More than Points and Badges: Gamification and Meaning

First of all, the Diigo boat is sailing nicely. I haven't quite figured out how to network with other people using Diigo, but I tried searching with the keyword "gamification work" and found a variety of really helpful articles about gamifying applied to work.

I'm also making a better effort to reach out on Twitter and Facebook and I hope to start a conversation about this stuff.

Trending

"Gartner says by 2015, more than 50 percent of organizations that manage innovation processes will gamify those processes" From a Gartner article.

I found the article from a Gamification Wiki that quotes this source again saying:

"Although gamification is still a relatively new concept for business organizations, analysts are predicting a fast adoption rate of gamification, with the market growing from $100Mio in 2011 to $2.8bn in 2016"

So this is a very relevant, growing idea

Customers
There's also a lot of focus on the other business side of gamifying that I hadn't paid much attention to. Customer loyalty programs are evolving now that better programs are becoming more available to small businesses. Instead of the typical "buy 10 get one free", this article talks about why digital customer loyalty programs can help small businesses grow in a way that was only accessible for big businesses until recently. The short video for this website for a product called "Badgeville" also talks a lot about why giving points and rankings to customers is very effective.

Badges and Points
My favorite find by far was this presentation. It seems to be advertising a business that will help you gamify your workplace, like Badgeville, so I approached it knowing there may be bias. What I like about the points it makes is that it cites a variety of books that talk about what things are going well in the realm of gamifying and what people are doing wrong.

There's a difference between what makes us feel fulfilled on our Xbox
and what will make us feel fulfilled at our 9-5

This presentation points out that we can't approach gamifying the work place in the same way we approach the points and badge systems of a video game. It might not be useful to your team to create a scoreboard showing who is getting the most points. It might cheapen the work and create the wrong kind of competition. It points out that there are already a lot of game elements in the workplace. Systems like bonuses, employee of the month, and awards are used to motivate employees.

In order to make a fulfilling, gamified workplace, you can't just slap on a points system. You have to find things that will really make your employees feel like they're doing something important. Military badges aren't regarded as trifles because they're a lot harder to earn.

The presentation ends by recommending you work with real game designers and have your product very slowly tested and incorporated, then adjusted according to feedback (something we talked about in class). I guess the product is called "Rypple".

I was staring to doubt the ability for games to be used in the workplace because I was mentally seeing the problems that could be created with scoreboards and meaningless achievements. I liked that this article addressed some of those issues and offers more in depth insight. I emailed the guy at the end of the presentation and asked some questions. We'll see if I get feedback!

Youtube as a Curation Tool

I chose to try to use Youtube as a curation tool to organize videos as I learned more about education and technology. I have come to the conclusion that Youtube has potential, but perhaps I don't have the self-control to use it.

I just want to point out that I generally do not have a short attention span. In fact, I think I'm rather good at sitting down and focusing on one subject for decent amounts of time. However, using Youtube as a curation tool ended up being a lot more challenging than I had anticipated.

I initially chose to use Youtube because I liked the idea of using it for academic purposes. I was interested to see what types of videos people had posted about education and technology. As I searched, I found a variety of videos-- many of which were not worth saving to my playlist. The most useful videos that I found all seemed to be TED talks, which was interesting. I had never really taken the time to watch TED talks before, so it was interesting to do so now. I thought many of the presenters had interesting ideas about how to improve the use of technology in education.

One of the biggest problems that I had with Youtube was my attention span. I will admit that I was distracted by advertising that popped up before I could watch my videos (the extended version of The Hobbit is coming out next month!) By the time the video started, it took a great deal of effort to re-focus on my subject again. Most of the videos that looked promising were over ten minutes long, and I found that sitting down and watching an entire video before adding it to my playlist slowed me down significantly. After struggling with this for a while, I started saving videos to my playlist to watch later. That has helped me to work on this project a little at a time by breaking it into more manageable chunks.

The conclusion that I have come to as I've used Youtube as a curation tool is that it has potential. However, I think that other curation tools would be more useful for me personally. If any of you are interested, here is the link to the playlist that I have been compiling (keep in mind it's still a work in progress!)

Have any of you had greater success in using Youtube as a curation tool?

The Story of the Old Man with the Xbox: "What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy" James Paul Gee

While browsing through our class's Goodreads bookshelf, I was looking for things that particularly deal with gaming. I'm trying to focus my topic on the value of gaming and the real world applications for things like the workplace. There's a lot of different stuff I'm passionate about, but divided focus leads to no work done. James Paul Gee it is. His book seems to be about how video games can give us learning skills. I agree. I wouldn't be so good at handling my money if I hadn't spent hours with RPGs.

Education and Digital Culture in Clayton Christensen's Disrupting Class

Apparently this was one of the most influential books of 2008. I am hopeful that means that this book will be an interesting read.

Preview:
From previewing the text, I can see that Randall Circle High School is important-- most likely as a type of case study. Also, the text seems to focus on how to meet each student's individual needs rather than just helping the "average" student. The conclusion Christensen seems to be working towards is how to give schools the tools they need in order to help students succeed.

Social Proof:
Everybody on Google Plus seemed more interested in the fact that I got my book for free through the library than that I am researching innovation in education. However, I wandered into the kitchen to talk to two of my roommates about technology and education, and they both seemed reasonably interested. One of my roommates is a Computer Science major, so she thinks technology is great. My other roommate is an English major. She and I both agree that technology is good when it adds directly to what we're learning about, but we've both seen it overused in our classes. I felt good that my fellow English major roommate agreed with me, and I understand why my other roommate thinks technology in classes is so important. I am interested to see what Clayton Christensen has to say on the matter.

Similar Books:
The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out showed up in both of my searches. This book, as well as several others that showed up in my search were also written by Clayton Christensen, so it appears that he is very invested in this subject. Most of the results were either directly related to improving education in the United States or to Innovation, which was interesting. However, it makes sense given the title of the book I'm looking at.

Social Context:
A quick Youtube search brought up a TED talk by Michael B. Horn. I searched his name and discovered that he co-authored Disrupting Class, which I had somehow missed when I was glancing at my book. When I searched Twitter, I found a lot of entertaining tweets from students who had actually disrupted class. However, I also discovered that Disrupting Class was mentioned in a conference called Excellence in Education. Neat!

Formal Reviews:
I found a formal review by John Sener that was published in elearn Magazine. Sener disagrees with most of the arguments in Disrupting Class. He points out the fact that education is actually quite different from businesses, therefore we need to be cautious when trying to apply ideas from business to education. I found this quote to be a good representation of Sener's argument:  "The problem is the solution that's proposed supports customized inputs, but standardized results." I will definitely keep this in mind as I start reading Disrupting Class itself.

Informal Reviews:
Disrupting Class has an average rating of 3.86 on Goodreads. One criticism that I have seen popping up inn both formal and informal reviews is that the authors propose charter schools as the solution to all of our education woes. Other reviewers complain that the authors ignore several existing models that use technology to help students learn based on their individual needs (such as Montessori schools.) Overall, I'm getting the impression that there are good ideas in this book, but I will need to read it with a grain of salt.

Courses Using This Book:
A search of educational sites using this book showed me that Michael B. Horn visited MIT as a guest lecturer and spoke about some of the ideas from their book. Michael Horn keeps showing up. I think it will be important to pay attention to all of the authors, not just Christensen. I also found that VCU (Virginia Commonweatlth University) has an entire blog devoted to this book, complete with notes and questions asked by the instructors for students to keep in mind as they read the book. I think this website could be very helpful to me as I look at this book more in depth later.

Multimedia:
I searched Youtube earlier and found that Michael B. Horn had given a TED talk based on the ideas from this book. A search of Flickr revealed that the third author, Curtis W. Johnson, spoke at the global education forum in 2010. It appears that all three of the authors of this book are very involved in organizations that have the influence to change the way that education works. That in and of itself is enough to make me want to pay close attention to this book to see what ideas are being spread in these influential places.

First Impressions of the Book:
I enjoyed chapter 9:"Giving Schools the Right Structure to Innovate." The authors talk about how businesses use functional teams that focus on one aspect of the business, and suggest that schools could do something similar with students-- for example, perhaps having one group focus on music or art. I think that is a good idea, but I also think that traditional skills that we learn at school are useful and shouldn't be overlooked. I also think that students could be missing out on many opportunities to learn by focusing too much on one area and neglecting the others. I believe that by following the functional teams model, we would risk pigeon-holing students into focusing on only one of their talents. This would risk not giving them opportunities to grow as balanced individuals. Perhaps a cross-functional team model would be more effective. Students could be put into small groups, which would include students with different skill sets. That way, students would be exposed to other models of thinking and learning. They would also be able to feel that they can make a valuable contribution, whatever their skill set, because everyone's skills would be viewed as equally valid. Additionally, they would be given opportunities to use all of their unique talents, not just the one labelled skill, such as art. I intend to look more in depth at the model proposed in this book and see what points they make that could be used as a springboard to develop alternate methods of education.

Diiiiiiiiiiiiigo to bed

I'm starting to really like Diigo. I've been using it for all of an hour maybe, but I'm already realizing how curating my 7 tabs open at any given time can help me direct my research rather than bog it down and get distracted by side-quests.

1. Highlighting - I do this in my head anyway, but I love love love being able to highlight directly on a webpage. I don't understand why I'm enjoying it so much, but it's like a great part about paper things has finally manifested in my digital world in a beautiful way.

2. Bookmarking - I know I could bookmark using Google's built in bookmarking function, but somehow that seems cluttered, and I like to bookmark pages on my browser that I visit a lot, not an article for school. I don't want it filled in automatically while I'm typing. idk.

3. Saving Pages - I can save all those little articles that I'm just browsing for background info. Now they don't just become closed tabs lost in the ethereal world of my half-memory. Normally I disregard pages that aren't rich with helpful stuff. This way I'll be able to look at a lot of little things to build a bigger picture.

BOOKMARK'D

I think this is a great tool for academic research. I was thinking of making a wiki, and that might be better for further organizing information, but for right now I'm mostly trying to just round up a lot of information and highlight the heck out of it. Diigo is great for this.

Life as a Digital Native and How the Internet Will Affect Our Children

1. Social Media: I announced my intentions to read Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser (shortened to Born Digital in this post) on Google Plus and Twitter! No responses as of yet, but I'll update as they come.

2. Why I Am Reading This: I originally perused our list of book options with the mindset to find a work centered around digital identity or "slacktivism". However, when I saw this title, Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives, I thought that this would be extremely useful to me in the future. It is a topic relevant to my life and something I would prefer to have a general knowledge of before I embark on the path to parenthood in the far future. My primary goal is to educate myself on how to prepare to raise a family in our digital culture, but I will need to find an academic focus-perhaps digital nativity.

3. Book Preview: My initial thoughts when looking at the book (love that it's in BYU's ebrary) is that many chapters are titled after an identity: "activists," "aggressors," and "pirates," for instance and the others are rather blunt and technical. I perused the book and have come to the conclusion that this not so much a parenting book, but more of a way to express the many capacities of the internet and the digital world. The authors are extremely credible and even include a link to their website in the last chapter of the book (how often does that happen?).

4. Early Social Proof: Sadly, from the time I started this post to now, I still do not have anyone interested into my reading adventure. However, I asked my husband Cory and our friend Sean, whether they had rules about video games and internet growing up. Their families both had computers located in open, visible areas and their moms had to know their passwords. Cory was only allowed to play video games at first on weekends, and later, after they played outside and it was dark. My parents never gave me rules regarding technology or internet safety. They also had the computer in our study, facing away from the door-something I would probably not do as a parent now.

5. My Book's Friends: First, the book most frequently bought with Born Digital is The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains Nicholas Carr. Intriguing title and is essentially a neurological study on how surfing the web affects our brains, in comparison to reading a book. Don Tapscott's Grown Up Digital is also recommended and it too, is a study of how growing up with the internet affects brain functioning, amongst other things. He was involved in a 4.5 million dollar study of people born from 1978-1994 and how digital culture impacts their lives. It seems as though many people are interested in the biological and physical consequences of the internet.

6. Who Cares?: Both authors are director/fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, and have a large following of academics. Palfrey is also a frequent commentator on various news networks. When I did a #BornDigital search of Google and Twitter, I was surprised to see its existence and popularity because of a Yahoo! series devoted to the college class of 2017 and their adventures. The series includes guest posters like professors, videos of students' lives and all types of digital media submissions.

 7. Formal Reviews: I like this review (http://techliberation.com/2008/10/10/book-review-palfrey-gassers-born-digital/). Sorry, it won't let me hyperlink it! It is From the Technology Liberation Front  and I believe its author Adam Thierer did an excellent job of summarizing the book, while pointing out flaws (like lack of opinion-too much unbias). I appreciate that they include a PODCAST discussion with John Palfrey! Listen here (http://techliberation.com/2009/02/09/tpw-41-book-corner-featuring-john-palfrey-author-of-born-digital/) It's still not allowing me to hyperlink these...

8. Informal Reviews: I was looking through Amazon reviews and found a familiar name, Adam Thierer-our author of the review at Technology Liberation Front. He gave the book 4 out of 5 stara and wrote a different, more concise review on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Born-Digital-Understanding-Generation-Natives/product-reviews/0465018564/ref=cm_cr_pr_top_link_2?ie=UTF8&pageNumber=2&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=byRankDescending). Overall, the book received 3 out of 5 stars but most of the reviews are positive.

9. Courses:

10. Digital Media:

Isolation in a Digital World

I think it's a pretty accepted idea that digital culture can isolate people. However, the most common type of isolation that I've heard about is brought on by people who surround themselves with so much digital culture that they isolate themselves from those around them. However, I personally have experienced a different kind of isolation-- that of not having the newest technology or social media account when everyone else around you seems to.

Case in point: I still use an old flip phone. Today, one of my mission buddies was texting a group of people, trying to organize an activity. However, my phone is so old that all of the group messages that she would send out showed up as empty text messages. Thus, I had no way of knowing what she was saying. It reminds me of my high school days, when all of my friends had cell phones and I did not (I got a cell phone when I moved to Provo for college.) I would go to slumber parties and be bored out of my wits because everyone around me would be texting or taking pictures on their phones, while I had to just sit there and wait for them to finish so we could keep talking. Although I've never experienced this, another good example would be someone who doesn't have Facebook never getting invited to events because they don't get the group invitation and people forget to let them know.

Now, please do not think I'm sharing these experiences to whine about how I don't have a nice phone. Instead, I hope to draw attention to the fact that we can isolate each other unknowingly by assuming that everyone else has the same access to digital culture that we do. I think it's really easy to get so caught up in the cool new gadgets and toys that we forget the importance of watching out for the people around us. Luckily, the fix is just as easy: remember to look out for those around us.

Digital Culture and Positivity

Lately, I've been thinking about some of the ways I have been directly benefited by digital culture. Specifically, I'm interested in focusing on the positive things the internet can be used for.

For example, I generally hate watching the news because it seems like the emphasis is always on the negative. However, a few months ago, I found this website, which focuses on only positive news. I have also noticed that a lot of what my friends post on Facebook are funny or uplifting articles, websites, or videos. I think many people want to read/view positive, uplifting things. The internet makes it very easy to find those types of stories and then also share them with others.

My family recently connected with some distant relatives who we never knew existed. My mom started a Facebook group, random cousins started joining. It has been fun to get to know these new family members, and social media has made it very easy for us all to get to know one another.

Earlier this month, I successfully did family history for the first time. I got on Family Search and was able to find a handful of ancestors who needed their temple work done. It was a great feeling to realize that I can contribute to doing my family history-- and there are tools readily available to help me do so.

Though none of these experiences are anything ground-breaking. However, I have found myself focused lately on the economic or historical side of digital culture, and I wanted to take a step back and think about how much of a blessing digital culture can be.

Office Workers, Run!

Since I have started my cubicle adventures at an insurance company, I have experienced the joys of earning more than minimum wage, certain paid days off, and not lifting heavy things. I was certain this was the kind of job I wanted after years of work hauling stuff around at various jobs for little money and little appreciation. (Though bosses do like hard workers.)

The longer I have worked in insurance, though, the more I've started to see some of the frustrations that come with 8 hours a day in front of a computer. A health article on Yahoo goes into more detail, but basically it'll jack up your body if you sit at a desk all day and don't move around your body like a normal human being. It also isn't great to stare at a screen all the time or eat desk-candy. I used to think my dad was crazy for standing up sometimes when we watched a movie at home. "I've been sitting at a desk all day," he would tell me, "I don't want to sit anymore." I didn't used to get that. Now I get that.

Is the root of this problem computers? 

Computers have been really helpful for the insurance industry. Thanks to going paperless we now consume negligible amounts of paper. Before, we would have to reprint every page of a form with a mistake and everything had to be put in big file cabinets. Having everything on a network not only makes collaboration faster and easier, but allows for happy whales in the ocean of "quit using so much paper".

I saw an article in the BYU newspaper about this zombie app for a smart phone. It encourages people trying to make running goals by narrating a zombie story in which the main character is the runner, being chased. The best part is that if the runner isn't running fast enough, she gets caught. And it's part of the story. There is also music.

Not saying that we should be running at work, but there is an issue. In some ways, computers tie us to desks. In the way of this app, it takes us outside and helps us get real exercise. I would like to see more technology do that.

I also really like hearing about how gamification and using it in the workplace to help make work less awful and more like a fun, happy game. I haven't done a lot of research, but I feel very strongly that if people are going to spend the majority of their lives in front of screens, can we at least make it as fun as Candy Crush Saga or something? Pong?

Not sure how the insurance field would feel about gamification because these are very serious contracts that have to be taken very seriously. Lighten up, guys. Jeez.

Past the Gatekeepers

After talking to Professor Burton about an old project of mine, he asked that I post about it. I'll be brief because it's a pretty long story and encompasses the work of about four years. I have actually published a book called Bubblegum Psychology. 

I became somewhat monomaniacally obsessed in my grade school years with publishing before leaving teenagehood. That by itself is a long story. Let's just say that I did a lot of writing in my free time. I was becoming frustrated with a long time book idea and decided that I wanted to quickly pump out a story, completely unconnected to anything I'd done before. I gave myself a lot of deadlines and made myself finish it without dragging things out. The first draft took about a year (I was still in high school). Editing and figuring out business stuff took about another year. The book is not phenomenal, but it's good. It feels good to have a real, physical copy of something I wrote to put on the shelf. 

The current process for publishing a book is arduous and frustrating for a first time writer with no connections. I had already learned about querying and rejection from previous projects. I got a lot better with writing concise letters, but it still wasn't enough. No takers for this project. I realized that I was running out of time to meet my goal of publishing as a teen and decided that nobody was going to stop me from this goal, even if it meant publishing it myself. 

I didn't want to go to a vanity press. I ended up reading a great book by Aaron Shepherd called "Aiming at Amazon" which introduced the idea that you could make a living by skipping a publishing company altogether and getting yourself a contract with a print-on-demand company. 

Here are some of the things I did:

• Artwork - including the painting you see on the cover as well as pencil illustrations inside the book. Worked with Gimp (a photoshop-like program) and Adobe Illustrator as well
• Formatting - You really don't think about things like how to set margins and what size font your story should be until you're staring at your MS word document and realizing your novel can't be published as an 8.5X11 without looking like a dingus. Also it's better if it's not in Times New Roman. This thing has to look polished, like a company put it together
• Editing - My family's not really into reading. My best friend helped edit it. No other takers. Every time the word "lose" appears in the first edition, it's misspelled. 
• License - In order to be a publisher, I needed to file for a license to do business in the state of Ohio. I think it was $25. You also need ISBNs, which make the most sense to buy in a batch of 10. 
• Printer - I signed a contract with a company that had a print-on-demand service, meaning I wouldn't be left with 1,000 unsold copies of my book in my garage. 
• Publicity - Facebook page, traditional posters (which my best friend posted around the Ohio State University and they kept getting stolen - that's good, right?), and a home website were some of the ways I tried to get word out about my groovy new book. Took copies of it and posters to libraries and asked if they wanted them. 
• Reviews - Submitted a copy to Flamingnet, a popular YA review site. Got a great review :) Also tried to contact others who would review the book (mostly bloggers).  Also tried to get some motion with Goodreads.

And yet you have probably never heard of Bubblegum Psychology before. That's probably because 

1. I didn't really interact with writing communities. I built my mill away from the stream.
2. I don't know what I'm doing

I've already moved on to more projects because I realized that BP was becoming like my last failed project: the more I worked on it, the worse it got. So I've already written a new book. I'm hoping to use tools from this class to better integrate with writing communities and bring more people to a phenomenal home site, which I will have to create. I just need more content. Lots and lots of content. Then people will believe that I'm a whole company, and not just some doofus in her basement pretending she makes books. 

This was art from one of the posters

Additional content included 2 short stories involving a side character

I can still build on what I've done. I will build a great big
tower of "Hey look, I wrote something." 

Moby Dick Prewriting

I am planning on writing my paper about how the multiple points of view in Moby Dick are like comments at the end of articles. Here are some of the more specific ideas that I am looking at:

• How do different points of view add to the meaning of the novel? It helps the look at the situation from multiple points of view to give a more balanced perspective of what is going on.
• Ishmael's perspective provides us with context to understand whaling and evaluate other characters. He is sort of the everyman of the story
• "Call me Ishmael"
• Starbuck helps us see how Ahab's quest is madness. He also helps us remember the more human side of things when he talks about his wife and child back home.
• Ahab helps us to understand what his state of mind is like as he is obsessively chasing Moby Dick
• Stubb's point of view helps alleviate the tension of the story
• I can then talk more specifically about the function of quotes at the end of articles in digital culture
• They help the readers get a more balanced view of whatever topic they are reading about
• Dialogue/collaboration between readers and other readers as well as readers and the author
• Readers are able to ask questions
• Provide additional information on the subject (encyclopedia portion of Moby Dick)
• Point out flaws and give feedback-- this is similar to Starbuck's function
• Some comments are not valid-- "the whole gamut of human stupidity"-- this could relate to Stubb's point of view
• Validation by the general population-- perhaps a similar function to the drama-like sections where many members of the crew add to the narration

I am most concerned about how to synthesize these two ideas on a deeper level than merely a comparison. Do any of you have any ideas about how to do that? I could also use some help in figuring out the "So what" portion of my thesis-- why does this matter? How could it be important? 

I would love to read your comments!

Paper Ideas

I had a few different ideas for a paper, because there's a lot you could talk about with Moby Dick. I've thought about

• Moby Dick as a sort of travel blog by Ishmael. How to connect this to how early novels and pamphlets functioned much the same way as blogs. 
• More about symbolism of the color white. (See past post.)
• Some tie-in to video games. 

As much as I like the first two topics, I can always talk about video games. For hours, if need be. I mentioned to my teammates that I was looking for a way to make that connection and it seemed like kind of a stretch until Cheri mentioned that Ahab's obsession with Moby Dick is a lot like a video game addict's obsession with a game. That is something I can gladly write about! I'm very passionate about the dangers of video game addiction, even as an avid gamer. Ahab and gamers have a surprising amount in common in this analogy. 

1. Ahab is spending a lot of time on something that he deems mega important and which other people don't care about at all (killing a specific whale)
2. He enlists others for his cause, much like group gaming. This is much more possible with networks like Xbox live, LAN parties, or just playing online. 
3. Ahab posts a reward for spotting the whale. Gamers earn points. 
4. Not satisfied when he kills whales that are not Moby Dick. Hours and hours of gameplay can be frustrating if they come to no end.
5. Ahab and his crew are all crushed in the end. More and more increasingly (actual statistics would help strengthen this argument) innocent game players become genuine addicts. They quit their jobs, drop out of school, or are otherwise not participating any more in the real world. 

I'm mostly looking for ways to develop my video game argument. I will probably only focus on two or three points, but I listed what came to mind. I'm also open to ways to develop my other ideas if they are, in fact, better. 

I wish I could have that Moby Dick flash game embedded in my paper :)

Midterm: Part One

My blog posts to date:

1. Introduction- A few fun facts about me.
2. Queequeg and Ishmael's "Friendship"- In this post I looked at how Queequeg and Ishmael's friendship was not on equal terms since Queequeg was always described as being a savage. I also learned my first lesson about the dangers of posting too quickly as I included a link to an article about Nathaniel Hawthorne's racism rather than Melville's, as I intended.
3. Humans + Technology = "The Machine"- This post described my views of the relationship between humans and technology as a cyclical process. "The machine" is comprised of humans and technology working together.
4. Digital Culture: my weaknesses and strengths- I assessed my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to creating, connecting, and consuming. My strongest point was consuming. My weakness was creating, though connecting was weak as well.
5. Online Rating Systems- This was my most popular post to date. I talked about how common ratings of digital material are compared to printed material, and what the possible strengths and weaknesses of such a system may be.
6. One Side of the Story- I responded to a video we watched in class of a deaf girl hearing for the first time as a result of a cochlear implant. I talked about how easy digital culture makes it to simply learn about one side of an issue and neglect to research the other angles.
7. Strengthening bonds with others through video games- I related my experience of bonding with my brothers through playing video games, and reflected about how video games and other aspects of digital culture can be strengthening, not only isolating.
8. The Persistent Popularity of Moby Dick- I wondered how Moby Dick ever became popular in the first place, and how it retains its popularity to this day, though many people have never read the story. I concluded that people are more interested in the idea of the story (in a very condensed form) than the story itself.
9. Moving into phase two of academic blogging- This was a response to our assigned reading. I thought over my past blogs and realized that I am still firmly in phase one of blogging. I connected the idea of a spiral as a way to help me dig deeper and progress to phase two (and eventually phase three) of academic blogging.
10. The Other Side of the Story-- Comments- My latest blog applied the principle of the spiral by revisiting my previous blog, One Side of the Story (number 6 in this list.) I discussed how I enjoy reading the comments at the end of articles and videos because the comments often address both sides of whatever issue I was reading about. I feel like I learn more from posted comments than the article itself.

As I look over my blog posts and think about which of my classmates' posts have piqued my interest, I can see that I am the most interested in people's ideas about how digital culture impacts our personal lives, either positively or negatively (though I prefer to look at the positive.) In particular, I really enjoy posts such as Heidi's thoughts about learning new skills that specifically show how digital culture has impacted their lives. My question is: how does one's level of involvement in various aspects of digital culture impact one's happiness and quality of life? 

Meaning in Moby

Blog posts so far:

• Call Me Oatmeal Proposes topics for introductory material
• Answer Your Own Questions Things about Heidi.
• The Machine Had some problems with the video viewed in class. It looks pretty and is an interesting way of presenting an essay, but did not find the content radically insightful. 
• Enter Starbuck Our team mascot is in the book now! 
• Other Uses Interested in the common man's ability to create very polished products using technology that has filtered down. Uses Adobe Illustrator as an example. Also mentions how unusual niche communities can appear, such as creators of "chiptune" music. 
• Oh the Whiteness Discusses the significance of the color white in certain passages of Moby Dick. 
• Science for Science's Sake Maybe Moby Dick really is just about a whale, okay?
• Credibility Artists with a presence online can move into more traditional print forms after gaining a following. This is a great way to allow someone publicity who might otherwise stay obscure. 
• Reconciling Digital Connection with A Life Outside My Basement Online collaboration is great, but sometimes I find there is no substitution for face-to-face interaction. 

I think that the last two posts I've written have really expressed my current relationship with digital culture. As tech-savvy as I like to think I am, I'm actually very resistant to certain trends and ideas. Twitter is the best example of this. I have firmly believed since it came out that it is the biggest waste of time on the face of the planet. I'm also not fond of smart-phones, which keep people glued to them constantly and allow old women to show you pictures of their grandchildren on-the-go, unwarranted or not. Another big thing is trying to share unfinished ideas online and publish professional content online. (Does this not spoil the content for a potential "real" publisher?)

I realized after remembering a big project of mine from a few years back that part of the reason I've been resistant to the ideas of sharing big ideas through social media is because I had a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to share a big idea. I was frustrated with the medium and have turned to more traditional ways of refining my work. This doesn't have to mean that I give up on blogging, though. I'm still exploring.

Although I'm resistant to the idea that blogging will replace some traditional means of sharing information, I'm growing more used to it. Really the current means of sharing ideas in academia are indeed prehistoric and could use the same vivacity we assign to social media. I'm resistant to the idea that Twitter is worthwhile in any way, but seeing how General Conference ideas are shared through Twitter has been really eye opening for me. There is a place for this kind of sharing and in class we've talked about how it makes a bigger impact in certain ways.

Even though I don't warm up to ideas right away, I think it's most important that I'm being exposed to them. A million English classes later and I may still never like Transcendentalism. A million tweets later I may still find no use in Twitter.

I guess my question is whether it's best to integrate your content online in every way you can find possible to give your work more exposure or whether you ought to concentrate on making quality content for just a few different platforms. Is it silly to stick with traditional mediums when there are newer, "better" online methods? Does it make any sense to continue putting out traditional posters and billboards?

Pre-Writing

I know you're all going to be like, "Ashley, don't you know any other digital culture topics besides 'identity'?" And I'd say, "Of course! I take great notes in class." I just really like this subject because it's so applicable and relevant in that it helps understand characters and people. 

Here's my idea for my paper: Captain Ahab as Moby Dick-We are Defined by our Weaknesses

MOBY DICK

• Captain Ahab's leg is destroyed by Moby Dick; his artificial leg is made of sperm whale jaw bone
• He is preceded by his reputation of wanting to kill Moby Dick
• He has the opportunity to "recreate" himself on every voyage with strange sailors, but chooses to be defined by his lust for Moby Dick
• Every action he takes is driven by motives to seek and kill Moby Dick
• The whale seems to know him and is able to always find his boat to destroy

"Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!" (Chapter 135)

DIGITAL CULTURE

• We are known by our online personas
• We typically create better, different or more enhanced versions of ourselves as avatars on the internet
• Why do we feel the need to portray ourselves as people we're not?
• Self-Awareness in general: Are we not fixated on our faults and weaknesses, more so than our achievements and strengths? 

 -A Wikihow on how to fake your identity online in eleven steps
-Catfishing an article on fake profiles used to trick people into romances
-Fake Online Personality Motives

I'd appreciate any ideas you have relating to this proposal and whether you think I can successfully argue it!

Our Digital Identities

My Posts Thus Far:

General Conference Digital Reflection My venture into sharing General Conference through social media

The Downward Spiral of Academic Blogging as a College Student The spiral of academic blogging and adding “blogger’ to my identity

The Long Tail...in a Deck of Cards Fan paraphernalia is essentially an extension of an author’s work to continue on something they love

It's a Small World The Internet as one big DIY project and why I love it

My Digital Culture Ashley Hill’s take on Digital Culture and its presence in her life

Lover of Language The word choice Melville uses to describe whaling and philosophy

An Introductory Post About Me Introduction to Ashley Hill

A major theme in my posts is ME. Somehow I consistently insert myself and my experiences into whatever topic I am blogging about. This could be because I am still in phase one of academic blogging, exploring, and the only connection I am making is to that of my own life.

Nevertheless, this is related to “identity,” a subject we discussed in class last month. Our conversation centered mostly around sub-cultures on the internet and guilds like gamers and hackers. As evidenced by my blog posts, I am somewhat isolated in my digital culture presence, but through academic blogging, I have the opportunity to literally create an identity for myself and participate in a vast network of websites and forums.

In developing a web identity, one has infinite possibilities of who and what to become. Before a person can become too invested in a digital avatar, Cheri reminds us that comments provide a reality check, or a true/different perspective to the story being told. As I ponder the question of internet identity, I remember the news frenzy surrounding Manti Te'o's dead girlfriend revealed to be a con artist. How could a Heisman trophy-winning football player be duped like that? The answer is unknown, but a large part is due to the heavy presence people have online. We have the opportunity to invent a better version of ourselves on the internet  but still we neglect to filter others through the rose-colored glasses in which they view themselves. I am interested in exploring whether our digital identity is merely a persona or if it should be an accurate representation of ourselves.

Do we need to be honest to our real selves when building our digital selves?

General Conference Reflection

Here are the Conference Notes  Dr. Burton talked about in class. It is pretty neat to view others' interpretations of the talks and links to all the references! My husband and I looked at these a few times this weekend and I appreciate the valuable resource it will be for me in the future. I've also shared it with my family, which is a facet of Digital Culture I personally love-the ease in sharing!

These screenshots capture different Twitter trends at very times. My husband was following #ldsconf and found it refreshing at 18 tweets per five or so seconds.

Speaking of sharing, this is the first General Conference I've used social media to invite others to listen to the words of God. I found it exciting to see who responded and if it could potentially lead to missionary work. I had several non-member friends like my Facebook statuses and Instagram posts. Only one comment though, and not of interest to learn more.

Regardless, it was easy for me to share my beliefs via quotes, links and pictures to my 600 or so friends/followers. One of my Facebook statuses was even "shared" by another friend which means that it had an even greater outreach. Hashtags also enabled me to connect with strangers, as we bonded over "#conferencewaffles". 

All in all, I was one hashtag in millions, but I think I made a presence in my sphere of influence. It is overwhelming to think of how many ways we can extend our thoughts to others, but I encourage everyone to share something with your friends this week-religious or not!

Reconciling Digital Connection with A Life Outside My Basement

As I've experimented with a personal blog outside of class and as I've developed ideas on our class blog (as well as considering all the different ways to share content and connect with people in other ways introduced in class) I've come to better understand how sharing content online can be a great growing experience and an excellent opportunity to develop your ideas, no matter what they're related to. Derrick's post as well as Danielle's from Team Queequeg (along with many others from our class) have discussed the idea that posting content regularly is the best way to stay connected with online ideas.

The thing I'm struggling with the most right now is the fact that this is time consuming. To really develop a quality idea and put out quality writing, it takes more than just spilling some words from your brain and leaving them online for someone to glance over later. 

For my personal blog, I made a goal to post about three times a week. It turns out, I end up spending anywhere from 0.5 to 1.5 hours on a quality post, and that's kind of a commitment. When I'm done staring at textbooks and worksheets for the day or typing insurance policies in a stuffy office, I want to be outside of my house. I want to go talk to real people face to face. I want to have meaningful relationships and participate in real activities like painting or even going for walks.

"Heidi, you can take your computer outside." Technically that is true. Not my point.

Do I really need to bounce ideas off the universe? One of my best creative periods was the year after I graduated high school and worked before heading to college. I only worked 27 hours a week and spent the rest of my time biking everywhere, writing, and reading my writing to my best friend. We would sit in her basement for hours and talk about everything and then I would read her my writing. When she laughed, I knew I had written something good. When she made "ugh" noises, I knew I needed to change something. During that time period I also tried sharing my writing online in a couple different ways and the feedback I got was nothing compared to those little "ugh" noises from my best friend. 

Biking to the library is a great way to find information outside of Google. It also helps keep your muscles from atrophying. 

Obviously, you shouldn't modify your writing to fit what one person likes or dislikes, but immediate feedback from a real person can be very powerful. I also took a creative writing class that felt similar. Even though we shared our writing online, we met three times a week in person to discuss things and evaluate each other's work. 

Is this bad to want to connect only with people nearby, or is it better? I think it depends on the person. When I was in middle school, I felt like the only people who understood me were online. I could have found some specific people to workshop with. Dr. Burton has showed us that it is possible to collaborate online and make real things that are good. If not done well, though, I feel that often leaving work online for someone to find can be unproductive and not yield good feedback.

I wanted to add, though, that I really like the idea that blogging is a more effective way of sharing literary ideas and research papers rather than traditional methods. I don't know how that works into the rest of this post. I keep changing it. Every time I read it through it doesn't sound right. I'm going to chalk it up at this point to an "unfinished idea" that I want to share anyway.

The Other Side of the Story-- Comments

I previously blogged about how it's important to research both sides of every issue. This week I've been thinking about how the comments at the end of a story or video provide balance. Whenever I read an article, I always skim through some of the comments at the end of the article, because 1. it's really interesting, and 2. I really enjoy reading what other people have to say about what I've just read. Inevitably, some will disagree, and others will defend the article. I often learn more about whatever topic it is by reading the comments than I did by reading the article.

Case in point: I have a Facebook friend who is very involved with Ordain Women. While I do not personally agree with that group's beliefs, I find it fascinating to read articles that this friend posts on her Facebook page. After I skim through the article, the best part is reading people's comments at the bottom-- some who are in favor of the Ordain Women movement, and others who are vehemently opposed to it. Of course, some people who comment are not good representatives of their beliefs. When I read many comments, however, I begin to get a better idea as to what each side's beliefs are.

I was reading one of these articles just this week, when I came across a comment with a link to this talk, which shows the Church's commentary on this movement. The talk was given clear back in 1992, but is incredibly relevant to all of the discussion going on now. I was able to share this talk on my Facebook page and share a brief sentence about my testimony of living prophets and apostles in the process.

I really enjoy how comments at the end of articles make it possible to see the other side of the story while reading a story about one side of the issue. Have any of you seen examples of this?

Credibility

I was sort of surprised when Dr. Burton introduced the idea that unfinished work and works-in-progress should be posted online. I was mortified. Of course you don't post unfinished work online!

But why not?

I always felt that when people post things that aren't finished or that are in progress, it's sort of a half-baked effort to produce a "real" book, comic, or article. I've felt like it's only proper to produce finished works. If you want to be taken seriously, you show that you can finish something.

As I thought about it more, I started thinking about creative minds that I really appreciate who have a big online presence who haven't necessarily published a great American novel or contributed to a huge movie. In particular, there's an artist named Emmy Cicierega who my brother and I have sort of followed for a while now because she has a distinct art style and posts frequently. Her work on DeviantArt has led to collaborations with other artists. She and a group of artists also got an amazing amount of funding for their Kickstarter, which was for a collaborative art book. She has a variety of real, physical things now published!

The reason we like her is because she posts a lot of brief, entertaining cartoons like this:

 

 These goofy sketches lead us to look at her real work, though. 

There are also a lot of webcomic artists who have followed the formula of producing content online until they know they have a following and enough product, then producing print forms of their digital content. I don't know if any of you read Megatokyo back when it was popular ten years ago, but it was picked up by Tokyopop and published because there were already fans.

This is like Green Day refusing to sign with a label until they know that they are going to get a good deal because they can say, "We're bringing a huge crowd of fans along with us, what are you bringing to the table?" They could afford to ask for more because whether they got signed or not, they were going to keep playing shows and having their fans. To me, Green Day has been extremely smart business-wise. That's probably why they have a musical and an Xbox game and not just a garage band. They also have produced a huge amount of content over the years. 

I know this isn't really related to academic blogging specifically, but this post is really interested in the "Launch" aspect of Dr. Burton's post about academic blogging. I'm more inclined to think about this in ways that will benefit my future hypothetical career of dealing in creative something. (Writing? Artwork? Product design? Who knows.)

Moving into phase two of academic blogging

I really like the idea of the three phases of academic blogging. As I look over my blog posts in context of Dr. Burton's post, I can see that I am firmly in phase one of blogging. I like the idea of improving my skills and moving on to phase two and, eventually, phase three. However, as with all new things, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed at how much I really have to improve on.

I really appreciate how Dr. Burton talks about this being a process that takes time, and not something that I am supposed to instantly grasp how to do. As with most skills, learning how to blog more effectively will take time, patience, and lots of practice! That gives me hope that moving from phase one to bigger and better things is within my grasp.

I also liked the idea of spirals. I like the idea of going back to old topics and exploring them at a deeper level after I've had more time to think about them. I think that process will be useful in helping me move from a more superficial level of looking at things (phase one) to a deeper level of analysis (phase two.)

I expect unit two of our class to be equal parts challenging and rewarding. Bring on the academic blogging!

The Downward Spiral of Academic Blogging as a College Student

For reference, these are my sources: Dr. Burton's post on the Spiral and his post on Academic Blogging

As a college student, I have many identities. For instance, I am a wife, a Sunday School teacher, a pet owner, a secretary, writer, a chef/domestic slave amongst other roles I adopt daily. "Blogger" is new to the list, and now add the adjective "Academic" to Blogger. Dr. Burton's three phases of academic blogging, Exploration, Development and Launch, are the equivalent of a Wiki how-to but for a (perhaps) more specialized audience. Clearly, I am still in phase one of Exploration. I love my iPhone, but that's about as technological as I get and the habit of sharing my thoughts virtually on a regular basis is new (and difficult) for me. Nevertheless, the topic of digital culture and academic blogging is extremely relevant in our time. As I look for jobs, it is not enough to have experience with MS Word...instead companies are looking for skills in Wordpress and other social media platforms. Imagine being able to showcase several of your highly intellectual blog posts, reviewed by members of other academic circles.

In the paragraph about Development, I was most impacted by the concept of discipline. This not only applies to blogging consistently, but maintaining discipline in what you write. Nobody's going to want to read a heavy analysis of Moby Dick if it is a paragraph of a hundred lines or random musings that are not connected by a broader theme (guilty!). Development as an academic blogger requires discipline to attract readers and commentary. Dr. Burton stated that even short posts can be "academic" as long as they are clear, concise and thorough. All the facets of discipline and development are going to be the most challenging for me, as I juggle my schedule and priorities. Inevitably, when I research a topic, I want to develop it into a full-length essay of a post which conflicts with other constraints of my identity ("Play with me!"-my chocolate lab).

Thus, the downward spiral of research, discipline, blogging...Dr. Burton used the metaphor of a spiral to represent several things, yet I interpret it as a metaphor the writing (blogging) process, which he touched on. For example, when we write, we start with a vague topic and continue downward until we narrowly define our conclusion and that's it! He suggests going back up through the spiral and analyzing all our steps on that slippery slide we so excitedly jump on when writing. Often when blogging I flesh out a topic I find interesting and then consider myself done, without fully projecting myself onto/into it. As an academic blogger, we should draw on others' ideas, but ultimately, our goal is to make each post a spark of inspiration that we personally have and if I can do that, by the end of the semester, I will hopefully be able to add "Academic Blogger" to my identity list.