1) Read the article: “In Defense
of Cheating” by Don Norman; accessible via: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/InDefenseOfCheating.html
and comment on the following issue:

do you agree or disagree with Norman’s
position? Why?

I agree with most
of what Norman is saying in his essay. In a perfect world, it would be a completely
effective way to educate. It seems like the only hurdle to overcome would be
solidifying the motivation in every student. In today's world, children
have so many distractions from school (TV, Video Games, Computers) that it would
be important to have everyone motivated to learn this way, and they would have
to learn that this way is most beneficial to them. I think a more reasonable
and realistic approach would be traditional education for the first part of
a child's education, and then, once they understand more how the world works,
implement this new system of learning. This method of education relies heavily
on motivation and long-term understanding.

how does his view relate to your
own experience in your school, university, and working life (in case you have
worked somewhere sometimes)?

A good portion of
my schooling was in the traditional method, learning individually most of the
time. Once I came to the university level, and especially with the Computer
Science program (which seems to go back and forth on collaboration policy),
I started to realize the power of collaboration. With the programs I wrote in
most every class, code and methods to solve the problem were discussed with
peers in the class. Most large-scale code will never be written individually.
For this reason, it is nice to see a class like Senior Projects enforce that
belief, and encourage a collaborative project.

2) Visit one of the following websites
and explore it as a medium for collaboration

http://www.experts-exchange.com/

I chose this website.

http://www.mamamedia.com

3) Briefly discuss for your chosen
website:

what did you find interesting about
it?

It seems like an
interesting place to find information on IT related topics, with opinions from
many different people. This "forum style" makes finding a real solution
to an IT problem easy. The only thing I found that seemed problematic was that
you have to sign up and pay to use the service. It seems like that doesn't exactly
aid collaboration. I assume they have the registration aspect to censor content,
but it there is probably a better way to deal with that aspect than to limit
the material coming in.

in which way is it related to “collaboration”?

It is related to
collaboration in the fact that users are the ones that provide content and post
messages in order to aid others in finding solutions to their problems.

how does it compare with the Swiki
used for our class?

It is a very similar
style to the Swiki. One difference is that the Swiki allows you to add content
as well as change the code/content backend. This IT site offers users the ability
to post content.

4) which is your favorite website
/ system in support of collaboration (briefly justify your opinion)!

In assignment 1,
I pointed to a site called Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page).
This site is an online encyclopedia that offers maximum functionality as a wiki
(allowing users to add and edit content on all encyclopedic entries). It supports
collaboration by letting different views and opinions insert their beliefs on
a site that is well organized, efficient, and resourceful.

5) have you ever read a book(s) /
article(s) (or books) about collaboration?if
yes:

I have not read any
books on collaboration.

choose the most important one

provide title and one paragraph
what you found interesting about it!