Semester in Review

Self-directed Learning / Personal Blog Posts

Personally, I loved the self directed learning aspect of this class. I loved being able to chose what I studied and follow my interests in whatever direction I chose. I often spent more time on these small "assignments" than I normally would simply because I enjoyed the topic I was learning about. I chose to focus mostly on Video Games and the issues surrounding openness. I also did some work on remix for the group project. Generally my method of research was just finding articles, starting with a Google Search and branching out from there to see what the internet thought about my chosen topics.

Blog Posts:

Book Review of All Your Base are Belong to Us

Some Reflections about Video Gaming

Categories of Remix

Machinima

The Horror of Transformation

Frankenstein and Remix

Reading:

All Your Base are Belong to Us

Gaming Can Do Good

(Related to Openness) Net Neutrality

Windows 8 and Openness

Gaming in the Real World

Gaming is Good for You?

Google + Posts

The above is by no means all the work I did, but it's a good sampling.

Collaboration

One of the most important things that I did for my group was give it a kick in the pants. When we had failed to agree on what to do by midterm, I started working. I figured that my group would either love what I was doing an jump on board or hate it and come up with something else. The second happened, which I was totally fine with. Here is what I came up with in the meantime:

Proposal

Video Mock Up

A Blog on my Successful Failed Coup

I also helped with prototyping, story boarding, coming up with the story line for our flash video. I also drew several pieces of concept art for Curtis' roommate to work from. I helped to present to the copyright office and I also contributed several sections to the blog.

I'll be honest, I wasn't all that helpful to the other groups. I offered my assistance to the Little Big Planet Group, but I never heard back from them and so I never moved forward with that. I also talked with Katie on several occasions to express my interest in her group's project, hoping to validate further what she was doing. I put out a call to my writer friends when the Novel group needed writers (though none responded) and a call to my artist friends when one of the groups was looking for some crowd sourced art for something (I don't remember what-the Novel group again maybe). But that's about it.

To the class in general-I think that I made good, relevant comments and asked useful questions.I also put together a post on Machinima and briefly described the topic for the class. Also, I was the class' Minecraft expert and a semi-expert on video games!

Other's Assistance 

Tara really generated some interest for me, mainly with the topics that she brought up on Google +. The Badges group has inspired me to continue my learning through the internet, perhaps even with badges. I was also really excited by what the Little Big Planet Group was doing.

Digital Literacy

Consume-I've become a much smarter consumer. I've learned that there are other sources out there than just CNN and Wikipedia. I've learned how to search blogs and use Twitter as a search engine. I even tried an RSS feed, but it wasn't pretty enough for me =) Basically I learned how to learn better and more effectively.

Create-I've become much more aware of my ability to contribute useful things to the internet world. Particularly with blogging. Before this class I saw blogging as so much shouting into the void. In some ways, it is. But it has also allowed me to have a voice in a way that I haven't before. I can express my ideas clearly and concisely (or not) without being interrupted or (initially) argued with, but I can still be informal. I intend to continue blogging after this class, though I will avoid the dreaded Mommy Blog.

Connect-This is the category that I still struggle with. I just plain have a hard time putting myself out there. I'm afraid of being shot down or laughed at. I'm still working up the courage to Tweet someone about something consequential. What if they answer and I have to engage in a conversation that I am not prepared for? But I'm moving forward. I'm maintaining my Twitter account and remaining linked to the issues that I see as important so that, when I get brave, I can join the conversation in a meaningful way.

All boiled down? Great class and I learned a lot!

I Feel Cool.

I guess this is kind of like my pre self-evaluation blog post. Less academic than my real one will be.

I'm feeling pretty cool right now. Why? I figured out how to embed a Prezi on a Google site. Granted, it wasn't all that hard to figure out. All I had to do was Google "How to embed a Prezi," and select the appropriate video. But, before this class, I didn't even know how to create a link on a blog, much less embed something. I don't remember learning it specifically, but I doubt that I even knew what "embed" meant, at least in the context of a website.

After doing this I realized that I really can teach myself almost anything I want by using the internet. Before this class I knew that it was theoretically possible for a person to teach themselves a professional skill via digital media, but now I can see that it is possible for me, Gwendolyn Hammer, to do it. Not only is it possible, but I've already taught myself some small things! I dove it without really realizing what I was doing.

So I'm setting a goal for myself: to continue my New Media related self-directed learning after the semester ends. This way I can learn things that would otherwise require me to do things like talk to people. Ew. So, I would like to:

1. Learn some coding! I plan on doing this through Minecraft, since that will be an interesting way to get started. I will use websites such as this one and videos such as this.

2. Learn how to get going on family history research! I've taken the advice to start with myself and record everything I know, but I'm so scared of doing something wrong that I haven't gone any further.

Who knows? Maybe I'll even keep up this blog =].

Final Questions

Objective

1.What is Machinima? (Question type 2)
a. A website related to Threadless.
b. Markus Persson's (coder for Minecraft) avatar on Twitter.
c. An issue related to Identity Tourism.
d. The use of video game engines to create movies.

Answer: Here and here.

2. How is copyright law different now than it was 20 years ago? (Question type 5)
a. It's not; the law basically covers the same things and addresses the same issues
b. If a material is on the internet (especially on Usenet) then it's in the public domain and you
can't be prosecuted for using it (Look here, number 3).
c. Copyright used to be enacted only on corporations, but today lawsuits are enacted against individuals more frequently.
d. Most of what is done on the internet is done under fair use (here again, but number 4)

Answer:

Remix on Prezi

What is the value of prototyping?
a. It allows you sound more professional
b. It allows you to get your ideas moving; it's like sloppy copy or a rough draft: rough edged ideas
c. It allows you to demonstrate an product or goal to an intended audience or buyer and make adjustments based on social feedback.
d. All of the above!

Related posts and sites:
A Failed Coup
RERO

Subjective

1. Although the internet allows us to access endless information, it does not mean that we can sit back and relax. We have to actively engage in the issues that are  important to us, and we have to go beyond the first few search results on Google.

Related Posts
He-Man
Update to He-Man
The Internet and Politics

2.The Internet has a way of democratizing everything, but there are always people who will fight for control. It is important to keep the internet as free and unrestricted as possible.

Related Links
Highbrow Lowbrow
Open Content
Can an Apple Addict be an Advocate for Openness?
(Look under Copyright/Fair Use)

How the Digital Age Helped Fascilitate My Thanksgiving.

My husband and I are in our first year of being married. Even though we live only one city away from both sets of parents, we decided to do holidays on our own this year. We want to establish ourselves as a separate, new family with our own traditions, and we felt that one way to do this was to spend the holidays away from our families. I think both my Mom and my mother-in-law were slightly disappointed, but they were both really good sports about it.

Last week was our first big holiday alone together: Thanksgiving. The week before last we made a list of things that we had to have or it wouldn't be Thanksgiving, and pretty much left it at that. I'm not the greatest at planning ahead for meals, and my husband and I both had big assignments and projects due right before the break, so we didn't think about shopping or gathering recipes until about Tuesday night. By then it was crunch time, as we wanted to brine the turkey for at least 12 hours before cooking it. In a panic, we called our mothers and asked them to email us recipes and methods. 

Now, we could have simply done a Google or Pinterest search for what we needed, but we wanted to have the specific recipes that we loved, so we started with asking the experts. Then, when we were unclear on what to do beyond our mothers' instructions, we turned to the internet. We did end up doing several Google searches to supplement the turkey advice that we got, as well as finding a sweet potato recipe.

On the day of, we both called our moms several times for tips and tricks and then again to report on the overall success of the endeavor (in case you're wondering, my stuffing came out slightly soggy and we didn't have any rolls because the turkey cooked an hour faster than anticipated, but otherwise we succeeded fully! )

I realize that emails, Google, and cellphones are no longer considered to be revolutionary technology and the ways that they helped us were relatively minor, but I am still grateful for them. If our first Thanksgiving had been as late as 15 years ago, all we would have been able to do short notice would be to call our moms on a land-line, making it much harder to have the Thanksgiving that we wanted.

I'm looking forward to the way that the Digital Age will bring my family together on Christmas: a Skype call from my missionary brother.

An Update: We Have the Power (?)

Last week I saw this article about one aspect of Twitter reaction to the election. Specifically people saying things like "Obama won! We get to keep our foodstamps!" I've been think about it and trying to find a way to talk it ever since then.

But then I realized! This is one small way that I already resolved the dilemma that I raised in my last post: The possibility of using the internet to inform ourselves despite the biased media. 

When I read the article, I realized that this was coming from a biased source (everyone is biased in one way or another, ammirite?) and was worried about taking what I saw at face value. So, I read the comments. I got a lot of agreement with what was being said, some disagreement and points raised that disputed what I had seen in the article (for example: were these people being sarcastic?); basically what you'd expect. But that wasn't good enough for me. So I did my own search on Twitter: I searched for #foodstamps. I saw for myself what people were saying about foodstamps. I saw the "raw data" as it were, and was able to draw my own conclusions.

The point it that the "raw" information was out there for me to examine, I just had to find a way to find it. In this case it wasn't all that hard, but I'm feeling encouraged that it's possible to draw our own conclusions. 

Are We He-Man or Not?

This relates somewhat to my last post.

So, I know next to nothing about He-Man. I think his nemesis is called Skeletor. But one thing that I know for sure is that he yells "I HAVE THE POWER!" periodically, though I don't know why.

In general, I kind of feel this way about the internet. I can learn about ANYTHING. If I want to know about iterative and incremental development, Goolge and Wikipedia can tell me. And, even if Google or Wikipedia doesn't have any direct results on what I am looking for, the knowledge can probably be found on the internet somewhere, somehow. When I find something that I'm looking for, I feel like He-Man:

But then I read this article by Orson Scott Card. In it he berates the media for covering up one of Obama's serious mistakes (crimes) until it couldn't affect the vote anymore. He goes on to describe the way that the media is biased towards Obama and so on and so forth; stuff that we've all heard but maybe not as eloquently as Card puts it.

But it made me wonder: are we, despite the internet, still dependent on the biased (in either direction; I'm looking at you, Fox News) media? I think most people acknowledge that we are heavily influenced by the media, but how much are they stunting or unfairly influencing us in important ways? How can we know if/when they are withholding information? How do we combat it? Does it just come down to comparing two or more different sources of differing opinions and weighing them against each other?

The problem with that is that I feel like I'm still not getting the whole picture. It may be that information about Obama's mistake was available through the internet before the general media let it out, but if that's the case how would I have found it? How would I have known to look?

Do we, as internet users, truly have the power to get at all the information that we need?

The Success of a Failed Coup

Our group started out with some fabulous ideas. But then we struggled a little bit. When it came to be mid semester and we didn't have a concrete idea of what our "thing" was going to be,  I was getting worried. So, I decided to hijack the group project and start working. My hope was that my group would love what I was doing and jump on board, or that they would hate it and come up with a creative alternative. Guess what! It worked. They came up with something far more creative and less ho-hum than what I was working on (I say this in all sincerity- my feelings are not hurt in the least).

So, here is what I came up with.

This was the first step.

Then Curtis sent me the relevant videos, and this is as far as we got before the project was reborn in a more beautiful form: