User talk:SchrumpflinH

Wiki Exercise #1: Educational Project
&#8593; Back to top Since watching the movie Despicable me I fell in love with the Minions on first sight. They became so popular that Illumination Entertainment released a spin-off in 2015 focusing on these formerly sidekick. Therefore I will dedicate my first entry to them.

Minions
Minions are fictional, small and yellow creatures with goggles who live on earth since the beginning of time to serve villains. Originally created to be a security force or robots, they were soon changed into a more organic and humoristic design. They are kept simple, but the figure may vary in order to distinguish them. Although Minions wear an impressive number of costumes but their standard wardrobe is a blue overall with a “G” on it, symbolizing their current master “Gru”. The character of the Minions is very primitive: They are gleeful, sometimes mean, childish and hilarious and always looking out for something to eat (a good example shows the mini movie “Banana”. Their language is a collection of words other languages and onomatopoeia so that people from all over the world seem to understand them somehow.

Personal review
In my point of view Despicable me is a very unique movie since it tells the story of a (kind-hearted) villain and does not focus on a stereotype hero. Liking the movie goes along with liking the Minions, which support the storyline by being antiheros as well. They completely evolve in their hilariously gleeful behaviour following their natural instincts that people nowadays suppress in a civilized society. Hence watching the Minions being infantile makes me relate to it, as sometimes I have childish and mean thoughts as well, but would never act out the same way. Additionally I find it stunning, that these creatures can tell a story (even a whole movie) without actually speaking, but using slapstick and a fantasy language. Their design was well chosen, as their outer appearance mirrors their character, making it easier for people to understand their thoughts.

Wiki Exercise #4: Wikibook Project Reflective Account
&#8593; Back to top Far from merging individual intelligence into some indistinguishable magma, collective intelligence is a process of growth, differentiation, and the mutual revival of singularities.

Pierre Lévy describes intelligence as a resource, and Wikis materialize this into of a public good, that everyone may benefit from regardless if they participate in creating it or not. Wikipedians therefore use their skills and leisure time to contribute to a great selection of topics, enhancing the current state of the posting.

However, we only worked on one major topic, preselected by our professor and which is graded afterwards - the motivation was more extrinsic. This caused several problems during the project as the common goal was not to create an exceptional Wikibook page, but various self-interests clashed: Some sought to get a good mark by engaging a lot in the discussion, some to upload excellent content. Additionally some just did not want to engage as much as others; Rheingold discusses this as the collective action dilemma, the perpetual balancing of self-interest, not wanting to engage (free ride), and public goods, that everyone profits from. But "[i]f everyone, acting in their own interest, free rides, then the public good is never created[...]."

Sharing the workload


The instinctive approach of most groups was to share the workload by subdividing the big topic into smaller parts. Thereby a Wiki-structure within one page was created: As Lévy states: "No one knows everything, everyone knows something", emphasizing the importance of collaboration for collective intelligence. In fact people then could just contribute to certain subsections according to their likings and capabilities. Consequently lot of content was rapidly and efficiently created.

Furthermore Lévy explains that collective intelligence has to grew with the structure in which it is created. Accordingly the current content and working structure were harshly discussed until the end. But here the difficulties of collaboration came visible: If there is no framework of rules, that everyone agrees on and that everyone follows, collaboration cannot take place, but instead is hindered.



Actually all Wiki platforms have long-established group working structure starting with the five pillars, but our project had to start off with the forming and storming phase of group development. Working offline could have speed up this process, because one could ensure the real-time coordination with everyone participating equally (avoiding "free riders" ). On the Wikibook platform instead, which does not provide communication tools as good as social media do, we faced huge troubles, because not everyone was available, when the first structure was introduced and discussed. Additionally not all the necessary information (i.e. an equal way of referencing) was noticed by everyone, resulting in inconsistency, chaos and disagreement.

Build a Tower, Build a Team
Tom Wujec in his Ted talk engaged with the nature of collaboration and one of his observation was, that most people are trained to find the singe right plan before executing a task. This might not lead to a good result, instead he points out the importance of prototyping, which would give us feedback and the chance to improve.

Indeed normally a Wiki-page is developed by someone writing a first draft, which is then repeatedly edited by others until everyone's satisfaction. Some people, not understanding this, uploaded content just in the last minute, neglecting the chance for others to criticize. Of course, technically one could constantly enhance the postings and thereby the collective intelligence, but in this project the time restriction hindered us to work further on the content.

Critical Review
This post should not criticise the project nor the people working on it, but it should emphasize, that before experiencing the nature of collaborative knowledge-building we had to build an enabling environment first.

It should also show, that Lévy's description of collective intelligence as a public good came with difficulties on this project. Thinking of property in "binary" terms, namely public and private, our contribution turned from private into public good. Many reasons motivate people to constantly contribute to Wikis for free and voluntary - however these did not apply for us (q.v.), instead private/public interests clashed, with free riding only one of them. Lacking in understanding of the common good's nature, some clung strongly to their contribution as private belonging hindering it to become public. (Ironically, our topic was the public and private sphere.)

Nevertheless, at the deadline of the project, we collected a stunning amount of carefully researched content, so even if the process was difficult, the result is presentable.

#Comments
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Marker’s Feedback on Wikibook Project Work
You have put a phenomenal amount of work and time into finely crafting every aspect of this assessment. Well done! You demonstrate a mastery of wiki markup (although it's unclear why the comments have been hidden in pop-up tables) and the contribs reveal a sustained engagement in all areas and clear leadership to shape the chapter. This is supplemented by a clear understanding of module themes.

Content (weighted 20%)

 * Your contribution to the book page gives an outstanding 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 extremely wide range and depth of subject matter.

Understanding (weighted 30%)

 * Reading and research:
 * evidence of critical engagement with set materials, featuring discriminating command of a considerable range of relevant materials and analyses
 * evidence of independent reading of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material to an extremely wide degree
 * Argument and analysis:
 * well-articulated and well-supported argument through highly original judgement relating to key issues, concepts or procedures
 * outstanding evidence of critical thinking (through taking a position in relation to key ideas from the module, and supporting this position);
 * outstanding originality in evidence of relational thinking (through making connections between key ideas from the module and wider literature, and supporting these connections);
 * considerable evidence of independent critical ability

Engagement (weighted 50%)

 * Evidence from contributions to both editing and discussion of content of an exceptional standard (i.e. volume and breadth of activity as evidenced through contribs)
 * Considerable levels of engagement with and learning from other Wikipedians about the task of writing/editing content for a Wikibook
 * Highly original 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) 14:50, 3 May 2016 (UTC)