Great Youtube video on web 2.0

I came across this video on UNM's nursing website. It's a great compilation of concepts on Web 2.0, produced by Kansas State University.

So while I'm sharing it with the world, via my blog, this is really a self-serving posting acting as a placeholder to keep the video until such time that I can actually sit down and play and replay it (for nuances).

http://hsc.unm.edu/consg/concast/video.shtml

Enjoy!

Communities and Networks

Question 1: In Gray's article about Communities of Practice, facilitators are needed to keep communities of practice together and strong. Kavanaugh's article focuses on the role of someone who is a bridge, who connects the groups together. Bridges are usually more social. So my question is, it seems as though facilitator and bridge have strong overlap in the Gray article, but with Kavanaugh's focus on the nature of the role, how would you best hold a Community of Practice together if the facilitator was not also a bridge?

Question 2: Communities of Practice work partially because of the overlap of common interest (interest keeps it together). If the social structure of the participants is identified and considered, is a COP with many bridgers able to be more diverse in their thinking (possibly offering more perspectives, thus more learning) than non-bridgers, or is subject matter the essential element, and if the information is to diverse, the COP falls apart?

Class Discussion questions March 2nd.

My questions for this week are idiosyncratic -- Johannes just defined the term. The questions don't really fit in context with the articles, but they are relevent to me, since I have been researching social networking, computing, and technlogies all week.

So here goes.

1. From the tagging, communities, vocabulary, and evolution article:
can tags go viral without a secondary, or cross referenced vehicle, like youtube or facebook?

and

2. from the College student Web use, perceptions of information credibility, and verification behavior article.

The article talks about how librarians are quite adept at research and reference, yet students struggle. why doesn't K-12 curriculum stress this necessary skill -- or is it necessary?