User talk:Kacollins95

Hi this is the discussion page for Kacollins95 (discuss • contribs) 11:39, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #1: Educational Assignment
This discussion page is being used for an inclass assignment.

VSCO
Studying abroad in a foreign country means constant texts from every family member and friend to ever exist. You get the same questions over and over again like "What are you doing now?" "done any traveling yet?" "take any good pictures?" You constantly have to keep track of who you're keeping up to date. This reminded me of a certain application. Before venturing abroad, all of my friends were obsessing over the app "VSCO". I thought it was just another picture posting social media sight, so I tucked it away in an apps folder on my iPhone and never thought to open it again, until this past weekend.

Last weekend I visited London, and within only a couple hours of being there, I got the expected text from my dad "take any fun pictures yet?" That is when I remembered my VSCO app and decided to give it a try. It ended up being not what I expected. First off, you can add pictures to your library where you can keep them for yourself and edit them. Second, on your personal profile you can post a variety of pictures to different girds for people to view. My favorite feature is the journal feature, which is basically a virtual scrapbook for different life events. So that's how my study abroad journal was created. Its a compilation of my favorite pictures so far from my travels, and it is easy to share with my family and friends. Now every time I get a text asking what I'm up to, I can just copy and paste my journal URL right there in the text and they have access to everything.

Personal Review
I love VSCO because it is an easy way for my family and I to stay connected in an easy and creative way. I also like VSCO because of the access to journals and girds, not only of the people I know, but creative people all over the world. I can get inspiration for my own VSCO account, will seeing amazing photography from the Oakland Murals of California, too the Model Burnbook of Shibuya Japan. I can also save any photo I want to my own collection page. VSCO is instagram meets pinterest meets facebook, but in a new way. VSCO is the perfect combination of digital media and culture. You can access VSCO by downloading the app, or also through their website.

Comments
I know what you mean, when you say you get permanent texts from every family member. Everyone wants to know what you are doing or what you experienced. I didn’t know VSCO before, but it seems to be a good and easy opportunity to show all of them what is going on. At the same time it is a great idea to create something like a photo album and to keep these memories. Mausjjudith (discuss • contribs) 09:49, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise 1: Formative Feedback
This is a well written post that fits the brief. It's good to see your use of wiki mark up to make separate sections. A link to VSCO, or explaining what the acronym is with the review, would help those unfamiliar with the app. Your responses to colleagues' posts are enthusiastic, but would benefit from being more critically engaged with the content where appropriate.

A post of this standard roughly corresponds to the following grade 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. Sprowberry (discuss • contribs) 08:30, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Social Network
This might be embarrassing to admit, but I have goggled my self once or twice. But really, who hasn’t? Luckily Kristin Collins is a pretty popular name, so when I’m goggled nothing much about me actually comes up. However, if someone really wanted to get a hold of me, all they would have to do is add my hometown after my name. That is how I came to discover how much of a presence I actually have on social media. Up pops my LinkedIn page, my journalism portfolio from my home university, twitter and Facebook. I’m also active on instagram, snap chat, and tumbler, even though those links did not pop up right away. I am more visible online then I had once thought. My Facebook twitter and instagram all have privacy settings, but its not totally under my control. When you click on Google images many pictures that I had shared on instagram and twitter pop up. As mentioned in lecture, privacy in relations to publicly viewed information is an issue when it comes to online identity. Below is social media I am most present on.

Privacy
All of this got me thinking, someone can know a lot about me with out even knowing me. There are some people who are connected with me on linked in, and I’m friends with them on Facebook, but we might have only met face to face once. Sometimes never at all. Because of my social media presence they know information from where I currently go to school, to the part time job I had in high school. I also may only choose to share my information with my close friends and family, but I can’t choose whom they share my information with. I have a certain amount of control when it comes to my information, but once something is on the Internet, we loose a lot of that control. That's why people are always saying, once something is put on the Internet, it is there forever and can never really be deleted. Googling my self is actually going to end up helping me in the long run.

Online Presence
Having a strong online presence isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it is actually a good thing. I want to go into marketing as a career, and having a strong online presence and social media is a big part of that. However, I have to make sure my online presence is a positive one. When a future employer googles my name my Linked in pops up, its awesome because they get a feel for my professional experience. But if my Facebook pops up and I have not so presentable pictures of myself, that could be a bad thing. Below are links I found helpful when it came to cleaning up my online presence to reflect me in a good light.

Kacollins95 (discuss • contribs) 18:01, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Comments
Share what you think!

Hi, firstly your post is very neat and well structured - good job on that! I fin the last point you mentioned very interesting: Self marketing. As we are so visible and as information about us is easily accessible, we surely need to be careful, who is the audience we are presenting ourselves, too. One should always be aware of that, because that is what we do: We market ourselves to others, either on facebook to show how amazing our life is, or on tinder, to find a nice dating partner, or on linked in, to find a good job. We are using the platforms for a certain purpose, right? But what if, my dating partner looks at my facebook page or the job interviewer finds me on tinder or my facebook friends see me on linked in? How will they react? As we are marketing ourselves on different platforms for a different purpose to a different audience - will is still be possible to be authentic, will it give a uniform picture of yourself? Or are we just shutting down and saying, no, I will never add anyone related to my job on facebook, because they might find out how I am "partying hard"? But then, there might be possibilities, e.g. a facebook friend could help you to get a job. So maybe we just stay careful and don't post anything scandalous? But what if other peoples do and tag us? Self marketing online is a pretty challenging job I think, although be often don't think twice about it. Actually we are self marketing ourselves everyday we wake up and dress up to go outside - I think we are used to be visible and to present ourselves. Sometimes we are just not prepared for the reaction, especially by strangers. But online this happens so easily, as people loose their shyness by being able to be anonymous or simply just not saying it to your face. And if you are very visible online even to strangers, they sometimes strike back without a good reason (so called "haters" or "trolls") and probably hurting your feelings. - SchrumpflinH (discuss • contribs) 21:46, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

I like the way you think Schrumpflin: we are self marketing ourselves every day. It is not just part of internet world. Only thing is that what we post and publish online is saved there and can be dug up years later. We were talking about Paris Brown who had to resign from her post as youth police and crime commissioner after her old tweets were criticised. If we act rebellious and stupid in real life when we are teenagers it is not going to affect our future unless it is actually recorded as criminal behaviour. But if that sort of stuff is published online it can have consequences later on. Maybe it is not a good idea to complain about your boss on Facebook. Maybe it is better to do it over a cup of coffee at your friend's house. Having a clean online presence is a good thing. I'm sure that some people have benefitted from having linked in profile so online presence can be a great thing. However that does not mean that everyone should be impersonal and expressionless. Politicians and stand up comics may appear online in different ways because of their occupation. The way you want to market yourself makes difference. Sirrinari (discuss • contribs) 16:34, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I like your idea of our on-line presence being a sort of self-marketing platform. I find it really interesting how platforms like Facebook and Instagram have gone from being a kind of casual social network which consisted of just holiday pictures and status' filled with everyones favourite song lyrics, to a place where we can promote ourselves and our work, so much so that we can even create business pages. Back when Facebook was a fairly new thing, I bet none of us thought it would be a good idea to start up a business and create a facebook page on it for publicity, because it just seemed so silly and unprofessional, right? But now they're pretty much an essential, along side a proper website, maybe an Instagram account, maybe even a Youtube account too. Social network has progressed far from the originally intended use of the platform. And the funny thing is, i bet none of us could have predicted it becoming such a necessity outside the social aspects! Its also interesting how other platforms such as Myspace and Bebo were so short lived, and Facebook seems as though it will last forever, yet they are all essentially the exact same thing with a different layout. Overall, it's always changing, but seemingly for the better, as I personally feel less guilty about spending hours upon hours surfing through Facebook now that I have my own business page to attend to and now that most class projects/uni clubs and societies communicate via social networking. 14buchananL (discuss • contribs) 13:35, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Hey, I find your ‘Online Presence’ section very interesting and the discussion you have sparked through that even more compelling and fruitful. On a certain degree I agree with your sayings about self-marketing and the creation and promotion of the best version of yourself. Don’t you think though that at the same time it is very problematic? Is what we are ‘marketing’ through our social network accounts the real us or is it the constructed ‘Me’ instead of the real ‘I’ that you are talking about, in the hunt of a good job? Isn’t that affecting your real sense of self in the attempt of entering the new symbolic order that has been created on social platforms? Isn’t Facebook supposed to be a friendly and relaxing environment? On the contrary it seems like it imposes a certain amount of anxiety to you, in the process of sculpting the version of the persona that your ‘boss’ expects you to have. Nikolas135 (discuss • contribs) 23:19, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with you that self marketing can be problematic to some degree. I know for me, I'm interested in a social media marketing position after graduation, so self marketing is an important part of that. It shows I know how to use social media and online sources to the best of my ability. With that being said, I think meeting face to face and getting to know a person is just as important. But at the same time can't we put on an act and also construct a version of ourselves we want employers to see? What is more real about an interview where someone can perfectly construct responses? Kacollins95 (discuss • contribs) 17:16, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #3: Information Overload
'''The Internet is both a blessing and a curse. We are lucky to have easy access to a lot of information, but it definitely has its ups and down sides.'''

We have access to so much information that can help us with school, research, work, and so much more. If I ever have a question on anything, it is so easy to just pull up Google and get the answer. I can do all my research for a paper from the comfort of my own couch. But even though Google and other search engines make it easy to find what you are looking for, there are downfalls. One main downfall is when searching for specific answers; we tend to overlook other information. I can look up what year George Washington was born, but miss out on learning other information about his life. Has learning become too much about memorization?

The Internet can also be a huge distraction.

When I’m trying to get work done, I find myself checking instagram and Facebook a million times. Sometimes I go online to do reading for a school assignment, and catch myself online shopping. As a generation, access to so much information has affected ones ability to focus on a task at hand. We can relate this to the always-on culture. . The idea that our generation is always using some form of technology or social media at all times. Danah Boyd in the reading ‘Participating in the Always-On Culture’ deals with being over whelmed.

Whenever Boyd gets overwhelmed, she remembers how information helps her feel connected and in sync the world. I too find myself getting over whelmed by how much information is out there. I’ll be sitting writing a paper for class and find myself scrolling through journals and article for hours. I am even having trouble writing this blog entry because there are so many readings and articles I can write about or refer to. But whenever I get overwhelmed I just try and thing of a time without Internet. What would I rather be doing? Scrolling through information on Google, or sitting at the library going through a million books and sometimes still not be able to find what im looking for. So much information is great; we just have to handle it in the right way. From myself to Boyd, we may all handle it differently. Kacollins95 (discuss • contribs) 23:55, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Comments
I agree with your point about how the way we use the internet can cause us to miss out on learning more information. This doesn't happen when reading a book for research because we have to potentially read a whole chapter before finding the answer we were looking for. However as you said the answer to any question is just a click away. I find it funny how society has changed and there no questioning things anymore- if you want to know something then you will find out right away by looking it up on Google. There are so many more benefits from this though, compared to ways we used to research before the internet. Information can be found a lot quicker and in a more efficient manner but this has come alongside a number of downfalls. For example books are no longer to go to method of research for students- at least not for myself- as they can be accessed online. The internet is changing society and it is sometimes for the better but again can lead to us missing out on a lot of interesting information. Christiejayne123 (discuss • contribs) 14:25, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I completely agree with you, without google and other search engines there is a potential not to even find answers at all. With that being said I miss the days where if I didn't know the answer to something I could as anyone and engage in conversation about the topic. Today when I ask a question I hear the phrase too often "just google it." Kacollins95 (discuss • contribs) 10:04, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Your point about needing to find techniques to remain clam and composed when faced with 'information overload' is very interesting. There's evidence to suggest that nowadays younger generations have a much shorter attention span than previous generations, and I definitely feel like I find it harder to just sit down and read a book than I ever found it when I was younger. I'd never really thought about it in terms of essay writing or assignment work, but you're right - there are so many books, journals, articles etc that it can feel like there is too much out there to possibly get my head around. I often find when I get to that stage my productivity drops way down because my brain feels like it cannot cope. My personal way of dealing with it is to take a break and go and do something else unrelated to the internet. Even just getting outside for a bit can help. I think nowadays its important for everyone to find their own way to deal with information overload because it is such a prevalent part of our society. D man choo (discuss • contribs) 19:29, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi! I love the first point you make about everyone always overlooking information simply with Google. I myself am a terrible offender of doing this. It is all too easy to just find the specific answer you want and go no further. Google is such a blessing and a curse. You're right to connect it to the always on culture that we are living in. Who even goes to the library for books anymore?It has turned into a place where there are less distractions and that is why a majority of people go there, to escape the distractions that exist in our lives. Although sometimes it is hard to escape these distractions when you automatically get Facebook\Instagram etc. notifications the whole time. Studying and staying focused has almost become a talent if someone can do it well! Emily boston (discuss • contribs) 02:28, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

I completely agree with what you have said. The always on culture was something I failed to mention in my post as I spoke more about merely getting distracted by other topics you could learn about, but yours is a very valid point. Social media is probably one of the biggest distractions our generation, and those below us, face nowadays, and it's sad to think that we are so reliant and clingy towards it. You can turn your phone off or put it in another room so you don't get the notifications there, but you're still sitting on a laptop or computer, and all it takes is opening a new tab and you're back on again. Thankfully, however, I don't follow enough people or am not friends with enough people that social media is constantly being updated, so eventually I run out of posts to read and platforms to check, and that's when I can finally get my head down. Muir97 (discuss • contribs) 11:00, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Excercise #4: Wikibook Project Reflective Account
This wasn't a traditional group assignment. For a traditional group assignment you meet face to face with your group multiple times, and either split up the work, or work together each step of the way. The wiki book project was different. The process was still collaborative, but everything was done online. The project was done online, and all the communication was done via our user talk pages online. For our book, a couple people seemed to take charge, and all the others jumped in and collaborated when they could, grabbing topics that were already laid out by the leaders, and trying to add their own little suggestions. There were no set rules or guidelines, just a bunch of people trying to come up with ideas that would work for the topic.

Positives
The positives of this project were convenience. The convenience of being able to work on it on your own time, and not having to find the time that works for everyone to meet as a group. In Shakyntala Banajis and David Buckingham book “The Civic Web”, they did a study about young people online and offline. According to that study ninety percent of respondents said they used the Internet most frequently at home, and on average they used the Internet 6.2 days per week and for 3.3 hours a day. For this wiki book project, I could work from the comfort of my own home but still participate in the project at any time knowing people would be around to work with. A positive was the ability to see everyone’s conversations, and having a platform to share ideas and ask questions anytime any place.

Negatives
But there were also negatives to the assignment. I personally found it difficult at time to keep things organized, and make sure everyone was doing their part in the project. With over 30 people working on one book, it was impossible to meet up face to face and split up the work so all was equal. Even though our smaller group of 5 did get the change to meet up, we didn't have much to talk about because all of us where on completely different pages when it came to our own individual work. I found my self-collaborating off of individuals that were not in my specific group; so working with our given groups face to face was pointless.

Critical Review
In class we looked at Clay Shirky and his opinions on cognitive surplus. He argues that the actions of groups add up to much more than the aggregated acts of individuals. I think the wiki book project challenged that argument. At one point everyone was stressed out about their own individual grade, and making sure that they were posting enough content, but in actuality everyone needed to take a step back and look that in the end we want an great wiki book filled with an abundance of knowledge, only achievable if we all worked together as an organized group. If the book wasn't worked on as a group, in the end it would not flow and would not make sense. But, at the end of the day, I think the problem was the final grades were based on individual work and individual participation, NOT the book itself. I myself did not have as much motivation to make sure the book as whole was great as much as I cared about my own contributions.

Kacollins95 (discuss • contribs) 12:43, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments
I think you speak for most of us when you say that you mostly cared about your own contributions. When Gregg asked during the lecture who had read An Internet of Everything when it was ready, no one admitted having done that. Of course we did skim through other chapters when we were writing our own parts but what others were doing didn't really concern us that much. I actually looked at the final product now and it does look all right, but while I was writing my part of it I focused on that, and when it was done I was done. But then again, there was so much to be done that it was necessary to focus on small sections and not to be involved with everything. That is why we had so many people working on the book, so that we could "specialise". You say that it was a good thing that everyone was able to do the work when they had time. I agree with that. I like individual work just because of that and having that freedom while working on a group project was great. But it did cause problems. I wrote on my discussion page about the problem with some people starting working on the project weeks before others were ready to take part on it. That caused problems because then people were not on a same line and while someone was already writing actual content someone else was trying to figure out what the whole thing was about. I think we all should have started the project at the same time and maybe have few "deadlines" for choosing what topic everyone wants to write on and so on. In that way we would have been able to work apart but together. Sirrinari (discuss • contribs) 15:38, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree with you when you say this was not the traditional group assignment, as it was done via a computer screen and very little or none face-to-face interaction, not to mention that we were to work with classmates, yes, but still people that we didn't necessarily know prior to the activity. I guess that the way in which the task was carried out though best reproduced the concepts discussed in the lectures, acquiring the format of open source projects. I can only speak for myself but I'm positive some other people out there had some initial struggle of adaptation, as newbies, to Wikipedia. You talk about convenience as a positive aspect of the project, and I agree, stressing on the fact that we could work at any time and from anywhere on the project, but I must point out that such freedom of time management had one drawback: the fact that it was difficult to coordinate with other group members, especially in situations where a person needed a reply/feedback from someone but had to wait a long time before getting it and therefore there was a slowing down of the work. Looking back at it maybe the problem could have been decreased, if not eliminated, by setting a series of "deadlines" within the smaller group (as in set times/days to remind to check the discussion page to see if anyone else needed help). Differently from you, although there was the intention, in my smaller group we were never able to meet up physically, leaving therefore the organization and discussion to the virtual world, on both wikipedia and other social platforms (facebook). Further agreeing with you, regarding the negatives I too witnessed the imbalance of the division of the work load, as some users's presence was massive in comparison to others'...with people trying to join previously started and well developed pieces of text at the last minute (but of course it was the contribution that mattered), some because of presumable lazyness, but others because of a bad distribution of the work, in which a few users had control over too many areas. If you think about it though, nothing (or very few?) in life is given to you, and once again we were put in a situation where we had to develop as much as we could, creating and contributing, while at the same time compromising and peacefully co-existing. In a situation where as you said, every user would focus more on its own section, but at the same time the whole of the project could not be ignored, to avoid clashes in contents and tension between users. To be honest I think the resulting outcome was not bad at all, and as a group we were able to create a decent amount of information, interpreting well what happens in a situation of cognitive surplus, using an open source system like Wikipedia itself is. The fact that we worked on little subsections independently, focusing mainly on the development of our areas in fact in my opinion does not exclude the fact that we were working collectively towards the creation of a bigger data bank, adding and benefitting to the group. --Juliabutgiulia (discuss • contribs) 17:54, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

I think you make a very valid point about the grading of the project changing its focus from a piece of collective work to a collection of individualized sections. As you say, Clay Shirky argues that the actions of groups add up to much more than the aggregated acts of individuals. This is based off the assumption that the group functions as a collective intelligence, with everyone working together to create a source of knowledge. However because it was individually graded the focus of most people (if not everyone) was on their private interests rather than, as collective intelligence theory argues, the sole focus being on dedication to pooling knowledge in the public sphere for public interest. I personally felt I was never working towards making the project as a whole as good possible, as I was more worried about my own sections I worked on and about whether or not everyone was having a fair split of the project. This idea of splitting the project goes against the fundamental aspect of the civic web which is that everyone should be able to contribute wherever and whenever they feel like. I do agree with you, though, when you say that a positive was the ability to work when and how you liked as this allowed me to have more freedom to contribute in my own time without too many boundaries. D man choo (discuss • contribs) 18:00, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

I was similarly caught in the situation where I felt that me and my group where not on the same page in terms of what we wanted to do. I wanted to write about a particular theorist and they wanted to write about something else. Before our first and final face to face meeting, I thought that we would have to come on a common theme or area that all the five of us would have to write about. On reflection it feels a bit stupid when I recall that moment but I have to admit that I was extremely confused with the whole structure of the process and how the individual was supposed to reach the collective. Unlike you though, i don’t think that this meeting was a completely waste of time because after all the interaction between us made me feel more confident about the project and it enabled me to clarify many of my inquiries. Furthermore I think your comment on how you were not that interested about the appearance of the book as a whole is something that was acknowledged by many of our peers, in a certain degree I include myself as well. It was indeed the greatest struggle of this project, to find the balance in between the benefit of the self and the benefit of the invisible online community.Nikolas135 (discuss • contribs) 14:14, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Organisation was definitely an issue on this project, with so many different people contributing to such a large project. The discussion pages for each chapter become so overwhelmed with content and individual discussions that it was difficult to keep track of things. As a result I found that I stuck to one specific section when using the discussion page- potentially missing out on important information that I could have gained or even contributed to other sections. The sheer amount of information available showed just how collaborative this project was, demonstrating that communication was a key factor in achieving this task. Without the sometimes overwhelming amount of information, the chapters may not have come together as well as they did by the final deadline. Christiejayne123 (discuss • contribs) 11:37, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Marker’s Feedback on Wikibook Project Work
There's clear evidence that you took initiative in completing the chapter, and this leadership reflects in the quality of the final page. The wiki exercises also show a clear commitment to tackling core module themes and engaging with colleagues with generous responses to others. This is good solid work that shows a level of understanding of module material supplemented through appropriate secondary reading.

Content (weighted 20%)

 * Your contribution to the book page gives an excellent brief overview of the subject under discussion in your chosen themed chapter. There is an excellent range of concepts associated with your subject, and the effort to deliver critical definitions, drawing from relevant literature and scholarship, and your own critical voice in the building of a robust argument is very much in evidence. The primary and secondary sources you found about the chapter’s themes cover an excellent range and depth of subject matter.

Understanding (weighted 30%)

 * Reading and research:
 * evidence of critical engagement with set materials, clearly grounded on close familiarity with concepts and ideas encountered on the module
 * evidence of independent reading of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material through evidence of close familiarity with a wide range of evidence
 * Argument and analysis:
 * well-articulated and well-supported argument featuring appreciable depth of understanding
 * good level of critical thinking (through taking a position in relation to key ideas from the module, and supporting this position in discussion);
 * good level of evidence of relational thinking (through making connections between key ideas from the module and wider literature, and supporting these connections in discussion);
 * evidence of appreciable independent critical ability

Engagement (weighted 50%)

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

Overall Mark % available on Succeed

FMSU9A4marker (discuss • contribs) 14:44, 3 May 2016 (UTC)