You are here:

The Safety of Crowds
Article

, Brighton University, United Kingdom

Journal of Interactive Learning Research Volume 18, Number 1, ISSN 1093-023X Publisher: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), Waynesville, NC

Full Text

Abstract

If we assume that learning is best achieved in a social setting, then a vital aspect of any learning environment is its ability to support the development of trust. Trust takes many forms, from helping to identify the validity or the effectiveness of a learning resource to feelings of safety and reliance on support from fellow learners and teachers. This article explores how the environment may support or diminish trust in several types of systems, situating them within a conceptual model of trust based on their social, cognitive, technical, interface and systemic features. It goes on to describe a learning environment called Dwellings, which uses a design based on Jane Jacobs's observations of what makes city districts thrive or decay. Dwellings may be thought of as a cross between a wiki, a moo and a learning object repository. It is built to enable trust to develop, through a combination of safety through a "succession of eyes," a fluid locus of control and social navigation approaches to collaborative recommendation. The article concludes with a discussion of issues that have arisen through the use of Dwellings and some thoughts on general features and future developments of learning environments that encourage the development of trust.

Citation

Dron, J. (2007). The Safety of Crowds. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 18(1), 29-40. Waynesville, NC: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved November 28, 2023 from .

© 2007 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)

Keywords

References

View References & Citations Map
  1. Allen, C. (2004). Tracing the evolution of social software. Retrieved from the WorldWide Web: http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/10/tracing_the_evo.html
  2. Anderson, M., Ball, M., Boley, H., Greene, S., Howse, N., Lemire, D., & McGrath, S. (2003). RACOFI: A rule-applying collaborative filtering system. Paper presented at the COLA'03, Halifax, Canada.
  3. Anderson, T. (2006). Teaching a distance education course using educational social software. Retrieved 7th January 2006, from the WorldWide Web: http://terrya.edublogs.org/2006/ 01/02/teaching-a-distance-education-course-using-educational-social-software/
  4. Barker, P. (2005). Potential uses for weblogs in electroniccCourse delivery. Paper presented at E-Learn 2005, Vancouver.
  5. Boder, A. (1992). The process of knowledge reification in human-human interaction. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 8, 177-185.
  6. Bonk, C.J. (2002). Frameworks for research, design, benchmarks, training, and pedagogy in web-based distance education. In M.G. Moore& W.G. Anderson (Eds.), Handbook of Distance Education (pp. 331-348). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  7. Brin, S., & Page, L. (2000). The anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual web search engine. Retrieved from the WorldWide Web: http://www-db.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf
  8. Bruner, J.S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
  9. Brusilovsky, P., Chavan, G., & Farzan, R. (2004). Social adaptive navigation support for open corpus electronic textbooks. Paper presented at the AH 2004, Eindhoven.
  10. Castelfranchi, C., & Falcone, R. (1998). Principles of trust for MAS: Cognitive anatomy, social importance, and quantification. Paper presented at the 3rd International Conference on MultiAgent Systems.
  11. Chislenko, A. (1997). Collaborative information filtering and semantic transports. Retrieved November 19, 1999, from the WorldWide Web: http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/articles/ACF.html
  12. Dron, J., Mitchell, R., Siviter, P., & Boyne, C. (1999). CoFIND-An experiment in n-dimensional collaborative filtering. Paper presented at the WebNet 99, Honolulu, Hawaii.
  13. Evans, C. (1983). Studies in French literature. In Gerald Collier (Ed.), The Management of Peer-Group Learning-Syndicate Methods in Higher Education. Guildford: Society ofr Research into Higher Education.
  14. Garrison, D.R., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
  15. Holt, J. (1977). Instead of education: Ways to help people do things better. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
  16. Jacobs, J. (1961). The death and life of great american cities. London, UK: Pimlico.
  17. Jonassen, D.H. (1994). Thinking technology: Toward a constructivist design model. Educational Technology, 34(4), 34-37.
  18. Kay, A. (1996). Revealing the elephant: The use and misuse of computers in education. The Educom Review, 31(4).
  19. Kleinberg, J.M. (1998). Authoritative sources in a hyperlinked environment. Paper presented at the 9th ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms.
  20. Knowles, M. (1975). Self-directed learning. Chicago: Follett Publishing Company.
  21. Korba, L., Yee, G., Xu, Y., Song, R., Patrick, A.S., & El-Khatib, K. (2005). Privacy and trust in agent-supported distributed learning. In F.O. Lin (Ed.), Designing Distributed Learning Environments with Intelligent Software Agents (pp. 67-114). Hershey: Information Science Publishing.
  22. Kurhila, J., Miettinen, M., Nokelainen, P., & Tirri, H. (2002). Use of social navigation features in collaborative e-learning. Paper presented at the E-Learn 2002, Montreal, Canada.
  23. Mejias, U.A. (2005). A nomad’s guide to learning and social software, The Knowledge Tree.
  24. Miettinen, M., Kurhila, J., Nokelainen, P., & Tirri, H. (2005). OurWeb-Transparent groupware for online communities. Paper presented at the Web Based Communities 2005, Algarve, Portugal.
  25. Palloff, R.M., & Pratt, K. (1999). Building learning communities in cyberspace: Effective strategies for the online classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
  26. Recker, M.M., Walker, A., & Wiley, D. (2000). An interface for collaborative filtering of educational resources. Paper presented at the 2000 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
  27. Reed, D.P. (1999). That sneaky exponentia – Beyond Metcalfe's law to the power of community building. Retrieved January 12th 2006, from the WorldWide Web: http://www.reed.com/Papers/GFN/reedslaw.html
  28. Rourke, L. (2000). Operationalizing social interaction in computer conferencing. Paper presented at the Canadian Association for Distance Education 16th Annual Conference, Québec JILR 18/1page layout 40 11/9/06 12:55 PM Page 40 Dron
  29. Rourke, L., Anderson, T., Garrison, D.R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing social presence in asynchronous text-based computer conferencing. Journal of Distance Education, 14(2).
  30. Salmon, G. (2000). E-moderating: The key to teaching and learning online. London: Kogan Page.
  31. Simpson, O. (2002). Supporting students in online, open and distance learning (Second ed.). London: Kogan Page.
  32. Swearingen, K., & Sinha, R. (2002). Interaction design for recommender systems, DIS2002. London: ACM.
  33. Tschumi, B. (1996). Architecture and disjunction. MIT Press.

These references have been extracted automatically and may have some errors. Signed in users can suggest corrections to these mistakes.

Suggest Corrections to References