Evaluation of The Process

I have found blogging to be a very useful educational tool. Not only from a personal learning level on the subject I chose to research, but as discovering how blogging has potential in the educational environment. The purpose of the blog was to look at communal and community learning via the web. The tool I used was a blog as it would give me presence on the web which would generate lines of enquiry from the blogging community and generate feedback not possible if I had just submitted a document to my tutor. So far I have had 300 unique views of the blog and 8 comments.

This process of exploring community learning via the web has led me to contrast what has happened on this course as it is long distance and what I have learned by doing a blog over a four week period.

At University we have the Blackboard learning environment and it also been used extensively on this course. As a distance learning course this has been our online community environment mainly through forums and postings from our tutors. Whilst the aim of this blog was not to compare blogging to that environment, I have discovered by looking at community learning via the web the process has generated an argument that blogging should be incorporated not only into this online distance learning module but University as well.

In the forum which has been in use for this course there has been a poor uptake on students discussing actual content of what they are researching in their work environment. The forum is full of postings of students looking for people to work with. There has been an effort by the module leader to generate discussion about our learning modules but the uptake has been minimal. By going through this process I have drawn a conclusion that this is because there is no community using the discussion board. Whilst it is not possible to see the forum unless the student logs in there still has not been a community learning environment generated amongst the students on the module; I believe this to be the fact the the dynamics of a discussion board does not create this.

Blogging gives you a presence; it is your personal area you have control over it and it is an extension of yourself. This presence has been why sites like Facebook and Myspace have been so popular. You are able to see what friends are up to and post comments on their personal areas. I have no idea what other students have been doing on this module, but if the module had a more dynamic online community I could comment on other student’s areas and generate a line of enquiry for them. Blog sites could create what maybe our module leader was trying to achieve on this module via the forum.

Also with blog you can enable RSS. Students could use a reader and in a large module like this you could feed off updates of a large group of students within one software programme like Google Reader or Bloglines by subscribing to the whole module. This would give you the ability to go off to other student’s blogs when something appears that you have knowledge about.

By blogging I have be able to create a line of enquiry on the web which was not possible in a thread of a forum. For example, when discussing open source democracy I got a line of enquiry from a group who were supporting more direct democracy in our society. How they came to find my blog I do not know, but blogs are heavily supported by search engines like Google, plus the many blog search engines and sites like Digg and Technorati. It is likely that it was tagged by a search engine which led them to the posting.

The publishing of blogs also gave me an insight into other people’s views on what I had posted about. The newspaper article was an example how I discovered people’s views. Their views gave me an understanding of how people were thinking about the subject I chose to write about.

Whilst blogging has many benefits, I understand that there may be constraints to its use. Students would have to get permission to do it as some companies especially those students working in sensitive environments it may not be possible. Though if blackboard had this facility then it may be possible to do it with the UWE learning environment which may be an acceptable solution.

This had been my first attempt at blogging and I had to do research on how to blog. I looked at a number of ‘how to blog’ sites and there would have to be guidelines on the blogging style, length etc. These guidelines are the same as what is to be expected of a submitted essay at University. Writing a blog I found challenging as I knew I had to do it to certain guidelines and have content that people would be interested in.

Blogging for community learning is an excellent tool. Learning should be a shared experience as not only does it make it more enjoyable but helps us have a better understanding. As humans we live in our own communities whether at work or in social time; this should be reflected in our learning environments.

From this process of looking at community learning that I have done for this module it has led me to believe that blogging is one tool educational institutions should look at to aide learning.

How user generated porn sites will change the face of the porn industry.

So what website is getting a 1324.3% year to year increase in unique visitors? MySpace, Amazon, the seemingly unstoppable Facebook? Wrong…..try YouPorn.com. Nothing directly to do with YouTube.com, just a play on words, in only the way the pornography industry can…

For those who have not visited it, it is the same format as its near namesake. It uses the same flash based technology as YouTube and allows users to upload, view, share and comment about porn videos.

Started in 2006, it is one of many free user generated porn sites that is impacting on sales of the more traditional avenues of DVDs, magazines and the paid access porn sites. Along with YouTube it also has the same issues of age identification, copyrighted material and piracy.

Ever since the birth of the internet the porn industry has flourished. The industry had an online business model where it made money from paid access and product ordering. Now though with the easiness in usability of sites like YouPorn.com the traditional paid model is starting to suffer. There was always an element of free porn material but not on the scale that has happened in the last few years.

What is interesting about the way the porn industry is going with the advent of this new-wave of free user generated content is it in a similar situation as what happened to the music industry a few years ago. It is losing it traditional money making distribution channel by the advent of the internet.

With the internet in everyone’s home and the file format of MP3 the music industry was caught with its trousers down so to speak. People could now exchange files amongst friends easily and download from torrent sites without paying a penny. This saw sales slump in the music industry and the industry ended up trying to prosecute its own customers for copyright infringement. Even today it is still trying to find a business model to embrace the technology and cultural change in our music buying habits.

The same challenge now faces the porn industry, how to embrace customer’s new online purchasing habits and make money from its content. The traditional big players have to evolve to meet this new change to survive. They cannot ignore it as it will end up in a similar situation as the music industry. They have to battle the same attitude that the music industry is fighting, if it is out there for free why pay for it?

There are a number of ways the industry is combating this change. One method is called “viral marketing”; putting legitimate content on to file sharing sites that allows people to purchase more content after viewing. This works on the more impulse buying habits of its customers. Steve Friess(2003) article describes this strategy as “Share and Snare”.

The largest adult porn maker Vivid Entertainment has always been a high production value producer of porn. It has started to diversify its high value catalogue and hopes to capture audiences that traditional sites do not cater for. Viv-Alt is its off-shoot website into the younger, alternative crowd, whilst Vivid-Ed is an educational line of ‘how to’ DVDs.

However the porn industry evolves online, user-generated content sites are here to stay. Sex and porn is ultimately about sharing, so it is not hard to understand why community sites like YouPorn are successful.

Though for the established industry players it is becoming a sore head on how to make money out of this free love.

Is the internet making democracy and politics engaging?

…democracy and politics.

The last two general elections have seen the lowest voter turnout in this country’s history. People are disengaged with modern day politics for many reasons. Not least because they feel powerless to influence the legislation and processes that take place within our political institutions that govern us.

This state of apathy is a dangerous situation for our society and democracy to be in. For there to be a real state of democracy it requires people to engage in our political institutions and democratic processes.

In one form the internet is a communication tool that allows interactivity that has never previously been seen in traditional forms like radio, television and newspapers. It creates a two-way exchange that transcends the traditional forms before it.

Rushkoff (2003) sees the birth of the internet as an opportunity to create a new era of bottom up democracy that “better addresses today’s participatory sensibility”. Rushkoff likens this to the open source software movement which is decentralised and is based on collective knowledge and cooperation. He asks what would happen if the “source code of our democratic systems was opened up to the people they are meant to serve”. He argues this is not a revolution but a reinvention and renaissance of the current political institutions.

People will start to participate in parliamentary and democratic processes as our political institutions become open, transparent and decentralised through the internet. This will create a new form of democracy where the masses participate in the policy making and bring issues to the fore front; Rushkoff describes this as a “networked democracy”. Through the internet the masses understand and participate in political issues.

Rushkoff describes the current 20^th Century system as “a top down” authority in a closed source software model. There is little transparency as it is a locked down model and does not allow for the collective knowledge to improve the current processes.

He argues this “closed source” software model can not give us justice or power. Closed source policy making does not make us confront our emerging issues. He cites the current policies of western countries on fossil fuels as an example of this.

Rushkoff’s view of a decentralised internet democracy is idealistic. There is, however, evidence already in our political institutions taking part in this renaissance and becoming transparent. Political institutions are starting to try and re-engage the people they govern.

10 Downing Street has an e-petition system which allows members of the public to define a petition and lobby the Prime Minister on issues. I have yet to hear one of these petitions ever changing any Government policy. Maybe that is because of the electronic process of the e-petition.

E-petitions create a feel good factor with little effort from the person signing it; this is often cited as slacktivism. Cynics may also say this system is a form of allowing the government to appear to be listing to the voice of the masses.

Other political institutions have seen the effect of the internet on they way they operate. The House of Commons has seen the MP we elect become easily accessible and transparent in what they do. The MPs we elect every 4 or 5 years are now accountable through various sites

Web sites like writetothem.com allow you find and contact your MP and hearfromyourmp.com encourages your MP to write to you.

The internet is still in the emergent forms of powering e-democracy. What it has done so far is made democracy and politics more open than it was before. It opens up the possibility of taking further the direct democracy like that seen in Switzerland where the people can instrument changes to parliamentary decisions.

For our political system to reach any think like what Rushkoff envisages we still has the problems of secure online voting and identification of the person voting…you may want to contact your MP about that.

Is the Internet Killing Newspapers?

…Newspapers.

The song goes “Video killed the radio star”. Will they ever make a song “The internet killed the newspaper”. Not any day yet…..

I remember at school and college people talked about a paperless office. Think I may have heard it talked about in a University lecture. The office I work in is certainly not and I work in an eBusiness department. That claim has not come true yet. So why should I believe this one?

I would say more that it is causing it to evolve to meet the next generation’s needs.

Newspaper circulations are down. The good old Sun newspaper fell below the 3million circulation bracket for the first time since 1974 (Holden 2008). No one can argue that it is not because of the internet.

Yes certainly news can be digitized but it does not mean the end of the paper form. Newspapers have been around for centuries and have ridden the threat of new media in the form of radio and television. Newspaper companies are not about to give up just yet.

What is hitting the newspapers is the fact that news on the net is free (albeit for a small price of an internet connection). People do not want to pay for it. They can access it on the go through mobiles, at their work desk and at their leisure at home. This attitude that the news should be free is more prevalent in the younger generation who have grown up with the internet (O’Neill 2006).

It is not only on the news front that the internet is hitting newspaper circulation, but advertising. The traditional paper classified papers are coming under threat. Web sites like gumtree, and craigslist (yet to take off in the UK) has eroded this newspaper market. This is the area I believe that the internet is killing off newspapers. They are free to list, buy from and are current. Who wants to go through pages of text descriptions when you can do it smarter online? Plus there is also the fun of eBay…..

The most powerful tool that internet news on the net has is RSS. You get the news you want streamlined to you without having to scan through pages to find your news. It saves time and keeps the environmentalist happy. Well apart from the electricity…

What is also emerging from the internet is the new journalist. That is you and me. The bedroom journalist with no formal training, just their keyboard. Just sign up for a blog like this and away you go. No editor or deadlines to make. Read stories from the people involved and make your comment on it for all to see. This is something a newspaper can not do.

Blogging has been a phenomenon of the web 2.0 domain. Everyday people put their news, thoughts and opinions down on electronic ink. Where it has really showed its power is when people are blogging when they are part of the news. During the Iraq invasion in 2004 the Baghdad Burning blog gave a voice to a 24 year old Iraqi woman in Baghdad.

Of course newspapers cannot be as relevant as a websites that can be updated any minute of the day. The future will see the newspaper become local and free (O’Neill 2006). Free papers are on the rise and are distributed to you when you want it most. This is where newspapers will survive and thrive again. Getting that copy of the Metro before you get on the bus is like the physical RSS, as you have the time to read a sanp shop of the news on the bus jounrey.

One last laugh it has over the digital media is it the fact that it is a personal artifact. You can have a far more intimate experience than reading online. That is what will keep people coming back to print. Just like why people still read books.

Personally I do not care how I get my news. It is the journalism that matters. Via a blog or a trained journalist doesn’t matter to me.

We are not in a total e-society just yet and because of that the newspaper has not had its day. Plus I like the excitement of a free CD with newspaper at the weekend…..you don’t get that online. :)