Midterm Reflections

Let's take this step by step.

The first thing I think of when I ask myself, "What have I learned in this class so far?" is about collaboration.  This shouldn't be surprising, considering my group project is devoted to writing a collaborative novel.  But it's different from any other group project I've ever done.  It's on a larger scale than any other I've worked on, for one.  We're attempting to actually write and publish a novel before the end of the semester with the help of dozens of other people.  And I think it's actually going to happen!  After our meeting on Saturday, we laid out our timeline, the media we would use to get it done, and how we would get people involved, and I looked at it and thought, "Oh my gosh, this is actually possible.  We're going to write a novel in less than a semester."  Now, it may not be worthy of any awards, and it may be more of a novella in length, but it's happening.

Further, the level of media we're using to collaborate is different.  We're on Google+ and Facebook, we have our own blog, and we're using Google Docs.  I've used some of these media on other projects, but I feel like I know what I'm doing this time around.  For once, I don't feel confused using Google Docs.  The collaborative blog is new to me, but I'm getting the hang of it and I'm seeing the value of documenting our progress through the blog.  It's like a journal of our project.

After collaboration, I think of the things I've learned from my peers.  That, itself, is exciting.  Much of my learning has come from other students.  I first found out about Machinima from a blog by Gwendolyn Hammer.  She also taught me about remix culture in another blog.  In our class last Tuesday, I learned from my classmates about badges, how you can earn them, and why they are legitimate.  Also, I had a great experience with the media fast, inspired by this blog by Curtis Jenkins (though I know many people were involved in making that happen).  I've learned from my peers, and I've had self-directed learning experiences because of my peers.  That's cool!

I want to mention briefly what I've learned about transmedia.  After Dr. Burton explained this idea, I was very excited by it.  Our collaborative group has done a bit of it, making twitter accounts for characters in our novel.  I want to look into transmedia more in the future.

Next, I've been reading Hard Times, which I've posted about several times.  I just like Dickens.  Once again, I'm seeing the value in blogging about my thoughts before they're really complete thoughts.  But more than that, I'm seeing connections between our busy digital age and the industrial era.  I'm still finishing the book, but I'm already noticing that in order for Dickens' characters to be happy with their new industrial culture, they have to temper new ideas with the romance of the past.  In the same way, we need to adapt to our digital culture by using the values and morals of our history.  I've noted in other posts how the novel relates to badges and measuring quality, and to time management

The non-fiction text I read, Remediation, was a good introduction to media in general.  Media should represent reality, either through hypermediacy or immediacy.  I notice more often when media feels real to me, and how it's accomplishing that sensation.

Finally, I want to talk about my self-directed learning.  Much of it has been through the videos and sites that I link to Google+ and my blog to confirm my understanding of concepts like remix culture, machinima, hactivism, etc.  But lately I've been thinking a lot about blogging and vlogging, and learning how to do it better.  I wrote a blog earlier about how you can make money off of your blog/vlog.  And then this week, I noticed that an old blog I wrote in my digital civilization class is still getting hits.  I haven't updated it since April, but it has gotten over a thousand views, many of which are from outside the US (54 are from Russia, 37 from Germany, and 32 from India).  Most of the views are coming from people searching for "understanding modernism" and "for the people" on Google.  I realized that my little blog actually does influence people.  This excited me, terrified me, and made me want to make that and all my other blogs more appealing and useful.  I can look at why people come to my blog to customize it to them and be more informative.  A year ago I knew nothing about blogging, and now I'm learning how to use statistics and other tools to make my blogs better.