| Communities Resolving Our Problems: the basic idea | ||
| [SUP: Sharing Problems] | [THINK: Guidance] | [LEAP: Solving Problems] |
To "evoke" is to compose so as to stimulate the thinking and action of others. It is the second stage of the LEAP problem processing model. The location of the tools for composition have been migrating from personal computers to globally accessible Internet servers. This sweeping change opens the composition process to more collaborative activity shared among many on a web site. The challenge for composers is to find, blend and organize the best suite or palette of composition tools for a given setting. Categories below can be reached quickly via these in-document links: OS; data storage; word processing/wikis; graphic organizers/outliners; page design; blogging; email; social networks; address books; calendar; numbers; programming; mapping; image editors; databases; audio; project management; music; video; dance; sports; 2D animation; 3D animation; Virtual reality; multimedia; suites; flatworld processor.
| Composition Tools Comparison Chart | |
| Webtop-Based | Desktop-Based |
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Desktop Operating Systems |
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File & application management: goal to replace your PC desktop and run any application from the web
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File & application management: Free
Commercial
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| Data Storage | Data Storage |
Goal to replace portable storage media and become primary storage with actual local hard drive seen as temporary or cache storage. Success of the concept will require great bandwidth, not dial-in and great online storage capacity. There are general sites and media specific sites. Storing, sharing and promotion/advertising are increasingly merged into one system.
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Each personal computer ships with its own internal hard drive and provides ports for portable storage media. If stored locally, for sharing it must still be transferred to a "publication" system like paper, CD or DVD or a web site. |
|
Desktop Word Processing |
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| Though most applications are on a local computer, increasingly they can be run from the Net without taking up hard drive space on a local computer and often for free or low cost. The examples listed under these categories are but a tiny sample of the thousands being currently used. For more, use web search engines to hunt for the appropriate key words. | You can use standard methods of starting an application, but as shown below, if you wish, you can train your browser to find and start your applications. If you have the widely used applications below and have followed the directions for linking your browser, you can use the links below to start these applications. |
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| Graphic Organizers/Outliners | Graphic Organizers/Outliners |
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| Webtop Page Design | Desktop Page Design |
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| Blogging | |
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| Web Email Applications | Desktop Email Applications |
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| Web Social Networks | Desktop Social Networks |
Applications for creating social networks come in many different
structures and serve many different purposes, including entertainment, business
meetings and online teaching and learning.
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This approach is best known as "sneaker net". The contrast with web-based social networks is stark. Interaction time is radically slower than web based interaction. The desktop equivalent of social networking is to put the data on some media and carry or ship it to someone or some group. The media might be paper, videotape, CD, DVD, floppy diskette, USB drive, portable hard drive, any physical object, or even a handheld or laptop computer. Networking hubs might be a library, the post office, or the NetFlix system. |
| Web Address Book Systems | Desktop Address Book Systems |
| Plaxo ; GoodContacts ; |
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| Web Calendar and Appointment Tracking | Desktop Calendar and Appointment Tracking |
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Desktop-Numbers |
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| Web-Programming | Desktop-Programming |
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| Webtop Map Design | Desktop Map Design |
| Web-Still Image Editing | Desktop-Still Image Editing |
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|
| Web-Databases | Desktop-Databases |
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Fee or free Fee |
Databases build searchable and sortable collections of data, as well as provide for form letter merge designs. The database can also do some basic numeric calculations based on numbers. (A database tutorial is available.) Examples of database applications include FileMaker Pro; Microsoft Access, and the database application within Appleworks and Microsoft Works. |
| Web-Audio | Desktop-Audio |
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| Web Project Management | Desktop Project Management |
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| Web-Music | Desktop-Music |
| Jam Tomorrow (alphaware for the Croquet system) |
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| Web-Video | Desktop-Video |
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Hosting and bandwidth
Editing
The full feature set-shoot, capture, encode/compress, upload and serve in widely accessible format (overview of competitors)
|
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| Web-Dance | Desktop-Dance |
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none |
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| Web-Sports | Desktop-Sports |
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none |
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| Web-Animation | Desktop-Animation |
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http://www.gifworks.com/, free gif animation |
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| Web-3D & animation | Desktop-3D and animation |
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Worlds.com; Activeworlds; OuterWorlds; There.com; Second Life and its machinima. |
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| Web-Virtual Reality | Desktop-Virtual Reality |
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| Web-Multimedia | Desktop-Multimedia |
Online tools for creating multimedia online:
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Web Application Suites: combos of apps |
Desktop Application Suites: |
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If innovation is the process of applying creative
ideas to problems and coming up with solutions, entrepreneurship is the
innovative process of building self-sustaining systems that apply
solutions to problems. Flatworld is both a social and technical platform
on which anyone with Internet access can compete and collaborate
globally. To operate on this platform, the world needs flatworld
processors, mashups of both desktop and webtop computer systems and tools that support
entrepreneurship. That is, where are the software tools to support the creation of self-sustaining organizations, whether profit or non-profit? As they move beyond concept, a series of questions will need answering. What are they? Where are
they? Which one is most elegant?
Concept Reading
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As Web-based tools such as those in the left column of the table have appeared, they have generally incorporated critical characteristics of the Internet, notably the capacity to collaborate more easily. If your word processing file is stored on the Web then it is a simple step to choose to make it editable by others. The online applications further encouraged teamwork and partnership. This development led to the emergence of label of Web 2.0 for a second generation Internet where "applications and their data reside on the Web itself" (Bull & Ferster, 2005-06) not on a local computer's hard drive. The webtop trend is also being extended to web-based operating systems and application clusters (Lyons, 2006). Others have seen new economic impact that emerges from mass collaboration, leading to the creation of new business models (Tapscott & Williams, 2006).
A transformation from personal to global teams is underway. Professor Wesch's youtube video below illustrates some additional aspects of this transformation.
As the table shows, software tools exist for composing Words, Outlines, Email, Social Networks, Numbers, Databases, Maps, Project Management, Programming, Still Images, Audio, Video, Music, Dance, Animation, Multimedia and more. At first these applications were proprietary commercial products that ran only on desktop computers. When necessary, email attachments and FTP were used to share data files between desktop applications. Now, not only are these applications (e.g., apps) increasingly available as free desktop-based tools, but they are increasingly available as a set of Internet-based web apps or Webtop-based tools (e.g., virtual desktop).
Problem solvers have always picked appropriate combinations of media and applications for gathering and communicating thoughts. Now, before selecting the application that is needed, the first choice to make is whether to find and run Web software from the Net or find and run software from the hard drive of a personal computer. Desktop based tools can run without the network, web-based tools cannot. Desktop tools often have more in-depth features but webtop apps are generally easier to use and are available on any networked computer not just one the one on which you installed the application that you bought. The two column list in the table is meant to be representative, not comprehensive of these choices, but new examples are always welcome and highly prized. Many of the web-based applications in the left column represent a point on a continuum between requiring a special client application and being totally web-based along with many other characteristics that indicate a Web 2.0 perspective (O'Reilly, 2005).
In reaction to a discovered problem/opportunity, composers must express themselves clearly and with such evocative quality that they attract the caring and interest of others. That computers can be as expressive an instrument as a paint brush is not widely accepted, yet computer composition tools are ubiquitous for a wide range of needs. This expressive quality requires mastery of the concept of the application as well as mastery of many of its techniques. Once the basics of an application are understood, it is this mastery of the application to solve particular problems that must become the goal, not merely its selection and use from the webtop or desktop.
Evoke Thinking Skills - focus your composition with frame-your-question examples.
Bibliography