Terry Anderson drew my attention today to the concept of the ‘affinity space’ from James Paul Gee (always an interesting writer), which bears a marked resemblance to our understanding of the set as a social form for learning, and with which I was previously unfamiliar. This is certainly something I need to investigate further. At first reading I think the affinity space is a (large and probably the most important) subset of what we mean by a ‘set’ – it is concerned with people sharing an interest and a normally virtual space but otherwise having no social connection to speak of, which is exactly how we distinguish set from net social forms.  It is also a close cousin of communities of interest and interest (or interest-based) networking, that are very much in the same area but that gained their names from people with perspectives slanted by where they already had expertise and experience. I like the term ‘affinity space’ far better than those terms for the reasons mentioned in the Wikipedia article, which are very similar to the reasons we went for the term ‘set’.

Our concept of the set additionally recognizes learning value in sets that are not directly or only concerned with the kinds of affinity mentioned in the article – e.g. those of people of similar, greater or lesser abilities, those of people simply near to one another, those where personal attributes like culture are significant – which becomes more significant when thinking about how collectives emerge or are formed from sets. Also, we are keen to emphasize the continuous fuzzy boundaries between sets and groups (e.g. tribes, religions, Goths) and between sets and networks (e.g. circles of friends, college alumni), seeing most such collections of people as occupying blended or overlapping social forms. But this is a useful concept that I suspect we will use in future to characterize one of the purest forms of set used for learning purposes and one that has most relevance in an online context. Whatever the minor distinctions, and whether the concepts turn out to be almost the same or just similar, I am glad to know that others, especially those with the intellectual muscle and creativity of Gee, think it is an idea whose time is well upon us.

Address of the bookmark: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_space

Great report from Accenture on the results of an International survey (not including Canada but a good basket of developed countries represented) on use of consumer electronics from 2013. The big takeaways are:

• Consumers are focusing on fewer, multifunction devices
• Consumers are not locked into a single platform
• Cloud-based services are increasing
• Mobile devices are consumerizing IT in the workplace

The report is very well presented and easily digestible, and is packed with interesting statistics and analyses of trends. As someone with more than a passing interest in technologies and technology trends, I found something fascinating on almost every page. Understanding, reacting to and, ideally, anticipating such changing patterns is going to be vital to Athabasa University as a primarily online learning institution.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/2013-Accenture-Consumer-Electronics-Products-and-Services-Usage-Report.pdf

An interesting set of statistics about access to the Web as well as many other metrics relating to use, availability and freedom on the Web, ranking nearly every country on various different scales. Canada makes a mediocre showing at 15th overall, with a disappointing nearly-80% having access, and falling well short of perfect on most other metrics too. The recent CBC report that ranks Canada 53rd in the world on upload speeds is also sobering. Like all such statistics, these need to be looked at critically and considered in context, but it is none-the-less a good starting point for discussion. See http://www.webfoundation.org/projects/the-web-index/ for more on the project, and how the figures are calculated.

Address of the bookmark: http://thewebindex.org/data/all/scores/

This study looks at multitasking behaviour measured by the amount and frequency of attention paid to a computer screen and TV. It is interesting, if flawed, at least partly because of the differences it claims to show between multitasking behaviour in older and younger people. The researchers claim to show that there is not much age-related difference in overall time spent looking at things when multitasking, but that younger people’s gaze tends to flit much more frequently – the differences between age groups on this measure are actually quite huge. The researchers don’t make any notable claims about whether this is a good or a bad thing, but it is a result that helps to explain other findings that older people are better at multitasking, inasmuch as they retain more of what they have been paying attention to and are typically less easily distracted (I think I may be an outlier here!). However, the big flaw that I see in this study is that it used staff and students at a university as subjects. University staff are trained to concentrate in quite peculiar ways because that is what scholarly study is all about, and have typically spent a great many years acquiring that habit, so they are not at all representative of older people in general. It would at least be useful to compare this demographic with other older people who do not habitually concentrate very hard and very persistently on one thing for a living.

Address of the bookmark: http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/cyber.2010.0350

Thanks to my friend Richard for pointing me to this great site for total geeks. Electronic toys galore, at knockdown prices, direct from China. Important proviso – almost all look pretty awful, but the site is honest about their failings and ridiculously rich in information about them, so it is easy to decide not to buy things. But who needs Apple, Samsung, or Sony when you can get a no-name budget dual SIM Android phone for $70? Or any number of watch-phones, projectors, remote controlled doodahs and accessories to fit any need? Well, me. But I like browsing this site.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.chinavasion.com/

Balanced critique by Barbera J. King for NPR of a study that reveals strong correlation between brain processes for technology use (flint knapping) and those for language. The study itself uses fTCD to show brain activity while engaged in language and tool-use tasks, with remarkably consistent patterns for both.

The authors suggest that  ‘tool-making and language share a basis in more general human capacities for complex, goal-directed action’. The critique linked here provides grounds for being wary of drawing firm conclusions of this nature because there are other confounding factors (we already use language so it is possible that we are using it to conceptualize how we go about using tools) and the fTCD approach is a bit coarse. However, the study’s results accord well with the widely held view that language is a technology. Whether tool use or language use evolved first is still up for debate, though I strongly suspect that they evolved in tandem. Language is a technology that makes other technologies possible and vice versa: all technologies are mutually constitutive assemblies, evolving as a result of being combined and recombined.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/09/05/219236801/when-did-human-speech-evolve?ft=1&f=

Sad news of the death, at 88, of one of the greatest thinkers and inventors of the past century. Although the headlines all proclaim him as the inventor of the mouse, that was only one of his many achievements that were more profoundly influential. Among the many other things that he invented or played a significant role in inventing were the first working hypertext (and hence the Web), the word processor, the Internet (his lab was the second node on its forerunner, the ARPANET), email, video conferencing, windowing systems like the Mac and Windows, and much else besides. A modest and inspiring genius whose vision of augmenting, not replacing, human intellect reverberates loudly to this day.

Address of the bookmark: http://gigaom.com/2013/07/03/doug-engelbart-american-inventor-computing-legend-passes-away/