Nikki's E-learning and Digital Cultures site » Bell http://edc13.education.ed.ac.uk/nikkib Nikki's E-Learning and Digital Cultures site - part of the MSc in E-learning at the University of Edinburgh Thu, 30 May 2013 09:29:15 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.1 Petri…fied cyberspace http://edc13.education.ed.ac.uk/nikkib/2013/02/25/312/ http://edc13.education.ed.ac.uk/nikkib/2013/02/25/312/#comments Mon, 25 Feb 2013 23:05:10 +0000 Nikki Bourke http://edc13.education.ed.ac.uk/nikkib/?p=312

Rheingold (1993) uses the petri dish as a metaphor for cyberspace.

I love this analogy for the simple reason that it highlights the possibilities of cyberspace running parallel to offline reality. All too often there is the automatic expectation that all of our online experiences should be perfect simply because they are online, because they may materialize as bespoke as we shape them to be.

The idea of the social petri dish that mirrors our flaw-filled RL is refreshing.

[further elaboration on this over the next couple of days]

]]> http://edc13.education.ed.ac.uk/nikkib/2013/02/25/312/feed/ 1