Seeing Through New Eyes

So this week in David's class I have been pondering over his question posted, "What are the economics underlying voluntary online collaboration and support?" I have struggled quite a bit with this question, reading other students posts and thinking some more. The biggest problem I have had is with the word economics. The word alturistic came up in the questions, and students have wondered if that even exists. But I want to know what voluntary communication and collaboration has to do with economics? Mabey I just have the wrong definition of economics, Dictonary.com says economics is, "The social science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services and with the theory and management of economies or economic systems." I guess I view this having mostly to do with money, monetary gain, etc. I had been searching for a word that might work better than economics, but I haven't found one yet. Anyway, I posted my question and si...

So this week I have been introduced to Google Groups. Wow, what a fascinating and big archive and discussion group. The archive was great. I liked that when I searched for something relevant groups were displayed. It was strange though that some groups I did go to had postings that seemed quite unrelated to the group. It was fun and heart wrenching at the same time to go and read postings in it. I couldn't believe how far back the archive went. I was finding postings as far back as 1998. I read some postings relating to 9/11 in the United States. I was so amazed that people were 'watching' the news and then going to Google Groups to post what was going on! I was just reading news that day. I found myself searching and reading way more than posting. It wasn't until this weekend that I realized for my class I needed to do some postings. Oops. Oh well, at least I did some postings. It probably isn't exactly what my professor had in mind (I think he wanted a much more i...

I began really using the tools of the internet my first year of college. I had used computers ever since elementary school but only for word processing needs (and that began using the DOS systems) or learning games. Of course, at that time the first desktop workstations were just coming into use and the domain naming system had just been introduced. During junior high and high school I used computers still for word processing and a little bit of searching, but nothing that really stands out in my memory. In my first year of college I was introduced to email. It was great. I could eaily and very cheaply communicate with my friends who had moved to go to school at other universities. Of course, I could only access this from the school computers. I didn't have that access at home yet. And nbeknown to me, there was a lot going on with the uinternet at that time. After I was married I moved to Logan, Utah where I really began to dig into school and I learned so much more about compu...

Hello World!!

I have never attended the IT Institute at Utah State University, but it has been well worth my time. I have had the opportunity to hear from many people in and outside the field. It is great to hear how Instructional Technology applies to so many different areas of education and the corporate world. There's one more day, and it promises to be just as good as the first two. Now, all I need to do is jump into my school work and keep up with the issues and ideas I've learned about at the Institute. Oh, and hopefully be able to spread what I've learned.