I came across a lecture from Stephen Wolfram about a computational knowledge engine, called Wolfram Alfa. It is his lifelong project, that is still not quite finished, but still, I find his idea and the project very interesting.
Stephen Wolfram wanted to see how much of the systematizing knowledge that is ''out there in the world'' and somehow make it computable. So last year, after much hard work, they released the first website version of Wolfram Alpha. This is a serious knowledge engine that computes answers to questions. You type in what you want to know (for example Slovenian population or, a little bit more difficult, the difference between Dutch and Slovenian population). It covers all the areas you can think of: health, geography, economy, math etc. Steven Wolfram says it covers everything one might find in a standard reference library, but ''its goal is to democratize all of this kind of knowledge, and try to bea n authoritative source in all areas, to be able to compute answers to specific questions that people have, not by searching what other people may have written down before, but by using built in knowledge to compute fresh new answers to specific questions.'' He continues: ‘’Wolfram Alpha actually gives one a sort of whole new kind of computing that one can call knowledge-based computing, in which one's starting, not just from raw computation, but from a vast amount of built-in knowledge. And when one does that, one really changes the economics of delivering computational things, whether it's on the web or elsewhere.’’
You can find his whole, 20 minute long lecture on this website: http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_theory_of_everything.html.
I find his idea very attractive, but I am somewhat skeptical on this point. The fact is that Wolfram Alpha is not a ordinary search engine that you can find on the Internet. It is a computational knowledge engine, which means that it generates output by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the web and returning links. So it only knows what is in those bases and has to rely on people to input all the pieces of knowledge in a sufficiently form in order to make processing possible. But all-in-all, the idea of a computational knowledge engine is really great and in a couple of years, when it is fully developed, it will make a great contribution to the Internet and to the society as a whole.
torek, 1. junij 2010
Google Translate – a tool that gives me headaches
I recently had a friend tell me that I am too nice in my blog posts, when I only speak positively about my experiences with different tools. So I thought I’d try it the other way around this time. I asked myself did I in my years of using the Internet more intensively encounter any tool that I disliked. I didn’t have to think long, because I remembered it in a second – Google Translate!
This simple tool was designed (as you can probably tell from the name) by Google and its purpose is to translate text to 57 different world languages. When you think about it, the idea of this tool is great. You could translate foreign text into your own language and so make it easier to understand something and not bother with searching the words in different vocabularies (if by some chance you have it in your home). You just insert a text into it, choose a language, press ‘’translate’’ and you get your translation. Easy, right? Wrong! The translations that come out of that tool are horrible and in most cases incomprehensible. Just for illustration, I dare you to type in the name of the first Slovenian theater plays called ''Ta veseli dan ali Matiček se ženi'' (the correct, word for word translation would be This happy day or Matthew is getting married) and then translate it from Slovenian language to English. Google Translate is probably OK for some simple and basic phrases, but if you want to translate something more complicated than ‘’I live in Slovenia’’, you might want to use some other translation source. It is better to spend a little more time and energy by translating word for word out of a dictionary than the headaches I get when I try to use Google translate. I know I am a little bit harsh, but I really don’t have any positive experience with it and so I don’t have anything nice to say about it. Do you?
This simple tool was designed (as you can probably tell from the name) by Google and its purpose is to translate text to 57 different world languages. When you think about it, the idea of this tool is great. You could translate foreign text into your own language and so make it easier to understand something and not bother with searching the words in different vocabularies (if by some chance you have it in your home). You just insert a text into it, choose a language, press ‘’translate’’ and you get your translation. Easy, right? Wrong! The translations that come out of that tool are horrible and in most cases incomprehensible. Just for illustration, I dare you to type in the name of the first Slovenian theater plays called ''Ta veseli dan ali Matiček se ženi'' (the correct, word for word translation would be This happy day or Matthew is getting married) and then translate it from Slovenian language to English. Google Translate is probably OK for some simple and basic phrases, but if you want to translate something more complicated than ‘’I live in Slovenia’’, you might want to use some other translation source. It is better to spend a little more time and energy by translating word for word out of a dictionary than the headaches I get when I try to use Google translate. I know I am a little bit harsh, but I really don’t have any positive experience with it and so I don’t have anything nice to say about it. Do you?
ponedeljek, 31. maj 2010
Researching new Internet tools: Diigo
Because I became so enthusiastic about exploring new tools on the Intertnet, I thought I would try out Diigo. For the ones, who haven’t heard about it yet, Diigo is a social bookmarking website which combines a number of really useful tools and tasks into a simple interface. It has various features like bookmarks, which can be saved locally or to several popular online favorites-sharing services, web page saving, with annotation and tagging capabilities, a blog publishing tool and a search toolbar.
It is accessible through a toolbar, which you can simply download. To bookmark a page, you simply click the "Diigo" button on the toolbar. It allows users to add highlights and sticky notes to any page they read. Users can highlight text from the page (multiple sections or an entire page)to save it with the bookmark. Diigo also lets users share those bookmarks with other people, because there is a tab that lets them email the bookmark. It has also a ''forwarding'' feature which allows users to send full pages (even multiple) and annotations.
I like Diigo because, like the team at Diigo says, it turns the entire web into a writable, participatory and interactive media. Sharing bookmarks is easy and fast. I used Mendeley until now, but I will really consider also using this tool from now on. It is a little more complicated than Mendeley at first (maybe because I am so used to the latter), but it is definitely worth trying it out. If you are not convinced yet, visit their page, where you can take a tour.
It is accessible through a toolbar, which you can simply download. To bookmark a page, you simply click the "Diigo" button on the toolbar. It allows users to add highlights and sticky notes to any page they read. Users can highlight text from the page (multiple sections or an entire page)to save it with the bookmark. Diigo also lets users share those bookmarks with other people, because there is a tab that lets them email the bookmark. It has also a ''forwarding'' feature which allows users to send full pages (even multiple) and annotations.
I like Diigo because, like the team at Diigo says, it turns the entire web into a writable, participatory and interactive media. Sharing bookmarks is easy and fast. I used Mendeley until now, but I will really consider also using this tool from now on. It is a little more complicated than Mendeley at first (maybe because I am so used to the latter), but it is definitely worth trying it out. If you are not convinced yet, visit their page, where you can take a tour.
nedelja, 30. maj 2010
More than a million Slovenians on the Internet, half of them on Facebook
Today's post probably won't be so interesting for non-Slovenian blog readers, but I came across data about the use of Facebook in Slovenia, that I found interesting and would like to share.
A Slovenian internet research called MOSS is reporting that in Slovenia there are 1.094.814 Internet users (in April). This data probably doesn't mean anything if you don't know how many inhabitants we have – well, on 1.1.2010 we had 2.046.796 inhabitants, so the number means that there are 53% of Slovenians using the Internet.
MOSS reports only about the use of Slovenian web sites, so you cannot find Facebook in their statistics, but you can find the data on the Web Information Company Alexa and on Facebakers. Alexa reports that the top three sites, used by Slovenians are Google, Facebook and Youtube. Facebakers reports there are currently 575.920 Slovenians using Facebook - 287.020 males and 276 340 females. From this data we can see that there are almost half of Slovenian Internet users on Facebook and the number is growing as we speak.
You can find a lot of other information about the use of Facebook on Facebakers (and not only for Slovenia, but for other countries as well) – for example user growth, user age distribution, male/female user ratio and so on. I encourage you to see it, if you are interested – the results, that can be found there, are very interesting.
A Slovenian internet research called MOSS is reporting that in Slovenia there are 1.094.814 Internet users (in April). This data probably doesn't mean anything if you don't know how many inhabitants we have – well, on 1.1.2010 we had 2.046.796 inhabitants, so the number means that there are 53% of Slovenians using the Internet.
MOSS reports only about the use of Slovenian web sites, so you cannot find Facebook in their statistics, but you can find the data on the Web Information Company Alexa and on Facebakers. Alexa reports that the top three sites, used by Slovenians are Google, Facebook and Youtube. Facebakers reports there are currently 575.920 Slovenians using Facebook - 287.020 males and 276 340 females. From this data we can see that there are almost half of Slovenian Internet users on Facebook and the number is growing as we speak.
You can find a lot of other information about the use of Facebook on Facebakers (and not only for Slovenia, but for other countries as well) – for example user growth, user age distribution, male/female user ratio and so on. I encourage you to see it, if you are interested – the results, that can be found there, are very interesting.
Slovenian elementary school pupils and their internet use
Last month I and my two colleagues did a research about Slovenian elementary school pupils and their Internet use. It was for our exam research project in the shape of an article for some other course, and because it dealt with such topic, I would like to present some interesting findings here.
Our research question that we tried to answer was: To what extent are elementary school pupils acquainted with the Internet as a tool for education and to what extent do they use it as such. We interviewed 5 pupils, ranging from 11 to 14 years, 5 parents and 3 school teachers. Of course it isn’t a very representative study, but nevertheless, the results were very interesting and they gave us an idea, how the internet is used by this demographic group.
The interviews showed us that pupils do spend time on the Internet, but use it more for private purposes and not for education. They use tools like Google, Messenger, Facebook and game sites. They use it in a lesser extent for education, mainly for finding pictures and information for their reports. They also use Wikipedia and sites, where they can find book reviews for home reading assignments. They are aware of some risks that can be found on the Internet, mostly they mentioned viruses, talking to strangers and giving their personal information.
Their parents are also aware of the risks/dangers, but they trust their children, so they have no bigger restrictions. They don’t forbid them to watch any content, mostly they just limit their time spent on the Internet.
The teachers think positively about using the Internet for educational purposes, but have limits in the shape of school curriculums, so they can’t teach the children basic computer and Internet skills as much as they would like. They think the children’s parents are the ones that should teach them.
All-in-all, we found out that internet literacy in Slovenian elementary schools is weak, so is the children’s Internet use for educational purposes. Attempts of the teachers to teach them the proper use of the internet is inadequate and so is the parents’ involvement in teaching the children Internet literacy. The children gain their first Internet experiences all by themselves or with the help of their peers. Not all teachers realize how important internet literacy is and will be in the future – the Internet could be a really good source and tool in the process of education, but there are no clear guidelines for teaching internet literacy set in Slovenia, which consecutively means that the potential of the Internet as a educational tool is neglected. And because of this, all three sides loose – the parents, the teachers and mostly the teachers.
We can just hope that this will change soon.
Our research question that we tried to answer was: To what extent are elementary school pupils acquainted with the Internet as a tool for education and to what extent do they use it as such. We interviewed 5 pupils, ranging from 11 to 14 years, 5 parents and 3 school teachers. Of course it isn’t a very representative study, but nevertheless, the results were very interesting and they gave us an idea, how the internet is used by this demographic group.
The interviews showed us that pupils do spend time on the Internet, but use it more for private purposes and not for education. They use tools like Google, Messenger, Facebook and game sites. They use it in a lesser extent for education, mainly for finding pictures and information for their reports. They also use Wikipedia and sites, where they can find book reviews for home reading assignments. They are aware of some risks that can be found on the Internet, mostly they mentioned viruses, talking to strangers and giving their personal information.
Their parents are also aware of the risks/dangers, but they trust their children, so they have no bigger restrictions. They don’t forbid them to watch any content, mostly they just limit their time spent on the Internet.
The teachers think positively about using the Internet for educational purposes, but have limits in the shape of school curriculums, so they can’t teach the children basic computer and Internet skills as much as they would like. They think the children’s parents are the ones that should teach them.
All-in-all, we found out that internet literacy in Slovenian elementary schools is weak, so is the children’s Internet use for educational purposes. Attempts of the teachers to teach them the proper use of the internet is inadequate and so is the parents’ involvement in teaching the children Internet literacy. The children gain their first Internet experiences all by themselves or with the help of their peers. Not all teachers realize how important internet literacy is and will be in the future – the Internet could be a really good source and tool in the process of education, but there are no clear guidelines for teaching internet literacy set in Slovenia, which consecutively means that the potential of the Internet as a educational tool is neglected. And because of this, all three sides loose – the parents, the teachers and mostly the teachers.
We can just hope that this will change soon.
nedelja, 18. april 2010
New Media Documentary: Technology for Social Inclusion
I recently discovered a very interesting lecture from Sharon Daniel on new media technology on Youtube. She is a professor of Film and Digital Media and Chair of the Digital Arts at the University of California. Her research is focused on the use and development of information and communications technologies for social inclusion. She is engaged in an effort to use technology for social inclusion through the production of new media documentaries in which new media and information technologies are deployed as a means of giving voice to the experience of socially, racially and economically marginalized people. She is commited to ‘’participatory culture’’ – in her scholarship she traces a thread through social theory that ties the potential for self-representation to social change. She sees herself as a ‘’context provider’’; she explains the role of a context provider as someone who does not speak for others, but induces others to speak for themselves by providing both the means or tools and the context, where they can speak and be heard. What connects all her projects is a desire to affect social change – first, by providing technologically disenfranchised communities with access to media tools and information spaces, and second, by facilitating collective self-representation across socio-economic boundaries. She sees the internet as a public space and her work as a public art. During the lecture, she talks about some projects that she helped start – Palabras, Public Secret and Blood sugar – and she thinks of them as works of art.
In 2005 a project named PALABRAS was started. It is a set of tools and interfaces, designed to facilitate collective self-representation and also an expanding network for ongoing collaborations with nonprofit organizations that serve marginalized communities that don’t have access to media and information technology. Palabras addresses communities of place and it focuses on collective authoring. So it is intended as a tool for workshops in which groups are formed and collaboration is encouraged – central is the process, not the product. Workshops are often held in sites where there is no internet connection, and then uploaded later to the project database.
Public Secret is an online audio archive of statements by incarcerated women that reveal the secret injustices of the Criminal Justice System, and other works in progress. The goal of the project is the flow of the content and consecutive the revelation of those secrets and injustices.
Blood sugar examines the social and political construction of poverty, alienation and addiction in America through the eyes of those who live it.
She says her work constitutes an intervention and refusal to except reality as it is, so by employing voices she challenges the audience to rethink the paradoxes of social exclusion. She hopes her work will fulfill the role she thinks new media documentary practices and information technologies should play (practices that involve empowering speech, changing perceptions, asking tough questions and making radical demands).
Although the lecture is not so short, I hope you will still see it, because it is interesting and it gives people something to think about. You can find the lecture on this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiHBxCDleus.
And if you are interested further in the described projects, you can find them on this links:
Palabras: http://palabras.ucsc.edu
Public secret: http://publicsecret.net
Blood sugar: http://bloodsugararchives.net/
It is amazing to see that new media technology can be used for such great causes.
In 2005 a project named PALABRAS was started. It is a set of tools and interfaces, designed to facilitate collective self-representation and also an expanding network for ongoing collaborations with nonprofit organizations that serve marginalized communities that don’t have access to media and information technology. Palabras addresses communities of place and it focuses on collective authoring. So it is intended as a tool for workshops in which groups are formed and collaboration is encouraged – central is the process, not the product. Workshops are often held in sites where there is no internet connection, and then uploaded later to the project database.
Public Secret is an online audio archive of statements by incarcerated women that reveal the secret injustices of the Criminal Justice System, and other works in progress. The goal of the project is the flow of the content and consecutive the revelation of those secrets and injustices.
Blood sugar examines the social and political construction of poverty, alienation and addiction in America through the eyes of those who live it.
She says her work constitutes an intervention and refusal to except reality as it is, so by employing voices she challenges the audience to rethink the paradoxes of social exclusion. She hopes her work will fulfill the role she thinks new media documentary practices and information technologies should play (practices that involve empowering speech, changing perceptions, asking tough questions and making radical demands).
Although the lecture is not so short, I hope you will still see it, because it is interesting and it gives people something to think about. You can find the lecture on this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiHBxCDleus.
And if you are interested further in the described projects, you can find them on this links:
Palabras: http://palabras.ucsc.edu
Public secret: http://publicsecret.net
Blood sugar: http://bloodsugararchives.net/
It is amazing to see that new media technology can be used for such great causes.
torek, 13. april 2010
Researching new collaboration tools: SlideShare
Lately, I have been thinking how many useful tools (for professional, for educational or just for private use only) exist on the Internet. On one hand I am very sad, because in our four years of studying on FDV, no one told us about them and made our study work much easier, but on the other hand, I am grateful that through our study course New media and society we have the chance now to get to know those tools – I’m sure that from now on we will use them as often as we can. With this said, yesterday, while searching for the perfect tool for online presentations that we must make, I came across a tool named SlideShare and just have to share my thoughts on it with others. It is free and you just have to sign up for it on the Internet. The main function of the tool it is to enable its users to share their presentations online, to their geographically dispersed ‘’listeners’’. I talk about this function as its main one, but is certainly isn’t the only one. On SlideShare one can:
- view & download presentations, documents, pdfs etc on any topic one likes
- embed into blogs, websites & wikis
- upload any formats: ppt, pptx, doc, docx, pdf, odp, Apple Keynote, IWork pages etc.
- create a webinar or audio presentation using free slidecasting tool
- embed YouTube Videos inside one's SlideShare presentations
- use event functionality to send conference invites, archive slide decks, publicise one's event etc.
- build mashups & widgets using free APIs (for developers) (source: SlideShare.net)
As it is possible to see, the range of SlideShare’s functions is wide enough that everyone can use it on one opportunity or another. Because I have an online presentation coming up, I tried how it functions and I have to tell you, it is very easy. You can create a group and send an invitation to the people you want to join the group. Then you upload the presentation and the work is done. One of the things I found very useful is that it is also compatible with Google Docs. You can make a presentation there as a group and then easily upload it to SlideShare. Also what I found useful is that the site is almost a whole community – people add their presentations for all to see and they connect themselves into groups with common interests. Therefore, one can find a lot of presentations on a certain subject and can upload their own. One can also comment on those presentations and therefore contribute to their quality.
SlideShare is really not a complicated tool to use, but has a range of functions that need to be more thoroughly researched if the purpose of its use is more than just for fun or for educational presentations sharing.
- view & download presentations, documents, pdfs etc on any topic one likes
- embed into blogs, websites & wikis
- upload any formats: ppt, pptx, doc, docx, pdf, odp, Apple Keynote, IWork pages etc.
- create a webinar or audio presentation using free slidecasting tool
- embed YouTube Videos inside one's SlideShare presentations
- use event functionality to send conference invites, archive slide decks, publicise one's event etc.
- build mashups & widgets using free APIs (for developers) (source: SlideShare.net)
As it is possible to see, the range of SlideShare’s functions is wide enough that everyone can use it on one opportunity or another. Because I have an online presentation coming up, I tried how it functions and I have to tell you, it is very easy. You can create a group and send an invitation to the people you want to join the group. Then you upload the presentation and the work is done. One of the things I found very useful is that it is also compatible with Google Docs. You can make a presentation there as a group and then easily upload it to SlideShare. Also what I found useful is that the site is almost a whole community – people add their presentations for all to see and they connect themselves into groups with common interests. Therefore, one can find a lot of presentations on a certain subject and can upload their own. One can also comment on those presentations and therefore contribute to their quality.
SlideShare is really not a complicated tool to use, but has a range of functions that need to be more thoroughly researched if the purpose of its use is more than just for fun or for educational presentations sharing.
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