Social Informatics

Social Informatics, a basis for bildung

2011-01-07T14:08:00.001-08:00

"Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything one learned in school."
— Albert Einstein

One of the most fundamental questions that can be asked about education as such is what it is for and why do we need it? As described in my report “GÅ INN I DIN TID – Fra ide til handling” many computer science students raised the more specific question "Why do we need social informatics?"

The most obvious and generally accepted answer is that education aims at providing students with knowledge and skills which match the demands of employers, thus enabling students to find jobs and employers to find employees, i.e. education has a purly vocational goal. If we look upon the more specific question of why social informatics, we might find the above mentioned goal clearly stated in the California State University Long Beach description of the aim for the course Social Informatics: “This course is designed to help you become an effective working computer professional”[i].

So is education, including Social Informatics, then only concerned with practicality and quickly enabling a student to get a job?

In Greek thinking, the ideal of paideia included the development of moral virtues and logical and rhetorical skills which were thought essential for becoming a good human being and democratic citizen. In a similar vein, today‘s liberal education in the US and other countries aims at providing students with a basis of general, non-specialised knowledge and skills which allow them to contribute actively and positively to society. In German philosophical and educational thought, J. G. Herder, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Hans-Georg Gadamer and others have developed the concept of Bildung, a word which in its most literal sense means formation, but which here refers more specifically to formation or cultivation, in education or otherwise, of human moral virtues and other capacities. (Herder 2002, Humboldt 1791-1792/1993, Gadamer 1960/1989.)

From the 1960s we have, within the Nordic and Germanistic countries, seen a revival of the German concept of Bildung. This 18th century concept was originally constructed for describing a way of combining knowledge and personal growth within a frame of Greek tradition, and it has been transformed into an aim for schooling not just for the elite, but for all students. From being an aim for a very limited group in society it has become an aim for all students. This ambition has implications for our thinking about what knowledge is, how knowledge can be obtained and who should have access to knowledge and culture.

Whereas competences can be described in fairly objective terms, Bildung is a far more complicated term to handle because it implies values, such as respect for tradition of knowledge, art and scientific thinking, judgement, tolerance and generosity towards others, critical thinking and exploration of own reasoning, flexibility of mind, courage in expressing personal opinions. Bildung includes the ability to engage in immanent critique of one’s society, challenging it to actualize its own highest ideals.

In my opinion Social Informatics is all about training computer science students in critical thinking and exploration of their own ways of thinking and arguments, flexibility of mind, courage in expressing personal opinions and challenging society.

[i] http://www.engr.csulb.edu/~jewett/teach/cal1.html

Meet Andrew Vachss live!

2009-01-05T10:35:00.001-08:00

Those of you, who have followed Project Getting Involved from the start, will remember that the New York based lawyer and author Andrew Vachss participated shortly in the project.

At the 24th of September 2003 our department hosted a small conference with speakers from the police, lawyers, Save the Children Norway, Telenor, University of Umeå and our third year Bachelor students. The title of the conference was “Internet - a hiding ground for paedophiles?” With this conference as a backdrop we hosted two online discussion sessions between our students and Andrew Vachss.

These two sessions was meant to be an experimental example on how to teach ethical topics to computer students using Moodle as a communication tool, and was a part of our “Project Getting Involved”

Read more about it here: Online seminar with Andrew Vachss (2003).

It is therefore with pleasure that I further the information that on Wednesday, January the 14th, it will be possible to engage in dialogue with Andrew online, in regard to his last book in the Burke series. Read more about this event at his web site, and register for the meeting here.

What is Social Informatics?

2008-09-01T00:41:00.000-07:00

Is the expression “Social Informatics” (Norwegian: Samfunnsinformatikk) something that best can be used in describing a specific course in Computer Science, or is it an widely accepted term describing a scientific taxonomy?

Take a look at "Information Society: From Theory to Political Practice" (editor: Róbert Pintér).

Do we need to re-define the term "Social Informatics"?

How to teach Social Informatics?

2008-06-03T23:23:00.000-07:00

Dr. Rob Kling, and Dr. Tom Jewett had the view, that it is not possible to teach Social Informatics step-by-step from a traditional textbook. (Jewett & Kling, 1996).

At Nesna University College we have taken this view seriously, and have tried to get our Computer Science Students involved both emotionally and practically in the field of Social Informatics.(Godejord, 2007).

So what do YOU think? How should we teach Social Informatics?

Social Informatics in Second Life

2008-05-12T04:33:00.000-07:00

At Nesna University College (HiNe), Social Informatics takes another Web 2.0 step as its teaching moves from Blogs, Wiki, YouTube and Facebook, and into Second Life.

At HiNe we have a special focus on how people, both young and old, utilize the Internet as a tool for staying connected in small and large communities. Second Life is therefore a very interesting service, and we feel it is only logical to move some of our lecturing into SL.

Norway

2008-01-08T06:29:00.000-08:00

There are no special Centre for Social Informatics in Norway (unfortunately), but some Universities and University Colleges have regular courses in SI. But there is few, if any web based resources, and most of the course web pages seems not to be updated. Here is some exceptions:

Oslo University College, Faculty of Engineering: SI, Spring 2007
Nesna University College: The SI Wiki

Scotland

2008-01-08T06:14:00.000-08:00

Centre for Social Informatics, at the Napier University in Edinburgh.

Slovenia

2008-01-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

The main (and only?) resource in Slovenia is Social-informatics.org at the University of Lubljana.

USA

2008-01-08T06:03:00.000-08:00

Resource in the USA: Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, at Indiana University. Take a look at their People Worldwide page, and if you are not on that list, register now! And if you have a Wiki or a Blog, then put it forward on their Social Networking page.

Social Informatics

2008-01-08T05:51:00.000-08:00

"Social Informatics (SI) refers to the body of research and study that examines social aspects of computerization — including the roles of information technology in social and organizational change and the ways that the social organization of information technologies are influenced by social forces and social practices. SI includes studies and other analyses that are labeled as social impacts of computing, social analysis of computing, studies of computer-mediate communication (CMC), information policy, “computers and society,” organizational informatics, interpretive informatics, etc." (Kling)

This blog is part of my work within the field of how to teach Social Informatics to Computer Science students here at Nesna University College, in Norway, and to Teacher Education students who want to specialize in ICT.

I hope that this blog might provide a meeting ground for those of us who work within this field. At the Rob Kling Center web page, they use the description "isolated and scattered scholars", and that seems indeed to be the case. Those of us who work in this field seems to be few and anonymous compared to other Informatics.

My own work in this field may be viewed on the right side of this blog, in the form of three other blogs and under the heading "Norway" above, and in the following international publications: "Fighting child pornography: Exploring didactics and student engagement in social informatics", "Perspectives on project based teaching and “blended learning” to develop ethical awareness in students", and "Perspectives on Awareness Work in the Field of Sexual Abuse of Children in Digital Media".

I welcome all students and lecturers of SI to contribute to this blog.

Best Regards

Per Arne Godejord

Work related page: http://pgodejord.blogspot.com/
Curiculum Vitae page: http://pagodejord.wordpress.com/
Private related page: http://clanbell.blogspot.com/
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