- I like the idea of doing the class (or at least some of it) in Second Life
- I'd like to have learned more about Skype, specifically as an educational tool
- I'd like to at least dip my toe into vodcasting and screencasting. It's tough to figure out how to fit it in, but it would be great if all the vids from the regular semester were available to us as supplementary material on the scils598vodcast.
Friday, June 27, 2008
it works
I think the summer class works very well as an introduction to 2.0 software. Just a few thoughts come to mind:
my avatar made me do it
My first experience in Second Life started out as a decision to just go to the main page, maybe sign up, and just see what it was about. It ended an hour or so later.
That's not to say that I was loving it, but I was challenged and intrigued. One female avatar just walked up to mine -- named Parx Galicia -- and gave him a kiss! I'm not sure whether that was sweet or creepy, but it made me aware that "there really are others here."
It's easy to go from place to place, and I checked out some SLURLS I'd heard about. The dream-like imagery was interesting and I marveled at the computing power and programming behind the whole thing.
I find it fascinating, and kind of disturbing, that it's so natural to identify with a controllable image on a screen. I find it weird that so many people spend so much time with it.
The bottom line is that I will use SL beyond this class, at least some. Not for the fantasy part, but because there are legitimate and interesting happenings and educational opportunities in Second Life. It's clearly popular and robust enough that it's worth knowing about from the inside.
I wanted to make a shirt for my avatar that says "Escapism sucks," but I'm afraid he'd get beat up.
Johnson reading: part 2
"If everything bad is indeed good for you, what does this mean for the world of libraries and/or educational organizations?"
You can't smell it, but Carbon Monoxide leaks are not good for you, even in a gym.
I like the insightful point that things we might assume are "bad" actually turn out to have some beneficial effects. It redresses an imbalance. That's important. But it could lead to flopping to the other side, and assuming that the "bad" elements are necessary (i.e. to draw an audience), or that they have no real effect.
Popular media probably has a "paradoxical effect", and is more like a recreational drug that turns out to have health benefits, than a medicine that happens to have a few nasty side effects.
This past week, I was inspired by Johnson's praise of The Sopranos to watch some of the first season. I didn't catch a lot nuance, but I did see lots of disturbing abusiveness. I noticed a slight increase in my urge to use the f-word with an Italian accent. If I keep watching, I'll see more nuance -- and get desensitized to the stuff that disturbs me now. Is it worth it?
A favorite movie of mine, also mentioned by Johnson, is Memento. I like it because of how the story is told. But violence is integral to the plot, and by watching, I agree to breathe some of it in.
If "new" television, movies and games are exercising our brains in certain ways, it's really good to know about. We can encourage that adaptive side effect of pop culture (if that's what it is).
While libraries and educational institutions incorporate pop culture into their collections and syllabi, they could provide a rare encouragement to stand back and think critically about it -- without condemning it -- so, rather than just becoming desensitized to toxins, young people can learn to get their workouts without breathing in bad s*@#.
Johnson, S. (2005). Everything Bad is Good for You. New York: Riverhead Hardcover.
You can't smell it, but Carbon Monoxide leaks are not good for you, even in a gym.
I like the insightful point that things we might assume are "bad" actually turn out to have some beneficial effects. It redresses an imbalance. That's important. But it could lead to flopping to the other side, and assuming that the "bad" elements are necessary (i.e. to draw an audience), or that they have no real effect.
Popular media probably has a "paradoxical effect", and is more like a recreational drug that turns out to have health benefits, than a medicine that happens to have a few nasty side effects.
This past week, I was inspired by Johnson's praise of The Sopranos to watch some of the first season. I didn't catch a lot nuance, but I did see lots of disturbing abusiveness. I noticed a slight increase in my urge to use the f-word with an Italian accent. If I keep watching, I'll see more nuance -- and get desensitized to the stuff that disturbs me now. Is it worth it?
A favorite movie of mine, also mentioned by Johnson, is Memento. I like it because of how the story is told. But violence is integral to the plot, and by watching, I agree to breathe some of it in.
If "new" television, movies and games are exercising our brains in certain ways, it's really good to know about. We can encourage that adaptive side effect of pop culture (if that's what it is).
While libraries and educational institutions incorporate pop culture into their collections and syllabi, they could provide a rare encouragement to stand back and think critically about it -- without condemning it -- so, rather than just becoming desensitized to toxins, young people can learn to get their workouts without breathing in bad s*@#.
Johnson, S. (2005). Everything Bad is Good for You. New York: Riverhead Hardcover.
fold.it
FoldIt (beta) is a type of online game I'd never heard of before yesterday. It was released last month (here's the Wikipedia entry to prove it).It's essentially a clever way of enlisting people to help predict protein structures (by folding them) -- even if all they know about proteins is that you should eat them after exercising.
I checked out a few multiplayer games, but wanted to find something that wasn't just frivolous. Skill-building games like Scrabulous or TypeRacer are good, but FoldIt goes beyond honing personal skills to possibly contributing to cures for diseases, like HIV (and being a candidate for Nobel Prize!).
It's free, but not entirely online. You download a client to your computer, go through some sample puzzles to get the hang of it, and then you can join groups that are working collaboratively, or compete with people around the world as an individual.
Each structure is a complex, 3D puzzle that behaves in strange ways.
Competing with others online is kind of intimidating but all you're seeing is their ranked scores, and you can chat with them within the FoldIt interface.
It is a well designed game, and an ingenious concept, and it's extremely challenging!
Recommended (may result in losing all sense of time)
game shopping
"Which console would you buy for an academic library?"
I hate shopping and, before this week, I’d barely played video games at all since my brother and I had an Odyssey PlayStation in the 80s. So, in real life, I would not hesitate to ask for all the help I could get from people who know better.
Here’s what I think I would do:
I hate shopping and, before this week, I’d barely played video games at all since my brother and I had an Odyssey PlayStation in the 80s. So, in real life, I would not hesitate to ask for all the help I could get from people who know better.
Here’s what I think I would do:
- First, I would try to get out of it. If that didn't work, I'd:
- Talk to gamers, especially the real nerds who follow the newest developments and own more than one console themselves
- Informally survey students to see what they play, what they like, what they'd want, etc.
- Play games – as many types as possible, including the scarey MMOPGs
- Go online and use search engines to find out more about how other libraries or public institutions are using games
- Talk to librarians who are doing it at Ann Arbor and elsewhere
- The audience, which would mostly be undergrads -- but also staff (could be part of special events or "game days" in the staff lounge)
- Their need: they would be looking for diversion, socializing, and movement, NOT more sit-down “education” or "work"
- Negative vs. positive influences of a game's imagery (I know, the kids have seen it all, I just don’t want to be a part of the negative stuff)
- the library's mission statement: what do we hope would come out of it -- more than just "circulating books"?
- advertising -- there would need to be a clever way of inviting students via students (wouldn't need to advertise to staff beyond a sign and an e-mail)
- prices - I'm pretending there's a modest budget
- Provide a nice space for the avid gamers to plug in and do their MMO thing
- Provide some free games that involve physical activity, like DANCE!online
- Put some money (less than $400) into a Wii console - it's versatile, involves moving around, includes non-bloody, cooperative games, and it looks cool.*
Johnson reading: part 1
"Is popular culture just a method to sophisticatedly deliver stupidity?”
Media producers do aim to capitalize on others’ stupidity, inattention or psychological blind spots. But I'm not inclined to believe it's a coordinated conspiracy.
S. Johnson’s (2005) arguments for the surprising positive effects of popular media are more convincing than his title “Everything Bad is Good for You.” But, still, if the activity and interactivity of trendy media is challenging our brains more than before, which parts of our brains, and at the expense of which others?
Last I heard, we (led by neuro folks) don’t understand that much about our brains. An argument that ______ is making us “smarter” or “dumber” needs backing up, and our ignorance leaves a lot of room for creative argument.
A snack, a game, or a line of thought could be good for you and delicious -- and I am enjoying Johnson's book so far -- it's just worth checking the ingredients and expiration date before swallowing.
In one sense, all the activity and complexity is "good" because it has real survival value in our frantic, cognitively demanding, ADD culture. But it could be argued that these entertainments are “good” calisthenics specifically in relation to the “bad” spiral that they're perpetuating.
The Sleeper Curve may be a real upward trend by some measurements -- I believe it is -- but I doubt it's simply a kind of "positive brainwashing" (p. xiii) -- it's not totally positive, and it's not intentional enough to be brainwashing.
I'd guess it also corresponds directly to downward curves -- like in the ability to process the emotions of the brain's limbic system, to be patient with other people, or to feel content.
Johnson, S. (2005). Everything Bad is Good for You. New York: Riverhead Hardcover.
Media producers do aim to capitalize on others’ stupidity, inattention or psychological blind spots. But I'm not inclined to believe it's a coordinated conspiracy.
S. Johnson’s (2005) arguments for the surprising positive effects of popular media are more convincing than his title “Everything Bad is Good for You.” But, still, if the activity and interactivity of trendy media is challenging our brains more than before, which parts of our brains, and at the expense of which others?
Last I heard, we (led by neuro folks) don’t understand that much about our brains. An argument that ______ is making us “smarter” or “dumber” needs backing up, and our ignorance leaves a lot of room for creative argument.
A snack, a game, or a line of thought could be good for you and delicious -- and I am enjoying Johnson's book so far -- it's just worth checking the ingredients and expiration date before swallowing.
In one sense, all the activity and complexity is "good" because it has real survival value in our frantic, cognitively demanding, ADD culture. But it could be argued that these entertainments are “good” calisthenics specifically in relation to the “bad” spiral that they're perpetuating.
The Sleeper Curve may be a real upward trend by some measurements -- I believe it is -- but I doubt it's simply a kind of "positive brainwashing" (p. xiii) -- it's not totally positive, and it's not intentional enough to be brainwashing.
I'd guess it also corresponds directly to downward curves -- like in the ability to process the emotions of the brain's limbic system, to be patient with other people, or to feel content.
Johnson, S. (2005). Everything Bad is Good for You. New York: Riverhead Hardcover.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Ning
The ability to customize a profile on these social network sites is great. The concept of being able to set up a whole network from scratch takes it a few steps further. It's immediately appealing, like a nice power tool at the store -- I want it, but I'm not sure when or why I'd actually use it.
On the one hand, there are already so many SNSs out there, ready to go, with so many possibilities for creating private networks, tailored to your own needs and interests, that it hardly seems necessary to go off and start a new private clubhouse. A possible limitation is that of cutting a niche group off from a lot more people and resources out there on the more populated sites.
And, closer to home, I can’t imagine using a Ning effectively in my current job. For group projects, a wiki would probably be the more effective medium. For networking, it would be more practical to pick up the phone or walk down the hall. And for 'hooking up,' well, that just wouldn't appropriate.
But, I can see a Ning being particularly useful for geographically dispersed networks -- task oriented or not -- including subcommittees of ALA, SCILS cohorts, or even extended family networks. I'm going to keep pondering ways to set one of these things up. For now, it's another great tool for my toolbox.
On the one hand, there are already so many SNSs out there, ready to go, with so many possibilities for creating private networks, tailored to your own needs and interests, that it hardly seems necessary to go off and start a new private clubhouse. A possible limitation is that of cutting a niche group off from a lot more people and resources out there on the more populated sites.
And, closer to home, I can’t imagine using a Ning effectively in my current job. For group projects, a wiki would probably be the more effective medium. For networking, it would be more practical to pick up the phone or walk down the hall. And for 'hooking up,' well, that just wouldn't appropriate.
But, I can see a Ning being particularly useful for geographically dispersed networks -- task oriented or not -- including subcommittees of ALA, SCILS cohorts, or even extended family networks. I'm going to keep pondering ways to set one of these things up. For now, it's another great tool for my toolbox.
which one are you?
Class divisions, and subdivisions, do exist. In-group/out-group thinking goes deep and It would be naive to think that it wouldn't be reflected online.
Boyd’s (2007) sense of how class divisions are possibly being played out in MySpace vs. Facebook is interesting and is not something I would have noticed -- or even really thought about -- on my own, at least without a lot more exposure to these services.
This possibility is important to explore in the same way that it's important to explore what patrons might need and want when building collections. It could be a mistake to form solid assumptions based on this one speculative (but informed) article but librarians would do well to at least mentally bookmark Boyd's observations and concerns, if not to take actions, including:
Boyd, Danah. (2007). Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace .Apophenia Blog Essay. June 24, 2007. Retrieved June 2008 from http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html
Boyd’s (2007) sense of how class divisions are possibly being played out in MySpace vs. Facebook is interesting and is not something I would have noticed -- or even really thought about -- on my own, at least without a lot more exposure to these services.
This possibility is important to explore in the same way that it's important to explore what patrons might need and want when building collections. It could be a mistake to form solid assumptions based on this one speculative (but informed) article but librarians would do well to at least mentally bookmark Boyd's observations and concerns, if not to take actions, including:
- look into it: informally (through conversation, or studying activity on the library's SNS profiles) or formally (interviews, brief surveys) check with patrons to get a sense of whether this class division is prominent at their library (it may already be very obvious)
- when setting up a library presence on an SNS, keep in mind which group of patrons may be most likely to be the readership (and keep a watch to test Boyd's hypothesis)
- not (potentially) discriminating by being a presence on only one or the other (it's not a bad idea to have multiple profiles anyway)
- if there is a real division, considering the option of setting up a neutral SNS through Ning, as a middle ground and a bridge builder -- it might not work, but who knows?
Boyd, Danah. (2007). Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace .Apophenia Blog Essay. June 24, 2007. Retrieved June 2008 from http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html
a noob speculates
What makes services like MySpace or Facebook (SNSs) "sticky"?
I'm a noob. And this question could be rich dissertation material for philosophers, evolutionary psychologists, sociologists, educators, etc.
I’m taking “sticky” not in the sense that Boyd (2007) uses it to describe the topic of class division (“touchy”) but in the sense of being addicting and hugely popular. So far, I'm not stuck; I can only speculate on some of the more obvious reasons:
SNSs are one tool that I will definitely use after this class is over, but I’m going to have to explore more to settle on which ones and on how to configure them.
So far, I'm not hooked. The experience of setting up and tricking out a MySpace page left my eyes and tired and attention scattered. Facebook was not as visually obnoxious, but both are a little intimidating, and I wouldn't want to start joining networks and uploading things frivolously.
Still, I'm eager to start really exploring these services and to see what comes out of them...
Boyd, Danah. (2007). Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace .Apophenia Blog Essay. June 24, 2007. Retrieved June 2008 from http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html
I'm a noob. And this question could be rich dissertation material for philosophers, evolutionary psychologists, sociologists, educators, etc.
I’m taking “sticky” not in the sense that Boyd (2007) uses it to describe the topic of class division (“touchy”) but in the sense of being addicting and hugely popular. So far, I'm not stuck; I can only speculate on some of the more obvious reasons:
- we’re social critters and can't help it; it's like candy to a baby
- they're a potentially endless distraction
- they're entertaining
- they open up new possibilities for relationships, jobs, showing off, revenge, etc.
- they allow armchair social dramas and 'safe' social explorations
- they take the edge off of loneliness
- they are 'the place to be' to define oneself in many circles
- they are designed to be sticky by some very smart and wealthy people
SNSs are one tool that I will definitely use after this class is over, but I’m going to have to explore more to settle on which ones and on how to configure them.
So far, I'm not hooked. The experience of setting up and tricking out a MySpace page left my eyes and tired and attention scattered. Facebook was not as visually obnoxious, but both are a little intimidating, and I wouldn't want to start joining networks and uploading things frivolously.
Still, I'm eager to start really exploring these services and to see what comes out of them...
Boyd, Danah. (2007). Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace .Apophenia Blog Essay. June 24, 2007. Retrieved June 2008 from http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html
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