A Little Help From My Friends

This article is based on a talk given at a one-day meeting in NUI, Maynooth on the Fourth of April, 2008, held to honour David Walsh and Richard Watson

With a Little Help From My Friends...

Do I have enough friends

Sense-making with a little help from my friends

The work of Ezequiel Di Paolo and Hanne De Jaegher has helped to transform the enactive approach from relative obscurity into a hotly debated contender for the future science of social cognition and cognitive science more generally. In this short introduction I situate their contributions in what I see as important aspects of the bigger picture that is motivating and inspiring them as well as the rest of this young community. In particular, I sketch some of the social issues that go beyond mere academic debate, including how the methods and assumptions that inform orthodox cognitive science are intrinsically related to the critical state of affairs in our world today. I conclude with some personal recollections in order to give an idea of the context in which their ideas, and mine as well, came to fruition

I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends

A qualitative study was completed to find if transition related skills of the young adults with intellectual disabilities improved while living for five years at the Friendship House. The Friendship House is a special dorm where individuals with intellectual disabilities live side by side with graduate students. Each of these young adults with intellectual disabilities were interviewed with an instrument that aligned with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) entitled the Transition Planning Inventory (TPI). Findings from the TPI show that living at the Friendship House has helped these individuals improve their IDEA transition related skills of employment, home living, recreation/leisure and community participation. Areas of continual improvement include self-determination skills and social skills. Overall, the individuals with intellectual disabilities have grown in their IDEA transition related skills while living in this unique dorm

With a little help from my friends: The Irish radio industry's strategic appropriation of social network sites for commercial growth.

Ireland has faced significant economic hardship since 2008, with the Irish radio industry suffering as advertising revenues evaporated. The difficult economic circumstances have forced radio station management to devise new and cost effective ways of generating much-needed income. The answer has come in the form of Facebook, the leading Social Network Site (SNS) in Ireland. Using Ireland as a case study, this chapter looks at how radio station management are utilising the social network strategically in a bid to enhance their audiences and revenues. Radio station management consider Facebook to be an invaluable promotional tool which is very easily integrated into radio programming and gives radio a digital online presence, reaching far greater audiences than possible through broadcasting. Some radio stations are showing ambition and are realising the marketing potential that Facebook and other SNSs hold. However, key changes in practice, technology and human resources are required to maximise the profit-making possibilities offered by Facebook.N/

With a little help from my friends: music consumption and networks

It is widely accepted that a shift has occurred in the cultural consumption patterns of those higher in the social strata. Where tastes were based around rules of exclusion, they are now based on openness to a variety of cultures, both esoteric and popular. What is less understood is how an individual’s social networks affect their cultural tastes. Using social survey data on cultural participation, we find that musical consumption is mediated and construed through networks, and these networks play a much more significant role in cultural behaviour than current theoretical frameworks suggest

With a Little Help from My Friends: Use of Recommendations at School

In this exploratory paper, we study the usage of recommendations by and for children (ages 9 to 11) in an educational setting. From our preliminary analysis, it becomes apparent that recommender systems (RS) could provide extra support to and help children successfully complete inquiry tasks. Nonetheless, children have difficulty in recognizing the role of RS, in terms of aiding information discovery for classroom assignments. Findings from our study set a foundation that can inform future design and development of RS for children that support classroom-related work