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Investigate any 2, shortlisted online communities and become a member.
Use a table to describe the objectives, rules of engagement and unique features
of each and report your findings AFTER becoming a member.
Try to find out who is behind the organisation and management of each online community.
Are they true social architects?
Online Communities
| Online Communities | http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc |
|---|---|
| http://www.shufflebrain.com | |
| Objective/s | ...to enable children and their carers to interact with us and with each other in a safe and trusted environment. ....to empower them whilst strengthening our brands. ....provide the best BBC content, a showcase for user-generated material, and the right tools across all the core platforms and devices they use. .....make sure users have easy access to everything we do, whenever they want it, putting CBeebies and CBBC at the forefront of an on-demand future. .....set the expectations of the audience, and most importantly fulfil them. |
| Creating games for social networking “....specializes in creating games and services that enrich your mind, engage your creativity, and connect you up socially. We believe that games are everywhere; games are powerful; games can be a force for good.” “.... creating interactive experiences that are compelling, intuitive and entertaining.” “We want you to have MORE FUN keeping up with your friends. Why just LOOK at photos, videos and status updates when you can PLAY brain-building puzzle games made from that content?” stimulation of the brain while sharing photos | |
| Game/s and Activities | BAMZOOKi, Level Up, Message boards, My cBeebies. Mobile, Trailer maker, Get creative, Me and my movie, More..... |
| Photograb, WordStream – in development | |
| Rules of Engagement | CBBC is geared toward the 7-12yr old age group. Children can only use the site after registering, which basically requires a username, password and valid email address. The site has simple rules and children are encouraged to read them with their parents/guardians before moving into it. There are general copyright rules etc – to ensure that the site is not copied and that any artefacts contributed by students are their own. All this is written in language that the age group would understand – if guided by an adult. Online chatting is moderated – posts are checked before being put onto the site, so it is not real-time chat but this is an important issue with in this age group. Children are asked to “...make sure you ask your parent or guardian for permission before chatting with other children on our message boards and interactive areas.” There are broad guidelines for using the chat and interactives “Remember - never be rude in your messages or give out your full name, home address, school, email address or mobile/home phone number when you're chatting. If you are worried about something you have read on our site, please let us know.” |
| Players are required to be a Facebook member and have a Facebook account to play/use this game. Rules of engagement are basically the rules of the game itself Players are given a circle of details to find in the main picture and 24 seconds to find the spot where those details are in the picture. The score varies – from 20 (perfect) and the lowest score I got was 3 (for being near to the right spot in a difficult game). Most scores are 20, 15(close to the mark), 10 (near to the mark). The player gains various rewards along the way – trivia snippets and awards for attaining levels. Once the game is over, players are rated against friends (from their Facebook list) and others who have played the game previously. Games are rated in difficulty green (easiest) through to red (hardest). | |
| Unique Features | CBBC is affiliated with the British television channel of the same name and gathers a huge range of interactive games and activities to cater for kids aged between 7-12yrs of age. Chats are moderated; with all comments and posts handled by the moderators to ensure they are ok before being posted to the site. My CBBC is a feature to the new CBBC website. It allows the user to create their own "den" or room which the can furnish. It is also possible to create your own avatar. This new feature is heavily promoted on the CBBC Channel |
| Games are integrated and linked into Facebook. Games are user created – anyone can create the game. The user can play the game, leave comments, invite others to join Some competition is present – as high scores of other users/friends are displayed on the screen. | |
| Founders | BBC – UK Lois Walsh Simon Fuller Pete Waterman |
| Amy Jo Kim Scott Kim | |
| Social Architects? | Are the creators true ‘social architects’? It is difficult to “track down” the actual creators of CBBC – Children’s BBC. My guess is that there are many people involved in site design and implementation under the banner of the BBC – British Broadcasting Commission and the actual creators of the site are well hidden. It is a designed social space, however, which appears to meet its objectives and actually helps others to meet theirs too. It enables interaction through games, moderated chat, search, voting, news contributions, reviews, constant news updates and probably many other things I missed as it is a huge site. The site also contains resources for parents and teachers based around informing them and helping to keep their kids “safe” on the net as well as dealing with issues they may be confronted with in day to day life – such as bullying, family structure etc. In this way it does allow people to act on what matters to them. |
| Where CBBC have all the community interaction happening on the pages of one site – with links to other sites that may be of interest, the Shufflebrain site – is only part of the online community. There is information and blogs regarding social networking attached to the Shufflebrain site but its game – Photograb - actually works as link to a much bigger community site – Facebook. Being able to play Photograb only through Facebook, means if one player chooses to play it, the game can automatically interact with any friends that person has within their Facebook community and touches a much wider range of people than having it “googled” or stumbled across on one site. The option to post notes about scores achieved etc. to the pages of Facebook friends would automatically stir up some competitiveness and challenge friends to outdo each other. It also gives people the opportunity to interact with others outside their immediate group of friends and widen their personal connections within the community. The game is marketed well too – not just “a game” but a game to “enrich and stimulate the mind”. Many people would be “hooked” by this line and be able to justify their use of it by this endorsement. Using Photograb does allow people to act on what matters to them – building self-confidence, sense of achievement, healthy/fun competition, reputation, not to mention mind stimulation and of course, broadening their online community in a time when it is deemed important to do so. |
