Tuesday 25 November 2014

Summary on Course

It’s hard to know what to say about this course. There were a lot of highs, and a lot of lows. But I have to summarize my thoughts, so I’m going to tackle all the topics I want to hit, in the order they came to mind, mainly, but also, I hope, in the order where they make the most sense to read.

This course was a fascinating experience. I've never really had a class quite like this. Online courses are not something I've done a lot of, and I thought it was definitely different. Being forced to talk on a lot of media I am not used to was disorienting and difficult. I’d briefly used most of the media involved in the past, but I had lost interest in all of them. Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter are all things I’ve used in the past and since stopped. I still use Youtube, but I have also stopped using the commenting system on that, it’s merely a place where I watch videos.

I found it difficult to keep up with the online interactions, in large part because I find that although I can talk very, very actively in particular topics, it's quite difficult for me to inject useful discussion into things I am not actively interested I am not very informed about. As a result, I was able to write a massive blog post and respond extremely plentifully when the time came to talk about the video I had made; it’s something I felt like I could offer real insight on. I had things to say about it that I don’t have to say about a lot of the other things we discussed. That was the defining moment of the course for me.

I am involved in a number of online communities, mostly gaming communities, where I post and communicate extremely readily, talk constantly, and try to have a serious impact, because I feel like what I say actually has value, in a way I don’t when talking about, say, how to get a job, or a revolution in a distant country. While I can comment on these, I feel like I’m saying obvious, useless things. I have a much easier time talking when I feel like I’m making an actual difference.

Writing the blog was similarly difficult, I picked the most interesting thing that happened recently and wrote a quick post about it, but it always felt like recitation. I didn’t get very far before I ran out of things to say, and I never felt like anything I said was especially interesting. I was able to write a very large post about Fraxy, which was fun to do, but no one really read it or at least commented on it, and so I’m not sure it was even worth the effort of doing, beyond being an interesting personal exercise.

The highlight of the course, was, no doubt, when Nadia encouraged me to link my fraxy video, Night and Day, on the Facebook page. I had an incredible time keeping up with the discussion, responding to questions. It was really exciting and I was really glad I had done it. But everyone lost interest almost immediately. I got quite a few comments in the first day or so but that was it. No one said anything after that. So while I’m really glad it happened, it was also disheartening, in a way. That said, I’m very grateful for those who did show interest. Whenever I make something, the primary goal is to make something people find exciting. I think that’s what all creative people want, and I’m certainly no exception.

Still though, I’m glad I took the course. It’s not like anything I’ve done in the past, and it’s not like anything I’m likely to do in the future. I think there’s a lot of value in doing new things, so although the experience wasn’t always good, the high points will stick with me for the rest of the life. I loved the discussions when they were interesting, I just wish they were interesting more often.

So, as a final word, I’d simply like to thank you all. It was a great 3 months. I’m happy for the friends I made, the discussions I had, and the interesting learning experience. I wish you all a great holiday, and a great future.

Good night.


The Lebanese Protest

I found this really interesting because it's the most recent of many protests heavily involving online communication methods, having been preceded by the Egyptian protests and Arab Spring. I think it's something that's only going to become more common as we go forward into the future. Online access is extremely difficult to control and I think is going to be the downfall of many governments in the future. The potential for organization and freedom offered by the internet is just so powerful and people have proven time and time again they will outmaneuver the government. It's always incredible to watch when things like this happen, regardless of the scale.

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Working Together

These last few weeks, we did some collaborative discussion in little side groups. I really liked that conceptually, it made the class feel a lot more engaging and I think it was a really effective use of the medium. They were easily my favourite two tutorials of the semester and I really wish there'd been more like that.

Wednesday 22 October 2014

Fraxy

  So yesterday, Nadia linked Day and Night on the facebook page for our class. This has lead to a lot of questions on what exactly the video shows. So let me give you a bit of an introduction.

  Fraxy is a free computer game produced by, as far as we know, a single developer in Japan. It functions in English or Japanese, and has something of a community around it in both languages. The primary appeal of Fraxy is the ability to make your own creations in it. Generally, what people end up creating is very over the top, excessively long "boss battles". It then became common practice to record videos of the bosses, add music, and so on. Many have also taken to making the videos tell a story as you watch through a series of different videos.

  Which means, while I didn't make Fraxy or anything like that, I am totally responsible for both the recording, playing, and the content of the video that was linked on the Facebook page yesterday. And indeed, any one of you, if you are interested, could download Fraxy, download some bosses and play them, or even make your own.

Links of note:
http://www.fraxyhq.net/forums/index.php - The unofficial Fraxy Forums
http://www.fraxyhq.net/version/archives/fraxy_20140322beta.zip - Download link for the latest version of Fraxy
http://acmlm.kafuka.org/uploader/index.php?act=viewcat&id=25 The board2 uploader; You can find many bosses here.
Also feel free to try to find other videos on Youtube! There's plenty of them.

Monday 20 October 2014

Twitter

Twitter was a fun experience. It's got a very fast flowing format which lends itself to a lot of different comments on a lot of different subjects. I saw some interesting discussion, especially on things like the hacking of dropbox and safe payments online. These are both big issues that I see coming up more and more often as time goes on. Online security is an issue that seems to be really hard to keep under control. I really hope we get some better solutions in the future.

Thursday 9 October 2014

Linkedin

This was an interesting week. Linkedin is a site I joined a long time ago and then never really used, because I didn't really encounter a lot of other users. Trying to use it this week made me realize it really wasn't that hard to use, so I think it's more likely I'll be getting into it more in the future. I read through a few discussions this last week, and was surprised to see a few things I was already aware of come up, like Whatsapp, which I used extensively during my previous school year, discussions of whether technology is having a negative impact on our intelligence, and of course, the fact that employers are scanning the social media presence of prospective employees. All-in-all, it was a very interesting week, and I look forward to using Twitter this upcoming week.

Sunday 28 September 2014

Blog for AEDT: Week 1

This week was a week of penetration. I have a difficult time talking to people, and so getting myself into all of the different social media platforms was difficult. I had accounts for all of them, but I am mostly entrenched in much more niche communities. Facebook, Twitter, etc, are not really what I use. I spend almost all of my time using online communications, but this time is all spent on IRC networks, instant messengers, and online forums. I think this class is going to be an interesting experience for me; I've never really been involved in the social media we're using here, and it's a very strange thing to be getting into it all now.