Internet Identity / Communities (Turkle/Wenger)

Humans are social beings, and most of us desire and seek out interaction with other. Through these interactions we form bonds with each other, some stronger than others. From the bonds communities emerge, Wagner's communities of practice, in which we learn from each other, forging and reshaping our identity. And I agree with Wagner that 'learning' generally elicits thoughts of classrooms and homework, but I will attest that some of my most valuable learning experiences took place nowhere near a school. Some of the everyday sort and other of the once in a life time variety.  I will have to go through it again to better understand the details, but I like the systematic approach  and  the general ideas. Better understanding of how we learn within the social communities that we are in is directly applicable to applying Web 2.0 technologies in 'focused' educational environments.I thought Turkle's internet identity piece was interesting. On somethings I completely agree, but on others I don't. Computers have always been just to tool to me, nothing more. Calculation machine, communication facilitator, and on occasion, game system.  The talk about MUD's is a good example of how the anonymity provided by the internet and the vast ease and speed it allows people to communicate and interact with a lot of other people makes the internet and online communities the perfect space for people to experiment with different personae, lesser or desired self attributes, and establish multiple identities. [sorry about the huge run-on, hope it makes sense]  While I'm sure paces like the MUD's discussed still exist, I think that todays extesion of the idea lies in the MMORPG style games. I have a cousin that spends hours and hours playing these games. Most of his friends are those he meet in those games. They have gone the next step in actually creating a virtual world that is explored and inhabited by "virtual" people. The part I love most about them is that real (RL) money changes hands for "virtual" items.However, I did not like culture of simulation analogy. What is simulation but very high order and complex calculation? I do understand what she was trying to say in that the purpose and primary use of computers has changed form the input-output scientific use, with which I agree, mostly. However, computers are not simulating communities or relationships, they are just facilitating human creativity.  I will have to reread that section to better nail down my disagreements. But I will not deny the the day when we will truly be interacting with that actual "computer" is not far off. I envision computers like that of the starship Enterprise (ST:TNG) that had an interacting personality; but the epitome would be an android like Data.That's enough for now.