Why Don't You Just Tell Me What You Want to Learn?
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I can confidently say that without EME6414 I would have no exposure to the term "folksonomy". However, if you really want to understand how adults learn in the Information Age and this time of Web 2.0, things like folksonomy will be requisite in your exploration. Folksonomy, from what I gleaned from the article in week 4's reading, is the people-driven approach to gathering, classifying, and categorizing information. This at first does not sound intriguing - why do I care what another learner calls or categorizes other information? I have had this sentiment when made to create word-based diagrams for college courses. When reviewing others' work it feels like an amalgam of the same. It's governed by the source of information, right? It should look the same. What's the point?
Consider from the designer perspective. To do more than engage learners or create exciting edutainment, to get learners to retain the information, being aware of how they work together and create folksonomy becomes important. Otherwise, you could be Kramer faking being a Moviefone:
(If you are too young to remember Seinfeld, you might need the context that before the Internet in order to find out the times at our local movie theatre, we had to call an automated system...did I ruin the joke by explaining it?)
In other words, what learners call something becomes important in how the information is presented, processed, and learning assessed throughout a learning experience. If we learners have separated colors by warmth, the ROY G BIV distinction in a learning module for paint mixers might be problematic. The remedy is ultimately to understand the learner: use the discovery steps of the design process to meet and test learners.
There's an additional element that could be explored here: the DEI element of folksonomy. Who determines what the tags are in a truly democratized forum? If the designers or instructors are, are we ensuring that they are thinking through diverse lenses? The most sensitive dimension is in language: even with an assumed academic version of a spoken language, translation and non-native learners may change the landscape.
One of my favorite self-help gurus, Iyanla Vanzant, is infamous for the statement "let's call a thing a thing, people!" In folksonomy, that's important...but it can't be assumed to take place in a vacuum. How can we make the tools and the users do better in this space?
When we consider Web 2.0, the biggest draw is the global reach. The premise of the World Wide Web is to share information (originally a library system) quickly across the miles. All you need is a connection. Wireless Internet and smartphones means that getting connected should be easier. So imagine my surprise when reviewing the Pew Research study from this week's reading that this overview is based on 37 countries. Notably, there are only six sub-Saharan African countries and zero data from Central America and the Caribbean. While DataReportal reports a significant gap in penetration in these areas, these three gaps represent roughly 10% of Internet users. This makes me challenge even the conclusions about sub-Saharan Africa. Worse by erasing such a significant part of the developing world, we miss the high penetration of social media use in the Global South. Global Means Global. If we are truly learning to engage learners a...
I use two Instagram accounts regularly. For #eme6414, I use my public account, dedicated to my holistic health journey @fitby40orelse . Therefore, a Instagram challenge was right up my street. Imagine my surprise when I was playing catch up. Monday, I shared the advice (and pet peeve) of people using their video calling out in public. This is the problem with the use of "intuitive technology" that requires no training...nobody told you that it was rude, did they? Required netiquette classes for all! https://www.instagram.com/p/CfDV7sVD5UU/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Tuesday, I recalled the days of early pandemic when churches were closed and we worshipped at home. I was smart enough to capture on my personal account one communion Sunday when I had no bread or grape juice. With Ritz crackers and orange juice I remembered Christ. As we look at how tech changes our life, I was proud of that moment. https://www.instagram.com/p/CfIiRFcs-MF/?igshid=YmM...
Adding the term "produsers" feels like Orwellian doublespeak emerging into my vocabulary. The classic book 1984 (which has been used with varying amounts of accuracy to describe the Internet experience) described how the future government would control language by shortening words into hybrid terms and shifting how people described the world. Thankfully, reading the Bruns article explains the term produser is not the term shifting the world but a description of how the world has changed around language. If you consider that many of us raised with television, movies, or books, the act of consumption is one-way. Few of us immediately read or watch and then create our own art in direct response or inspired by what they experienced, especially in the context of entertainment. A produser expresses how Web 2.0 democratizes expression: on the same media, people can produce and use content at the same level. Bruns cites YouTube as one of the examples of an internet space whe...
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