User talk:Katka.wicz

Hello, this is my user discussion page. I will use this page for several educational assignments. This is also the place to expain and discuss things related to the assignments. Please, don't hesitate to comment. Katka.wicz (discuss • contribs) 15:49, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #1: Educational Assignment
Books have been always an important part of my life. The very first of a great importance was [|Six Bullerby Children] by Astrid Lindgren. My mom gave it to me for my 6th birthday. It wasn’t new. It was the same copy which my mom was given on her 6th birthday. There are still the birthday wishes written by my grandmother to her daughter on the very first page of the book. This book has had always a spacial place on my bookshelf.

I am writing about it because today I don’t have so many books. And its not related to the fact that I’ve stopped reading, I haven’t. My books have now a digital form. They are compressed and transformed into files in my mobile or tablet or e-book reader.

E-book is a part of the digital revolution. The fact of its appearance is not in my opinion appreciated enough. It might be not recognised as important as the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press but it is changing some of the relations between authors, publishers and readers of the book. It is not necessary to sent a book to a professional publisher house and to wait for its approval anymore. Now one can use platforms available online and publish a book in less than 5 minutes and reach millions of the potential readers. Changing the potential into actual readers might be an issue here but for some authors starting the advertising campaign in the social media or exercising their writing skills on the fan fiction sites have been very successful.

The book itself has changed its appearance. It has now the digital form like music and films. It is available instantly on digital devices. It’s lightweight and doesn’t occupy much space, it’s more convenient for our nomadic life.

Katka.wicz (discuss • contribs) 11:29, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Comment: First I want to say that this is an absolite lovely story and I hope you will give the book to your children on their 6th birthday. E-Books are a very interesting topic to talk about and I never thought about your point of view. But what also had been interesting to know is why you bought an e-book and if you like e-books more than the "normal" ones? I also have got an e-book, because it is very practical when you are on the move e.g on holiday but it could never replace my bonded books. Askoelsche (discuss • contribs) 11:32, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * It is a valid point. I was not clear here: paper books represent to me sentimental value. They are also seen as valuable objects which value can be linked to their rarity, edition (specially in in case of comic books) or simply because they are signed by the author. For me digital books are a necessity of 21h century when our life is more nomadic and every precious items should be kept in a pocket. Katka.wicz (discuss • contribs) 18:37, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise 1: Formative Feedback
Your reflections have a nice flow from an anecdote to your analysis of ebooks as a form. Your analysis offers some interesting and engaging ideas, but this needs to be backed up with evidence and further critical reflection. For example, you discuss the importance of self-publishing but offer some evidence that this is becoming an important part of ebook culture or why this might be of interest. Using wiki markup to add further links to relevant information would also enhance your discussion as it would demonstrate further reading and allow interested readers to follow up on your discussion and not just the starting point for it. Also make sure to follow all parts of the exercise: you have not posted comments on colleague's pages. Engagement is an important part of the portfolio, so make sure to do this in future.

A post of this standard roughly corresponds to the following grade 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. Sprowberry (discuss • contribs) 10:31, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #2: Visibility and Online Footprint
How visible are you online? What forms does that visibility take? What kinds of information are available about you online? Who have you chosen to share it with and why? How much of this information is under your control? These are the question that at the beginning of the internet era we did not how to answer. Before Web 2.0 the internet seemed to be the platform to perform on anonymously, on occasion only sharing sensitive data about ourselves. We gave very carefully the details of our credit cards when buying stuff in internet shops, our email address very rarely reflected our true name and we could extensively comment or even chat on various websites anonymously, no one could linked our internet persona with the real human being. The use of internet was not yet world widespread and community of users included geeks rather than average people. Web 2.0 has changed it forever. Along with delicious.com and digg.com started to appear platforms on which people could not only register themselves to share interesting websites or news by tagging specific topics but register and build up the internet profile of themselves WITH the real name and photo. For people born into a digital era this is a very normal thing, I mean, to share their sensitive data (what, when, where, how they did) with others. For their parents and grandparents, who remember the time when punctuality was a virtue on which people relied on arranging their meetings without the threat of changing it on the last minute by texting... The internet has changed itself from a curiosity to a necessity. Our Facebook profile informs others about our personal life, the work we do, friends and relationships we have... The possibilities are infinite. For me is the question who has the control? Who is in position of power? The community of shares or an individual? Isn't it like we give up parts of our privacy to be one of the others, to belong to the community? To be seen as an average person? What with those who do not have any profiles? Is the profilelessness a thing yet? There is also a question of remembering. Human memory is fallible. We often say that time heals wounds and all we need to forget something is time. But not in the case of digital age. There are millions of terabytes of digital memory. Every word written, picture posted online, file downloaded is memorised somewhere. For internet enthusiasts it is a remarkable achievement: human history is being written live on servers as it happens. But for those with a less enthusiastic approach it can be seen as a Pandora's Box full of awkward proofs of existence which is just waiting for an opportunity to haunt someone.Katka.wicz (discuss • contribs) 20:17, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #3: Information Overload!
The internet may be described as an infinite source of information. It is expanding its boundaries constantly. It is like an extensive library whose shelves are permanently upgraded and updated. It is like shopping centre offering an infinite sale. It is a place when you can meet other people, watch films, or TV read newspapers or books. But it also is a process of creation which everyone can be part of  it through the social media, blogging or vlogging, posting photos or films, gathering people around important ideas. The internet has the ability to absorbing its user completely. Being online is incredibly time consuming. The amount of information to digest is simply overwhelming.

To remain sane but well informed at the same time I apply some strategies to my online activities. Firstly, there is a hierarchy of information I need on a daily basis of which the most important is mail. Our smartphones have become so smart that checking emails from all our email addresses (job, study, private, whatever related) is a matter of seconds now. The rest of social related information is done by social media such as Facebook or Twitter which have also the wonderful functionality of gathering the news from websites or profiles previously subscribed or liked. This is a huge time saver. In terms of the news I usually search for reliable sources such as the conventional news organisations which still have their equivalents in the real world (BBC, The Gardian, etc.). So I can easily say that the hierarchy mentioned above reflects my interest in the world to some extent. Of course, one can say that my this is a very limited perspective because the internet offers a lot more and I chose only a very few options. However, in my opinion I take from the internet what I am actually able to consume.

Secondly, the time seems to be the most important factor in the approach towards internet. It has also the second, even more important meaning: in the internet every information seem to be short-lived. It is true that everything what is posted or written online it is ‘remembered’ and saved on servers. But once the information being read or skipped by the user it is archived somewhere with billions of others. It is possible to come back to it. But if it is important? I think our approach to remembering thing has changed. Remembering becomes the task which is now ceded to the search engines. It is not important any more to remember some facts, it is important to know how to find the information about it in the internet (just google it!).

The internet forces us to be multitasking. Our attention is permanently distracted by sounds, pictures, incoming mails or texts. The most popular web browsers are designed to open several windows; you can talk to your mom via Skype and the same time you can work on your group project or watch cats on youtube. Being online is fun, it can be creative and productive. Completely immersion can risky though. It can lead to blissful procrastination. Katka.wicz (discuss • contribs)

Wiki Exercise #4: Wikibook Project Reflective Account
An anticipated result of an experiment, which undoubtedly Wikibook Project was, was to disclosure the mechanism which let the users to collaborate and engage in order to create the content for the pre-existing structure. The assumptions of the experiment and its conditions were simple: a group of students was given a task of writing a book titled An Internet of Everything? in environment of the Wikibooks.org. The titles of five chapters also were given. It allowed students to direct their interest in required and appropriate fields of knowledge. The group was divided into subgroups which were later assigned with specific chapters. As a result on each chapter worked group of around 25 students. Students had four weeks for the completion of the project. What is also important the criteria for the marking were given and clarified on several occasions: the content itself would be assessed as less important than the engagement and collaboration. Being aware of all conditions and experimental nature of the assignment I found myself in a strange position of an observer rather than a participant. The time given us for work as well as the possible outcome of it seemed almost unreachable. Collaboration with such large group of people and only roughly described task were obstructions which prevent some of us from being more engaged. But what for some is an obstacle for other is a motivating impulse. Suddenly the leaders appeared and the structure of the chapters emerged. The tasks were distributed and successive members of the groups completed their work. The discussion page was the main space to articulate ideas and exchange tips on editing. Face-to-face discussion was completely absent from various reasons: as the all online activity was recorded on the wiki page, the offline discussion seemed to be inefficient and completely unnecessary (as it could not be assessed). Some students communicated via social media such as Facebook. Being a part of this experiment let me realised two things: without the engagement and participation of the users the internet is only an empty shell. The other one was that I am a civic slacker. The amount of work put into the project by the leaders (by leaders I mean contributors who sacrificed their time to enlighten others with mark-up details, or to structure the chapters on smaller bits, or to organise bibliography, etc.) is indisputable. Their engagement and contribution let others to find space for themselves and to participate by filling the gaps in the chapters. Despite the book presents itself impressive the experiment revealed some limitations. Although we worked as group, imitating an internet community working together to achieve the same goal, our actions were limited by several conditions: time, the aim and environment. The experiment created circumstances in order to force us to act as a group of civic activists. Whereas our activities were focused on achieving our goal, namely creating the book, our ultimate aim was to pass the assignment individually. Hence the conclusion that the more work someone put into the project the better mark he/she is likely to attain. I do not say that the leaders in our experiment did not act voluntarily devoting their time to acquiring and sharing knowledge with others. They acted hoping that they work will result in the measurable form of a good mark. I think it distorts the outcome of our experiment slightly. The book, time limit and environment were imposed as an academic task so neither of us can say that he/she is an expert in the field or is passionate about the topic. The idea of the book did not appear spontaneously, we did not choose wikipedia as our natural environment to work in and following a few internet savvy wiki users and at the same time hard-working students is not a substitute for a democratic or civic web. The project showed though, that the web without users is only an empty structure with great potential, a tool waiting to be used. Working on project like this reveals the mechanism of collective intelligence. Everyone is invited to collaborate and to be engaged. It is like Clay Shirky said ‘No one person knows what everyone knows’. The only thing is to get the hive buzzing. Katka.wicz (discuss • contribs) 21:40, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Marker’s Feedback on Wikibook Project Work
While your contributions demonstrate a reasonable understanding of digital media and culture, as well as the utility of Wikibooks as a platform, there are elements that would benefit from further attention. Some of your wiki ecercises were late and you left any engagement to the last minute. Your exercises primarily deal in generalisations and do not fully consider topics in relation to module themes. It's also important to move beyond the use of journalistic sources to include theoretical and conceptual discussions by academics that can usefully demonstrate your mastery of the material.

Content (weighted 20%)

 * Your contribution to the book page gives a good brief overview of the subject under discussion in your chosen themed chapter. There is a good 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 a good range and depth of subject matter.

Understanding (weighted 30%)

 * Reading and research:
 * appreciably deficient evidence of critical engagement with set materials;
 * lack of independent reading of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material
 * Argument and analysis:
 * poor articulation and lack of support in argument;
 * lack of evidence of critical thinking (you tended to not taking a position in relation to key ideas from the module, nor did you support this position in discussion);
 * lack of evidence of relational thinking (you tended to not make connections between key ideas from the module and wider literature, nor did you support these connections in discussion);
 * lack of evidence of independent critical ability

Engagement (weighted 50%)

 * Evidence from contributions to both editing and discussion of content suggests minimally sufficient standard of engagement (i.e. volume and breadth of activity as evidenced through contribs)
 * Acceptable engagement with and learning from other Wikipedians about the task of writing/editing content for a Wikibook
 * Limited reflexivity and creativity, and a somewhat insecure management of discussion pages

Overall Mark % available on Succeed

FMSU9A4marker (discuss • contribs) 14:51, 3 May 2016 (UTC)