Over Two-Hundred Education & Science Blogs * † - Department of ...

Appendix A. Two Social Networking Spheres
1. Academic Discussion List* Sphere [ADLsphere - pronounced “addle-sphere”
(no pun intended ;-)]
a. Some Strengths of the ADLsphere
(1) Dan MacIsaac (2000) [this APA style formatting means that the full reference can
be found in the REFERENCES list below] in “Communities of on-line physics
educators,” discusses the nature of academic discussion lists in physics (similar
comments apply to similar lists for other disciplines):
“It’s a physics educator’s dream—a readily available group of like-minded people with a
variety of backgrounds and expertise who want to discuss physics and physics pedagogy
with their peers. For the teacher who is feeling overscheduled, isolated, or lonely this
‘coffee klatch’ opportunity is a boost that lasts all day and on into the night. We’re talking
about the virtual world of electronic mailing lists that are dedicated to the teaching and
learning of physics. This electronic community is bound together through shared
information and experience, an on-line culture that comprises high-school, college, and
university instructors, researchers, hobbyists, students, retired teachers, and amateurs.”
(2) Amitai and Oren Etzioni (1997) in “Communities: Virtual vs. Real” wrote
(paraphrasing):
“Virtual on-line communities complement and reinforce ‘real’ off-line communities and
have several advantages over the latter, e.g.:
(a) easy communication over national borders and time zones;
(b) inclusion of homebound (aged, ill, or handicapped) people;
(c) accommodation of more individuals than off-line meeting rooms;
(d) strong memories;
(e) high safety;
(f) allowance for exploration of new relationships and identities – as documented by
MIT's Sherry Turkle (1997), and
(g) indifference to physical appearance and off-line identity.”
(3) Discussion lists running on the popular LISTSERV
software feature excellent archives and powerful search engines that allow searches by
keywords, author, subject title, date, or any combination of those. I know of no such
search engines in the Blogosphere.
(4) In “Over Sixty Academic Discussion Lists. . .” [Hake (2007)], I wrote:
“. . . . . Academic Discussion Lists provide an effective but seldom used mechanism for
tunneling through interdisciplinary barriers, caused in part by the traditional departmental
structure of universities. This underutilized potential for education research and
development is represented schematically . . . .[on the next page]. . . ”
Similar figures would apply to other types of R & D. The partially open window between
Astronomy- and Physics-education research and development in the top figure appears to
be a fortunate carryover from the traditional close links between those two disciplines in
non-educational basic research.
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* A subset of what Wikipedia calls “Electronic Mailing
Lists.”
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