I cant believe that this time has finally came around again. It seems like only yesterday we were in class discussing the best approach to undertaking the first portfollio assignment. Since thast time a lot of work has gone on in order to learn more about the wonderful world of weblogging and other concepts that are related to online writing. Through this portfollio I am going to show you a lot of the work I have covered and learned about. Hopefully there be a pattern that has emerged from this and you the reader will be able to see an improvement in my writing style from that of what I began with back in September (it now seems so long ago!!!)
Similar to the last portfollio I constructed, part of my required work for this module is to undertake a number of panels. Below I have created links to a few of the panels that have been included this time around. They include the following panels.
1 Kaycee Nicole.
2 Shes a flight risk.
3 Dear Raed.
4 Blogging as Social Action/Phantom Authority
5 Weblogs in the Writing Classroom
6 Weblogs as Literature
7 Interactive Fiction.
Above I have descibed my opinions and views on these subjects, simply click on the links that are available and read to your desire. I hope what read is both interesting and informative at the same time.
Within my class for writing for the internet I not only give my opinions on panels, there is quite a lot of other work involved believe it or not! I will provide links to a view of the issues that were discussed in class -
1 Reflection on class discussion.
2 Wilkis reflection.
Well thats it I hope you enjoy what I feel are my best blogging entries to date hopefully when I return to Irealnd in May I will be able to continue blogging. It has definetlely tough me a lot!!!
Upon reading this article I feel I am gaining more knowledge about blogs as I go along. There is more to them than meets the eye. This particular entry trys in my opinion to compare blogs to texts but when doing so make you realize that they are a lot different than books.
The author here describes how weblogs are completely different from each others. The author states that weblogging is a very diverse way of communicating which I thought was an extremely good way of describing this activity. I enjoyed learning that the author believed weblogs were constantly informing the user of changes in society. Blogs can have a reflection on what happens within the life of an author which can be interesting to learn.
From this the opinion I have gathered about weblogs is that they can constantly be updated, unlike textbooks or other types of hardcopy books there is always room for improvement through blogging. Also there is no designated place where someone reading a blog should begin or end - they can read as they desire which I think is beneficial.
A few other things I have picked from reading this particular article includes strong views such as a weblog can never be classified as being complete - it can constantly be altered and updated. I am intrigued the way that this author has voiced their opinion of how they weblogging to be seen in the future. He believes they are becoming so popular that within a few years they will like new stations receive advertisements in order to make money online. I think this is very interesting as people will be able to develop their weblogs at a faster pace and with all the revenue generated there is endless possibilities for how they can be portrayed to particular audiences and cultures throughout the world. I think the author believes and has a good point that we are only seeing of the beginning of weblogging and in time it will become more popular than writing novels etc.
For this particular part of the task set I had to review four different interactive fiction games. The games I choose were as follows –
Game 1 – BUSTED
Basically the purpose of this game is for the user that’s me to find and destroy four pieces of incriminating evidence. You basically have a mission that is extremely long to complete. In this game you have to have your wits about you at all times. There is so much involved in completing this game. Unfortunately fifteen minutes was not long for me to do so, so I cheated and got notes of the internet on how to solve the puzzle. This game was definitely more complex than what I first anticipated but because of its complexity I found it interesting and would definitely recommend it to someone who has a lot of time and patience on their hands.
Game 2 – MURDER AT THE AERO CLUB
Within this game you are basically a detective investigating a murder at a nite- club called the aero. The main purpose of this game is to solve the murder that has occurred at the club. There are a lot of things to examine in order to determine how the murder has taken place. Basically in order to complete the game your purpose is to look at the evidence, put all the pieces together and frame the correct person or persons for the murder. This is an interesting mystery game and does prove quite challenging but when and if you complete it you will have a sense of victory and may even take up a job as a future detective!!!
Game 3 – A WALKTHROUGH TO FILM AT 11
Within this game you are a journalist who has just started working with a news company and have been assigned your first report to complete. You act throughout as that of an investigative journalist asking people about the going ons of the city mayor and how is corrupt by taking bribes that affect the city. This is a breaking story and once completed it reflect the work a journalist is expected to do in order to complete there job for a leading news company. This game is extremely long and does take a lot of thought and at times can prove to be very frustrating.
Game 4 – SO FAR
This story basically comprises of you at the theatre watching a play. It consists of a lot of information but the basic plot involves you interacting with a play that is taking place within the theatre it is interesting because there is so much for you to do. I enjoyed doing this game as it reflected some childhood memories. But at times it was long and frustrating to play and understand.
This article was written by Charles Lowe from the Purdue University. This article gives a great insight into how blogging is developing within the classroom. Young people are using blogging and developing their writing skills online. Unbelievable it may seem that these youngsters are using this great piece of technology there is a great deal of information that can be gained from them and their blogging methods.
He seems to impressed by the sheer volicity of weblogs and how they have developed very recently. Although he does refer to them being like public dairies he has tried to develop them in other ways. He is confident from his findings that they are of a benefit to his students as he feels that they will help them develop communication skills through this type of blogging. He states that weblogging will make people more aware of social aspects of life and in general develop them to a very high level of education.
One point I found of interest to me was that he felt his students deserved to have some privacy whilst blogging and was keen to develop a private blog just within the school where students, if they were having any problems could blog privately to teachers in order for problems to be dealt within a professional manner. It just shows that blogging has many uses and should be used to the highest capabilities possible.
He realizes that there is in fact a future for blogging. he feels that it can only develop into something bigger and better. In general I believe he feels that blogging is a good way of developing people to express how they feel in the form of a dairy. This in his opinion makes him realize that communication skills will develop at a faster rate with this technology if it is endorsed into the wider global community. I believe he feels people will learn more about the world if they are more in touch with it through their blogging skills.
This entry is typical of a user who has just developed blogging and realized the sheer potential of it. I have gained a bit more knowledge from this reflection and now every time I read one of these I am gradually learning more about the uses of blogs- we are definetely fortunate enough to be around to witness this happening. I can blogging been used for all sorts of communication within the next few years. I feel school children will be forced to use it to develop personal views on life.
The list is endless in my opinion, but this article definetley opened my eyes to a view new things about blogging- what more can blogging have to offer!!!!
This is an interesting concept for producing an online encyclopedia. Anyone can use a wilki to find information simply by editing. The syntax is very user friendly - it’s that big a thing now that anyone has the ability to update sites and add information that will benefit online communities in trying to find information relating to various things.
Wilkis differ from traditional writing activities in that you don’t have to write a lot about a subject - if a link is created most of the time the wilki will be able to give the user some feedback on the link. Within wilkis it is more reference orientated than anything the purpose of them is to gain and learn more information through the internet.
Having read the article on wilkis I feel a lot more enlightened about their purpose than what I first did. They do not like random people feeding in irrelevant information - rather graffitiing the site with useless information. The wilki site is trying to promote a community that will only allow particular things to be posted and edited and which is being overrun by adminstrators who have the authority to block particular users if they are not putting what they feel is appropriate to the site in a whole. Instead letting people use the site as a public good they are decideing what should go into within their own merits.
Since reading this article I now have a mixed response to wilkis. Before I read this I was all for them - I believed they had a social benefit that everyone could benefit from them but now I feel they are being dictated by people in authority who make choice as whether to disregard them or not. I think in order for this mechanism, which I feel is an excellent and most useful one, to develop further certain allowances must be made otherwise it will not benefit people at all.
My response tells me basically that although I do enjoy writing it would be made a lot easier if I could reference particular issues in the form of Wilkis- it would save a lot more time and would surely benefit other readers who wanted to gain more information from my disscussions.
Simon Andrews
Another of the issues discussed within the panel was covered by Neha.
I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this presentation that Neha give. Obviously a lot of research was done beforehand.
From this I learned that this boy used to make regular dairy entrys all over the world about his experiences with travelling until one day no more contact was made. it interesting because so many people have taken an enormous interest in this subject.
This person really moved a lot of people in his beliefs. He got so many people moved by what he was doing as a whole. Haviing read some of his entries I believe that this person was in fact genuine and the fact he has disappeared from mid air is very strange- no one knows what has happened to him and probably never will but I believe there definetely is some logical reasoning for the disappaerance and this mystery will be solved!!!!
Within class today we learnt of a story of a girl called Kaycee Nicole. This was a truely intersting story of a blogger who made up a whole story about her struggles with cancer right up until when she apparently died. This story was complete fiction made up by a blogger who unfortunately went to far with her writing.
She managed to grip the nation with immense sadness, she had thousands of online followers who actually believed that she was suffering from cancer and that her life was to come to an end. She went into explicit detail and described the whole ordeal in an enormous amount of detail that much so that when shye apparently ' died' the online community actually managed to get in contact with her mother about apparent funeral arrangements.
This story managed to drag on a little to far having a lot people genuinely believing that in fact this made up person was actually dead - the consequences were huge - a lot of people were mislead but in my opinion these people wanted to believe this had happened. In my opinion this is an amazing example of how blogging has so much power over people- it truely makes people believe everything that is in front of them, although what this girl done was not entirely justifiable I believe it was a great way of making people realize not take blogging for granted and that not to believe everything written down on a blog is 100% accurate.
From todays discussion on blogging I was able to realize that there can be a comparision between blogging and reality television. Everyone wants to have their opinions heard and both blogging and reality television ensure that this is done. There were many arguments for and against reality television which I am sure both deserve recognition.
In my personal opinion I believe reality television is just similar to blogging in that everyone wants to find out what is going on with other peoples lives, they are always trying to compare actions that they take to action others take or have taken. People want to see how something should be done, it might not necessarily be the right choice but it is a way of setting trends and pop cultures - everyone wants their opinion heard and with blogging( although there is no rules for what you can blog) and reality television this can be done.
I think the argument today in class was based on good information it was interesting to hear what people thought on the subject and I am sure from this information I will definetlely have a few intersting opinions on reality tv.