CONNECT OR DIE! (well...not really)

To be fair, I don’t think there are many ways to put a super fun spin on the network lectures here at RMIT. Really we discussed the same as last week, except this time, those that hold the power decided that 3 points were more realistic to discuss as a pose to week 4s 7 which inevitably were rushed through. Allow us to compare the pair, same age, same income, same…sorry;

Week 4 Q’s:

1. How can you judge the validity of things on the internet?
2. What are the limitations of network literacy? 
3. How does it differ to print literacy?
4. What limitations do both literacies share? 
5. What strengths help compensate for each other? 
6. Can they work together?
7. Are they destined to be rivals? Should network […]

Week 5 Q’s:

1. How is hypertext relevant to us as media practitioners?
2. What predictions about network literacy should we be aware of?
3. What are the consequences of being network illiterate?

Those in italics can be combined into one, same as those in bold. Hence, we have 3 points to discuss. No doubt that there were overlaps between the two weeks. Now, perhaps I am just picking at the lectures because they are not all that interesting, or because I don’t like going, or because I am a uni student so therefore I have to not like all these things. I’m not too sure to be honest. All that I know is that these lectures provide discussion, discussion that is then essentially repeated and somewhat expanded in class time. Now don’t get me wrong but this just seems like a poor use of time. The advantages of having all tutors present at once are high, allows for many opinions which usually leads to Adrian’s conquering of the lecture, but if we had a reading to discuss, or perhaps something more engaging like a video then I think it would benefit all. Too many times does one go to class to discuss with his or her classmates about the amount of work lead to them not doing any of the readings and skipping the lecture so they could hand in the work for that week on time and have 10 minutes to study for the test.

A room of stressed faces. Yes I skipped around the main point of the lecture being network literate and the fact that network texts are pieces which can then be linked in an ever changing system giving each piece new meaning. For instances if you make a post it’s meaning is changed if people comment on it or of they then link to it on another blog or website etc etc, but we already knew that from last week now didn’t we 🙂

Flash.

if anyone knows how to fix these upside down iPhone pics, let me know!

I often think both students and teachers alike fall into a trap of ‘it is a potential educational argument/topic, therefore we must pursue it’ when much of the time this is not the case. I think the best part of arguments, especially educational ones is what comes out of them, not when two people walk away from each other both thinking that their individual opinions are better than the person they were just verbally bashing. In todays lecture we covered many topics such as the reliability and validity of different sources, perspectives and opinions being granted access into online sources, the art of bullshitting and noisy eaters. I’d like to focus on the idea of the massive expansion of literacies and form vs content.

could he be any louder with that sandwich?

I think people would agree that the transition from high school to tertiary education (university in particular) makes students feel as if they need to be super opinionated, join all these random groups, sign yellow pieces of paper and dispute other opinions because they feel theirs is right. In high school it was more a feel of ‘lets get this over and done with’ and ‘students hang tight’ kinda feel. Uni is very different, and that almost ignorant attitude, or the surfy kid who just wants to get good marks and move on to the next thing has totally gone out the window. Adrian talked much about understanding and the loss of power one has when third parties are allowed to do our work for us, or when we hire them out, we become a slave to these external sources. Honestly, who cares? I don’t care if I use the visual box feature on WordPress as a pose to the text HTML feature, as long as it works that is all I care about. However, it is not as if I do not understand the perspective of having a greater understanding or more well rounded knowledge is advantageous. I totally agree with this. When the computer guy used to come over to the house, and I’m sure other teenagers experienced this, that they are the ones talking to the ‘third party’ not the parents as they do not understand this talk about gigabytes and wireless traffic etc. Perfectly valid, but really with the advances in technology there is really nothing stopping me from…well anything?

I don’t get where this argument starts and begins. I am not a slave to anybody, and then someone really self righteous person comes along and says ‘you are a slave to our economic system, the uni’s, your parents’ etc. See, its just arguments for arguments sake. We really don’t need to concern ourselves with such things. If everyone understood everything then there would be a lot of job loss wouldn’t there to start with. As humans we are here to educate ourselves but there is no reason you have to know certain things or do certain tasks. Free will is a thing yes, and laws and restrictions apply but this is just blowing the original lecture topic out of proportion. No one cares about enslavement to third parties because that is a paranoid approach. Those lucky enough to be at university are capable of educating themselves about more than one topic. Fuss for no reason really, but makes for great blogging 🙂

Flash

silence other media teachers!

Copyright, Structure, Laws, Adrian. So I haven’t been to many lectures in my time, but this is the first one in a long time that I have genuinely been interested in. Gotta give credit where credit is due and Adrian made this lecture interesting for me. Don’t get me wrong some of it was still pretty boring but the fact that Adrian unleashes his opinion to run about the room and trample anything and EVERYTHING in its way, most notably the thoughts and examples of the other lectures who sit there like minions, only asked to talk when spoken to and even then, can be cut off at any point without warning. I got many a chuckle out of it.

I did however take away some academic information other than Kenton’s fresh chord jacket seen below.

dem chords though

Adrian started out by discussing traditional conceptions of what matters, to us as students and a the general media community, that is to say, when and where you are born determines what matters to you ethically about technology and the laws that come with the power of the internet. He went on to discuss the properties of a blog and that they do not follow the conventional story structure since they are in reverse chronological order and they are borderless. How is one to determine where my blog begins and ends especially when much of the time blogs link out to other sites.

“We are not in Kansas anymore” – Adrian, lol. The main crux of the lecture was about copyright. Where does it become stealing and when do you need permission? Well basically all the time. If you don’t have permission you run the risk of being fined. A main point was that if you are making money from somebody else’s work then that is a problem. Also if you are hurting somebody or another companies reputation that is a problem as well. When students began to ask Adrians ‘panel’ any questions at all the panel was often cut off mid sentence or we would hear things such as “O no that is just an example” or “Half the advice you have here is right, half of it is wrong”. Doesn’t get much more blunt than that.

Adrian told a story about a student who made a film and entered it into Sundance film festival. The song Rocky Mountain High was playing the film and when the owner saw the video in the audience the student was sued for something like half a million dollars and as it stands is still trying to pay it off at 7/11! That is the kind of crazy stuff that goes on in this industry.

what if it is free?

Something that came to mind for me was what about sites like Bandcamp and Soundcloud? In many instances songs are available for free download. How does this effect media students using them in videos? What about remixed songs? If you have the rights of a dj to use a remixed song, what about the person who wrote the original? These are all very important, especially for students like us who could one day be employed to make videos and films for companies.

Bottom line is when it comes to blogging, try not to piss people off and take credit for things that are not yours. If you are unsure play it safe. No one wants a million dollar fine sleuthing its way into our letterboxes.

Flash.