Fifth Class

The first group presented. It was a good presentation, however, there were a few small things that needed improvement. First, they were confused about a network's topology. Whew. Secondly thay said 'Einstein dominated much of the 18th centuary'???? thirdly, they confused the class while telling them the difference between social computing and social networking. However, their slides were jazzy

Assignment: redo the time line
told them that they have to write a book

Fourth Class

We started by discussing the importance of theory. After this we discussed 'communities of practice'. Finally, the class was given time to consensually choose their topics for presentation.

Since the class did not complete their assignment, there were given a short tutorial on wikis and then they were asked to repeat the assignment.

Third Class

In this class they had their first taste of group discussion. It seemed ok, However, in the next class there should be less chaos. The class has converged on one wiki, initially there were two or three. They used sms voting to decide that.


Assignment: Develop a complete time table with the following information:
What: (that is topics to be discussed)
When: (Who is going to go first and who next, so on)
Who: (Name of the group members)
How: (The format, not just restricted to presentations, but can also include case studies, workshops, demonstrations, role playing exercises etc)

Second Class

Today I reemphasized the importance of particiption in the class. Told them that Collaboration is communication, to a large extent. Formed Groups ranging in size from 1 to 4. Given them three tasks. 1. Create and adopt a wiki. 2. Continue the discussion of what Social Computing is and what topics shoud be discussed in the session. 3. Choose a topic for presentation. Questions that came up included how is e-commerce different from soc com. Other terms that were mentioned were Web 2.0, second life, and MMPORG. Told them what I expect from their presentations, basically told them that they have to run the show, make a significant change in the level of learning of the class. Also stressed the importance of leadership and innovation. Told them that they must learn new ways of doing things.

First Class

It went ok, I think they are a bit dazed, trying to absorb the 'new' paradigm. I told them that social computing is all about collaboration and doing it yourself in a peer-to-peer fshion. Two or three had never heard of wiki technology before. Some were enthusiastic. In summary what I told them was that they will have to run the course themselves, the center-controlled paradigm has given way to the peer or social controlled environments. Somebody mentioned Mob mentality or wisdom of crowds critisim. Someone said it would be hard to implement. Mostly were just amused or not so impressed.

Also: I asked them to introduce themselves, and told them about class particiaption and plagiarism.


Assignments: They will have to discuss the outline and make changes in it in a week, they have to come up with their projects, it coud be anything, a prototype, a research report or a field survey.


Challenges: how to solve the problem of a group having more time than the other to make a presentation. 2) what about the text book. 3) how to make them feel that they are also learning.