Communication and Social Behaviors on the Internet

In the recent two classes, we talk about the communication and social behaviors between different groups in several aspects.

For example, in the class of week five, there are four parts as follow, the group part, the social experience part, the cloud computing part and web 2.0 part. In the group part, we discuss the group structure, the communication networks, decision making problem and theories about  leadership. And I'm pretty interested in the decision making problem and different leadership theories. In my college time, since I am a business school guy, we have been through really long time of group discussion in different projects. Every body talked about his own idea and pretty sure his was the best. We wasted our time on trying to convince each other, so our work could be ineffective. Collaboration is not the nature of human. But We must learn how to work with each other. Recently，after my learning and reading, there is a inspiring video which I'd like to share with you.

It's about a remarkably fun and instructive design exercise, The Marshmallow Challenge. The idea's pretty simple: teams of four have to build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string and a marshmallow. The marshmallow has to be on top. So, normally, most people begin by orienting themselves to the task. They talk about it, they figure out what it's going to look like, they jockey for power. Then they spend some time planning, organizing, they sketch and they lay out spaghetti. They spend the majority of their time assembling the sticks into ever-growing structures. And then finally, just as they're running out of time, someone takes out the marshmallow, and then they gingerly put it on top, and then they stand back, and "ta-da!" they admire their work. But what really happens, most of the time, is that the "ta-da" turns into an "uh-oh," because the weight of the marshmallow causes the entire structure to buckle and to collapse. There are a number of people who have a lot more "uh-oh" moments than others, and among the worst are recent graduates of business school.And the reason is that business students are trained to find the single right plan and then they execute on it. What happens is, when they put the marshmallow on the top, they run out of time.

Generally, this video tell us two points. First, the essence of the iterative process is a type of collaboration based on a  prototype. The second point is skills of facilitation. These two points are not only useful in the design work but also helpful in a industrial design or a network design.

In the class of week six, the core concept is the difference between individual cognition and collaborative cognition. Though

class activities collaboration tool-Google docs, here I want to compare my answers with the group answers.

Problem One: What is the definition of Social Cloud?

My answer: By highlighting in red color in the article, I found the definition is that a resource and service sharing framework utilizing relationships established between members of a social network. It leverages pre-existing trust relationships between users and its resources exchanged need not be symmetric and can represent vastly different capabilities.

Group answer in the Google docs: Social Cloud is a resource and service sharing framework utilizing relationships established between members of a social network. It can change the situation that some individual users of a social network are bounded by finite capacity and limited capabilities. A cloud-based usage model is used to enable virtualized resource sharing through service-based interfaces. And the Social Cloud leverages pre-existing trust relationships between users and its resources exchanged need not be symmetric and can represent vastly different capabilities.

Problem Two: What are the possible applications of a Social Cloud?

My answer: By highlighting in red color, I found that there are five aspects of possible applications of a Social Cloud which are as follows: social computation cloud, social storage cloud, social collaborative cloud, social cloud for public science, enterprise social cloud. Each has its own property and difference between others.

Group answer in the Google docs: There are mainly five aspects of possible applications of a Social Cloud which are as follows: social computation cloud, social storage cloud, social collaborative cloud, social cloud for public science, enterprise social cloud. Each has its own property and difference between others.

Examples:

Social Computation Cloud : Onlive.com

Social Storage Cloud: SkyDrive by Microsoft, Google drive(docs can be shared with others), dropbox

Social Collaborative Cloud: Google Docs

Social Cloud for Public Science: Wikipedia, SETI, Rosetta, Docking

Enterprise Social Cloud: icloud

Problem in the PowerPoint:

1.What was the epistemic aims in (1) Class Activity One (individual work) and (2) Class Activity Two (group work)? Is there any change in epistemic aim? If so, why did you change your aims?

The epistemic aim in Class Activity One seems to be just the metacognition part. I find the answer from the paper and highlight it, this process is as same as knowing the knowing and learning the learning. I found the sentences related mostly with explanation. In Class Activity Two, we shared our answers and combined more useful information about the social cloud. We rewrote our group answer by standing at a new point. Listening and learning from other group members, we started to try to think and give a more specific answer. I think that I can give a better answer after I known more advice. That's also why we change our aims from just give a basic definition before.

2.Is there any differences in terms of individual and group epistemic cognition, how?

Of course, there is a huge difference. The epistemic cognition is totally changed and the group epistemic cognition achieves the third level of the cognition. As an individual, I absorb the information from the paper and give my fundamental judgment back based on how deeply I may get, While group discussion helps me go deeper. Besides, group work urges us to give more, so our motivation is much more stronger than before. After all, peoples are greedy, we always want more than we already have.

3.How did you approach to the problem individually and in group, respectively? Is there any differences in the processes involved?

Actually, if time is enough, I would have the same way when approaching to the problem at the beginning, which is learning and thinking individually, and then exchange my understanding with others. Because I think, by this way, my group can have more advice, imagination and information than discussing each other the first time. But I won't say there is no difference in the processes involved. After the accumulation, I am willing to see people inspiring each other or some chemical reactions in the brain, which may make a breakthrough in the project.