Nov
28
Week 10: Full circle.
November 28, 2011 | 4 Comments
One of the things I’ve liked about the Lifestream has been the way that links have become apparent between weekly or two-weekly topics because some feeds that I have subscribed to, with one topic in mind, have provided interesting insights into later topics. This week newwaysofinteraction dumped about 6 feeds into my Lifestream and I followed the links to find a ‘different’ site than I had originally considered it. I subscribed to newwaysofinteraction when we were looking at visual artefacts and digital literacies as it had a lot of really interesting exhibits, films etc. I think, in fact, it was perhaps Daniel that pointed me towards it. This week on looking back I see that it has great resonance for our consideration over the last few weeks of the posthuman. The site advertises itself as:
A collection of projects about newer ways of human and physical interaction, hosted by Jens Franke.
It features interactive installations and systems with a strong focus on technologies such as multi touch, tangible and gestural interfaces, augmented reality and physical computing.
As my Lifestream has developed I’ve been trying to work out if it is an active creation, a by-product of my following interests of the course or something entirely random. I think the case lies in all three, but the interesting thing is that, probably because of the structure of the course, often connectivity is only obvious in retrospect.
As well as coming full circle with the feeds, my thinking has constantly been coming back to the political aspects of digital culture, from Hand’s musings on the utopian/dystopian uses/misuses of the internet and social networking, through the, often, political communities of the ethnographies produced and onto Harraways’ politicised cyborg. Thus, I have decided to write on digital culture, politics and e-learning for my assignment and have spent some of the last few weeks’ lifestream entries looking at examples of political usage of the internet, through to the Occupy movements use of the internet and, in particular, social networking to not only organise but to advertise and educate. I’ve also been looking at where HE currently sits in the political landscape, with much being said on how it currently too often fulfils governmental needs rather than questioning them. And, on from there, I’ve been thinking about how e-learning might engage politically by looking at ideas such as edupunk. The following is a mindmap plan (click on it and it’ll become clearer) of what I might hope to cover in my assignment, and comments would be gratefully received!
4 Comments so far
Hi Carol,
I think this is a great choice for your assignment. There is definitely a strong political element running through the readings. Not surprising really, the ramifications of messing up are a long term problem. This is such a good topic to get your teeth into. You’re problem will be in what to leave out! I hadn’t heard of newwayofinteraction, must check it out. But not just yet, I still haven’t decided on my topic.
I agree with you about the structure of the course, connectivity is often only obvious in retrospect.
Thought I’d drop a quick response before heading off to work I hope this helps. Good luck with your assignment.
Hi Grace
Thanks for you rcomments – I think you’re right it will need to be reined in a bit as this is my problem. I always want to write longer pieces!. I’ve written a little about the nature of the lifestream and structure in this weeks blog and would be interested to see what you think?
Good luck with your assignment too and if you want any feedback on ideas then just post or tweet me!
Great idea to do a mind map Carol. Edupunk looks awesome, I will definitely be digging deeper there, thanks.
I’d agree with you that the connections become more apparent over time. I’ve notice in my own lifestream that even avenues which seemed to be dead ends at first, became paths to new ideas later on. It’s interesting to think what this everlasting memory and constant recording might mean for education and especially for research.
Great choice of topic too! Best of luck with it!
Thanks Daniel. Yes, the idea of an everlasting memory of what you read/look at but also an often random wandering that turns out to have a pattern is really interest, and posthuman, I think. I intend to keep a lifestream going and include anything for the next module and also stuff related to my work. But first, I have to get this sorted and submitted today and then get on with the essay. Good luck to you too!