User talk:Kab00094

#1: Online Visibility
My online visibility does not match the time I spend online, I believe that this is due to the fact that I have always been a quiet and private person, nevertheless I know that I do spend a lot of time online and have a presence there. danah boyd has suggested that we are always connected, which is true as advances in technology allow us to be connected almost constantly. Thus making it difficult to disconnect, just in case something happens, even though it often does not.

I first got a Facebook account because of two reasons both connected to the ease of communication. The first reason being to talk to family abroad, I have family that live in Bermuda and this allowed me and my cousins to feel like we were part of each others everyday lives, this lead to us getting on better when we actually saw each other, as we were not meeting up with family that felt like strangers. The other reason I started using social media was because my friends had already created accounts and I did not want to be left out, although it did not always feel like I was included anymore than before. I think that most people will have at some point contacted a friend, to be told that they are busy and to later find out that they were busy with friends and that you were not invited.

Even though I have had an Facebook account for around eight years I hardly ever spend time posting or updating information and the older I get the less I do so, when I was at school I felt I had to wish everyone I was Facebook friends with happy birthday even though I never talked to the person at school, however, now I only send private messages to actual friends and family. I spend less time on Facebook now due to the fact that I now have other social media accounts, for example, Instagram, albeit I rarely use this account and when I do it is mostly to see what my friends are doing or because I am bored. I also have a Tumblr account which probably has the most personal information on me in terms of preferences, for example, what music, television or films I enjoy. Although this account has no identifiable information other than an email address connected to it.

I still mostly use social media to talk to friends or family in private messenger. This has not changed over the years that I have used social media or the different types I have tried, however, I am definitely more aware of using social media now than I was when I was younger. All of my social media accounts are private and I never post personal information, although my friends can access some personal information. This can still feel like too much and in an ideal world I would not have any personal information on the internet.

Comments
Hello Kate! I enjoyed your post very much. I related to it as I too only caved in to creating a Facebook account as it made communicating with friends and family easier, faster and cheaper. I also find myself posting less and less as I age, feeling less and less pressure to share everything with everybody and instead keeping it in my mind to tell the people I know will truly care for that information when I see them next.

I also used to use Tumblr to share my interests but I have found I no longer use it as I have moved to sharing my interests on Twitter instead as I feel it helps me to connect more personally with people of the same interests. I do, however, use instagram often to post my own content. I'm not very private on my Instagram about who I am as a person but I am however very private of where I live and where I attend school.

I enjoyed reading your post very much! I hope you are finding your way through the collaborative essay ok! I cannot wait until Thursday when I can finally stop working on it and then we have no more deadlines for this course until April!

Digitalmediafiend (discuss • contribs) 22:33, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Hey, Thank you for reading my work and leaving a comment. I think you made some really interesting points and it is interesting to see how other people believe they interact on social media and why the use certain types of social media. Good luck with your collaborative essay work and the semester as a whole. Kab00094 (discuss • contribs) 15:03, 27 March 2018 (UTC)


 * 1) Hi Kate, great post. I couldn’t agree more about the decreasing interest I have in social media as I get older, and interestingly I wouldn’t say it’s to do with age (as my Mam and Dad now post more online than I do). I think, in my case at least, the idea of people thinking they know everything about me because of social media really freaks me out. As the years go on since first creating a Facebook, I am finding myself making more aspects as private as possible, along with as other social media accounts. I like your use of embedded links and the layout of your discussion page looks good. Vw428 (discuss • contribs) 23:59, 4 March 2018 (UTC)


 * 1)  Hi Kate. This is a very well written and interesting post about your online visibility, specifically in regards to Facebook. You link visibility very well to boyd’s idea of always on as you describe how you are always connecting with friends and family through messenger. You briefly differentiate between two kinds of personal information. On the one hand identifiable, such as say a picture and on the other hand your taste in leisure activity. You argue that the latter is more personal.  I definitely agree with you here and probably go about using both social media platforms in a similar way as you do. I never really post anything on Facebook but share many posts about my interests on Tumblr. For me re-blogging and commenting on posts (on Tumblr) analysing the latest episode of my favourite television series, reveals more about my character and therefore who I am as a person than a simple picture. And why do you feel like the things you share on Facebook are less personal than the things you share on Tumblr? The more I consider this differentiation between identifiable and non-identifiable information the less apparent the distinction between the shared data becomes. Through the combination of every single one of my interests I share on Tumblr, I am probably just as identifiable as me as a visual picture or home address. So how would you distinguish the two, and where would you draw the line for identifiability? Furthermore, you mention privacy settings on social media and that none of your accounts are public to make you less visible online. However, have you considered that through for example dataveillance, the conversations you have with people on messenger are contributions to your online presence as well? All in all, a very well written and interesting post.  MaryCastoridae56 (discuss • contribs) 15:18, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi, for me I feel that my presence on Facebook might be a more physical representation of my life, for example, where I am or what I am doing, but I think that this does not accurately represent me as a person. Whereas my Tumblr suggests the television shows, films and music I like, personally I think that what people are interested in suggests a more personal level than a physical image. I am not sure that there is a clear distinction between identifiable and non-identifiable information when dealing with the internet, as all information probably suggests something about a person and most things can be traced back to the original source or person. I have considered dataveillance and although the thought makes me uncomfortable, I understand why it happens and the idea of a stranger, who I will probably never meet, knowing my private conversations is not as bad as a friend of a friend's sister knowing my personal information. Overall, I am not completely sure that once you have an online presence that anything about you or that you do on the internet is private, as it all adds to your online presence. Kab00094 (discuss • contribs) 17:28, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Kate. Thank you for replying to my comment and trying to answer my albeit difficult question. I too agree that when it comes to knowing a person, their interests are what counts more than any physical aspects. This way your distinction between your presence on Tumblr and Facebook makes sense. It is very true that all kinds of information are data that can ultimately be traced back to the person as we all leave our mark whenever we use devices connected to the internet. With that and the reality of dataveillance I can completely empathise that these notions make you uncomfortable. I too try not to think about all the implications that dataveillance brings with it, as an online presence is mandatory these days. However, it is strange that many (including myself) feel like you do, that it seems less ‘threatening’ to have strangers read intimate or private conversations than people from one’s own immediate environment. This might be another aspect to contemplate and what it might suggest about contemporary society in general and the direction we are headed in. In a sense with the internet, connectivity and dataveillance we have to rethink what private means, because as you said, once one is online there is not really any room for ‘real’ privacy. Whichever way that might be defined. MaryCastoridae56 (discuss • contribs) 11:26, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Kab00094 (discuss • contribs) 12:51, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

#2: Annotated Bibliography
Dustdar S., Nastić S., Šćekić O. (2017) Introduction to Smart Cities and a Vision of Cyber-Human Cities. In: Smart Cities. Springer, Cham. DOI https://doi-org.ezproxy.stir.ac.uk/10.1007/978-3-319-60030-7_1

This chapter introduces some of the arguments surrounding smart cities. The authors argue positive possibilities that could be achieved through their proposed ideas for a smart city, the combination of infrastructure enabled by the Internet of Things and active citizen participation. The chapter is fairly useful to my research topic, as the arguments for smart cities relates well to always-on culture. There are some limitations, as the arguments revolve around a positive outlook of smart cities and there are many negative aspects that are not mentioned, these include security, privacy and surveillance issues as well as the unreliability associated with newer technology. In conclusion the arguments are still fairly useful, although they are biased towards the positive aspects of smart cities. I will not be using this chapter as the main base of my research for my collaborative essay, nonetheless I will use the arguments as additional information on the effect of the Internet of Things in always-on culture.

Kab00094 (discuss • contribs) 12:56, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

#3: Collaborative Research
Hey, I found your annotated bibliography a very interesting read as it was both informative and engaging. I find that academic research toward social media often is a captivating topic to study, and relates well to danah boyd’s always on culture. I have been researching the internet of things and found myself surprised by the sheer amount of connected products  available and think that the research you looked at would be interesting to research again in an up-to-date setting, what do you think? Personally, I think that the effect of new technology would create some intriguing results, as there are significantly more internet enable devices now than in 2008. I read recently that from 2008 internet enabled products have surmounted the population of the world. (Pew Research Centre, 2014:2) I think this is a slightly unsettling idea to think about in relation to DataVeillance, I would be interested to hear your views on this and on the effect of the amount of internet enabled products on society. Kab00094 (discuss • contribs) 12:01, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I definitely agree, I always find when I'm doing academic reading about social media that I take it in a lot better and perhaps engage with it better than some other topics. I think this is down to the already invested interest I have in social media as it such a huge part of our everyday lives. I definitely think that it would be interesting to look at this piece again but in todays setting as you're right there's barely a device nowadays that isn't in someway connected. I'm a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to internet enabled devices because I want to be against them in a sort of dataveillance sense, ie. I'm not too keen on the amount of data that can be harvested from me, but in terms of functionality- I want and own a lot a internet enabled devices. I've brought Alexa into my home and although I do have thoughts about the fact that she is always listening and that does unsettle me, I also enjoy the benefits of having a smart device that can control a lot of different devices and appliances in my house, and have made it more functional and 'smart' to live in. Do you have any devices like that? What are your thoughts and reasons for either owning or not owning them? Lauraf303 (discuss • contribs) 05:53, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Hey, I totally agree with you, I am also a hypocrite, as I do not feel comfortable with dataveillance but I could not live without my phone or having my devices connected to each other. My uncomfortableness with data collection is not enough to stop me using the internet or technology. I also complain about social media a lot but I still have and use them frequently. I do not have any devices like Alexa but I do have multiple devices that can connect to the internet and each other. The main reason I do not own a devices like this is that I am never far away for a device that can connected me to the internet whether it be my phone or laptop, so I have never seen the need to get one. However, I do know people who have them and I can definitely see the benefits of owning one, and if nothing else it is always entertaining to ask random questions to the devices. Kab00094 (discuss • contribs) 11:46, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

That’s a fair point, I think the main reason for me having Alexas around the house is to control my speaker system as they work very well with Sonos players, yet another device that is tethered to my internet. It is 100% not a necessity for me but as you say it’s pretty fun to ask it things and it controls a lot of other devices like plugs and even my heating which is pretty handy. It’s basically purely for my own love of technology and making things streamlined and easy that I own devices like this rather than out of need but nonetheless still give loads of money to these companies in exchange for boxes that sit all round my house and listen in!

Lauraf303 (discuss • contribs) 11:56, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

#4: Collaborative Essay Reflective Account
Wikibooks is a non-profit online website created for users to collaborate and share information with a public community. These collections of work create an online library full of information ranging from recipes to educational essays. Wikibooks has been useful in my understanding of digital media and culture, as it allows for individual and shared learning between students, this created a place to interact with fellow students or with other users in general. It also has many useful built-in features, for example, the ability to add links to internal or external pages. This was useful in the collaborative essay as it allowed me to include more information without using a large amount of the word count. Wikibooks also allows for interaction with other wiki platforms, for example, Wikimedia Commons, this allowed my group to access royalty free images for our collaborative essay. There are over 45 million media files that can be used or added too, these media files include images, sounds and videos. I think that this improved the collaborative essay as the images relate well to Always-on Culture and the collaborative essay as a whole.

Through Wikibooks, visibility is emphasised as it allows all users to edit and share information with a community or just to read and learn from other people's work. This has been quite useful in the collaborative essay process as it allows for a group of individuals to share information with each other and create the collaborative essay as a group. It also allows for group discussion and assisting each other with the assignment. Different groups can comment and help each other on their separate collaborative essay groups to assist each and communicate with each other. However, I think the effectiveness of this platform is only as good as the users are willing to participate, which I think there might have been some issues with especially when the assessment first began.

Meeting my group in person multiple times, usually during the scheduled lab times was very useful. The first group discussion we had allowed us to set up Wikibooks accounts and create a group name ‘Never off’, we also chose which topics were our preferred topics. The next time we met allowed us to decide what question we wanted for Always-on Culture and a paragraph plan for the essay, we split this up and each started adding information to our discussion page. From this point on we spent more time interacting on the discussion page, however, we still met face to face a couple more times. The last time we met up was to added some more images and finalise our essay on the book page, as we had completed the assignment. I think that the group meetings in person helped to get the process of the collaborative essay started and allowed the group to feel more comfortable sharing ideas and work with each other. It also help the group keep on track and keep everyone focused on the collaborative essay. Overall, I think that my groups collaborative essay was fairly successful and that we worked well together as a group. Kab00094 (discuss • contribs) 13:01, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Comments
Hi ! This is a great reflective account that ties your personal experience of Wikibooks really well with what Wikibooks actually is. It is well-structured and concisely well-written. Your group's collaborative essay is especially impressive with good use of the platform's different functions. It is interesting your group found face-to-face meetings more productive than contributions on Wikibooks, we also found this to be the case. For me personally, I preferred sharing ideas in person as this allowed silly ideas to be quickly put down (and not be broadcast for the public to see) and stronger ideas could be developed quickly.

Now that this exercise is over, do you think you will continue to use your Wikibooks account for wider projects? NCowling (discuss • contribs) 17:47, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Hello ! It was very interesting to read your individual perspective on using Wikibooks for this collaborative essay assignment. I found your response to be well written and incorporated a good balance of personal insight and information about the platform itself. Upon reading your group's collaborative essay I would definitely say you embraced the platform of Wikibooks and made the most of what it has to offer users including the royalty free images. In my own experience I had a hard time using this platform because it was not what I'm used to in terms of it's appearance and functions. I'm glad that you and your group were able to find it engaging and helpful to you in this process. I wish I had been able to better use this platform myself but I did the best I could with the knowledge and comfort level I had. It is interesting that a running theme among different groups of users is that we have all found in person meeting to be more productive over all than just engaging each other on the Wikibooks platform. I think that speaks to some of the limitations that come with an all computer mediated communication based approach to group work. I wonder what your thoughts are if we were required to use this platform going forward in other contexts that require collaboration? Do you think there are projects that lend themselves more to this platform than others? If yes, what kind of projects do you think are best suited for Wikibooks? Cls00085 (discuss • contribs) 15:00, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

INSTRUCTOR FEEDBACK: DISCUSSION, ENGAGEMENT, CONTRIBS

 * Engagement on discussion pages of this standard attain the following grade descriptor for contribs. Whereas not all of the elements here will be directly relevant to your particular response to the brief, this will give you a clearer idea of how the grade you have been given relates to the standards and quality expected of work at this level:
 * Excellent. Among other things, contributions will probably demonstrate a complex, critical understanding of the themes of the module. They will communicate very effectively, making excellent and creative use of the possibilities of the form (including formatting, links, as well as perhaps copyright-free videos and images, linked to from Wiki Commons), and may be written with some skill and flair. They will address the assignment tasks in a thoughtful and transparent way on the Discussion Pages. They will make insightful connections between original examples and relevant concepts, justifying decision-making with transparency. They will be informed by serious reading and reflection, are likely to demonstrate originality of thought, and will probably be rewarding and informative for the reader as well as for fellow researchers collaborating. The wiki markup formatting will be impeccable.

Students should be engaging at least once a day, for the duration of the project. The following points illustrate how this engagement is evaluated.


 * Although you didn’t engage every single day, there is plenty of evidence from your contribs that your engagement was sustained, meaningful and consistent throughout most of the project period. In the round, these were significant entries in terms of moving the project forward, and an appropriate level of engagement is in evidence.

Evidence from contribs to both editing and discussion of content (i.e. volume and breadth of editorial activity as evidenced through ‘contribs’). These are primarily considered for quality rather than quantity, but as a broad guideline: o	Each item on a contribs list that are 3000+ characters are deemed “considerable” o	Each item on a contribs list that are 2000+ characters are deemed “significant” o	Each item on a contribs list that are 1000+ characters are deemed “substantial” o	Items on a contribs list that are <1000 characters are important, and are considered in the round when evaluating contribs as a whole because of their aggregate value


 * Several contribs registered as being under 1000 characters, with a mix of others that are “significant”, “substantial” and a couple that could be regarded as “considerable” contribution to the project. This is sustained, dedicated engagement with the collaborative process.

•	Engagement with and learning from the community on Discussion Pages o	Evidence of peer-assisted learning and collaboration o	Evidence of reading, sharing, and application of research to the essay o	Evidence of peer-review of others’ work


 * Again, very clear. You clearly pushed your arguments and encouraged others to comment/respond, helped others in their work, and there’s plenty of evidence of reading, application and discussion of ideas. Your contribution to the book pages and discussion pages clearly stand out.

•	Reflexive, creative and well-managed use of Discussion Pages o	Clear delegation of tasks o	Clearly labelled sections and subsections o	Contributions are all signed


 * You were clearly collaborating on the discussion pages. Some of the organisation here is a little haphazard, but overall the discussion is easy to follow. You have also signed where necessary, so it’s easy to see where your contribs fit into the overall discussion.

•	Civility. Your conduct is a key component of any collaboration, especially in the context of an online knowledge-building community. Please respect others, as well as observe the rules for civility on wiki projects. All contribs are moderated.


 * You conducted yourself well. Good work!

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 12:11, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Instructor Feedback on Wiki Exercise Portfolio
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 the making criteria as outlined in the relevant documentation, it should give you an idea of strengths and weaknesses within the achieved grade band overall.

Excellent. Among other things, these entries will probably demonstrate a complex, critical understanding of the themes of the module. They will communicate very effectively, making excellent and creative use of the possibilities of the form (including links, as well as perhaps copyright-free videos and images, linked to from Wiki Commons), and may be written with some skill and flair. They will address the assignment tasks in a thoughtful way. They will make insightful connections between original examples and relevant concepts. They will be informed by serious reading and reflection, are likely to demonstrate originality of thought, and will probably be rewarding and informative for the reader. The wiki markup formatting will be impeccable.


 * Re: responses to other people’s posts – these are especially good. I like that you have framed some of your responses as questions to solicit discussion (this is, arguably, what discussion pages are all about!) and also that you have engaged in discussion in an open and critical way (that is to say, you've responded to what other people are saying and are contributing meaningfully to discussion - arguably the civic element of wiki that you ought to be thinking about, which you clearly are).

General:
 * Reading and research: evidence of critical engagement with set materials; evidence of independent reading of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material. Excellent
 * Argument and analysis: well-articulated and well-supported argument; 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); evidence of independent critical ability. Excellent.
 * Presentation: good use of wiki markup and organisational skills.

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 10:37, 9 May 2018 (UTC)