Google, Microsoft) – the business model in this case concerns the potential to attract users to a location associated with other “paying” services.
Diigo is my most recent “experiment.” Diigo uses an interesting approach to annotation (I think I remember the site describing what they offer as social annotation). Imagine a clear layer over the web page you are viewing. This layer may contain your personal highlighting and postit-like notes. Your private and other’s public additions become visible when the site is viewed. The value of this approach to you may depend on how much importance you place on the comments provided by others. Diigo also allows sites it bookmarks to be automatically added to several other bookmarking services (although I could not figure out how to add the annotations to a second service). I want to see if this service is around 6 months from now before I get too excited. I do think some of the features are interesting.
In general, I prefer to see several competitors working to create comparable products. Such competition drives innovation. Having said this and aside from the issue of survival, the nature of social software sometimes means that value increases with participants. Mechanisms for easily exporting personal resources to multiple services would be one way for any individual to create a situation in which it would make sense to pick from a number of services depending on which seemed most appropriate to an immediate need.
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