Comments for Mas' E-learning and Digital Cultures Blog

Comment on Teaching and learning in the digital world by Sarah Payne

Sarah Payne — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 10:58:31 +0000

Hi Mas
I couldn’t agree more that we face a struggle to get e-learning accepted in mainstream education. The danger will always be that it is seen as the newest gimmick and is therefore unworthy of the effort involved to integrate it; simply because next year it will be simply be replaced by the ‘next big thing’.
And thanks for the great stats link – it always helps to get numbers to back up your argument, and as an econonmist by education I loooooove some good stats!

Comment on Cyborgism by Mas

Mas — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:24:38 +0000

Sian,

Thank you! I think I beginning to understand it plus the Skype session on Wednesday does helps too. But I definitely need to read both papers again.

Comment on Cyborgism by Sian

Sian — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:11:04 +0000

Mas, perhaps the best way into thinking about the connection between feminism and the cyborg is to consider the way in which Haraway asks us to think beyond dualisms. In the figure of the cyborg we have something which is neither male nor female, neither human nor animal, and neither human nor machine – it’s about boundary transgression and blowing apart binaries. In that sense it helps us to think beyond the categories of male/female, masculine/feminine and the ‘traditional’ ways of classifying and categorising women (and men). It opens up new ways of thinking about what it might mean to be ‘human’, and a new kind of feminist consciousness. Does this help at all? Please come back to me if you need more on this.

Comment on My digital ethnography – #mscdystopia on Tweeter by Mas

Mas — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:40:54 +0000

Sian and all, many thanks for all your comments and questions raised are very relevant/valid. It made me think further about my ethnography (just that I haven’t got much time to be online and answering them) and Sian, if you are suggesting about continue this as part of my final assessment – the answer is maybe as I did think about it today.

Comment on My digital ethnography – #mscdystopia on Tweeter by sian

sian — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:24:06 +0000

The questions posed here offer some really nice ways forward Mas, should you want to continue this work in any form. I wonder if the Twitter exchanges – which took place right at the beginning of the course when the group was still very much forming – worked well as a kind of ‘portal’ to a sense of community? It would be interesting to extend the analysis to later interactions – on Twitter or elsewhere – to see how they compare. For me, the sense of this group as a community didn’t really start being felt until the submission and commentary on the visual artefacts.

Comment on My digital ethnography – #mscdystopia on Tweeter by Nicola Osborne

Nicola Osborne — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:35:18 +0000

Mas, I thought it was really cool to look back at a community we are all (albeit compulsorily!) members of.

I thought it would be interesting to get more of your sense of your arrival and – as both Sarah and Jen suggest – that sense of being an outsider and of becoming an insider perhaps or of the dynamics and consequences of any divisions in the sense of inclusion/exclusion.

I thought it was very interesting that you identified the usefulness, to conversation, of answering questions with questions – do you think that is a function of the (140 character format) or if this is an effective form of discourse in any group space.

I was wondering also if the fact that this discussion was taken place between people mostly just getting to know each other (or at least each others’ twitter styles – rather than later in the course) might have made any difference?

Comment on My digital ethnography – #mscdystopia on Tweeter by jen

jen — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:27:33 +0000

hi Mas, your description of the twitter tutorial catches the basics of what happened, and sets the stage for some analysis of the nature of our course community (as displayed in this particular way).

I can see in the comments above that it’s raising questions about what community might mean in this context – the fact that it was a compulsory activity, for example, and that the technology was a barrier for some.

I also wonder, do you think that your presence as an ‘insider’ or course participant gives you insight into the community dynamics that you wouldn’t have had as an observer? If so, what does that suggest about the nature of virtual ethnography?

Comment on My digital ethnography – #mscdystopia on Tweeter by John

John — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:58:01 +0000

I enjoyed this too Mas- it’s interesting to look at this twitter tag as a community. I’m getting used to Twitter a bit more now too- at the start I would go back to where I had previously read a conversation and continue from there- now I just dip in and see what’s current.

Comment on My digital ethnography – #mscdystopia on Tweeter by billb

billb — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:27:06 +0000

Mas, I think you raise quite a few interesting questions here: for instance, what makes a community? Rheingold states that communities condense out of the common interests of their members. Does this mean that an exchange of tweets with a common hashtag is enough raw material for a virtual community to form? If so, would an ongoing Google Wave between 3-4 persons be enough for a community as well? Or a collaborative piece of work on a wiki? And what about the number of members? Is there a minimum number of members, below which one cannot speak of a community?

Comment on My digital ethnography – #mscdystopia on Tweeter by Arthur Hall

Arthur Hall — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:09:41 +0000

Thanks Mas,
This project of yours more than ever makes me want to set about defining ‘community’ in many different ways. Early on it reminds me a little of Susan Isaac’s definition of children’s play at a certain age (which I now forget) – she called it “temporary alliances for the purposes of individual play”. Looked at in the cold light of day I feel that was what our community may have been; at least at first.