The discussion we had last week upon our feelings toward “changes” had me thinking of my life in the past year. My life was determined to change in so many ways since I made a decision that I must come to Canada for further study after graduating from my bachelor degree. With no doubt I was willing and was prepared for these up coming changes. And I was always an active role during the preparing procedures. As it was expected, I went through many changes in the past year: my life style, way of thinking, the learning style, perspectives in values, etc. It was just that some of those changes were not friendly embraced. No matter how reluctant I was to face them, they still happened and I went through them. So I think “changes” in our lives are like this. Like it or not, somehow you will find a way to face it, conquer it.

Above is a little piece of reflection of last week’s topic. This week’s reading of “ Learning in Collective” had led me to the thinking. I was trying to understand and compare the difference between “collective” and “collaborative”. The question at first derived from the literal meaning of these two words because as a second language learner sometimes I mix up the meanings of words that look similar. Later I understand that “collective” is something related to our cognitive model and “collaborative” is one of the ways to support “collective”.

To have a better understanding of “collective” I dug a bit on the Internet and found the article “Dialogue, Collective Thinking and Organizational Learning”, which really caught my eyes. It was published in 1993, which is quite old, and it is not talking about the education field but I still think it is worth for reading. It was about organization management and leadership, which gave it a solid ground discussing about collective thinking because organizations, international or domestic, require collective intelligence to create conversations in order to maintain functional. Thus, the author proposed the notion of “dialogue”, which made me reflect our society today. The developing technologies make our daily activities more interactive- creating dialogues. Two decades ago, people get information from newspaper and they can only share their thoughts when meet with people. Dialogues were also created but restricted in time and places. With the newspapers, magazines prevail online and the flourishing BBS communities, dialogues can be created anywhere and anytime and with people all over the world.

The word “dialogue” had also made me reflect on our blog posting. The author said: “ Dialogue can be initially defined as a sustained collective inquiry into the processes, assumptions, and certainties that compose everyday experience. Yet this is experience of a special kind- the experience of the meaning embodied in a community of people.”  For the blogs we had created for this class, we are creating dialogues among classmates. We are the community of the specified course “Technology and Society”. People not from this class may understand our posts but do not have a deeper reflection because the experience are not the same. For the blogs of other fields, they are also creating dialogues among people. The type and size of its communities depends on their topics and audience scale. Some of them are locally and others internationally.

To conclude this short writing with the first paragraph of “changes”, I was amazed that writing entries for blog post is also a change in my life. I can’t imagine what would be like if this posting is homework for one of my high school subject. I believe the dialogue I created would be the one that between the teacher and my parents. HAHA…

Isaac, W. M. (1993). Dialogue, Collective Thinking, and Organizational Learning. Center for Organizational Learning’s Dialogue Project. Retrieved from http://cmapspublic.ihmc.us/rid=1255442475484_1908258935_21662/Dialogue,%20Collective%20Thinking,%20and%20Org%20Learning.pdf. 2012, February. 

The new CULTURE of learning

I was captured by Thomas and Brown’s idea of the new culture of learning. Before reading this chapter, I never had deemed the learning environment as a culture that is cultivated through the interaction among teachers and learners. My perception to learning environment has always stayed in a traditional educational venue due to my learning experiences back in China for 18 years. Even though I had taken some of the courses here in U of C of which expanding my knowledge in education, I still have a hard time to essentially break through the critical point of my prior knowledge in teaching and learning.

This chapter has really prompted me to think back on my learning experience in school. The mechanistic view of learning they mentioned is the way I was being taught for the whole time. In Chinese school settings, learning indeed is treated as a series of steps to master the knowledge of each subject. In this case, tests and examinations is the only way to measure our learning outcomes. I found Thomas and Brown’s statement supports my perspective. They said: “In this teaching-based approach, standardization is a reasonable way to do this, and testing is a reasonable way to measure the result.”(p.35) As a result, I had tests for NINE subjects in total in every other week at the last year in high school. The purpose of this was getting us ready for the final entrance examination for university. That is sort of our ultimate examination that what your future path will be is depending on this one.  We seldom have projects or collaborative learning methods because the final university entrance exam (FUEE) is mark individually. In educator’s point of view, everything that does not contribute to boost the scores for the FUEE is considered unnecessary.

That means, before taking master courses here in Canada, I never truly experience a learning environment which is served as a community that learners, learners and teachers can interact with each other and together to build the knowledge schema. This makes me think of our blog post for this course. Why are we posting our thoughts and comprehensions of the reading instead of having our own course note? What is the purpose of this? Along with my study progress in the Edtech field, I can now understand. What we are doing is to set ourselves in an open, collaborative learning environment where we are not only responsible for our own study but also for the whole group of people. With sharing our own ideas, commenting on others’, we are building a community. We are cultivating a new culture of learning. Like Thomas and Brown remarked: “… The new culture of learning focuses on learning through engagement within the world.” With the aid of technology, we collaborate through the online platform such as Google docs, Prezi, Wikis. These are the new learning environment that I ought to study about besides for the traditional, tangible educational venues I have always looking at.
                I am really exhilarated that with my graduate studying going on, my mind travels further and further. Bit by bit breaking through my old perception of education now I am embracing new notion of learning in this technological advanced world. 

The Three Blogs for Blog Analysis Assignment

The Cut   http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/

The Sartorialisthttp://www.thesartorialist.com/

Fashionistahttp://fashionista.com/

The blogs I chose are all in fashion field. They were presented and ranked on a website

http://www.signature9.com/style-99 titled "THE 99 MOST INFLUENTIAL FASHION & BEAUTY BLOGS". These three blogs were ranked at No.25, No.1, No.5 repectively.

Here are some of my questions about blogs.

1. How blogs are differ from forums?

2. If it is set up in the website (not a individual domain), can it be referred is a blog?

3. How do we measure its quality? Does it associate with the numbers of followers and comments of the posts?

4. What critaria should we employ to measure its influence to the field?

How technology enrich our daily lives--A personal perspective of Internet development

         Technology is a broad word which refers to every inventionwe have around us in daily life, from household appliances to aircrafts. It canbe either tangible objects such as cellphones, vehicles; or conceptual schemasuch as instructional design, timetable management.  The technology I am going to discuss about inthe following is specified in Internet development: How Internet change mydaily lives? What benefits I got from it?           I still remember the exciting feeling I had when my family got our first computerwhen I was in Grade 1(1994).  It is areally old style one with a cumbersome big monitor and a heavy mainframecomputer and it was a Windows95 system. At that time, none of us in the familyknow any software; we simply use it as an entertainment by playing the Windowsdefault games. That was my first impression of high-tech. We kept that computerfor several years but I hardly remember what we did with it except for playinggame from time to time (My mother might use it for accounting but I was tooyoung to recall any details). The next stirring moment related to computer Iremembered was the first time I got it connected to the Internet (1999).  I actually screamed out when the Internetconnected symbol popped up.  These two exaltingmoments were the milestone for my recognition of computer technology. From thenon, I hardly remember any “WOW” moment even though there was time to time new gamechanging software came out  because itwas so correlated to my daily life and I had already taken everything forgranted. Forums, QQ (an instant messaging software like MSN used in China),websites, online video games, etc., they were inextricably bounded to my dailylife.  The ways we keep in touch withfriends and classmates had changed: We no longer chat via land lines norwriting each other letters, instead, we chat online. That was the time we beganto say “leave me a message on QQ” instead of “Call me tonight at 9:00”. Itchanged our way of communication and the life style and we did not even noticewhen and how this happened exactly.
         When searching engines like Google andBaidu came into fashion that was the time we stopped asking questions to ourparents. With a few key words and a click on the button, we get what we wantedto know from the enormous resources on the Internet. Even now, if we do notknow the answer to the question, the response is always “Google/Baidu it”.
         Our life style underwent a hugetransformation when Weibo (the Chinese version or Twitter) released. I startedto do Weibo at 2010. At first we post it via website and it was not thatpopular yet until it launched applications for Androids and IPhones.  It was like everything changed overnight! Thenext day, Weibo is a world for up to date news from celebrities, governments,sports, and foremost our friends. The newspaper seems to be incrediblyill-informed. In this burgeoning online community, everyone can be journalistand everyone is an informer.  Governmentcannot conceal the truth anymore: Just like the tragic bullet train accidenthappened in last summer in Wenzhou, China. The government tried to block thescene and forbid any press to report the accident except for those who havepermission of the central government which only speaks for its sake. Victims inthe scene immediately posted photos, videos on Weibo even before the journalistof the permissive press tried to start writing a single word. The impact wasimmediate and tremendous. The government had to change their covering strategyto give a reasonable explanation to the outraged citizens. With Weibo, friendsare become closer by getting to know each other’s latest trends and givinginstant response and feedback. For example, when my ex-boyfriend broke up withme last April when I was still in Canada and he was in China, I posted on Weiboto express my great sorrow and the disappointment. Within seconds (literallyseconds!), I got more than 50 response from my friends- intimate or justnodding acquaintance. They all tried very hard to comfort me. It might not theexact words they said that soothing my pain but it is the feeling that I sensedvia Weibo. Although all my families and friends whom I have known all my lifeare not in Canada, I know I am not alone. I had the entire army to support meto go through this. I honestly believe I would be way much worse without Weiboand could not leave everything behind so fast. It changed my life at this pointand it continuously affecting it. When I signed up a Weibo account for my momWeibo became a daily life sharing and safety report to my parents. Whenever Icook something good or buy something nice I post Weibo. I post GIF pictures ofme ice skiing, jumping around, and laughing when travelling, so that my parentscan actually “experience” my life in Canada across the ocean.  Weibo has given me so much in my life that Icannot express my feeling in words. I laughed out loud in the public alone justbecause I read a hilarious anecdote from one of my friends; I screamed in joywhen I knew my intimate girlfriend announced on Weibo she will get married inthis coming fall; I felt sorry for my friend when she lost her dog, etc.,.

In the Case of Fire… Don’t Tweet.

(Retrieve from PrinciplePage Blog2:http://principalspage.posterous.com/)

          Technologyhas changed our lives in so many ways we may even not noticed: Maybe you walkdifferently because you have your cellphone in the hand texting; maybe you eatdifferently with you reading news on IPad setting up in front of your dish;maybe you think differently when you tried to rewrite something on the paperbut all in your mind is “can I just ‘copy-paste’ it?”. What I talked about inthis article just something based on my experience. Technology must have deeperand greater meaning in our lives and the society. This is why I am so excitedto have this course to learn the relations between technology and society in aphilosophy and academic way; to perceive critically how technology facilitateour everyday activities.

*Weibo: Sina Weibo (Chinese: 新浪微博; pinyin: Xīnlàng Wēibó; literally"Sina Microblog") is a Chinese microblogging (weibo) website. Akin toa hybrid of Twitter and Facebook, it is one of the most popular sites in China,in use by well over 30% of Internet users, with a similar market penetrationthat Twitter has established in the USA. It was launched by SINA Corporation on14 August 2009, and has more than 250 million registered users as of October2011. --Wikipedia