User talk:Aidancc

Wiki Exercise Number 1
As a student in the discipline of culture and society, I am constantly being exposed to new perspectives and understandings of the world through my studies. Film + Media and Sociology is a combination of subjects which interacts with each other and exposes the workings of our understanding of relationships and reality.

For this discussion I will be concentrating on what seem to be the key differences between digital media platforms and how the user interacts with them. I think the main distinction between wikibooks and other social network sites like Facebook and Twitter is the fact that wikibooks seems a lot more formal and looks like it has more of an academic purpose. As someone who is an avid user of Twitter and Facebook, often the posts on those sites are to share entertaining elements of one's personal life. Therefore the shared posts on Facebook and Twitter could be considered as possibly vapid and almost disposable in nature. However wikibooks comes across as a digital medium that hosts informative discussions etc. The straight-forward and simple interface of social networking sites (SNS) possibly promote an environment that is perhaps more informal and friendly. Whereas wikibooks looks like a digital space aimed at documenting a varied topics from anyone who frequently accesses the site.Aidancc (discuss • contribs) 20:47, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise Number 2
Thinking about how visible I am online, I would consider myself to be relatively visible on social networking sites. In terms of the amount of information that I have shared or has been shared about me (i.e. in photos on other people's profiles etc), I think I share a lot compared to the average person. All my accounts apart from Facebook are public so my online visibility and content could be considered to be pretty abundant. However I have very little actual personal information online. None of my emails, my phone number etc can be accessed apart from me so in that sense the information I choose to share publicly is of a different nature.

Facebook Very private, mainly used for sharing posts about personal life, instant messaging service to chat to friends, personal information is only seen by selected people.

Twitter Most public account, however the content posted is absolute rubbish and nonsense, not meant to be taken seriously, arguably a completely different online identity exists on Twitter, largest SNS presence.

Instagram The photos shared to Instagram sort of act as a the means to share the most picturesque aspects of one's life, images reflect an idyllic comprehension of an online identity, but also the most superficial.

Soundcloud Content shared on Soundcloud is primarily music, used to share and exchange tracks with other artists and musicians around the globe.Aidancc (discuss • contribs) 15:18, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise Number 3
Even if individuals in society are not consciously aware that they function in an "always on" culture, for many theorists in this field it is undeniable that the world around us has transformed due to the rapid use of digital media. Pretty much anyone can log onto some sort of device that connects to the internet and access such an incredibly vast amount of information - never before seen in human history. Not only this, but the internet offers the tools to communicate with whoever and wherever someone might be around the globe. The social media scholar dannah boyd, explains that "it's about living in a world where being networked to people and information wherever and whenever you need it is just assumed" [Mandiberg, M. (2012). The social media reader. New York: New York University Press. danah boyd, pp.71]. With the advancement in proliferation of mobile technology influencing our lives, and the rapid increase of users on SNS, I personally feel first hand that this always on culture has impacted my life in a way that is second nature in many ways. As someone who has grown up alongside the evolution of the internet and mobile phones, a constant development with how I interact with the online world and its "always on" nature. To deal with this, in times where I just want to relax, disconnect, or actually do some work, I force myself perceive my iPhone or the Twitter tab in my bookmarks bar, as just gateways to a world that is always going to be there regardless whether or not I am online - its always on. Therefore I am able to take a step back, and know that I can catch up on Tweets, or message my friends, or watch YouTube videos at a later point in time because they are always going to be there since they are "always on".

The constant workflow of this project has positively effected the way I observe my interactions with digital media. The work flow expected to complete tasks etc, has highlighted to me that there are wider sociological implications of even the smallest taps on phone displays, and tasks carried out online. Aidancc (discuss • contribs) 11:45, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise Number 4
I am somebody who uses the internet and social networking sites every single day. I also am somebody who is interested in using new platforms to communicate and utilise my work load. Therefore, I thought the Wikibooks experience would be something I was able to click right into, however it turns out perhaps the website and the projects found on the site, are a lot less absorbing and convenient than I first thought. I wholly understand that the site is not a social networking site, but instead more of a platform of community shared knowledge and online textbooks. I didn’t really understand what was expected on the site in terms of writing style and the open-world access to everything. I appreciate though that it was a collaborative real world example of the Hive Mind and to demonstrate a structured Collective Intelligence online.

Collaboration was best seen in the discussion pages. This was kind of a back world to the book created by me and my fellow users. The discussion page was used by everyone in the group as a way to put forward ideas and to share content that we thought could be useful to others. This discussion was useful in many ways like the fact we were able to connect with one another relatively easily. Although the platform is pretty confusing the first couple of visits, it begins to make a bit more sense and one’s own engagement list starts to grow. This further stimulates the user into making more edits and contributing to the site. The discussion page could be argued to be an online equivalent of a face-to-face forum - which relates to the notion of technology as an extension of the self. The highlight for me was the peer review as we were able to constructively work together to produce the highest quality and most coherent Wikibook we could.

At times, what was frustrating was the fact that Wikibooks is basically a self contained domain, meaning that I honestly didn’t feel connected to the platform. In many ways it was almost a disadvantage to my general workload and University workload. At no point did I ever feel I was a proper user of the site, and therefore found it quite difficult to immerse myself in the project. I found many aspects of the site unclear, like when someone was trying to communicate and engage with you. I found that it made many tasks a lot more difficult and time consuming than they probably should be. Perhaps if some things in my personal life hadn’t have occurred and I was able to attend the first lab for the module then I would have a better understanding of the entire platform. But alas I managed to catch up and put in my best efforts to engage and participate as much as possible on the discussion page and in group meet ups in order to make up for about a week and a half absence.

Having literally every edit, every post, and every contribution appear on one page; has altered what I understood about the notion of online identities. Since everything can be found on one page it is sort of overwhelming to think that all our activities online can be traced. This links and highlights many of the ideas spoken about in the lecture to do with online identities. It has made me come to the realisation that I should be a lot more conscious about everything I do online, not just on the Wikibooks platform but in my general day to day internet usage.

Overall the Wikibooks experience was enlightening for me as it truly has changed my fundamental understanding of many of the concepts highlighted in this post. I should have perhaps reached out for more help to amend the time I was not able to attend University due to personal circumstances, in order to achieve a fuller working understanding of the site. Aidancc (discuss • contribs) 11:34, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Request for comment
Hi Reuesting your comment and guidance.

Reading_room/General

Thanks and regards Mahitgar (discuss • contribs) 03:13, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise Number 4
I am somebody who uses the internet and social networking sites every single day. I also am somebody who is interested in using new platforms to communicate and utilise my work load. Therefore, I thought the Wikibooks experience would be something I was able to click right into, however it turns out perhaps the website and the projects found on the site, are a lot less absorbing and convenient than I first thought. I wholly understand that the site is not a social networking site, but instead more of a platform of community shared knowledge and online textbooks. I didn’t really understand what was expected on the site in terms of writing style and the open-world access to everything. I appreciate though that it was a collaborative real world example of the Hive Mind and to demonstrate a structured Collective Intelligence online.

Collaboration was best seen in the discussion pages. This was kind of a back world to the book created by me and my fellow users. The discussion page was used by everyone in the group as a way to put forward ideas and to share content that we thought could be useful to others. This discussion was useful in many ways like the fact we were able to connect with one another relatively easily. Although the platform is pretty confusing the first couple of visits, it begins to make a bit more sense and one’s own engagement list starts to grow. This further stimulates the user into making more edits and contributing to the site. The discussion page could be argued to be an online equivalent of a face-to-face forum - which relates to the notion of technology as an extension of the self. The highlight for me was the peer review as we were able to constructively work together to produce the highest quality and most coherent Wikibook we could.

At times, what was frustrating was the fact that Wikibooks is basically a self contained domain, meaning that I honestly didn’t feel connected to the platform. In many ways it was almost a disadvantage to my general workload and University workload. At no point did I ever feel I was a proper user of the site, and therefore found it quite difficult to immerse myself in the project. I found many aspects of the site unclear, like when someone was trying to communicate and engage with you. I found that it made many tasks a lot more difficult and time consuming than they probably should be. Perhaps if some things in my personal life hadn’t have occurred and I was able to attend the first lab for the module then I would have a better understanding of the entire platform. But alas I managed to catch up and put in my best efforts to engage and participate as much as possible on the discussion page and in group meet ups in order to make up for about a week and a half absence.

Having literally every edit, every post, and every contribution appear on one page; has altered what I understood about the notion of online identities. Since everything can be found on one page it is sort of overwhelming to think that all our activities online can be traced. This links and highlights many of the ideas spoken about in the lecture to do with online identities. It has made me come to the realisation that I should be a lot more conscious about everything I do online, not just on the Wikibooks platform but in my general day to day internet usage.

Overall the Wikibooks experience was enlightening for me as it truly has changed my fundamental understanding of many of the concepts highlighted in this post. I should have perhaps reached out for more help to amend the time I was not able to attend University due to personal circumstances, in order to achieve a fuller working understanding of the site. Aidancc (discuss • contribs) 11:35, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Comments

 * Hi, your reflexive post has made me think a bit more about the frustrations I had at the beginning of this project. I had used sites like Wikipedia many times before, as I am sure all of us had, but I was completely unfamiliar with how these pages were actually created. I would have much rather just written another essay. However, as I began to engage more with the project and improve my understanding of things like the markup language used, I was able to better appreciate why we undertaking an assignment in this format. I believe that it allowed me to better understand some of the topics covered in the lectures and seminars as I was able to experience them first-hand. For example, I was able to gain a better understanding of our chapter topic (The Hive Mind and Collective Intelligence) not just by researching it but by participating in it. By splitting up our project, we each gained different aspects of knowledge on the topic and then combined our knowledge to create a collective body of work that provided a fuller and better understanding of the topic as a whole. We were able to use our collective knowledge to complete the project.


 * I completely agree that this project was very time-consuming as I had to learn how to do a lot of new things. It wasn't as simple as doing some research and writing an essay, I had to learn how to do things like format and reference within the wiki. Also, I found communicating with people a lot more complex than it had to be. The discussion pages, while useful, were often a bit disorganised and it could be easy to miss some information. If it had not been required by this assignment, I would have preferred not to use the discussion pages to communicate and use other methods of communication which are more efficient and user-friendly, such as Facebook, WhatsApp or email. Imcgrouther18 (discuss • contribs) 16:22, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi Aidan, I enjoyed reading your post as I feel I could relate to a lot of the same things as you. I also am an avid user of social media websites but I agree interacting on the Wikibooks something was unlike any experience I’ve had of online media before. I agree the site was particularly hard to navigate around at first and its user face was a lot less user friendly and easier to use than other social media sites which we normally use. Although you’re right about Wiki*edia being more of an online learning platform that a social networking one, sometimes it hard to distinct from the boy as at the end of the day we were still having to socialise with people via the discussion page so it can be argued some of the principles are the same. I also agree that this online Wiki*edia community was a good example of Hive mind and what is known as Collective Intelligence online.

The discussion pages did play a vital part in ensuring the success of the project, the inputs from all members of the group enabled us to be able to divide work tasks and work efficiently. Also, having a section for questions was beneficial in aiding us in the right direction which was great as the writing style on Wikibooks takes a while to get used to. It’s true that the platform got a bit easier after a couple more uses but I would still stay it is very confusing and no something I would use daily as I do not have the patience to learn all the coding as of right now.

Indeed, Wikibooks is such a self-contained domain, once you’re on it nothing else online can distract you which can be said to be a good thing as it insured your focus was on the project. However, I agree this was a bit frustrating at times because the Wiki*edia interface is very mundane and therefore it’s easy to lose interest easily hence why it resulted being so time consuming. I too didn’t feel very connected to the platform and found it hard engage with to begin with but I’m glad we had to work on the project as a group as I doubt I would have been able to do as much as I did on my own.

Your point on online identities was interesting- I hadn’t thought about it from that angle. How all or movements on the site is tracked and saved is quite intrusive actually in a way- really highlights the whole ‘once you put something on the internet it’s there forever’ idea. I think I too will become a lot more conscious of the things I post online and imagine if I would post half of what I do if I knew it would never be deleted even if I deleted it. Infact, our posts are probably most definitely being traced without realising: Wikibooks just makes it visible to us.Tamoloriiii (discuss • contribs) 19:20, 16 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi Aidan, I can totally relate to you when you speak about having difficulties at the beginning of the project as I myself wrote in my own post about how I found wikibooks a difficult site to navigate. Though, I do agree that it was a great opportunity to take part in a collaborative project I also understand your point that the site itself may have hindered this effort. I also like your point about how collaborating in the wikibook discussion page was beneficial, the wikibook did have advantages in its ability to offer a collaborative page where everyone could present their own but also work together to help each to create something of a whole. I agree with you on your point about never feeling like a proper user of the site because I don’t believe I ever did either. There were times when I figured out how to do something and felt like I was finally managing the site well but most of the time, maybe due to the lack of profiles and ability to have a quick efficient conversation with other users, I felt a bit disconnected from it. Thus rather than being something with which to display theories this may have been undermined a little by the format. I like your point about being made aware of our own contributions once they were made visible to us, having everything on the one page whilst also not having control over it as others users could alter it as they wished, was a new concept to me. I also feel enlightened though, as I’ve learned some skills from wikibooks, which though I don’t think could apply elsewhere, allowed me to show some of my weekly learning. GemmaCampbell (discuss • contribs) 22:40, 16 March 2017 (UTC)



Hi Aidan, Like yourself I use social media sites everyday, therefore when first using wiki book I found it extremely different and outdated compared to the sites we are used to. I also wasn’t sure which kind of writing style or layout was expected of us, and it also took me some time to get used to how to navigate the site. Because of this I found that as each week went on my posts were getting some what better as I was learning something new each week; had I known all of this information at the beginning all of my posts could have been at a reasonable standard.

I found your point on having every contribution on the one page helping you understand the notion of online identity very interesting as I never thought of it this way. As I looked at my ‘contribs’ page and the amount of activity was going up it did open my eyes to how much I had actually done. Although I didn’t think of it in terms of social media. Can you imagine the list which would be on our ‘contribs’ page if it took place on for example Facebook, or twitter? It is quite shocking and i’m sure it would make us realise just how much time we spend online and just how much evidence and information is online.

I also found wikibooks fundamental in understanding many concepts in the module, as I was able to read other peoples ideas and understandings I feel that it extended my understanding of certain topics and provided me new ways to think about the task at hand. Thanks for your post, I found it interesting!!

ArianneStirling (discuss • contribs) 10:13, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Content (weighted 20%)
The introductory section could have been expanded to give an overall summary of ideas, connecting those ideas and orienting the reader in such a way as to reinforce the notion of narrative and argument. It would have been nice to use Condorcet’s historical concepts as a way of introducing the themes and issues under the following discussion.

The discussion sections are generally well written, and evidence research, reading and draw from a fairly good range of sources and materials. Some use is made of the platform’s strengths to emphasise aspects of the argument, and evidence links between various concepts. I would have liked to have seen more in the way of interwiki links, however – these are links that would have enabled you to make the link explicit between the materials here in this chapter, and ,materials found elsewhere in the wikibook. This is especially so for those sections, for which little to no evidence of research and cited material appears - i.e. the majority of paragraphs in the Economics section, for example, where links should have been explicitly made to the Digital Labour chapter. This would have made a considerable difference to the authority and engagement aspects of your collaborative writing.

Some very interesting and fairly well written material on politics, aesthetics and aspects of the hive mind (although this last appears in repetition in a number of different places on the chapter – suggesting that delegation and joined-up working could have been better. Some interwiki links joining up the various sections would have made more of the platform’s functionality.)

References section evidences research, reading and sharing of resources. Very good use of wiki commons images. Overall, very well put together, a little more content would have been better, although there are specific considerations which have been taken into account there, especially considering the number of total students working on the chapter.


 * Satisfactory. Your contribution to the book page gives a satisfactory brief overview of the subject under discussion in your chosen themed chapter. There is a fair range of concepts associated with your subject, and an effort to deliver critical definitions. There is evidence that you draw from relevant literature and scholarship, however your own critical voice in the building of a robust argument is slightly lost, perhaps due to a variable depth of understanding the subject matter or over reliance on rote learning. The primary and secondary sources you found about the chapter’s themes cover a somewhat circumscribed range and depth of subject matter.

Wiki Exercise Portfolio (Understanding weighted 30%)
Posts and comments on other people’s work, of this standard, roughly corresponds to the following grade descriptor. Depending on where your actual mark is overall (and particularly in relation to Understanding and Engagement elements), that should give you an idea of strengths and weaknesses within the achieved grade band, relative to the descriptor


 * Good. Among other things, good entries will make a clear point in a clear way. They will relate concepts to original examples in a straightforward fashion. They will make effective use of the possibilities of the form (including links, as well as perhaps copyright-free videos and images, linked to from Wiki Commons). They may also demonstrate a broader understanding of the module's themes and concerns, and are likely to show evidence of reading and thinking about the subject material. The wiki markup formatting will be very clear.


 * Reading and research:
 * evidence of critical engagement with set materials, featuring discriminating command of a good range of relevant materials and analyses
 * evidence of independent reading of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material to a fairly wide degree
 * Argument and analysis:
 * well-articulated and well-supported argument through judgement relating to key issues, concepts or procedures
 * evidence of critical thinking (through taking a position in relation to key ideas from the module, and supporting this position);
 * evidence of relational thinking (through making connections between key ideas from the module and wider literature, and supporting these connections);
 * clear evidence of independent critical ability

Engagement (weighted 50%)

 * Evidence from contributions to both editing and discussion of content to a variable standard (i.e. volume and breadth of activity as evidenced through contribs)
 * Good engagement with and learning from other Wikipedians about the task of writing/editing content for a Wikibook
 * Reflexive, creative and fairly well-managed use of discussion pages using deployment of somewhat limited judgement relating to key issues, concepts or procedures