Lesson5-Think, Explore, and Explain

Think

Which sites do you visit regularly? What provisions do you currently make to keep yourself up to date on new content posted to your favourite sites?

I regularly visit the sites of Japan Times, uefa.com(about soccer), and wikipedia. I register such sites for Bookmark. So, I can easily keep myself up to date on new content posted to my favorite sites.

Explore
A website that displays a button similar to the ones here on the right has an RSS feed that you can subscribe to. Visit a few of the sites that you use fairly regularly (4~5 is fine). Now, can you find an RSS button? You might need to scroll down the page, and you will need to look carefully if it is a 'busy' page. Which of your favourite sites provide an RSS feed? Which ones don't? Can you think why not?
The sites of CNN , The Japan Times and BBC have the RSS button. I think that it is because these sites are frequently updated and are given frequently new contents.
On the other hand, W3 and the Japanese dictionary site called Goo have no button of RSS. In the case of W3, it is because W3 is a secret site and a limited site to limited users, students and professors, and so on. In the case of the Japanese dictionary site, it is because the site is a negative site which does not add frequently new contents.

Explain
Write a post reflecting on RSS with reference to the four Key Questions. (SCICU e-Portfolio)
Social Computing Key Questions:
1. What are the main skills needed to use social software?
In order to use RSS, it is necessary to understand about tool bar which RSS belogs to, and characteristics of diverse sites. The characteristics are whether some sites are added frequently new contents and updates or not, and whether the sites have RSS button, and so on.

2. What are the affordances (what the software makes possible, what it impedes)?
RSS can make us able to keep ourselves up to the latest contents and posts of our favorite sites. And, it enables us to make deep relationships with our favorite sites.

3. How can the technology be used to network professionally and connect users to learning resources?
The RSS of news sites and academic sites such as CNN and Newton can be used to professions and academic purposes, because these RSSs can give latest information and discoveries according to such purposes.

4. What learned skills and understandings may promote your development as an effective learner in the digital age?

It is useful and helpful for RSS users to learn about the relationships and the connections between RSS and bookmark, tool bar, google reader. It enables them to save times to search latest information and to not to miss important discoveries and updates of their RSS.

Lesson4-Think,Explore, and Explain

Think
How do you currently save and store favourite webpages? What provisions do you make to be able to access them whenever and wherever you need them?
When I find a favorite page, I register the favorite page as my favorite Internet Explorer. Then, I copy the favorite page in my USB.
Through this step, if I have the USB, whenever and wherever I want to access the page, I can access to it by using the USB.


Explore
What other ways can you think of to publicise your Delicious username so that others might access what you know? What are benefits can you identify in participating in an open knowledge network such as Delicious?
The other ways are that I write the username of Delicious on my e-portfolio, and that I send some e-mail to some people with my username.
The bengefits of the network such as Delicious are that I can know what other people are interested in today, and that I can use some useful skills by refferring to the skills that others use.


Explain
Write a post reflecting on Delicious with reference to the four Key Questions. (SCICU e-Portfolio)
Social Computing Key Questions:
1. What are the main skills needed to use social software?
Delicious has a good characteristic as a good social software. It is because Delisious enable us to share bookmarks which we are interested in. The share is social communication because our idea are exchanged each other.

2. What are the affordances (what the software makes possible, what it impedes)?
Delicious makes the share of bookmarking possible. This means that it is possible to share the idea and information which we are noticing today.

3. How can the technology be used to network professionally and connect users to learning resources?
For the professional network, Delicious can offer the opportunity to the users by sharing the latest computer technology.
For connection between users and learning materials, Delicious can enable users to classify the materials easily. It leads them to review their study easily.

4. What learned skills and understandings may promote your development as an effective learner in the digital age?
Sharing is a important concept because it enable us to help each other in the community of network users. The helps encourage us to study further information about social network and to communicate with others.

Barabasi: The Sixth Link pp. 25-35

Barabasi: The Sixth Link pp. 25-35
1. What is the principle of six degrees of separation? What number of social links does any one person need to be connected to global society? p. 30
The principle of six degrees of separation is that one person can communicate with any other person through five linking people.
Any one person need six linked persons in order to be connected to global society.

2. How is the fabric of society today different from pre-internet society? p. 31
The URLs can allow us to move with the click of a mouse from one page to another. They enable us to access to and gather information.

3. How many more links separate any pair of web pages compared to people in society? What can explain the difference? p. 34
In addition to six links in people's society, thirteen links are necessary in the web world. Nineteen links are necessary to connect any pair of web pages. On the other hand, six links are necessary to connect any pair of people in society.
The difference can be explained by the hugeness of web world compared to people's society.

4. So far, what ranges of separation have network scientists discovered in different kinds of networks? p. 34
There are three kinds of separation. First, our society has a separation of six. Second, the web has a separation of nineteen. Third, the internet has a separation of ten.

5. What does research suggest about the fundamentals of networks? p.34-35
The more links people add, the closer distance they need in order to reach any other person. The more links which each person has make the web world small.

6. What is your estimate of your personal number of connections to society? What connections are your strongest?
I estimate that I need 10 persons in order to communicate with any other person in my personal society.
My strongest connection is my members of the soccer club of my high school.

A reflection on my e-portfolio

A reflection on my e-portfolio:

1. There is no communication and no link with other users.
2. The links to some pages of Social Computing is convenient. It is because it is easy to go and come back between my e-portfolio and the home pages of Social Computing.
3. It is possible to develop the design. It can be more colorful and artistic.

Lesson3-Think, Explore, and Explain

Think
What arrangements do you have to make now to be able to work on whatever you want to wherever you are?
It is necessary to bring my USB which contains a portable firefox. The main pages of the firefox
should be some pages on which I often work and to which I always access. The main pages keep me from spending useless time to access to the pages through some unnecessary links or searching.

Explore
I think that getting extensions lead us to use internet without useless time and to store information easily and safely. For example, bookmarks save us from spending unnecessary time by accessing to the pages which we always uses. And, Zotero is a nice tool to store information and pages which we are interested in. So, the extensions along with each person's needs will play important rolls in the life of internet.

Explain
Social Computing Key Questions:
1. What are the main skills needed to use social software?
It is neccesary to understand some terminologies of computer.
And it is also important to know how to save and delete information in a computer or a USB.

2. What are the affordances (what the software makes possible, what it impedes)?
It enables us to communicate with others in distant areas at private level. At this level, people can exchange personal information each other.

3. How can the technology be used to network professionally and connect users to learning resources?
The network at professional level and the connection between users and learning resources are established through academic homepages. The academic homepages mean official homepages of universities or of institutions which try to solve social problems.

4. What learned skills and understandings may promote your development as an effective learner in the digital age?
I think that it is effective to learn fundamiental terminologies of computer. And, learning HTML is better to be a good user.

The answers to Barabasi

Yusuke Umeki

Barabasi: The first link

Q1: The Paul’s success in spreading the Christian is due to use his firsthand knowledge of the social network of the first century’s civilized world from Rome to Jerusalem. In addition, he also used topology effectively to reach and convert as many people as he could.

Q2: Yes, I think that the events like this can be happened. It is because there is more combined and spreading social network by internet to communicate with others and tell them ideas.

Q3: The new kinds of maps made our interconnectivity by shedding light on our weblike universe. The interconnectivity reveals the relationship between people or between companies which have deep communication, even if they are located in distant areas each other.

Q4: The real surprise is that amazingly simple and far-reaching natural laws govern the structure and evolution of the complex networks that surround us. I am surprised by this because I think that our society and nature surround us is so complex that we cannot fully explain them.

Q5: The author defines the nature of most scientific approach in the 20th Century is reductionism which is a concept that complexity can be translated by simple words. The problem along with the approach is that people cannot explain complex things easily because nature is not simple structure and the components in nature function in many different ways.

Q6: The author states that the new view will be a web-based view of nature, society, and business. My view is not the author’s view. I think that there are some areas which internet have not yet covered.

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