Last week, I realised I had made an awful omission when tentatively introducing services on web 2. Ok, I haven’t just introduced them yet. I’ll get into that.

Plenty of time yet to hear about folksonomies, collective value, wisdoms of crowds, participation at a distance, rich user experiences through building networks of trust online…

But this week, I’d like to rectify what I didn’t mention by mentioning it now-

LEARNING

And I want to introduce the Open University’s online learning initiative at this point.

It’s great to see the Open University take to online learning. Why, it has been the free radical of the educational establishment as far back as I can remember-giving opportunities to the wider public and believing in self-regulated learning well before our stiff British educational institutions even thought about giving up central command.

It is seemingly the first UK higher education institution to make its study materials freely available online. Ok, I’d like to have that corroborated. A pretty astounding admission, I think.

But anyway, with nearly 900 hours of learning resources available, it was launched last week on Wednesday, October 25.

So. I’ve been in, enrolled, left my profile-the only one to date. It was gone yesterday after I’d painstakingly authored it. But that was the server’s fault. Down!!! I don’t think taking backup has been a priority as yet. Or it has just become one!

And deciding on how students should figure out how to enter this as co creators, worthy participants in true web 2 form has obviously drawn a big blank. For there is nothing to indicate what dicussions will ensue, how meaning negotiation or social negotiation for that matter, is to be facilitated nor is the tutor shown.

Oh, there’s a tutor alright, at least that’s what I take the faceless OU Administrator participant icon to mean But not dismayed, I’ve decided to start a discussion.

Of course, it will mean plowing through 7 “information blocks” with underlying chunked together taxonomies of newsgatherings, newsgatherings now, ict processes in news gatherings, in order to find something that is not irrelevant, too unattractive, too broadly abstract or too technical to talk about.

And it will also mean, figuring out the best way to initiate discussions faced with a personless void.

One wouldn’t want to just write anything spontaneous, too revealing and expect the response to be positive just based on TRUST?

But there we are. Systems remain in some cases to be systems. Never liked them.

Though I build them myself. But then I think, as many information architects, usability engineers or anyone with a little bit of savvy on how the dynamics of human interaction are built and maintained, do - that its the people who should be allowed to come to the fore.
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I have enrolled in the course entitled T175_8ICT’s: Information.

The course description starts with:

This unit considers €˜information’ and the technology used in its dissemination. More specifically, the information considered is news and how news has been gathered and provided.

I look forward to a professional collaborative learning experience!

I’d like to see what the OU has envisaged this as becoming.

And I wonder, since nearly all the best initiatives that have been pioneering in the web 2 sphere, have given up on certain ingrained beliefs, to embrace others (Napster, Flikr made data public when everyone else said it should be kept private; Amazon focused all its energies online).

I wonder what the Ou’s investment thesis is. It could be to attract users that in the long run will promote growth through giving the students autonomy and agency online.

Yes that’s it: they have given up their central control in return for an explosion of free thinking learning communities. I think?

This is the first posting on my blog.

Since this blog for me, will be a journey of discovery through the net, I openly admit that I start with quite a bit of wonder. For wonder is a quality that enables perception of things yet unseen to be seen.

Neil Armstrong said wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand

Yes, I too wish to understand. I am interested in the humanity behind the networks we build, the metaphors of substance, meaning, identity that emerge as these places that we inhabit are extended into virtual places on the internet. And I am interested in the stories that abound out there; stories of people connecting, learning, and creating in places on the net.

I call these places enabling spaces.

And these spaces are created in what is presently being called web2.

Web2 is all about creating one’s own personalised space. It’s about being online with a certain degree of charm, personality and flair. It is also about allowing for contacts to be created through mutual interests and affinities.

And it is certainly about creating success. For it’s dynamic, organismic in its development, and it’s taking us to our very own preferred future! This, through social and business networking as well as a myriad of other services available.

In the weeks to come, I hope to take a closer look at the poetics of what has become our modern discourse media. This is of course the web. Or more correctly web2.

And its poetics? Ah I’d like to find what motivates, creates meaning and gives reward.

I don’t have the answers, however you may know this already?

Let me hear what you get from the internet? What social networking or business networking sites do you use? How have they become an asset for you?

Also, where on the internet do you get your news? Do you read blogs? Do you interact with bloggers, with newsmakers?

For it is not just the appearance of networks I wish to see. It is the people their presence and spirit that is most interesting.

Let’s see where this journey will take us.

If you would like me to know about your story of how the internet has become a meaningful aspect of your life with regards to business or social networking or indeed news finding, please let me hear.

Also, if you are a power user and would like me to write about your profile, send me a line. It may be that you are an anchor blogger or someone heavily into networking, or just someone who knows all about where the net is taking us. I’d like to hear that too!

Until next week then.

Bye for now

Maria

you can contact me through this e-mail address: maria_m_odonovan@yahoo.dk