Tag: Reciprocal Altruism

Sharing, Giving

I received a video alert from John Kessel this morning.

He shared a YouTube link that a friend had shared with him.

I thought I would embed the video here as it resonates powerfully with my thoughts about reciprocal altruism.

After watching the video, I saw by chance a different take on sharing and giving … during a night out in Boston, Lincolnshire:

Both videos prompted me to think about the alternatives to the kindness shared … a young boy taken to a police station, a group of friends vandalising.

I am hopeful that moments of kindness triumph most of the time. I hope you enjoy the videos.

 

Sharing Openly and Open About Sharing

I glimpsed a tweet by Richard Byrne this morning:

Just sent this to a good friend who had much of her blog’s content plagiarized. So Your Content Got Stolen, Now What? http://bit.ly/H79gXu

I have a great interest in open access and sharing so followed up on Richard’s lead.

I discovered an excellent resource on his blog Free Technology for Teachers.

Richard’s tweet linked to a post from 24 May 2011 that contains some detailed advice.

  • What to do when you see your blog posts being stolen
  • What to do if you want to reuse someone’s blog post(s)

Richard links to Sue Waters‘s advice too:

I have followed Richard and Sue’s work for some time and am awe struck by their altruism. Bloggers like Richard and Sue (as well as the indefatigable Stephen Downes) have inspired me to encourage students to develop their own e-portfolios.

I hope I have encouraged them to understand that reciprocal altruism is a wonderful characteristic of open access. I will affirm with them Richard’s point from Sue:

… while the web is all about sharing, it’s also important to respect the time and effort that a person puts into his or her blog posts.

This means that we must be careful about the auto posting RSS feeds noted in Richard’s update.

I will remind them about Creative Commons licences too.

Photo Credit

Sharing

 

 

Live Blogging Synchronous Sharing

Reading Stephen Downes’ OLDaily is akin for me to entering Aladdin’s Cave.

My day starts with Stephen’s newsletter and a piccolo latte.

Yesterday I enjoyed Stephen’s post on How to Get the Most out of a Conference and followed up on his link to Matt Thompson’s post 5 reasons to liveblog instead of live tweeting.

I liked the detail in Matt’s post.

I am keen to blog about the talks, workshops and conferences I attend. I do so out of a sense of privilege and of a commitment to open sharing. I use my WordPress blog for my live blogging and tweet briefly about a topic or a speaker. Last week, for example, I attended the Launch of the Human-Centred Computer Laboratory at the University of Canberra and made a small number of tweets with #HCCL.

Matt suggests that live blogging:

  • Enables attention and engagement
  • Encourages writing
  • Is a service

(I have condensed his list of five characteristics to three.)

For my part live blogging is an ethnographic activity. It is an an opportunity to share a cultural context and whenever possible to provide thick description. It is an opportunity for reciprocal altruism too. A commitment to connected sharing. Thirdly, I do think that it is a phenomenographic activity. It is a personal opportunity to observe and share particular events.