How well would “Facebook Connect” Connect?

Author: Business Beyond Reality

November 30, 2008: The day Facebook made their big press push for their Facebook Connect service, which was first announced on May 30th, 2008.

Source: http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&year=2008&month=5

After the first version of the Facebook API in August 2006, enabling users to share their information with the third party websites and applications they choose and Facebook Platform in May 2007, which allowed third party developers to build rich social applications within Facebook, Facebook Connect, the next iteration of Facebook Platform that allows users to “connect” their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site was announced on May 2008. Facebook Connect will now enable third party websites to implement and offer even more features of Facebook Platform off of Facebook – similar to features available to third party applications today on Facebook. Similair to OpenId (which was adopted by MySpace) third party developers can allow website visitors to login to their website using their Facebook ID. This “Passport” system (much like what Microsoft tried to do) will let members leave comments on third party sites –as well as identify their friends on these sites.

Source: http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=108

Many Facebook Connect implementations have launched over the past several weeks. Some of the launch partners include CBS’ TheInsider.com, CNN’s the Forum, and Red Bull. Additionally, many sites have submitted their implementations, and have been approved for launch, including GlobalGrind, GovIt, and IndieGoGo.

Source: http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=163

What ‘Facebook Connect’ Means for Corporate Websites

“Facebook Connect will allow corporate websites to allow users to authenticate, interact, and share with their Facebook network –all without leaving the corporate website”, says Jeremiah Owyang, Sr Analyst at Forrester Research: Social Computing who attended SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Facebook f8 Conference, July 23, 2008.

Brands that are already trying to reach the Facebook audience (white collar workers and college students) should plan on experimenting with Facebook Connect as it can bring additional social functionality to corporate websites.

Source: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/07/23/what-facebook-connect-means-for-corporations/

What the third party sites get out of these services

What the third party sites get out of these services: easy sign in for users, particularly new users. They can also use the profile data to help users create accounts at their site with little data input. The activity stream information published on the social networks includes links back to their sites. And one of the most interesting features, for Facebook Connect partners: sites can request friend lists from Facebook to help them make more connections on their own services.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2008113002453.html

Battle for partners:

The battle for partners is intense. MySpace announced Twitter as a launch partner, but rumor is that Twitter is actually integrating with Facebook first . MySpace also announced Yahoo and eBay as launch partners. To date, though, they’ve only launched with Flixster and Eventful.

This is just one more in a trend: OpenID now on MySpace, Google Friend Connect, LinkedIn’s ties with Businessweek and NYT are all examples of our social graphs (relationships) leaving the social network and spreading to third party sites.

Also, White label social network vendors (community platforms) should be thinking about how to integrate all of the above.

Virtual Worlds and the Context of Context (Post on Request)

 

Author: Christopher R. Keesey

Project Manager Ohio University Without Boundaries

Many educators and training professionals today stand fully footed at the crest of Web 2.0 and have begun preparing to take the step into the still somewhat unknown abyss of what will be Web 3.0.  It’s an exciting step but still very ill defined. It is first important to remember that these are only marketing buzz phrases and can mean different things to different people depending on the context within which that person utilizes the Web.  For educators, one feature of the next generation of Internet will be a fully realized model of how context in a learning experience is generated and subsequently changed and augmented by both instructors and learners. 

One contextual creation tool that is now in the toolbox of many educators is virtual social world applications. Amongst these virtual worlds, Second Life has become the most widely utilized and recognized.  For those who might have somehow missed the abundant press, presentations and water cooler talk on virtual worlds and specifically Second Life here is a quick definition:  Second Life is a 3-dimensional, user-defined world of general use in which people can interact, play, LEARN, do business, and otherwise communicate and collaborate.  Ohio University Without Boundaries has been dedicated to exploring Virtual Worlds and specifically Second Life in the context of creating better learning experiences and subsequently better learning since 2006.

So, what is context? On the surface, it seems like a simple question. At the same time, it is a question that will begin to tie your head in a knot as you subsequently, in defining the word, must define the context within which you will be giving the definition.  Here is the static dictionary definition of the word:

(n) context, linguistic context, context of use (discourse that surrounds a language unit and helps to determine its interpretation)

(n) context, circumstance, setting (the set of facts or circumstances that surround a situation or event) “the historical context”

A static definition does us little good for the purposes of this discussion.  In such, for this discussion the context for defining the word context is learning. Here is a more applicable and palatable definition of the word context in the framework of learning from Robby Robson (2008) at reusablelearning.org:

Learning makes use of language, relies on culture, requires prior knowledge and experience and depends on the situation in which it takes place. If the dream of technology-assisted learning is to get just the right stuff to the right person at the right time in the right way (Hodgins, 2002), then context is what determines the value of a learning resource.

Further, J.C. Herz (2005) expands on context as follows:

There is a construction of context that, to some degree, is the purpose of higher learning: you don’t simply memorize the facts, you learn how to learn; you learn how to construct new context with the information you receive. That is the hallmark of a broadly educated person.(p. 32)

Umair Haque (2008) in his paper “User Generated Context” makes an interesting observation on context.  He sees most web users and contributors today as context creators as opposed to content creators. Those of us heavily involved in everyday Web publishing are actually creating context around a smaller number of main informational nodes and Web 2.0 technologies allow for a more fluid individualized context.  Next generation technologies will build on this ability and add the richness and immersive qualities of 3-D to a learner’s ability to construct context around these main informational nodes. 

Now that we have placed context as a term in its proper context, it is as important that we put Virtual Worlds, specifically, Second Life in its proper context as a teaching/training/learning environment.  First, Second Life is one of many virtual worlds.  Of these worlds, some are targeting adult populations and many more are targeting youth.  According to an August 22, 2008 Virtual Worlds Management report, 150 Youth-Oriented Worlds are currently live or in development. There are also other direct competitors to Second Life that target more of the adult audience.  Those include Entropia Universe, IMVU, There, Active Worlds, Google Lively, Open Life Grid and Kaneva amongst others.  The exploding bevy of different platforms has sparked a vigorous discussion on interoperability amongst platforms. That however is a very large topic for another paper.

If we put virtual worlds and specifically Second Life into proper historical context it might best be compared to the very early days of the Internet.  Changes in the virtual world landscape and subsequently the capabilities afforded an instructor or student within these worlds and how they mash with other existing sources of information and context are changing rapidly; so rapidly in fact that it becomes difficult to write on features, opportunities and limitations of any particular virtual world as this information is very likely to quickly become obsolete by feature enhancements or new players in the market.

The aforementioned numbers of virtual world platforms demonstrate notable market trends.  A market trend however is not a basis for widespread adoption of any tool for learning. It is important to ask, why are virtual worlds an effective learning environment?  There are many real and compelling reasons why learning in a virtual world can be valuable.  Dr. Tony O’Driscoll (2007) of IBM has come up with perhaps the most focused list of how virtual social worlds can provide us with a new “freedom in learning.”  This list is as follows:

Flow – Balancing challenge and boredom.

Repetition – Allowing learners to try and try again.

Experimentation – Allowing avatars to experience anything they want to experience.

Engagement

Doing – Truly work-based learning.

Observing – What you can’t do, you can observe.

Motivation – Through all aforementioned points multiple teachable moments can be engineered.

Having now put the term context into its proper context and virtual worlds into context, as a tool and historically, it is important to also address content and specifically to address content by putting it in its proper modern framework and relationship to learning.  Content and context are intimately intertwined in a carefully crafted dance that must occur to facilitate optimal transfer of knowledge.  We often hear tired consultant buzz phrases around the meanings and relationships of the two words such as the following: “If content is king then context is the kingdom.”  It’s not that the phrase isn’t necessarily accurate; it just falls short of explaining why context is so important.   

Rick Nigol (2007) of eLearning Campus says it very well:

…We must move past the presentation of content to the creation of context wherein learners can apply and reflect upon the new knowledge they encounter. It is a matter of moving beyond “knowing” something to being able to do something with this new knowledge…(Nigol, 2007)

The sheer volume of content that is available through multiple sources on the Internet and other electronic sources can’t be overstated. Google is now to the human brain what an external hard drive is to a computer with limited hard drive space. As long as there is proper qualification and filtering of these vast stores of information, such wealth in content provides educators with the opportunity to concentrate more efforts on creating better context. It is better context that drives better just-in-time inquiry of our wealth of content resources.

Mass quantities of existing content and acceptance of the importance of context to a learning experience are fairly self-evident.  The freedom in learning defined by Tony O’Driscoll is compelling.   Can we however utilize “context” as a justification in utilization of virtual worlds for more effective learning experiences?  We first need to answer the following:  Which context were we talking about?

Tessmer & Richey (1997) define three contextual types: Orienting Context, Instructional Context and Transfer or “payoff” context. 

The orienting context is that which takes place before an actual learning event.  This orienting context can have a great deal of bearing on subsequent context in determining the motivation that learning brings into the instructional context.

The instructional context is that which is directly involved in the delivery, delivery format, delivery platforms and other immediate and more clear-cut factors outside of the learner around delivery of a learning experience.  Finally the transfer context is the environment in which the learning will be applied. 

According to Tessmer & Richey (1997), on-the-job-training can blur the lines between instructional and transfer context and make the borders of the transfer context harder to discern. Similarly it can be stated that a blurring of the lines between instructional context and transfer context would occur in simulation style learning environments such as those that can be developed and delivered in virtual world applications.

The richer presentation and collaboration opportunities provided by a virtual world can recreate surprisingly realistic experiences on multiple levels from social, cultural, physical and physiological.  Accurate recreations of real life frames of reference in a virtual world can allow for a greater connection to concepts as they relate to lives, work and ultimately the payoff context.  However, it is worth cautioning that over-contextualization was studied in case-base and action-based learning and was found to sometimes negatively affect flexible transfer to new situations. (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 2000) It would be the instructor’s responsibility to ensure that over contextualization was not preventing effective transfer through building additional cases or exercises with a slightly different instructional context.  An instructor might also engage in additional problem solving exercises where learners are presented with a series of “but what it this had happened” situations.  Finally, cases or problems could be generalized to a degree that any solution created would not apply to simply one context. (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 2000)

Overall, Virtual Worlds are a very powerful tool that should be a part of an educator’s toolkit. These 3-D applications provide an immersive means for instructors, trainers and learners to create dynamic and individualized context that can enhance motivation and engagement and just-in-time inquiry of massive stores of content that are now available to learners.  The availability of mass quantities of content now enables instructors to concentrate more on creating better context for their learning experiences.  Advances in the ability to structure very powerful context through virtual social worlds should not however be relied upon as a magic pill for effective learning. The onus is still on the instructor/trainer to properly frame problems and cases and provide reflection opportunities to ensure that over contextualization does not affect flexible transfer of knowledge.

Works Cited

1.Bransford, J. D., Brown, A.L., & Cocking, R.R., Eds.(2000). How People Learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC, National Academy Press.

2.Haque, U. (2008). User Generated Context, London, Havas Media Lab.

3.Herz, J. C. (2005). The Space Between: Creating a context for learning. Educause Review, 40 (3), 30-39.

4.Hoadley, C. (2002). Creating context: Design-based research in creating and understanding CSCL. Proceedings for Computer Support for Cooperative Learning, Boulder Colorado.

5.Hobbs, M., Brown, E., & Gordon, M. (2006). Using a virtual world for transferable skills in gaming education. The Higher Education Academy, ITALICS, 5 (3).

6.Hodgins, H. W. (2000). The future of learning objects. In D. A. Wiley (Ed.), The Instructional Use of Learning Objects. (pp. 281-298). Bloomington, Indiana. Agency for Instructional Technology/Association for Educational Communications & Technology.

7.Nigol, R. (2007). Context is King!. Retrieved October 2, 2008, from http://breakthroughelearning.com/2007/10/context-is-king.html.

8.O’Driscoll, T. (2007). Virtual social worlds and the future of learning. Retrieved October 1, 2008 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v+)@jY4UkPbAc.

9.Robson, R. (n.d.). Context & Pedagogy. Retrieved October 1, 2008 from http://www.reusablelearning.org/reuse/context.html.

10.Tessmer, M. & Richey, R. C. (1997). The role of context in learning and instructional design. Educational Technology Research and Development 45 (2) 85-115.

11.Williams, T. (2008). 150+ Youth oriented virtual worlds now live or developing. Retrieved October 1, 2008 from http://www.virtualworldsmanagement.com/2008/youthworlds0808.html.

Smarter Route to Success: Full Time MBA Vs Part Time MBA (Post on Request)

Author: Sheena Anand

Sheena Anand is a Software Engineer in Tata Consultancy Services. She’s a part of the 1000 Crore “Passport Seva Project” at Tata Consultancy Services. She is pursuing her Part Time MBA Program from IMT Gaziabad, a Premier MBA School of India.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/10/14/stories/2008101452380400.htm

Case – I: An Out-of-College Graduate going for a Full Time MBA Program

 Final Year Undergraduate School Student studies 24 x 7 to get admission into an A-grade Business School (One of the toughest task in India); manages to bag in a seat; and joins an MBA program for 2 years on the completion of his Undergrad Course. Being a hardworking guy, he manages to get a job in one of the top companies.                       

Case – II: An Experienced Professional going for a Part Time MBA Program 

A professional having 5 years work experience, doing great in job, after exploring all his areas of interest, wants to move up the organizational ladder, to switch to a coveted managerial position, which he feels would escalate his career further. He joins a Part Time MBA of an A-grade B-School.

 I look in for a Conclusion:

Out of the above two cases, it’s difficult to objectively decide which has been a better decision. But analyzing both the scenarios, both of them did just the best suiting the situation. After discussing both the situations with a large number of people having expertise in this area, I reached a conclusion which was otherwise difficult to arrive at.

Expanding on Case I:

Since the person is just out of a Grad School and has no work experience, he in general lacks soft skills and the attitude one develops in time, by associating oneself in a professional environment. A full time MBA program can help him achieve instant nirvana, without much of struggle and get him into the organizations management. This approach promises a perfect investment of time and money and pays dividends immediately after graduating.

Expanding on Case II:  Since the person has a substantial work experience, and is looking for a career lift in the same industry, nothing can be better and satisfying for him to pursue a Part Time MBA from a reputed B-School. 

What about Switching Industry post MBA?

Switching the industry is generally not a choice of such experienced professionals for a switch would erode away all his previous work experience. As a matter of fact, even the employers don’t appreciate it. For a person working as a Software Engineer with an IT company for the last 5 years, wanting to get into Marketing of FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods), the first thought that would tickle the mind of the employer would be that why at all did the person work in an IT Industry for 5 years if he eventually wanted to move into FMCG – Was he indecisive? Would he be able to cope up well with no prior experience in the FMCG domain?

 A subjective comparison on how the Part Time MBA stacks up against the Full Time MBA:

1) Recruitment opportunities post Full Time MBA Program is tremendous when compared to the limited opportunities post Part Time program. Moreover if the Part Time program is sponsored by your own company, the employee cannot try for recruitment with a new employer.

2) An advantage with Part Time programs is the rich experience brought to classrooms by working executives enrolled in the program which is mostly missing in the Full Time.

3) Part Time program offers a challenge to balance study, work and personal life. 

4) Part Time program is more hands-on and practical when compared to a Full Time Program. On the other hand, a Full Time program endows the student, straight out of books, with business skills and jargons even though the “Practical Implementation” of the concepts is missing. 

5) A Part Time MBA offers earning, learning and experience, all at the same time. On the contrary, a Full Time MBA demands a huge amount of money to be spent, and compromises on your professional experience. 

6) To career changers, a Full Time program offers the advantage of declaring experience to the potential employer through internship. 

The choices are not always digital, “0” or “1”; At times we need to think keeping our mind in the analog state !!!

A Simple Business Meeting Room For A Second Life Newbie – Second Life (Post on Request)

Author: Business Beyond Reality

I’m writing this post on a special request from one of my acquaintances who wanted to know about the best meeting practices in Second Life and basic raw materials required to build an efficient meeting room in this graphic world.

The two images below show examples of simple yet effective meeting spaces in Second Life.

Simple Meeting Room

Simple Meeting Room: The above sample image consists of a centre table (Made from a single prim) and a couple of chairs (Seemingly 4-5 prims each). It also consists of a presentation board which again is made up of a single prim. The walls are of smoked glass and there’s a stoned floor with a grayish look. We’ll see ahead what it takes to build such a simple meeting room.

Enhanced Meeting Room

Enhanced Meeting Room: The above sample image consists of a slightly complicated centre table with designer chairs and a more sophisticated finish.

Some basic terms to be aware of:

1. Prim: These are Primitives which are simple shapes like cuboid, cylinder, pyramid etc, available in Second Life to construct a complicated object. The size, shape and rotation of these prims can be altered through a Graphical User Interface.

Prim Example

2. Texture: It is an image which can be pasted on the face of a prim. For example: The brown table that  is there in the Simple Meeting Room image has a brown texture on it.

Basic Facilities Needed for a Meeting:

1. Text Chat: Supported by Second Life.
2. Voice Chat: Supported by Second Life through VoIP.
3. Meeting Room: Can be easily built with the help of Prims.
4. Presentation: We’ll cover this in detail below.
5. White Board: We’ll cover this in detail below.
6. Video Streaming: Video is played on your land in SL using a URL (web address) which you set up in your About Land options. You can hook up to an existing stream on the web, or create your own if you have the resources.It’s very simple. A texture can be defined and a media file can be attached to it. Whichever object loads that texture can play the media.
   

   Adding Media

    

7. Audio Streaming: The same steps as in Video Streaming are to be followed to sream an audio.
8. Web Streaming: The same steps as in Video Streaming are to be followed to sream an audio. It is important to point out that the web page is loaded as a texture on the prim and can’t be clicked to navigate ahead.

Presentation: Second Life doesn’t support uploading office documents like doc,ppt,xls,txt etc. Any document that has to be presented to the audience is to be converted into images and uploaded into Second Life. This can be easily done in PowerPoint by doing SaveAs in JPG format. These images can be added to the texture list of the prim (A cuboid to look like a presentation board. Can be made from a cuboid prim by keeping the height and width high and the depth as less.) and a simple LSL Scripting can be done to change the image (Which actually is a texture) on clicking the object with the mouse. A lot of such scripts are available on the net for free which can be downloaded and used in the meeting room.

White Board/Message Board: An interesting technique to build a White Board/Message Board is to make a prim look like a presentation board and attach a listener to it. The user enters text on a prescribed channel which is shown on the White Board.

The conclusion is that creating real life scenario is pretty simple. It just needs some effort, a bit of creativity and a little bit of exploration !