Monthly Archives: July 2014

Creative Commons

I have thought a lot about how Youtube has allowed musicians to collaborate and virtually perform together. I also heard about actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s online collaborative production company hitRECord, it was a concept that was just as foreign to me as when I got my first email account. But this is the first time I have heard about Creative Commons. Where have I been?! And now it all makes sense!

Discovering this is quite a big deal for me. Thinking back to when I watched this BBC documentary, ‘Planet Ants: Life inside the colony’, about ant colonies as super-organisms that share all information in order to achieve outcomes that are impossible for one. It inspired me to think very differently about the way we should view our world and interact with each other. That we should aim to be absolutely selfless (or rather to expand, boundlessly, what we include as self) in sharing and responding creatively in order to produce an outcome that wouldn’t exist if we hold on to the idea of ownership and confine the way we define our ‘self’.

Just imagine if we behaved as a super-organism, instead of fighting and competing against one another, I’m sure space-travel would be a common means of transport by now.

New perspective on media literacy

The first Networked Media lecture was intense and unexpected. It encouraged the questioning of everything including the structure of this empirical system in university. One of the many fascinating points in the lecture was that the reasons to attend university are changing. Adrian Miles points out that last time it was a matter of scarcity of equipment, facilities, knowledge and expertise. These things were inaccessible outside of academic communities. And that, many of us without any reflection upon this, carry on this assumption today at a time where the internet has made these qualities of university education accessible via tools like Google, Wikipedia or Youtube tutorials. 

Adrian also encouraged the emphasis of quality over quantity in assessing work and educating. These new ways of thinking about learning are refreshing and mind-opening.

 

First Blog Entry!

Welcome to my self-explanatory-titled blog! Yes, it is quite an obvious title.

Honestly, I have never been much of a blogger and I don’t use Instagram or Twitter. I have a Facebook account but I tend to be occupied with physical interactions and the tonnes of readings each week so I hardly check Facebook these days. When I do have spare time (or when I procrastinate) I usually play with my dogs or I crush candies on my phone!

After learning about this assessment task last week, it has led me to think about blogging a lot more seriously. During the hours of trying to convince myself to start blogging, I analysed why I was so uncomfortable with the situation in the past and present. I came to a conclusion that I have ‘blog-phobia’:

Although I grew up in the early age of the internet, I didn’t have any access to a computer til I was around 14 (Year 8). There wasn’t much reason to use it initially, but of course we all eventually grow extremely dependent on it. Even right now, I realised I use some of the many functions of the internet only for convenience to share and connect with the people I know in real life. I was also very uncomfortable with the idea of uploading or sharing things that people all over the world can see. Paranoid of this constant idea of ‘the Other’ and the unknown (mainly enhanced by the exaggerated warnings of scams and catfishing from my parents). And so I thought I would never need to share my personal life with this “other” world that I seldomly visit.

So my point is that this is quite a challenge to take on this assignment this semester. However, I am embracing this exciting new process in hopes of becoming a less awkward blogger!