Concept 3

3. Effective Internet communication combines technical and communicative competence.

People who know their email programs inside out and can number the dozens of official documents relating to mail protocols often send hopeless email messages; people who, face-to-face or on paper, communicate brilliantly often stumble when on the Internet. Why? Well, besides general issues about intelligence and knowledge not being enough for communication, the answer lies in the fact that the technologies of Internet communication are not 'invisible': because they are new (to most of us) and change the rules about communication we can't divorce (say) writing skill from knowing what an email program does when it store messages. Both aspects are essential.
Because Internet technologies for communication are so much more powerful in their ability to manipulate, transform and process data (a pen, for example, can't store words as well as write them), information processing and communicative skills must be developed in concert.
Similarly, advanced searching involves the development of both techniques (including, for example, detailed knowledge of Boolean logic, but also speed in filling out search engines), and also informational competence, in which you instinctively consider and apply your knowledge of the ways information can be categorised and organised, translating from others classifications into the pattern that you are establishing. Technical skill in searching is not, thus, sufficient.

Refelection on effective internet communication combining technical and communicative competence has lead me to think that the unfamiliarity of these skills due to them generally not being required in concert before the 'techno age' has contributed to there being 90% sub-standard incomplete and generally useless content on the internet and only 10% intelligent and worthwhile matter. This ratio is a guess, but it illustrates my opinion of my first impressions on the internet.

The skills which a beginner on the internet can master easily is copy and paste. There is unlimited space, a massive amount of duplicity and it seems to be run by lunatics. I believe the internet to be literally full of the whole worlds musing and ramblings.

I found the internet very frustrating to begin with. I could see that the information contained on its various indexes, blogs, websites and directories compelled me to want to communicate, but the manner of putting the words out there was so inhibitive, I simply could not work out how to do it. To start with I satisfied myself with surfing. This Net 11 course has encompassed my very first attempts to communicate on the internet.

Writing for the internet and being included in the top 10% of the content found there ideally would be, articulate, accurate, easily found, responded to, impressive to view, easy to read and understand, fast, relevant and original.

Welcome to my blog. I am not sure that it encompasses any of the above hopes, but they are the perameters I have tried to apply whilst I have attempted to learn as many skills as posssible which would help me to meet those objectives.

My lack of technical skills has meant that I have often resisted responding to even a group email through lack of confidence as to the scope of the technology. My worst fear was always to respond to everyone in my address book. Not being technically literate is akin to having a disability the more the internet world evolves.

Technical literacy has been hard to learn because many of the ways the internet searches like 'Boolean logic' can feel like a desparate form of logic at first. You throw every associated phrase you can think of at a seemingly impossible search. It feels very hit and miss until you offer up specific facts of what you are looking for then it literally has all the answers.

Coupling writing with technical skills is not the only hurdle. The system of computers and data itself is relatively unstable. It is quite feasible that the internet site is down for some reason, or the email is down, or there is a change of email address that hasn't been communicated. Or the web site links don't work. These are not problems which are controlled by the user. These moments require us to down tools and wait or seek an alternative method of communication.

It is in this alternating between communication platforms that the information loses its potency. Internet communication can give a lot of confidence to the user when it works but can seem so flimsy when important information is delayed because of a computer glich. 520 words

Kaplan, M., C (2007). Herp Care Collection. Assessing and Validating Information Found on the Internet
http://www.anapsid.org/internet/assessnet.html
This website outlines a useful process to validate information found on the internet. It also offers many on- line and text resources which may support a persons efforts to validate information found on the internet.It is a page which the writer encourages participation from readers to include new resources as they come to hand. The writer seeks to reinforce the need for awareness of the potential lack of integrity which may affect information from the web.

Anderson, C., C(2004). The Long Tail. Wired Magazine Issue 12.10.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
This article is about the ease of finding buyers on the web for obscure and secondary products which have been knocked back in the original marketing selection process. The ease of putting things up to be found on the web is simpler to 'just do it' than to spend time analysing the value of making such an item available. This is the complete opposite to marketing prior to the internet where available space to display and production costs reduced the options available to a particular buying market.