I had a conversation with Scott Weingart the other day, prompted by this plaintive cry:
Brain is broken this AM. Need suggestions for inclass exercises to teach SNA. Can't depend on there being computers: must be analog. Help?—
Shawn Graham (@electricarchaeo) October 15, 2012
Backstory: I’m teaching a class where we are looking at maps and networks and archaeological data, as ways of understanding how cities and countryside blur into one another in the ancient world. Last week, we played iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma’s with playing cards (thanks to this site by Alannah Morrison) as part of a discussion about Agent Based Modeling.
Which brings me to the conversation with Scott. Today, we’re playing with Gephi and making network models of the character relationships in our favourite TV shows. The next step is to combine the two lessons to address the question: what flows over networks? What do different network shapes imply, and what kinds of metrics answer what kinds of questions? So I think I’ll set up two different networks with the students – literally, I’ll arrange students in a line, a star, etc – and have them play iterated Prisoner’s Dilemmas with the people to whom they’re connected. We’ll use playing cards to represent payoffs… and hopefully we’ll see the cards flow over the network.
I thank Scott for his suggestions!
@electricarchaeo If students randomly align & pass a ball randomly across connections, person who gets it most will have highest pagerank.—
Scott Weingart (@scott_bot) October 15, 2012
@electricarchaeo Create scale-free, preferential attachment effects by students one-by-one choosing someone to connect to, with the more (+)—
Scott Weingart (@scott_bot) October 15, 2012
@electricarchaeo (+) someone is already connected, the more likely you'll connect to them (maybe using lottery cards?) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barab%C3%…—
Scott Weingart (@scott_bot) October 15, 2012
Then we’ll turn to Netlogo’s community models of network dynamics. That is, they will. The classroom computer is so locked down that I can’t run a freaking java applet in the classroom.
Anyway, that’s the plan for today.
