User talk:SophieNHayes

This is my Wikibooks user discussion page. I will be exploring Wikibooks and registering my discussion on this page as part of my project. SophieNHayes (discuss • contribs) 14:14, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #1: Educational Assignment
One of my favourite pastimes is surfing the internet and, in particular, exploring the popular form of social media that is Instagram. Instagram is a photo-sharing based form of social network for smartphones where users sign up to post various pictures and have the ability to 'follow' other users who share the same interests as them. A few weeks ago I came across a profile called 'The Dogist' (@thedogist) which follows a similar idea of the popular blog 'Humans of New York' where instead of photographing the people of New York, the page consists of thousands of pictures of dogs in New York followed by short quotes from their owners. I think this is an extremely clever idea which appeals to many animal lovers and as the blog is so popular itself the owner, Elias Weiss Friedman, has even published a photo book with many pictures of the dogs being published. As I have been an avid follower of the 'Humans of New York' blog for a few years now, it is refreshing to find a new blog to fascinate over and as it shares my passion for dogs, it has fast become a favourite of mine. SophieNHayes (discuss • contribs) 15:14, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Marker’s Comment

 * A fairly well-written entry in itself, although it would have been useful to try to feed this into the themes and concerns of the module, 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. photography as an artistic practice, archive and documentary online etc.) or tech determinism (considering the technoloical aspects of photography and innovation). Drawing down from this material, you could have made better use of the wiki markup by embedding links to reading and also to the sites under discussion.


 * A post of this standard roughly corresponds to the following grade descriptor:
 * 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.

RE: Comments on others’ work

 * These are on time - however, they are on the short side and could do with considerable development in terms of content, scope and reference to module themes. 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) 16:52, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #1: Educational Assignment Comments
Please feel free to add any comments or discussion to my assignments here. SophieNHayes (discuss • contribs) 15:17, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki #2 Visibility and Online Footprint
In this day and age, I feel that it's very difficult to not have any form whatsoever of social media. The clue is in the name itself; it's social. Social media is where I communicate with my friends, family and colleagues. Due to this, I feel that I am very visible online. I almost feel ashamed to admit that I have presence on almost all of the well known forms of it. Currently, I have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Youtube and also have a Google+ account. I will admit that, apart from twitter, all of my accounts are private and therefore people can only see a limited bit of information about myself. That said, I am aware that really, nothing is private on the internet, so even though I want to say that most of this information is under my control, I know that the internet is a very public place. SophieNHayes (discuss • contribs) 10:15, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki #3 Information Overload!
In this day and age, the sheer quantity of information you can find on the world wide web is so vast that it doesn't bear thinking about. We live in a world where it has become more difficult to not find information on the internet. I am awful for looking things up on the internet, so how do I deal with the amount of information available to me? I don't. The internet, for me, is the most distracting place in the world. I find myself one minute doing research for an assignment, and the next I am feeding my dog addiction by looking at the '31 Cutest Puppies You Will See Today' on Buzzfeed. (Or something similar to that effect.)

I find it important that when I am not procrastinating and actually doing a solid amount of work, I try to be concise in what I search on the internet. I try and use the maximum of key words I can in order to allow the search engine to cut down the sheer amount of information I will receive. This also allows anything irrelevant to what you are looking for to not be included in your results, thus resulting in not having an information overload meltdown.

An article that actually helped me a lot in regards to not being overwhelmed by all this information available to me is an article published by The Telegraph called 'How The Internet Is Making Us Stupid' by Nicholas Carr' contains, for once, plenty of relevant information on how to actually take use this information for a good purpose. www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/7967894/How-the-Internet-is-making-us-stupid.html SophieNHayes (discuss • contribs) 10:39, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki #4 Wikibook Project Reflective Account
====“If everyone, acting in their own interest, free rides, then the public good is never created, or it is over consumed and goes away. Everyone suffers. There’s your dilemma. What’s good for you can be bad for us." ====

Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs is a major part of my own understanding of the Collective Action Dilemma which, again, was a major part of my own contributions to the Wikibooks Public and Private Spheres chapter. A public good is something that everyone can benefit from, even if they do not participate in its success. In this case, students became the Wiki editors in a bid to share the skills we have learned and, the aim of the task, was to create a substantial chapter of the Wikibook as part of a team. This was easier said than done, however. Howard Rheingold describes collective action dilemma as the balance of self interest and public goods. In the case of the Wikibooks, not everyone wanted to participate; they wanted to 'free ride'. Some people, wanting to get a good mark and, despite brilliant engagement, seemed to take over the chapter thus leaving others with no choice but to 'free ride'. The project itself was deemed to not perform as well as it could due to this.

Collaboration Within The Project
On first thoughts, I thought that the task itself seemed relatively simple; create a group, find a topic you felt you could add to and engage with each other. However, I quickly realized it was not going to be as easy as it looked. The small group I had been placed in was fine and if this was the only group I had to work in, I believe the task would have been much easier to maintain and I actually would have enjoyed it. The idea of having to work with 5 other small groups and creating one large group was unappealing to me. I usually do not mind group work and if everyone is given a chance to contribute fairly then it is guaranteed to go well. With the Wiki task, from the off it was obvious that some were going to over perform and some would underperform. There was no balance and this created some issues. Due to some personal problems within our group (illness etc.) we started a bit later than what I personally would have liked. This should not have been a problem but by the time we were able to come together as a group and actually analyse what the task in hand was, we seemed to be left with the topics of the chapter that no one else really wanted to engage with. It seemed slightly unfair and it was clear that this task was going to be a case of 'every man for themselves'. I feel like if we had all been designated different topics or ideas from the chapter then this would have made the whole process run more smoothly and would have prevented any confusion or disagreement within this huge group of people. I personally am aware that I could have made my own contributions to different topics that were already taken and I could have expanded on them further. Some people were absolutely fine with engaging and building up a topic together to produce the best content. Others however wanted to take the task on their own which left some people with no choice but to not engage. Although the overall finish on the Wikibook is something which I feel proud of, I do believe that with better organisation and less people working on the one thing, that it could have been even better.

The Civic Web
To successfully create some great content within the Wikibooks, you had to collaborate, engage, understand the key elements of the task and contribute. These link to the Civic Web in many ways, most successfully due to the fact that we as Wiki users are able to express and create freely thus creating good content for others to read, which links into Politics of Everyday. Even though Wikibooks as whole seems like a good project from the outside, when you delve into it I would completely dismiss this idea. Politics of Wikipedia is an issue as some did not follow the rules; there was issues from the start with user content being deleted. I think the number of people working on the one thing was far too high and caused many issues of conflict and heated discussions, instead of what could have been an easier and more enjoyable task with better organisation.

Comments
Feel free to add any comments or questions! SophieNHayes (discuss • contribs) 22:38, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Wiki #4 Comment: Hi Sophie, I agree that this project was a little more challenging than it first seemed. It can be hard to work in a group especially if you do not know the people in your group very well. Using the discussion page on Wikipedia was sort of difficult and I understand when you say that there was little balance. Collective intelligence was a huge contributing factor in this project. It was definitely different to have a shared group with different ideas and efforts working together to make an adequate wiki page. But, it was beneficial to work with others in dividing up and reviewing the work. My group was able to read each other’s work and actually fact check each other to ensure that everything we posted was accurate and complete. Georgiamattie (discuss • contribs) 03:41, 8 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Hey Sophie - I completely understand your frustration with the project. Collaborative projects on this scale work best through prior face-to-face organisation, whereas we were all thrown into the project blind and asked to completely structure everything ourselves. When we began doing this and each group began to work in sync with one another and things began moving forward, we were told to stop talking to the other groups as much and to remember that we are only working in our smaller teams of 4-5 people. This seemed completely counter-productive and near impossible to coordinate, and made things much more difficult. In turn this meant groups began to take chapters and sections of the project in fear of missing out. As the interface for communicating was slow and intermittent, it was nigh-on impossible to get information through to another group effectively. As an experiment into how collaborative projects work online, this has been both successful and insightful. However, I feel this experimentation has negatively affected not only the overall finished product but our engagement with it also. More organisation is needed in the future to get this project running smoothly.

Marker’s Feedback on Wikibook Project Work
Two very significant and large edits made in the final hours of the project period. The work you produce (on Rheingold and Collective Action, and on Critical review section in particular) is excellent, but had you used the time available (i.e. the whole of the 3 weeks or so project period and not just the last hours – this could have been extended, considerably) you could have developed the quality of edits and skill in markup and reached your potential.

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 an excellent 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 excellent range and depth of subject matter.

Understanding (weighted 30%)

 * Reading and research:
 * evidence of critical engagement with set materials, although some ideas and procedures more securely grasped than others
 * evidence of independent reading of somewhat circumscribed range of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material
 * Argument and analysis:
 * well-articulated and well-supported argument featuring variable depth of understanding
 * satisfactory level of evidence of critical thinking (through taking a position in relation to key ideas from the module, and supporting this position in discussion);
 * satisfactory 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 variable independent critical ability

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) 15:06, 3 May 2016 (UTC)