Social Networking and Physical Health

After watching a TED talk by Nicholas Christakis on social networking entitled The hidden influence of social networks I wonder if our newly awakened awareness of social networks through regular interactions with Twitter and Facebook (to name just two) are making us more capable, as a culture/species, to consider the impact of networks on our health and vitality in ways that were oblivious to us only a decade ago.

The Philosophy of Web 2.0

Classmate Scott Roark noted in his definitions list several links that ruminated on the nature of Web 2.0, the read/write web. The one that struck me as the MOST interesting was that Web 2.0 could be considered a philosophy of sorts - the belief that relinquishing control will bring the results you seek. The citation for this perspective was http://www.peterme.com/archives/000563.html if you wish to look at it.

New Network by EMU Students

Here's something interesting. Three EMU grads have set up uSurvive.com, a social network for university students. They are basing it on the Facebook model but participants can eary activity points which they can exchange for t-shirts and other items.

SL in Higher Education

More institutions are joining in to use Second Life as a learning venue. UMass’ Second Life: Do virtual worlds hold the future of online learning? I read a while back that one midwestern university built a virtual campus modelled on their physical campus but nobody was using it. I'm thinking the virtual venue is less important than the reason for being there.

Class around the campfire - why not?

Welcome to EDMT 592

Day One of the class and I've enjoyed learning how Farida Malik uses FaceBook, how Sandra Dietrich is unsure of the future of virtual classrooms, and that Erin Burns is one of your farthest flung classmates (North Carolina). I'm going to start adding elements about social networking as I come across them.

Tomorrow I need you to set up a blog and blog aggregator. Have fun.