Reflective Blog

Blog vs Tutorial

I like the idea for doing blog tutorial because it is fun and interesting and it is something which I have never done before in any of my units. I do find that classroom tutorials are more interactive though as different ideas got thrown around the classroom faster than online tutorial in which only some people participate in them. Moreover, it is difficult to maintain a constant flow of arguments on a blog tutorial. However, it is really useful for shy students (like me) to participate in tutorials so it does not require one to speak up in class. On the whole, I find it useful to me and an interesting way to hold tutorial classes.

Cyborg

This unit has indeed taught me a lot about cyborg. Before taking this unit, I was not interested in sci-fi stuffs and apparently does not know what a cyborg is. But after this semester, this unit gives me a new insight to cyborg. I realised too that in todays' world, most of us are cyborgs and we are not able to run away from this fact. We need machine and technology to get us through our everyday life and to help us accomplish our task. This unit is also a way of identifying myself in the world of technology.

Unit Evaluation

Overall, I find this unit to be interesting and useful. I enjoyed learning about cyborgs, feminism and the cyberspace.

Blog vs Tutorial

I liked the idea of online tutorials, as i felt it was very appropriate for the unit and what we were studying. It helped show me how much the internet is/or can be used for everyday life, including university studies. However, i felt that discussion was lacking, possibly because not everyone was online at the same time, or because there was no tutor or leader to lead the discussion. However, i found this an interesting way of communicating with my tutorial class.

Cyborg

I think that every one of us, in some ways, is a cyborg. Wether we admit it or not, the majority of us in today's society rely on the internet for so much. From completing tutorials! to paying bills online or booking flights online (which is also the cheapest way of doing it these days), the internet seems to be constantly consuming us.

Unit evaluation

I thoroughly enjoyed this unit, as it was a whole other opening in feminism understanding, and understanding of cyberspace - both two very important things in society. I have done many other women studies units, but none focused on this side of feminism. It was very interesting and very useful to know and understand.

Reflection Blog

Blogs Vs. Tutorials
I found that blogging was far less stimulating than face-to-face discussion, however this may be due to the inconsistency of contribution over the period that we were blogging rather than going to class. As it has already been mentioned our class discussions are usually quite successful, I thought that personally it was a result of lack of structure and authority in the blogs i.e. no tutor meant no discussion.

Cyborg?
I live in a UWA residential college and in just about every single of the 380 rooms there is a laptop or PC that impregnates the space and provides one of the single most important elements in a residents life. This is a rather depressing image but that is the reality of our modern day society and it seems that the cyborg tag is unavoidable. In this respect I think that blogging instead of tutorials is possibly a more negative thing as it encourages more time in front of the computer than interacting with others face-to-face.

Reflective Post

Blogging
I think that in general transferring the tutorials to blogs was a very good idea since it tied in very well with the rest of the unit.I personally am quite familiar with this form of online communication, but I guess there were others who weren't and this was quite a good possibility of 'experimenting' with it a bit.
Unfortunately, our blog didn't really go very well. Not a lot of discussions were created and in general there were a lot more people in our face-to-face tutes that were up for discussions (which were always really good). So I don't know why that happened.

Am I a cyborg?
The clearest answer to this I guess is 'yes'. I mean, we all use so many technical enhancements that I doubt there is anyone in this class who isn't a cyborg in that way. I have to say though that I still have a bit of a problem with 'accepting' that idea. I mean, technically, when I use a pen to write something down that makes me a cyborg. This is the part I cannot really relate to because then everything that goes beyond our natural state of 'being naked and living in caves' makes us a cyborg. However, I think that the cyborg-question is definitely one that's relevant asking, especially in this day and age. To me, the idea is very abstract though. I probably am a cyborg. I just wonder whether I can find a person on this earth who isn't then. And I am also undecided whether that's a good or a bad thing.

Evaluation of the Unit in general
I enjoyed the unit because it gave me insights into the world of cyberspace and ideas about it that I never came across before or never really thought about before. In that sense it triggered a bit of a re-thinking. In general, however, I also feel that some of the things we discussed were a bit redundant, in the sense that I still feel that most of the (power) structures (politics, race, gender, etc.) that we have in real live are simply mirrored online. It is not like the internet 'invented' all these things. It was interesting to read and discuss in which way cyberspace overcomes or reinforces those power structures though. I really enjoyed that!

Week 12 Reflective Post

Weblogs
I really enjoyed writing on the blog and thought it was a great to do something so different to all my other units. Some weeks I was craving more discussion on the blog, as I didn’t really feel like our tut did it justice – which surprised me since I thought we had some good discussions in the face to face tuts, and also some tech savvy personal bloggers in out tut group. I wondered if, in addition to a blog/instead of, we could have a sort of chat room where we’d chat online in real time, say in the tut time; maybe that would have generated more discussion.

Cyborgs
I had never considered myself a cyborg before this course, but after learning the concept, and writing my webliography, I have decided that we are all cyborgs. It is amazing how technology is everywhere, yet almost invisible at the same time, melting into our everyday life. You only have to go a few days [or maybe hours!] without a laptop or a mobile phone to see how they sort of become a part of you[!], not to mention all the bodily enhancements that seem so normal to us.

The unit in general
I really enjoyed this unit, I’m a women’s studies major and this is my last ever women’s studies and also Arts unit, so I’m glad it was a fun one. All the topics were pretty interesting, but things I liked best were reading the excepts of the Cyberpunk novels, and thinking about how some things that were once science fiction inform science and technological developments and become a part of our daily lives! I liked the culture-jamming topic as well, and thought that all the workshops were great.

Alice’s Presentation – Smart mobs: the power of the mobile many, Howard Rheingold

Hi everyone,
I'm presenting in class on Friday, so don't forget to come along for out last FTF tut and hopefully some great discussion. Here's what we'll be discussing so you can all come prepared :)

Smart mobs are groups of people who are able to communicate and act quickly using wireless communicative and broadcasting technologies.

“Location-sensing wireless organisers, wireless networks and community supercomputing collectives all have one thing in common: they enable people to act together in new ways and in situations where collective action was not possible before.” (p191)

An example of this phenomenon was Manila residents political demonstration which caused the fall of the Philippines government in 2001 – 20,000 people assembled in 75 minutes through waves of text messaging: ‘Go 2EDSA, Wear blck.’

Activism on this scale relies on many small units of people organising around a shared goal, and using mobile communications to quickly come together from different directions (pp193-194)

Protesters in Seattle against the WTO used “radios, police scanners and portable computers. Protesters in the street with wireless Palm Pilots were able to link into continuously updated web pages giving reports from the streets. Police scanners monitored transmissions and provided some warning of changing police tactics. Cell phones were widely used.” (p193)

Action taken in Seattle and Manila and other places have been termed ‘netwars,’ a mode of action used by both social activists and criminal/terrorist organisations. So there are positive and negative uses of smart mob tactics and technologies.

There is a potential for ‘peer-to-peer journalism’ from phones and other devices used at protests where film footage can instantly be uploaded to the web. (p196)

Smart mob tactics can prompt many people to act and cause ‘massive outbreaks of coorperation,’ which can definitely have positive outcomes, but can also be unpleasant: ‘Lynch mobs and entire nations cooperate to perpetuate atrocities.’ (p197)

Questions for discussion:

What are the implications of ‘peer-to-peer’ journalism that is possible because of mobile technologies? Might this change how traditional forms of media report? Or how we get our information?

How might these technologies be used in positive ways to keep/make governments/corporations accountable to citizens?

How might society change through these mobile technologies?

Are we more connected than ever before? Less connected? Differently connected?

Would receiving a text message like ‘Go 2 Frst Ch, Wear blk’ mobilise you for action?

Social Networks = increased workload

I found Danah Boyd’s article really interesting to read. She talks about the increasing use of social network sites and in particular does ethnographic studies on users of myspace. On page 3 of the article, she specifically distinguishes between the classes of teenagers who refrain from using myspace. She includes teens whose parents have successfully banned them from using the internet and teens who deliberately want to object to the use of social networks. It made me wonder whether there are a large number of teens who do not use social networks purely because of the additional social maintenance that they require you to participate in. This was a major reason why I refused ( until recently) to join the popular facebook network. While I have and enjoy my social group of friends, initially I found the idea of continuously receiving messages, photo updates etc to be almost like a form of social pressure, where I felt pressured into doing the same. Often I find that I am accused of being rude on facebook as I often fail to respond to messages or posts. I feel that being a part of these social networks requires high maintenance. While most teenagers seem more than happy to engage in this type of social maintenance, Boyd does not consider whether the teens who do not join the networks refuse to do so because of the pressures and demands they place on individuals to keep up to date with social events, people and places. I am not sure if such a reason exists for younger teens. Perhaps its something only older users experience. For me, my experience on facebook could be equated to a high powered CEO who is never able to turn their blackberry phone off. It is an avenue for increasing one’s accessibility to other people and to be this is something I often like to avoid! More me time!

Another interesting point in this article, is Doyd’s point of self identity on social network sites. She mentions that most of these sites are based on profiles. It is essentially the profile which allows you to develop and present your personality to the world. New age philosophy always conveys a message of detachment. It encourages people to detach from the world and often suggests that spending time alone with yourself is the only way to relax, meditate and understand yourself better. I wonder, in a world which is as fast paced as ours, how does the social networks affect our ability to understand ourselves? Do we create profiles to make ourselves look good to others? Are our profiles accurate reflections of who we really are?
Thats all from me!