Final Reflection

Self-Directed Learning / Personal Blog Post

I remember that at the beginning of the semester I thought I would be interested in Remix. But looking back on some of my posts I've seen that I was more interested in collaboration. Even my group's project reflected this (Menagerie). I think the most interesting thing to me was collaboration and art (particularly music) and how Web 2.0 affects this process. I wrote about one of my most exciting realizations in a post called "Confessions and Crowdsourcing." I think that I tried to apply the idea of collaboration and crowdsourcing to the Menagerie project, especially because I spent a good amount of time asking people around me what they thought of the project and asking them to contribute.

I think that I also took an interest in how digital culture affected connections, particularly with people who don't care to connect. I got a lot of ideas from a post that Sarah Talley made on Google + and then a short sharing with Greg Williams on a post that I made about introverts and the internet.

 

One aspect of digital culture that I spent some time thinking about but never made a post on, is the idea of digital culture being an island for our "real world" culture. Reading Lord of the Flies really helped me to think about this, as did considering the parallels between that novel and the TV series Lost. Deserted islands don't have a lot of connections to the outside world. They don't have strict social or governmental laws. They are a great wilderness, just waiting to be discovered. The entire digital culture can be seen in a similar way. And in a way, it can get pretty lonely on the island of the internet. But interestingly enough, people use it to connect to others and make it a real world. I found this website, support.webofloneliness.com, particularly interesting in those regards.

Collaboration

While we were still developing Menagerie, we all had a lot of great ideas. I feel like I helped, with the rest of the group, to develop these ideas into a solid project proposal. In the early stages of Menagerie we each had a very specific role that we were supposed to play. I was the primary member of the marketing team but was to also contribute to the editing/submissions team. However, we found that marketing was something that needed to come a little more naturally and wasn't something that we would have the time or means to force and emphasize. So I did what I could with that by posting on Facebook, talking to classmates, and generally trying to get the word out about it. I spent much more time trying to help develop our website, especially after we had our feedback session. My most solid contribution was the submission form. We needed a way to get our submissions in a unified format so I helped to solve that problem.

I feel like I did more to contribute to other groups' projects in their early stages. I was really interested in the LBP project as it started out. It was amazing to see the very visible progress that they were making. I also enjoyed testing out one of the preliminary badges for one of the badges groups.

Others' assistance

At the beginning of the course it was easy to fall behind the other class members who were very active on Google + and just follow their lead. I found posts by Tara Pina and Gwendolyn Hammer interesting and remember one particular conversation we had about girls in the gaming world. Throughout the course I would have to say that my fellow group members were most influential because they were the people that I was really looking for when I went onto Google +. Shelby had a lot of interesting and entertaining posts, including one that she did about her sister. I was always interested to see what Tasha Watts was going to post and her post that sparked the inspiration for Menagerie was one of my favorites.

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Digital Literacy

In this class not only have I learned about different tools to utilize to enhance the way that I consume, particularly regarding the digital world, I have also discovered better ways to create and connect. I think that my groups' project, Menagerie, really helped solidify these concepts in my mind. We really wanted to create a site where you could do all three - consume, create, and connect. By establishing Menagerie I was able to see the creation and collaboration process in action. It was also really interesting to see the ways that connections can be made because of small connections with people via Google + or Twitter or a blog. I have become more aware of what I consume online and what I'm giving to the digital world. There are a lot of ways to create and connect and I feel like I'm just starting to scratch the surface of those discoveries.

My Favorite Activity - Interrogation!

The title lies. This is not my favorite activity. But as my mom always said to me when I was younger (and it still doesn't really make sense), "If wishes were fishes, we'd all have a fry." I am not a teacher nor a teaching major so I'm not super top notch at writing questions. The more time I spend writing my questions, the more I recognize this. No really, I just took at least 45 minutes and wrote three questions. But now I'm done with the play-by-play.

1. Crowdsourcing is how companies or institutions can place an open call to a network of people to contribute content, perform specific tasks, solve problems, or collaborate in some manner. Which is not an example of crowdsourcing?
a. Imogen Heap's music project with consultation from fans. Answer here
b. Professor Burton asking students to come up with questions for his final exam
c. Contributing to Wiki articles
d. None of the above

2. The means of legitimizing an idea is called: Answer
a. crowdsourcing
b. social proof
c. spreadable media
d. participatory culture

3. The story of Megan Meier is a story about what? Answer in this post and that post.


1. Although the internet is a huge source of creativity and conversation for people, it can be difficult for introverted people to participate in Web 2.0 culture. It is through more private and interest specific sites that introverts can find a place to belong. [See my post about this topic with links to other posts as well 1]

2. Online collaboration has many obvious pros to it. However, there are some very real cons to online collaboration as well. Lack of interest, unreliability, and unwillingness to share credit are all reasons for people to steer away from collaborating with others in this very open digital world. [See Heather Anderson's post about their collaborative novel 1]

Going Viral

 I think that going into the Menagerie project we were all anticipating different outcomes. Some people wanted it to be a place for writers to collaborate and work together, to share ideas and use each others' ideas for new works of art. Some people wanted it to be social, a place where writers and creators could really discuss what they liked. Some people wanted it to be somewhere to come and browse the submissions and vote for what they liked best. Me? I wanted all of these things. But I really wanted it to be a hit.

What I realized really quickly was that it is really hard for things to go viral. You can't force something into popularity. It's like in middle school when you try so hard to get in with the cool kids that they just make fun of you for it. I really pushed this site on some of my friends. I even pushed it in one of my classes. And that's a big deal for me. I don't talk in classes.

One of the first viral videos I saw was the OK GO music video for "Here It Goes Again." It was released in 2006 (yes, I was a little behind the times when I was 16) and everyone was obsessed with it. Somethings I did learn about going viral though I gained from my own little intuition and what I've heard from other people:

• Accessibility - if you can't find the site, how are you supposed to share it?!
• Interest - sites like youtube, facebook, and twitter really have something to interest everyone. 
• Production span - I couldn't think of a better way to say this. Our site didn't stand a chance of going viral with submissions posted on it.

Part of me still has hope for our tiny site. If we can just get more submissions. Maybe 50 more? 100 more? What will it take?! What are we doing wrong?! Nothing. There are a ton of things on the internet. I don't even want to venture a guess. So the chances of going viral are kind of slim. But if we generate some interest, get some people excited, then I'll feel like our mission has been accomplished.

Just Way Too Monopolized (Part 2)

Apple has a monopoly on the music industry as it is right now. At least that's the way it appears. With everything that they have their fingers in though, it's really not that surpriseing to assume or hard to assume. Josh posted this comic back in September about the state of the music industry. With the mass amounts of apple products it is just easiest to fall into what I like to call the itunes funk.

Itunes has been my pal for a long time. We go way back. Then I discovered playlist.com. I abandoned it when the website just looked outdated and songs were deleted from the playlists I made. Then I moved on to Pandora. A hecka lot of fun but I was bummed that I couldn't really choose the songs I was going to listen to. Now I really only use Pandora when I'm doing something else and need some music in the background. Then Spotify entered my life. It was a glorious love affair. It really stole my sister's heart though. I wanted better recommendations though and missed some features of Pandora. I have now become what we call a "fickle mistress."

A fickle mistress flits around from one thing to another and can never make up her mind. I still like itunes because all of the music I own is in that one central location. But I like Spotify because I can add songs that I don't have to playlists that I already do have. The downside? Spotify is a little mean. Certain artists refuse to have their music available on Spotify because they don't get enough of a cut from it. Songza is great because it makes playlists based on the time of day and what you're doing and it has a great interaction aspect. But it can get a little too long tail for me sometimes. Noisetrade is fun because you can discover totally new artists. But there's not a super good way to sort through the artists and it's completely hit and miss. Topblip and Reverb Nation kind of have the same problem as Noisetrade.

Here's what I want. I want all my music in one place. I want recommendations based on what I've listened to. And I want these recommendations to actually be good recommendations. I want the artist to get a good cut of what I'm paying. In fact, I want to get it straight from them if at all possible. I want to hear new artists but I want to hear the popular ones sometimes too. I want my music player to get inside my head and know what I want and when I want it. I want a cloned version of myself whose job is strictly to identify my mood and what I'm doing and give me a soundtrack based on all that. Is that really to much to ask?!

Just Way Too Mainstream

I'm pretty sure that the first CD I ever got was NSYNC's No Strings Attached for my 10th birthday. I felt so cool. I finally had my own CD that I could play on my new portable CD player (with anti-skip technology, mind you). It was such a step up from that silly little tape player Walkman I had before. Psh. Lame sauce. I used my CD player religiously until for my 15th birthday I got an ipod. It was a 4th generation. Oh man, I felt slick as snot with that sucker.



I had this ipod for a good four years until I turned it on one day and it literally made a sad face at me. I figured it was about time for me to get a new ipod when people kept telling me that mine looked like a brick. But they were right. That thing barely fit in my pocket! And thus was Mario born. A sleeker ipod with a color display and it could even play music videos and movies. Oh golly, was I in heaven. That ipod has lasted my entire college career.

So where am I going with this? I jumped on the Apple bandwagon with everyone else back in the day. My brother-in-law worked for the BYU Bookstore so I got a pretty decent deal on my ipod. And everyone knew that they were the most top notch, high quality mp3 players. They still are pretty darn good. But also expensive. I've thought about updating my technology but I just can't afford it. It would be useful to have an ipad or a nook or even an ipod touch but they're just not in my price range. What's the point of having cool gadgets advertised to me if I can't even buy them?!

It wasn't until recently that I realized that there are other products out there. Just like when you discover that malt-o meals off brand fruit loops are just as tasty as the real thing, there are actually some really great products out there. You just have to look for them. True, they may not last as long. Yes, you might seem like a dweeb for having the random mp3 player that no one has heard of. But what's the harm in looking. So far I have yet to find some really swell technology that I could justify buying and afford but I'm searching. Next to come... why iTunes is the jock of the music industry and Spotify is the druggy hiding out in the bathroom.

Internet for Introverts

I've seen a few posts about people's siblings so I thought I would jump onto the bandwagon!

A little while back in this class I took a particular interest in the music industry and Web 2.0. After my midterm discussion with Dr. Burton I've decided that I really want to revisit that. Ideally, once a week I'll try to blog about my group's project and progress and once a week I'll try to blog about my other interests. Which will most likely be music.

In the beginning of September there was a little bit of buzz on the Google plus stream about introverts and the internet. Sarah Talley and Hannah Ballard both explored the idea in some of their blog posts and there was an excellent discussion about it on one of Tara Pina's posts. I briefly chimed in with a comment about how the internet is actually a really great place for introverts to explore their interests.

Now to mesh these three ideas. I have a sister. She is obsessed with music. Like, literally obsessed. She is also an introvert. Like, really an introvert. Just to give you an idea. In her spare time she is in her room, on her laptop, listening to music, finding music, playing music, pinning music, blogging music, finding pictures of music. Everything is music. And she does this mostly in her own little solitude. It's not that she's not a likable person. I think she's great! It's just that she really does not enjoy being around people at all. And hello Web 2.0. Because of the web she is able to do all of the things that she enjoys on her own. Yes, sometimes I think that it's not healthy. Yes, sometimes I really worry about her. But. I also have to be grateful that she's found a meaningful way to express herself.

For an introvert the world is a hard and scary place. From what she's said, even harder and scarier than I see it to be. Through the internet she can be part of this underground world that shares her interests. So thank you internet for giving my little sister a way to be happy and discover more about who she is.

Tiny Progress Is Still Progress

Yesterday in class we discussed the idea of the spiral. You have a starting point that you spin around and move out from. A spiral can go on forever and is always developing, but it always revolves around that one central idea.

Our online compendium (I really got tired of calling it a magazine) definitely has a central idea that we always go back to. But it kind of seems like right now instead of going in a spiral form and developing and moving out, we're going in a circle around our idea. I'm sure a lot of groups can relate to this feeling. We need more submissions for Menagerie so that it can look legit. But to get more submissions we'd really like for the site to have a better design. But for it to have a better design we would need a little funding. To justify funding we would need more submissions.

We met with a small group last night for a bit of a feedback session. The outside perception was incredibly valuable. They did say many of the things that the class told us, but with new eyes and a fresh perspective. After that I feel recommitted to our cause. We just need to be slow and steady (emphasis on the steady) and we'll find ourselves somewhere new and exciting.

"All I have to do is take one little step at a time and I can do anything."

Mid-Term Post

The semester is halfway over. And what does that mean? Halfway through the stress of another semester and one step closer to graduation and the real world. But as I get closer to entering the what they tell me is the real world, the more I realize that I am nowhere near prepared to be part of it. I've found myself frantically grasping in my classes to find things to help me with my future. Luckily, this class actually has been fairly helpful with that. 

Nonfiction Book
Admittedly, the bits and pieces I read of Digital Culture by Charlie Gere were a while ago but a quick review reminded me of some key things that I learned from it.One thing that struck me the most is that as much as it may seem like the changes in technology have been an abrupt surge over the past 20 years or so, it has actually been a gradual wave throughout the 20th century and even before then as well. In the grand scheme of things, yes it has been a quick change. But those who have been willing have been able to dip their toes in and get a feel for the digital age before everything digital seems to have taken control.

Fiction Book
My fiction book, Lord of the Flies, and the theme I pulled away from it go along well with what I learned from Digital Culture. While we have had time to adjust to the technology in the digital age, it seems as though we have yet to adjust to the social rules that accompany that technology. We have yet to find where certain boundaries are: how much is too much to post on Facebook, when have you spent too much time online, when are you too connected to your phone, etc. To be really in tune with the digital world, how far out of the real world must we become? And what does it do to us when this happens? If we're following the same rules that applied in Lord of the Flies, becoming that disjointed with our two societies can break us down. We need to find a way to unite the two and avoid making one less sophisticated than the other.

Self-Directed Learning
I struggled with finding my niche in the class at the beginning. As was mentioned many times, there was a lot going on in the Google Plus stream and I didn't know where my voice could fit in. After deciding that I would take my interests and try to apply them though, I found that I would do a little research here and find a little social proof there. I became really interested in music sharing and now, thanks to my searching and asking, I have a folder full of sites. Once I became involved in the lit mag group the same thing happened all over again. Even if I didn't learn a crazy amount digital stuff, I did learn that simply asking people what they know and using them as a resource is a valuable and powerful tool. No way in a million years could I have discovered all that I learned just by looking around online and standing back. Once I tried to get involved and get other people involved I was finally able to see the real Web 2.0 in action.

Student Influence
A turning point for me in my learning was a conversation I had with Gwendolyn Hammer and Tara Pina on Google Plus about gaming wikis. I realized that the things I had to say could be valuable and the interests that I had could be applied. I've also enjoyed reading Tasha Watts' blog and the things she has to say, particularly her initial post that launched us into the elit mag group.

Other Things
Crowdsourcing and the Longtail were probably two of the more interesting concepts for me to learn about. Particularly when I could apply them to the areas that I was really interested in. I feel like learning more about these terms, as well as others, has helped me to better understand how to use Web 2.0 for myself. It is a vast world of knowledge and if I can apply it correctly, it has great potential to help me in the future.

The 3 C's and Me

Consume. Create. Connect.

I'm mostly writing them here on my blog so that I can remember the 3 C's a little bit better. Also so that I can try to understand them better. We do have a midterm coming up.

I'm awfully good at consuming. I am what you would call the typical consumer. I download music from iTunes onto my iPod. I get my textbooks and DVDs from Amazon. I spend a lot of time on Facebook. I check my email regularly throughout the day. It takes me a month to fill up my phone's inbox with texts. I watch TV on Friday nights and Saturday mornings if I'm not doing anything else. I listen to the radio in my car about half the time I'm driving. I am really quite average. There is not a whole lot about me that is beyond average.

So yes, I'm super good at consuming but this makes creating and connecting particularly difficult. However, my group's project to create an online source for creative content does force me to expand what I'm familiar with.

Still I have a nagging voice in the back of my head that says that it doesn't really matter what I do in the digital world because it doesn't make a whole lot of a difference. Yes, technology is fantastic and allows us to do things faster and with a bigger group of people, but ultimately I feel like I'm doing the same things with technology that I do in real life. I'm not saying this is the case for everyone, because it really isn't. I just have yet to find my niche in this digital world. Or in the real world. Until then I will consume, I will try to create, and I will attempt to connect in a way that I hope would be meaningful. And who knows where that will lead me.

Schmoe: An Online Literary Magazine

Schmoe

An online literary magazine that seeks to highlight a variety of genres and provide a place where writers and readers can interact via comments and online sharing. Pieces will be selected based on regular literary criteria as well as an additional emphasis placed on showcasing literature that is accessible to young adults of all interests.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP4xtCLzlOU&feature=youtu.be

Created by Sarah Talley, Rachel Mahrt, Tasha Watts, Shelby Boyer, Hannah Ballard, and Nicole Black

With consultation from Allie Crafton and Greg Williams

After asking around with our classmates and friends on Facebook, we found that there would definitely be an interest in this project. Enough to fuel Schmoe and make it successful. There was interest overall in the project as well as in the interaction between writer and reader and the accessibility to the common reader.

We also attempted to get some outside social proof for our project. Laura Cebula, author at Thought Catalog commented on Tasha's post, giving us some feedback and ideas for the project. Tasha emailed Chris Lavergne of Thought Catalog with an introduction and some links and got the response, “Looks good. Seems like you have some exciting ideas going on here.  Keep me in the loop with your progress!” She also commented on one of Simon Staffan’s posts about transmedia that was somewhat related to the concepts we’d be employing, as well.

There are plenty of other existing resources out there that we've seen but have yet to tap into. There are blogs about ways for writers to become more involved, websites with ideas and layouts similar to what we're interested in, and professors with special interests in media and writing.

This post was starting to get really long and I needed a visual break. Visit this Tumblr for more time wasting.

If you want to know what the group members think of this project, I could just tell you that we're all excited about it and can't wait to really get it going. But if you want to know more I guess you could read Tasha's post one and post two on the topic, take a look at Shelby's enthusiasm, or look at my own ramblings. 

We've found a few sources to give us some ideas on the interactive nature of our site. Net Smart gives a description of how people use and pay attention to the internet and how that will develop it in the future. Rachel gives a great review of it on Goodreads. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchel explores the impact that different sorts of stories and genres can have upon a life. Each story frames the next. There is also some content about the changes that the digital world makes with communication. The Wisdom of Crowds is also a good source for information on user activity on the web. Shelby provides a great review of it on her blog.

Rachel read The Hunger Games and found ways to compare it to literary magazines. Tasha also found connections in her book I Am the Messenger. It explores the power of everyday, ordinary people. Our magazine aims to benefit ordinary readers and writers alike by providing an outlet for deep thought and beautiful expression that does not seek to alienate anyone who hasn't read the complete works of James Joyce.

Our plan for the project is to use a pre-existing platform like Wordpress with layout possibilities. The audience we are going to market to is the young adult audience in the 17-25 age group because they typically familiar with the internet and will be more willing to experiment with us as we go. This group will also provide us with a lot of potential writers through creative writing classes, friends, and peers as we seek out submissions.

Since it is a website, success will be primarily measured by page views, subscriptions, likes, comments, and interaction. However, success will also be measured by the number of submissions that we receive. The idea will not be successful unless it is taken seriously by the writers and the readers.

The prototype idea was originally posted on Tasha's blog. The layout will tentatively be similar to Thought Catalog and different layouts found on Wordpress. 

Refusing to Write for THE MAN

I don't think that I have ever willingly and independently submitted anything that I've written to any sort of literary magazine. My big hesitation is. . . What's the point? I submit something that I've worked diligently on to a snooty magazine or on campus publication, hope that what I've done is better than anyone else who submits, and then maybe it will be added to a minor publication. And then what? My words are out in the great vastness of space to wither away and be read a handful of times. And that's if it's even published.

I'm not a huge fan of writing because I'm forced to. Nor am I a fan of my work being used to build up someone else's reputation. I barely enjoy using so-called scholarly writing to make myself seem like an intelligent and well informed scholar. Heaven knows that I am far off from the typical idea of the scholar. If I'm going to write and have it be read, I want it to reflect myself and not necessarily be used to show the elitist nature of a magazine. Follow?

On her blog for our digital culture class, Natasha Watts expressed her frustration with the pretentiousness of some literary magazines as well as their readers. Read her post about it here. Her solution was to create an online literary magazine that would take submissions from readers, allow for better writer/reader interaction, and just be a darn happier place to be. And you can read a little about that idea here. We're teaming up with four other student from class to do just that. But we're going to need a lot of input from audiences to really get us going.

This is a call to all my pals that have any sort of interest in the subject. Do you feel like literary magazines are elitist? Too hard to become part of? Not accessible enough? Don't include the kind of writing that you want to read? Our design has a lot of potential to get more writers read through voting systems, a wide variety of genres, abilities to interact with writers, and a user friendly online format. Weigh in on what you think, even if you think that we're being ridiculous. Cliche ending statement: The possibilities are endless!

Media Fast? Media Snacking? At Least it Wasn't a Media Feast

Oh, the media fast. Definitely not as big of a success as regular fasting has been for me. I began at noon on Friday with the intention of going pretty hard core for 24 hours. No phone, internet, laptop, TV until noon on Saturday. And then I cracked...

Friday, approximately 1:00 pm: I work in the Cougareat so I knew that I would have a little bit of technology interaction. The radio would be playing in the kitchen, I would work with the cash registers, I would have a walkie-talkie, I would need to write an email to management. But I could handle all that. No big deal. Then I get stranded while making a delivery. Necessary phone call #1 for someone to come pick me up. I wasn't bummed out because it was for work and it made me really happy to have a phone.

Friday, 5:15 pm: I get off work and need to meet my friend. I was running late so I was hoping that she could grab my car and meet me somewhere. I grabbed for my phone to call her when I remembered that I wasn't supposed to. Oh well, I would just have to continue to be late.

Friday, 5:30 pm: I'm running late and need to text my sister and tell her I was going to be late taking her to a concert that evening. I decided that she would just come to that conclusion when I didn't arrive to pick her up on time.

Friday, 7:30 pm: I'm trying to find where the concert is with my spatially challenged self and sister. It was at the U and I am super not familiar with their campus. Once we finally got around to where the U is, we had no idea where the concert would actually be taking place. Necessary phone call #2 to call my friend at the concert and try to figure out where to go and where to park. This turned out to be pointless because she was close to the front and a speaker so she couldn't even hear me.

Friday, 8:00 pm: My mom texts me and without thinking I flip my phone open to read the text. Oops. Unnecessary text reading #1. I told my sister that she would have to text her back for me.

Commence concert enjoyment. I'm not listening to the music on an electronic device, so I decide that it's acceptable.

Friday, 10:12 pm: My friend calls to see if we want to meet up with them at Denny's. I knew that if I didn't answer she would think that we were blowing them off so I answered and made it snappy. Thus, slightly necessary phone call #3.

Friday, 11:16 pm: Arrive home and in my tired state, reach for my laptop to check my email. After doing so I realized that I definitely wasn't supposed to do that and instead of wrapping it up, I decide that I'm already using it so why not check Facebook too. Judgment error #1.

Saturday, 11:36 am: Receive a text from an old friend. Once again, to avoid hard feelings I decide that it would be better to bend the rules than to wait too long. Unnecessary text reading #2.

Saturday, 12:01 pm: Give a sigh of relief.

More than anything, this experiment showed me just how often I use my gadgets and how dependent I am on them. Even when I was using them when I shouldn't have been, I was very aware of the fact that I was using them and for how long. I definitely found some ways that I could cut back and some ways that I actually don't abuse all of this technology.

Confessions and Crowdsourcing

So I've been avoiding blogging for class for quite some time now. I'll be honest here. I just didn't know enough about digital culture to feel comfortable making statements on it. And I still don't. But this is a start. A late start, but a start. They say to write what you know and that hasn't gone so well for me so instead I'll write what I like. Which is music. I stinking love music. And as an avid music lover, I've worked on finding some connections between digital culture and music. I have found some gems!

Crowdsourcing!

When we were talking about crowdsourcing in class today I had a huge moment of realization. So huge, in fact, that I had to mentally prevent myself from actually hitting myself in the head. I know something about music and crowdsourcing! Last year the artist Imogen Heap started a new music project. At the beginning of this project she warned her fans that it would take up to three years to create but that they would enjoy the journey with her. She knew that she needed to produce a record and for various reasons she decided that using her fans to help her would be beneficial. Since then she has created 10 songs in collaboration with fans, other artists, and producers. And they aren't too bad either! She has taken sound bites, lines of music, images, moving images, lyrics, and ideas from willing participants and made her music into art. One of my favorites is her first one, originally titled "Heapsong1" and later re-titled "Lifeline." You can explore other projects that she is doing on her website (the Listening Chair project is especially interesting).

I'm not saying all this because I'm a crazy fan of Imogen Heap. She's a good musician but I'm just not that into it. What I am interested in is crowdsourcing within a field. It can be tricky to decide that line between crowdsourcing out of interest and collaboration for profit. I've heard plenty of artists collaborate with each other to create a new sound. And yes, it can be awesome. But when you're pulling from a larger crowd with a greater sample, I think that creates a lot of potential.

When I met with Professor Burton he suggested that it would be interesting if we could share other ideas the way we share music, particularly scientific and medical breakthroughs. What does it say about our culture that we're willing to work together to create social networks, music, recipes, and service projects but unwilling to make business models, medical steps, and technology together? In a world where it is so easy to share everything, we put a limit on what we give and take from the web.

Lord of the Flies: Step One

Admittedly, it has been several years since I last read Lord of the Flies. But the opportunity to read it again was just too good to pass up. Another confession though. I am afraid that my connections to digital culture will be a little too literal. I'm hoping that once I get to do a deeper reading I can find some more valuable connections.

• The boys are forced onto the island without any choice. Once they are there they have to figure out how they want things to work and who their leaders will be. The obvious similarities here -- either change with technology or be left in the dark. As we've discussed briefly in class before, we're still trying to decide what the rules are for the internet and who decides what those rules are.
• The boys fear the things that they don't understand (the trapped parachute, the pig's head, each other). However, Simon discovers that the main evil is within themselves. Who are we to say that things on the internet are evil when really we get out of it exactly what we put into it.
• There are very obvious social divides on the island. The hunters, the thinkers, the survivors. There are also very obvious groups on the internet. Those who use it for business, use it for pleasure, use it for terror.

Hopefully I'll come up with a few more solid ideas in the coming week or two. But these are the springboards for now!

My Folks and Their Gadgets

Old people and the internet. Just thinking about it makes me want to roll my eyes. Every time my grandpa joins my family for dinner I find myself explaining some new technology to him. Kudos to him for being aware enough to ask, but trying to talk my grandpa through Twitter is not one of my favorite activities! So far we've gone over Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and simple email. There are really only so many times you can hear the word "twittering" without going crazy. However, I found an ironic situation about a week ago.

One summer I was doing some pretty intense job hunting at home. I spent hours everyday filling out online applications for jobs all around my home town. But whenever my parents would walk into my room and see my on my laptop, it looked to them like I was doing nothing. It took some time for me to explain to them that most companies prefer online applications now. They could not fully wrap their heads around this concept.

Then, just last week, my family was sitting at the table for Sunday dinner. We had all finished eating and were just sitting around talking. Lately my whole family has been obsessed with the game Song Pop. We're all competitive and we all love music so it's perfect for us. Inevitably the topic of Song Pop scores came up at which point my mom pulled out her iPad and my dad pulled out his smart phone. My sisters and I just looked at each other as I said, "Hey, no technology at the dinner table!" My mom's answer? "You're just jealous!"

Since when did our (or maybe just my) parents surpass us on being so up to date with their gadgets? My parents are still no where near tech savvy. I still have to show my mom how to get pictures off of her digital camera. But I think I've been underestimating my parents' abilities when it comes to technology. How have your parents transitioned in the past few years? Have they resisted the tides of change or embraced all that it has to offer?

Original Title aka First Post

For the first post I thought it might be a most excellent idea to explain why I chose to alter an Elvis song for my title. First off, Elvis! Does anymore need to be said? And oh hey, here's a link! Who doesn't love a good Youtube link?! And reason two for the title...
Have you ever tried to make plans with your friends via texting? Has it taken you way longer than you anticipated? Once the plans were set, was there some sort of miscommunication? This has happened to me on more than one occasion! And it drives me up the wall! All of the technology we have is great for starting conversations and saying things but how much communicating really goes on? Is this just a misconception that old people made up so they could add it to their repertoire of "back in my day" stories?
Most of the posts on my blog won't be on communication vs. conversation, although it is something I've taken a special interest in. For now I'll just go where the links take me!
PS: Speaking of links (and a relevant one at that)... Remix culture strikes again!