http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/28/google-wave-as-an-rp.html
http://wave.google.com/help/wave/about.html
Google wave is a new online collaborative tool which combines the shared documents of google apps and google groups with the real time options of instant messenger and chat rooms. It is currently in the beta stage, and one of the first major uses for it among the tech savy beta testers is to organize for online RPGs.
People can get up to speed with what changes were made by playing document like a video. This could help with lack of thought process cues compared to face to face communication that I mentioned in my earlier blog about online communication in the design process.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The acceleration of time and space
Earlier in the course the theory that life appears to happen faster due to the increased rate at which information is available for processing. This can definitely apply to the design process in engineering projects and raises the issue of where to draw the line between one's professional and personal life.
With complex and multidisciplinary design projects, there is never truly a "final and correct" answer. The more time one has to put into the project, the more improvements can be made. If one is the leader of the project, prioritizing the time investment for each division can be very difficult and make or break the design. If the leaders are chosen for their experience and demand of success, they are more likely to be driven to know as much as possible about everything under their responsibility.
Technology has greatly assisted the ability to stay organized and bypass time and space constraints, but the managers now have so much available at all hours that their lives can disappear. Eventually a tipping point can be reached where the drive to succeed and overflow of information results in tunnel vision, decreased health, and much added stress that can greatly affect the ability to make effective decisions.
With complex and multidisciplinary design projects, there is never truly a "final and correct" answer. The more time one has to put into the project, the more improvements can be made. If one is the leader of the project, prioritizing the time investment for each division can be very difficult and make or break the design. If the leaders are chosen for their experience and demand of success, they are more likely to be driven to know as much as possible about everything under their responsibility.
Technology has greatly assisted the ability to stay organized and bypass time and space constraints, but the managers now have so much available at all hours that their lives can disappear. Eventually a tipping point can be reached where the drive to succeed and overflow of information results in tunnel vision, decreased health, and much added stress that can greatly affect the ability to make effective decisions.
Cybervetting
http://www.management-issues.com/2007/10/18/research/cyber-vetting-managers-face-backlash.asp
The article is two years old and describes the developing hiring practice of cybervetting. This was one reason that people originally opposed the social networking site Facebook, becoming available to the general public. Facebook did add more privacy settings when going public, however many people fail to realize that there are many popular apps that are designed specifically for data mining. By participating in an application, you grant that application access to your information and it can be downloaded by the applications server without notifying you. This data can be used to target ads, study cultural trends, or allow easier identity theft. Over the last two years the idea of compiling a person's netprofile has expanded into these other realms quite a bit.
The article is two years old and describes the developing hiring practice of cybervetting. This was one reason that people originally opposed the social networking site Facebook, becoming available to the general public. Facebook did add more privacy settings when going public, however many people fail to realize that there are many popular apps that are designed specifically for data mining. By participating in an application, you grant that application access to your information and it can be downloaded by the applications server without notifying you. This data can be used to target ads, study cultural trends, or allow easier identity theft. Over the last two years the idea of compiling a person's netprofile has expanded into these other realms quite a bit.
Course Discussion - Kuwaiti culture
The lab class discussed some arguments regarding the status of women in Kuwait.
Some view their situation as an example of hegemony, while others counter that the percentage of highly educated women and level of security offer more freedom than their Western counterparts.
Some view their situation as an example of hegemony, while others counter that the percentage of highly educated women and level of security offer more freedom than their Western counterparts.
Games as a form of education
In an effort to promote the importance of communication among team members, the university has adjusted a design course into a game. It is a novel approach to teaching and allows students to interact whenever, wherever as long as they have a computer.
The course material, however, is the student's first design based class that sets the majority of the framework for understanding why they are taking all of their prerequisite math, physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, and more advanced topics. Those topics alone can require intense effort to the exclusion of practical background material in the coursework. Without either background, the learning process can become plug and chug short term memory event. Years later, when all of the prerequisite learning is completed and people are given the task to solve a real problem from scratch, the associations necessary to break the problem down into workable steps have deteriorated if they were there at all. What good are the teamwork and communication skills when there is nothing to communicate?
While this is more an issue of an overall lack of background than the result of an online transition, it is important to note that for teamwork and design based problems, online interaction is not ideal. People only communicate when they think it is relevant, and many cues are missed during the communication - especially one's confidence in the work. When working at the same location, people are more likely see the process leading up to another's communication. During these times people can catch errors early as well as branch their own idea off a middle step and not simply an end organized communication.
The course material, however, is the student's first design based class that sets the majority of the framework for understanding why they are taking all of their prerequisite math, physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, and more advanced topics. Those topics alone can require intense effort to the exclusion of practical background material in the coursework. Without either background, the learning process can become plug and chug short term memory event. Years later, when all of the prerequisite learning is completed and people are given the task to solve a real problem from scratch, the associations necessary to break the problem down into workable steps have deteriorated if they were there at all. What good are the teamwork and communication skills when there is nothing to communicate?
While this is more an issue of an overall lack of background than the result of an online transition, it is important to note that for teamwork and design based problems, online interaction is not ideal. People only communicate when they think it is relevant, and many cues are missed during the communication - especially one's confidence in the work. When working at the same location, people are more likely see the process leading up to another's communication. During these times people can catch errors early as well as branch their own idea off a middle step and not simply an end organized communication.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Geocities Closure
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/10/geocities-closing.html
One of the first major websites allowing masses with very limited computer knowledge to publish contect on the web is closing.
Some of the intriguing aspects about geocities was many users desire to have their page in proximity to certain other pages in the same fashion as one chooses a neighborhood. While it was one of the most popular sites 10 yrs ago, it's closure shows how quickly internet fads can come and go, especially when tied to the extremely high pace technology market.
With the announcement of the closure, many people have assigned crawlers to save the site's information for historical purposes.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Geocaching
The 435 course ran a geocache competition this morning. 50 minutes did not appear to be sufficienct time to get to employ more complex communication techniques and strategies because the tasks themselves were so simple. If more time was allowed, then the intitial challenge clues found could include information on a second set of coordinates that the teams would have to work together to solve. Each team's clue would include information on the other teams coordinates, but that information would be described in a way that required some problem solving to get the actual numbers. They would then need to input those coordinates themselves to find the second location and would gain more familiarity with the technology.
Regarding the technology:
The GPS devices seemed dated regarding screen quality and processing power. Zooming in and out as well as scrolling along the map was a relatively slow process with 15-30 second waits after some commands. These were not GPS signal delays but device image processing delays. Getting the GPS coordinates and adding them to the iphone's google maps satellite images greatly increased the speed and ease of navigating. The larger screen allowed for a wider viewing angle with enough resolution to recognize landmarks. The iphone also had the ability to take video and pictures of the clue and it's context and use the Purdue Wi-fi network to quickly send information back to those in the classroom. On a final note, the accuracy of the GPS devices can be improved if they are updated to use Differential GPS(DGPS)
where availible.
Regarding the technology:
The GPS devices seemed dated regarding screen quality and processing power. Zooming in and out as well as scrolling along the map was a relatively slow process with 15-30 second waits after some commands. These were not GPS signal delays but device image processing delays. Getting the GPS coordinates and adding them to the iphone's google maps satellite images greatly increased the speed and ease of navigating. The larger screen allowed for a wider viewing angle with enough resolution to recognize landmarks. The iphone also had the ability to take video and pictures of the clue and it's context and use the Purdue Wi-fi network to quickly send information back to those in the classroom. On a final note, the accuracy of the GPS devices can be improved if they are updated to use Differential GPS(DGPS)
where availible.
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