Week 6: Wrapping Up the Video Narrative, Participatory Culture, and New Genres of Writing

I hope our peer critique exercise helped you with your video narratives. Even though I couldn’t hear the audio, I could tell that most of your videos are really starting to come together. Now that we’re in the home stretch for Unit #1, you should be completing the following tasks:

After making any necessary changes to your script, go to the InnovationSpace in 1140 Torgerson Hall to record the final version of your narration.
Adjust the timing and sequencing of your images and video clips based on the feedback you received from your classmates.
Add some type of title at the beginning of your video, and make sure you are citing your sources in a “Credits” section at the end.
When you are finished with your video, export it so it will play on any computer. Depending on the software you’re using, you should end up with a file that has one of these extensions: .mov, .mp4, .mpeg, .avi, or .wmv.
Place your video, your written script, and any other relevant materials into your shared Google Drive folder.

Here’s how we’ll spend our time in class:

On Monday, we will discuss participatory culture on the web. Please read Chapter 3 (pages 111–45) in Net Smart no later than Sunday night, then add a comment to this post with a specific passage you’d like to discuss in class. (Bonus points for interacting with your classmates in the comments section!)
On Wednesday, your video narratives are due before you arrive in class. To submit your project, please follow the instructions on the assignment sheet. In class, I will introduce our second major assignment, the Tap Essay, and we will begin exploring this new genre, so make sure you bring your iPads to class.

Finally, I will be shifting my office hours next week so you can meet with me before your video narratives are due. If you’d like some help with your project, please email me to set up an appointment, or just stop by my office (427 Shanks Hall) on Monday from 9–12 or Tuesday from 1–4.

Good luck putting the finishing touches on your videos — I can’t wait to watch them!

10 Responses to "Week 6: Wrapping Up the Video Narrative, Participatory Culture, and New Genres of Writing"

Jordan says:

February 22, 2013 at 12:16 am

“The blogger as advocate, like the other rhetorics of blogging, can change both blogger and the blogger’s public” (Location is at 34%). I think this is very interesting because it is so true. The blogger has the power to change the tone of the piece and really able to give a different perspective then mainstream media.

Bloggers use fallacies, snarkyness and add their own opinion a lot of the times that readers are unable to catch on to. Some readers believe everything they see and some bloggers really do have that type of power, to completely change the viewpoints of their publics.
Jonathan says:

February 23, 2013 at 12:32 pm

“Ito’s team discovered some connecting patterns in their observations–’genres of participation’–that can be useful to digital participants of all ages today. They found that digital participation differs in crucial ways, depending on whether it is ‘friendship-driven’ or ‘interest-driven’ participation” (Rheingold, 118). The passage goes on to discuss the nature of both genres of participation; however, my two cents on the matter are that there appear to be relatively static and active means of participation on the web and that a particular genre does not necessitate a presence of meaningful activity.

It seems that those who participate in friendship-driven participation solely are relatively static in terms of advancement of our online community, whereas those of an interest-driven participation appear to actively further their community of interest online (e.g. artistic or educational sites). The former appears to be a means of consumption while the latter contributes through the advancement of a specific knowledge and creation of information which benefits others within the community.

(I’m sure that this will be disagreeable from a number of viewpoints, but it appears as though there is something inherently active about interest-driven communities that friendship-driven communities appear to lack.)
1. David says:
  
  February 24, 2013 at 11:12 pm
  
  Jonathan, I agree completely. Interest-driven communities are clearly more active and provide more practical and usable information in most online communities. However, I believe that many friendship communities can be made from interest driven communities and that is really exciting. Many people with the same interests can get together in a friendship-driven community and further their understandings of different areas. On the other hand, I do not know how many people would be interested in becoming ‘friends’ when they can stay anonymous or more distant within an interest driven community.
Catherine says:

February 24, 2013 at 2:23 pm

“The good news is that learning to participate effectively online (like learning attention and crap detection skills) is a matter of mind-set and practice — and the payoff can be big. Knowledgeable online participation can help you land a job, find a mate, organize a movement, or sell a product or service.” (around 31% on my Kindle)

I think that a lot of people, particularly parents of teenagers, see the Internet as a waste of time, but once you get past the cat videos and time-wasting games, the Internet is actually a pretty amazing and vital part of our lives. The fact that someone can get a job through their Twitter or start a world-wide revolution from a blog post is pretty incredible.
Beth says:

February 24, 2013 at 5:16 pm

“Interest-driven communities are not formed from people who already know each other, and use digital media to hang out and share media online; rather, they are created by people who had not previously known each other but use digital media to find each other, hand out, and share the products of their mutual interests” (p 118)

Like Jonathan, I am drawn to comment on interest-driven communities. I do see them as inherently more ‘active’. I frequent the blogging site ‘Tumblr’. On that site are many interest-driven communities for various television shows; when a new episode airs, you see tons of posts on various blogging sites commenting on the episode, or speculating about the future of the series. Even when shows are long cancelled, fans still discuss episodes and characters with much zeal. Even after that show you love ends, you can keep talking about it with people on the internet. That’s certainly one of the appeals of an interest-driven community.
Brittany says:

February 24, 2013 at 10:30 pm

“What she is observing now in the United States might portend a new mode of learning in which education more closely resembles a many-to-many network of colearning, enthusiasts than a roomful of students and a one-to-many teacher. Considering the rates of change in the knowledge-based professions, learning networks won’t be limited to schools populated by young people but instead will be essential survival tools— and perhaps sources of enjoyment rather than onerous chores—for those who want to keep up with what’s happening at the edge.” (116)

Today we can find all the information we want on the Internet. People can use social media sites to connect with others and share information without ever meeting each other. I think it is very likely that the norm for future generations will be to take classes online without ever stepping foot in the class room. Coursera is already providing free online courses for anyone with some of the top universities.
1. David says:
  
  February 24, 2013 at 11:06 pm
  
  Brittany, I talk about this in my post as well, but I think we would be losing something if education went completely online. The most important part of learning is being challenged and having the ability to challenge. How will we challenge and be challenged online? In a classroom it is much harder to escape the growth that comes from discussion, but online, I feel, we will be less likely to participate especially if some challenges our ideas to help us learn.
David says:

February 24, 2013 at 11:01 pm

Futurist Alvin Toffler predicted in his 1980 book The Third Wave that consumers were becoming “prosumers.” 11 Thirty-five hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. 12 Flickr reported its five-billionth photo uploaded in 2010.13 The cultural fabric that emerges from the aggregation and interaction of millions of individually crafted productions in a many-to-many network of prosumers is bound to be different from the mass-manufactured fabric of a few-to-many culture.

Rheingold, Howard; Weeks, Anthony (2012-02-24). Net Smart (p. 115). MIT Press. Kindle Edition.

I do not doubt that the cultural fabric will be very different, but I do not think that one is better than another at this point. Both have their pros and cons, but I believe they can and do work together in many ways.

This ‘prosumers’ idea is fascinating and I think something that will play a huge role in the future of education as well as other areas of society. As a consumer driven society, world-wide, we want to buy more and more, therefore producers are trying to think of ways to cut back on spending and to increase profits. The same can be said for education; educators are essential, but what if people were to learn from each other or learn solely from the internet where many educators have posted information about a specific topic. This is exciting and scary at the same time because if we could learn from an infinite number of experts instead of one, wouldn’t we be smarter? On the other hand, I think that we would lose many other aspects essential to personal growth (social-interaction face-to-face).
Curtis Stanford says:

February 25, 2013 at 12:36 am

“Curation Is Short for ‘We’re All Each Other’s Filter’ A tweet is an atom. A photo on Flickr is an atom. A conversation item on Google Buzz is an atom. A Facebook status message is an atom. A YouTube video is an atom. Thousands of these atoms flow across our screens in tools like Seesmic, Google Reader, Tweetdeck, Tweetie, Simply Tweet, Twitroid, etc. A curator is an information chemist. He or she mixes atoms together in a way to build an info-molecule. Then adds value to that molecule.”

This quote makes me think of the internet as a manifestation of our collective consciouses. I think humans aren’t as intelligent as we give ourselves credit for.
We’re not particularly adept at multi-tasking. We choose a career path
in life be it through business, science, education, government, or
social programs and that’s what we are able to focus our attentions
toward. While we’re on some level aware of many other issues, we TRUST
that those who chose to focus on those other topics are able to do so
better than ourselves. We believe that as a society we will make each
other aware when an issue requires a larger portion of our attentions,
and in the mean time we don’t exhaust our limited capabilities and
aren’t distracted from the thing we chose to focus on in life. The internet is similar in this way. We can post, browse, follow, research, trade, and maintain career and personal relationships online, and we tend to remain in the same circles while doing so. We do so because we know that all of those other ‘atoms’ will still be out there when we choose to go looking for them, and if one goes nuclear, we believe that we’ll be made aware of the issue.
Sangji says:

February 25, 2013 at 12:36 am

I would like to discuss the discovery on page 118 (“Ito’s team discovered some connecting patterns in their observations–’genres of participation’–that can be useful to digital participants of all ages today. They found that digital participation differs in crucial ways, depending on whether it is ‘friendship-driven’ or ‘interest-driven’ participation”). However, I disagree with Jonathan’s statement that friendship-driven communities are more static than interest-driven ones. I think they are equally active; I have seen so many instances of people sharing sites and various types of information and sources through Facebook and Twitter, which are friendship-driven sites.

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