User talk:Unprofesh

Hello this is my user discussion page, I will be using this to register my work and contribute to my assignments.

Feel free to discuss anything I post on my discussion page.

Unprofesh (discuss • contribs) 15:49, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #1: Educational Assignment
Inbox is a relatively new e-mailing service created by Google. While it is still testing out different features there is hope that it will replace their current service, Gmail. It launched a beta version in 2014 and then became available to many Gmail users through an invitation in early 2015 before eventually becoming something that anyone with a Gmail account could access mid 2015.

Some of the features of the new site include an all new layout and a "remind me later" feature which is a very useful tool to aid procrastinators. It also offers a "Done" button which allows you to keep your inbox clear making it easier to see what you need to deal with. While these features are great there are others that can be slightly worrying such as the improved feature that sorts out your emails into different folders (other than the usual spam folders) meaning that somewhere along the line your emails are being read by someone other than you.

While the feature is very useful for organising your emails it also shows how open you are leaving yourself and it adds to the worries about our privacy on-line. Unprofesh (discuss • contribs) 22:57, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise 1: Formative Feedback
This is a solid review of Inbox that teases a greater connection to module themes (online privacy) in the last paragraph. Make sure to make stronger links to module themes where appropriate and expand upon this analysis rather than concentrating purely on the description. We are far more interested in the why and the how rather than the what. Unfortunately, you have not written any comments of colleagues' posts. Remember that engagement is an important of the assignment and that this must be part of the rest of your portfolio.

A post of this standard roughly corresponds to the following grade 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. Sprowberry (discuss • contribs) 10:53, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #2: Visibility and On-line Footprint
Most people with access to the internet have at least one social media account. It’s almost impossible not have an on-line presence in this day and age, even young children have some form of on-line presence. When new parents upload pictures of their baby they give away so much information about the child as usually the picture is accompanied with various information about the time they were born or how much they weighed.

I have several accounts across a range of social media. The one I use daily is Facebook although I very rarely post anything on there. Like many young people I have accounts that I keep hidden from their family and friends. For most, this allows them to be more open with their opinions and information they share which then increases their visibility on that site.

For the majority of people with multiple accounts they have one that they use to keep in contact with family and friends and show them an edited version of themselves which only shows the positive parts of their lives. In that respect we have a lot of control over what we share on-line and who we share it with but on a larger scale, we have almost no control over the information once it is out there. We are also unable to control what others post about us. There are privacy settings that allow you to see everything you are tagged in before it gets shared to your friends and you can un-tag yourself but that doesn't stop your friends from sharing it and people recognising you in it. Unprofesh (discuss • contribs) 18:59, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Comments
This post is a great commentary about how society in the modern era have all jumped on the social media bandwagon and post all aspects of their lives! How do you feel about how much information is available for people to see? DayleCleland (discuss • contribs) 11:12, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

DayleCleland I feel kind of scared about how much information is out there for anyone to see but we've grown up in a world that is under constant surveillance so it's not as worrying. In a way I feel safer knowing that I'll be able to find out information about anyone just by clicking a few buttons. Unprofesh (discuss • contribs) 16:24, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I only have the one facebook account, and it's interesting to hear about the different ways people present themselves through multiple accounts. Do you do this with any other forms of social media? Petrichorblue (discuss • contribs) 02:00, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #3: Information Overload!
There is so much information online that it is easy to be distracted. You can find distractions everywhere you go and the internet is no different although it can be a bit trickier to break through the distractions and get to what you need to know. Most of us deal with the distractions online in much the same way we do if it were real life. That is to say we give in for a bit and then as deadlines rush towards us, we panic and do everything in one go. This is more to do with the fast paced environment we have grown up in. It almost feels wrong to have time left over before handing in an essay.

With so much information so readily available and all the distractions out the way, it should be quick and easy to find the information you need. Luckily for us we have Google, a place where all the information we could ever want is right at our fingertips. Unfortunately within all the information there are contradictions and things that go against everything you have learned so far. When these contradictions happen it is hard to tell which one is right. It can take a lot of time and effort to read through both cases and find if there is any evidence supporting them.

For some people just the simple fact that an article is at the top of Google’s search page means it must be right. Others do actually look at both cases and make a semi-educated decision or just accept that factors of each argument may be true while others are exaggerated. Although there is also a few people that will just hit the back button and search for something that supports their argument. I can fall into either of these categories depending on what I am arguing about and more specifically how much time I have left after dealing with the afore mentioned distractions.

I think one of the main factors in how you deal with so much information is to do with how much you already know. If you are sure of a fact and an article gets that fact wrong then you will most likely not believe the rest of the article. Unprofesh (discuss • contribs) 02:49, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Comments
You bring up some interesting points on how the quantity of information out there can make it difficult to differentiate between accurate and inaccurate sources. You are certainly right that it usually comes down to blindly trusting the first few search results from Google, which can be an issue. I also very much understand your coping mechanism with such an information overload, panicking and leaving everything to the last minute. Certainly, if you look at the time stamp of this comment, I'm echoing that sentiment right now. Petrichorblue (discuss • contribs) 11:53, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #4: Wikibook Project Reflective Account
The Wikibooks project was a huge collaboration between everyone studying on the digital media module in which we collectiely created "An Internet of Everything?". There were 5 chapters in the wikibook and roughly 30 people assigned to each of those chapters. Then those 30 people were split in to smaller groups of 4 or 5. The idea was that we would have face to face discussions in our small groups to discuss what we should do and then have a further discussion on the talk page of our wikibook chapter so no one else does what we are planning. That was the idea at least. The problem with this type of project is that not everyone started participating at the same time. Some groups never met face to face and did all their discussions on the talk page for our chapter so when it came to other groups trying to start they first had to scroll through pages and pages of discussion by one other group. This made it very difficult for the groups to collaborate and ensure no one was doing the same thing.

Although once we were able to start communicating with each other properly, it all went a lot smoother apart from one or two people trying to control everything and micromanage the project. They had obviously not heard of collective intelligence which, as Pierre Levy said, can be put simply as nobody knows everything but everyone knows something. So collectively we can have access to a range of information but the question is how many people is too many people. Crowdsourcing is a way of gathering information, it uses the idea of collective intelligence to build up a database of information on a particular subject but how many people is too many people? When you start to get people repeating what others have said it is a sign that there may not be any more information to gather. You can also use crowdsourcing as a way of checking your information, if an entire group says one thing is right but one person says it is wrong, you are more likely to believe the group. Although this does depend on the credentials of the one person. If you take the example of the earth being round, the crowd used to believe the earth was flat and it was possible to fall off the edge but then the Greek philosopher Aristotle pointed out that the Earth’s shadow on the moon was curved which led him to conclude that the earth is in fact round. So the collective group can get it wrong but the majority of the time they can be trusted. A good point about collaborating with people is that the work load isn’t as much. If each of us were to write a wikibook on our own instead of just part of a chapter, then there would not be as much information and any arguments made are likely to be one sided.

This project has been a good experience for dealing with difficult people and shown all participants what we can do when we work together. The planning of the project itself was atrocious as it seemed so disorganised but once we knew exactly what we were meant to do it was just a case of researching our topic and writing. It allowed us to offer help to other people if they were struggling as well as sharing our sources letting us find new information that we could’ve previously overlooked. Unprofesh (discuss • contribs) 10:50, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments
While I personally tried my best to stay out of any conflict on my page, even that in itself was certainly a lesson in dealing with difficult people. I agree that people starting to participate at different times was certainly frustrating, from both the point of view of someone starting earlier but finding themselves alone and in need of help, as well as someone who is busy and has to start later, but constantly feels the pressure and anxiety of the 'always-on' culture the project created. Petrichorblue (discuss • contribs) 10:31, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I found your last exercise very interesting, it is interesting how your found crowdsourcing unreliable. Your use of academic resources and referencing shows you had a good understanding of the task in hand. I agree with you in that it was a difficult task to complete due to the number of people working on the same topic, things got a little heated sometimes however at the end it shows that regards to this when push came to shove we all pulled together in all five topics and showed great team work even if we did not show great individual skills. You also talked about the collective group and how some can get it wrong however as a group and overall we can be shown that the responsibly of trust is there and it helps others understand and participate in the correction if you fail to get it right. Overall a very interesting piece. Tellegee (discuss • contribs) 13:24, 9 April 2016 (UTC) Tellegee (discuss • contribs) 13:24, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Marker’s Feedback on Wikibook Project Work
There are only sporadic signs of engagement through your contributions, which is the single most important aspect of this assignment. At several points you have failed to follow the portfolio brief (e.g. responding to 1 colleague's exercise rather than 2. Other than the last, your exercises are brisk, and require further critical reflection. Your collaboration with colleagues in the chapter is better. You show a satisfactory level of understanding through reference to journalism (but you should attempt to include more academic sources!).

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 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 suggests minimally sufficient standard of engagement (i.e. volume and breadth of activity as evidenced through contribs)
 * Acceptable engagement with and learning from other Wikipedians about the task of writing/editing content for a Wikibook
 * Limited reflexivity and creativity, and a somewhat insecure management of discussion pages

Overall Mark % available on Succeed

FMSU9A4marker (discuss • contribs) 14:57, 3 May 2016 (UTC)