User talk:Muir97

This is my user discussion page; I will be using this to register my work on the wikibook project and also to conduct some of my educational assignment. Please feel free to comment on my contributions here. Muir97 (discuss • contribs) 15:48, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #1: Educational Assignment
It is common knowledge that the internet is an immense and dynamic space, with both educational and creative characteristics. In order to stand out amongst the sea of contributors all putting forward material in said space, one has to bring something new to the table: something abstract, authentic and, above all else, interesting. People use the internet daily - even hourly - nowadays, and see a constant, wide range of materials that must be inherently interesting in order to be engaged and interacted with. What with technology advancing, our phones are now capable of playing back the videos we have recorded in slow motion - this opens up a whole new brand of entertainment. However, two young men from England have taken it a step further.

The Slow Mo Guys have available to them a $150,000 high speed camera, which they use to show the world things we never even knew we wanted to see in slow motion. They have a perfect blend of education, creativity, and entertainment, uploading short videos wherein some everyday activities - and some not-so-everyday activities - are made to be actually quite interesting. Scrolling through their Youtube channel, some video titles that stand out are 'Super Hydrophobic Surface and Magnetic Liquid', 'Paint on a Speaker at 2500fps', and 'Football to the Face in Slow motion' - educational, creative, and entertaining.

Some videos are of something you never would have thought of, some videos are of something you would not want to see even fast-forwarded (for example, 'Slow Motion Vomit'), and some videos are of something you would think sounded too smart for you; but the Slow Mo Guys are charming and the nice kind of intelligent, where they don't rub it in and they explain things well to their audience. It all makes them far too easy to binge-watch, but at least you can learn something in the process. Muir97 (discuss • contribs) 00:40, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Marker’s Comment

 * this is a really well written post - good concept and response to the brief and clearly aligned with the themes and concerns of the module. Very good use of the markup to make the most of the space available. It would have been useful to tie this in with tech and/or cultural determinism i.e. the affordance of the technology to see things beyond the ordinary scope of human perception, or perhaps the cultural desire to experience spectacles of this nature. still, very good potential here!


 * A post of this standard roughly corresponds to the following grade descriptor, although perhaps at the lower end of this grade band:
 * 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: Comments on others’ work

 * These are on time and provide an good example of how the format can be used to exchange ideas and discuss work-in-progress - lots of content and scope, although reference to module themes could perhaps be made more explicit. Remember that your comments on other people's work is weighted as heavily as your own post when it comes to grades. Some good work here though. GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 16:32, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Comments
I just watched a few of their videos, and don't think it's necessarily what I'd like to watch on YouTube personally, it made me think of all the Speed-Painting videos I've been watching lately, which is basically just a sped up video capturing an artist's process when drawing or painting. My current favourite artists on YouTube are Kiethia and Jace Quil and my close friend Anoosha Syed (youtube channel). Anoosha occasionally also livestreams her art (meaning in real time, not sped up), which I always love tuning into as well. I also released my own sped up video once of an edit I made that I knew was going to take a long time since I had made something similar in the past and people asked how I made it. All of this to say that I agree that it's great that now we can easily have our curiosity satisfied when it comes to things like "I wonder what bursting a bubble would look like in extreme slow motion 4K?". Sleepyzoe (discuss • contribs) 17:36, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

It might be worth noting, in the context of this Wikibooks project, that Gavin Free started out in 2003 as a community member on the social network site of  Rooster Teeth, which produces The Slow Mo Guys. It was his presence on this social media network and involvement in the community there, which obviously includes the founders and staff, which lead to him being hired there in 2009 (I think one of the first things he was hired to do was make highlight videos for their e-sports tournaments). Burnie Burns talks about it with him in this video (NSFW language) from about 28 minutes in. EmLouBrough (discuss • contribs) 09:10, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #2: Educational Assignment
In terms of online platforms, I would like to think that my online personality is a fairly accurate representation of my real-life identity. I do not over-exaggerate any aspects of my life online, nor create any false representations of myself; if anything I would withhold some information that I would only share with my family and closest friends, as having strangers know a lot about my private life is quite an unsettling idea for me. However, viewing my profiles on the different social platforms I am registered to does give a detailed-enough look into my life.

Twitter

I would say that Twitter is the platform where I represent my real-life identity most accurately. Although my full name may not be available, my birthday, where I am from, and a profile picture of myself is there to confirm my identity. I feel far more inclined to Tweet about my life here than I am to write a status about it on Facebook, as I feel that it is to be more expected and accepted here. On Facebook, people are always complaining that people are too generous with details of their personal life; however, on Twitter, I think that is far less common. This platform is where I keep up with my friends most and where I find the most entertainment, out of all the platforms that I am on. Everything is short and simple, and I feel as though there is less pressure to gain "Likes" on Twitter than there is on Facebook.

Snapchat

In regards to the last point made about Twitter, I feel that Snapchat is an interesting comparison, as there is no option to "Like" a person's direct Snapchat or a Snapchat in their "My Story". This means that a user has no knowledge of whether their friends enjoyed their Snapchat or not, and there is not a pressure to be someone who accumulates "Likes" quickly in the effort to look more popular or superior. Another interesting comparison is that whatever the user is writing, it always is sent with a picture - unless using the Chat option, which, from my experience, does not seem to be very popular. This means that the recipient is not only getting a text-based look into your life, but a visual one as well, and therefore a deeper understanding of your private life. Personally, on Snapchat, I mostly have friends and family, although there are a couple people I have who I maybe only spoke to for a few weeks before the friendship fizzled out. I added my mother on Snapchat a couple of years ago when I went on holiday with my friends for the first time, so that she would be able to see where I was, that I was safe, and that I was having a good time. When I got back from holiday, I merely did not have the heart to delete her, as it seemed she really appreciated being able to see what I was up to and that I was happy. My father got Snapchat some while later and asked me to add him since he did not have many people, and it would be mean if I had my mother but not him, so I reluctantly added him as well - due to this, he apparently complained to my mother about the Snapchats I would put up around 3am on a regular basis.. Eventually I also added my brother and his girlfriend, so I now have the whole family on Snapchat. This does mean that I have to watch what I am putting up so that nobody gets offended or upset at their baby daughter/sister growing up into a foul-mouthed student, but there are the benefits of seeing what they are up to as well, and getting pictures of my brother's cat.

Facebook

My Facebook profile has my real name, my birthday, where I am from, what school I went to, and what course I am studying now at this university. It is also where the most pictures of me are, whether they are of me alone, or with friends, or with family. If I ever post on Facebook it is only to add photos; I am not really one for putting up a new "Status". What I use Facebook most for is contact with my friends from back home, and for the student groups for the university and for the course I am on. Out of all the social platforms I am on, Facebook is my last resort for scrolling through when I am bored, as I am not as interested in it as I am in the others. The people I have on Facebook are often people from school who had been a couple of years above my own, or people that I spoke to once or twice but never again after that, and so there are a lot of people who I do not really care about posting updates on their private lives - and some of the updates are far too detailed, completely irrelevant, or annoyingly attention-seeking. However, the platform is good for looking up names to see who people are, or to see where long-lost friends are nowadays.

Instagram

Mostly, on Instagram, I am posting pictures of myself with my friends, throwing in an odd selfie every now and then when I am feeling good. Recently, I have followed a lot of travel accounts, so a lot of the time I am just scrolling through beautiful pictures of far away places, wishing I had the money and time to go away and explore. Instagram is an interesting platform as it is not one that I am constantly on, due to there not being constant updates from the accounts I follow, and if I am posting a picture, my friends have trained me to upload during "prime time", which is around 6pm-8pm - apparently that is when you are most likely to get the most "Likes" on your picture, but even then it varies depending on which day you are uploading. So on Instagram, there is that pressure to accumulate "Likes" on your post - I have a friend who refuses to "Like" a picture unless it has over 11 "Likes" already, when the names disappear and it turns into numbers; nobody knows why she does it and, personally, I find it incredibly strange, but that is the kind of mindset people seem to have on platforms where there is a "Like" option and people are conscious and perhaps judging of how many a user gets. I would say that it is a reasonably accurate representation of my real life, in terms of who I am friends with and what I do with them; however, a lot of them are pictures of me dressed up with makeup on, ready for a night out, when most of the time I look nothing like that. Considering this, though, I would not say that my online identity on this platform is an idealised version of myself, or that I am trying to pretend that it is a representation of my real life; they are merely pictures that I like that I want to share with my friends. My Instagram account has my real name, my age and my nationality, and obviously a number of pictures that I feature in.

All of my accounts on these online platforms are public, as I am comfortable with the amount of information I make available to people - if I do not want someone to see what I am posting or what I am tagged in, then the privacy settings easily allow me to block them or disallow them from seeing things. I have my immediate family as well as an auntie on Snapchat, and on Facebook I have more extended family or family friends, as there is not anything there for me to hide from them - although my immediate family feel that having each other on Facebook would be too much, as I have limited control of what my friends put up of me. Twitter would be the only platform I would put my foot down and refuse to have any immediate family on, as it is where I am my most true, vulgar, and honest self - I do not think my mother would enjoy that one quite as much. Muir97 (discuss • contribs) 12:54, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

It is interesting that you choose Twitter over Facebook as most would choose the latter. Developed two years later, I always imagined Twitter being Facebook's annoying little brother clamouring for attention and trying to be as good as if not better than Facebook. I got a Twitter because my college made me see my own post) and tend only to use it only to retweet something I find amusing or automatically upload a picture from Instagram without much thought,121 characters is not enough for what I want to say. It's great that your family are so engaged and embracing technology but I understand the family politics of not having the heart to delete people even if one of them reported back to my dad about what I had been posting. Privacy features are nifty wee things. She can now only see if I have signed a Change.org petition. I didn't know until recently about 'prime times' to post things as I tend to post whenever a funny thought comes into my head although occasionally I'll type it out and then delete it for fear of offending someone. Other times I have posted something and people have misconstrued what I said for example when my girl crush Ellen Page came out in public with her girlfriend I wrote a vague (and what I considered an obvious ironic)status about being locked in my room crying and people started posting thinking I was the first to know that she had died!! (obviously untrue)and I had to write another status explaining that it was a joke now that she was officially taken which made me feel a bit silly and hope they would forget. Another thing is, I don't know if you've found this but people who haven't liked a status but still refer to it if you meet them. It boggles my mind at how many feeds my post has been across especially when people see it but don't like. HayleyJo87 (discuss • contribs) 11:31, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #3: Educational Assignment
Introduction

When interacting with such an unfathomably immense and dynamic entity as the World Web, it is inevitable that, at some point, you are going to be distracted by something. The overabundance of information on everything known to mankind is both a blessing and a curse: if you want to learn about something, there are countless sources from which you can obtain information; but how can you be sure whether you can trust it? Yes, there are sources which have clear academic involvement, but they might use words far out of the reach of your vocabulary, so there is not much of a chance that you will understand it, let alone enjoy reading it. So, you visit a page where the ideas you are interested in are put into simpler terms that you can understand far easier; but does this mean that some complicated facts are being left out, or you are not quite getting the complete run-down of the idea? Questioning the sources you visit like this can really bring down your enjoyment of learning new things, and it makes you hesitant when relaying that information as you are unsure whether it is entirely truthful or too basic to have merit. So how do we ensure that we are getting our information from a user-friendly and trustworthy source at the same time, and how do we keep our searches narrowed on to those specific kinds of sources?

Information Overload

Say, for example, you are researching something for an essay you are writing. Especially for a module like film and media, which links in with other ideas from sociology and journalism, for example, it is frustratingly easy to be distracted. You see that what you are researching ties in with something on a completely different website or in a completely different book, and you have an insatiable desire to investigate further. You click on the link, you read up - perhaps more enthusiastically - on this relevant, but not vital, idea, and you are pleasantly surprised by the contentment you feel from chasing something you wanted to chase and learning an interesting amount on it. However, something else catches you eye, and you follow another link, and another, and next thing you know you are on the other side of the internet learning about something barely relevant to what you need to be researching, and you have lost precious time on your essay doing it.

I speak of this process from experience, as I am quite prone to allowing distractions when writing an essay - no matter what the topic is, it will always be more interesting than something I need to write 2000 words on. Whatever search engine you use is your gateway into the endless kingdom of online information; you type in a single letter, and your search engine produces millions of links for you to follow - so how do you stop yourself from diving in and clicking on everything you can, whilst barely even scratching the surface of what can be offered to you?

How To Deal With Distractions

First off, you need self control, and a lot of it. Most people have this to an agreeable extent, though others find it far more difficult to direct their attention towards one thing for an extended period of time. Secondly, you need knowledge of right-clicking a link to open it up in another tab or even another window. Lastly, you need to let the deadline of whatever piece of work you are creating loom over you like a black cloud so you are too scared to waste dwindling time on something irrelevant.

What really helps me is choosing something that I know I am interested in and want to learn more about, and then share that knowledge in such a way that I am praised for it with a good grade. If there are links which seem like they would further my knowledge, then I will follow them. If there are links that look interesting but I am unsure whether they will be relevant, then I will open them in a new window to be investigated after I have finished my work - that way it sits in the background but is not forgotten about, and if it turns out to be relevant then I can add it in to my already finished work to enhance it.

In terms of trustworthy sources and questionable sources, I would open both links, but would focus my attention on the one with the author I can research to see is an academic, and only consult the other to see if it matched the information I'd already obtained. Using my essay example, I would only reference the academic source; I would not include information from the questionable source unless it had been confirmed in other academic writings. However, I think the best method would be to steer clear from any questionable-seeming sources and stick to the trustworthy ones, so to avoid any misrepresentations of a concept in a piece of work.

Conclusion

When utilising the World Web for a project or piece of work with a deadline, it is safest to approach it with discipline and determination to stay on track and avoid being distracted by the overabundance of information available. Pages can be bookmarked or opened in other tabs or windows to put it aside for later investigation, ensuring it is not forgotten about but not getting in the way. Sticking to articles etc., written by academics is the safest way of securing relevant and accurate information, but it can be interesting to see how non-academics conceive and portray ideas. Since the World Web cannot be consumed within a day or a week, there is always going to be something that could distract you and take you away from your original intentions; the key is to be aware of all that you are accessing and constantly checking that it is something relevant and necessary to your purpose. Muir97 (discuss • contribs) 11:52, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #4: Reflective Account
Looking back over the Wikibook project, I feel very conflicted. On one hand, I am very impressed with the end result, I am proud of my own contributions and the new skills I learned, and I can see how the project tied in with the topics we studied on this module. On the other hand, I wonder if the stress and confusion had been quite worth it, or whether that could have been prevented at all. The first exercise we did was initially carried out on Wikipedia, but an admin went around the majority of us and deleted our posts as they deemed them irrelevent and against the Wikipedia guidelines. There was a wide sense of confusion and concern, as we worried whether our grade would be affected by the ordeal; however, we were told that it would be fine, we moved onto Wikibooks, and we re-posted there. Although I appreciated this second chance without being penalised, I was frustrated as I felt as though my first post was much better than my second, as I was working off of memory without having prepared due to the deletion being unexpected.

When my group met up we were, at first, very confused and unsure about the entire project and how we were expected to proceed. The general worry was how five groups were going to be able to all write about one topic without the page looking incredibly messy with repeated ideas and contributors jumping in to someone else’s work. We tried to work through it, and selected a theorist for both cultural and technological determinism each, agreeing to research them and write something up about them that we could get onto the chapter before another group. Luckily, it was suggested that we split the chapter into five topics and each group take one, and so that made everything feel a lot more calm and organised. However, our group had a problem where someone unknown posted in our section a significantly detailed paragraph about our topic, without any explanation – this really threw us. We posted on the discussion page looking for an explanation, and eventually discovered that someone had merely found the information and thought that we could use it, which we appreciated. The discussion page itself, I found, was both helpful and difficult to navigate. Whenever you got a notification that you were mentioned in a comment on the page, you had to scroll through a whole load of messages which all sort of blended together after a while, making it difficult to identify what comment exactly someone had mentioned you in. Agreeing upon this, my group decided to begin to number our comments in our own separate section on the discussion page in order to try and make it easier to navigate, and it did very much help. Despite the difficulties, I did find the page very helpful, especially when it came to finding tips on how to do things like add pictures in your section. It was also quite impressive to see such a large number of people come together to work through concerns, create solutions, and express praise and gratitude.

In a way, this project can be related to the notion of the ‘Always On’ culture. My group had a Facebook Messenger chat as well as the section on the chapter’s discussion page. It was difficult not to revert to the Messenger chat, as I found it much easier than the discussion page due to the fact that my group members would immediately get a notification and were more likely to respond faster to that than a Wikibook notification, which I assumed they probably would not even get until logging in. Availability of communication was a constant pressure during the project, especially, for me, when the person in another group posted in our section – we knew that the discussion of what had happened would earn us some engagement points, but we were so thrown that we wanted the explanation immediately, to the point that I had considered reaching out to the person on social media instead of waiting for the next time they logged into Wikibooks, as it was uncertain whether that would have been in the next hour or the next day. Having to wait so long for someone to see your comment was a little frustrating, as was coming back to the page after a while and struggling to find the last comment you had read before catching up with the new ones. A different platform such as What’s App could have been useful in this sense, as when you come back to a chat on that, it takes you to where you left off and has a distinct marker for where the unread messages begin.

This project was also interesting in relation to the Civic Web. The question of whether young people are active or passive consumers, whether the internet is dumbing us down, links in nicely to this project as it demonstrates a shift in the activities of young people: usually we would come to Wikipedia to gather information on a topic or person for personal interest or assignments (even though we’re encouraged to avoid it), but here we came to Wikipedia to work together and share our knowledge in organised, coherent chapters for other people to investigate. We transformed from consumers to producers, and demonstrated that the internet can actually allow us to improve ourselves in terms of collaborative skills, which can be utilised in real life as well. Muir97 (discuss • contribs) 10:19, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments

Hi Muir97. I found your reflective profile very interesting to read and liked how you wrote about how you were conflicted about using Wiki as an effective media platform to do this group project on. I would describe the wiki project in the words of "it'll all come together in the end!!". Like you I sometimes found the process of Wiki rather confusing and I was left left slightly confused about what I was actually supposed to be writing about, however after reading around the topic and the module themes it did make it easier to write the Wiki accounts.

I like how you have highlighted the confusing regarding when somebody you did not know wrote on your groups section. I suppose this is an aspect of using the open source platform such as wikipedia where anyone can comment on anyones work. I found this project in a way quite confusing because relating to the previous confusing of when somebody you do not know comments on your work, it is difficult to guess what their intentions are because it is such a difficult platform to identify emotions regarding the communication. Unlike Facebook or other social networking platforms where to can use an "emoji" to reinforce the particular message that you want to portray, there was none of this on Wiki. However I suppose this is a perfect example of "cognitive surplus" where individuals are willing to share their knowledge with others, even though it gains them no personal advantages.

I too at times found the discussion page sometimes difficult to navigate because of you did not regularly follow the comments it was easy to get lost in a sea of discussions. However again like you note, this was useful if you were gaining additional information that you may not have thought about asking such such adding photos.

This use of collective intelligence highlights that although working with a big group of people to wrote the project on wiki it did have some advantages because although everyone contributed a "little" bit of information to the chapter, it actually became a substantial chapter full of relevant information, which highlights the idea that "two heads (or more in this case!!) are better than one". Everyone knows some information, but no-one knows everything. So by collaboratory working together we actually managed to produce a mass amount of information.

I too, enjoy using these other media platforms to communicate also because it is easier to follow notifications and conversations in a chronological order, shows directly who has said what, and you instantly get a notification to inform you that you have a notification. However it terms of gathering information, I found the Wikibook more advantageous because we could all put our work together and the end result was impressive in my opinion.

I find it very relatable that you have mentioned at the end how we moved from "consumers" to "producers". Like yourself, I would only ever before use the internet to obtain information, not disperse it. However the motivations in this case were maybe warped slightly because we could be argued that we were not sharing our knowledge in order to educate others, it was in fact because our personal goals behind it were to successfully get a good grade for our assignment. Therefore although we were "producing" information for others to read, we were still doing it for interior motives, therefore are we not still considered to be recognised as consumers, using the internet for our own personal advantages? I would love to know your opinion on my last statement KZillwood02 (discuss • contribs) 21:06, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Marker’s Feedback on Wikibook Project Work
You make a number of very useful contributions to the content of your group's chapter page. These include some fairly substantial entries on key thinkers in the area (Fichte, White), as well as some formatting, and a fairly good contribution to the Glossary on Kant.

Wiki Exercises


 * 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.

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:
 * 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 to an appreciable standard (i.e. volume and breadth of activity as evidenced through contribs)
 * Good 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 judgement relating to key issues, concepts and procedures

Overall Mark % available on Succeed

FMSU9A4marker (discuss • contribs) 15:07, 3 May 2016 (UTC)