Self-directed Learning / Personal Blog Posts
Over the course of the last few months, I’ve been able to explore and even investigate digital culture and its different developing facets. Although it was initially very difficult to wrap my mind around the idea of guiding and directing my own learning (rather than having defined homework assignments and topics to learn about), I have really enjoyed being able to focus on what is particularly relevant to me and my interests as well as what simply interests me.
To demonstrate my own self-directed learning, I’ve blogged about:
Intellectual Property (here)
Adrian Johns’s book Piracy: Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates (here)
Cyberbullying (here)
The Media Fast (here)
Social Change (here)
I’ve also posted to Google + about:
Badges (especially other relevant badge projects and resources)
Relevant blog articles mentioned above
Social Change through technology
Intellectual Property
The Open Movement
Research materials that I’ve found useful and important:
Adrian Johns’s Piracy: Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates
Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina
Mozilla’s Open Badge Website/ The Open Badge Forum
Neil Selwyn’s Education in a Digital World : Global Perspectives on Technology and Education
Curtis J. Bonk’s World Is Open : How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education
The Matrix
Wreck-It Ralph
Collaboration
I’ve also been very involved this semester with my group’s project, the Mormon Badges Group, as we have explored how online badges can be adapted to meet the needs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have been very active in developing and creating our actual badge prototypes (see here), blogging about what we were developing on our blog, and then going on to present our experiences and what we’ve learned at the Mormon Media Studies Symposium and last week to the head of Social Media for the LDS Church. It has been a fantastic experience to be able to collaborate with this group as we were able to develop our ideas together and ultimately pitch them formally to the Church.
With other projects, I’ve been able to help make suggestions as I’ve followed their projects. I specifically critiqued the Digital Sweet Home group’s project proposal , and I’ve really enjoyed following their work and development. I’ve commented online and discussed in class other projects, with the most interaction with the Educational Badge group as I’ve been able to provide them useful resources and links online and discussed ideas in class.
Others’ assistance
Throughout the semester I’ve followed most closely the work of the two badges groups namely Ellis Dyck, Josh McKinney, Katie Wilkie and Greg Williams due to the close nature of our two projects. But I’ve also enjoyed following their posts and writing about not only badges but larger digital culture themes. I’ve likewise been inspired (and motivated) by Tara Pina, Jason Hamilton, Allie Crafton and Audrey Blake.
Digital Literacy
Explain how you have developed your digital literacy during this semester. Use the categories of A) Consume; B) Create; and C) Connect. Please do more than list tools or services you’ve learned to use. Describe how your understanding of literacy has evolved or how you have become more conscious of and taken more control of your digital life.
Perhaps the most noticeable result of the time I’ve spent learning about digital culture has been developing my own digital literacy through coming to understand and better utilize new media. After beginning the semester with the media fast (http://leesjessica326.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-media-fast-or-what-making-non.html), I’ve learned how important it is to maximize my online interactions to be able to use my time productively and effectively while getting the most out of my time online. This is especially apparent as I’ve learned to Consume, Create and Connect through this class and my own online learning.
As I’ve been consuming relevant content for this class, my blog, the Mormon Badges Project and my Google+ posts, I have been able to better maximize my research time through using social tools as well as more traditional research avenues. I found interesting resources through search engines and the BYU library, but I also found tools through social networking tools such as Good Reads and even through receiving input and suggestions from classmates and contacts online. I have also been able to do more online reading through BYU’s ebrary, which gave me access to a lot of fascinating books about especially the Open Education Movement.
Creating content for this class is where I saw the most obvious increase in my digital literacy. Through this course I became much more familiar with Google resources such as Google docs and Google forms, which made it easy to collaborate as a group (for the Mormon Badges Project). I also used Prezi for the first time through my group project, and I really like that I’m now much more comfortable with this fun and dynamic presentation tool. Although I did blog this summer for an internship, this was the first time that I have had my own personal blog to express my views and opinions. Perhaps the most important concept I’ve learned from this experience has been how important it is to put my ideas out there early, even if they’re still being developed, so that I can get feedback and social proof to determine the validity of following a specific course of research and study.
Likewise, my digital literacy has drastically improved as I’ve connected to receive social proof about my ideas and thoughts. Through becoming much more familiar with Google +, I've been able to post in an easy and accessible way. I also used my Facebook account for some more limited interactions for this class. The ease of this kind of communication showed me how important it is to use these connections, whether my classmates, friends or even family, to share my ideas and projects. Not only has this begun many interesting conversations online, but I’ve been able to connect in surprising ways with my family and friends. This has ultimately shown me how absolutely crucial it is to not do real research and thinking in the void that is so typical for the average college research paper, and I glad to have experienced the real benefits that come through connecting about academic and personal interests and topics.
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