On September 28th, I did a Google Hangout with Akidah and Angelica.  It was my first Google Hangout experience so I was excited to try it out!

I’m familiar with Skype and so I immediately compared the two platforms. I love how the large screen focuses on whoever is talking – it’s such a neat/useful feature.  The overall look and feel is also much more organized than Skype, although I can’t pinpoint why.  (I guess that’s the magic of Google.)

The conversation during our hangout was great – we talked about the semester ahead and our excitement for the course.  We also briefly discussed some of the readings and shared our thoughts.  We had some technical difficulties and a few lost connections, but in the end we figured it out and were able to chat for a while!  Being online students, it was great to talk “face to face” with classmates. It definitely brought reality to the world of virtual education.

Our Google Hangout Screen

We also tried out Twiddla simultaneously so it was like a double collaboration experience!  I found Twiddla to be a little less user-friendly than I liked but I think that’s due to my being used to Microsoft and Mac programs which have more advanced features.  We mostly just experimented with the program, especially since we were alternating back and forth between Twiddla and the Goolge Hangout screen.  I almost wish Google had a doodling page similar to this as one of its Hangout features!

Our Twiddla Screen

Overall, it was a great experience and we thought this was a great collaborative classroom feature.  It’s useful for group discussions and I can see it becoming an increasingly useful tool in education.  I’ve actually seen a group that does cooking classes on Google Hangout – online education with a whole new twist!  We all agreed it was a fun program that will be useful for future group collaboration and for just hangin’ out with distant friends.

Sorry I missed this one!  I’m catching up now…

My first ever experience with Second Life was during my undergrad at the University of Delaware.  My art class at the time was introducing us to the SL revolution that my school was investing in.  We all attended a lecture while logging into SL – we were attending the lecture in two worlds.

After that I explored a little, as UD had built a Second Life campus. It was strange to see this “dream world” (that’s how it felt) where one of my classrooms was re-built virtually.  (You can see read about the island here: http://www.udel.edu/secondlife/ or visit by searching “University of Delaware”.)

I did enjoy visiting European cities – I thought these cities recreated was fascinating.  Traveling to foreign countries without ever leaving your couch is a revolutionary idea, especially for education.  I was reminded of this with the Roma Archaeology dig.  I was able to dig for a clay pot – how cool would this be even for young children learning about archaeology?

I also visited Paris in 1830 – what other platform lets you interact in not only a different world, but a different time?  This was truly amazing.  The fact that someone took the time to create Le Palais Royale (a huge undertaking, I’m sure) for virtual tourists is a great way to utilize the program.

One thing I struggle with is the time it takes to load these spaces.  Sometimes I think something is loaded, and it is not.  Sometimes I face glitches (lately I’ve been unable to stop walking) which get very frustrating.  I’m not a gamer at all, so perhaps I’m just not used to these minor issues.  I think in time, when this technology is expanded (I picture it eventually looking like a Pixar film) and it becomes more user-friendly, SL will be an even greater tool in entertainment and education alike.

I know this is late, but my partner and I had lost contact when were trying to finish up this project. We decided to have a theme before starting mashing up our videos, and our theme was “fall.” Since we live in the opposite side of the country (her West Coast, me East Coast) we set to share videos of how we experience autumn. She sent me a video she filmed in Portland, and I downloaded a video of how autumn looks like in NYC (New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx). I’ve always been interested in how to create montage of both found footage and filmed footage.

I through Stroome was a pretty simple platform to create, share and mashup project, though I remember having some trouble with editing. I do have experience in different editing softwares such as Final Cut and iMovie, but the simplicity of this editing format gave me trouble. I wish there was more that I can do with it. I thought some of the transitions were a bit cheesy and wanted something more refine. That aside, I still thought Stroome is an interesting platform and see a lot of potential in it.

Here’s the video we worked on (which I see needed to be remixed at least 2 more times).

http://www.stroome.com/projects/26517/

video platform video management video solutions video player

I am going to take this time to revisit some earlier posts which I seem to be missing and which I did not save, so here I will recreate from my failing memory some of the comments, and add a few postscripts.

Tim O’Reilly’s comments on Open Source was rather foreshadowing of  what was to come in the world of open source ware over the next decade since he presented this talk.  Even the metaphor he uses of agriculture is even more compelling in light of all of the biotechnology and the movement against Monsanto. I especially appreciated his line, “We need a Sierra Club for the internet.  If we value the environment that brought us the Internet, we need to act to protect it.”   He says, and it seems apparent that the best ideas for the internet and the programs that have come to be considered integral part of our on-line lives such as wikipedia, would not have happened without the spirit of collaboration that any new territory or environment or project invites its participants to engage in.  We are at a crossroads right now where these rights are in serious jeopardy, and we rely on the trailblazers to lead us to the next stage.  But the very essence of the internet and its participatory, collaborative nature depends on the continuation of that essence.  Right now the risk of corporate (patent) monopoly and government regulation is like an evil looming presence lurking in the shadows, and we have to be diligent to hold off the hopefully not inevitable takeover.

So this brings us to “How does networked collaboration figure into e-government? How has it affected governmental communication? What are the effects of a participatory culture on participatory democracy? What kinds of crowdsourced news and activism have you come across, what made it effective/ineffective and what would make it more effective?”  Networked collaboration has had a huge impact on government.  SInce Obama is credited with bring Twitter into the election, most politicians have utilized all forms of social media to reach their constituents.  The administration created a tool at whitehouse.gov to create petitions and get signatures.  Every single day I receive emails from a multitude of organizations asking me to participate by signing a petition, calling a political representative or, of course, sending a donation.    There are several organizations that I receive these messages from, including the Sierra Club, because this is a great way to become involved in issues, find out what is happening legislatively directly from the sources and take action.  I have been a member of moveon for many years for a funny reason.  Eli Pariser, one of its founders, went to Simon’s Rock College of Bard, which my sons also went to, so there was that connection.  I also participate with change.org, ewg. org, and a host of other mostly environmental and social justice organizations, such as ushahidi.  It is challenging to deal with all of these groups because some of the issues overlap, or are, in fact exactly the same.  So when big issue pop up, there are many organizations emailing for action, which I am happy to oblige because it is simple to add your name to a petition or call a senator or congressperson.  This allows a level of participation and collaboration that would not have been possible a few short years ago.  I think it will take time to see how effective it actually is in the long run.  This year’s election will become more intense as the months go by, and I hope we will see a giant leap in the participatory culture’s impact on participatory government.

Regarding Facebook:  I am very pleased that Facebook did not play a role in this class.  I do not now, and never have had a Facebook account despite the numerous attempts of various people to convince me how much I need to be on it.  This networked environment seems to be losing some of its status of late according to a recent article, and growth seems to be holding, but no longer growing in leaps and bounds.

Over  the last month I had a strange encounter with the role and power that Facebook has for many people. A sad event brought up the odd insidious place Facebook holds.  As some of you know, I live in a small, ruralish town in upstate NY.  A young lady my children went to school with was diagnosed with cancer about a year ago.  The Sunday afternoon before Thanksgiving my son, who is a sophomore at Fordham Lincoln Center, texted me to ask if Michelle had passed away.  I asked why he was asking, and his response was he was seeing posts all over Facebook.  Later that evening I went to the grocery store and saw another student from the school and she confirmed it was true.  I was a teacher at the school for a while, so I know everyone.  I emailed a former colleague to meet to attend the funeral, and a few of us met for an early dinner.  The conversation got around to when it happened, and how the information got out.  Michelle’s mother asked her close friends that it specifically not go out on Facebook until several hours later.  But the word got out eventually because young people cannot help but reach out with posting.  What struck me was that the adults I was having this discussion with including the school guidance counselor, who were actually called on the telephone and advised of the news, were reluctant to believe that it was true because there was nothing on Facebook yet!  I found it incredible that the adults were looking to the social network to verify terribly sad news that was verbalized to them through the old-fashioned telephone.  They needed Facebook confirmation, and couldn’t believe the information without seeing it posted because they have become so accustomed to that process of spreading news.

Just wanted to give a quick update on our collaborative process. Looks like you can’t reply to the original post with a photo, so I’m starting a new one! Our project is coming along although the chaos of finals and the holiday is upon us!

Since our schedules are so hectic, we use our own Google Group (screenshot attached). This has definitely worked out well, especially since sometimes it’s more organized to have everything in writing. We’re able to work on our “assigned” sections and catch up through the email feature.

For my second networked event review I decided to watch something alongside the Entertainment industry as well. I tuned into the Telefuturo Señal Dual broadcast and watched a live game show called Calle 7. The show which is broadcasted from Chile, is based on a group of young people who compete in a game competition to win certain valuable prizes. Overall, this was a really fun experience because it was being broadcasted in Spanish which is my first language. I felt completely familiar with what I was seeing and what was going on, the show really reminded me of a lot of TV shows I used to watch when I was younger. It was a very nostalgic yet enjoyable experience watching it and I had a blast.

Unlike the Y101FM networked event, this one had much fewer viewers tuning in but all of them were very interactive. Only about 3 viewers tuned in compared to the 62 that were joining the radio station broadcast. But all in all, those 3 viewers were all really into the game and kept constantly updating their comments. I was a really interesting experience to interact with complete strangers about a game that we were all watching together and at the same time. What I found really strange about this process was that I didn’t feel at all uncomfortable at any moment. While chatting with them I felt as though I was talking to some of my close friends and we had known each other for years! We were all really excited so we expressed a lot of excitement in our online sessions which was really funny! This just made me think of how my brother feels when he is playing a video game on the TV and plays and chats with complete strangers! I never understood it but I can see why he feels so comfortable. If you think about it you’re interacting with people who not only are enjoying watching the same thing as you but these people are eventually sharing similar interests.

The first networked event I decided to visit was the Y101FM radio station broadcast. I have to say that overall it was a very interesting experience for me. Not only was it the first live networked event I had experienced but it was also the first time I joined a networked event that was being broadcasted from the Philippines, which was really fun! At the beginning of my live stream the connection was really bad so the quality wasn’t that great but after the first few minutes the quality started to get better and I was able to get a better view of the radio station and listen to the DJ in more detail. At first I thought that the broadcast was being delivered in their native language but after listening to the DJ play his first two songs I realized that it was being broadcasted in English worldwide. Therefore, it was very easy for me to appreciate the event since I soon became familiar with all the contemporary American pop songs the DJ was playing. He played everything from old hits to new hits and from different artists as well. The artists included a variety of different music genres such as Foster the People, to Maroon 5 and Madonna. It was really cool since I was listening to new music (which I love) through a live international networked broadcast. Something that I would never imagine I would be doing. It really just made me think of how powerful the internet is and how far it has taken us.

Throughout my visit, I decided that I wanted to chat with some of the listeners that were also joining the live broadcast but that soon became a problem. From the 62 viewers or less that were currently online at the time, the majority were either not responsive to the chat session or didn’t speak English as their first language. I really wanted to interact with the other listeners to see their opinions about the music but as you can imagine that was a big problem. But overall it was funny to see how excited each of the listeners got each time they heard a new song. Even though I couldn’t completely grasp what they were commenting on, I could understand the artists first names which they seemed pretty excited about!

Even though the end of the semester is already near, I am still amazed at how these collaborative platforms construct an online environment reminiscent of the physical classroom.  While I still consider myself a Second Life novice—hence, losing my Avatar’s hair when attempting to sit down (embarrassing much?)—I find the immersive elements an incredibly resourceful learning space that is just as effective as entering a real-life lecture…because, in a sense, the Second Life experience was a real-life lecture in its own way.  With the ability to see the individual avatar versions of ourselves, engage in conversation, and listen to one another’s opinions, I attained a great deal of knowledge from our in-depth discussion with John Hopkins.

As mentioned during the Second Life lecture, the revolutionary participatory concept of interacting with content in real-time has essentially taken over the digital world, especially with the emergence of social media.  With social media sites’ successful mission to procure total Internet domination, the ancillary concept of social television has recently emerged as a dynamic presence within the vast virtual networking space.  But, like social media, the general social television term is armed with a complexity of various interpretations and definitions; however, the overall purpose and objective is cohesively voiced as a system that aims to measure television viewership based on an array of online activity.  The innovative social television platforms instigate interaction, engagement, and connection with the available or related television content, which further allows the communicative resources to delve into viewer behavior.  John Hopkins mentioned the seemingly inherent need for real-time conversation through social media platforms and, as discussed during the lecture, social TV is a perfect example of how audience participation drives awareness to particular brands.  I enjoyed making the connection of John Hopkins’ intellectual insight to a popular trend that is making its way into the mainstream.

Group members: Dana, Tim, Gita, and Amanda

During our latest Google Hangout, my group and I were able to put together the final touches on the plans for our blog and presentation.  As you may or may not know (it has been on this site), our group has been posting various content on a designated blog, featuring the Networked Collaboration Failures of MySpace and Friendster.  With a great deal of content focusing on this interesting topic, we are now ready to move on to the next step: Google+.  Although Tim has already provided information on what Tom from MySpace thinks of this new collaborative platform, we will all incorporate our own individual musings as well.  The idea is to focus on the “history” and development of Google+ (Amanda), a comparative analysis to other social networking sites (Dana), a critical breakdown of the site and its features (Gita), and then a conclusion will summarize the given information (Tim).

In addition, we deeply discussed our plan for the final presentation.  We have collectively decided to summarize our written content into a Prezi presentation, which we will further present through the virtual Second Life environment.  That way, we combine several collaborative platforms all at once (blog info, Prezi platform, Second Life world).  This will allow us to discuss our MySpace, Friendster, and Google+ postings as well as the video multimedia in one, distinct setting.  For the ten minutes, we aim to provide an overall introduction, take turns on discussing our individual research, and tie it all together in the end.

As we get closer to the deadline, we do not have much left to do.  Just the Google+ posts and Prezi design, which will lead us into our Second Life presentation.  We are greatly looking forward to sharing our findings with our peers and cannot wait to see what everyone else has to offer!

Once again, here is the link to our blog:  http://failedcollabs.wordpress.com/

And you can follow us on Twitter for blog updates:  https://twitter.com/#!/failedcollab

Here are pictures of our most recent Google Hangout…’stache and all!

Jamie, Amy, Kristen and I have been making great progress on our final project. Since we all have very different and conflicting schedules, we decided that asynchronous collaboration would be the best way to brainstorm our project. Jamie created a new Google Group for our project so we could trade ideas.

As we discussed our project, we realized we have a LOT of ideas we’d like to cover. As our proposal explains, we are going to look at various collaborative platforms and the difficulties associated with each one. The overall idea is to look at how all the different networking sites we use (Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc) work together, and also how it might be difficult to keep track when bouncing around between sites.

Jamie has expressed interest in looking at how different programming languages are involved in collaboration- for example, learning HTML, wiki language, and the various APIs for social networking sites. We will look at the need to learn these languages and how that might affect collaboration.

As we look at effective collaboration, it’s clear that simplifying is key. Hopping around from one networking site to the other is cumbersome and impacts the effectiveness of collaboration. Since we’re using Google Groups and Gmail to brainstorm, we’re going to use Google Sites to collaborate and publish our final project. We created the basic layout based on our brainstorming and each team member has access to edit the pages of the site. Google Sites is a great collaborative tool that will allow us to immerse ourselves in the project.

We also have some ideas for a creative project that will demonstrate the essence of our project. It’s not quite ironed out yet but we hope it will be fun for everyone to watch!

I hope everyone else’s projects are going well!