Blogging, blogging and more blogging

All rights reserved: Steve Bridger

All rights reserved: Steve Bridger

This week Stephanie spoke in her blog about how her younger sister has become network literate, purely through self-learning off YouTube. It made me think about how Generation Y have come to learn about network literacies where a lot of other generations get left behind. Take my Mum for example. The other night my Mum insisted I show her how to ‘check-in’ on Facebook. I was baffled at how she did not know how to do this. It’s not like myself and all of my friends had learnt how to ‘check-in’ on Facebook. This was implicit knowledge that we just… knew. So why was it so hard for my Mum and my other family members to grasp? Do they not have the same underlining curiosity that the ‘younger’ generation do with technology? Will I one day be as tech illiterate as my parents? These are all questions I think of on a regular basis.

I did have a laugh at Maddison’s blog post regarding coding and the HTML test that I just completed. Now that she mentions it, all I can think of when I think about coding is Mark Zuckerberg and The Social Network, geeks and uni students locked up in their bedrooms with servers and writing code. P.S The Accidental Billionaire (the book the film is based on) is awesome.

Brady’s blog post with pictures of Lego mini-figures represented as websites, is not only cute but hilarious! The Google one definitely gave me a laugh.

I will have order!

All rights reserved: Steven S via Flickr

All rights reserved: Steven S via Flickr

Not to sound like Professor Umbridge from Harry Potter (although I am very pleased to get my very first Harry Potter reference into this blog), our world has a lot of order, structure and as Adrian discussed in the lecture, we are governed by time.

He talked about schools being like factories, in that they have set rules, standards and expectations. Students are divided into levels or grades by age, learn at the same pace and ability, despite the preference of each student.

It made me think back to my high school experience, where in Year 7 we were forced to learn English, Maths, Science, P.E, Music, Religion, Indonesian and Drama. Each subject was graded, weighted equally in our end of year report. Although we had no choice in what subjects we picked.

For me personally, I was terrible at Maths, Drama and Music and the pressure to keep these subjects that I was not good at, at the same standard as the subjects I was good at and enjoyed was frustrating and disheartening at times.

When I got to VCE, I had a lot more flexibility in the subjects that I selected and it was clear that I enjoyed what I was doing and that reflected in my grades. Today’s lecture definitely gave me some food for thought.

Hypertext?

All rights reserved: Sean MacEntee

All rights reserved: Sean MacEntee

In the week four readings, Ted Nelson talks about hypertext as text that branches out into other areas of information, providing choices for where the reader can take their reading. Sort of like this.

This can be sequential information relevant to the topic discussed, such as the link that I just provided, or it can be non-sequential text such as this.

When you hear the word hypertext, it sounds a lot more confusing and complicated than what it actually is. We use hypertext regularly through our blogs without even realising it. Remember that cat video I embedded into my very first blog post? Yeah, that’s hypertext.

See those links down the right hand side of my blog? Hypertext.

You know when you’re reading an article on an online news service and they have a video embedded with footage from the scene of the story and links to related news stories inserted into the article? That’s a perfect example of hypertext used in everyday life; and we didn’t even know it was a thing.

The Internet – true or false?

Despite being told from a young age to be aware of internet hoaxes, sometimes they can be scarily convincing. I found myself in a situation earlier in the year where I nearly fell for an internet hoax.

I received an email from the “Australian Taxation Office” notifying me that I had unclaimed tax to my name, as my last tax return was calculated incorrectly. The ATO letterhead and font and the wording of the email was very convincing. There weren’t any obvious signs of a scam such as send us your credit details to receive your money.

I was almost convinced to sign up for my free money, until my boyfriend suggested I double check with the ATO over the phone that the email wasn’t a hoax. When I called the ATO, they confirmed that the email was a scam.

I was lucky that proactive thinking and actions were taken before a serious problem was created. So how do we know what is valid and what isn’t on the internet? We don’t, but one thing I learnt is it is always best to double check.

Network Literacy v Print Literacy

All rights reserved: Asheboro Public Library

All rights reserved: Asheboro Public Library

Adrian raised a point in the lecture today about authors. He stated that authors are not actually considered authors unless they are published. More specifically, he suggested that being published meant having writing featured in print form. He then went on to say that anyone who is not published however has written something, is a wannabe writer and author and nothing more. Although I strongly disagree.

With the new technologies that have allowed for network literacy to be established, there have been new forms and ways that writing can be published. Websites have allowed for authors to publish their work online, blogs allow for new authors and writers to express their thoughts and even Facebook and Twitter have allowed for ordinary people to publish their writing online.

Network literacy and the creation of the online world has enabled a different kind of expression and a new way to get work published. It allows for writers and authors to self-publish online, and in some cases this has lead to being published in print. Print phenomenon Fifty Shades of Grey was initially published by E.L James online, and then printed after the traction it had online.

Bottom line, there is more to publishing than simply having your writing in a book. In a world that is increasingly becoming more network literate, it is essential to consider publishing beyond print.

Advertising and Social Media

All rights reserved: g4ll4is via Flickr

All rights reserved: g4ll4is via Flickr

Sponsored posts and advertising are becoming frightening on social media. Today I was researching the Fitbit Flex Wristband, reading reviews and checking numerous online stores to compare prices.

Later when I went on Facebook and my favourite AFL Blog, I noticed that there were advertisements for the Fitbit Flex staring at me! Was this a coincidence? Absolutely not. It is frightening how the Internet can retain this information and slowly gather a portfolio of information about our lives.

Australian Diamonds shine bright in Glasgow

The Australian Netball Diamonds brought home Gold from the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, for the first time since Manchester in 2002!

Many of the girls who won the Gold medal experience the heartbreak at the Delhi Games in 2010, none more than mid-courter Renae Hallinan. This time however, there were only tears of joy when the Diamonds defeated the New Zealand Silver Ferns by 18 goals (the largest margin in Commonwealth Games History).

Social media exploded with support for the Diamonds during the game and after they claimed victory, with the hash tag #GOLDDiamonds trending Australia wide. With the immense interest in the game, it begs the question, should Netball be an Olympic Sport as well as a Commonwealth Games sport?

Defamation goes beyond a person

All rights reserved: Widjaya Ivan

All rights reserved: Widjaya Ivan

The readings for this week explore the idea of defamation. Defamation is when a person, third party or even a group of people are spoken about in a manner that impacts of the reputation of that person or group of people.

I had never considered being racist, sexist or homophobic as defamatory. Although the lecture reinforced that this behaviour online is highly defamatory.

Port Adelaide Football Club were faced with a tough decision last week when the CEO of one of their principal partners posted a homophobic slur on his Facebook page. The most had huge ramifications and intense backlash from the AFL Community.

I wrote a blog post for Bound for Glory News. You can read about it here.

The grey area of copyright laws

All rights reserved: Mike Seyfang

All rights reserved: Mike Seyfang

Today’s lecture reinforced how there is are not many clear distinctions in copyright, but rather a lot of grey areas.

There are obvious breaches of copyright, such as posting another person’s image without crediting the original producer. On the other end of the spectrum, there are clear boundaries set in place to ensure you are not breaching copyright, such as Creative Commons licenses. Although there are many grey areas, in fact more grey areas than there are clear black and white guidelines for copyright.

For example, even though Creative Commons licenses usually dictate that the content is copyright free, there are restrictions and rules within these licenses that vary depending on the producer’s selections. Therefore when using Creative Commons content, the user still needs to be very careful that they aren’t breaching any licenses and restrictions put in place by the producer.

Click here to view the different levels of licensing with creative commons content.

The biggest take away from the lecture was that copyright is policed by the producer and only the produced can sue an individual or company for breaching copyright.

The most interesting thing that I learnt was  you cannot copyright ideas. Only tangible objects (including colours) can be trademarked or given copyright.

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