User talk:Charkleske

I'm working on a wikibook as part of a class project. Charkleske (discuss • contribs) 16:14, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #1 What is a Good Wiki?
In general, I tend to use social media in a way more alike to consumption than creation. I post my own pictures, however I spend an exceptional amount of time looking at and 'liking' what others post. I use social media to learn recipes, or to keep in contact with family members that live far away. I also, unfortunately, use social media as a news source. I get most of my knowledge about current events by scrolling through instagram or facebook. This is practical in some ways, since I would not know as much about current events as I do without learning about it on social media platforms, but obviously social media is not a trustworthy news platform. I have noticed Wikipedia 'social' pages are based on collaboration to produce Wiki pages, and helping each other out with problems as opposed to sharing personal information and pictures. This is unlike any other social media platforms I have experienced. Perhaps my knowledge of 'social media' is only in the basic sense (i.e. facebook, instagram, snapchat). Charkleske (discuss • contribs) 11:43, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Marker’s Feedback on Wiki Exercise #1


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 in relation to Understanding and Engagement elements, it should give you an idea of strengths and weaknesses within the achieved grade band overall.


 * Poor. Among other things, poor entries may just offer links without real comment or apparent point. They may offer nothing more than poor-quality synopsis or description of material of dubious relevance. They may have serious clarity problems (including dead links, random graphics) which affect comprehension (or even worse, admin warnings or take-down notices for copyright infringement). They might be off-topic, private trivia, or of unclear relevance. The wiki markup formatting will be of a poor standard.


 * This post is at the upper end of this grade band, so a little improvement will go a long way to attaining a higher mark. I think in order to engage with the wiki exercises a bit more, it might be useful for you to look at the Grade Descriptors and (especially for this, perhaps, the Understanding) criteria in the module handbook to get more of an idea of how to hit those targets. Less instrumentally, and more in relation to this particular post, it is quite brief, and very descriptive. Making more use of the wiki functionality and markup would go a long way to improving fluidity and functionality of posts. I suspect that, as you become more familiar and proficient with the platform, that this will make a considerable difference, as would referring to reading to build your argument.


 * Re: responses to other people’s posts – none undertaken. This would effectively halve your mark.

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 16:34, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #2 Visibility and Data Trails

 * I am relatively visible online, as I believe most people are. All of my social media pages are on private, however they still come up if I were to search my name on a search engine. I choose to use my real name instead of a screen name for most social media so that I can be found by my friends, so that definitely makes it easier. On my social media accounts I share information with my friends and people I at least knew and liked in high school. I also share with people who I have met since high school. In this way I see social media as a constant first impression; I let new friends follow me on instagram particularly because I post only flattering pictures that show the most fun sides of my life. On snapchat, however, I only let my closer friends follow me because that is a more realistic account of my day to day life, which is seemingly less "fun" than my instagram account. In this way I feel social media makes it easy to control what type of information is available. Conversely, if someone were to search my name on a search engine they would be able to see the sports teams I played on, the plays I was in when I was younger, the awards I have received at school, etc. This type of information is much more difficult to control than social media because my name is used in an article of some kind, or on a school website. In order to remove this information about myself from the online world I would have to get articles taken down, or write to my past schools asking them to take my name out. This is a lot of work and, although I don't particularly like the idea of anyone being able to search my name and have access to all this information about my life, it is not worth the effort to me.
 * This visibility topic relates to my Wikibooks project (persistent connectivity and the fear of missing out) with regard to the 'data trails' part. Because of persistent connectivity, there is more information than ever online. We constantly allow our information to go out into the cyberworld, without really understanding the potential consequences. It has become so normal to freely give information such as emails, names, and phone numbers online. This creates an incredible amount of accessible information. Additionally, even things we search are tracked in some way. For example, I was searching flights to Paris on a search engine and then instagram began giving me advertisements for hotels in Paris. Another way this relates to my topic is the 'control of information' bit. As online users of social media, we control what is on our profiles and what others see about our lives. Since most people only share their best pictures, it looks like we're constantly doing fun things with our friends or constantly looking good. From the outside this can make some people feel that their life does not add up, i.e. fear of missing out in a sense. Charkleske (discuss • contribs) 11:57, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #3: Information Overload
When I am trying to find specific information I usually begin at Wikipedia. I can get a general overview and then I know where to go from there. I can just google things that I read there and then find a more detailed, valid source. I have found that this is the best way to tackle online research because it can be difficult to find a starting point, and often when I try to find general information most of the sites I end up on are focused on a singular aspect of the topic. Using Wikipedia to begin with is a great way to pick and choose what I would like to get more information about. It is easy to get distracted on the internet because there are just so many options to choose from, and finding the ones that are the most valid and most related to what I need can sometimes be a challenge. Sometimes I use library databases to find scholarly articles so I know the source can be trusted, but those articles tend to be the most focused on a specific aspect of the topic so it can be tricky in that respect. I tend not to bother with hard-copy sources, like books, because that makes it even more difficult to find the exact information I need. The ability to quickly determine if a source is what I want or not is a luxury that the internet provides, and I have found that I cannot go back to books. The Wikibooks project thus far has not taken too much adjusting to with regard to my work flow, as we are still in the planning stages. I have been looking up articles and websites that relate to the topics I am interested in and discussing how to delegate topics with my group. I think everyone collaborating and giving their opinions on the discussion page has really jump-started the project and now comes the real intensive part of the assignment. Charkleske (discuss • contribs) 10:26, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey Charkleske. How do you find using Wikipedia to find information? I know from our discussion pages that, at the moment, the information is scattered and can be difficult to follow, but in it's final format for the end of the assignment do you think it'll be simpler? Do you find some Wikipedia pages better than others or are they fairly standardised? FionaThacker (discuss • contribs) 10:33, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry I just saw this! I find the 'social media' aspect of Wikibooks quite confusing so I didn't see this comment until I came here to write my reflection. I use Wikipedia fairly often, and I love how everything on Wikipedia is formatted to make it easy to find the information you're looking for. The information on our discussion page actually seemed to get crazier as the deadline approached! I think this is due to last minute final touches and making sure everything is in order before time ran out. Charkleske (discuss • contribs) 10:44, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #4: Wikibook Project Reflective Account
I found collaboration on this assignment to be fairly simple since most of the contact was online. However, Wikibooks is not the most user-friendly way to interact, as you only get notifications that have you tagged in them. Additionally, I found it strange that you can make comments wherever on the discussion page, whereas most 'chat' areas of social media-type websites only allow you to add comments after the last comment that was made. I feel that this way, only allowing comments to be made after the previous comment, makes it easier so that when I'm catching up on the group discussion it's a bit more organized and easy to follow. This assignment was tough at first, as I was traveling throughout reading week and I thought I would be missing out on a lot of the collaboration effort. Luckily, everyone else seemed to get a late start as well so we all started the project at the same time. Once we got the ball rolling, so to speak, this project really became fairly simple to handle. This brings to mind the 'wisdom of crowds' that Surowiecki spoke of; everyone had their own opinions and ideas, but as a group we were able to make intelligent decisions and have a great end result. This collaboration allowed us to build on each other's ideas and agree with what one another was suggesting, which led to incredibly productive discussion.

The face-to-face aspect was somehow more difficult than the online discussion. The first face-to-face interaction when we chose groups was easy since my group had similar preferences for which topic we should do. It was also nice to have a group that felt just as helpless with the Wikibooks format as I did. For the most part, I think the difficulty was during the final computer lab session. I believe this was due to the fact that we met as just a small portion of the whole group and we did not want to make too many decisions without that approval of the rest of our group. This reflects the 'collective intelligence' idea that Lévy discussed in that the collective intelligence of our group allowed expansion of our singular ideas. This allows individuals to pitch an idea to the group and then the collaborative effort of the group produces a refined, intelligent take on that original idea. For example, I had an idea about subsections for one of our topics, and through a collaborative effort with my group those sections are even more than I had anticipated. Sharing ideas led to an even better result than I could have produced just on my own.

I also felt that the Wiki exercises were a good way to relate what we were doing in our Wikibooks assignments to the topics in lecture. It was a good way to stay on track, and it brought the project back around to the topics we were learning about. Seeing other student's responses to the exercises had the same collaborative quality, as I got to see other's ideas and see the topics in a new way. Charkleske (discuss • contribs) 11:54, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey,, I totally agree with what you've said. Especially your comments on the actual platform itself! I found wikibooks, especially at first, extremely clunky to use and it took a lot of adjustment for me. You could argue that I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I found it really frustrating seeing things on pages but not having the faintest clue how to do these things, can you relate? As for the comments on the discussion page, this was also something that I found really annoying. How much easier it would have been if there had been a notification every time someone edited the page! I'm not sure if you were the same, but I always felt I had to be checking the page to make sure I hadn't missed anything, and like you said because you could post a comment absolutely anywhere on the page, I found it quite hard to comb through the whole page sometimes especially as it became very long! I also like your 'wisdom of crowds' point, this is something I hadn't previously considered (though I really should have made the connection!) so thank you :) Liaa13 (discuss • contribs) 17:21, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

I think your thoughts are insightful. I agree with your comments and very good insights on how this collaboration allowed us to build on each other's ideas and agree with what one another was suggesting, which led to incredibly productive discussion. Also, I agree with what you have mentioned about the project brings to mind the 'wisdom of crowds’ and each individual can put their opinions and ideas in a group that we were able to make intelligent decisions and have a great content. I also found the difficulty of the Wikibooks, which is not a user-friendly way to interact, as you only get notifications that have you tagged in them and I was very confused about the order of the comments because people can add comments everywhere in the dissuasion page, which is hard to follow sometimes. Finally, your personal experience is really helpful to me because I found it very useful how you mentioned about this allows individuals to pitch an idea to the group and then the collaborative effort of the group produces a refined, intelligent take on that original idea. Because I feel the same way that it developing a reflective practice on how writing in publicly-viewable, so everyone can see and everyone can put forward their own ideas and opinions, thus the content of the project concentrate the wisdom of many different people. Shekkkkk (discuss • contribs) 00:03, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Content (weighted 20%)
The Introduction section here is a little perfunctory, but the main Concepts section is where all of the key sections are mapped out. Each section has its own descriptive short paragraph, summarising the discussion and concept in fairly neat and concise ways. The overall effect of this is that the chapter is given a sense of narrative and structure from the outset. Whilst the discussion in various sections doesn’t always live up to this, and there are one or two inconsistencies, this ought not to diminish too much for the achievements evidenced here.

As mentioned, the sections themselves generally contain good content, but there are inconsistencies regarding the strength of argument, and citation of sources. An obvious example of this would be the first history section, for which citation of sources doesn’t occur until the paragraph on the 1990s!

The unusual step of including a survey and posting the results here is an extremely useful one. Something that absolutely HAS to be thought through in ALL future work is that if one is conducting a survey (even if for demonstration purposes, as included here) or indeed ANY work with people, one must go through an ethics approval process – this is to ensure no harms (relative or absolute) occur for researchers or participants. This process will become more apparent later in the degree programme, particularly in final year projects. The use of interwiki links connecting all of the sections of the chapter together is both very useful and evidences good levels of project management, delegation of workflow, and joined-up collaboration. One thing that would have benefitted the chapter enormously, is if these interwiki links could have been extended to include more reference to other chapters in the book. For example, you have a subsection on Surveillance uses – there could have been interwiki links to various relevant sections in other chapters (especially, perhaps, Privacy in a Digital Age chapter).

Plenty of evidence of reading, secondary research and application of ideas from peer-reviewed sources, as well as other sources from popular culture and journalistic materials. This does tend to vary quite considerably from section to section, however, with some sections oddly drawing from newspaper online articles around topics for which there are materials available in the further reading lists (the subsections on internal effects, the Google effect and others, where there are some obvious aspects of that reading e.g. Vaidhyanathan and his book on the Googlization of Everything). Excellent section on FOMO.

The references section evidences research, reading and sharing of resources. However, the depth and range of sources could be considerably improved.


 * Poor. Your contribution to the book page gives an acceptable brief overview of the subject under discussion in your chosen themed chapter. There is a qualified familiarity with concepts associated with your subject, and although there is an effort to deliver critical definitions, the grasp of conceptual and analytical issues although reasonable, tends to be a little limited and insecure. 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 limited 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 minimally sufficient 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


 * Satisfactory. Among other things, satisfactory entries may try to relate an idea from the module to an original example, but might not be very convincing. They may waste space on synopsis or description, rather than making a point. They may have spelling or grammatical errors and typos. They might not demonstrate more than a single quick pass at the assignment, informed only by lecture and/or cursory reading. They may suggest reading but not thinking (or indeed the reverse). The wiki markup formatting will need some work.


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

Engagement (weighted 50%)

 * Evidence from contributions to both editing and discussion of content suggests deficient standard of engagement (i.e. volume and breadth of activity as evidenced through contribs)
 * discernible lack of engagement with and learning from other Wikipedians about the task of writing/editing content for a Wikibook
 * Lacking in reflexive and creative use of discussion pages