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07/01/2008

Comments

Josie Fraser

Profiles ARE social objects. They're not a real person - they're a constructed representation around which interaction takes place - a specific kind of social object. They are artifacts which connect and make visible networks.

Martin

I'll take your word for it Josie, my only concern is that this definition of social objects becomes so all-encompassing that _everything_ is a social object. And then it ceases to be a useful term. In my twitter stream John Connell has also said it becomes a tautology - what's a social object? Something that acts as a social object.
Like the term affordances it's possibly both useful and meaningless at the same time. I think working out which will be my challenge this month!

Andy Lane

Good to see that you value content, which are both educational and social objects and could be learning objects aided by social interaction or social learning objects (hmm ... that sound more debatable). I am not up on the social object literature but I have looked at the role of mediating objects in cases of environmental decision making and have applied that thinking to education in a paper I have written recently about content as a mediating object in education (I gave it at opened2007 in utah but is available from the knowledge network http://kn.open.ac.uk/document.cfm?documentid=10848). Following what I say there, all objects can in theory be social, just as all content can be used for an educational purpose, but what are the defining characteristics of a social object irrespective of its social setting or is it always a duality of object and social setting that makes them useful? Your three condition, suitably elaborated, do provide a good framework but purpose is needed as well as just engagement. Such purpose can be explicit or implicit,primary or d secondary, but learning has to be one of the purposes, not just entertainment or work.

Driving Schools Finder

Social objects are a determining factors on education and they really should be focused highly in learning

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