POD work 21 Oct 2007

Productive 3+ hour session commencing at 7pm to perform heuristic evaluation of the Help & Documentation within ISPG Moodle and CSU Interact.  Also progressed POD task 3.  To keep things interesting and stimulating late at night there’s some humour and chat mixed in

Dialogue can be read here.

POD for session 18 Oct 2007

Dialogue can be accessed here.

Big highlight this week was Hopper’s birthday so I attended my first online birthday party and ate virtual birthday cake. 

As my the course has progressed and my online social interaction skills are developing I’m starting to get a stronger appreciation for the importance of “emoting” in vitual communities.  Visual emotional cues are important in the “meat-world”*, and tone/pace/language in telephone conversion.  In realtime online chat it can help to throw in emotional or thought gestures to the dialogue to assist understanding / minimise misunderstanding.  I think I need to do more of this. 

*Cute term somebody mentioned to me last week instead of using “realworld”.  Not sure if it’ll catch on though?  What do you think?

Topic 8 exercise 3: Web 2.0

Hmmmm, this one will be interesting! What “web2.o” is exactly seems to be the subject of much conjecture from what I’ve read elsewhere, and who am I to come up with a definitive statement.  However I think most people could agree that advances in internet bandwith speeds, AJAX and emergence social computing are major factors.  For my purposes I declare the following to be “Web 2.0″ sites and why:

a) del.icio.us

del.icio.us is an example of a social bookmarking site – that is, a site which

Topic 8 exercise 8.2: RSS, AJAX

a) RSS

RSS definition: Stands for Really Simple Syndication. The “simplicity” pertains to the users ability to specify the URL of the desired RSS feeds and consume the data it serves out in the desired application (rss reader, site, etc). 

Aggregation: RSS can be used to aggregate content from several sources, for example, an news index on a specific topic. 

Syndication: RSS can be used to syndicate content

Topic 8 exercise 2: Google Services case study

250 word summary of Google Services:

Really, is there need for anything other a browser+plugin/helper apps anymore?  Use Google Spreadsheets, Presentations, Worprocessor for all the typical “office” needs.  Much of achieving this has only become possible through use of AJAX.  One drawback however: in a desktop application it is easy to paste images directly into documents, but with online equivalents the image n

Topic 7 exercise 2: Nintendo & Wii

Wii introduced a game controller that use force feedback. It works by using inbuilt sensors and LED controllers to determine movement and velocity thereof in 3 dimensions. Whereas most game consoles have relied on a joystick to date, the Wii incorporates these movements into the user experience into the game or activity and provides for a richer and more phyical experience.  Indeed the Nintendo/Wii website contains dozens if not hundreds of video clips demostrating its usage - afterall it would hard to truly convey the purpose and possibilities in word — whereas a video showing somebody playing Golf or Fishing can probably only be appreciated when seen.  It is for these reasons that the Wii includes a wrist-strap to protect against possibility of flying handset in all this movement.  At the present time it appears the main competitors of the Wii (Sony Playstation and Microsoft XBox 360) do not include any devices which include motion detection.  The advantages of motion detection are the increased ability to interact in new/different ways which could be appealing to consumers in a wider range of age groups, abilities and seeking different experiences.

Topic 7 exercise 1: Devices for display & interaction

Evaluation of two devices for display & interaction:

Haptic devices with force feedback:

How they work:  Haptic devices have the ability to facilitate a sense of touch for the human user.  This can be done using various means, such as wearable gloves which will form the shape objects, steering wheels, etc.  Force Feedback, which is a comparatively and relatively inovation is achieved using sensors that can measure movement and velocity thereof in three dimensions.

How the improve interaction: Whilst they don’t improve display, they do enhance user interaction with a system by improving the sense of touch to be more like reality. For example, force feedback system used to say, play tennis, where the difference between a gentle volley or a powerful serve can be ascertained. 

Simulators and VR Caves:

Simulators and VR Caves are specially created areas where the intended users enter and experience a more immersive experience than can otherwise be achieved.  Simulators are typically used for flight training and other similar applications requiring the simulation of physical movement of the users in 3 dimensions which can only otherwise be realistically achieved through real experience.  By comparison VR Caves are darkened and dedicated “room” within a large facilitating room (which is necessary for the blackout of all light, and accomodation of the equipement). 

How they improve display and interaction: Simulators and VR Caves provide a more immersive experience for the users.  This is particularly useful for applications where the purpose is to facilitate the envisaging of products/environments or situations such as through walkthroughs of simulations. For exmaple, architects could provide clients with opportunity to walk-through the electronic design — hand in hand talking them through it, or leaving them to wander themselves.  Some people have used the comparison of the star treck holodeck as an example of how VR Caves may work in future however I think a more realistic (achievable) capbility would be the type of VR Cave which appeared in the movie “Sunshine” which consisted of a simple 4 walls, with excellent materials and lighting to accomodate the best projection of images, immersive sound.

Various collaboration tools

Had a good MOO session tonite (OLR attached). Key items of interest:

- Sharing experiences (and emotions) in the use of CSU subject forums.  The girlies seem to be more forthcoming on this than the guys

- Second Life – high group interest in this but not quite sure how to go about leveraging it for constructive or mainstream academic or commercial purpose.  Consideration of the realtively high entry costs/factors (high speed connection, plenty of RAM/CPU, learning overhead).

- Speculation about Google MyWorld – Is this just wishfull thinking that Google with enter the virtual world space … with their usual knock out aplomb.  I think they would – it makes sense to me as could be easily monetised via their core advertising business model.  It could even be an extension of existing advertising.  Aguably a short term Google money grab strategy would be to simply negotiate/devise a way to incorporate Google Ads into SL, but Google is more strategy than that.

- DimDim – “Webex is dead” was the opening line of a DimDim presentation, and since I’m a webex user I need to check this out in more detail. 

I also came across the acticle below tonight which had an interesting summary of collaboration tools: http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/09/demo_day_2_part.html

Topic 6 exercise 3: Online Trust & Reputation

Wikipedia: Trust and reputation of the content on wikipedia is at risk because of the ease by which content can be edited to contain erroneous content, intentionally or through just badly created updates.  Thus undermining the credibility, and any authority.  However it continues to be a highly used general source of information, mainly as a “primer” primarily due to a greater trust in the ability of the Wikipedia community to manage that Risk.  This is largely because the system highly caters to the usability, sociability and sustainability features available. For example, the ability to quickly compare document versions and quickly approve and reject changes is instrumental in is.  This has clearly fostered trust and build reputation amongst the Enthusiasts and Visionaries given the larger number of volunteer participants.  Pragmatists and Conservatists will probably only inspect their level of trust and reputation as required, and possibly on a case by case basis.  Skeptics are unlikely to hold it in trust or reputation until they have a need to evaluate it, at which point they may have an ephiphany moment resulting in conversion to another quadrant.  For all types, “user beware” would be sound guidance.

Second Life: Online trust and reputation within Second Life is widely subjective because the purpose of that online community varies so much.  The intentions of say, somebody seeking virtual social interaction versus a bunch of CSU students attempting to hold a weekly meeting on a potential “CSU virtual island”, would vary significantly. The forced anonymous usernames masks realworld identities so immediate casts aside any realworld reputation, (although, this can be optionally compensated for in the personalisation details settings). The ability to remove clothes in that community immediately makes a student suspicious of the reputation of some areas of the community. Although in a virtual setting surely this is less confrontational and possibly somewhat amusing than could possibly be considered in a realworld setting.  Usability, sociability and sustainablility will need to be crucial consideration for Second Life.  Usability challenges related to movement around the environment and expressing/communication with other users need to be improved to gain wider adoption, particularly in the ”wait and see” Pragmatist and Conservatist groups. However Enthusiasts and Vsionaries seem to have have few problems dealing with these, but could probably assist other groups. Most skeptics are unlikely to cross the gap due to deep-seeted suspicions over Trust and Reputation, and simply aren’t “in the market”, viz my 75 year old father “I have enough to do in THIS life thank you very much”.

Topic 6 exercise 2: Wiki and Moodle design

Note: the exercise mentions the use of Kakapo wiki.  Don’t know what that is, so I substituted it with Wikipedia comparison instead.  However, the scope of both wiki’s are clearly very different.  Perhaps I should compare to Interact Wiki instead?

DESIGN:  

Wikipedia: I like the design of Wikipedia because it is uncluttered and very easy to use.  After a couple of uses it is possible to return and quickly re-familiarise with its use.

CSU Moodle: The moodle site is also well designed, relatively easy to familirise with.

Features:

CSU Moodle: described these assignment 1. Has some likeable features such as subject results, news, contacts.

Wikipedia: Ability to create and edit documents, ability to ‘diff’ versions of documents (this is very useful). Main page has articles of the day, list of wiki entries related to current affairs, and this day in history.

LIKEABLE FEATURES: The presence of likeable features assist sense of interest and community which can only contribute to sociability and sustainability.