Comments on: Assignment Thoughts – the current (draft plan) http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/2009/12/03/assignment-thoughts-the-current-draft-plan/ Part of the MSc in E-learning at the University of Edinburgh Thu, 01 Apr 2010 20:49:57 +0100 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Nicola Osborne http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/2009/12/03/assignment-thoughts-the-current-draft-plan/comment-page-1/#comment-116 Nicola Osborne Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:49:13 +0000 http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/?p=238#comment-116 This is a rather belated announcement but my assignment is now live (it has been for over a week in fact!): <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/uncannyinterventions/" rel="nofollow">http://sites.google.com/site/uncannyinterventions/</a> Please do have a look and let me know what you think. I am fairly happy with it even if it's not exactly what I envisioned at the outset. This is a rather belated announcement but my assignment is now live (it has been for over a week in fact!):

http://sites.google.com/site/uncannyinterventions/

Please do have a look and let me know what you think. I am fairly happy with it even if it’s not exactly what I envisioned at the outset.

]]> By: Nicola's E-learning and Digital Cultures Blog » Week 11 – Lights down, Chest out, Jazz Hands! http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/2009/12/03/assignment-thoughts-the-current-draft-plan/comment-page-1/#comment-88 Nicola's E-learning and Digital Cultures Blog » Week 11 – Lights down, Chest out, Jazz Hands! Fri, 11 Dec 2009 01:56:51 +0000 http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/?p=238#comment-88 [...] over Skype early this week to firm up my assignment topic so I wanted to talk a little about why the assignment idea I posted this week started to emerge for [...] [...] over Skype early this week to firm up my assignment topic so I wanted to talk a little about why the assignment idea I posted this week started to emerge for [...]

]]> By: Damien DeBarra http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/2009/12/03/assignment-thoughts-the-current-draft-plan/comment-page-1/#comment-82 Damien DeBarra Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:52:10 +0000 http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/?p=238#comment-82 Very interesting choice of subject. Will be very curious to read this! Very interesting choice of subject. Will be very curious to read this!

]]> By: Nicola Osborne http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/2009/12/03/assignment-thoughts-the-current-draft-plan/comment-page-1/#comment-79 Nicola Osborne Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:50:40 +0000 http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/?p=238#comment-79 Thank you for all your comments so far - all really interesting and positive so I'm now excited to go exploring and pulling together ideas and experiences into a fun assignment. Will post more here as things progress... Thank you for all your comments so far – all really interesting and positive so I’m now excited to go exploring and pulling together ideas and experiences into a fun assignment. Will post more here as things progress…

]]> By: sibyller http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/2009/12/03/assignment-thoughts-the-current-draft-plan/comment-page-1/#comment-76 sibyller Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:35:58 +0000 http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/?p=238#comment-76 Nicola, I think this is a very interesting topic. People do react very differently to these "prompts". I was discussing recently how people felt about amazon offering books like "If you liked this book, you might also like...". While I always ignore these remarks and they don't particularly bother me, other people felt annoyed, but some also felt quite happy about having other books recommended. I think problems arise when the prompts aren't explicitly recognised as marketing strategies, as in Lesley's ethnography about the coffee website. So I think the more subtle aspects are definitely worth investigating. Good luck with the essay! Nicola, I think this is a very interesting topic. People do react very differently to these “prompts”. I was discussing recently how people felt about amazon offering books like “If you liked this book, you might also like…”. While I always ignore these remarks and they don’t particularly bother me, other people felt annoyed, but some also felt quite happy about having other books recommended.
I think problems arise when the prompts aren’t explicitly recognised as marketing strategies, as in Lesley’s ethnography about the coffee website.
So I think the more subtle aspects are definitely worth investigating.
Good luck with the essay!

]]> By: Peter Harris http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/2009/12/03/assignment-thoughts-the-current-draft-plan/comment-page-1/#comment-75 Peter Harris Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:31:32 +0000 http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/?p=238#comment-75 my observation of interventions of computers in social space I use: - playing 4-handed card games on line, when someone quits a computer takes their seat. This usually results in all the humans leaving; seems they prefer to play 4-on-4 human than with a bot - continual paranoia in online poker circles that "bots" will infest the game and make them unprofitable - on a personal note I'm hassled by Facebook telling me to connect with people who i meet frequently in the flesh. The fact they have no way to quantify your non-electronic contact is heartening at least... - a fun one might be human-computer interaction on support chat logs where the company side is a bot reacting to the user's error issues. my observation of interventions of computers in social space I use:

- playing 4-handed card games on line, when someone quits a computer takes their seat. This usually results in all the humans leaving; seems they prefer to play 4-on-4 human than with a bot

- continual paranoia in online poker circles that “bots” will infest the game and make them unprofitable

- on a personal note I’m hassled by Facebook telling me to connect with people who i meet frequently in the flesh. The fact they have no way to quantify your non-electronic contact is heartening at least…

- a fun one might be human-computer interaction on support chat logs where the company side is a bot reacting to the user’s error issues.

]]> By: RIchard M. Davis http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/2009/12/03/assignment-thoughts-the-current-draft-plan/comment-page-1/#comment-74 RIchard M. Davis Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:37:06 +0000 http://digitalculture-ed.net/nicolao/?p=238#comment-74 Hi N Nice to have some excuse to feed the brain on a miserable Thursday morning! I notice some people get quite irate about explicit machine interventions ("people with this book/friend/paper also did x") while conveniently overlooking the fact that the whole environment is an intervention that enables them to do with ease something impossible only a few years ago. So there seems to be an issue around perception of control and choice, and the explicit role of the machine: when it is seamless and unobtrusive, we like it, when it isn't we don't. Amazon/Facebook automated interventions clearly don't pass the Turing test: when they pop up we /know/ they are machine events pretending to be human and chatty and tend to react adversely. If you/I/Hamish say to each other 'check out this other book or person' we'll probably do it with good grace rather than ill. And yet interesting that so much JISC IE type work is focused on bringing the same 'suggestive' features to bear on academic researchers and resources. I haven't delved into the unheimlich for a long time, but the osmotic/subconscious aspect of online social interaction with Twitter/FB/VLEs seems rich for exploration (perhaps you've been doing that on the course?) - all this background knowledge we pick up about the lives of our online contacts. This seems to be something that non-users, notably older generations and commentators on Twitter ;) find particularly difficult to comprehend. One other thought is that there seem to be interesting overlaps between what I understand of post-human thinking and some distributed-cognition concepts, eg. "cognitive technology [extends] the scope and power of cognition" (Dror & Harnad - http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/16602/4/distribcog.htm) Look forward to seeing your assignment in the MsCEL gallery :) Hi N

Nice to have some excuse to feed the brain on a miserable Thursday morning!

I notice some people get quite irate about explicit machine interventions (”people with this book/friend/paper also did x”) while conveniently overlooking the fact that the whole environment is an intervention that enables them to do with ease something impossible only a few years ago. So there seems to be an issue around perception of control and choice, and the explicit role of the machine: when it is seamless and unobtrusive, we like it, when it isn’t we don’t.

Amazon/Facebook automated interventions clearly don’t pass the Turing test: when they pop up we /know/ they are machine events pretending to be human and chatty and tend to react adversely. If you/I/Hamish say to each other ‘check out this other book or person’ we’ll probably do it with good grace rather than ill. And yet interesting that so much JISC IE type work is focused on bringing the same ’suggestive’ features to bear on academic researchers and resources.

I haven’t delved into the unheimlich for a long time, but the osmotic/subconscious aspect of online social interaction with Twitter/FB/VLEs seems rich for exploration (perhaps you’ve been doing that on the course?) – all this background knowledge we pick up about the lives of our online contacts. This seems to be something that non-users, notably older generations and commentators on Twitter ;) find particularly difficult to comprehend.

One other thought is that there seem to be interesting overlaps between what I understand of post-human thinking and some distributed-cognition concepts, eg. “cognitive technology [extends] the scope and power of cognition” (Dror & Harnad – http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/16602/4/distribcog.htm)

Look forward to seeing your assignment in the MsCEL gallery :)

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