Jane, stop this crazy thing!
On a serious note, unlike the last portflio, I have little to contribute again. Al of my enries for this are on the main page below you. To somehow make up for this, I'm including something from my Livejournal which sparked a few cross-journal fights and the loss of someone on my friends list.
Well, granted, I trolled her journal to begin with since she couldn't vote in he election.
This isn't an attack on WFTI (which I keep accidentally spelling WTFI), but the idea of online work is something I loathe. I never get work done when I'm in front of this thing, and in a classroom, the only thing that gets through to me is a lecture that requires notes, o a lecture that's well remebered. By "well remembered," I mean a teacher that can give a lecture that allows the brain to recall all the notes just based on how well it was done.*
*see Dr. Wendland and Dr. Atherton and Dr. Arnzen and a slew of other good professors here at SHU
But wen you're in a lab, it's a different environment. You don't really know who is the teacher, the man at the far end of the room, or the glowing box at your fingers. Mentally, one would logically reach for the tool closest to them, but if the more important message is coming from a distance, it can cause confusion.
Yeah, this is a long-shot theory, but it's me trying to make some sense to why working in a lab all of a sudden gives me hardcore ADHD. As I've said here many times, I'm a lazy person. If I was in the Procrastinator's Club, I wouldn't even waste the time to tell everyone the meeting was postponed. To someone who doesn't use computers a lot, I guess a class like WFTI or something similar would be a constant learning experience. But what from there? If another class came along and they knew the ropes, would they be inclined to pay attention as much as they did before, slack a tiny bit, or be like me and check your email and Livejournal friends list instead of doing work?
I know, you'd think someone who uses computers as much as I do would love this concept of computer teaching, but when it coms to serious learning, technology has no place in it apart from the few programs that serve a real purpose (like Hyperchem). Class chatrooms and forums don't count.
There's a reason why the same old methods of teaching have been in place for hundreds of years. Because they work. With the magic box out of the way, I can actually concentrate. Too may people are all keen on new ways of teaching, and going to Seton Hill has shown me that it's not new ways of teaching, it's doing the old ways of teaching well.
Gettin' a double whammy in here. Yea, I rushed this before. I just want to get this semester done with and promptly hibernate for the next month.
Anywho, IF does cross a boundary that no genre can really lay claim to. Well, in one of the later Zork games it specifically said you were a waiter at the King of Frobozz's dinner, but even then that still doesn't point to gender much.
I think that excluding the sex of the role, or mixing the two (as in that Gelatea game or whatever it was that was switching characters a lot) leaves room to make a game more challenging. One thing I've noticed is that games are biased. If you have a first-person shooter, chances are you're a male. If it's third-person and there's a female character, 9 times out of ten you'll be sneaking around or doing espionage (Oni, Starcraft: Ghost, you could even count Princess Peach's role in Paper Mario), and IF doesn't involve either. Since I play games like Dungeons and Dragons, I know a bit about roleplaying, and getting into a character. Without character, there better be some damn good description and plot going on. I'll admit that as much as Zork is my favorite IF series, I haven't beaten a single game. They're that damn hard. At heart, IF is the only genre that actually puts you in the center of the game. You hav your own thoughts and opinions of characters and events, but they don't affect the plot whatsoever. I would say that adding graphics is what kills that exprience, but some of you should picku p Return to Zork, Zork Nemesis, or Zork Grand Inquisitor. Hard as hell, but amazing world design. Want some rye? 'Course ya do!
Now. Blogs and Gender. Hoo boy.
As I said in class, the reason why more female bloggers are on the rise is the ease of use of the internet to everyone. More people, period, are using the internet, not just young teens. The statistic of more adult blogs only reflects the people who were using the internet awhile ago, in my opinion. Sure, it's delving into stereotype by saying the boys used the machines and the girls did other things (I'm not one so I can't say what those would be), but hey, stereotypes had to come from somewhere. Society forced such gender roles on the culture.
Well, at least I always played with computers as a kid. My sister isn't a good example as she played hockey on a men's team. I'm just throwing up speculaion at this point.
But the sudden statistical rise of female teen blogs just shows how fast technology is coming, than just about anyone can use it... granted, it's never going to get as bad as a cyberpunk novel, but with that ease of use comes with it a sense of Internet territory. Older users or members on a forum will lash out or scold newbies for thier bad typing/posting habits. Sometimes, it is justified, as a new poster will ignore the rules of a forum.
This elitism (as some would call it) has a purpose. I've seen kids who speak in AOLer shape up thier language when ignored or attacked for speaking like an idiot. I paticulary like forums, because it's one of the few forms of internet communicaion where speaking clearly and properly is a must. Of course there are boards out here where that doesn't apply and they talk like retards, but and actual solid communities online do keep things legible.