User talk:RyanMurray96

Hello,

This is my user discussion page. I will be using this to register my contributions to my educational wiki books assignment. RyanMurray96 (discuss • contribs) 15:49, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #1 Educational assignment
''' Football fans and the importance of conveying information on social media. ''

The importance of social media and connecting with others in the footballing community has became a key way of involving fans with the game. This has been more evident in recent years when fans communicate on social media to organize demonstrations or events. for example Liverpool Football club fans walking out of the stadium on the 77th minute in protest to the proposed rise in ticket prices to £77 a game. . The power of social media led to the owners reversing the proposed ideas back to £59. Without social media sites such as Twitter this sort of mass demonstration would not be able to happen without a lot of disorganisation.

This all links in with the fact that today social media has evolved past a way to keep in contact with friends. it is a way to gather with people who have the same interests and beliefs as you and then allow the people to set plans that will get their points heard. People have a much more outgoing personality online in comparrison to real life as they see it as risk free however this can lead to bad demonstrations happening like the london riots which were being orcastrated online. this ended up leading to several arrests.

(Also ive been getting warnings about putting links into my discussion page. just came back now to see one, if anyone has any idea on how to correct this please let me know. Thanks). RyanMurray96 (discuss • contribs)

Marker’s Comment

 * A fairly well-written entry. It would have been useful to try to feed this into the themes and concerns of the module though, and you haven’t really engaged with this part of the brief at all (always, always, pay close attention to what the brief is asking you to do e.g. you could have discussed this in the context of cultural determinism (i.e. the need to be in a state of connectivity and availability etc.) or aspects of civic web (which we will be looking at more closely later in the module – nothing wrong with reading material in advance!). Drawing down from this material, you could have made better use of the wiki markup by embedding links to reading and also to relevant under discussion.

RE: Comments on others’ work

 * These are on time and ok - however, they are a little on the short side and could do with development in terms of content, scope and reference to module themes - you do refer to these, but you need to get a little deeper into the conceptual and theoretical arguments, applying them to the real-world examples your colleagues are offering in their posts. Remember that your comments on other people's work is weighted as heavily as your own post when it comes to grades. GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 16:39, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Wki Exercise #2 Visibility and Online footprint
How visible am I online?

Like most teenagers I am active online, I have the usual social media platforms (Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc.) although I’m not as active on Facebook as I used to be but I am still a frequent user of all these other forms of instant messaging and social platforms. When it comes to information online which I allow people to see, I usually only allow friends (on Facebook). However on other social media sites such as twitter and even Steam it’s pretty hard to not keep in charge of my online content due to it being an information gathering site with one of the main points of it is to gather information of others and find out news. A great example of this is the ex-Junior Crime Commissioner, Paris Brown was pushed into resigning due to tweets made 2 years earlier when she was 14 which were seen as racist. This is just a taste of the power twitter has in terms of gathering information and making it accessible to see. On Steam, my username is my full name followed by my date of birth. Although I am rarely active on Steam, anyone who I have come into contact with in the past could easily use the power of google to find out who I am, where I’m from, my twitter page (same username) my Facebook page which has my email, phone number and other details on.

So is this information under my control?

Unfortunately the answer to this is no. I was too young and had no understanding of the internet when I started using it. Fortunately I’ve never posted anything stupid which could get me in trouble like Paris Brown. Even though I have changed all of my privacy setting I am sure that there are plenty of information about me out there. This is definitely a major backlash to the ‘Always On’ culture because the more people are online the bigger their online footprint is getting, so I wouldn’t be surprised that if in the future more people will face similar repercussions due to what they have accessible for all to see. RyanMurray96 (discuss • contribs) 10:25, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Wki Exercise #2 Visibility and Online footprint- Comments
Please leave your comments below, Thanks. RyanMurray96 (discuss • contribs) 10:27, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #3 Information Overload!
The World Wide Web is filled with information. Some relevant and the rest… a load of rubbish. Sifting through this information can be hard. This isn’t helped by search engines like google are being paid to advertise a specific business, when you type key words relating to it. This hides the information which is relevant. The relevant information can be hidden in places you’ll never think of looking, like the second page of a google search. I have used certain programs to help me go through the information and hide information which isn’t relevant to me. I use a google chrome extension call Ad Block to help hide irrelevant information. This is a free app which is the most common way of blocking unneeded material.

Looking at some silly meme or video on social networking sites while we should be doing working is something we are guilty of. An app which helps stop unwanted information distracting you is Cold Turkey. There similar apps to this which block you from going on certain distracting sites with information which is irrelevant. This helps us students who are working on essays or revising for example. Another great example would be Microsoft Hotmail using its clever Clutter feature. This reads your habits of what you don’t read. (the constant Facebook notifications sent to your email) and place them into a box where you don’t have to read them.

But do we really want to not be distracted? We have the opportunity to have a peak into other people’s lives with the information they give out for the world to see. This information is useless to us in the long run and will have no use in a month or two (although some information put out online can come back to haunt people if they manage to become a public figure due to the interest around them). However in social sense it feels like a need rather than a want to find out what’s going on in our friends lives or the person you have a crush on lives. Our addiction or ‘Disinhibition’ to social media is forcing us to look at useless information. Living in a cultural era of where people are always online, it is hard to distinguish what information people share is real and what is just a certain persons online image helping them to do work. This relates to their ‘Impression management’ would the information that we receive be the same offline in face to face contact?

How do we define what is useless and what is important to us? Certain information is relevant to us that would be classed as useless for someone else. This depends on our online persona and brings our personality and personal interests in to consideration. Our demographic would also decide what we see as useless and important. I f we hear a story about a murder in town from Kent we won’t be as engaged where as a Murder in our home town will capture our attention.

Overall I use the advancements in technology (apps) to help keep the ‘overload’ of information I receive to a minimum and filter the important information. Please feel free to add any other apps or examples that I may of missed out. RyanMurray96 (discuss • contribs) 16:25, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Comments
RyanMurray96, great article!! I found it really funny when you mentioned how relevant information could be on page 2 of a Google search, but we don't really look until we have too! Do you think Ad Block helps you avoid distractions? You are right, I too, like may other, am guilty of getting distracted by nonsensical memes. You mention that Cold Turkey helps students working on essays as it blocks distractions, but does this personally help you? Would you say you are also defeated by the abundance of distractions online? The question you ask about whether we want to be distracted or not is very interesting! I guess nowadays, looking at other people's posts and pictures has become an irrelevant way of life, but it also depends on what other people want to share. As you have mentioned impression management I think it would be interesting to know whether you think you have created an image of yourself online which is similar to your actual self? Demographics definitely play a huge role in distraction. When we hear about incidents taking place close to home, we are always more effected by them, but then the way media presents incidents can probably have a huge play in how we react to it. What do you think? Purneet kainth (discuss • contribs) 23:06, 3 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Hey, first of all thank you for the reply. Yes I do think Ad Block stops me from getting distracted. When I use library computers which don’t have Ad Block I always end up distracted. I’m always trying to research information for my essays and topics then the next thing you know I’m looking at a slideshow for the top 10 movies to watch this year. Cold Turkey is a funny one because when I do use it works effectively and I end up getting a lot of work done however it’s hard to gather the will to turn it on as I’m constantly giving my self excuses like ‘what if I get an important Facebook message’ so ill end up keeping it on and become distracted again. Thank you, I also believe the idea of impression management to be a fascinating concept. I believe my online profile and offline profile are fairly similar as I use social media more for messaging, however I have many friends who always post on Facebook and twitter and in reality they are a completely the opposite. The media these days is all commercialised and made for profit. This means they are always going to try make a story appeal to a wider audience, they will use common public opinion to make the story interesting. For example the Adam Johnson case recently has captured everyone’s attention when really a lot of people who aren’t interested in football shouldn’t take much notice. Thank you for such an in depth and detailed reply. RyanMurray96 (discuss • contribs) 11:56, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of some of the apps you addressed above, they sound like they would definitely help though. I think prioritizing our most important tasks is a fundamentally key way to tackling information overload as well as using apps to prevent information overload. I personally separate my work related emails from my social media subscriptions through filtering. This seems to help! I'm also selective in which blog posts I follow and often outweigh the pros and cons of signing up to specific sites! this goes a long way in keeping third party emails to a minimum and collectively reducing stress. Kurtismccallie95 (discuss • contribs) 16:13, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #4 Wikibook Project Reflective Account
During this Wiki project we were placed into 2 different groups, the first being the chapter group which consisted of 14 people. All 14 of us were given the chapter ‘Open Source and Proprietary software’ which contributed to the Wikibook An Internet Of Everything? We came into some problems at the start of this project with only a third of the group contributing to the planning of the chapter. This led to people coming in late and struggling with how to use the formatting on Wikibooks and confusion to what topics were still available. With the help of certain pages like the Reading Room guiding us to Wiki pages which gave useful information for beginners, we were able to help other become more active within the group.

The Civic Web asks an important question on whether or not the use of the internet dumbs down young people or it makes those better members of their communities and more rounded citizens. And this assignment would prove that we are learning by working with each other to get a better understanding.

The second group I was in was a small one of 5 people (Team 8chanBarmyArmy). At the start we had a little trouble again meeting up face to face due people having commitments but luckily some of us were able to meet and start splitting up sections and decide who’s best suited to what. This meant that we had to make decisions without the whole group present. The repercussions of this was then trying to relay the information on to the people not present, this led to a lot of confusion which halted our progression for a bit.

To be able to establish to the larger group who is doing what I took it upon myself to create a list of idea for topics on the discussion page. A fault of mine was that I didn’t highlight clearly enough that these were just Ideas and that others should try and add to the content instead of taking these as the only ones available. Again this links to the Civic Web by suggesting that maybe young people aren’t being dumbed down by the internet but are being persuaded into taking the information as it is rather than analysing it and criticising the work which is in front of them.

As each group started to get on with their chosen topics we still kept in touch to give each other ideas and tips in the section of the discussion page I created called ‘General Help’. This section of the page was extremely useful and very successful with people using it the whole way through the project. This is very similar to Shirky’s Idea of Cognitive Surplus in the fact that people in our group and outside of our group were in their spare time engaging on a web 2.0 site with our collaborative project. This also links into Gauntletts beliefs that web 2.0 allows us to use our Passion for Media Studies to make something great by working together. Many Theorists who study this area are usually surprised that how willing individuals are to share their knowledge and work (creative Commons) when in modern offline society we are usually told that ‘nothing is for free in this world’. The success of the collaboration in this assignment highlights that the use of web 2.0 is like a circle where people are taught how to do something and in return they teach others how to do another thing.

Comments
Reading this article has really helped me understand the concept, Civic Web. Even after the lecture, doing the reading and after the seminar I found the term very difficult to understand. This article however easily links key concepts to something that we are all familiar to now and that is working as a group towards a wikibook.

It is really good you took advantage of pages such as the reading room. I did not use the reading room as I found it all quite daunting but it seems to have really helped you and your group come together and create a great chapter for the wikibook! Yes you are right, Bananji and Buckingham as whether the young people are civic slackers or civic activists. I find that there is not one straight forward answer to this as a lot of this depends on a young persons background and circumstances. What do you think? You mentioned at the start you had trouble starting the wiki project as 1/3 of your group was not responding but then later when you tried to meet face to face with your smaller group, that was also challenging. What worked better for you, working with everyone online, or meeting with a d=few group members offline? It is really interesting that you have stated your fault when communicating your ideas. I understand it can be very tough to communicate when people are not able to judge your tone and expressions. I feel I also had very similar problems in my group and it shows that is a very common fault that is easy to make when working online as part of a big group. Your final paragraph is really inspiring and nicely links to ideas from Shirky and Gauntlett. It is really encouraging to see that by putting your passion to work within a group has led to a really good outcome, well done! Purneet kainth (discuss • contribs) 21:08, 6 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Hey thanks for the reply. I agree with you Civic web can be a really hard idea to grasp because a lot of it is open to interpretation. Doing this wiki project has helped me grasp the meaning of this and it still leaves a few questions un answered like are young people civic slackers or civic activists? I personally agree with you and believe that its down to the individual and how passionate they are about the project.  Working Offline face to face was a lot easier than online even though people were missing because it allowed us to set out a clear plan of what we are going to do and it allowed us to emphasize why we would be a better suited to a certain topic meaning we can work on the area we find more interesting and we're more passionate about. however working online did help because I felt people online are more friendly and generous with the information they give due to them being able to think about the reply where as in person you have to respond immediately. It seems to be a common problem when people start working in big groups for the first time where information is misinterpreted or people aren't as engaged as they should be. However as the project got on people started to become use to it and contributed a lot more leading to a better topic. RyanMurray96 (discuss • contribs) 18:59, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

This was a very informative article Ryan, and delved into the subject of the civic web to a great extent. I found that connecting and collaborating was difficult, and when it came to contributing to the project found little to say that was not already said. In hind sight how relevant do you find wikibooks as a platform ? Do you think it can be a public tool for change ? Thank you, good work 92.19.123.191 (discuss) 13:12, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

This is a very good outlook on how you thought the project went. At the very start it was hard to get everyone who was contributing to the project to interact with each other. Also there wasn't much progress in that it took a lot of time before there as something down on the book. all of a sudden people start to interact and bounce ideas back and fourth off each other to actually get something written and contribute to the book. From this point on the book was easier to make because everyone knew which part of the book they were doing. Spedlow (discuss • contribs) 14:52, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Marker’s Feedback on Wikibook Project Work
Only contributions to the chapter page appear on the second to last day of the project. These total two edits - although of fairly significant importance to the chapter as a whole, the facts in there could have been further developed through engagement with ideas and approaches encountered on the module. Some good reference work there too, but posting these contribs earlier would have enabled development.

Wiki Exercises


 * 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.

Content (weighted 20%)

 * Your contribution to the book page gives a satisfactory brief overview of the subject under discussion in your chosen themed chapter. There is a fair range of concepts associated with your subject, and an effort to deliver critical definitions. There is evidence that you draw from relevant literature and scholarship, however your own critical voice in the building of a robust argument is slightly lost, perhaps due to a variable depth of understanding the subject matter or over reliance on rote learning. The primary and secondary sources you found about the chapter’s themes cover a somewhat circumscribed range and depth of subject matter.

Understanding (weighted 30%)

 * Reading and research:
 * evidence of limited critical engagement with set material, although most ideas and procedures insecurely grasped
 * evidence of independent reading of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material limited, displaying a qualified familiarity with a minimally sufficient range of relevant materials
 * Argument and analysis:
 * poorly articulated and supported argument;
 * lack of evidence of critical thinking (through taking a position in relation to key ideas from the module, and supporting this position in discussion);
 * lack 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 independent critical ability limited, due to the fact that your grasp of the analytical issues and concepts, although generally reasonable, is somewhat insecure.

Engagement (weighted 50%)

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

Overall Mark % available on Succeed

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