| Communities Resolving Our Problems: the basic idea | ||
| [SUP: Sharing Problems] | [THINK: Guidance] | [LEAP: Solving Problems] |
To
"evoke" is to compose so as to stimulate the thinking and action of
oneself or others. It is the second stage of the LEAP problem solving model.
As the image on the left implies, an entire palette of the forms of digital literacy is readily available for that purpose. Listed below in order of their display on the palette, the left column of the table lists applications that run from web servers while the right column notes similar applications running from the hard drives of personal computers. This watershed web development column opens
the composition process to global collaborative activity shared among many that are using a web service. The challenge for composers
is to find, blend and organize the best suite or palette of online and offline composition
tools for a given situation. Categories below can be reached quickly via these in-document links: OS; data storage; word processing/wikis; graphic organizers/outliners; page/site design for the web; web publishing (blogging, web sites); email; social networks; address books; calendar; numbers; programming; databases; project management; mapping; image editors; audio; music; video; 2D animation; 3D animation; Virtual reality; sensors ; dance; sports; multimedia; application suites; flatworld processor.
| Composition Tools Comparison Chart | |
| Webtop-Based | Desktop-Based |
|
Desktop Operating Systems |
|
File & application management: goal to replace your PC desktop and run any application from the web
|
File & application management: Free
Commercial
|
| Data Storage | Data Storage |
Goal to replace portable storage media and become primary storage with actual local hard drive seen as temporary or cache storage. Success of the concept will require great bandwidth, not dial-in and great online storage capacity. There are general sites and media specific sites. Storing, sharing and promotion/advertising are increasingly merged into one system.
|
Each personal computer ships with its own internal hard drive and provides ports for portable storage media. If stored locally, for sharing it must still be transferred to a "publication" system like paper, CD or DVD or a web site. |
|
Desktop Word Processing |
|
Free online word processors and tools, for working solo or in collaborative partnerships (Awards):
Wiki's (Awards)
|
|
| Graphic Organizers/Outliners | Graphic Organizers/Outliners |
|
|
| Webtop Page/Site Design | Desktop Page Design |
| Great tools are available for composing web pages and adding features to web sites.
Site and page tools |
|
| Web site publishing | |
Web site composition and hosting systemsBlogging |
|
| Web Email Applications | Desktop Email Applications |
|
|
| Web Social Networks | Desktop Social Networks |
Applications for creating social networks from teams to classes come in many different
structures and serve many different purposes, including business, entertainment, and online teaching and learning.
|
This approach is best known as "sneaker net". The contrast with web-based social networks is stark. Interaction time is radically slower than web based interaction. The desktop equivalent of social networking is to put the data on some media and carry or ship it to someone or some group. The media might be paper, videotape, CD, DVD, floppy diskette, USB drive, portable hard drive, any physical object, or even a handheld or laptop computer. Networking hubs might be a library, the post office, or the NetFlix system. |
| Web Address Book Systems | Desktop Address Book Systems |
| Plaxo ; GoodContacts ; |
|
| Web Calendar and Appointment Tracking | Desktop Calendar and Appointment Tracking |
|
|
|
Desktop-Numbers |
|
Spreadsheets
Calculators
Graphing/Charts
Other mathematics services
|
Spreadsheets
Calculators
|
| Web-Programming | Desktop-Programming |
|
|
| Webtop Map Design | Desktop Map Design |
|
Creating maps has a wide range of uses (Awards): |
|
| Web-Databases | Desktop-Databases |
|
Free Limited free features, fee features
Fee |
Databases build searchable and sortable collections of data, as well as provide for form letter merge designs. The database can also do some basic numeric calculations based on numbers. (A database tutorial is available.) Examples of database applications include FileMaker Pro; Microsoft Access, and the database application within Appleworks and Microsoft Works. |
| Web Project Management | Desktop Project Management |
|
|
| Web-Still Image Editing | Desktop-Still Image Editing |
|
Image creating, sharing, storing and editing (awards):
|
|
| Web-Video | Desktop-Video |
|
Hosting and bandwidth
Editing
Other
|
|
| Web-Audio | Desktop-Audio |
|
|
| Web-Music | Desktop-Music |
| Jam Tomorrow (alphaware for the Croquet system) |
|
| Web-Animation | Desktop-Animation |
|
http://www.gifworks.com/, free gif animation |
|
| Web-3D & animation | Desktop-3D and animation |
|
Worlds.com; Activeworlds; OuterWorlds; There.com; Second Life and its machinima. |
|
| Web-Virtual Reality | Desktop-Virtual Reality |
|
|
| Web-Sensors (probes) | Desktop-Sensors (probes) |
|
|
|
| Web-Dance | Desktop-Dance |
|
none |
|
| Web-Sports | Desktop-Sports |
|
none |
|
| Web-Multimedia | Desktop-Multimedia |
Online tools for creating multimedia online:
|
|
|
Web Application Suites: combos of apps |
Desktop Application Suites: |
|
|
|
If innovation is the process of applying creative ideas to problems and coming up with solutions, entrepreneurship is the innovative process of building self-sustaining systems that apply solutions to problems. Flatworld is a metaphor that I've drawn from Thomas Friedman's writings (2005-2007) on the leveling of global competitiveness. It represents both a social and technical platform on which anyone with Internet access can compete and collaborate globally. However, only a tiny fraction of human activity has become global. Measured by the number of its participants, Flatworld is a very small but powerful place at the moment. Its off-the-scale staggering impact in driving world trade and its challenges are noted in UNCTAD's Handbook of Statistics 2008 and the 2008 Global Trade Report. The world is actually quite spiky. To operate more openly on this global platform, the world needs flatworld processors, mashups of both desktop and webtop computer systems and tools that share a goal of supporting global development and entrepreneurship. That is, where are the software tools to support the creation of global interaction leading to self-sustaining organizations, whether profit or non-profit? The foundational tools shower down the above left column. It is how these tools are being applied that makes or does not make a difference in globalization. A key problem of the moment is that these tools are not applied to the problem on a sufficient scale. Where is the social networking site that is pointedly global? Where is the business social networking site that is pointedly looking for global opportunity? Therein lies the opportunity for educational systems to drive the connectedness needed to fill in the low spots of under-stimulated and under-productive social groups. Our target zones should be the multitude of geographic spots of underachievement, economic weakness and poverty. As this thought moves beyond concept, a series of questions will need answering about flatworld processors. What are they? Where are they? Which one is most elegant? Concept Reading
|
|
As Web-based tools such as those in the left column of the table have appeared, they have generally incorporated critical characteristics of the Internet, notably the capacity to collaborate more easily. If your word processing file is stored on the Web then it is a simple step to choose to make it editable by others. The online applications further encouraged teamwork and partnership. This development led to the emergence of label of Web 2.0 for a second generation Internet where "applications and their data reside on the Web itself" (Bull & Ferster, 2005-06) not on a local computer's hard drive. The webtop trend is also being extended to web-based operating systems and application clusters (Lyons, 2006). Others have seen new economic impact that emerges from mass collaboration, leading to the creation of new business models (Tapscott & Williams, 2006).
A transformation from personal work to global teams is underway. Professor Wesch's youtube video below illustrates some additional aspects of this transformation.
As the table shows, software tools exist for composing Words, Outlines, Email, Social Networks, Numbers, Databases, Maps, Project Management, Programming, Still Images, Audio, Video, Music, Dance, Animation, Multimedia and more. At first these applications were proprietary commercial products that ran only on desktop computers. When necessary, email attachments and FTP were used to share data files between desktop applications. Now, not only are these applications (e.g., apps) increasingly available as free desktop-based tools, but they are increasingly available as a set of Internet-based web apps or Webtop-based tools (e.g., virtual desktop).
Problem solvers have always picked appropriate combinations of media and applications for gathering and communicating thoughts. Now, before selecting the application that is needed, the first choice to make is whether to find and run Web software from the Net or find and run software from the hard drive of a personal computer. Desktop based tools can run without the network, web-based tools cannot. Desktop tools often have more in-depth features but webtop apps are generally easier to use and are available on any networked computer not just one the one on which you installed the application that you bought. The two column list in the table is meant to be representative, not comprehensive of these choices, but new examples are always welcome and highly prized. Many of the web-based applications in the left column represent a point on a continuum between requiring a special client application and being totally web-based along with many other characteristics that indicate a Web 2.0 perspective (O'Reilly, 2005).
In reaction to a discovered problem/opportunity, composers must express themselves clearly and with such evocative quality that they attract the caring and interest of others. That computers can be as expressive an instrument as a paint brush is not widely accepted, yet computer composition tools are ubiquitous for a wide range of needs. This expressive quality requires mastery of the concepts of the application as well as mastery of many of its techniques. Once the basics of an application are understood, it is this mastery of the application to solve particular problems that must become the goal, not merely its selection and use from the webtop or desktop.
Evoke Thinking Skills - focus your composition with frame-your-question examples.
Bibliography