Reflective Blog Post

My journey to the Learning Outcomes in my Digital Civilization class has been an interesting one, marked with hiccups. I will discuss each of the five criteria in the order they are listed in the above link.

Students intelligently and accurately represent periods of western civilization:

I will admit, I was lucky with this objective to be assigned the 20th Century as my period. My major is Computer Science, and as such I found several ways to connect my interests back to that period, which would not have been possible with any other time period. During this class I did research on where the theoretical foundations of computing came from, by starting with Alan Turing and working backward through time. As I progressed into the book writing phase of the class, I took my interest in technology and developed a history of film making. That history was my biggest contribution to the chapter I worked on.

Students understand the core digital concepts for the course and can relate these to history and contemporary society.


Here I have more blogs to back me up than for the previous point:
Fair Use Explained is a blog linking a video that explains the concept of fair use (related to openness) by meshing together Disney movie clips. The irony here is that Disney is very touchy about their copyrights and if this video were not what it claimed, it would have been pulled off the web quickly.

Forums as Connecting Points is another blog about openness, but from the perspective of interpersonal communication. It touts the trust inherent in a forum both in letting others see your answers to questions, and how you don't always have answers to questions. This open environment spurs on participation in a way that has gone viral across the internet in countless fields.

Students demonstrate competence in Digital Literacy (create, consume, connect).

Microcosms of Intelligence is a post detailing my opinion that connection is the most important function of social networking, while creating and consuming are important only in how they push connecting forward.

I think I can reasonably say that I am capable in all three aspects, but that I do not enjoy creating things without reason. My opinion is that the internet is too crowded and it will only become useful if people stop tweeting useless information.

Networking Around Class Project

For anyone who didn't hear about my Civ Class's presentation last Tuesday we posted a video online at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/digiciv1. This post is in reference to that function, how I invited stake-holders in our subject matter, and what my involvement was during the event.

Prior to the event itself, I worked with Fred Mcinnis, the Marching Band Director at BYU, seeing if he were interested in a book about our Digital Society. The chapter I was working on was titled Technology and the Arts. He voiced some interest, and so when it came time to extend invitations to the event, He was one of the people I made sure to invite. Unfortunately, he also was busy the night of the event and was unable to make it. Other people I invited were several members of BYU's University Bands, including at least two Music Education majors, and several friends including both a History major and a Film major. Unfortunately, again none of these people chose to come, because the time we chose to have our event overlapped the last day to turn in assignments, and my friends had to choose their school work.

As for my involvement during the presentation, I had a role, playing my trumpet to emphasise how live music can still be a part of modern presentations. I also asked, and answered questions regarding the topics being discussed on both UStream and Twitter. Finally, I was also part of the group asked to help move the refreshments from the Talmadge to the Tanner, and in that regard feel that I completed my responsibilities admirably.

Microcosms of Intelligence

Looking back on my blogging practice over the last few weeks, I can only state that it is dismal.  When Dr. Burton asked us in class to do a reflective post on the blogs we've written lately, the only posts I could fall back on were 3 blogs I wrote in early January, 3 drafts that I never finished, and two pages of written ideas that I wrote on paper and never transferred onto the internet.  Not much to refer to, however, I managed to find one word that kept cropping up: "connecting".  It seems that I am rather obsessed with the topic of how to hook people together, and create microcosms of intelligence.  Let me walk you through what I mean.

Social Proofing and Getting A Job

A few weeks ago, in class, my attention was drawn to a blog post about social proofing.  The blog touts the following four actions as the basis for public relevance in writing:

• finding people
• contacting people
• interacting and collaborating
• others' use of one's published content

In thinking about these actions, I found a correlation to getting a job, something which I have done several times.  The economic value of each student is directly based on knowledge of how to get a job, so I find it valuable to put my experience here.  The process of getting a job, namely: networking, applying and being interviewed, working together, and shipping products, has been built into our society and is the basis of our modern economy.  It seems to me that there is a correlation between these two topics, for example:

Networking = Finding People
Applying and being interviewed = Contacting People
Working for a company = Interacting and Collaborating
Shipping a product = permitting others to use my published content

With these comparisons, I can see how social proofs are a valuable thing to learn as a student before being exposed to the job market.  Perhaps other similar connections exist.

Chat With Grandma

I just had the wonderful opportunity to spend the day at my Grandma's house.  We had some excellent conversation, and I got her setup using Google Reader.  This post is going up in part to show her the use of Google Reader in action.  I'll post some of the insights she gave me on the 20th century later.

Forums as Connecting Points

Earlier today I had a few minutes to myself.  As I sat at my computer, I contemplated my life goals, one of which is to build a Convention Center, complete with several Auditoriums wherein I could host music camps for kids.  I have had this goal for several years, but left it on the back-burner because it seemed fiscally ridiculous on my current budget.  Earlier in the day, however, I perused the BYU Career Fair, and found that many companies will pay exorbitant amounts of money to people with my background in Software Design, and it prompted me to again think about my goal of building the "Williams Harmony Hall."

Fair Use Explained

On the topic of Copyrights and Openness