In my haste to get everything finalized and uploaded I hadn’t kept abreast of the Discussion Board and, yesterday when I was going over it, I realized that I hadn’t done the requirements of Module Five. Not only had I missed Module Five altogether but I hadn’t completed one or two of the earlier tasks – I am so annoyed with myself!!
I have to admit that now that the assessment date has passed the motivation to finish this in terrible, but here goes.
Module 5 – Information Ecologies
I see ecology as the study of ecosystems; how these systems/communities grow and develop, how they progress or evolve over time and what we, as a society, can learn from these progressions
Before reading this module I had vague ideas about what the term “Information Ecologies” might mean such as the way in which people interacted with computers, used the available programs and interacted with other people on the web, how the programs and the web were changing and evolving to encapsulate the changing human society. After having read the suggested readings plus a couple of extras, I think that Nardi and O’Day probably come closest to conceptualising what I see as “Information Ecology”:
– Focus attention on relationships involving tools and people and their practices;
– Responds to local environmental changes and local interventions;
– Individuals with real relationships to other individuals.
– Suggests diversity and implies continual evolution;
With this in mind, I looked at the questions “how might the metaphor of an ‘Ecology’ impact on the way [I] think about, understand and use the internet?”
Information Ecology is another term for the way we look or talk about how we as a community/society use and adapt to computers/technology to communicate, learn, develop, and advance. This is not something that I haven’t thought about prior to this course. Computers have become so ingrained in society that not to be able to use one or understand some of the jargon associated with them disadvantages a person considerably. The amount of knowledge/experience you have about this technology decides your position in the community or the sector which you belong (to use Owen’s metaphor of an ant colony – are you a queen ant or a worker ant?).
From participating in this course though, I am not only more aware of the wide variety of technologies and tools that are available to me to use and participate in this community, but how fast these technologies and tools are evolving and the need to keep abreast of the changes.
“Information” and “Communication” within the Framework of an “Information Ecology”:
Information and communication are closely intertwined, to the extent that I doubt you could have one without the other. Information is the knowledge communicated or received concerning some fact or circumstance and, communication is the means of transmitting, imparting, partaking of or receiving information (Macquarie Dictionary).
Communication in the Information Ecology takes on many forms that have not previously been available to everyone in society. The progress of Web 2.0 with blogging, chat rooms, Facebook and MySpace, along with Wikis etc has broadened the range of vehicles in which the information and technologies can be spread. It has also made technological information and communication easier and more readily available to most levels of society.
"Why don’t we talk of a “communication ecology?"
As mentioned above information and communication are closely intertwined, to the extent that I do not think you could have one without the other. However it is the information that is the knowledge, communication is purely the means of spreading the knowledge. I think that Julian explains it best in his blog “The concept of a ‘communication ecology’ isn’t refuted as a concept but it would be superfluous to try and describe communication to the exclusion of knowledge when the two elements are combined to create information.”
Module 2 – Newgroups
“Communicating in the Infosphere” moved me right out of my comfort zone and became quite confusing (to me) with all of the various groups, discussion boards and lists. I personally have only ever been exposed to email (which I use daily) and a couple of newsletters. There appeared to be very little difference between some of the groups and I wondered the purpose of having so many different yet seemingly the same forms of communication.
Newsgroups can be best summed up as:
- online bulletin boards where people can debate, deliberate, philosophize argue and rant;
- sometimes referred to as user groups or discussion groups;
- good for looking into very narrow, well-defined topics;
- generally not moderated – no-one removes objectionable material
- can be used to download image and music files and videos
I had chosen to follow/participate in a gardening newsgroup, the topics varied from when to plant potatoes, to how to keep the chooks in the backyard home, but the message that I followed was about remedies for hayfever. As a hayfever sufferer for many years I was interested to hear what other people had to say. Unfortunately there was very little response, and the information there was things that had already been tried. I added my slice of knowledge and have been watching since to see if there has been any response to the advice I gave.
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