@LinziMclagan in mine: must contribute+comment x2 forums+MCQ weekly quiz.3 attempts max per 8hrs.Lots of comments,no 'discussions' #mscedc
— Renée Hann (@rennhann) February 18, 2017
Lifestream, Tweets
@philip_downey Can a privately owned,for profit platform ever truly serve community?Who wins in support community vs advertising $? #mscedc
— Renée Hann (@rennhann) February 18, 2017
Lifestream, Tweets
Wow @philip_downey – that's quite something. Take care! #mscedc
— Renée Hann (@rennhann) February 17, 2017
Lifestream, Tweets
@j_k_knox #mscedc it's actually really tame by my house. https://t.co/ffKTQnS6IL is just a 5-10 minute drive away!😲Glad it's the weekend..
— Renée Hann (@rennhann) February 17, 2017
Lifestream, Tweets
1 for blocks 2&3:Improving community through community policing.. and fighting algorithmic bias. https://t.co/JQmaSHYGXd via @WIRED #mscedc
— Renée Hann (@rennhann) February 17, 2017
For this block, Community Cultures, the relevant paragraph is:
League of Legends used to be besieged by claims of harassment until a few small changes caused complaints to drop sharply. The game’s creator empowered players to vote on reported cases of harassment and decide whether a player should be suspended. Players who are banned for bad behavior are also now told why they were banned. Not only have incidents of bullying dramatically decreased, but players report that they previously had no idea how their online actions affected others. Now, instead of coming back and saying the same horrible things again and again, their behavior improves. The lesson is that tech companies can use these community policing models to attack discrimination: Build creative ways to have users find it and root it out.
I’m conscious of the language choice here: empowered players to vote. Possibly players did feel empowered (affective reward?), but I’m conscious that they are also unpaid digital labourers (volunteers) upon which the commercial interests of League of Legends is reliant, and has systemised. There’s a tension for me in ‘community policing’ of (and for) private, profit-generating entities which warrants further exploration. It seems to be a ‘civic duty’, yet it is not only for the public.
“Players who are banned for bad behaviour are also now told why they were banned” – this kind of transparency seems logical. Yet, it is seemingly not adopted by many online ‘communities’.
Lifestream, Tweets
#mscedc how's the weather in your study location? A wee spot of rain here.. and the power's out. Hope it's fixed before our hangout later! pic.twitter.com/UHktacDgkE
— Renée Hann (@rennhann) February 17, 2017
Lifestream, Evernote
What the Law Can (and Can’t) Do About Online Harassment
http://ift.tt/2lXdc8e
edc17, stalking February 16, 2017 at 07:09PM
As Knox (2015) notes, the participatory nature of web 2.0 is frequently talked about through a utopian lens:
the communicative potentials of the network are frequently positioned as the solution to the hierarchies, inequalities and inaccessibilities of the institution. Thus, rather than ‘virtual’ or ‘otherworldly space’, technology becomes anti-institutional and emancipatory in its capacity to facilitate and enhance those traits already present in society.
The article linked to demonstrates some of the ways in which this lens is problematic. For many women, in particular, online communicative potentials online are not emancipatory, due to the persistence of gender, and gender inequality online:
The U.S. Department of Justice statistics suggest that 850,000 American adults—mostly women—are targets of cyber-stalking each year, and 40 percent of women have experienced dating violence delivered electronically. A recent study by the Pew Research Center found 40 percent of adult Internet users have experienced harassment online, with young women enduring particularly severe forms of it.
While this, as the article highlights, is a social problem and not just a problem of technology, the persistence and scalability of technologically mediated communication can amplify its impact and consequences. Within education, I feel that the prevalence of harassment is something we (as educators) need to be (more) conscious of when asking students to participate in networked learning. Frequently, we lack the (clear) guidelines required to manage harassment and other behaviour that’s inappropriate to our setting, leaving both our students and us vulnerable within our learning ‘communities’.
Lifestream, Liked on YouTube: The Online Community-A New Paradigm: Mark Wills at TEDxSanLuisObispo
via YouTube
While I don’t agree with every point Mark Wills raises, it is interesting to hear his perspectives on community, and especially on the role of moderation within community.
The parts of Wills TED talk that I find dubious include:
- he makes generational distinctions about learning to ‘be’ in online communities which I don’t think hold up to examination. His position is suggestive of a ‘digital natives’ (Prensky, 2001) construct, which ignores the fact that experience with technology isn’t generalizable by age and further, seems to equate ‘being’ with ‘doing’ (i.e. it suggests that because young people are all supposedly immersed in the world of technology through daily use, it is who they are – a negation of the complexities of identity).
- Wills suggests that online communities flatten hierarchies to the extent that gender, geographic boundaries, age and ethnicity ‘don’t exist anymore’. For me, his assertion is too absolute: #Gamergate is evidence enough that this simply isn’t true.
However, other aspects of Wills’ talk were in accordance with my own experience and/or my reading:
- the need to encourage longevity in user participation – this aligns with Walther’s 1997 assertion about the role of ‘anticipated future interaction’ in modifying participant behaviours (Kozinets, 2010, pp. 23-24);
- Will’ s assertions about the need to reinforce cultural norms or shared values, as well as the role of participant voting as a way to empower (askers) and give status (to those that have responded to user/asker questions) supports Kozinets’ model developmental progression of participation in online communities:

Finally, I found the idea of people being able to use their credibility within an online technology help community externally, for example, when applying for jobs, interesting. In this sense, the platform can give users (those who answer questions) something genuinely valuable in exchange for their volunteer digital labour. Is it enough, though? Or is it insignificant in comparison to what they contribute (which drives the profits of the host)?
Lifestream, Tweets
@philip_downey @rennhann I read in IDEL that MOOCs have a low completion rate because people usually only want to learn 1 part rather than..
— Stuart (@learntechstu) February 14, 2017
@learntechstu if student autonomy is allowed,completing part I wanted=success?whole course=someone else's success! @philip_downey #mscedc
— Renée Hann (@rennhann) February 15, 2017
Lifestream, Tweets
@philip_downey @learntechstu depends on where I see knowledge/learning 'located'?if I see it in peers,success=connecting to peers? #mscedc
— Renée Hann (@rennhann) February 15, 2017