Task 14 of NIE: Conclusions

I generally am fond of new media and its related technologies. I have to be, I work in that field. New Interactive Environments course in that aspect offered a lot of interesting academic articles with which I otherwise  would not had the opportunity to get accuinted with.

 I enjoyed Kiosis and his statements made about what interactive something is. And Jensen´s overview of interactivity was especially noted by me, as it might have been the first thorough reading on the subject of the core value of interactivity.

I would havew expected more case-study-type home-task and somewhat more academic readings as the subject is very broad and therefore with a multitude of scholars working on it. A course managed by Kaido Kikkas called "Ehtics and Law in New Media" has so far been the best course on the subject on New Media (by its structure and object-related tasks).

I can say that since the star of autumn I know have a better understanding of what interactivity is and how it truly plays its role in basically every social (and maybe more) action we currently are participating.

Task 13 of NIE: Redesigning and re-instrumentalising activities

The main activity I carry out day by day, is the transportation of myself from point a to point b. When riding the bus to work, it always bothers me whether my bus will be on time or not. Currently there aren´t any solutions to find it out also.

I think here is the opportunity of digital media to fill this gap of knowledge and make public transportation more competitive towards cars. Why cannot there be LED screens in bus-stops that would display GPS-related information about nearby buses. Today all of public transportation is equipped with GPS-signal-emitting hardware. This signal could be in the future used through wireless fidelity to publish information about the bus´s whereabouts.

A small microchip inside the screen (or in some central processing station) could also calculate the approximate time when the bus will arrive to my station. In case of trains, this time could be manually input to the information system.

When this information would be in a central station, then we could easily create a real-time central information station (website) about current traffic - the idea would be that the more information-consuming passenger would have extensive abilities to plan their upcoming trips (rather then just watch a paper-based schedule).

Task 12 of NIE: Tool or medium?

First of all I'd like to note that the source text this time was one of the hardest one´s I´ve read so far (in the meaning of understanding the message of the author).

While Rückriem states in the end, that computer technology (and everything introduced by it) can be seen both as a medium or a tool (depending on one´s point of view), I firmly believe that it is a rapidly enhanced tool that now causes revolution in the society. The main reasons behind the revolution are its speed, accessibility and widespread (low-cost).

For digital technology to be a medium itself, I would expect it to introduce a new way of communication to the human mind (like television did) - however today digital technology simply ties all the old mediums together, doing it fast and seamlessly. Of course this is convenient and revolutionizing, but for me it isn't a new way of "mediating", but rather a rethought way of instruments offered so far for communication.

When theoretizizing about the statement made that “supplying people with guns creates a social world quite different from world in which people are disarmed” and putting this to a context where a gun is for example a internet-access, I still have to argue that internet, digital technology will not create a new world. It would be as "supplying people with automatic-guns creates a social world quite more different from world in which people are with non-automatic guns". Yes automatic guns will revolutionize warfare (or digital technology the communication), but wars would still exists and battles be fought (communication in its essence stays the same).


One might now ask, was then the introduction of television with the same effect - no. Television for communication was what a-bomb was for warfare - on the politics of warfare (communication) new threats and opportunities were introduced.


Source
http://www.iscar.org/fi/ruckriem.pdf

Task 11 of NIE: Components

When comparing the components offered (http://piratepad.net/apsWT6vudX) to the one's introduced in activity theory, I'd state that all of the components necessary were definitely described. When taking the model described in (http://informationr.net/ir/13-2/paper340.html), I tried to sub-categorize all of the components in the list to the 6 main categories introduced by Uden et al (2008).

Subject -aim/goal, result, trigger / event, model / modelling 
Community - participants, 
Object (Outcome) - process, task, effect, quality 
Rules - timeframe, methodology, options, interrelatedness (relations), rules, start, end, restrictions / limitations, location (located), evaluation criteria  
Division of Labour - actors, project manager, role,
Mediating artefact (Tools) - schedule, time management, control, feedback, tools, workmanship, plan, software, resource, learnability,   

When looking upon this list, we can see that maybe too much focus has been put on rules and tools, so this reached level of detail-ness is maybe somewhat unnecessary. Too little focus again has been put on the participants themselves - who they are (community) and what are their roles (division of labour). 

If I'd have to shorten down this offered list, I would leave only the core notions untouched:

Subject -aim/goal, result
Community - participants, 
Object (Outcome) - process 
Rules - rules
Division of Labour - actors

Mediating artefact (Tools) - schedule, time management, control, feedback, tools, workmanship, plan, software, resource, learnability,

Only the tools part can´t - in my view - be "cut down" as the diversity of tools available for interaction purposes is always greeted.

All in all there weren´t any new possible categories described in the list but it is a good idea to use parts of that list to elaborate the 6-category structure of the activity theory framework as the created list was in some categories very thorough.

Task 10 of NIE: Applying activity theory

When comparing the two courses according to the activity theory, I will now use a diagram first introduced to me in the article written by Uden et al. (2008):

NIE
Subject - Student.
Community - Faculty, Students.
Object (Outcome) - Knowledge about new interactive environments and their background.
Rules - Internet protocol, Ethics, Rules about the structure of studies, homework deadlines, participation demands.
Division of Labour - follows the grid of Community.
Mediating artefact (Tools) - Blog, Study environment, Voip.


PLENK
http://connect.downes.ca/
Subject - Student.
Community - Faculty, Students.
Object (Outcome) - Knowledge about concepts of personal learning environments and networks.
Rules - Session, forum, newsletter, wiki, readings carry-out rules and demands..
Division of Labour - follows the grid of Community.
Mediating artefact (Tools) - Newsletters, Wiki, Forums.


I see the two courses being very similar, with the major difference being only in the chosen tools offered and demanded by the faculty.

Ofcourse the thorough description of the PLENK course leaves no room for personal adaptions (everything is pre-described and therefore pre-ordered).

When thinking about the challenges and limitations one faces while implementing activity theory into practice in digitally mediated courses, the biggest problem in my view lies in the structure itself - as the community never exists in the idea of a classical community (no face to face interaction, no physical set boundaries), it always is questionable wheteher the community understands and accepts the tools, rules and division of labour coherently or are there conflicts in the understandings of one universal subject of the community.




Based on
http://informationr.net/ir/13-2/paper340.html