Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Report help.. =/

Still confused about the report -

It says we have to reflect on our experience with using social and mobile computing applications.. How many applications are we meant to be discussing? All 7 of them?

And as someone else posted earlier, I'm also confused about what focuses are acceptable.. Awareness etc.

3 comments:

Harrison said...

Yeah I was wondering the same thing.

DarrenE said...

For the focus thing, my understanding is that you can focus on pretty much anything provided that you can reflect on your experience with the software's in a 'social and mobile' aspect with that focus.

I think the point of a 'focus' is to outline things related to a specific focus rather then reflect on everything to do with social and mobile aspects of the programs, since there is alot that could be said.

I think another example that could be used instead of awareness is identity, ie: how do you know who people really are?, How do you keep track of your different identities (usernames/passwords) for so many apps or even your friends identities? How does so many identities affect tracking/posting of social information? etc

Stephen said...

Spot on Darren. There is no way that you can reflect on your experience if you try to do it with everything. The idea of having a focus in your article is to constrain the topic you choose to write about. The problem with being too general (and trying to cover everything) is that you end up only writing superficially. I am far more interested in seeing you explore one narrow focus/theme/concept in as much detail as you can, rather than trying to cover a much broader subject and end up saying what you could have said before the course started based on your general knowledge in the area.

Regarding the number of applications, the point here is also about quality rather than quantity. The reason you are asked to refer to multiple applications is so that you can explore your chosen focus/questions in more than one specific context. You were asked to experience a variety of applications so that you would have the chance to encounter the concepts you might reflect on in more than one situation. Illustrating your article with specific examples allows you to show where your opinions are coming from. Relating the examples from different situations allows you to demonstrate how you are synthesising your knowledge and experience on a particular topic.