Final Project

So far I have 2 major options to focus on for my final project.

1- to look at my experience on Facebook and perhaps compare it to a few of my friends' usage of it. So it would be mostly on my own identity on there, but with a little bit of comparison to friends who use it differently than I do and why.

2- The other option is to focus more on Warcraft and my identities on there. This would be rather interesting since I've started a new character, with a new guild.. or I'm going to be transferring my level 80 character to another server (which would mean starting her with a new group).

I haven't had a lot of time to spend looking at the requirements and the whole project explanation to figure something more concrete, but these are my early ideas to figure out and sort through.

Second Life?

I've played a little with similar programs and situations. One example is the time that I encouraged my boyfriend and a group of his friends to make their own avatar on the PlayStation Network site "Home". The social structure seemed to be ok in that most avatars couldn't do anything dirty but there was enough talk in the chat to make me roll my eyes at the childishness of it all.

However, that was all tempered as the avatar was created to be an old fat man dressed in a mini-tank top and hot pants. They proceeded to find random things to pester people with, including interrupting conversations between people in the main area. As they were playing (it was mostly good natured), they would find that people seemed to react one of two ways. Some people were put off by the avatar and the antics of doing the running-man dance in the middle of a crowd of people. On the other hand, some people joined in and started interacting and gravitating towards him.

Though some people do these things intentionally, I think it can speak to the person's personality on how they react to what happens. The people who joined in seemed to be having fun with the amusing bit of chaos that was going on. As I said, it was good natured, and however annoyed some people were, there were others that saw it as something to have fun with and take the stance of joining in for the sake of enjoyment.

How does this relate to Second Life? Well, the enjoyment was short-lived. Mostly because after a half hour, they'd grown bored of pestering people and aside from going about buying new outfits and new pretty things for their houses, there wasn't much substance behind it. It was a place for people to talk and virtually hang out, but in general it was still like a pretty instant messaging system. The people had limited skills and abilities to interact, and there was no real goal aside from simply talking to people that you could normally talk to through other ways on the PlayStation Network.

Remediate or Deconstruct?

Throughout getting my facilitation ready, I kept asking myself what all this digital art and creativity could do for writing in general. The response that I came up with was that even though most of this revolves around digital art and digital presentation, there's still the writing component behind the writing.

For example, I was watching the Foamy cartoons (iwillpress.com) and realized that it's more than just the script that requires some degree of writing skill. It depends on being able to tell a story, come up with the way the movie is laid out, and all sorts of other 'hidden' writing ventures.

Most of our media is moving to a digital outlet and even though it is presented in a purely digital format, there's still a great deal of writing that can be done in something like a classroom setting or thought of in a business format. People who make these have to have the forethought to envision what they are trying to accomplish and then lay out the presentation accordingly. Although mine might feel a little ADD at times - mostly because I loathe public speaking- there's still a point and a great deal of effort that isn't merely typing on a computer screen.

Does this mean that we have to recreate what students know about media, or do we have to deconstruct it and serve it out in pieces to them? Everything from a potential business proposal of a specific video idea to the final product is dependent upon the person's ability to create something and have it be accessable to other people, just like how we view traditional writing skills. If the script is lacking in substance or at least sensible grammar, that will show in the end product and the interpretation of the audience.

Drama.. just plain Drama.

I have been keeping up on most of my social networking sites, though last week I was gone for most of the week and so most of it was left to sit. So a few days were spent off being minimally linked to the outside world - which was awesome, by the way!

So I work the last two days of last week and finally get to sleep in on Sunday. When I wake up, I'm welcomed with 'you have an important email' from my mother, before I could even sit down in the living room. So I log on and check, only to find some rambling message which was a forward from my mom's Facebook account.

The message was a lengthy list of accusations against my boyfriend by his ex-girlfriend's mom. To clear things up, His ex's mother was keeping track of his facebook page and after some situations, felt it necessary to find the links through his site to my own site and my mother's. As a 'good mother' she sent this note to my mother to warn me about some things that supposedly happened.

My boyfriend and I weren't contacted, until the message was forwarded from my mother to us. Which began an afternoon of worry and trying to sort out what was really going on. So much for my day off from work and worry!

None of the accusations were true, and it just goes to show that you should be careful about who you friend! The lady had sent me a friend request, which I denied and I'm sure was why she couldn't send me the message. But since when was it her business?

Tired of News

When the Iraq war first started, I remember spending a few days straight just watching and waiting to hear any real news on what was going on. I had a friend who took part in the opening attacks and I desperately wanted to know what was happening. My news network of choice was CNN, who repeted the same news about every two to three hours around the clock.

Ever since then? The news is boring to me. I still do read through the daily news stories on AoL news when I log on, but I've stopped watching most news programs almost entirely. Why? Because most of it is overhyped and dramatized for viewers. All too often they have that one or two little extra news stories that are so important that they have to tell you to watch 10 hours from then. "Do you have a cannibalistic newt living in your digestive tract? Find out at 11".

If it's that important tell me now. But then there are websites and networks that are dedicated to tell you everything they can up to the minute. But then you run into stories about absolutely unneccesary people doing stupid things for attention. Then we get people like the balloon idiot who will do anything to get attention, even get his own children to lie for him when a nation full of people think his kid is inside and in danger.

The actual news is rarely ever either considered news or on the news. The fact that there were 3 confirmed cases of Swine Flu in Goodrich hasn't reached the news. Which, in my opinion, is overhyped and although people should take it seriously and act cautiously, I question how really severe and horribly dangerous this is or if it's another piece of information made for TV.

A Blog post about... Blog posts?

Does anyone feel a little overwhelmed with the blog posts?

I have been doing an ok job about keeping up with them until recently. Part of it is the fact that I've been more in absorb info mode than really responsive mode. I'm checking out a lot of these sites and playing with them enough to get a feel for what they do and what they can do. However, I don't have much to say about them because it's still mostly figuring them out and by the time the next post is due, I'm already thinking about the homework and everything for the week after.

I'm an English major that doesn't like to write. What I mean by that is I don't like journals or daily writing requirements. I find myself more focused on getting something down for class than actually being any form of creative about it. I know that sounds horrible, but while I feel like I'm keeping up well with the blog posts, other things seem to be getting in the way. Because of that, most of mine lately have been lackluster and quite nearly boring.

For instance, this week I spent every day either at work or at school, and when I wasn't in either of those, I was trying to get ready for my best friend's wedding. Tuesday was ok and I did spend a great deal of time playing around on Goodreads, but by the time Thursday/Friday/Saturday came around, I was so focused on the desire for sleep and the temptation to throw my friend's fiance out a 6th story window, that I bypassed the homework. (Probably not the best thing to admit publicly, but it's true)

I'm just wondering if anyone else has run into this issue? Am I a horrible student?

Linked In

I've checked into the site off and on during the week. I was quite happy to be accepted into an equine group the next day after signing up. I requested about three but the one is the only one to respond and actually very warmly.

It actually reminds me a little of the general message board forums that I've been part of for a number of years. Even though my job has nothing to do with my interest and area of expertise, I have offered a few responses to the discussions when I have something to offer.

One thing I noticed is that it's a little bit intimidating joining these groups. It's not so much the established group, but a site like Linked In asks for your expertise in something and it's always a little bit intimidating to consider your advice to be 'expertise'. For instance, there was a man who wanted to go about leasing his horse but wasn't sure where to begin. Since only one other person responded, I felt a little more confident in responding with my own experience with leasing (which eventually lead to my parents buying a horse for me).

When do you get to be an expert in something?

Do I want to be Linked?

Although I can see the opportunities for having such a strong identity online in some capacities, I tend to wonder if I really need such an identity. I have had my share of 'identities' online either through my aquarium forums, pet forums, and online role-playing. While none of them were too overly taken seriously, I almost loathe the idea that I can be judged by so many strangers all at once.

Job hunting was hard enough after I got my two BAs. I went nine months between school and work with over 300 resumes/applications being done. Almost every job that I heard back from after the interview said that I was in their top two or three candidates, but they always had someone better. Do I really need to go through the same thing online? Do I need people comparing and judging me while I sleep?

Also, there's so much pressure to be careful about what you put online. One wrong picture could spell disaster either from not getting a job to being fired from one. I'm not saying I want to post pictures of myself drunk all the time, but why does it reflect poorly when I do have a life away from that professional life? Poe used morphines and opiates while he was conducting his greatest works. I like to think I have better standards than that, but we still regard his work highly despite his personal downfalls. Roman Polanski has created some of the best films of all time, yet whenever he's given an award, we have to bring up that he raped a young girl. What is the difference between the two? One is regarded despite his downfalls and the other's follows him whenever his name is mentioned.

Are we just left to figure that judgment isn't fair and we can only do what we can to present ourselves as the angels we try to be? Or is there a way to accept that we're all human and we all have personal lives where we test out our theories and make poor judgments?

Kick to the Ego?

After a few incidents in the last month or two, I'm starting to wonder just how much we rely on digital media to keep us connected and what that does to affect the way we perceive the world.

A few months ago, I was on facebook and sent a request to one of my instructors to befriend her on the site. Without using names, she taught writing classes and since I'd had her a number of times I thought that we were 'close' enough to be friends on the site. I didn't expect invites to dinner or anything other than some way to keep in touch. So I sent the friend request, figuring that as I started grad school, I'd still like to keep in touch with her since she's done a great deal to shape my writing and the way I approach certain topics. About a week later, I got a message in my Facebook box from her saying that part of her simplifying her life meant that she wasn't accepting any new facebook friends.

This wasn't a situation where I could blow it off as someone online across the country that I didn't know. This was a person that I had a great deal of respect for and at least hoped to have a way to keep in touch. Yet she was denying my 'friend request' in lieu of simplifying her life. I wasn't really sure how to respond, and still am not really sure how to see this denial.

On one hand, it's an online social site, so some people have a massive list of 'friends' that they keep track of. After the first hundred or so, how many friends can we really have?

On the other hand, it felt almost like that boyfriend/girlfriend that wanted to date you but wouldn't really make that fact public. The one that you were so happy do be around and wanted to be part of, but any way of publicising that relationship made them uncomfortable and squeamish.

Another incident happened this past week when a friend that I'd had a falling out with accepted my friend request a month or so ago. Part of me was relieved and figured that since she'd accepted that it meant she wanted some form of contact - even if it wasn't necessarily talking. So I've let things settle for almost a year with her and just recently sent her a message asking if she was free for lunch sometime. I still haven't received a response.

I can see that she's been on since the message, but there's still no reply or acknowledgement of the message. So then I begin to wonder if her acceptance of the friendship on facebook was a loose attempt at keeping contact (basically keep reading eachother's updates) or if it was to add more people to her page? Should I figure her non response as something akin to being too busy to return an email, or do I figure that to be her response?

How does Facebook and other social sites relate to our social structure? Are the same expectations made as they would be in real life, or is it some sort of structure in and of itself?

My Technology History

Technological Journey

I was introduced to some kind of technology quite early as a child. I grew up with the old Odyssey system which pre-dated the Nintendo systems. It wasn’t anything flashy, but it was a computer that allowed my family to play games together, like Word Scramble, Tanks, and other games that put one person against another. While I can’t say I grew up with a great deal of technology, I feel comfortable with the learning curve of figuring something new out.
Later on, I would get my first real videogame system, Nintendo. It was a step up from the old one, but now I can look back and see that what was good for its age was still pretty simple. During a recent weekend at my boyfriend’s dorm, I asked him to play “Faxanadu”, which was a fun and unique game at the time. It’s a cross between the RPGs like Final Fantasy and an adventure game. I have very fond memories of my dad playing for weeks to finish the game. The problem is that after being so used to more modern technology, the game felt horribly clunky and stiff. I remember it being a lot more fun.
It wasn’t until I was in seventh grade that we finally got a home computer. I’d gotten a good introduction to computers at school with the ancient Apple 2E computers, which were basically used as word processors. The one we had at home, though, was one that we could play games on and had programs that I could play with. I’d gone from drawing on paper for hours to spending hours playing with the paint program to make pictures. I still very much love to hand draw, but it was interesting to be able to take another approach to the pastime that I’d always loved.
It took another few years before we actually got connected and ‘online’. Back then, the only real option was America Online and I found that there were so many more people out there that I’d never even thought about. I was suddenly drawn out of my own small town frame of mine and started talking with people of all ages from anywhere in the country. And I found that just like in real life, groups were formed and unique friendships came about as people spent more time online. I still remember being part of one chat room group that got online to talk just about every night and having some rivalry with another chat room that the people kept coming over to our room to cause trouble. While I still keep up with one or two people, it was a time that I enjoyed and every so often I wonder what happened to specific people through the years as we grew apart.
Little did my mom know, I did meet one of the people from the chat room. It was a bit awkward because we got along a certain way online and yet in real life it was almost too real. He and I still talk, but the whole online thing became suddenly real and I realized that I was connected to real people all over the place. In fact, my current boyfriend is one of those people that I met online. We met through some shared interests and if it wasn’t for this single piece of technology, we may never have found each other.
Our computer ended up being upgraded through the years from that first Tandy with Windows 3.1 to my current Dell that could hold the entire contents of my first computer on it like it was nothing more than a single file. With it, the games got more involved and now I actually have to find programs to translate my old games to the new system so that I can still play them.
Another small leap of technology happened when my mom got her first cell phone. It came with an interesting story in that my father became suspicious because he figured that nobody needed a private phone in order to talk to people. It was some lavish accessory that most people just didn’t need. I got my first cell phone when I was round 22, mostly because I wasn’t home enough or online (taking up the phone line) and it made things difficult while I was doing pet sitting for people. My first one was a prepaid Tracfone, which served its purpose until phone contracts and prices came down low enough that I could afford a phone plan with one of the major companies.
In an interesting twist, I picked out which phone I wanted and had to wait another day for my paycheck to come in. So I came back the next day and the phone that I’d wanted had already been replaced with the new model. It brought about another half hour of trying to figure out which phone I wanted and at that point, I’d end up with the newest and the best on the market.
Currently, I am surrounded by technology. I’m woken up by my digital alarm clock in the morning and I do my homework at my computer. While I’m at work, I deal with a massive database of information through filling prescriptions and billing for them in the pharmacy. After I get home, I usually check my email and personal pages. Then it is either watching television through our satellite or playing one of my many videogame consoles. As much as I miss the old days of being disconnected, I’m not sure how to go back to it. Every so often, I get a day to turn my phone off and watch TV, but I’m not sure if I could disconnect entirely from the world that we’ve created.

Great Minds..

A response to my previous post has me thinking about how people perceive things and experiences. With all of the talk about teaching differently or trying to reach people in different ways, should we try to experience things the same way?

The response was regarding video games, how Christine (I think) had different experiences of playing video games than her son had and she wondered if she should think differently about the approach. While I think that it's a good idea to try and approach things from a different perspective, I don't necessarily think we all need to experience things the same.

Experiences can be similar or the same for another person but not as enjoyable. One example is that I took my boyfriend to a horse show this summer. Although we have very different experiences with horses and horse shows, I found it much more enjoyable than he did. It wasn't so much that we were experiencing things differently, his interests in watching it were different.

What does this mean for teachers? Well, try to at least understand the experience of the students when trying to teach something. Those that aren't engaged are probably that way for one reason or another and a small change in teaching style might draw some of them in. Does that mean we should cater to every single individual in a classroom? No. It means that some kids may just need a different approach to the material. A lot of students have diverse interests and it may just take adjusting assignment requirements or expectations to get them involved.

It bothers me when teachers expect children to conform to a specific set of guidelines and then wonder why the students aren't responding. Yes, they should have to prove themselves in some form or another, but I don't think that means expecting the same experiences and responses from 30 individuals.

Light Bulb Moments

After reading through most of the reading for Tuesday, I came to the realization that I've heard a lot of this before - just in less complicated terms. It reminds me of my film classes and when we discussed the film's merits based on the suspension of disbelief. The same applies to technology. Anymore, the more we can forget we're watching something on a screen, the better it's supposed to be. The more realistic movies that draw the audience in so that for the hour or three that they're watching, they forget that they're watching. When we leave the theatre, we know that the past amount of time was spent watching something, but what happens when we forget that we are outside of that world?

What I mean by that is with all the new technology to make things more believable and more realistic, the less we're getting experience. I must admit, playing games that promote the suspension of disbelief are a lot of fun and I can spend hours involved with that whole experience. However, if something similar is used that mimics real life, are we really any better off?

While perusing the videogame store this weekend, I wanted to buy the game Horse Trainer. It's a game based around training horses (surprising, I'm sure). I haven't been able to ride in a few years because of a back injury, so the game might give me a little bit of what I miss about actually being on the back of a horse. At the same time, it's not the same. I can play the game for hours and get wrapped up in all the details of how to ride and how to train for an event. And that is fine for some people who don't have the opportunity to physically experience something like being a successful trainer. But after knowing what it's like to be on the horse and to make a connection with that 1200 pound animal, the game can't replace that. No matter how much programming and technological advances come about, that can not replace the physical experience.

Hypermedia

All this talk about Hypermediation draws questions for me. I understand the drive to offer as much information as possible that people might want to read. I like being able to log onto AoL in the morning before class or before work to read up on the current news. Whether it's the murder of a Yale student, or to read the report of a bridge in China being covered in butter to keep people from using it to commit suicide. It's fascinating to read all of this information coming from every area of the world at any given moment.

At the same time, do we really need all of this information? Do I really need a page that will give me today's current news about everything local, something having to do with third world countries that probably can't even read this information for themselves, my stock quotes, and the precise tempterature in Hawaii? I get weary of checking my email and having fifteen offers to make my private areas larger, or that some long lost uncle that I never knew about died and left me three million dollars in Nigeria. Mixed in with all of this is information that I actually want to read. I would like to know how my friend is doing, answers to questions I've emailed to instructors, and a confirmation from Amazon that my books finally shipped.

Are we drifting from interested individuals to technology driven vampires? I have to wonder how much of this is actual information and people wanting to know more, and how much is media trying to offer and throw as much information at us in the hopes of something might stick. If it's the media, then do they really think we need to know these things, or are we just walls waiting for the spaghetti?

Blast from the Past

While listening to the discussions in class, I had this realization that what we were talking about in terms of digital information harkens back to Plato's theory of The Forms. Basic idea is that there's a single Form of an object, say a statue. Because of the way we are, we can't quite see the true Form of an object, but we make representations of it. The closer these representations are to the original, the better they are.

In our use, the Form of something would be that actual thing and each representation through digital media would be one step removed from that original form. So if a tourist is looking at the statue of David and they take a picture with their camera phone, which then uploads to Facebook, and then is used as an example on a television show. In Plato's thinking the TV show version was horribly removed from the true form and therefore lost much of its meaning, since every step removed from the original is a loss of meaning and intent.

A lot of people consider digital media and information sharing an important thing. The more information that's shared, the more people can learn. Say a teenager is scanning through her Facebook friends and comes across the picture, having never seen the statue before. She now has information she didn't have before and an avenue of being able to learn more about it.

However, is the representation really that important and valuable? Does digital media cheapen the actual life experiences of people, considering many people figure that they don't need to actually go out and experience things because they can just check online.

Is more information better?

I'm not sure that we can quite compare writing that's directed for things like mass publication with sites like blogs, twitter, and the like. Most actual literary or scholarly writing takes place with forethought and the goal is more to offer information. I don't read a novel or an article for the simple sake of responding to it. Many times I'll read something for fun or to gain a new perspective on a specific topic.
Places like twitter, facebook, and social networking sites offer ideas from people who are putting their voice out in public for a variety of reasons - few which are to actually teach anyone anything. In most cases it's to directly get feedback or start a discussion, or simply to let people know what color socks you've decided to wear. It's a way for people to communicate and attempt to relate in a world where we're segregated from other people because of the capitalist hustle and bustle of what's expected of us.
In a world where we call help lines to talk to computers, see the ATM machines more than our kids, and play games with digital characters, the common language is going to be through computers. However, I don't think that because it's common that it is a good and sustainable practice. It may be good on a personal level for someone to blog or offer updates to people who don't care, but that doesn't mean that it can replace everything else that we should be doing on a social level.
At the end of the day, I'll curl up with a novel or something else that I can take the time to read for me and get a thousand times more out of than a site that lets me know that my aunt is having a good hair day.

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