Week 1: Intro

Learning Objectives

By the end of this week, students will:

• have gained an understanding of the origins and definition of the terms “social software”, “web 2.0″, and “library 2.0″
• learn the types of technlogies and tools that fall under the “social software” umbrella.

Readings

The following articles and blog posts can be considered foundational writings in the study of social software, Web 2.0, and Library 2.0. There are a lot of articles here, and some are quite long, so I don't expect you to read them all during the first week. Read a couple in week 1 and get to the rest over the course of the term.

• Social Machines: Computing Means Connecting, Wade Roush
• The New Wisdom of the Web, Steven Levy & Brad Stone
• Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, Henry Jenkins [pdf]
• Are You Ready for Social Software? Stowe Boyd
• Social Software and the Politics of Groups, Clay Shirky
• A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy, Clay Shirky
  
• What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software, Tim O’Reilly
• Web 2.0: Mistaking the Forest for the Trees?, Dave Rogers
• The amorality of Web 2.0, Nicholas Carr
• Why Web2.0 Matters: Preparing for Glocalization, Danah Boyd
• Community 2.0, Ellysa Kroski
• Social Software in the Library, K. Matthew Dames
• Library 2.0 Theory: Web 2.0 and Its Implications for Libraries, Jack M. Maness
• 11 Reasons Why Library 2.0 Exists and Matters, John Blyberg
  
• Web 2.0: Where will the next generation Web take libraries? (follow the links at the bottom of the page to read the responses from 5 experts).

Things to do this week

There is a lot to do in the first week. Much of it is prep work to get you set up for the term, so don't let this scare you away! Things get much more manageable from week 2 on.

1. Read the syllabus. It’s our roadmap for the course and it outlines everything from how we’re going to communicate, to assignments, to how to contact me. The version posted on this blog is the latest-greatest version so even if you’ve read the version that was posted on the FIMS intranet, you’re going to want to read this one because it has been recently updated.
2. Learn more about the assignments. The Assignments page fleshes out the assignments in a bit more detail and gives you an idea of my expectations.
3. Explore the course site and login. Take some time to look around the site and figure out what's where. For a guide to the site structure, check out this post. For a rundown of how the course actually works on a week-to-week basis, read this post. I'll be setting everyone up with logins on Monday, May 5th so once you've received your site login from me, go ahead and log in! Click on "My account" to populate your profile, add a photograph or avatar, etc.
4. Vote for your preferred group chat time. We'll be getting together for an hour a week to chat about all things course related. This week, we're meeting at 8pm Eastern (in this chat room) but I'd like everyone to vote on a time for the chats for next week onwards. You can cast your vote for you preferred chat time here.
5. Write your first blog post. This post should be an introduction: tell us who you are, what your experience is with social software (e.g.: have you been blogging for years? Have you used an RSS aggregator before? Is all this terrifyingly new to you?), and what you hope to get out of this course. And anything else you’d like to share!
6. Get yourself an RSS aggregator. I recommend Google Reader or Bloglines. Both are web-based aggregators and allow you to access your RSS feeds from a browser (no software to download). You need an aggregator because you will be expected to subscribe to a number of feeds during the course of term. If you already use an aggregator, you can skip this step. And if you are completely new to RSS, this video explains the concept succinctly.
7. Sign up for an account on del.icio.us. We will be using the tag "lis9763" in del.icio.us to collect links to articles, resources, and anything else of interest to us as a research community. You'll find more info on the tagging assignment (which is ongoing over the course of the term) on the Assignments page.
8. Read a few of the articles for week 1 and post your thoughts/comments/response on your blog. Since we have a lot to accomplish this week, there is no deadline for posting to your blog (usually, the blog posting deadline is 9 am on Fridays).