Week 9

LBSC 690

Information Technology

Computer Mediated Communications

Agenda

• Questions

• Computer mediated communications

• Computer-Supported Cooperative Work

• Educational computing

• Project presentations

Computer Mediated Communication

• CMC refers to human communication via computers--including computer network communication on the Internet and the World Wide Web. People interested in CMC study a range of phenomena--from the dynamics of group communication in Usenet news articles to how people use hypertext to shape meaning.

from http://www.ibiblio.org/cmc/center.html

Describing CMC Applications

• How many participants? – One or many

• When?– Synchronous or asynchronous

• Where?– Local or remote

Cooperative systems

Same Time

(synchronous)

Different Times

(asynchronous)

Same

place

(local)

face to face, classroom tools

postit notes, meeting support systems

Different

places

(remote)

IM, Chat Rooms, NetMeeting, VTC, Access Grid

Email, Usenet news

Inspired by the table in Shneiderman’s “Designing user interfaces”

Asynchronous Remote• Email: centralized storage

– Individual– Mailing lists

• Usenet: distributed storage– Hierarchical organization

• comp.edu.languages.natural– Archive: groups.google.com– Analysis: research.microsoft.com/~masmith/

• Threaded discussion lists– Example: http://discus.hope.edu/f05

Synchronous Remote

• Instant Messaging (IM)– e.g., AIM, MSN Messenger

• Chat Rooms– Whole lines are sent at a time– e.g., chat.yahoo.com

• NetMeeting– IM+audio+video+whiteboard+shared applications– MSN Messenger now includes these capabilities

Glass Wall

• Unplanned interactions

• Informal communication

Synchronous Local

• Meeting support systems– Brainstorming– Online review– Annotated minutes

• Example– Teaching theater student tools

Computer SupportedCooperative Work (CSCW)

• Work– Grounded in the study of work processes

• Cooperative– Assumes a shared objective, task

• Technology-supported– Computers are just one type of tools used– “Groupware”

Key Issues in CSCW

• Shared information space

• Group awareness

• Coordination

• Concurrency control

• Multi-user interfaces

• Heterogeneous environments

Case Study: Virtual Reference

• Required functions

• System architecture

• Adoption

Case Study 2:Your Project Team!

• Face to face meetings

• Teleconferences

• Shared workspace on WAM

• IM-synchronized work sessions

• NetMeeting?

Educational Computing

• Computer Assisted Education– What most people think of first

• Computer Managed Instruction– What most people really do first!

• Computer Mediated Communication– All that CSCW stuff applied to education

• Computer-Based Multimedia– Just another filmstrip machine?

Rationales

• Pedagogic– Use computers to teach

• Vocational– Computer programming is a skill like typing

• Social– Computers are a part of the fabric of society

• Catalytic– Computers are symbols of progress

Conditions for Success

• Most prerequisites are not computer-specific– Need, know-how, time, commitment, leadership,

incentives, expectations

• The most important barrier is time– Teacher time is by far the most important factor

Alternatives

• Facilities– Computer classrooms (e.g., teaching theaters)– Computers IN classrooms (e.g., HBK 2119)

• Objectives– “Computer Literacy”– Not so in the Maryland teaching theaters

• Comparatively few technology classes

Discussion Point:Computers as Educational Media

• What are the most salient characteristics – Books

– Video

– Computers

Distance Education

• Correspondence courses– Focus on dissemination and evaluation

• Instructional television– Dissemination, interaction, and evaluation

• Computer-Assisted Instruction– Same three functions w/ubiquitous technology