G’s Place

Since at least 2000. I found a paper I wrote as an undergrad titled “Ethnography and Virtual Communities”. And wow my writing has improved in eight years.

Here’s a sample from the paper:

Historically, sociologists have used ethnography “to balance detailed documentation of events with insights into the meaning of those events” (Crabtree). They have noted that there are three basic environments where people interact: where they work, where they live, and the place where they go for companionship. This place that they go for companionship, “the place of idle talk and banter with acquaintances and friends, is often where the sense of membership in a community is achieved and experienced” (Thomsen). Since the traditional places that people would go to experience this idle talk, such as barber shops, pubs or cafes, are essentially gone, “it should not be surprising that millions of people throughout the world turn to the Internet to recreate and reestablish the third sphere of conviviality” (Thomsen).

The references are Steven R. Thomsen, “Ethnomethodology and Study of Online Communities: Exploring the Cyber Streets, 22 April 1998 and Andy Crabtree, The Contribution of Ethnomethodology-Informed Ethnography to the Process of Designing Digital Libraries, May 1988.

I have been interested in this for a long time I guess.

If you click on the little boxes w/ lines, you can read my note. If you want to be able to add to the mindmap, leave your contact info in the comments and I’ll send you an invite.

This post is from a psychology professor who is making his students blog (cool). The prof also focuses on Asperger’s Syndrome.

So he makes is abnormal psych (WHY IS IT CALLED THAT!!) read John Elder Robison’s book, and also blog about it. Well, John has been responding to some of the blog posts. How cool - you are in college, evaluating a book, and the author responds to what you think of his work.

In a bigger sense, you have an aspie responding to what future psychologists (who will no doubt work with other “aspergians”) think about his idea of how the world is. THAT is way cool.

I should be working on my needs analysis paper (it’s for AANE…) but I just don’t wanna……bleh!!!