User talk:Madisonhen

Learning about wikibooks for a class project

Madisonhen (discuss • contribs) 14:42, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

wiki#1 What Makes a good Wiki
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The idea of a "good" wiki is one that has been edited with factual information. Though I believe the source does not necessarily have to be accredited if the information provided is irrefutable evidence. Also being an accredited expert in the field of the topic on hand can make a good wiki. Not only do sources and accreditation contribute to a good wiki, but the editors focus and making the point in as little words as possible. The editor should also have correct syntax and grammar in order to appeal to the reader.

Madisonhen (discuss • contribs) 16:48, 7 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 lower end of this grade band, so there’s clearly room for improvement here. You really need to address the brief, and also, you need to be posting something a little more substantial and lengthy in order to develop your argument. 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. In addition, 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


 * Re: responses to other people’s posts – these are a little brief. Remember that the comments are "worth" as much as posts themselves. The reason for this is not only to help encourage discussion (a key element of wiki collaboration!) but also to get you to reflect upon your own work. This can all, of course be used to fuel ideas that might form part of your project work. Perhaps you could have framed some of your responses as questions to solicit discussion (this is, arguably, what discussion pages are all about!) and also discuss in an open and critical way (that is to say, respond to what other people are saying and contribute meaningfully to discussion - arguably the civic element of wiki that you ought to be thinking about). There's time to develop this in the rest of the project.

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 16:11, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

I feel like even though someone may be a master in their field, sources should still be put in place. While Wikipedia shouldn't be used as a source in papers, projects, etc, if someone comes here looking for information, the source may help them to find more credible information from a more credible source since Wikipedia is edited so much. (Either by students, professors, or sometimes just a troll on the internet). I know that sometimes while I'm writing papers, I get stuck in a hole using the same sources so being able to scroll to the bottom of a Wiki article and finding new sources is always helpful to me and probably to others in the future. Americankatie (discuss • contribs) 11:54, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

I feel like sometimes experts get it wrong too, forever making whatever information anyone gives out having a slight chance of unreliability as 'facts' change all the time, or should I say alternative facts spring up. I agree, with Wikipedia it should be sharp and to the point, also so that non academics can understand what is being said without the use of jargon Scottmcindoe (discuss • contribs) 04:14, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

wiki #2 Visibility and Data Trails
Online I am pretty easy to find since all accounts that I do have have my first and last name or have the same handle name. My Facebook account is set to private and only my pre-approved friends have the ability to access my account. On FB I have information such as where I'm from, went to school, current university, and the town I'm living in. Although I did not update my account informing my FB friends that I would be in Stirling this semester. I feel as though its an unspoken rule that you do not change more permanent information. Also the tons of pictures I upload to FB showing my travels everyone knows exactly what I'm doing and where. The way I use my Instagram is a bit different. I do have it set to private, but I have people following me that I do not know. Although, I deny follower requests from people I do not know. Instagram in my opinion is a form of displaying art, art that is your life through pictures. I put of Instastories of the food I ate, the latte art, the snow on the tops of the cliffs. Stories aesthetically pleasing to anyone who bothers to look. I only pick the best pictures to post after I have taken a lot of time to make subtle edits, and always tagging the location. I feel with Instagram you want to make people jealous of your life or admiring of it either way you have accomplished something. This goes back to who I let follow me or who I even follow back, I feel like there is a hierarchy on Instagram and its almost like some people are not worthy of seeing your "perfect" life. This relates to the Online/Real Life divide. Snapchat is almost entirely different its now people showing off their night of drinking or someone doing something dumb. Instagram stories has taken the classy snaps away from Snapchat. Although I feel like its more appropriate to post these types of stories on snapchat rather than Instagram because your audience is typically the people you go out with and people you actually know. At least thats my opinion and how myself and friends use snapchat. I feel like its also the leading cause of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Most people posts stories going out and its basically a live stream and those that are not there constantly check to see whats happening now. Relating to Persistent Connectivity.

Madisonhen (discuss • contribs) 11:53, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree that on Facebook it's uncommon to change information, mainly because when people try to find you they go off of things like school, work, etc. But sometimes sharing too much information can lead to stalkers online or someone who will try to steal your identity, such as a catfish or someone along those lines. I agree with the fact that you said that Instagram is a place to show off your latte art or a way to make people jealous through the hierarchy because the more aesthetically pleasing your photos, the more likes and follows you will gain and so on. While with Facebook, you just dump all of the photos you have taken into an album for friends and family to see -- which relates back to the different online identities a person can create. Instagram is definitely one of the most popular platforms because of the fact that you can only show people what you want them to see. For example, you could have up a photo of your latte art with a few edits to make it more saturated or sharpen the image, but what the viewer (in this case the follower) doesn't see, is that it's actually your friends, and that you're just borrowing the coffee for the aesthetic. I almost feel like there's also a hierarchy among the different social media platforms, too, because so many sites are stealing ideas from one another. Instagram took the idea of stories from Snapchat, taking away the fun of that, so Snapchat added dog filters. Facebook had live videos, now Instagram does as well. Twitter has 'retweets' while Instagram has 'regrams' and Tumblr has 'reblogs'. The list goes on for all of the similarities between companies, so now they have to start finding new ways to one up each other -- but is this eventually going to launch us into a world where we don't speak face to face with one another because everything will be right at our fingertips through our phones? Americankatie (discuss • contribs) 13:00, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

wiki#3 Information Overload
There is tons of information at my fingertips, I feel that it is slightly impossible to not be distracted. For example I was writing a paper lastnight and then took a 10 minute "break" reading an article on "Where Octomom is Now". Why did I do it? Mainly because thats a lot more interesting/exciting than a history paper. The only real way to deal with information overload and not falling for the distractions is to have will power and probably a time sensitive project at hand. Cookies also make researching a topic for a paper difficult sometimes. The cookies will show those super cute shoes or a groupon right beside a paragraph about whatever you were researching, testing your will power. Other than those factors I personally read anything I find interesting or alarming and its more of a free time exercise than a distraction to me. There are many "blocking" websites or apps that can be used while writing a paper or doing physically work. I think these are a good idea if you actually use it correctly instead of turning it off and back on like I do myself. Also having notifications on your phone or computer while trying to do anything productive is a huge way to set yourself back, thats mainly what "blocking" websites are for. When it comes to the term "dealing with information overload" I do not think there is really anything to "deal" with. It is what it is. I feel like the amount of information online that Millennials experience is ubiquitous. Madisonhen (discuss • contribs) 21:13, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree that there's a certain sense of will power needed while working on homework that's on the computer because the urge to check social media or just random links on the Internet is so high. I didn't know about the blocking websites that you can use that can keep you focused -- I think those are a good idea for those who get into a web hole with the 'information overload' we're discussing or those with ADHD so that they can stay focused. Cookies are also a huge thing since they do bring up ads while you're checking websites you use for papers or homework assignments, etc. which is why I installed an ad blocker on my computer. You should try it, it's really helpful! Americankatie (discuss • contribs) 13:42, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I like what you said about there not actually being an issue to deal with regarding information overload. As a generation we millennials do like to complain about a lot yet personally I think we should be celebrating the fact that we have instant access to more information than any generation before us. The blocking apps are actually really useful for me as they render my phone useless so I would rather do my work than nothing. As mentioned above, ad-blocker is a life saver when it comes to cookies as it blocks all those enticing ads that are just there to distract you. JamieKingGinge (discuss • contribs) 10:16, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

wiki#4 Wikibook Project Reflective Account
Personally, it was more difficult to communicate through the discussion boards on wikibooks. The reason being that wiki does not notify you when anyone posts anything in the discussion page, mentions your name, the only time you will get a notification is when you're on wikibooks website. Also the mobile site isn't very user friendly, it will let you do the same things as being on a computer, but it makes it much harder. Face-to-face communication was obviously much easier because people can get all their ideas across and then work off of one another. In the discussion board we shared links and ideas, mainly asking the group as a whole who to do coding, or sourcing, or adding pictures to the wiki. We also asked one another if we thought it was a good idea to add or take out something as a whole to the project.I do not think that how we interacted in the discussion page relates much to social media platforms that also have to same structure. Mainly because we acted and wrote in a more professionally manner, because this was a grade rather than something we were doing for fun. I believe in our wikibook we did stick to the idea of writing for a small audience in a general sense. Madisonhen (discuss • contribs) 11:06, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Content (weighted 20%)
The introduction section is very well-written, summarising many key points in relation to the subject matter. The presentation of a concept (i.e. in this case Fuchs and Sevignani) framing key ideas for discussion, and providing a foundational basis to proceed with an argument, is a really neat idea. It sets up what is essentially, the most theory-oriented discussion in the book, and this isn’t a negative by any means. In fact, it provides a crucial element of balance through which to address the more applied approaches that are perhaps more in evidence in other chapters.

A concerted effort is made throughout to communicate sophisticated ideas in concise ways. The overall structure is well thought out, and evidences deliberation, delegation and timely organisation. Coverage of many of the salient issues encountered in the module are touched upon, either explicitly or in passing, and this is a useful strategy for grounding some of the more abstract ideas.

Lots of live links are made – this chapter makes the most out of the platforms functionality, which in turn is read quite easily as a reflection made on the kind of platform used and the audiences for which you might be writing this chapter. This approach works very well overall. However, I think that more could be made of making interwiki links to various relevant sections in other chapters (especially, perhaps, chapters on Hive mind, or privacy in the Digital Age.)

The sections on Information Society and Network Society are particularly well put together. Although these are perhaps the least theoretically heavy, the way that you discuss and structure the concepts gives these sections a real sense of narrative. Some really good uses of examples and case here to illustrate points made. I would have liked to have seen some use of images or wiki formatting to break up the text a little bit more here, however. The same goes for the section on critical theory – however, this section is much less successful, as it seems rather abstract, and detached from the subject matter. It is factually correct, fairly well written and historically accurate, but perhaps the least satisfying section in the chapter because of this. The sections that immediately follow, featuring the material on social media, are very strong, although again, interwiki links to material on other chapters would make a considerable improvement to the argument overall and to the wikibook more generally.

The glossary is really useful – not quite exhaustive, but good for quick reference purposes. Use of interwiki links in here would have been useful. The references section again evidences research, reading and sharing of resources.


 * Good. 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.

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%)

 * No evidence from contributions to both editing and discussion of content (i.e. volume and breadth of activity as evidenced through contribs)
 * No engagement with and learning from other Wikipedians about the task of writing/editing content for a Wikibook
 * Little or no use of discussion pages