Last week I returned from a lovely family holiday in Iceland. Geysirs were not the only explosions though.

While I was away a very strange incident happened that culminated in death threats issued to Kathy Sierra who summarised her position here.  When I first read about this, I was (and remain) completely horrified by her experience, but on further reading realised that others were caught in the crossfire, and so the damage was not limited to Kathy.  Strong emotions and stolen identity meant that Chris Locke, Frank Paynter and Jeneane Sessums ( who were involved in two unmoderated fora meankids and unclebobism (now closed) where Kathy Sierra was vilified and threatened though not by them) felt themselves to have been falsely accused. I have spent time yesterday reading some of the many blog posts and comments that refer to the incident and its ramifications.  Quite a number of these are hot air (and prone to inaccuracies) but a few are very unpleasant.

There was some evidence of factionalism with people lining up to defend one group of protagonists or another.  Communication between those factions was sometimes fractious and could obscure what originally happened.  I have learned that some of the nasty name-calling that existed in newsgroups and some ‘online communities’ is also prevalent in the blogosphere.

There are very strong views on freedom of speech on the one hand and non-tolerance of bullying and hate speech on the other hand. Such a simplistic dualism conceals the complexities of people's experience of life on the Internet.  I think there is an interesting discussion to be had about the networked individualism that blogs tend to represent. OK, the blog provider has terms of service, but aprat from that it's the blogger's decision on what s/he allows as comments on their blog.

A.T. Wyatt at Moodle.org pointed me to an article about a proposed Blogger’s Code of Conduct http://letters.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/08/24/career_women/view/index21.html?show=all
This article and Kathy Sierra’s post refer to a tendency for women talk to each other in private spaces. Herring noted that even as Internet demographics change so that women become equivalent or more frequent users than men, men still dominate public discourse. Kathy's experience could form part of an explanation for that. Such incidents spark discussion about discussion guidelines but IMHO, what is needed is cultural change rather than rules so that sexism and racism are not tolerated in public spaces and it's O.K. to say so. I don't mean that this is easy, and it's not made easier by the 'electronic frontier' attitudes that formed in the early days of CMC (Usenet, etc.) - a libertarian ethic that shouts loudest 'freedom of speech' and says little about responsibility. What price Kathy's 'freedom of speech'?

It’s good that there is discussion on freedom, behaviour and responsibility.  There has also been some interesting discussion on anonymity and moderation (e.g. in blog comments).  That will be an interesting nettle for us to grasp on the Know and Network project.  How can women share their experiences of the IT workplace without risking their future career prospects?

Herring, S. C. 2004, 'Slouching Toward the Ordinary: Current Trends in Computer-Mediated Communication', New Media & Society, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 26-36.

This was very moving- reflecting the feelings of those so closely involved but showing an awareness of the sense of loss experienced by others from near and far.

I have had the privilege of hearing more on Moodle.org about the importance to Americans of the right to bear arms.  I still don't understand it completely but can start to glimpse some different perspectives.

Of course, a different perspective make us think about how tha actions of UK and US governments are perceived in Iraq.

http://emerge.elgg.org/francesbell/weblog/236.html

Paul Kearney and Maja Pivec have written this intriguingly titled article in BJET, about the potential for using video games in education

    "Sex and violence in video games is a social issue that confronts us all, especially as many commercial games are now being introduced for game-based learning in schools, and as such this paper polls teenage players about the rules their parents and teachers may or may not have, and surveys the gaming community, ie, game developers to parents, to ascertain their views on who is responsible for the guidelines on game content. Although the authors do not condone excessive sexual and violent video games, we advocate the value in games in general and the ‘hidden value’ of this genre in many areas, including game-based learning. The aim of this paper is to show the multidimensionality and complexity of the topic that often exceeds the domain of video games." link to site

Sadly my institutional access means I have wait one year to access the whole paper online.  It looks interesting enough to investigate alternative methods of access.

http://emerge.elgg.org/francesbell/weblog/241.html

This very interesting interview with Morten Paulsen  was blogged by Stephen Downes. 

His work is based on his theory of cooperative freedom. 

I found this table very interesting

"Table 1. Student preferences regarding Learning Partners and privacy

"

Paulsen has done some interesting and practical work in situations where students can express their preferences that then impact on their interaction with the learning environment.  I'll try to read some of his papers.  In our work on CABWEB, one consistent result over 5 years was that where 'collaboration' occurred across groups of students from two countries/ courses each group of students thought that whilst they gained from the experience, the other group gained more.

The distinction between cooperation and collaboration is also relevant in the Emerge context as Bob Rotherham has been showing.

http://www.knowandnetwork.org/francesbell/weblog/24.html

Sarah Blow blogged the latest Girl Geek dinner held  in London on  26 April.  I think that we at Knowandnetwork should study the Gril Geek activities  and contact them for links and ideas on networking.

When we go public, we'll be sure to contact them to publicise our activities.

Has anyone ever been to one of these events?