Author Archives: khopkins

Weekly Create Post – Katherine

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For this weeks weekly create I used two different photo editing apps. To put all the photos into a collage I used pic collage. I couldn’t find a text adding function so I used photo collage to add the text. This relates to the theme of identity on the Internet because I used different social media accounts that I have and my usernames for them. I generally tend to use the same username “kathop11” for all of my accounts. For reddit, I have two separate accounts. I use one account as a throwaway and no one knows that the username is associated with me. I no longer use Twitter but when I did I was kathop11. I wanted to illustrate all the different identities that people use on social media accounts, some anonymous and some not.

Weekly iPad Reflection Week 4 – Katherine

Using my laptop has become very rare over the past few weeks now that I have the iPad. I have no brought my laptop to class once semester, which I never expected to happen. This week I downloaded a few new apps like Google slides and Slack. I’ve only used Google slides so far when I met with my group Too Disruptive. It was nice to all be able to edit our slides using our iPads and see the edits being made in real-time. We were able to quickly divide up the work into teams and choose the order of topics we want to present on Thursday. I’ve yet to use Slack but Chris S. has been raving about it being a great app for communication among groups so I figured I’d give it a try. I’ve also been using Google Drive a lot more to store my Photoshop artwork since the files are too big to save to my netID drive. I love being able to work on stuff in class in Staller but then being able to open it up later on in the day when I’m at a different Sinc site or on my laptop from my dorm room. I’m still incredibly impressed with the battery life of this thing. I continue to charge it every night before I go to sleep but I’m confident that the battery could last at last 2 days of classes before needing to be charged. I love not having to carry a charger around, although it wouldn’t even add that much extra weight to my bag even if I did. I’ve gotten more and more used to not having a physical keyboard although I’m still interested in purchasing one just to make writing long documents slightly less tedious. I’ve been wondering if there’s a way to print directly from the iPads to a sinc site but I don’t think there’s a way to get the print from anywhere app on the iPad but I’ll keep looking.

Readings for Synthesis Presentation – Too Disruptive

Please complete the following readings before class on Thursday.

Related to Cluetrain Manifesto:

  • http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/03/cluetrain-manifesto-still-relevant-10-years-later086/

    While reading, think about what theses from the original Cluetrain Manifesto (1999) are still relevant today. Which theses are no longer relevant in 2015?

  • We will also be watching a scene from the 1986 film Jumpin Jack Flash during class. You do not need to watch the movie as a homework assignment, as we will just be showing a short clip during our presentation.

Wenger Readings:

http://wenger-trayner.com/resources/are-the-new-web-2-0-technologies-relevant/

http://wenger-trayner.com/resources/online-communities-of-practice/

Too Disruptive – Top 3 Cluetrain theses

7) Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.

Search engines, specifically Google, build a sort of hierarchy within search results.

34) To speak with a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities.

If companies are not concerned with the issues of their communities, it will be reflected in activist communities popping up on the Internet ex: Facebook groups or Twitter activism

95) We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.

We are constantly active through the Internet. I check Twitter before News12.

NEW CLUES

D. The net is not a medium

20) On the Net, we are the medium. We are the ones who move messages. We do so every time we post or retweet, send a link in an email, or post it on a social network.

Every page you view on the Internet is a contribution by another human. We are the medium, the Internet is just the structure that we use to communicate. The Internet is us connected.

Being together: the cause of and solution to every problem.

 

 

Top 3 clue train theses – Katherine

6) The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

We’ve seen firsthand how much the Internet has enabled new forms of communication, especially between people who are not geographically close.

9) These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.

Networked conversations like Google docs and Facebook create new ways for communities to organize themselves and communicate with each other.

34) To speak with a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities

Companies must relate and sympathize with the problems of a community to appeal to them.

Weekly Create – Katherine

For this week’s weekly create I used a timelapse I took with the iPad of me getting ready and edited and added music using an app called “Video Editor for vine, Instagram – free edition.” I love all the different photo and video editing apps that the App Store offers. I was surprised by how many different effects and filters could be added without even using a laptop.

Weekly iPad Reflection – Katherine

Over the past few weeks I’ve been bringing my iPad almost everywhere with me. I use it in my English class to open up the novel we’re reading in iBooks, in my digital art classes to listen to soundcloud while I work in Photoshop, and in our class to view the blog and work in Google docs with my group, Too Disruptive. I love not having to carry a heavy laptop and charger around anymore. I even tried to test myself this weekend by going home for Thursday and Friday night without bringing my MacBook pro with me. There isn’t much to do when I go home for a weekend so I usually spend the entire time watching documentaries or browsing the internet on my laptop. I thought not having access to my laptop and only being able to use my iPad for 2 days/nights would be difficult but I didn’t even miss having my laptop. The only time I found myself wanting/needing a laptop or desktop computer was when I had to work on a project for class using photoshop but was unable to do so with only my iPad.

I don’t think I’ve ever  been so on top of my schoolwork than I am now that I have this iPad to increase my productivity. If I have a free 20 minutes on a class break, I’ll pull out my iPad and start sending out emails, posting to the blog, or completing my readings for class. I’ve also been using Google docs and Google drive a lot more. It’s awesome to be able to access my files from anywhere and not have to rely on the limited space of our student memory drives and having access to a sinc site.

I find myself going days without opening or even touching my laptop. Just a few weeks ago I was constantly charging my laptop or bringing it with me everywhere. It’s becoming seemingly more useless and irrelevant every day I have the iPad. I know I probably sound overly dramatic or like an advertisement for the iPad but I honestly feel like it has changed the way I learn and get work done.

Wegner's Community of Practice – Katherine

Wegner defines a Community of Practice (COP) as a group of people who share a similar passion or interest for something and interact on a regular basis in order to learn how to perform their skill better. There are 3 different dimensions to a Community of Practice which include:

  1. mutual engagement
  2. a joint enterprise
  3. a shared repertoire

Mutual engagement is the amount and pattern of which the members of the community interact with each other. Membership within a community of practice doesn’t only rely on allegiance to a club or organization or being born into a specific social category but on the interaction between members. While geographic proximity between members is not necessarily, it is helpful to interaction between members. Three key aspects:

  1. enabling elements
  2. diversity
  3. multiplexity – joined by a variety of ties, including conflict

A joint enterprise refers to the common purpose that binds the people together and provides a unifying goal and coherence for their actions. Three key aspects:

  • negotiated goals
  • Indigenous purpose
  • mutual accountability

Shared repertoire refers to the continual development and maintenance of a shared repertoire of procedures, techniques, shortcuts, jargon, tools, forms, symbols, mental categories, actions, concepts, etc. Three key aspects:

  • shared history
  • richness
  • ambiguity

“The repertoire of a community of practice includes routines, words,
tools, ways of doing things, stories, gestures, symbols, genres,9 actions,
or concepts that the community has produced or adopted in the course
of its existence, and which have become part of its practice.”

I had a bit of difficulty with this reading but complemented it with some examples and summaries found online. One of my biggest takeaways from the reading was that a community of practice differs from just a community based on a few different key aspects but mostly the interaction between members. At first I had trouble understanding how Wenger was using the term “practice” until I read some other sources online.

Based on a chart I found on google images, I made a comparison between Communities of Practice and other types of work environments/groups.

 

Questions:

  1.  Is our classroom considered a Community of Practice?
  2. Could a community meeting on a Google Doc or Google Hangout be considered a Community of Practice?
  3. What elements of a Community of Practice does our CDT 450 class have? Which elements does it not?

What's in Katherine's bag?

What's in Katherine's bag?

When we were first told that we had to make a what’s in my bag blog post I was worried mine would be boring because the only thing I ever even really carry anymore is my iPad air. I usually don’t carry all of this stuff at one time or some of the stuff will be in the pockets of my hoodie or coat. In my bag I have the following item:

  • 1 hot pink beanie
  • 1 pair of winter gloves
  • 2 pairs of headphones
  • 2 pens
  • 1 mechanical pencil
  • 1 sushi pen from Japan
  • 1 book given to me by my roommate
  • 1 lanyard with 2 keys – one for my dorm room and other for mailbox
  • 1 yellow lighter
  • 1 epipen
  • 1 crystal
  • 2 EOS chapsticks – 1 mint and 1 berry flavored
  • 1 chocolate flavored Chapstick tube
  • 1 mini tub of Vaseline
  • 1 lip gloss
  • 1 evil eye beaded bracelet
  • 1 pack of orbit mint gum
  • 1 Calvin Klein wristlet which holds my ID card, debit card, gift cards, $
  • 1 round hairbrush
  • 1 iPhone 4s charger
  • 1 iPad air

Things that could be replaced by the iPad:

  1. Pens
  2. my book if it was available online or as a PDF

What I can’t live without:

  1. I literally cannot live without my epipen
  2. Headphones – I’m always listening to music on my way to class or while on a bus
  3. iPhone 4s charger – I’ve had the same cell phone for years and the battery doesn’t last very long so I am constantly charging my phone in class or in the hallways
  4. Chapstick – I’m obsessed with EOS chapsticks because they’re such a cute shape and taste amazing

Most surprising thing I carry:

  1.  A crystal I bought when I was on vacation in Florida. It’s purple and has really cool lines on it. I’m not even sure what kind of crystal it is or what it’s supposed to do but it’s pretty and I feel like it helps me.
  2. I feel like carrying 4 different types of chapsticks is very unnecessary and surprising to most people.

Weekly Media Create – Katherine

For this weeks media create I played around with a music production app on the iPad called Auxy. The app has 4 different sections where you can change the sounds of the drum, bass, and 2 synths. The app was relatively easy and fun to use and very user-friendly. Auxy also allows the user to adjust the tempo, swing and major/minor aspects of the song.

The only trouble I ran into when posting this was saving the audio directly to the iPad. Auxy allows a user to export the recording in a number of ways including emailing, itunes, and using apps like AudioCopy or Airdrop and DropBox. I tried emailing the sound file to myself but found I was unable to save it directly from my email to my iPad. I also tried installing AudioCopy but could not figure out how to use it. I eventually gave up and ended up posting this from a sinc site since I couldn’t upload the file directly from the iPad.