Week 8 Constructing the Other (Part I)

Articles Read

Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday. Introduction [PDF]

Wallace, P. (1999). Your online persona, the psychology of impression formation. The psychology of the Internet (pp. 14-37). London: Cambridge University Press. [Read this eBook - MSU authorized users]

Suler, J. (2000). Identity management in cyberspace. Available online at http://www.rider.edu/users/suler/psycyber/identitymanage.html

Summary

Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday. Introduction [PDF]

This piece explored how individual presents himself before others, and how he influences or controls the impression others received. The author demonstrated a few techniques that persons employ to sustain certain impressions, such ways as expressing himself in a way to give others the kind of impression that will lead them to act voluntarily in accordance with his own plan; hide or change his given-off expressions, or even less-controllable behavior so as to make others think they are reliably informed. In addition to this, the author also talked about how the agreements are reached among a group of people, and why the first impressions are important. The author also mentioned that we can also manage your impression with a written self-description, with your personal Web site, etc.

Wallace, P. (1999). Your online persona, the psychology of impression formation. The psychology of the Internet (pp. 14-37). London: Cambridge University Press. [Read this eBook - MSU authorized users]

We are reluctant to rethink the impressions we form of others.. first impression is formed, we tend to have confirmation bias. Not only do we ignore evidence that might contradict our original impressions, we actively search for information to confirm them.

This piece talked about how we struggled with forming our impressions in online environments with a set of new and odd tools. Usually, warmth is heavily weighted central traits when people are forming a first impression in face-to-face environment. The cues people use to form some impression of your warmth are mainly nonverbal. However, online environment, we need to learn to use various new tools to add socioemotional expressiveness to the online persona. In online environment, choice of user name is important; the traits we rely on heavily are gender and age, them nationality and race. In online environment, impression formation is always slower than face-to-face, and much choppier. As we are all inexperienced with the tools in the new environment, it will take us time to learn about it.

Suler, J. (2000). Identity management in cyberspace. Available online at http://www.rider.edu/users/suler/psycyber/identitymanage.html

The author explained to us five interlocking factors that are useful in navigating how people manage who they are in cyberspace. The first one is level of dissociation and integration. The cyberspace gives people the opportunity to focus on and develop a particular aspect of who they are. So it may give people the chance to express and explore facets of their identity that they do not express in their face-to-face world. The second factor is positive and negative valence. People may use cyberspace as an opportunity to exercise their negative or positive characteristics. The third is level of fantasy or reality. In the imaginary world, hidden parts of oneself may be more likely to be expressed. The fourth is level of conscious awareness and control. People can either exert a high level of control of their identity or exert no control on their identity in cyberspace. The fifth is the media chosen. There are a variety of possibilities and combinations of possibilities regarding to which media to choose. These choices will give rise to various specific attributes of identity.

My Reactions

Do you see any of the ideas of the readings resonating with your “construction” of your 2nd life identity?

The readings help me to understand many of my behaviors in 2^nd life when I am constructing my own identity and making judges on other people. I should say I am fully aware that the appearance matters a lot, especially in the first impression. I tried to make myself look different. So I chose a cat face instead of a human face, I tried to dress in a fancy way. When I am talking with people, I do apply some strategies mentioned in the reading. I found myself especially liking using :) in order to suggest my friendliness. I have the intention of using that in every sentence. That probably implies that I am hoping that people talking with me think I am easy-going and friendly, and I want them to like me. Though when I created my avatar, I planned to make her a different person from the actual me. It turns out that now she is still behaving and talking like myself in the real life. Not sure why it is so hard to me to even pretend to be the opposite of myself.

Questions for Discussion

Which do you think is the “real you”, the one in reality or the one in cyberspace?

How do you judge the people you met in second life? Do you think you can get to know something about their real personality by looking at how they act in second life?

Notice

I have changed to this new blog. So all the postings are newly posted.

Tech Immersion Project - Progress Report

I decided to try virtual pet for this tech immersion project. I never had a virtual pet before, and know little about what raising an e-pet would be like.
When I googled virtual pet, I found many sites offering free virtual pet. As I went on, I found Neopets is a very popular site for people who are looking for virtual sites. I got to know that on 22 Feb 2005 Wall Street Journal published an article, "Web's Addictive Neopets Are Ready for Big Career Leap" by Nick Wingfield. The article talks about the "built in advertising" opportunities called "immersive advertising" developed by Neopets, the popularity of the pets, retail opportunities, stickiness of the site (length of visits), bans on religious and political discussion, strong appeal of the site to girls, trying to keep the site safe and fun. It is said to be an excellent review of the Neopets site and the issues surrounding it.
Here is the detailed info of my pet.
Neopet Name : RongQiuQiu
Species : Bruce
Gender : Female
Color : Green
Height : 80 cms.
Weight : 125 lbs.
Strength : quite strong
Defence : average
Movement : average
Intelligence : average
My RongQiuQiu lives in the jungle. She likes hunting for treasures, and greets others by running away. I fed her and read books to her, and she turned out to be full and happy. But her ability level is still very low! It is said that:

At certain levels (stages of growth and experience), your pet will gain certain powers. These range from the ability to hide to shooting fireballs or flying! Every couple of levels your pet will gain new abilities. This page allows you to view and activate these special powers!

All new abilities start at level 1. There are ways to improve the level of your ability but we cannot tell you :)

List of all Abilities

RongQiuQiu says 'How come you never buy me anything to play with!'- Current Abilities -RongQiuQiu doesn't have any special abilities yet. Awwww.

Watch out for the spell faeries, available in the shops... Spell faeries may bless a strong Neopet, but if it is too inexperienced then the faerie will just fly away when you release it.

I got to know that in order to buy all these good stuffs, I need to win Neopoints by playing games!

Week 7 Constructing Virtual World

Created on Feb. 18, 2007

Readings:

Casti, J. L. (1997). Would-be worlds: How simulation is changing the frontiers of science (pp. 1-36). John Wiley & Sons: New York.

Starr, P. (1994). Seductions of Sim Policy as a Simulation Game. American Prospect, 5(17),
Available online: http://www.prospect.org/print/V5/17/starr-p.html

Summary

Casti, J. L. (1997). Would-be worlds: How simulation is changing the frontiers of science (pp. 1-36). John Wiley & Sons: New York.

The author of this piece answered the following questions about simulation: How do the simulated worlds relate to their real-world counterparts? What types of real-world systems lend themselves to these electronic surrogates and why? How do we build such worlds? How can we use these electronic worlds to study the real world? What types of behaviors can emerge from the interaction of agents in their electronic environment?

According to the purpose of the model, there are there types of model: predictive model – model that predicts the future behavior of a system; explanatory model – model that provides a framework in which past observations can be understood as part of an overall process; and prescriptive model – model that offers people a picture of the real world that has various “knobs” built-in that we can twist one way or another to see how that reality might be affected.

It is neither necessary nor sufficient for a good model to faithfully capture all aspects of the phenomenon it represents. Instead, a good model should be able to answer in a convincing way the questions of explanation, or even better, the questions of prediction. In addition, the model should possess the qualities of simplicity, clarity, bias-free, and tractability. Creating virtual reality (models) with computer can help us to understand the operation of complex system, which could not be solved by traditional experiments.

Starr, P. (1994). Seductions of Sim Policy as a Simulation Game. American Prospect, 5(17),
Available online: http://www.prospect.org/print/V5/17/starr-p.html

As a tool of research, simulations and games would enable the theorist to define and grasp the underlying rules of social systems. As a tool of school reform, simulations would provide a more accessible, participatory method of education for children who did not respond well to traditional instruction (p. 3) However, as the author pointed out, to think of simulations games as mere entertainment or teaching tools is to underestimate them. This piece provided a short history of the ebbs and flows of simulation, and focused especially on simulations used to assess policy options (large-scale models). The author pointed out the significant influence of simulation models in policy making, and proposed that instead of believe in a single mechanism for simulating alternative policies and theories, we need to have many of them, and even better, we need to open up the blackboxes by making the models more transparent.

My Reactions

What kind of activity should be simulated? Name an experience or activity that you think is ideally suited to be simulated (and why)

Simulation has huge potential for learning new things. Especially at the times when it is difficult to learn a particular thing in real life due to various reasons such as: it is too costly, it is too dangerous, the opportunity is rare, the process is too time-consuming. Learning it with simulation could be less expensive, a lot safer, easily accessible, and time-saving. For example, if we have good simulation for driving cars, it is better to learn that with simulation. It is dangerous for a novice driver to practice on the road, but if he/she only practices in the parking lot, it is far from enough as the traffic situation is more complex on the road. If we can simulate various conditions that we can encounter on the road, the learner can practice how to deal with the situation without taking any risk. But we don’t do this probably because doing such simulation is too expensive nowadays.

My Questions (Questions for Discussion)

* What are the implications of simulation for education?

* Simulation is imperfect. How can we widely use it without being misled by it?

WEEK 6 - Thinking about the Virtual

Created on Feb. 9, 20

Articles Read

Eco, U. (1983). Travels in hyperreality. In U. Eco. Collection of essays: Travels in hyperreality (pp. 3-58.). Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.

Stone, S. (1995). Split subjects, not atoms. Or how I fell in love with my prosthesis. In C. G. Gray (Ed.), The cyborg handbook (pp. 393-406). New York: Routledge.

Sanes, K. (2002). Virtual realities: Then & Now. Available online at http://www.transparencynow.com/lascaux.htm

Article Summaries

Eco, U. (1983). Travels in hyperreality. In U. Eco. Collection of essays: Travels in hyperreality (pp. 3-58.). Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.

From various Museums to Castles, from Disneyland to Marinelands, and to the supernatural, the author guided us through a journey into hyperreality. It seems that for museums, though many of what we see are reproductions, but we at least believe these reproduces reality in an absolute sense. However, disneyland is fantasy that is absolutely reproduced. But “once the ‘total fake’ is admitted, in order to be enjoyed it must seem totally real” (p.43). The author raised the issue of what counts as authentic. His article successfully presented us instances “where the American imagination demands the real thing and, to attain it, must fabricate the absolute fake; where the boundaries between game and illusion are blurred, the art museum is contaminated by the freak show, and falsehood is enjoyed in a situation of ‘fullness’.”(p.8)

Stone, S. (1995). Split subjects, not atoms. Or how I fell in love with my prosthesis. In C. G. Gray (Ed.), The cyborg handbook (pp. 393-406). New York: Routledge.

The author started the article by describing her experiences of falling in love with prosthesis. The author believed that with the development of more sophisticated technologies, people are becoming harder to track bs y dissolving, fragmenting, --“by being many persons in many places simultaneously, by refusing to be one thing, by choosing to be many things.” (p.400) This fragmentation and multiplicity characterize communities mediated by technological prosthetics of presence. She argued computers were traditionally viewed as tools, but now they carry a play ethic—Computers are “loci, places, forums, agoras, arenas—arenas for social experiments, for community and its discourses, for the messy evolution of prosthetic sociality driven by specifically located knowledges, needs, and productions.” (p.401-402)

Sanes, K. (2002). Virtual realities: Then & Now. Available online at http://www.transparencynow.com/lascaux.htm

This piece started with the description of the caves of Lascaux. The author told us that the caves demonstrated that long before the beginning of urban civilization, the human race was creating imitations of reality. Such imitation realities have taken all kinds of forms, such as stories, paintings, and theatrical productions. But all of them have provided “ports of entry” that allowed audiences to physically and psychologically immerse themselves in the situations and environments that have been portrayed.

The author believed that we do so because we seem to have a built-in impulse to create world replicas, so that to transcend the limits imposed by life, to overcome the “tyranny of actulity”, and achieve a kind of freedom afforded by the imagination.

I like this quote, “Much of the history of civilization is the story of how we have used these forms of representation to create a “human world” that is richer and more interesting than the world of nature.”

I think people are doing this because they want to express their feelings or emotions!

What is the difference between a “real” and a “virtual” experience?

To answer this question, we should first define what is real and what is virtual, which is hard. I think “Being real” means three levels of realness. One is sensational/physical real. Another is historically real, which refers to things that actually happened or are happening in this world. And the last is psychologically real. Disneyland or Museum of Magic and Witchcraft are not historically real, but is sensational real. Things happened in the history are all historical real. Then, there are things that are neither sensational real nor historically real, but the person who is experiencing it feels it is real. For example, when people are playing MUD, they are only interacting with paragraphs of text, but they have a feeling of authenticity.

I think the difference between a “real” and a “virtual” experience is: Real experience possesses all of the three levels of features. However, in “virtual” experience, it is not historically real. It can be only sensational real, only psychologically real, or both.

For me, psychologically real matters most. As long as it is psychologically real to me, I don’t care whether it is real or virtual.

Honestly, I don’t know the answer to this question! Following my previous logic, if a student is learning history on one historically real event, but he actually has no physical or psychological associations with the event, is the event real or virtual to him?

Questions For Discussion

What is real? What is virtual?

What is virtual in the reality? What is real in the virtuality?

WEEK 5 - Thinking about Reality

Created on Feb. 3, 2007

Articles Read

Searle, J. R. (1998). Mind, language and society: Philosophy in a new key. Chapter 1: Basic Metaphysics: Reality and truth (pp. 1 - 37). New York: Basic Books.

Prisig, R. M. (1974). Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance: An inquiry into values (pp. 29 - 36). New York: Corgi Books.

Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Chapter 7: Nelson Goodman's Worlds. (pp. 93 - 105). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Article Summaries

Searle, J. R. (1998). Mind, language and society: Philosophy in a new key. Chapter 1: Basic Metaphysics: Reality and truth (pp. 1 - 37). New York: Basic Books.

Searle believed in the existence of an objective universe which is independent of our minds or our representation of how they are (external realism), and argued against the antirealist’s challenge. The most common argument again realism, is “perspectivism”, the idea that our knowledge of reality is never “unmediated”. Then, there is probably there is no real world, or perhaps it is useless to even talk about it, or perhaps it is not even interesting. However, Searle argued know the real world from a point of view or state the facts using certain vocabulary does not follow the facts we describing or identifying have no independent existence. The facts exist independent of perspective or language. Searle also argued against the argument from conceptual relativity, the history of science, and the underdetermination of theory by evidence. Searle believe denial of realism has its deeper reason – a will to power, a desire for control, and a deep and abiding hatred of science in particular.

Prisig, R. M. (1974). Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance: An inquiry into values (pp. 29 - 36). New York: Corgi Books.

The story is about how a father explained to his children some philosophical ideas he “stole” from Phaedrus. The father told his children that modern man has his ghosts and spirit. Laws of nature, laws of logic, laws of mathematics are all human inteventions, just like ghosts. They exist nowhere but in human’s head.

Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Chapter 7: Nelson Goodman's Worlds. (pp. 93 - 105). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

This piece explained Nelson Goodman’s “constructivist” philosophy. According to Goodman, “there is no unique ‘real world’ that preexists and is independent of human mental activity and human symbolic language…What we call the world is a product of some mind whose symbolic procedures construct the world. (p. 96)”

Goodman also refused to assign any privileged status or any “ultimate reality” to any particular world that mind may create. Therefore, world making involves the transformation of worlds and world versions already made (p.97), and there is an irreducible plurality of “worlds” (p.98). The difference among these worlds is in the use of “symbol systems”.

My Reaction:

Do you think there is an objective reality? Why or why not?

For me, I believe there is a real world. But it seems that there no way to prove the existence of it. – It is because the evidence that makes me believe the existence of real world is all from my sensation. However, nowadays, we can stimulate people’s sensors in a way that make people have the false feeling that they are actually experiencing it. Therefore, I cannot conclude I can feel/see it, so it does exist. I don’t think Searle (1998) offered any strong evidence to prove it either. He thought it was impossible to justify the existence of a real world, as “the very attempt of justification presupposes what it attempts to justify.”

I can see the points of antirealists as well. It seems to me that some of them abandon the realistic perspective not because they think there is not a real world, but they think that talking about real world is meaningless, as we can never understanding it fully, thoroughly, and objectively. To me, antirealism sounds both pessimistic and optimistic. It is pessimistic because it believes human can never have an objective and comprehensive understanding of the real world. –In this sense, human is powerless. It is optimistic because it suggests all kinds of interpretations are true or acceptable. –In this sense, human is very powerful.

Questions for Discussion (My Own Question)

Why is it important to think about whether there is a real world or not?

The real world and the world we create or in our mind, which is more important? How they are related?

How will we behave differently if we are a realist or an antirealist?

WEEK 4 - Research on media differences

(created on Jan. 28)

Articles Read:

· Barron, A.E., & Kysilka, M.L.(1993). The Effectiveness of Audio in Computer-based Education. Journal of Research on Computing in Education 25(3), 277-289.

· Baggett, P. (1979). Structurally equivalent stories in movie and text and the effect of the medium on recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18(3), 333-356.

· Beentjes, J.W.J., & van der Voort, T.H.A. (1993). Television viewing versus reading: Mental effort, retention, and inferential learning. Communication Education, 42(1), 191-205

Article Summaries:

Barron & Kysilka(1993)

This piece is to examine the effectiveness of adding digital audio to CBT.
In the experiment, all the students completed an identical CBT (computer-based training) program. However, they were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: text-only delivery, full-text and totally redundant audio delivery, or partial-text (bulleted) with full-audio delivery.
It is found that (a) Achievement: there was no significant difference among the three treatment groups in achievement gain; (b)Time: there was a significant different in the mean completion times with the text-only version requiring the least time on task; (c) Perception: student perceptions indicated a high degree of program acceptance across all levels of treatment. So the conclusion is “the various CBT delivery modes did not have a significant effect on overall comprehension of the tutorial content”.

Baggett (1979)

The study examined two questions. The first is whether the perception of episodic structure (exposition, complication, resolution) is medium (text versus movie) independent (Experiment 1 through 4); and the second is what is the effect of the input medium (text versus movie) on cued recall (Experiment 5). The findings were the following: a. stories told in a text and in a movie without words can be constructed so that people perceive them to have equivalent episodic structure; b. statements of structure in recall protocols of subjects who study the structurally equivalent movie and text stories are very similar; c. After a 7-day delay, recall of structural statements deteriorated faster for text subjects. The conclusion was story processing is independent to the input medium.

Beentjes & van der Voort, (1993)

It compares children’s learning from structurally equivalent television and print versions of two stories. Children were randomly assigned to four orders of presentation (to control for sequence effects), and each child was presented with both stories and both media in two different combinations (story A on TV and story B in print or story A in print and story B on TV).There are three findings. a. Mental effort in processing: when measured by means of Salomon’s retrospective measure, children invest more mental effort in processing print stories compared to television stories. However, on the reaction-time measure the reverse was found. b. Inferential learning: television stories resulted in more inferential learning than the print stories, which is in contradiction to the hypothesis derived from Salomon’s (1984) model. c. Immediate retention: Immediate retention is not affected by the medium through which the story is presented. d. Delayed retention: Viewers’ retention was superior to that of readers.

My Responses:

What do you think makes for a good research question to address with respect to learning via differing media? Why is this question better than others?

In response to this question, I will first analyze each of the three studies.
Barren et al's (1993) study suggests there is no differences among various delivery mode. However, the task is not sensitive to the two types of media.The task is CD-ROM tutorial. It is not surprising that using sound or text won’t make much different. It is highly possible whether there are pictures or not will make a difference in such kind of task. In addition, the study might need more sensitive measurements.
In Baggett's (1979) study, one of the measurements is the delayed effect of media on recall, which helped identify the differences in text and movie representation. This suggests that more sensitive measurement is necessary for such kinds of study.
Among the three studies in our required readings, I think Beentjes & van der Voort (1993)'s study is the best. In the study, the authors used multiple tasks and multiple measurements. First, the author used two different kinds of films, so as to “provides a check on the generalizability of the study’s results” (p.196). In addition, the authors adopted two different methods in the measure of mental effort and of retention. However, I am not sure the second-task procedure is an appropriate approach here. It is more likely to be used in measuring engagement. Student slower response in TV condition may suggest that they are more engaged (in things beyond the stage of making sense of the meaning/decoding) instead of spending more mental efforts in understanding the content (decoding).
Another question arouse from Beentjes et al's study is whether print version and TV version really comparable. In more general terms: Is two different media really comparable? Print versions can be very different in many ways! The level of difficulty of language, the techniques of writing…all these will bring very different experiences to the readers.
From the above analysis, it is clear that a good research on learning with different media should consider the variations of the tasks. In addition, as the different media may only lead to differences in learning processes (as was argued by Cobb (1997)) or very slight measurable differences in learning outcome, more sensitive measurements should be used to avoid drawing premature conclusions that various media has no differences.

Question for Discussion

Is two different media really comparable?

To what degree can we generalize the findings in such comparative studies since most time the stu

Week 2: Media differences - why or why not?

(Created on Jan. 12, 2007)

Articles Read:

Clark, R E. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 42(2), 21-30.

Salomon, G. (1989). Learning from texts and pictures: reflections on a meta-level. In H. Mandl & J.R. Levin (Eds.) Knowledge acquisition from text and pictures (pp. 73-82). Amsterdam: North-Holland.

Cobb, T. (1997). Cognitive efficiency: Toward a revised theory of media. Educational Technology Research & Development, 45(4), 21-35.

Clark, R. E. (1983). Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Educational Research, 53(4), 445-459. [The article that started it all...]

Petkovich, M., & Tennyson, R.D. (1985). A few more thoughts on Clark’s ‘learning from media.’ Educational Communications and Technology Journal, 33(2), 146. [First response to Clark...]

MacNeice, L. (1965). Conversation. In M. Roberts (Ed.). The Faber book of modern verse (pp. 250 - 251). London: Faber and Faber.

MacNeice, L. (1965). Snow. In M. Roberts (Ed.). The Faber book of modern verse (p. 250 - 251). London: Faber and Faber.

Summary:

This week’s articles are mainly about a debate on the role of media in learning. There are two sides. Clark believed that media do not play any role in learning. It is the instructional method not media that can make a difference in learning. Media can only affect the cost-effectiveness, as different media yield similar learning gains. In Clark’s own words, “Media are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition” (1983, p.445). Many researchers disagreed with Clark’s arguments and one of the most forceful responses was from Cobb. He pointed out three problems in Clark’s arguments. The first is that if we follow Clark’s logic, the basis of method decisions is also cost and efficiency, just as it is for media decisions. The second is that though different media may lead to similar product. The process also matters. One media can be more cognitive efficient as compared to others, as it can be less effortful than another, more likely to succeed with a particular learner, or interacting more usefully with a particular prior-knowledge set. The third is that Clark’s analogies of comparing media specialist to truck driver, and later to physician showed that though sometimes media choices are remote to learning, there are times when media choices are “as intimate with it as forms of medicine are to the ill and wounded”.

My Opinions:

I believe that media can but not necessarily have an effect on learning. The degree of how media affect learning depends on the interactions of a set of variables including: the nature of media, the nature of learner, the nature of task, and the situation, as stated by Salomon (1989). Based on the interactions of these variables, the effects of media on learning can go from one end of the spectrum (almost no effect) to the other end (crucial effect). To use one of Clark’s analogies as an example: “Some forms of medicine are faster, more ‘pure’”. If the patient is not in a critical condition, any forms of medicine will probably cure the patient. However, if the patient is dying, the forms of medicine surely make a difference. Less efficient one may even cause the death of the patient --- This means certain amount quantitative difference (processing efficiency) can result in qualitative change (different product).

My Questions:

It seems that I cannot quite understand the two poems… :(

Possible questions for discussion:

a. Could you think of an example where a particular kind of media has a significantly effect on learning?

b. What are some possible ways for media to affect learning? (Cobb has mentioned two ways: one is that media may change the way of processing information; the other is that media may improve learning by offloading cognitive work.)